You don’t need a broker to sell a business, but having a good broker or experienced advisor to assist you can add value at a number of points along the selling process.
When choosing a broker to help sell your business, there are three key elements to look for:
- Experience in your industry and in selling businesses of your size and ‘shape’
- Project management expertise
- Communication skills.
In order to determine whether your potential broker has these attributes, I suggest asking for evidence.
Ask them for:
- examples of businesses like yours they have sold
- the shapes of the deals they’ve done with these businesses
- an indication of the process they intend to implement to sell your business
- details about their approach to communication between the parties and how they go about facilitating a deal
- details about the level of reporting – verbal, written, formal and informal – that will be provided as part of the sale process to keep you abreast of progress
- referees you can speak to i.e. business owners they have worked with to sell their businesses.
How does a broker add value?
As mentioned earlier, if you're looking to sell a business, you don't necessarily have to engage a broker, but a good broker or advisor can add value.
In our blog, 'How can a broker add value when selling a business?' we examine four elements of selling a business and show how a good broker can provide additional value at those stages:
- Determining what the business is worth
- Preparing the business for sale
- Describing the business opportunity to prospective purchasers
- Progressing the sales process.
We've also included a number of client examples to illustrate how this works in practice.
If you would like support or advice regarding any aspect of selling a business, contact the team at JPAbusiness on 02 6360 0360 or 02 9893 1803 for a confidential, obligation-free discussion.
