The second in our popular series of articles crystallising the complex transaction of selling your business into ten golden rules

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#Nine

REMEMBER YOU ARE SELLING THE COMPANY AND MANAGEMENT TEAM, NOT YOURSELF

You have worked extremely hard to build your business and are quite rightly proud of your achievements

Even those owners who do not have egos, find it hard to resist telling buyers what “I” have done but in a sale process this, at best is likely to result in a price reduction or deferred payments or in some cases put a buyer off entirely

Whether real or perceived, seller dependency is a common issue and therefore it is important to emphasise what the company and management team have achieved – more “we” or “they” and less “I”!

Management succession does come under the spotlight through a sale process and it is helpful to demonstrate that individuals are rapidly becoming capable of fulfilling the major roles – ideally, this would involve you working part-time largely in a non-executive capacity