How to sell your business: the operations side

The numbers, and whether the business runs when you’re not there.

• Owner dependence.

  What happens to sales, delivery and decisions if you leave the day after closing.

• The numbers.

  Clean, monthly, and easy to explain. Profit, cash, and what’s owed in both directions.

• The customers.

  Who they are, how much of the revenue each one is, and how new ones arrive.

• The people.

  Who runs what, who has backups, and who stays after the sale.

• What breaks.

  The process only one person knows, the contract that ends soon, the supplier with no backup.

A buyer is paying for future profit. Everything on that list is a way of asking how safe that profit is once you’re gone. The more of it you can answer with a document instead of a story, the stronger your position.

Write it down, clean it up, name the risks, and fix what you can.

1. 01

   Write down how the work gets done.

   The processes, the owners and the tools, at one page per process. Start with whatever still runs through you.

2. 02

   Get the numbers clean.

   With your accountant: the trailing twelve months, monthly results for the last 24, and recurring revenue split from one-time.

3. 03

   Name the customers.

   Your top 20, how concentrated revenue is, and how new customers are found.

4. 04

   Name the people.

   The key roles, who backs each one up, and who stays after the sale.

5. 05

   Find the risks.

   One customer over 20% of revenue. One person who knows a process. One contract that ends soon.

6. 06

   Fix what you can.

   And for what you can’t, know the answer before a buyer asks.

A KPI dashboard the team already uses, and a 13-week cash flow forecast you update every week, answer a lot of buyer questions before they’re asked. They also show the business is run on numbers, not on the owner’s memory.

Most of the work happens long before a buyer shows up.

1. 01

   12 months out: look honestly.

   List what still depends on you, and ask your accountant what the numbers would look like to a buyer today.

2. 02

   9 months out: build the systems.

   Write the core processes, name an owner for each, and start handing off what runs through you.

3. 03

   6 months out: prove it runs.

   Monthly reporting on a fixed day, a weekly meeting the team runs, and time away to show the business keeps moving.

4. 04

   3 months out: get the documents ready.

   Contracts, financials from your accountant, processes, and customer and vendor information in one organized place.

5. 05

   When you go to market: bring in the advisors.

   A business broker or M&A advisor, an attorney and a CPA, with the operations already done.

If you’re closer than twelve months, do the same steps faster and start with the first two. Owner dependence and messy numbers cost the most in a sale, and they take the longest to fix.

Find them before a buyer does, so you can fix them or explain them.

• One customer over 20% of revenue

  What a buyer worries aboutLosing that customer after the sale.

  What to doGrow other accounts, and get the relationship on paper: contract, terms, more than one contact.

• One person who knows the process

  What a buyer worries aboutThe business stalls if they leave.

  What to doWrite the process down and train a backup.

• A key contract ending soon

  What a buyer worries aboutRevenue or supply they can’t count on.

  What to doRenew it early, or know the plan if it doesn’t renew.

• The owner in every decision

  What a buyer worries aboutPaying for a business that leaves with you.

  What to doHand off the day-to-day and show it runs without you.

• Numbers that don’t tie out

  What a buyer worries aboutWhat else they haven’t been told.

  What to doClean them up with your accountant before anyone asks.

One interested buyer is a conversation. Two or more is a choice.

When the first serious buyer shows up, it’s easy to treat it as the deal of a lifetime and stop looking. But a well-run, profitable business usually has more interested buyers than the owner expects. Offers from more than one buyer give you a real comparison on price and terms, and the option to walk away.

Finding and approaching other buyers is the job of a business broker or an M&A advisor. Bring one in early, and give them a business that’s ready to be looked at.

Not a valuation, not deal structure, not legal or tax advice.

Those belong with the right advisors: a business broker or M&A advisor for the market and the buyers, an attorney for the documents, and a CPA for the tax side. This guide is the operations side, so the business is ready when those conversations start.

Start with the numbers and the owner dependence. Those are what buyers ask about first. Write them down, then work through the rest.

Write down two things this week: what in the business still depends on you, and what your numbers would look like to a buyer today. That’s where the prep starts.

If you want the operations side done with you, that’s our exit planning work: the processes, the reporting and the documents a buyer will ask for, ready before the advisors and buyers arrive.

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