Frank Mermoud - Are you a business owner that's interested in selling your business? If so, I can only imagine one of the main questions at the top of your mind is, how can I sell my business fast? That's a very valid question and one that needs to be answered. After all, you've spent years building up your business and you're ready to cash out and you want to do it as quickly as possible. I get that, no issues there.
Let's first start by saying, some brokers will tell you, it will take them 1 year. yup, 12 long months to sell a business. I mean really? That's a long time and there is not 1 business owner that is going to wait one year to sell their business. Brokers will try to "force" you into signing a year long agreement that states you give them the right to make an attempt to sell their business within a 1 year time period.
That's a really long time. As a business broker, I would lose total interest trying to sell a business for a year. The name of the game is to get the business sold and get it sold fast. I would not be surprised if in a few years business brokers will tell their clients that it's going to take 18 months or even a lifetime agreement.
The reason why it takes a long time to sell a business is because business brokers allow themselves a long to sell the business. Give someone 6 months to do something and they'll take every bit of that 6 months to do it. If brokers would give themselves 90 days, guess how long it would take to sell? Yes, you guessed it. 90 days.
When you decide to sell your business, make sure, your business is taken to the marketplace immediately. Make sure the business broker is marketing the business for sale everyday. Make sure the broker has a consistent flow of business buyers in addition to providing to with weekly updates as it relates to the buyers that the broker has met with and presented your business to.
By now you're probably wondering what does this have to do with the original question. Just hold tight, we're going to get to that.
So, to answer the question, the answer is, it depends. Yup, it depends on the broker - Frank Mermoud
that you hire. When selecting a business broker, you clearly want to ask them how long is it going to take to sell my business and what is their process for marketing your business.
There has to be an active marketing plan in place. There is no one size fits all to selling a business. If you ant to sell your business as fast as possible, you must first start with finding a business broker that is willing to sign a 90 day selling agreement.
Just remember to do your part as a business owner. If the business broker needs any sort of paper work, be sure to get the broker the paper work as fast as you can. Time is valuable when trying to sell your business. You want to ride the momentum that you've built up and do let the broker slack off. You can get the business sold in 90 days or less. / Frank Mermoud
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