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Selling a Commercial Landscaping Business

Selling a commercial landscaping business doesn't happen overnight. It takes a deliberate process to get top dollar for your company.

You've invested too much in your commercial landscaping business to let it be sold for less than its worth. But unless you adequately prepare for the sale, some lucky buyer may walk away with a huge discount.

Yet everyday, hundreds of listed commercial landscaping businesses manage to pique the interest of qualified buyers. They do it by paying attention to the details that other business sellers overlook.

Average Preparation Time

There are no effective shortcuts for selling a commercial landscaping business. Buyers want to see growth trends, healthy profits and other variables that increase the likelihood of long-term success. You'll also need to create financial reports, operations manuals, and other documents to create the perception of a turnkey commercial landscaping business operation. At a minimum, plan on spending six months preparing your commercial landscaping business for the marketplace. A more likely scenario is that it will take more than a year to create the conditions necessary to receive the maximum sale price.

Legal Concerns

In a commercial landscaping business sale, the Letter of Intent contains the vital elements of the deal between the buyer and the seller . The price described in the Letter of Intent may fluctuate based on information that is revealed during due diligence, but the inclusion of new requirements in the final contract could be a deal killer. Never sign a Letter of Intent until it has been properly reviewed by your attorney and you are in complete agreement with everything it contains.

Finding Commercial Landscaping Business Buyers

It's difficult to predict where the buyer of your commercial landscaping business will come from. Avoid pigeon-holing your search to a single buyer category. That means listing your commercial landscaping business in trade-specific directories as well as general business-for-sale databases. Sellers should also recognize the value of promoting their sale in trusted business networks, carefully balancing the need for confidentiality with the promotional potential of their contact base.

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