Sell a Business Tips

Selling a Sewer Odor Detection Business

You've learned a lot during your tenure as a sewer odor detection business owner. The next step is to position your business for the demands of the business-for-sale marketplace.

Personal and professional concerns surround the sale of a sewer odor detection business. In our experience, a common owner concern is how the sale will affect customers and employees.

But sooner or later, all good things must come to an end. When that happens, your future plans will be dependent on your ability to receive the highest possible sale price for your sewer odor detection business.

Leveraging Industry Connections

These days, sewer odor detection business buyers are an extremely diverse group with backgrounds in and outside of the industry. Online business-for-sale databases like BizBuySell.com offer convenient resources for sellers interested in promoting their business to a broad prospect base. For more targeted lead generation, consider tapping into your network of industry contacts. When leveraging industry relationships for sales prospects, you'll need to be cognizant of the potential for competitors to use knowledge of your sale against you in the marketplace. Use good sense in restricting the flow of information within the industry and focusing your efforts toward trusted industry allies.

Average Preparation Time

There are no effective shortcuts for selling a sewer odor detection business. Since buyers prefer to see evidence of future cash flow, you'll want to to strategically lock in cash flows and increase profits before you list the business. Next, the business will need to be documented in professional financial statements and manuals that facilitate the ownership transition. Since all of this takes time and effort, a sewer odor detection business can rarely be ready for the marketplace in less than six months. A more likely scenario is that it will take more than a year to create the conditions necessary to receive the maximum sale price.

Valuation Methods

Professional appraisers can use three methods to determine the value ofa sewer odor detection business: The income method, the asset method and the market method. Appraisals based on the asset method gauge value as a factor of the company's real property and non-tangible assets; appraisals based on the income method consider the business's anticipated revenue. Finally, the market method determines the worth of your sewer odor detection business based on the sales of similar businesses in your geographic area. A good appraiser will often use multiple valuation methods to arrive at a reasonable estimate. Sellers should take note of the fact that all three valuation methods reward businesses that takes steps to increase assets and income.

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