Exit Planning Advice By Market

Selling an Air Conditioning Dealership

You've learned a lot during your tenure as an air conditioning dealership owner. Before you walk away, you have one more challenge to overcome: A successful and profitable business sale.

Waiting for better economic times to sell your company? That's a common anthem in the small business community.

If you're ready to move on, now is the right time to sell your air conditioning dealership.

Laying the Groundwork

In addition to improving profitability and market share, planning the sale of your business will require you to think about how you will present your company to buyers. Professional business brokers understand buyers and know how to properly communicate an air conditioning dealership to the marketplace. At a minimum, you'll want to position your business to receive the highest possible sale price, prepare a packet for prospective buyers and perform an initial appraisal before you put your air conditioning dealership on the market.

Selling an Air Conditioning Dealership to an Employee

There are both benefits and drawbacks to selling an air conditioning dealership to an employee. A faithful employee may have the motivation and ability to continue to operate the business. If you need to sell quickly, the timeframe is condensed in an employee sale because you don't need to track down a buyer. Yet most employees lack the means to buy their employer's business at or near the asking price. Seller financing is one way to get around the capital deficit of an employee-based air conditioning dealership sale, as long as you are willing to vet the employee's credit worthiness the same as any other buyer.

Legal Concerns

In an air conditioning dealership sale, the Letter of Intent contains the vital elements of the deal between the buyer and the seller . By the time the deal reaches the final contract, many of its features are set in stone. For sellers, that makes a close review of the Letter of Intent more than a formality - it's a critical juncture on the path to closing.

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