Before you decide what your business is worth, decide what selling it needs to accomplish.
Someone asks whether you would ever sell. A competitor, a customer, a banker at a dinner. You do not say yes. You do not say no.
Then the question stays with you. If a serious offer arrived next month, would you know whether to take it?
The people who help with a sale each focus on one part of it. A broker or banker markets the business. An attorney writes the agreement. A CPA prepares the numbers. Looking at your whole financial life is usually not part of those jobs: what you need the sale to pay for, how the deal is taxed, how and when you are paid, and what the money does afterward.
This guide walks through five steps, in the order the decisions tend to come up. It follows a hypothetical couple, a founder and his wife, to show how the five steps connect. It was written by Holland Capital Management, an independent registered investment adviser. We do not sell businesses or negotiate deals. We start with your own financial life and work outward to the sale.
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Inside the guide
Your number. What you need the sale to provide, before you ask what the business is worth.
The business. What a buyer looks at, and why two companies with the same profit can be worth different amounts.
The tax. How the structure of a sale and the timing of payments can change what you keep.
The deal. Cash at closing, escrow, a seller note, an earnout and rollover equity, and how each changes what you receive and when.
The money after the sale. How the proceeds, your other accounts and your plans for your time fit into one income plan.
Five steps before the sale, and what each one means for the life you want after it.
