Sell a business without putting it on the street

When word gets out that a business is for sale, three things tend to happen at once. Good staff start looking. Customers ask questions the owner is not ready to answer. Competitors start telling those same customers that the business is in trouble.

None of that is about the sale price. All of it makes the business worth less by the time a buyer is at the table. That is why the process below puts qualification and paperwork ahead of information, and why nothing carries the name of the business until a buyer has cleared both.

Plenty of owners we talk to have not decided to sell. They want to know what the business might be worth and what the process would involve. That conversation is confidential too, and it does not commit you to anything.

• Nothing goes public without your written approvalNot a sign, not a listing, not a social post. The decision to go to market is yours and it happens after the preparation, not before.
• Buyers are qualified before they see anything specificFinancial capacity first, then a non-disclosure agreement, then information. In that order, every time.
• Marketing describes the business without identifying itSector, size, region, and performance shape, with no name, address, or photograph until a buyer has cleared the first two steps.
• Staff and customers hear it from youWhen and how you tell people is part of the plan, not an accident of the process.
• Your competitors learn nothingThe most common reason a sale gets abandoned is that word travelled. This process is built to stop that.