My business partner and I tried to sell our business for three years. We spent time at first trying to sell it ourselves. We talked to a lawyer and got a contract and it covered our leases and agreements with our vendors and generally made sure we were covered if a new person came into our business these were the things they would have to take over. We paid about 1500 dollars for this piece of paper but it was very detailed. We then advertised it in massage magazine as we were a massage business. We had some hits of people interested in buying we even had one couple from out of town come and say they were going to buy it. They put down 2,000 dollars and said they would be there in September. We never heard from them again. A little discouraging to say the least. One day we had a man come into get massage while he was waiting for his wife at the chiropractors office. He started saying his wife was about to finish massage school and he wanted to set her up in business. So my business partner asked him if he would be interested in buying this place. He said yes he would love to. So the initial talks began. He brought his father in from Florida to talk to us and see the place as his father was going to give them the money. We talked and then they backed out and then a few months later wanted to talk again. Eventually they backed out and were never seen again. Finally we decided to hire a broker. We really wanted our business to sell and we found we could not do it ourselves. So we started talking to some brokers in our town. We went to the biggest firm and they wanted us to pay them 500 dollars a month. We were not able to do that. We started talking to some other brokers in town and finally found one who would give us a fair price for our business and we could pay him 10% at the end of the transaction. We listed with him under a six month agreement. At the end of six months we had not had any real takers so we listed again for another six months. This time we talked to several people who were interested but nothing really happened. At the end of this six month term we decided to sign one more time but if it did not sell we would take it off the market. We were really getting discouraged by this time. About one month after we signed we talked to a couple who seemed very excited about buying our business as they were here on vacation and loved the area. We started talking back and forth over several months. They did decide to buy the business but now they have 90 days to find financing. So they talked to the SBA and found it very hard to get financing through them. They talked to several banks and finally got the money from their parents. The first 90 days went by and they asked for more time which we were willing to give since nobody else was knocking down our door to buy the business. It all finally happened about six month after our first meeting. We had a closing in December after meeting in June. We both were excited and thrilled that it closed. Hooray for us to finally sell.
Recent Comments