Selling your business on BusinessesForSale.com
Generally, it takes 6-12 months to sell a business, but this can vary depending on your business sector, the state of the market and the accuracy of you valuation.
We’re sorry you’re experiencing this. There are measures you can take to increase your listing views and enquiries:
- Ensure that all your information is accurate, detailed and descriptive. Read our guide on how to create the best listing for more tips.
- Include multiple clear photographs
- Consider purchasing some of our benefits (email campaigns, boosts and spotlights)
- Upgrade to a Premium Seller account
If you’d like to talk to someone from the team about increasing your exposure, feel free to contact us.
We’re sorry that you’ve experienced this. Our Client Success Team does deal with high volumes of queries every day, and we do our best to respond to these within 24 hours.
Please contact us and a member of the Client Success Team will do their best to support you as soon as possible.
It is crucial that we provide every business owner with enquiries from serious buyers. Our in-house team ensures this by reviewing and limiting any potential spam enquiries that are flagged within our system before they are delivered to your account inbox.
If you are paying for your advertising, you will receive buyer contact details that are real, but we encourage you to perform your own due diligence.
If you are on a paid advertising package, buyers will provide their contact details when they message you. You will then need to contact these buyers directly.
If you are on a Test the Market package, you cannot access buyer details or reply to them. You’ll need to upgrade to a paid advertising package to do this.
We recommend sending your financial details to a buyer after they have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
After you’ve made a transaction, you will receive an email receipt of a valid invoice.
You should dedicate a minimum of six weeks to sign contracts and run through any legalities. However, this timeframe will vary depending on the nature of the business and any legal complications.
Yes, you can. We have a dedicated guide on how to sell a failing business that covers everything you need to know. You can also categorise your business as ‘distressed’ on our site so buyers looking for distressed businesses can find your listing.
It’s not a prerequisite to hire a lawyer to sell your business, but it will make things easier for you. There will be a lot of legal contracts to understand and sign, so having a lawyer by your side will help.
Yes. You will pay Capital Gains Tax if you are a sole trader or in a business partnership. You can apply for tax relief through the Business Asset Disposal Relief.
Limited companies will pay Corporation Tax.
You don’t need a broker to sell your business. But hiring a broker will allow them to focus on the sale process, and you can focus on running your business.
There are a few things you can do to speed up the process.
- Upgrade to a Premium Seller advertising package account
- Ensure you have valued your business correctly
- Make your business listing attractive (descriptive, high-quality images, accurate information)
- Upgrade your technologies to maximize your value
There are a few ways you can market your business:
- You can sell your business online and gain exposure in front of interested buyers
- You can use a broker to help sell your business.
- We also have bespoke services to help you sell your business. If you would like to find out more about these, please contact us.
This depends on your preferences and goals. You could reach out to customers or potential buyers in your network. You could also reach out to a competitor who may want to acquire you.
You can also sell your business online with us, and gain access to thousands of interested buyers.
There are multiple ways to value your business. We recommend using our free, quick valuation tool. If you’d like to understand more about the valuation process, you can read our dedicated guide on how to value a business.
Calculating the value of goodwill can be tricky, as it is an intangible asset. One method to calculate goodwill is to subtract the fair market value of the business’s net identifiable assets from the paid price of the acquisition.
You can read more about valuing goodwill here.
There are multiple reasons for selling a business, and knowing when the right time to sell is a difficult decision. Our selling a business guide lists several circumstances of when the right time to sell a business will be.
If you are able to have an accountant by your side, they can play a valuable role in selling your business. They’ll have more expertise when it comes to financial insights, deal structures and how to attract buyers.
Usually, the seller of the business will keep the cash and accounts receivable. A buyer will take control of other assets like equipment, the brand and merchandise.
In some cases, the buyer will take control of the accounts receivable so they can start dealing with customers and generating cash flow immediately.
This is a document where a seller makes disclosures against any warranties that a buyer requires. It is usually prepared by the seller’s legal team and should include as much detail as possible. This will help a buyer understand more about the matters disclosed.
An NDA is a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and it is a crucial document that protects a seller’s business during due diligence and negotiations. This document is a legal agreement that ensures any sensitive information remains confidential.
You should choose a broker who has experience in your sector and business size. You should also develop a trustworthy relationship with them, and they should have your best interests at heart.
If you would like help finding the right broker, you can use our broker matchmaking service, SellerMart.
Creating a listing on BusinessesForSale.com
Prices start from £249 a month. You can view other pricing plans here.
Your personal contact details will remain anonymous when you sell a business. However, everything you add to your listing (except your personal contact details) will be public.
Buyers can only contact you through the website, and all messages from buyers are delivered to you through our email system.
A buyer will send an email directly to you, and all messages are delivered through our email system. You can also screen the messages before replying.
Please note that buyer contact details are hidden if you are advertising on a Test the Market package.
Once your listing is live on the site, you can sign into your account and make changes to your listing. You can also monitor your enquiries in your account.
We’ll let you know two weeks before your advertising period is due to expire, offering you the opportunity to renew it.
Alternatively, you can sign into your account after your advertising period has expired and renew your listing.
Simply sign into your account and make the necessary changes. Changes to your personal details are updated immediately but changes to your listing will take up to 24 hours to update.
Apart from additional benefits that you can purchase to boost the exposure of your listing, you can also consider our Premium Package. If you’d like to upgrade to this package, please contact us.
If you have another business to sell, you can click the ‘create new listing’ button in your account.
No. You cannot advertise the same business multiple times in different countries. We appreciate that you may want your listing to get in front of buyers in different territories. If this is the case, we can offer email campaigns that target buyers from around the world who are looking to invest in your business’s sector and location.
Yes, it will. Content-rich listings do better in search engines than listings with little to no content.
If you’d like advice on how to create the best listing on our site, feel free to read our guide on creating a listing.
Any changes to your listing are put into a queue for our team to review, approve and update. This usually happens within one working day.
While your changes are pending approval, you won’t be able to carry out further edits, but your original listing will remain live on the site. Please note, if you add any contact details to your listing, that will not be visible. Buyers will contact you directly through our site.
Changes to your Test the Market listing include the same process mentioned above. Please note that a Test the Market package will anonymise unique business identification features like logos, business names, hyperlinks or videos.
If you upgrade to a paid advertising package, these features will become visible. If they don’t, please contact us.