Frequently Asked Questions About Selling A Business from IAG M&A Advisors

Our goal is to find the optimal buyer for you and your company. Because of this we take the time to create buyer lists that are well researched. We look for strategic, financial, family offices, off-shore entities, and synergistic buyers that are the best fit for your business and will offer the optimal deal for you.

We don’t use a “cookie cutter”, one list fits all approach that far too many M&A Advisory firms use. We take the time to get to know you, your financial goals/needs, and your company to find the buyers that make the most sense. And any list we create you have final approval before we send any information out.

Closing a transaction requires detailed negotiations over the details that ultimately affect you, the seller. Our deal teams not only are familiar with all the hurdles that can arise during negotiations, their years of experience allow them to overcome them.

This makes our M&A professionals powerful allies during the most crucial stages of business negotiations. Our clients often tell us that without our negotiation skills, and helping them to understand what the buyers are really after, their transactions would most likely not have closed.

Every client we work with is unique, having personal, financial, and business goals that require the structuring of their deals to match their needs. Our M&A advisors are diligent to first learn and understand the needs of our clients and their businesses. We then work hard to negotiate the optimal deal for each; transactions that provide not only the valuation required, but deal structures that protect the client (and their business) over the longer term.

Exiting a company via an acquisition/merger event is a huge undertaking for most business owners. Far too many put off planning to sell their business because the task can be very daunting. Our M&A professionals have decades of collective experience working with business owners through this often emotional, stressful process. We work closely with our clients to ensure that the exit plans pursued and deals structured are optimal for them.

Just as each owner is unique, so too are each of our transactions. We tailor our exit planning advice to your specific needs.

The level of documentation required to close a transaction is daunting unless you have the experience our deal teams have. We not only prepare the evaluation of your company (and the Roadmap for Enhancing Value you can use to grow your business) we also create all sales documentation. This includes the Offering Memorandum, Confidential Business Profile and Non Disclosure Agreement that we have all potential buyers sign before providing any detailed information on your business.

Buyers like working with our M&A advisors because they know our documentation will be accurate, thorough, and in a format that allows them to easily discern why your opportunity makes sense for them.

At IAG, we represent the seller in most transactions. We serve privately held business owners who take confidence in knowing that we understand and represent their goals and interests. Our clients are introduced to over 10,000 potential buyers through Buy Your Biz, our proprietary buyer network, and our buyer database.

Before you are ready to sell your business, we’ll answer your number one question, ‘what is my business worth?’. To achieve an answer, our evaluation professionals will ask you a lot of meaningful questions and analyze your business. They’ll recast your financials and analyze your intangible assets, presenting them in a way that unlocks hidden value. They will forecast the future under a buyer's ownership to position you to decide how to proceed. By the end of the process, you’ll have a clear understanding of what your business is worth – and a figure that helps you decide how to proceed with selling your company.

Whether it is the day you receive your business's valuation or five years down the line, when you are ready to sell your business we’ll do everything that’s needed to take your company to market. This starts with creating the kind of comprehensive documentation needed to attract optimal buyers and investors. Once it’s complete we’ll draw up a specific marketing plan for your business, as well as introducing you to tens of thousands of global buyers who have a combined $2 billion to spend on acquiring businesses such as yours.

When you are ready to sell your business, our deal team will distribute marketing documentation to reveal your investment opportunities to the widest possible market and an audience of potential entities that maybe interested in buying a company like yours. This may include private equity, family offices, offshore buyers, corporate strategics, and individual investors, with the goal of creating a limited auction for your company.

At IAG, we represent the seller in most transactions. We serve privately held business owners who take confidence in knowing that we understand and represent their goals and interests. Our clients are introduced to over 10,000 potential buyers through Buyyourbiz, our proprietary buyer network, and our buyer database.

When your business begins to attract offers, your dealmaker will negotiate on your behalf to strike a deal that reflects your requirements and future needs. The experience and composure of our dealmakers in the process of selling a business can prove priceless when you reach the negotiation table.

When you decide to accept an offer, our work is only half finished. Deal structuring can be as crucial to your overall success of selling your business as any other part of the process – perhaps more so. Having worked with you from the outset, our deal teams understand your personal and professional situation, and can work to structure a deal that achieves your current and future requirements.

The costs associated with selling your business commonly include costs associated with any optimizations, valuations, & percentages of the final selling price paid to the intermediary selling your business. Other costs may include paying for any outside services that you choose to hire, such as a lawyer or accountant.

We have a proven process for selling your business. However, there are other time factors to consider when selling. The US Small Business Administration statistics show that it normally takes six months to one year to sell a business after it has been listed. However, the timeline can vary due to factors such as buyer diligence, market conditions, & how optimized your business is to sell.

You can do a lot! Besides operating your business normally & letting us perform the selling process, you can consolidate your company information, streamline operating procedures, & boost the image of your business by performance optimizing it for success. Business sales are similar to real estate sales in that your curb appeal is very important to attracting the right buyers. A buyer might skip over your business in favor of a similar business that is more optimized for a new owner to step in. You can also find out what your business could be worth using our all new valuation estimator tool - Click on this link.

Getting the most value for your business is the primary goal. However, most business buyers today will finance the purchase either through cash, bank financing, debt, seller financing, or a combination of these options. Seller financing is an important option to consider because it often gets you more money for your business by allowing the new owner to pay you a portion of the sale, or more of the value, as your business performs.

Most of the business acquisitions in the market today involve some form of seller financing. This means that the seller of the business maintains a portion of the purchase price as a note payable by the buyer. For example, a buyer may pay 75% up front in cash, with the remaining 25% payable to you over a certain time period, with interest. This shows the buyer that you have confidence in the performance & opportunities of your business.

According to industry publications & research firms, there has never been a better time to sell your business than right now. Last year was the all time best year for mergers & acquisitions, with this year & beyond looking even better. There are more financing options than ever before & the economy is growing strong with technology to help grow businesses getting better every day.

Absolutely! Once you get your business valuation from IAG, our team will review every detail with you. This review involves presenting your business to you in the way a buyer will see it. Value with businesses for sale include optimizing for operational efficiencies, cash flow, growth trends, revenue diversification, curb appeal, & future growth opportunities. Using our proven processes & solutions, the value of your business can be improved so that you can get more of a payout. Find out more by getting started.

No. In fact, we recommend that you do not tell anyone that your business is for sale. IAG protects the confidentiality of your business every step of the way, across every channel that we market to. We do this through confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure arrangements, & by keeping the identifying information about your business strictly private until these agreements are in place by interested buyers. Let us do the selling while you focus on your business.

There are many ways that potential buyers find out about your business for sale through IAG. We have a proprietary list of qualified buyers that we contact individually about our client businesses for sale. These personal relationships have been developed through decades of successful M&A services, & include contacts & buyer pools from nearly every industry in the market. We list your business across all of our websites, all of which attract many interested buyers on a daily basis. In addition to these listings, we market your business through our private interested buyer lists full of entrepreneurs, investment firms, corporations, & private owners looking to buy optimized businesses that IAG offers to them. We also list your business across major industry marketplaces to attract even more interest. We do all of this without ever releasing any private information about your business until an interested party has the proper confidentiality agreements in place with IAG.