What was the reason why you sold your business?

[City Guy997S]

Originally Posted by Rocco Barbosa

When you decided to sell your business, was there one nagging issue that caused you to to say: "Okay, that's it, it's time to sell?"


I work with a lot of business owners and I'm curious to see if any of your reasons line up with many of the owners that I've worked with.

I had a small business, did about 500K a year with about 350 recurring charge clients, of which I really didn't like 200 of them. I was not selling but a guy walked into a vendor's office (we both used this vendor) and started bragging how he was buying up competitors, was going to be the top of the food chain so I turned an threw a number at him. He ended up buying 2/3 of my clients (he didn't have the money for the whole thing) and I sold the other 1/3 to someone else.

So in less than 90 days I sold the business, sold my house for 2.5X what I paid for it and moved out of the area all without intending to do any of the above. I restarted in the same industry, acquired another 300 clients (essentially for free) and was right back where I started in less than 4 years.......without spending the cash from the first transaction!

[City Guy997S]

Originally Posted by johngolf

I sold cheap as the above all came together. I can critique how the buyer ran the business but the bottom line is it was closed 3 years late more the result of changing times more then them screwing it up.

Selling a business that is and can continue to operate is one issue. There are many formulas and a history. Comparables analysis is comparing the business to other similar businesses that have sold to arrive at a sales price. Adding factors like is the person the real business versus the business, when it is in a dying/changing business, when property is attached, etc. make it all very, very, very tricky.

Easy to say well it should sell for so and so % of its annual sales/income, etc. Anyone that says that off the bat, does not know what they are talking about.

Sorry. No black and white answers.

Funny, as a result of this thread I just looked up the guy that I sold my business to. He still lives in the same house (it was marginal back then), he has mortgaged it to the moon and has a 73K IRS tax lien......that is just what I saw in the county records. I can see what his intentions were and can see they didn't work out the way he planned.