Congratulations if you have read all 50 topics. Hopefully, you feel a lot more informed and prepared to commence your business sale now.
This last one is short and extremely clear.
IT IS YOUR COMPANY. Not your brokers or advisors or CPA's or attorney's.
It is yours and you need to maintain control from the first day until closing day.
I see situations all the time where a business owner literally turns their business over to a business broker.
Brokers often say “sit back and we will take care of everything” or “this will be easy for you and we will do all the work”. NEVER buy into this rhetoric.
As mentioned previously, this is NOT what you want.
What you do want is to surround yourself with a highly competent, experienced M&A advisor, tax CPA and transaction attorney.
Even with that high quality team you still need to be in charge.
It is great and expected to get guidance and direction from your team. However, you need to maintain a position of control and decision-making.
This is your one opportunity to get paid for all of the dedication and sweat equity that you poured into your company.
If you have the right team, they will not try to usurp your authority…they will augment it.
As a firm we always assure our clients that they will be 100% in control until they sign on closing day. They are not only in control, but they have not spent a penny either, because we refuse to accept any money until our clients enjoy a successful closing!