How to Choose the Best Professional for Business Valuation
A formal business valuation should hold up under the examination of experienced buyers, their accountants, lenders, and attorneys. Depending on the size and nature of your business, learn how to select the right professional with the appropriate expertise and credentials to determine your business’s fair market value and sale price. Excerpted from BizBuySell's Guide to Selling Your Business.
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All valuation approaches and especially the income approach benefit from the knowledge and expertise of experienced professionals.
Seek guidance from a business appraiser or valuation expert if your business owns intellectual property or involves proprietary processes, a valuable brand or other assets that are unique and therefore difficult to value and price.
Seek guidance from business consultants if your selling price could be significantly higher following major business improvements that are beyond the expertise of you and your management team.
Seek guidance from a broker if you need help placing a value and price on your business, maintaining confidentiality about your sale, finding and dealing with prospective buyers, and taking on the demands of selling your business while you keep running it efficiently.
Seek guidance from a merger and acquisition M&A specialist or from an attorney with M&A expertise if your business has annual sales over $5 million or annual SDE over $1 million, as it is likely to attract another business as its buyer, and the sale will be complex.
Seek guidance from a local Small Business Development Center SBDC for help with business planning, financial management, and much more.
Choosing a broker business. Brokers offer in-depth insights on valuation, marketing, prospecting, negotiations, and other fundamental sale elements. Most have extensive prior business experience that allows them to understand the financial operational and legal aspects of a business - from sale preparation through the sale process. Their role is to streamline the process, focusing on the deal while the owner focuses on maintaining business operations.
When seeking a qualified broker, check out the BizBuySell broker directory, the largest online broker directory which includes thousands of professionals who can assist with business sales.