Business Sales - How To Find A Buyer For Your Business

Finding a buyer for your business can be like finding a needle in a hay stack! It takes time and experience to know who you are looking for, and where you will find business buyers. For business owners, particularly those that need to sell quickly, the time it takes to find a buyer can be very stressful and time consuming. That’s why when selling your business you should use the services of a business broker. Business brokers are experts at selling businesses, and have systems set up to help you find the right buyer quickly.

At Advantage Business Sales & Valuations our business brokers are experts not only at the sales process, but also at marketing your business professionally to find you that elusive buyer.

Unless the market knows about the opportunity your business offers, you are likely to only have a very slim chance of selling your business. As the old saying goes ‘you can’t sell a secret’. Well that’s true in most cases!

It is important that the business sale opportunity is heavily marketed in order to reach the maximum number of potential enquirers. The bigger the audience, the more chance of finding the right types of buyer suited to your business. This is best done with a multi-stream marketing campaign utilising as many different marketing platforms as possible.

There is also a level of targeted marketing used, whether it be by industry, geography, price range, etc. which endeavours to reach a specific audience more suited to the business opportunity.

There are thousands of businesses on the market at any one time, so your business needs to stand out in order to maximise interest from the pool of buyers looking to purchase.

At Advantage Business Sales & Valuations we work with Australian businesses to develop customised sale and marketing plans to assist an owner reach their exit, retirement or succession objectives, here’s what the process involves:

Step 1 – Identify Your Target Market

Identify your target market, who is the most likely buyer for your business, is it an individual, a corporate, or even maybe a competitor, what skills and expertise might they need, or might they be in a particular location.

Step 2 – Know Your Business 

We do a deep dive and analysis of your business, it’s structure, historical performance, industry, competitors and where it is heading. We identify your businesses’ points of difference and the key selling points that will appeal to the target market. We clearly identify a potential buyers’ key risks and opportunities.

Step 3 – Professionally Present Your Business

We prepare a professional Information Memorandum that details the businesses’ value proposition, performance and key selling points. When considering buying a business, it’s a big decision so buyers need to be comfortable that they accurate information. A buyer, then needs to convince their advisors and the bank, this document is designed to provide the information they need to arrive at a decision. Hopefully a positive one!

Step 4 – Customise Your Marketing Program

Lastly, we determine the best way to reach and engage with the identified target market – YOUR BUYER! Depending upon the type of buyer we are seeking, we design the marketing program around this. If we are looking for a buyer in a particular industry we will identify the best way to reach those people, we may be required to do direct approaches or general database marketing. Our marketing plan is crafted to deliver the best results for you.

At Advantage Business Sales & Valuations, we use an extensive range of marketing activities to find you buyer. The marketing program we action for your business will be unique to suit your needs.

Here are some of the key activities we undertake:

1. Digital Marketing – including business for sale websites, social media marketing, direct email marketing, database marketing, some are general and some are very specific depending on the circumstances.
2. Direct Mail – We will identify and target potential buyers that may own similar businesses and are looking to expand.
3. Information Seminars – we regularly conduct information seminars with potential buyers – these and do in-depth presentations about businesses for sale.
4. Utilise Our Networks – We have extensive networks of advisors and industry experts who are searching for business opportunities for their clients.

In the end, we are aiming to attract interest from as many people as possible, the more people that know you are on the market, the faster your business will sell.

A successful business broker develops a marketing program to maximise the exposure of your business, attracting as many buyers as possible and then doing all the hard work to convert the sale.

PLEASE CONTACT ONE OF OUR EXPERIENCED BUSINESS BROKERS TO DISCUSS YOUR OPTIONS AS A BUSINESS SELLER TODAY