Hello and welcome to the third in our series of posts designed to help you sell your business on Google with WeSellAnyCompany.com.

As mentioned in our previous two posts, this guide will significantly help if you:

• Are a business owner preparing to sell your company on your own
• Are a business broker or you run an online sales platform designed to help your clients sell their businesses.

I’m condensing rather a lot of key marketing and professional promotional copy tools into easy to manage bite size chunks in these posts to give you something you can put into practice today and greatly increase your chances of a faster and more profitable sale of your business.

It would be advisable to read (or listen to) our previous posts on this subject before delving into this one – and just to make that super easy, you can access the first of the two posts right HERE.

Marketing your business for sale

Marketing is more than just advertising and promotion. It is important to make that distinction here, because to be able to sell your business to the right people and at the right price there are a few extra elements that you need to consider.

I’ve seen so many clients over the years who had previously despaired because they have beautifully designed promotions, very attractive websites and have businesses that are genuinely great propositions for prospective buyers but nobody sees them, or the wrong type of people see them.

Months (and sometimes years) on and they have either undersold their company or it still sits there, gathering dust, waiting for ANY buyer to show interest.

On the face of it, you have a business for sale for which you’d like to get as much money as possible and in the fastest possible time. You may also have other considerations, such as specific types of people you would (or would not) like to sell your company to.

Who do you want to buy your business?

It’s not enough here to simply say:

“Anyone who wants to buy it”

Even if you are not too fussed who eventually takes over the reigns you still have to have a working knowledge of the type of person / business that would be able to and are willing to purchase your business at a price that you would be happy to sell at.

Without this foreknowledge and niche focus you are going to cast a very wide net with guaranteed little to no positive results.

The first and most important consideration has to be:

1. People who have the means, or can get the means with which to purchase your business.

It’s no use to you having tens of thousands of people see your business for sale if they don’t have the means with which to purchase your business – with one major exception…

Should your marketing ONLY be targeting the people who will buy your business?

Whilst your initial answer might be ‘YES’ there is one obvious exception, and that is when we are talking about influencers – that is people, publications or companies from which a positive recommendation is more likely to result in a successful business sale.

People will always take the word of a trusted friend (or brand) over that of an unknown entity before parting with their hard earned money.

It makes sense therefore to have what I like to call an influencers strategy to run alongside your direct marketing efforts that are aimed solely at the prospective business buyer.

As a quick example are you more likely to eat at a restaurant if the owner tells you that the food is delicious or if a close friend recommends you go try the amazing dishes they sell?

Influencers are definitely worth their weight in gold.

So your second consideration has to be:

2. Influencers

Who would want to buy your business anyway?

Just because someone has the means with which to pay for your company why would THEY want to?

It’s a valid question. Just because you have a business for sale and an investor has money to spend, it does not follow that buying your business is the right move for them.

3. Your third consideration when looking for your buyer is to locate one that has a desire and the resources to successfully run your business.

Can you see how knowing your potential customer and targeting your messages to appeal to ONLY them is going to result in a greatly enhanced chance of a desirable business sale? Casting a wide net is only going to result in a lot of wasted time and money.

Now that we have a broad idea of WHO you are targeting you need to find them and then present your business sale to them in a way that is instantly appealing and this is what we are going to cover now.

Finding your ideal business buyer.

This is where demographics and social behaviour becomes your very best friend.

People tend to flock together based on their interests as well as social, economic and buying behavior. There are ways of getting this information very quickly if you have the budget but I want to help you do it for free.

Lets look at the investor (mentioned above). We have already established that he / she / other must have the means with which to pay for your business (or be able to access such funds) and have the desire and capacity with which to purchase your company.

My approach would be to take the low hanging fruit first. This will be:

• Personal contacts.

Would your personal contacts want to buy your business?

It is very likely that over the years in your day-to-day business activities, networking groups etc. You already know people that would have the means with which to pay for your business. You just need to find out if they have the desire to buy and capacity with which to pay for it.

As you are talking to people you already know, this can be done very informally to start with and you have the advantage that they already know, like and trust you.

Competitors might want to buy your business.

Seems strange that the companies that may have been your archenemies for years can now become your new best friend. Instead of competing with you for years then stand by as you sell the business to someone else to compete with, they may see the value in acquiring your business, complete with client list and any intellectual property that your business has.

We’ve seen it happen where a competitor will buy a business PURELY for your I.P. it means they can use your intellectual property for their existing business which may ultimately save them time and money.

Once you have exhausted those two avenues it is time to turn to Google and the readily available, online free resources to target the people and companies that you have no previous connections with.

And this is where my next post will take you.

I hope this post has helped and I look forward to continuing our exciting journey in our next.

As always if you need any help and advice selling your business in the UK then click HERE and we will be in touch within 24 hours.