We know you want to leave the closing table with a big, fat check and move on to the next chapter of your life, but in the world of business sales you have to be both willing to be flexible and willing to be creative when putting together a deal.

Why flexibility?

Sure, we would all want a full-price, all-cash offer – but the reality is this type of deal is extremely rare and highly unlikely. By holding fast to your original listing price and refusing deal options like seller financing you are drastically limiting your pool of potential buyers.

What is seller financing?

Very simply put, seller financing is keeping some skin in the game. When you offer seller financing, you take a down payment from a buyer, then accept payments over time for the remainder of the agreed upon sale price. Offering seller financing is great for your business on two fronts.

First, it will open your listing to many, many more buyers. Traditional financing is nearly impossible to get for the purchase of a small business, even more so now in the wake of the recent financial meltdown. For those buyers in the market, an offer of seller financing makes the purchase of a business possible and this type of financing is more common than not.

The second reason seller financing is important to the potential sale of your business is because of the message it puts forth to buyers in the market. By delaying your payment, you are telling those who are considering your business that you have a great deal of faith in the longevity and future success of your business. If you didn’t have that faith in the future of the businesses, then you won’t have any chance of getting paid back.

What do you mean by creative?

In the small business market, every deal is different. The multitude of moving parts in any transaction mean there are always ways to bring a deal to closing, as long as the parties involved are open to creative deal structuring. Seller financing is only one of the many creative deal structures, as are earnouts, strategic/silent partnerships – the list goes on. Staying open minded in terms of the structure of your deal is important if you really want to sell.

If you really want to sell your business, stay open to creative deals and make seller financing a part of the conversation. You will have far more success and bring in many more buyers than those sellers who don’t.

Do you have more questions about seller financing? Would you like to know more about creative deal structures? Ask us! Leave us a comment or question and we would be happy to help.

Michael Monnot

941.518.7138
Mike@infinitybusinessbrokers.com
1910 Park Meadows Drive, Suite 202
Fort Myers, FL 33907

https://infinitybusinessbrokers.com