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Preparing Your Business for Sale

Most businesses go to market too early.

Not because the owner rushed, but because nobody told them what a buyer was going to find. The financials are technically accurate but unreadable to an outsider. The owner is still the person customers call. There is a lease with fourteen months left on it. None of these are fatal, and all of them are cheaper to fix before a buyer discovers them than after.

Preparation is the part of the process with the highest return on effort, and it is the part most owners skip.

What Preparation Actually Changes About Your Outcome

The multiple

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Two businesses with identical earnings do not sell for identical prices. The one with clean records, contracted revenue and a manager running operations sells for meaningfully more than the one where all three are missing. This is the largest single lever available to you and it is entirely within your control.

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Whether the deal closes at all

A significant share of small business transactions fall apart in diligence. Almost always because a buyer found something the seller either did not know about or did not disclose. Preparation is largely the work of finding those things first.

Problems discovered in month five become price reductions, because by then you are emotionally committed and the buyer knows it. The same problem disclosed in month one is just a fact about the business.

Your leverage

Our focus is on doing right by the owner — whether that means working together or helping point you in the right direction.

50+

$500k - $30MM

Enterprise value range

Transactions advised across our team's combined careers in financing, buy-side M&A, and brokerage

Seller-side representation, we never represent buyers

100%

Discuss Your Exit Options

Who Performs Your Valuation

Once the business is ready, positioning is the work of presenting it accurately and well.

That means a blind profile that describes the opportunity without identifying you, a confidential information package that answers the questions buyers ask before they ask them, and a clear articulation of what a buyer is actually acquiring: the revenue quality, the market position, the team, and the realistic growth available to someone with more capital or a different skill set than yours.

Positioning is not spin. Sophisticated buyers see through it and it costs you credibility at exactly the wrong moment. The goal is that the story and the numbers agree.

How We Position the Business

Sam Domino or Marco White, personally. You will not be handed to an analyst.

Sam's background spans both sides of the transaction. He has represented sellers, acquired businesses as part of a private equity backed investment team, and arranged the acquisition financing and debt structuring that gets deals closed. Evaluating businesses from a buyer's perspective is a large part of what he has done professionally, which is directly relevant to telling you how a buyer will see yours.

Marco has worked on more than fifty closed transactions and spends much of his time with owners who are not selling yet, helping them understand current value and what would increase it before an exit.

Graymarc is a member of the International Business Brokers Association.

We are based in Austin, Texas and work with owners across Central Texas including Travis, Williamson and Hays counties. We also represent sellers in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas Fort Worth.

Most of our work is out of state. We have closed transactions in Texas, California, South Carolina and Maine, and we represent sellers nationwide. Valuation is largely a document exercise, so where you are located does not change the quality of the analysis or the price of it.

Where We Work

Who We Work With

Privately held, owner operated businesses across a wide range of industries, generally between $200,000 and $6,000,000 in annual profit, with enterprise values from $500,000 to $30,000,000.

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Common Questions About Preparing a Business for Sale

When should I start preparing?

Twelve to twenty four months before you want to sell, if you have the option. Less is workable. More is better.

What does preparation support cost?

Nothing separate. There is no retainer and no fee for this work. Our compensation is a success fee at closing, so preparation is part of representing you properly rather than a billable service.

Start With a Conversation

Tell us where the business is today and where you would like it to be when you sell. We will tell you what stands between the two. Try the valuation calculator

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