The owner's guide to selling your business
If you've ever considered selling your business, you know that it's a complicated process. There's just no obvious way to do it. Your choices seem limited: hire aggressive brokers who take 5-10% of your sale, or wait for cold calls and sell to the most persistent buyer rather than the right one. It's painful and unnecessarily complicated and often can feel like chewing glass. Yet selling your life's work on your own terms is possible. This guide walks you through Rejigg's step-by-step process of selling a business successfully.
Decide When and Why to Sell
Reflect deeply on motivations, priorities, and ideal timelines for transition. Draft ambitious yet realistic objectives rather than chasing elusive optimal market timing or feeling pressure from external forces.
Read step 1Prepare to Sell
Methodically prepare relevant historical documentation regarding operations, finances, and ownership. Normalize information to accurately reflect sustainable business performance. Get your house in order.
Read step 2Find Buyers
Negotiating directly with buyers tends to be the best way to get the outcomes you want, without forking over a huge portion of your business to a broker. But auctions and targeted outreach can cause you to either end up with a buyer you don't like, or end up missing out on your dream buyer. That's why we built Rejigg: we connect you with thoughtful, pre-vetted buyers and let you do a deal on your terms.
Read step 3Negotiate a Deal
Scrutinize deal structure aspects like payment timelines, earnouts, and liability exposures as much as headline valuation multiples. Protect against lopsided risks once currency changes hands. Balance legal protections against relationship-straining over-negotiation.
Read step 4Conduct Due Diligence & Closing
Set reasonable expectations around due diligence duration and depth required to alleviate buyer skepticism and level of distraction based on business complexity. Develop structured rhythms and tone for managing inquiries.
Read step 5Transition Post-Sale
Over-communicate with employees, customers, and vendors throughout ownership changes. Assume positive intent when inevitable conflicts arise post-close. Anchor against sentiments of seller's remorse by reconnecting to original motivations.
Read step 6Ready to get started?
Connect with pre-vetted buyers and sell your business on your terms.