Sell my business — where to start

You do not need a data room on day one, but a few documents make the first conversation worth having: three years of business tax returns, current internal financial statements that include an interim period through the most recent closed month, a copy of your commercial lease, and a rough list of the equipment or vehicles that would be included in a sale. If you do not have all of it organized, that is normal — most owners do not, and getting it in shape is part of the early work.

What you should not do yet is tell your staff, your landlord or your key customer that you are thinking about selling. There is time for that later, on a schedule you control, and confidential business sale explains how that timing gets managed.

The first call is not a sales pitch and it commits you to nothing. We ask about the business itself — how long you have owned it, how it makes money, who runs it day to day, what would happen if you stepped away for a month. We ask why now, because the answer shapes everything from timeline to how hard we push on price. Then we explain what a Broker Opinion of Value would require from you and roughly what it would tell you.

If the business looks ready and the fit feels right on both sides, the next step is the Opinion of Value itself. If it is not ready — commonly because records are thin, the owner is too central to daily operations, or earnings are below roughly $100,000 in Seller's Discretionary Earnings — we will say so, and point you toward preparing your business for sale rather than a listing that will struggle.

Every sale runs on its own schedule, and we will not promise you a date. But a business in the one to ten million dollar range that is ready to list typically moves through a similar shape. In the first month or two, the Opinion of Value, the listing agreement and the marketing package come together. The next few months are spent identifying and qualifying buyers, which is quieter work than it sounds — most inquiries do not go anywhere.

Once a serious buyer emerges, negotiation and a letter of intent typically take a few weeks. Due diligence and the buyer's financing, usually SBA-backed, tend to be the longest stretch — often three to five months — because a lender's underwriting sets its own pace regardless of how ready either side is. The full mechanics of that stage are covered on SBA financing for the buyer and how to sell a business in Texas. Closing follows once financing is committed and final documents are signed.

Stefan and his team handled the sale of our business professionally from start to finish. They were straightforward with us about what to expect, kept the process confidential, and stayed on top of every detail until we closed.

Plenty of owners who call us end up waiting a year or two, often by our own recommendation. That is not wasted time if it is spent well — reducing how much the business depends on you, cleaning up records, and diversifying a customer list. See what makes a business worth more for where to focus that time, and if retirement is part of the decision, selling a business before retirement addresses the timing questions specific to that.

Whatever your timeline, decisions about entity structure, the tax treatment of sale proceeds and estate planning are not something we advise on — that conversation belongs with your own CPA and attorney, ideally before you sign anything.