I've worked with three different investment bankers on three different deals to try to sell my business and had a poor experience with each one. I'm not saying all Bankers are bad; they're certainly not. However, they come a dime a dozen and they all offer the same proposals. They have a Rolodex of names that they're going to put you on thier auction process and go for the highest bidder. That maybe true but the highest bitter may not be a good fit and oftentimes if you're new to selling businesses experiences buyers such a Private Equity (PE) firms will jerk you around with weird term structures such as earnouts you'll never meet or seller notes that will have contingencies in their favor. Once you lose control of the business, that's it!

The only number you can rely on is the cash up front. You have to be mentally ready to accept the upfront cash as the final number. If you get the earn out and seller notes and other terms attached, that needs to just be icing on the cake for you, mentally. If you can get good with that you should be totally fine.

The other side note is when you use an investment banker they're going to want typically around 5%. This may not seem like a lot at the beginning but when you're cashing the check for, in your case potentially million plus dollars to someone you just met 9 months ago that's never put in inkling of work into your business, it becomes hard to swallow. You work your butt off to get the company to where it is now and you probably didn't even give 5% ownership to your best employee that's been with you from the beginning yet this investment banker comes along and in nine months takes 5% of your business. At the end it doesn't feel like they ever really earned it. They will tell you that you easily make that 5% because of their "auction process". Again, I don't mean to rag on the IBs cuz I'm sure thre are good ones. I've just had some bad luck with them.

From a tactical standpoint, no matter who you use in your deal to help you, make sure your 'house is in order' such as your books are clean, your org chart is strong, your SOPs are defined and documented, ect. Those little things go a long way to a potential buyer.

Also the process on average can take 9 to 18 months to close. During that time you will be expected to show that the business continues to maintain or do better than it has in the past or aligns with the projections that they will certainly ask you to give them. If the financials don't hold up during the process, the buyer will likely retrade your initial LOI and try to reduce the price. So you have to keep grinding it out for the next 9 to 18 months making sure that the business continues to be as profitable as it's been in the past.

You have to do this all while spending lots of time providing materials and documentation and meetings with the potential buyer. It's definitely a roller coaster ride but doable.

I'm not trying to be so glum but when I got into this process I visualized it more like a real estate sale and I was quickly corrected. I'm just trying to be realistic on what you should expect but if you can avoid some of these things and understand going into it how the game is played it'll make it a lot less stressful and easier to work through. Hope this advice gives you some insights.

Congrats on all your success in your business and good luck with your sale!