3 Reasons Your Business Isn't Selling
May 3, 2025
You’re a small business owner and you want to sell your business. It seems that no matter what you try you are stuck with it. Your exit strategy is failing! Why? What do you do about it?
Let’s Back Up A Bit
There are a lot of reasons why businesses can’t or don’t sell. I’ve decided to focus on three that I think are among the biggest reasons, and also the easiest to fix.
1. The Business Can’t Run Without You.
I wrote about this in a previous article. But this is such a common problem and a huge barrier to not only selling your business but to its overall ability to grow that it is worth repeating again and again. You have to let go and stop doing everything yourself. Your buyers want to buy a business. They don’t want to buy a job.
If you are doing more than 20% of all business activities yourself you will not get the result you’re looking for in a sale. Start now before you put your business up for sale, to develop leaders in your company to take over the 80% of activities that you should not be doing.
This Requires You To Make Some Changes
This is usually about ego. I’ve been guilty of this myself. As business owners we think no one can do the job (whatever the job is) better than us, so we just do it ourselves. Sound familiar? Get your ego under control for the sake of your business.
2. Bookkeeping And Financials.
It is so sad to see a $10 million business go up for sale and the highest offer they can get is $4 million. If you don’t have accurate and complete books, clear and accurate P&Ls and Financial Statements, and tax records you will not get close to your asking price for your business. You have to actually prove that your business makes the revenue and profit to justify your asking price.
Start from the beginning of your business with good, accurate books, preferably maintained by an actual bookkeeper. And get with a good CPA so that when you get ready to sell you have your financial house in order.
3. Your Business Is Priced Too High
This happens all the time when selling commercial real estate. Most people don’t think of a commercial property as a business, but it is. Similar financial rules apply and similar rules of valuation apply when you go to sell it. In commercial real estate the value of a property is based on how much income it generates. When someone tries to sell a commercial property based on their emotional attachment it will likely be overpriced. The same is true for a business. It’s your baby! You started it from scratch and built it up over the years. Unfortunately (or fortunately) emotions aren’t worth much when you go to sell a business or commercial real estate.
“Leave your emotions at home and bring your calculator.”
Paul Ary
The best solution is to start making your business sellable from the first day of operations. When the day comes to actually sell everything will be ready.
The second best solution is to start today making your business sellable. Have a good talk with yourself and do what needs to be done to make it sellable.
These are just three problems you could encounter when trying to sell your business. There are more but this is a good place to start.
Thanks to all our subscribers! I hope you enjoyed the article!
Paul Ary