Business, Where & How to Advertise

CONSTRUCTING YOUR AD AND MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS FOR SALE

After going to all the trouble of preparing your business for sale, and collecting the necessary information for its sale, it’s important not to rush the advertising portion of the process. By posting limited, ineffective ads you may only receive calls from buyers whom you consider unqualified and unprofessional. In short, if you are not thorough in your marketing you might be wasting a lot of time, both for yourself and potential buyers.

A basic idea for most classified ads is to whet the potential buyer's appetite. You want legitimate offers, so avoid big promises and overstated claims. Try to write your ad in layman’s terms; industry jargon and technical terms may discourage potential buyers.

More information is better than less.

As stated above, your goal is to whet the appetite, but in this case less information is not more. Common thinking suggests that buyers will be more likely to call if they are teased by your ad. In most cases the effect is the opposite. Buyers will bypass your business if they feel there is too little information.

More information gives buyers a sense of security: they may feel they already know a lot about you and your business just by reading your ad. If you include enough information in the description section the buyer will be pre-qualified when they contact you—this saves both parties a lot of hassle. Buyers feel more trustful of a seller with comprehensive advertising, which helps when it comes time to negotiate a sale

Serious buyers find it helpful if you put some of the following information in the detail section of your ad:

• Length of time in business, business history

• Number of employees

• Information on the geographic area surrounding the business (very important for lifestyle retreats/B&Bs). If you are selling the property with the business, be sure to include the square footage or acreage and the property’s value.

• General industry info – how it's growing, changes etc.

• How you would grow the business in the future – give them a "vision"

• Include photographs of the business. Make sure they show a clean and well looked after premises. Photos on the business for sale websites get more buyers. You may think buyers would be more interested in the info behind the photos, but photos are an easy way to transmit the essence of the business to a large amount of eyes.

• True adjusted net income (know precisely how you arrive at this figure)

• Competitive analysis

• Include any business website. Is the business computerised?

• Multiple phone numbers ensure you can be reached at any time

• You may wish to offer to stay on during the transition to the new owners. If so, indicate this.

Including this information will improve the quality of the calls you receive from buyers, and you will spend much less time answering the same old questions.

Get their attention - ‘featuring’ your ad improves exposure

Find out if your business sale advertising site has the option to ‘feature’ a business on the front page. This also usual means the ad will automatically appear at the top of listing results or in its own picture bar on each page—serious buyers will see it repeatedly and respond quicker. This option is usually worth purchasing.

This site also offers a bonus listing on a leading Business Directory which is seen by hundreds of business owners and potential business operators every day. It's a chance of extra exposure which shouldn't be missed.

FOLLOWING UP ON THE AD

Keep tabs on your advertising results

After posting, check that your ad ran properly in your chosen outlet. Track your results. Find out where each caller or emailer came across your ad. Once you have determined where the better, more qualified buyers are coming from, focus your advertising on that outlet.

If you do post your business online, make sure your anonymity is maintained and that any enquiries are made through a 'contact form' on the site or if you wish by a phone number you want to use.

The first month is critical

First impressions count. A huge number of interested buyers will see your ad when it first comes out. Having sufficient information in your ad, and being able to explain any peculiarities over the phone, will give you a greater chance of meeting with buyers.

Get back to potential buyers immediately

One of the biggest complaints from business buyers about advertisers is that they take too long to respond. Always return calls and emails promptly, within 3-6 hours as a rule. You are in competition with others, trying to sell their own business, and they are calling and emailing others while you wait.

Don't stop marketing/advertising until the cheque comes

Half of all offers to purchase businesses are never finalised. Keep your advertising running until you have the cheque from the buyer. Have backup buyers at all times. Never stop taking phone calls/emails from potential buyers: record their names in a folder and follow them up if things go south with the current buyer. Don’t let things stagnate while waiting for any one buyer.

OUTLETS

Deciding where and how to advertise

Advertising your business for sale on general online listing sites, in residential housing magazines or on television will not be the most efficient way to market your business. 

The best results come from advertising in a medium which specifically targets the largest number of prospective buyers. Good advertising must cater to likely buyer groups. For this reason, advertising your business on a dedicated business sales website, and representing it in a business specific format, is the preferred option when seeking more qualified buyers. Make the entire process easier on yourself and advertise in the right medium.

Selling your business through a site catering specifically to business buyers will maximise your exposure to quality buyers in all areas local, national, and international. Limiting your advertising to one or two mismanaged or misplaced ads only exposes your business to a small portion of the buyer field. Clumsy advertising may also inadvertently alert employees, customers and suppliers that the business is for sale, a fact you may not wish to disclose early on in the sale process.

Advertising in the classified section of local or national newspapers, the trading post or specific business sales magazines is a good backup to internet exposure. Put small ads on local notice boards if you are comfortable with people knowing you are selling a business. With these methods you are getting your business in front of a group of people who may not use the internet on a regular basis.

Discretion

• Selling your business may require you to maintain a level of secrecy. You may not want your competition to attract customers concerned about a transfer of owners, nor have employees leave the business prematurely.

• Fortunately, there are ways to advertise without revealing too much about yourself or your business. Non-identifying classified ads can be placed in newspapers or online, and you can use a cell phone number or create a blind email address, rather than use the business’ contact details.

By following this advice you can improve the marketing of your business for sale. Using these techniques will give you a head start to a successful sale.

This sale of business site can offer you a great marketing opportunity AND some bonuses and services you won't find anywhere else. It is a small investment with huge potential.

Business Brokers

If your business is selling for under $2 million dollars, you may be considering using a broker. Keep in mind that for small business sales brokers are not essential and more often than not they are very costly.

A broker can place ads for you and provide advice on how to word those ads; they can also field inquiries, allowing you can take care of day-to-day business operations.

Do you really need to use a broker?

Brokers typically handle upwards of 10 business-for-sale listings at a time, and really don’t have time to do much, if any, custom marketing. What marketing they do is usually limited to running ads on business-for-sale web sites such as this one. In the end, whether you hire a broker or not, you will still have to do a lot of the selling work yourself.

Handling a sale yourself saves you the broker's commission (usually around 10 percent of the final sale price), and, since most small business sales these days are marketed on the Internet, the work a broker can do is limited. A seller will hit many buyers by advertising on top business for sale sites. Business for sale websites make sense for many small business sellers, since these sites are geared to individual buyers, which make up the majority of small business buyers.

Additionally, if you have a buyer in mind (such as an employee or relative) and feel comfortable doing the selling work with your current lawyer and accountant, you won’t need a broker.

One of the mains reasons many sellers use brokers is for their expertise in fielding responses to your ads. Responding to inquiries and steadily moving a deal forward (or opting to decline) can be difficult, and may be worth the broker’s fee . But it pays to consider improving these skills in yourself if you would like to have a lot more of the sale price end up in your own pocket.

So now you have prepared the business for sale and it's out in the public eye...now what? Well the next stage is how you deal with all the phone calls and emails you will receive. The way you are with prospective buyers is very important to making a good and lasting impression with those interested in buying your business.

For help with this next stage please read the next article. Communicating with prospective buyers.