The question is often asked: When is the best time to sell my business?
The answer is simple: the best time to sell your business is when both your business and market conditions are strong. Selling your business at this time will allow you to realize the greatest value from the sale.
Market conditions are considered strong when there are more buyers than sellers actively pursuing businesses similar to yours. Despite occasional negative conditions, it is often the case that market conditions are strong for the green industries. Two of the factors that most influence market conditions are availability of financing to business buyers and the range of market valuations which directly affect the attitudes of potential buyers.
Without a doubt, the best time to sell your business is when your business is strong, growing and showing good results. There is no question that the combination of a strong market and strong performance by a seller will produce the best results in a business sale.
Many, if not most, business sales result from unplanned life events and, therefore, may not occur at the optimum time. You cannot control overall market conditions, but you can influence how well your particular business is positioned for sale. The good news is that over time, market conditions for most aspects of the green industry have remained strong.
Regardless of market conditions or the situation with your particular business, one important step is that when you make the decision to pursue the sale of your business, you can move aggressively to put the best possible face on your business: Clean up the business, literally and figuratively. Clean up your physical location, get your books in order and push hard to keep the business running on all cylinders.