Preparation

Prepare before you sell your business

The six steps every founder should take before going to market

6 min read May 2025

Make sure you really want to sell

Owners frequently change their mind at the last minute, and all the work done leading up to that point goes to waste.
Speak with your business partners, family members, and anyone who can help you reach a firm decision.
Think about what you will do after you sell. Have a clear plan for your work and personal life once the transaction is complete.

Make sure your financial statements are audited and give an accurate picture of the business — unreliable accounts are one of the most common reasons a deal falls apart.
Separate personal spending from business expenses — many small businesses mix these together.
Remove personal assets from the company balance sheet, such as private cars or property.
If you own more than one company and they trade with each other, make sure those transactions are recorded at normal market prices.
Prepare a version of your accounts that shows only regular, ongoing income and costs — strip out anything that was a one-off.
If your business is likely to be worth more than £5 million, consider hiring a specialist firm to carry out a Quality of Earnings review. This gives you the buyer's-eye view of your numbers before they ask for it.

Work out how much cash the business actually needs to operate day-to-day, and remove anything above that level.
Take out any assets that are not needed to run the business.
Remove any personal loans or liabilities that are sitting on the company's books.
By the time you go to market, the company should contain only the assets and liabilities that are genuinely part of the business.

These do not need to be long documents — one to two pages of bullet points for each major process is enough.
Having this written down means you can hand it straight to the buyer during due diligence, rather than spending hours explaining everything verbally.
More importantly, writing things down often reveals steps that are inefficient or inconsistent. Many businesses run on unwritten knowledge, which creates risk and limits growth. This exercise helps you manage the business better too.

If every important decision has to go through the owner, buyers see a serious risk — what happens after you leave?
The more the business can run without you day-to-day, the smoother the sale process will be and the higher the price you are likely to achieve.

The best position to be in is to have all your key documents ready to upload to a secure data room before the buyer even asks.
If you start collecting and organising documents only after a buyer has signed a letter of intent, it will slow down due diligence and may damage the buyer's confidence in you.