It is the one question nobody knows, but a good expectation to have is 4 to 9 months. We have had businesses sell quicker, and businesses sell slower.
The reality of timeframe is this. As long as your brokerage covers all of the major business-for-sale websites, they are servicing your business sale well, and you have priced the business correctly to market, it will happen in the quickest time frame possible.
If you need some advice around pricing your business for sale, take advantage of our free, no-obligation appraisal today by clicking here.
Absolutely.
As a standard, we advertise your business without pictures, a specific address or a business name.
Not only is this information not needed to get enquiries from buyers, but it significantly reduces the chances of a buyer approaching your business directly or somebody you don’t want knowing you are for sale finding out.
At Bonza, we go the extra mile to protect your business information with our two-step process:
Generally speaking, you will have the following costs:
A skilled business broker will cover most of these costs by negotiating the best possible price for your business.
On average, we receive over 100 brand-new buyer enquiries per day. We market to our database of over 50,000 active buyers. We also average a business sale every business day. Businesses are transacting all the time, but you’ve got to be “in it to win it”. That’s where we come in.
Absolutely. Our Bonza Sales Consultants have decades of experience in business and franchise sales, and they will be happy to provide a free no no-obligation appraisal. just hit the Book FREE Appraisal button or send us a message via our contact page, and we will be happy to call you back.
You sure can – just email or message us at anytime and we will be happy to update your adverts and profile typically within 48 hours.
No problem! We are here to help, just send us a message via the contact page or press the button to request a free no obligation appraisal and one of our business sales experts will be happy to contact you to provide guidance on pricing your business correctly.
Firstly you have a choice to advertise using one of the following pricing strategies.
• A fixed price on your sale ($xxxxxxx negotiable),
• Offers over price (Offers over $xxxxxxxxx), or
• No price at all (Offers invited). Generally speaking,g having a price or at least a guide like an offer over $xx on your advertising is best and will receive more enquires.
If you do not advertise a price, the very first question from any potential buyer will be “What is the asking price?”.
Depending on how quickly you want to sell and how strongly your business is performing your sale price range can be quite wide.
Don’t worry too much about this because you will accept the offers that make sense and decline the offers that do not. In the end, all offers are a good sign because offers lead to negotiation, and negotiation leads to a sale.
Here are the three main methods we see most often used:
1. A multiple of profits after addbacks. This is where we calculate what the business is returning to the owner by adding back all the personal expenses (addbacks), that are often included in the accounts, to the profit figure to produce an adjusted net profit. We then multiply this figure typically by between 2 and 3 times. If you have at least 1 year’s profit and loss figures this is usually your best option.
2. Setup cost. This is an asking price based on the cost of opening the business in the first place. This works best if the business (and therefore the plant and equipment) are fairly new and you can demonstrate the cost of setting up. If the business is say, a year old and not profitable yet, and you can show a fit out of $xxxxxx then maybe this price minus a small discount is the best way to go.
3. Opportunity cost. This is setting your asking price based on what you think the business will earn in the next 12 months. If the business is likely to earn $xxxxxx in the next year and you can demonstrate this by showing rapidly rising sales, or by offering the buyer a trial period to see for themselves how the business is performing, this could be the best option. If the future profit is credible, you can set the price as a multiple typically of 2 to 3 times this estimated figure.
Overall it is best to price your business competitively if you want a fast sale, but if speed of sale is not important, price higher up the scale and adjust the asking price downwards until you start receiving a high volume of enquiries.
If you want any assistance in reviewing your asking price, head on over to our contact page and click the “Book FREE Appraisal” button to choose a time that suits you.
A simple 20 minute questionnaire is all wee need. One to two business days later, we will have a full Business Profile draft back to you to check.
Our professional copywriters have written thousands of Business Profiles that are built to convert enquiries into offers and can anticipate most questions that may be asked, better informing buyers and keeping you free to work on your business.
When selling your business, buyers will request information in order to make an informed assessment of its potential.
The faster you provide this information and the faster you answer your buyer’s questions, the more likely they are to move forward on your business.
Rather than deal with each buyer’s questions individually, it really helps to have prepared a comprehensive Business Profile that answers as many of the buyer’s questions as possible, all in one place.
Also, the easier you make it for your buyer to understand your business, the more confident they will feel to move forward on it. It’s all about providing clarity to create confidence.
Make sure your representation highlights your business in its best light, explains the purchasing process to a buyer (as many will be looking to buy their first business), and provides the buyer with an “Offer Of Purchase” document.
The Bonza Business Profile is included in our full sale service and covers all of the information your buyer needs to know to make a decision. It also guides them to make an offer on your business. You can see more about this on our full sale service page.
It’s a 20-minute questionnaire that we need you to complete. It contains simple information such as operation hours, lease end date, Q & A, social media coverage, etc.
It’s quick and easy, and we are there to support you on this, should you need us.
It doesn’t have to contain your financial information either, although some basic financial information is recommended.
Although there is some time invested to complete our questionnaire to populate your Business Profile, the payoff is massive, increasing your likelihood of achieving a business sale quickly and smoothly.
A good Business Profile will provide the key information to potential buyers, answering their questions so you don’t have to.
It also provides the process to the buyers on how they should make an offer to your business.
If you’d like more information on our Business Profile, get in touch at our contact page.
A Business Profile is a document we create on your behalf, and we provide it to potential buyers once they have completed a confidentiality agreement to protect your information.
The Business Profile contains all the relevant information a buyer needs to make a fast decision regarding the suitability of your business.
The document saves huge amounts of time for you and potential buyers by answering the key questions to all of your buyers.
It also provides important information to the buyer on how to progress to offer on your business.
The Business Profile is also a key document for the buyer to use if they need to raise finance or take advice from professionals.
Your Business Profile is an essential part of the business sale process and helps sell your business faster and for a higher value.
We have heard stories of business owners paying more than $3,000 and more to have this built with their accountant.
Your Business Profile, along with extensive advertising, is included in our Complete Service Package.
Yes you do.
Decades of successful Business and Franchise Sales have taught us that the fastest way to lose a buyer is to be unprepared for their questions and requests.
There is nothing more frustrating to serious buyers than asking questions or requesting information and having to wait days for responses.
On the other hand, if they have all the information in one document, this gives buyers faith and confidence that the business they are buying is well-run and organised and therefore worth their time.
Plus, it greatly reduces the chances of the buyer missing a key piece of information and discovering it during the contract process. There is nothing more scary to a buyer than discovering something they were not aware of whilst in due diligence. Something as simple as discovering there is a rental bond has been known to knock deals over.
Remember, there’s a strong chance your buyer will be looking to purchase their first ever business. There are questions they will want answering quickly, and their are questions they will not know to ask that we also need to answer for them.
Step 1 is to request and review our listing agreement, which allows us to represent you.
Once completed, you’ll receive an email with a questionnaire to complete – the Advertising Worksheet. This will take you approximately 10 minutes to complete and will allow us to build a draft advertisement for your business.
We send you the draft within 1 business day, you let us know it’s good to go, and we immediately upload it to all of the major business for sale websites.
You’re on the market and we are starting to receive enquiries from potential buyers.
No you don’t. Many business owners wish to keep the fact that they are for sale as secret as possible.
The only issue with this is that you can’t sell a secret!
The key is to advertise heavily, but as long as the buyer knows an approximate location and the type of business they are enquiring on, there is no need to know the business name or specific location until a confidentiality form has been signed, and buyers code of conduct explained.
Your advertisements are written confidentially. Buyers will only find out the name of your business and location after signing a confidentiality agreement.
We handle all of your buyer enquiry.
When a buyer finds your advertisement, they can call us or make an enquiry through the websites there and then. Once they do, we process the buyer enquiry instantly and send them a confidentiality agreement to sign within 10 minutes.
Once signed, we let you know and purposefully wait 24 hours just in case you recognise the name and wish to prevent any information being sent out. We then provide the buyer with your Business Profile Document.
We follow up for questions every 1-2 days with the goal of speaking to each buyer, answering their questions, and filtering and qualifying them until an offer is made.
We negotiate your deal into a Terms Agreement, which is then generally passed onto your solicitor to run the contract process along side us.
We do all the heavy lifting so you don’t have to.
Exposure to the buyer marketplace is a critical component of your business sale.
At Bonza, we’ve got you covered.
We advertise on all of the major business for sale websites including
We also have our own buyer database of over 50,000 buyers and post the advert across all of our socials.
If you’d like us to do all of the heavy lifting for you, check out our Complete Service.
There are a couple of good reasons to trust us with your business sale.
The level of enquiry varies from industry to industry, but don’t worry, its all relative.
For example, cafés generally attract high levels of enquiry as it is a popular industry for first-time buyers. In this case, we may handle 20-25 enquiries before finding “the one”.
A business requiring specific experience, like a mechanic, for example, is likely to attract a lower level of enquiry, somewhere around 10-15 enquiries before selling.
The key is to make sure you’re advertised on all of the major business-for-sale websites so that wherever your buyers look, they see you for sale. This is what our package was created to do.
Your advertisement is critical as it’s the face of your business sale.
It’s the only thing standing between a buyer enquiring or moving onto the next business listing.
A professional written advertisement will bring in higher levels of enquiry, leading to a quicker sale.
Our package includes a professionally written advertisement by our in-house copywriters.
Here’s how we do it:
A broker can’t “sell” your business to a buyer. Buyers know brokers are biased, as they have vested interest in them moving ahead. Its no secret they work for the seller.
It’s your advertising, your representation, and the quality of service your buyer receives that gets your business sold. Once these points are cared for, it’s just a matter of time until your buyer starts looking.
Once your advert is published, you will be advertised across 9 sites.
This is the most comprehensive advertising available. However, this does not mean you will be flooded with buyers, but you are maximising your chance of finding the right interested parties. We handle all of the buyer enquiry and let you know who enquires, so you are always in the picture.
Once we have filtered and qualified a buyer, and they show further interest, your Bonza broker will keep you informed throughout the whole process.
Sit back and let your experienced broker team handle it.
Our system is second to none and will keep you updated throughout the process with each buyer.
We will keep you informed throughout, get you involved when your buyer is ready to make an offer.
Without appropriate representation, the short answer is yes. But don’t stress, we’ve got you covered on this.
Imagine dealing with several potential buyers at one point in time, most asking a variety of questions. It can be stressful to say the least, especially whilst still running your life and your business.
With our Complete Service we ensure that the absolute majority of questions a buyer can ask are answered by your Business Profile document.
Any buyer that progresses from enquiry, through confidentiality and receiving your business profile, then has further questions, is a buyer worth dealing with.
All buyers will first have to sign a confidentiality form before receiving even your most basic business information.
Once signed, the buyer is legally obliged to keep your information confidential.
Prospective buyers are also informed about what actions are appropriate, and which are inappropriate when receiving the Business Profile document during the “Purchase Code of Conduct”.
We also have a second fail safe that gives you the power to stop any information being sent out to a buyer over a 24 hour period.
It is completely your call, but with Bonza at your back, you are 100% free to pass the buyer enquiry onto us and sit back whilst we handle it. If you prefer, you can also exclude these buyers from our listing agreement, so no commission will be due if they purchase the business from you directly.
Generally, a buyer will make an initial non-binding offer, such as a term sheet, to agree on general terms with the seller before proceeding to due diligence and contract, which is generally done by solicitors on both sides (buyer and seller).
We negotiate your deal for you, so that you are satisfied with both the price and the terms of the contract, and then we pass on the term sheet to the solicitors.
Due diligence is the process where a buyer learns about the business and its financial performance and verifies the information you have provided.
Although a solicitor is not absolutely required we always recommend that you seek legal advice before entering into the contract of sale.
When selling a smaller business, initial financials checks are normally done before a term-sheet is agreed, and once the business goes to contract. Due diligence is normally performed in a 2 to 4 week period following contract signing and prior to completion and transfer.
This is always open for negotiation. However, it is normal for a buyer to pay a deposit of 10%, held in a trust account by the seller’s solicitor or via our third-party escrow.
Vendor finance is where the buyer does not have sufficient upfront capital to purchase the business and the seller agrees to defer some portion of the payment to come from future earnings of the business. If you plan to offer this option you must be certain that the business creates sufficient cash-flow to make the future payments and have a very strong contract.
Not sure how to get started or need to ask a question? Call us now to speak to a local Bonza Business & Franchise representative who can assist you further.
At Bonza we proudly offer a 100% free no obligation chat with a business sales expert. Contact us today and we will be in-touch at a time that is convenient for you.
At Bonza we make selling your business or franchise so much easier. With no commissions, no hidden fees and just one low fixed fee, you are in great hands with Bonza.
