Likely buyers will vary from business to business. Areas that will influence the buying pool include the industry sector, size of the business, degree of complexity of the business, and purchase price. Your buyer may come from the broader market or alternately your business may be attractive to a competitor, one of your suppliers, someone working in the same customer channel, or even your own management team.

Finding the right buyer isn’t simply a matter of putting an advertisement in the ‘for sale’ section, or listing your business with a broker. These are options, and in some cases are quite appropriate. In other cases however there are better ways to achieve the result you are after. Selling a business is not a one size fits all formula. As a general rule, the higher the anticipated sale price and the more complex the business then the more sophisticated the sales process required.

• Some of your sale options include:
• Sale to the general public
• Sale to another business in the same market
• Sale to a business in a complimentary market
• Sale to a competitor
• Management/ employee buy-out
• Public listing