BizBuySell is the largest online business for sale marketplace. We will discuss the benefits and disadvantages of advertising your business for sale on BizBuySell without a Business Broker. As one of the top Business Brokers in the Country, Synergy Business Brokers has used BizBuySell as an advertising vehicle for over 18 years.
There are advantages and disadvantages of advertising your business for sale on BizBuySell yourself. The biggest advantage to selling a small business on BizBuySell yourself is cost savings. The price of advertising a business on BizBuySell is $59.95/month with a 3 to 6-month minimum commitment. The average Business Broker commission is 10% of the sale price. Usually, Business Brokers can get you a price more than 10% higher than you would be able to get for selling your business yourself, so it is usually best to use a business broker for larger businesses.
However, most Business Brokers have minimum fees ranging from $15,000 to $100,000. So for small businesses priced less than $100,000, you could end up paying 15% to 50% or more of the price for your business as a commission to a Business Broker. In these cases, sometimes it might be better to try to sell your business yourself on BizBuySell, and we sometimes recommend this for small businesses. We’ll discuss some of the other advantages that business brokers provide, and that way, you can make an informed decision about whether or not you want to use BizBuySell to sell your business yourself.
In most cases, business owners are concerned about their customers and employees finding out that their business is for sale. If you own a small business that doesn’t have employees, then that’s one less concern. If you are concerned about your customers finding out, there are ways to mitigate this. One is not to advertise the name of your business on BizBuySell. Business Brokers typically just advertise a heading and general features of the business without giving the business’s identity away. So you could emulate this strategy and don’t your business email in the listing. Put your personal email. Business Brokers also require a confidentiality agreement to be signed with some qualifying information provided before releasing information. You could also require this.
In addition to writing the ad, you will also need to write up a confidential summary about your business that you will provide to buyers after they sign a non-disclosure agreement. You will also need to compile your financial information and identify the perks and benefits that you get from the business as the owner. Business Brokers call this recasting the financials. Once you have done that, you’ll need to speak to potential buyers, answer preliminary questions and decide if a potential buyer is worth meeting. Once you meet and answer questions, you will see if they make an offer. If they do, you’ll need to negotiate the terms and conditions.
The Business Sale process can take time away from running your business. And it’s important to keep your business’s revenue and profits going strong during the business sale process. You have to be realistic about whether you have the additional time to devote to this while running your business.
In addition to BizBuySell, there are many other Business For Sale websites. The best business brokers will advertise on all of them, including bizquest, businessesforsale.com, businessbroker.net, dealstream.com, and more. One of the important parts of selling your business is to generate enough potential buyers. You could advertise on these other business-for-sale websites by copying and pasting your BizBuySell ad to these other sites.
However, experienced Business Brokers will also have their own lists of potential buyers that they have worked with over the years who they can contact when they have a new business for sale opportunity. Business Brokers with experience in your industry will have specific buyers they can target who will be relevant for your business. That is one of the marketing aspects that are more difficult to replicate when selling your business yourself.
As a small business owner, you may not be able to replicate all of the aspects of marketing, negotiation skills, and know-how that a business broker has about valuations of businesses and the business sale process. However, for small businesses, it certainly is sometimes a good avenue to try to sell your business yourself on bizbuysell. Ultimately you only need one buyer, so you can try this out and then contact a business broker if you are unsuccessful.
If you are planning on using a business broker to sell your business, we recommend using a business brokerage firm that has experience selling businesses like yours. This includes the industry and business size.
Synergy Business Brokers specializes in selling companies in construction, distribution, manufacturing, healthcare, services, technology, engineering, and transportation with annual revenues of $700,000 to $70 Million. We are the #1 Business Broker in the county specializing in selling businesses in this market segment. If you own a business that fits these criteria, we offer a confidential consultation with no fee until your business is sold.
In addition to BizBuySell, we provide a comprehensive marketing program to sell your business for the maximum price in a timely fashion. We have public and private companies within each industry that are interested in purchasing businesses from us.
Please fill out our online form for your free, confidential consultation.
