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3 Key Considerations to
Create an Effective
Business-for-Sale Ad

"We Help You Sell Your Business"

 

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• 0. Selling your Business during a Crisis.  
 
• 1. Should I sell my business ?   Take this Quiz ....
 
• 2. Get Ready to Sell Your Business.  
 
• 3. 3 Key Considerations to Create an Effective Business-for-Sale Ad.  
 
• 4. The importance of photos in effective advertising.  
 
• 5. The Ad Title that Sells the Business.  
 
• 6. How to Choose Effective Categories for your Listing.  
 
• 7. Selling your business: ASSET sale or SHARE sale ?  
 
• 8. Some Hints for you When Selling your Business.  
 
• 9. How to Respond to Buyer Inquiries .  
 
• 10. Qualifying Buyers: Separating the sharks from the keepers.  
 
• 11. Ten things I should know when negotiating !  
 
• 12. Will I Get Top Dollar When I Sell My Business ?  
 
• 13. Prepare your Business for your Ultimate Customer.  
 
• 14. Is Your Business a Pain, or a Pleasure ?  
 
• 15. What Drives Owners to Sell & Buyers to Buy ?  
 
• 16. Frequently Asked Questions - by Jim Clark  
 
• 17. An Overview of the Business Selling Process.  
 
• 18. Recasting - a key to building value to the seller.  
 
• 19. What the Profit & Loss Statement Doesn't Tell You.  
 
• 20. How Do Buyers Determine Value when Considering a Business Purchase ?  
 
• 21. Why does Confidentiality Matter when Buying or Selling a Business ?  
 
• 22. Should You Buy an Existing Franchise?  5 Questions to Ask  
 
• 23. Succession Planning is central to selling success  
 

 
 DISCLAIMER 
 
These articles are for general information purposes only and do not constitute legal, accounting or other professional advice.  Important financial and legal decisions should be made only after seeking appropriate professional advice based on your specific situation.
 3 Key Considerations for an Effective For-Sale Ad

by Mike Merritt
Business Sell Canada

1. Be Enthusiastic

The most important thing for you when writing your ad is to be enthusiastic and to be very positive about the business that you're selling.  You're not selling a "loser" of a business - It is a real, viable, operating business that you're selling - so you need to make it sound as attractive as possible - using good, encouraging words like: "Profitable", "Established", "Easy to Run".  Nobody wants to buy a business where the owner says: "You can make money at this business if you work really hard!"  Trying to sell a business like that is nearly impossible and you may actually have to "pay" somebody just to take it off of your hands.
 
The descriptions that you use in your ad should "sell" your business.  Attractive businesses say things like: "This established business has been running for 5 years and continues to increase in its income/profit every year".
 
Think of the Buyer when you write your ad.  What would he/she want to know?  What would motivate the Buyer to contact you and to want to investigate your business further?  Write your ad from the Buyer's standpoint!  He's not buying just a list of your "used" equipment - he's buying an opportunity to make lots of money for himself, and to feel good about the services/products that he's providing to the community, and to be proud of what he's doing.
 
You want to fulfill those desires with your ad descriptions !!!
 
 
2. What's it Worth ?

The biggest problem that Sellers have in preparing to sell their business, is trying to set their asking price.  They choose a sale price based on how much they would "want" to get out of it - or - on how much the business "owes" them - or - how much of their own time and money that they've invested in the business so far.  Unfortunately, the new Buyer is not at all interested in those things - they are your problem.  What the Buyer wants to do is to buy the business for what it's worth - that is, what it's worth right now.  He does not want to cover any of your previous losses or to pay you for those great idea that you have on how he could make more money in the future.  (If the idea was that good - you'd already be doing it; and currently making that extra money.)
 
It's the "right now" value that's important to the Buyer.  He wants to know how much money the business has actually made in the last month or the last year.  That's what's important to the him and that's what he'll base his buying offer on.  He may have originally contacted you because he sees some of the future opportunities for growth in your business - but he'll only pay you for what it's actually doing "right now".
 
For the Buyer, it's an investment.  He's not "buying" himself a minimum wage job.  He's investing in a profit source and he wants to earn his investment capital back within a reasonable length of time - and also to make a reasonable profit at the end of the year - over and above what he pays himself ... all without any great effort on his part.
 
He's not buying a pile of "used" equipment - he's buying an income for his own future.  That's what you need to show him in your ad ... What the business is really worth - right now.
 
 
3. Why Should Someone Buy THIS Business ?

There's always competition in every industry.  What you have to do in your ad is to persuade the Buyer that "this" business (the one that you are currently selling), is the one that he should buy.  What sets your business apart from other similar businesses?  For example, there are lots of restaurants for sale ... there are lots of retail stores for sale.  Why is your store or your restaurant the one that he should buy?  Does it have unusually high profit margins?  Are the customers really very loyal and come back often?  Are your operating costs really quite low?  Are you the only one in town selling 12-grain bagels?  Why .... ?
 
You can't promote the sale of your business solely with a low price.  Why should a Buyer pay $20,000 for a business that only makes $1,000 a year (over and above the owner's working salary)?  Better for him to buy a similar business for more, for say $35,000, where there's already a paid manager on salary, and it returns $15,000 a year in profits to him.
 
You started this business because you originally saw a need.  It's that need, and that profitable market that you should be elaborating on to persuade the Buyer that this is the business for him to buy - at the fair price that you're asking for it.
 
Ask yourself the question: "Why would I want to buy this business?"; then put your answers into the ad descriptions.
 

To enter a NEW Canadian "Business-for-Sale" ad, you can start at: www.BusinessSellCanada.com/sale/selnew.htm
-or- if your ad has already been entered on the site, then you can start to edit it at: www.BusinessSellCanada.com/sale/selserv.htm
 
There are lists and descriptive paragraphs for: "Included", "Excluded" and "Optional/Extra".  There are paragraphs for "Features", "Financial" and "Market/Competition".  A good and effective ad says something appropriate in each of these text entry locations.
 
........ All the best with the sale of your business ........

This Article is copyright © 2016 by Mike Merritt
Business Sell Canada (https://www.BusinessSellCanada.com)

DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed business broker so I cannot legally give you advice on your sale.  What's written above is based on my personal experiences ... which you're welcome to consider in preparing for the sale of your business - but you should not take it as professional or legal advice.

 
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