Sell a Company Niche Market Guides
Selling a Lebanese Restaurant
Maybe you're counting on your Lebanese restaurant to be a stepping stone to your next big business venture. Maybe it's your retirement fund. Either way, you need to maximize the price it gets in the business-for-sale marketplace.
You won't find any magic formulas for selling a Lebanese restaurant, especially while the market is struggling to overcome the perceptions created by a down economy.
Most Lebanese restaurants are good business opportunities, a fact that is not going unnoticed by today's discerning buyers.
Are You the Right Person to Sell Your Business?
An unassisted business sale is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, no one knows your business better than you do. When it comes to earnings potential, asset condition, and other considerations, you are the world's leading expert on your company. But your knowledge and personal insights about the Lebanese restaurant are also the problem. Nearly all sellers have an inflated sense of their company's value. So in many cases, the introduction of third-party opinions regarding value and negotiation parameters is a fundamental requirement for a successful Lebanese restaurant sale.
Buyer Concessions
Sellers aren't the only ones who can make concessions in a business sale. In many instances, sellers can request buyer concessions. Although this scenario frequently plays out around seller financed deals, it's possible to push for a higher sales price or other form of compensation if you agree to mentor the buyer for a specified period of time. Asset exclusions, retained ownership shares and long-term contracts with another of the seller's companies can also be leveraged to extract concessions from buyers.
What About Market Conditions?
No one plans to sell a Lebanese restaurant in a down economy. So far, government intervention and promises that the economy is slowly recovering haven't been enough to alleviate many entrepreneur's fears. However, many business sellers don't realize that a full economic rebound can have devastating consequences, particularly if sellers who have waited to list their businesses suddenly create a glut in the business-for-sale marketplace. So what's our point? The economy isn't the most important factor in the sale of your business. Instead, you should be focusing on making your Lebanese restaurant as attractive as possible so to buyers right now.
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