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Selling a Legal Aid Business

It's a misconception that no one is buying legal aid businesses these days. Savvy entrepreneurs see legal aid business opportunities as a path to short-term profits and long-term growth. There aren't any guarantees, but if you adhere to fundamental business sale concepts, you can likely get a good price for your business.

You won't find any magic formulas for selling a legal aid business, especially while the market is struggling to overcome the perceptions created by a down economy.

Market timing is a constantly moving target. Knowledgeable entrepreneurs understand that market timing isn't nearly as important as other factors in a legal aid business sale. The key is to go into the sale with your eyes open and with complete awareness of market condition.

Tapping Into Business Networks

Today's legal aid business buyers can be found in a variety of locations. Online business-for-sale databases like BizBuySell.com offer convenient resources for sellers interested in promoting their business to a broad prospect base. For more targeted lead generation, consider tapping into your network of industry contacts. When leveraging industry relationships for sales prospects, you'll need to be cognizant of the potential for competitors to use knowledge of your sale against you in the marketplace. Use good sense in restricting the flow of information within the industry and focusing your efforts toward trusted industry allies.

Seller Financing

Capital is hard to come by these days. Thanks to more stringent commercial lending requirements, sellers have become de facto lenders, providing the financing buyers need to get their feet in the door. It's common for sellers to finance as much as 70% of the purchase price with a payoff period of four or five years, sometimes in the form of a balloon payment at the end of the repayment period.

Pre-Sale Checklist

There is a lot of work that needs to be done before you're ready to sell your legal aid business. Perhaps the most important pre-sale consideration is to right-size your expectations to the realities of the market. Once your expectations are in the ballpark, you can move on to making your business presentable to prospective buyers.

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