Sell a Business Tips

Selling a School

Looking for shortcuts? You won't find them when you sell a school. In this industry, a business sale takes time, effort and dedication. But with a few tips, you can keep your shirt and your sanity in the sale of your business.

Most entrepreneurs have the skills and stamina to endure and prosper during the sale ofa school.

There is no simple way to sell a business. But the most prepared school sellers are achieving fair market value and more for their companies through persistence and the application of sound selling techniques.

Sale Documents

In a school sale, the Letter of Intent contains the vital elements of the deal between the buyer and the seller . If you are seeking buyer concessions, the time to address them is before the Letter of Intent is drafted. For sellers, that makes a close review of the Letter of Intent more than a formality - it's a critical juncture on the path to closing.

Average Timeframes

It's rarely possible to sell a school in a month or two. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules about the length of time your business will be on the market. Pricing plays a role in sale length, but there are no guarantees that a fairly priced business will sell quickly. Before you can list your school, you'll need to invest as much as a year in preparing it for prospective buyers. Even though it's conceivable that an attractive opportunity could sell in weeks, an immediate flood of offers could indicate that the business is underpriced.

Valuation Methods

Professional appraisers can use three methods to determine the value ofa school: The income method, the asset method and the market method. Appraisals based on the asset method gauge value as a factor of the company's real property and non-tangible assets; appraisals based on the income method consider the business's anticipated revenue. In many sales, the most accurate valuation comes from the market method which determines value based on the recent sales of similar businesses. All three methods have multiple variations and it's not uncommon for appraisers to use a combination of the three to determine the value of your business. To drive up your sale price, position your school by improving variables like assets, revenue and profitability during the years leading up to a sale.

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