5 Mistakes To Avoid When Selling Your Accounting Practice
When you decide to sell your accounting practice, there will be multiple factors to oversee at the same time, such as the day-to-day operations of the firm, marketing the business, meeting with new potential buyers, and of course, managing any transition processes for staff members.
This is a lot to deal with, and it can be very easy to prioritize one task over the others; which can lead to costly mistakes.
When you are selling an accounting practice; there are some key mistakes that need to be avoided, and this article will look at the most common ones.
Don’t Undermine Buyer Confidence
When it comes to accounting practice sales, you need to take the time to collate all the facts and figures that are required for sale while also presenting them in a logical way that is clear and simple to understand. If you do not do this, it will cause any potential buyers to lose confidence in you; and your firm will lose credibility. Indeed, not having all the information presented at the beginning will suggest a poorly run firm; and could even be interpreted as you intending to hide information, none of which will go over well!
Not Being Open
In a similar vein, if you hold back information, this is risky for sale. You can’t assume that because you do not consider a particular aspect of your accounting firm important that your buyers will not. Therefore, you will need to answer any questions relating to the sale of your accounting firm quickly; and thoroughly and have the required data on hand to back up your answer. This will show that you are being open and transparent and will make you appear as a more reliable seller.
Not Seeking Advice
Selling anything in 2022 or 2023 is going to be difficult, especially if it is as large as an accounting firm. So, it is always advisable in the earliest incidents to seek professional advice from a team who have expertise in helping people sell their accounting firms. This will help you to assess the value of your firm and may even potentially lead to you being able to increase the value that you initially had in your mind.
Not Showing Emotion (really!)
It’s a sale. It’s a business transaction, isn’t it? Actually, no.
If you have built your accounting firm from the ground up, you may be surprised at how emotive the selling of it can be, especially if it is a long-term, family-run business.
Always aim to show any emotions you are having when you are consulting with legal teams; as this will prevent you from getting cold feet at the last minute and pulling out of any sales.
Putting Faith In One Buyer
You should never put all of your faith into a single buyer, and you will need to meet with as many credible potential buyers as you possibly can. This is another advantage of having a professional team to oversee the sales; as they can help you speed up these screening processes for buyers who are genuinely interested; and those who are simply asking questions.
