When is the best time to sell your business? Quite simply...BEFORE the top.

Ideally, you would plan your exit strategy well in advance of going to market, taking into consideration your lifestyle goals, business goals, business valuation, tax implications, and other marketplace realities. It is, after all, possibly your most valuable asset. You've taken good care of it, working weekends and evenings, missing family events and postponing vacations sometimes to build your business. Now it's time to reap more of the rewards of business ownership...selling it.

We've seen many businesses up close, reviewed the financials, heard the stories and met the personalities behind many excellent businesses and many struggling companies as well. The very best selling situations (where value was maximized) have been when owners sold their companies before they reached "the top."

One thing we've come to understand: a business is either getting better, or getting worse, but it's not staying the same.

The market is dynamic: competition pops up, employees quit, key customer contacts move, clients decide to go another direction, natural disasters happen. On the positive side, new products take off, word-of-mouth referrals blossom, margins increase, and e-commerce expands a company's reach. Which set of scenarios would be most attractive to you if you were buying your company?

Too often, business owners approach us 6 to 18 months after their company's sales have dropped 20-30%. Perhaps they've reached a point where they're just done. They're tired, burned out or just ready to move on. Buyers can get a sense of that as well, and it's not as attractive of a proposition at that point. You're going to get less for your business if that's the case. You might need to keep it another 24 months, turn it around and really drive revenue and profitability.if you can, physically and emotionally.