The decision to sell your company is challenging. You have invested years or decades painstakingly building your business and have made countless sacrifices along the way. It’s an emotional determination that should not be taken lightly.

Should I sell my business, or should I double down? As a successful entrepreneur, you have learned to temper your optimism with realism. But what should prevail now — your optimism or realism?

Your exit strategy should begin with a valuation, or appraisal, of your company. The process of valuing your company involves three steps, the first being an assessment of the current value of your business.

Making the decision to sell your business is one of the most important choices that you will have to make as a business owner. Selling prematurely can lead to unexpected surprises in due diligence, lower valuation by prospective buyers, and even an inability to close the sale.

Preparation makes execution look effortless. Considering that the sale of your business will likely be the largest sale you will ever make in business, it is foolish to neglect preparation.

Concentrations of risk can have a significantly negative effect on the value of your business. The value of a business, or any financial asset, is a function of the relationship between potential return and risk. The higher the risk, the lower the value. The higher the return, the higher the value.

If you want to sell your business for the most money possible, you should institutionalize it so it can be run without you. This article tells you how.

The RVD Model helps you determine those action steps that will have the greatest impact on the value of your business in the shortest period of time and which also pose the lowest risks to implement.

This article offers tips on when to use a non-solicitation agreement and confidentiality agreement and specific advice for using each tool to help protect the value of your business.

Should I tell my employees about the plans to sell my business? There are no hard-and-fast rules regarding when you should tell your employees about your plans to sell your business.

Deciding to pay off your equipment lease before selling your business is primarily a mathematical decision with one unknown variable: the multiple.

As a general rule, you should not invest in new equipment or other hard assets when you are in the process of selling your business unless it immediately increases your SDE (seller’s discretionary earnings) or EBITDA.

A Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is a professionally prepared summary of your business that is presented to prescreened buyers who are interested in purchasing your business.

To enhance the value of your company, you must position it in the best light. Clearly organized and reconstructed financial statements can maximize the value of your business in the eyes of potential buyers.