Buying a Small Business in the UK - A Quick Reference Guide

12% of Business Sell Who Go It Alone on Internet Sites - Another important statistic is that business owners who attempt to sell their business on their own through Internet sites are only successful about 12% of the time. 80%+ of Buyers Who Attempt to Buy Business Never End Up Buying One - There are many reasons for this which are covered throughout this book. As we have discussed, one of the main reasons is that the people attempting to buy a business are really not the right people to run businesses which results in multiple failure points during the process. 60% - 80% of Businesses That Go Up for Sell, Don't Sell - This is a statistic that is often quoted by business brokerage firms and probably has some truth to it. However, the statistic is skewed by High Street businesses (fast food, beauty etc.) that are often harder to sell. Also, often a Seller will put the business on the market and withdraw it if they can't get enough money or for personal reasons. But it makes the point…many businesses don't sell. For those good, profitable businesses with solid books and processes that do want to sell, the main reason they don’t sell is a) lack of a sophisticated Buyer outreach program and b) lack of good process management during the due diligence/contract phase as above. (Fortunately, a good M&A Advisor can mitigate both of these issues). Less than 50% of Businesses Sold Actually Deliver the Value Expected at the Time of Sale - This is a difficult statistic given how hard it is actually to get to a close. Upon further examination, the majority of the time this is caused by the failure to evaluate (and care about) a good cultural fit from the onset. Often business Buyers focus on spreadsheets, strategy and philosophy and forget they are buying a group of people that need to be integrated into another group of people and if this doesn't work many will leave and be less motivated…delivering a poor post-sale result.

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