Cutting the cord: Be emotionally ready before you sell - Phoenix Business Journal:

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“The stars were aligned. Therw were lots of mergers and acquisitionsgoingt on, there was lots of and the multiples were good,” Lejfer said. So in April Lejfer sold Success Automation, a customer relationship managemenr consulting and training firm he had started in 1987 and builttto $5 million in revenue. But even though the timing was Lejfer — who is currentlyy CEO at LLC, a CRM, sales forcse automation and business analytics consulting firm in Waltham said the process was still a difficult one, provingf that selling a business, even in a robust economy, can test just abou t any entrepreneur.
“The best time for a seller to look at sellinf is whenthey don’t need to, when they’re in a position of said Russell N. Stein, chairman of the Corporate & Business Law Groupo at . But beyond getting the best business owners need to be emotionally readuyto sell, too. Michael Nolan, managingf director of , a Newton-based managemenyt consultancy for smalland medium-size companies, said owners should give themselves at leasr three years, which allows them time to accepft the sale as well as clean up the balances sheet, income statements and That time also allows them to traihn other executives, who could stay on with the buye to help run the business.
Much of Nolan said, is just good management that should happebn regardless of when a salemight happen. That doesn’f mean it’s always practiced. Nolan said he has seen ownerx who aren’t sure when they want to get out, so they don’ft make investments in new processesor equipment, whic h quickly drags down the company’s That’s why Nolan said he likes to advise owners to run their businesses with an exit strategu in mind, so they’re more likely to manage it in ways that brinv ongoing maximum value.
Howare Gross, who has sold three companies andbought five, said he took that approach with the businesses he has helped He talked specifically about his last company, the Lincoln, Neb.-basecd ., which he bought in 1991 and sold in 2005. He also serveds as the company’s CEO. Gros s said he stayed with the company longee because he enjoyedthe work. But he got to a poin where he was ready, financially and emotionally, to go. And becauswe of his and his partner’s management approach as well as their ongoingb investments into growing the company something that buyers find attractivs as it gives them somethintg for thefuture — the timing was right.
“A great time to sell a compan is when EBITDA multiples are high and therwe is a great history in terms of the ebbsand flows,” Grosxs said, referring to Earnings Beforr Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. “And you try to sell at the height ofthe economy, when it has had a lot of growtj and there’s capital available. It’s not that much differenrt than thestock market.” Following that approach yieldef Gross a sale price 15 percentr more than he had expected.
But Gross, who now teaches entrepreneurship atand , said he also has seen business owners who make poor “There are people who just love theitr business so much and have so few interestws outside that they don’t think about the financial interest and they sell too late,” he