A recent piece in SmartCompany makes the point that buyers have higher standards than they used to. Most businesses can find a buyer. The harder question is matching the right one to the right business, and that’s where a good broker earns the fee.
The article itself
A piece in SmartCompany this week, written by Rebel Wylie, draws on two advisers who work with sellers every week. The signals they describe are useful. The advisers quoted, James Frank at Frank Law and David Caruso at OnlineBusiness Market, agree that buyers now want clean financials, low key person risk, and businesses that run on systems rather than the founder’s sixty hour week. As Caruso put it, buyers have stopped paying for stories: they want clean financials and revenue they can verify themselves, in a business that runs on systems rather than the founder’s sweat. Reserve Bank of Australia research backs the demand side up, showing profitable, medium sized businesses are the most likely acquisition targets. The buyers are there. The harder question is matching the right one to the right business.
Where we add to it
What we do at Finn Business Sales is the part the article doesn’t really cover, and it’s where most of the value sits. We find the buyer who fits the business as it stands today, and we run the process to get them to the table. Most businesses have a buyer. Our job is to find them. A profitable café in Geelong is a different sale from a profitable café in the Perth CBD, and a broker’s value is in knowing which buyer pool is the right one, and how to reach them without the staff, customers and competitors finding out first. The mechanics of the process are usually what moves a sale from sitting to closing: a confidential approach to qualified buyers, screening them properly so you’re not wasting time on tyre kickers, and a competitive tension between serious buyers that produces a real price. After more than twenty years at Finn Business Sales, that’s where the work goes.
What to do about it
So if selling your business is anywhere on the radar, even a year or two out, there’s a real case for getting ahead of the curve. Here’s what I’d suggest:
- Get your financials in order. Clean books, current and reconcilable. What buyers due diligence needs to see is verifiable numbers, and a quick verification usually beats a long one.
- Spread your customer base where you can. A business with one big client and a handful of smaller ones sells faster than one where everything runs through a single relationship.
- Have a clear picture of how someone in your management team could step up, or what is needed so the business could run without you at the wheel. (It might not run as well, but that’s for the new owner to solve, and that’s normal.)
- Pick the right time and process. A confidential sale process, run by a broker who knows the buyer pool, usually beats a public listing. Most owners want it kept under wraps, and that’s completely normal for us.
- Bring a broker in early. Not to fix the business, but to plan the matching, the timing, and the process from the start.
A lot of owners hold back because they’re worried about staff, customers or competitors finding out. That’s exactly what a good broker handles. With more than 600 businesses for sale right now at Finn Business Sales, the businesses that move quickly are the ones where the matching and the process were planned from the start. Have you started thinking about who the right buyer for your business might be, or are you still working on whether it’s ready to sell? Is your business on the right buyer’s radar today, or are you waiting for the question to come up later?
#BusinessForSale #SellingYourBusiness #BusinessBrokers #SaleProcess
Read the original piece here: SmartCompany, 21 July 2026 : https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/selling-your-business-australia-advice/