How To Sell Your Business Quickly, No Matter Your Profits [Free Checklist Included]
These are all the steps you need to follow if you want to sell your business quickly.
FlowFi
Accounting Specialist
Time kills deals. That’s one of the first things any broker will tell you in a consultation.
That means that if you are thinking of selling your business - especially if you are nervous about how much you can sell it for - you need to do two things:
Try to get it onto the market as fast as possible and
Make it so buyers can assess it as quickly as possible.
At FlowFi, we connect business owners looking to sell their businesses with accountants to help them clean up their books. Often, we do this on behalf of business brokerages we partner with.
Through our work, we get an intimate view of what businesses need to put together to sell. Below are all the steps you need to follow to get a sale quickly, listed in order of time needed and difficulty.
At the end, we’ve also included a free checklist where we break down the whole process simply with links to some of our favorite free online selling resources.
Step One: Clean Up All Financials, Get Yourself Out of the Business
These are step one because they are the most important, and they will take the most time to complete.
Any savvy buyer is going to want three years of clean financials, or as many as possible, to make sure that you are making as much money as you say you are.
If your books aren’t adding up, you need to find an accountant specialized in historic bookkeeping or catch up/clean up bookkeeping to help you correct anything out of order.
The second greatest ROI move a founder can do is remove themselves from the business. That means making sure the business runs without you.
Here’s a simple test to know if you’re too mixed up in your business:
You can never step away without the business collapsing.
All clients have a personal relationship with you more than your product.
Your personal social media accounts are a prime marketing channel.
Aspects of the business are tied to you personally and cannot be transferred.
You need to immediately start changing as many of these as possible. Any combination will tank a valuation to an experienced buyer because they’ll immediately see that one of the biggest assets is yourself. If you’re not willing to come with the business, they won’t be interested.
How to get yourself out of the business:
Hire people to do your job – Break down what you do and figure out which parts can be taught to other people. Some functions likely can even be pushed to your current team, whereas others might need a manager.
Transfer organic traffic from your social media – If all of your marketing comes through personal channels, you need to diversify. Create brand accounts and try to direct traffic from your personal account to those accounts. For example, you could make a brand newsletter and link to it from all of your LinkedIn posts.
Stop spearheading client interactions – Maybe most of your clients genuinely have come from personal relationships; that’s fine. While you’re still running the business, try to gradually phase out interactions with clients to other team members. If the relationship holds, it’s much more sellable.
This is something where you don’t want to just cross your fingers and hope the buyer overlooks it. If a seller believes you materially misled them about your necessity to the business, these types of situations can turn into lawsuits.
Step Two: Get a Valuation, Put Your Legal Docs in Order
Once you’ve got these processes in motion, you’ll want to figure out a basic valuation for your business. There are many different ways to value businesses, and most depend on size and industry.
For example, restaurants often are evaluated by either 40% of yearly gross sales or 3x yearly profits plus owner discretionary income.
An agency, however, may be evaluated based on .05x to 7x yearly revenue.
We’ve included a couple of handy valuation tools you can check out in our downloadable guide below.
What's the simplest way to value a business?
The easiest way to evaluate a base valuation for your business is to:
Calculate the asset value of your equipment, domains, social media accounts, leases, etc. This is the minimum amount you should sell your business for. For unprofitable businesses without investor valuations, this is normally the price point you’ll need to look at.
If profitable, multiply yearly sales by an industry multiplier. These days, forums like Reddit have a lot of discussions about valuation multiples you can compare with.
How much should I pay for a business valuation?
Business valuations from professionals can start at $1,500 and get all the way up to $50,000+ for an ironclad valuation for something like a court proceeding. Generally, the larger your business is, the more likely you’ll want to pay more for an accurate valuation. A mistake can cost you thousands on signing day.
If you have a small business, your most important valuation tool is your yearly EBITDA and profits. These are usually enough to come up with a good working multiple.
What legal documents do you need to sell a business?
As you get your valuation figured out, you’ll need to draft up all the legal documents for your sale, including:
NDAs - Non-disclosure agreements. Generally, you’ll want one of these in place before sharing details like your business name with a buyer. This is so you have legal recourse if the buyer leaks your sale or uses internal data to create a competitor.
CIMs – These are in-depth summaries of your business operations generally handed off to interested buyers who have already signed an NDA.
And whether you’ll want to sell the business as a stock or asset sale – Stock sale means selling the entire business legal entity, where asset just means selling things like the location or the web domain.
Step Three: Create a Data Room, Talk to Experts
Now that you have all the most important parts taken care of, there are still a few short steps left to get your sales rolling in record time.
The first is creating a Data Room. Your goal is that anytime a buyer has a question, they can find the related tab in your data room and answer it. That gives you more power to push for the sale to close on your schedule rather than theirs. You want as little back and forth as possible, as that adds time which, as we mentioned earlier, kills deals.
If you’re making a larger sale, this is one of the best times to begin contacting a business broker.
If you have all of this stuff in place, a broker will be able to skip the normal preliminary steps and get you straight to sale. And while you don’t have to go through a broker, they often have access to a larger network of buyers, and many take most of their pay from a percentage of your sale price, so they pay for themselves.
Step Four: Learn the Sale Process
A competent broker can teach you best practices for selling your business quickly. However, we can give you some general tips here:
Have all of your data ready.
Try to get your business in front of as many buyers as possible. This can be either through multiple brokers or using marketplaces like Acquire.com.
Be ready to drop the price to generate interest; it can result in a bidding war.
Keep your valuations within reason. If there is a number you need to hit or you won't sell, then it is likely the process will not move quickly.
Create a process for vetting truly interested buyers. Once a buyer sends a letter of intent that you accept, you technically aren’t allowed to entertain other buyers until that buyer is refused.
Once you start talking to buyers:
Be as responsive as possible – If buyers ask for documents or info, try to get it to them in the same hour. You want to make sure that the holdup is never you.
Get buyers on the phone as fast as possible – A serious buyer will not mind getting on a call with you, and it can help you check out their vibes as quickly as possible.
Create a questionnaire for buyers – this will help you decide how serious they are; send it to any interested party immediately.
If interest seems to be dropping off, try dropping your asking price slightly and immediately notify all potential buyers of the price drop.
How to sell your business quickly without a broker
In the internet age, we are fortunate enough to have a myriad of options to sell our businesses online without using a brokerage. However, brokerages offer three things that are hard to replace:
Networks of interested buyers
Escrow
Legal scrutiny
If you can find something to replace all three of these, then you can sell your business without outside help.
Get a Free Business Sale Checklist With Links to Free Online Resources
We’ve thrown together a checklist you can use to track your progress along with a list of online resources like free valuation calculators and legal document generators.
Drop your email below and we’ll send you a copy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Preparing to exit your business raises plenty of questions. Wondering about timing, valuation, or how to handle your team? You’re not alone. Let’s dive into some common questions business owners ask when planning their exit, giving you clear, actionable answers to move forward confidently.
How early should I start preparing my business for exit?
Starting early—ideally 2 to 3 years before your planned exit—gives you time to clean up finances, strengthen operations, and build value. Early prep avoids rushed decisions and helps maximize your business’s worth.
What documents are essential to have ready for an exit?
Key documents include 2-3 years of GAAP-compliant financial statements, a detailed organizational chart, customer and vendor contracts, tax filings, and your forecast model with clear assumptions. These build buyer trust and speed up due diligence.
How can I make my business more attractive to buyers?
Focus on steady revenue growth, strong customer contracts, diversified income streams, and solid management teams. Address risks upfront and ensure your financials are spotless—buyers want confidence in the business they’re acquiring.
What are “add-backs” and why do they matter?
Add-backs adjust profits by removing one-time or owner-related expenses, showing a truer picture of ongoing earnings. This helps buyers see the business’s real profitability and canboost your valuation.
How do I handle employee transitions during an exit?
Communicate early and clearly with your team. Identify successors or key hires to ensure business continuity. Involving employees reduces uncertainty and helps maintain stability through ownership changes.
