Selling Your Online Business

Selling your site is an exit strategy. However, sometimes selling your site is the only way to grow it. You may be tired, your finances are exhausted, and you are looking for a way out. Perhaps you realize that your site has great potential and that you lack the experience and knowledge to make it happen.
You may also have a limited period of opportunity, or you may not have the resources to expand your site within that optimal time frame.
Keep in mind that making a plan to identify a buyer is very different from someone calling you unexpectedly with an offer. If selling is your strategy, it can take up to six months to a year to set up your business. If you have a smaller site, or are lax with the management system commitment, you only need a few months to clean up your organizational work.
Depending on the asking price and the current market, finding the right buyer can take another year (or more). This time frame is where you see the difference between selling as an exit plan and selling as a growth strategy. When expanding by selling is your goal, finding the right buyer match is critical. A professional broker can help you identify key characteristics.
In general, you want to look for someone with these characteristics:
>>> Shared vision for your site
>>> Experience in taking a company beyond the start-up phase or beyond early growth years
>>> Industry peers who can prove its reputation and skills
>>> Verifiable liquid assets and net worth of business investment beyond the purchase price
You can find a reputable business broker through BizBuySell. The site has a free, searchable database broken down by state.

You don’t have to work with a professional to sell your site. However, a broker often has extensive contacts of potential buyers and can speed up the selling process. Regardless, selling your site might be the ideal opportunity for you.
Following are the pros of selling your company outright:
>> You receive a potentially large chunk of change for all your hard work.
>> The burden of growth is removed.

> You can try something else.

Here are the cons of selling your company outright:
>> If you stay with the company, you lose control.
>> If you leave outright, you have to start a new business from scratch, find a job, or retire.
>> You have no guarantee that the buyer will succeed in growing the site.
>> Because payment terms might be spread out, realizing the full sale price can take a while.
>> The buyer may require you to sign a noncompete clause, which means you cannot compete with the buyer by starting another business in the same industry for many years. Given that your experience is heavily tied to the company you just sold, this could limit your opportunities in the future.
>> The business could go under before you collect all your money, leaving the site wiped out and you fighting in court for restitution.