There are three good questions to consider before selling your business.
First, “Do you really want to sell this business?” If you’re really serious about selling and have a solid reason (or reasons) why you want to sell, it will most likely happen.
Second, “Do you have reasonable expectations?” You increase your chances of selling if you can answer “yes” to this second question. This can include your expectations about the selling price, the time it will take to sell your business, and the amount of seller financing you are willing to offer.
Third, “What will you do once your business sells?” The time to consider this is before you place your business on the market. This may seem obvious, but many transactions fall through because the business owner did not consider what he or she would do once the business was sold.
A “yes” answer to the first two questions plus having an answer to the third question (other than “I don’t know”) means you are serious about selling.
