Like selling a house, selling your beauty salon business can be a stressful and lengthy experience. The good news is there is a standardized way of getting it done, hopefully attracting the right potential buyers and securing a deal that isn’t that far off from your asking price.
- Get Your Business Ready to Sell
The first step is to increase the reasons why someone will want to purchase your business in the first place. This means tying up loose ends, for example, getting your accounts up to date, lowering your personal expenses, doing up your salon and settling any outstanding disputes you may have.
- You may at this time want to talk to a professional that specialises in selling businesses so you ensure you tick all the right boxes.
- Timing can also be important when it comes to selling a business so make sure you are putting it on the market at the optimal time when you know there are buyers out there.
- Create a Market Sales Page
This should be no more than a one-page teaser about the sale of your business and should include details about your salon, it’s potential for development, where it is located and why you are selling. It needs to be engaging and written simply.
Try to think of it from the potential buyer’s point of view and what sort of information is likely to engage them.
- Marketing the Sale of Your Beauty Salon
The next step is to choose where you are going to advertise the sale. It is important to get your ‘for sale’ sign out in front of as many people as possible so a mixed marketing approach may be needed.
There are several business-selling websites online which are useful but you can use approaches such as social media, advertising in local publications such as newspapers (both hardcopy and online), and making use of local networks to spread the word of your salon sale.
- Talking to Buyers
It is essential to reach out and contact buyers if they contact you and to do this as soon as possible. They may, for instance, be approaching several businesses and delay can mean they lose interest in your beauty salon.
You will want to ask some serious questions of the buyer such as what they intend to do with your salon and whether they are going to keep your existing staff on board. You must match your buyer with what you want to happen to the business.
- Information Memorandum
Serious buyers will often ask for this. An Information Memorandum is a more detailed account of your beauty salon business, generally an expanded version of your original one-page teaser above.
It is a good selling approach to include what you think the potential is for the future of the business.
- Patience is a Virtue
Once you start getting offers for your business, the work doesn’t stop there. Deals can and probably will fall through so you will need a good amount of patience. The big decisions are going to be around whether you have the right fit buyer for your business (and if they are serious) and whether they can meet or come close to your asking price.
- Creating a Heads of Terms Document
This is not legally binding, but it does set down the terms of the sale so that everyone involved understands what will happen next and the price that is being asked for the business.
Once this is agreed by both sides, the buyer will want to do their due diligence which includes digging deeper into your business and checking the accounts.
Finally, if everything works out and the buyer wants to proceed, you will need a solicitor to handle the sale and purchase and produce the appropriate legal documentation.