Selling A Business: Pre Due-Diligence & Educating The Owner

It's time to revaluate why some of my listings have not sold to this point.

I've had some listing that never even make it the gate and then I have some
listings that die in the stretch. What can you do about a listing that doesn't show well? I'm not talking an extreme business makeover. Reducing the price is always a good option but in some cases I know it's the books. They just don't make sense. Bad accounting? Maybe they assume everyone just wants to hear inflated numbers.

The problem I've noticed with that is, if a buyer catches one thing wrong in the books that looks a little off to him, then he doubts the whole thing. The problem is the seller believes that he knows what the people want to hear so he starts spinning his bull and then he kills the deal because no one is believing him.

It's hard to get the seller to see that this is a bad idea even when you point it out repeatedly.

Ah...the challenges of being a business broker!