Selling a business takes five players: your CPA, an attorney who does business sales, a wealth advisor, the buyer's lender and several qualified buyers. Someone also has to coordinate all of them and keep the deal moving to closing, and in a business sale that is your advisor.
Owners sometimes assume their CPA or their attorney can handle the whole sale. Each of them is essential, but each one covers a piece. Here is who does what.
Your side of the table
Your CPA. They help you get your books clean and plan for the tax bill well before you sign, not after. The structure of a deal can change what you keep, so you want that conversation early.
An attorney who actually does business sales. Not your general business attorney or a family friend, but someone who regularly handles purchases and sales of companies. That is who protects you in the letter of intent and the purchase agreement, where the terms that matter most get written down.
A wealth advisor. They help you answer the question a lot of owners skip: is the money enough, and what happens to it next? Knowing the number you actually need makes it much easier to judge an offer.
The other side of the table
The buyer's lender. Most buyers plan to use an SBA loan, so what the bank thinks of your business matters just as much as what the buyer thinks. If the lender can't get comfortable with your financials, the deal stalls no matter how much the buyer likes you.
The buyers themselves. You want several qualified buyers, not one tire kicker. Competition gives you options on price and terms, and a backup if the first buyer falls through.
Somebody has to call the plays
That is a lot of people with a lot of opinions, and they don't all want the same thing. The lender wants safety, the buyer wants a good price, your attorney wants protection, and the calendar keeps moving. Somebody has to keep everyone working toward the same closing date.
Timing matters too. The best time to assemble this team is before you go to market, not after an offer shows up. Your CPA needs time to clean up the books, your wealth advisor needs time to work out your number, and your attorney is far more useful reviewing a letter of intent before you sign it than after.
In football, that's the quarterback. In a business sale, that's your advisor: the person who prepares the business, brings qualified buyers to the table, keeps the lender and the attorneys moving, and helps you weigh each decision against what you want out of the sale. I've been a buyer, an owner and a seller myself, and it's the role I take on for owners at Iconic.
If you know an owner who thinks their CPA can handle the entire sale, send them this. And if you want to see how a sale runs from start to finish, here is how I help owners sell a business.
I am not a CPA or attorney. Review tax and legal decisions with yours.
Ready to talk it through? Talk with me about selling. No cost, no obligation.
Read the transcript
You can't sell your business alone. There are five players on the team that shape what you walk away with.
First, your CPA. They help you get your books clean and plan for the tax bill way before you sign, not after.
Then an attorney who actually does business sales. That's who protects you in the letter of intent and the purchase agreement.
Next is a wealth advisor. They help you answer the question a lot of owners skip. Is the money enough, and what happens to it next?
Then there's the buyer's lender. Most buyers plan to use an SBA loan, so what the bank thinks of your business matters just as much as what the buyer thinks.
And finally, the buyers themselves. You want several qualified ones, not just one tire kicker.
That's a lot of people with a lot of opinions. Somebody has to call the plays and keep the deal moving all the way to closing. In football, that's a quarterback. In a business sale, that's your advisor.
If you know an owner who thinks their CPA can handle this entire sale, send this to them.
