Internet Marketing | Lead Generation

I have had some interesting responses and emails about my recent articles.

I am delighted that so many found the postings interesting. For all the positive feedback, please be aware, I am only relating personal experience, you may or may not do better in your own deals. Lets hope better

See the previous postings at:

Buying and selling a website or web business, how the deal is structured AND

Tips for selling a portfolio of profitable websites

One interesting response, which I was almost going to dismiss initially (because I thought it a bit odd that you could be selling a business, but not able to pay the fees) really caught my eye on a second look.

What would you say to a seller who wants to sell his sites and business,
but has absolutely no cash for a lawyer, and an accountant?

An interesting question.

Now, first off realise that if you are hoping to sell a website or business using accountants and layers, and you hope to sell for a
significant sum, then it will almost certainly mean that the business has to be making profits, otherwise, why would you be asking for a “significant sum”

And if you are making a good profit, then why should it be a problem finding the lawyers / accountants fees?

Of course, as with everything, there can be exceptions, for example, if you had built up a website with a unique backend (software) and had invested a lot of money in this and the site had POTENTIAL, but no profits yet, some buyers / investors will pay you for the “idea” and the software development.

But speaking personally, if I was in this position, I don’t think I would be trying to sell my business, I would be looking for Venture Capital and if that is your situation and you really do believe in your “baby” than I would not consider selling until you had first went the VC route.

But coming back to the original question, and forgetting about any of my assumptions above, it is still always possible to do a “deal”, even with lawyers and accountants. Indeed my own Lawyer for example made me a “win (sell) , pay a higher fee or lose, pay almost no fee” type offer when selling my business, and while it was tempting, I did in the end, opt to just pay him a straight fee. This I suppose, for me was good as we did eventually do the DEAL (win). As with everything in life, you don’t know, until you ask - so you could consider approaching accountants / lawyers on a NO SALE / NO FEE basis.

However, this would not be an approach I would personally encourage and I would warn that this could be quite a waste of energy and frankly if the Layers and Accountants are willing to work on this basis, then it is a sign that you have a pretty decent business. And on the other hand, they will not work on this basis, perhaps it says something else? Plus, I’m sure a good number of lawyers and accountants will not even entertain the idea.

There is also, one more alternative - and that is to make an agreement with the buyers, that they will pay ALL fees (both buyers and sellers) but this will become very messy and can create quite a lot of issues, so again not something I recommend, just pointing out that it is another alternative. When selling a business it is important that you receive your own independent advice - not only from an independent lawyer and accountant, but also from Tax professionals.

Good Luck with your sale