Renegade Personal Development | Internet Marketing

Some Tips for selling an above average portfolio of websites (a web business) - that has sites making significant yearly profits over a period of time.

When buying and selling “lower division” websites valuations of 6 - 10 times monthly income are currently considered fairly normal. However, when it comes to selling a High Profit Web Business - especially one that is uniquely positioned in the market place, then it is an entirely different kind of game - and significant valuations - based on a multiple of yearly profits is possible. When I refer to high profit web sites - I mean sites making net profits of in excess of $250,000 PA

Firstly if you are selling this kind of the business - the following is I believe essential:

A Non-compete ( and NDA) is essential, simply because you will have to reveal a lot of intimate data about your business and your strategies in order to get a firm offer. The buyers and their team of professional advisors will ask you questions you could never even imagine in my experience. There is no point in hiding anything because sooner or later as the sale progresses you will need to REVEAL even more information and I dare say give some warranties about what you have claimed / said. (i.e. they can claim back from you the seller, if at a later date they can prove that something you said was not true or that you neglected to let them have appropriate information).

This process is usually referred to as DISCLOSURES - and if you leave anything out, there will be problems later. When I sold a business recently, I ended up disclosing things that may not really have needed to be disclosed, on the basis, that if I disclose it now, the buyers cannot at a later date come back and say I failed to tell them.

In the DUE DILIGENCE - You will be asked for details of any current or past litigation you may have been involved in? Details of bad debts, Details of employee’s contracts, details of sub-contractors contracts - the list will go on and on. (For a professionally run business - It is not really a big deal any of these)

In my experience, you will get more money for the business, the better and cleaner your systems are. Basically everything about your business should be documented. Imagine you got run over by a bus tomorrow - and someone had to pick up the pieces after you had gone, would they be able to that?

If a business owner does not have all of this covered at present - then I would suggest they put sometime aside ASAP to concentrate on it. One day, when you do eventually sell - you will need this documentation and of course it will give the potential buyers more confidence in your business if they can see you have this information.

Finally, selling a company costs money - and it will often cost you money, even if you don’t sell. When I sold my company, the professional fees exceeded $60,000 - and in the UK the owner / shareholder personally pays this money, not the company.

Having said all this - if you are looking at these sums of money - either as a buyer or a seller - my main advice would be to get a Business Attorney / Lawyer onboard and advising ASAP.

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I am afraid that I must now state the following:

BARRY DUNLOP DOES NOT GIVE LEGAL OPINIONS

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