Selling Pamphlet

                                                     Selling Pamphlet

This is a selling document that tells prospective buyers almost everything they need to know about your business to make a purchase decision. The selling pamphlet can be anywhere from 15 to 250 pages long, depending on the size and complexity of the business.

Why: You might need to meet, qualify, and tell your story to 40 prospects before finding a buyer.

Creating a good selling pamphlet is the most important action you can take to sell your business after pricing it properly. It allows you to advertise your business for sale and provide sufficient information for prospects to determine whether they have any further interest. You get to control their first look at your business in a manner that can present it in the most flattering and attractive light possible. Additionally, the pamphlet is an easy way to give each prospective buyer information that would require many hours of meetings and conversation to convey verbally and yet be far less effective. This process costs very little, yet allows you to solicit many more buyers and may create a bidding war for your business. Ideally, you will have two versions of this document: the full selling pamphlet and a scaled-down version called the skeletal pamphlet.

You should give the selling pamphlet to the prospect only after he or she has signed a confidentiality agreement and completed a disclosure so you know who is getting this information. Absolutely confidential pieces of information such as supplier names, customer lists, pricing matrices, and financial records are not provided until there is a firm and quantifiable expressed interest.

I cannot stress the importance of this document enough. The selling pamphlet is the foundation on which the buyer will decide whether to buy and what price to pay. When I prepare this document, the questions I review with the owner can create a document with over 200 pages; it answers many questions that prospective buyers wouldn’t normally think of. The desired result is to leave the buyer with the sense that nothing is hidden or left out. After reviewing this document, the buyer will know whether he or she wants to buy the business, subject to the disclosure of the price.

The selling price is never included in this document. 

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