Dressing Your Business For Sale

18/12/2008 by info.

Both retailers and restaurant owners know that people buy with their eyes; retailers spend thousands ensuring that their visual merchandising - such as window displays - are dressed to invite buyers into the shop. Good restaurateurs also spend time ensuring that a meal is plated properly so it looks appetizing. If it looks good, you know it tastes good.

The same principle applies when selling a business; first impressions count. Yet so many business sellers do nothing to ensure that their business is presented properly, spending time and money to groom business, ensuring that when a potential buyer first sees the business, it looks its best

As about 60% of people (and therefore potential buyers) are visual learners (they learn predominantly with their eyes), a seller of a business that hasn’t visually groomed their business is effectively alienating the majority of potential buyers before they even speak to them. These buyers prefer to SEE how to do things, rather than just talk about them. If they don’t see that a business is worth the asking price, any amount of talking later on won’t make any difference whatsoever. In fact, they probably won’t speak to them at all, because the buyer will be looking for something else.

So if you are struggling to sell your business at the moment, perhaps you might ask the following questions:

1. Are you showing enough visual information to a potential buyer? Can they see photographs, video or virtual tours of your premises?

2. If you are showing visual information to potential buyers, do these images help the sale of your business, or hinder it?

To get the best price for your business, or to sell at all, you might need to remember a basic rule - and invest in a little money to ensure that your business is appetising to the eye.

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