A guest blog post from Roo Wright

Regardless of industry or size, there is nothing simple about selling a business. However, if you take the right approach, you can be confident that the decisions you make in every stage of the process will steer you toward the most profitable outcome.

There are a lot of factors that come into play when selling an affiliate business. While you may know your company and its financials inside and out, you can still expect to deal with a number of challenges along the way.

Here are five things you must know before selling your affiliate business.

1. Buyers Aren’t Interested in Potential

When it comes time to sell your business, prospective buyers will focus on hard data. They will spend most of their time reviewing the past financial records of your business, as well as the current state of the company.

You can talk as much as you want about the potential of your company, but talk alone will not make a buyer move forward. Demonstrating potential is always beneficial, but don’t expect promises that are not based on hard numbers to fetch you a higher sales price.

2. It’s All About Profit

If you have spent any time as an affiliate, you know one thing to be true: expenses have a way of adding up very quickly.

As such, buyers are not impressed very much in revenue figures. Instead, they focus their time and attention on profit.

If you have $50,000 in revenue but $45,000 in expenses, don’t expect many people to be interested in your business.

3. Be Ready to Back-Up Financial Claims

Simply put, don’t make a financial claim unless you can back it up. Buyers don’t want to “take your word for it”. This is especially important for points 1 and 2: proving that you meet the criteria of your potential buyer is possibly the most important part of the sale.

When you have verifiable proof, it will go a long way in giving you credibility, and can help eliminate any doubts your buyer may have had about other aspects of your programme.

4. Don’t Focus on the Distant Past

The affiliate business is always changing. What worked yesterday may not work today, and what works today may not work in the future.

Buyers are most interested in recent performance, typically the last 12 months. There is nothing wrong with supplying long-term financials, but beyond proving the stability of your business, don’t focus too much attention on the numbers from past years.

5. Questions Are Coming Your Way

Here is some advice: don’t sell your affiliate business unless you are 100 percent ready to answer many, many questions. While this process can be frustrating and feel invasive – especially if a prospective buyer is questioning the integrity of the business you put so much time into building – it is an important part of the process that ensures that both you and your buyer are entering into a mutually beneficial deal.

Final Word

Along with the above points, make sure you have a plan for yourself and your future business ventures once your affiliate business is sold. It’s nice to anticipate a big payday from the sale, but make sure you have answered the following two questions before you sell:

• Are you ready to take on a new project?
• Are you okay with the fact that you are losing regular income?

If you keep the above considerations in mind, you will be in the best position to decide if selling your affiliate business is the right decision for you.

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About The Author

Roo Wright has created many successful affiliate bingo sites and his latest site hityah.com is a good example of how to implement both SEO and user-friendly site navigation.