If you aren’t already aware of what I am about to tell you, then reading this book may be one of the best things you’ve done in a very long time. Whether you are a business owner or know someone who is, the odds of succeeding in selling a company is only about one in five. That’s right: 80% of the companies that attempt to sell their businesses actually fail at doing so. As few as 20% of companies that are put on the market ever sell. Performance like that won’t even get you a swing of the bat in the minor leagues.

Why do you think so many business owners fail to sell their companies? Why is it so difficult to be successful at one of the most important events of your life?

Perhaps the most common reason why business owners are unsuccessful in selling their companies is that they fail to properly prepare far enough in advance for an eventual sale. They simply wait too long before they start thinking about selling, consumed instead with the burdens of growing and running their companies and able to easily defer preparing for that sale that will happen sometime down the road. Worry about it later.

Imagine deciding to sell your house today and knowing you have along list of “to do” items you kept putting off, like fixing the roof, painting the house, repairing the downstairs toilet, upgrading the appliances, and so on and so on. How will failing to address those uncompleted tasks affect the price you will ultimately receive? Negatively, most likely. Clearly your company is worth more than your home – and yet, if you are like most business owners, you have delayed getting ready for the eventual sale of your company. Apparently, business owners need to get their house in order.

What I know for a fact is that one day—I do not know exactly when—but one day, you will no longer own your business. Whether it is voluntarily or involuntarily, horizontally or vertically, at some point in the future, you will exit your business–-I think we can all agree on that. So, if we know that day will arrive, sooner or later, doesn’t it make sense to plan for that event?

Failing to properly prepare the business for sale leaves many issues unresolved, things that a buyer will likely discover. Such findings often lead to a lower price, less favorable terms, or the possible termination of your transaction. Getting my clients to embrace what I call the “Seller’s Mindset,” which we will discuss extensively throughout this book, puts them in the optimal position to achieve the number one goal of every buyer: maximizing the value of the business to receive the highest price and best terms possible.

Over the years, I have been involved in numerous merger and acquisition transactions, mostly on the selling side. In some cases, I was brought in as early as eight years prior to the actual sale; for other transactions, the runway was much shorter, with just a few months to prepare the company. My preference is to be engaged by the owners at least three to five years before the planned sale date, giving ample time to identify and address the major issues that could cause an unsuccessful sale. Once we highlight the areas in your business that pose the greatest risk for a sale (such as a drop in profits, that one large customer who is threatening to take her business elsewhere, the outdated CRM software, and many other issues), we can then address and resolve each issue. This takes time and certainly does not happen overnight.

This book is a compendium of the various transactions that I have been involved in over a 40-plus year career, along with the input of colleagues who are involved in one way or another in the M&A business. There are many lessons I have learned along the way; I know what works and I know what does not work. The purpose of this book is to change your perspective from that of a business owner with no plan of succession to that of a strategist who adopts the Seller’s Mindset principles and proactively prepares your company for an eventual sale.

There are three main sections of this book: the Preliminaries, the Planning Phase and the Selling Phase. The first section provides important background information for the rest of the book. For those of you who have not been through the sale of a business, breaking the process down into these three distinct phases will be extremely helpful. Most of what is covered in the Seller’s Mindset approach takes place in the planning phase. If you can successfully adopt the Seller’s Mindset attitude, you will have paved the way for a smooth selling phase.

Will today be the day you start viewing your business through different lenses? Will you no longer simply think of yourself as a business owner, but instead as a seller who makes decisions with a Seller’s Mindset? Will today be the day you start to “Run It Like You’ll Sell It”?