A business sale is a marketing exercise followed by a documentation exercise, and the second is longer, harder and where the price gets renegotiated, which is why almost everything that decides the outcome is done before a buyer ever sees the listing.
Listing to offer
The business is priced, packaged as a blind profile, marketed to a buyer list and to search, and enquiries are screened. This stage is where a route earns its fee: a marketplace gives you reach and leaves the screening to you, a broker does the screening. It ends with a letter of intent that names a price and usually an exclusivity window for the buyer.
Offer to closing
Due diligence, then the purchase agreement, then the transfer. Diligence reconciles what was claimed against what the records show; any gap becomes a price conversation. The purchase agreement carries the representations, the non-compete and any earnout or seller note. Transfer covers leases, licences, staff, domains and accounts, and takes longer than anyone plans for.
Who gets paid, and when
The intermediary is paid on closing in almost every published scheme in this record, and Flippa states the arrangement in one line: the success fee is paid only when the business sells. Legal fees are payable regardless. Escrow, where it is used, holds the money between signature and transfer; both marketplaces read here provide it as part of the service.
Questions people ask about business sale
Is a business sale public?
It should not be until it is done. Confidential marketing, NDAs and a blind profile exist so that staff, customers and competitors do not learn about a sale that may not complete.
What is the single most common reason a sale fails?
Diligence finding something the seller had not disclosed or could not evidence. Almost all of that is preventable in the preparation stage.
What is escrow for in a business sale?
Holding the money between signature and transfer so neither side has to go first. Both marketplaces in this record provide it as part of the service; a private sale has to arrange and pay for it.