Selling a business needs four kinds of help and no single person provides all of it. Knowing which job belongs to whom stops you paying a broker for legal work, or asking an accountant to negotiate.
Get quotes to sell my business
The intermediary
Finds and screens buyers, presents the business, runs the negotiation. Paid a commission at closing, or a retainer plus a success fee for a run process. Optional if you already know your buyer, and the largest single cost if you do not.
The lawyer and the accountant
The lawyer drafts or negotiates the purchase agreement, the disclosure schedules and any escrow, note or earnout. The accountant normalises the earnings, evidences the add backs, and advises on the structure and its tax consequences. Neither is optional, and together they usually cost a fraction of a commission.
You
The parts nobody can do for you: deciding what you want out of the sale, telling the truth about the business, making the staff and customer decisions, and being available during diligence. Sellers who disappear during diligence lose deals, because silence reads as a problem being hidden.
What to do first, this week
Ask your accountant for three years of statements and start listing the personal costs running through the business, with a document for each. Read your lease for its remaining term and any assignment restriction. Write down, in a paragraph, what happens to the business if you stop turning up tomorrow. Those three take a week and they decide most of what any adviser will tell you afterwards, which makes them worth doing before you pay anybody.
Questions people ask about help me sell my business
What is the cheapest combination?
A known buyer, a good lawyer and an accountant. No marketing cost and no commission, at the price of no competition.
Can my regular accountant handle it?
For the numbers, often yes. For the tax structure of a sale, ask whether they have advised on business disposals before; it is a specialist question.
Do I need a valuation first?
An informed view of range is useful before you talk to anyone. A formal appraisal is needed for tax or a dispute, not usually for a sale.