Originally published in Entrepreneur Magazine

By Mark Abell

Having a well-financed business that doesn’t rely on bad sources of debt goes a long way to making a company attractive to buyers and ensuring that it fetches an attractive valuation. But, the choices that produce a good balance sheet don’t happen overnight; it takes years of preparation to ensure the best possible sale years later.

It’s a good time to sell a small business: in the first quarter of 2017, 2,368 deals closed, up 29 percent from a year earlier, according to BizBuySell’s Insight Report. However, only one in five listings on the online marketplace for selling small businesses closed a deal in 2016. Having good financing is among the most important factors that leads to successful sales. At its simplest, attractive businesses are financed by good debt while unattractive businesses are built on bad debt. Often, decisions about finances made early in the life of a business determine whether or not a business can be sold successfully years later.

Read the full article at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/296216

Mark Abell is Senior Vice President and SBA Division Director at NBH Bank.