Most businesspeople only ever sell one company in their lifetimes.

Most businesspeople will not know other businesspeople who have sold their companies.

As a result, the businessperson who is considering selling up has no first-hand personal information or experience of the process nor are they likely to know anyone who has.

The decision to sell is arguably the most significant financial decision they’ll ever make in their lives.

And it’s a decision they’ll do mountains of research on before committing to one way or another.

Winning their business is about being there on the journey with them as they look for information.

Sell-side blogs need to be easy to find and they need to address directly the hopes, fears, and concerns felt by a business owner before they put their company on the market.

18,000+ searches a month are made for “business broker” with each pay per click costing £6.00+ on Google.

4,500 searches are made for “sell my business” at a cost of over £12.00 per click.

However, people using these search terms are likely at the start of their journey.

They’re looking around to find out who can sell their business for them.

They’re looking at other businesses up for sale to get an indication of how much they might get for their company on the open market.

That’s why so few of the people searching for these terms turn into enquiries – they’re in the discovery process.

The decision to sell can take months to arrive at.

No businessperson likes to feel at a disadvantage in a negotiation – either with you or a potential seller – so it’s at this point that more detailed searches take place.

Every month, tens of thousands of searches are made asking the following questions:

• “are business brokers worth it?”
• “how much is my business worth?”
• “can I sell my business without a solicitor?”
• “who can sell my business for me?”
• “can I sell my business if i owe taxes?”
• “can I sell my business with debt?”
• “how to sell my business to an employee”
• “how to sell my business privately”
• “if I sell my business is it a capital gain?”
• “sell my business to private equity”
• “should I sell my business or keep it?”
• “should I sell my business or close it?”
• “selling my business what is it worth?”

A seller will search for the answers to dozens of their questions to arm themselves with as much information as they need to be able to confidently contact you or one of their competitors.

Sellers generally want to know:

• how long it takes to sell a company,
• how companies for sale are marketed,
• how to negotiate with potential sellers
• about Heads of Terms and the transfer of the process to solicitors, accountants, and advisors,
• about the due diligence process, and
• what deferred consideration is.

To gain both high Google rankings and position yourself as a credible broker for sell-side clients, your website needs to be the website which provides them with the answers to the questions they have about disposing of their company.

It’s to account for the fact that people search for information has changed.

When someone is near to the point of making a decision, they search for the information they need to give themselves the confidence to make that decision.

Think of it as the internal process a client uses to overcome their own objections to taking their company to market.

It’s only once they have made the positive decision to sell up when they start looking for brokers.

It’s much better for you if they constantly find the answers they’re looking for on your blog because you’re also in a position to take them to market.

Why? It’s because repeated exposure to your brand and your expertise will mean that you have the best chance of being the chosen broker.

Did you know that, nowadays, it can take up to 13 exposures to a brand before a sales call takes place?

Your website and the content on it needs to be of such high quality that a potential client can be exposed to your company name.

More and more business brokers are focusing their attention on buy-side related services.

The types of buy-side clients they seek are clients who:

• want to invest in a business from their savings or after coming into money,
• look for merger partners to increase overall group turnover past £5m,
• seek distressed or struggling businesses to put right and then take to market within 3 years, and
• are interested in MBI/MBO opportunities
• off-market opportunities

As with all article writing and blogging, we must provide buy-side clients with as much information as possible.

You might have been through fifty deals in your life before but, for a buy-side client, it might be their first or second.

Business buyers wanting to make a one-off life-changing investment into a business using their savings or a cash windfall will likely do the most due diligence into any proposed purchase than any other type of buyers.

For many of them, this will be their first ever attempt at running a business or being self-employed.

They will be keen to preserve as much cash as possible and many will look for finance to top up the amount they’re able to spend.

If you regularly offer for sale or can help locate the type of businesses these types of buyers wish to purchase, the following questions are being asked thousands of times every month by British searchers:

• “when to buy a business”
• “how to purchase business”
• “how to purchase a business with owner financing”
• “how to purchase a business with bad credit”
• “creative ways to purchase a business”
• “best way to purchase a business”
• “different ways to purchase a business”
• “borrowing to purchase a business”
• “business loan to purchase a business”

If yours is the brokerage which they perceive will offer them the most support and guidance to any prospective purchase, they are likely to approach you for help in securing funding (if needed) and in identifying an acquisition target.

Generally, businesses with turnovers of £5m or more achieve much higher sales prices than companies for sale with smaller turnovers.

Mergers also offer the companies involved in the process the opportunity to increase EBITDA through cost savings achieved by staff rationalisation, the sale of excess assets, and lower supplier costs through increased volume.

For example, the tendency to merge to achieve significant scale has been a characteristic of the marketing sector for decades – it’s a successful model which is being used creatively across a much wider range of sectors today.

As well as the fees your brokerage may charge in assisting the merger, there may be other revenue opportunities in commissions from third parties, funders, and investors.

In order to be found by business owners wanting to embark on this course of action, make sure that your website provides detailed and clear articles on the questions that these entrepreneurs are searching for:

• “why business undertake mergers”
• “how do small business mergers work”
• “business case for mergers and acquisitions”
• “business valuation for mergers and acquisitions”
• “business model for mergers and acquisitions”
• “business plan for mergers”
• “business broker vs mergers and acquisitions”
• “why do business mergers fail”
• “business case mergers”

MBOs and MBIs can breathe new life and capital into an existing business while offering opportunities to restructure, refocus, incentivise staff, and keep experience within a company.

Fee opportunities for brokers and their partners include tax planning, raising funds, valuation fees, and deal structuring consulting.

Given your experience in making deals and taking a deal from inception to completion, MBOs and MBIs offer a valuable opportunity to expand your fee base in a market not affected by the level of competition of standard business brokering.

In order to position your brokerage as a credible and trusted provider to executives currently researching or searching for MBO and MBI opportunities, especially for those doing it for the first time, make sure that your website articles answer in depth the most frequently asked questions, including:

• “what does management buyout mean”
• “what does management buy in mean”
• “what is management buyout process”
• “management buy in vs buyout”
• “what is senior management buy in”
• “management buyout vs leveraged buyout”
• “management buyout and investment”
• “management buy in structure”
• “management buy in strategy”
• “management buyout advantages and disadvantages”
• “management buyout valuation”
• “management buyout stamp duty”
• “management buy in taxation”
• “management buyout plan”
• “management buyout presentation”
• “management buyout profit”
• “partial management buyout”

Make sure that each article finishes with a strong call to action and a reminder to readers of your experience and expertise in MBOs.

There is very little point in writing articles less than 1,500 words long.

We aim for around 2,000 words (or more if needed) but we never pad out an article with fluff. Every word and sentence must justify its place.

Why 2,000 words?

This is “optimal content length” for Google plus articles of this length are up to 68% more likely to be shared on social media.

We appreciate that you are a complete professional at what you do.

As a professional, you’re full of knowledge, insights, and experience and that the complex nature of your work means that, often, you’ll use industry jargon to communicate.

We believe that jargon is a barrier to understanding the value of what you offer.

Therefore, we write our articles in plain English using a simple storytelling format with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

We want your readers to stay with each article from start to finish so that they both recognise and appreciate how you can help them.

Yes.

Particularly with the length of posts we write, we believe that images are a vital way to help further clarify and simplify the message for even greater reader understanding and appreciation.

Articles with images are viewed 94% more than those without.

We aim to provide one image, chart, or graph for every 750-or-so words produced.

If you send us your branding guidelines, we can produce up to 15 different templates using those brand guidelines to provide visual distinctiveness in your images, graphs, and charts.

Our aim is to produce the most understandable, the best referenced, and the highest quality article ever produced on the subject we’re writing about.

We want the article to be so comprehensive and engaging that, over time, other sites link to it when they want to direct their visitors to an authoritative source.

Links from third-party sites significantly improve your search engine ranking on Google.

In our initial conversation, we’re guided very much by what it is that you want your business to achieve in the next 12 months.

We ask questions like:

• What services do you want sell?
• Do you want to sell particular types of business?
• Which value added services do you offer?
• Who is your target audience?

The articles we write are designed to be found and appreciated by business owners and entrepreneurs by answering the questions clearly and in detail they ask Google.

Yes. No article is ever signed off until you’ve fully approved it.

We welcome all feedback from clients and we will continue working on an individual piece until you’re completely happy.

We can guarantee complete originality. Prior to sending you an article for approval, it is run through the CopyScape system. The results of each test are sent to you together with the article.

To contact us, please call us on 0330 010 3495 or you can email us by clicking here.

Let us know which of your services you want to push harder online to generate new traffic and new leads.

We’ll come back to you with a content production plan, costings, and suggested timescales.