{
  "title": "11 Mistakes When Selling a Business That Cost Owners Money",
  "url": "https://acquisitions.com/blog/mistakes-owners-make-when-selling/",
  "author": "Moran Pober",
  "publisher": "Acquisitions.com",
  "published": "2026-10-22",
  "updated": "2026-10-22",
  "section": "Selling a business",
  "keyword": "mistakes when selling a business",
  "short_answer": "The costly mistakes when selling a business are pricing on hope instead of a sourced multiple, messy books with add-backs you cannot prove, a business that stops when you do, telling staff too early, letting results slide during the sale, taking the first offer, negotiating only the headline price, contracts that cannot be assigned, no tax plan, the wrong advisor, and running out of steam in diligence.",
  "facts": {
    "Pricing on hope": [
      "Good buyers walk; the rest re-trade",
      "A multiple from sold deals, plus the lender's debt test"
    ],
    "Messy books, unproven add-backs": [
      "Each rejected dollar comes off the price at the multiple",
      "Tie P&L to bank and tax; a receipt behind every add-back"
    ],
    "Being the business": [
      "Lower multiple, earn-out, or no financing",
      "A manager and second names on key accounts, 12 to 24 months out"
    ],
    "Telling people too early": [
      "Staff and customers leave before closing",
      "NDA, blind listing, key staff after the LOI"
    ],
    "Letting the business slide": [
      "A re-trade when the monthly numbers dip",
      "Run it as if keeping it; one contact for the buyer"
    ],
    "First offer, no process": [
      "The lowest price, with no fallback",
      "Several qualified buyers in one window"
    ],
    "Headline price, no structure": [
      "Earn-outs, pegs and debt eat the proceeds",
      "Write each offer out as cash, deferred, at risk, owed"
    ],
    "Contracts that cannot move": [
      "Landlord and customers renegotiate late",
      "Read every contract for assignment and consent terms early"
    ],
    "No tax plan": [
      "Less kept after tax for the same price",
      "A CPA before the offer; asset versus stock worked out"
    ],
    "No advisor, or the wrong one": [
      "No process, no screening, no one holding the price",
      "Check their last five sales and their buyer list"
    ],
    "Diligence fatigue": [
      "Concessions given away to make it stop",
      "A dated timeline in the LOI and a list of what you will not give"
    ]
  },
  "sources": [
    "https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/sale-of-a-business",
    "https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8594"
  ],
  "license": "Facts may be quoted with attribution to Acquisitions.com and a link to the url above."
}