Selling a small business UK: Prove it runs without you!

You don’t sell a business. You sell the promise that it will keep working without you.

That’s the punchline. Everything else is just proof for a stranger with a pen and a calculator.

If you’ve ever whispered, “Maybe it’s time,” this is for you.

Why this matters now: the moment you start thinking about an exit, the clock starts ticking. Markets turn. Buyers get cautious. Health, family, energy — life changes the terms without asking your permission. Most founders don’t regret selling; they regret how long they waited and how messy it was when they finally did. If you’re selling a small business in the UK, your biggest risk isn’t the buyer across the table — it’s your own drift.

Start With One Hard Number

Before you call a broker or hint at “options” at a networking event, pick your number.

Not the fantasy one. The one that makes walking away feel clean.

Work backwards. What do you need after tax and fees? Get an accountant to sanity-check that early. Don’t learn about it the week you sign heads of terms.

Buyers don’t buy stories; they buy proof. They’ll look at the last three years of profit, strip out one-offs, personal perks, and heroic late nights. They’ll ask, “What does this machine make without the founder pulling levers?” That’s the profit that gets a multiple.

Quick sniff test: if a buyer can recover their money in 3–4 years from steady profits, you’re in the right ballpark. It’s not a rule, but it’s the logic behind most offers.

In short: your price is a function of clean numbers plus a believable handover. Selling a small business in the UK isn’t about shouting your valuation — it’s about making it obvious.

Make Yourself Unnecessary

The fastest way to add zeros is to remove yourself.

If customers only call you, you don’t have a business, you have a job with overheads. Buyers pay for systems, not heroics.

Start here:

• Document your 10 most frequent processes like you’re training a smart stranger.
• Move key relationships to a role, not a person. Bring a team member into the next five big client calls.
• Create a single source of truth: tidy CRM, contracts filed, subscriptions listed, passwords in a secure vault.

Picture a buyer walking through your shop. Can they see how it runs without your fingerprints — or do they just see you, everywhere? When you’re selling a small business in the UK, transferability is the whole game. The less you matter day to day, the fatter your cheque.

De-Risk What Scares Buyers

Buyers don’t mind effort. They hate surprises.

Three red flags spook them most:

• Concentration: if one customer is more than 20–30% of revenue, spread that risk or expect a haircut on price.
• Compliance: HMRC, VAT, PAYE, data protection, contracts. Clean and current beats clever and chaotic.
• Cash predictability: recurring revenue, repeat customers, and low churn calm nerves and lift multiples.

Fix what you can before you go to market. Tidy the books. Renew key supplier contracts. Lock in multi-year client deals where it makes sense. Don’t hand a buyer a list of chores on day one.

And don’t hide the hair. Disclose issues early. Experienced buyers can live with problems; they just want to know the shape of the dragon they’re buying.

Decide How You Want To Get Paid

Price is loud; structure is decisive.

You’ll see three common flavours:

• All cash at completion: best for you, rare for small deals unless the risk is very low.
• Deferred payments: staged over 12–36 months. Great if performance is predictable.
• Earn-out: extra paid if targets are hit. Useful to bridge valuation gaps — read the small print or regret will visit.

In the UK, share sale vs asset sale matters. Share sales are tidier and often better for your tax. Asset sales can protect buyers if there’s baggage. This is where a sharp lawyer earns their keep — the sale agreement, warranties, restrictive covenants, and the difference between a locked-box and completion-accounts approach are not DIY territory.

Human truth: every point you concede on structure should earn you something back on price, security, or control. Selling a small business in the UK isn’t a single number; it’s a stack of levers. Pull the right ones.

Choose Your Deal Team Like You Choose a Co-founder

You need three allies: an accountant who talks human, a lawyer who does deals (not just disputes), and a broker or corporate finance adviser who has sold businesses like yours, at your size, in your sector.

Ask them:

• What deals did you close in the last 12 months that look like mine?
• How will you protect me from a price chip after due diligence?
• How do you get buyers competing without burning the good ones?

Expect to pay for good help. A broker might take 2–5% of the sale price. Legal and tax advice can run into the tens of thousands. That feels heavy until you see the value: a tighter process, a higher net, and fewer “oh no” emails after completion.

Run a quiet process. Use NDAs. Keep staff calm until timing is right. Loose lips kill deals.

Run a Simple, Ruthless Process

This is where founders get tired and sloppy. Don’t.

Build a clean one-page teaser. Prepare a short information pack. Create a smart, labelled data room. Decide your red lines before the first call. If you get multiple interested parties, set timelines and stick to them. Think auction without the theatre.

When offers land, judge them on certainty as much as price. Who has the funds? Who has a track record of closing? Who made the fewest nit-picky demands? The best offer is the one that completes.

Finally, pace yourself. Deals take months. Buyers will test if you wobble. Keep running the business like you’ll own it forever. That’s how you end up not needing to.

The One Thing Buyers Really Buy

Buyers don’t buy your past. They buy your tomorrow.

They’re buying the mornings when you’re not there and the orders still ship, the phones still get answered, and the dashboard still ticks up. That’s it. If you build that, you win. If you sell that, you get paid. When you think about selling a small business in the UK, aim to make the absence of you the most boring part of the story.

Key takeaway: make yourself optional, and the deal becomes inevitable.

So, are you ready to spend the next 90 days making your business run without you, and then cash the proof?