You don't control the sale of your business

For 15 months I felt worried and elated in equal measure. I never truly believed the sale of my business was going to happen until my solicitor rang and said, "Congratulations, the deal has been completed." I'm not ashamed to say I cried with relief and happiness. Nobody tells you that selling the business you built is the most nerve-wracking thing you'll ever do, or that you're not the one driving.

Let me go back to the start.

I set up Bluegrass because the IT support I'd received for my previous consultancy business was sadly lacking. When a system went down, nobody seemed to understand that this was a real problem needing some urgency. The support line was hard to get hold of. I tried several companies, and the story was much the same each time. So I decided to build the kind of IT company I wished I'd had, one that actually cared about the people it looked after.

We called them clients, never customers. Years earlier, when I worked for an insurance company, the Marketing Director explained the difference to me. A customer might buy from you once and never think about you again. A client is someone important, someone loyal, someone who sticks with you. That stayed with me, and it shaped everything we did.

So I didn't start the business with an exit in mind. Not for a moment.

Running a small business in a very competitive market is hard. IT support is a tricky thing to sell too, because most business owners believe the service they're getting is fine and see no reason to move, even when the benefits are strong. (I'd like to say that was down to the market rather than my selling skills. Chris might disagree. 😉)

Then, after a few years, something odd happened. Other IT companies began approaching us to ask whether we'd consider selling. It came as a complete surprise, as we'd never thought about it. Chris and I listened to some of them and dismissed most. In all but three cases, we felt it simply wasn't in the best interests of Bluegrass.

Our bottom line was that we wanted our employees to keep their jobs. No seller can guarantee that. What's said at the time of a deal can change months after completion. But holding on to that principle helped us decide who we were prepared to talk to.

When Modern Networks approached us, we were excited and very nervous. We had no idea what to expect.

There was something else we hadn't fully thought through. Modern Networks asked us to sign a confidentiality agreement, which meant keeping the number of people who knew to an absolute minimum. We had to name the few people we were allowed to speak to, and each of them had to sign a confidentiality agreement too.

That meant we couldn't be open with our employees. For someone who believes as strongly in honesty as I do, that was one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. We certainly couldn't tell our clients, because for them the unknown could easily mean moving supplier. And we couldn't let it reach our competitors, who might well have approached those same clients. If confidentiality had broken down, the sale would probably have broken down with it, and the business would have suffered too. So Chris and I carried it quietly, and kept smiling.

What followed was 15 months on a roller coaster. Happy one day, feeling worried the next. And I want to be clear that this wasn't because of how Modern Networks treated us. They treated us with care and understanding throughout. It was because selling a business is an emotional exercise. It gives you hope. In my case, hope that after 45 years of working I might be able to retire. And your mind starts planning ahead, even though you know that's dangerous. It does it anyway.

We also thought we had all the documentation needed to run a business, so providing what was asked for would be easy. That was a naive view.

If someone is going to spend a lot of money buying your business, they'll want to see everything. And I mean everything. Their accountants and solicitors go through years of material in detail. They'll ask about a transaction from two years ago that you'd long forgotten about. Every answer has to be found, checked and explained.

There were stretches when everything was going well, and then something would happen and it felt as though the deal was off. Then it would get back on track. Then it wobbled again. As completion got closer, the tension grew, and so did the worry that it might all fall apart.

Completion day was probably the most nerve-wracking of all. You know everything that could be done has been done. You know the buyer is 100% committed. It makes no difference. You don't feel comfortable until that phone call. When it came from our solicitor (who was outstanding, by the way) I shed a few happiness tears.

Here's the part that often gets left out. All the while, Chris and I still had a business to run. We still had to win new work. We still had renewals to secure. We still had people to look after. And hardest of all, there were times when we had to make some horrible decisions to help the sale go through. Three years on, I still look back on those decisions and wish I hadn't had to make them.

So, if you're thinking about selling, here's what I'd say. You will feel elated. You will feel low. You'll feel like everything is going brilliantly, and then, in the next moment, that the whole thing could be off. That's normal. You aren't losing your grip. The buyer sets the pace, and being ready for that emotional swing matters as much as being ready with your paperwork.

And if you're a buyer, please remember that the person across the table is selling something they built. They have feelings about it. They need good communication, honesty delivered with empathy, and someone who'll work with them to get the best result for both sides. Our buyers understood every one of those points, and I'll always be grateful for it.

Selling a business isn't something you do. In many ways, it's something that happens to you. Go in knowing that.

If you're heading into a sale yourself, I hope it goes well for you. Every sale has its challenges, ours included, and I hope you come out the other end with the outcome you want.

If this has you wondering how ready your own business is, the free readiness assessment will show you where to look first, in about three minutes.