Market Timing is the strategy of stock speculators making buying and selling decisions by attempting to predict future market price movements. Stock speculators who adopt such strategies rarely win in the long run simply because there are too many factors that influence the future that are unknown. As a business broker, I often have business owners asking me when they should sell their business. Just like stock speculators, I can provide theories on why market conditions over the coming 6 months may be either beneficial or detrimental to a business sale, but the truth is that as much as I would like to – I can’t seem to learn how to accurately predict the future!
Nevertheless, there are a variety of conditions that may indicate that it is a good time to consider contacting a business broker to explore exit strategies. This blog post is part of a series about signs or indicators that it may be time to explore a business sale or exit.
Sign it is time to sell your business #1: The LTS Rule
What’s the LTS Rule? LTS stands for Life’s Too Short. If you don’t enjoy going to work anymore it may be time to consider selling your business. A loss of personal satisfaction, alone, should make a business owner consider whether they would rather use their most limited resource (time) doing something else. Not only will this free up your time to do something you really want to do, but not selling may be holding the business back. The business may be under-performing in comparison to operation under a new, energetic, motivated owner.
