Helping Clients Explore Business Sales with Foresight and Confidence
This month, I had the opportunity to present to a major commercial bank on a topic that has been central to my practice for decades: how to prepare clients mentally, emotionally, and operationally for exploring the sale of their business.
While M&A expertise may not be expected of every advisor, commercial bankers and wealth managers play an integral role in identifying early signals, shaping client expectations, and safeguarding value long before a banker is engaged. To support those efforts, my team and I created a guide for frontline professionals who want to deepen their ability to serve business-owner clients contemplating a sale.
We’ve posted it to our website so you can use it, too.
Your client advisory tool for business transitions
This is not an instruction manual for investment bankers.
Instead, this is a practical, unvarnished tool to help you:
- Identify triggers, both rational and emotional, that often prompt a sale
- Guide clients through strategic pre-sale questions
- Understand how the M&A process really unfolds
- Spot red flags that could devalue the business
- Support your client’s emotional readiness (clients often deal with overcoming emotional hurdles selling business)
- Navigate valuation myths and post-sale planning
I’ve even included a real-world case study of a business owner who faced a difficult health event, prompting an urgent sale (and urgent business sale strategies). What’s compelling about his story isn’t just the outcome; it’s how personal and professional goals had to converge under pressure. That kind of nuance matters. And it’s precisely where trusted advisors like you can make all the difference.
Business sale readiness assessment
One of the most overlooked aspects of a successful sale is what I call “preparation beyond the numbers.” Clean financials, of course, but also clarity of objectives, leadership readiness, legal housekeeping, and an understanding of the emotional weight of letting go. You can help clients work through all of this, and long before a data room opens.
Too often, owners delay this kind of reflection until after an unsolicited offer appears or performance begins to slip. By then, leverage has already shifted.
You can use this guide to change that timeline. Use it to frame the right questions and prompt thoughtful planning. Use it to raise your client conversations to a more strategic level—before there’s urgency, before there’s regret.
Optimizing business sale outcomes
At the end of the deck, you’ll also find a curated reference section that compiles much of TOBIN’s content on M&A, valuation, and exit strategy, organized for easy use by advisors. If you’re looking for clarity on 409A valuations, guidance on structuring a sale, or insight on working with family businesses, it’s all there in one place. Consider this your primer.
We built this for you.
Because a truly successful transaction begins well before the the investment banker is engaged and extends well beyond it, too. You have a place in the entire timeline.
As always, if you’re working with a business owner who may be thinking about selling, either now or in the future, please reach out. Our advisory work often begins quietly, behind the scenes, as part of a broader financial conversation. We’d be delighted to help you in your efforts.
Let’s talk when you’re ready.
Justine Tobin
Founder and CEO
(704) 334-2772
This newsletter is not intended to provide legal or investment advice and no legal or business decision should be based on its content. FYI.