It’s about getting rewarded for the years of blood, sweat and caffeine you’ve poured into it.
The trick is getting your house in order before you start talking numbers. Buyers can smell panic.
Here are ten moves that’ll help you lock in top dollar and make the whole process smoother than your morning flat white.
If your financials look like a toddlers finger painting - colourful, creative, and completely incomprehensible - you’ve got a problem. Buyers love clean numbers - almost as much as accountants do.
⭐️ Action: Get at least three years of tidy, reconciled financials with clear profit trends. Make it look like you actually know what’s going on.
We all know the “cash job” wink. But when it comes time to sell, that wink is worth exactly zero dollars. Buyers (and banks) pay for what’s on the books, not what’s in the glovebox.
⭐️ Action: Keep it all above board. Stories about “real turnover” don’t count when someone’s writing a cheque.
If your business is paying for Netflix, golf clubs, and Friday “client meetings” at the pub, you’re not fooling anyone. Every personal expense you slip through makes your business look less profitable - and less valuable.
⭐️ Action: Strip it back. Keep the business clean and the profits real.
First impressions matter - and yes, buyers will absolutely Google you. A dusty website or ghost-town Instagram says, “stuck in 2015.”
⭐️ Action: Refresh your website, update your socials, and show that the business is alive, thriving, and not held together by duct tape and legacy code. Buyers love a brand that looks modern and trustworthy.
If the place collapses every time you go on holiday, congratulations - you’ve built yourself a job with more admin. Buyers want a business that runs without you glued to it.
⭐️ Action: Train your team, document your systems, and start stepping back.
⭐️⭐️ Bonus: you might even get a weekend off.
Predictability is the holy grail. If your clients, suppliers or landlord could bail next month, that’s scary for buyers.
⭐️ Action: Lock down long-term agreements wherever you can. The more stable your income and costs look, the more zeros you’ll attract on the offer.
If one or two big clients hold the keys to your revenue, that’s not stability - that’s danger with a direct debit.
⭐️ Action: Spread it out. Strengthen smaller accounts, find new customers, and make sure no single client could sink the ship.
If all your leads come from one source - your cousin’s referrals or that Google Ads campaign that’s been running since 2019 - that’s fragile.
⭐️ Action: Build multiple lead streams: referrals, online, partnerships, repeat business. Buyers love seeing that your marketing isn’t a one-trick pony.
If your “system” is a notebook, a whiteboard, and your memory, you’ve got homework to do. Buyers want documented processes that work without you standing over everyone like the hall monitor.
⭐️ Action: Streamline your tech, automate what you can, and write stuff down. A business that runs smoothly is a business that sells easily.
Everyone thinks their business is worth more than it is - like proud parents at a school concert. A solid valuation helps you see what buyers will actually pay and what you can do to lift that number.
⭐️ Action: Get a proper valuation that looks at what the market would actually pay, not what you hope they’ll offer.
You’ve worked hard to build this thing - don’t hand half of it to the ATO.
With the right planning, you can keep more of your hard-earned.
⭐️ Action: Talk to your accountant before you go to market. The difference between “nice payday” and “why is half of it gone?” is timing and structure.
Even if you’re not selling tomorrow, getting sale-ready now is just good business. It forces you to tighten things up, boost profits, and make life easier in the meantime. And when the right buyer finally comes along, you’ll be ready - calm, collected, and champagne in hand.
– The team at PAL (making accounting slightly less boring since way back when)
Disclaimer: This article is here to give you general info only, not professional advice specific to your unique situation. While efforts are made to ensure accuracy, the content may change over time. We can’t take responsibility for any decisions based on the contents of this article, so be sure to chat with your accountant or advisor first!
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