Confidentiality – The People Factor

Without the Highest Level of Confidentiality During the Sale of Your Business, Staff Might Start Looking For the Door

When it comes time to sell your business, do you know how important confidentiality is throughout the process? The impact could be dramatic if confidentiality is breached: How would your staff react? What about your customers, your suppliers, your bankers?

When I sold one of my businesses several years ago, I learned the hard way how important confidentiality is to the sale process. Due to a breach, my stakeholders became aware of an imminent sale and my suppliers capped my credit line at one quarter of its original amount, significantly limiting my ability to purchase new inventory. Don’t let that happen to you!

Without the highest level of confidentiality during the sale of your business, staff might start looking for the door, loyal customers may look elsewhere, suppliers could get nervous and bankers start asking difficult questions. Your staff, in particular, are a big asset in your company’s overall financial picture. If there was a mass exodus due to a confidentiality breach, it could significantly impact the value of your business. Employees begin to ask questions about when or if they might be let go, what the new owners are like and whether they even want to stick around to find out. Your staff are essential to ensuring a smooth sale.

A Trusted Broker Can Ensure Confidentiality

Having a trusted broker in your corner to ensure the highest level of confidentiality is key to the successful divestiture of your business. At The Alberta Business Exchange, you as the vendor will set the confidentiality parameters from the outset as we build a strong relationship. I know how important this is because of my own experience as an entrepreneur, but also because it’s just common sense. That’s why confidentiality was addressed at every level when I set up The Alberta Business Exchange.  Our systems were developed to screen and qualify only suitable buyers to avoid ‘tire kickers’ wasting everybody’s time and limiting the amount of confidential information released on a business. Questionnaires were developed with a psychologist to ensure their effectiveness in screening out unqualified buyers.

Some vendors want a billboard on Macleod Trail, others insist on approving every potential purchaser individually before information is released. The Alberta Business Exchange has the systems in place to put the control in your hands. Our team will then manage those parameters with the utmost integrity, while marketing materials are all approved by vendors before being released to the public. We provide you with a clear picture of the full scope of your options available at each stage of the sale process, guided by the vendors’ parameters on confidentiality.

With so much at stake, confidentiality becomes a driving force to ensuring a successful sale.  All of your company’s stakeholders – staff, customers, suppliers, bankers – must be addressed in the confidentiality agreement, ensuring a level of comfort in what is often an emotionally-charged process. We help remove the risk associated with that process and work to remove emotion from the
equation.

Confidentiality is top of mind for any business owner thinking about selling their business. If you have any questions regarding how to effectively manage confidentiality during an upcoming sale, or if you have any other questions related to the sale of your business, please feel free to contact us.