From: JC Phillippon,
President - BuySellWebsite®
Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Dear Website Owner,
In the last four years I've seen
hundreds of websites bought and sold on my marketplace and I wanted to
share with you a few tips I've learned about how to sell your website
as easy as possible.
When prospective buyers are looking at
your website they will almost certainly focus on your websites
financial and visitor traffic numbers in the past year or two. And
will probably base their offer price on these numbers.
If your website is growing and you think
the sale price should be higher than just what the
Net Income the business has earned
in the past year or two, you will need to show that the website is growing
and demands a better price. Or there are other variable reasons
that make the site more valuable.
In some ways it is shortsighted to focus
on the past so much, But for good or for bad the majority of buyers do
this, if you don't have a strong history you'll need to do a good job
at showing how your business will succeed in the future.
When you list your business
for sale always list an asking price, stay away from "Make
an Offer" or simply "OBO" (or best offer).
Sometimes the potential buyer has no idea of what to offer for a
business and doesn't want to offend the owner. It's ok to use
the "OBO" but just make
sure you list an asking price as well.
The second thing is to list your
Total Revenue and
Net Income, even if these numbers are negative, it's ok, if you
force the potential buyer to guess what the numbers are, it will
invariably be worse than they actually are. By listing the
numbers it gives the potential buyer something to work off of.
Some buyers are actually looking for sites that are losing money to
turn them around.
Also, if you don't list your phone
number, you might be losing some of your most serious buyers. The
more interested they are, the quicker and more directly they want to
contact you and listing your email address only isn't fast enough for
some buyers. So if at all possible, list your phone number.
Furthermore, If your site comes with
something not immediately obvious to the buyer, like an email list of
customers, trademarks or copyrights - make sure you list
that, those are important assets not to be overlooked.
So how much do you ask for your
business? It's ok to start out with the sale price
you'd like to get out of the business, but if you're seeing a low
response rate from your listing after the first two weeks, it's time to drop
your asking price.
I get allot of questions
about how much I think people should ask for their website, so let me
suggest reading my short article
How to Determine the Value of a Website?.
Important note:
Many buyers will ask questions coming from a skeptical position.
Most buyers are cautious and will want proof of your financial and
website traffic numbers in some way. The more viable proof you
are able to provide them, the easier it is to sell your business.
Think about ways you can show your numbers without revealing too much
about your competitive advantage.
For instance, PayPal allows you to make
a restricted login that allows people to view your sales history, but
not be able to do anything else. I only recommend giving people
who are really serious about buying your business this type of access.
It's also ok to give out your website
statistics login to serious buyers. You'll have to decide if you
feel comfortable doing this with each individual buyer. Many
times when you have provided this type of proof to a serious buyer it
is what finally convinces them to make an offer on your business.
Yes, there are people out there that
just want information about your business with no intention of buying
it. But I would say that the majority of buyers are legitimate.
It's also a good idea to ask them to
agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement for any information provided to
them. I normally do this through email, but faxing or overnight
mail are viable options as well.
P.S.
I've really tried hard to build the best possible marketplace to sell your
website. Reading some of my latest
testimonials lets me know I'm on the right track.
I wish you the best of
luck getting top dollar for your site, if you've got questions give me a
call, my direct line is listed below.
Click Here to Sell Your Website!
Click Here For Frequently Asked Questions!
JC Phillippon, President
BuySellWebsite®
a Web Business Properties, Inc. company
jc@buysellwebsite.com
(800) 564-2749