The Emotional Side of Selling Your Business

At Atomic Consultancy we have advised and supported dozens of business owners to sell their businesses over the last two years. And while there is a great deal of process and paperwork to get right for every business sale, we also pay a lot of attention to the emotional impact which selling a business can have on business owners.

For many people selling their business is so much more than just a transaction.

In this blog we share our experience of supporting people to get the very best out of their decision to sell.

We have also checked in with some of those who have been through the process to ask them how they dealt with the inevitable changes which followed. And for those considering a possible sale we bring together their contributions and our experience to suggest some ways to make the whole thing a positive experience.

Our starting point is that every business owner is different, just as every business is unique.

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the impact of selling your business. We spoke to one seller who told us “I’ve not found it difficult at all. It’s been the best thing I could have ever done”; while another seller said they felt like they had “lost a second family”.

We also know that when embarking on the selling journey many people don’t know how they’re going to feel ahead of time. Everyone has different motivations for selling, and some find life to be just as they expected after the sale, while others have a different experience.

And sometimes the transition takes time. In the words of one seller “It has been a slow process of evolving a lifestyle which you feel is more valuable than the one you had when you were working”.

The one thing most people have in common is that the process of selling is rarely only positive or only negative. It is a more balance experience for many.

On the one hand there’s the excitement of moving forward and exploring new opportunities, and there may even be a sense of relief. As one person told us “I feel like a huge weight has been taken off my shoulder.”

On the other hand, there’s a sense of attachment to the business you’ve created, making it challenging to adapt to the transition. This emotional spectrum spans from nostalgia for leaving behind something deeply personal to apprehension about the uncertainties that accompany such decisions.

“I spent a large part of my life creating a business and a second family, and suddenly one day it’s gone. It’s like when your children leave home, you miss them more than they miss you” was how one seller put it, while at the same time acknowledging that they “just didn’t want to have the responsibility of running a business any more”.

One person also commented, “I’m sort of in a different world now”. So, what can you do to help make the transition to that different world a positive one? Here are some thoughts we’ve gathered together to help:

1. Recognise that the process may not be easy

And that if this is your experience you are not alone in feeling this way. Try to maintain perspective and think of this as just one more chapter in your life.

2. Make sure you are comfortable that your buyer is right for you

In the words of one of our sellers “The company I sold to were brilliant, they were an absolute dream to deal with. Lucy was very good at matching me up with a company with the same values and ethos that we had, and this made a huge difference to the whole process and how I felt about it”.

3. Explore what lies ahead and take the time to consider your options and your future

One seller wanted to travel and spent time before the sale planning what that looked like.

When we caught up with them, they were about to set off for an extended trip to Japan and South East Asia, with plans to follow that up with a trip to four South American countries in early 2024.

As they said, “We are not rich by any measure, but we are enjoying life, doing lots of travelling. Our plan is to travel, while we are still in our 50s and we are able. So I am loving retirement.”

4. Find the right support and advice for the process

For many this is not just a business transaction, it’s much bigger than that.

We were honoured to receive the following feedback from one of our sellers: “What was special about Atomic, and about Lucy was her understanding of the emotional side, other people would have just seen it purely objectively, she saw it emotionally as well, she was really easy to go through the process with.”

5. Find the right financial advice for life after the sale

“You go one day from not having a lump sum to the next day having something which you need to look at how best to invest to get the returns you want for what you want to do with the rest of your life. So make sure you get good and trusted financial advice” was one seller’s recommendation.

6. Agree the pace which is right for you when it comes to moving on

One seller told us “The transition was really good, and part of the deal was that I would see through all of the sales we had exchanged but not completed on. So it was a slow transition, it wasn’t like I sold the business and then I was out the next day. I was still working through the winter so that helped”.

7. Take time to adjust, and recognise that it’s all part of the journey

“You go from one day when you wake up and you know what you are going to do, to the next day when you wake up and think ‘what am I going to do’?” was how one person put it. Another shared the following wise advice: “Reflect on your journey and explore your thoughts. This can help you regain mental balance and enhance your decision-making abilities down the road”.

Regardless of the reasons you choose to sell and how well prepared you think you are it is undeniable that selling your business is a major life choice involving some complex emotions.

But by maintaining some perspective, getting the right support and advice, and recognising the need to take care of yourself through the transition you can ensure you get the very best out of this new chapter in your life.

At Atomic, it has been our pleasure to support so many people through the process in many different ways and to help get them to a really positive place at the end of it.

It has been great to hear from some of those who are on the other side of the process, and we are always grateful for their feedback and advice which we can pass on to others.

We would particularly like to thank Andrea Church and Tony Jones for their contributions to this blog.

If you are thinking about selling and want to explore how we might be able to help, do get in touch here. We’d love to hear from you, and it might just be the start of a new and exciting chapter for you.