Why the sector you are in changes everything
There is a lot of general advice about selling a business, and most of it is close to useless once you get into a real negotiation. A buyer looking at a freight company is not asking the same questions as a buyer looking at an online retailer. One is pulling apart your contracted lanes, your driver roster and your compliance file. The other lives in your customer acquisition cost and your repeat purchase data. Same process, completely different pressure points.
That is the reason these guides are split by industry rather than written as one generic article. What earns a premium in earthmoving is not what earns a premium in window furnishings. What kills a construction deal will not touch a transport deal. If you prepare against the wrong checklist, you spend twelve months fixing things nobody was going to ask about, and you arrive at market with the actual problems untouched.
What every guide covers
Each one follows the same structure, so once you have read one you know where to find things in the others.
The due diligence dashboard
The specific numbers a buyer in your sector will ask for, usually in the first serious meeting. Know these cold before anyone asks and you control the conversation. Fumble them and the buyer starts discounting for uncertainty.
What buyers pay a premium for
Five qualities that separate the businesses attracting competing offers from the ones selling for little more than the value of their assets. Every one is buildable inside a twelve to twenty four month window.
The deal killers
The issues that sink or heavily discount sales in your industry. All of them fixable, all of them needing lead time, which is exactly why finding out early matters more than finding out accurately.
The preparation window
A phased sequence for the one to two years before you go to market. Know where you stand, clean the engine room, build the premium, then go to market from strength rather than from necessity.
Which guide should you read
Read the one that matches how your business actually earns its money, not how it is described on your ABN registration. A civil contractor that makes most of its margin hiring plant to other contractors should read the earthmoving guide. A building company whose revenue is mostly maintenance contracts rather than new builds will still find the construction guide relevant, because the QBCC licence question governs the sale either way.
If your business genuinely straddles two sectors, read both. Businesses with revenue across two cycles that do not move together are often worth more than their owners realise, and that is a case worth making properly rather than leaving a buyer to work out.
The point of reading this before you are ready
Most owners who read these guides are not selling this year. That is the right time to read them. The gap between a business sold as it stands and one prepared deliberately over twelve to twenty four months is frequently the largest single number in the entire transaction, and preparation takes time you only have if you start early.
Knowing what a buyer in your sector will scrutinise turns the next two years into targeted work rather than drift. You keep running the business either way. The difference is whether the work you do in the meantime is building toward the sale or away from it.
Questions about these guides
Which seller guide should I read?
The one that matches how your business actually earns its money, not how it is described on your ABN registration. A civil contractor making most of its margin hiring plant should read the earthmoving guide. A builder whose revenue is mostly maintenance rather than new builds still needs the construction guide, because the QBCC licence question governs the sale either way. If your business straddles two sectors, read both.
Are the guides free?
Yes. No sign up, no email capture, no gate. Read them, use them, and if the appraisal conversation is useful later then it is there.
My industry is not listed. Can you still sell my business?
Yes. The nine listed are the industries I have run, worked in or spent years alongside. I sell businesses in every other sector using the same process and the same buyer network. The fundamentals that determine value are identical across industries. What changes is which of them matters most, and that is learnable with proper preparation.
How far ahead of selling should I read these?
One to two years is ideal. Every guide sets out preparation work that needs lead time, and the things that lift value most, reducing owner dependence, converting revenue to a recurring basis, broadening the customer base, cannot be done in the month before you go to market.
Do these guides apply outside Queensland?
The commercial fundamentals do. The licensing and compliance detail, particularly anything involving QBCC, is Queensland specific and would need checking against the equivalent regime in another state.