There are two ways to sell a business: run a process, or have a quiet conversation. Each has a job. Here is an honest comparison from someone who sits on the buying side.
A formal process means appointing an adviser, producing a sale document, and inviting bids from a list of buyers. An off-market deal means one buyer, one conversation, no auction. Most owners only ever hear the case for the first. Here is the full picture.
Competition. Several bidders at the table is the most reliable way to find the top of the market for a clean, sizeable business, and a good adviser earns their fee marshalling it. If your business is large, tidy and well-documented, and maximum headline price is your only goal, a process is a rational choice.
Time, fees and secrecy. Six to nine months is normal. Adviser fees take a real slice. And the more people who see the sale document, the more likely your competitors, customers and staff hear the business is for sale, which is the one genie that does not go back in the bottle. Processes also fall over: busy auctions produce inflated first-round numbers that get revised in diligence, after you have burned half a year.
Speed, confidentiality and certainty. One serious buyer, a fair price agreed on evidence, diligence done once, and nobody outside the room any the wiser until completion day. For an owner who is solving for security rather than squeezing the final pound, and who cares what happens to the business afterwards, the quiet route is usually the better trade. It is also, honestly, how we prefer to work: it is why our deals start with a conversation rather than a bid deadline.
The risk in a one-buyer conversation is not knowing your number. Three safeguards: know your valuation before you start (evidence of what similar businesses sell for, or a quick estimate); take your own advice, an accountant and lawyer who have done deals; and keep your alternative alive, because the ability to walk away is the only negotiating lever that always works. A buyer worth dealing with will respect all three. One who discourages them is telling you something.
Tatu partners with the owners of UK service businesses making £500k to £3m a year in profit: money out today, a meaningful stake kept, and a bigger sale built together. See how it works, try the free valuation estimate, or write to nico@tatu-capital.com.