I talk a lot about buying businesses, but in this article I want to talk about how you should run a business if your intent is to sell it down the road.

Here's a question I recently received on this subject:

I'm in the early stages of building my business, the third year, and I'm building it with the idea of selling it to someone down the road. What should I be concerned with as I build my business to make it attractive to a buyer down the road?”

The first two things that make it attractive to a buyer is increase in sales and profit every year but very few peaks and valleys.

Think about it: When you're buying a business, do you want a bunch of inconsistencies in the sales and growth? Or do you want to see a steady, and easily predictable progression of profits each and every year?

The other thing that is important, that makes it very attractive to a buyer, is strong management. In other words, you've brought people in, maybe even beginner people, you've trained them, they've come along, and you have a very good management team in there because that's the thing that carries the business forward. A smart buyer is not going to want to mess around with changing things around. They

If you have a good management team in place already -- who know and understand the business, the employees and how everything works -- then a buyer will know he won't have to do all that much once he steps in.