How we sell a Chicagoland business.
If you want to sell your business in Chicago or the collar counties, this is how it runs: we price it from the bank statements up, market it without naming it, take it to the buyers who are actually paying, and manage diligence and closing ourselves. The fee is 10% of the sale price, agreed in writing before we go to market. Six to nine months, typically, from first conversation to wire.
Four jobs. The same people do all of them.
- Evidence-backed pricing
- A listing price a buyer's accountant can't take apart. We rebuild your earnings from the bank statements up, document every add-back, and set the range against what comparable Chicagoland businesses have actually traded for. In diligence, the work is already done and it holds.
- Confidential marketing
- A blind profile that describes the business without identifying it. NDAs before financials, and buyers vetted before they learn your name.
- The right buyer rooms
- Roll-ups and PE-backed platform buyers. Strategic and competitor buyers who want your customers and your crew. Individual buyers and searchers, who need clean books to get financed. Insiders and family, who need a real process to protect the relationship.
- Deal management through closing
- The LOI, the data room, every diligence request answered once and well, your attorney and the buyer's lender kept on schedule. Jim Calloway has coordinated more than sixty closed deals. Alex Nejad, CPA, handles the tax, reporting and working-capital questions.
Eight steps, in order. Six to nine months, typically.
The month-by-month calendar behind these steps, and what adds time, is in how to sell a business in Chicago.
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Value range
Free, within two business days. A working range and the two or three items a buyer's accountant would raise first. The multiples behind it are on how much is my business worth; Chicago-specific timing and closing steps are on sell my business in Chicago.
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Readiness check
A consult, or the two-week Exit-Readiness Review if you want the gaps priced. Some owners go to market from here. Some spend 90 days on the items that would cost the most at the table.
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Pricing memo
Normalized earnings, documented add-backs, working capital, and a listing range with the evidence behind it.
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Blind profile and buyer list
A one-page profile that doesn't name the business, and a list of the roll-ups, strategics, searchers and individuals we'll approach, which you approve. If we'd want to buy it ourselves, this is where we say so, in writing.
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NDAs and the CIM
Buyers sign before they see anything with your name on it. Vetted buyers get the confidential information memorandum and the financial package, and we field their questions.
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Management meetings
The serious buyers meet you, usually at the business, after hours if confidentiality needs it. We sit in.
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LOI and diligence
Price, structure, working capital and the transition are settled in the letter of intent, then diligence runs from a data room built before anyone asked. Sixty to ninety days is common; a prepared file makes it shorter.
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Closing
Purchase agreement, your attorney's review, lender sign-off, funds flow, handover plan. Ninety to 120 days from going to market is typical for a prepared business.
10% of the sale price, agreed before we go to market.
The fee is 10% of the sale price, paid at closing out of the proceeds. It goes in the listing agreement before any marketing starts, so there is nothing to renegotiate at the LOI.
What isn't charged: no retainer, and no monthly fee while the business is on the market. If the business doesn't sell, you don't owe a success fee. If you did the Exit-Readiness Review first, the $4,500 is credited at closing. Your attorney's fees are yours, as always.
What brokers in Chicago charge, by sale price All services and fees
We can represent you without listing the business.
A competitor called. A roll-up sent a letter. The first offer is rarely the best one, because the buyer priced it before anyone on your side checked the math.
We can represent you in that one conversation without putting the business on the market: check their math, review their LOI, negotiate structure and working capital, and manage diligence. The fee is agreed in writing before we start, as with any sale. If their number is fair, we'll say so. If it isn't, a second prepared buyer, even a quiet one, is the most reliable way to improve it. Sometimes that second buyer is us.
Most teams never learn a sale is being prepared.
The blind profile carries no name, no address, and no detail that would identify you to a competitor. Every buyer signs an NDA before seeing a financial statement and is vetted before getting your name. Our managing advisor spent fifteen years as an IRS auditor; handling other people's financial information carefully is a habit here, not a policy.
Selling outside the city? The engagement runs the same way in DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will, and the Illinois closing notices are explained in sell a business in Illinois.
What would it sell for?
Revenue, industry, and where to send it. A CPA-prepared range and the two or three items a buyer's accountant would raise first, within two business days. Free, nothing to sign.
What owners ask before they list.
I want to sell my business. Where do I start?
Start with the free confidential value range: revenue, industry and an email address, and a CPA-prepared range comes back within two business days. Then a 30-minute consult settles the next step: go to market now, work a 90-day fix list first, or take the two-week, $4,500 Exit-Readiness Review. Nothing is signed until the listing agreement.
How long does it take to sell a business in Chicago?
Six to nine months from first conversation to closing, and 90 to 120 days once on the market, for a business with clean books. Cash-basis books, a customer over 20 percent of revenue, or an owner who holds every relationship add time.
What does the 10% success fee cover, and when is it paid?
Everything from the pricing memo to closing: the blind profile and buyer list, NDAs and the CIM, management meetings, LOI negotiation, diligence and closing. It is paid at closing out of the proceeds. No retainer, no monthly fee, and the $4,500 Exit-Readiness Review fee is credited against it.
Will my employees or customers find out?
Not from us. The profile is blind, buyers sign an NDA before they see financials, and they are vetted before they learn your name. You decide when your people are told, usually after the purchase agreement is signed.
What if I already have a buyer?
Don't sign their LOI yet. Send us what they sent you and book a consult. We can represent you in that one negotiation without listing: rebuild the earnings, review the LOI, negotiate structure and working capital, and manage diligence, with the fee agreed in writing before work starts.
Do you sell businesses outside Chicago?
We work Chicago and Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, and Northwest Indiana by arrangement. On site, and that's a deliberate limit. See who we serve.
Thirty minutes with a CPA. Your numbers, straight answers.
Pick two windows and he'll confirm one within a business hour. Or call the office, weekdays 9 to 5. A person answers.