The NYTimes.com You’re the Boss Blog interviews lawyer Harry Styron on how legal expertise can help you to best sell your business.

Among the many great tips here:

What advice do you have for handling the entire process of selling a business, from due diligence through closing?

Preparation is the key factor. Using the team approach described above will help prevent surprises in the due-diligence phase. Before the business is offered for sale, the seller should have a prototype stock purchase agreement or an asset purchase agreement, with all exhibits in place, which can be finalized without a great deal of investigation. The negotiation process can be focused on the price and financing rather than the buyer’s effort to extract critical information from the seller, which damages the level of trust between buyer and seller.

Factors that will help are having good financial statements, inventories, asset lists, surveys of real estate, operation and maintenance manuals and records for equipment, well-organized files, and employees who are prepared for the transition.

Source: NYTimes.com