Your Website is Worth What a Buyer Actually Pays For It
I’ve been involved in enough business transactions to know that what a Buyer is willing to pay for your website is often different from what he actually pays for it.
People often repeat the quote “Your business is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.” But it’s not always entirely accurate. Buyers are ordinary people and ordinary people do get nervous and change their minds during a transaction.
Sometimes a Buyer may be very excited about doing a deal and then during the due diligence process, some new information makes him uncomfortable. Soon he’s looking for any reason not to go through with it. Or he subconsciously changes the purchase price he had in mind.
Other times, it’s simply a matter of cold feet. The Buyer realizes that with a simple wire transfer he becomes responsible for the operation of the website business. The reality of the situation sometimes makes new business owners, especially, nervous.
As website brokers, our job is to set an Asking Price that will pull in the highest number of potential Buyers. Then we answer all spoken and unspoken questions in the minds of the Buyers. If a potential Buyer drops out for any reason, we still have other Buyers to guide through the process to a sale.
Numbers and data are important but it is always human psychology that closes business deals. It’s all about people. It’s all about human emotion first.
So ultimately, your website is worth whatever a Buyer actually pays for it. And this number differs from Buyer to Buyer. A good website broker adapts to each Buyer to nudge them along to a sale at a price that makes the Buyer comfortable. That Sale Price is what the website is really worth to that Buyer.
Author: Kris Tabetando
Kris Tabetando provides mergers & acquisitions (M&A) advisory and brokerage services to Internet companies. He also partners with investors to acquire & manage Internet businesses.
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