When should I first talk to a business broker about selling?

You should first talk to a business broker 2 to 3 years before you want to sell. A good broker will tell you what buyers will pay for today, what will cost you money at the closing table, and what to fix while there’s still time. Just as important, a broker who closes deals every year knows the attorneys, tax specialists, lenders, and planners who get sales done. Which of those people you need depends on your situation, and a good broker can tell you.

Most owners do it the other way around. The IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse report for Q2 2026 found that 60% to 90% of sellers, depending on business size, had done less than one year of planning before they went to market, or none at all. That’s like calling the roofer after the storm.

Key Takeaways

• Make the first call to a broker 2 to 3 years before you want to be out, not when you’re ready to list
• Early on, the broker’s job is to show you what a buyer will see, not to sell your business
• A good broker knows which attorneys, tax specialists, lenders, and planners actually close deals
• The people you need depend on your situation: family sale, outside buyer, partner buyout, or real estate in the deal
• 60% to 90% of sellers go to market with less than a year of planning (IBBA Market Pulse, Q2 2026)

Table of Contents

• Why should a broker be the first call?
• What does a broker do 2 to 3 years before a sale?
• Who will a good broker send you to?
• Why does the right team depend on your situation?
• Why are a broker’s referrals better than finding people yourself?
• Will a broker take you seriously if you’re years away?

Why should a broker be the first call?

A broker is the one person who sees your business the way a buyer will. Your CPA looks at it the way the IRS does. Your attorney looks at it for risk. A buyer looks at it and asks one question: how much of this profit walks out the door when the owner leaves?

A good broker has sat across the table from buyers dozens of times. They know which problems knock a few points off the price and which ones kill a deal outright. Most owners have never sold a business before. The broker has sold many.

That’s why the order matters. If you start with a lawyer or a tax person, you’ll get good answers to the questions you knew to ask. A broker tells you the questions you didn’t know to ask, and then points you to the right person to answer each one.

What does a broker do 2 to 3 years before a sale?

Early on, a broker isn’t listing your business. They’re helping you get it ready. Here’s what that usually looks like:

When	What happens
24 to 36 months out	First meeting. Rough opinion of value. A list of what buyers will pick apart.
18 to 24 months out	Bring in a CPA to clean up the books and a tax specialist to look at how the sale will be taxed.
12 to 18 months out	Work on the big fixes: handing off customer relationships, building a manager, cutting the reliance on one big account.
6 to 12 months out	Attorney reviews leases, contracts, and ownership papers. Formal valuation if needed.
0 to 6 months out	Broker prepares the sale package and starts quietly contacting buyers.

Most of the work in that window isn’t the broker’s. It’s yours and your specialists’. The broker’s job is to tell you what to work on, in what order, and who should help.

The payoff is real. Buyers pay for clean books, a business that runs without the owner, and no surprises in due diligence. Every one of those takes more than a few months to fix. For more on why the timeline matters, see why owners who sell well start preparing early.

Who will a good broker send you to?

A broker who closes deals every year builds a bench of people they work with again and again. Here are the specialists most owners end up needing, and when:

• Business attorney who handles sales. Reviews your contracts, leases, and ownership papers before a buyer does. Later, negotiates the purchase agreement. This is not the same lawyer who wrote your will. See whether you need an attorney to sell a business.
• CPA or tax specialist. Cleans up three years of books so the profit is easy to prove. Plans how the sale is taxed, which can swing what you keep by six figures. Here’s how to tell when you need a tax attorney versus a CPA.
• Valuation specialist. Gives you a formal number when you need one: a family sale, a partner buyout, an estate plan, or an SBA-financed deal. See how to find a business valuation specialist.
• Lender or SBA loan specialist. Most small business buyers borrow to buy. A broker who knows lenders can tell you early whether a typical buyer can get your business financed.
• Estate planning attorney. Sets up wills, trusts, and ownership so your family is protected before, during, and after the sale.
• Financial planner. Tells you how much you actually need from the sale to live the way you want. That number should drive everything else.
• Exit planning specialist. Helpful when there are a lot of moving parts, like family members, partners, or multiple businesses. Here’s what an exit planning advisor does.
• Quality of earnings provider. An accounting firm that checks your numbers the way a buyer’s accountant will. Usually for larger deals, around $2 million in profit and up.

You won’t need all of them. Most owners need three or four.

Why does the right team depend on your situation?

No two sales look alike. Who you need depends on who’s buying, how your business is set up, and what you own outside of it. Here are some common situations and who a good broker would point you to first:

Your situation	Who you’ll likely need first
Selling to a son or daughter	Valuation specialist, estate planning attorney, CPA
Selling to a key employee	Lender who does SBA loans, business attorney, CPA
Selling to an outside buyer	Business attorney, CPA for clean books, tax specialist
Buying out a partner first	Business attorney, valuation specialist
You own the building	CPA, real estate attorney, sometimes a lender
Your business is a C corporation	Tax specialist, early. This one is expensive to fix late.

That last row is worth a closer look. Most buyers want to buy assets, not stock. In a C corporation, an asset sale can mean the profit gets taxed twice: once at the company level and again when the money comes out to you. Changing the setup takes planning, and some fixes take years to fully kick in. Here’s how asset sales and stock sales differ.

Financing is another one. Under the SBA’s current lending rules (SOP 50 10 8, in effect since June 2025), a seller note can count toward a buyer’s down payment only if you take no payments on it until the buyer’s SBA loan is paid off. That’s often 10 years. If you plan to carry part of the price, you want to know that years ahead, not at the closing table. Learn more about how seller financing works.

What one first call looked like

A broker shared a recent first call with us. The owner planned to sell to his son, and that was about as far as the plan went. The broker didn’t try to list the business. Instead, they laid out four paths that could make a family sale actually work.

• A formal valuation. A family sale still needs a real number. It keeps things fair between the kids, and a lender will require one. It also protects the family if the IRS questions the price.
• SBA financing for the son. Most kids can’t write a check for the business. An SBA loan lets the son pay most of the price at closing, so the parent isn’t waiting years to get paid.
• An ESOP as a backup. If the son doesn’t want it, or can’t get financed, selling to the employees keeps the business in local hands. Here’s how an ESOP works.
• A private equity partner for the son. An outside investor can buy part of the business and help the son grow it faster than he could alone.

Each path brings in a different specialist. Nothing was decided on that call, and that’s the point. The broker’s job at that stage was to show the owner his options and who could help with each one. See more on passing a business to your children.

Why are a broker’s referrals better than finding people yourself?

Because brokers see who does the job well, deal after deal. They know which attorney gets a purchase agreement done in two weeks and which one sends forty pages of redlines and scares the buyer off. They know which CPA’s numbers hold up when a buyer’s accountant digs in. You can’t learn that from a website.

Your current people may be great. But a general practice attorney who closes one business sale every five years is learning on your deal. A broker can tell you, kindly, when your longtime CPA is the right person and when you need someone who does sales every month.

There’s also the coordination. A sale has a lot of handoffs: books to the CPA, CPA’s numbers to the broker, broker’s package to buyers, buyer’s offer to the attorney. When those people already work together, things move faster and fewer details fall through the cracks.

It’s also fair to ask whether the broker gets paid for a referral. Sometimes they do. A lender may pay a referral fee on an SBA loan, for example, and the SBA requires it to be disclosed on its Form 159. A fee isn’t a problem by itself, but you should know about it, and a good broker will tell you without being asked.

Will a broker take you seriously if you’re years away?

A good one will. Early conversations are how strong brokers build relationships, and a well-prepared business is far easier for them to sell later. If a broker pushes you to list right away when you’ve said you’re 2 to 3 years out, that tells you something.

Here’s what to ask in a first meeting:

1. What would a buyer pay for my business today, roughly? You want a range, and an explanation of how they got there.
2. What would a buyer pick apart? A good broker will give you a straight list. If they only say nice things, be careful.
3. What should I fix first? Order matters. Some fixes take years, and some take weeks.
4. Who would you have me talk to, and why? This shows you whether they really have a bench, and whether they understand your situation.
5. How many businesses like mine have you sold? Experience in your industry matters. An HVAC buyer asks different questions than a manufacturing buyer.

For a longer list, see questions to ask a business broker. If you want to know what a broker does once you do go to market, read what a good business broker actually does for you.

The short version

Call a good broker early, before you think you need one. Let them show you what a buyer will see. Then let them point you to the few specialists your situation calls for. You’ll find more on what selling looks like in our Future Options guides, and more on picking the right people in Finding the Right People.

Tell us about your business and we’ll match you with the right broker.