I have a friend who just bought a business and another who is a business broker.

One piece of advice would be to find a good business broker, who isn't a lazy piece of crap and who understands the information buyers need to make an informed decision.

I was just talking with the (buyer) friend on a recent trip home and he said it was shocking how often he'd be sent a single shitty spreadsheet with hardly any context when requesting information on businesses costing $1M or more, and that most brokers couldn't be bothered to type out more than a sentence or two when he'd ask questions.

Obviously $1M is relatively small in terms of the sale of a business, but it's still a $100k commission.