The question you are really asking When someone tells me they are thinking about selling a business unit, I ask them one thing first: why now? The answer tells me everything. Sometimes it is genuine focus. They want to double down on what is working and stop spreading themselves thin. Other times it is exhaustion dressed up as strategy. They are tired of managing something that never quite performed, and selling feels cleaner than admitting it needs to be fixed or shut down. Both can be valid. But you need to know which one you are doing. Sainsbury's just agreed to sell Argos for £120m. That is a business they paid over £1.4bn for in 2016. The numbers tell a story: sometimes what made sense a decade ago does not make sense now. But notice they negotiated to keep Argos operating in their shops. They did not just offload it. They structured a deal that preserved what still worked for them. That is the mindset you need. Not "how do I get rid of this?" but "what am I actually trying to achieve, and what is the cleanest way to get there?" What you are really selling A business unit is not just revenue. It is people, processes, customer relationships, and sometimes intellectual property. Before you talk to anyone about price, you need to be clear on what the unit actually contains. I worked with someone last year who wanted to sell their events arm. When we mapped it out, we realised 40% of the revenue came from clients who also used their main consultancy service. Selling the events business cleanly was not possible without risking those relationships. The unit was more entangled than it appeared on the spreadsheet. Start by listing: What assets sit inside this unit (contracts, equipment, brand names, proprietary systems) Which staff would transfer and which would not What shared resources the unit currently uses (your finance team, your office, your software licences) Which customers overlap with your remaining business If you cannot answer these clearly, you are not ready to sell. You are guessing. The three tests I run Whenever I help someone evaluate this decision, I put the unit through three tests. Test one: standalone viability. Could this unit operate on its own tomorrow? If you had to give it its own bank account, its own team, its own overhead, would it survive? A lot of units look profitable until you load them with the true cost of running independently. If the answer is no, you are not selling a business. You are selling a project, and buyers will price it accordingly. Test two: strategic fit. Does this unit help your core business, or does it distract from it? Be honest. Sometimes a unit that makes money still pulls your attention away from what you should be doing. That is a cost that does not show up on the P&L. Test three: opportunity cost. What would you do with the time, energy, and capital you would free up by selling? If you do not have a clear answer, selling is not a strategy. It is just motion. I have seen people sell units and then drift for a year because they had not thought about what came next. The sale was the goal, not a step toward something bigger. How to value it without kidding yourself Valuation is where people get into trouble. They either anchor on what they think it is worth emotionally, or they accept the first number a broker throws out. Here is a starting point: take the unit's average annual profit over the last three years, and multiply it by somewhere between 2 and 4, depending on how stable the revenue is and how much it depends on you personally. If the business runs without you, that multiple goes up. If you are the reason clients stay, it goes down. A lot. Then adjust for assets. If there is equipment, property, or intellectual property that transfers, add that. If there are liabilities or obligations that transfer, subtract them. This gives you a rough floor. A buyer might pay more if they see synergies with their existing operation. But do not count on that. Start with what the unit is worth to a stranger who has no special reason to want it. The SWOT Analysis tool on alira.london can help here. Run it specifically on the unit, not your whole business. What are its actual strengths separate from your brand? What threats would a new owner inherit? This kind of clarity makes negotiations easier because you are not defending a fantasy. The questions buyers will ask Expect scrutiny. Any serious buyer will want to know: Why are you selling? What happens to key staff after the sale? How much of the revenue depends on existing relationships with your other business? What is the customer concentration? (If one client is 30% or more of revenue, that is a risk.) What would it cost to replace the shared services the unit currently uses? If you cannot answer these confidently, you will either lose the deal or accept a lower price because the buyer is pricing in uncertainty. When not to sell Sometimes the answer is to fix it, not sell it. If the unit is underperforming because of neglect rather than structural problems, a sale will just crystallise your losses. You might get more value by spending six months improving it first. Other times, the answer is to close it. If the unit has no standalone viability and no buyer interest, a clean shutdown might be better than spending months chasing a sale that never comes. That frees you up faster. Selling is not always the right move. It is just one option. What to do this week One: Write a one-page brief on the unit. What does it do, who works in it, what revenue did it generate last year, and what shared resources does it use? Keep it factual. Two: Run the standalone viability test. Calculate what the unit would cost to operate if it had to pay for everything itself. If it is still profitable, you have something worth selling. If not, you have a project. Three: Book an hour to think about what you would do with the time and money if you did sell. If you do not have a clear answer, pause the process until you do.