I break down the process of selling a business into two phases:

Phase 1 (years) is creating a sellable business. This is the stage during which you create something that can be sold by developing predictable revenue and profit and ensuring the business isn’t reliant on you, the owner. Phase 1 takes years or decades to complete.

Phase 2 (6-8 months) is proactively selling a business. Assuming you want to neither pass your business to your kids nor sell it to your management team, you may choose to engage a third-party agent, as do most entrepreneurs, to help you find a buyer. I asked Perry Miele, chairman of Beringer Capital and one of Toronto’s mid-market deal makers, how long it takes him to sell a business. He said, “From the day you engage an advisor to having a check in your hands usually takes about six to eight months.”

Miele goes on to explain why it takes so long: “When we sell a business, we spend the first few weeks building an information kit for potential buyers to review. It then takes weeks to solicit interest as they review the information package. Interested bidders will want to have management presentations, which can take weeks to set up, given the need to choreograph the schedules. Once an offer is accepted, there is usually a two- to three-month due diligence period.”

Deal making is done by the seniormost people at both companies. Senior people are busy running their business, which makes selling (or buying) a business a protracted process.

It seems when it comes to selling a business, as in life, nine women can’t produce a baby in one month.

The public relations firm I’m using for the launch of my new book has asked me to write a provocative op-ed piece which they intend to pitch to The New York Times among other tier one newspapers.  I’ve included a draft of the article below and would like to invite you to help me shape this piece with your own comments, examples or counter arguments. I’ll include your name and company name if you send me your comments (use the comments section below the post) by end of day Wednesday Feb 17.  Looking forward to seeing your comments, here’s the article:

President Obama, Lloyd Blankfein: Get Out of Our Kitchen

It’s amusing to me to watch the small business market be used as a “get out of jail free” card for anyone who makes a mistake or needs to gain public support for an idea.

Last week, with his agenda treading water, President Obama wrapped his arms around small business owners by urging lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at helping this group.

Politicians’ proclaiming their support for the small business market is the equivalent of the ad agency executive, stumped for a good idea, opting to put dogs in the commercial since everyone loves a golden Lab.

Before Goldman Sachs announced its employee bonus, it tried to soften public opinion of the company by announcing the “10,000 Small Business” initiative, which promised to give small business owners access to Goldman employees as mentors and advisors.

Are you kidding me?

What exactly do Goldman Sachs employees know about running a small business? Take a look at the life trajectory of the typical Goldman Sachs employee: a gifted student who was told how wonderful and intelligent he or she was from kindergarten on up. These people went through school with parents pushing them to get better and better grades. No time for sports, play or just being a kid—they had to be in the top 1% of their high school class so they could get into the best undergrad schools, which would, in turn, guarantee them a spot in the MBA class at either Wharton or Harvard. Upon graduation, they were dispatched to Wall Street, where they worked 100 weeks at the knee of someone who told them exactly what to do. No time for independent thought—we have financial models to build.  They’re good at math but have no appreciation for context. Given the protected and directed nature of their upbringing, the Goldman employees I’ve met are like financial robots who can neither sell nor communicate their ideas.

Take Hank Paulson, a master of the Goldman universe, who left the top echelon of Goldman Sachs, where he was revered as a demigod, to take on the job of Treasury secretary for the Bush White House. During the financial crisis, he became a daily punching bag for the press because he had none of the skills necessary to start and operate a business. He had no ability to communicate a vision, no ability to sell an idea.

Paulson and his Goldman brethren are great at math, and I’m sure they can make an Excel spreadsheet dance. Entrepreneurs they are not. And the idea they would somehow be worthy of advising business owners on anything more than balancing their checkbook is offensive to business owners.

The business owners I know started from scratch with not much more than an idea. They fretted about securing the resources to get started but ultimately pulled themselves up by the straps of their well-worn work boots and sold to anyone who would listen. Over time, if they were tenacious and flexible, they learned to carve out a niche, a business and a living.

The last thing they need is a 28-year-old MBA from Goldman Sachs who has been mollycoddled and manipulated his or her entire life to give them advice. It was bankers, not business owners, who brought the financial system to the brink. Having Goldman employees provide advice is a little bit like asking President Clinton to counsel married men with a wandering eye or asking Britney Spears to share fashion tips for ninth graders embarking on their first day of high school.

President Obama, Lloyd Blankfein and anyone else thinking of proclaiming their undying love for the small business owners of the world, stop. Business owners do not need your charity. Business owners need you to get out of their kitchen.

Most business owners want to know what the rules are and for you to leave the rest to them.

• They don’t want you messing with the financial system so that one day banks will lend money to just about anyone only to turn around the next day and lend to nobody.
• They want a health care system that covers their workers so they don’t have to play insurance company to their employees.
• They want a strong, stable currency instead of one that fluctuates wildly because of the mismanagement of public funds.
• They want to compete on a level playing field, not within a complex web of socially engineered programs for every conceivable special interest group.

Stop using the small business market as a pawn to make yourself look better. Just tell business owners the rules and get the heck out of their way.

John Warrillow is the author of the book Built to Sell: Turn Your Business into One You Can Sell. He has dedicated his entire career to understanding the small business market. He has started and exited four businesses. Most recently, he founded Warrillow & Co., a firm that researches the small business market, which he sold to The Corporate Executive Board in 2008.

Last week an audience member at a speech I was giving asked me how he should value his company name. The attendee explained that his company was a second-generation family business with the owner’s surname in the company name.

My answer caused a stir among the 100 or so attendees: “I think your business name is worthless,” I said.

Murmurs filled the room. Not taking my valuation assessment lightly, the attendee went on the defensive:

“But we’ve been in business for forty years. We have loyal customers who come back year after year for our great service. . . .”

In my experience, buyers place little or no value on a business name. They are interested only in buying the future profits of the business. If customers know and ask for the company by name, then the buyer will want you to include the name in the deal, but the name itself is not worth anything unless you can prove there is a profitable group of customers clamoring to buy from a company with that name.

The name Nike was worthless until Phil Knight made it mean something to customers. The Nike “swoosh” logo was commissioned for $35, and that’s how much it would have been worth today had Phil Knight not invested billions in smart marketing that created a loyal customer following of people willing to buy anything that featured that ubiquitous moniker or symbol.

Apple is a fruit, and the word itself wasn’t worth anything until Steve Jobs built a company behind it. Now Apple the company is worth $178 billion.

Google is a made-up name but not a bad little company.

Said another way, if you have a crappy business and a great name, your business is still next to worthless. If you have a great company, you can make just about any name worth something.