Selling your business is likely to be the most important financial transaction of your life, so it’s important to get it right. Given the herculean effort that most people put into building their businesses, it’s amazing how many of them fail to plan their exit, but careful planning is crucial!

The road to growth is paved with partnerships - successful businesses rarely operate alone. They collaborate with other businesses and people within and outside their supply chains to establish mutually beneficial alliances. They do this because they know that partnering can leverage their own competencies and those of others to help propel their growth.

Family and friends are a great source of funding for start ups and early stage businesses, but raising money from external investors or business angels is challenging. Here are ten of the key issues that investors will be considering when they meet you or read your business plan.

There is more to choosing an investor than money. In this edited extract from my book, From Vision to Exit – The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building and Selling a Business, I set out my thoughts on the issues that determine success when securing investment.

Do you remember Project Merlin? It was the promise by the big five banks to lend more money to small businesses in order to encourage growth in the economy.

The Office for National Statistics say that retail sales grew by 0.9% in January 2012 when compared with December. That was a surprise to most economists and a welcome one for the government. Is it a boom for the retail sector? Are we all going shopping to beat the winter blues? No. Sir Philip Green, the Top Man at Top Shop says post-Christmas discounting was brutal. Recent retail growth is thanks to extreme slash-and-burn tactics that only the largest retailers can temporarily afford.