Suppose you want to close down your store, whether you are retiring, market is tough or just ready to move on to something different. Getting rid of tens of thousands of dollars worth of inventory is easier said than done.

First idea that pops into many retail business owners?

Going out of business sales. Well, in fact this type of sale is the answer to liquidating inventory fast, but simply posting a few going out of business sales signs on your windows will not sell inventory. In fact, the signs by themselves are counter productive.

How so?

When consumers see a sign like that it only screams out one thing, ‘deals’. To you it is a sale, but to them is the opportunity to satisfy their greed and buy anything they can for wholesale or less. They expect everything to be 70% to 80% off, but that is not what you as the business owner wants.

Not at all. What makes the difference between someone who runs a successful store closing sale and someone who ends up worse off?

Simple, it is called strategy.

See slapping on a few store closing signs on your windows will get you some traffic, but it is likely not going to be the traffic you want. However, that is still a critical component of running a successful sale and you must know how to do it properly.

The signs on the windows alone will not do the job. Instead you have to make sure that people see it and can follow it.

Have you ever seen an open house sign while driving through the suburbs? Some of these agents are really good at placing signs in every possible point where they may lose traffic and others do not. I do not know if that is because of a lack in budget, but something as simple as that can make the difference between a successful sale and a not successful one.

Now, if your store closing signs will draw the wrong people, how do you get the right people? The first place is your customer database.

There is a huge mistake people make when telling their own customers that they are going out of business and that is timing.

You do not want to tell everyone at once, which is what most business owners do.

Last, we have debt. Unfortunately for many business owners, they close down their stores and are left with huge debt to pay off. Secretly, many business owners have been closing down their stores and getting rid of all debt and many times making profit because of this one tip I am about to share.

When you are going out of business, you can negotiate your debt 10 times better, but you must do it at the right time and in the right way. If you do not know when to do this, I can tell you you will probably do it too soon.

Unfortunately there is no set time I can just share with you, otherwise I would. It all depends on your inventory and specific situation.

Here is what I would like for you to take from this. If you are planning on running a store closing sale by yourself, I can almost guarantee you will not do nearly as well as if you hire a professional to do it for you.

I just met one who has been doing this for 25 years and I thought to myself. Going out of business is not something you do everyday. In fact, it usually is a one time event and there is just no possible way that you can do nearly as well as someone who has done this for years!

Now, before you go hire any professional, let me give you a tip on hiring someone to help you with this. You don’t want liquidation companies who are just looking to buy your inventory wholesale. You want someone who specializes in running these sales and who work based on performance. In other words, they don’t get paid unless you succeed.

That alone will filter out 90% of the companies out there and give you a good chance at succeeding. Usually their fee will pay for itself many times over.