However, no matter what your exit might be, you can’t avoid the due diligence process.  It pays to plan ahead.  The more you can anticipate what might be asked of you, the easier the diligence process will be and the quicker you can negotiate your exit.

Here are just a few of the things on the legal, financial and HR side to have handy (and you can always Google up a comprehensive due diligence checklist):

• Articles of incorporation 
• Bylaws and any amendments
• Minutes of any corporate meeting
• Lists of subsidiaries and other entities in which the company has an equity interest
• Copies of employment contracts
• Employee handbooks and policy and procedure manuals
• Employee benefit program info
• Property leases
• Equipment leases
• Documentation of all intellectual property
• Financing or line of credit agreements
• List of all outside counsel and purposes
• Outside counsel billing statements
• Any consent decrees or memorandi of understanding with any government agency
• Settlement agreements or judgements as a result of litigation
• 3 years of general ledger level financials
• Current budgets and 3 year projection

Again, this is by no means a comprehensive list.  Rather, it’s simply meant to give you an idea of the items you will find presented to you on such a checklist.

When it comes to performance metrics relative to a Website, be prepared to throw in everything including the kitchen sink.  Things such as:

• Visitors
• Unique Visits
• Keywords used to find your site
• Ranking reports for the most important keywords in your industry
• Page views
• Time on site
• Bounce rate
• Traffic sources segmented by paid, organic search, direct and referring sites
• Registrations
• Registration rate
• Data points captured
• Any meaningful data analysis based on the data captured
• PPC and PPA campaign performance and spending levels segmented by source

Items such as those derived from your own data analysis will be specific to your business.   Build and maintain well thought out reports that memorialize every important operating metric you can think of.

I’ve been on both sides of the due diligence process and can tell you for certain you will be well served to start off on the right foot by both thoroughly documenting your performance metrics as well as keeping great records of everything that your business does.  You never know when the right person may come knocking.