For most owners, selling the business is the largest financial event of their life, and the most concentrated: years of value converting to cash in a single transaction. The instinct is to focus everything on the deal. The financial work that determines what you actually keep happens before and after it.
The moves with the most leverage are made early, often a year or more ahead. How the entity is structured, whether the sale is an asset or a stock sale, and how the proceeds are characterized can all shape the outcome, and most of those levers close once a deal is in motion. This is squarely a conversation for your CPA and attorney; the role of financial planning is to make sure it happens on time, not after the terms are set.
A business sale creates the same concentration risk as any large liquidity event, turned around. For years your wealth was concentrated in an illiquid asset you controlled. Overnight it becomes a large pool of cash you now have to deploy, and the temptation to do something with all of it quickly is exactly the wrong instinct. A pre-decided plan for the proceeds, made before the wire hits, is worth more than any single investment decision made after it.
The work does not end at closing. Estimated taxes, updated estate documents that reflect a very different balance sheet, insurance that no longer matches what you own, and a plan for income that must now come from a portfolio instead of a payroll: each is a decision the sale forces, and each is easier if it was anticipated. We coordinate these with your other advisers, because the sale touches tax, legal, investment, and risk at once, and none of them should be handled in isolation. This is general information, not personalized investment, legal, or tax advice.
The sale is one day. The plan around it is the rest of them.