Most owners come into a sale with a picture in their head of how it will go. They have bought and sold things their whole lives. A truck. A building. A house. A piece of equipment at auction. So they assume selling their business will feel like a bigger version of that. Harder, sure, and a lot more money on the table, but the same basic shape: find a buyer, agree on a price, sign some papers, get paid.
I understand the instinct, because I had it too before I sold my own company. It is also wrong, and the distance between that picture and what actually happens is where most of the frustration, the bad surprises, and the regret in this business come from.
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