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Many owner-managers nearing retirement, despite the existence of potential successors within the family, prefer to sell the business outside the family. This article concerns the presentation of the results of an exploratory study based on a survey conducted in Brittany with fifty-four owner-managers aged fifty-five or over, in SMEs with ten to one hundred employees in the sectors of industry and construction, who intend to sell their business outside the family and who have at least one adult child. We identified five main focuses of reflection for future sellers: the interest in the business for the next generation, geographical location as an obstacle to the desired succession, looking for technical skills among successors, the financial opportunity, and sensitivity to the interest of potential family successors. Cluster analysis brings out five groups of individuals with specific behaviors. Our goal was to study their preference for non-family succession and their positioning in relation to a possible intra-family succession.