Can I ask for a higher price if I'm willing to help train the new owner?

Yes, offering a transition period where you train and support the new owner is a genuine value-add that can support a higher price, since it directly addresses one of the biggest risks a buyer faces: losing your knowledge, relationships, and day-to-day expertise the moment the deal closes. Buyers often value this enough to pay more for it, or to accept a price they'd otherwise negotiate down over concerns about owner dependency.

The nuance is that this needs to be structured clearly, not just offered informally, to actually support a higher price in negotiation. Buyers and their advisors will want specifics: how long the transition lasts, what you're actually committing to do during it, whether it's paid as a consulting arrangement or built into the purchase price, and what happens if either side isn't satisfied with how it's going. A vague promise to "help out" carries far less weight than a defined transition services agreement.

If you're planning to offer this, it's worth having a business lawyer draft the transition arrangement as a clear, specific part of the deal, since a well-structured transition period is genuinely persuasive to buyers in a way an informal offer to help usually isn't.