Is there a wrong way to announce internally that the business might be sold?

Yes — there isn't one single "right" way to announce a possible sale, but there are clearly worse ways, and most of them come down to timing and certainty. Announcing before you actually have a serious buyer or a real decision to share tends to create anxiety and speculation without giving employees anything concrete to respond to, which can prompt key people to start looking elsewhere well before anything is settled. Announcing too late — after employees hear about it secondhand or notice unusual activity — tends to damage trust even if the deal itself goes well.

The nuance is that what you legally can say and what's wise to say aren't the same question. There's generally no legal requirement to tell employees anything at all until a sale is genuinely close, aside from statutory notice obligations that apply if and when employment actually ends or changes, but managing morale and retention, especially for key employees whose continued involvement matters to a buyer, is a separate and real concern.

Thinking through the announcement — what to say, to whom, and when — with a business lawyer, and ideally before you're forced into it by a leak, tends to produce a much better outcome than reacting in the moment.