You certainly can. It depends what kind of investors you can find. There is often a lag between the time sellers make changes to the business and the collective buyers' reaction to those changes, so if you can line up investors (whether it be equity or fixed income), then you can turn long term good will into short term cash for yourself.

For example, the business in the comment above might be selling veterinarian services, but the new owner's business is actually selling cash flow. The veterinarian services are just a means to an end, so it could be possible to take the built up good will and convert that to cash flow by cutting costs/raising prices in the short term, and then selling the new and improved cash flow.

You might ask, who would buy from this person again when they know the underlying business is being trashed? The answer is usually dumb money, such as defined benefit pension funds where the investor and the beneficiary are far disconnected. As long as it looks like due diligence happened, everyone can kind of get away richer in the short term with no one to stop them.

The hard part is lining up the investors, that requires being in the right networks.