sell a business florida Archives - Page 3 of 7

Its not Who You Know its Who Knows You

By Scott | January 31, 2011 - 6:52 am |July 17, 2013 business broker florida, buy a business, how to sell a business, Main, sell a business, sell a business florida, selling my business

Establishing The Right Relationships

We use various means to establish those relationships. When we make it our goal to grow our businesses by “getting out there and meeting more people”, that effort can be somewhat miss-guided. For every business person the needs are a little different. I help people buy and sell business. I strive to speak to more people that are considering buying a business.

I also prospect and market to reach small business owners that have an interest in selling their business. In some businesses the largest asset may be the production equipment, in others it may be their building they own, in my business as a business broker my largest asset along with my experiences may be my business relationships.

Actually to me the concept of Business Relationships has changed significantly over the last several years with the evolving of the internet and social media. And the definition of a business relation has become somewhat blurred.

“On Facebook I have 1800 friends”, “on Twitter 12,000 Follow Me and I follow 14,000” “On Linked-In I have 2200 Contacts”.- I actually dont have these sort of numbers but many of us know people that do. The real fact, at least for me, is that if I have to use all my fingers and toes to count my real friends I consider myself fortunate.

Photo (c) sheranescloset.com

Does Knowing People Mean That They Know You?

Do the 1800 Facebook friends know you ?, Do the 14,000 on Twitter know you?, Of the 2200 Contacts on Link-ed In , how many are going to shoot me an email when they want to Buy a Business or Sell a Business in Florida, or buy printer paper, or get my lawn service, or whatever my business offers?

As we strive to network and expand our sphere of relationships I recently got reminded of the actual goal of this effort , or rather what the end result of this effort should actually be. Very often I think thru my networking efforts, I want to meet people, when really what I want to do is have people meet me, get to know me. I know who President Obama is, I don`t really”know” President Obama. So I know of President Obama- does that help my business -no. But what if President Obama knew me or knew of me?

I know of Bill Gates-Microsoft. So what? What if Bill Gates knew of me? But from a practical standpoint, knowing the president of the small business right here on Main St is nice, but meeting him and striving to get him to know me, and when he and his friends are talking and one strikes up the all to common conversation of ” Do you know anyone who…..” can help me buy a business in Florida, this small business owner can say yes, I know this great business broker and his name is…

Most Important Step to Starting,Running, Buying, or Selling a Business

By Scott | November 5, 2010 - 8:10 am |July 17, 2013 business broker florida, buy a business, entrepreneur, how to sell a business, Main, sell a business, selling my business, small business ideas

1 Comment

You are looking to Start a Business. You are Running a Business. You are Buying a Business. You are Selling a Business. What is the most important step in any one of these ventures, And no the answer is not having unlimited deep pockets. To start, run, sell,or buy a business you need to understand that business. You need to understand not only the operational side of your business, you need to understand the financial side of your business.

I am a business broker in Florida and I help people buy and sell businesses. (and current and former business owner) This last week I completed a very busy week of helping an out of town business buyer visit several different businesses. Our intent of visiting these multiple businesses was an effort to understand the businesses. To buy a business you have to understand the business. A small business owner truly needs to understand the financial health of their business.

Running Your Business Successfully

Many, Many Many small business owners DO NOT understand the financial side of their business. Do you feel as an entrepreneur you need to understand the difference between a debit and credit or if you buy something if it should be a capital purchase or an operating expense. So many small business owners and entrepreneurs run their business using their gut as their guide, they can feel if their business is going good or bad.

Other small business owners look at their checkbook- if there is money in that things are ok. On the other side you may have a very successful business, you buy several new truck and new equipment with cash every year, you have very little money in the checkbook and “feel” you have an unsuccessful business. You could be very wrong. And yes it is also very easy to hire a CPA and or accountant and send all the monthly records to them, count on them to sort thru them and have them generate a report for you to maybe glance at and file away.

Photo (c) freelancefolder.com

Your CPA or accountant is a great place to start the learning process. The more you know, the more effective they can be to you. Your Balance sheet and your Income statement tell your companies story. You may feel your company is healthy, or improving, or getting better, or getting worse- your balances sheet or Income statement (Profit/Loss Statement) will tell you in a factual manner.

You need money for your business- you go to a banker or financial institution to get money, do you think they will listen to you tell them about your business and loan you money based on that. they will use your company financials to make that business decision. A few years ago banks I had worked with strongly considered your balances sheet to make loan decision. Now-a- days both Balance Sheets and income Statement both are a strong part of that evaluation. Why is that?. Understanding the “whys” about your business is important to your business.

In the preceding scenario a business may have a strong balance sheet due to significant assets like real estate owned or equipment owned by the company. But in current economic conditions the companies Income statement show that the business sales are down 25% and and shows losses for the last year- lending may not occur. The banks may not be all that excited about the fact that you own real estate thru your company.

The business buyer I was working with flew in town for 3 days for him and I to visit businesses. Most of the small business owners we visited had good businesses. Without divulging any confidential information, they all showed cash flow in excess of $200,000 per year. They (the respective business owners) all said they didn’t really understand the financial side of the business, but “here our our records for your review”. (after confidentiality agreements were signed) They could speak for hours about their customers, employees, procedures and ideas. Questions regarding financial information were usually answered with 1 or 2 brief sentences.

Buying A Business – The Right Way

The buyer I was working with was a very educated buyer, a President of a publicly held $40 Million company , and 30+ years of experience. He had looked thru maybe 30 businesses to narrow down visits to less than a handful. He and I both knew that to buy a business, he had to understand the business. We spent hours discussing the financials of the businesses.

You as an entrepreneur that is starting a business or running a business may someday want to sell your business. Understanding the true financial condition of your business is the 1st step to improving the financial condition of your business.

Buying a business is a very effective way to expand your customer base and Revenues. knowing how to read and understand the financial statements of others could be the difference of a business acquisition that is a success or a failure.

And when an educated buyer approaches you about buying your business, you provide the business buyer your Balance Sheet, your Income Statement, and your explanation and understanding of the true financial condition of your business may be the difference in someone buying your business at a good price or passing your business over to pursue other businesses to buy.

Negotiating from a Business Owner Business Broker Perspective

By Scott | October 19, 2010 - 9:50 am |July 17, 2013 business broker florida, buy a business, how to sell a business, Main, sell a business, sell a business florida, selling my business, small business ideas, small business owner

3 Comments

As a Small business owner or Entrepreneur, we find ourselves always negotiating. We negotiate with our vendors for better prices/terms. We negotiate with our spouses to spend just a few more hours at the office before we come home for dinner. I believe everyone’s views and methods of negotiation are as different as our taste in music.

Negotiating When Buying Or Selling A Business

My profession as a business broker certainly involves negotiations at most every step of the long process of buying and or selling a business. Someone “needs” to sell their business, he “needs to sell at this price”, according to all the other Business For Sale , his price is 3 x what other like businesses are asking, I find myself “negotiating or discussing” the merits of his target price. My previous position as an owner of a small business with 25 employees and handling manufacturing, transportation, multiple office locations, and distribution required constant negotiation. I used to formally review my employees on an annual basis.

They generally expected a raise. Before the meeting, I would calculate what the company could afford, set a range and meet with the employee. I never viewed this process as a meeting that allowed negotiation on wages. I viewed it as a means to allow di-directional feedback, but the wage increase was not an arbitrary number. Very often employees would ask for more, I think just because they thought that is what they were supposed to do- which is fine with me. They viewed this as a negotiation, I viewed it as something else.- This was just part of my personality or philosophy on negotiation. I had fantastic long term employees and we would later negotiate days off, holiday pay and other items, but raises were not a point of negotiation. Again, I think we all have our own unique views and ideas on negotiation.

Very often how ones negotiates may be a matter of his or hers personality. Other time “someone told me or taught me” how to negotiate and that becomes the norm. Currently as a business broker I do have to negotiate terms and conditions of me helping a business owner sell a business. The line between negotiation and discussion does become blurred and for me I think it is fine to have business negotiations and business discussion become one and the same thing.

My Negotiation Tips For You

1. I find I don`t get so caught up on the concept of negotiation and semantics. I find that we have a business decision to resolve, we have 2 parties seeking to resolve it, and the 2 parties work together to seek resolution. Put yourself in the position of having options and the process has the potential for the best results.

2. Its not always about price. I have been through the process of negotiating leases on a facilities, annual purchase orders with major suppliers, and larger purchases of capital equipment and many other “negotiable situation. Very often the person that I am trying to reach agreement with is very strong and firm upon the price they believe is needed. And in many situations I have been willing to accept the price desired by the other party, BUT I make absolute sure the other party hold true to every other term and condition within the agreement.

So my position is ok let us go with the price you desire, but it is mandated that delivery date, guarantees, support, followup and every other item involve with this matter is followed completely. At times I feel that such value can be added thru the other terms that the actual price is really a value to both parties. Or as it relates to my current profession as a business owner selling a business, I will give you a $50,000 price reduction, but I want a personal guarantee on the buyer, I want 8% interest instead of the 7% interest the buyer is offering for me to finance my business, and I want the owner to stay on as a free consultant for an extra 3 months. SO the person buying the business gets the reduced price, and the seller gets some real added value.

Photo (c) thesologuide.com

3. One more point about price. How many times have we been working thru a deal and felt the need to drive the price down to a level that the seller is willing to accept but not really happy with. Then a week later when we want this little extra help or assistance or concession and we hear “We’re already losing money on this deal and we really cant help you with that”.

4. Really a good deal is a deal that is good for both parties. Sometimes one party can leave the “negotiating table ” knowing that it is a great deal for him/her, and knowing that the other party is “taking a hit”. How does that help sustain an ongoing relationship. There are businesses that are ok with the “one and done” concept and have little regard to the effect on the other party. I think our globe is fairly small, and getting smaller and I aspire, plan and count on all business relationship being perpetual. Again the example about buying or selling a business.

If you are selling a business and you want a price that is higher than the actual business can justify, and if you provide some seller financing to the buyers, what is going to be the result of you getting this inflated price. Very likely it results in the buyers of the business, not being able to make payments to you, going into default, and you having to deal again with the business that you originally sold because you had not longer wished to be dealing with it.

5. Dont mistake negotiating with wishing or hoping. If you know the terms that you need to attain to make the deal make sense to you, be prepared to walk away from the deal. Are you making an offer and hoping /wishing the other party takes it because you know you want or “need” this product or service? Be prepared to walk away form the deal, again try to put yourself in the position of having options. If someone is wanting to buy a Towing Business and makes a bottom line offer to someone selling, it helps the potential buyer knows that there are 3 other similar towing businesses for sale in the area and is fully prepared to pursue these other options.

Internet Marketing For Dummies- By a Dummy (Business Broker/Business Owner)

By Scott | September 15, 2010 - 11:29 am |July 19, 2013 business broker florida, buy a business, entrepreneur, how to sell a business, Main, sell a business, selling my business, small business ideas, small business owner

Internet Marketing Industry

It seems that there are a lot of Internet marketing experts and this industry appears to

Photo (c) http://dsm-publishing.com/

still be somewhat at the early stages of a rapidly growing industry. As a business broker and business owner, I feel a compelling need to try to “figure this Internet thing out’. Maybe I know more about trying to maximize the Internet than some, but the question of asking a business owner (that is not in the Internet marketing business) if they understand Internet marketing is akin to asking someone if they are a golfer. The average golfer may have a handicap of 20-25, Some golfers shoot at professional levels- 0 handicap, some people have never golfed, some have golfed once or a few times, some golf a lot but are still a 30 handicap (the higher the handicap the worse the score).

I am about a 12 handicap. For Internet marketing maybe I am about a 12 handicap too I dont know. I may know more than some, but know there are a lot more that know a lot more than me. My job involves many discussions with business owners regarding the state of their business as it relates to a potential sale of their business or a possibly buying another business. The questions I have as a business broker are also questions shared by the plumbing contractor, the print shop owner, the restaurant owner, the card shop owner and the small business owners scattered throughout the world.

10 Internet Marketing Observations From a Business Owner / Business Broker:

The Internet today is so different than it was 10 years ago. Ten years ago, so many businesses didn’t have websites. Those that did had these fancy Home pages with lots of “neat stuff”. And the site just sat there. Now-a-days it is known that a lot of that neat stuff gets in the way of search engines. A few years ago it seemed if you didn’t show up on google – you didn’t show up, and then came, Myspace, Facebook, Titter, etc. . I am convinced the internet 10 years from now will greatly different than it is now. Trying to figure out where it is going is the challenge.
To me , I see the value in Social Media marketing is that it decreases my reliance on Google. With Social Media customer have another way to find you. You don’t need to show up on page one of google to be found. I may be wrong with this line of thinking but this is my perspective.
It feels like everyhting I learned yesterday, is almost outdated tomorrow
I see the question asked so often online- Is anybody making any money on Twitter. Twitter is growing at 1,000,000 new users per minute 🙂 doesn’t it just make business sense that some are making profit on Titter- I am not yet, are you?
Is internet marketing another strong way to reach customers, market
Photo (c) vistaphuket.com

and advertise, or is it so much more. As a business owner we know we need to advertise and market. In the past and present we use the Yellow pages, direct mail, radio, maybe TV, trade shows, telemarket, direct sales. Is it proper to view internet marketing as a very strong means of marketing and advertising or view it as so much more. I tend to think to view it as so much more.
Is it true that if you can drive mad traffic to your website you could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo?.
Is blogging better than tweeting, is Facebook better than Twitter. Do I need to post videos to Youtube? How important is SEO, incoming links, adding more friends, social media buttons/widgets?
Is email marketing dieing, improving, necessary, changing, or being somewhat replaced by social media?
How do I do all that I should be doing on the Internet, without having to bear the cost of “sub contracting” that task out and still run my business.
How will we be accessing the Internet down the road and how does that affect my approach. It seems a few short years ago accessing the Internet with ones cell phone was a novelty at best.

I am just a business owner who’s profession as a business broker requires significant marketing efforts. How do you find a business owner that is looking to sell a business. This is a very confidential event. How do you find a business buyer that is looking to buy a landscape company, a Towing company or a Computer Repair shop? My approach is of to try different things.

I Tweet the businesses I have for sale- I get some follow up questions, I blog about my business experiences- it has driven”some traffic” to my site, I am on Facebook- but pretty weak, I am on Linked-In and a few other social/business sites. I personally feel value in writing a blog as it allows me control to provide SEO optimized current content to my site.

I certainly am not in a position to provide well grounded advise on this subject but my major point is- Are you a business owner confused about what you should be doing on the internet? – You are not alone.

Are Todays Job Seekers Tomorrows Business Buyers

By Scott | September 1, 2010 - 10:05 am |July 19, 2013 business broker florida, buy a business, entrepreneur, how to sell a business, Main, sell a business, sell a business florida, selling my business, small business ideas, small business owner

2 Comments

In Business Acquisition and Sales the “pool” of most future business buyers are currently employed by someone else right now. The same applies for future Entrepreneurs. But what about those currently unemployed?

The job market seems to have an abundance of very qualified people chasing a very limited number of jobs. The number of those unemployed in the US seems like a fairly difficult number to track, but with unemployment in the 9-10% range-depending how you measure or guesstimate it seems that you have well over 10,000,000 (ten million) people unemployed here in the United States. Is owning your own business by either starting a business or buying a business a viable option for those unemployed.

Is Buying A Business The Future For You?

Is buying a business or starting a new business the right career path to all of those seeking to “re-find” a career or just get off the ranks of the unemployed. Buying a business or starting a business is not for everyone, but it can be a very viable option for many. There are the both mindset obstacles to overcome, and finacial battles to be won before one can make the transition from employee or currently unemployed to one that owns and operates their own business.

I personally think overcoming the mindset of “can I do this?” may be the bigger of the 2 obstacles. To over use a saying- “Thinking outside the box”. Personally I feel there seems to be so many that are “trapped” inside the box, that thinking outside the box in this situation can be a life changing situation. I believe that many of those so many qualified individuals that are currently unemployed will consider “going out on their own” and enter the world of entrepreneur by either starting or buying a business.

For example- I am working with a business owner of a small computer service store, assisting him in selling his business. He is very anxious to sell his store as he has plans to move out of state to be near a friend and join him in a business venture there. He recently reduced his price to $65k due to his increased interest in moving on.

Photo (c) lusens.com

He runs a viable one man business, works about 40 hour weeks, and his business is up over 2009 numbers. His “Owner benefit” is approximately $70,000. So are you buying a job that pays you $70,000 a year? Are you buying a career? Are you buying the ability to control your career? It can be a nice situation for the right person.

Sending off resumes, searching the job board, going on job interviews can almost turn into a routine that may seem to have no end.- Is it a comfort zone, is it doing everything you can do to find your next career. I suggest spending a few minutes looking on a website such as mine Florida Businesses For Sale , or maybe some other larger business for sale websites like www.bizbuysell.com or globalbx.com, or possibly look on Flippa.com to see what sort of businesses for sale are out there, or possibly a website, or e commerce site may be available, what are the cost, and is it even a possibility based on ones current situation. I think one should at least allow the concept of buying a business or starting a business to come into the equation. Certainly owning or running a business is not for everyone, but is it for you?

5 Reasons not to consider starting your own business or buying a business. – Or maybe you should…

Money is needed to buy a business or start a business– but do you have any realistic feel of how much it would take.
Ive never bought a business before or started a business before – talk to most all businesses owners that have owned their business for 10+ years and they will also say the same thing.
The economy is doing so bad now, its just the wrong time to try a new venture.- There are many business owners that have and are delaying the sale of their business. A “pent up” demand is being create. The workings of supply and demand show that as supply increase prices reduce.And of course also the choices are more abundant.
Some people are just more prepared to buy a business or start a business. This is true, but are you one of those “some people”. When you talk to long time business owners you learn that all the uncertainty that you may have while making this major decision is completely normal.
My Job Searching is really going well- I think that is great, my decision to “be my own boss” 20 years ago was about controlling my own destiny, perhaps there are different ways to do that.

My profession involves a lot of time talking with business owner regarding their short and long term business plans. Many current business owners feel they need to get their financials/ and Sales back up to a level commensurate to the value they seek from the sale of their business. This is creating somewhat of a pent up supply I also speak to many potential business buyers and understand that everyone’s situation is so different. Available money, family, location, other personal matters all go into the evaluation. Part of my long term planning of my business broker activities does assume that many of todays unemployed will be tomorrows business buyers.

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