Tips On Avoiding The Dealbreakers

One of the most important steps is to hire the right advisors. This begins with the right professional business broker/ M&A specialist. The right attorney should be added to the team. The right one is an attorney who has been through the sales process many times – one who is a deal maker seeking solutions,…

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Take A Look At Your Lease

If your business is not location-sensitive, that is, if your business location is immaterial to its success, then the following may not be important.  However, lease information is usually helpful no matter what the situation.  The business owner whose business is very dependent on its current location should certainly read on. If your business is…

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Do You Have An Exit Plan?

“Exit strategies may allow you to get out before the bottom falls out of your industry. Well-planned exits allow you to get a better price for your business.” From: Selling Your Business by Russ Robb, published by Adams Media Corporation Whether you plan to sell out in one year, five years, or never, you need…

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Expanding Your Business

The term “growing the business” seems to be the term of choice for business people who discuss expansion. Unfortunately, in too many cases, this growing never goes beyond the seedling stage. Business people also talk about “thinking outside the box.” Again, that concept encompasses so much – what box? How far outside? – that it…

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What Is Burnout?

Burnout can come with a business that’s successful as well as with one that’s failing to grow. The right time to sell is before the syndrome becomes a threat to the effective management of a business. What are the warning signs of burnout? • That isolated feeling. The burnt-out owner has been “chief cook and…

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About Multiples of Revenue

People talk about multiples of revenue. Sure, one can take any price and divide it by the annual revenue of a business and obtain a revenue multiple. A $1 million sale price divided by $750,000 in annual revenue equals a 1.33 revenue multiple. Right? Nothing inherently right or wrong in talking about multiples of revenue.…

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Real Estate Agents – Independent Contractors Versus Employee Status

This issue has been raised many times. Although the majority of states do not require a real estate license (or any for that matter any license except possibly a business license) for the sale of a business, but the similarity is such that business brokers might fall into such legislation. Certainly, those states that do…

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Small Company Growth Trends

The median sales of a company going public has gone from an average $15 million in 1999 and 2000 to $164 million in 2004.  Smaller companies have decided not to go public as often as in years past, and they reap the quick – and cheap – money as a result of that decision.  The…

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How Many Businesses Are There?

We suspect that the answer to this question depends on who you ask! The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reports that they received some 24.8 million business tax returns for the year 1999. We can hear the joyful sounds emanating from new business brokers and those considering the profession. Wow, almost 25 million businesses! We can hear them…

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Do You Know Your Customers?

It’s always nice, when eating at a nice restaurant, for the owner to come up and ask how everything was.  That personal contact goes a long way in keeping customers happy – and returning.  It seems that customer service is now handled by making a potential customer or client wait on a telephone for what…

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