I said, not right away. She looked down, then up at at me and said, "but I really want to retire, my sister retired, by best friend retired, everyone my age seems to be retiring." I get it. Business owners work for years, maybe decades and...
Read MoreLet's suppose you worked hard for 15, 20, even 30 years to build a nice little business. You supported your family. You supported local community. You get to you 60's and think - well, it is time to plan to hand your business down to an employee...
Read MoreHow do consulting agreements work in selling a business? I get this question a lot in M&A. The purchase price of a business can have a number elements: 1. down payment (cash equity from the buyer) 2. bank financing 3. seller's note 4. installment sale 5. earn-out 6. commissions on future sales 7. consulting...
Read MoreThat is a question many businesses have faced over the years. Today, there are businesses that saw big increases in sales during the early days of the pandemic (2020 - 2021), but 2022 softened and 2023 seems kind of flat. This is especially true in many...
Read MoreThe "buyer-seller mismatch”is a phrase some in the business broker/M&A community use when a business for sale struggles to attract buyers. Buyers hunt for a business, often with limited criteria for the “right business”, but at a minimum, they want a business with good systems...
Read MoreIf you work in M&A, you will know these stages well. If you are a business owner, you better get used to them: SHOCK: What they feel when their advisor says their baby is worth a LOT less than they thought (more like hoped). DENIAL: When they...
Read MoreI had fun sharing stores about selling a business, M&A, and more in this 20 minute video interview with Charles Cormier click image If clicking image does not work, you can also copy and paste https://youtu.be/_77kSMhCo7M...
Read MoreBusiness owners come to me and say, "I am thinking about selling my business, can you sell it?" I ask what price they want and I often hear 3x profits, 1x sales or similar. I ask them what they think interest rates are on business loans....
Read MoreMany people in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) talk about "the deal" as the ultimate prize. In part that is true, but if you think about it more deeply, I think it is far more than that. The deal (the sale of the business) represents an ending...
Read MoreUnreal. It happened again. A cafe owner chooses not to report $100k in sales on his P&L (and his tax return). BUT when he tells the business broker the valuation is too low, he "remembers" the $100k in unreported cash sales. The new broker called me for...
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