Check Out Questions Business Owners Ask Me and the Answers I Give Them

Great article by Loren Marx Schmerler put out by the Business Brokerage Press...

Posted @ 6/28/2012 9:13 am

Throughout my years of successfully assisting business owners in selling their companies, I've been asked the same questions by many potential sellers. In this article I have compiled a list of common question about selling a business along with my answers that you may find helpful.

1. How much is my business worth?
2. How long will it take to sell my business?
3. Is there anything I can do to make my business more desirable?
4. Is there anything I should not do during the listing period?
5. What is due diligence?
6. What else do you suggest I do to impress a Buyer?
7. What happens if I agree to do some owner financing and the Buyer misses a payment?

To read the answers Mr. Schmerler gives to the above excellent questions... click here.

Check out A struggle to sell small businesses | PressDemocrat.com

A struggle to sell small businesses

By Robert Digitale
The Press Democrat
August 29, 2010

Carmen Campos spent two years seeking the right location for her second Carmen's Burger Bar.

Campos wanted a more visible building than her original restaurant, which sits tucked in a residential neighborhood in Santa Rosa's Town & Country Village. She found it in a small strip center next to Wells Fargo Center on Mark West Springs Road at Old Red Highway.

Campos and her husband, Alvaro Ramos, bought the shuttered pizzeria on the site and last month opened it for business. Already the couple and 14 employees are matching the sales at the original location, even though the new site is still awaiting a full liquor license.

"We're making more burgers than they are," Campos said Thursday afternoon at the Larkfield location.

Carmen's is bright spot in the battered world of small business sales.

More common are tales of owners reeling from depressed business values, buyers who can't get loans and business brokers who, over the past three years, have seen transactions plummet.

"I think the industry's probably off 50 percent from what it was," said Al Statz, owner of Exit Strategies, a business brokerage in Petaluma.

Sales of Sonoma County small businesses - cafes, markets, auto parts stores and more - declined 44 percent from 2007 to 2009, according to BizBen.com of Dublin, an online website for the sale of businesses. Sales statewide declined 46 percent.

To read the full article... click here.

How To Get Business SBA Approved - Doing so as a seller can help make your business more attractive to buyers.

By Richard Diomo, Bizquest Business for Sale Blog

Question:How do I get my business SBA approved? It seems like doing so would help to move the sale of my business faster.

Answer:This is a great question and you should be commended for being proactive about the financing portion of selling your business. The process is actually quite simple: if you engage a business broker, this is something they can do on your behalf. If you are selling the business on your own, then you should contact a local Preferred SBA lender. They will provide you with a list of documents required to complete the pre-qualification process. These will generally include:

• The most recent three year's of company tax returns
• Accompanying P & L statements and Balance Sheets
• Your W2
• Recent interim statements
• Asset list

From this they will determine if, under the right deal terms, the buyer will qualify for the SBA program. Plus, there will be some additional conditions relative to the buyer qualifications. They will be able to determine how much they are prepared to lend, what amount the buyer will need as a down payment, what amount (if any) they may ask you, the seller, to finance, and the fees involved to complete a transaction.

Keep in mind that this step is only a pre-qualification and, like all lenders, they will have plenty of disclaimers. However, once you obtain a pre-qualification status, it will provide you with a huge advantage when advertising your business. Make certain that you do not make any claims to prospects about the financing. This is only an initial pre-qualification.

Life Plan Before Business Plan

This blog post kicks off a three part series on Start-up Success for Small Business Trends. Great advice for anyone looking for success in their entrepreneurial path.

By Melinda Emerson, Smallbiztrends.com

Many people dream about owning a small business. You may be one of those people who have had a “notion” for years that someday you would be president of a company, successful beyond your wildest dreams. Turning that dream into reality is an evolutionary process. It involves not only having a solid business idea but also knowing the “business of running a business.” You will need to get your arms around stuff like accounting, marketing, and operations, but before you dive into crunching numbers for your business plan, consider this:

It is my strong belief that would-be entrepreneurs need to develop a life plan before they ever write a business plan. Why, you ask?

Because entrepreneurs who don’t get clear about what they want from life run the risk of starting a business that might not be a good business for them.

To read more ... click here.