So we spend a ton of time telling business sellers how to prepare their business for sale. We talk about the importance of having good books & records, being organized, being on a growth curve, having the staff, and a ton of other items you can hear here. But what is often not talked about is when the deal is literally perfect: Sales Up, Profits Up, No Revenue Concentration, Perfectly Organized, Good Books. Literally, the Deal is Perfect…..then we get the novice buyers who assume that every deal has warts and something must be wrong.
As a broker, there is nothing more frustrating than finding the perfect deal and going through the tire kickers who have at their core a skepticism that skews everything in their life. It is at moments like this that the buyer needs to do hard self-actualization and realize a couple of things:
- Most buyers have never owned a business and as such do not know the work and effort required to take a business from zero to its apex. The work and pressure are monumental. I have found after 12 years in this business that most owners begin to burn out at 15 years.
- Another thing to reconcile is that sellers are people….different from the buyer and different from the brokers. They have a family, they have friends, health, personal issues, aspirations, passions, disappointments, and tragedies. In all my deals only once has a seller ever lied…..that is less than .00384 % of the events. Think about that.
- As a buyer, your skills should lift the business from where it is…if your skills do not complement it and lift it or are not what is required from a competency standpoint to manage the business don’t keep kicking tires. Respect the sellers time and your time and move on.
- Due Diligence when properly performed by competent professionals will ferret out any issues. If you as a buyer fail to hire competent professionals then it is on you as the leader of the transaction.
So in summary….you trust but verify…..you want a business to be prepared and in good shape….not in bad shape and failing. Approaching a deal with negativity actually discourages parties from working with you on a deal.