Why A Good Business Broker Team is Key in Selling Your Business

If you’re in Hawaii and selling your business any time soon, or even just thinking of selling your enterprise someday as an exit strategy, you must prepare for it by selecting a good business broker with a solid team behind them. Why? It could mean the difference between selling your enterprise in good time at its real worth or selling it for a long delay in time and a measly pittance.

Why Realtors, Attorneys, and Accountants Aren’t Enough

You can’t count on just having realtors, your attorney, and your accountant to help you sell your enterprise well, and these are the reasons why:

(1) Realtors are real estate agents (or any other real estate professional) who are members of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and must abide by NAR’s Strict Code of Ethics. The NAR’s membership, though, isn’t just comprised of real estate agents but also appraisers, real estate brokers, real estate counselors, and property managers, as well as other types of real estate professionals.

Real estate agents have a professional license to help people buy, sell, and rent real estate. They must be sponsored by a broker or a brokerage firm. Essentially, they focus on bringing buyers and sellers or owners and renters of real estate together by assisting them in finding a good fit, filling up the necessary paperwork, doing real property inspections, moving, and closing.

However, what you need in selling your business is a professional who will not only help you appraise your business property and put it in the market but a professional who will help you in valuing your entire business itself and assist you in preparing to sell it to good buyers, as well as selling it and closing the deal.

(2) Attorneys can help you negotiate a fair price, ensure that all terms are favorable to you, and help facilitate smoother transactions between you and the buyer, as well as any financial institutions involved.

Negotiating a fair price starts with appraising how much your enterprise is worth, and how much your buyer thinks it is worth. However, proper business valuation needs not just legal expertise but market expertise in the field of buying and selling businesses as well. Learn the basics of properly valuing your enterprise here, before you even consult with a legal professional. The succeeding legal assistance in ensuring favorable contracts and arranging for smoother financial transactions can be done by a solid team of business brokers, also, who have the added years of experience, specialization, and focus in the field of business sales.

(3) Accountants can help you in selling your enterprise by providing objective financial valuations, preparing the financial records to show to your prospective buyers, structuring the deal, advising you on tax concerns and risks, and even planning your financial life after the sale.

However, again, accountants, like lawyers, will tend to provide you with advice and assistance strictly from their specific financial and legal perspectives and background, and not from a more comprehensive market perspective and experience. You would need a certified valuer for commercial, legal, and statutory purposes, who has proven and tested years of experience in valuing a business right.

What a Good Business Broker Can Do for You

A good business broker and their team can assist you before, during, and after the sale of your enterprise, and leave you with peace of mind as you go about your life. You don’t have to learn everything yourself from scratch and undergo the painful and costly lessons of selling your enterprise by trial and error. Specifically, here are things a good business broker can do for you if you choose right:

(1) Valuing Your Business. Every business is different, and cannot be valued in the same way. Several variables affect business value and not all enterprises have the same variables. Professional brokers have access to business sales databases and market connections that help them and you appraise your enterprise’s value from a realistic and holistic market perspective.

(2) Business Continuity. With a business broker, you can continue running your enterprise without being distracted by the concerns and demands of the business sales process, which in itself requires a different kind of professional expertise. As you focus on continuing to operate your enterprise successfully, your business broker can focus 100% on selling your enterprise well. At Xcllusive Business Sales, located in Oahu, Hawaii, different departments attend to different administrative tasks, so they are hyperfocused on helping you sell your company successfully.

(3) Confidentiality. In selling your enterprise, you don’t only need a lot of buyers, but you should have a lot of good buyers. Once you put the word out there that your business is for sale, you need confidentiality to ensure that the information you put out is not used against you by other market players for their competitive advantage. Xcllusive Business Sales has a database of over 19,000 business buyers and enforces confidentiality agreements with interested and serious potential buyers early on, protecting you and your enterprise in the marketing and sales process.

(4) Reaching Good Buyers. Buyers are usually found through any or a combination of three main methods: the direct approach, traditional advertising, or through a broker’s database. Although the direct approach is considered the most effective, it also has a downside in terms of confidentiality issues. Traditional advertising costs a lot in terms of time, money, and effort spent in reaching the good buyers’ market you want. Accessing an experienced broker’s quality database might prove the best option, with confidentiality ensured, and the broker’s professional guidance and facilitation in matching you with the best fit of potential buyers assured.

(5) Effective Marketing. Good business brokers can present your enterprise to potential buyers in the most favorable light, knowing what the buyers are looking for in the market, and can even assist you in attaining a better price for your company. At Xcllusive Business Sales, you get to enjoy a free consultation before you even decide to engage their services. It also helps them find the best fit for you and your business when you do decide to hire them. They use their initial knowledge of you and your company to match you with the agent who will work closely with you from the start and every step of the way forward to maximize your business sale outcome. They even offer you a triple guarantee of a 7-day agreement exit guarantee, finding your business buyer within 120 days, and a 110% money-back guarantee.

(6) Leveling the Playing Field. Most corporate business buyers have already acquired several businesses using the expertise of their team. You will likely have only this one business sale that you want to be successful. Your broker and their team can help level the field for you by bringing in their specialized expertise and knowledge of the industry, their database, and other resources, as well as industry contacts and networks. In short, they become your corporate team.

(7) Closing the Deal. The sooner the deal is closed, the better for you and everyone else. It lessens the risk of employee problems, customer defection, and predatory competition. However, on average, it takes 6 to 9 months to sell a business, and professional brokers know the best windows of opportunities for each phase of the business sales process to avoid the stale business effect. If you or your other consultants don’t know how to navigate through these phases well, you could end up selling your business for a price substantially lower than its real value.

Criteria for Selecting a Good Business Broker

Choosing the right broker can mean less stress for you with great results, but choosing the wrong one can become your worst nightmare. Here are core criteria to consider when choosing a good business broker:

(1) Business knowledge, experience, and track record. Examine their company history, background, and track record. How did they get to be business brokers? What is their company philosophy and how is it practiced in their culture and business operations? How are they properly licensed and certified? What are their best practices as a company? What challenges have they faced in the field and how did they address these? Asking them these questions and listening to their answers can give you deeper insights into how they work as a company.

(2) Fees, charges, and contracts. Are they transparent with their rates and charges, or are there hidden charges not presented and discussed? Are these reasonable given the services they offer and their track record? How do they draw up and enforce contracts?

(3) Trustworthiness. Generally, the three previous criteria questions should have already led you to a general assessment of their trustworthiness, with the facts they present to you. However, check your general sense and gut feel about them and your initial interactions with them, as well. Avail of their free consultations, if they offer these. How do they treat you as a potential client? Do you get a sense of being well attended to and cared for, that they are genuinely interested in helping you, and not just out to make money out of you? After all is said and done, can you trust them? These should give you an overall sense of how your relationship would be if you decide to work with them in the future.

Selling a business is usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most people. Make sure you do it right and smart.

Find out more about selling your business by signing up for the free e-book, “Sell Your Business Without Dropping Your Price” here.