How to choose a business brokers when selling your business

Choosing the right method and business broker to sell your business.

When you make the decision to sell your business, there are many steps to take and decisions to make before announcing to the world the fact that is your business is for sale.
The first thing you need to consider is whether you will try to sell it yourself or whether you are going to appoint a business agent to do it for you.
If you want to try to do it yourself, you need to think about and ask yourself a few basic questions:

• Do you have the right resources to develop a good marketing strategy?
• Do you have the time to handle enquiries while at the same time working and running your business?
• Do you have the experience and negotiation skills to navigate the sales process?
• Do you have knowledge of the legal requirements to complete a successful sale?
• Do you know where to find the right professionals to assist in preparing the documentation needed?

Do not be fooled into thinking that sales of Real Estate are the same as sales of Business. They are in fact very different.
Sometimes, selling a house can be as easy as putting a “For Sale” board up in front of your house and placing a few adds in your local paper and a couple of websites and wait for people to come and inspect.
How is selling a business different? Well for a start, most vendors don’t want people to know that their business is up for sale.  They are usually extremely worried that the staff will find out and start looking for other jobs before the new owners fire them.
Most vendors don’t want their competitors knowing that they are selling. In fact the only people that they want to know that they are selling are the people that will hopefully want to buy it.

But who are these people and how are you going to find them?

Absolute Business Brokers

This is why selling your business on your own is not such a good idea unless you have already been approached by someone who wants to buy it and he has made you an offer that is too good to refuse.  If that is the case CONGRATULATIONS! You have won the lottery of business sales.  For the rest of the business owners out there who are not so lucky, believe me when I tell you, that selling your business is NOT that easy.  You really do need a professional. Someone whose job and livelihood depend on selling businesses day in day out.
A business broker who will really represent your best interests in the sale of your business and TRY to achieve the best possible result.
Always remember that YOU are always the one in control of the whole process. At the end of the day if you don’t want to sell at the price being offered by the purchaser, you don’t have to accept it. It is up to the business broker to find prospective buyers and try to get the best possible outcome. Your business broker should be working for you, not the purchaser, as you are the one that will be paying his commission.
That is why it is very important to choose the right business broker to act as your representative and to make sure he has the experience and know how to generate the level of interest and to create the best possible exposure for your business.

But how do I know what to look for in making that choice, you may well ask?



Well it is like any other decision in life where you put your trust in another person to do a job for you. To ensure that you find the right one, you need to interview them, just like you do when you are looking for new staff for your business.

• How long have they been in the industry?
• Have they sold businesses like yours before?
• Do they have references from other clients?
• Are they able to tell you what procedures they have in place to make sure that your privacy is protected?

Don’t forget to ask for receipts for any money paid for advertising (this should be a TRUST ACCOUNT receipt) as well as a breakdown of how your money will be spent.
Can they give you an accurate appraisal for your business in the CURRENT market? And I do want to emphasize accurate, as there have been instances where the business price was greatly exaggerated to impress the vendor, so that they can get the listing.
Beware of business brokers who say that they already have people on their database waiting to buy a business like yours. Most often than not it is a ploy used by some to induce you into signing up with them creating a sense of urgency suggesting that if you don’t, you will miss out. If you want to test their honesty, offer to sign up for 7 days Exclusive Authority only. This should be more than enough time for them to produce these people if there are just waiting!!!! You will soon find that they will not accept this arrangement, which means that they were not being entirely honest.

You can contact me either on:
Mobile: 0433 582 533
Email: chris@absolutebb.com.au


Yours Sincerely,
Chris Panagiotidis
Licensed Estate Agent
Senior Business Broker at Absolute Business Brokers




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When buying a business

Buying a business can seem like a daunting process for some people  especially for those that are doing it for the first time. 

I hope that any of this information will be of  great assistance to you.

Family and friends may have told you that the right way to start your enquiry into a business, is to ask the vendor or agent for the financials. This should not be your first step. Why you may ask? Well common sense would say that you need to see the business first. That does not necessarily mean that you have to physically go there, although it would be preferable, but you need to know where it is located and how it basically operates.

  This is where the business agent becomes your best point of contract. He will know  the business intimately and will be able to liaise between the various people involved to make sure you have the right answers to your questions.

Also, once you have met the agent, they will be able to ascertain exactly what you are looking for and be able to offer other similar businesses that you may be able to compare to make sure that you have made the right choice.

Presuming that you know how much you want to spend and having sorted out your personal finances with the funds necessary to buy the business, you will then be ready to proceed to the next stage.  The most crucial document that you need to see is ‘the lease agreement’.
Some people would argue that the financial documents are the most important. However the finances of the business might all be well and good and you may spend some money to get your accountant to go through them for you, but if the lease is running out and there are no further options left, you will find that it is no longer such a good business to buy.
Doing your due diligence (homework) is very important. You cannot just buy a business simply because it looks good. Buying a small business is sometimes like buying a used car. It may look like it is in good condition and it may drive well when you do a test drive, but you really don’t know the true condition of the vehicle until you have done the right checks.  Just like buying the right type of car to suit your needs is important, so is buying the right business for you.  You may love the look of a shiny little two-door sports car, but if you have children to ferry around or you are of a certain age where the old bones are a bit creaky, it may not be such a good idea. If you rush into any decision, you may live to regret it!
So, let me put it to you this way….. the one gift that we all have is our instincts.  Granted, some people have better ones that others, but just because you are venturing into unknown territory, never loose sight of your goal.  If the reason is that you want to become your own boss, the one thing you need to remember is that you need to believe in yourself and your intuition and how much you want to succeed. Remember it is all about “You”.
There are many blogs and sites and people out there who claim to have all the answers on how to succeed in small business and it seems that they will impart their knowledge if there is something in it for them. They all want you to ‘buy my book’ or ‘join our mailing list, or hey ‘I know someone that may be able to help you’….
Also, beware of ‘bargain buys’ when you are going into a small business for the first time, unless you have a lot of experience in the chosen industry.
It can take a lot of time and money to bring an unprofitable business into the black.  At the end of the day, if your business is not doing well and you are not making enough profits to make ends meet, don’t ever blame your customers or your staff. The buck stops with you and you alone. You need to take responsibility for your actions whether they lead to success or failure.  So make sure you have researched your market.
Does the business have an online presence?   This has become very important in today’s market especially for the retail sector.  Small businesses always have to move with the times and cater to their customers in the way the market dictates.  They need to listen to their customers in order to stay relevant and ahead of their competition.
If you’re a lover of coffee as I am, then you probably know that as early as 5 years ago, it was very difficult to find a café that actually served good coffee and the ones that knew how to make good coffee were very popular. I would actually travel  considerably out of my way to get a decent cup of coffee.  Not many café owners realised that there is a special skill in making good coffee and that there is actually a science that goes into roasting and grinding the beans to make sure that they are fresh and getting the pour and extraction to the point where your
coffee doesn’t burn.  Times have changed however and now I can name numerous cafes of the top of my head and am usually pretty confident that almost wherever I go the coffee will be of a good standard. This is the reason, I believe, that businesses that are doing well, have consistently kept on top of their game and made sure that standards never drop.
Consumers, (your customers), have a lot of choices, so be aware that if you cant satisfy them, there is always someone else out there, that will.
There are many reasons why a business goes onto the market for sale. The most obvious reason, is that the owners (vendors) have been operating the business for some time and as we are all human, we do come to a stage where we need a change or a different pace in our lives. So they decide to sell the business for a profit because they have worked hard to make the business a success and now need a change.
There is of course the reason that the business is operating at a considerable loss and the owners (vendors) have no means to break their lease agreement and therefore need to sell the business so that they can transfer the lease to someone else.  This type of business can represent a good opportunity for people that have been in business for a long time and can see the potential, or can identify where the previous owners went wrong and know how to build the business up and running to its full potential. For these types of buyers it is actually cheaper to buy a business that is performing badly, rather than opening a new business from scratch.  Another reason is in the case of illness or someone passing away. This can have a devastating affect on a business and to the owners who have to work under such conditions.  There are also partnership disputes and divorce or family breakdowns that can have a detrimental effect on the business.
Regardless of the fact of why the vendor is selling, the more important question is why do you want to buy it?
One thing that you need to remember is that when it comes to valuing a business in any market, a business is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay and what an owner is willing to sell for! There are many formula’s and calculations to determine value, but at the end of the day a business may be worth (valued) $300,000 for example, but due to the owner experiencing some personal difficulty and needing a quick sale, may be willing to accept the first offer that comes along that may be considerably less than the asking price. So regardless of what the business is advertised for, never be afraid to make an offer for what you think it is worth. The owner can only say Yes or No and you may end up with a great outcome.

You can contact me either on:
Mobile: 0433 582 533
Email: chris@absolutebb.com.au


Yours Sincerely,
Chris Panagiotidis
Licensed Estate Agent
Senior Business Broker at Absolute Business Brokers



Follow and Subscribe to many more of Chris's Blogs at