Search Intentionally

So, you want to purchase a business. You are tired of making money for someone else, time to work for yourself.

You have been searching the websites, BizBuySell and BizQuest for sure, and found some potentials, but nothing that quite measured up. 

In my opinion, and after doing this for 20 years, the search for a company to buy is better accomplished by doing it in an intentional, orderly way rather than just haphazardly thinking about what might be out there. A Planned Search. 

I perform these orderly, well-defined searches within the parameters that you set—with a money-back guarantee.  In writing.  All you have to do is tell me that you did not receive the work and the work product that you thought you would receive (we have to agree that I will not be able to find you a company that will pay you a million dollars for an investment of a couple of bucks!) and I will give you your money back.  It costs $5,000 and I spend virtually all that on mailings (my “secret sauce”), in getting the right lists and then massaging the lists to find what we are really looking for.

I have only had one client ask for the money back—I was just starting the campaign for a client in Detroit.  He had experience as a mechanic, knew the trucking business, and I knew of (and continue to know of) a business owned by a fellow who not only drove a truck but also recruited drivers with bad credit and sold them tractor-trailer units that he financed. This entrepreneur was in a special segment of trucking where he controlled all the money so that the driver/owner got a check every two weeks much like he was an employee, but built equity providing security for all parties. 

Sweet, sweet business.  Made a lot of money.  Anyway, before I even got started the fellow who wanted to look...took a job.  The more I talked to him, the more it was obvious that he was better suited to work for somebody than to own a business.  He just didn’t have the passion to succeed.

The second part of the arrangement involves my success fee. I charge a lower fee for a transaction that results from a Planned Search, and you pay me rather than the seller, unlike the more typical arrangement.  The reason for the lower percentage fee is that, in my experience, you will accomplish the purchase of a business if you have made an initial investment in finding one, so I am more likely to not be wasting my time. Because of the quantity of time spent, I only do one or two Planned Searches per year.

Having done this for years and years, I cannot tell you how much the whole business of "avoiding" a commission means to a seller!  They think they are avoiding the commission because you pay it, but of course that is not true.  You factor in the commission to the total price, finance it and the commission is there whether he pays or not.  I can’t prove this, but when you pay the commission, I work for you and I believe I get a much better price than if I were working for the seller. 

I talk about the “secret sauce,” but it is really that I have found a way to find people who want to sell but have not quite figured out how to do it yet.  It is sort of like getting the merchandize as it shows up on the loading dock, not after it has been on the shelf and picked over.

To point out the obvious, our efforts are more often rewarded when we know where we are going, when we plan and when we then execute the plan.