Why do we suggest so much information be posted in your Business-for-Sale Ads? Well, the short answer is, we are simply asking for the real material information that serious buyers are actually looking for; the information on which one might begin to assess a level of interest. A buyer is apt to look further into a business of real interest and apt to pass on by when a fit is not recognized, never to be thought of again and … it might have been a good fit.
It will take real material information to attract and hold the interest of many of the best buyers, first, to be noticed online and create first interest quickly, and then later offline, to confirm that interest throughout a due diligence process. Much of the information will be considered confidential information and most buyers will be reluctant to disclose such information either on a public website or in any manner to an unknown but maybe potential buyer.
But now, you want to sell the business. Buyers will want to know all about the business they are considering. So, how can you disclose that information and still retain its confidentiality?
Consider the following:
- If you were to somehow drop your financial statements somewhere out on the street; the income statement, balance sheet, and all, or your personal net worth statement, and if they were to just blow away down the street until eventually someone picked them up and looked through them, … if they could not find a name nor any other means by which to associate them with you or your business, would not you continue to retain the CONFIDENTIALITY of all that confidential information?
- Similarly, if those same financials; sales, earnings, assets, liabilities were to be posted publicly on Business-Trader.com, but again with nothing that would associate them with your business, or with yourself, would not you retain that same FULL DEGREE of CONFIDENTIALITY even while seriously interested parties might be looking closely at them and assessing and calculating from the basis provided by those numbers?
- And then, if such anonymity were to be maintained throughout the while buyer and seller were to be engaged in due diligence; in a give and take exchange of information on which each could further evaluate their respective opportunities, again would not that same FULL DEGREE of CONFIDENTIALITY continue for both?
A first consideration for a vast majority of Business Buyers will be in the numbers generated by the business, and a final consideration before the sale closes, will be in those same, but by then updated numbers. Buyers will be looking for value and the most current group of such numbers of your business are primary to its valuation.
Business-Trader’s new Valu4Sale format facilitates the online presentation of a business in the value of those numbers along with other material information, while maintaining the full confidentiality of all such information by withholding the identity of the business and its ownership. And then, when a Buyer inquires into the business, our 3rdPartyOnLine auto-intermediation option is designed to facilitate the continuation of such anonymity and confidentiality throughout all further exchange of information, discussion, questions, answers, etc., between buyer and seller that may follow, until, if ever, you as Seller agree with the Buyer to proceed beyond and without that anonymity. “… all under your control and subject to your decisions made in anonymity.”
These processes are materially the same disclosure processes ours have been over a more than 20 year business brokerage, introducing the business “confidentially” and truthfully in its own real and material information, so that any buyer attracted is attracted to and interested in the business for what the business actually is, what it owns, what it earns, how its been valued and priced, etc. That being the case, we’d be off to a quick start with an informed Buyer.
On the other hand, if the Buyer decides this business NOT going to be a suitable acquisition, such will also be an informed decision, usually made quickly, usually before any real discussion of identity, and the buyer will simply leave while anonymity and confidentiality remain in tact. “… with nothing gained and nothing lost.”
For Buyer and Seller alike, there will of course be many considerations to ponder in the processes of buying or selling a business. Generally speaking, a Buyer will come to the search with a type of business in mind, a size of business and a general location in mind; a business the Buyer does or can understand and manage, a business the Buyer can afford and generally, one located within an area close to home. The Seller generally wants a competent Buyer who will keep the business growing and prospering. However, while all these may be important, they are generally more “black or white” issues, and for many, if not most Buyers and Sellers, these considerations will not ultimately top their lists.
Topping the list of considerations ultimately for a Business Buyer will typically be a business with sustainable profitability sufficient to return the Buyer’s investment over a reasonable period of time. And topping the list for a Business Owner will typically be a Buyer with the means and capabilities to buy and pay for the business at the price and on the terms to which the parties will ultimately agree.
So, here are the applications
Valu4Sale is Business-Trader’s most comprehensive business-for-sale listing; a presentation format specifically designed to present that exact information in complete ANONYMITY, in almost the exact same format I’ve opened buy/sell discussions with throughout 20 plus years of business brokerage. Valu4Sale is effective simply by presenting the material information buyers will be looking for, in a clear and understandable format.
BizWanted is Business-Trader’s business wanted format. Ads can be composed to be brief or to be very full; to include a Buyer’s Net Worth Statement, or not, at the option of the Buyer, and also in a presentation format specifically designed to present its information in complete ANONYMITY or otherwise, again at the option of the Buyer.
3rdPartyOnLIne is a Business-Trader intermediation function, designed to maintain the confidentiality of such information to the exclusive benefit of the business and its owner, or in counter part, the buyer, by intermediating the give and take of confidentiality agreements and other information, questions and answers between buyer and seller, in ANONYMITY until a quantified level of mutual interest has been accessed and confirmed by both parties.
Valu4Sale, BizWanted & 3rdPartyOnLIne are designed in combination to quickly and safely advance the objectives of buying and selling. Our objective at Business-Trader is to list good profitable business and to optimize the opportunity leading to the SALE and, in counterpart, the PURCHASE of such good and profitable businesses and not merely to optimize the number of business listings.
If you have a good and profitable business that you would like to sell, I am pleased to tell you, based on a 20 plus year hands-on business brokerage experience, there are serious and capable buyers looking for your business; buyers who are ready, willing and able, even eager to pay a fair market price for just such a business. Good, profitable, available businesses are not that easily found, so if your business is such a business, it is in demand.
Buyers looking to buy a good and profitable business are today looking for that particular business on a variety of websites, where, in a tedious process, they find themselves scanning and clicking their way through literally thousands of businesses-for-sale, the vast majority of which will be of absolutely no interest whatsoever. … and, any of you who have searched such websites will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Our job, at business-trader, is to facilitate a means through which a business owner can, in a private and confidential manner, represent on a public website, the most confidential information of the business; generally being the financials of the business, which also happens to be the most probable information being first sought by a good buyer. Not a photograph, not the name of the business, not the name of the owner, not the great location, not necessarily even the city or town, but the financial picture of the business; of its retained earnings now on the balance sheet (Balance Sheet Value) and of the earnings anticipated into the future from the sustainability of what has been built, (Goodwill Value). Our job is to make that information stand out to be recognized quickly for what it is, and to thereby capture and hold the attention of the right buyer from first recognition.
Our job is to present information that will cause … 1) the right buyer to stop and look inside, and … 2) therein, to find a factual statement of revenues and profitability, … 3) to find a statement of sustainability with respect to such revenues and profitability, … 4) to find such sustainable profits (earnings) as would be sufficient to repay (return) the purchase investment in reasonable time following the purchase, … 5) to find the purchase price to be within buyer’s reach and capabilities, and … 6) to find the business to be in a business sector, the general location, general conditions and operational demands of the business to be a fit with the buyer’s own background, experience, skills, capabilities and other personal criteria perhaps, in aggregate sufficiency that the buyer will request additional information from the seller, … or if not, … 7) to satisfy the buyer that this is NOT the right business fit and to simply move on to find another potential.
Not a long list, but a precise list that does not vary greatly amongst buyers looking specifically for a good and profitable business, which frankly does include most buyers, but not all, (… more about that later). Buyers will in due time want to confirm the reality of what they are seeing today, which will require more time and information, but the process is off to a quick and promising start when the right buyer finds affirmation in your presentation, with respect to the first 6 of the above 7 findings.
In such process, this is what we would want to convey to the Buyer.
“ Today, we are not going to tell you who we are, but in this presentation have disclosed the key and confidential financial aspects of the business, as reported directly out of its financial statements; … annual sales and earnings, balance sheet value and net working capital. You have the selling price and our pricing rationale, and will also have the information to judge the valuation for yourself and, in due course, will have the raw information to confirm it all for yourself.
Additionally, without getting so specific as to identify the business or its ownership right now, we have told you generally, the type or category of business, where it is located, why the business is for sale, and have describe different aspects of the business in order to help you to a reasonable understanding, sufficient I trust, to provide you with a pretty good sense as to the fit you might see for yourself in this business.
If you see no real fit for yourself with this business, thank you for your time and consideration. I wish you well as you continue your search.
But, if you do see a good potential fit for you here in this business, please contact us for more information.
When you do, please be prepared to show us your own buying credentials as well, and be prepared as well to enter into a confidentiality agreement with us, as we will with you, though Business-Trader’s 3rdPartyOnLine intermediation program so as to continue to retain anonymity and confidentiality while we engage in a give and take of such additional information as may be necessary to confirm and enhance the information you now have, until, if ever, we achieve a mutual level of comfort and confidence that each party is serious, that each has a legitimate buying or selling interest and intent, and that each sees sufficient value in what the other is offering that the parties will mutually agree to enter into direct contact. “
In the Valu4Sale format, our first objective in any presentation of your business would be to help you help that right buyer find your presentation as quickly as possible, by highlighting the very information the buyer is looking for and which will enable the buyer on first reading, to begin to estimate the potential fit between buyer and business. If that potential looks good to the buyer, there will quickly come a request for more information. If not, the buyer will generally just move on, which is probably the best of both worlds; … either you have a buyer who is quickly interested in your business for what it actually is, or a buyer who sees no such fit and is therefore not interested in what you have to offer and who won’t be wasting your time.
That initial good-fit estimation be can accomplished in ANONYMITY, and thereby in CONFIDENTIALITY, by simply NOT identifying the business or the owner within the presentation. And, any further confirmation processes can be conducted for as long as may be necessary, in that same anonymity and confidentiality, mediated through 3rdPartyOnLIne.
Information not associated with your business, will tell no one about your business.
So in summary, the reason for Valu4Sale and why so much information is, such information is key information that will capture the attention and the interest of the right buyers, quickly, the first time they find your effective presentation of the material information they actually do need in order to establish any real level of interest. And we suggest the Valu4Sale format, because it is designed specifically for the presentation, and our 3rdPartyOnLIne program is designed to mediate and keep it all quiet and confidential.
It’s just that straight forward. Attract the attentions of the right buyers with the facts they are looking for, while they are right here in front of you looking at your business, because that buyer may not find you twice.
- If you are a business broker or other selling agent posting a listing in representation of a business owner, you of course can provide that anonymity to your client through your own third party services, with all contact being relayed through you as third party.
- If you are a business owner representing yourself in the sale of your own business, it can be very difficult to retain anonymity while in direct contact with buyers. In such case, third party services are available through Business-Trader.com, as may be needed, beginning with the confidentiality of the initial presentation and continuing for as long into the selling process as you may decide necessary to your confidentiality and helpful to your efforts, with all contact between buyer and seller being relayed through our 3rdPartyOnLine mediation. see: 3rdPartyOnLine & BizBrokerOnCall, under Buy/Sell Process.
Not every business will be presented with this same disclosure however, nor in this same format.
- Ez4Sale: Not every business owner will be prepared to present their business in the structure of either the Valu4Sale format. In which case, the Ez4Sale format is an open format allowing advertisers to simply craft the listing in their own words; … excluding any form of indecency of course.
- Ez4Sale: Neither will every business be optimally represented in a Valu4Sale format or manner highlighting sales and earnings. A business may not be profitable at all, yet have other asset value; value maybe in a desirable business location that may be valuable to another business, whether owned or leased, or maybe a product or product line, owned or distributed, that might be merged into another company to contribute to it’s profitability, or maybe its just a business that one owner could not bring to profitability that another could. Again, the Ez4Sale format is an open format allowing advertisers to design its own presentation.
- BizWanted: And, there is a BizWanted Ad format for business buyers to post a description of the business they are searching for, and to provide the business owner with a look at their background and capabilities; their credentials that would represent themselves to be a good buyer for a seller’s business. The BizWanted format is also quite open, but does provide some structure and, in particular, a structure for an optional Net Worth Statement, and offering the same means by which Buyer can maintain ANONYMITY and CONFIDENTIALITY while disclosing confidential information.
These formats will each expand and contract in form and size and adjust to just whatever you incorporate into them, and 3rdPartyOnLine is optionally available to each of the formats, and thus offering the same anonymity and confidentiality available to all.