Note: All your company information will be handled discreetly and responsibly and we are happy to sign a confidentiality agreement with you. Please inquire about this in your first communication with us.
Are you interested in selling your business now or in the near future? Please fill out the contact form and we’ll get back you. We sell profitable businesses that have a proven track record of annual sales revenues of $600,000 up to $10,000,000.
Getting Started with Goodman and Company Business Brokers
Our Process
We’ll begin with a free, no obligation, phone consultation about your business.
We’ll begin the process by having a thoughtful phone consultation with you about your business. This is the first step in working together. At this interview, you’ll get to know us and we’ll get to know you and your business.
We’ll ask you questions about things such as:
a. the product or service that you sell.
b. your reasons for the sale.
c. your sales revenues.
d. how much your business earns.
e. your accounting system.
f. your employees.
g. your facility.
h. what sets you apart from your competitors.
And you might be interested in knowing from us:
a. how we market your business.
b. what we would recommend selling it for.
c. how long it will take to sell it.
d. how we work with buyers.
e. what steps we take to get you the highest price for your business.
f. current market conditions.
g. anything else on your mind.
From this initial interview, you’ll understand how we make it OUR business to understand YOUR business.
We know how most buyers think and what they want and need. We’ll do our best to help you understand how you are likely to be perceived by the buyers.
With so many years of experience, we have a very good feel for what businesses are worth and how to create value in many business industries. Its the marketplace that eventually determines the value is of your business, but its our job to do all we can to locate that one buyer that will pay you top price for your business. Our sales method is designed to do just that. That’s the secret sauce at Goodman and Company and you’ll learn about that soon enough.
If you are considering selling your business now in the near future, this will give you an idea of what your business is worth before committing the time and effort it takes to sell it. If what we tell you is below the figure you need or require, we can usually offer ways for you to bring your business to the volume and structure that will likely get it to that valuation.
We will recast (normalize) your financials.
When selling your business, it’s necessary to recast your financial statements (usually from your tax returns or CPA prepared financial statements) to value your business. Your financial statements almost always include some combination or owner-benefit expenses, some owner “perk” expenses, absentee owner expenses, non-cash expenses, non-recurring expenses and more. We will “add back” these expenses to the bottom line net income of your business in order to calculate the number that business brokers use called Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE). SDE shows the true earnings power of your business. The net income line on your tax return is for tax purposes only and has NOTHING to do with the true earnings power of your business. It’s the business broker’s job to demonstrate this for the benefit of the buyers so that they can understand the profits of the business they are acquiring. It’s what justifies the purchase price of your business.
We’ll agree on business value.
After our initial review of your business, we MUST agree on value. This goes without saying. If you think your business is worth much more than we feel we can reasonably sell it for, unfortunately, we won’t be able to work together. We get paid to succeed and it doesn’t do either of us any good to commence work on something that is likely unattainable. We don’t blow smoke! We believe that it is best to be truthful and direct with you about what we believe is your business’ most probable selling price. Leading someone on with false hopes doesn’t help anyone – you or us.
VERY IMPORTANT – We don’t charge you anything to perform an initial review of your financials to determine what we feel is your business’s Most Probable Selling Price (MPSP). And NO ONE at Goodman and Company Business Brokers will try to sell you a pricy valuation report. These reports are simply revenue generators for many of our competitors and we feel they are an unnecessary seller expense.
We'll formulate a sales strategy.
We’ll figure out the best strategy to market your business. Some businesses require a unique marketing strategy, while others do not. It depends on the nature of your business model. There’s too much to say about this important aspect of selling your business so let’s leave this for a conversation.
We’ll sign an engagement agreement.
Once the above steps have been completed, we’ll sign a listing agreement to sell your business. Sorry, we cannot distribute this ahead of time. At this time we will also quote our commission rate and if there are any up-front fees. We usually don’t charge a fee for smaller main-street size businesses but we will likely charge a fee for larger middle-market business sales.
We’ll write a strong "peel-back-the-onion" marketing piece for your business.
At Goodman and Company Business Brokers, we spend a significant amount of time to write an effective marketing piece for your business, sometimes referred to as a Confidential Business Review (CBR) or a Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM). Many other business brokerage companies do not do this.
At Goodman and Company Business Brokers, our strategy is to write a marketing piece that really peels back the onion of the business and that anticipates and answers the important concerns that buyers will have about the business. Fear not. This is done in a very confidential manner. We don’t want to reveal anything about a business to prospective buyers that will give away important information about the business such as customer and supplier names. We’ll discuss this strategy with you.
We'll produce a FREE video tour of your business.
We do this absolutely free for almost every business that we sell. Its all done in-house so that there is no cost to you. It truly helps to bring the buyer “into” your business from the convenience of their home computer or phone. Its also an excellent time-saving step in selling your business. Now, not every buyer that is interested in your business needs a physical tour. Only the more serious buyers will need to take up your time at your place of business. We started doing this when COVID first struck and we’ve never looked back!
Once these materials have been completed we’ll get started marketing your business to many buyers. That’s the next chapter. We are happy to discuss this process with you. Let’s start by talking and strategizing together!