There are many reasons. Most importantly a business broker is a business sales professional. While you may be an expert at running your business, what do you really know about the ins and outs of selling a business? Do you have a long list of prospective buyers? Do you have a strategy to get the highest price in the market place for your business type? Are you an experienced business negotiator? Do you know how to structure the agreements to assure yourself of the best possible outcome? How will you protect your confidentiality? Are you familiar with the strategies that buyers use to reduce your price? We are professional business brokers and we are trained to handle all of these situations and more!

Selling a business is not like selling a house. When you want to sell your house, you can put it on the multiple listing service. The address is posted so as many people as possible will know of your desire to sell and drive by to visit your home. The information about your sale plans is freely shared with the public. There are no secrets. But, when you offer a business for sale, you are faced with the challenge of creating a market for something that is top secret. This is the most challenging part of selling a business and what business brokers specialize in. We are the intermediary between you and the business buying public and we protect your confidentiality while creating as strong a market as possible for your business.

You may have your own opinion of the value of your business, and we will advise you based on our financial analysis and our knowledge of the market for your type of business. We will utilize our data resources to properly understand how much buyers should be willing to pay for your business.

By working together with us, YOU will decide on a price that will get the most for your business. Your profitability, competition, the overall market for your business type and your desired time frame to complete a sale will guide you to make this very important decision.

Goodman and Company Business Brokers is committed to helping you obtain the highest price the market will pay for your business. Locating and negotiating with just one prospective buyer at a time will never yield the result you need. We create competition among our many active buyers. If buyers know there are multiple buyers looking at the same business, they may negotiate with a sense of urgency and pay a higher price for your business.

By having simultaneous buyers interested in your business you will be in a better position to judge what a fair offer is. This is your best possible scenario. We can’t always accomplish this because we can’t control when and if a buyer makes an offer, but it is our goal in dealing with the buyers.

The additional money that an experienced broker will obtain for your business will significantly exceed the cost of brokerage services.

CBI stands for “Certified Business Intermediary”, which is the designation awarded by the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) to members who have the required experience, classroom hours, passed the rigorous IBBA exam and conform to the ethical standards of the IBBA.

The IBBA is the largest business brokerage association in the United States. Any person in Massachusetts can call themselves a business broker, since it isn’t a state licensed profession. However, only a few of us (approximately 5% of all business brokers) have the education, experience and the designation of Certified Business Intermediary from the IBBA. At last count, only 8 CBIs work in the state of Massachusetts. Peter Goodman, (Goodman and Company Business Brokers’ president) is a CBI and provides guidance to all of our agents.

Not at all. At Goodman and Company Business Brokers, we charge rates that are competitive with all business brokers. In many cases we are even less expensive. Our training helps us succeed more often and more quickly, which is good for both of us. There’s no reason to charge you any more. We just want an opportunity to serve you.

A CBI can help you optimize your transaction by identifying better prospects, clarifying investment potential, and helping you work with the lawyers, accountants and other professionals who will provide the necessary counsel to assure a successful transition of ownership. A CBI is an experienced, proven professional whose claim of competence is supported and documented. A CBI has the proven skills necessary to handle the marketing, negotiations and complex details involved in the purchase or sale of your business. Goodman and Company Business Brokers feels strongly that being properly educated in the many aspects of business brokerage allows us to provide a higher level of service. Every CBI has undergone a specialized course of detailed training, aimed at making the process of buying or selling a business as smooth and worry-free as possible. A CBI brings special qualifications to your needs:

• Membership in IBBA (the largest and most prominent business brokerage organization in the United States), an international association serving the business brokerage industry. Every CBI is part of a network of professionals.

• Successful completion of courses leading to the Certified Business Intermediary designation — The most prestigious intermediary educational program in the country. Every CBI is a professional equipped with special expertise as a result of advanced study in selling, investment, taxes, valuation, divestitures, exit strategies, and more.

• A history of demonstrated sales performance through the documented execution of business sales transactions.

Confidentiality is extremely important when selling a business. As a business owner trying to sell your company, you should be reluctant to expose your business information to ‘strangers’. At Goodman and Company we pre-screen potential buyers and have buyers sign confidentiality agreements before we reveal anything about your business. We’ll only reveal your company name and location to the most ‘serious’ buyers that we feel have the ability and desire to buy your business. Maintaining the confidentiality of the sale benefits the seller and buyer alike.

Our goal is to have your employees, customers and suppliers find about your business sale AFTER the closing. We go through great lengths to protect your confidentiality. We do what we can to minimize the risks associated with selling your business.

Using an intermediary/broker to negotiate price and terms ALWAYS results in a more favorable outcome for the seller. When buyers negotiate with you in person they can look you in the eye and see your reactions to their statements, extract ‘free information’ from you and study your body language to make a better deal for themselves. Buyers can pester and annoy you and interfere with your business when their access is not restricted by a business broker. A broker/intermediary is ALWAYS beneficial to a seller during negotiations and the entire sale process.

Our pledge is to work with you to get the best price and the best terms possible when selling your business. We represent YOU. We have a good sense for what buyers are willing to pay and how to get it so that you receive a fair offer for your business. If you aren’t experienced at this how will you negotiate a deal on your own and expect to be happy with the result? There are many pitfalls that can occur along the way and knowing what to expect adds a sense of structure, order and sensibility to your sale. We have the experience to help you through this process.

Goodman and Company maintains a database of thousands of potential buyers from the local area bringing you the maximum exposure for your business. Its all about the numbers! The more buyers that we can simultaneously attract to your business, the higher the price you can expect to receive.

The confidential advertising that we do for your business will provide tremendous exposure to your business. Our ads reach buyers from all segments of the business market and will attract substantial interest in your business.

In addition, we are part of a local and national network of brokerage companies, which allows us to create interest in your business to an almost unlimited pool of buyers of all types, including financial buyers, industry buyers, strategic buyers and private equity group buyers. This network allows us to reach out to buyers from all areas of the United States and throughout the world.

Once we have interested buyers it is important to qualify them. In other words, we need to find out if they have the intent, the experience, and most importantly, the money to complete a deal before we waste anyone’s time. In addition, we only want to divulge information about your business to qualified buyers.

After our first contact with a buyer, we ask that a Buyer Registration Form be filled out, where financial resources are disclosed. This is a good starting point to work from. As the transaction progresses we will work with you (and your attorney) to provide what is needed from the buyer to move forward.

We advertise your business (anonymously, of course, to maintain your confidentiality) on multiple online business-for-sale websites, at no cost to you. Your business-for-sale listing will be seen by hundreds of prospective buyers, all in complete confidence.

We also send out email marketing campaigns to our very large database of thousands of local area buyers. These emails will describe your business (anonymously) and likely attract immediate interest from the buying public.

We’ll also post your business (anonymously) on our own website, which gets many visitors every day. We will work with you to ensure that the description we use for your business will not allow anyone that sees the ad to know who is for sale. We take this responsibility very seriously.

And, because we have been in this business for so many years, we frequently know of buyers that will have an immediate interest in your business. They’ll get contacted soon after you start working with us.

We know what buyers are looking for and we market your business accordingly. The key is to get your business exposed to as many potential buyers as possible at once in order to attract simultaneous interest. Why simultaneous? Because that’s how we get the buyers to compete and pay you a good price for your business.