Buying a Business
What about business brokers?
Brokers don’t represent all sellers.
Why settle for some of the businesses for sale . . .
when you can access all of them?
The hidden market is where to find unadvertised businesses for sale by-owner (or could be for sale to buyers who properly approach and interact with owners) . . . with less or no competition from other buyers.
Brokers may not be representing sellers of the type and size of business you want to buy. Right now. When you want to buy a business. Do not wait for a phone call from brokers.
Stay in contact with brokers, but do not limit your search to them.
The best brokers help buyers communicate with sellers whose offerings they market, playing interference if communication breaks down.
The savviest searchers and buyers think of brokers as their bird dogs. Brokers find the bird. You shoot it. You don’t give a bird dog your shotgun, so don’t give your broker anything s/he could use against you.
You might find other insight in the comments section at the bottom of this webpage: Tips for Searchers and Searches.
Buyers without their own and competent business search guide and acquisition advisory team, none of which have a potential conflict-of-interest, are essential for buyers to cope with the advantages brokers (and other seller-intermediaries) convey to sellers: 62 Reasons for Sellers Hiring Brokers.
What about the sellers’ perspective?
The most valuable brokers for sellers are the best at creating business buyer competition.
The smartest owners will seek out those brokers, and verify their ability to cause buyers to bid against one another.
All the other bells and whistles that business brokers pitch to perspective listings won’t make much of a difference other than to be pretty wallpaper on business offerings that languish for sale.
Buyer competition is the secret sauce.
Here are two of my resources that 600+ business brokers use to refine their knowledge of the other side of their dealmaking tables, so they can deliver even more astute service on the buy/sell playing field.
Business Buyer Advocate or a broker?
It’s not an either/or question. You can benefit from Business Buyer Advocate Ted Leverette and from business brokers.
- We have reciprocal referral relationships with and/or we know some of the best brokers and other kinds of seller intermediaries in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Search is where Ted Leverette overlaps brokers. Brokers represent about 15% to 20% of the best businesses that sell. Leverette can introduce you to the rest, which are the businesses for sale by-owner that you cannot find on your own.
Where the Business Buyer Advocate differs from brokers is your Advocate can provide you with the rest of the advice you need during due diligence, creative financing and business valuation. Because we don’t represent businesses for sale, we don’t have to cope with conflict-of-interest. Our loyalty is to you, and only you, the buyer.
The Hidden Market
“Proprietary Deal Flow” and “Off-Market” opportunities are synonymous with “hidden market.”
- It’s where and how some buyers source the best deals.
- 100% of Business Buyer Advocate Ted Leverette’s clients go there, deploying our proprietary methodologies to uncover winners and then engage sellers without bidding against other buyers.
The hidden market of businesses for sale is where up to 80% of the mature, profitable and fairly priced small and midsize businesses are quietly for sale by-owner.
Some of these winners are not yet on the market, but they and other sellers want to safely meet qualified buyers. Few of these owners will admit they are for sale to buyers they don’t know.
Few of these owners advertise their business for sale.
- This is where Ted Leverette comes in. His credibility as a trusted matchmaker encourages potential sellers to interact with buyers.
Accessing the hidden market can save you valuable time, and you avoid buyer competition because these businesses are not available to the general public.
Don’t make yourself and everyone else crazy!
Hire advisors having a proven history of working for buyers and sellers of the kind and size of deal you intend.
- Ask how they have FACILITATED deals that should and did occur. Hire deal makers, deal closers.
Avoid advisors who don’t know enough about dealmaking for small and midsize companies.
- Not wanting to make mistakes these poseurs are more likely to poo-poo deals or (worse) bless them.
Are you doing what works?
What the Smartest Business Buyers Do First
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Get ahead of other buyers competing with you: Searcher and Search Evaluation ™
Hire Business Buyer Advocate Ted Leverette to educate and guide you through our Street-Smart 22-Step Acquisition Sequence ™. It integrates our six advisory services essential to buyers: Preparing, searching, due diligence, financing, valuing, and dealmaking. We are not a business brokerage. We do not sell franchises or any kind of business.
Improve your search and dealmaking:
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Email Ted J. Leverette, The Original Business Buyer Advocate ®. “Partner” On-Call Network, LLC
