Choosing a business broker

Take your time and start looking around. If you have a small bar for sale you will have different requirements than if you have a huge hotel or perhaps a car parts factory for sale. Different businesses will have different insider elements, and usually not every broker is prepared to sell any and every type of business.

There are literally dozens and dozens of articles on the internet claiming to guide and show you how to choose a business broker: from checking the brokers qualifications, to checking association memberships, or asking for references. Without saying these things are pointless, I do want to stress that it is of much higher importance to find a broker who knows what he is doing and really cares about selling your business.

Put it this way, if a broker is highly “qualified” and a member of this, that and the other “association” that does not for sure qualify him as the best broker for you. A broker, who has hundreds of listings, may be more self-centered about his own image or too proud of his big portfolio to even move a finger and try and sell your business than a broker who has just a select few businesses for sale.

Let me give you an example, if you have a restaurant for sale, then why list it with a broker who also sells car wash businesses, gas stations, hotels and toy stores? Wouldn’t it make more sense to give it to someone who specializes in restaurants? Just like if you want to sell a shoe manufacturing business, then listing it with a broker that specializes in nightclubs may not be your best bet.

Now that you narrow it down, check their channels of marketing. Broker A might have a nice fancy office on the main street and regular weekly adverts in the most glossy local paper, but Broker B might be very well connected among local [insert your business type here] business owners and investors. That may be worth much more to the sale of your business!

And last but not least, listen to your broker. If your broker is telling you he will land your [expected] price without a doubt and surely within just a few weeks, then this is probably too good to be true. Especially now in 2008, where half the world is in a global crisis, this may not be realistic. Make sure that the broker you choose to sell your business is realistic! Much rather he tells you to come down from your high horse than tell you fairy tales – right?

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