By Michael Marks CBI, Fellow Of The IBBA

One of the great joys of owning your own business is making your company grow and thrive. It can actually be enjoyable to buy new equipment – to have the latest technology and new capabilities. Or perhaps to take on a new product line or add a new service. And it can be exhilarating to hire new talent and delegate more of your own work to others. Yes, growth is fun!

Cutting back is not fun. It’s not fun to worry about what’s going to happen when everything is going downhill. It’s not fun […]

By Michael Marks CBI, Fellow Of The IBBA

Plan, plan, plan. That’s what all the consultants and business coaches tell business owners to do. And the banks? They’re really serious about it. And that’s when they were actually loaning money. But many business owners either don’t like to do it, don’t have time, or just put it off. Who wants to create business plans, marketing plans, and especially exit plans?

In this unprecedented economic downturn, it has become painfully obvious that business owners who were thinking about selling in the near future might have missed their window of opportunity for maximum value. […]

By Suzanne De Lucia CBI, Fellow Of The IBBA

Any business broker with two weeks in the business has heard this from prospective sellers who thought they were ready to sell their business and move on. When given a lower than desired valuation price from their broker, many business owners decide that they can grow and improve their companies to ultimately receive the selling price they want. It sounds good, but the reality of the situation is something different.

In my twenty plus years of selling businesses, I have seen only two cases in which the owners were actually able to […]

By Paul Chambliss CBI

Once again, the right hand of the Government is not communicating with the left hand. While the President is busy expanding the money available to buy businesses, the Small Business Administration is doing its best to stop those sales from happening.

The SBA 7(a) Loan Program is the primary financing vehicle for small business purchases. Loans can be issued for up to $2 million, which covers the majority of transactions. Until recently, funds have been readily available and repayment terms have been favorable, with 10-year loan periods and interest rate caps.

The President’s recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act […]

By Thom Beckett CBI

In the search for small business ownership, it’s funny how we expect such perfection. Business ownership has many illusions – the first is that you’ll find perfection in any business: the one you buy, or the one you’ve owned for ten years!

Businesses are Human, we forget that they are as imperfect as each of us. There are no perfect businesses; no perfect sellers, no perfect buyers (and certainly no perfect employees!). As a business broker, I softly remind parties all the time that first & foremost the process of buying (and selling) a business is emotional, and […]

By Suzanne De Lucia CBI, Fellow Of The IBBA

2008 is not going to be remembered as a banner year in the financial realm for most people. Many are opening up their year end investment reports or looking at the real estate values with dismay. I myself think how hard I worked to save and invest, only to have a large chunk of my investment portfolio vaporize. I thought I was on track for a happy and secure retirement, but now wonder how I will regain my net worth.

So what can be done to recoup the losses and get back […]