Selling Businesses as a Broker

Redd · Mar 27, 2019

I’ve been looking into other avenues with Business and keep coming back to the same thing which is Business Sales. Recently had a business for sale and quite frankly the agent I have been using is so poor! This guy firstly charged me £500 to put it up for sale and requires 3-5% of the sale at 250k yet his input has been minimal, updates non existing and other than put it on the website he hasn’t actually done anything!
In other businesses I’ve started I’ve looked at the industry and basically just done it better and this is an industry I think I could do similiar.
Wondered if anyone has experience of doing this kind of thing?

Clinton · Mar 27, 2019

When you know jack sh*t about selling business, don't start a company to help people sell businesses! Go find something else to occupy your time.

That someone else is doing a bad job is a not good reason for you to jump in and have a go. How many businesses have you sold so far? Have you ANY idea how difficult it is to sell a business or how to go about selling a business properly?

Redd said:
other than put it on the website he hasn’t actually done anything!

That's all you can afford to do for £500! You have customer acquisition costs - including advertising your firm, sending a sharp suited sales rep driving a Merc to meet potential clients to bullsh*t them about how fantastic their business is and to "value" the business for them etc. And then when you take a client on you have to play that game of pretending to be selling their business by putting it online (and paying the listing fees at various online platforms).

Proper business brokers who do a decent job - rare beasts, I admit - charge in the tens of thousands and even they sell fewer than 20% of the businesses they take on. Plonkers like the £500 crook you hired do not sell even 5% of the firms they take on. And you want to join them, promise clients the moon (otherwise they won't sign up with you) and disappoint over 95% of them?

The world has enough crap brokers. Please, not another one!

Mark T Jones · Mar 27, 2019

Clinton said:
When you know jack sh*t about selling business, don't start a company to help people sell businesses! Go find something else to occupy your time.

That someone else is doing a bad job is a not good reason for you to jump in and have a go. How many businesses have you sold so far? Have you ANY idea how difficult it is to sell a business or how to go about selling a business properly?

That's all you can afford to do for £500! You have customer acquisition costs - including advertising your firm, sending a sharp suited sales rep driving a Merc to meet potential clients to bullsh*t them about how fantastic their business is and to "value" the business for them etc. And then when you take a client on you have to play that game of pretending to be selling their business by putting it online (and paying the listing fees at various online platforms).

Proper business brokers who do a decent job - rare beasts, I admit - charge in the tens of thousands and even they sell fewer than 20% of the businesses they take on. Plonkers like the £500 crook you hired do not sell even 5% of the firms they take on. And you want to join them, promise clients the moon (otherwise they won't sign up with you) and disappoint over 95% of them?

The world has enough crap brokers. Please, not another one!

So should he or shouldn't he?

for goodness sake, get off the fence...

WaveJumper · Mar 27, 2019

Well Clinton certainly put his case forward in a clear and straight forward way, unfortunately I agree at the end of the day you get what you pay for

Redd · Mar 28, 2019

Hi Clinton. Thanks for your input! I ain’t sold any of my businesses because there sucessful and make me a lot of money albeit with a fair amount of stress (hence the reason I’d like to sell one)
I had four different brokers at my door and every single one of them were useless! Trust me I can do a far better job than them and trust me I won’t be over promising anything!
You don’t even know me yet you categorically say I couldn’t do it?

Redd · Mar 28, 2019

Clinton said:
When you know jack sh*t about selling business, don't start a company to help people sell businesses! Go find something else to occupy your time.

That someone else is doing a bad job is a not good reason for you to jump in and have a go. How many businesses have you sold so far? Have you ANY idea how difficult it is to sell a business or how to go about selling a business properly?

That's all you can afford to do for £500! You have customer acquisition costs - including advertising your firm, sending a sharp suited sales rep driving a Merc to meet potential clients to bullsh*t them about how fantastic their business is and to "value" the business for them etc. And then when you take a client on you have to play that game of pretending to be selling their business by putting it online (and paying the listing fees at various online platforms).

Proper business brokers who do a decent job - rare beasts, I admit - charge in the tens of thousands and even they sell fewer than 20% of the businesses they take on. Plonkers like the £500 crook you hired do not sell even 5% of the firms they take on. And you want to join them, promise clients the moon (otherwise they won't sign up with you) and disappoint over 95% of them?

The world has enough crap brokers. Please, not another one!

Oh and to answer your question. No I don’t know the first thing about selling s business.......YET!!

However I didn’t know the first thing about any of the businesses I started! I left school and my first job was was in a factory! Guess what? I chose to dedicate my time to LEARN! and at least two of my companies are the biggest in their field! Dinosaurs like you perhaps can’t understand that but I can.

Financial-Modeller · Mar 28, 2019

I response to your original question, when starting a brokerage to sell businesses, you would expect to have strong relationships with investors who buy businesses. You haven't.

Redd said:
...at least two of my companies are the biggest in their field!

You chose to sell the biggest company(ies) in the field by paying someone you didn't know, £500 to advertise them?

You are in for quite a learning curve with your proposed venture!

The Byre · Mar 28, 2019

Your question was

Redd said:
You don’t even know me yet you categorically say I couldn’t do it?

and the answer is

Financial-Modeller said:
In response to your original question, when starting a brokerage to sell businesses, you would expect to have strong relationships with investors who buy businesses. You haven't.

You stated

Redd said:
I chose to dedicate my time to LEARN!

which you followed with

Redd said:
Dinosaurs like you perhaps can’t understand that but I can.

The first thing I learnt in business is to remain polite and tactful at all times, esp. if I am speaking from a position of weakness and disadvantage. Referring to someone that you may want to turn to for help sometime in the future as 'a dinosaur' is hardly going to aid your cause!

Mr D · Mar 28, 2019

Redd said:
Hi Clinton. Thanks for your input! I ain’t sold any of my businesses because there sucessful and make me a lot of money albeit with a fair amount of stress (hence the reason I’d like to sell one)
I had four different brokers at my door and every single one of them were useless! Trust me I can do a far better job than them and trust me I won’t be over promising anything!
You don’t even know me yet you categorically say I couldn’t do it?

Clinton knows a thing or two about buying and selling businesses. Disagree with him by all means. It may help though to think he may have a point.
I've found him to more often be right than wrong.

The brokers you dealt with - you may be able to act and speak better than them. Will it gain you sellers willing to use you? Or willing to use the broker promising the highest price even if vastly unrealistic?

Redd · Mar 28, 2019

The first thing I learnt in business is to remain polite and tactful at all times, esp. if I am speaking from a position of weakness and disadvantage. Referring to someone that you may want to turn to for help sometime in the future as 'a dinosaur' is hardly going to aid your cause![/QUOTE]

Completely agree with you and perhaps Clinton should read your point above. The first thing I learnt way before I was old enough to be in business was to be polite and helpful where I could, unlike his response!

“When you know jack shit about a business don’t start one”
“The world has enough crook brokers please don’t be another one”

If you guys wanna lick his shoes then fire away, He should be more respectful as I have/would be to any person on here looking to advance their life/career.

Redd · Mar 28, 2019

Mr D said:
Clinton knows a thing or two about buying and selling businesses. Disagree with him by all means. It may help though to think he may have a point.
I've found him to more often be right than wrong

Agreed and the section where he was actually giving advice was when he said how hard it is to sell a business. I’ve noted this and taken it onboard and happen to agree. I do however have a few ideas of my own which I’ve noted none of the others are doing which is crazy.

Mark T Jones · Mar 28, 2019

Redd said:
The first thing I learnt in business is to remain polite and tactful at all times, esp. if I am speaking from a position of weakness and disadvantage. Referring to someone that you may want to turn to for help sometime in the future as 'a dinosaur' is hardly going to aid your cause!

Completely agree with you and perhaps Clinton should read your point above. The first thing I learnt way before I was old enough to be in business was to be polite and helpful where I could, unlike his response!

“When you know jack **** about a business don’t start one”
“The world has enough crook brokers please don’t be another one”

If you guys wanna lick his shoes then fire away, He should be more respectful as I have/would be to any person on here looking to advance their life/career.[/QUOTE]

There is a fairly big difference between giving input in a blunt way and childish name-calling.

Whilst Clinton's approach is a little more direct than I would favour, I would judge a professional more on their capacity to shoot from the hip than to utter platitudes (in my view platitudes are the hallmark of the type of weak, rogue brokers you are talking about)

So; when somebody who clearly knows their stuff tells you you know nothing - take it as an opportunity to prove them wrong rather than resorting to playground insults.

Redd · Mar 28, 2019

Fair point! Just seemed like a rather outdated response to suggest someone/anyone can’t start a business in BS because they don’t know the first thing.
I’ve not decided if I’m doing it yet hence why I’m here, just hoped some folk would know the pros and cons of it all!
Should I decide to do it I’ll do all relevant background work required. I’ve already owned four businesses. Selling one now and spoke with several brokers. I’ve a fairly good idea of how it works.

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