The part nobody says out loud
You are not scared of selling.You are scared of seven things.
I have had this conversation enough times to know it is never really about the price. It is about what happens to the people, and what happens to your name in a town this size.
So here are the seven, and a straight answer to each one.
Seven fears
Say the quiet one first.
The first two are the ones that keep people frozen for years. They are also the easiest to solve, because they are a process problem, not a price problem.
01My employees will find out and quit before it closes.
This is the one that stops most people, and it is a fair fear. A brokered deal leaks because it has to. The listing is public, buyers tour the building, and somebody's cousin works there.
Nothing about my process is public. There is no listing and no sign. I do not walk your floor during business hours, and I do not talk to your people until you decide it is time to tell them. You pick the day and you pick the words.
02My customers will find out and go somewhere else.
Same answer, same reason. Nobody is being shown your business but me.
And on the other side of it, your customers mostly care that the same truck shows up and the same person answers. Keeping the name and the crew is not sentimentality. It is the thing that protects the revenue I just paid for.
03I will sell too cheap and find out later.
So get the number first, before you talk to anybody about buying it. That is why the range is free and comes with the math written out.
Here is the honest version of that math. Businesses like yours sell for roughly two to three times what they actually pay the owner, plus inventory. Which means the buyer works close to free for a couple of years and then keeps it. I am telling you the buyer's side of the math because you should know it before we talk about mine.
04The buyer's money will fall through after nine months of my life.
This is the most common way these deals die. It is why any offer I put in front of you names where the money comes from. Not 'subject to financing.' The actual source.
If a piece of it is a bank, you get the bank. If a piece of it is a note back to you, you see the terms before you spend a single week on diligence.
05The buyer will fire everybody and my name is on it in this town forever.
You can put the people in the contract. Named employees, named terms, in writing. Most sellers do not know that is available, because no buyer brings it up on his own. So bring it up. Any buyer who will not put your crew in the contract has told you what he intends to do.
The selfish version of the same answer: East Texas is small. I have three businesses and a showroom here. If I bought something and gutted it, every CPA and banker in this town would know inside a month and I would never see another deal.
06The tax bill will eat half of it.
It will not be half, but it is real, and how the deal is structured changes it a lot. Asset sale versus stock sale, what gets allocated where, whether the real estate moves with it.
I am not your CPA and I am not going to pretend to be. What I will do is bring the structure to your CPA early, so the tax conversation happens while the deal can still be shaped instead of after it is signed.
07I have no idea what I would do on the Monday after.
Then do not go from sixty hours to zero on a Friday. The structure that handles this is the owner staying on six to twelve months after closing as a paid consultant, with real hours and a real end date.
I have watched a lot of owners get to the other side of this. The ones who did well had something to walk toward. The ones who struggled sold on a Friday and woke up Monday with nothing on the calendar. That is worth planning for before the price is even settled.
Ways to build it
Most of the fear is structural. So here are the structures.
- Seller note
You get paid over time, and I owe you.
Some of the price comes back to you with interest instead of all at close. It costs me a better price and it buys you the only real guarantee there is: your interest and mine stay pointed the same direction.
- Consulting
You stay six to twelve months, and you get paid for it.
Real hours, real money, a real end date. Nobody expects you to hand over thirty years in a two-hour meeting.
- The name
Nothing changes on the truck.
The sign stays, the phone greeting stays, the crew stays. If you want that in writing, it goes in writing.
- The building
Keep the real estate and the rent check.
A lot of owners are better off selling the business and leasing me the building. You keep an income stream, I keep my cash for the business itself, and everybody sleeps.
- Quiet close
Nobody is told until you say so.
You choose the day, the order, and the words. I will be there when you tell them if you want me there, and gone if you do not.
When you are ready
You can stop this anywhere. Most people do.
A conversation is not a commitment and a range is not an offer. If all you ever do is find out what it is worth, that was worth doing.