When you want to sell your business, more than 50% business owners will choose a business broker to go through the process, definitely for a better result, maximized profit with peace of mind. But how to find a better business broker is always a challenging question for business owners.
Why will you need a business broker? If you know the answer well, you can make yourself easier to find a right business broker.
First, a business broker must have more knowledge than you regarding business sales process therefore this guy can guide you through the process. So, ask the questions about the business sales process, for instance how to value the business, how to do the marketing, who will be the right buyer, when to take the deposit and what will be the sales condition to close the deal, etc. From all the questions and answers you might know your broker’s knowledge and you know more about the process yourself. Also, you must think confidentiality plan is important for you. So, you can ask how your potential broker will screen the buyers and find the right guys. As the business owner, you want to focus on running your business, not waste too much time to discuss with ungenuine buyers. The more you talk to your buyers, the more chance you lose your confidentiality. The best way to sell your business is your broker will do screening first and bring you the only several qualified buyers.
Second, I think you must make sure this broker is someone you can trust and work with. To gain your trust, you need to find out if this broker wants to spend time with you. If a broker does not want to spend time with you for the first meetings, how can you expect this guy to spend time with your buyers in the coming process. Also, without the time, the broker cannot understand your business well enough to present to the buyers. Your broker needs to listen to your needs, knows your goal and the reason why you want to sell your business, needs to know the strength and even challenges of your business. So, this guy can create a marketing strategy. Definitely from all these conversations you can figure out if you establish a good working relationship with this guy, which will make the later process much easier. It is from common sense and guts feeling sometime when you work with people. People skill is also important for a business broker. During the conversation, you can give some pressure and challenges to check if he has the needed communications skills and ability to cope with the challenges.
Third, you can check how the broker is going to prepare Information Memo and marketing. Information Memo is so important in selling a business. What information will be included, how many pages in an IM and how to present the profit, strength and weakness of the business, etc, all these hard works is something brokers must do in the preparation before your business is presented to your buyers. So, understand how your broker will do this is critical before you choose. Also, how to do the marketing is a key issue. Which business sales portals and social media the ads will be listed. Specially, you want to know what other channels can be reached out like accountant, migration agents and so on because these professionals sometimes can find the right buyers easier.
The last is that you have to do your own homework to have some research on this broker. You can use google, google my business, broker’s website and social media like LinkedIn to know more about these brokers. You can know brokers’ experience, his education, his successful sales records, his reputation, his customer reviews and so on. So, all these information can make you understand this guy before you meet him. In NSW, any real estate licensed agent can sell businesses nowadays so if you want to find a dedicated licensed business broker rather than a not experienced real estate agent, you need to ask when the broker started to sell business, how and when the business broker license issued. If this broker is a member of business broker association like AIBB (Australian Institute of Business Brokers), how many years have been engaged in the business brokering agency, all these questions might be helpful for you to know. And you also like to know if this broker is a general industry broker or specific industry broker. If your business is not very popular as hospitality business, it is a good idea if your broker has sold similar businesses before. So having experience within your specific industry might be helpful. The last but not least is see how many listings your potential brokers are selling because you do not want your broker is too busy to spend time with you.
The business brokers from Sinosmart Business Brokering like to spend time with you to understand your business; review your business performance and find out the potential opportunities; collect all information to prepare Business Information Memo; find the targeted market and work out the marketing plan.
We make the best use of our Chinese background, collaborate with many Chinese background migration agents, real estate agents find Chinese business visa buyers and other Chinese high net value clients easier than others. We are the best Chinese Business broker in Sydney.
