Here are
some recent questions and answers for our experts:
Question:
I help people buy and sell businesses. I have been
approached by a direct mailer to mail out to businesses in
my area looking for businesses for sale. How much should I
be paying for a service like this? Also, is there some way I
can figure out what should I be paying per lead? Thanks
Answer:
There are many providers of these types of services and we
have used several. PostCard Mania (postcardmania.com)
produces high quality
postcards-(eyepopping) at a very reasonable cost. They will
even do the mailing for you for little more than the cost of
postage. Of course you don't pay per lead you pay by name
from their mailing list. Also there is a service which
provides basically unlimited names (up to 5000 per month or
more) available by SIC code and zip code or whatever way of
sorting you want. That is www.goleads.com. Then there is
another service that does phone calls for you and charges
you for the number of businesses called and they even set up
the appointments for your meeting. I have found that that
service gets you the meetings but perhaps doesn't qualify
the lead well enough but with some refining may be more
useful.
This service
is particularly useful for new brokers just getting started
who need the meetings to hone their presentation skills. In
this way they learn what is most effective. That service
charges about $1.25 per call made. So if they call 400
businesses the fee is about $495- you should end up with
about 10 meetings. If one of those becomes a client, it is
well worth it . This company is called clear choice
www.clearchoicellc.com. They have an account rep who is a
specialist for business brokers.
We are always
looking for people who want to become professional business
brokers to join us. These support and mailing programs are
very important to get the person a good start. Good Luck and
feel free to Email me with any further question.
Jeff Hoops,
The Haley Group,
www.thehaleygroup.com,
jeff@thehaleygroup.com
Question: How
do I know if BBN is a legitimate organization to associate
with? I would like to know if Business Broker Network is
worth paying the fee. I am very interested in this
organization and have a solid management skill set. I have
spent the last two years advising and consulting several
companies. I have an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker graduate
school of management. In my process of redesigning myself
and moving forward I came across BBN. It appears to fit
right in to my overall strategy in life. Can you give me
some resources to find out more about this group? The ramp
up period, the costs, and the validity of this group.
Click here to see the answer(s)
Question: Can
I sell a business NAME as opposed to assets? Hi, I own a
tour company. The customer comes to me via Internet ads,
print ads, brochure racks. We will do about 380,000.00 gross
and $150,000 net this year, and have for several years. My
situation is unique. I run tours on a piece of property,
it's privately owned and we are losing the lease. Don't want
to stay in business, but we know the phone will continue
ringing, so were wondering: If someone wanted to get in the
same tour business we're in, and had some property on which
to do the tours, would selling my company, which is really
just a name and good will, referral and repeat business and
new business , be of interest to him, and how to arrive at a
price/value?
Click here to see the answer(s)
Question: I have done quite a bite of reading on
developing a "killer" listing that the perfect buyer's mouth
would just water over but never have read anything on how to
get a list of buyers except by waiting by the phone from the
listing you've placed. I want to know thought if its
possible and practical to acquire a list of buyers and
industry they're interested in, etc, to bring to the sellers
brokers and if so how. I await your experience.
Click here to see the answer(s)
Question:
Is there an equation I can use to find the worth of my
business so that I may present prospective buyers with a
realistic selling price?
Click here to see the answer(s)
Question: What is the average turn around time
from the time a seller and buyer agree on a transaction?
I understand it depends on the size and difficulty of
the deal, but on average how long before start to close?
Click here to see the answer(s)
