There is often confusion, or should I say a lack of understanding, about what a business broker actually does. Within the “trade”, so to speak, accountants, lawyers and other professional services operators are well familiar with the role of a business broker and the assistance they offer a business owner in the transition out of their business, or a purchaser into a business.

An obvious comparison is made between a business broker and a real estate agent.
While we are required to be licensed to operate as a business broker and use the REA to facilitate that license, the similarities between broker and agent are few.
It’s fair to say that a great number of business owners do not have the need for a business broker on a regular basis if they are not either selling or buying businesses.
Selling your business should not be a scary process. Creating a relationship with your business broker is the best thing you can do as you’ll be actively involved with each other for a minimum of 3 to 4 months, if not longer for a standard selling process.
When dealing with the sale of a business, a business broker is dealing with not only the tangibles of what the business sells but also the intangibles of the intellectual property around a specific business. Gleaning that knowledge from the owner who may have spent many years establishing the running of and functionality of the “baby” they have created is an important part of the journey.
Understanding the numbers and analysing the  profit and loss statements is very much the nature of what we do as a business broker; this in turn allows us to establish a “window” of where we see the market selling price for the business in question.
There is quite a degree of process around taking a business to market. Once there... it’s the broker’s role to act on behalf of the owner. Seasoned purchasers will have a standard set of questions about the opportunity they are reviewing and fielding those enquiries while sifting out the serious from the tyre kickers is all part of the job. The satisfaction in getting the “right fit” is indeed most satisfying. It’s not always a right fit based purely on money… and this is where that relationship between the broker and all parties is most important in understanding the motivations around the sale and the purchase for each party.
Cheers Lester

Contact: Lester de Vere
0274 599 773
or email: Lesterd@abcbusiness.co.nz
or visit: www.abcbusiness.co.nz