A few years ago, we were able to negotiate terms for the sale of a small retail business to a buyer who was interested in expanding.  The business was a challenge to sell, with the owner working full time in the business and generating only enough cash flow to pay himself at about 50% of…

Beginning in 1995, eBay single-handedly flipped the market for sale of miscellaneous household junk from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market.  eBay is great for buyers too, allowing buyers interested in a particular trinket to locate that trinket worldwide and make an offer to purchase it.  However, the old method of selling household junk…

Most people expect sellers to value a business on the high end and buyers to value a business on the low end.  Some of this may be a product of negotiation posturing, sellers knowing that a buyer is not going to pay the full asking price, and buyers thinking that anything should be bought for…

For many business owners, owning the real estate from which the business operates and paying for it out of business operations over a period of years is a key financial benefit of owning a business.  In fact, for many small business owners the real estate is a key component of overall business value and an…

People do not like to answer hard questions, particularly if the truthful answer will make us look bad.  A dishonest person may just lie, while even an honest person will do what they can to avoid answering the question, or at least to answer in a way that minimizes the damage to them personally, professionally,…

Several years ago I worked with a client who was buying a franchised business in the home improvement sector.  The business was marketed as including franchise rights within a multi-state territory.  After a great deal of time and effort by the parties to negotiate terms of agreement, source financing and evaluate financials, we discovered during…