Tag Archives: selling a business

Too Busy to Do Business

Another tax filing season has passed, and the entire US accounting profession comes up for air. Of course, thousands of businesses and individuals have filed for extensions, thereby postponing the pain of calculating their final numbers for anywhere from a … Continue reading

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Exit Planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

4 Responses to Too Busy to Do Business

  1. Dan Bowser says:

    I love the title. When I was more active in my consulting practice and looking for additional clients, my best prospecting time was tax season. Business owners were unwilling to wait for advice and guidance. As a result, they left their CPA do the tax work and looked to me for the lucrative strategic planning and implementation. I love tax season.

  2. Mike Wright says:

    Excellent. Another thing to think about when I hear politicians talk about helping small business, and I know they have no concept of what small business is about.

  3. Ann says:

    Hi John,
    Great posts !
    Very interesting article thank you for posting !

  4. Great post John! I actually had a very similar conversation with a business owner only a couple of days ago on this topic. In Canada, our tax deadline is April 30th, so we have another week of our accountants being unavailable. You also hear so much about them working 80 hours a week, getting no sleep, rushing to meet deadlines, that it also begs the question as to how many mistakes are happening? Not intentionally, but only because of the time crunch and the pressure of the deadline. Realistically, as everyone talks about “added value” in our industry, you know that at tax time, this certainly isn’t happening.

    I agree with you that the governments need to come up with a new system for tax filing deadlines and not make it universally the same for every person. We’ve done it for businesses and base it on their fiscal year end, so why can’t it also be done for individuals?
    Thanks for a great read!

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What is the Right Price?

Of all the misconceptions by business owners, the ones surrounding their company’s value are both the most common and often wildly inaccurate. I’ve been working for the last couple of months on the training videos for advisors in our new product, The ExitMap®. … Continue reading

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The 7 Deadly Sins of an Entrepreneur — Reprise

I make no claim that using the Seven Deadly Sins as a metaphor for business behavior is original. Of course, the original concept is a codifying of “undesirable” human behaviors, or sins. The work probably comes from the Latin word … Continue reading

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Is Your Business in the “Neutral Zone?”

As Baby Boomers business owners approach retirement (the youngest of them turned 50 this year) they face a unique challenge. The market for small businesses is increasingly a buyer’s smorgasbord A shrinking middle-aged population, corporate competition for talent and less interest … Continue reading

Posted in Building Value, Entrepreneurship, Exit Options, Exit Planning, Exit Strategies, Leadership | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

2 Responses to Is Your Business in the “Neutral Zone?”

  1. Clint says:

    Thanks John. Interesting what the future will hold for these businesses…Buying businesses for millions of dollars seems like pie in the sky for most of us Xers or Millennials. I totally agree with the “hire a buyer” future. When I told my boomer boss that I may be interested in opportunity for buying I think he woke up a bit and has started me on an upper mgmt ladder. I call this Intrapreneurship and have even started a community at http://www.IntrapreneurOnline.com where we IPRs can share our wins, grow and help each other. Maybe it will even turn into a place for nurturing these “hire a buyer”s.
    Thanks again,
    Clint.

  2. TKO Miller says:

    Great article, thanks for sharing! We\’ve written a blog post on why 2017 is the perfect time for baby boomers to consider selling their businesses. Read it here: https://www.tkomiller.com/blog/baby-boomers-and-business-owners-2017-is-your-year

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Companies Sell for a Multiple of…What?

Last week we discussed the difference between Main Street and Mid-market companies regarding their prospects for finding a buyer. You can read it here, but the short analysis is that the market is tightening for Main Street businesses, while the … Continue reading

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Exit Planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

5 Responses to Companies Sell for a Multiple of…What?

  1. Jon Konchar says:

    Right on target. Thanks for the article. Thought: The experts who have never bought oe sold a business,,, are they experts?

    • John F. Dini says:

      Good point, Jon. Some believe that their technical expertise in analyzing financial statements or drafting contracts is sufficient to handle a transaction. Too bad so many owners find out too late that isn’t the case.

  2. David Cunningham says:

    Hi John.
    If I am representing a buyer, we would look at the discounted cash flow of four year projected earnings, plus a terminal value, particularly if the buyer is using some debt to make the acquisition.
    David.

    • John F. Dini says:

      David,
      NPV of future cash flows is a reasonable way of calculating ROI for a buyer, but it would still translate into a number that needs to be compared against the industry data calculated in the more standard way.

  3. Oswald Viva says:

    Good article. The truth is that a business, any business, is not worth what the owner think is worth, and is not worth what the buyer think is worth; it is somewhere in between, but how do you convince both parties of that?

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