Over the past few weeks, I have heard a wide range of comments and predictions regarding the current state and future of the business for sale market. The discussions reached a frenzy with last week's government bailout. The general consensus,...

Regardless of the economy, the business for sale marketplace is still flooded with buyers. One of the points I have been preaching for years is that serious prospective buyers have to separate themselves immediately from all of the lookers when...

There are two subjects that constantly arise regarding the employees of a company that is being sold. The first of course, is that a buyer will want to meet the employees before they close the deal. Naturally, most sellers are...

If you want to be an effective buyer, you must gain insight to the seller's thought process, motivation, and concerns. Most stages of the business buying process are psychological because you are dealing with personalities on so many levels, and...

The layman's definition of due diligence, for those of you who are new to the business-buying process, is the period after you and the seller have reached an agreement when you will have access to all of the company's books...

I hope you had a nice holiday weekend. As a kid growing up in Canada, Labor Day Weekend was my version of hell because school started the Tuesday after Labor Day (or ?Labour? as it is spelled in Canada, and...

I cannot help but notice how both presidential candidates possess the worst possible traits that any buyer can have during the business buying process. There is no doubt that in order to successfully complete the business buying process, a buyer...

Outside of the hard assets and financial statements, almost the entire process of buying a business comes down to intangible issues. I do not mean things like goodwill. Rather, a business sale transaction involves personalities, and so all of the...

sWhenever somebody starts a sentence with ?You won't believe this? ? - I always reply: ?I believe anything?. After nearly twenty years in the arena of buying and selling businesses, I have learned that you cannot easily predict what people...

Everyone is consumed with the current economy and it is clearly impacting the sector of buying a business. Today, I want to talk about the impact of financing a business purchase. Whenever I touch upon this subject and specifically seller...