The Personal Finance Podcast - The Complete Checklist For Buying a Business!
Episode Date: April 24, 2024In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we are going to talk about the complete checklist to buying a business. How Andrew Can Help You: Don't let another year pass by without making sign...ificant strides toward your dreams. "Master Your Money Goals" is your pathway to a future where your aspirations are not just wishes but realities. Enroll now and make this year count! Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Learn to invest by joining Index Fund Pro! This is Andrew’s course teaching you how to invest! Watch The Master Money Youtube Channel! Ask Andrew a question on Instagram or TikTok. Learn how to get out of Debt by joining our Free Course Leave Feedback or Episode Requests here. Thanks to Our Amazing Sponsors for supporting The Personal Finance Podcast. Shopify: Shopify makes it so easy to sell. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/pfp Monarch Money: Get an extended 30 day free trial at monarchmoney/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to fundrise.com/pfp Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at Indeed.com/personalfinance Thanks to Policy Genius for Sponsoring the show! Go to policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Chime: Start your credit journey with Chime. Sign-up takes only two minutes and doesn’t affect your credit score. Get started at chime.com/ Delete Me: Use Promo Code PFP20 for 20% off! Go to UPLIFTDesk.com/PFP for 5% off your order. Relevant Episode: How to Get Rich Buying Boring Businesses With Codie Sanchez How to Buy Then Build a Business with Walker Deibel 9 Modern Side-Hustle Ideas That You Can Eventually Turn Into Full Time Businesses! From Sweaty Startup to an 8-Figure Net Worth With Nick Huber Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Free Guides: The Stairway to Wealth: The Order of Operations for your Money How to Negotiate Your Salary The 75 Day Money Challenge Get out Of Debt Fast Take the Money Personality Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, the complete checklist to buying a business.
What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew founder of mastermoney.com.
And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking through the complete
checklist to buying a business.
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So today, we're going to be diving into the complete checklist to buying a business.
And this is one of those things that I am very, very bullish on going forward.
We've talked about a number of different times on why I like buying businesses,
but I think this is something that is going to be a massive,
opportunity for a lot of people. And so we've interviewed a number of people on this podcast like
Cody Sanchez, for example, who came on this show and kind of talked through why she buys businesses
and we talked through different businesses that she likes, like laundromats and different examples
that she has purchased in the past. In addition, we talked to people like Walker Divell who wrote
the book, Buy, Then Build. And that book, Buy Then Build was my first glimpse into the power of
actually buying businesses. And so this is something that I have been researching for the last
couple of years. I've been bringing experts on the show. And then finally, in
2003, we bought our first business. So I've started a ton of different businesses, but I've
never actually purchased a business and we purchased our first business. This is going to be the
episode kind of talking through exactly what I did in the process that I utilize in order to
go and buy a business. And this is something that I am going to do over and over again. It's a big,
big part of what my portfolio is going to be going forward is buying businesses. So this is
something where I really enjoyed the process. It was something that I'm really, really,
really high on and why am I high on it? Well, I think I'm very high on it because the majority of
business owners right now, over 50% of them are baby boomers. And most baby boomers are going to
retire by the year 2030. And so because of that, there's going to be a bunch of these businesses
going for sale. Now, what am I talking about when I'd say buying a business? I'm talking about things
like you can go out and buy things from a laundromat to a pool route. You can go out and buy
electrical companies, plumbing companies, all these boring businesses. In addition, you can buy
different anything you see out there that is a mom and pop own business, you can eventually buy one
day if they decide to sell or they just cannot handle the business anymore. And so there's a lot
of opportunity out there. There's a lot of businesses that you can go out there and engage. And so
what I'm going to do today is give you the checklist on buying businesses. This is not going to be
how to analyze businesses and break that entire thing down. That'll be a separate episode.
But I'm going to give you my checklist on the steps that you need to take when you actually
go through the process of buying a business. So we have a bunch of different.
steps here. I think we have 14 of them total. So this is going to be an all-encompassing
detailed list that you can go through when it comes to buying a business. So really excited for
this episode, this is something that I can finally talk through because I actually did it.
And so instead of interviewing experts, we can actually start to talk through some of this stuff.
And this is something that if you like this topic, let me know and we'll talk more about some of
this stuff because I think this is really, really powerful. Now, who should buy a business? A lot of
people need to think through this before they even get started. And if you're someone who is
interested in a specific area, you want to be your own boss and you want to run the show,
this may be a great option for you. And we'll talk through financing and how that goes about as well,
but this is not someone who's just looking for a side hustle typically. This is someone who wants to
go all in and they want to be able to create their own destiny. And I'm going to talk through how
you can create your own destiny when you buy businesses as well. So this is what we're talking
about today. We got a bunch of stuff to cover today. So without further ado, let's get into it.
All right, so the first step is if you're interested in buying businesses, you need to figure out why you want to buy a business.
And you need to figure out what type of business and what type of personality you have that's going to fit that business.
So this is a very important step.
And I want you to go through this process and write this down if you have not already done so if you're interested in buying businesses.
So first, I want you to think through what kind of owner you envision yourself as.
Are you going to be a hands-on owner that's going to be working in the day-to-day, employees are going to possibly,
report to you or management is going to report to you and or are you looking for a more passive
role and you want to put management in place because you have more dollars available to put that
management in place. For example, there's a lot of people out there who go out and buy businesses,
then they put good managers in place to run the businesses for them and they just have a
portfolio of businesses available to them. So you can think of someone putting a CEO in
place to run that business. Here's a great example of that. The biggest example of this is Warren
Buffett where Berkshire Hathaway really just owns a bunch of different businesses.
underneath their umbrella. And so one big example is GEICO. Berkshire Hathaway owns GEICO. And so they
have a CEO in place at GEICO that runs that business. You can do that on a very small scale by having
a portfolio of businesses if you wanted to do it that way. Or maybe you want to get in the weeds and
actually utilize some of the skills that you have and work in that business day to day and become an
operator. Or maybe you want to buy a business and then you want to franchise out the entire thing. So maybe
you want to run a couple of different locations. Then you want to franchise out the rest of the
locations, that's another option for you as well. So you need to think through how you want to
operate it. Secondly, you need to know how companies can hit goals and how companies are actually
going to progress forward. So a great book on this is called traction. If you've never read traction,
it's by Gino Wickman. And traction is a book that helps you figure out how to systematize your
business, how to set goals for your business, how to put together a bunch of different things that you
need in order to make sure that you're on track. And you also want to think through what kind of team
you want in this business. Do you want a massive team in your business or do you want to manage
less employees? For most people, they don't want a ton of different employees because you're
managing different personalities. It is the most difficult part of business when it comes to
managing employees. And so you've got to think through, do you actually want to go through that
process and or how you want to think about that? And then lastly, why do you think that you're actually
suited to run this business? You need to think through, is this something you want to do? Or do you have
more dollars available to actually hire someone who actually is more suited to run that
business as well. And this is something where you can also think about this option is when you
buy a business, a lot of times the current operators or the owners may stay on for a certain
period of time. So maybe you want them to stay on for a certain period of time and train somebody
else to be able to run that business. Or you can work out a deal where they stay on and they get
a certain percentage of that business going forward. They get the large lump sum up front from you
and then they get a certain percentage of the profits going forward. There's a lot of creative way
to structure this stuff. So it's really, really important that you as the purchaser kind of
thinks through this. You really need to know this stuff up front and then go from there.
Then also up front, you also need to make sure that you understand what type of business you
want to buy. So this is number two. And this may be something where you don't know right now
when you're starting to listen to this podcast because you're just learning how to buy a business.
But you want to figure out what type of business you want to buy. And then you want to look for
those businesses and look for good deals on them because you're going to get good at finding these
deals as you practice over time. So what type of businesses would you look for? Well, there's a number
of different ones out there. I like boring businesses. I think that's a very interesting place to
start. What's a boring business? You could think of like a plumber or an electrical company or a
pressure washing company or a lawn care company. You can think a laundromats. You can think of
pool routes. There's so many different boring businesses out there that make a lot of money. And some of these
things print cash if you know how to create more revenue for these companies in your gut operator. So this is
something that definitely is very, very interesting. Now, you can look for companies who need an injection of
technology for example. So you want to think through some of these things like how can I
actually create value for some of these companies so that I can increase the revenue once I
purchase that company. And I remember when we had Cody Sanchez on, she talked through
the SOS framework, which means you stale, old, weak, and simple framework, meaning look for
companies that are stale, that are old, that may have weak management in place or they have
specific things where there's a ton of opportunity, but they just have some sort of weakness that's
holding them back and companies that are simple, simple to understand and that you completely
understand. And so these are things that I'd be much more interested in over time than being
interested in some high-flying internet company that you really don't have a full understanding
of how that works. Now, if you're in the online space and you understand how it works,
that's another thing. But if you don't understand how it works, it's really, really important
to make sure you understand how this is going to work first. Now, number three is you want to choose
how you're going to actually finance this business. So there's a bunch of different ways to finance
businesses. One, you can go out there and you can use your own cash. You can save up enough cash
in order to go out there and buy a business. Two, you can use seller financing. And seller financing
is by far my favorite thing about buying businesses because a lot of owners understand business.
They understand how seller financing works. And so it's much easier to convince a seller to do
seller financing, then it would be in various other situations. So that's what we did when we purchased
our business was we did seller financing up front. So we put a lump sum of cash down. And we did seller financing
and the owner was the bank. And they were also involved in some of the day to day operations with us as well as a
partner. And so that was a great option for us in that situation. And so this is, I love seller financing
because it is a way for you not to use a ton of your own cash. And instead, you can use that cash to
improve the business going forward and or you can keep it for emergencies.
on the side because if you're a business owner, you're going to need extra cash up front in order
to maintain some of those emergencies. I think that's super, super important. Also, you can use other
people's money. So you can raise money from investors. You can do crowdfunding, that type of thing.
And so putting these dollars together up front is going to be really, really important. And the
business is going to be paying those investors back. So you can raise personal private capital
if you know investors in the area who are bullish on that business and or they're just looking to
make more interest. Now, the interest rates are going to be a little higher when you go to personal
investors, they may be somewhere in the 7, 8, 9, 10% range.
And so you got to make sure that you understand that going into it upfront.
And then also there's business loans.
Things like SBA loans, for example, small business administration, where you can put
as little as 10% down and they will finance 90% of the business.
Now, I want you to think about this for a second.
So you can buy a million dollar business for $100,000 down with an SBA loan.
And so that's an amazing way to utilize leverage when it comes to some of this stuff.
Now, one thing I want you to note on SBA loans is one, there's a lot of hoops to jump through
when you go get an SBA loan.
So there's a lot of paperwork you have to work through.
So I prefer seller financing over SBA loans, but it is a great option for a lot of people,
especially if you have a business that's very easy to understand.
And what you do is if you want to get an SBA loan, you go down to your local bank or your
local credit union and you talk to a loan officer there who is specialized in SBA and they'll be
able to help you through that process and get you that government loan.
But overall, my personal favorite is seller finance.
That would be my number one way to go.
Number two would probably be getting money from private investors if you can get the interest rate low enough.
That'd be another great way to go.
Three would be SBA and then four would be utilizing your own cash because I'd rather you keep your own cash and use it to grow up the business instead.
So these are some of the options that you have when it comes to financing businesses and want you to be aware of each and every single one of those because it is really important.
We'll do another episode in the future just diving deeper on how that stuff works.
But I think this is going to be a great option for a lot of people.
Now, number four is how do you find businesses that are on sale?
This is a big one that a lot of people ask up front, and you're probably thinking if you've
never even thought of this concept before and going out and buying businesses, how do you actually
find them on sale?
Well, there's a number of different places.
The biggest one is biz buy, sell, if you're looking for physical businesses.
And biz buy sell is kind of a place where I like to start to see what's out there, to see
what's in my area, and see what's available.
And it's a great place to start.
It's basically like the Zillow of businesses.
And so you can go on there.
You can search for specific.
businesses that you're looking for. You can just do a really broad search to see what's available
and then go from there. Another one, if you're looking for online businesses, is something like
Flippa. And Flippa is a place where you can buy online businesses or blogs or some other ones out
there that you can look for as well. But that's one option. You really got to know what you're doing
though when you're on Flippa and do your due diligence. You can also find businesses now on
LoopNet, which used to just be for commercial real estate, but now they have businesses for sale
on LoopNet. And that's another great option. Another one is BISCout. So BISCout actually
helps you find businesses that may not have hit the market yet, but they can scout out
businesses for you that may be opportunities that just aren't out there for sale yet.
And then really the best way is to find off market deals.
If you can find businesses that have not hit the market yet, that don't have a broker
there and you can start to call specific business owners and say, hey, do you want to sell
or are you interested in selling and see, just have a conversation with different owners and
start to network with some of them?
That's the best way to go.
Just like real estate, this is a volume game.
This is talking to a lot of people and trying to find the,
the right people in your area who are going to want to sell to you. So it's a very interesting way
to do this. And I think there's a lot of options for it. And so making sure that you can find
some off market deals is also another great option. So I would start to just start calling specific
location. So for example, here's a great example of this. When we started our business search,
one of the businesses we were looking at is looking for laundromats. And I'm still interested in
laundromats. So if anybody has a laundromat, holler out your boy. But what we did was we made a list
of different laundromats in the area, and we just started cold emailing and cold calling some of
the owners and saying, hey, would you be interested in selling your business? And a couple of them said yes.
And so we had conversations to see if we can get a deal to work. One of the deals was very, very close,
but we never closed on any of the deals because we had this business that we have now come up as we were doing our search.
And it was a much better opportunity than some of those laundromats. But that's just an example of
off market businesses that we were just cold calling on. And we got like three or four yeses out of 100 calls.
and so that's something where definitely worth at least emailing or calling to see if they're
willing to or at least interested in having a conversation.
Now, after you've gone out and you start to search for businesses and you have one that you
want to make an offer on, what you do is you send what is called a letter of intent to the
business owner.
And a letter of intent or an LOI just is a little one-page document typically.
Sometimes it's three or four pages that just says, hey, I'm interested in buying the business.
here are the terms, yada, yada, yada, and you go through some legal information.
You can find them online or you can actually have a lawyer draft one up for you.
And then you sign it and then you send it off to the seller for them to sign as well.
This is like the preliminary commitment to do business and to buy this business with another party.
And it may or may not be binding.
So it depends on how you write it.
But this is something where you can give yourself a bunch of exclusions where you can back out if you need to.
And that way you're not obligated to buy the company.
So if they want you to be obligated to buy the company based on the letter of intent,
then that's a big red flag.
Your red flag should be going off left and right if that is the case.
So make sure when you draft that letter of intent, it's got a bunch of outs for you.
You're not obligated to buy the company.
This is just kind of you to agreeing.
This is what I agreed on so we don't have some sort of verbal agreement going on here.
We have an LOI actually in place and then going from there.
So the LOI is basically the piece of paper that once both parties signed, now it's time to go to phase two.
And so phase one is doing all the search and actually getting the same.
seller to agree. So there's a lot up front. A lot of your time is going to be spent up front here
doing the search and getting the seller to agree. Once you get the seller to agree,
now you move on to phase two, which is due diligence. And due diligence is the most important
part of this process because you want to make sure that the numbers that they are stating that
the business is doing is actually happening. And this is how you fail is if you don't go through
due diligence period and make sure that you're doing it correctly. So it's really,
really important that you understand the due diligence process. And we'll talk about that next.
All right.
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Next part is this is the important part, is to review the finances.
And this is going to be something where you're going to go through financial records,
you're going to go through balance sheets, you're going to go through cash flow statements,
you're going to go through their credit card statements.
I want you to go through literally every bank statement that they have in order to make
sure that everything is lining up. You know, if they use quickbooks or whatever else they use,
you want to make sure that you get all of that information, get access to their quickbooks
as just a person who can view the information and see if you can get in there. So that's really,
really important to do as we go through the finances. Now, here's a few questions that I think
that you need to ask. Number one, is the business making money? Meaning, is the business
actually profitable? Is it making money? Is it not just high revenue, but is there actually
profit within this business? Number two, are there concerning?
seasonal or cyclical issues with income. So some businesses, for example, you can think of
lawn care companies up north or you can think of some of these seasonal businesses out there
that may not have business in the off season. That's going to be something where maybe you need
to understand why that is and can you weather those storms if there are some down times. And are
there any concerning issues with recessions as well? You want to make sure a lot of these businesses
are recession proof or at least as much as you possibly can. Are the expenses way out of whack with
the earnings, meaning are the expenses really, really high, and do you need to make sure that these
come back down? Do tax returns actually match the actual financial statements? Are they filing
their taxes properly? Because you do not want to have that issue with the IRS going forward.
You need to make sure that you are lining those up. Are there any liens on the company? So you need to do a
search and make sure there's no liens on this company that, you know, they have pending taxes that need
to be filed or anything like that. If you're buying something like construction company or a company
with equipment. Is there aging equipment that you might need to replace or completely
overall? Really important one there, making sure that you understand how that works.
Does the company have debt? How much debt does it carry? How much debt does it carry in comparison
to the actual revenue that it produces and the actual profit it produces? So that's another
big one that you need to know. What are the profit margins? What are the actual margins is producing?
And then what business assets does the company own? How many assets are there? You know,
what is the book value? What is the total value?
What does the balance sheet say?
And so you're going to go through the balance sheet and see what kind of business assets they actually have and then match that up.
And does the company own any intellectual property or what do they actually own outside of some of those assets and some of that equipment there?
So these are all some of the quick questions that I would ask myself.
And then you really need to dive deep in these financials and make sure you line these up.
I know it's a lot of work, but it's very, very important to ensure that you have success going forward.
Now we're going to go to another part, which is this is a really big part.
number seven is evaluating operations. So operations is something that you really need to make sure that
you understand what is going on. So first thing is you want to see, does the owner have a business
plan? You want to review that business plan and make sure that it is available and does it have
an org chart that shows, you know, who's in charge, what is the organizational chart, how is this
actually operating? Then I want you to look for any red flags that you can't live with inside of
this business. Because if there are red flags that you really cannot live,
with, then you need to write that down and address this with the owner immediately so that you can
have this conversation and kind of talk through some of that stuff and see if this is something that's
fixable. If it's not, then it may be something where you need to walk. Here's one example of this
is if the business has a massive team, meaning a ton of different employees, maybe it has dozens
of dozens of employees and it has a ton of processes that you have to manage, but you don't love being a
manager, that's probably not the best option for you. And this can really, really happen. And you may say to
yourself, well, it won't be as much work as maybe I'm thinking it is. No, it'll be twice to maybe
three times as much work as you think it is. Every time you buy a business, it is way more work than
you think it is. I want you to hear that up front. It is always way more work than you actually
think it is. Is the owner putting in 80-hour work weeks right now and you don't want to work 80
hours a week? And that might be a red flag. Are there operational issues that you just can't fix?
Like, for example, do they have marketing issues and you have no idea how to push marketing?
Well, that's another issue there. And so you really need to think through all.
all this stuff as you go through this and make sure that you understand how these roles are
going to fit in and what you need to be doing. Otherwise, if you have more dollars to commit to this,
then maybe you start to talk to different operations folks and or have them operate the business
instead. But really, I want you involved, especially up front for the first three to six months,
so that you know everything that's going on. It's really, really important to be able to do that.
So that is another big piece that I think a lot of people need to look at as they go through this.
Now, the next thing you need to do is run a competitive analysis.
And when you do this, a competitive analysis is something where it's going to help you feel
confident on the entire landscape of your business and its future going forward.
So do you have a unique moat that your other competitors don't?
Meaning, do you have something that is a unique proposition that your competitors do not offer?
You know, that is one unique moat that you can be able to have where you can differentiate
you from some of the competitors.
The second one is where are other companies just falling short?
Where are they really not coming through and really delivering for their customers where you can
actually do that?
How can you actually add value there that other companies are falling short?
Number three is what does the business I want to buy have an edge?
Meaning, do you have a specific edge that you can use and that you can leverage and really,
really help differentiate yourself from the competitors?
Because you really want to be a differentiator when it comes to some of this stuff and, you know,
use your strategic insight to be able to move this.
this company forward. So I think that's really, really important to kind of go through this
competitive analysis, see what the competition is doing so that you can move this company forward and
really add value because you can add millions of dollars to your bottom line if you know how to do
this right. Number nine, if you're buying a company with a bunch of equipment, the one we bought
didn't have a ton of equipment or anything like that, but if you're buying a ton of equipment,
then I want you to go in there and maybe get somebody like a professional to actually do an appraisal
on all that equipment because you need to understand what that equipment is actually worth.
The balance sheet may say one thing. You need to verify with a professional,
what this is actually worth for each piece of equipment.
For example, my in-laws run a big construction company that does like big industrial
construction.
So they have a bunch of different massive pieces of equipment.
If I bought that business, I would have no idea what some of these things are worth.
And so you need to understand what some of that stuff is worth before you dive into this
business and then get a really good idea of what that equipment goes for if you need to
replace it.
Also, that appraisal could also tell you what pieces of equipment might need to be repaired.
And so at the same time, maybe you have a mechanic running through there, looking
at the equipment to make sure that you understand all this stuff is actually running smoothly.
Number 10, and this is a big one that a lot of people skip is I want you to look into the
business's reputation.
And one way to do this is you can go through Google reviews, for example, and start reading
through those reviews, make sure they look legit, make sure they're actually real reviews.
And you can read through all of those and look at the customer's concerns and maybe there's
ways that you can fix those.
And then also look at how they respond to some of those reviews as well.
When businesses have negative reviews, most of them should be responding to those
negative views, especially on Google, and just really reaching out and saying, you know, how can
I help? Especially if it's a customer service-based person. If they're just firing back every single
time, maybe they're damaging their reputation or one customer at a time, then make sure you just
look at that and understand, you know, what's going on. Also, look at customer sentiments,
look at their social medias if they have them, look through the comments, see what's going on,
ask if you can look at their social medias and their messages to see what kind of messages are coming in
from customers. That's another great way to look at that. And then what kind of relationships
should they have with vendors, suppliers, and other partners. Ask for a list of their vendors and
suppliers. Call up those vendors and suppliers. Say, are they paying you on time? You know,
what kind of relationship do you have? How do you feel about this customer? And then really,
really try to get as much details as possible. Some of them may not give you all the information,
but it's really, really good to kind of go there. And then look at their marketing efforts.
Can you market better? How can you change the marketing of that business so that you can really,
really see a massive difference going forward? I think that's another great one that you can do going
forward. Let's take a break and then we're going to get into the legal due diligence that you need to do.
All right. So the next one is the one that I always want to skip because it's really a pain and there's a lot of
extra things that you have to do that I don't enjoy whatsoever. But it is conducting that legal
due diligence. And this is something that I absolutely hate doing. I hate dealing with attorneys because
they tell me all the things that I cannot do. And entrepreneurs and attorneys usually have opposite
it mindsets when it comes to some of these specific things, but they're there to help protect you.
So it's one of those things that you really don't want to skip this in the due diligence process
because it could really, really screw up your new business.
And so you really want to make sure that you do the due diligence on this part, make sure
they have business licenses and permits, make sure there aren't any pending litigation going on.
Make sure you check on insurance policies and whether these fully cover risks and liabilities
and all that kind of stuff.
And make sure they're fully covered on all these different areas.
And it's probably good to just have some sort of counseling.
on board, an attorney on board that's going to help you through some of this stuff
and really, really help you get to that next step. So I think that's really, really important
when you do this. Now, once you get past all this stuff, you've gone through the due diligence,
you've got the appraisals, you've checked on the business reputation, you've run that competitive
analysis, you've looked at the operations and you reviewed the finances. Once you've done all those
different things, now it's time to negotiate, baby. So negotiation can be really, really big
challenge if you find some things that you really need to negotiate on. Now, one great book I love
is called Never Split the Difference. This can help you in negotiation situations when it becomes
really hot and heavy on some of this stuff. But you may have to just go through a few different
rounds with the seller on negotiation. And you got to get creative here because sometimes they may
be saying no to specific things. But when you get creative and actually present it in a creative way,
they may say yes. And so you got to make sure that you are creative when it comes to business deals.
And you can get as creative as you possibly want. Your attorney may say, well, that's not possible.
but it's possible if you get creative enough. And so just making sure that you can work out a deal
that works for both of you. I know a lot of this process can be emotional. You want that business.
Once you start to get to this negotiation part, you want that business. You've been telling some
people, you know, in your life that you're looking at this business and that you may be interested.
And so you're really, really talking through some of this stuff and you really want this to close.
But don't let your emotions get in the way of a good deal. Don't be afraid to walk away.
You can absolutely walk away if it just doesn't work for you. And so I think this is something that a lot of
people just need to try to remove their emotions as much as possible.
But if you have not read, never split the difference, I would definitely, definitely recommend it
for negotiation.
Getting to yes is also another good book on the sales side.
But I think this is going to be something where you can use a couple of different pieces here
to really, really help you on the negotiation process.
Then it's time to close the deal.
So when you close a deal and you go to the agreement and you both sign the agreement, you can
secure your funding, you can transfer the licenses.
This is actually just a lot of paperwork that you have to go through and a lot of
mundane steps that you really have to take in order to make the business yours and close that
deal. But you got to transfer all that stuff to your name, the LLC, everything else. And so it's
really, really important that you actually go through that process. And then number 14 is figuring
out how to add value. Now, this is where you're going to make a big difference. When you buy a
business, you want to make sure that that business is missing things that your skill set can really
help accelerate. And so there's a bunch of different things that you can do. For example, the business
that we bought, they weren't doing a ton of social media video. And you, boy,
does a lot of social media video. So we added some of that in. In addition, they didn't have an
email list that they were actually emailing to. So we started to email to an email list and
increase some of the marketing in that sense. There were other things that we added, like adding
different retail things that we could start to sell more. We added different scheduling procedures
and then we added standard operating procedures for the employees. And there's a lot of different
things that we did in order to try to improve the process. And so when you do this, you can start
to level up some of the systems and the marketing. You can look for growth opportunities.
and use your skills to actually go after those growth opportunities.
You can also improve customer service.
And the business we bought had really good customer service.
And so that was one thing that we just wanted to make sure that we continued moving forward
is that having that great customer service.
And then providing more training to employees is another one,
where you can really help employees be successful within this business.
And moving forward, you can really help each other out.
So I think that's another really important one.
And I think it's going to be really, really helpful.
Now, another big one is a lot of times technology can be outdated in some of these mom and pop shops.
And so adding technology to a lot of these businesses can be really, really helpful and really just that might be the key tool to really accelerate your revenue.
So that's another big one that you can think through.
Can you add technology?
Are they using a CRM?
Are they using like just a notepad with all their customers in there?
That's just, you know, another example of how you can really help accelerate your business to the next level.
So these are the 14 steps, the checklist that I would utilize in order to look at and go out and buy a business.
If you guys want to copy this checklist, make sure you're subscribed to the Master Money newsletter.
We're going to be sitting it out next week on the Mastermind Newsletter to everyone who's in the newsletter.
So if you want to copy that checklist, make sure you check that out.
And you'll be able to get it there.
And truly appreciate each and every single one of you listening to this podcast because what you are doing is you're investing in yourself.
And so thank you so much for investing in yourself.
If you have value at this episode, share this episode with a friend.
And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.
And we'll see you on the next episode.
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