Don’t Feed the Scammer

01/03/2010 by info.

So you want to exit your business and you want the highest possible price for it. The bad news is that you have messed up on the best way of achieving a high price, that is via planning your exit strategy, it would now take a few years of changing the way you conduct business to achieve that price.

So what do you do?

One option is to instruct honest agents such as BCMS Corporate who can achieve times more than a seller would by instructing a “normal” business agent, but they will probably want an upfront before they can help you. They effectively spend time grooming your business. Or my agency Horizon Business Agents but I will be honest with my assessment of your chances of obtaining your high price.

Can’t make that investment or dont want to instruct Horizon Business Agents, then the decision is easy, you instruct the agent who tells you that they can achieve the highest price for you and accept their terms.

There are plenty of examples of business transfer agents who have become seemingly very successful out of achieving higher prices than their competitors because they claim that they are different in the way they will market your business.

RTA business consultants are one of those, however after many complaints and investigations they have been exposed. The Federation of Small Businesses are listing their services as a possible scam and warning their members against using them. They, overvalue to fool business owners into signing a sole selling rights contract, take money upfront, and demand an exit fee. They then wait for that client to sell via other methods and then sue in the courts for their commission. Ex clients have now set up a website to help and warn other business owners against using their services.

Recently Horizon Business Agents failed to gain a client in London because a Corporate Finance Business claimed to the client that they could achieve a much higher price for their business.

The fact is that greed amongst business owners is feeding this beast, when it comes to selling your business an entrepreneurs common sense deserts them. Comments are made in retrospect such as “I didn’t actually think my business WAS worth that amount of money however if they tell me that it is who am I to disagree.”

In building the general rule is measure twice cut once. Our advice when selling your business is, give the agent enough time to sell your business and think twice, sign on the dotted line once, and don’t fall for the agent who simply claims they can achieve a higher price for you as you may be feeding the scammer.

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