The Elephant in the Room
You’ve thought about it a long time. You’ve been doing this a long time. It’s time to get out. But…where do you start? Selling your business is no less traumatic than any other kind of divorce. It is emotional, stressful and scary. It takes time. It takes extra work. And it imparts a certain risk. The last thing you really want to do is to sell. You have put off even considering the possibility. Now you have to “bite the bullet.”
The reasons for selling your business are myriad. They may include: life changes; health issues, a divorce, aging, life style; economic issues; changing demographics, economic downturns, unmanageable competition; you’re just plain tired/burned out. The business itself is often the very engine that precipitates the need to sell.
Once you have finally made the decision, what’s next? Do you just put a sign in the window? Do you try to market your restaurant discretely among your acquaintances in the industry? Or, do you engage a professional who specializes in handling the unique aspects of marketing restaurants on a national level.
The single most important factor in realizing the maximum value from your restaurant/bar/club business is to keep the doors open. An open business versus a darkened one is 20 times more valuable to the purchaser. The value of an ongoing business is obvious and easily discernable to the client buyer. The paramount maxim in the sale of restaurants and of the food service facilities is to “KEEP THEM OPEN UNTIL THE SALE IS COMPLETE, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE”
Putting a sign in the window is one way to accelerate a declining trade. Depending on your colleagues to help is of small hope. The main reason is the lack of confidentiality. To preserve your staff, your clientele, the confidence of your suppliers it is always best for as few people as possible to know that you are interested in selling. Once the word gets out that you want to sell, your employees start looking for other jobs. Ones they know will be there. Whether true or not, your clients perceive a decline in quality and drift away. Your catering clients enter into contracts with other competitors. And your suppliers start scrutinizing what you order and how quickly they get paid. Sometimes they put an otherwise great client on COD, with or without good reason, just because of a rumor of an impending sale. If this sounds like an extreme overstatement then you do not understand the importance to your business of confidentiality surrounding a sale. Maintaining confidentiality helps maintain your ability to keep your business open until it has been successfully marketed.
On the street, your reasons for selling may be misinterpreted to the detriment of your gaining the most attractive sale price. The rumor mill has often destroyed a great business or brought a declining one down more quickly. Every restaurant has a value as a going business and every restaurant has a buyer. You want the conditions of sale and the advantages of your business over another presented by people whom you know and trust. A firm that has a vested interest in your realizing the most you can from the business you have built. You do not want them presented by strangers on the street. Engaging a competent, knowledgeable, “restaurant savvy”
broker can insure that your confidence is protected and your business is presented in the best possible light and as you wish for it to be presented.
Regardless of your reasons for selling, whether they are: personal, financial, or demographic; deciding to use a professional broker that specializes in the marketing and sale of food service facilities will insure that you realize the best price in the shortest possible time. In order to market restaurants effectively your broker must have a thorough knowledge of the restaurant business and understand the unique concerns of both seller and the buyer in every transaction. Before you close up, before you tell your friends, or before you put a “Restaurant for Sale” sign in the window call in a “specialist.” Call a “Professional Restaurant Broker.”
Doug Marranci
Atlanta Restaurant Exchange
1708 Peachtree St NW
Suite 110
Atlanta GA 30309
404-892-4999
http://www.atlantarex.com/
Restaurant Broker Atlanta GA
2 comments:
My step-mom has been thinking about selling her restaurant. She has thought about using the Internet to advertise it. Any suggestions on sites that would work or sites she could direct her future personal broker (she'd ask you, but we live in New York)?
@Fast- I suggest checking out your local Chamber of Commerce. I would also check out BizTrader.com. It's a global marketplace for small business where you can buy, sell, or invest in one. It's inexpensive to post your business, and sometimes it's free for a regular posting. Not bad at all. Check it out, and good luck!
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