How to find businesses for sale
By Mainshares
Apr 26, 2023
In Buying a Business
With the rise of books like Buy Then Build and online personas like @SMBAcquisitionAttorney, there has been a growing wave of entrepreneurs interested in buying small businesses. And for good reason - around 10,000 baby boomers are retiring each day and a lot of them own stable, cashflow generating small businesses. Eric Pacifici, the attorney behind the twitter account, coined the phrase “Silver Tsunami” to describe the wave of small business owners looking to sell.
When entrepreneurs start thinking about buying a business, one of their first questions is where to look. Generally, there are three ways to find a business for sale: online websites, networking with business brokers and proprietary outreach.
1. Online websites to find a business for sale
Depending on what type of business you’re looking to buy, there are two routes to take. The first is to look for sites that specialize in “old school” businesses and have a high adoption rate by business brokers, the intermediaries that typically represent a business owner looking to sell. Those sites include the following:
BizBuySell: This is the largest website for finding a business for sale. It was started in 1995, has around 40,000 listings at any given time and specializes in existing small businesses. It is owned by CoStar, the large real estate company that owns LoopNet and other well known internet properties.
BusinessBroker.Net: This is likely the second largest website behind BizBuySell, coming in at around 30,000 listings at any given time. BusinessBroker.Net is independently owned and its name tells the story. This website is almost exclusively filled with brokered listings, meaning there are few, if any, for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) businesses listed.
BusinessesForSale.com: The third site in this list is actually headquartered in Europe but has a lot of listings in the U.S. In terms of the user interface, it’s much better than the leading two websites but it may lack a number of listings.
BusinessMart.com: Last but not least is BusinessMart. It’s been around a while, similar to BizBuySell but has fewer listings. It does have a pretty strong content library for those looking to come up to speed and a repository of franchise concepts for sale.
There are also a number of online marketplaces for buying an online business. This includes Flippa, MicroAcquire, EmpireFlippers and others.
2. Networking with business brokers
As Clint Fiore said in a recent podcast with AcquisitionsAnonymous, around 50% of his deals as a business broker are sold before they even hit the market. Why? Well business brokers like working with buyers who they know and who they are confident will transact. Tire kickers waste time for both the broker and seller.
On that note, networking with business brokers is the second best way to find businesses for sale. The pro is that you know the seller is motivated because they are working with the broker, the con is that it takes more time than clicking through listings on the online websites of businesses for sale.
Most business brokers have their own newsletters where they feature listings about to hit the market.
3. Proprietary outreach
For entrepreneurs who are looking for a niche or very specific business, they may want to incorporate some proprietary outreach. This involves reaching out directly to business owners and seeing if they would be interested in selling to you. There are two flavors of proprietary outreach. The first involves working with service providers who will do the cold email and cold call campaigns for you. The second involves doing the outreach yourself.
Unlike the other two options for finding a business for sale, proprietary outreach takes the most time and resources. However, you can often find businesses before they hit the market and get a better deal than in a competitive sale process run by a business broker.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, finding the right business to buy can be a challenging and long process. It’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The right way to find businesses for sale depends on how much time and money you can devote to the search process, while still having enough money in the bank for the down payment.
It is essential to have a clear idea of your criteria and financial goals before embarking on your search, as it will allow you to be more precise and efficient with your outreach.
Information posted on this page is not intended to be, and should not be construed as tax, legal, investment or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, investment and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.
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