WES S03E07: Promoting Your Business For Sale

In our last episode we covered the process and the platforms you can use to list your business for sale, but there’s another question we need to answer:

What can you do to advertise or promote your listing?

Just getting your business up and listed for sale isn’t enough. You need to find qualified, interested buyers and get them to review the listing.

In today’s episode we look at some of the tips and tricks brokers use to get interested buyers reviewing your business for sale and some additional things you can do as the seller to promote with a broker or with a DIY approach.

Some people think, “If you list it, buyers will come” but that’s simply not true. We’ll dig into why that’s the case in this episode and show you what you can do to get your business sold quickly.

 

Like the show? Please give us a review on iTunes! We’ll give you a shout on an upcoming show and we’d love to hear your feedback!

Listen To The Full Interview:

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What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• Promotional Tools Brokers Use

1. Email Promotion (Initial blast, targeted blast, highlights)
2. Seller Interviews (Written/Audio/Video/Live)
3. Listing Syndication
4. Podcast Promotion/Highlight
5. Social Media
6. Remarketing/Retargeting

• Promotional Tools You Can Use Yourself

1. Interviews (Written/Podcast/Video)
2. Niche community posts
3. Strategic acquisition targeting

Featured On The Show:

• Empire Flippers
• Business for Sale
• Flippa
• Jungle Scout
• Smart Passive Income
• Mixergy

 

Ace:                       As you get more and more listings coming up as well, that just becomes crucial to be able to bring people’s eyes to a particular business that you might look over.

Speaker 2:           Buying and selling businesses just got a lot easier. Welcome to the Web Equity Show, where thousands of successful entrepreneurs go to learn about buying, growing, and selling online businesses. Your hosts, Justin Cooke, and Ace Chapman share their real-life advice, examples, and expert interviews to help you building and grow your own online portfolio. Now to your hosts, Justin and Ace.

Justin:                   Welcome to the Web Equity Show, I’m your host, Justin Cooke and I’m here with my co-host Ace Chapman and today we’re talking about promoting your business for sale. We’ve gone through quite a few of the steps in you selling your online business and today we’re going to be talking marketing. We’re going to be talking promotion, right buddy?

Ace:                       Exactly, now that we’re done all the work getting the business ready for sale, we’ve made that tough decision that you are going to sell it. How are you going to find a buyer and get it sold?

Justin:                   Yeah if you build it they won’t necessarily come. Right, so, this is an episode to get them to come, and I’m going to put this out there, man, it’s self-serving, and I hesitate to say it, but the truth is using a broker helps, right? I mean brokers, they’re designed to help drive potential buyers to your business and get more eyeballs in front of your business for sale. We’re going to talk about some of the tactics we use as brokers to get eyeballs in front of your business for sale, so whether you are going to use a broker or you do it your self, I think some of these are going to help.

Ace:                       Yeah, we’re going to give you the tools so that you can do it yourself. But your right Justin, I mean, I’m in this space. I know plenty of buyers, I know plenty of sellers, I mean the decision that you have to make is do you want to become an expert at selling the business or do you want to be able to focus on, you know, kinda your next project and growing that. Because this is a separate skill set, you know, just like I don’t want to become the expert at Facebook. I’m just going to hire an agency to do that. I know enough that I want Facebook to be dangerous but I don’t want to become that expert, so it’s that same thing here. SO we’re going to give you some tools so that you can do it yourself and then it’ll be up to you to make that decision.

Justin:                   Yup. And I think some of these tips and tools are especially important if there is something about your business that’s very niche, right, that might not be as clearly attractive to your average buyer. And average is kinda subjective, but let me explain what I mean. So if you have a business that requires some developer experience. You have to be able to code something, you know, that’s not your  … average buyer is going to be able to buy that and run that right away. Maybe they need to hire someone, maybe they don’t quite have the skills and have to brush up on it, you know. That’s not for everybody. Some of the tips and tools we’re going to use here, I think will be really helpful in helping you with that niche sale.

                                Same thing for like any kind of very specific domain knowledge. So if you’re a nurse and your website is content all about, you know, being a nurse and nursing, not everyone is going to be able to write that content. Not everyone is going to be able to do that, so some of these tips, I think, will help you find a buyer that are into nursing that might be in a better position to actually purchase your business.

                                Alright, before we do that, let’s do some listener love. We’ve got three new five star iTunes reviews, buddy. First one is from Jesse says, “The most helpful podcast ever. I’ve been researching buying online business for nearly a year when I found this podcast, went through all of seasons one and two in nearly a week. All of my doubts and concerns were answered. I’m so excited for season three. Thanks for helping me move forward.”

                                Thank you, Jesse, for your wonderful comments. Got another five star, very practical podcast from Josh, says, “If you’re thinking about buying a web property or selling on your own this podcast is a must listen for masters of the trade. Sometimes they mention putting links into the show notes, those notes don’t have the links. Have a pencil handy and you’ll be fine.” Smiley face. “You’ll want a pencil anyway to be taking notes. Great podcast”. I don’t know Ace, we’re slacking on our notes. We’re like, “oh we’ll like to that [crosstalk 00:04:13].” Yeah, we’ll like to that in the show notes and then you know, you know how that goes.

Ace:                       Thanks for calling us out, Josh. We need to make that happen, Josh. We gotta make that happen for you.

Justin:                   … just keeping it real, man. We’ve got Steve’s, “Some amazing tips on buying and selling online businesses. Ace and Justin don’t hold back. The content they share about what you need to do to either sell or buy an online business is powerful. The step by step details they share is very practical if you love business and want to either buy or sell your online business this podcast is a requirement. Thanks, guys.” Well, thank you, Steve, for the wonderful message. Appreciate it.

                                I got on Twitter, from the Happy Hustler, says, you know it was in response to something I had sent him, he said, “I’m working with another broker on this. You guys rejected my business because some books were erotica.” So I remember what happened here, it was a business, it was an eBook business. And some of the books were not just kind of like, you know, the light erotica. It was pretty heavy stuff. It was a little dirty. And so we have some rules about the types of businesses we’ll list, and we won’t list. And it’s weird because personally, I zero problem with erotica, at all. In fact, you know, porn or whatever, I have no problem with any of that staff. But it’s something in business at least, that we’ve decided not to do. So like at Empire Flippers we don’t list porn websites, we won’t sell penis enlargement pill businesses. We generally don’t do businesses like that. And we have some reasons for that, that we can get into. But what do you think about that, Ace? Do you have types of businesses you have, for like moral reasons, that you won’t do or just refuse to do?

Ace:                       Yeah. I think one of them is definitely porn that we just have stayed completely away from. Part of it, you know, is just not wanting to be in that business, but there is also a practical part that, you know, I’m dwindling the number of buyers and for me, when I’m doing a deal I want … I’m thinking about it like a product, you know, this is my product I want potential customers that are coming to come in and want to do business with me and buy that product. Eventually someone’s going to sell that business and as soon as I step into something like porn, I’m dwindling the number of potential buyers at the back end. The other side of it is, you know, we’ve also seen things like guns and just provocative things, so we haven’t done those deals that are on the edge as well, of what we’re actually looking at something that’s in that space. And, you know, we just get into a territory where we’re starting to figure out, okay, is this the divisive enough that we’re really dwindling the number of people that we’re going to buy this deal from?

Justin:                   Yeah. That’s [inaudible 00:06:51]. So, obviously, I have a moral issue us listing hate speech sites, or something like that. I just won’t do that for, I think, obvious reasons.

Ace:                       Yeah.

Justin:                   But some other things, like guns, this is all just so subjective. Like what would you not do and why would you not do it? You know I was just talking to my business partner recently about this that last couple of weeks and I told, look, I don’t have a problem with us not doing a particular business, porn and that kind of thing, but I would if Empire Flippers owned the market. Like if we were one of the only places or the only place you could really go to sell your online business, and we really owned the market. I’d probably do a wider selection of businesses because I think I’d be like cutting off people’s ability to, I don’t know, like a free speech issue. It’s not really a free speech, like commerce issue, do you know what I mean? Like do you know what I’m saying?

Ace:                       Yeah.

Justin:                   Yeah, then I might be a little wider with it, but because we don’t own the market yet, we get to choose. Yeah, there are some businesses, we’ve done some business I’m like, “oh my God, I would never get involved in that,” but we’ll do it anyway. But certain things we won’t. I remember, and this is totally side note, man, but we had an outsourcing company, years ago, right? And we had someone reach out to us that wanted to, it was an escort agency out of the U.K., and they wanted us to do call center work for their escorts. Basically, screen callers, right, and forward them on.

Ace:                       Wow.

Justin:                   They guys were going to pay a ton of money. It was a ton of money and that was kind of the point in which we were like, you know, we’re not going to do it. And that time, for that reason, you know, we had a bunch of people on our team that were religious and had some moral issues with it. And we’re like we’re not going to subject them to that. You know, I would hate to have anyone on our team do something that’s really uncomfortable, that they’re really uncomfortable with like that, just seems icky. And so at that point we said no, even though it would have paid us well. I’m glad we did, though, I’m glad we, you know, it felt right. I think it was the right thing to do, but, yeah …

                                I like your point about, you know, wanting it to be more of a commodity and being legible to other potential buyers and if you’re not able to get your cash back out of the business. It makes sense. You know, where that may fail, well not fail but where that may break down and you may get [inaudible 00:09:03] and it feels like heavily cash flowing. Like hard core, right. And yes, okay you can’t sell it, but your able to buy it, like a lower multiple and the cash [inaudible 00:09:11] was just crushing it. Well, you know what? I may not be able to sell it but I’m going to ride this puppy home. You know.

Ace:                       Yeah. Yeah. I know if you’re going into the deal and you’re not planning on selling it, the truth is there is a broker that just does porn sites and things like that, so there are buyers. It’s not like there are no buyers, but if you’re holding on to it or you’re really in that space then it becomes a lot easier to get done.

Justin:                   Alright man, let’s get into the episode. Today we’re talking about promoting your business for sale and we’re going to look at this through two different lenses. The first being, you know, what are the promotional tools, tips, and tricks that brokers use to promote your business and get eyeballs on your business for sale. And these are obviously things you can use in the DIY approach as well. And then we’re going to look at things that I think are specifically DIY, do it yourself, that will help you get your business sold faster, for higher price, get more interested parties involved, and just get the deal done.

                                So the first thing that brokers use would be email promotion, right. And so, we do this a few different ways. For us, I can speak for us in particular, but other brokers are very similar, you know, we do an initial blast we then listing goes up for sale. So when it’s first listed there’s a blast that goes out, look, here are the new listings, we’re introducing them. And so it’s going to drive quite a bit of traffic to all those listings. A bunch of people are going to see those listings. You know, touch ’em, taste ’em, get a feel for the business for sale. I think you just mentioned to me, what, before we go on this recording, you’re like, “Oh my God, you guys have got 16 new listings, that’s crazy.” So you got the new listing email?

Ace:                       Yeah. Yeah. I think for the average person doing the email blast is going to be a little bit different. You know, if you’re in the space, you’re getting emails from all the brokers and you get to see the format of those things and we also look at offline business. So I, over the years, have been added to, you know, hundreds of these lists. But you want to think like a broker and add people to a list of potential buyers. You know, when you go to seminars, or you’re at events, or networking and that kind of thing, and then you kind of create that list of targeted buyers yourself. You can follow up and later build a relationship until essentially one day you want to send a blast out to your people.

Justin:                   Yeah, and that blast can be 15, 20, 25 people. All it takes is one person to be the right person. Yeah, so when we’re sending out, we’re send out to like tens of thousands of people, so of which are great targets, a lot of which wouldn’t be the right target for that. So that is kind of your initial blast.

                                Another thing we do is we send target emails to buyers looking in your price range, looking for your particular niche, modulation type so if we have buyers who are looking for FPA businesses, between a hundred and two hundred thousand dollars, they’re going to get a specific email for an FPA business that’s a hundred and forty thousand dollars that’s kind of in their niche. So we do some of the targeting stuff and that’ll have a bit more info about the business for sale, give it a bit more of a highlight and also separate it from some of the rest of the pack. So they’re not digging through 12 different new listings, they’ve got two or three that might fit in their bucket.

                                And then there is also one that will be a follow up email of business details and listings that have been up for awhile and might have gotten over looked. I think this one is particularly interesting because, you know, we have, let’s say we have a business for sale that’s been up for 30 days, 60 days and it just hasn’t gotten the traction that we’re looking for it to get. Then we might send another email out, kind of like, especially if we particularly like the business, right, and we think it’s a good fit, then we’ll say, “Look! What are you guys doing? Take another look at this business, it’s a good one and I think you’re missing something here.”

Ace:                       Yeah, and it’s as you get more and more listings coming us, as well, that just becomes crucial to be able to bring people’s eyes to a particular business that you might look over.

Justin:                   Yeah, I was talking to Joe about this, about, you know, some of our sales guys, right, they get like, you know we have 60 something listings at this point in time, and our sales guys get stuck, right with a particular listing that they’re use to dealing with. Maybe they’re four or five babies that they talk about a lot and they might show to other people or talk to on the phone. But, you know, they might have a few on there that they miss because they just don’t know then that well, right. So it’s just something that they don’t have all the info on or whatever, and so I was telling you before the show, we’re thinking about doing, kind of like the restaurants do with wine. Where they sit down all their waiters and waitresses and do like a fine wine night, where they’re like sipping the different wines and getting the history on them. We are thinking about doing something with our listing of business for sale, doing like an introducing it more to our sales guys. Particularly the ones that just seem to be getting kind of missed by the sales guys because they’re not mentioning it as much, and se if we can kind of like, you know, let them put a little wine in their mouth, swirl it around in their glass for a bit, and get a little taste of that business for sale.

Ace:                       And you should do that over wine. I feel like that would be appropriate.

Justin:                   I’ll think about it. The second thing that brokers will use are seller interviews. And these can be in a bunch of different formats, they can be written seller interviews, they can be audio interviews, they can be video interviews, they can even be live. So you’ll see, sometimes, people will do a, you know, a live webinar. We don’t do the live webinars, we do a recorded audio interview with the sellers that we then turn into video. With, you know, words on the screen and everything that we can use for video content as well. Even just a written questionnaire, though, can be helpful. And the reason is buyers, and we said this before on the show, you know, buyers are looking at the numbers, they’re looking at the details. But their hearts can be swayed, so you know, if you can show some personality and they feel like there is a fit with you, by just kind of being yourself and by like sharing the kind of passion for the business and your excitement about the business. That really can resonate with buyers, who then are like, it connects them or catches their attention and can push them towards doing the deal with you.

Ace:                       Yeah. This is a powerful one. And I am definitely biased to video. You know, I think the webinars and doing live things can be really powerful, but regardless video is where everything gets moving. You can convey so much more and people just like to intake videos, you know. People don’t like to read as much and so you, as the seller of your business, kind of want to bring them information they way it’s easiest for them. So we have our list of buyers that we send things out to and as much as possible I try to get them. You know, I want to give them the written information, and sometimes we’ll do question-answer on a webinar but the bulk of the way that we communicate is just recorded video, sending that out to our buyers and people love being able to kind of comment and ask questions, and all that. So it works really well.

Justin:                   Tell me this, because you’re definitely on the biased side. What, and you gotta be honest here, what sucks you in, man? When you’re watching a video, when you’re, you know, listening to an audio with the seller and they’re kind of talking about their business, what kind of gets you? What kind of pricks up your ears? What kind of attracts your interests, what are the kinds of things they talk about or say that kind of gets you?

Ace:                       I’m looking for a lot of the same things, but you can find out a little bit more about how the site was built. You know, now with just, obviously we’re looking at the simplified multiples and, you know, the business model. How much time and effort goes into running it. All of those things. But, I want to know, you know, if this site is getting a bunch of organic traffic. Like what was your methodology? How did you build this thing? And that story line is a lot easier to communicate in video than you can just in written format.

Justin:                   So the body language, see this is an awkward question, man, I was thinking about this. Because I’m basically asking you to tell me how we can sell you better. Literally, that’s what I’m asking you. Ace, how can we suck you in a little bit better, man. What do we have to do? So body language on video, got it. I’ll get the marketing on the way.

Ace:                       Make sure, coach yourself.

Justin:                   You’re going to get some private emails with private videos where you just can’t look away. Done. Done deal. Okay, so crafting a story and body language in video, got it.

                                The third thing is listing syndication, we’ve talked about this before, it bears mentioning again. But once you’ve got your business for sale and once we’ve got a business for sale on Empire Flippers on our marketplace, you know, we list it other places as well. The places that allow for syndication. Place like Biz By Sell, Bizquest, Businesses For Sale, etc. So, you know, getting them it’s some additional exposure there. I’m mean we’re talking about, you only need one buyer, right. And so of these other places don’t drive a ton of, you know, potential buyers, but we only need one. So, that’s one of the reasons we do the syndication.

                                You going to want to avoid syndicating places that require exclusivity, so most brokers require some amount of exclusivity. Flipout requires exclusivity, so actually I think they got rid of that. I’m not sure, you’ll have to verify that. You’ll have to, you know, double check that. But I think Flipout might have gotten rid of their exclusivity, but check it out before you syndicate there.

                                Fourth thing we do is podcasts from our show highlight. You know, we have a podcast with potential buyers and sellers that listen so we offer a business listing of the week, we don’t do adds or anything on the show, you know, we don’t have sponsors or anything. So our sponsor is our own marketplace where we’ll feature a business listing of the week. And that’s normally one that one of us particularly likes. We’ re like, ‘Oh, I think this business is awesome, let’s mention it.” Or it’s one that we feel like has kinda fallen through the cracks that shouldn’t have. So we’re like, no, no you’ve got to take another look at this one, it’s a good one.

                                The fifth thing is social media. So we’ll promote the listing on Twitter and Facebook. We’ll make sure it does the rounds there and it gets a few mentions. Sometimes we’ll set recurring messages in between, kind of our regular social media content. I’d mention that social media’s only as useful as people are engaged to your content and your messaging. So, you know, if it’s just kinda like a sales platform for you, where you’re, you know, selling t-shirts, and then you go to try and sell a business on Twitter, no one’s going to care, no one’s paying attention. But if you’ve got an audience that kind of likes your stuff, that follows your stuff, that’s paying attention, you’re going to get some clicks, you’re going to get some people checking out the business for sale.

Ace:                       Yeah. I actually do feel like, and some people may be a little gun shy about this, but a lot of times your customers are interested in your business enough that they want to own the business. And so I definitely sold businesses to customers of the business and we [crosstalk 00:19:47]

Justin:                   Yes. Yes.

Ace:                       Yeah. Or we’re in the society now where people do expect a little more transparency. Whereas before it’d be weird to say to your customers, “Hey, I’m selling my business.” Now people are very open to that and so I don’t think you’re going to turn people off by mentioning that.

Justin:                   As a customer, I’m kind of excited, you know, when I find out someone is selling their business or sold their business. And it’s normally all about how, kind of, you phrase it too, right. If you’re selling it or you sold it and you’re kind of communicating that to your customers and you talk about, kind of like, what the plan is and what you guys are trying to do, and what they’re trying to do, and you talk about vision in there, it’s helpful. I worry a little bit, there’s a twinge going on, my God, I hope they don’t screw this up. I like this software, or whatever, but you know, hopefully they don’t. And they don’t totally gut it and make it, you know, not useful, but you know, I think sharing with your customers is important.

                                I’ve talked about it before, but, we’re a customer of [inaudible 00:20:38] software, they sold it out from under us and we would have bought it, probably for more than was paid if they’d only let us know. So by not letting your customers know you might be missing out on a buyer. Maybe a buyer that would have paid you more. So if you’re able to and if you can stomach it, definitely let your customers know, because you might have a buyer there.

                                Another thing I want to talk about is re-marketing, re-targeting, for [inaudible 00:20:56] we do is we do re-target to people that visit our marketplace. So if anyone’s visited our marketplace, we’ll re-target them on Facebook to get them to come back, take a look at our marketplace again. And we also so this for individual listings. So someone’s visited a particular individual listing then we’ll re-market them on Facebook, get them back there looking at that listing so they can, you know, give it a second look and see if it’s something they’re interested it. Maybe they got busy, maybe they forgot, and it brings them back and they go, “Oh yeah, I do want to buy this. I’m interested.”

                                We also, well you can do this, so say for example that you have, you know, I own a business like Jungle Scout or whatever, and I’m looking to sell my business, but I’d prefer all my customers don’t know that I’m selling. One of the things you can do with Facebook is you can upload your email list to actually exclude your customer base. For whatever reason you need to exclude your customers or you’re just really not comfortable with that, you can do that on Facebook by uploading the email list. Not it’s not a guarantee they won’t see it and you might not get everyone and the words definitely going to get out but if for, whatever reason, you’re not comfortable with it you can exclude them on Facebook, as well. Although we don’t, I don’t really recommend it. I think you should let everyone know what’s going on, it’s generally the better move.

Ace:                       Yeah. I’m a big fan of obviously getting the word out. I know some people can be a little gun shy but that also does explain why Empire Flippers ads always follow me around, man.

Justin:                   There you go. Probably because you’re checking out our marketplace, man. You gotta … Yeah, I get followed around by this expat health insurance thing, we end up getting for our team, and they follow me around forever. Dude, for like I don’t know, for three months. I’m still seeing it’s like one of those video ads, that just puts me on blast.

Ace:                       Yeah.

Justin:                   One of the things you can do too, you can use, and we’re testing this out right now, where you can use paid Facebook ads around your interviews. So if you’ve, you know, done a video interview, or if you’ve done a audio interview, even a written interview you can put the Facebook ads, paid Facebook ads up around those interviews to kind of drive them to the interviews, and hopefully drive them to the business for sale. But is you can hook them with the interview, maybe you can get a potential buyer out that. We’re seeing if that’ll work. I don’t have data on that yet, but we’ll let you know.

                                Alright man, so those are some of the things brokers use, some of things that we use. Let’s talk about some of the things that our audience, our listeners can use on their own. So one of the things they can do are interviews, right. But not interviews with the broker, like Empire Flippers interview, they can reach out to other podcasters to share their story. So look at places like Smart Passive Income, Empire Flippers obviously, but also places like Mixergy and Web Equity Show. Where do their potential buyers for their business hang out and how do you get in front of their audience. Now if you built this business and you’re willing to talk about it, kinda the numbers and kinda what’s going on, a lot of podcasters would like to hear that in the kind of entrepreneurial business space. So going on why probably got a shot at getting on those podcasts to talk about your story, they’d probably be interested to hear it. So if you can get some of those to go live around the time you’re selling that can be really helpful in selling the business.

Ace:                       Yeah. This is next one is one that I’m just a very big fan of because basically people took advantage of it and it’s going after the niche community, so you can go into the [inaudible 00:24:09] specific Facebook groups, all these little communities where you’re probably already a part of it because you’re in that business. So, if you’re building a, you know, drop shipping business you’re probably in some drop shipping groups where you’re talking to other people in the space and the obvious place to go for potential buyers for your business is those groups. So they have the target audience, they know how to run your business, and what that leads to, over the random buyer is, a lot of times a higher multiple. Because they already get it, they’re not just a financial buyer. You know when I come in as a financial buyer, a lot of times we have in our portfolio that strategic match for the business but I’m really just looking at the numbers and to get somebody who really understands the business, a lot of times you can get a little higher multiple.

Justin:                   Yeah. I mean, again, it takes that one buyer right? I’m in a bunch of Facebook groups, just you know, anything from small to large and, you know, I don’t pay attention to most of them most of the time. But, you know, something is going on and I’ve, you know, had a need to kinda dig through there, kinda connect. Maybe I follow three or four at any given time, but those change over time so, you know … There are communities out there just recently today, actually, someone in one of those communities, they run the community, and they reached out to us about an advertising opportunity. And I talked to our marketing guys about it briefly and I said, “Yeah, I think we can do like that.” So, you know, there’s a bunch of reasons and needs to be in these communities.

                                So, you know, if they’re not reaching out to you about an ad opportunity maybe you can talk to them about, “Hey, how can I get a sticky post at the top of this Facebook group? How can I get information about my business from sale in the image? How can I get a promotional post in the community with your help? How would I go about doing that?” So you can reach out to the facilitators of the Facebook group to see, you know, what advertising opportunities there are there. Or you can just start, you know, just talking about your business for sale there too, in a non spammy way, obviously.

                                The other thing you can do yourself are the looking for a strategics. Right, so a strategic acquisition targeting. So, you know, we’ve talked about this, you know, kinda throughout the process, but hopefully you’ve been in contact with your competitors through the Co-optation approach we’ve discussed. And if you’ve done that this is a pretty good time to reach out to your competitors and, you know, let them know the deal. Hey, let’s see my business for sale, you know, we’ve talked quite a bit and I know we’ve worked together in the past, I’d like to know if you’d at all be interested in picking up our business.

                                If you’re working with a broker you can kind of make the connection, kind of gauge interest and if they’re interested you can send them on to the broker. Right? And have them kind of like, you know, wade into those waters. If you’re uncomfortable or not sure what information you should give up or when you should give it up, you can leave that with a broker. If you’re doing it yourself, it’s a good idea to kind of, you can lay out the basics for them but you need to be aware of exactly what you are willing to share and when you are willing to share it, before you go into it. And you have to give them enough to be able to do due diligence, so it’s a figuring it out process, generally strategic acquisitions are a bit slower because there is, kind of you know, taking your time. And you’re trying to judge whether they’re just trying to get your business data or if they’re really interested. So they can be a not slower but you can kind of walk through it and build trust.

Ace:                       This is one of those areas where I do find a lot of value in having a broker approach the competitors. A lot of times just having that separation, it kind of removes that person from their first thought, which it, “How can I get more information about my competitor? I’m just curious about what numbers you’re doing, what you’re making,” and that kind of thing. When they’re approached by a broker they don’t feel like, oh well, I’m probably not going to be able to manipulate this guy to get as much information as I’d like. So, it can have a big impact to have a broker approach them. But you can still build the list and you know, you talk about this Justin, you and Joey on the Empire Flippers podcast, with all of these things, whether you have a broker or not, you still want to treat it like you’re doing it yourself. So, you know, you can pull together lists of competitors, send that to them, have them reach out to them and make that process a little bit easier.

Justin:                   Yeah, I think, as we start to wrap this up, I think that’s an important point, is that you want to be proactive. Right? You’re not, you know, hey got my business my listed, I can situation back, relax and collect the check when it comes in. No, no, no. That’s not how it works. Now you could try to do that but you’re going to be involved in the buyer-seller calls. You know, you’re going to have to talk to some people, you’re going to have to shake some hands to get the deal done.

                                And I think there’s nothing wrong with being proactive, especially if you want a quick, clean sale for top dollar and very quickly. If you can, you know, again we said this several times but, you just need that one buyer. And if you’re able to get that one buyer or they’re able to get that one buyer, it doesn’t matter, you sold your business. So, the plan is to speed that along and kind of facilitate the process.

                                I think it’s also important to ask the broker if you’re using a broker, what ways they actively market your listing for sale. You know, there are brokers out there that will kind of like, you know, list the business and then wash their hands of it. Say if it sells, it sells, whatevs, I’m moving on to the next listing. U know I just want some listings up there and we’ll just kind of kick back and relax. So ask them what they proactively do, post initial listing. Of course, they’re going to get the message out initially. But what are they doing after that to get your business sold, and see what they have to say. I think, you know, from my perspective is, and I think you as well, but if I’m targeting the Facebook communities, which we talked about, or the Subreddits or, you know, like the niche communities that are kind of in my space.

                                And I mentioned nursing earlier in the show, let’s say I’m targeting a nursing community or you know, maybe even entrepreneurial nursing community, I’d rather talk to those people, the people that are entrepreneurs in the nursing niche. I’d rather talk to a hundred to a hundred and twenty of those people than I would like to talk to, you know, five hundred thousand people in the Joe Rogan podcast. Do you know what I mean? Like I’d rather talk to very specific people that are entrepreneurs in the nursing niche that might potentially be interested in my business than I would just a bunch of randoms. Right now the bunch of randoms might get your business a whole lot of additional business based on whatever you’re selling but, aside from that just for selling the business I’d rather talk to a very targeted audience of actual potential buyers.

Ace:                       Yeah. That’s why I’m such a big fan of going after those niche communities and talking in those groups. We aren’t necessarily selling something the masses are going to be interested in buying. And so if you can find those competitors and reach out to them personally, if you can find those people that already own businesses in the same industry, you know, you can reach out to them directly. But then it’s still almost like a mass approach, where you are doing videos for those people. You are putting together brochures and written material and all of the things we’ve talked about, but you’re doing that work for those specific, targeted potential buyers.

Justin:                   Alright, buddy, well I think that’s about it for this episode. In our next show we’re going to review the different types of deal structures you’ll need to know. And we’ll look at what’s your best from a seller’s place. Ace, I think we’re both going to like that episode. It’s going to be a fun one, man. Alright, if you’re digging this show, please head over to webequityshow.com and do let us know. You can also drop us a review on iTunes and we’d really appreciate it. See you next week.

Ace:                       See you next week guys.

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