Big Stick

Sooner or later you are going to exit your business. The question isn’t whether or not you will be ready. The sixty four thousand dollar question is whether or not your business will be ready.

It is estimated that seven out of ten privately held businesses have no succession plan to transfer the business to the next generation of owners. What does that mean to you? It means that if you do not currently have a plan in place to transfer your business to family members, existing partners, management or employees, someday you will think about selling your business.

That day might come sooner than you anticipate. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you are not currently ready to retire that you have plenty of time to prepare your business for sale.

As a business broker, I have been involved in a number of transactions (and potential transactions) where the business owner wanted to sell, or in some instances, was forced to exit the business earlier than expected. In fact, retirement is NOT the number one reason why businesses sell.

Here is a list of the most common reasons why owners sell (or otherwise discontinue) their businesses:
Burn-out (the number one reason for selling)
Health issues
Personal diversification
Retirement/semi-retirement
Death
Divorce/partner disputes
Business growing too fast
Second generation not up to the task
Loss of market share

TAKE GOOD CARE

The sad truth is that many business owners do not take good care of their most valuable asset: the business. They don’t groom someone to continue the business in their absence, and do not keep the business in salable shape during the time they operate the business.

Business owners tend to get too bogged down in the day to day business operations to worry about–or plan for an event that they perceive won’t occur until sometime in the distant future; selling the business.

Unfortunately, fate sometimes dictates circumstances beyond your control, and tough decisions must be made. If your business isn’t ready to sell when the time comes, what are your alternatives?

Find Used Cars Online – Used cars for Sale:

Sometimes when people want to buy a good pre-owned car for a low price they go to government-sponsored automobile auctions. Because the government is not allowed to make a profit on the cars it auctions off, there are plenty of opportunities for people to find incredible deals at government car auctions.

Most of the cars sold at government auctions have been seized from people who for one reason or another were unable to make payments on their cars. These cars are then repossessed by the lending institutions or banks that provided the automobile loans that were used to buy the cars in the first place. Other automobiles that are sold at government auctions come from people who failed to pay their income tax or other taxes and do not have the cash to pay the government what is owed. The government then liquidates part of the tax cheat’s estate and takes possession of items such as cars. A third way cars come to government auctions is if they belong to a criminal and are taken by the government as a result of a criminal procedure. Sometimes the automobiles sold at government-sponsored car auctions are old fleet cars that were used by the various branches of government.

With the exception of the government fleet cars, it is often difficult to ascertain information regarding the history or a car being sold at a government auction. Often, there is no way a person can find out who owned the car before it was seized, why the car was seized and is now in the hands of the government, and what the maintenance record on the car is. While it may be possible to do a background check based on a car’s vehicle identification number (VIN), it is often difficult to get a really good picture of the condition of a car that is sold at government automobile auction.

In the days and weeks leading up to some government-sponsored car auctions, customers are allowed to examine the cars, trucks, SUVs and automobiles that will be sold at the auction. However, other government-sponsored automobile auctions where seized and repossessed vehicles are sold do not let people examine the cars closely before they are sold.