How do you find reputa­ble business sale advisors?

Many entre­pre­neurs ask themsel­ves what charac­te­ri­ses reputa­ble advisors for the sale of a compa­ny. After all, a compa­ny sale is a long-term project that requi­res good prepa­ra­ti­on and imple­men­ta­ti­on. How can you recog­ni­se a serious advisor for the sale of a compa­ny? What pitfalls lurk in the selec­tion of an advisor? Watch out for these alarm signals.

Sales pressu­re after unsoli­ci­ted contact

Do you know this? You recei­ve unsoli­ci­ted adver­ti­sing calls, e-mails or letters refer­ring to a large number of allegedly concre­te­ly interes­ted prospec­ti­ve buyers for your compa­ny. An alrea­dy banned copy of a business broker in the past read: ‘Our buyer depart­ment is current­ly recei­ving enqui­ries from poten­ti­al buyers for a business in your indus­try as well as your region’. Nevert­hel­ess, dubio­us business brokers use similar formu­la­ti­ons to give the impres­si­on that there are alrea­dy concre­te prospec­ti­ve buyers.

False promi­ses

In the second step, a psycho­lo­gi­cal­ly trained sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ve visits you. He again refers to the many allegedly concre­te enqui­ries from prospec­ti­ve buyers. Alrea­dy in the first conver­sa­ti­on, this sales­per­son tries to get an order. In doing so, he often promi­ses you two things:

1. alrea­dy concre­te­ly interes­ted buyers

Alrea­dy in 2017, the DIHK ReportThe DIHK is pointing out that the search for the right compa­ny succes­sor is becoming incre­asing­ly diffi­cult. DIHK Presi­dent Eric Schweit­zer: “For many business owners, compa­ny succes­si­on is becoming the prover­bi­al search for a needle in a haystack.

A well-maintai­ned list of poten­ti­al buyers helps reputa­ble advisors for the sale of a compa­ny in their search. Nevert­hel­ess, no promi­se of a successful business succes­si­on can be derived from this. Rather, reputa­ble business sale advisors use a varie­ty of diffe­rent channels in their search for buyers. “In times of the Lack of entre­pre­neurs the search for poten­ti­al buyers is a special and time-consum­ing chall­enge for family businesses,” under­lines Ingo Claus, consul­tant for business succes­si­on in Osnabrück and northern North Rhine-Westpha­lia. “Further­mo­re, the success of a compa­ny sale depends on many other factors. From our obser­va­ti­on, such a promi­se is there­fo­re unserious and only serves the quick conclu­si­on of a brokera­ge contract.”

2. exces­si­ve compa­ny valuations

In the first meeting, the sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ve asks for your balan­ce sheet data, your credit­wort­hi­ness and your purcha­se price expec­ta­ti­ons. After a super­fi­ci­al evalua­ti­on, he ?deter­mi­nes? a sales price that is far above your expec­ta­ti­ons. In contrast to a serious Income approach to business valua­ti­on a price expec­ta­ti­on deter­mi­ned in this way does not stand up to criti­cal scruti­ny. Cauti­on is advised if an advisor alrea­dy gives a “snapshot” of an achie­va­ble sales price in the first meeting.

High month­ly costs

Alrea­dy in the first meeting, the commis­si­on-depen­dent sales repre­sen­ta­ti­ve presses for the conclu­si­on of a support contract with a term of between 6 and 24 months. The resul­ting costs quick­ly add up to several thousand euros per month or several tens of thousands of euros per year. In contrast, concre­te measura­ble results remain absent in most cases.

Some dubio­us market parti­ci­pan­ts even present profiles of poten­ti­al buyers to entre­pre­neurs willing to sell. Subse­quent­ly arran­ged appoint­ments are cancel­led a few days before the announ­ced date with the indica­ti­on that the buyer’s interest has lapsed.

Charac­te­ristics of reputa­ble advisors for the sale of businesses

1. initi­al and follow-up contacts without sales pressure

A serious advisor for the sale or succes­si­on of a business always uses the initi­al contact to analy­se the indivi­du­al situa­ti­on. At the same time, he presents the consul­ting and support options without pressu­re to sell. The focus is exclu­si­ve­ly on the entrepreneur’s indivi­du­al succes­si­on situa­ti­on. Serious advisors subse­quent­ly submit a detail­ed offer adapt­ed to the respec­ti­ve situa­ti­on and do not push for the conclu­si­on of a contract. Becau­se trust needs time.

2. no fixed-term contracts and no ongoing flat-rate costs

Serious business sales advisors do not earn their money through long contract terms and high month­ly flat rates. A clear­ly defined offer there­fo­re makes it clear what service an entre­pre­neur willing to sell is paying for. These are a compa­ny valua­ti­on accor­ding to the standards of the Insti­tu­te of German Certi­fied Public Accoun­tants (IDW-S1), an infor­ma­ti­ve compa­ny exposé and support for the entre­pre­neur in negotia­ti­ons. Serious advisors for the sale of businesses also work to a large extent on a success-related basis and offset signi­fi­cant parts of the up-front costs against the success commission.

3. BDU membership

Many reputa­ble consul­tants for the sale of businesses are members of the Federal Associa­ti­on of German Manage­ment Consul­tants (BDU). This means that they are commit­ted to the strict BDU standards of proper succes­si­on consul­ting in their daily work. Integral consul­tants ? inclu­ding KERN ? Die Nachfolge­spezialisten ? have set themsel­ves even higher standards in some cases. This appli­es to essen­ti­al areas such as the protec­tion of perso­nal data of sellers and buyers or the obliga­ti­on to provi­de regular training and further education.

4. supra­re­gio­nal networks

The business succes­si­on market is charac­te­ri­sed by a large number of regio­nal advisors and a few business succes­si­on specia­lists with supra-regio­nal or inter­na­tio­nal networks. These supra-regio­nal networks are becoming incre­asing­ly important due to the challenges in finding buyers. KERN - Die Nachfolge­spezialisten has offices throug­hout Germa­ny, Austria and Switz­er­land and has an exten­si­ve inter­na­tio­nal network. In this way, they combi­ne the excel­lent­ly maintai­ned regio­nal networks to banks, tax consul­tants, lawyers and associa­ti­ons with the advan­ta­ges of a supra-regio­nal network. This networ­king signi­fi­cant­ly increa­ses the speed of sales processes.

5. process competence

An essen­ti­al factor for success in the sale of a compa­ny or in compa­ny succes­si­on is a high level of process compe­tence. Many genera­tio­nal changes fail, for examp­le, becau­se they are only thought of on the basis of the tax concept. There­fo­re, when choosing your compa­n­ion, make sure that the process of compa­ny succes­si­on includes all possi­ble stages from compre­hen­si­ve prepa­ra­ti­on, selec­tion of interes­ted parties and approa­ching them to accom­pany­ing and modera­ting the sales negotia­ti­ons. This is an essen­ti­al distin­gu­is­hing and quali­ty feature of reputa­ble advisors for the sale of a business.

6. verifia­ble references

Ask for referen­ces and check them by asking by phone. Neutral evalua­ti­on tools such as Proven­Ex­perts will help you select a suita­ble compa­n­ion for your compa­ny sale. A renow­ned award, such as the Consul­ting Prize joint­ly award­ed by Wirtschafts­wo­che and the BDU, will give you additio­nal orien­ta­ti­on. Further­mo­re, ask regio­nal banks, chambers of commer­ce and indus­try or chambers of trade and indus­try about their experi­ence with consul­tants in the region.

Questionable provi­ders also often create a large number of positi­ve referen­ces on foreign websites whose other contents usual­ly have nothing to do with the topic of business succes­si­on. An additio­nal look at the imprint also often reveals more. Often these reference sites are run by priva­te indivi­du­als or unknown compa­nies abroad. If there is no imprint, this is always an indica­ti­on that such sites are most likely purely adver­ti­sing sites of dubio­us business brokers.