Buying and Selling Businesses: Including Forms, Formulas, and Industry Secrets

Must reading for business sellers, buyers, and the professionals who serve them

The secret of success in any business venture is in the details.

In Buying and Selling Businesses, a remarkably successful business consultant supplies you with all the details you'll need to expand your professional practice into this booming market. Bill Bumstead covers everything from business valuation to closing the deal and gives you lots of tips on marketing your services, dealing with buyers and sellers, and avoiding the industry's many pitfalls. This indispensable guide:

• Provides practical strategies for marketing intermediary services to buyers and sellers of businesses
• Shows you how to combine the business of buying with the business of selling
• Supplies numerous sample checklists and forms
• Helps you work effectively with buyers and sellers
• Includes an extensive glossary and an industry resource list.

M&A mania is back! U.S. business sales are booming once again--some say annual volume now exceeds $400 billion. With the majority of these sales involving businesses priced below $1 million, opportunities abound for professionals who want to expand their practices to intermediary services for buyers and sellers of businesses. But if you're going to enter this hyperactive market, you can't afford to learn by trial and error. You need reliable, up-to-date information on how to apply your skills to this highly specialized field.

Buying and Selling Businesses takes the guesswork out of buying, selling, and valuing businesses. Drawing on highly developed skills and decades of practical experience, author William W. Bumstead explains every detail of every stage in the process--from arriving at an asking price to matching buyers to businesses, from negotiating a purchase agreement to closing the deal. He offers countless tips on marketing intermediary services to business buyers and sellers; packaging businesses for the selling process; ethical, legal, and confidentiality issues; and the personal and professional traits that make for success in the field.

He also provides:

• A special section on business valuation by master valuer George D. Abraham
• Numerous checklists, forms, form letters, and telephone scripts for marketing intermediary services
• Invaluable tips on avoiding pitfalls in the industry
• Information on potential certification and licensing of intermediaries
• An extensive professional glossary and industry resource list.

For consultants, intermediaries, attorneys, CPAs, realtors, and other professionals, Buying and Selling Businesses is an indispensable guide and introduction to the industry. It will remain a helpful and much-thumbed reference for years to come. It is also an important resource for anyone interested in buying or selling a business who needs to understand the kinds of services that professionals can provide as well as the processes involved in the sale or purchase of a business.