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| Bizology.com is your resource for information regarding buying and selling a business or franchise. Business broker listings, for sale by owner businesses or franchise for sale. Referral resources for business brokers, advertising for new franchises, lender services, 'how to' - 'where to' sections and business bookstore. |
Licensed Professional Real Estate Brokers and Business Brokers in the states of Virginia and Florida, with referral associates throughout the United States and globally. Capable, licensed and certified to handle the sale of your real property in conjunction with your business, website and domain name.
"WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT CHARLES BENNETT?"
Any agent can put your business into a "multi listing system", put an ad in the paper and make up a fact sheet. Who knows, they might get lucky and someone will buy it. That is not selling...
"CHARLES BENNETT SELLS!"
Salesmanship begins the moment you decide you want him to represent you to sell your business. You will be sold on selecting the right price and on making the business very marketable. The other agents must be sold on showing it to their prospects. The prospects must be sold on seeing the inside and all the aspects of the business and not just driving by or ruling it out because of a "net to owner" or an "EBIT" that they didn't like or did not believe. A buyer must be sold on giving up their savings and investing in your business. They will need to be sold on making an offer and you a counter offer. The accountants, CPA's, attorneys, and business consultants will need to be sold on fair market value as opposed to worth... (They are trained to find problems not opportunities.) You must be sold on the buyers qualifications and promise to pay back the loan. Then it is finally SOLD.
"WHO IS CHARLES BENNETT?"
First licensed to sell real estate in the state of New Hampshire in 1978, while working for New England Telephone. (Now known as AT& T.) He left the phone company to become a "full time" real estate professional in August 1979. Interest rates were at 18% and discount points were at 9! Soon after he had his own real estate company in Manchester, N. H. "Charles Bennett Realty" fast became a leader in the resale market and swept the yearly Multiple Listing Service Awards in 1985 with
Training has included Dale Carnegie, Tom Hopkins, Jerry Bresser, Zig Ziglar, Albert Lowry, Robert Allen, Dan Lorden, Sandler Sales Institute, Restaurant Seminar Institute, Florida Business Brokers Association and the International Business Brokers Association. From selling... closing... marketing... advertising... to taxes... no money down... agency... disclosure... inventory control... He has taught sales training and property valuation for Century 21 and Merrill Lynch (now Prudential Realty). There is a definite psychology as to why you are selling and why someone else is buying. His job is to find and bridge that gap between the two, and create a "meeting of the minds".
Bennett moved to Florida after much deliberation in 1987, spent five years living the easy life (?) on a 42' sailboat. After six months of cruising and playing, boredom set in and he had to work again! He settled on Sarasota, FL where he developed a reputation for well valued income properties, businesses, resales and new construction homes. After five years there, he moved on to Fort Lauderdale where the pace was a little quicker! The East Coast of Florida offered many business opportunities and he devoted the next seven years to businesses solely from Miami to Jupiter. In an area with one of the highest ratios of business brokers to businesses anywhere in the country, it was always a challenge! Charlie was routinely the top listing agent in the area as well as the state. In the fall of 1998, Charlie moved to Virginia with his wife Leslie. She is active in the medical field in the Middle Peninsula and Tidewater Area.
Charlie decided to devote his time once again to business brokerage, this time with a twist. Over the last year he had observed more and more well qualified buyers coming in via the Internet marketing efforts. The sale that opened his eyes was a "Mystery Shopping Company" that had six offers all from buyers obtained through the Internet and email. It was more time consuming and involved a tremendous amount of "computer work", but it did result in the sale of a most unusual business. The most notable difference was the quality of buyers and the questions they asked. None of the "How much cash is he stealing? Heh heh heh! I'm not paying for that you know..."
This particular business was listed, sold and transferred to the new owners without being advertised locally. It was structured such that the customers and competition never knew it was on the market for sale. Even now after being relocated, many do not know it sold or was ever for sale.
This resulted in the starting of www.bizology.com, a starting point for serious sellers and buyers to meet. Someone who is just starting to think about buying or selling will find a vast amount of information here at his fingertips. However, man hours will not need to be spent giving out the same information over and over. (Many times to the same people who just collect this stuff!) This site is the first of the cultivation process.
"THE DIFFERENCE IS CLEAR!"
Creative thought and an unrelenting dedication to client satisfaction. You do want a professional business broker representing you to sell your business don't you? Say yes!
Bennett is what you should expect . . .
CONFIDENTIALITY
Confidentiality is probably the most critical factor for an owner considering the sale of his/her business. Premature disclosure of even an interest in selling can upset employees, suppliers, and customers. In general real estate, the largest amount of buyers are attracted through a yard sign. With a confidential business sale, you lose that benefit. Again, in general real estate, most buyers are local or already know the area. They have a pre-determined location or neighborhood they want to live in and buy. With a business, many times the local market is the last one you want to know of a possible business sale. Efforts are spent striving to reach an outside buyer and bring them into the community. Many times an outsider can immediately perceive value, whereas a local remembers "When that place was nothing more than a rented storefront!"
SATISFACTION
If you are not happy working with Charles Bennett, whether buying or selling, why not part company on mutual terms up front? Time and money is too valuable to waste on resources that can never be met or satisfied. He would rather turn you down now, than let you down later.
CULTIVATING
A lot of time is necessary to sort through the vast number buyers and sellers. This is done to cultivate and work with the approximate 10% of businesses that actually sell. Some interesting facts:
What about the other 10% you ask? Well
MARKETING
More and more marketing is being devoted to the Internet. The business buyers and sellers we seek are most active in this medium. If you were living in San Jose and are thinking of moving within a 50 mile radius of Richmond, Raleigh or Jacksonville, which newspaper would you subscribe to? What if there were an opportunity 75 miles away? Would you consider it? All the major entrepreneur magazines are dedicated to a business brokerage site. The serious buyer is looking at these sites and search engines, not necessarily in the local Sunday classified.
By automobile, Bennett can be anywhere from Richmond to Virginia Beach in an hour; or from Fredericksburg to Charlottesville in close to two hours. Anything further, requires an airplane. How far would you drive or fly to meet a buyer or seller? Most people spend 90% of their life within five miles of their home. With this site, he can bring a business into any buyer's home or office, anywhere in the world, in seconds. Yes, there is interest, or no there is not. On to the next one. None of your time wasted. None of the business staff disrupted needlessly. No wasted airfare to look at a business that was not nearly as described.
MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T !
If you have to ask, then we have not done our job properly. If you have a friend in the business or the issue is money, it doesn't matter how good we are. You will work with your friend or the discount broker. If it doesn't work out as planned or promised, please call us again when your employment agreement has terminated with them.
Most likely, your friend or discount broker is very good and will probably do everything you ask. If, on the other hand you are concerned with disclosing more details about your business than possibly your spouse may know, to this friend or an acquaintance, then perhaps we should talk. If you are trying to save a couple of percentage points in fees, is it really that much when the end result is accomplished? Brokerage fees have been built into appraisals and assessments for business opportunities and real estate for years. (Go to the city assessors office and ask him to break down your house assessment or your banker regarding the mortgage on your home or business.) Why should you save the fee? The buyer wants to save the same fee. The best you could do is split it with the buyer and each save half. If the discount broker will offer a full 5% fee to a cooperating selling broker that has a well qualified buyer and the business is priced fairly, then give it a shot. You have nothing to lose.
Again, only 10% of buyers ever buy and 10% of sellers ever sell. We all want the odds in our favor, don't we?
CONTACT
Some buyers and sellers require a lot of contact, whereas some require very little. We will do our best to give as much as you want. Weekly phone calls, monthly or quarterly seller contact lists. Buyers are notified immediately when a business is made known to us that matches their needs. We keep copies of all non-disclosure agreements in your file and they are valid for two years.
ETHICS
As professionals, we are bound by state laws; a local, state, national and professional trade Code of Ethics; we live in the community; and we just have "plain old morals".
EXCLUSIVITY
We work with sellers and buyers on an exclusive basis. If you want to "list" your business on an open basis with as many brokers as you can, speak with your legal council first. Ask him/her "What if two offers come in at the same time?" Or if you accept one offer and fail to notify every other broker you have a verbal, implied or written listing agreement with? Did you realize that you could be liable for two fees? If you are working with brokers that are part of an organized multi-list agency they are bound by a Code of Ethics to explain this to you. There are state laws that govern this too. It has been tried and even gone to the Court of Appeals. The seller loses. (Century 21 Butler Realty, Inc vs. Vasques, 41 Cal. App. 4th 888, 49 Cal. Rptr.2d 1.)
Some sellers feel that if they approve an exclusive agency listing with a broker, the broker stops working for him. Actually, that is when the broker starts working for him. That is when the broker will share the information with other brokers and potential buyers. What broker will spend time and money on selling a business if the owner is not even committed to him as "his broker?" Any agent or buyer the broker shares the information with is able to go directly to the seller and try to negotiate the broker right out of the buying process. It is a waste of everyone's time. Buyer's that work with several brokers all at once are doing themselves the biggest injustice of all. Most brokers don't have the time to work with every buyer that says they are interested in buying. When they find a buyer that is working with two other brokers they know, chances are, that all of the brokers will not call the buyer with a new business on the market. They will call another buyer first that they know is working with only them as they are committed to buy.
LICENSED
More and more states have classified "business opportunity" sales as real estate and regulate the agents under the State's Department of Professional Regulation (DPR); Professional Regulatory Commission or State Real Estate Commission. There are disclosure laws to be followed, advertising laws, property laws, representation and transactional issues to be disclosed. Even something as simple as a domain name (URL), has now been classified as "property" as of March 1999 in Federal Court in Virginia. There are many changes coming. The days of someone hanging a sign out and declaring them self a "business broker" are gone. Are you willing to risk your retirement or investment with the hiring of a non-licensed broker?
PERSONALITY
When it is all said and done, that is what the deciding factor may be. Regardless or our experience or success, if you don't like us or we just can't get along, we will never be able to do business. If we haven't instilled in you the confidence to share the most intimate financial facts regarding your business or purchase, we don't deserve your business. Since we make our living doing this, should you chose not to work with us, we would be very appreciative to know what we did wrong so as not to do it again. Learning curves can be very expensive!
This is the page our competition shops! You didn't really expect to find trade secrets here did you? (say no)
When you invite us over to your business to meet with you, we will be happy to show you where you will be marketed to qualified prospects. You will find us listed on many sites throughout the World Wide Web, search engines, directories, various mls and database systems of other agents, brokers, investment groups and online news sources. Being licensed to sell the real property that makes up an integral part of your business gives us a leg up on others who sell business opportunities or merely make introductions of buyer to seller without actually being licensed to conduct real estate or business sales. We are not SEC licensed to sell your stock. We insist on attorneys being involved with any kind of stock transfer.