Real Estate Agents: Selling Businesses
Example #3: The Right Way
16 August 2021 Real estate agents… AGAIN? If you’ve read the last several posts on this blog, you know that when real estate agents try to sell businesses it’s generally a pretty dicey situation – and usually results in a pretty crummy outcome, both for the agent and the client. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this, the final post in our series on how real estate agents handle selling businesses, we relate another true story – but this one has a happy ending. It’s about one real estate agent that knew what to do when one of her clients approached her about selling their business.The Background

True to Form…
There’s no need to detail our efforts here – we did what we do – because this post isn’t about how we found a buyer – which was, it turned out, a larger company looking for a strategic acquisition. This post is about the real estate agent._____________________________________________________________________________
Our course, “Learn How to Value and SUCCESSFULLY Sell Businesses“, teaches you how to value and sell businesses.
Become a Professional Business Broker…
Over the course of the next few months, without divulging any information, we periodically let her know that we were still working on the sale and were confident we’d find a buyer. We do this because we want to make sure that any Realtor knows that, when they refer a client to us, we actively work to find a buyer rather than let the listing sit and hope a buyer finds us. We found our buyer about nine months after beginning our marketing program and the deal closed 90 days later. Because confidentiality is so important in what we do – and the acquiring company understood the wisdom in maintaining that confidentiality – the deal closed quietly and with no fanfare or press releases. The only people that knew the sale had happened were the buyers, the sellers, the facility’s general manager and us.We’ve launched a coaching program specifically tailored to Realtors that want to sell businesses, business owners and to anyone that wants to become a business broker.
If you’d like to learn more, email me at joe@WorldwideBusinessBlog.com

BUT…!
But? But what?!?
The Bottom Line
Though this agent certainly did the right thing in referring her client to us – and received a handsome referral fee as a result – this true story illustrates how much money real estate agents are routinely leaving on the table – money that, if they only knew how to earn it, would put them in the top 1% of agents anywhere, in both good times and bad. In short, it would supercharge their commission income. There are millions of businesses coming to market over the next 10-15 years – the “Silver Tsunami” – and real estate agents are uniquely positioned to help the owners of every one of them. And the financial rewards of doing so can dwarf the average real estate agent’s annual commission income. If you have any questions or comments on this topic – or any topic related to business – I’d like to hear from you. Put them in the comments box below. Start the conversation and I’ll get back to you with answers or my own comments. If I get enough on one topic, I’ll address them in a future post or podcast. I’ll be back with you again next Monday. In the meantime, I hope you have a safe and profitable week.
Joe

The author is the founder of Worldwide Business Brokers and holds a certification from the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) as a Certified Business Intermediary (CBI) of which there are fewer than 1,000 in the world. He can be reached at joe@WorldwideBusinessBlog.com