Business Broker in Kansas City

Buyer Reference

Buying a Business is a Big Decision

Finding the right business that fits your unique personality, life style, and financial expectations is important. The selected business should allow you to apply previous experiences and skills to improve the business in some way.

The steps in buying a business include:

Step 1 Talk with a Business Broker in Kansas City and complete a general buyer profile. This will provide us with an overview of your interests, talents, and resources. Many of our buyers find this first step a great way to crystallize their thoughts and ideas in regards to chasing their dream.

Step 2 Meet with a consultant at ABMI for an initial opportunity assessment. The goal of the initial meeting is to understand your situation more thoroughly. This meeting will involve a review of your background and resources, your interests, goals, and expectations.

Step 3 Your ABMI consultant will then discuss potential business opportunities (in general) that may fit your profile based on the preliminary assessment.

Step 4 You may select specific businesses that you want additional information on. To protect the confidentiality of the seller you should be prepared to 1) sign a confidentiality agreement stating that you will keep the information presented confidential and 2) discuss your available financial resources.

Step 5 Once you have reviewed the detailed business information, you may want to work with your ABMI consultant to schedule a meeting with the seller. We have found that face-to-face meetings between buyer and seller facilitated by the consultant are the best way to exchange information about the business.

It is not unusual to have more than one meeting with the seller to get a good sense for the business.

Step 6 If you decide the business is a fit, you should work with your ABMI consultant to write up an offer to purchase. We have over twenty years of experience in helping buyers buy businesses and will draw on this experience to help in the offering process.

Step 7 Your ABMI consultant will help negotiate the price and terms with the seller. It is not unusual for the first offer to be countered by the seller. The process is similar to buying a house in the way negotiations can go back and forth between buyer and seller a few times before agreeing on the final terms.

Step 8 Once the agreement is accepted by both parties, there will be a period of time that you will be allowed to take a very close look at the business to validate that all representations made by the seller are correct. The process is referred to as Due Diligence.

This is also the time that financing arrangements (if needed) will be made. Your ABMI consultant will help you with this process, and provide you with information on preferred lenders that we have worked with on business loans in the past.

Step 9 Your ABMI consultant will help walk you through other Due Diligence steps that should be taken including reviewing the creditor status, and searching for unsatisfied liens on the business or seller.

Step 10 As the date of closing approaches, the legal documents to transfer ownership will need to be prepared. ABMI can assist by referring you to attorneys that are very familiar with business transactions. Using seasoned attorneys that we have worked with before has proven to save buyers thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Step 11 The time to complete the transaction varies from situation to situation. In typical transactions the process takes 60 to 90 days.

Step 12 Finally, your hard work and perseverance pays off. Closing day is here. The closing meeting usually involves both buyer and seller and can be facilitated by ABMI in the Executive Conference Room at the ABMI Overland Park headquarters.

You are now the proud owner of your own business!

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