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How Well do you Really Know Your Business Broker?

As responsible consumers we spend hours researching, comparing and choosing the best new kitchen appliance. We spend weeks pouring through consumer reports graphs educating ourselves on how to buy just the right car. When it comes to major investments like buying or selling a home we go all out spending months in some cases years researching neighborhoods, interviewing agents, looking through listings, and visiting different locations until we find just the right match. And why shouldn't we? After all this is a major decision, one that can have a profound effect on our financial future, and one we are going to have to live with it for a while. As consumers, we obviously know a thing or two about researching all of our options before making a final decision. Why is it then that the average person spends months researching their housing purchase, but that same person spends less than 7 minutes choosing their Business Broker? Is the purchase or sale of a business less complicated or financially involved than that of a business?

When it comes to buying a business a good Business Broker can help make or break a deal and since there are so many factors to consider the difficulty in picking a business intermediary generally lies in a lack of information. There just isn't the same amount of consumer information available to go by. Keeping that in mind it's imperative to be prepared ahead of time. Know what questions to ask and how to compare the range of possible answers. Here are a few questions we've put together to help lighten the task. Although not an exhaustive list, this will definitely get you off to a great start.

Questions to Ask Your Business Broker:

• Do you belong to any Industry Associations such as the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA)?
• Does the Association Have a Code of Ethics that you adhere to?
• What is your formal education and how does it assist you as a Business Intermediary?
• Are you Certified? What Where the Requirements for your Certification? (Over 80% of Business Brokers Still Remain UnCertified
• Have you Authored any Industry Resources?
• Have you Spoken Professionally?
• How Long have you been working in the Business Brokerage field?
• What processes will you follow in selling my business or locating a business for me to purchase?
• Are you Open to Co-Brokering Business Listings?
• Do you have your own website? This one's a must in the industry today.
• What measures do you take to ensure confidentiality?

Remember that Business Brokers come from a myriad of different backgrounds. Most Brokers are coming from a different field or occupation and specialize in Selling Businesses related to their prior field. These Brokers will still have the skills to handle the purchase or sale of Businesses not related to that field as well. Make sure any Broker you plan on working with is responsive to your needs and isn't too "pushy". Remember they don't get paid until the sale is complete and you need to ensure the Brokers you're dealing with are Ethical in their dealings, taking your best interests into account, not just pushing you into a deal so they can seal in their commissions.

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