Seller Financing
Seller Financing is one of the most significant source of funds that a searcher uses to finance their purchase. It demonstrates the seller's confidence in the future of the business under new leadership, and gives…
Board of Directors
Recruiting and working with a Board of Directors once your search process is complete can be one of the more significant learning opportunities as a new business owner. CEO's find that a well-constructed and managed…
Funding the Search
Determining how to fund your search process can have a significant impact while searching and afterward as a CEO and business owner. Over the past few decades, search has evolved in many ways, and in…
Developing an Accountability Culture
All Searcher CEO's strive to lead a profitable, growing business with shared values across the organization, a common mission, and a culture of accountability. This is a lot harder to reduce to practice than it…
Working Capital
In many ways, search is all about the details. A detail that cannot be overlooked is the treatment of working capital in the transaction. If saved until the final drafts of the P&S agreement, the…
Compensation
During your search, and once you are operating the business you have purchased, you should be "reasonably" compensated for your efforts. Certainly, not at the highest level of your friends in other careers, but enough…
Quality of Earnings
During the final stage of your search, while under LOI, you will need to verify what the seller has provided as to their financial health. This level of accounting diligence is best done by an…
Practice and Repetition
Search cannot be mastered in a classroom, gleaned from cases histories, found on bookshelves or even in blogposts like this one. Instead, searchers must suffer through "rookie mistakes", work outside of your comfort zone, get…
Knowing your competition
Once you have purchased a business, get a solid understanding of how your competition thinks and behaves. Doing so will be critical to developing your strategy and tactics for profitable growth. It is often too…
When to stop searching
No searcher wants to be a quitter, especially after "sacrificing" so much to head down the path to become a CEO. However, it is important to assess your progress, the impact you are having on…