Business brokers are a specialised segment of the real estate industry – their skills in facilitating the sale and purchase of operational companies is in some ways far removed from the operation of a residential real estate agent. However their primary need is still driven by the need to market their listings to as wide an audience as possible. Just as in residential property marketing, the web has fast taken over the mantle of the most valuable resource for marketing businesses for sale. In some ways the web is even better suited to the service as preliminary evaluation of business investments is ordinarily based on data – operational or financial.
As ever the key to smart investing in business, just as with property is good information and allied to that, and more so in the case of buying a business is a sound business advisor – that is the role provided for by a licensed business broker. Business brokers provide a service for the seller of a business together with assistance for a prospective buyer with the fee for service largely being paid by the seller. I would recommend further reading on this subject, a valuable source of such information and advice can be had from a skilled business broker such as Sharon James who has already made a name for herself and justifiably earned a great reputation through her Business Broker blog.
When it comes to online marketing it is important to work with a business broker to select the right medium for featuring. It may surprise you to learn that realestate.co.nz currently features over 3,500 listings of businesses for sale – covering a diverse spectrum of tourism and accommodation, manufacturing, food service, as well as franchise services and the odd timber mill
Naturally as a function of the support from across the real estate industry for the website, realestate.co.nz is the most comprehensive source of information regarding businesses for sale, having nearly twice the listings of its nearest competitor NZbizbuysell. The competing media owned websites of Trade Me and realcommercial (sister site of allrealestate) whilst providing a platform for such listings capture nowhere near as broad a selection of businesses for sale.
As can be envisaged the segment of the population that are looking to invest in a business at any one time is small, however despite that the level of interest still amounts to an average of over 12,000 unique visitors per month to these business listings on realestate.co.nz across the year to date. The researching on the site by prospective investors is also reflective of the serous intent of buyers with a collective 120,000 plus minutes of sessions per month on average.
Statistics from February of this year show that NZ has 463,000 businesses many of which, in fact the vast majority are small businesses. The profile of many of these businesses is of a “baby boomer” generation founder / owner / manager. The key question which has been broached in other articles of the past year or two is the implication of many of these businesses looking for a new owner-manager in the next decade as many of the current owner-managers seek a step down to relax and enjoy the fruits of their labour. This could be the right time to seek out that new business opportunity.
