What do you charge to sell my company?

Obviously this is a question that every seller is going to ask, but spelling it out completely for the world to see would be business suicide. As a business owner yourself, you’d likely agree. However, in most markets and with most business brokers 10% to 11% of the sale price is fairly typical and on transactions that are over $1,000,000, most firms reduce the amount by various degrees. Blue Stone has worked out a fee schedule that not only comes in lower than the normal broker, but we’ve even allocated a program to help work with the franchisor so if they actually find a buyer for your business, which sometimes happens, we will work it out so you’re not paying extra fees. It’s all part of why we get deals done when other broker’s listings sit stagnant on the market for years, or in some cases, don’t sell at all.

Business Brokers vs Real Estate agents: You might ask, why don’t business brokers charge the same as real estate agents? The short answer is that selling a business is a lot more work. Not only does it take someone who has a financial background or previous business ownership expertise, but it takes someone who knows how to manage people and emotions. Most real estate agents may never introduce you to the buyer of your home; everything is done in the background. Not so with selling a business. The buyer and the seller will need to meet many times in order to get a deal done and will likely even be working for weeks or months after the sale has completed. As you can imagine, there is a lot of ‘give and take’ and ‘synergy’ that needs to be built up to make a business sale happen, and of course, we’ve orchestrated this so many times we know where all the “landmines” are buried to keep the deal from getting away from everyone. You might be surprised to know, at last count (2020), there were about 1.39 MILLION real estate agents in the U.S. and only about 3,000 business brokers!  Bottom line, selling businesses is not for the faint of heart and is why the industry doesn’t charge the same as the real estate market.