Joining Finn Business Sales

If you're looking to start a business on the side, and keep your job for a while - this business is perfect. If you have sold your business recently, or have left your employment and you want to do this full-time - it's also perfect for you.

It's very flexible. Basically the rule of thumb is like this. It's all based around the number of listings you are holding. at any one time. Four listings (businesses you have for sale) generally needs you for about 8hrs a week. So if you're doing this on the side, just hold your business steady at about 4-8 listings all the time and you won't be swamped!

If you're going full-time and you need to grow a big income and keep building your personal wealth, then you can hold around 15-20 listings at a time no worries. That's about 40 hrs a week to look after those. On top of this is any of your personal marketing you do - things such as attending networking events etc.

If you've already worked a full career, but you're too young to retire, you might want to have a balance. Maybe you'll hold around 10-12 listings and handle those over about 3-4 days a week.

Finally, there is one particular type of person that this industry doesn't suit. If you need to make a six figure income from day one to provide for your family - this isn't for you. You need time to build your listings and learn the ropes. While this is happening your income is growing, it's not immediate.

Finn Online Induction Training, designed to get you grounded with the Finn business systems.
All Face-to-face Training Days with Len, Steve, and our Expert Business Brokers.
These are where you can develop and hone your skills as a business broker.
All Live Webinar Training Events with Len, Steve, and our Expert Business Brokers.
Finn’s comprehensive online Business Broker Course. Arguably one of the most advanced training courses business brokers can undertake.
Finn’s online Valuations Course, vital to understanding how to value a business accurately.
Finn’s online Business Buying Course.
First Year Guidance and mentoring - One-on-one with Len, Steve or our experienced and Expert Business Brokers.

To assist you in becoming successful as a Business Broker.
To prevent you from wasting your time and money in your new venture.
To save you and point you in the right direction when you make a mistake.
To help you get that valuation right, so you don’t over price businesses.
To show you how to present yourself to a client so they say "Yes".
To guide you on what fees to charge so you are well paid, but you don't miss getting the new business listed.
To help you manage the situation when a buyer wants to make a low-ball offer.
To show you which clients to say "no" to.
To support you while you're learning new skills.
To train you to keep improving your skills to become an expert Business Broker.
To show you how to grow your business to meet your goals.
To help you sell that property along with the business when they come together.
To show you how to work in with other agents and share commissions.
To introduce you to our network of migration agents and fellow Finn Business Brokers.
To run the entire back end of your business infrastructure so you can focus on clients only and maximising your income from completing deals.
To assist you with lease transfers and other areas of business sales transactions that are a bit more complex.
To show you how your buyer can get finance.
...and to assist you make this new business venture work for you.

Steve, Len, and our team of expert business brokers have personally been involved in the sale of hundreds of businesses. The experience they bring to your training and support will help you accelerate your career as a business broker and fast-track your income growth. Everyone needs guidance and support when starting an entirely new career and when you are responsible for helping your clients with such a large financial transaction that can be worth hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. Having experts in your corner, really is a must have support requirement.

Who does the advertising to find buyers for listings?

We've made this very easy. This is handled by a separate marketing company (affiliated with us) that specialises in generating buyer leads when a business is for sale. The vendor can choose the level of marketing they wish to do (much the same as when selling a house), and they pay the marketing company directly. In short -it's all done for you, there is no cost to you, and all the buyer leads will come directly to your inbox. You can then receive 30% of what the vendor pays to assist in the administration of their marketing.

What happens with a business that is over $2m?

These are typically more complex transactions. Usually these are a corporate business transaction that involves high-level valuation methods, tax and asset deal structuring, and due diligence with more legal implications. Also the marketing campaigns to find the right prospective purchasers is very unique. These clients are to be looked after by our Finn M&A people. These are licensees also, but they operate only in the $2m+ categories. We have a handful of these guys around Australia. Regular family-owned businesses in the SME market change hands at a high volume of transactions. These make up more than 90% of the marketplace. If an M&A enquiry comes across your desk, the protocol is to refer that onto one of the M&A team. Depending on your level of expertise in that particular industry, they might ask you to collaborate with them and share in any commissions.

How long does the contract go for?

Either party can end the agreement with 30 days notice.

What resources are available to you?

You have an immediate suite of documents, guides, and templates at your disposal from day one, and you are part of a larger team rather than being on your own. This means you can avoid a lot of the trial and error, and it helps clients to trust you in helping them sell or buy a business.

Comments

There aren't many businesses that stack-up against a successful business brokerage. Steve and Len and many of the Finn brokers (and business brokers in the wider industry) have experienced this exact scenario...

Running a business where we can make our own appointments, mostly in business hours - no weekends. There are no home-opens like real estate agents. Businesses are sold based on the financials etc that are given to buyers. It's all done by email and phone usually.

Our day usually looks like this. We can go for a walk in the morning, come home and do some emails, get a coffee, then make some calls, go to the gym, have a couple of pre-booked phone or video meetings. Jump in the car and get some lunch at a cafe, do some more emails on our phone while we're waiting, head to our first client meeting at 1:30pm, get the go-ahead for a new listing, send that new client our starting invoice from our phone app for $2,000, return some calls while driving to the next appointment, meet a buyer and a seller and walk around the business, finish the meeting, start negotiating a deal with the buyer, jump in the car and head home while returning a couple of calls. Home for dinner.

At the end of the year, when we look at our financials, and see that we made more than $500,000 in income. We worked hard, absolutely we did. We didn't miss a beat - full-on - but we had a life. We enjoyed ourselves, and we made enough money to max out our super contributions for our future, and also go overseas on holidays at least once with our family (and sometimes twice).

Did we do this in our first year? No way. We had to learn how to do this. We learnt the hard way, no training, no online platforms, no marketing templates, no national brand-name, no ongoing referrals from banks and accountants. But the rewards and the life we have as successful business brokers is worth every bit of the toil while we got our business established.

Work keeps coming in. Lot's of people wanting to retire, or they've worked hard and need a break. Some people that have started a business and not done a very good job. They all want to sell. Then there's a constant stream of people wanting to buy. Had enough of the corporate workplace, new migrants, redundant and can't get another job. You name it. All we do is match them up. The newly redundant person buys the business from the person that's retiring. It's just life - no-one stays doing the same thing forever.

The best part about our $500,000 revenue is most of it is profit. We don't have high rent, lots of staff, equipment breaking down. We don't have to buy thousands of dollars in stock (in fact, we have millions of dollars in stock, but we didn't buy any of it!).

One day if we want to retire or we've had enough, we can sell our business. We're part of a national brand name - the number one in our industry, and we run a fully systemised business that comes with a book of listings (otherwise know as 'work-in-progress'). We make a lot of profit, have low overheads, and very low risk - the perfect business for most investors.

We see a lot of businesses - and if you're a goer and you love business - there aren't many that beat this one.

Regards, Steve & Len