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No matter what business you are in you must make offers. The more offers you make the more money you make. Simple isn't it? Any business genius will tell you this as I just did. Whether you are selling widgets on the internet or buying a multi million dollar company you have to make a lot of offers. The interesting question arises when you ask, well what is an offer, ...

The traditional LBO can teach you about so many things in life. Leverage. It is the first word in the acronym. Leverage is the key to wealth. Some people think it is a dirty word because it implies borrowing and risk. Well yes and no. First of all risk is what business is all about. We take risks and we get rewards. But leverage can extend to many other important ...

OK let's review what I preach. I preach buying companies that are bigger than mom and pop hot dog stands. Bigger than storefronts. Bigger than clothing stores. Bigger than your garden variety True Value hardware store. Even if you are only one person I preach this. Why? Because you need to be able to take your hands off the business and a very small business will not let you do ...

I don't usually look at turnaround deals for acquisition. This for a variety of reasons, but the main one is I do not believe I am smart enough to handle them. Another reason is I haven't seen too many over the years. Now, however, they are obviously more numerous in this nasty little recession. A turnaround can be defined as any company where the business model is underperforming and needs ...

Of all the bonehead ideas in the world using your 401k money to put a down payment on the business is the stupidest. Yet the mainstream sites and programs to put you into this mess abound. It is much the same thing as leveraging up your house or pledging it to the SBA for the same deal. Except for two little problems: your house was never sheltered from creditors the ...

No kidding, we are in a recession, or worse. If you are a seller in a recession there are two schools of thought: either sell your business for a poor price or hold on for better timing. The selling process is usually long so that one cannot simply reverse the strategy without consequence.  This can work to the buyer's advantage. Often the best deals for the buyer are made during ...

Today's leveraged buyouts are in the small market. It used to be that LBO's were essentially limited to bigger players (buyers) since banks and money sources had just begun to get comfortable with the concept. It was clearly not easy for the small buyer to pull of an LBO given that financing sources simply did not have a comfort level to the degree of reaching down and fianncing LBO's for ...