The Biggest Mistakes Owners Make When Selling Their Business

Learn how to sell a business confidentially without alerting staff or competitors. Proven strategies to protect value, control information, & close discreetly.

Learn how long it takes to sell a business, the key stages involved, and what to expect from preparation to closing so you can plan your exit with confidence.

Learn how to value your business using SDE, EBITDA, and market multiples. Understand key factors that affect valuation before you sell your business.

The Inner Contrarian Entrepreneur Inside of you

What's Trending? Businesses With Cash Flow & Hard Assets/Safe Haven's With the recent turmoil in stocks correcting and swinging around like a yo yo in a kids playground. Individuals & smart money investors are seeking out hard assets/ small businesses & franchises with cash flow. I receive hundreds a calls a month from buyers looking for cash flow and focused on hard assets. This sounds like a solid simple plan of attack and is working for a select group of smart money investors. Safe haven demand is at the highest level in a very long time. No one knows what will happen tomorrow or next month with the market or economy so why not take control your own future this way. If you are looking to diversify away from financial instruments and be in the drivers seat of your hard earned work. Why not start a side hustle? Or partner up to buy a franchise business in a great location? Or add onto your existing business portfolio and purchase another business. This I am seeing a demand in calls & especially over the past 6 months. I am a big fan of physical bullion gold and silver and have invested a great deal in this space over the past 5 years and returns are there. Here is a chart of Gold 5 year and one year as of MSN money app in USD funds. Gold Per Ounce 3405 USD ‎+81.80 (‎+2.46%) Today USD PAST YEAR • AS OF MAY 6, 10:05 A.M. EDT ‎+1,073.20 (‎+46.04%) USD PAST 5 YEARS • AS OF MAY 6, 10:06 A.M. EDT ‎+1,659.10 (‎+94.98%) USD While the S +P index YTD to date is seeing a loss YTD YTD • AS OF MAY 6, 10:06 A.M. EDT ‎-282.47 (‎-4.80%) 33.40 Silver Per Ounce ‎+0.90 (‎+2.76%) Today USD PAST YEAR • AS OF MAY 6, 10:01 A.M. EDT ‎+5.99 (‎+21.89%) USD YTD • AS OF MAY 6, 10:02 A.M. EDT ‎+4.12 (‎+14.08%) This type of hard physical asset is yours only and holds no counter party risk. It is recommended to have safe storage in higher amounts & can always be sold and turned into a fiat currency anytime you wish. It's a flight for safety and a safe haven, and is working as world fiat dollars de-value with inflation chewing away slowly at it. One suggestion is to not do what everyone else does. In fact you may want to look at the opposite first. Then do your own due diligence. While I do not give out financial advice you are welcome to speak with your advisor who most likely will not talk about gold or silver or investing into a small business and will push there financials instruments so they can obtain a fee from there bank. So it is important to talk to many others in different fields. Try not to trust one source to park your cash or plan your retirement. It's just too risky to let it all ride on whim of a financial instrument and hope it keeps going up. As there is nothing better than controlling your own destiny in life. Master your own destiny is the way to go and work for it and build it they will come.

Being able to take Friday afternoon off should always be important in one’s life. This is why I became an entrepreneur. To have this ability to say hey it’s Friday afternoon. I am going to network with colleagues/associates and friends. To take the time to build the business to the next level. Where you do not have to answer anyone, or anything is truly something special and rewarding. It really comes down to how you use this time that is there for you is the golden key. This focused time of social & dialed in time gave me an opportunity to build up and foster relationships with new and old associates. This focused energy on how one can set themselves free was very critical in starting out my entrepreneurial journey. Some can take time they have to be lazy, or not focus on much progress and pretend you are being productive. Others can put on that focused productive hat on and dial in on what you need to do to build up more opportunity for yourself. Others just don’t have much time at all to focus on building up their personal development towards success. I spent a good 5 to 7 years every Friday afternoon networking & connecting as much as I could, and meeting as many new contacts as possible. Many of these relationships still exist today. Relationships take work and they are not going to build up for yourself by doing nothing or the bare minimum. You and only you have to nurture your relations. Whether its approaching someone to shake someone’s hand and look them in the eye and introduce yourself. It is also important to have a niche to offer them. If you don’t have an established niche, then it can be an uphill climb in promoting your services that you have to offer. So, try and establish a niche or identify what your niche is first then you can focus on building up that niche product or service. Quick story I visited a trade show & franchise show in Calgary, Alberta Canada in 2019 and walked up to a franchisor who owned a successful senior care franchise at the time. I introduced myself and gave him my card and shot the breeze with the founder for 5 minutes. I circled back with an email a few days later to say very nice meeting you and look forward to talking more with you. I wanted to remind him I had several buyers interested in his brand and could be a win win for us together. Fast forward since then I have sold his senior care corporate territory in Vancouver for 1.4 million and have sold many senior care franchise territories for this brand as the years went on. This one introduction and approach coming in cold and introducing myself produced over $250k in revenue today for my company and is still re-occurring. One card, one handshake and one introduction. Years later this initial prosperity keeps on continuing. So why not go out and build up what you have to offer? First and foremost, find a niche and promote your business or franchise. As not one single person is going to do it better than you or even do it all. Using technology to network and connect with new customers is another source and stream to connect with contacts. It is a source of new age networking and connecting as well. I am a big fan of doing both networking old school and using tech to do so. Try and ask yourself how can you service someone you approach or look at doing advertising towards your reach of a customer? Ask yourself what is your target market? Identify this and focus then attack and approach those areas. Dial in on what is important not what looks good so much. Key Areas to Focus on your entrepreneurial journey: · Build up relationships and relations with many new people and existing people. · Go on the offense to build up your niche and business and franchise. · Establishing a Side Hustle can be a nice way to entry point as an entrepreneur · Hand out your card – Oh you don’t have any well get some as they are still important and who cares if others say they aren’t used anymore. Those people who say this many have never built up a business. · Use tech to build and connect with others in your customer base or field. · Go after your target market, who is your target market? Establish then go after this and invest in approaching your target market or customer base. · If you are not willing to build up your own business on your own. Then one should focus on a franchise where one embraces the franchise systems and then takes the systems that are there and grow it further. This is often a good approach pending on your situation and needs. · Just because you purchase a franchise now. Often owners think marketing is left to the brand to build my business for me. Your franchise territory and location are yours and yours only, we all need to build up and foster relationships in the community. Waiting on someone else to do it for me is not the best mindset for success. Many franchisees themselves focus on the head office and what others are doing. Where one should focus on what you can do and understanding your market to make your business better. Then connect with customers and community to allow for a fruitful situation to take shape. · Join Canadian and local associations and go to events where your clients and business interest lie. Do these values line up with your brand and your business. If they do then go to these events, shows, online groups, etc. · Try and read as many entrepreneur books as you can. I read 4 to 5 a year of entrepreneurs and which motivates you further. The 4 hour work week was a game changer for me by Tim Ferris. In the end, to finish in closing. No one is going to bring success for you in your life. Not one person and not the government either. You have to be a go getter and go out there and get it done as an entrepreneur and franchisee. Entrepreneurs & franchisees have to have thick skin and hearing no has to be ok and not fall apart if you hear no. This should motivate you further each time you hear no. So go out there and build up something special as you are special in your own way. Only the strong survive mentality is where we are in life and be the strong one who shoots through the clouds. Tony Kereluke Top Shelf Franchising www.topshelffranchising.com

Lots to talk about at Top Shelf Franchising this week. As we recorded a record number of buyers in one week with 71 inquiries of people looking for a business in Canada. It appears that many are looking to diversify their holdings into cash flow and businesses/franchises as the year progresses further. Why are all these Canadian buyers looking to come in and invest into a business & franchise now say versus a year ago? A strong case could be is that the world fiat paper currencies globally are potentially heading for a challenging time ahead. Central banks all over the world purchased a record number of physical gold holdings in the past year and one should wonder why? (Public Knowledge) Don't bankers and central banks know a lot about what is coming and what to do? Then we should follow you would tend to think. A great deal of smart money knows that one should diversify away from currency holdings and financial instruments, in addition to paper assets and stocks. Just ask Warren Buffet who has been selling millions and millions of his stocks off lately and is front running of what potentially is coming. Jeff Bezos and many billionaires are off setting their stock positions and liquidating & selling and diversifying into other assets. The warning signs are there but many are not paying attention. The smart money is front running things, and I talk to a lot of smart money people daily. Physical hard assets are growing in demand as gold and silver are running hot with strong increases as supply decreases and demand picks up globally. In addition to commodities are gaining strong returns as of late. While I am not a financial advisor and do not give out financial advice. However you may want to look at other alternatives from what you are used too. It's a different market and world out there today. Small businesses & franchises that produce cash flow is another asset class is where one should consider owning into 2024 and 2025. Especially as currencies potentially weaken and more and more government debt build's up in our communities, municipalities and countries further. When counties decide to print money by way of a click of a button it creates inflationary periods and weakens currencies further and reduces our purchasing power. Just Argentina or Venezuela or in Mexico in the late 90's how that worked out. Well it didn't work out well after printing and printing and pilling up debts. Then the currencies collapsed and government's added more zeros to their paper dollar and what you had in the bank became watered down with this decrease of purchasing power. Allocating some capital into small business cash flow is a new trend that will continue to grow and safeguard your wealth further. Here at Top Shelf Franchising we have over 110 options to choose from coast to coast in Canada. We are a company designed to present you options so you can get into business or diversify into another business.

Own Your Business & Starting Paying Yourself First When one owns their own business we are in a position to have more control of our own lives. For starters when one owns their own business as entrepreneurs they pay themselves first and then pay tax later after our expenses take shape. When one works for a company as an employee up to 50% of our earnings is paid upfront in tax. Then the remainder is given to you as your pay cheque. The word freedom has been a hot topic lately and when one owns their own business they earn this right to pay themselves first in addition to enjoying the freedoms that comes with it. So why would most not try and start their own business and have more freedom & lifestyle and pay themselves first? Or create a side gig to see if it has legs and then turn that into a full time business. Or simply purchase an existing business or buy a franchise and grow it could be another way. The answer is that many do not try or even entertain paying yourself first in Canada or buying your own freedom is because they are in too much debt or have too much monthly overheads. I have seen many clients sell it all and clean the desk right off and start their own business. Many have chosen to start fresh with a clean slate as they noticed with their overheads being so high one can never start a business unless you run into a lot of cash and purchase an existing business. Their is nothing wrong with clearing it all off the desk and starting fresh and creating a new business model for your own self. As its a sense of a reset in your own life and tends to be very liberating when you do. I have done many desk clearings myself and fortunately worked out well. It recreated a new freedom life multiple times over and allowed one to not be trapped by someone else. Try and give this some thought and if you would like to chat more about this you can call my toll free 1-855-816-1743 and we can have a chat together

Time to be more of an Earner as saving your way out of this isn`t going to cut it. After the largest money printing episode of all time has come to an end. We now the people must pay the price which is what it looks like here moving forward. Wages are not keeping up and inflation the almighty (SECRET TAX) is being manipulated heavily by taking out gas, heating, lodging and food out of the inflation equation percentage numbers that is being disclosed to us. Then we are communicated it`s high at 6 to 7%. It`s more like around 12% to 15% in Canada when you factor in gas, heating & energy and food and lodging. Moving forward we must focus on earning & becoming a better earner. By earning and by earning multiple sources of revenue streams this will be your key to the gate that opens up for a better tomorrow. One must combat this attack on our wealth that we worked so hard to save and have. We must face it head on and say I am going to earn and even if that earning means 100 to 300 a month. It’s a start and every cent matters more than ever. We are not taught how to earn or how to manage our money on all levels. Even in schools we are taught to bake a high quality white sugar cake instead and given a credit card with a 19.9% interest rate. Congratulations you qualify! The system is rigged against you on all fronts and sides. It has always been this way it’s just now a lot more aggressive than before. The question is what are you going to do about it and when? Here are a few ways to become an Earner: 1. Create a side gig online 2. Go work part time on the side as there is lots of jobs out there to work on the side 3. Purchase a side business 4. Acquire a business 5. Start a business or start one with several partners 6. Sell your assets while they are high and restructure your deck of assets 7. Sell your goods online and sell things to people to create revenue 8. Find some buyers for a product you have and create a niche 9. Buy & Invest into real assets & businesses It’s a nasty world out there and no one is going to help you. So one must take the nature approach and be a survivor and find a way in this nature world to survive and earn and get ahead. #business #entrepreneurs #startabusiness #ownafranchise #ownbusiness #smallbusiness