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Our recent awards ceremony was a fantastic event to recognize and honor the BBF’s best of the best and to recognize several individuals for their exemplary dedication to our great association. In addition, the event served as a testament to the exceptional skills of the top-producing business brokers and showcased the power of co-brokering. Collectively we continue to make our mark in the world of business intermediaries.

It was great to see so many familiar faces and quite a few new ones. Even with the early morning awards breakfast starting time, there was great excitement from the over one hundred and thirty folks in attendance. I was honored to have Mrs. Roberta Caputo, BBF Vice Chair, as my co-host of the event. Hearing her share background information and particular details of many award recipients was fantastic. Her insight and glowing personality were the perfect match for this special occasion.

The BBF had record-breaking 209 top-producing award winners for the year 2022. As an association, our top producers sold just shy of one billion dollars in businesses, which is an outstanding accomplishment. What makes these numbers even more exceptional is our business intermediaries co-brokered almost thirty percent of the 1161 deals closed last year. Demonstrating yet again the value of co-brokering to our buyers and sellers, along with other intermediaries.

The list of winners is quite long, too long to share here in this article. However, the complete list of winners is showcased on the BBF member section of our website, and I encourage each of you to review this list to congratulate your fellow members on their extraordinary achievements. With that said, I want to highlight the best of the best across the whole state, as it takes a considerable amount of work to outperform all the highly skilled professional intermediaries in our association.

From the over three hundred plus co-brokered deals across the state, Rick Gruber in the Tampa District took the “Most Co- Brokered Deals” award. In addition, Tampa District gave us another top producer of closing fifty-four deals, awarding the “Most Done Deals” for the state going to George Antonaklas. Finally, the North Florida District had the intermediary who produced the “Highest Deal Value” for the whole state, John Geiwitz. We are honored to have such talent in our association, raising the bar for next year’s award winners.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the accomplishments of our service award recipients. As the Chairman, I must decide who I felt impacted my role in leading the BBF. While there were many people to choose from, however, there were two individuals that stayed at the top of my list, so I decided to honor them both. Therefore, I was pleased to bestow the “Chairmans Award” to Mr. Mark Habib and Mr. George Rosen. This is the first year that we’ve recognized one of our affiliates. Many of us in the association know this gentleman as one of the best closing attorneys in the state. For over 40 years, he has closed hundreds, more likely a thousand deals. What is little known is that Mr. Steven Kutner has been quite generous of his time to our association, providing legal advice where needed, and has been instrumental in drafting quite a few of the documents we use daily in our deals. For this, we honor Mr. Kutner with the “Exceptional Service Award” and wish to thank him for his service and dedication to the BBF over the past 23 years.

The highest and most prestigious award in the BBF was created in honor of one of our founding members Mr. Ken Stebbins. This award is passed from the 2021 recipient Mr.John Hoyt to recognize the member who has shown exceptional dedication and sacrifice to the BBF. This individual has been instrumental in many of the improvements we all enjoy over the past several years. In addition, whenever there is a request for help, he raises his hand repeatedly. It is an honor to see Mr. Paul McNally receive the “Ken Stebbins Award”.

In closing out this incredible event, we want to acknowledge an exceptional person who was not only an amazing business intermediary but was instrumental in inspiring his daughter to become one of our association’s best intermediaries, business owners, and incredible leaders. Unfortunately, with great sorrow, we lost Mr. Jean Kruger a few months back, so we felt it befitting to honor Mr. Kruger with the “Honorary Membership” award by presenting this to his loving daughter Mrs. Roberta Caputo.

We are the biggest and best business co-brokering association globally, with over two hundred award winners to prove it. I congratulate you all and look forward to your successes in the next year.

If you want to sell more businesses at a quicker pace, preparing a detailed business information package can help you achieve that 7-figure income. We often receive comments from other brokers on how quickly our businesses sell at Crowne Atlantic Business Brokers. I respond by stating “it’s all in the preparation of our package.” We take the packaging of our businesses very seriously. We believe every business is unique, and our job is to highlight those unique attributes and features, as well as how this business can work for a new owner. We borrow the eyes of a buyer and look at buying a business from their perspective. Of course, keep in mind that the best package in the world can’t fix horrible and/or inconsistent numbers. This article is assuming the business you’re selling is truly viable.

Let us compare the business package to a bouquet of flowers. Many brokers offer bits and pieces of separate data such as a profit and loss in one file, and a tax return in another file, and if you’re lucky, an equipment list. The data looks like separate flowers spread out on a table; Buyers then see a mishmash of data with no organization or thought. It makes it easy to see why stores sell flowers in a bouquet. The flowers look better when beautifully packaged together. The information package helps tell the story of a business, and offers brokers an opportunity to add context to the financial data.

Instead of challenging Buyers to picture the operation for themselves, tell them the story. Give them a gorgeous bouquet of flowers instead of pieces of flowers thrown on a table.

When you create a package, you need to share with the buyer truly helpful and descriptive information on the business. The bare minimum standard list of items to have in your business package include:

1. Executive Summary
2. Location
3. Financials
4. Confidentiality
5. Summary of Assets Included
6. Equipment List
7. Staff Chart
8. Photos/Video Links

This list is quite basic, and your package should contain these items. When the main items are in your business package, look at it once more and ask yourself, “are you looking at this business package from the buyer’s lens?” Do you truly elaborate on the features in each of these sections of the package?” Are you thinking ahead to what questions a buyer will ask about the financials, the operation of the business, the layout of the facility, and the current team in place? Are you mentioning why features are or are not ideal, and how it affects the income of the business?

Easy Guide of What to Say

Lastly, most buyers ask the same set of questions. Help manage those expectations, and have these questions answered in the package. For example, when my daughter was 5, I told her “most adults are going to ask you the same questions over and over.” Questions like: How old are you? Do you like school? Where do you go to school? What do you want to be when you grow up?

I told her to expect these questions, and have some answers prepared. Why do adults ask the same questions? Many don’t know how to start a conversation with a child, or how to relate to a child, so they start with the same basic questions. It is the same thing with a potential buyer of a business.

Here is a sample list of basic questions I receive from most potential business Buyers:

1. Why is the owner selling?
2. How did you arrive at the valuation?
3. Is there customer concentration?
4. Are there repeat customers?
5. What’s the competition?
6. And most importantly, what is the growth potential?

It amazes me that most brokers cannot answer these questions about their listing. If you know you don’t have updated financials and the buyers are going to want it, why are you even putting up the listing? Can you really sell a business quickly when you, or the business, isn’t properly prepared? Sellers hire brokers to do one job…sell their business.

Being proactive and getting these questions answered in the package helps the potential buyer immensely, and saves time to weed out buyers that are not interested.

Sellers hire brokers to do one job – to sell their business. It is imperative that a broker not only makes sure that the business is ready to be sold, but that the broker is prepared to interact with potential buyers. Can a broker really sell a business quickly when the broker, or the business is not properly prepared?

When you have a properly prepared package, the Buyer’s first impression of the business is a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Offering Buyers a properly packaged business is one way to attain the 7- figure income as a business broker.

As a business broker, one of your most critical responsibilities is guiding your clients through the transaction process. A crucial part of this process is conducting due diligence, which involves verifying the information provided by the seller to ensure that the buyer clearly understands the business’s operations and financials. Due diligence can be challenging, but with the following tips, you can navigate this stage successfully:

1. Know Who’s Who: As the point person during the transaction, you should orchestrate the communication with all parties involved. Get to know the buyer’s advisors – there’s always someone who has their ear – and build credibility early. Work with the seller to determine when the landlord should be contacted and involve the seller’s accountant as soon as possible – they often don’t move as quickly as you’d like them to.

2. Have Regular Meetings Along the Way: At the beginning of due diligence, hold a formal kick-off meeting to remind everyone of the milestones, re-set expectations, and discuss the best way to share information. Regular (weekly) meetings are crucial for maintaining communication and building trust between the buyer and seller. Hiding any issues with the business will damage everyone’s credibility, so it’s better to have the seller disclose them early.

3. Document Everything: It’s essential to document every communication with the buyer and keep copies of all documents provided by the seller. This documentation can be helpful if any disputes arise during the transaction. Electronic deal rooms are a great option to protect you in the long run – plenty of good options exist.

4. Have a Plan B: There’s always a chance that the transaction will fall through – every broker has lost a deal in due diligence – so it’s essential to have a backup plan in case this happens. The standard BBF APA does not limit you or the seller from discussing the business with other interested buyers. Keep fielding inquiries, setting meetings, and answering questions with backup buyers and their brokers. If your deal dies, you won’t want to start at the beginning again!

5. Keep Your Focus and Handle Your Emotions: Although you may feel as if you are almost done, the due diligence stage is where the sale can be made or lost, so it’s critical to remain focused. This is also when inexperienced buyers and sellers feel the most stress. As a broker, you should remain emotionally unattached and handle the transaction with the calmness that comes from being an expert in the field and having a history of successful transactions!

It is well-known that the Business Brokers of Florida (BBF) is the largest and best co-brokering association of business brokers and M&A professionals worldwide. Since its inception in 1999, our founders have had the drive and true vision to set us on the path to be the example of what other business brokerage associations strive to become. Many years of experience and effort have gone into perfecting the never-perfect process of working with buyers and sellers to get deals done. Furthermore, the BBF has the numbers to back up these successes.

One of the main reasons for the BBF reaching such a high level of achievement is our membership. Many of our members believe we have built a culture of dedication to our association and the industry. Underneath are the folks that work to manage each district and those who volunteer on the many committees and task forces to bring about the change and allow us to continue on the path to growth and a prosperous future for all. Spearheading these ideas are the dedicated people in the ever-so-important board of directors and leadership positions, who are in the driver’s seat of what is yet to come. Did you catch the part that this has been accomplished by an all-volunteer organization?

Additional apparent factors to the BBF’s success are how the business brokerage industry has undergone significant changes, including the rise of technology, the increasing importance of online/social media marketing, and the ability to conduct meetings through platforms such as Zoom. As individual brokers, we see the effects of these advancements in our firms. Just think about how wonderful it is to get our principals’ contract signatures without driving across town. BBF is doing its best to keep pace with these changes, embracing technology to expand its reach and improve its services. By staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies, BBF can continue to grow and succeed in the future.

Over the years, we have taken steps to bring our association to the next level by making improvements internally through our MLS system along with the systems and processes that help us function. In addition, we gave the BBF a new look externally so that we may showcase our membership to the public. However, I feel that our most significant impact in 2021 was recognizing how important educating our members and having the right tools are to raise everyone in the association to equal footing. Last year was pivotal in the growth of all our members, where we have included a membership to our sister organization, the IBBA. This partnership fills the educational and broker benefits void as only the IBBA can do.

The district and state boards have worked tirelessly to improve what Ken Stebbins, Roger Murphy, Steve Raptoulis, and Sandy Cosenza envisioned. Since I have been on the local and state boards and in leadership, I have personally worked with some of the brightest hard-working brokers/members who dedicate their time for the betterment of us all. However, this comes with a cost to each individual and their business, who sacrificed to get things done. Fortunately, the collective wisdom of our board of directors recognized the need to take the BBF to the next level and understood that, in order to get there sometime this decade, we would need professional support.

In 2023 we set the BBF on the road to the next level of greatness. The board’s unanimous decision to bring on a management team to help us succeed in many plans and projects we’ve mapped out will mark this time when we witnessed our association’s transformation. Over the next few months, and years, you will see/experience some incredible improvements and new ideas that will encourage, educate, and, quite frankly, directly impact how we do business as individuals and as an association.

A little over two years ago, I was fortunate to be given the keys to the BBF. When I first sat in the driver’s seat, it was intimidating and exciting at the same time; with great responsibility and humility, I adjusted to my role in moving us forward in the direction of our growth. As I sit behind the steering wheel, glancing back in mirrors of our history and where we came from, then turning my focus to looking out the windshield of the BBF’s future. The view from the driver’s seat is quite incredible, and I’m excited for us all for what is yet to come of the world’s best co-brokering business broker association.