Episode 217: Finding the Sellability of a Business with Jennifer Smith Broeckling

Jennifer Smith Broeckling is a finance expert and relational extrovert, making her an ideal advisor for owners and acquirers of middle market enterprises. She values collaboration over command, believing that success in business can be achieved while being kind to others. Jennifer has experience in banking mergers and acquisitions which led her to start a consulting firm with Murphy Business Sales as its franchise partner. 

Jennifer is a seasoned business broker who has been putting together deals for over a decade. Jennifer’s services include:

• Evaluating the sellability of businesses
• Helping them increase their sellability without harming their business
• Locating the right acquisition target for companies looking to make acquisitions
• Assisting individuals who want to buy businesses so they can become independent owners

FROM BANKING TO CONSULTING

In 2007, Jennifer left banking and started a consulting firm with a recession hitting soon after this. Soon her clients asked her to help them to make acquisitions which led her to look for partners to help in this aspect of serving her clients. 

After looking at many companies to partner with, she found Murphy Business, finding it was a good fit for her ideas and goals. She owns the Southeast Missouri franchise for Murphy Business – the largest business brokerage firm in North America. Being a franchise of Murphy Business gave her the ability to not just serve her local area in Missouri, but to serve clients anywhere.

Now, more than 80% of their business comes from outside of the Southeast Missouri region, meaning only about 20% of their deals are done locally. 

BUSINESS BROKERAGE 

A business brokerage is a firm who assists in buying and selling small, main street businesses. These firms may specialize in businesses belonging to specific industries, or possess distinct, unique qualities to assist in achieving their acquisitions and helping them achieve theirobjectives.

For Jennifer, the proverbial sweet spot is upper Main Street and lower middle. This generally spans from the $1 – 5 million space. 

Murphy Business Sales prefers to stick close to the decision-makers. This is because when a decision-maker calls, they’re usually nervous – this isn’t just a deal for them, it’s a lifestyle and legacy – and concerned about their customers, and their employees. Their decisions can make or break a whole enterprise. Murphy Business Sales wants to be close to the decision-makers because their concern really isn’t just about the payout, but making sure the deals are solid and safe and acheive all the seller’s important objectives. 

PRESERVING THE LEGACY

A large portion of what is done in business brokerage is persevering legacies, especially for families and family businesses. In order to preserve or expand a legacy, you have to have sellability. Buyers are not concerned with the hours you’ve spent building the business, or how many years it has been standing – what they care about is if it has value to them.

This is one of the many challenges that Jennifer faces with her clients. She sees the time and effort they have put into the business, for some it spans generations, but that doesn’t translate to sellability; it’s not what is attractive to buyers.

In their business, they urge owners to contact them a few years prior to taking action on selling. It’s not a chargeable service, they just want the head’s up so they can start planting seeds for buyers. Not only that, but they offer light coaching over the phone at that stage to help the owners get prepared, take the right beginning steps, and start laying the early groundwork for selling.

PREPPING THE SALE

When it comes time to sell a business, one of the biggest challenges brokerages face is owner involvement and getting a good employee infrastructure. Whether it's on the sales side or the production side, or even management, a buyer's going to have a really hard time seeing an identical skillset and feeling comfortable stepping in and thinking that the business won't be harmed.

Letting buyers know what you do, and when you do it is critical. The main things that need to be done include:

• Getting a good quality infrastructure of employees
• A good organization chart
• Getting those policies and procedures documented
• Making sure there’s no dead weight
• Ensuring there’s not a lot of obsolete inventory or equipment that is out of service

All of these things really boil down to marketing, effectively making sure your business has good curb appeal for buyers. Murphy Business Sales offers a free sellability assessment tool on their website: https://murphybusiness.com/capegirardeau/resources/assessment/ 

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF A BROKERAGE FIRM

Business brokerage firms like Murphy Business Sales provide an important service for small businesses who are looking to preserve or expand their legacy. By understanding the process and working with a firm that specializes in your industry, you can be sure to get the best deal possible. This podcast episode provides more information on Murphy Business Sales, and how they can help you sell your business. Even if you’re not currently looking to sell a business, there are many tools and discussions within this episode that can be applicable across many industries.

FOR MORE ON JENNIFER SMITH:
http://www.murphybusinessofcape.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/businessbroker573/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/16216670/

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator, and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author, and professional speaker. He is deeply passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal-Ready Assessment today!