Skip to Main Content
Small Business For Dummies, 6th Edition
book

Small Business For Dummies, 6th Edition

by Eric Tyson, Jim Schell
April 2024
Beginner content levelBeginner
464 pages
12h 59m
English
For Dummies
Content preview from Small Business For Dummies, 6th Edition

Chapter 8

Evaluating a Business to Buy

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Conducting a comprehensive pre-offer evaluation of the company, its owners, and its employees

Bullet Investigating the company’s financial statements and lease contract terms

Bullet Considering the unique issues in franchises

In the American legal system, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. When you’re purchasing a business, however, you should assume that the selling business owner (and their broker if they have one) is guilty of making the business appear better than it really is until you prove otherwise.

We don’t want to sound cynical, but more than a few owners and their business brokers have tried to make their businesses look more profitable, more financially healthy, and more desirable than they really are. The reason is quite simple: Business sellers generally seek to maximize the selling price their businesses can command.

Buying a business can be tricky because the business brokerage market rarely favors the buyer. The following list presents some of the obstacles you’re likely to encounter when buying a business:

  • The necessary confidentiality of transactions: You can’t publicly investigate ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Starting a Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Starting a Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Eric Tyson, Bob Nelson, The Experts at Dummies
Accounting For Dummies, 7th Edition

Accounting For Dummies, 7th Edition

John A. Tracy, Tage C. Tracy

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781394242764Purchase Link