06-24-2025
Buying? How Do You Find A Business That Will Help You Reach Your Goals?
If you want to be a business owner, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can bypass the start-up process by buying an established business. This way you will have immediate access to customers and cash-flow.
How do you start? This guide will help you with first steps, what risks to consider, and how to get started.
Define Your Ownership Goals
Determining what you need and want from business ownership lays the groundwork for every other decision. Defined goals help you choose the appropriate business, determine what success means, and maintain your values in the process. Defined goals are fundamental, and will help both you and your business broker find the right business for you.
Financial Ambitions
Begin with hard numbers. How much will you need to make to support your current lifestyle? What revenue do you hope to achieve in your first year as owner? Within the next five years? Clear financial goals help you frame your strategy and provide you with a means to measure whether a particular business will be capable of meeting your needs.
Look at profit margins too. If you (for instance) purchase a café, will the current margins be enough to support the business as it currently exists and perhaps leave room for expansion, or is this business just breaking even? Knowing the margins will keep you from taking on a business that can’t support itself. If the margins aren’t in line with what you were hoping for, are there simple fixes (such as a marketing campaign) that you could implement on day one to get the business where you would like it to be?
You also need to think about the totality of your initial expenses. You need to consider not only the sale price, but legal and/or permitting fees, working capital and continuing costs such as rent and wages. If you undershoot these, you can get into trouble quickly.
Lifestyle Integration
Owning a business transforms your life. Some businesses require you to be present from sun up to sun down, others allow you to oversee from anywhere with an internet connection. Consider how much mobility you need to have.
If you cherish time with your family or travel, look for companies with remote or flexible work arrangements. For instance, an e-commerce shop allows you to operate from home, whereas a large manufacturing facility would likely require that you be physically present (but might make you more money).
The compromise between your business and your lifestyle will have a direct impact on everything from your stress levels to whether or not you can be home to coach your kid’s baseball team on weekends. Think about this balance and what you want your own life (and the life of your family) to look like.
Personal Passion
Purchasing a business aligned with your passions can help keep you inspired. A foodie would do well with a bakery, whereas a techie would do better with a software company. Your passion can ignite new ideas and sustain you in hard times.
Owning a business you are passionate about helps you develop a place that attracts similar souls. When you care deeply about your business, you motivate your employees, and that enthusiasm resonates with your customers and your community.
Choose a business that aligns with your principles too. If you care about sustainability, find companies that have a similar focus. It makes your ownership more meaningful.
Measurable Objectives
Set clear, achievable goals for yourself and your business. Ensure these goals align with your individual and career ambitions and then find businesses that will meet these objectives.
Share these goals with your business broker so everyone is aligned. Keep revisiting your goals as you consider businesses during your search.
How to Find a Business
To find the business that’s right for you, you have to know where to look and how to evaluate what you find. Savvy buyers do their homework and enlist assistance from experienced and qualified business brokers.
Below is a quick summary of common ways to find business opportunities:
Experienced Business Brokers
Direct outreach to owners via your Business Broker
Using the industry connections developed by your Business Broker
Online Search Sites
Plenty of buyers begin with a business listing search online (like this one). These search sites have live listings of businesses for sale in various industries and regions. You can simply filter by sector or region, price or even revenue.
Remember to scratch beneath the surface—investigate the cursory information within the listing to see if it aligns with what you’re looking for. You’ll likely need to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) to examine things like the monthly profit and loss statements and tax returns, but you should be reading everything that is available to you in the listing to narrow down the businesses that you find appealing.
Business Brokers
A good broker can make your search much easier, particularly if you want something very specific. Look for an experienced and qualified broker. Ask potential brokers about their previous experience and where they typically get new clients. Bonus points if they get most of their business from referrals from past clients and colleagues.
Your broker will be able to help you narrow down your search and provide you with insight on the listings that fit your parameters. A broker with good industry ties may even be able to show you off-market opportunities. Have a conversation with your broker about your ownership objectives and how much capital you want to invest. This allows them to recommend businesses that will best suit you.
Direct Outreach
If you have researched and found businesses that meet your objectives, but it does not appear that they are currently for sale - tell your business broker. They can see if the business is actually currently confidentially listed or they can contact owners directly who may be interested in selling, but have not listed yet.
Industry Networking
A broker worth their salt will be a member of industry groups, know many local business owners, and have developed professional networks that give them access to a plethora of knowledge about certain areas and certain industries. They can make contact on your behalf to find the right business opportunity that will meet your goals for business ownership.
Filtering Through Your Choices
Once you have a few listings to consider, you aren’t going to request a NDA on all of them. Most businesses you find during a cursory search aren’t going to meet all of your goals and needs. Do this instead.
Give Feedback
When you find businesses, either via a business search site or from listings sent to you from your broker - look through them. Decide what you do (and don’t) like about each one and send that feedback to your broker. Your broker will use your feedback to further narrow the focus of your search.
Pick A Few
After a few rounds of searching, reading, and feedback you will likely have a few businesses that look like they would really work for you. The next step is to take this very curated list of businesses and request the NDA to sign. This document will give you access to the full marketing package of each business as well as information such as P&L statements and tax returns. You can use that more detailed and thorough information to make decisions about whether or not to move forward with a particular listing.
Conclusion
If you think you are ready to buy a business, start by clearly defining your goals for business ownership. What do you want your life to look like? How much money do you want or need to make? Then, have a conversation with an experienced and qualified business broker. Tell them what you need to get out of business ownership. Do some cursory business searches online and peruse the listings your broker sends you. Give lots of feedback and then you will be ready to take a deeper dive into the businesses that interest you.
Are you looking for a business to buy and want to know more about how a business broker can help you? Would you like to use our business search tool to see what businesses are currently for sale? Ask us! Please feel free to leave any questions or comments and we would be happy to help.
Michael Monnot
941.518.7138
Mike@InfinityBusinessBrokers.com