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Heart-repreneur® Radio


Feb 21, 2017

Episode 17 Interview With David Barnett Hello Heartreperenuers. It’s Terry Levine and thanks for tuning in to Heartrepreneur® radio. I know many of you are very curious about selling your businesses. I’ve never been able to get a great expert to share their knowledge. That changes today. Today I have David Barnett. He has been evaluating businesses since 2008. He is a certified machinery equipment appraiser since 2009. He was the first person in his market to earn the certified business intermediary designation from the international business brokers association in 2009. He has worked with clients on transactions and that led him to the field for preparing businesses for sale and helping owners maximize value. I am excited about that. In 2014 he formalized a process to help businesses systematize their operations and formalize their organizations in bite sized steps that required minimal disruption of operation. This is getting to be really exciting. I want to tell you about his first book. It came out in 2014 and was an Amazon best seller. Today I invited him to talk about 2016, how to sell my own business. All of his books have achieved top selling spots in Amazon. I know David is busy. He does all kinds of things. Workshops, business acquisition, a YouTube channel, and a blog. David, thanks for taking time out of your day to join us here today on Heartrepreneur® radio. David: Thanks for inviting me. Terri: How did you and why did you resonate with the concept of selling businesses. How did that show up for you? David: It started because I was brokering debt solutions for small business owners. People were coming to me looking for ways to get money to start or expand their business. Increasingly, they were looking for money to buy businesses. What I noticed was there was a real lack of expertise in my market to help people do this properly. I saw a lot of poorly structured deals. I saw that many had no idea of what they doing. So I jumped into that field. I was in the industry from 2008-2011. I ended up leaving that business model behind me and now today what I do is work with people around the world to help them sell their own business. Instead of being a broker. Terri: The reason I am stoked about this is very often I talk to business owners of all kinds of businesses and they don’t have an end game. A lot of them are getting older, don’t have an end game. So let’s talk about both. What would you advise to someone who is starting out and what would you advise to someone who is getting towards the place where they should think about selling their business. David: I tell people in my workshops and seminars, that you should have a plan for getting out of your business as well getting into it. Terri: I am glad you said that. David: A business is an asset. It is something that you own that is supposed to generate cash flow. When I owned my business brokerage and people were coming in to sell their business, they had one of the five top reasons to sell. Those were burnout, divorce, poor health, relocation and retirement. Four out of the five have nothing to do with how old you are. Four out of the five are not things that we plan for. I always advise people that if they are consistently considering the sale of the business and keeping their business in a saleable condition, not only will it be easier to sell when the time comes, but here is the great part, if your business is ready to sell and you have systems in place and everything is ready and you can hand over the reins to someone else, you will end up with an easier, manageable business in the present paying you more to own it today, regardless if it sells or not. Terri: That is fantastic. That is important for people. I go with Steven Covey.