Partnering With Our Sellers.
Achieving a successful sale of a middle market company begins and ends with our relationship with our seller. We invest a tremendous amount of time and money cultivating that trust, and it makes for a much more straight forward transaction. When our seller’s are open with us as the trusted advisors, we can simply provide better service.
One item that separates our firm from other M&A firms in the country is the way we approach an engagement from a financial perspective. One of the main reasons we say we “partner” with our sellers, is we put our money where our mouths are. We DO NOT CHARGE retainer fees, engagement fees, packaging fees, or ongoing charges. In the event we are engaged, we do charge a fee for our Confidential Business Review document, but the cost of that document is usually a quarter to one third the cost of our competitors’ memorandums. Why is that? Because we simply aim to cover our cost in creating that CBR, not turn a profit. We profit when we sell your company and earn our success fee.
So many of our sellers are gun shy when they first approach us. A sizeable percentage of our sellers have actually had their businesses listed before, and many with horrific results. We’ve seen so many sellers who’ve attended seminars held by companies whose primary goal it is to get as many listings as possible and charge these business owners $35,000 on average for that privilege. Our approach is just different. Yes, we’ve held seminars, but we turn down as many sellers, if not more, than we engage. We charge a fraction of those exorbinant fees, and we are able to do that because we know we’ve engaged companies we know we can sell. And as a seller, you’ll know what we are going to charge for your CBR before we are engaged. There will be no estimates, no “adjustments to the product scope”. We quote you a price (again a fraction of what most charge) and we honor that price, in writing.
There’s no magic bullet in our process. To the contrary, our methodical process is a series of time tested techniques and tools that allow us to manage the process from pre-engagement through closing. There are literally hundreds of minor steps within the process that must all be addressed and accomplished, but one of our biggest goals as intermediaries is to maximize your net proceeds from the sale of your company and to accomplish this while minimizing the sellers’ involvement.
Again, minimizing a seller’s involvement in the sale is critical to us, similar in importance to confidentiality and maximizing the net proceeds from a sale. We understand your main focus is and needs to be running your company. We have a method of information collection we employ upfront, which requires some effort at the front end but prevents the intermediary from continually having to inconvenience the seller with informational requests throughout the engagement. This is not to say the seller won’t be involved with the sale process, because they very much will be, but we strive to greatly minimize that involvement. We are always successful in doing so.
We partner with our sellers by also making sure that business owners’ wives or husbands are involved. If of appropriate age, sometimes the children are involved. Oftentimes, with these businesses, the owners have built the company from the ground up and involved family members along the way. This inevitably becomes more than just business. It’s an emotional process, and part of our job is to hold your hand to the finish line.
We understand partnership. We ourselves, the two owners of The George Ryan Group, are partners, and so we realize there is a constant give and take and respect that must be built. Our process and ability to communicate helps build that respect and leads to trust. Communication is one of the integral facets of our partnership with our sellers, because of our availability and responsiveness with our sellers. Business owners know they can count on us to answer the phone, or promptly call them back. We welcome that type of immediacy, because it helps us in selling your company. Sellers also know they can call either partner and typically, if one partner is not available, the other partner is. This effectively doubles our availability, which is a huge asset in these lower middle market transactions.
We identify with our sellers, because we too have been, and are, business owners. We have sold our companies and started others, so we can identify with our sellers and they can identify with us. This is part of the trust and partnership that we believe sellers appreciate the most. If you’d like to look into partnering with The George Ryan Group and have a straight forward, hassle free conversation, please call Les Wozniak, Partner at 214-682-8562 or email les@thegeorgeryangroup.com.
One item that separates our firm from other M&A firms in the country is the way we approach an engagement from a financial perspective. One of the main reasons we say we “partner” with our sellers, is we put our money where our mouths are. We DO NOT CHARGE retainer fees, engagement fees, packaging fees, or ongoing charges. In the event we are engaged, we do charge a fee for our Confidential Business Review document, but the cost of that document is usually a quarter to one third the cost of our competitors’ memorandums. Why is that? Because we simply aim to cover our cost in creating that CBR, not turn a profit. We profit when we sell your company and earn our success fee.
So many of our sellers are gun shy when they first approach us. A sizeable percentage of our sellers have actually had their businesses listed before, and many with horrific results. We’ve seen so many sellers who’ve attended seminars held by companies whose primary goal it is to get as many listings as possible and charge these business owners $35,000 on average for that privilege. Our approach is just different. Yes, we’ve held seminars, but we turn down as many sellers, if not more, than we engage. We charge a fraction of those exorbinant fees, and we are able to do that because we know we’ve engaged companies we know we can sell. And as a seller, you’ll know what we are going to charge for your CBR before we are engaged. There will be no estimates, no “adjustments to the product scope”. We quote you a price (again a fraction of what most charge) and we honor that price, in writing.
There’s no magic bullet in our process. To the contrary, our methodical process is a series of time tested techniques and tools that allow us to manage the process from pre-engagement through closing. There are literally hundreds of minor steps within the process that must all be addressed and accomplished, but one of our biggest goals as intermediaries is to maximize your net proceeds from the sale of your company and to accomplish this while minimizing the sellers’ involvement.
Again, minimizing a seller’s involvement in the sale is critical to us, similar in importance to confidentiality and maximizing the net proceeds from a sale. We understand your main focus is and needs to be running your company. We have a method of information collection we employ upfront, which requires some effort at the front end but prevents the intermediary from continually having to inconvenience the seller with informational requests throughout the engagement. This is not to say the seller won’t be involved with the sale process, because they very much will be, but we strive to greatly minimize that involvement. We are always successful in doing so.
We partner with our sellers by also making sure that business owners’ wives or husbands are involved. If of appropriate age, sometimes the children are involved. Oftentimes, with these businesses, the owners have built the company from the ground up and involved family members along the way. This inevitably becomes more than just business. It’s an emotional process, and part of our job is to hold your hand to the finish line.
We understand partnership. We ourselves, the two owners of The George Ryan Group, are partners, and so we realize there is a constant give and take and respect that must be built. Our process and ability to communicate helps build that respect and leads to trust. Communication is one of the integral facets of our partnership with our sellers, because of our availability and responsiveness with our sellers. Business owners know they can count on us to answer the phone, or promptly call them back. We welcome that type of immediacy, because it helps us in selling your company. Sellers also know they can call either partner and typically, if one partner is not available, the other partner is. This effectively doubles our availability, which is a huge asset in these lower middle market transactions.
We identify with our sellers, because we too have been, and are, business owners. We have sold our companies and started others, so we can identify with our sellers and they can identify with us. This is part of the trust and partnership that we believe sellers appreciate the most. If you’d like to look into partnering with The George Ryan Group and have a straight forward, hassle free conversation, please call Les Wozniak, Partner at 214-682-8562 or email les@thegeorgeryangroup.com.