Thinking of selling your business? Business expert Gene Marks explains why now might be the right time.
Video Transcript
Sales of small business by a very well-known site that monitors this, are up more than 50 percent this year than they were a year ago. More small business owners are selling their businesses and there, there's a few reasons why people are selling their businesses and let me, let me explain. I mean, number one is, our overall population is getting older, so the next 10 to 15 years, 20 percent of our population will be over the age of 65. You always hear these numbers like 10,000 people are retiring every day and, you know, this and that. Our population is getting older. Which means that sometime in the next 10 to 15 years a lot of Baby Boomers that own businesses now, as they get older are gonna wanna sell their business and, you know, retire and play golf in Palm Springs. That's what they wanna do. So a lot of people now are looking at that trend and, again, smart business owners are always looking ahead and they're saying, you know, there's gonna be a lot of Baby Boomers selling their businesses sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, which means there's gonna be a lot of businesses for sale then, which means more supply, less cost. So if I was smart, now is the time to sell my business before all of that supply of small businesses come in the market as a lot of these Baby Boomers retire. And we're seeing that. A lot of business people are getting out now before that supply happens. Number 2 -- interest rates -- and number 3 -- inflation -- are at their all-time low. I mean, they are, you know, inflation is running extremely low, interest rates, like, historically, 2 to 3%. So, if you're looking to sell your business and your buyer, you know, needs to finance, now is a wonderful time for them to actually to that and get cheap financing to do that. And number 2, from and inflation standpoint, there's a lot less alternatives to invest your money when inflation is so low. You could put it in the stock market, but a lot of people are saying, you know, I'm only earning like 1% of this on my bank account. I might as well take my money and maybe buy a business with it, or do something where I can get more of a return on it. Those are trends that are driving a lot of sales of businesses right now. So, when people say when is it time to sell my business, when is it time to transition out, the smart business owners that I meet, they try to view their businesses with as little emotion and passion as possible and they look when can I get top dollar for it? When can I unload it? Because that's what big names are, that we all know, that's what they do. Ah, and now might be the time to just do that. So, it's not an emotional decision, it's not anything like that. It's a, it's a return on investment decision. So, if you think you can get the bucks for it now or anytime in the near future, do it.
