Creating a Winning Partnership: A Guide to Strengthening Relationships with Business Sellers

Key idea: You improve your chances of becoming the preferred buyer of a business when you develop a relationship with the seller, listen to discover their vision of an ideal transition, and then broker a deal that fulfills it.

Given the number of baby boomers approaching retirement, chances are very good that if you search for “business for sale by owner retiring near me” or “small businesses for sale near me,” you’ll find a wide assortment of investment opportunities—from independent real estate agencies and financial firms to gas stations and convenience stores for sale.

Our guest this week on Stay Paid is John Turner, the vice president of Investment Advisory Lending at Live Oak Bank. Headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, Live Oak Bank serves small business owners across the country and is one of the leading Small Business Administration (SBA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) lender by dollar volume.

In his interview, John covers a range of topics, including:

• How interested buyers can find businesses for sale.
• How investors can dramatically improve their odds of being selected as the preferred buyer.
• How to vet a business before deciding whether to throw your hat in the ring.
• How best to evaluate the worth of a business.

Listeners of Stay Paid will recognize a familiar theme among John’s comments—building relationships plays a central role in all successful business transactions.

People want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. It’s no different when trying to buy a company. When you listen, you’ll find out the unique features of a relationship that are particularly relevant to the buying and selling of a business.

We hope you enjoy this episode and complete the action item Luke offers at the end. We’d also appreciate it if you took a moment to leave us a 5-star review and comment on Apple Podcasts. (We read them on air!) Thanks for listening!

Connect | Resources

John’s phone number: 651-212-0141

John’s email address: john.turner@liveoakbank.com

Website: liveoakbank.com

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