215: Build a business people want to buy with David Barnett

The Lion's Den For Business Men

20170601 – EP 215 – David Barnett sell your business

Build a business people want to buy with David Barnett

What if you’re killing yourself to build a business that isn’t worth anything to anybody else?

David Barnett is the author of three best-selling business books and also a consultant who helps people to better build, manage and sell small- and medium-sized businesses.

His experience as a business broker and as a businessman himself has helped him sculpt a program that can aid entrepreneurs who are either buying or selling a business.

As a successful business broker, David helped sell 36 businesses in 36 months on the job, but realized the feast-or-famine model of business brokerage was too hard on him. In fact, during those three years, he says he got all his gray hair.

The final straw came when, after nine months without a sale, he had six contracts lined up to go through at the end of the year worth a combined $250,000 to him.

Of those, three fell through due to circumstances outside of his control. He ended up with only $110,000 in the bank and nothing to show for tons of work he’d put in on the other businesses.

At that time, he got a job.

But people still kept calling him on referral for his old business, and he soon decided to start back in on a different model—one that would provide stability for him and give better results to his clients.

If you’re trying to build a business that will be good enough to sell when you want to move on or retire, you need to hear David’s story.

If you’ve built a business that relies too much on information in your head, give this episode a listen.

And if you want more success today and in the future with the business you already own, click play in the player above to learn the secrets of success David shares with his small-business and medium-sized business clients.

Listen to this episode to hear me talk with David Barnett about buying and selling businesses and more:

• Building a business with time- and location-freedom in mind.
• The series of businesses David built before he started selling other people’s businesses.
• What you can do to make your business more valuable now and more saleable later.
• How David made less selling one business than some people do selling fries. (And what he did about it.)
• The worst thing that can happen to an entrepreneur that happened to David.
• Why taking a regular paycheck makes David feel guilty.
• Why to give people the silent treatment after you’ve made an offer.
• The single shift in David’s business that made all the difference.
• How good businesses subsidize bad ones in business brokerage.
• The man who lost $20,000 in a bad business transaction and ignited David’s passion for buying and selling businesses.
• Secret tactics of business negotiations.
• The best time to begin exiting your business.

Books and resources mentioned in this episode:

Some of the following links are affiliate links. If you click through and purchase Lions Pride Academy may get a small commission.

• “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It,” by Michael Gerber
• “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It,” by Chris Voss

How to contact David Barnett:

• Website

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