Simple answer - Because we are worth it! All our fees are negotiable, but we have a range that is acceptable to us. It is considerably higher than real estate commissions in most cases.

Selling businesses is complex. It requires attention to a lot of details. Selling businesses takes a long time and that leads to a lot of advertising and overhead. (Times range from 6 months to several years, with many measured in years.)

Sellers want things done confidentially, so we have to sell the businesses without identifying them or giving customers enough information initially to be able to really identify the opportunity. Often a buyer may be located almost next door, but confidentiality keeps them from learning of the opportunity.

Qualifying customers, handling showings, getting offers from the customers, and dealing with lawyers, accountants and bankers is often a real challenge. We often have to resell an opportunity several times in the course of getting from offer to closing, as buyers get cold feet, or discover things sellers hadn’t disclosed, or after the buyers get turned down for financing and have to be convinced to try again.

And after all our work a significant percentage of businesses never sell, often because sellers don’t tell us everything that is going on in the business, or because of market forces being against us.

In the final analysis, if you are a seller we earn our commission, by acting as the intermediary and handling the negotiation of offers, but also because of all the time and effort we save you from having to do advertising, screening and qualifying customers, negotiations, financing arrangements, sales details with the buyers, and dealing with the buyers lawyers concerns.

Frankly, for small deals even our minimum commission is not enough, but we do them to keep the cash flowing, and we don’t negotiate our minimum commission.