Freedom Factory's Podcast Robert Hirsch

Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory discusses "Is There a Simple Business Valuation Calculator".

Listen to the podcast, watch the video https://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/is-there-a-simple-business-valuation-calculator or read the transcript below.

Hey, it's Robert from Freedom Factory. I want to talk to you about a little pain point that we have in our business, and it's a business valuation calculator. People look at real estate and tools like Zillow, or they look at Kelly blue book on cars and they say, why don't you have a business valuation calculator?

You've been doing this for so long, and the reality is we'd love to. Problem is it's hard. And so there are a couple of really good baselines, like revenue and earnings and we can talk about guidelines and what that looks like but what makes us so hard to do is you can take two businesses, same revenue, same earnings, worth vastly different multiples. Literally two, three X each other, not even close. And that's because of the intangibles.

There's so many things to a business -  intellectual property, defensibility software that really make it a more complex discussion than just, Hey, what are your earnings and you're worth five times that hypothetically. Now we're working with it. It's probably a little early to talk about it, but we're working with an amazing company to solve this problem and we're going to have a solution soon. But in the interim, if you have any questions about how do you maximize the value of your business or what your business is worth, why don't you give us a call at Freedom Factory. We look forward to speaking with you soon.

Thank you so much. Please hit like and subscribe.

Contact Freedom Factory
Freedom Factory
5500 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Ste 230
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Phone: 844-MAX-VALUE (844-629-8258)
https://www.freedomfactory.com/
https://g.page/freedom-factory-denver

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Learn more about the managing partners, Tyler Tysdal, and Robert Hirsch.

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Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory discusses "How Can I Live My Best Life by Selling My Business".

Listen to the podcast, watch the video https://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/how-can-i-live-my-best-life-by-selling-my-business or read the transcript below.

Whenever I go to a cocktail party or a dinner party and I meet a fellow entrepreneur, I usually get the same question, which is how much to sell your business for. There's lots of videos and lots of tools and many things that I've done in the past that will talk to you about valuation or multiple or earnings or all the math that goes into selling your business but what I want to talk to you about today is a bit more of the art.  What I mean by that is really as an entrepreneur, what does it take for you to live your best life? So I remember early on in Facebook's days, Mark Zuckerberg had a chance to sell Facebook to a private equity firm. I believe it was John Dora Kleiner Perkins for $50 million.

And John Doerr told Mark Zuckerberg that with 50 million, you can do anything you want. Mark Zuckerberg had a very thoughtful response, and it was only in his twenties he said, I would do that, John, but I don't have a better idea than this. And I remember when I first heard that story, I thought about how mature he was because he knew that he was on a big idea.

And so when you think about selling your business, what I want you to think about is what is a bridge to the other side? Do you have a large family or a small family? What does it take to create work for you where you're not necessarily worried about finances from here on out? Do you have seven kids going to private school or do you have no kids and live a pretty simple life?

So, how I frame that is you want to make sure you're building a bridge to the other side, not just appear into the middle of the Lake. Because if you sell your business and immediately you have to start a business to meet your financial needs. What did you really accomplish? It makes more sense to put your wood behind the arrow that's really penetrating, or what I mean by that is to really put the effort into the business.

It's already got traction to make sure you build a bridge to the other side. Now, when we talk about it, we can look at comparable sales and we can look at multiples and we can look at earnings. We can come up with a good idea for it. But the one other factor that I would think about on it is, how long do you want to close?

Are you looking to sell close sometime in the next two years? Where you're looking to close before the end of this calendar year. Because if you are, your price and your strategy is going to be a little bit different, right? If you've got a two-year timeline, you can come out very high and start lowering it down to find the market spot.

On the other hand, if you want to close before the end of the year, maybe we start out more aggressively, get more buyers interested and create a bidding war. So there's lots of different strategies. When people say, how much to sell my business for. I'm Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory, all we do is help entrepreneurs buy and sell their businesses.

Now, if you have questions either on the art side or the science side of how to sell your business, why don't you give us a call for a free appraisal? We look forward to talking to you soon, and thanks for spending your time with us.

Thank you so much. Please hit like and subscribe and we'll see you soon.

Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory discusses "When Should I Tell Employees if I am Thinking About Selling".

Listen to the podcast, watch the video https://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/when-should-i-tell-employees-if-i-am-thinking-about-selling or read the transcript below.

Hi, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory again. I just had a really interesting email from one of my clients, and long story short, rumors got out among their employees that they were selling the company and he chose not to share that with his team and now it's created some problems for him.

And so I wanted to talk to you today about whether you should tell your employees that you're thinking of selling your company or not. To me, when I sell one of my companies or my advice on it, it's always honesty and transparency is the best policy. That's easy to say and hard to do and you understand the culture at your company and whether you want to have an all hands meeting, whether you want to have an email, whether you want to discuss it. I love talking to our employees about it in a place that's face to face where it gives them the opportunity to talk to me and it gives me the opportunity to comfort them. Depending on the structure of your company, I usually have bonuses or incentives when the company sells, and as an entrepreneur, there's this really important lesson that I learned along the way.

It's, there's no fun winning when there's nobody to high five, and if you're the only one that wins in the sale of your company and all your employees and the teammates and the people that have given the years of their life are worried or concerned about what they're going to do next often you can create a structure that makes it, that everybody wins and everybody celebrates together and, and perhaps, some of your core team is going to want to come with you. Perhaps they transition with the company. Most of the time when a company is acquired, they're going to want to keep the team in place for the continuity.

So ultimately, how you choose to address this question is up to you and it's up to your corporate culture. But often I'll tell a few key members early and the people that are going to help me in the transition, but rumors are unavoidable, and if you don't talk to your team about it, and then the rumors are going to start coming and then it's going to come back to bite you like it just bit my client in the behind and I like to get out in front of it early. I think honest and transparency and creating a game worth winning for everybody is a whole heck of a lot of fun. In that way when you win, you in with everybody. If you have any questions about how to disclose it or what that looks like, just give us a call at Freedom Factory.

Please hit like and subscribe and thank you so much.

Contact Freedom Factory
Freedom Factory
5500 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Ste 230
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Phone: 844-MAX-VALUE (844-629-8258)
https://www.freedomfactory.com/
https://g.page/freedom-factory-denver

Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory, discusses "Big Mistakes Sellers Make Before Selling Your Business."

Listen to the podcast, watch the video https://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/big-mistakes-sellers-make-before-selling-your-business or read the transcript below.

Hey guys! Robert from Freedom Factory here, and I want to talk about something that comes up a lot when we start working with new sellers, and usually it sounds something like this, should I start a new revenue stream? Should I add a new channel? Should I build an affiliate program before I sell? And while this sounds like a good idea on the surface, in reality, not so much. And the reason for that is twofold. One, when you start a new revenue stream, it's going to burn as inefficiently as possible. And what I mean by that is your customer acquisition cost is going to be the highest and you're not going to add significantly to your bottom line.

Now, most of the time when you sell your business, it's a multiple of earnings. So you want to optimize for earnings. And so let's say for example you could build a new revenue stream, but you're not actually adding a lot of profits. Conversely, you could spend that same time taking your existing revenue stream and for example, let's say you can find an extra $200,000 in profitability through cost cutting on that.

Now that $200,000 in earnings, not only did you make that the first time, but if you sell for five times earnings, that's going to be another million dollars in revenue, or another million dollars in valuation to your business. And ultimately it's these little tips and tricks that make the difference whether you stick the landing or not, you're a business you've worked for years on, and it's the most important asset that you have.

And frankly, sticking the landing is just as important as building and creating a great company. If you have questions about this or anything else, why don't you give us a call it Freedom Factory. We look forward to speaking with you soon.

Thank you so much for watching. Please like and subscribe and we'll see you soon.

Contact Freedom Factory
Freedom Factory
5500 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Ste 230
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Phone: 844-MAX-VALUE (844-629-8258)
https://www.freedomfactory.com/
https://g.page/freedom-factory-denver

Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory discusses "The Art and Science of Selling Your Business".

Listen to the podcast, watch the video https://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/the-art-and-science-of-selling-your-business or read the transcript below.

Probably the most frequently asked question that I get is how do you determine the selling price of your business? And the reality is its part art and part science. I'll go over some of the science, then I'll go over a little bit of the art, and again, experience goes a long way.

Coming back to the science part of it, some of the really simple pieces are what's your profits? Incomes is often revealed in EBITDA or your earnings before earnings tax devaluation and amortization. We convert that into seller's discretionary cash flow for all of our customers. And again, when you're paying your taxes, EBITDA is a game of reduction. The discretionary capital is a video game of maximization or accurately reflecting all the cash flow that your company produces.

You're also going to have things like industry multiples, and sometimes there's little nuance things like if your e-commerce organisation versus a satisfied by Amazon company, you're going to get an actually various numerous. So we wish to ensure to position it properly. A few of the other things, market codes, we had a client and the name of their service was excavation.

Ends up that excavation companies are valued at two to two and a half plus assets. When I say 2 to two and a half, that's a multiple of incomes. Will construction companies of that size have to do with 4 and a half to five. And it ended up that although they began as an excavation company, over 80% of their incomes came as a construction company.

So we rearranged it and that assisted the market code. But whatever we finish with all these numbers, we ensure to take a look at market equivalent and what's the marketplace appearing like? What are the best sales that we can hang our hat on? How does a bank value it? Is it going to be an SBA type organisation? And now suddenly we're starting to get into the art.

My name's Robert Hirsch, and I'm the founder here at Freedom Factory. All we do is help business owners offer companies. That's 100% of our life. When I awaken in the morning, I'm taking a look at market comps, I'm looking at sales, I'm looking at, all right, how do we take full advantage of the sales price of our company and truly work as a partner?

So. Whether you're a physical company that's been around for 20 years or a digital company that's been around for two, we're going to look at all the science and combine it with the art to help you maximize your sales price. Give us a, call it Freedom Factory today. I look forward to speaking with you soon. Please like and subscribe and we'll see you soon.

Contact Freedom Factory
Freedom Factory
5500 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Ste 230
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Phone: 844-MAX-VALUE (844-629-8258)
https://www.freedomfactory.com/
https://g.page/freedom-factory-denver

Today's episode of the podcast, Robert Hirsch from Freedom Factory discusses "How to Buy a Business When You Don't Have the Cash".

listen to the podcast, watch the video http://freedomfactory.libsyn.com/how-to-buy-a-business-when-you-dont-have-the-cash or read the transcript below.

Hi, Robert from Freedom Factory here. And I want to talk to you about a question that we get from buyers of a lot, which is, well, what if I don't have $1 million check to write? And the reality is most of us don't have $1 million check to write, but how do you buy a business if you don't have $1 million check? And that's what we're going to jump into today.

So it's my personal belief that small businesses are the most undervalued asset class on the entire planet. If you're buying a stock and you're buying it at a 30 times multiple or 30 times price to earnings ratio, which is the value of the company.

When you're looking at a small business, you're looking at three to five times multiple, which obviously is significantly different than the stock market. If you have a special set of skills, which is how do you run a small business, there couldn't be a more undervalued asset class, and I think the opportunities are limitless.

And I think one of the big reasons that many people don't consider buying it is they say, well, I don't have $1 million check to write. And that's true for most of us. And so let me talk to you about some options. There there are many more, but I'm just going to go into some early ones. Most businesses sell with some sort of seller financing, especially if the seller believes in their business.

So sometimes you'll have a 30% note, 50% note, sometimes an 80% note to the seller. And what that means is the seller is carrying a note of the financing or carrying part of the financing on the business, and it's secured by the business. So if you didn't make the payments on that note, the seller would come back and take their asset, and that's okay with them.

And usually, we can get a go or no-go in 24 to 48 hours. And if a business is a good SBA business or small business administration, which essentially is a government-subsidized loan, then it can give you up to 80% of the value. So you can buy $1 million company with a check of only a few hundred thousand dollars. That's a great way to go as well.

I've even taken over a business where I have not spent any money out of pocket and people say, well, why would you do that?  It was a tea business and as some of you know, I used to work in the search engine industry and had an early search engine in Silicon Valley and I was considered a search engine expert 10 years ago in my career. Well, there was a tea company that acquired all their customers through search engine optimization. And so they wanted to work with me, but I wasn't willing to write them a check. So I took over the business. I didn't even make a payment for the first six months to make sure it would work, and I eventually bought it and I didn't even write a check for a penny out of pocket. All I did was fund the operating capital needs of the company. So there are lots of ways that you can buy a business without writing $1 million check.

Thank you so much for watching. Please like and subscribe.

Contact Freedom Factory
Freedom Factory
5500 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Ste 230
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Phone: 844-MAX-VALUE (844-629-8258)

https://www.freedomfactory.com/
https://g.page/freedom-factory-denver