Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM FEBRUARY 23 - MARCH 1, 2022 UCW 17 In a perfect world, every entre- preneur would have ample time to prepare their business for sale. It's a long, often complex process that demands much attention. After all, there are many factors to consider: Why am I selling? Is the market ideal? Do I have my legal and financial ducks in a row? Life can change in a moment. There are certainly times when a speedy sale is essential or unavoidable. This is especially applicable to the fast-moving market that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you find yourself in a situ- ation that calls for a quick sale, you're not alone. Skilled advisors with networks of buyers have helped many clients accelerate the process for many different reasons. A sudden change in personal circumstances. An unexpected illness or even a death in the family, divorce, and partnership disputes have compelled many of our clients to sell quickly. Favorable (or unfavorable) market changes. Whether they affect your vertical as a whole or your business's individual profit- ability, market changes frequent- ly kick-start the sales process. New (and potentially profit- able) opportunities. Perhaps you've found an exciting new venture and need to hand off responsibility or you need to find more capital quickly. Selling quickly is also just plain trendy. BizBuySell.com re- ports: "[the] median time to sell dropped 23% from its peak of 200 days in Q2 2012 to just 153 days in Q4 2014." That's the lowest sale time recorded since they began tracking in 2007. Specific steps need to be taken to protect you and your business during any business sale. With an expedited business sale, these steps are still essential, but now, with everyone moving twice as quickly, there's more room for error. That's where business bro- kers come in. They can find and vet potential buyers. Once your business goes up for sale, you'll likely receive a flurry of requests for more details. They can prepare your business for sale. While you do the critical work of keeping your business running and profitable, they can gather the information needed to value and list your business, plus important documents regarding your financial obligations, legal obligations and due diligence. They screen negotiations and paperwork. Don't be taken in by a seemingly perfect buyer. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Advisors know what's normal in a deal, when to accept an offer and when to die on a particular hill. Having a trustworthy business broker at your side to facilitate a quick sale is the best thing you can do when time is of the es- sence. However, there are also many steps that entrepreneurs can take themselves to make their businesses attractive and speed up the process. Target the most likely buyers. The best buyers for your business could be the people in your in- dustry, old business connections and maybe even former rivals and competitors. This seems obvious, but many clients forget to look in their backyards. When looking for buyers, cast a wide net. You never know where your buyer will come from. You may be surprised to find buyers in unlikely places, but don't shut the door on them. Sweeten the deal by adding incentives for potential buyers. We don't just mean lower prices (though everyone loves a deal). Try throwing in financing op- tions, equipment and other bo- nuses to attract interest and show you're serious about selling your business quickly. If you need to sell quickly, you should have an experienced bro- ker to facilitate the process. Re- member, a good deal dies when you don't have the professional guidance needed to navigate the next steps. Don't get caught without an advisor who knows their way around preparation, negotiation and closing. How quickly can I, should I sell my business? by THOMAS KELSEY BUSINESS & FINANCE THOMAS KELSEY, Transworld Business Advisors of Fayetteville. Comments? tkelsey@tworld.com How are the state lottery and bit- coins alike? Or a better question: is a bitcoin purchase better than a lottery ticket? e answer is yes. Yes, not because a bitcoin is such a good investment, but because a lot- tery ticket is such a bad deal for the purchaser. e odds of winning a big lottery payout are just above zero. Back in 2005 when the legisla- ture was considering a proposal to establish the North Carolina Lottery, I railed against it. Nevertheless, the legislature, then controlled by Democrats, established a lottery at the urging of Democratic Governor Mike Easley, whose pro-lottery positions were his major campaign planks. Schools needed the money, he said. People wanted to play the games and were going across state lines to buy lottery tickets. A lottery would be a volun- tary tax. Free money. Most Republicans opposed the lot- tery. So did lots of liberal Democrats who agreed with libertarian Re- publicans that running a gambling business is not a proper function of government. Government, those of us in op- position said, should encourage its citizens to work and save for their future, not on fostering dreams of getting rich by winning the lottery, not stooping to the low level of a carnival barker selling chances on games in which the odds of winning are stacked against the player. Today the lottery is an established part of state government. Like it or not. e lottery takes in billions of dol- lars each year. About 65 percent of the total goes to pay for prizes. About 7 percent goes to the 7,000 retail- ers who sell the lottery tickets to individuals. About 4 percent covers administrative costs and the expens- es for an increasingly vigorous and compelling advertising program that encourages more people to gamble. e remaining approximately 25 percent is available to help fund public schools. So what is the problem? In fact, there are two big problems. As opponents pointed out in 2005, government should not be in a business that private enterprise can manage. Instead, it should encour- age its citizens, especially those with limited funds, to save or spend funds for food, rent, clothes, education, and other important expenses rather than throwing money after a dream that almost never comes true. So, the purchase of a lottery ticket is almost never a good investment for an individual. What about bitcoin as an invest- ment? Not good, but maybe better than a lottery ticket. e value of a bitcoin will either go up or down, making a 50 percent chance of win- ning or losing. Still, even if bitcoin is perhaps a good speculation, it is not necessar- ily a good long-term investment. As Kevin Roose, writing in the Feb. 6, edition of e New York Times, put it, "One of the most frequent questions asked by crypto skeptics is: What can you actually do with crypto, besides financial speculation and crimes?" His cautionary response: "It's a tough question to answer, in part because most of the successful (and legal) uses of cryptocurrency so far have been in finance or finance- adjacent fields. ere are plenty of crypto exchanges, NFT [non-fun- gible token] trading platforms and video games that involve buying and selling crypto tokens." Roose, however, argues that few if any of such crypto activities have a use in "solving problems that exist for people outside the crypto world, that aren't primarily about buying or selling digital assets and that would be impossible to solve with normal, non-crypto technology." Perhaps someday, when bitcoin's value has stabilized, it will have a use as an efficient way to pay bills and hold money safely. But, if and when the value is stabilized, it will not be an attrac- tive speculative play as it is for some today. Bitcoin or lottery? For me, neither one. D.G. MARTIN, Host of UNC's Book Watch. COMMENTS? Editor@upand- comingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. LITERATURE Lottery or bitcoin by D.G. MARTIN