Nate Lind is Tech and Internet eCommerce Business Broker with over 9 Years of product-based eCommerce experience. Nate has launched 23 supplement and eCommerce brands grossing over a million dollars each since 2011. Nine of which sold over $10m worldwide. One of those brands was the largest beard grooming brand in the world – Beard Czar with over $35m in sales. During this time Nate created a reporting program that analyzed the profit of subscription customers and self sold it to a strategic partner in 2016 who incorporated it into their platform where it became the key selling feature of the CRM.
Nate represents both buyers and sellers of Ecommerce Brands, Amazon Brands, Website Properties, Product Manufacturers, App Developers, SAAS, Subscription Based, SEO/PPC/Paid Media Marketing Agencies, and Portfolio Brands.
Episode Highlights Here:
Brett
Perfect. So now let’s dive right into the topic at hand, which is maximizing your business exit when selling. Nate What’s number one secret to doing just that,
Nate
you need to have a good set of books, you need to make sure that you’ve got a bookkeeper or accountant, somebody that has, you know, properly categorized your, your revenue and your expenses. Make sure that you’ve got it really simple, don’t overcomplicate things, but you need to have the specificity to detail out what some of these expenses are, you know, potentially just discretionary. So as the owner of the business you may be using some of the business money for travel and for some other expenses and calling it you know, business expense. You can totally do that. So get the tax write off for it. But make sure that you’ve categorized that and like salary and other stuff in a very specific way. So that I can add it back to your to the number that we use for your multiple salaries. For instance, if you are put you and your employees all as one line in your financials called salaries, it makes my life a living hell when I’m trying to explain that to a buyer that you’re replaceable, and you’re not needed and your salary is lumped in with all the other employees who are maybe not replaceable and are needed that are to expense for the business. We can’t take the employee salaries and add those back. But oftentimes we can for the founder, the founder salary, or at least one of get theirs partners, we can take one of them
Brett
got it. So it sounds like a good set of books. And really what that means is having conviction and confidence in what the income and expenses truly are. And in order to communicate that to potential new buyers, it needs to be really detailed like, exactly what this expense is, whether it’s travel, whether it’s salary, it’s multiple employees, is that a fair summary so far?
Nate
It is and it needs to be GAAP. compliant, you need to make sure if you’re a larger business and you fall into the like under this, the details that if you need to be an accrual based business, you need to report your you report your revenue and your expenses on an on an accrual basis as opposed to just you know, doing cash for holding in any inventory. You have to do accrual. Yeah, I hate to break it to you. Sorry, it’s easy to just do cash. But it’s not like I can’t show the true profit of a business month to a buyer if you’ve got a $100 invoice for inventory in January, and then you trickle sell that out over three or four months and then another $100,000 invoice for inventory in June. It just makes it a nightmare.
Brett
Got it. So a good set of books is secret number one, what is secret number two, Nate to maximizing your business exit when selling
Nate
do you think ahead of time, often I get approached by people that are bored or burnt out or they’ve got a burning passion for a you know for change. And they wanted it sold yesterday. Unfortunately, m&a It’s not like you know flipping a, you know, a three two townhouse in the most desirous area for cash flow purposes in Northern Virginia, they don’t go under contract necessarily in two days, the fastest deal I’ve done from start to finish is like 66 days. But ordinarily, you’re looking at a three to four month timeframe, as long as everyone’s like you know, on their step and getting things done. So it does take a little bit of time. But if you’re in the six to 12 months range of maybe looking for your exit, you need to be reaching out to an advisor at that point. And I’ve got clients that I’ve been working with for a year, two years prior to their exit. And all the work that we do for me, it’s all free. As long as they give me a guarantee that I’m listing the business with them, I’ll dedicate the time and all the consultation that I know how to get them the biggest exit they can get. So there’s some timing in play that it’s helpful if you’re kind of planning down the road to reach out.
Brett
Okay? So be proactive and think about it ahead of time. And make sure that you’re building the team, you’re building the strategy or strategies to make sure you can maximize the sales price for secret number two. Is that a fair summary Nate?
Nate
Absolutely. Hey, everybody,
Brett
Brett Swarts. Here, we’re taking a quick break out of the podcast episode. I wanted to introduce you to one of our strategic alliances, Mark Willis with Lake Growth Financial, have you ever wanted to break out of your bank and or fire your banker? Well, then you’re going to want to hear from Mark right now. Hey, Mark, take it away.
Nate
Hey, thanks so much. You know, you’re right. As a Certified Financial Planner, I’ve had the great privilege of working with real estate investors, business owners, even NFL Super Bowl champions, but most people I work with just want more financial assurance, and agency and control in their life. And they feel like Wall Street’s given them the slip, crypto real estate and more just has more out of reach and they feel like they’re swimming upstream. take back control of your financial future. And you can do it through becoming your own source of financing and by bank on yourself. So come reach out to us and we’d be happy to say hello, we’re at Capital Gains Tax solutions.com forward slash bank,
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About Nate Lind
Nate Lind, is an American entrepreneur, triathlete, author and business broker. Reading Rich Dad Poor Dad inspired Lind to dream of financial freedom and passive income. He exited his first company in 2016, which was an e-commerce technology to a shopping cart platform. Lind learned that selling a company and using the proceeds to buy passive income was far easier than trying to run it passively.
Nate sells companies like Realtors sell homes. He is a business broker at Website Closers, the largest marketplace of $1 million to $150 million dollar Internet, Technology and E-commerce businesses. There are 167,000 buyers looking at 103 client businesses for sale right now. This year they will sell over 300 companies to their private network.
One afternoon hiking with my kids caused a gut wrenching realization that inspired me to sell my first business and focus more on my health, my family and other passions. Entrepreneurs that read Rich Dad Poor Dad or The Four Hour Work Week want financial freedom. Many find themselves working harder than ever and without the financial freedom they wanted. That was me. Burnt out, stressed out, working more, and making less as an entrepreneur than I would have if I’ve just stayed a Vice President at Bank of America.
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