Latest news with #businessmarket
CNA
22-07-2025
- Business
- CNA
T-Mobile's 5G to power Comcast, Charter wireless business plans
Comcast and Charter Communications said on Tuesday they would establish a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that will use T-Mobile's 5G network to serve wireless business customers, with plans to launch next year. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. As competition in broadband and pay TV intensifies, Comcast and Charter's new MVNO deal with T-Mobile underscores how the cable giants are seeking new growth opportunities by expanding into the business wireless market. The initiative will focus exclusively on providing wholesale mobile connectivity to Charter's and Comcast's business customers. The companies added that their existing long-term MVNO partnership would continue to support residential and current business customers. An MVNO is a mobile service provider that delivers phone services by leasing network capacity from established wireless carriers, rather than owning its own network infrastructure. Prominent MVNOs such as Tracfone, Mint Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile collectively cater to tens of millions of U.S. customers, offering cost-effective prepaid and no-contract plans.
Forbes
25-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
6 Ways To Find The Best Buyer For Your Business
What if your ideal buyer is already in your network, but you don't even know it yet? What if the perfect buyer for your business is already in your network, but you don't even know it yet? And what if waiting to look for business buyers until you're 'ready to sell' means you miss your best opportunity to exit on your terms? Most business owners wait too long to find the right buyer. Or worse, they don't know what "right" even looks like. And that lack of clarity? It costs them leverage, value, and peace of mind. This article breaks down six real-world strategies for identifying the best buyers for your business—whether you plan to sell next year or three years from now. These are the same strategies my clients use who want to sell their small business from a position of strength. Let's first walk through the practical mindset shift that helps you stop waiting for a business buyer and start building a buyer list now. 1. Start Searching For A Buyer Before You're Ready To Exit The biggest myth in selling your business is that you should wait until you're ready to sell to start finding buyers. In reality, the longer your horizon to exit, the more control you have over who you sell to, how, and for how much. When you start early searching for business buyers, you're not working under pressure. You're studying your market. You're identifying who's buying businesses like yours. And you're building your buyers list. The longer you track acquirers in your space, the clearer your ideal buyer profile becomes. Is your perfect buyer a strategic acquirer, looking to add your service to their offering? Are they investors consolidating a niche? Is it a solo entrepreneur looking for a cash-flowing business? I always advise clients to build their buyer list and revisit is regularly, by researching new deals in their industry. You don't need a business broker to do this. You need curiosity, Google Alerts, and a Google Sheet. 2. Use Multiple Search Strategies To Find Potential Buyers Many owners ask 'To find a buyer for my business, should I use a broker, a listing platform, or do it myself?' The answer: Use all three. At once. Here's why: Each approach opens different doors. A broker may have a trusted buyer network and can manage the negotiation. A listing platform can offer wide exposure, especially for smaller businesses. But your own network? That's where the magic happens. Your industry contacts, peer communities, suppliers, or even competitors may have the clearest incentive to buy your business. When you diversify your approach to find potential buyers for your business, you not only increase your chances of finding the perfect one, you also create competition amongst interested buyers, which increases your leverage. 3. Vet Business Buyers Before You Waste Time Not all buyer interest is serious interest. There are tire-kickers. There are people who want to "learn more" but aren't qualified or have the money. And then there are the strategic, funded buyers who already know what they want. Your job is to know the difference early. The best buyers will have: Don't be afraid to ask questions: A real buyer won't be offended. They'll respect your professionalism. 4. Google Is Your Secret Weapon To Find Potential Buyers You don't need to be very well connected to start identifying real buyers. You just need the right search terms. Try this: Type your industry + words like 'acquisition,' 'buyout,' or 'merger' into Google News or set up alerts. Over time, you'll spot names that appear repeatedly. You'll also discover the language that acquirers use when announcing deals. This is gold. Why? Because it shows what buyers value: recurring revenue, owner-independence, customer retention, niche market share. Then, reverse-engineer that into your business. Use it to shape how you grow. Use it to shape your buyer pitch. Use it to improve your valuation. Extra Resources: If you want to take it one step further, subscribe to acquisition-focused newsletters like They Got Acquired. They cover real deals in the 6- and 7-figure range, not just unicorns in Silicon Valley. 5. Don't Overlook Your Personal Network One of the first questions I ask business owners who want to sell their business: 'Who do you already know that might be interested?' Almost always, there are names. A supplier who's hinted at expansion. A client who's bought a similar business. A friend of a friend in your industry. These leads are usually warmer, more aligned, and more serious. You don't need to cold-call your contacts. But do start planting seeds. Mention your long-term plans in casual conversations. Say you're starting to think about the next phase. Invite input. Watch who leans in. In one case, a client of mine sold her training business to a former supplier who had quietly admired her systems for years. That deal happened in under 60 days because of the trust and familiarity already in place. 6. Build a Buyer List Like It's An Asset (Because It Is) The buyer list you build today isn't just a spreadsheet. It's leverage. When brokers, investors, or partners see that you've already mapped out who might buy your business—and why—they take you more seriously. It shows you're proactive. Strategic. Prepared. And if you ever do hire a business broker, they'll ask you for that list anyway. Why? Because no one knows your market better than you. So here's how to start: Final Thoughts: You Don't Find the Best Business Buyer By Accident The best exits aren't lucky. They're built by savvy business owners well in advance of the actual sale. If you want to sell your business for what it's worth, to the right person, on the right terms, start thinking about it now. Study the market. Build your business buyer list. Ask better questions. Combine multiple strategies to find out how's buying. And most importantly, don't wait until you're ready to exit. The work you do now, pays you later. Not just in money, but in peace of mind, clarity, and freedom. And isn't that why you built this business in the first place?
Entrepreneur
12-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
5 Good Reasons Why People Buy a Business
When in the market to buy a business, make sure you are clear on the reasons you are buying the business in the first place. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Many entrepreneurs go down the path of buying a business to help jump-start their business-building efforts. But oftentimes, they don't give enough thought to "why" they are buying the business, and the long-term goals they are hoping to accomplish from this investment. Unless they are 100% clear on the "end game", they could get themselves into a situation that is not what they intended, and it could be too late to fix it once they close on the purchase. These five reasons will help you assess your acquisition goals before you get started hunting for targets, so you don't repeat the mistakes that many other entrepreneurs have made by not doing sufficient homework upfront. 1. You need a high return on investment Like any other investment, you want it to be worth as much as possible at the time you are ready to sell it. This path most typically involves buying a business at a low price, increasing its value over the next 5-10 years through increased sales and marketing efforts or other margin enhancement techniques, and then selling it for a much higher value down the road. That higher value typically comes from two sources: the higher profits of the bigger business and the higher sale multiple of earnings, as bigger companies are typically sold at higher sale multiples than smaller companies. But the intent here is to buy and sell the business — that is the intent from day one. It may or may not require you to raise outside capital to assist you with the purchase or your scaling efforts. If all goes well, you sell the business at 5x-10x the price you purchased it, and that is when you get your "big payday" as a shareholder. Related: Is Acquiring a Business Right For You? Here's How to Know If You Should Buy a Business or Start From Scratch 2. You need current recurring cash flow In this category, it is less about growing a business and more about "milking it" for recurring cash flow from whatever size the business is today. Here, it is less about shooting for the highest long-term ROI possible and more about driving the highest near-term annual return on invested capital. These investments can be things like buying a car wash, a strip mall to rent or a restaurant franchise where you are hoping to drive 10-20% annual returns on your investment. This is basically a more hands-on alternative to investing in the stock market or other more traditional investment vehicles. It may or may not require an investor partner, like a family office, that is also looking for current recurring cash flow. This path is preferred if you need current cash and are not planning to reinvest annual profits into the future growth of the business, as you were doing in the first category. 3. You are creating a family legacy In this category, there is simply one goal: owning and operating a family-run business that you can hand off to future generations. It could come in the form of either of the first two categories above, with one primary difference: you would not want to take any outside investors, as they will require an exit strategy down the road and may require you to sell the company to achieve that goal, which defeats of the whole purpose of ending up with a business you can hand off to your family members. The other major difference here is that now there may be multiple opinions around the family dinner table in terms of what types of business they would enjoy operating. So be sure to toss around those mutually acceptable ideas as a group, before you get started, so there are high odds the next generation will enjoy working in the business and will want to take it over when the older generation retires. Related: 5 Factors You Must Consider When Buying an Existing Business 4. You need passive income Another type of business you can buy is one that comes with very little work required by buyers in terms of operating the company. Businesses that basically "run themselves". This could be things like buying a parking garage, or a business that places vending machines in retail locations, or a business that comes with a general manager who will be doing the majority of the work. So, as you are assessing which business to buy, figure out how much time you want to personally be investing in it, as there is a wide range from 5 hours a week to 50+ hours a week, depending on which business you end up buying. Related: 8 Passive Income Ideas That Are Actually Worth Pursuing 5. You simply need a job This last category is one of necessity. Sometimes people have a hard time getting hired for a job, and they need a salary with which to live. Oftentimes, their solution to that is buying a company that is large enough to afford them a salary or other annual distributions that can cover the costs of living. It may or may not involve having investor partners, depending on the size of the company. But if you take on investors, just remember, you may be looking for another business to buy in 5-10 years, after your investors require you to sell the business to enable their exit down the road. If you don't want that risk, don't take on new investors. So, as we have discussed, there are many different reasons for buying a business. Make sure you are 100% clear on the reasons you are buying a business, and incorporate the learnings above during your evaluation process, to prevent you from getting into a situation where you did not fully understand the consequences when you started. Good luck and happy hunting!
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Buyer's Risk Impacts Your Business Valuation
Business acquirers are buying a future stream of income. And their most important question is: how ... More stable is that stream? Every business owner wants to build a valuable business. But when you're thinking about value and only considering revenue or profit, you're missing the real metric business buyers care about: buyer's risk. Most owners looking to sell their business obsess over valuations. "Can I get four times profit? Maybe six times if I wait a year?" But valuations and these so called 'multiples' are just a reflection of how safe your business looks to someone who's considering buying your business. Multiples aren't magical. They're mathematical and rooted in a buyer's gut feeling about how risky it is to own what you've built. Buyers aren't just purchasing your brand, your clients, or your revenue. They're buying a future stream of income. And their most important question is: how stable is that stream? If you want to sell your business for life-changing money, you need to see your company through a buyer's eyes. That means understanding what risk looks like to them and how it silently subtracts from your valuation. Imagine someone is about to spend one million dollars on your business. That money isn't just a payment, it's an investment to them. And just like any investor, they're running a mental checklist: Can this business run without the current owner? Are these profits predictable? What are the chances something blows up in year one? The higher the perceived risk, the faster they want to earn their money back. And the faster they want their return, the lower they'll offer. That's how risk works: it drives down your business valuation, even when your profits look solid. In other words, two businesses with the same revenue and margin can sell for wildly different prices—purely based on how risky they appear to buyers. Most business buyers use a mix of instinct and data to judge risk. But over the years, a few patterns have emerged. Here are three of the biggest red flags that drag your valuation down: Let's say your business earns $300,000 in annual profit. A buyer interested in a 25% return would pay around four times your profit—a $1.2 million valuation. But if they see risk and demand a 33% return, that multiple drops to three times profit, bringing your valuation down to $900,000. Same business. Different perception. $300,000 difference. This isn't just theoretical. It's how deals happen every day. Financial buyers have target returns, and they back into valuations based on how confident they feel in achieving them. Your job is to make them feel more confident. Lower the perceived risk, and you increase the price. Take a creative agency doing $1.2 million in annual revenue with a 35% profit margin. On paper, that's a $420,000 profit. But how that profit is earned makes all the difference. In scenario A, the founder manages every client, two clients drive 60% of revenue, and there are no documented systems. A buyer might value that at 2.5 times profit, around $1.05 million. Now, imagine the same agency twelve months later. An account manager handles relationships, no single client drives more than 20% of revenue, and systems are documented. The buyer's perceived risk drops, and the multiple climbs to four times profit, around $1.68 million. Same revenue. Same profit. $630,000 increase in valuation—just by reducing risk. You don't need to be perfect to sell your business. You just need to be significantly less risky than the average seller in your category. Here are key areas where buyers look for stability: Most business owners underestimate how much they can influence perceived risk. But once you understand how buyers think, the game changes. You can proactively shape the story they see. You can reassign responsibilities to your team. You can document your sales funnel. You can renegotiate contracts to add stability. These aren't massive overhauls. They're small shifts that build trust. And trust is what drives up your business value. Buyers use numbers, but they decide based on emotion. Logic tells them your EBITDA is solid. But emotion says, 'Can I sleep at night owning this?' When your business feels stable, structured, and scalable, buyers relax. They pay more. They bid faster. And you walk away with a better deal. So the next time you think about valuation, don't start with the multiple. Start with the buyer's risk. Then reduce it. That's how you raise your price and exit on your terms.
