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How to Buy a Restaurant for Sale – Tips and Considerations

Buying a restaurant that is for sale is never an easy task. With this in mind, not all restaurants that you will look at are going to be acceptable or even wise purchases, however with some good research you can find a great restaurant to purchase. You could also try working with a business broker to help you select the best match for your wishes and desires. You can search over 3,194 restaurants for sale at GlobalBX.com at http://www.globalbx.com/results2.asp?indSegId=48

When trying to determine if a restaurant is a good match for you, look at the location. You do not want a restaurant that is off in the middle of nowhere. You want a restaurant that has a very easy to access, busy location. If customers do not know you exist, or they cannot get to you then your restaurant will not do well. Location can be more important than the type of food served, the quality of the staff, and other aspects of the business. Never discount location in terms of importance.

Many landlords are hesitant to reassign a lease to a person who has little or no experience in running a restaurant. They may require that the previous owner remain on the lease, or several months of lease payments be made upfront. This could be required in spite of a contract that states the lease can be assigned or sub-leased. Try to negotiate nicely with the current landlord.

One of the most important things to realize about value is that it is in the eyes of the beholder. This means you should not take the word of the owner about what the restaurant is worth. Have the business appraised, and do some research on other similar restaurants and what they sold for. By doing your homework, you may find out that the price is absurd considering what you are getting, or you could be getting an incredible deal. The business seller wants to make a sale, so he may not necessarily tell you the entire truth.

Equipment should be carefully inspected. If you are purchasing a restaurant that is fully functional, you want all equipment to be functional as well. Don’t wait until you get hit with a repair bill for a freezer that went down overnight to really understand how important this is. Without proper inspection of the equipment you could be seeing repairs in the near future. However if broken equipment is discovered up front, you can ask the seller to have the equipment repaired as part of the sales contract. This will save you money and headaches upon taking over the restaurant.

One other important consideration is your experience in the restaurant business. If you have never worked in a restaurant, it is not a good idea to buy a restaurant where the owner plays owner, manager, chef, cook, dishwasher, cashier, and server. Instead, look for a restaurant where the owner works with the manager who runs the entire restaurant. If you have a strong background in restaurants then a very hands-on experience may be perfect for you. If you need a manager, ensure someone is in place, or else make sure you can hire someone as soon as you take over the business.

Buying a business is never easy, and buying a restaurant is especially difficult. Always work with an experienced business broker to achieve the best results possible and you will enjoy your purchase.

I’m an insolvency practitioner and I’m here to help you

There is help available for business owners in dealing with a business crisis from people who are familiar with this type of situation and who possess the specific experience and skills needed. But there are differing types of help available so it is worth understanding who’s who in the world of CROs, IPs, IMs and other professionals you may encounter, some of whom work within your business and some of whom work simply as advisers.

A Chief Restructuring Officer or CRO, is a turnaround professional that management hire on a temporary basis to provide support and assistance.

A CRO’s job is firstly to help the business analyse its position, providing an experienced eye to look over how deep the crisis is, assess the options and make an informed judgement as to whether the business is salvageable.

CROs then move on to help to drive through the actions needed to deal with the situation, acting as a crisis manager to handle issues with the urgency, independence and sometimes ruthlessness required. CROs therefore need to be people who can cope with the challenges and difficulties that this implies in a professional way.

The CRO also brings to the business a body of specialist knowledge of relevant commercial and insolvency issues such as redundancy processes and wrongful trading, so helping to manage these risks.

A CRO brings their experience of dealing with not only a business in crisis, bit also their experience in keeping financial stakeholders such as banks on board supporting the turnaround. A CRO has the ability to talk to the bank and insolvency advisers their own language, so giving the business the best chance that it will receive funders’ support through its difficulties.

The help provided by a CRO is generally therefore extremely ‘hands on’ in nature. The contrast here is with the professional advisers such as the insolvency practitioner or the lawyer who, however close the relationship, do remain outside the business. The CRO sits on your side of the table at meetings and actively works on behalf of your business, often becoming part of your business by taking on the role and responsibilities of becoming a director to take charge and drive through change for the time needed to make the plan happen.

A CRO should ideally be formally accredited through the Institute for Turnaround as a turnaround professional, and may also be a member of the Turnaround Management Association. They often work alone but increasingly are operating as teams, often in conjunction with or organised through the firms who are also involved in supplying in specialists on a temporary basis known as interim managers to deal with particular functional aspects of the business (such as a temporary finance or production director) as may be required to turn the business’ performance around.

But CROs are not the only people that a business will need. As a turnaround affects all areas of the business, so the business tends to need assistance from a broad range of specialists.

If the business is in a severe crisis often formal insolvency advice will be needed at the outset by the directors from either lawyers or an insolvency practitioner (or ‘IP’) as to whether they are safe to continue trading the business. An IP will be able to advise on use of any of the business rescue procedures under the Insolvency Act such as a Company Voluntary Arrangement; will be able to help the directors in assessing the business’s position. They will also often have a strong working relationship with the bank and so may be able to to help gain bank support for a turnaround, as well as introducing or working with a turnaround professional.

Often there is a need to raise new or replacement finance to provide funds to deal with the initial crisis or to support the subsequent recovery and regrowth of the business. These funds will come from specialist asset financiers either directly or more usually through a broker who knows the market and is used to placing such business.

Legal advice is almost always required and the business will need a recovery specialist as a lead advisor who can call upon expertise within his or her firm across a wide range of areas such as insolvency and debt collection in the early stages; through key issues for restructuring a business such as employment and redundancy, as well as contractual disputes such as problem contracts; right through to corporate finance specialists if there is a need to raise new equity or arrange a sale of the business.

Interim Managers are often used as a flexible resource to meet the changing needs of a business during the different phases of a turnaround. A typical case might require significant assistance from an interim financial controller on tightening up management of its cash to survive an initial crisis. Then the business might need an operations specialist to address manufacturing issues, before then bringing in a marketing expert to provide a boost to regrowing sales, while the whole strategy is overseen by the CRO.

How To Get A Home Buyer Rebate Or Flat Fee MLS Listing

The internet has made it easier to buy or sell your home as you can get a flat fee MLS listing by going online and sell your home using this valuable tool.  They have also made it more attractive for buyers as they can allow buyers to get  home buyer rebates from agents using this system.  If you are a seller or a buyer of property, you have many options from which to choose.  You do not have to just take the conventional route of using a traditional real estate broker. 

The internet has made it easier to buy or sell your home as you can get a flat fee MLS listing by going online and sell your home using this valuable tool.  They have also made it more attractive for buyers as they can allow buyers to get  home buyer rebates from agents using this system.  If you are a seller or a buyer of property, you have many options from which to choose.  You do not have to just take the conventional route of using a traditional real estate broker.The internet has made it easier to buy or sell your home as you can get a flat fee MLS listing by going online and sell your home using this valuable tool.  They have also made it more attractive for buyers as they can allow buyers to get  home buyer rebates from agents using this system.  If you are a seller or a buyer of property, you have many options from which to choose.  You do not have to just take the conventional route of using a traditional real estate broker.

How to Skyrocket Your Sales This Year

Completely grasp the power of the Best Buyer Concept and you will double your sales within the next twelve months. The concept is easy to understand, yet powerful: There’s always a smaller  number of ideal buyers, compared to all the possible buyers, so ideal buyers are cheaper to market to and yet bring greater rewards.

A magazine used this strategy to double sales in 15 months flat. Here’s what they did:

They took a database of 2200 advertisers and sent promo-pieces to them each month. After learning this
strategy, they did an analysis and found that 167 of those 2200 advertisers bought 95% of the advertising in their competitor’s magazine.

This concept is called «The Dream 100 Sell,» a concept where you go after your «Dream» prospects with a vengeance. This magazine sent the 167 (best buyers) a letter every two weeks and called them four times per month.

Since these were the biggest buyers, the first four months of  intensive marketing and selling brought no actual reward. In the fifth month, only ONE of these Dream clients bought advertising in the magazine.

In the sixth month, 28 of the 167 largest advertisers in the country came into the magazine all at once.
And since these are the biggest advertisers, they don’t take quarter pages and fractional ads, they take full pages and full color spreads. These 28 advertisers alone, were enough to double the sales over the previous year. The magazine went from number 15 in the industry to number one in just over a year.

Lesson learned: Market to your best buyers

Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, who are my best buyers?  If you sell to the business-to-consumer market, chances are, your best buyers live in the best neighborhoods.If you are a dentist, accountant, chiropractor, R.E. Broker, financial advisor, restaurant, or even a MLM professional you should consistently go after the folks who live in the best neighborhoods.

They are the wealthiest buyers who have the money and the greatest sphere of influence. If you send them an offer every single month without fail, within a year, you’ll have a great reputation among the very wealthy.

If you sell to the business-to-business market, it’s usually fairly clear that your best buyers are the biggest companies. So what are you doing, every other week, no matter what, to let these companies know who you are?

There’s no one you can’t get to as long as you constantly market to them, especially after they say they’re not interested. People will not only begin to respect your perseverance, they will actually begin to feel obligated.

This doesn’t happen right away, but even the most hard-bitten and cynical executive or prospect begins to respect you when you refuse to give up. The publication I mentioned earlier went on to double sales two more years in a row. They  consistently marketed to the best buyers and much more aggressively than they did to the rest of the buyers.

A company selling to manufacturer’s used this strategy to target the 100 biggest manufacturers in the country. For the first three months no one responded to any of the calling or phoning.

But after three months executives started saying: «I just have to meet you. I’ve never had anyone continue to call me so many times after I said no.» Within 6 months they had gotten in to
see 54% of those they targeted.
The secret is to NEVER give up.

Just keep going after those companies again and again. Or if you sell to consumers, commit to sending a promotional piece every single month to those wealthy neighborhoods. Eventually, all the wealthy people in your area will know exactly who you are.

Now the question is: Who are your DREAM prospects and how committed are you to getting them as clients?