IBA as the largest & oldest business brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest has successfully sold family-owned businesses from Blaine, Washington to Ashland, Oregon on the I-5 Corridor from Forks on the Pacific Ocean to Walla Walla in Washington and from North Bend to Pendleton in Oregon. It is an honor and pleasure for IBA to comprehensively support the entrepreneurial community of the Pacific Northwest region with knowledge, experience, and skill. The founders and executive leadership of these businesses are some of the highest quality people this nation has to offer.
Small town entrepreneurs contribute significantly to the quality of the lives in their communities creating jobs, renting & purchasing real estate, supporting schools & social safety net services through paying taxes, and frequently are philanthropic contributors. There are three paths to becoming an entrepreneur in a small town.
The first option is to start a business to address a missing gap in services, products, or to take advantage of productive resources in terms of staff, materials, or facilities. Many success stories exist about entrepreneurs who have executed on their vision and through hard work built companies that were valued and/or became foundational elements in their corner of the world.
The second choice is to purchase an established business in the community. The advantages with this methodology are that the acquired company will have infrastructure, staff, revenues, profits, and operating systems. The opportunity may also exist to own the real estate associated with the business creating occupancy cost stability and another way to build wealth. In a transition of ownership, a likelihood also exists that the selling business owner will spend significant time and energy mentoring you as their successor on how to executively manage and operate the business out of desire to see their legacy protected, in addition to jobs of valued employees and relationships with customers and vendors.
As a business owner it is prudent to engage a business brokerage firm, like IBA, to assist with the sale of a company located in a small town for a variety of reasons. The first reason is that a business sale intermediary will know how to properly value a privately held company or family business. Business valuation is a subjective, sophisticated science often requiring the assimilation of a diverse set of data points to do accurately, since unlike real estate market valuation which leans heavily on comparables, similar data related to specific industry sales in unique geographic area is generally not available and/or useful for analysis. The second reason is confidentiality. It is beneficial to have a third party market a business for sale with established systems and processes for keeping the information a business is for sale out of the public domain. The last thing most business owners want is for their employees, customers, and vendors to learn the business is for sale before a buyer is identified and deal terms negotiated. Finally, if real estate is owned and desired to comprehensively be sold in a package with a business, a state licensed, commercial real estate brokerage firm that also has the knowledge, experience, and skill to sell a privately held company or family business is the best option to achieve a fair market value and timely sale for the project.
The third option for entrepreneurship in a small town is to buy a franchise. The advantage of purchasing a franchise versus starting a business is that an entrepreneur is provided with a field tested business model with established operating systems and infrastructure of support and for mentorship. In addition, virtually any business model can be purchased as a franchise and brought into a green field territory. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs in America have introduced franchises into marketplace. An example is Bob & Bill Beye who introduced Arby’s to the Seattle metropolitan area and were represented by IBA when they decided to sell their chain of fast serve food establishments and retire (https://ibainc.com/blog/nesha-ruther/the-story-of-bill-bob-beye-arbys/).
If you are interested in selling a business in a small town in Washington or Oregon, IBA would welcome the opportunity to meet with you in person, learn about your business, understand your exit strategy objectives, and provide an overview of our client services. All conversations with IBA are held in strict confidence and 100% of our compensation is based on successful performance.
If you are interested in buying a business in a small town in the Pacific Northwest or placing a new franchise in one of its communities, IBA would also like to talk with you. Our Buyer Database Program (https://ibainc.com/buy-a-business/) provides parties with the first opportunity to evaluate new businesses brought to market by IBA in targeted areas and our Franchise Brokerage division (https://ibainc.com/what-we-do/franchise-sales/) is happy to help you evaluate and select the right franchise opportunity for you. Participation in IBA’s Buyer Database Program or engagement with our Franchise Brokerage division are available without cost to parties looking to purchase businesses or franchises.
In addition to the entrepreneurial benefits of owning and operating a business in a small town, additional rewards can include becoming part of a community, affordability of housing, and a quality life for families.
IBA, the Pacific Northwest’s premier business brokerage firm since 1975, is available as an information resource to the media, business brokerage, mergers & acquisitions, real estate, legal, accounting, banking, and wealth management communities on subjects relevant to the purchase & sale of privately held companies and family businesses. IBA is recognized as one of the best business brokerage firms in the nation based on its long track record of successfully negotiating “win-win” business sale transactions in environments of full disclosure employing “best practices”.