At any given time, a few businesses are actively on the market. While you might find a few good acquisition candidates from the pool of businesses that are listed for sale, the odds of doing so are not great. What’s more, once a desirable business is actively advertised for sale, it will attract several qualified buyers leading to significant competition among the suitors.
There are a lot of business owners that aren’t actively looking to sell but would consider selling under the right circumstances. We call these the gray area sellers. It is among these gray area sellers where we believe the best strategic acquisition opportunities lie.
Finding these gray area sellers is not easy. Selling one’s business is an emotionally wrenching undertaking, such that even an owner considering selling will not always readily respond to a query about selling.
In future posts, I’ll outline some methods for finding gray area sellers.