#204 Top 5 Key Experts You NEED to Buy a Business in 2025

If you are going to buy a business, you're gonna lose if you don't have a team. Good deals, they don't stay on the market for a long time. As you start the process of how to find a good business and how to buy a good business, one of the first and best places to start is you need to start building a community around you. Some of these are good, but not all of 'em. So I'm here to walk you through what type of people you need on your side when you're getting ready to buy your first acquisition. If you are going to buy a business, you're gonna lose if you don't have a team. As you start the process of going through and trying to figure out the SBA 7 loan process and how to find a good business and how to buy a good business, one of the first and best places to start is you need to start building a community around you. Let people know that you are going out there to buy a business. This will open doors for you. It'll open doors to meeting people who know people who bought businesses and get you in contact with friends and family. Some of these are good, but not all of them. So I'm here to walk you through what type of people you need in your, in your court, on your side, when you're getting ready to buy your first acquisition. So before the acquisition, before you even get started, one of the first people that you should start reaching out to is an M&A attorney. This is going to be a person that you can lean on for NDAs and LOIs and APAs and all these, these 3-letter acronyms, which it always seems to be, but it helps you to cover yourself. So as you get kind of weird and wonky things that come out of the woodworks, that you have someone to bounce it off of. For me, when that started, one of the weird things that I received that I ended up sending to an MBA or M&A attorney, it was an NDA that was wild. It said, you can't do this, you can't do that. If you buy a business in the next 5 years, you still have to pay us as buy side. Like it was just didn't make any sense. It was probably not going to hold up in court, but still it wasn't something that I was going to sign and it was a huge red flag. But having this person in my field Allowed me to come into deals and come into the LOI process and and work with sellers with the confidence that I have a team behind me, especially a legal team that can help me if I need to pull the triggers fast. Right? Good deals—they don't stay on the market. They don't stay on the market for a long time. So if you have a slow attorney or slow M&A attorney, it's just you're most likely going to get bid around or underbid or overbid, and they're going to swoop it up just because it's the only bid on the table or the first bid. On the table. So having a good M&A attorney is key, but also an M&A attorney. So there's a lot of attorneys out there that they might do large M&A, they might do M&A for, you know, $100 million deals. It's a different process, right? The amount of legal paperwork on a $100 million deal, the indemnities and all these kinds of clauses you need, it's going to be so much more stringent on a large deal than it is a small deal. So a small deal M&A attorney for lower middle market is who you are looking for to bring in your court, because that's going to be somebody who's doing these kind of deals, someone who's working in this space, because that's going to be what helps you win. It's going to get you to the deals faster. It's going to make you more accurate at what the seller's expecting, what the buyer's expecting. And it's just going to be a cheaper option for you. You don't want to go and spend $100,000 on an LOI that is applicable for a, you know, a $500 million corporation. It just doesn't make any sense. So that's one of the first people you're going to go and look for. The next person that you're going to go and look for is a good accountant, a CPA accountant. This is going to be someone that can help you with financials. They're going to help you look at the EBITDA. They're going to help you look at validation. They're going to help with projections and modeling. This is not someone that you necessarily need day one, but as you get closer to that APA and the final purchase, this is someone that you want in your pocket. Specifically, if that person can do QOE, quality of earnings, QOE, either way. Quality of earnings essentially just means that this company is going to come in, they're going to examine financials, they're going to examine statements, they're going to examine bank deposits, make sure everything matches up. And then they're going to examine the quality of that because if it's a residential company, but it's taking in you know, $4,000, $8,000, $10,000 a month regularly for rent expenses. You don't want to pay for that if that's not going to continue. Or maybe it's this one big off project that's worth $2 million. And, but normally they only do $800,000, right? But this year they did $2.8 million because man, they had one big project. You don't want to pay a multiple of something that's not sustainable, not long-term, or it's not really just good business. It's just a singular project that's bloating their books. So this, this person should help you to get rid of the bloat, make sure that you're paying a fair price. And then after the fact, right, a lot of times a lot of these CPAs or these companies that do this, they also do bookkeeping and CPA work on the back end. So you close on this small business, you need a bookkeeper, you could go with the old owner's bookkeeper, but it's probably better to just use somebody who you trust. Who's going to treat you well is going to do well for you, which is going to be this individual. So take your time, find a good CPA, specifically one that works in kind of the the same market and who does QOV. So QOE, I keep saying it, but hey, either way, that's a great second pick for your lineup, your bench. Just answer the phone is one of those phrases that's always easier said than done. I know it was hard for me in my business because the phone always rings while you're out in the field trying to get. Something done, or it's 8 PM and you're trying to get your kids to bed. Well, I have the solution for you. I'm extremely excited today to announce Quick Staffers, your go-to solution for building a high-performing, cost-effective customer service team. We are placing CSRs who have been pre-trained on proven home service SOPs and scripts, the same ones that Wilson and I use in our business. For a limited time, we're offering $500 off your initial placement costs for the first 10 signups. See link in the description below or head over to quickstaffers.com for more information. The next person that you're going to in your court is a really, really good SBA lender. So an SBA lender who is going to work with you specifically, 'cause we're talking about the SBA loan. If you have a, if you're going conventional or you're going private, like obviously go find a good lender. That's the key. A good lender that's gonna work with you, right? Because that at the end of the day is a partnership that you need to make sure is a solid partnership. We are partnering with Allen Peterson. Because at First Internet Bank, Alan, amazing. I've seen his work. I've seen him work personally with friends of mine. Amazing guy, closes deals. And that's like, that's a lot of the key is you want to find someone who can close deals and who has a, how can I, not a, we can't mentality because the SBA does have rules. They have really stringent rules, but the banks also have a lot of rules. And so the rule that you're getting or the pushback you're getting might not be a bank pushback or might not be an SBA pushback, but is actually an internal bank pushback. And so you need to find someone who's willing to work with you within a logical and reasonable standpoint, right? The bank's rules are there for a reason as well, but some of them can be tweaked just a little bit. Hey, you know, we don't want to do this. We want to do it kind of like this. I'm going to put down some extra money so that it covers or, Whatever the case may be, there's a how can I mentality that's so important. Alan Peterson does a great job, but I don't care who you use. Just use someone good, someone who's gonna take care of you, someone who understands the loan process and the SBA. And when you're working with the SBA lender specifically, make sure they have in-house SBA lending. A lot of times if you work with a newer lender, they might get a slightly better deal. But it's gonna take six months to close because they have to send all the paperwork up to. I believe it's North Carolina or Washington. Maybe it makes sense if it was Washington, but they have to send all the paperwork out to a third to the SBA itself to underwrite and to do all those processes. Whereas an in-house SBA lender at First Internet Bank would just take care of that in-house for you. This is a key. Use them early on when I was working with them. I actually was able to get an LOI from another deal so that I didn't have to pay an M&A attorney. So I cut a few corners there, but it wasn't— I wasn't looking for the entire LOI. I was looking for just a clause. Like they had a specific clause on how something worked and how they've seen it. And so I'm utilizing my resources. I have an M&A attorney who's doing my regular draft LOI, and then I want to change it up a little bit. And so I'm going to go and grab, hey, this little clause, say, hey, I want a clause like this, but it does this, this, and this. So I'm using the tools and the people around me who are in this every single day to be able to drive better, more efficient, and easier, frankly, closing. So next you want a business valuation expert. So this could be your CPA if they have experience doing it, but it's probably going to be a third party. I really wouldn't worry about this to the end. The bank will actually order one or force you to order one. Not a huge deal in my opinion, but it is important because if the valuation comes too far away from what your purchase price, like the bank's gonna have issues with that. It's the same thing in real estate. It's nothing new, but generally, you know, it's something that you want to do at some early-ish stage to make sure that you're not You know, shooting yourself in the foot and having to come up with two, three, four hundred thousand more in cash just to close. The next is like we talked about: is you can go with that CPA to do due diligence, QOE, or you can go with a third party. There's a few good third parties out there. They're all over Twitter. They're all over LinkedIn. You can find some some good reviews, making sure that you're getting that. And then after you close on that transaction, some people you want in your corner, and this is like really early on. Is you want to ensure that you're starting to work with that bookkeeper, whether that's the same bookkeeper from the CPA on the front end. But usually I like to make sure that it crosses over, you know, the closed barrier, if you will, but really making sure that you have a bookkeeper day one that's your bookkeeper or that's your CPA accounting firm. Because when you utilize someone else's, there's, there's so many things that can happen. You don't know if you trust them. You don't know, especially as you go through the due diligence process, like they, They put some stuff weird, they hide things, they move things. Who knows? It's better to start fresh. Another one is insurance and broker. You might need this upfront right before you close on the SBA loan, just because they're going to require you have insurance to close, most likely at least life insurance. I think some other insurances as well. But if not, get an insurance broker right away, someone who's going to actually go to bat for you. And same with healthcare insurance broker. Like you want these insurance brokers to really go to the market and try to get you the cheapest rates possible because these are going to be some of your largest expense items. So making sure you're sitting down with them, you're understanding. I know day one you want to just get into the business and understand operations. And if you're in plumbing, you want to do plumbing. And if you're in electric, you want to do the electrical. Like you got in business and to own a business because you want to like do that trade. But insurance actually is almost more important, right? You save, if you can save $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 a year on insurance, like that's an area where you could potentially do that. Health insurance, you want to make sure your team's happy that they're getting the great insurance coverage that they need, that nothing changes over the transition because you will lose people if you have lapses in healthcare coverage. So making sure that after the fact that that person is extremely important to bring on, Right after you close. I think those are the big 5 groups that you really need. There's some other people that are in the weeds. There's some groups that are, that'll help you understand the M&A process better. You can find them out there. There's some groups that'll help you find deals out there as you're going through the deal process. But in terms of like must-have, these are the 5 people you must have in your corner ready to go as you're starting to go on your search. Do it early. Find them. Make those connections. Start talking to them because these connections are going to be the difference between a good, clean, fast close and long, drawn-out, high expenses. Just a brutal close at the very end of the day. If you like what you heard today, if you found any value in it, like, share, give us five stars wherever you listen. We appreciate it, and keep coming back for more.