Ed Goldman is the author of THE GOLDMAN STATE. He writes a thrice-weekly online column. When Ed was younger and more foolish, he was a daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as a monthly columnist both for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine. Ed is also the author of five books including Don’t Cry For Me, Ardent Reader. And Now, With Further Ado… But I Digress…, two plays and one musical.
Ed has taught journalism, public relations, and marketing courses at three California State University campuses, two community colleges, and the University of California Extension. In 1982, he founded Goldman Communications, Inc. This is a multiple award-winning marketing, PR, and advertising consultancy. He would like to be the victim of a corporate takeover.
Although Ed is no longer young and foolish, he’s still foolish. This is because he chose to revisit a conversation he had about 7 years ago and re-interview Andrew Rogerson. Andrew is a Lifetime Certified Business Broker with Rogerson Business Services. So there are no misunderstandings, here is part of the interview Ed had with Andrew directly from The Goldman State.
Ed Goldman talking with Andrew Rogerson
This past March, just as the world was beginning its pandemic shutdown, Andrew Rogerson still was able to help one of his clients sell a medical supply manufacturing business for $3.1 million. “I get a success fee when that happens,” he says. And if the company wouldn’t have sold despite Rogerson’s best efforts? “Oh sometimes I get a thank-you note,” he says in his deadpan, Aussie accent, which somehow can make a situation sound funny rather than frustrating.
For the past 15 years, Rogerson, who’s 64, has been helping clients sell a variety of California businesses. He also prepares valuations on companies and equipment. It also includes consulting or investing in franchises, buying companies, and executing a diversity of tactical moves in different industry sectors. What he provides through his firm, Rogerson Business Services, are pretty much one-off transactions—meaning, that while he gets plenty of referrals from satisfied customers, he rarely gets repeat business.
“They sell their company, they’re done with me,” he says in a tone that may define the word chipper. “And that’s just fine.”
I first wrote about Rogerson seven years ago, for the Sacramento Business Journal. At the time, he told me his Down Under back-story—how, when he was 21 years old, his grandfather gave him $10,000, which Rogerson used to build a house in his native Melbourne. “My dad was a plumber,” he said, “and everybody pitched in.”
Selling and buying a business requires collaboration
Rogerson still believes in collaboration, many homes, and five businesses later. It includes his ownership of an executive suites complex, an office equipment business, and both retail and wholesale travel agencies (one of which he says he sold for “240 percent of the original purchase price” just before that industry was largely rendered obsolete by the Internet).
Although Rogerson loves his work and can’t imagine retiring. He admits that one tragic result of his success still bothers him. He helped an entrepreneur sell a business he’d owned for many years “and he identified himself with it so much that once it was gone, he couldn’t find anything to replace its meaning for him and took his life.”
I ask Rogerson why he prefers to limit his territory to California when his skills and contacts could easily plunk him down in other less regulatory states, or even his birthplace. “Australia is much more regulated than the U.S.,” he says with a smile. “And look at New Zealand. Everyone wonders how they kept COVID-19 under control there. It’s simple. The government just said, ‘Here’s how it’s going to be and you’d better comply.’ And the people did.” Also, he says, business rules “are different in each state. So if someone in another state were to see this article and contact me about helping him do a transaction where he lives, I’d probably refer him to someone I know there.”
Covid-19 impact
While Rogerson says Covid-19 had an effect on his business a bit—“I mean, no one’s buying so-called non-essential businesses, and most people don’t think it wise right now to invest in one.” What hit him harder was on a personal basis. He and his wife of 41 years, Anne, have two grown daughters, the elder of whom, Belinda, lives in Melbourne and currently can’t visit or be visited, thanks to the pandemic. But their other daughter, Cathy, who lives “about a 10-minute drive away,” has two little kids.
To help a client sell or buy a business he might bring in attorneys, accountants, and an escrow company. In California, buying a business, especially becomes a multi-player transaction.
That’s collaboration.
You are welcome to read the rest of the article on Ed’s website, the Goldman State.
