Finding the Right Buyer for Your Kitchen and Bath Installation Business
With housing prices rising in many areas, owners are deciding to stay in their current homes and remodel or even update their homes before putting them on the market. That means the kitchen and bath installation business is booming, and if you are looking to sell that type of business, your timing is pretty good.
But how do you find the right buyer? Of course, the key is to find a person who wants to purchase your kitchen and bath installation business, who has the money or qualifies for financing, and who is capable of operating the business successfully or hiring those who can. The buyer will also need to live in your general geographic area or be willing to relocate there.
They key is to develop a marketing persona that helps you establish your ideal buyer, determine where they hang out online and in person if they are looking to buy a business, and when and how you should reach out to them. Here are some tips.
Who?
The first key is to determine who will be interested in buying your business. In this case, it can be anyone from a competitor or another company looking to expand their reach, a home remodeling business owner who wants to expand their reach to kitchen and bath specialization, or an employee of a kitchen and bath installation business who wants to own their own company rather than continuing to work for someone else.
- Age: A quick search reveals that this person will likely be in their early 30’s to their 50’s. Those in their 30’s are old enough to be established financially, and those in their 50’s are young enough that they are not yet thinking of retiring.
- Sex: Although this is not a qualifier, the majority of the owners of kitchen and bath remodeling businesses are male.
- Economic Status: Most often your buyers will already be entrepreneurs or have a high drive toward owning their own business, and will have some business and management experience.
- Education Level: Most buyers even in this industry will have a college degree, usually in business or a related field. The buyer may also have equivalent trade experience but no degree, but those cases are rarer.
- Industry Experience: Most buyers will either have management experience in this or a similar industry or will own or have owned a similar business. They will be familiar with home construction and remodeling.
All of this means that your ideal buyer will likely fall into these categories. While you can target a broader audience if you keep these targets in mind in both your digital and physical marketing you will have greater success.
Where?
Where will you market your business? Obviously, your customer reach is within a certain distance, usually around 100 miles or less of your physical location. The radius for you finding a buyer is a similar distance because they will need to serve your customers in that area.
Sometimes a buyer will be willing to relocate for the right business, but they will not be your primary target. If they are looking for a business in your area, they will still find you in the places you market. There are several you can choose from.
- Digital Marketing: You can run very targeted ads on Google, LinkedIn, and other business sites.
- Business for Sale Websites: You can advertise on these, just make sure they have a good way to filter businesses by geography and business type, and they cover your geographic area. Some of these are simply a scam that charge you for listings with little to no result.
- Print Ads: Be careful with these. Place them in trade magazines and places where your buyers may be reading anyway. General newspaper ads do not usually work well.
Remember some keys. If you have more than one location, the buyer can always move your corporate office to somewhere closer to them, so advertise in every viable market. Don’t discount approaching larger firms, and you can even actively prospect and look for those who might be interested in buying your business. Contact them via email or social media messaging, but do so professionally, and don’t be shocked if you don’t get a response right away.
The more targeted the place where you market your business the better, and you will have to do some research into places in your area where those in your industry are most likely to find your ads.
When?
Before you even put your kitchen and bath installation business on the market, you will want to get it ready to sell. There are a number of steps to this, including getting your books in order, getting a realistic business valuation, and making sure you have everything a buyer would need to do their due diligence.
Putting your business on the market before then may mean you don’t get a good valuation and won’t make a profit on the sale.
Also, if you have slow times of the year, this may be a good time to sell as you have more time to devote to the tasks involved when you are not as busy. There also may be better times of year to sell your business depending on where you live.
If you are in northern California, for instance, you may be consistently busy pretty much year-round. You may have slower periods in the heat of the Sacramento summer, and that might be a better time to put your business up for sale.
How?
Selling a business is not like selling a traditional piece of real estate. You will need a team of professionals to help you, including your accountant, a tax attorney and more. Hiring a business broker is the best course of action, as they can help coordinate your team, help you with marketing and finding a buyer,
You will want to find an experienced team. Ones that have either participated in the sale of a business like yours before or have experience selling similar types of businesses in your area.
The truth is, you don’t have time to sell your business and run it at the same time. The team you hire will free up your time so you can keep your business running smoothly and profitably during the sales process.
Are you in the Sacramento area, and do you have questions about selling your kitchen and bath installation business? Contact Rogerson Business Services today. We have experience successfully selling a business like yours, and can help through the entire process. Let us put our experience to work for you.
