Before you think about a selling your restaurant on your own you should read this article.  Here are three very good reasons to bring a restaurant broker into the deal.

Reason #1 – Emotional attachment to your restaurant business.  If you have run your restaurant for an extended period of time then you have watched it grow over the years and this creates emotional ties your business.  You may view your restaurant as your baby and something that has been instrumental in providing for your family. 

Once you have made the decision to sell you will go through many different kinds of emotions including ongoing attachment and regret.  This makes it difficult for you to work with prospective buyers especially if they criticize something about your business such as “I tried the spaghetti and the sauce had too much salt.”  If this is a recipe that you pride yourself on this could affect your judgment toward the prospective buyer. 

Because the prospective buyer is making the offer they will try and find every flaw possible to justify a lower price.  If you sell with a restaurant broker their job is making sure the transaction and the deal gets accomplished and they place no emotion behind the sale.  This is a lot different than it is for you if you try to sell on your own.

Reason #2 – You know how to run and restaurant and the restaurant broker knows how to sell a restaurant.  As a restaurant broker our experience with restaurant owners has been that they are unique people who have created something successful and managed to build it so it could support their family. 

We come across a variety of different restaurant owners that have learned the old family recipes next to their grandmother or they may be exclusive chefs that have developed a knack for cooking.  Instead of doing the accounting paperwork, they prefer to entertain people and live life under the watchful eye of the public.  Although they are good at finding solutions when the bartender and dishwasher both call in sick, they prefer not to take care of the mindless paperwork that is necessary but not “hands on” to the business.

You must remember that the accounting details are important to the potential buyer and they are going to want to focus on this information.  Potential buyers are not concerned about the time of day that they tour your restaurant and they may show up at your busiest time such as between noon and 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday. 

If you are trying to cook and manage the restaurant in addition to answering the buyer’s questions, you will be doing more of what you are less good at and less of what you are excellent at doing.  As a result, your business will suffer in the absence of your management and the potential transaction for the sale of your restaurant will also suffer due to your lack of brokerage skills.  The best thing to do is to let a professional Atlanta restaurant broker handle the sale of your restaurant while you continue to do what you do best to keep increasing sales and maintaining profits.

Reason #3 – An offer does not mean your restaurant is sold.  Although you may have come to agreement with the buyer on the selling price of your restaurant this is only the beginning.  It is not very difficult to put together a buyer and seller that agree on a price as long as the bookkeeping contains precise records.  The Atlanta restaurant broker can be a great help when it comes to seeing the contract through to the closing table.  Once a price is agreed upon there are many things that can stand in the way when the buyer begins to rethink the transaction and start putting everything under a microscope.  This is where the business broker can help you by skillfully working out some of the issues that come up with the buyer that can cause a deal to fall apart.

The restaurant broker can help reassure the buyer that his concerns such as an unpaid lien  can be resolved out of closing and that it is not a complete crisis.  The restaurant broker can also act as a coach for the seller by walking him through the sales tax clearance letter with the state or locating two year old tax returns with a stamp on them from the Internal Revenue Service.

The broker can also keep both parties in the deal when the buyer learns that the inspection indicates there is a list of items that need to be fixed or when the seller finds out he is required to remain on the liquor license during the transition period.  The broker can also negotiate with the buyer’s attorney who refuses to complete the closing without this piece of paper and then tell the seller where he can easily obtain this piece of paper.

The broker is the mediator for both sides of the deal and gets yelled at from all angles while keeping their cool in the process.  This is the reason that many restaurant brokers hear “The deal could not have happened with you” at the end of the closing process.  A restaurant broker can prevent the deal from going sideways by constantly repairing the holes and bringing it back on track. 

Without a restaurant broker you have less than a 1 in 20 chance for the deal to make it all the way to the closing table.  This is why if you get an offer, it is only the beginning and you need an experienced broker to see the deal through to completion.  These are the reasons you should not try to sell an Atlanta restaurant on your own and instead use a restaurant broker.