While attending the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, I was fortunate enough to take two Corporate Strategy courses with the late, great C.K. Prahalad. Professor Prahalad was famous for his writings "The Core Competence of the Corporation" and "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", but his writing I remember the most was "Collaborate With Your Competitors and Win" published in the Harvard Business Review in 1989.
The article presented an argument that collaboration can actually be a profitable strategy for competitors who work together against non-participating competitors. The Business Brokers of Florida (BBF) is the nation's largest state association of business brokers and they have fostered an era of collaborative competition. The BBF is one of the few international, national or state organizations where membership requires collaborative deal-making. Membership in the BBF requires all brokers to co-broke, or split, commissions 50/50 regardless of whether they bring a buyer or seller to the transaction. Most associations have no such requirement and oftentimes brokers will refuse to co-broke or will offer a small finders' fee for for bringing a ready and willing buyer to a transaction. Refusing to co-broke or offering a small finders' fee disincentivises a competitive broker from collaborating in the transaction. This reduces the probability of selling the business or obtaining the maximum price.
Before you list your Florida business for sale, or before you request a broker to search for a suitable business for you to buy, ask your broker, "are you a BBF member?"
For additional information regarding Florida business sales, acquisitions and valuations, please contact Eric J. Gall at eric@buysellswflbiz.com or 239-405-8818. Also, visit our Florida Business Exchange website at http://www.fbxbrokers.com and my personal website at http://www.buysellflbiz.com.
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