"Leaving Corporate America...

...to purchase finance established money-making small businesses; why didn't we do this sooner?"

These are the exact words of small business owners Hunter and William who are successful partners in a mutually loving relationship at home, and as small business partners for life expressed to me at every SBA change of business ownership loan funding.

Hunter and William both worked successfully for corporate America in different industries, managing teams of people, learning how important inspiring people leadership leads to retention of employees of their corporate teams, marketing, sales, understanding budgets, etc.

The very first small business to be acquired by Hunter and William was a retail vape shop. The current owner was absent full-time. The few employees on hand truly were the business. The small business cash flowed sufficiently to cover the SBA loan project.

The small business was one that Hunter and William could easily take on, retain their W2 corporate employment income, and get their "feet wet" regarding small business ownership.

Two years later, Hunter and William contacted me in excitement to show me their last two years' vape shop business tax returns reflecting year-over-year sales growth, retention of original employees, new jobs created, and net cash profits.

Everything Hunter and William believed in who they were successfully within corporate, was holding true to their talents of being positive leaders of people, welcoming diversity, equity, and inclusion of all their retained employees while growing their initial first small business.

Hunter had an appreciation for serving "the wealthy" with above and beyond service. He worked for a high-end Lexus dealer and built relationships with many wealthy small business owners who were customers at the dealership.

A longtime spa small business owner was looking to sell her business to move out of state. He got to know the gal who owned and groomed the established money-making spa small business. Hunter was a client of the spa. He already knew the strengths of the business from being a satisfied customer.

Hunter and William presented the business tax returns and the acceptance letter of intent to me. The three of us all agreed the historical cash flow of the Spa business was more than sufficient to support the proposed SBA business acquisition loan project.

The only dilemma was the current owner, who again groomed the business to be absentee, held the state license for various "cosmetic botox injections" to be administered to clients.

Hunter and William were able to interview PRIOR to the business change of ownership a licensed esthetician who would work part-time for the spa, meeting the licensing needs of the employees of the spa. The esthetician was a "key employee".

Hunter and William did NOT need to pull a new owner's salary from the spa because they were still working their full-time W2 jobs during the day, and their Vape small business was paying them both healthy owner officer salaries.

We completed 3yr projections with assumptions of the spa small business. We included the newly licensed esthetician's part-time employee salary and actually added back some of the current owner's large officer salaries to the business cash flow.

Boom. A win-win for everyone! Hunter and William now own an established, money-making, successful spa business, with Hunter continuing his weekly spa treatments as an owner-operator.

Over the next year and a half, both Hunter and William implemented their "people over everything" business ownership skills into their second small business.

I asked Hunter recently what would be the one area that truly makes small businesses a success. His reply was "retention of their employees." He and Will do anything and everything to ensure ALL their employees are happy. They meet with them weekly. They create relationships with each and every one of them. They don't leave one employee out of their own attention. They all deserve recognition, kindness, and a feeling of belonging.

Hunter stated, "once you have a happy work culture, the employees take pride and ownership in the business. You can't beat happy employees."

Eighteen months later my iPhone is ringing, and there is my dear client Hunter calling me. I answer the phone "Hey Hunter" and he asks me, "are you ready for another one Deb?"

I reply, "Deb is ALWAYS ready for another one with Hunter and William!"

This time they present to me a contracting home improvement business. This industry is right up William's resume of experience.

Back in the day, William's father owned a home improvement business. He worked for his father for several years. In fact, William's W2 corporate employment today was a maintenance manager of a team of 30 contractors improving commercial properties.

Same story. Yet another tenured, groomed business that has been successful year after year in a busy metropolitan market.

To speed up the story, the acquisition of the home improvement business was a success.

Over the last five years of a blessed opportunity to work with these wonderful gentlemen, they have purchased a beautiful 2nd vacation home on a lake up in the north woods, and they have officially exited corporate America.

All of their small businesses have extremely healthy balance sheets and IRS reported healthy net income.

The general managers of each business report to them weekly. They hold fun employee get-togethers and retreats for all of their employees, and they are living the American small business owner's dream.

I asked Hunter and William since I work with so many "hesitant small business buyers" who let fear hold them back, what would you tell them?

Hunter replied "When you work with Deb, she truly does take the fear out of the unknown. In our first business purchase, we were clueless. She remained with us 1:1 from start to successful business ownership funding."

Hunter continued, "I would tell established corporate employees who have management experience, sales, marketing knowledge, etc. - don't wait. There are numerous baby boomer small businesses on the market today that have been groomed and ready for new owner transition. We are living in financial freedom reality because of believing in who we could be by acquiring successful small businesses, and we are building a nice retirement nest egg to sell over the next 5-10 years. It would have taken us 20 more years in corporate to even come remotely close to the financial freedom we are realizing today."

Hunter's last words of advice were "if we would have stayed in corporate, we would have nothing but the same today, as we did five years ago." He continued "in fact, we may have found ourselves unemployed from corporate."

Words of wisdom from some of my favorite small business owner clients. Hunter and William.

They both truly understand the power of people, taking care of their employees, creating happy work cultures, and practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion through small business ownership.

I am so grateful Hunter and William came into my life.

Here I am the one they claim is teaching them how to become a small business owner of established money-making small businesses.

Little do my clients know, how much they teach me about kindness, love of people and that hard work truly does pay off.

This could be you too!

-Deb

Deb Curtis is a direct SBA business acquisition preferred lending specialist.?

She coaches business buyers and business listing brokers on how to prepare a quality SBA change of business owner credit application package from start to successful SBA loan funding.?

Deb will take away fear by providing credible SBA prequalification letters within 24-48 hours to give interested business buyers wings to fly toward small business ownership.

Subscribe to her weekly LinkedIn newsletter, connect on her personal profile, and follow her LinkedIn business page for daily inspiration, business acquisition tips, and stories for small business sellers, buyers, and business brokers.