Closed Deal Case Study: Unrealistic Expectations of Business Value Challenge:  Business owner neglect led to a significant revenue decline without understanding the impact on the business value A business owner that sold home décor contacted The Vant Group (TVG) to sell their business. The business was over 10 years old and the owner was becoming distracted by other life ventures.  Due to this, they started to lose interest in the business and revenues began to decline.  Eventually, it dropped to

As a Business Owner – Salary, Draw or Both! When looking at a balance sheet, there are a few ways an owner can receive compensation at the end of the day. How to go about this should involve an accountant and an attorney who is on the payroll or ones that are entrusted to give sound advice. Depending on the structure of the company, the owner might be limited to the ways they are able to bring in a personal

By David M. Wang, Esq. Collective Insights on business ownership has David Wang posing the question to business owners, “Should I Give Employees Equity in the Business?” with added food for thought from our in-house attorney consultant.   Many business owners need to find ways to recruit and retain employees. The cost of training employees is high, and finding a great employee can be difficult and time-consuming. The reoccurring idea to solve this problem is handing out equity. In other

Losing Sight of the Big Picture is Easy to Do Challenge: To Recognize the True Value of an Acquisition, Not Just Focusing on Today TVG represented a project-based business that had a few million dollars in current backlog. This backlog represented over 100% of the current yearly revenue. When we went to market, our valuation was based on several factors including the historical cash-flow as well as the strength of the future backlog. The buyers agreed to the valuation in the Letter of

Knowing and Understanding ODCF – Owner’s Discretionary Cash Flow It cannot be stressed enough the importance of verifiable cash flow on a small business. Replacing an income from corporate America is the main drive for a high percentage of first-time buyers. They are typically looking for a small business to “cut their teeth on” for their first or only business purchase. What is ODCF? ODCF stands for Owner’s Discretionary Cash Flow, which is simply defined as money able to be