Most deals don’t start in a conference room. Our most recent started in a plastic airport chair in Jacksonville, still sunburned from a golf trip, sitting next to a stranger in a Reynolds shirt. That stranger was a small business broker. By the time I boarded my flight, I had a deal worth looking at.
I’ve already covered how to buy a business — the due diligence, the process, what to look for. Today we’re digging into something different. This is the one-year report on what actually happened after we closed.
The Basics
The business was an automated blinds and window treatment dealership in Georgia. Hunter Douglas brand. Strip mall location. Five employees. One owner who had been running the place for 20 years and was ready to be done.
His revenue was just under $2 million a year. What he actually took home after all expenses — his free cash flow — was between $225,000 and $250,000. He wanted a million-plus. Deals kept falling through, and once I dug in, it was obvious why.
The business only worked because of him. He capped himself at three sales calls a day. No CRM. No marketing. No systems that could survive without him in the building. When I ran the real math — what it would cost me to hire someone to replace him — that $250K in earnings became $75K to $100K in actual cash flow for me as the new owner. You can’t pay a 3-5x multiple on $250K when the honest number is $75K. That’s how people overpay for businesses and regret it.
So we offered $400,000. But here’s where it gets interesting.
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