Generating a Referral-Based Clientele through LinkedIn
The key to the success of many top-selling business brokers is developing clients through referrals.
Belinda Landers Jackson, a Professional Sales & Leadership Coach with Southwestern Consulting, spoke to the Georgia Association of Business Brokers on Sept. 1 about how to use LinkedIn to create what she called warm referrals.
View a recording of her presentation here.
Jackson said effectively using LinkedIn can help professionals connect to the people they need to meet to create business, and help each other close business deals faster.
“We’ve got to make it easy for people to refer us business,” Jackson said. She demonstrated how to create a list of job titles that one might target for networking, and how to pull a list of names from referral partners.
She suggested professionals pre-approach strategy in which you ask a prospective referral partner for a story on how they met, something they respect about the referral, some unique interest or funny story. “We call them golden nuggets,” or a warm way of creating an initial interaction. This warm introduction is much more effective than a going-for-the-jugular sales pitch because it puts people at ease.
GABB Board member Mike Ramatowski says developing clients through referrals can take a long time, but pays off. You should not ignore potential clients when you’re not doing business with them. “I recently closed a deal with someone that I had been working with for two years,” he said. Join GABB and find out how you can improve your referrals game.
Belinda sold and managed more than $1 Million in marketing budgets per year for multiple small- and medium-sized businesses. She also has extensive experience working with law firms, commercial and industrial products, home and home improvement businesses, and medical offices to increase awareness and market their business.
Southwestern Consulting is the professional sales training division of the oldest direct sales company in the US, The Southwestern Company.
The GABB is the state’s premier organization devoted to buying and selling businesses and franchises, and operates the state’s only real estate school dedicated to business brokering. For more information about GABB, please email diane.loupe@gabb.org, call or text 404-374-3990, or contact GABB president Dean Burnette at dean@b3brokers.com or (912) 247-3209.
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Learn About the Board-Certified Broker Program: Aug. 4
Clients who want to buy or sell a business want to know they are working with a business broker who knows what they’re doing. That’s why the Georgia Association of Business Brokers is preparing a certification program to help train business brokers to better represent their clients.
Business brokers and those who aspire to become brokers are invited to the GABBs’ virtual meeting on Aug. 4, 2020, at 10 a.m. to hear about the Board-Certified Broker or BCB proposal.
The GABB believes that to be a successful business broker, a person must understand issues beyond those typically covered by real estate schools. That’s why the GABB has acquired a license from the Georgia Real Estate Commission (GREC) to operate a real estate school, the only such school in Georgia dedicated to business brokering. The proposed BCB program will teach business brokers what they need to know about accounting terms, federal tax returns, understanding financial statements, recasting financial statements, business and inventory valuation, financing a business sale, understanding legal issues, understanding business structures, confidentiality, marketing, ethics, due diligence, securing business-for-sale listings, and setting up a business broker practice.
The GABB has posted details about the curriculum online at the GABB blog.
At the Aug. 4 meeting, members and others will be able to offer feedback on our proposal.
Under Georgia law, there is no specific licensing requirement to be a business broker. However, anyone selling or buying, offering to buy or sell, acquiring prospects to buy or sell or negotiating for the buying or selling of real estate for compensation must be licensed by the GREC. According to section 520.1-.19 of Georgia law, Business Brokers are covered by the same legal requirements as any Real Estate licensee if the sale includes the transfer of any interest in real estate, including leases.
For more information about GABB, please email diane.loupe@gabb.org or call or text 404-374-3990, or contact GABB president Dean Burnette at dean@b3brokers.com or (912) 247-3209.
Read MoreGABB Spring Conference: Negotiations and Landlords & Leases, March 19, 2024
Earn the credits you need to renew your real estate license and learn about Negotiations for Business Brokers and Leases & Landlords at our Spring Conference on March 19, 2024!
Join us in welcoming Tawnya Gilreath with LA Business Pros as she teaches two courses for our Spring Conference. Tawnya serves as managing director of LA Business Pros and is a Broker Associate with eXp Commercial. She leverages her knowledge as an attorney and her credentials as a Certified Merger & Acquisition Professional (CM&AP), Certified Business Intermediary (CBI, and Certified Exit Planner (CExP) to help her clients develop business exit strategies and navigate timely and successful business sales that achieve optimal results.
8:30 am – 9:00 am – Networking, with light breakfast
9:00 am – 12:00 pm – Morning Session: Negotiations for Business Brokers(3 CE Hours GREC and GABB)
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm – Box lunch sponsored by Brian Hill with United Community Bank
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Afternoon Session: Leases & Landlords (3 CE Hours GREC and GABB)
Participants have the option of joining us for both courses (6 total CE credits), or one course (3 CE credits). Lunch will be provided, thanks to our generous sponsor, Brian Hill with United Community Bank.
Cost:
Member Full-Day: $199
Non-Member Full-Day: $250
Member Half-Day: $125
Non-Member Half-Day: $160
INSTRUCTOR:
Tawnya Gilreath, managing director of LA Business Pros. When it comes to selling a business, owners often make the same costly mistake over and over: They list the business for sale before it’s buyer-ready. As managing director of LA Business Pros and a practicing attorney focused on business law and estate planning, Tawnya helps business owners prepare, position, and sell their businesses with first-rate results. After a successful sale, her clients are free to move their futures forward in any direction they choose.
Tawnya’s business foundation came from 20+ years in information technologies, where she learned to pay careful attention to details. As a programmer/analyst, and later as director of IT, she served businesses ranging in size from small mom-and-pop shops to global corporations like Hewlett Packard and Investor’s Business Daily.
In 2006, Tawnya shifted her focus to business sales and acquisitions. Her detail-oriented mindset and analytical skills helped her to assess businesses, identify potential deal-breakers, and determine ways to increase value.
In 2010, Tawnya began her journey to obtain a Juris Doctor degree so she could communicate more effectively with client and buyer attorneys, read the small print, and provide the highest quality service to her business owner clients.
Today, Tawnya leverages her deep expertise to identify potential obstacles and prepare a path to overcome them. In addition to her role as the managing director of LA Business Pros and her active legal practice, Tawnya is a Certified Merger & Acquisition Professional (CM&AP), Certified Business Intermediary (CBI), and Certified Exit Planner (CExP) who helps her clients achieve optimal results.
Tawnya is licensed by the California Department of Real Estate as a Broker and Broker Associate with eXp Commercial of California, Inc., #01313195, and as a Designated Officer for Whizdom Group, Inc. dba LA Business Pros, #01403121. She is licensed by the State Bar of California, #304746.
Sponsor:
Brian Hill has extensive experience in the banking industry. Brian served as Vice President, SBA Business Development Officer, and Vice President Commercial Lending at United Community Bank from 2015 to the present. Prior to that, they worked as a Business Services Officer at BB&T from 2010-2015 and as a Business Banker at Wachovia, A Wells Fargo Company from 2005-2010.
Brian Hill attended Troy University from 1988 to 1993, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in History.
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GABB Spring Conference: License Law and Leases-May 19 & 20, 2020
Earn the credits you need to renew your real estate license and learn about leases without having to fight the traffic at the Georgia Association of Business Brokers’ Spring Conference to be held via Zoom Livestream on May 19 and 20th, 2020. The conference will be live-streamed online via Zoom.
We have room for ONE MORE STUDENT for the May 19 program is “Everything is Great Until it Isn’t – License Law” which satisfies the Georgia Real Estate Commission’s requirement that you must have a 3-hour license law class every four years. The class is GREC Course #67741, a three-hour class and is being held through the Georgia Association of Realtors’ Partners in Education program, GREC School Code #271.
But CAN STILL TAKE REGISTRATION for the Wednesday, May 20th, 3-hour class titled “Evaluating Lease Issues when Buying or Selling a Business” through the GABB’s Real Estate School, Class code #71908, GREC School Code #8074. This course will receive three hours of CE credit through the GREC.
Registration for the conference will be $49 for GABB members, and $99 for non-GABB members. Scroll to the bottom of the page to register. Both classes will be held from 9 a.m. until noon.
Requirements for participating in a virtual class:
- Your device must have a video webcam, microphone, and speakers. (Students are required to enable video so that we can monitor attendance.)
- You need to set up a free Zoom account (https://zoom.us/) prior to the class. (Your free 40-minute account will allow you easy access to our ZOOM Classroom account.)
- Students are expected to attend the entire class session (except during the 15-minute break) just as if they were sitting in a classroom.
- After the class, you will be emailed an electronic affidavit and an electronic class evaluation. To receive CE credit, you must complete both.
A link to participate in Tuesday class has been sent to registered students on Monday, May 18. If you did not get it, email georgiabusinessbrokers@gmail.com or call 404-374-3990.
Everything is Great Until it Isn’t – License Law – GREC Course #67741
THIS COURSE SATISFIES THE GREC REAL ESTATE LICENSE LAW EDUCATION REQUIREMENT. Students will review and be able to apply License Law to daily business with a focus on handling transactions as a licensee and a licensee acting as a principal, understand Unfair Trade Practices to improve licensee’s skills in normal business activities, demonstrate advertising compliance in all media, be better equipped to serve and protect clients and customers and improve knowledge and skills in brokerage actions. This is an interactive course suitable for commercial and residential agents. (This course provides both Real Estate Licensee CE credit and Real Estate Instructor CE credit.)
Instructor: Ann Cyphers, President of Cyphers Brokerage Associates, Inc., has been extremely active in the Atlanta commercial real estate sector for many years completing hundreds of sale and lease transactions for local and national companies during her 30-year career. Prior to forming her own company, Ann was Vice President of Jones Lang LaSalle, with responsibilities that included training, new business development and the marketing and leasing of Class A office buildings. Ann has been a GREC-certified instructor for more than 20 years teaching sales and broker prelicensing courses, post license courses and continuing education. She earned her CCIM (Certified Commercial Member) in 1998 and is a graduate of Georgia State University. Ann has served on several real estate boards and received numerous awards including the Commercial Real Estate Women Development of the Year Awards and Shining Light Award.
“Evaluating Lease Issues when Buying or Selling a Business”
LEARNING OBJECTIVE: Attendees, all of whom are licensed real estate agents, will learn how about leases, including Georgia law, types of leases, the value of the lease to a business, common lease terms, franchise issues, assets attached to the property, subordination, below-market leases and common lease issues faced by business buyers and sellers.
INSTRUCTORS:
Wendy W. Kraby, Attorney, GDCR Law. Ms. Kraby is a University of Georgia graduate who was the managing editor of the Red & Black student newspaper, she went on to become a writer and editor at CNN before earning her law degree at Georgia State University’s College of Law. She has been admitted to the State Bar of Georgia, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the Georgia Court of Appeals and the United States Tax Court.
Jon Roman, treasurer of the GABB, is the owner of Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Perimeter, an award-winning group of five agents, an office manager and a marketing sales specialist. For nearly 18 years, prior to Transworld, Mr. Roman had helped entrepreneurs to obtain funding when acquiring, selling or franchising businesses. He established, acquired, operated and sold his own businesses for more than 20 years. Mr. Roman is a former commercial banker with experience in a multitude of deals. Throughout his career, Jon financed mergers and acquisitions, business expansions, construction and development projects. He evaluated businesses, built and consolidated financial records and shared opinions regarding business plans, and/or exit strategies. Mr. Roman is a lifetime million-dollar member of the GABB and is currently serving as the group’s treasurer. Among other qualifications, Jon is a Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM), a (Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) and a member of the Entrepreneur’s Organization.
NOTE: You may still register for the WEDNESDAY, May 20, class, but we have only ONE SPACE left for the TUESDAY, May 19 class. Please call 404-374-3990 to confirm that we still have space if that’s the class you want.
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An Unexpected Symptom of COVID-19 – Impairment Expense
By David Hern, CPA/ABV, ASA, GABB Affiliate and financial analyst
If you haven’t heard of COVID-19 or Coronavirus–or as my 6-year-old refers to it, the ball with red broccoli on it–then you’ve been living under a rock. Regardless of your quarantine efforts, your business is experiencing a severe coronavirus symptom that could have a major impact on your 2020 financials and audit. For any company that completed an M&A transaction in the last few years, large impairment expenses are likely to occur by this time next year.
COVID-19: my 6-year-old refers to it as the ball with red broccoli on it
Many companies are in the throes of their 2019 audits and are thankful they do not have to pile yet another item on their to-do list. These same companies are probably finishing up purchase price allocations (PPAs) for ASC 805 – Business Combination accounting from deals completed in 2019. However, CFOs and Controllers across the US need to be developing and saving their current COVID-19 financial projections immediately. Why? For starters, many of these companies likely chose to switch to amortizing goodwill over a 10-year period after completing their PPA. What these executives do not realize is just because you are writing off intangible assets does not mean they do not need to be tested for impairment. U.S. generally accepted accounting principles require you to test your goodwill for impairment expense under FASB ASC 350 if there has been a “trigger event.” I can promise you every auditor worth their salt across this great land is going to define a global pandemic which we’ve not seen the likes since the Spanish Flu will as a “trigger event.” At one point, the major stock indices were down well over 30% from their highs.
There are several triggering events noted in ASC Topic 350 that could apply including:
- Macroeconomic conditions such as a deterioration in general economic conditions,
- Overall financial performance such as a negative or declining cash flows or a decline in actual or planned revenue or earnings,
- A sustained decrease in share price, etc.
Consequently, valuation analysts will have to be engaged to determine if a decline in fair values of various reporting units are below their carrying amounts resulting in an impairment expense. Sofer Advisors would be happy to talk with you about your unique circumstances and how they may be a triggering event. Please contact us for a free consultation.