Buying a Business

Based on a popular seminar by the same name, this guide to buying a business is chock full of information on selecting a business for purchase, weighing the pros and cons of using a business broker, the nine most common seller mistakes, 39 negotiating techniques, evaluating and appraising a business, 82 steps of due diligence, and more, concluding with a good bibliography for further research. The format, which shifts between comments from seminar presenters Rich Jessup and George Flowers, other experts, and bridging skits which range from the smile-producing to the groan-evoking, isn't the best approach. There's some repetition amongst the speakers, and some surface treatments of the subjects (Flowers talks about nearly a dozen valuation methods--but his comments are brief, excerpted sound bites, not in-depth examinations). Too, though the numbers are impressive ("39 negotiating techniques," "82 steps of due diligence") not all the steps or techniques are equally valuable: one of the techniques concerns calculating the blink rate of the person with whom you're negotiating (contact-wearers have a different rate). Yet, even the scattershot approach here still manages to impart a lot of information. Much better than Buying Your Own Business (VL-5/93), though not as straightforward as How to Leave Your Job and Buy a Business of Your Own (VL-5/92), this is still recommended as a good, relatively inexpensive choice for strong small business collections. (R. Pitman)