Sunbelt Seeks Sellers, Buyers of Businesses

Carl Grimes knows about the entrepreneurial spirit.

He started a weekly newspaper in Clarendon and ran it for 10 years before selling and moving to Northwest Arkansas. Then a partnership in a title company went bad, and he purchased controlling interest but assumed too much debt. Through networking and a few favorable circumstances, he was able to sell his rights for the business for a $100,000 finder’s fee and landed a two-year employment contract.

That was in 1992, and it was Grimes’ first taste of business brokering. He wrote a business plan, completed his two-year contract, and in January of 1995, began brokering businesses full-time.

He is now the territory owner in Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri for the Charleston, S.C.-based Sunbelt Business Advisors. His firm is a franchise, formally known as Sunbelt Business Advisors of the Ozarks, with offices in Fayetteville and Springfield, Mo., and one to open in Joplin, Mo., when the “time is right.”

In a nutshell, Sunbelt helps owners of businesses who want to sell match up with people who want to work for themselves. Grimes said he helps sellers figure the value of their business, how to market it to a buyer and how to negotiate the transactions. He charges 10 percent of the selling price up to a $1 million transaction, and then a negotiable fee for anything above that.

The brokerage has closed on about 250 transactions, in its nine-year history, Grimes said. In 2004 alone, Sunbelt had 17 transactions. The firm has listings in four states — Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma — and Grimes said he’ll have some in Louisiana soon.

He recently drove the more than 740-mile round trip to the southwest Oklahoma town of Altus to consult with an orthodontist about selling his business.

“Business is highly personal,” Grimes said.

That’s why Sunbelt brokers meet with prospective clients face-to-face. He said many Internet-based brokers don’t enjoy high success percentages because they lack the personal touch.

History has shown there’s an 18-to-1 ratio for business buyers, Grimes said, meaning he has to talk with 18 prospects before one will actually commit to buying. And there’s about a 5-to-1 ratio for sellers.

Based on a direct-mail campaign Grimes initiated in January, he thinks there are about 180 small business owners in the “Ozarks” who are willing to sell their businesses if presented with the right circumstances. He has about 40 listings, so he figures there are 140 more he needs to talk with.

“What we do does not happen overnight,” he said.

A Muskogee, Okla., business he closed recently took almost four years to list and sell to the right people.

Grimes said about 90 percent of the buyers he talks to don’t know what business they would like to buy. Many, he said, are driven to buy through an unexpected unemployment or other circumstances.

But he tells the story of one executive at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who watched the Sunbelt Web site for two years and closed on a business the day he retired from the retailer.