How To Sell Your Business With Gary Wofford

For many business owners and entrepreneurs, the time comes when they have to move on. When this happens selling your business becomes a priority. What can you do to ensure that you get the most out of it? In this episode, Bob Roark discusses business exit strategies with senior business broker Gary Wofford of Raincatcher LLC. Gary helps businesses buy and sell their companies and here, he gives you what you need to know with how to sell your company. Curious? Then learn more by tuning in to Bob and Gary.

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How To Sell Your Business With Gary Wofford

The big questions are how do business owners like us spend our own money, time and effort? How do we grow our businesses and jump the line? That lets us accelerate the delivery of our products and services in our community while being smart about our growth and profit culture and still creating lasting value in our business. Those are the questions in this show and we will share some of those answers. Our guest is Gary Wofford. He’s the Senior Business Broker at Raincatcher. Welcome to the show.

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Gary Wofford, thank you so much for taking your time to be a guest on the show. Welcome.

Thank you, Bob. I’m glad to be here with you.

I have been looking forward to this. You started talking about your experience in the franchise space. It seems like there isn’t anything you haven’t done. If you would tell us a little bit about how you got here.

I have been reflecting on my background and experiences. I do cover a lot of bases. I first was on the corporate side of the franchising world. It was with a company based down in Dallas that decided to franchise all of their company-owned restaurants. That was Bonanza International. I was VP of Operations over about 250 stores. They allowed me to become a franchise owner as a little bit of a stay bonus. My franchise fee was waived and I was able to pick 1 of 2 or 3 stores that would be mine. That’s when I first got involved in the ownership side of franchising. It was a wonderful experience.

I was able to develop two additional Bonanza Family Steakhouses as a franchise owner in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. I go back to that as a grassroots learning experience because with the adage, “You learn where the buck stops.” When it’s snowing outside, you got a payroll on Monday and the business is down, you learn what you have to do as a business owner to take care of that. From that very early beginning, I started gaining a strong appreciation for business owners, knowing their world and what they were faced with on a day-to-day basis.

That later led to an opportunity to sell those stores to a larger franchise owner after about 6 or 7 years because the town that I was in built another highway. The cows cut the traffic patterns down quite a bit. I could see the handwriting on the wall that it was time to consider moving on to something else. I did sell those three locations to another franchise owner and that system. I got affiliated with another franchise as the operating partner back in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Luther’s BBQ. We built over 6 or 10 years of AAA locations.

This was back in the day. We were selling barbecue sandwiches for $1.99 but we had $2 million on average with a lot of drive-throughs, takeouts and catering. Each of these restaurants would sit 200 people. We were very successful in the Dallas-Fort Worth market despite some failures of the franchise company. That led to having a little bit of a dispute. We ended up, long story short, settling with those folks. We had to change the name from Luther’s to Colter’s. I still have the little writing pad that I use to come up with that name because we did a little marketing thing and didn’t want to confuse customers.

Luther was the uncle of Colter. Colter was the nephew that took over because Luther retired. The thing I liked about it most is it saved me a lot of money because all the letters and the name were the same numbers of letters. There were canned letters on the building so it was very economical to change the name. Luther’s became Colter’s and that was a wonderful experience as well. That was about another eight-year segment. My partner ultimately bought me out at that point.

 

That led me to Colorado where I became affiliated with a company headquartered up in Wyoming. That being Taco John’s International. It’s a quick-service Mexican chain. I was their VP of Operations and Franchise Support from ‘88 to ‘96, at which time I left the company and went to work for a different segment in franchising. That being Grease Monkey International. Quick lube and preventative maintenance all change people. It’s based in Denver. I started there facilitating a strategic plan with the preferred shareholders. They wanted to position the company to sell quite honestly. We were ultimately able to do that.

They brought me on board as Senior VP of Operations and Franchise Development to help implement the plan that we had developed. We did find a buyer after about three years and that opened up an opportunity then to either stay with the company in a different capacity or leave with a little bit of a parachute. That was a chance at that time to establish my own business. My wife and I looked at each other and said, “What are we going to do?” The kids are all grown and gone so we said, “Let’s look at our backgrounds and start our own business.” That’s when Wofford Management Services was born. We started doing franchise-consulting work because that was my background.

I got an exciting telephone call one day from the Taco John’s Franchisees Association saying they were needing some management and help in organizing their company. I was flattered having been the corporate guy. I met all these great franchise owners and they asked if we would take them as a client. That was a flattering opportunity that I jumped on. I became the Executive Director of the Franchisees Association. That led to another piece of our business that lasted for about twenty years where we started doing their annual convention and trade show as a revenue generator.

My wife, Cindy, spearheaded that particular part of Wofford Management Services. I would be in more of the big picture overarching negotiator with the properties, vendors and that kind of thing. She was the one that made it happen and did a wonderful job. We had that franchise experience in putting on a franchise event for franchisees. That led me to the third part of our company, which was franchise brokerage. Having owned them myself and learned from that, having been a franchise owner and developing franchise brands, I started doing franchise brokerage work to help individuals and groups of people who wanted to own their own business.

I was being their guide and consultant. I let them share in my own experiences to help them avoid potentially costly mistakes. A lot of times people don’t know what specifically they want to do. I was able to get into their heads a little bit to find out where their passion was and what they enjoyed doing. I could do research and introduce them to franchise models that would be a good fit for them and their unique criteria. I didn’t look for people to fit a particular franchise. I looked for the right franchise to fit with a particular client. I did a number of those deals over about a 7 or 8-year period.

I started working on the other end of it because through referrals, people wanted to exit their business after several years. I started doing the brokerage on the other side of the table by finding a successor to take that business over both sides of it. Ultimately, once the pandemic hit us in 2020, which we all relate to, it took away the event business that had been very good for our company. The last event we did was in March of 2019. Although we were planning another event for this same client in March of 2020, like a lot of people, “All of this will be over in a couple of weeks. We can postpone it for a few weeks.” Here we sit and still experiencing the same difficulties with meetings and trade shows.

Cindy decided it was time for her to retire. To your original question, “How did I get here?” I said, “Business brokerage makes the most sense.” That’s when I decided. Number one, here in Colorado, you have to have a real estate license to be a business broker so I got that done in February of ‘21. I made a list of about 10 or 11 brokerage firms I was going to talk to. Raincatcher was one that I had become familiar with primarily through LinkedIn. I had seen a little bit of activity that they had posted there. They were number one on the list. After talking with the ownership at Raincatcher, one of the managing directors, Aaron and then Marla and Jason, the owners, I did not have to go to the numbers 2 to 11.

It was a good fit. I was excited that it was mutual. I came on board in March of ‘21 as a Senior Broker. I work on a national basis and many diverse-type deals. It has been a wonderful experience for me to be able to talk to business owners that I have the highest regard for to help them achieve their objectives. I look at it this way. It’s one deal at a time. You don’t look at multiple deals. Every deal is unique and different. You have to give it your full time and attention. It’s like when I ran for 150 restaurants. It was 1 restaurant for 150 times. That’s the philosophy that makes a lot of sense. That’s how I got here, Bob. It’s an exciting time for Raincatcher and me.

I talked to a guy that’s the CEO of a family office. His comment was, “If you have seen one family office, you have seen one.” I was excited to talk to you because your depth of experience is from entry-level to corporate, selling out and buying. It sounds like there’s not much you haven’t done as a franchise business owner. I’m sure there’s nothing you haven’t done inside of your business like shoveling snow, you name it. As a business owner, that’s what you get to do.

When it's snowing outside and you got a payroll on Monday and the businesses down, you learn what you have to do as a business owner to take care of that. Click To Tweet

It’s making sure that landscaping is right. It’s very detailed. I always looked at it this way too and I have tried to teach my managers the same philosophy. It’s like putting on a dinner party at your house. You’re going to make sure the lawn is done, the sidewalk is swept and the doors and restrooms are clean so that when people come to your home, they’re going to have a good experience. I also tried to put the philosophy in everyone’s head, “Let’s give our customers a reason to want to come back.” That’s what it’s all about. That may sound simple but that’s the distinction that sets one business apart from another. I always wanted to stand out and not stand-in.

All of that sounds simple. Simple and easy are two different things. For the business owner that’s reading, one of the things I wanted to do is try to capture some of the wisdom that you have earned all these years and what you see. What struck me as you were talking is if you’re a business owner that’s considering selling a business, there are many questions you typically get asked from your experience in the past. What is it that the business owner typically asks you when they’re first starting to consider selling?

People want to know what is my business worth. There’s another adage, “It’s worth what someone’s willing to pay for it.” However, there’s also a way to control that. For example, here at Raincatcher, we’ve got a very detailed process for determining the valuation of a business. We look at the financials. Having clean records and quality of earnings is very important when someone is considering selling their business. We also have some programs here for people that aren’t quite ready to go to the market where we can help them get prepared to go to market.

There are some value-building programs that we can put into it because our overarching mission, as I see it here at Raincatcher is to maximize that value. Sometimes in talking with business owners, we have to be very candid and counsel them about the timing of when they go to market and what’s best for them so we can maximize it. We do a lot of coaching in that regard. We’re not here for the thrill of the deal. We’re here for the long-term and service before, during and after the sale. A lot of our business is tied to referrals. That’s the best way to build a business.

They want to know, “What is it worth?” We can answer that question. They want to know, “Who are we going to sell it to? Who are the buyers?” We also can educate them in that particular regard because the buyers, depending on the scope of the deal, could be an individual buyer, a corporate type of buyer or a competitor and how they go out and find those strategic buyers, people in a similar business or somebody that’s competing with them. If it’s a larger scale thing, we have a lot of connections with private equity groups, search groups and we can put larger plans together. We’re not limited by the scope of the deal because we have different strategies depending on the particular deal.

From your experience in the franchise space, there are a lot of things that the franchise system brings to a business owner versus the business owner that built it on his own. What do you think is the chief framework difference between a franchise system on business and an individually owned business?

A lot of people enter a franchise because they do recognize the value proposition and the value in terms of the marketing clout that they’re going to have that they would not necessarily have on their own. They’re paying for that. They’re paying their fair share as part of the system. At the same time, they’re going to be able to get more regional and even national advertising that they would not be able to get as an independent. Another big value part of the equation is the purchasing power.

If you’re buying product or merchandise, whatever your business model is, you’re buying on a larger scale and you’re going to get a better price value. That’s going to keep the costs down and keep your prices more manageable to the consumer. There are some pluses there. Also, there’s a proven-to-work business model. That’s what a franchise system is selling to its franchisees. It’s proven. Most of them have what’s called an earnings claim in their franchise disclosure document.

Keep in mind that a franchise system is highly regulated, which is a good thing for the consumer and owner. The Federal Trade Commission is high on that. There are a dozen or so states within the country that also have their state regulations in addition to the Federal. The fact that it’s highly regulated is a very good thing for its franchise owners. They also have some assurances with their franchise agreement. It’s either a 10 typically and sometimes a 15 or 20-year agreement with options to renew. That gives them a little bit of an opportunity to do long-term succession planning and things of that nature as well.

 

There’s the value also of it being a brand. Usually, if it comes to a time where they want to sell their business, they’re going to find a little bit higher multiple of their earnings with a branded business than an independent. There are several items I tried to mention there off the top of my head that would distinguish a franchise business from an independent business. That doesn’t mean that entrepreneurs who start their own thing can’t be highly successful because they surely can. We see a lot of those people in our work here at Raincatcher to people who have built a strong business. Maybe they’re ready to retire and don’t have a family member to succeed.

That’s where we can come in, help them find a successor to their legacy business and make sure that it’s continued in the way that the owner had created it. Both avenues make a lot of sense. Some people maybe prefer entrepreneurial independence versus the restrictions to some extent. I’m a franchise but I have also found it interesting that some of the best franchise owners if you’re doing a 1 to 5 store deal and 5 locations, it’s retired schoolteachers and retired military because they’re accustomed to protocols and procedures.

At the same time, I have seen a lot of highly successful entrepreneurs go into it on a larger scale where they may develop their franchise businesses over a seven-year period with an idea from day one what their exit strategy is going to be. Often, they would sell it to another franchise owner in their geography or they may come to someone like Raincatcher for us to find the right party to purchase that. For example, a friend of mine sold 268 Burger Kings. That’s a big deal as you can imagine. Those deals are out there and there are also the 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s out there.

Let’s say you have the ABC franchise system and you’ve got Owner A and Owner B. Is it possible based on their business practices and execution that one could have a significantly higher multiple than the other? If so, what are the factors that contribute to that?

It sure is. If you look at the top-line revenues, that’s number one. Look at their operating costs, all through their financial statement and their EBITDA or Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. You look at the financial statement. This is something that we do at Raincatcher. We have a certified financial analyst who goes through that and works with the broker team to make sure everything is identified. Sometimes there are discretionary items within that financial statement and some lifestyle items that we pull out of it. That’s called add-backs.

We get down after the EBITDA plus those add-backs, which could be that they’re paying for an automobile or their cellphone for personal use out of the business and maybe some travel here or there. Those items would be added back to the EBITDA number to get down to what’s called seller discretionary earnings. SDE is the factor that is utilized most commonly times multiple depending on comparables and what similar businesses have sold.

It’s like residential real estate. You look at comps on something like that. Do the same thing in business. We have access through our technologies to run comps on any business and come up with what that multiple should be. It’s the higher the SDE in some cases versus that A and B scenario. If Owner A has a much stronger SDE than Owner B then his multiple may be the same but it’s multiplied by a bigger number. Therefore, his business is worth more in terms of returns.

That was a poorly crafted question on my part. I was trying to figure out are there key discriminators? If you have the same gross top-line revenue is one managed significantly better than the other? Is it recognizable in a franchise system? Does the system pretty much keep everybody operating the same way?

Within the system, it’s recognized. You’ve got high performers and some that are not quite as high. One thing you hear in the franchise system is what they called AUV or PSV, Average Unit Volume or Per Store Volume. There are variations. You have some more dense markets perhaps that get a lot more transactions. They’re going to have a higher top-line than others. Most systems in the franchise world recognize and award those performers who are in the upper echelon as the highest volume stores.
Every deal is unique and different, and you have to give it full time and attention. Click To Tweet

Recognition is a big deal in franchising. It satisfies the ego and peer pressure a little bit. You can have the golden, platinum and diamond circle. That’s what gets all the juices flowing for some of these business owners. They can walk up to the stage and be recognized as being in the top 10%. Smart franchise companies put all those incentives and psychologically, it works. You can have people who are down at the lower level that want to have that same recognition. It gives them an incentive to do better.

We were talking before the show that you were called out to consult with a franchise company that needed some help getting pointed. What I was considering as you were talking about that is you get a call from a business owner that’s not a franchise owner. It’s a standard business they built. After a discussion, you go through your value builder evaluation. When you recognize that there are some holes in their bucket that aren’t insurmountable, how do you take and discuss that with them? What are the next steps to get them ready to go?

Number one, build rapport so that you know you’ve got a dialogue. You support your credibility as well with your experience while you’re doing that so that you can have an open and candid conversation. The thing is you want to recognize and give respect to that business owner for what their objectives are, try to get that out of them and say, “Here’s how we’re going to get there.” It’s a matter of identifying where are those opportunities for improvement. You look at every aspect of it.

Is that a location problem? There’s not much you can do about that other than create some graphics and visibility. Is it the people that you’re training? What’s your attitude? Is it inconsistent? You go into the details and see it from the customer’s perspective. What are your customers experiencing? Get in there shoulder to shoulder with them. That’s the way to demonstrate it. The best teacher is to be on-site and spend the necessary time to identify those opportunities for improvement.

For turnaround management, there’s no substitute for that. You have to get with the owner and have them recognize it. One thing surprising in my experience is often a lot of people wonder what’s wrong with my business and the thing that’s wrong with it is they haven’t been there and haven’t been around. There have been times seriously that I have sat in the car with a business owner to observe what goes on and they are sometimes very shocked.

I used to do this often when I was on the corporate side of franchising. I would be out in the field and pick the owner up. We wouldn’t go inside his business. We would sit outside and observe. We would sit in the parking lot and talk to customers who were coming out of the business, “How are things going?” It was very enlightening. That’s some of the techniques to make a point and have them see it from the customer’s lens.

You try to make somebody coming into your business welcome as though they’re coming into your home. I was thinking about the comment, “You need good financials.” I should be taller too. It’s a standard comment but I thought about the potential buyer looking at an acquisition and going like, “Do you feel comfortable and at home looking at the financials?” If not, you go in there and go, “The toilet runs all the time. Do you think they know?” It’s somebody’s house where you go in and go, “They swept that under the carpet over there. The husband must have cleaned that spot.” I think about that analogy for you. How many franchise businesses do you think you have looked into in your career?

When I was doing franchise brokerage, I had 340 different franchises in my portfolio and there were 65 different business segments within that portfolio. One time with the International Franchise Association, there were about 2,700 franchises registered. For a lot of people, the first thing they think about when they think of a franchise is a restaurant. Often when I was doing brokerage work, I would say, “What areas do you have interest in?” “I want to own a restaurant.” I would say, “Why?” I would challenge them upfront. I go through some psychological things, frankly and have them fill out a little questionnaire to find out what they enjoy doing.

I could go find something that makes sense for them. That’s what works best because those are the people that are happy doing what they’re doing because I’ve done it. I remember I had a project manager from Hewlett-Packard once and I said, “What do you feel like you might enjoy doing?” “I’m a project manager.” I said, “What does your wife do?” “She’s a graphic artist.” I was listening to all this and found the right deal, which was a stained glass franchise where they do this full stained glass. The project management and graphic art all came together. They’re happy as they can be out in California having a good time and a good business.

 

I was thinking about how many different things are franchised. I knew one where it was an Ivy supplement company. There’s a cryotherapy franchise where you go in and freeze yourself to death for a while. It’s the gamut. You were talking about Grease Monkey, which I’m familiar with in this area. You’re talking about Bonanza. I have been in Bonanzas when I was a young Lieutenant way back when. When you first get a call from somebody that’s trying to figure out if they may be interested in selling their business or want to start exploring the process, what does that initial conversation look like with you?

The first thing I’ll ask is, “Tell me what’s going on in your life that has brought us to having this conversation.” That opens up a little dialogue so I can understand a little bit about where they are, what they want to do and what some of their goals are. You take it from there as far as understanding the business that they might want to be interested in. If they’re in business, let’s say, if they’re looking to sell their business, I would start asking them about their business, “How long have you had it? Are you the only shareholder? Is your wife or husband involved in it? Are there other family members involved?”

All that is necessary to know so that you can understand the scope of this particular deal. From there, you go into their financials, “How did you do last year? Is this year better than last year?” You lead them into a ballpark assessment of their business. “How much money did you make last year? Are your earnings going to be higher this year?” You’re making notes as you go. As you’re building rapport throughout this process, you find out about their assets. “What do you have in terms of hard assets? Do you have any bank debt that you’re dealing with? Give me a snapshot of your balance sheet.” It’s stuff like that.

You get to a point where you’ve gone through enough information where you can give them a ballpark understanding of what their business may be worth. You preface it by saying, “This is ballpark because we do a more detailed valuation. If you’re interested, there’s no obligation to you.” Throughout this process, you’re leading up to saying, “How does that sound to you? Is that ballpark what you might be thinking? Give me some feedback.”

The next step is once they say, “That sounds pretty good. I understand that,” I ask them, “Would you like to learn a little bit more about the process that we use here at Raincatcher and working with clients like you to help you achieve your objectives?” If I give you the go word then you go into our process, how it works, what we can do for them and what sets Raincatcher apart from everybody else. That’s where we are able to capture a client and start building a relationship, which is what it’s about. We become their trusted advisor. Let’s work together to make something good happen here.

For a potential client that’s reading and going, “I don’t know if what my business will sell for will help me support the life I want to have post-sale.” Let’s say you’ve got Ms. Jones. She’s selling her company or planning on it and she says, “I need X.” You go, “I don’t think it’s going to bring X.” What type of procedure, policy or effort do you point at Ms. Jones to try to get her to her X number?

I’m glad you brought that up because we do that. We have a Value Builder program. There are well-identified value drivers in any business. We have people here in-house on our staff that are very expert at getting into doing what we call a deep dive, getting into the business to start identifying and following those eight drivers to identify where we have an opportunity to improve. The way we begin that for all of our clients is self-assessment where they answer certain questions pertaining to each of these drivers that I’ve mentioned.

We utilize that as compared to others in their particular industry how they stand up. If they’re low in a particular segment of it then let’s work on it and make it better. We talk to them about how we can help you build value over time by implementing these certain turnaround strategies. “Let’s look at marketing this business six months from now after we have had a chance. It’s better in line to help you achieve your originally stated objectives.” We have tools to help any prospective client get closer to realizing what their needs are in terms of the success to settle their business.

I have had John Warrillow from Built to Sell Radio on the show before. The thing that’s interesting is the database of business types that have gone through Value Builder. If I’m selling widgets and there are a bunch of other companies that are selling the same widget, he has a benchmark from top to bottom in the Value Builder ranking. There’s top of class and top quartile. The top quartile sold for multiple and the bottom quartile sold for something less than that multiple. I thought that was a value. Maybe you could expand on it is. Let’s say I’m in the bottom quartile and I’m not at my X number. If you’re in the top quartile, you’re going to be close or above your X number. I call it the prioritization of the value drivers. What do you do to address that?

Often a lot of people wonder what's wrong with their business and the thing that's wrong with it is they haven't been around. Click To Tweet

There are a lot of stats involved in that. It’s proven, to your point, that a business that employs the Value Builder System and we have coaches here that we put into play, business is going to sell for anywhere from 18% to 25% more. That can be a significant number when you think about it. There are going to be variables but at the same time, it’s proven. This is an affordable program. It’s something that is like an investment in yourself in a way that we would encourage business owners to consider if they happen to be in that particular mode. It’s proven to work.

Let’s say a business is very dependent upon the owner in their day-to-day. That’s more of a negative than a positive. We would want to take that as an example and put together an action plan with strategies of how you can remove yourself a little bit. Maybe you need to spend more time as Mr. or Ms. Business Owner in business development than you are in day-to-day operations. Let’s see what you have already.

Maybe you have staff that could step into that role and fulfills that while you’re out creating new business. Maybe that’s a better role for you as the owner. Maybe you’re attending the chamber meetings, breakfast meetings, business after hours and things of that nature instead of being in their day-to-day and turning the key in the lock. Maybe somebody else can be doing that for you. There’s a way to shift those roles to improve value. That’s one example of taking advantage of one of those value drivers. Let’s get the business owner out of the driver’s seat and put them in a different role to help grow the business.

I’m aware of the fee for the coaching. If you have an enterprise value of $1 million in your bottom quartile and you can spend the time necessary to get into the top quartile, the return on that investment for the coaching versus what you’re going to get in the top quartile multiple, the numbers are staggeringly good.

It’s ten-fold if not more. There’s no question. We have examples too. We can work with our clients to show them some of the results we have had in that regard. There’s something else that came to mind. A lot of times, businesses have certain peaks. We have seen it since the pandemic and a lot of the deals we worked with. 2020 was a pretty negative impact on a lot of businesses but in 2021, they shot up again and things were above where they were before the pandemic.

We have even given advice to some of those with the larger-scale businesses. “Maybe you need to take and have a CPA review of that 2021 year to make sure that those numbers are validated in that way. We can start marketing your business at a higher value based upon that CPA review.” That also saves a lot of time and due diligence once we get a buyer. These are validated numbers and it does mean a lot to business owners in terms of maximizing their value.

I’m a business owner as well and I have sold a business once. Like many business owners, I didn’t do that very well because I sold it myself. You see that a lot. For you, you have bought and sold so many different businesses. You have seen what to do and what not to do a time or two. For business owners, it’s challenging to see their business from the buyer’s perspective. We keep talking about financials, which in my mind is de-risking the process for the buyer and building confidence. For the folks that were reading that wanted to reach out to you and have a chat, where do people find you?

They can find me at Raincatcher. I’m the Senior Broker based here in the Denver, Colorado area. Raincatcher.com, check out our website. Also, in LinkedIn. I’m there as well.

For folks, there are good resources on the website where you can do the Value Builder Assessment and it’s free to do. For the folks out there in that space, Gary has got about as much experience I suspect as you can have so there’s not much you haven’t seen. If you’re out there looking and you want to have a conversation, I would urge you to call him. There is no harm in a phone call. Gary is there anything I should have asked you that I didn’t?

 

One thing came to mind. Speaking of phone calls, I had a very productive call with the SBA. That’s something else here at Raincatcher we’re able to do. We’ve got a lot of contacts with all the different business expertise from financial planners to M&A attorneys to lenders. We pride ourselves on that preferred network of referral people. I had this great call because we can help our clients with their financing. We get our deals pre-approved with SBA, for example, so that we know that it’s bankable. That’s a big plus to buyers when they’re taking a look at something.

We’re here to do two things. You said something earlier about looking at things through the buyer’s lens. We think that’s very important. We have another piece of our process called the sell-side due diligence where we go through with our sellers a due diligence process in advance so that we’re prepared to answer questions to expedite that due diligence period, also to be professional and precise. When someone asks a broker a question, we have the answer. We do a lot of work in advance to prepare a business for the market. Other than that, phone calls are welcome.

Gary, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you spending your time with us. I hope for the readers that you have picked up some wisdom here because Gary has got a wealth of knowledge and a track record. Gary, thank you for taking your time.

It has been my pleasure, Bob. I appreciate this opportunity very much. Thanks.

Important Links:

• Raincatcher
• Bonanza International
• Colter’s BBQ and Catering
• Taco John’s International
• Grease Monkey International
• Wofford Management Services
• Taco John’s Franchisees Association
• Federal Trade Commission
• International Franchise Association
• Hewlett-Packard
• Value Builder
• John Warrillow – Previous episode
• Value Builder System
• Gary Wofford – LinkedIn
• SBA

About Gary Wofford

I am an accomplished consultant, corporate executive, entrepreneur, and small business owner with diverse business experience that offers significant value to Raincatcher clients by contributing to their business objectives and assisting them in realizing their goals.

As an outgrowth of broad experience and success in franchising, business acquisitions, strategic planning, business development, operations, marketing, and finance I joined the Raincatcher team in 2021 as a Senior Broker.

I bring years of experience and a demonstrated track record of success in assisting sellers with the positioning, valuation, and marketing of their businesses for sale and the sourcing of qualified buyers.

My background also includes management of large business owners – trade association, senior level positions with national and international companies, event and trade show management, charter membership in a global entrepreneurship organization, and serving my community as an advisory commissioner. I studied business administration at Oklahoma State University and I’m a licensed real estate broker.