“Everything in life is a sale and everything you want is a commission.” - Grant Cardone.

From sunup to sundown, we are active participants in the world of sales. It doesn’t matter what your job title is or how you spend your free time, we are either selling something or being sold something. From Instagram ads to billboards, agreeing to upsize your fast food order, convincing a toddler to eat their vegetables, jockeying for a promotion, deciding which movie to watch, or creating an online dating profile, it all comes down to the art of the sale. 

And when it comes to the business of buying a business, it’s no different. 

If you’ve followed our advice thus far (hint, you should be), by this point, you will know that the ideal business acquisition often comes down to the ideal seller. They are someone ready to retire, concerned about their legacy, want to protect their employees, or simply burnt out and ready to move on. 

However, unless...

What Is a Personal Brand and Why Do You Need One?

What do you look for when you decide to make a purchase or hire a company to provide a service? Are you checking them out online, looking at their website, reading reviews, reviewing samples of their work, and learning a little bit more about them and their background? 

If you’re smart, that’s precisely what you’re doing. Because you want to know who or what you’re getting into business with. This is particularly true with large transactions, but even the day-to-day decisions are influenced in this way; how often do you check out a restaurant's Yelp reviews before deciding where to eat dinner? It’s a small thing, but the implications are far-reaching.

When going about the task of business acquisition, whether you’re just starting out or have been in the game for years, the way you present yourself, your brand, and your abilities are critical. Yes, you are the one doing the buying. You are the...

As we mentioned previously, approximately 2.5 million businesses are for sale. That can be both an exciting and overwhelming prospect: Exciting because it feels like there are a lot of opportunities to be had. Overwhelming because where does one even begin when dealing with numbers like that? 

Hopefully, you followed our advice in this post and have already identified the type of businesses you’re interested in buying. (If you haven’t yet, we encourage you to pay it a visit before moving forward.) Once you’ve done that, you can automatically ignore anything that falls outside of that criteria.

And once you know WHAT you want to buy, now comes the task of FINDING it. And because it’s unlikely it will just fall into your lap (real life isn’t an episode of Shark Tank, unfortunately), it will require some time, energy, and patience.

In this article, we will lay out a roadmap of sorts to provide some clarity and direction on how to find the businesses...

Buying a business can be a big, life-changing move that will open doors to financial freedom, personal and professional growth, and control over how you spend your time and energy. 

It can also be completely overwhelming, especially for first-time owners. Leaving the "safety and security" (perceived safety and security, that is) of a 9-5 job and doing a 180 pivot to owning and running the whole show is a lot to take on. 

If you're not quite there yet, but still dream of owning a business, a franchise might just be the way to go. Think of it as ownership with built-in training wheels: You're still doing the pedaling, but you've got some support keeping you upright.

Franchising is big business in the United States. An estimated 753,700 franchise establishments employ over 7 million people and output 670 billion dollars. Everything from quick-service food, real estate, convenience stores, and hair salons are up for grabs. But before you make plans to purchase a Taco Bell to...

In our last post, we took a deep dive into the reasons why purchasing a business could be a better investment opportunity than building one from the ground up: Less risk involved, quicker access to usable income, processes, and systems are already in place, and most importantly - the supply of owners wanting to sell is right here, right now. Timing is everything.

And while it's important to strike while the iron is hot, you first need to determine what type of business you want to buy. Jumping in without all the facts will only leave you burnt. From the beginning, clarifying what you do - or don't want - in the business you purchase will keep you from making rash decisions in the future. 

If you've ever participated in online dating, you have probably been asked to set your preferences. Age. Location. Highest education level. Religion. Kids or no kids. (In a way, you're kind of designing your ideal partner.) Using this information, the algorithm will not show you profiles that...

My how times have changed.

While our ancestors spent their short lives in the painstaking pursuit of foraging and hunting for food to eat (and avoiding being seen as food themselves), the instant-gratification obsessed urban dwellers of the 21st century (a.k.a. lazy bastards) are making 15-minute delivery services for groceries and household goods the expectation. 

Piggybacking off the success (?) of Domino’s promise, “if it’s late, it’s free!” companies are scrambling to one-up themselves and offer their eager consumers what they want in as little time as possible.

(Confession: We at Team SAG were so amused at the thought we ordered sparkling water and accompaniments for our Liquid Lunches. Fridge No More made it on time with 90 seconds to spare, Darn!) 

But obviously, this isn’t going to work everywhere.

You need population density to minimize costs, and right now, only four out of five metropolis centers in America have the...

My Version of The Small Business Owner in America as Frogger

Frogger is our classic 80’s videogame hero, who somehow always gets himself in the middle of a great adventure, is both courageous and adventurous (while being a bit eccentric).

The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one by crossing a busy road and navigating a river full of hazards. 

The frog starts at the bottom of the screen (entrepreneurial spark!), which contains a horizontal road occupied by cars (competitors), trucks (market conditions), and bulldozers (bureaucracy) speeding along it. The player-entrepreneur must guide the frog-business between opposing lanes of traffic to avoid becoming roadkill (early startup failures), which results in a loss of a life (bankruptcy). After the road, there is a median strip separating the two major parts of the screen. This is that false sense of security when an entrepreneur thinks the business has hit its stride.  ...

The Metaverse Has Been Around for Years, Cyclists Just Didn’t Know It!

Full disclaimer: I’m a cyclist and I didn’t see it coming either. Cycling may take varying forms; from the weekend warrior to the daily commuter, we all envision that climb up The Alpe d’Huez or crossing the finish line of The Tour de France down the Champs Elysée. The reality is…most of us don’t make the time to go on that exotic excursion or have the fitness levels to reach professional stardom. So, we dream.

Enter stage left, years ago sporting Apps such as Zwift, Strava and numerous others afforded the sportsman in all of us to “experience” riding in the South of France or trekking across the plains of New Zealand.

If you want to learn about the Metaverse download a sampling of one of these Apps. The only difference is these Apps did not see the potential. Sure, they made some nice money with monthly...