What Is Your Shop
Actually Worth?
Most owners find out at the worst possible moment: when they've already decided to sell, and no longer have time to do anything about the answer.
The Conversation You Should Have First
Most owners start this at the wrong end. The first call goes to a broker, and the question becomes what can I get before anyone has asked is this thing ready to sell, and am I ready to sell it.
Nothing wrong with brokers — you'll want a good one when the time comes, and we'll point you at one. But the first conversation shouldn't be with someone whose involvement begins at the transaction. It should be with someone who has no stake in whether you sell at all.
That's your FORCARA advisor. Included in your membership, not paid on the outcome, and perfectly willing to tell you that this is the wrong year.
What Actually Moves the Number
A buyer isn't purchasing your building or your equipment. They're purchasing a stream of earnings and a judgment about whether it continues after you leave.
What Raises It
- Documented systems
- A manager who runs the day-to-day
- Clean books
- A stable technician bench
- Diversified revenue rather than one large account
- Defended margins
What Lowers It
- An owner who is the business
- Undocumented processes
- Customer concentration
- Deferred maintenance on equipment
- Deferred maintenance on people
Most of these are fixable. All of them take longer than the twelve months most owners give themselves.
Build the Exit From the Beginning
The advice we give every owner, whatever their timeline: get the business operationally sound so it doesn't need you. Then you have the thing everyone actually wants, which is the freedom to choose. Sell or hold, on your terms and your timing.
An owner who has done that has options. An owner who hasn't takes what's offered.
How This Works With Us
Start with your advisor
Every member has one, included. A confidential conversation about what you've got, roughly what it might be worth, and what it would take to move that number.
Honest assessment
If it turns out you're two years from ready, they'll say so, and tell you what to spend those two years doing. Nobody's commission depends on the answer.
Bring in a specialist when it's time
If the work needs deeper valuation or transition expertise, we bring in a specialist at a 20% member discount. They're paid for the work they do. We take none of it.
When you're actually selling
Members get a discount with The Auto Repair Boss — Jim Parker's brokerage, which specialises in auto repair shops, collision centres and tire dealers. Parker has been at this for close to twenty-five years, has chaired Business Brokers of Florida three times, and sits in the leadership of the International Business Brokers Association.
He's a broker, and brokers earn a success fee — that's the honest way that work gets paid for. What matters is that the advice about whether and when came from someone who wasn't waiting on it. And FORCARA takes nothing from the referral either way.
Discretion
These conversations are confidential. We don't publish member names, we don't discuss one member's situation with another, and nothing goes on a website without written permission.
