• Bluekey Business Brokerage, M&A

  • Here's the novel idea - asking readers what they'd like to read about. So ... :

    what would you like to see in this blog?

    tportante 'at' bluekeybma 'dot' com

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  • There are over 5,500,000 businesses in the United States (with a least one employee). At any given point in time approximately 20% of these businesses are for sale. That's over 1,000,000 companies on the market right now!

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  • Demographic fact: As Baby Boomers age, we see (1) some long-time business owners considering retirement (2) Boomers with discretionary funds willing to buy on-going ventures. ||||| ______________

psst… boomer buyer? Good news – you’re the key to recovery!

Quite possibly fueled by The Great Recession, or possibly the inevitability of a generation long known for doing things differently, there’s a new entrepreneurial boom on the way — but it’s not what you think.
The stereotype is the college drop-out who goes on to form wee companies like, say, Dell or Microsoft. The reality is [...]

A friendly avatar tells you to stand out from the crowd

Here at BlueKey Business Brokerage Mergers & Acquisitions help you find creative ways to market the company you’re selling.
Don’t make *my* word for it, check out this avatar’s little spiel:
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5581

Ever been blindsided by a Yelp “review?”

Here’s something buyers, sellers, and brokers should be considering. In addition to the flow of all the financial statements and all the necessary due diligence that takes place in business sales, something else is happening. While grizzled old timers (many of whom are younger than me) may pound on the table and claim “facts are [...]

Small Business Administration uses… gasp! YouTube

Not an organization best known for being on the leading edge of Enterprise 2.0 offerings, the SBA has started to offer business tips on its own YouTube channel.  To be fair, this service is only a few days old but as of a week ago, SBA’s channel boasted 141 subscribers, 17 informational videos and 4,396 [...]

got equity?

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a brokerage/M&A firm that got a certain kind of phone call, almost every day… “Please, we have money, millions of shimoleans (the unit of money, of course) and we’re looking to invest in companies. Can’t you help us please…?”
Unless you’re fortunate enough to [...]

a trillion… as in a Million Billions??? AND what to do about it

Last year, American’s cell phones transmitted a trillion text messages. A TRILLION. Take a million and muliply that by 1,000,000,000.  Like they say, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking Real Numbers…
It’s almost possible to dismiss this – truely – astronomical number as a LOT of  the argot that tends to run [...]

So, a business broker, a priest and a stripper walk into a bar …

OK. At least there’s a business broker in the joke.   Read on …
Business brokers – for the small percentage of Americans who know what they are and what they do – have a mixed reputation in business communities. On the one hand, they’re the people business owners turn to in the hope of getting [...]

Beware the quick tech fix for a struggling business

Take a few minutes, 11 to be specific, to watch this recent presentation.
ClayShirky http://gov2summit.blip.tv/file/2591940/
The story is a simple one. A better understanding of the ways in which people interact, the ways they work together, is the key to finding what SPECIFIC actions, or procedures, or initiatives you use to boost your business’s bottom line.
This is [...]

Returning, if not to the pen, at least to the keyboard

A friend put it simply. “Tom, you would do well to keep up that Marketplace 360 blog.”
Well, yes.
In the last handful of months, I’ve (confession here) been doing a bit of moonlighting.  Some of what I’ve been doing is helping small companies weather these tough economic times – and in those situations, small business owners [...]

Even plugholes need love

There’s a story here.
 Struggling little manufacturing company NE of London. Makes one product – drain cleaner.  Until a year ago, the company had near zero profits and the owner gave himself a royal sounding $90,000 annual salary (which included perks- presumably all the bottles of, get ready for the British usage here “Plughole cleaner,” he [...]