Add forum for exiting, selling businesses

[JacobGBG]

I think it would benefit business owners to have forum for exiting a business. Regardless how business started, at some point the owner has to exit. There are several options, like passing on to heirs, selling or, the least desirable, closing doors and walking away.
Preparing business for sale can make a great difference between selling and not selling, as well as the purchase price. Separate forum can provide a platform for discussing this subject.

[vangogh]

I doubt there would be enough interest to create a dedicated forum about exit strategies. I think this thread might be the first time it's come up in all the years we've been here. Besides we don't need a separate forum to discuss this. Feel free to start a thread asking if people have thought about an exit strategy and if so what it is. It might make for an interesting conversation.

[tallen]

I think business exits come up fairly regularly here already, but usually from the perspective of the buyer or the heir... I don't know if forum headings really incite or inhibit people from posting about their questions or issues, but maybe they do, so perhaps a forum (or sub-forum?) specifically for the discussion of "buying and selling small businesses" (or something like that) would be appropriate?

[vangogh]

I wouldn't call those business exit threads, though. We do get questions from people looking to buy a business, but I can't recall any where someone was specifically talking about their strategy for exiting.

I was trying to be polite last night with my reply above, but the OP asked us to create a forum specific to his business within a few hours of joining the forum. He posted an intro and then asked us to make changes that specifically help his business. You could rephrase the initial question as "Hi, I see you don't have a forum dedicated to my business so could you create one?"

That said, if you can point me to enough threads about buying or selling businesses I'm open to having a place more dedicated to the topic. My guess is there are less threads on the topic than you might think, but it's possible there are more than I think. The franchise subform isn't very active and we could rename it something like buying/selling a business/franchise or even get rid of the franchise part.

My worry about a forum dedicated to buying and selling is that will attract a lot of spam with people just pitching offers to buy and sell businesses, but I'm open to the idea if there's a genuine need or interest.

[tallen]

Those are all good thoughts, vangogh.

Maybe rather than creating a specific forum, a tweak to the descriptor of an existing forum might work? (Just thinking out loud here).

Personally, I usually go straight to "New Posts" or "Today's Posts" rather than perusing each forum individually, and open threads who's title piques my interest regardless of which forum or sub-forum they might be in. Of course, if I want to start a new thread of my own (if I have a question, for example), I would review the list of forums to look for the appropriate forum in which to post my question. So if I wanted to buy a business, I would probably post my question about that in the "Starting Your Business" forum, but if I wanted to sell a business, or pass it on to my heirs, it is a little less clear where to ask questions -- I guess maybe the "Managing Your Business" forum?

Not that any change is necessary, I think this small-business-forum is great! Thank You for providing it!

[Harold Mansfield]

I think it's a worthwhile subject matter, but I agree that a dedicated forum section will attract more spam, and solicitation than it's worth.

It's easy enough to post questions about any subject you want. I think where Tallen suggested is pretty much where people would and do post those kinds of questions already.

[vangogh]

Just thinking out loud here

That's what most of my posts are too.

I do the same. I check new posts or today's posts and open the threads that are interesting. I also look for the most appropriate forum when I want to start a new thread. I also agree it's not always clear what the best forum is at times. Usually when people have suggested a new forum I check to see how many threads on the topic I can find. If there's enough, I'll think about a new subforum and if that gets large enough we can promote it to a full forum.

I am a little concerned that a buy/sell forum would turn into a classified section and attract spam more than anything, but I'm certainly open to trying it. I don't think we get threads along the lines the OP mentioned, but you're right we do get our share of questions about buying a business. The franchise sub forum is probably the least used section on the site. I could easily change it to be about buying and selling businesses in general. If it does attract spam we can always change it back.

Any thoughts on how we might word it? My initial thought is something like "Buy/Sell Businesses and Franchises," but I think that gives the impression the forum would be for people to actually buy and sell forums. Maybe "Questions about buying or selling a business" and then drop the franchise part. Do you think that would work?


I think this small-business-forum is great! Thank You for providing it!

Thanks and thank you for being part of the community. You always have really good posts and help contribute to whatever it is we've built here.

[turboguy]

It is a topic that I find interesting. For me it is something I think about a lot and don't have a good answer for but my case is more complicated than most ever face but I do think this forum has more problems with spam than some others do and it might turn into more of a problem than it is worth.

[vangogh]

If we can think of a way for a buy/sell forum not to be a spam magnet, I'm open to the idea. I'm still thinking about changing the franchise sub-forum since it's never been all that active.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm the nay sayer here on the buy/sell section. I've never seen one not be a free for all spam fest, and it opens up the entire forum to people posting links on all threads directing people to their buy/sell thread.

My personal opinion is that having a generous sig link policy is enough for people to promote themselves. I think a better option for people who are serious about selling services is to come up with an affordable way for them to advertise. Maybe something that rotates within your current ad program so that it's outside ads combined with internal ads.

I just see the register->first post-> buy my stuff thing getting out of hand and I hate the idea of the forum being a place where crap service providers can throw up a shingle.

I don't know..just spit balling.

[Fulcrum]

I've seen them work but they are heavily moderated. If you want the names, let me know and I'll pm them.

[Harold Mansfield]

Maybe make that section a paid membership section to weed out the drive by's? Something cheap, just enough to change the dynamic to make posters take it seriously, follow the rules, or loose whatever the fee is.

I know I'd pay extra to get one of the few sticky spots for a certain time period.

[KristineS]

A buy sell forum could be interesting, but I tend to side with those who say it would turn into a spamfest. I've seen it happen on other forums.

Harold's idea of having it behind a paywall isn't a bad one. Could help recoup some of the cost of running the forum.

[Business Attorney]

I'm curious to understand why anyone thinks that a forum on buying and selling a business would attract more spam than some of our other forums, such as financing a small business or search engine optimization?

A big part of my law practice is representing buyers and sellers, or planning transitions for family owned businesses, so I tend to read (and write) a lot on those subjects and visit places on the Internet where they are discussed. I have never felt that spam seemed to be more noticeable in those topical areas of interest. In fact, I am a little hard pressed to see what services spammers would offer.

That doesn't mean that I am in favor of a new forum. I think with the reduced level of traffic in forums these days, the more topics that can be aggregated, the better. You don't want completely unrelated topics grouped together, but unless you first establish that there are going to be a reasonable amount of posts on a topic, it is better to keep it within a broadly related topic.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm curious to understand why anyone thinks that a forum on buying and selling a business would attract more spam than some of our other forums, such as financing a small business or search engine optimization?
.

Those attract a lot of spam too.

It's just my opinion based on what I see around the web and this and other forums, even Linked In, that vultures are always lurking and that's one of those subjects that will attract every fly by night business broker, small business loan shop and their affiliates looking to drop an "I can help you with that" link.

I understand the point that it is a viable subject for discussion, and probably one that is hard to find any help or information on without being sold to.

It could work, but it would need heavy moderation and probably a settings change to stop people from getting link posting and sig privileges on the first post. I actually think there's a way to set it specific to the forum section.

[turboguy]

Well I am a little confused. My interpretation of the OP's post was that he was asking for a forum or sub forum on the topic of exiting your business. I would take that to be things like legal implications, selling to employees vs. an outside party. Asking about leveraged buy outs. Finding a good broker. Setting a valuation on a business and the like.

The last two posts from VanGogh and Harold sound more like the concept is to buy or sell products or maybe businesses. I would agree that listings of anything for sale no matter if it is businesses or products probably is not a good idea.

[vangogh]

My interpretation of the OP's post was that he was asking for a forum or sub forum on the topic of exiting your business

I think the OP was only interested in us creating a forum specifically about his business, since he helps people sell their businesses. The initial request was for a forum abut exiting your business. I said in my first post in this thread that as far as I can remember we've never had a thread about exiting a business so there's no need for a forum on the topic.

Then it was brought up that we do get questions about people wanting to buy a business, which is why the discussion turned toward a buy/sell type of forum.


I'm curious to understand why anyone thinks that a forum on buying and selling a business would attract more spam than some of our other forums, such as financing a small business or search engine optimization?

I'm not sure it would necessarily get more spam than some other forums, though when you use the words buy or sell on a forum, people take it as an invitation to post classified ads. I think some people would treat the section like a marketplace and they'd start pitching offers for websites/businesses they want to sell or they'd start requesting the type of site they'd want to buy.

If there were more threads here with people asking questions about the topic, I'd be more inclined to start a sub-forum, but I don't think the topic comes up often enough to justify a forum or sub-forum dedicated to the topic. I'm still open to renaming the franchise forum to something like "Ask questions about buying or selling your business," which hopefully gives the indication the section is about questions and not posting classified ads. If the section attracts too much spam, I could remove it.

[Harold Mansfield]

I think the OP was only interested in us creating a forum specifically about his business, since he helps people sell their businesses.


I'm not sure it would necessarily get more spam than some other forums, though when you use the words buy or sell on a forum, people take it as an invitation to post classified ads. I think some people would treat the section like a marketplace and they'd start pitching offers for websites/businesses they want to sell or they'd start requesting the type of site they'd want to buy.

Yes, this. All of this is exactly how I see it too, and what I feel would happen. Not to mention the "Business brokers" and all of the people with affiliate links for them who would come out of the woodwork thinking this is fertile hunting ground.

To be clear I'm not necessarily against it, I just haven't seen a lot of conversation on the issue over the years that makes me think it's worthy of an entire sub forum. But on this I'll go with whatever way the wind blows. Spam is easy enough to get rid of, and more spam is going to be a part of any growth that comes with more traffic.