15 Sep Robbinex Founder Shares Insightful Tips for Business Brokers, Intermediaries and M&A Professionals
Our recent webinar with Robbinex Founder, Doug Robbins focused on advice for business brokers and intermediaries looking to achieve optimal results. Robbins has a lifetime of proven expertise and results. In this article, we’ll explore some specific tips and ideas for how you can best to work with your clients and achieve the best possible results.
Building Trust
One of the key tips Robbins shared was that business brokers and intermediaries must create a trusting relationship with their clients. This trust is built around good communication. Building trust is about establishing compassion and empathy. The client must be confident with their business broker or M&A Advisor and feel that they are on the same team.
Stepping back to reflect on this point for a moment, it only makes sense that establishing trust would be at the foundation of the client-business broker relationship. After all, if a client doesn’t trust you, then the best advice in the world can be ignored. The steps you take to establish that trust is time well spent.
Progressing Towards Goals
If a client trusts you and that client is forward-looking and thinking about the future, then substantial progress can take place. As Robbins points out, once a business owner is thinking about the future and what they want their business to become, they have no choice but to evolve and adapt.
Focusing on the future means that business owners will look to not only identify problems, but also look for new solutions. In turn, this will lead to the identification of new opportunities and the creation of more revenue. Ultimately, your business will be worth more. This means greater rewards for both you and your clients.
Of course, having a vision and understanding what needs to be done is not the same as having a concrete and tangible plan. Robbins emphasizes that it is critical to establish goals and then begin building a detailed plan of how to achieve them.
In order to correctly build this plan, it is necessary to not only have a vision, but also a firm grip on financials. This is why it is important to have financial data on the business going back several years.
Guiding Clients Towards Insights
Another key element is for business owners to reflect on their business. They should take the time to ask themselves many questions that they might otherwise ignore. Business brokers should guide clients to analyze their products and services and ask, “Why do people buy our product and not someone else’s? Is our product cheaper, faster, better, smarter, easier than the other guy’s?”
The answers to all of these questions should be put into a chart for further evaluation. Having different people within a company reflect upon and answer these questions can lead to powerful new insights.
There is no replacement for a client’s trust. Once you have gained trust, then much is possible. You have the ability to guide your clients to seeing their businesses in a new light. When business owners see new opportunities, everyone stands to profit.
