Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep. 429 | Buy a Business, Build Your Future: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition with Denise Houghtaling

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Ep. 429 | Buy a Business, Build Your Future: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition with Denise Houghtaling · Small Biz Florida

• 0:02
  Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the sunshine
• 0:07
  state. This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and
• 0:13
  support. Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow
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  and succeed. From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered. Join us as
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  we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem and connect you with the experts who
• 0:29
  can make a real difference. And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred, Regional Director of the
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  Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College. This is Small Biz Florida, the
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  podcast to broadcast that's all things business across the state of Florida. I am Tom Kindred,
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  your host, and it is all about capital access here at the annual FLAGLE Conference. FLAGLE stands for
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  Florida Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders. So the room behind me is absolutely full
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  of SBA lenders, bankers, business valuation folks, lawyers, accountants. It's all about helping small
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  business owners get access to capital here at the FLAGLE Conference, all taking place at the beautiful
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  JW Marriott here in Orlando. And as all of you know, Small Biz Florida is always on the scene to cover
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  these events that are designed to support small business. And we have one of those small business
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  support groups with us right now. It is our very good friend, Denise Houghtaling, who is the founder,
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  owner, and operator of Southern Country Business Advisors, a business brokerage firm. Denise,
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  welcome to Small Biz Florida and helping us kick off the Flagle Conference.
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  Oh, thank you very much, Tom. I really appreciate you having me and being at this event. This is
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  awesome. Absolutely. I love this conversation about entrepreneurship through acquisition,
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  buying businesses, acquiring businesses, the silver tsunami. And we're going to talk about all that
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  in just a second. But let's start as we always do. Give us a little bit of your background,
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  pathway to your current role as founder, owner, operator of Southern Country Business Advisors.
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  Yes, absolutely. So I've been a serial entrepreneur all of my life. Bought and sold multiple businesses,
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  mostly in the construction, heavy industrial recycling side of the industry. Had done six
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  transactions on buying and selling. And in 2022, I sold my last company, which was a horticulture
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  recycling facility, to a private equity group. I had to stay on for about a year and then said,
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  okay, now what's my next chapter? I had my real estate license, which is required in the state
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  of Florida, though it has nothing to do with business brokerage. But here we are and I decided
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  to start my own firm and looked into it, you know, found out it was the hardest, one of the hardest
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  industries to get into. Can't make money for a few years. Most people that get into it get out. And
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  I said, okay, that's for me. I love that challenge. And here I am. Nice. And again, I love this
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  conversation. I teach entrepreneurship and I teach a whole section on entrepreneurship through
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  acquisition and the benefits of trying to find a business, buying a business versus that startup.
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  And the timing's sort of right for all of this because we're sort of calling this a time of the
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  silver tsunami. There's a lot of folks out there, 65 years and older that own small businesses looking
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  to exit. Is that a fair statement? Is that- Oh yes, absolutely. All right. So talk to us about,
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  give us kind of the high level, the silver tsunami. What is going on out there in terms of
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  people looking to exit those businesses? Yeah, this other, you know, in the 60s, 65, 70, 75 years of age,
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  they've had these businesses for 25, 30, 40 years. It's their baby. It's a very emotional
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  situation. A lot of the children do not want the businesses. And then also, even if they do,
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  you know, the parents realize that that's their asset and they need to recoup the hard work that
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  they've gone through all of those years of, you know, struggling to pay the payroll and, you know,
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  through all the highs and lows of business ownership. And so, yeah, you know, the tsunami's here
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  and, you know, different parts of the country, I guess there's different flows of that in and out,
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  but there's lots of people that need to get to the next step of the chapter of their life.
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  Excellent explanation of this silver tsunami. Let's take a little deeper dive on these folks that are
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  looking to exit this business. Do you find that a lot of these people are prepared? They knew what
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  they were going to exit? By the chuckle, I guess that's no, correct? Yeah. Most are not. They
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  didn't see this coming. They just, they didn't really know how they'd exit. Do you, a lot of times when
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  you meet with potential folks that are looking to sell, do you have to kind of say, well, we're going
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  to have to get a couple of things right. So we're going to get you prepared to sell. Maybe it takes
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  another year. Is that a kind of a fair way that this most of the time happens? Ideally, you know,
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  we, we get in early. Ideally we say, have those conversations of looking at things and saying,
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  you know what, if we waited, I can get you so much more money at our table, but typically more times
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  than not, they're ready and, and may just want to exit now. There's health issues. There's, you know,
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  a lot of different things that are going on. They've already bought the RV. They've already dreamt of it.
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  Yeah. So a lot of them just say, I'm not worried about the extra dollar we could make. We're ready
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  to get out. Right. Is that an opportunity for the buyer? Oh, sure. Yeah. Because they're taking
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  situations where, you know, there's issues in the business where they will, you know, get a discount
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  per se from what a value could be later down the road for some simple fixes. Obviously, you know,
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  our first, you know, incentive to the seller is to, you know, give them, you know, the option of
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  waiting, you know, giving them. And I tell them that I said, you know, I'm going to give you the
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  valuation. If you don't like it, that's fine. And then I'm going to tell you how to fix it.
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  But a lot of them are like, OK, no, let's go, you know. No. What if you had the list of, I don't know,
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  the top five benefits for someone acquiring a business versus starting from scratch? What what
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  would those five sort of be? Well, I've done both. I've started from scratch and I've bought
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  businesses. Obviously, you know, buying a business that's already operating is you have cash flow,
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  you know, right away. Day one. Yeah. You have cash flow. You have typically key employees in place
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  that are there. You have your vendors that are there that are our key to to operating a business
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  and your customers hopefully are reoccurring. But, you know, that are aware of you. You've got
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  online presence, which is so important now with AI to to, you know, to have that people are using
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  AI to find sources for all different services and to have that where versus trying to start from
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  scratch is a lot more difficult. Wow. I mean, that that's an excellent list. I mean, cash flow
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  business is already cash flowing. You've already got revenue generating. You've got some key employees
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  that have experience. You have vendor supplier relations that, you know, you don't have to go
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  find that. Right. You've got existing customers, of course. And then, like you said, you've got some
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  sort of brand business recognition online in the community. Yeah. Excellent. Absolutely. And those
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  are those are very valuable benefits. I mean, absolutely. I mean, I've started from scratch. I
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  know how long it takes to get all of those things. And when you have to do it in an accumulative matter,
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  you know, I mean, sometimes you buy businesses that may not have one of those, but there's a lot
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  easier to solve one out of five versus five out of five. Right. Let's talk about how we buy
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  this business. We could always just have the money. Sure. We could just be independently
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  and buy a business. Yes. Probably rare. But there's you can get creative, right? In acquiring a
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  business. Are there some versus just the textbook, go to the bank, borrow the money. There's potential
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  seller financing. Talk a little bit about some of those differences in creative ways to acquire that
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  business. Right. Typically, if you're going to go down to your bank that you bank at and walk in and
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  ask for a loan on a business that you want to acquire, you most likely will get walked out the
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  door. And so you really have to know what type of lenders to go to. And there's a lot of that's,
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  you know, where we're at right now is the experts in the industry. But, you know, obviously, you know,
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  SBA lenders are the majority of the purchases with the government program that they have allowing
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  qualified buyers to purchase qualified businesses has become very economical for people, you know,
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  with minimum down. But sometimes those always work. So we have to get creative. Seller financing is
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  becoming a bigger issue with the increased restrictions on SBA lending.
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  There are some cash buyers still, but there are few and far between. And there are some conventional
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  loans if you, you know, if you've got a deposit that you can put into the bank, you know, which
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  basically you're securing your own loan. But again, not everybody has those capabilities.
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  Well, I guess maybe the one advantage and you tell me, I guess the one advantage is if you do seek
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  traditional financing, at least there is a track record with this business, right? It's not a
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  startup, right? It's a startup for you, the borrower, but at least you've got some history,
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  right? You've got us, you've got sales, you've got taxes, you know, absolutely. Yes. For sure.
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  You've got history. That's what, you know, you're buying, you're buying the history. You're not
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  really buying the future. You're buying the history with the hopes of the future. So tell me what
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  engagement looks like with you at Southern Country Business Advisors. So I want to buy a business.
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  Do you normally, are you normally representing the seller or the buyer or could you represent both?
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  How does, what is, what is your model look like? Yeah. So I can actually represent both in Florida
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  we're transaction brokers. So there is no fiduciary like in real estate. There are no secrets in
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  business sales transactions. It's disclose, disclose, disclose. And so we're just advisors.
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  Our, our exclusive, you know, our fiduciary is to the transaction and getting into the closing table
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  is the way, the way I like to say it. So yeah, we, you know, I, I represent more sellers than,
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  than buyers, but you know, my team and I do a lot of buyer representation. We are just, we're having a
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  a webinar in a couple of weeks for buyers of how to get through the processes. It is a very
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  difficult process as buyers come into the market. There's hundreds of buyers for a business, for one
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  business. Wow. It's that. It is. It is. Yeah. And then do you, do you help and assist in that
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  negotiation process? Yeah, absolutely. The first thing I tell buyers is they need to prepare themselves
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  before they even start looking. They need to get SBA free qualified. They need to show that they have
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  the deposit required. They need to create a resume. That's going to be important to the SBA lender to
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  show that they have the skills to buy this type of business. That's a great point. Yeah. So if I'm
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  buying a, some sort of specific, I'm buying a restaurant, it certainly helps if I've had
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  restaurant experience. Right. Yeah. SBA is probably not going to finance you if you've never operated
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  a restaurant, if you've never been in management or at least been a wait staff at a
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  restaurant, something, right? So you need to create your resume to show that you have the
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  skillset. And so that's even before you go looking for businesses, make sure you have the deposit. It
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  needs to be seasoned and, and that sort of thing. And then once, you know, some buyers will call me
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  and say, you know, I'm not sure the type of business, but I said, okay, let's, let's count
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  things out. You know, maybe you don't want to operate a restaurant or a bar. Let's count those out. And
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  and then, you know, let's look at the financials. I, I highly recommend that when you're
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  valuing and looking at businesses, you, you focus on the financials of the business more than anything
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  else. Like, you know, if you, if you were going to buy a bakery, you're not the one that's going to
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  be really in there baking the cakes, right? You're going to be the one running the financials, hiring
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  the employees, building the business. And so, you know, be open. Now there's licensure issues and
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  stuff like that, that, you know, you have to be cautious of when you're looking at businesses.
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  How do you make your money for Southern country business advisors? Are you paid by the seller,
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  the buyer? No, that's the seller. Yeah. So the buyer doesn't have to pay us or we don't take
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  by side, um, representation for that. And, you know, there are, there are brokers out there that,
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  um, that get paid by, uh, the buyers to go look for businesses. We're not one of those. Um, we'll
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  help you and represent you, but, uh, we'll get paid by the seller on the transaction.
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  World of acquiring a business. Is there a, is there a, uh, something like for the real estate
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  industry? Is there a, is there a listing? Can someone go someplace? Yeah. Uh, what, what is,
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  so how does someone find that? I mean, our personal website is, um, well, my personal website is
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  denisesalesbusinesses.com. It's pretty easy. Uh, and then that'll get you to all of our agents,
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  but, and through that, you'll go into from our website, it'll give you a link into the business
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  of Florida website. And that really is the MLS, um, for businesses throughout the state of Florida,
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  the high quality businesses. I mean, you know, obviously you can go on biz by sell also. Uh,
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  but there's, you know, a lot of, uh, residential agents on there that never return phone calls.
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  Uh, and so I find that, uh, the, the brokers that are part of the business brokers of Florida,
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  which we are, um, have the higher quality listings and the higher quality brokers.
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  Uh, Denise, this is a great conversation. I really, I, I, I welcome this conversation because I know
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  this really does represent an opportunity. If you, if you've been seeking to get engaged in
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  entrepreneurship, if you're seeking to start your own business, a lot of times this really is the
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  better route. Is, is that a fair statement? Absolutely. You go, you know, zero to 60 really
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  quick. Nice. Denise, how does one find you if they're, uh, looking to getting, get involved in
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  trying to acquire a business or sell a business? Yeah. My, uh, my email is Denise at Denise
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  sells businesses.com. Okay. Very nice. I appreciate you having me, Tom. Absolutely. It is Denise, Houghtaling, who is the founder, owner, operator of Southern country business advisors. She is a
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  business broker. Uh, Denise, thanks, uh, for opening us up here on small biz, Florida at the, uh,
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  2026, uh, annual flagel conference. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.
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  Absolutely. Take care. This is small biz, Florida. I am Tom Kindred host. It is all
• 17:39
  happening here at the JW Marriott in Orlando, Florida. It is the annual Florida association
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  of government guaranteed lenders conference. The room is chockablock full of folks looking to help
• 17:53
  businesses access the capital they need to start grow and succeed in business. Stay tuned. More to
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  come. This is small biz, Florida. That's all for this episode of small biz, Florida. We hope you
• 18:08
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• 18:29
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  forward slash podcast. Until then keep innovating and keep growing. Thanks for listening.