Grover Rutter laughs heartily when he jokes about being a recovering certified public accountant. It’s been 13 years since he left that life behind to focus solely on his role as intermediary connecting buyers and sellers of businesses. His “laugh” is less comedic than it is a well-placed ice breaker hinting at the fact that his credentials as a specialist in mergers, valuations and acquisitions are spread far and deep across the financial field.

Rutter, founding partner of the firm bearing his name Grover Rutter CPAs, has a significant amount of alphabet soup behind that name, including among other certifications, Certified Business Intermediary and Certified Valuation Analyst. Each requires a fair amount of continuing educational maintenance. Yet for Rutter, these certifications, plus 23 years of experience balancing books and reducing taxes in his previous CPA practice, translate into one thing – today he’s a confident and confidential business matchmaker.

Bringing sellers and buyers together to make a deal is one thing, but in reality Rutter is quite a bit more than that. Just as matchmakers in matters of the heart know that the devil is in the details, Rutter’s years as a CPA give him a keen insight into what he calls “value killers” in a variety of industries.

“Owners don’t really think of these things because they often don’t look at the business the way an outsider or an investor would look at it,” Rutter said. “Our goal is to educate business owners. What we have found to be true is that for about 90 percent of everyone who calls us, the owner is ready to sell their business – but the businesses are not ready to be sold for what the owners think they are worth.”

Typically, owners are too busy with day-to-day running of the business to adequately prepare for its sale at some distant point in the future. They’ve been too preoccupied with administration, marketing, logistics and of course, the bottom line to even begin contemplating the adjustments necessary to make their business attractive to prospective purchasers.
“Oftentimes, the owners are trying to wear all the hats,” Rutter said.

One of the favorite questions he asks owners in evaluating how truly prepared a business is to be sold is this: “What kind of vacation do you take?” Although it might seem like an odd question, for Rutter, its answer is rather revealing.

If he hears something along the lines of, “I can’t. I have to be here. I haven’t had a vacation in ten years,” Rutter said he gets concerned. It’s a red flag telling him the business isn’t ready to be sold because it isn’t going to be attractive enough to potential buyers. According to Rutter, “They have all the knowledge (about their business) in their heads and you can’t sell that.”

A lack of preparation like this concerns Rutter, especially because the baby boomers – born between 1946 and 1964 – are rapidly reaching retirement age. Yet the majority of them who own businesses have not properly prepared them for sale in today’s market. The U.S. News and World Report estimates 72 million Americans will be older than 65 by 2030. A subset of that number still represents a lot of business owners and a torrent of financial transactions needed as they sell off lifetimes of work.

This fact is not lost on Rutter. Referring to a survey by the International Business Brokers Association (IBBA) documenting a significant change as to the reasons for business owners selling, as of the end of 2012 those reasons had narrowed, with the retirement of a baby boomer owner becoming the predominant cause for sale. (IBBA’s “Market Pulse Quarterly Survey Report for the Fourth Quarter of 2012.”)The talk of broker circles, this coming glut of boomer-owned businesses for sale is being called a financial tsunami that is only growing in size and Rutter predicts that the sheer number of small and medium-sized businesses available could hurt valuations significantly.

“There will be a certain percentage of baby boomers who won’t be able to sell because their business is not prepared and buyers will have so many other options available to them,” Rutter said.
This is why the third edition of his book, “How to Sell A Business For The Most Money” has just been released. Although it is for sale online at www.lulu.com/spotlight/businessadvisor, Rutter also gives the first and second editions of the book to clients and potential clients and even to folks who aren’t immediately signing up with his firm. Rutter knows future clients come from today’s readers and he knows it takes time – two to three years – to properly prepare a business for sale. Also, Rutter provides articles about selling a business at www.gruttercpas.com.

So Rutter sticks with his humorous approach. “People need help to prepare. When they get things straightened out and are ready, they will remember us. That is what we hope for. If nothing else, we’ve done our good deed for the day.”

For more information, please visit: www.gruttercpas.com