Mountain BizWorks expands services with new business brokerage

Press release from Mountain BizWorks:

ASHEVILLE, NC—NOVEMBER 11, 2021— Longtime small business funding and educational institution, Mountain BizWorks announced yesterday evening at its Mountain Raise event that it will expand its services to help entrepreneurs across Western North Carolina manage the often complex process of selling and purchasing businesses. The new venture is called Mountain BizWorks Market Advisors and has already begun working with some select small businesses in the region.

“Transferring a business, or even determining its worth, can be a complicated process,” said program director Chris Grasinger. “Our focus is demystifying the process for business owners, allowing buyers and sellers to work through the necessary steps in a mutually beneficial way.”

One of the most challenging aspects of a business sale can be determining a price. So their approach takes a 360-degree look at operations, structure, and assets to determine a value making sure both sides know precisely what they are getting in the transaction.

Market Advisors will be operated as a subsidiary of Mountain BizWorks, and board vice-chair Tim Herdklotz believes the service is vital for the continued economic growth of Western North Carolina.

“For more than three decades, Mountain BizWorks has been an integral part of local business development in the region,” Herdklotz said. “With this new venture, we will continue that legacy by helping our well-loved small businesses sustain their legacy through a successful transfer of ownership.”

With a strong growth of local small businesses in recent decades and prevailing demographic trends, addressing the exit process is more important than ever. Research from the national group Project Equity shows that retiring baby boomers own over half of WNC small businesses and 6 in 10 will be looking to sell their business within the next decade. And to meet that demand, Market Advisors will ensure the number of locally owned businesses in the region continues to grow.

“We’re facing what’s being called ‘the silver tsunami,’ and we are looking to be proactive to help our amazing local entrepreneurs have more options to secure a successful transition,” Matt Raker, Executive Director of Mountain BizWorks, mentioned at the public announcement of the brokerage last night. “These small businesses are the lifeblood of our local communities, and this new venture is designed to support them.”

With so many businesses slated to change hands, the need to ensure successful succession planning will be of vital economic interest for buyers, sellers, and the over 130,000 employees that work for small businesses in Western North Carolina. One of the easiest ways to do that is to sell a business to someone new, and this new brokerage aims to make entrepreneurship through acquisition as easy as possible for the buyer and the seller.

“There is a need for this service in Western North Carolina and beyond, and we hope that business owners looking to make a change utilize us to ensure their business goes on without them, but also to make sure there is minimal impact to workers and the community,” Herdklotz said. “While larger operations have access to brokerage services, small and mid-sized businesses need to connect with outside resources. We will satisfy that need by offering our valuation, brokerage, and consulting services to owners across the region.”

Learn more about Mountain BizWorks Market Advisors at marketadvisors.org.