Elections Are Over, a New Year Beckons

Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash

A topic we frequently come back to here and in our podcasts is timing. While people may always come up with reasons why they might want to postpone buying or selling a business, our experience as brokers is that the market never sleeps.

A particularly fascinating time of the year is now, as we head into that period of Christmas and New Year’s, in which people have a bit more free time and may be casually looking at listings on places like BizBuySell, then giving us a call to see what we think (or to find out if we have similar listings). Why is that?

New Year, New You

There’s nothing like the end of another year to remind people of mortality and the shortness of life. There’s a scene in Michael Mann’s classic Heat in which Robert DeNiro’s character is asked if he’s “doing what he wants to be doing.” He smiles and answers no, but that he will be doing that soon. Something about the end of a year can galvanize us into action the way that no other time of the year can. If you’re unhappy with what you’re doing in life, the promise of a new year and a new path is tantalizing.

Slower Pace

While there is no doubt a lot of frantic preparation for the holiday season, be it gift-buying or food preparation, or cleaning for the arrival of relatives, expectations of output in corporate America are generally lowered around this time of year, giving people more free time to think and contemplate.

Buyers and Sellers are Looking for Each Other

The phrase “now isn’t the right time” is definitely not true of the end of the year. Buyers are looking for deals and there are sellers looking to offer those deals. As we mentioned, there’s a special power at the end of a calendar year that can help push both buyers and sellers to the finish line.

Election Excuses End

For buyers and sellers who were “waiting” for an election result, that result is now weeks old. While the incoming government may still be holding cards close to its chest, there’s nothing like the general uncertainty that the population had, business-buying or otherwise, prior to the election. This is another converging reason for this being a great time of year for deals.

Time with Family

We always say that there are no deals to be had if family are not on board. This is a time of year when many people have more time with their family and more time to have some of the heart-to-heart conversations about life in the present and plans for the future. There are a number of deals we’ve done here over the years that began as a thread of a holiday conversation between relatives and friends.

Are you feeling the pull of this time of year? We can’t guarantee that there will be the right deal for you right away, but we’d love to take a look. Give us a call.