Know Your Broker: Jay Kvasnicka
In this occasional series we will share profiles of our team here at Apex so you can get to know the men and women that make us best qualified to help you buy or sell a business.
Jay has been in the industry for just about a decade. He has owned both a promotional products franchise as well as a ground shipping and transportation business. These experiences have helped him close deals in the latter space, but also means he brings the understanding of what it’s like to be an entrepreneur to each of his transactions.
Born in Manhattan, Kansas, Jay comes from an entrepreneurial family. His father built and sold two companies. It was actually from watching his father’s two sales that Jay learned how important it was for someone to have a “why” apart from running a business.
When his dad sold his last company, he was bored for quite awhile. It took him some time to wrap himself around a “why” and Jay notes there’s no need to wait until you’ve sold a company to do that.
Unsurprisingly, Jay caught the entrepreneurial bug himself and he loves business brokering because it provides an almost endless variety of people to meet and work with. He also gets satisfaction from delivering win-wins, which is what he tries to do in every transaction he’s part of.
“People trust me, I like to think, in part because I’m a good listener. I listen more than I talk, and I want to hear everyone’s goals. I also try to get everyone to buy into ‘trust but verify’ from day one as a guiding principle.”
Jay likes to think of the transaction as a home built on a sturdy foundation. If you spend a lot of time early on and front load your work, with full disclosure, making sure there are no surprises, the later stages of the transaction will be much easier.
Jay’s also tolerant and flexible. The proof of that is the fact that he has a son at KU when he and his family are deep purple K-Staters!
Jay was the top producing broker at Apex in 2016.
