Know Your Broker: Debbie Small
From the very start of her career, Debbie Small was interested in small businesses and entrepreneurship. Even as a child she confessed, “I didn’t read Glamour magazine like my girlfriends, I read Entrepreneur!” In college, she put those lessons to work and created Party Pizzaz, a business that sold unique party favors to sororities and fraternities at Kansas State University. She spent the first decade after college as a Senior Media Consultant for Time Warner producing comprehensive television advertising campaigns for small business owners and placing them on cable networks. She found the work fulfilling and loved the opportunity to consult with business owners to assess their needs and grow their revenue.
Due to her experience, she is recognized as one of the top brokers in the country!
Utilizing her core strength of working with business owners, Debbie joined the Apex team in 2004. She’s now worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions industry for nearly 20 years. While she’s sold hundreds of businesses in a variety of industries, she’s still the same friendly and approachable person that she was when she first started as a broker. Her longevity and seniority with Apex have given her extensive experience helping business sellers and buyers navigate the numerous complexities of selling and buying a business. She’s helped many sellers avoid challenges that can arise when cashing out of one of their largest assets, their company.
Due to her extensive experience, work ethic, and customer focus, she is consistently recognized as one of the top business brokers in the country!
Debbie was named Apex Broker of the Year & the International Business Broker Association’s Platinum Chairman’s Circle Winner!
When asked why she loves selling companies, Debbie replied, “there is nothing better than helping make business buyers’ and sellers’ dreams come true! It’s the American dream to own your own business, to be an entrepreneur, and then sell your company, reaping the financial rewards of all your hard work!”
She went on to share the example of a manufacturing company she sold that was generating $1M a year in profit. Within five years of buying the business, the buyer had tripled his cash flow profit on the company and came back to Debbie to sell the operation. She said that “it is difficult to find that kind of return on investment anywhere else including the stock market, real estate investments, or securities.”
Debbie noted that buyers can face challenges when trying to acquire a company. “The buying environment is very competitive.” Debbie has thousands of buyer confidentiality agreements on file with only a small percentage of buyers actually acquiring a business. Savvy buyers become the ‘squeaky wheel’ with her to get her attention and rise to the top. She advises buyers that “there are too many well-capitalized buyers in the market to play the waiting game on making an offer. A solid business will be snatched up immediately! It is best to come to terms with the seller on an accepted purchase price prior to doing a deep dive into due diligence.”
Along with working as a broker, Debbie loves being a mom to a teenage son. She also owns and manages residential real estate properties. Even now, as Apex’s Broker of the Year, she still remains as driven to achieve as she did when she was that young girl flipping through business magazines!
To learn more about Debbie’s broker services, feel free to contact her at .
