 Starting all attendees are in listen-only mode. Good morning everyone and welcome back to the economic development webinar series My name is Susan. Hello. I'm with the design coordination and outreach branch of the Ministry of Jobs trade and technology I'm moderating and providing some technical support for today's webinar and Interfacing with Darryl here who is located in Noose Bay Vancouver Island, which is the traditional plans of the St. Nala nation. I'm in Victoria on the unceded Coast Salish territory of the Lekwungen people known today as the Esquimalt and Sondheim's First Nations. Before we go any further, I'll just review some of our housekeeping items for those of you who are new to the webinar platform You have two choices for connecting to audio. You can use your computer audio Or if you're not on a very fast internet connection, you may want to choose telephone and dial-in If you click on the little radio button that says phone call on your control panel It'll give you a phone number and an access code and a pin Which will let us identify who you are on the call We will be using the enter a question for staff Box on today's webinar. So have your keyboards and mice handy the little Orange box little icon lets you know that you're muted The little blue box lets you expend the webinar to full screen if you don't want any other distractions on your desktop The little hand lets you raise your hand We won't be using that today because there's many of you and few of us But in the future we might go there If you're joining us through the instant join web app It looks a little bit different and your audio settings are hidden in behind the gear icon So if you click on that it will get you to your telephone settings one thing I'd like you to do before we get started is Let us know what you are hoping to learn from this webinar. So use that ask a question the staff box and Type in what you're hoping to get out of today's webinar Darrell and I will hopefully address many of those issues through the webinar and if not you can always send emails To economic development at gov.bc.ca and I'll pass one Darrell and we'll get them answered for you a few more items Just to give you a little bit of time to ask your questions The session is being recorded. I'm just double-check. Yes. It's being recorded and The audio and screen are being recorded the webcams aren't the speaker slides and the presentation will be shared We upload these to YouTube and then post them to our website under the VC ideas exchange banner and look for our past webinar recordings Page so it takes about a week to get all of that together and Try to move that along as fast as we can for you Here's something new We are in the process of gathering feedback about the economic development website That's what you get to when you go to gov.bc.ca Flash economic development What information do you look for there? Is it easy for you to find things there? Are there gaps in what you're looking for or are things not in a place where you would have expected to find them? So our team is doing user experience research in November and December and January If you'd like to participate in that and give your feedback, please send us an email economic development at gov.bc.ca and We will send you our questions possibly line up a 10 to 15 minutes Phone chat and we really appreciate your feedback as we try to make this website a better tool for you So let's see if we have any questions answered. Yes, we do So a couple of people are looking for information about how to assist people with succession planning in a small community You've come to the right webinar How can I encourage or assist local small businesses with succession planning for their business? From an executive director of a chamber of commerce economic development is not my defined role But I feel like I have a part of it for my community as do we all so Thank you very much. So from a chamber of commerce perspective how to support business succession So those are some things which I hope will address as we go forward into our presentation What did I do here supporting business succession in your community? There we go. We have oh This is where I was going to talk about what you were looking for So before we get started, however, I want to ask a poll question to get you engaged in today's webinar, so There this is a answer as many as apply to you What are the trends you're seeing in your community? Regarding business succession and transition now. I'm hoping that this is actually showing for all of you. I Know that it doesn't show for me as a presenter, but we have some responses coming in. That's great I'll leave it up for about a minute and we'll try to get really high voter turnout. I Know you're all a very engaged group of people. So what are you seeing in your community? Business owners closing and retiring Vigil buyer struggling for capital business is being for sale for long periods of time Businesses being transferred to employees People from outside the community coming in. This is just to get a sense of what's happening in the communities out there So we've got about 75 percent voter turnout at this point I know some of you are busy multitasking that I forgive you So I'll close the poll now and we'll see what the results were So 83 percent of our Respondents are seeing business owners retiring and closing their business not surprising. That's very high 50 percent potential buyers struggling for capital 75 percent of you are seeing businesses being for sale for long periods of time Only 8% say they're seeing businesses being transferred to employees 33% are seeing people from outside their community coming in as business buyers So thank you very much for participating in that We'll carry on now. I want to introduce and actually I'm gonna let Darrell tell us a little bit about him Before he carries on Darrell. Why don't you take it away and tell us about yourself? Okay, my name is Darrell. I'm a business advisor with venture connect venture connect is a subsidiary of a number of community futures and I've been working and our focus is on Business succession and retention in rural communities. So I've been working with business owners We started working with business owners, I guess I've been about six years I've been doing this in the last three. We've also been working Considerably more with on the buyer side in helping buyers who are looking for businesses find good opportunities in Rural VC. So our focus is outside of Vancouver and Victoria And I have worked I I've traveled Some of you may have sat through some of my seminars Around the province and I've worked with business Sellers and buyers in pretty much every community around the province So we have a pretty decent idea of what's happening We've also been doing we do a lot of research and and try and look at some of the reasons why things are happening and what things that we can do to You know try and find better success for our business small business communities, so That's my background before that. I Was in business myself. I've had a number of small businesses. I was a partner in a medium-sized business and they also spent about 14 years in the corporate world working in Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Boston So, you know, I've been around a little bit and seen lots of Good scenarios and bad scenarios. So What we try and do is help people understand in their own situation What will give them the best chance to succeed at what is Can be a difficult and very emotional Situation for for many small business owners. So I was very interested in the poll I was the only thing I was surprised about was that there were only 8% of you that were seeing Employees Transferring businesses that that was a bit surprising because I I suppose I'm involved in many situations like that around the problem So maybe I'm getting the exception in in some Cases, but yeah, that was that was the only surprise the rest of it. You know, I thought it was it was good to see that You're seeing the same things I am so So you want me to launch straight in So what are the demographic trends that are contributing to the business succession crunch and how are these factors? More severe in smaller rural communities. So the first thing is a simple demographic shift We now have more older people than younger people So there is if you look at the bars on this Graph here the red is those of us who are baby boomers and the blue is Gen X so typically we would find that baby boomers are the sellers of businesses Especially as we're getting a little Older now There some of the younger baby boomers are still buyers So, you know, I think we actually haven't hit the worst stretch Demographically more pain is coming as the later boomers You know get older and need to sell their businesses as well But if you look at the red bars versus the blue bars, you know all of our regions other than you know, the Northeast which is the oil patch or The mainland, you know lower mainland all of the rest of us have a serious shortfall in younger people There's a lot more older folks than younger folks and the younger folks are the ones that we need to buy the business businesses when You know people in their 60s buy business, you know, of course There's the rare exception where we've got lots of energy and we're in it for the long haul it at 65 But the reality is that when you buy a business at 65, you're either looking for more of a hobby Or it's a shorter term scenario. It's not something that you're looking at Building and and adding new growing and and adding new things for the community So from a community standpoint, we really want the younger buyers to be Putting the energy into the business for the long haul Now as we go along so that's simple demographics, but when we look at rural VC we have an additional problem and The problem is sim is just a continuation of the migration From rural to urban that we've been seeing in North America The population if you look at You know from 1996 In that in the little chart at the bottom The little grid you see from 1996 to 2011 a 15-year period The population in rural BC declined by 10% So that you know, that's not something any of us have experienced in our lifetime This this is something new So not only do we have an older population, but we have a shrinking population so When we are looking for Buyers and younger buyers in businesses, we're we're going to be faced with this sort of double whammy that we're hitting we're getting older and The and our population is migrating to urban centers So they're there if unless we do something there are going to be fewer and fewer buyers for small businesses in our rural communities and Do we have another is there another one? We've Okay, so so on that the trend is and the trend is not better the trend forecast from the province are the trend of decline in rural Communities is going to continue for at least the next 10 years and Then as we translate that to small business We see that small business numbers are declining in all regional areas except for the lower mainland So you can pick your region but if you look at numbers from you know, 2007 2008 to 2016 which is the last year I've got for them you're gonna you see a decline In you know, and it's 10% in many areas. It can be it's as much as 25% in some But it's substantial if you think about a 10-year period This is the total number of businesses. So this is not measuring businesses that are closing. This is measuring the net loss of Small businesses in each region So, you know, you know, if you're in economic development, our communities have been built on a model for growth All of our municipalities are expecting, you know, at least inflationary increases in property taxes and things like that and expenses So as and we all know that businesses Contribute substantially to the life of the community. They contribute tax wise They they carry more of the generally more of the burden of tax than resident property Residential property they provide employment And they and they round out our businesses with the services and products and services and things that that we need to Have a the livability of our and attract, you know, attraction of our communities to new You're in residence So, you know, what do we see from this empty storefronts a lack of shopping or service options Can you buy everything that you used to in your community depends on the size of the community? But in smaller communities, I suggest that there are many where you can't and people now drive, you know An hour to go to, you know, our regional centers. So the Prince George's and Kamloops, Kelowna Ours are growing But, you know, when you factor that in even even when you factor in the growth of those regional and Nanaimo those regional communities We're still declining So you see how hard some communities are being hit by the population decline So, you know, in order for us to be Competitive and attractive to new people a new residence. We can't let things go too far So I sometimes get You know taken to task for being You know a bit negative on things And the reality is that all of this simply says to me that you can't snap your you can't expect to snap your fingers and sell your business The bottom line is that if you want to sell your business, you're in a competition There are lots and lots of businesses for sale. Some of them don't look very good And if you want to sell your business, it has to be attractive. It has to have something to offer So the ingredients first ingredient that makes for successful business succession or trans act transition Is that the business is attractive to somebody? The more people it's attractive to the better There's when I work with business owners who are looking at selling I take them through sort of the process of thinking about who would buy their business And who their business would be attractive to and there's a number of different kinds of of buyers so and and those You know are looking for different things employees Whether somebody's just looking at the the dollars and how much money whether whether it's a fun business Whether, you know, so so there's a bunch of factors that make up what makes the business attractive but first and foremost is that the business needs to You know have something to offer that makes it stand out So that people will want to buy it a lot of younger buyers like younger You know business people today are are taught to start a business in our colleges and universities there's a lot of Energy put into that and we have accelerator programs and we have Um You know lots of different programs and lots of different stories about people who've gotten rich and and you know out of their garage And that's a cool way to go and isn't that wonderful, but the reality is for most Business young people young people who are looking at business They'd be far better off to buy a business and turn it into something even if they're going to tweak it and grow it The the it's a it's a buyer's market. There are lots and lots of opportunities And so that actually is the best approach for them They so so the biggest thing really is in transition is that a owner an owner Is prepared to do the work Um and This the biggest mistake that most owners make is that they don't sell When their business is attractive So if you look at this graphic, um, 95 95 of business owners sell After their business has peaked and it's in decline so some of them if you look at you know, the the Sort of second to your 20 percent It's not the end of the world you've kind of harvest it for for a little while you've taken your foot off the gas But now you're selling and you know, the revenue is still good. There's still income. They can still you know a buyer could Borrow against, uh, you know, there's there's still some value in the business but most Owners stay far too long They wait they wait they wait They you know are making much less than they used to And then and they don't put money back into it You know the hours start to now we're only open 10 to four four days a week You know because people aren't buying anyways and and on and on we go and then in the end there's little value for someone to Purchase the business so most of the time for an a buy for a buyer. That's not a track So what we try and do when we work with sellers is to get people to start sooner Um, a lot of business owners. It's emotional. They don't want to Tip their hand. They don't want to commit They don't want customers to think that they might leave the business that they've been in for 30 years um Some of it is that they You know their personalities are all caught up in the business and they they They struggle to see how the business can survive without them But if the business can't survive without them, then it's not going to So what they need to do is make sure that the business can't or they're not going to end up with Any value in it when they go to try and sell it So that's the biggest thing that that we work with on the on the seller side I think are we on the buyer side now? Yeah Oh So on the buyer side There's there's two things to think about In economic development. First is where are they coming from? And second is what are they looking for now on the poll results can't remember I think there was about a third of the people that said they saw buyers coming from outside community. Is that yeah, 33 percent Yeah The numbers that we deal with um would be higher than that I I would say the clients that we deal with probably have come from outside the community But that may simply be that we're involved in fewer sales that are going on within the community So the the kinds of sales we we work on Um, but it's a significant percentage of people who come out from outside the community So in economic development, I think what we need to realize is that a lot of times people that are coming from elsewhere Are looking for the combination of business and community So they're looking for a good business opportunity And a community that they would be happy to live in so From the perspective of someone coming from alberta, they may not care Whether it's quinell or williams lake or prince george or vanderhoof What they may care more about is They like the region and they find a business that they like And so and that will drive them to a location So we see that quite a bit People are looking and they go for what is the best business opportunity In the field that they're looking, you know, I'm a mechanic. I'm coming from alberta The guy behind me bought just did this he uh was looking You know, I'm on the island. So he was looking on the island for I think it was like two years for the right kind of You know car repair or auto repair business and he found one it happened to be in this community and Bought the business and then he bought us out You know, so so that was his plan took a few years to You know come to fruition, but they're you know in their 40s Good kind of a person to add to the community here is pretty old So, you know, they're actually quite young a lot of energy money, you know, so it's good But really they they chose the community because of the business Sometimes we also see people that come to A community for one spouse has a job And then they're new to the community and the other spouse is looking for a business So they you know, technically maybe they didn't come to that community for the The business, but they are still new to the community So one of the things that We can do in economic development or in the chamber is that we can be You know, I won't maybe call it matchmakers, but certainly we can be Telling people, you know when I go around the province I find that that's many economic development or chambers have Visitors come in and ask about businesses in the community Um many a lot of times they might be asking more about the business environment business supports That kind of thing which is great But I think there's also a role That the chamber in economic development can play in finding out Asking a couple of questions. What kind of business are you interested in? Are you interested in buying a business or you know starting? And you may find that you you know of certain businesses that may be for sale And you can Help point them in a direction or you know, maybe connect people if that works So I definitely think that there there is an opportunity and certainly when visitors come and ask to have That you know welcoming presence and awareness that there are opportunities And this is this is a good place and certainly You know You should keep looking or to direct them to different sites to look for opportunities that kind of thing Our site venture connect which you'll get at the end has lots of businesses for sale in In all of the communities around the province So even directing people to that site to say well to go and look at what's for sale in our community Um, the other thing that you can do is make sure that your owners when they go to sell their business Spend less effort in putting a business for sale sign in the window and more on getting it on the internet So that people who are coming from elsewhere can find them. Yeah, I was going to ask Do buyers need or do sellers need to put more energy into promoting outside of their own community? Absolutely that's it's You know, I it's unfortunate because I see younger sellers do this automatically and they do a good job They put a bunch of pictures up. They put a good write-up up. They talk to us They they they listen they, you know, we help them go through the things that need to be communicated older buyers Are much more Cards close to the best. They don't want to Uh, you know tip their hand they you know and and they and they do often a very poor job of Even when they do list of putting information hop on the site Um, there is I should before I forget say that on our website now Um, there is an ability for owners to advertise their business discreetly So they don't have they can have what's called a hidden listing So when people search a community They can get, um You know bait some bare bones information, but nothing that would allow them to identify the business so so Really what we want people to do is start sooner and get the information out there to a broader audience because um, you know one third to a half of business buyers are likely to come from Somewhere outside the community where they don't know of the business So They're not going to find out about it from seeing a for sale sign in the store window What are buyers looking for number one it has to make some money Most people have to borrow money to buy a business if the business doesn't make money How can they borrow? It just doesn't work so That is the number one thing that I think sellers fail to understand Is that when somebody when a business buyer is going to buy the business they they have to borrow money They have to pay it back on an accelerated timeline. It's not the 25 year house amortization They have to pay this loan back much faster than that and their interest rates are much higher so they they That takes cash flow If there isn't enough cash flow in the business then before the the seller even tries to sell They should consider whether they are going to be part of the financing solution so the odds of Selling your business go up dramatically if you are prepared to take some portion of it as a loan With interest That you finance Now when I mention this nine out of ten owners shake their head vehemently and say they absolutely wouldn't consider it And by the time we get to the end nine out of ten will So if they would just make the decision sooner They would have a far greater chance of selling the business because what generally will happen is they will burn through two or three good buyers While they're saying no no no I won't and then when they change their mind and say they will there may not be any more Of the right buyers for them So I have that conversation right up front is What are you prepared to do to help make the deal and they don't have to advertise it? They just have to be prepared The other thing is that so so buyers are looking for something that makes money They're looking for things that have an opportunity to grow. They're looking for a lifestyle In a community family affordable affordability Buyers that are coming from the lower mainland want to be able to buy a house and a business And take their kids to do some You know, whatever it is that that they want to do with their kids sporting activities outside stuff Um, you know, whatever it is that they want and Buying into the the lifestyle that we enjoy in our smaller communities so anything that We can do as economic development in selling the advantages of the community is huge But I think the other thing is that um ensuring that the supports are there. So not only do the business owners have You know an opportunity or I would say a responsibility if they want to sell their business to be to consider Being part of the financing solution But we also want to have other options available for them in the community So obviously community futures banks create unions Are opportunities Some of the banks are hesitant in some smaller communities to lend to businesses certain types of businesses that kind of thing So obviously, you know bdc community futures are are Places to go in those situations the other thing is that That I think there's a real opportunity for is in some communities. We have older Business people who maybe don't have the energy to run their own business anymore But could be part of something with a buyer um So if we can find ways to match up people who have some money and maybe You know, maybe they didn't own the business, but but maybe they would be interested in being a You know minority Shareholder for a period of time while the younger buyer puts most of the energy into it and grows the business And you know, this can be a great solution Somebody works a day a week or two days a week or just provides the money and some guidance And in return they get You know a share of the the profits of the business and down the road they can sell their stake to The younger buyer so, you know looking for creative solutions within our communities and Talking to business leaders and and business owners and finding ways to to look at matching money and opportunities with the business Businesses and business buyers that are out there. So I think those are really good opportunities that we we could Work on I have a question for you about business pricing Back when I was in business school. I was always taught you don't Pay for the opportunity. You're going to make So do you see business sellers or owners? pricing their businesses in such a way as it's Sort of priced for what it could become as opposed to what it is now Yeah, that's that that is one of the two biggest problems that I see in sellers pricing mentality That's one that is that they they have seen so so if you think back to that graph where we've let The value of the business decline And and now The seller says to the buyer. Well five years ago It was double the income and all you have to do is put some work into it and you'll be back there So therefore the business is worth it But from a buyer standpoint, that's just stupid. Why would you pay somebody for? I mean that may help you to buy the business You it may encourage you to buy the business if you look at it and say, yeah If I you know put my back into it I can see ways that I could double this But I'm not going to pay you for it. Yeah, because I have to work right. So That's not part of the valuation So so that's that's a big mistake that owners make and the other is that they Price it based on what they need for retirement ah Okay, so I'm retiring I need x amount of money and so therefore that's what My business is uh, I'm going to take for my business and if I can't get it I will just continue to work it in a You know kind of a half-assed way for the next five years or shut it down Or yeah, for as long as it's still making money and then I'll shut it down um But that's not good for the community at all because the business is likely to decline further And then it's likely to close um So they're far better off. It's far better for the community if they will uh, take a lower You know selling price now, but put some inject some new blood into the business to To grow it and so that it has chance to sustain and grow and and continue to be part of the community But yeah, that's that is a big problem We You know as we get older we Our memory we fail to adjust to new realities quickly So it can take a long time before people Finally acknowledge that yes, that's That's what my business is worth and I remember when I was when I was working um Back in 2006 when the bottom fell out of the real estate market in the us um Phoenix for example in one market where prices dropped in half and sellers kept dropping their price by You know 10 every couple of months And but they lagged the market so they would they would price instead of pricing it to meet the market what they did was they They priced it above and then weighed and then the market dropped and then they dropped to 10% But they're still above the market So they kind of followed the market all the way down and then ended up with half of what they could have got for Earlier so sometimes you're far better off to make You know a 20 drop now and now you can sell now. You're actually in the ballpark um and that's You know, you know, it can get complicated because it depends on the kind of buyer and all that kind of stuff But if somebody's looking at the finances of the business Generally most sellers are probably 15 to 20 percent Higher than what a buyer is going to look at it and and feel that it's worth and that gap When you get an offer You know, that's the the opportunity of for the for the owner to close the gap and accept And many times they won't and It's fine if the business is growing because then Your business will be worth more a year from now But if the business is declining the offer that you just rejected is the best one you're ever going to get And and now you're kind of stuck and and you're likely to end up closing So so really, you know from an economic development standpoint We want businesses that are growing that have energy put into them and we want um Sellers who are realistic about the prices and when to get out So really as an economic development officer, we need to you know help Business owners understand that you know in some communities Business owners are very negative and they don't want to try because they think they'll fail And feel like that's going to be a reflection on them that or are on their business And so it's almost a face saving thing to say i'm going to close it But you know, the reality is that most businesses Have a chance to sell there are buyers out there for many of them provided their price right and their Advertised correctly appropriately, you know People can find them the information is necessary and there's a little bit of a sizzle, you know put into the on the stake So as economic development people we want to encourage people to try First of all, we want to encourage them to start early And to think about all of the ways and the different kinds of buyers that are out there Put them in touch with some professional advice to at least have a conversation About their business and to get some tips about how to go about finding or making their business attractive and finding buyers for it And then the other supports on the financing I think are really really important and as I talked about with the Being aware of what's for sale in your community and being aware when buyers are poking around and looking for opportunities And making sure that they see that they you can direct them to opportunities whether it be on the website or ones that you happen to know about Those are all things that can be Helpful to business sellers also I I always encourage a When someone lists a business and they put together what we call a fact sheet or you know some Some material about the business talking. I always encourage them to have a page on the community On what it's like to live in this community So and just one page concisely done can be really really helpful So I do think that there's you know, the the when I do when I write these things up I always go to you know, either hello bc destination bc or and and the The community's economic development chamber pages Um city all that talk about what the advantages of the community are so and most of you do a really good job of Having pages and pages of that But it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have sort of a concise one page summary that people could just attach to their listings so that It it sells the community better than most people are going to do on their own so Those are certainly things that that you know could be helpful for for business sellers I'm gonna throw in a poll question here because we've been chatting for a while and I want to get people out there engaged again This is a you tell us what supports or services does your community have this is just a handful of supports that uh, but I Have listed what are the things that your community has Or has access to for helping or easing business succession and transition resources to help owners for further businesses for sale a business valuation professional a business broker financing partners or business owner training programs and Maybe daryl you can talk about the the role that some of these Supports play in communities and also maybe what to do if you're a very small community and You know, there isn't a a friendly neighborhood business valuation professional Yeah, yeah, so that um, you know, certainly a broker or valuation professional I I do find also sometimes that you know people's accountants will provide them with evaluation on the business In my experience, that's a little bit tricky If if they're your accountants They may not want to give you bad news. They may or may not be Very aware of what The market is For businesses if they haven't been involved in a lot of sales Brokers tend to be just in the the sort of more, you know, major communities A lot of times they You know, maybe less accessible for for some small communities There are people, you know venture connect just you know for a little ad we do valuations at a very reasonable price Throughout the province. So some business owners feel that Person needs to see their business But if you're in a small community, that's going to get very very expensive There aren't a lot of access, you know in small communities. You can see They're they're not a lot of brokers or business valuation people who do this professionally um available, so You're far better off, you know in my case, for example, you know, if you tell me The kind of business you have I would be willing to bet my car That I have done at least four or six or eight Similar businesses in similar communities around the province in the last couple of years So you have a pretty good idea You're not likely to be that different And there are character, you know by by going through some questions. We find out the differences You know, are there commercial contracts? Are there this or you know? So so there's there's a variety of questions and things that we can ask so generally Over phone email internet You can you can do a very good job of understanding the value of a business in the community The the key thing really to ask somebody who's valuing the business is how familiar they are with the community size that you're in If you're in, you know burns lake or In Vermeer a business broker in vancouver May not have much of an inkling of your community versus, you know, what goes on in the lower mainland So and that those are two completely different markets Different buyers different all kinds of different things going on So so the biggest thing to ask when you're dealing with a professional is what's their experience with your kind of business and your kind of market Um, certainly as economic development what you want to do is you want to encourage people To ask for some advice Um, you know, we find on our website about half of the listings come For sale by owner is how they start of those probably half of them end up with a realtor or broker over time But you know, we encourage and we work with either scenario um So what is most important is that the the owner gets some advice from a perspective that's outside of their own that's professional um, that will You know stand them in good stead and help them to um to have a better chance of selling their business um And you can see with the poll results, um, you know, we we spend a lot of time on training programs and less on You know some of the other aspects Really the business valuation is is the key thing to start with They need to have a sense of what the market is for their business And I you know, I don't mean to say that Owners don't know because a lot of times I find that owners have a pretty decent idea the problem is that they They don't necessarily understand how the value is different for a different kind of buyer and that And what will happen if they're not flexible So when we do a valuation we try to help prepare the owner for um for what a buyer is going to say And to help them understand how to get the most out of any particular buyer and then understand that and either You know accept that or move on and and take their time and and look for another another buyer right Okay, um, so It it seems like there's a lot involved. So here's you've got this great slide here It takes a village So our people on the webinar are generally the village that are trying to support the business owners Maybe talk about this a little bit Yeah, this and this this really sort of summarizes what we've been been talking about people buyers many buyers are Are moving from somewhere to a community They are Looking they're coming from other parts and places in the province. They're coming from other provinces. They're coming from other countries And they are choosing the community as well as the business opportunity so You know when I talked before about encouraging sellers to include community information This is key. What's attractive about the community? How well are these features of the community communicated to to buyers from away? Service providers we talked about, you know financing But also the fact that you know, there's accountants. There are Insurance people there's uh realtors. There's there's there's all of the The services that I'm going to need as a business owner are available in this community as well as Things that I want for my children. There's a hockey team. There's good schools, there's You know places for outdoor activities lakes hikes, you know those kinds of things that that we want for lifestyle Welcome services. This is a business friendly community that you know chambered all the the resources things that we have The programs I'll put a plug in here for export navigator Well, we talked about Well, the the name is export really the program You know, it's a pilot program in six regions around the province, which is most of the areas of smaller communities it's really about business growth and finding markets for businesses from outside the community and most 60 of the Businesses in that program are either some form of aggro aggro food or manufacturing Those businesses need buyers from outside of their community in order to be successful So what we want to do is encourage businesses to be growing and to be In order to be attractive to buyers So, you know, that's another resource Even even if someone is contemplating selling their business If they can be selling it on an upswing They're far more likely to be attractive and to find a buyer In a shorter period of time and at a price that they they want to sell at Okay Measuring I love measuring things. What metrics can we use to measure our business succession progress? Well on our website, we we have worked at trying to measure Things like, you know, whether people are successful What they're finding what their experiences are You know as a community certainly, you know in a chamber you you measure how many members you have You can, you know You know Measure employment. It's difficult with with Business owners because they this is a fairly personal thing within, you know, did you sell your business or did you close it? I mean, obviously You can see that and you can because you're there in the community and especially in smaller communities I think it's well worth while to keep track of those kinds of things how many people You know, even if anecdotally you keep track of how many businesses close and Nobody knew that they were for sale or they they didn't go for sale Certainly, you know, there's an opportunity I think to do, you know in your business walk to ask questions about You know, what point in the future would you consider selling your business? How far down the road? Um, you know gathering some statistics that way would tell you Give you an idea of how many businesses are going to be coming up for sale in your community And then thinking about the buyers. I think the other thing we could start to measure is we can ask questions about You know, is there anybody are there any employees in your business who would be interested in buying it? You know, I said that was a very low number Mm-hmm. It should be higher Um, I do believe that there are more employees who are interested than owners who believe that they're interested. Yeah Owners generally discount employees ability to Pay and to run the business. Yes, because They are not as smart as I am because I've run the business and I tell them what to do So clearly they can't run the business, you know, just that's logic But the reality is that they would probably run the business slightly differently, but that doesn't necessarily mean it would be worse Um, and certainly with some training and support, many of them could do a very good job of running the business So I think a lot of times Owners minds are not as open as they should be about these kinds of opportunities So I think that's a real opportunity for opening people's minds and saying You know asking the question and finding out and if if the answers were getting or it seemed to be too low Then to think about how how could we start to change the minds of people in our community to to looking at the people that are already there as potential opportunities for Purchasing the business. So I come across many situations where the owner did not think it was possible But it happened Somebody from outside the community, you know, no this they don't have money, but their uncle does Right, you know, their uncle somewhere else and You know, let you let community futures put a mortgage on their lot to finance the business so Gee that worked So and there are many other situations like that. So, you know, the opportunities are there. We just need owners to be open and The number one thing is plan ahead The more time they give themselves The better the odds are that there's going to be not just a buyer, but a good buyer for the business So having some sense of the numbers of business owners that are Are Thinking five years down the road that it might sell and then getting the supports in place and having the awareness Uh, the discussions in place ahead of time um, I Probably three quarters of the businesses that we do valuations for are non for sale yet and the owners are just Oh And what the great thing about doing it that way is that it gives you an opportunity to Um Change things in your business to either clarify or to make it more attractive So that the odds are that you will get what you want for it You know a year down the road when you list it you're in much better place things like getting procedures manual is written or um, You know, yeah, I'm finally switching from an old Do I do I hire staff or don't I do I? You know, do I run everything through the till when I haven't been? um, did I say that out loud? It happens That's a real basic thing that um is You know changes um what you're for so yeah Uh, so how I actually i'm gonna skip ahead to one thing. I noticed that on our poll 55 percent of our communities uh mentioned or Only 55 percent said that financing partners Were in their community or supports or services that they had access to So I I made this list of Aboriginal financial institutions because There are nine of them and they're all over the province and they are a resource That is out there. Uh, what are some of the other financial partners that are available? That active officers or Chamber of Commerce might want to build up relationships with Yeah, well, certainly community futures 33 locations around the province They are absolutely somebody That is available in every part of the province. You're not too small for a community futures bdc of course is Is an excellent resource Probably slightly larger businesses. Um not always the smallest ones the credit unions And banks It really depends. Um those probably depend more on The buyer's credit than the business The the good thing about um, you know things like community futures and bdc is they're focused on the business itself And they don't generally discriminate against Types of businesses or community rural communities or anything like that. They are looking at the economics of the business and whether it can support Whereas sometimes with some of the financial institutions, they're they're more sector focused And so then you know in certain for certain kinds of you know service businesses or whatever you the only way that you may be What we get a loan from some commercial vendors is if the business is larger Um, you know in for our small communities or if your credit is such that you can do You know all equity line of credit Okay Um, but those are all things to um think about for sure. Um in terms of that Um, you know in terms of growing businesses, there's lots of you know, agri Agriculture Canada agriculture Canada agriculture bc any kind of agribusiness there is money if people want to expand there are so many programs It's such a good place to be You you really can access many many good things there to to focus on on growth And farm credit is it's good for you know expansion loans and and those kinds of things So yeah, those are are some of the um You know small business bc we use for for training and you know those kinds of things are good venture connect is up there That's you know a resource uh to check out send people for listing their business or for advice or some of the services we talked about so um Because people can't click on the actual go-to webinar screen I've created a pdf version of this which if you look in your control panel on go-to webinar In the handout section you should be able to download this It's just called additional resources dot pdf and it has all of the links put in there So that you can download that and click through the links and get to each of these Places, so we're just nearing the end. Um any final words of advice sterile for our audience um, no, I think just uh, well, yes Don't give up And try and encourage people starting early and keeping an open mind and getting some outside advice And uh, I think that's you know, that's the best thing that you can do for them. Okay Well, thank you very much, uh derral and just before we go I'll let people know what's coming up And next in our webinar series November 22nd, which is a thursday We're doing a bc id is exchange story showcase. We will have uh, joseph from eucluit talking about the ubera eucluit business and employee retention and expansion program and uh, folks from the bc film crew film and tv crew training program at north island college and uh North island film commission talking about their initiatives And then december 4th back on a tuesday. We're going to have an extended session So market calendars from 10 a.m. To 11 15 a.m These are not pacific daylight time. They are pacific standard time. I forgot to update my slides there We're going to be talking about strategic planning and economic development And we're actually going to have three different communities talking about things that they have used the strategic planning toolkit for In various aspects of developing an economic development strategy you can find out about those at Our website or the short link is bit.ly slash act of webinars I'm also working on the spring season. So stay tuned. That should be announced Give me till the end of november to line up her our speakers and guests if you want to be a guest Let me know. I'd love to hear from you Most of you are already on the email list, so i'll skip through that But there is going to be a feedback survey It'll either pop up in your browser or it'll come to you an email It should come in about an hour and this recording will be posted in approximately a one week to our website So thank you very much. Uh daryl and thank you everyone for joining us For our webinar today. I will let you all Escape. Have a great day everyone Thank you. Bye. Bye