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Attorney, Accountant, and other Professional opinion guidelines
To acquire a specific and correct answer; one must ask a specific and clear question. Business professionals have a legal, moral, and ethical obligation to their clients. To better help them serve you, be diligent and precise with your requests for advice.
Your attorney is your legal armor and should be used as such. The questions that can be best answered by attorney’s are; “Am I legally protected by these documents”? “What is my legal obligation under these documents”? A question such as “should I buy this business?” is probably unfair, because if the attorney answers “yes” and the buyers fail at the business, the attorney has given poor or inaccurate legal advice. Keep in mind that anyone who has a legal obligation to a definitive “yes” answer will be highly reluctant to give such an answer.
Your accountant is your money expert and should be used as such. If you were selling the business in question your accountant would help you determine the selling value. Since you are buying this business, you may want your accountant’s assistance in determining the buying value. In most circumstances the answers to, what seem to be the same question, will be different answers. So ask TWO questions:
(1) if I were selling this business, what should the asking price be? Get a specific dollar amount. $_________________.
(2)If I were to buy this business, what should the sale price be? Get a specific dollar amount. $________________.
Now you have a professional opinion on the high and low end of your target price.
Your lending professional can give you guidelines of what is typically successful in debt to income ratios. Make sure that all records are precise for their analysis.
A successful business owner has incredible capabilities which often exceed any text book analogy. Professional opinions are tools for use of the true decision maker; the entrepreneur.
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