Draper Hinks is a brokerage facilitating the sale and purchase of accountancy practices. All accountants at some stage will want to stop, retire, downsize or do something completely different. We help them to do exactly that.
So, you could say we help accountants to achieve one of their life goals, quite an important one admittedly and often one of the most important.
Have you ever helped someone achieve something they have been planning to do for a long time? How does it feel? Pretty good doesn’t it, especially when you deliver what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it by.
With all vendors we have to:-
Firstly, identify what it is they want to achieve from the sale of their practice. Is it to maximise their return and get the most money from the deal? This is not normally the prime motivator. 90% of vendors want to make sure that their staff and clients are going to be well looked after. In which case the vendor is looking for the best “fit” or the right “match”. The buyer and seller have to have a lot of synergies and similar ways of doing things. The right ethos matters as well as the right level of service.
Secondly, when do they want to have completed the deal by? If the buyer wants to buy immediately and the seller wants to start the process in 6 months, then we have a mis-match. It is not going to work. It is important that both parties are willing and able to work to the same time scale. Flexibility is the name of the game here. A deal is more likely to complete where both parties are sympathetic to the time scale of the other.
Lastly, what do they want to do when they have sold? I always enjoy hearing about what our vendors want to do when the deal has completed. The typical answer is to spend more time with the family, especially where grandchildren are concerned. Others are quite happy to play more golf or travel to far away places. Most vendors have never had an extended holiday due to the pressures of deadlines and client needs. So, to be able to take a one, two or even three month vacation is a precious thing to be savoured. Learning a new language or a new musical instrument are popular. Some vendors have unusual hobbies they want to take up like how to train a sheep dog, or travelling round the coast of the USA in a camper van. But I say, why not? Most important is to let your creativity loose and enjoy your time away from deadlines and the dreaded HMRC.
We love what we do, can you tell? We really like to get to know our vendors, work with them closely to help them to achieve all they want from selling their accountancy practice and you can’t ignore the fact that we get paid for each completion as well.
If you are thinking about embarking on the journey of selling all or some of your fees and want to work with a broker that has over two decades of experience and understands that this is one of the biggest and most emotionally charged decisions you will probably ever make, then contact me, Nicola Draper. I can be reached on 01788 816440 or email me at n.draper@draperhinks.co.uk.
Let’s have a chat.