Learning How To Buy A Small Business The Hard Way
My last few attempts to go into a small business were failures. I lost over a hundred thousand dollars of the money I inherited from my uncle Henry. But now I had more business experience and was going to give it another shot. There was a newspaper stand for sale that I noticed while reading the business opportunity section. It was in a commercial building and the owner was asking one hundred and twenty five thousand for it. The ad also said that it was a small gold mine. Since I am not a quick learner I thought it was something that I could handle. The next day I had a meeting with the owner.
He told me a sad story about his health. In the last six months he had two heart attacks and the doctor told him that he should retire or he would have another one. His wife was begging him to retire despite how good business was. So he made a decision to put his newspaper stand up for sale. He said that he also sold coffee, candy and cigarettes and that his income was over one hundred thousand dollars a year. But in order to avoid paying taxes he declared only twenty two thousand on his tax returns. He also said that the top three floors of the building were empty, and there was an insurance company with over two thousand employees that were interested in renting it. When that happened the volume of his newspaper stand would double. He demanded cash for the business. The next morning our lawyers met and I handed him a bank check for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
Business was pretty slow and I thought it was because of the summer when lots of people were on vacation. It was only when the summer was over and there was no pick up in business that I became worried. But I thought things would work themselves out when the insurance company rented the top three floors. With their two thousand employees my newspaper stand would do well.
The top three floors were rented by a company that imported saunas from China and they used it as a warehouse. They had only thirty employees instead of the two thousand I had expected. Latter I found out that there was never any insurance company that was negotiating for the top three floors. I was also told that the former owner of my business purchased a supermarket. He tricked me into thinking that he was in poor health so he could sell me his business. I was in a state of shock and out one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. A few weeks latter I sold the business for ten thousand dollars and I was lucky to get that.
If my uncle Henry knew how stupid I was he never would never have left me in his will. But experience could turn stupidity into wisdom and I wasn’t going to give up until I became a successful entrepreneur. The next few weeks were spent reading the business opportunity ads. I had a gut feeling that the next business I bought would be a good one.
melpol http://www.associatedcontent.com/melpol
About the Author
Retired and single. Lover of the seashore and writing.
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by: Melvin Polatnick
Date: Mar 21st 2008 | Words: 535 | Viewed: 16 times | Rating: Not yet rated
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