Selling Your Land Surveying Business

[avoidthelloyd]

I've seen some men on here selling their equipment due to selling their business. This got me intrigued to the details of selling our private firms when the time comes. I'm 50 this year. My son may do something with it someday, but he's starting his career with the state as a civil engineer and I'm not gonna count on that.

I want to know what y'all experience is with selling your business or getting it ready to sell. Have y'all read anything good? How do we position ourselves to bring the most value to the local market?

Has anyone sold the business to others and stayed on as part time council or a partner with retained earnings from the business? Am I dreaming that this is possible?

What do y'all think?

 

[Jim Frame]

I have no particular expertise in this matter, so take that into account when assessing what I have to say.

I'm a solo operator (for the last 11 years; I had an employee before that) doing business under my own name. I've been in business in the same small city for 33 years and counting. I have on-call contracts with several local and regional public agencies, and good working relationships with a number of insurance company attorneys. I've established an excellent reputation, and most of my work is for repeat clients or direct referrals. In my opinion, the market value of my business without me is the market value of my equipment. In other words, not much.

When I retire (one of these years) I plan to notify my clients, shut the doors, convert my professional liability policy to a tail policy, and sell whatever is worth selling. I have no interest in trying to find someone to buy the business, because 1) that sounds like a lot of work, and 2) I don't want my name on someone else's work.

Even worse would be a transition arrangement in which I sold but stayed on for awhile, because that sounds like a recipe for resentment from one side or the other, and I don't want the headaches that would entail. Just walking away with good memories sounds like a much better plan to me.

YMMV.

 

[JHudson]

... my opinion, the market value of my business without me is the market value of my equipment. In other words, not much.

When I retire (one of these years) I plan to notify my clients, shut the doors, convert my professional liability policy to a tail policy, and sell whatever is worth selling. I have no interest in trying to find someone to buy the business, because 1) that sounds like a lot of work, and 2) I don't want my name on someone else's work.

YMMV.

Absolutely makes sense.
The 'value' is the knowledge and expertise of the entity (IE: the PLS), yes ?

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

When a surveyor dies, a library burns.
When a surveyor retires, somebody should get in there, and LEARN all they can about that pile of memories, in that surveyor...
And, some libraries AUGHT to burn! (But that's another story!) Grin!

 

[Darren Clemons]

I will absolutely “sell my business” when the time comes. My brother (now retired) and myself will have a combined 55-60 YEARS of data in and around about a 6 county area in my region. Our accumulated database of files, history and, especially, hundreds and hundreds of the most active and reliable clients that basically “do all that’s worth doing” will be invaluable to many companies. Sure a “new business” may accumulate some of those clients, but the “name” we have established is who people will use, at least for a time. It would be up to new owners to keep those clients. I’ve actually already been asked about selling to a couple of larger firms in the past so they could absorb some of my clients.
Now, that being said, I have no idea what the value of all that is, but there are many businesses that analyze and compute that sort of thing. Then it comes down to no more than an old pocket knife or a rare baseball card: I may think it’s worth this, but I’ve only been offered that - negotiation would rule in the end.

 

[Jim Frame]

I should note that I live in a mandatory recording state, so all the boundary surveys I've done (with a very few limited exceptions) are filed in the public records. That makes my private records worth almost nothing. This is a major difference in business value between recording and non-recording states.

 

[avoidthelloyd]

I should note that I live in a mandatory recording state, so all the boundary surveys I've done (with a very few limited exceptions) are filed in the public records. That makes my private records worth almost nothing. This is a major difference in business value between recording and non-recording states.

This makes a huge difference. In OK, we are not filing although I wish we did. I've let 4 of my older friends know I want to buy their records when they hang up the tape. My former employer bought a business from another local surveyor when he retired for a chunk of change but it came with his business phone number. We saw some good growth when all of his former clients and all referrals to him came to us and we took care of them.