When I bought my first rental property I realized that I'd accidentally become a business owner. And then I was proud! I called myself an entrepreneur. I was the President and CEO of my one person business. I had even business cards to prove it.

Decades later I bought a real business, you know one with employees, and truly understood what it meant to own a business. It was like the birth of my first daughter. I spent nine months with people telling me it would change my life, and I believed them, I just didn't understand. She's in high school now and will probably fly the coop in the next few years and I've begun realizing what it's like for the business owners I work with. Like me you've probably spent more time working on their business than they did with their kids.

At this point I've been in and around manufacturing and CNC machining for over 30 years working with Fortune 100 businesses and small startups with no employees but since most manufacturing happens at small and medium enterprises that's where I've focused both as a consultant and as a business investor.

Like you, I've seen hundreds of small shops come and go, and like you I've seen the patterns.

There are the family businesses that stay in the family passed from generation to generation. This hardly ever happens any more.

There are the businesses that die a slow death. As someone retires they aren't replaced. As equipment wears out it's not replaced. Eventually they cash out by selling the real estate to a developer, and auction off the machines or just leave them for the developer to deal with, or even worse, they rent a smaller space and it ends up being an old guy in a room full of old machines with two customers.

There are the ones that sell to a trade buyer who takes the best machines, the best employees and the best customers and scraps the rest.

The financial buyers can be worse they have money and pay top dollar but it's mostly an earn-out and they expect you to work for them to build it to the next level so they can turn around and flip it to another financial buyer.

And there are the ones who find a safe pair of hands. At freyetic we want to be that safe pair of hands for you. We understand the industries and businesses we invest in. Our goal in every transaction is to operate the business in place, bringing in management or promoting from within whenever possible. We want to grow your business adding to the staff not laying off or firing people to save money and drive up profits. We want you to be proud when you come back for a visit in a few years. We want to help you protect the legacy you've spent the better part of your life creating.

We may or may not be the best fit for you and your legacy. The only way to find out is for us to get to know each other.

So go ahead and sign up for our free class to help business owners find the right buyer, or if you are in a hurry and need to talk to someone right away, make an appointment for a free business valuation.