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Author: J. Erika

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When business owners think about growth, they usually think about building: attracting more customers, adding services, purchasing equipment, or finding a larger space. Buying an existing business may not immediately come to mind. Yet a complementary acquisition can bring together things that would take considerable time to develop separately. For a massage therapist or bodywork practitioner in Santa Fe, that might mean acquiring an established wellness business with a customer base, specialized equipment, and a venue where...

08 October, 2026

A prospective buyer requests information, signs a confidentiality agreement, and asks thoughtful questions. Perhaps they even meet with the owner, but then they go quiet. For a seller, that can be puzzling. If the buyer was interested enough to meet with them, why didn’t they make an offer? At Sam Goldenberg & Associates, we know that getting to the offer stage is more the exception than the rule. Buyers may review many businesses before pursuing one, and...

08 October, 2026

Carlos recently sat down with a business owner to review an SDE analysis. Seller’s Discretionary Earnings, or SDE, is a measure commonly used to estimate the financial benefit a business provides to one working owner. For many small businesses, it is also one of the starting points for determining what a buyer might reasonably pay. The owner had never seen his financial results presented that way. As the conversation continued, it became apparent that he had...

08 October, 2026

It’s natural for business sellers to focus on the number they’ll walk away with from the closing table. You know what the business has meant to you, what it took to build, and what you need from the sale to move on. Buyers are asking a different question: can this business pay for itself and still provide me with a living? To answer that, they need to understand how much the business earns and whether those...

01 October, 2026

El propietario de un negocio puede hablar inglés lo suficientemente bien como para atender a sus clientes, dirigir a sus empleados, negociar con proveedores y resolver las exigencias cotidianas de la empresa. Eso no significa necesariamente que el inglés sea el idioma en el que pueda explicar con mayor facilidad cómo se desarrolló el negocio, por qué tomó ciertas decisiones, qué ha cambiado con el tiempo o qué necesita comprender un posible comprador. La venta de un...

04 September, 2026

A business owner may speak English well enough to work with customers, manage employees, negotiate with suppliers, and handle the ordinary demands of the day. That doesn’t necessarily mean English is the language in which the owner can most easily explain how the company developed, why certain decisions were made, what has changed over time, or what a prospective buyer needs to understand. Selling a business requires unusually detailed conversations. Financial performance, owner responsibilities, staffing, customer...

04 September, 2026

A Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is a marketing document, but it is not a sales pitch. That distinction matters. While the job of a CIM is to present the business favorably, it can accomplish this without overstating its strengths, obscuring its risks, or getting ahead of what the financial records can support. Practically speaking, a CIM should help a buyer and their lender understand how the business functions. It should answer fundamental operational questions, present a...

25 August, 2026

Want to sell your business? The first step is to clone yourself. Do that, and the question of owner dependency will never come up. If it sounds like ridiculous advice, it's because it is. For most small business owners, there isn't the cash flow to support a COO-level hire. Even when money isn't the issue, the talent is. Someone with your skills, your business acumen, and your deep knowledge of the business is probably already running...

10 July, 2026

Exit and transition planning is a structured process designed to put control back into the hands of business owners. When you can articulate your vision for life post-transition, strengthen your company's attractiveness to potential buyers, and minimize transaction surprises, you are empowered to make choices in your own best interest. Every successful business will change hands someday. The only question is whether that transition happens by design or by default. At Sam Goldenberg & Associates, we often...

07 July, 2026

If you've worked with a good CPA for years, you trust them and for good reason. They know your business, have kept you out of trouble with the IRS, and have probably saved you real money along the way. But there's one question your CPA rarely asks, and that is: What happens when you want to sell? It’s simply not their job to ask that question. That's where a business broker's perspective deviates from your accountant’s and...

25 June, 2026

When you have the opportunity to buy the real property out of which a business operates, most buyers jump at the chance. And why not? Owning a building gives you control that being a tenant never would. You're building equity in a tangible asset rather than writing a rent check every month. Ideally, what you pay in mortgage isn't dramatically more than what you'd pay in rent. When the purchase includes both a business and its real...

23 June, 2026

Santa Fe has a perfectly good greatest hits list: Ten Thousand Waves, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Canyon Road, Meow Wolf, and Museum Hill to name just a few. All of them are worth your time, but if you’re a repeat visitor who’s already done this circuit, the traveler whose idea of a good time involves a ghost town and a buffalo named Harley, or anyone looking for that serendipitous discovery, this series is for you. We’re...

20 May, 2026

One of the first questions sellers ask us is some version of: “How many buyers do you already have for a business like mine?” The question is totally reasonable. If you’re selling a plumbing company in Albuquerque, you assume we should already know every competitor, every strategic buyer, every private equity group rolling up businesses in your market. Sometimes we do, but just as often we don’t. Of all the things that a business broker brings to...

20 May, 2026

Family-owned businesses continue to play an outsized role in the New Mexico economy, where most businesses are small and owner-operated. Yet despite how common these businesses are, succession planning remains one of the least addressed challenges facing owners approaching retirement or transition. Many owners assume that selling to a child or other relative will be simpler than selling to an outside buyer. In reality, family transitions often introduce a different set of operational, financial, and emotional...

12 May, 2026

Simply put, due diligence is how you make sure the business you think you're buying is actually the business you are buying;  not the business the seller describes or that the listing presents online, but the actual operating business: its customers, revenue, cash flow, habits, and risks. It sounds straightforward. In practice, it's where some deals go sideways. Pajarito Window Washing: a Hypothetical Example To illustrate this, let’s look at a small window washing operation that consists of...

08 May, 2026