$1,000,000 and above sites

[3Six]

Topic: How about seller financing? Deals of that size usually don't have full payment upfront.

[Clinton]

Yes, financing in some way, shape or form seems to happen in over 90% of those deals. Whether as a buyer or seller, I tend to avoid deals that involve financing, but I appreciate that's not how it usually works for those buying/selling $1,000,000+ businesses.

[WSYSBroker]

Yes. There is certainly financing that comes into play. Sellers are obviously looking for as much $$$ up front, so we typically see a deal that would sell for $1,000,000 go for something like this:

$600K down, 2 mid payments of $100K each - one after 5 months and one after 10 months. The remaining $200K to be financed for 2-3 years at a rate of 6.5%....

This is just an example. but some derivative of this is where the deal usually gets done.

[3Six]

Topic: Taking over management teams/staff?

It's look like I'm on a roll here

[Clinton]

Yes, issues related to transition would make for interesting reading. Taking over the staff, taking over the hosting, taking over existing contracts...there's a lot there.

[3Six]

It's a shame you didn't get a bigger response to this, Clinton, I was expecting a lot more suggestions and I was hoping to have something happen here along those lines.

Maybe members don't realise that even if they're not in the million dollar league they can learn a lot if those discussions are attracted to this forum.

[Clinton]

It is a shame. Would have loved to attract to our conversation more brokers who specialise in larger businesses to add to the ones already here. Found another one today: imergeadvisors

[christopheravell]

It is a shame. Would have loved to attract to our conversation more brokers who specialise in larger businesses to add to the ones already here. Found another one today: imergeadvisors

Ironically Clinton they guys just SPAMMED the heck out of me in my comments! How did you find out about them, did they happen to open an account here and attempt to post spam?

[WSYSBroker]

Yes, issues related to transition would make for interesting reading. Taking over the staff, taking over the hosting, taking over existing contracts...there's a lot there.

I cannot speak for any other high value website brokers, but we typically sell websites that have very little moving parts. Even if they can sell for $1 million, it does not mean that there is a ton of stuff involved in transferring the site over. We typically see one individual who hits the jackpot on an idea and has been operating a site solo or with simply one webmaster and makes over $500K per year. The ones that have moving parts like an office space, numerous employees, complicated outstanding contracts, etc, are more brick and mortar and we tend to stay away from those. It's all about finding webmasters who have relocatable businesses.

With respect to transition of relocatable businesses, it is fairly simple:

1) For hosting, the buyer either sets up a new hosting account with the same provider or already has a host that can handle the site purchase.
2) For merchant accounts and affiliate accounts it really depends on the specific accounts. Accounts like commission junction and clickbank can usually just be taken over under the new owner's name. Paypal accounts typically cannot be done that way so the new owner sets up a new account.
3) Outstanding contracts are typically negotiated in the sale. There are so many types of contracts, it is difficult to provide a set way to do things for transition. For an SEO service contract as an example, they are typically 6 month to one year agreements and we usually have the SEO company draft up a new agreement with the new buyer for the remainder of the initial agreement with the seller.
4) Domain transfer is the exact same whether you have a million dollar site or a one dollar site. Ideally the buyer signs up with the same registrar as the seller to make for an even easier transition.
5) Employees. If there is a webmaster or content updater or a network of mommy bloggers, they typically work on a month by month basis or a piece work basis. In either instance, the new owner either upholds the current agreements or renegotiates new terms and hopes the employees/contract workers are OK with it. If not, the new owner simply finds new staff to handle the tasks.

Every transition is going to be slightly different, but these are the main things that come up.

Can anyone think of other items that need to get transferred over when selling a million dollar website?

[delta4]

Don´t know if you are including accounts at youtube, facebook, twitter and so on but i think it´s very important.