n tough competitive environments, service is sometimes the only differentiator between winners and losers. This is something Jim Renwick, founder and CEO of Renwick Business Brokers, understood when he first started Renwick Business Brokers, today an industry player of significant weight. “Most business brokers take a mandate from a seller, source a buyer who is ready, willing and able to enter into an agreement with the buyer and draw up a memorandum of agreement between the two parties. At this point, they cut their ties, charge their fee and leave the buyer and seller to sort things out. Looking at this, I just thought it was a rip off. It’s like an estate agent who simply takes you to a house and the charges you commission for doing so. They’ve basically done nothing,” he explains.Realising there was money to be made by offering more, he set up Renwick Business Brokers, offering a full service brokerage. Buying a business is a complicated and often risky process and the buyer is just as much in need of advice as the seller. As Renwick explains: “We see the seller and the buyer as our clients. Once the agreement is settled, we take the buyer through a 21 point documentation sequence, helping them with all aspects of the process. In so many cases, the first-time buyer is three to four months down the line and still no closer to owning the business. They lose underestand the deal falls through but the business broker has long since gone with their commission.” Initially Renwick started the business with a work-from-home operation in mind. “I wanted something that could make money for my retirement,” he recalls, but so great was the demand for the service he was offering that the business started to take on a life of its own. “It grew so quickly and I found I couldn’t provide all our clients with the full service that sets us apart, so I started farming deals out to friends in the industry,”he adds. Recognizing that he was sitting on a gold mine, Renwick started franchising. Today the business has 34 franchises around the country.As an entrepreneur whose business is centred on brokering the sale of businesses, it’s not surprising that one of Renwick’s strongest skills is in sales. He has used this to great effect not only in placing numerous buyers into very lucrative and viable businesses, but also to grow his own business. From a marketing point of view, he has capitalized on the fact that consumer knowledge of business brokering is severely limited. “Very few people in South Africa even know what business brokering is because it hasn’t been marketed. But there is an enormous need for it. I have seen people lose their life savings buying a business that they weren’t suited to, and the fact is that people need professionals to help them through the process,” he comments. To tap into the market and meet this need, Renwick conducts free seminars throughout South Africa on how to buy and sell a business. Not only do these events educate the market about the need for business brokering, but they also generate sales leads, establish Renwick as a market expert and drive interest among prospective franchisees.Today his core focus is on his role as a franchisor and the need to ensure that all franchisees deliver the samecomprehensive service that set Renwick Business Brokers apart in the first place. His goal is to establish 100 Renwick franchises nationwide and although he admits that the role is very different from his original one in sales,Renwick is philosophical about the challenges that come with dealing with franchisees. “Renwick is, at its heart, a family business and franchisees buying into it need to understand that. From my perspective, the most important thing is to be able to deal with people – but then that’s something I’ve been doing my whole life.” Contact: +27 31 709 0723; renwickbrokers.co.za
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:32:29 +0000
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