How Do You Sell a "Problem" Business?

I have a business for sale. Again.

I'm a business broker. I sell businesses. I've sold lots of businesses.

They all have problems.

In almost every case the biggest problem is the owner.

This particular business is one of my favorites. It has been around for over thirty years, but the last two owners have each only owned it only a couple of years.

Why is that? The original owners had the business for a long time. They took it from ZERO to SOMETHING.

The next owners also grew the business. They owned it for a number of years also. They bought the property the business occupies. They still own the real estate. They are the Landlords. They would have sold it to the next owners, but the buyers of the business didn't want to buy the property. Why not?

It was just "symptomatic" of what was wrong with their approach to running the business.

They only wanted to "stand behind the counter." They weren't into growing their business. When I sold it for them, it was with the idea that the next owner would take this great little business and "recapture" its lost glory.

Now it is a couple of years later and I have it back "FOR SALE" and the situation is the same. The next owner will have to fix it.

What type of business is this? It is a car rental business.

How much are they asking? $1,200,000.00 including the cars.

Is it negotiable? Of course, everything is negotiable.

Is it "fixable?" In my opinion it is an exceptional opportunity. It has "brand" awareness, it has good "core" business, and the market is there.

Why would somebody want to buy this business?
In order to answer that I will have to tell you a story.

My first sales job was with the Campbell Sales (as in Soup) Company in the Los Angeles area. The headquarters for Ralphs Grocery Company was at Third and Vermont, right in the middle of my territory. I didn't call on the headquarters (just the headquarters store) but my manager would take me with him when he made the call. I learned a little bit about Ralphs (now owned by Kroger) by this exposure. They had 47 stores at that time. The grocery business in L.A. is very competitive. They made MORE MONEY ON THEIR REAL ESTATE than they did selling groceries. I think that this principle still applies to most major retailers.

So, why would somebody want to buy this business? The car rental business is a great "vehicle" (no pun intended, well maybe a little one) to acquire commercial real estate. A really sharp operator might even franchise the business and then acquire the real estate for their franchisees. Do you suppose that somebody is already doing that?

So back to my original question, "how do you sell a problem business?"