Sylvia: I don't know anything about the costume business, but I am a business owner. The first thing you should do is find out if there is a trade association for costume businesses, and contact them for information about trade practices and business valuation. If there isn't, there must be one for related businesses -- party rentals, or special event rentals. If you buy this business, JOIN THE TRADE ASSOCIATION.
Next check with the Small Business Association. Does it have any programs in your area? Ours has an office and there are lots of programs to help you start in business, including one in which retired business owners and managers will talk with you about what you want to do. Finally, get this person's financial data. At the very least she should have end-of-year profit and loss statements. Don't worry if you don't know what those are (when you go into business, though, you should) -- the important thing to know now is if SHE knows what they are. If it is an all-cash business, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, but there will be no real documentation as to how well she does, and then the value of the business should be much lower. You didn't say whether the space was involved in the sale. If there is no space you can take over the lease for, what are you going to do with thousands of costumes? Good luck -- having a business can be wonderful, but it's a lot of work. Gail Finke _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
