I planned to just drop off all the paperwork with Marty, but on our last call he suggested that Jack and I drop it off together, and plan to stay a little while as he reviewed it.
At his office, we gave Marty all of the business and financial information we had put together. He gave it a preliminary review, asked a few more questions as he looked it over, and scribbled something about our responses. As he reviewed it, we reiterated our concerns about answering some of the questions, and he said that was fine, but he would need it later if we decided to move forward. This review process took about ninety minutes, and I was glad Jack came to help with a few of the questions.
At the conclusion of the meeting Marty said the next step was for him to work up his appraisal of our company's value, after which he would present his "business valuation." He mentioned that he would create his business valuation using a "cash flow" method, but he didn't provide any more details about his approach. Because of his schedule, he said this would take almost two weeks before he could be ready, and we set a date to meet again.
Books on selling a business and business valuations
I decided that while he was working up his appraisal, I was going to the bookstore to find some books about selling a business, specifically how to value a company. However, on the drive to the bookstore, I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to run into any employees there while I was standing in the "How to sell your business" section, so I decided to rush-order several books from Amazon instead.