Buyer's Guides
Know what you're buying before you sign.
Plain-English guides to valuing and vetting a gas station or convenience store, from the team behind the BizScore report.
Start here
How to buy a small business safely (without getting burned)
The complete starter guide. The seven steps to verify a deal before you sign: get the real financials, recalculate SDE, check the price, catch the red flags, and know when to walk.
Read the guideCompare
BizScore vs a Quality-of-Earnings report
An honest side-by-side: BizScore ($49) vs a five-figure Quality-of-Earnings review. What each does, where a QoE firm is genuinely better, and how to use them in sequence.
Read the guideBuying a business
Due diligence before buying a business
What due diligence means: the four areas to verify (financial, legal, operational, physical), the documents to demand, the 30 to 60 day timeline, and the mistakes that wreck deals.
Read the guideBuying a business
Red flags when buying a small business
The six categories of red flags (unverifiable revenue, missing expenses, owner-dependence, documentation gaps, transfer risk, deal structure), and how to tell a real one from a false alarm.
Read the guideBuying a business
What to ask before signing an LOI
The Letter of Intent sets the rules, and your negotiating power peaks before you sign. The terms to lock in, the questions to ask the seller, and the LOI-stage red flags.
Read the guideGas Stations
What's a fair price for a gas station?
SDE multiples explained: the formula, the benchmarks to sanity-check a P&L, a worked example, and the red flags that wreck a valuation.
Read the guideGas Stations
The due-diligence checklist for buying a gas station
Six things to verify before you sign (financials, lease, tanks, environmental, location, and inventory), with the records and public sources to check each.
Read the guideGas Stations
10 ways sellers inflate a gas station's P&L
Padded add-backs, unverifiable cash, hidden maintenance, mismatched fuel volume: the 10 most common P&L tricks, and exactly how to catch each one.
Read the guideConvenience Stores
What's a fair price for a convenience store?
SDE multiples for c-stores: 2.0 to 3.5× for independents, 2.5 to 4.0× for strong franchises, plus inventory. The formula, margin benchmarks, a worked example, the franchise-fee trap, and the red flags.
Read the guideConvenience Stores
The due-diligence checklist for buying a convenience store
Six things to verify before you sign (financials, lease and franchise, licenses, inventory and shrink, equipment, and foot traffic), with the records and public sources to check each.
Read the guideFinancials
EBITDA vs SDE: which one prices the deal?
SDE adds back the owner's salary; EBITDA doesn't. For owner-operated businesses the price is set on SDE. Here's the difference, a worked example, and how the confusion gets used against buyers.
Read the guideFinancials
How to read a P&L when buying a business
Read a seller's P&L to verify, not admire: tie revenue to the tax returns and bank deposits, benchmark every expense, separate real add-backs from padding, and find the true SDE.
Read the guideFinancials
Add-backs: which ones are real, which are padding?
The three tiers of add-backs (standard, gray-area, and bogus), the three-question test for every line, and the padding math: one fake $15,000 add-back becomes $30,000 to $52,500 of asking price.
Read the guideFinancials
Is the revenue real? How to verify a seller's numbers
The P&L is a claim, not proof. Triangulate it against tax returns, bank deposits, and card-processor statements. The 20-minute deposit tie-out, the gas-station cross-checks, and the rule: price only provable revenue.
Read the guideGas Stations
25 questions to ask before you buy a gas station
The 25 questions to ask a seller before you sign: the books, the lease and brand agreement, the tanks, operations, and the deal terms. Grouped 5×5.
Read the guideDone reading? Run the numbers on your own deal.
These guides are the manual version. Upload the seller's P&L, tax returns, and bank statements, and BizScore computes the real SDE, flags every red flag, checks the asking price, and scores the deal 0 to 100.
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