Don’t Buy Anything Called “Turnkey” Until You Read This

THE BUYER’S BRIEF: DEAL BREAKDOWN

Nail Salon | California | $1,350,000    Auto Repair | New Jersey | $1,198,000    Health and Beauty Manufacturer | U.S. | $1,300,000

Three deals this week, all priced between $1.198M and $1.35M. On paper they look like cousins: similar price tags, real earnings, owners ready to step back. Put all three through a 20% down year and one of them stops looking like the others.

TL;DR: Three SBA-financed businesses scored this week: a California nail salon at $1.35M, a two-location New Jersey auto repair package at $1.198M, and a health and beauty brand at $1.3M. Two clear every bar with room to spare. The third is already on shelves in more than 7,500 stores and still fails its stress test. Each deal links to its full scored breakdown.

Green means it cleared. Red means it didn’t. Click any deal for the full model.

DEAL 1

🟩 CLEARS: 2.53x STRESS DSCR

The Setup. A busy nail and beauty salon in California doing $1,685,844 a year, which is serious volume for a salon. The money in this business is chair time: how many techs, how full the book stays, and how those techs get paid. That last piece is the one to chase, because it decides whether these earnings stay with the business or walk out the door with the staff.

→ $446,557 a year in your pocket. Whether it stays there depends on who’s doing the nails. See the full nail salon model

DEAL 2

🟩 CLEARS: 2.62x STRESS DSCR

The Setup. Two auto repair franchise locations in New Jersey, sold together as one package and doing $2,000,000 a year combined. This is needs-based work: cars break in good economies and bad ones, and nobody price-shops hard when the check engine light is on. The open question is the franchise itself, because the franchisor gets a say in who takes over and what that transfer costs you.

→ $417,021 a year in your pocket, priced below what auto shops usually sell for. See what the discount is buying. Full auto repair model here

Want to learn how to score deals like these yourself?

The five tests running down this page are the whole method. I walk through every one of them in a free 28-minute masterclass.

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DEAL 3

🟥 FAILS STRESS TEST: 1.21x STRESS DSCR

The Setup. A young health and beauty brand that never touches a factory: a contract manufacturer makes it, a distributor ships it, and it’s already on shelves in more than 7,500 stores across the U.S. and Canada. The seller is semi-retiring, two VPs stay on remotely, and the pitch says the new owner just has to provide management and marketing. That job is the whole question.

→ $101,442 a year if you run it yourself. Hand it to a manager and watch what happens to your take-home. See the stress test here

Here’s the thing nobody mentions about deal three. It has the best story on this page: national retail, no factory, no storefront, a team that stays. Stories don’t make the loan payment. Coverage does, and the gap between the two is exactly what a stress test is built to find.

Want to see how I stress-test every deal against cost shocks, revenue dips, and hidden liabilities before I'd put a dollar at risk? I walk through the entire Bulletproof method in a free 28-minute masterclass.

Forward this email. Tell them to grab Mike's free book - Real Estate Is for Suckers: Buy a Business Instead. Same framework Mike uses to stress-test every deal.