MONTCLAIR, NJ — Longtime business owner Darren Smith is determined to help entrepreneurs throughout New Jersey and New York to manage the complicated process of selling, purchasing, or valuating a business by expanding his Montclair, NJ office of the trusted business brokerage firm Murphy Business Sales.

With more than 100 offices located throughout the United States and Canada, Murphy Business Sales is one of the largest and most successful business brokerage firms in the country. By bringing in his brother, Brian Smith, to help grow his Montclair-based office, Darren has enhanced his ability to ensure that getting existing businesses ready to sell and finding the right fit for interested buyers is a smooth and effective process.

“As a business owner for more than 25 years, I was in the process of looking for another business to purchase when I realized that there might be a really good opportunity to carve out a little niche in this particular area for myself,” said Darren. “Using my experience as a business owner, I felt that I could relate really well to other people that might be in my situation that are looking to buy a business or even looking to sell a business because I understand the financials of a small business, and I’m really good at reading it and trying to put a value on it.”

In addition to his many years of experience as the owner of a major textile and apparel company in New York City as well as an entrepreneur who has faced the challenges of both purchasing and selling a business, Darren also has connections throughout New York and New Jersey that provide an advantage in his role as a business broker.

In his search for a company to team up with, Darren said he was immediately impressed with the culture and professionalism he discovered at Murphy Business Sales, where he built a strong rapport with other Murphy associates in the region prior to opening his own office in Montclair. At Murphy Business Sales, Darren felt a sense of mutual understanding among the corporate directors about the importance of having connections beyond a local standpoint when trying to sell a business.

“I want people to feel like if they’re going to sell the business they’ve built up over the years, they should feel confident selling it with me or with Brian or our company in general,” he said, adding that he and his brother have many processes in place that could attract a buyer to the businesses listed with them. “We are a national company, so you get the exposure of selling your business to people all across the country whereas if you use a local broker that doesn’t have the type of connections that Murphy Business has all over the country, you’re really limiting yourself to that geographical area where the brokers from.

“When you give it to someone like myself, you could sell it to anywhere in the country. We even get investors from Canada and from overseas that see the businesses we have listed for sale, so your exposure is so much greater.”

Brian, who started an online food-delivery site called NYCtogo.com that later became delivery.com, said his “main driving point” for joining forces with his brother is to “help other entrepreneurs and business owners achieve their professional goals” after facing significant challenges when selling his own business.

As a licensed real estate agent who is able to sell commercial properties in addition to businesses for those in need of both services, Brian has been an outstanding asset to the Murphy Business Sales Montclair team, which aims to achieve excellence in the fields of business sales and mergers, machinery and equipment sales, sales and re-sales of franchise businesses, commercial real estate transactions and business valuations, according to Darren.

In their combined effort to expand the local brokerage firm, the Smith brothers have stressed a mutual determination to maintain trust and confidentiality with their clients both on the selling side and the buying side.

Brian added that it is not only difficult for a business owner to sell a business confidentially on his or her own, but that it is also extremely time-consuming, which could be a detriment to the business in the meantime.

“During that process, they’re not going to be focusing on their business, which hurts the sales, and then if anyone finds out—like the vendors, the employees or the customers—a business can really crumble or take a hit,” he said. “So it’s really in their best interest to hire an expert that knows all the phases of the transaction and will get it done for them.”

Darren also explained that it is the broker’s responsibility to “hold [the buyer or seller’s] hand through the whole due-diligence process.”

“It’s one thing to find the business you like and negotiate a price—which we could do on behalf of the buyer, and we can do on behalf of the seller—but it’s about taking them from the beginning stages to the end,” he said. “For the buyer, it’s walking them through the due diligence and making sure that everything that was presented is correct and factual; and for the seller, it’s negotiating and working as an intermediary between the two attorneys, between the accountants and between the buyer and the seller.”

He also shared some advantages of purchasing a business through Murphy Business Sales, stating that there are many resources available to those interested in exploring their options.  

“First, we work with third-party companies that could take somebody’s 401k and take that money tax-free, set up a corporation, and then go ahead and buy the business—and that works really well in a franchise,” he said. “For instance, let’s say you were interested in a franchise, and you had a whole 401k already built up from your previous job, we could take that money from your 401k and purchase a business for you with hardly any tax consequences. So, it’s more effective than going and selling all your stocks, cashing out, taking the tax hit, and then going and buying something…

“We also have really good relationships with banks that work with the Small Business Administration (SBA), and that’s a big benefit because we can help the buyer finance the purchase of a business through banks that are affiliated with the SBA…I’m also a very experienced negotiator, and I’m very good at getting people to trust me for all the right reasons because I can really read between the lines and make sure that the people that I’m negotiating for are getting a fair deal.”

The Montclair-based Murphy Business Sales team currently has over a dozen businesses listed for sale and several businesses under contract. The businesses for sale are located throughout the Tri- State area.  The Murphy Montclair business broker team have businesses for sale in Essex County NJ, Passaic County NJ, Hudson County NJ, Morris County NJ, Rockland County NY, Westchester County NY, Long Island.

 Darren has also recently provided valuations and appraisals, or a “broker’s opinion of value,” to several local businesses, which is among the additional services that Murphy Business Sales can provide.