Hi everyone, here is my situation.....

As some of you know, I own and operate a Free Standing (not in a bowling alley) pro shop. I have been pretty successful over the last 2 years since I opened it due to my past experience from running a pro shop and being a business major graduate from college. However, I have been looking to step up into a bowling alley, and even called around last year to see if any centers had any openings....none did.

As luck would have it, the pro shop in the bowling center on the other side of  town calls me Friday...wonders if I would be interested in buying him out. What a PERFECT scenario....I would be the only pro shop in town, and it meets exactly what I want to do...step up into a bowling alley, and stay in my home town. There would be no other pro shops within 30 minutes of me...can you say MONOPOLY! Here is where the problem comes in.

He wants at least 50% of the money up front, but would prefer all. I have called around looking for a loan, but, with buying our new house just 4 months ago, there is not enough equity built up to do a home equity loan. We use most of our savings on improvements to the home, and even if we didn't, it was not going to be enough to cover even the 50% up front. We just traded in the 2002 Cavalier and moved up to a Chrysler Town & Country...so nothing to draw from there. No bank I have yet to talk to wants to give me another loan due to the above reasons, and to top it off the current owner did this as a sole propreitorship and really never kept good books, if any books at all, so we have nothing to go to the bank to show cash flows on.

Question is, does anyone know of a company you could point me to in order to make this happen. For once, my wife is actually behind me 100% on this as she thinks it is a great idea.

I had kicked around the notion of selling advertising space in the shop by hanging a banner of the company, hading out flyers at the point of sale, and even going as far as putting the logo on all of the shirts I wear there and to tournaments, which would increase the number of people they are advertising to at a crack of $5000/calendar year on ebay to raise the capital...but I don't think there would be many takers, if any.

Any suggestions/thoughts....I am open to anything to make this happen...

Clint
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Clint Daley-Owner
Lets Go Bowling Daley
Salem, Ohio 44460
TRACK ADVISORY PRO SHOP STAFF

http://www.trackbowling.com/

You might have some luck putting the business in your wife's name - minority business owners have a better chance of getting a small business loan.  www.sba.gov has some good information on that stuff.

Either way, you will do yourself some good by putting together some numbers - taking both best estimates and worse-case senario's into account.  Even if the previous owners didn't keep any records, you should be able to estimate enough to have something to take to the bank.  Whether they will approve or not is a totally different matter.

Where is your free standing place located?  You should be able to use your books as a basis for getting some numbers.

Good luck, I hope it works out for you.

Good calls guys!

THANKS!

Clint
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Clint Daley-Owner
Lets Go Bowling Daley
Salem, Ohio 44460
TRACK ADVISORY PRO SHOP STAFF

http://www.trackbowling.com/