When John Bowen received a $37 million offer to buy his business, he thought it was too good to be true.
As it turns out, it was.
Bowen had received a non-binding letter of intent from a global bank, who made their bid with no actual intent to buy his business. Bowen came to believe their offer was a decoy designed to disguise their real objective: to understand Bowen's strategy so they could compete better with him. Bowen got wise to their strategy and ended up selling his business to another buyer, Assante Wealth Management, for $25 million.
Bowen reveals his three strategies for evaluating the authenticity of an offer to buy your business during our interview.