Chris Taylor (left) and Barbara Taylor (right) of Synergy Business Services.
Barbara and Chris Taylor, whose company Synergy Business Services has been rebranded as Allan Taylor & Co., were featured in the “Fortuitous Foundings” story in Arkansas Money & Politics in June 2014. The Taylors recently celebrated their 10th business anniversary.
“Chris and I continue to hone our process with each passing year,” says Barbara Taylor.
The name change to Allan Taylor & Co. – allantaylor.co – was made to differentiate the firm from a traditional business brokerage, says Chris Taylor.
“Our sweet spot is businesses that are too big for business brokers, yet too small for investment bankers (typically $2M-$25M in annual sales),” he says. “Barbara and I are extremely consultative when it comes to working with business owners on the sale of their business. We used to think there were maybe five key questions we needed to discuss with business owners who were interested in selling their business. Now it’s more like 15. We’ve also learned that patience pays off. The longer we can work with an owner prior to a sale, the smoother and more successful things are when we go to market. There were two owners whose businesses we sold recently that we’d been working with for four years. We practice what we preach, in that planning and preparation pay off!”
The Taylors, located at 2403 SE Cottonwood St. in Bentonville, are proud of what they have been able to accomplish.
“Our key to success has been our ability to choose great clients to work with, and stick with a process we’ve built over a decade that works well for us and for our clients. You don’t have to do things the way everybody else does. In fact, people are often looking for someone in our industry who is different; someone who has a new twist on things, or brings a different energy to the table. We’ve also learned that our business is all about quality over quantity. We don’t sell the most businesses, but our close rate is close to 100 percent, which is light years above the industry average. I’m incredibly proud of that.”
Chuong Nguyen, Kenny Cason and Ryan Frazier of DataRank.
DataRank, also featured in that story, was acquired in the fall of 2015 by the Seattle-based social analytics company Simply Measured.
Ryan Frazier, who was the company’s CEO, now works for Simply Measured as vice president of sales. Co-founders Kenny Cason and Chuong Nguyen also went to work for Simply Measured after the acquisition. Cason, who was DataRank’s chief technology officer, went to work at Simply Measured as a software engineer and is now director of engineering.
Another company featured, Movista, has gone from 13 employees in 2014 to 40 in 2017.
“Since 2014, we’ve graduated from a start-up phase to a hyper-growth phase,” says Jennifer Mabie, Movista’s director of communication. “It’s really fun to have the opportunity to watch the team grow – and to have the opportunity to work with all the awesome, talented people they’ve been bringing on board. It’s a great environment!”
