About
One broker, accountable for the whole deal
JW Business Brokerage is an independent brokerage in Madison serving owners and buyers across southern Wisconsin.
Justin Woodworth
Why I started this brokerage
I have spent my career around small and mid-sized Wisconsin companies — the kind where the owner knows every employee's name and the balance sheet is also a family story. Watching those owners approach an exit, I kept seeing the same thing: the transaction gets handled like a real estate listing when it deserves to be handled like a succession plan.
JW Business Brokerage exists to close that gap. Every engagement is handled personally, from the first valuation conversation to the wire hitting your account. You will not be handed to a junior coordinator once the paperwork is signed, and you will not learn about a problem in the deal from someone else's email.
That also means I take on a limited number of engagements at a time. If the fit is not right — if the business needs another year of preparation, or if the timing genuinely favors waiting — I will tell you that in the first meeting rather than after a listing agreement.
How I work
Four commitments
Straight answers
Including the ones that cost me a listing. An honest valuation early is worth more than an optimistic one that sits on the market for a year.
Real confidentiality
Blind marketing, signed NDAs, and staged disclosure — not a promise, a process.
Local relationships
Madison-area lenders, transaction attorneys, and CPAs who have closed these deals before and answer the phone.
Follow-through
Deals die in the quiet weeks. Weekly checkpoints and a written diligence schedule keep the file moving.
Service area
Madison and southern Wisconsin
Based in Madison and regularly working across Dane, Rock, Jefferson, Columbia, Sauk, and Green counties, with statewide engagements where the fit is right.
Industries include manufacturing and machining, the trades, home and commercial services, food and beverage, healthcare practices, and business-to-business services — the operating companies that make up most of Wisconsin's private economy.
Let's talk about your business
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.