4th Time's the Charm: 3 Broken Deals to Buy a Great Business

These days, when you hear marketing agency, you probably think a dispersed remote team of graphic designers, social media managers, Google ad buyers. but envision instead the traditional agency, the Mad Men style in-person office experience where creative types are ideating, iterating, challenging each other. The campaigns are less about conversion rates in ROAS and more about spreading ideas.

That's the type of agency that today's guest bought. At age 57, Brian Houck set out to buy a business for his next chapter. He hired a buy-side advisor, Calder Capital, whose name you have heard on this podcast, and who happened to be based in Brian's own Grand Rapids, Michigan.

We hear all about the experience and costs of working with a buy-side advisor, which I increasingly feel is a strong, if overlooked, option for many searchers. That said, it is not a panacea. Brian was spending money quickly and went through three broken LOIs before finally getting to close with the agency he bought, extra credit projects.

So he was fatigued and wondering if this path of buying a business was the correct one for him. One of his key learnings from that uncomfortable search was to meet sellers very early. When you're doing a proprietary search or having a buy-side advisor do it for you, sellers that engage are not as decided that they want to sell their business.

So you would be well advised to figure out as soon as possible if you think you can get all the way with a seller. Those three broken LOIs of Brian's? Largely attributable to sellers who only later realized they didn't actually want to sell their business.

That and much more in this interview with Brian Houck, owner of Extra Credit Projects. Enjoy. There are sticking points that are common in searcher deals, often relating to due diligence findings, non-competes, indemnification, and, of course, working capital. Attorneys James David Williams and Bill Barlow return for an office hours to walk you through these sticking points and how to overcome…

That is today, Thursday, August 21st, noon Eastern. The webinar is Overcoming Common Deal Sticking Points. Link to register for the webinar is right at the top of this episode's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage, acquiringminds.co. See you at noon.

Thank you.

Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs.

And on this podcast, I talk to the people who do it. If you ask owners in the ETA and search community, which insurance broker provides highest quality work, great outcomes, and has a practice dedicated to searchers and acquisition entrepreneurs, one name comes up again and again. Oberle.

Oberle Risk Strategies has worked with hundreds of searchers over nearly a decade and is in fact led by a two-time successful searcher, August Felker, which makes Oberle a specialty insurance brokerage for searchers by a former searcher. And if you've got a business under LOI, Oberle will provide complimentary due diligence on that business's insurance and benefits program. An easy, no-risk way…

To take advantage, check out oberle-risk.com. That's O-B-E-R-L-E hyphen risk.com. Link in the notes. Brian Houck, welcome to Acquiring Minds.