Buying and Building a Xerox Dealer to $30m

In June, we published an interview with J.D. Hasley, who bought an upscale frame shop in Dallas and in one year grew revenue 50% and returned to himself all the equity he put into the deal. Well, J.D. mentions a family friend who had had great success buying a business and inspired J.D.

down the path. Today, we get to hear directly from this family friend of JD's, entrepreneur Jeff Horn, and how he bought and grew a Xerox sales and service business called Benchmark Business Solutions. Jeff was 35 and doing very well for himself at his job, but wanted to lead his own business.

Despite having a busy family life with three boys and a valuable amount of equity with his then-employer that he'd have to walk away from, Jeff took the leap. When he bought Benchmark in 2012, it was doing about $5 million in revenue. When he sold it five years later, it was doing over $30 million in revenue and growing.

The exit was, of course, life-changing for Jeff, who today works as founder and general partner in the first institutional capital provider in his native Lubbock, Texas. See if Jeff's story inspires you the way it did, J.D. Here he is, Jeff Horn, former owner of Benchmark Business Solutions.

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 them. That is this 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 Thursday.

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.

The team at Aspen HR recently published a short white paper targeted at searchers entitled A New CEO's Guide to Human Resources. It lays out the key items you should be thinking about as you transition into CEO and owner of the business you bought. The link to download it is in the show notes.

Aspen is a professional employer organization, or PEO, run by a searcher for searchers. Search fund veteran Mark Sinatra runs the company, which provides HR compliance, flawless payroll, Fortune 500 caliber benefits, and HR due diligence support for your acquisition, all for a fraction of the cost. Go to aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly at mark at aspenhr.com.

Jeff Horn, welcome to Acquiring Minds. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Will.

Jeff, your story inspired another recent guest of the podcast, J.D. Hasley. J.D. put us together, and today we're going to spread this story of yours further. So let's begin, Jeff, with a little background on you.

What was your professional path that led you to want to buy a business?