And so the cold calling, it's fair to say that you advocate other people do it. I mean, it's only, it's only gotten more difficult. You know, anytime any of us get an unfamiliar call on our cell phones, we immediately, you know, screen it, which is most calls.
Acquiring Minds
Started Mid-Career, Grew to $38m in 3 Years
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So, so it just, it just seems like a really, really hard way to go. I mean, I mean, let me say, Shaun, that in general, I have. My experience with talking to so many searchers on this podcast is that proprietary is just.
I've, I've come to feel that it's not worth the time. Obviously there are countless stories where people found a business doing a proprietary search. But, but I just, my, my sense is that, that if you had to generalize that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and that's in, you know, email outreach, let alone cold calling.
Now maybe, maybe the point is that actually cold calling is way more effective than emailing because it's personal, because it's, you know, more. Right. You know, more kind of penetrates through anyway. But respond to all of that.
It's very counterintuitive to me that you would have such, such success.
So the one downside of calling is, I would say most of the owners that I talked to weren't ready to sell. Maybe, maybe emotionally they were ready, but, but there is an advantage to leaning on the banker broker type network because. Right. You know, in many cases, they're coming to the table with financials, a sim, you know, things like that.
And so, you know, the downside of calling is, is you're finding owners that are emotionally ready to sell, but they haven't done the necessary steps to prepare, you know, to, to build a financial package. And so there is, there is some downside. Now the upside is it's an easy way to separate yourself.
And, you know, my process, as I talked About, I would call, I would send them an email, they would respond, and I would set up a zoom call, which, you know, might last two or three hours, you know, where I'm asking them questions and, and really trying to qualify them. And then at the end of that call, I would say one of two things. I would say, you know, I appreciate all the time.
It doesn't sound like you'd be a good fit for what I'm trying to do. I don't want to waste your time. So, you know, I, I don't think it makes sense for us to move forward.
Most cases, we get to that end of the end of the phone call. I would say, you know, what I'd love to do is I'd love to sign an NDA, I'd love to take a look at your financials, and I'd love to come back to you with a range of what I would pay for your business. And if, if my, if your numbers in my range, I'd love to, you know, come out and visit you.
And so the visit I followed, in most cases, the same kind of roadmap where I would have dinner with them. And in most cases, it would be them and either their spouse or their number two. And then. And then we would go tour the business after dinner when, when nobody was there.
And some of those tours would last, you know, five or six hours. And I would always ask when we would be in their conference room at, you know, one in the morning. I would say, why me?
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