One year post acquisition -- Couple of Recommendations.
April 15, 2023
by a searcher from University of Texas at Austin
- Get a management team that aligns with you and your goals
-- The owner you are acquiring from is probably retiring, and people at the end of their career manage a business completely differently from people at the beginning of their journey. While there may be exceptions. Usually, the current management team will have the same style as the old owner. (No matter what they claim)
2. It is your Ship.
-- Your entire life up to this point, you have probably played the mentee. Flawless at taking others' advice and excelling from there. Well, when you acquire a business, you are the leader, and it is your ship. No one will understand the business as well as you do, so no one's advice will be as good as yours. You are the hotshot searcher, and it is up to you to figure it out.
3. Don't Die Tired
-- In business, you must take risks and apply capital with uncertain outcomes. Also, your team has to do their jobs and be held accountable for handling entire sections of the business. Just because it is easier for you to do something does not mean you should. If you don't hold people accountable for taking things entirely off your plate, you will die tired.
4. You will never be prepared.
-- This list could be endless. I am an MBA who graduated with a 4.0 and had acquired two smaller businesses before this one. Investors and yourself are betting on you to figure it out instead of hiring you to run a company with your current knowledge. You will learn a tremendous amount about sales, operations, and holding people accountable because you have to, or you will die tired.
from University of Wisconsin in Minneapolis, MN, USA
from University of Oxford in Adelaide SA, Australia