Carl Allen is a master dealmaker. With over 28 years of experience as an entrepreneur and del-maker, he has completed over 330 deals together worth over $47 billion. Through his knowledge, he offers One Big Tip to help others jumpstart into growing their business through acquiring companies.
Learning from the Best
Throughout Carl’s extensive career, he has become an expert in deal-making through purchasing businesses, both on behalf of corporations, and as a broker for smaller clients. Eventually, after many successful deals, he decided to change course and become a coach for entrepreneurs who want to own a business by buying an existing one instead of starting one themselves. Now the co-founder of the Dealmaker Wealth Society, Carl has mentored around 6,000 of these entrepreneurs, training them how to scale their business by acquiring others, in much the same way as the larger corporations do. He mentions that buying a company can provide easy solutions for the common challenges that small businesses face which are “the challenge of continuing to win new business and generate more revenue, of having enough cash flow to scale, and of finding and retaining really good employees.”
The Art of the Deal-Making
As Carl coaches other ambitious entrepreneurs, his One Big Tip to scale your business through making acquisitions of businesses while using none of your own money. In order to put this tip into practice, you must consider the various ways of financing a business purchase. One option is to use your own finances to pay the original owner half upfront, and the rest in monthly increments, or you could get a loan of up to 90 percent of the price by the Small Business Administration (SBA) specifically for this financing purpose. Additionally, you could partner with an angel investor or a venture capital firm in order to close the deal. Once you understand the financing methods, you must make a deal by putting it through three filters. The first is answering how this business will help increase your current business. When you purchase a business, you have the option to buy a competitor, someone in your supply chain, or even something different to break into a new market. Whatever type of business you are interested in, the next step is finding a seller who is motivated to leave their business and sell to you as you build a relationship with them. Finally, the third filter is finding a business that is profitable, and if something passes through all of the filters, then you can start negotiating a deal. To start the negotiation process, you could use business brokers to help you in the transaction, but Carl recommends to network and discuss with your inner business circle in order to build a trusted professional team to help you close those deals.
If you are interested in learning more about this process, visit www.trainwithcarl.com/onebigtip for access to free training and resources that outline everything you need to know about buying a business and understanding all of the steps involved in the process.
