Good “Buy” To You

Over the summer those who sign my paychecks enrolled me in a seven-week sales training course that purported to take a different approach to the art of selling.

I won’t regale you with all the details of the curriculum, save for a few items. For one, their pre-qualifying process was a far deeper dive than many of us were taught. Another point of differentiation is that the actual sales pitch comes at the end – not the beginning.

The jury is still out and will be in terms of my final deal numbers as to whether it was a good investment, but if anything I have been far more capable in being able to distinguish serious merger candidates from the proverbial “tire kickers.”

Even I know those interested in accounting firm M&A should not fall into the same category as a family of four debating whether to purchase a new SUV. The latter will go from lot to lot, sit for the sales pitches and then determine whether it’s in their budget.

Firms – either on the buyer or seller side should be far more focused on what they want to do.

Seller firms I allow a little more leeway on ambivalence. It’s a big decision – probably the biggest business-related decision of their lives. So naturally there’s bound to be more than a tinge of caution or even uncertainty. Buyers should be far more decided. But it’s amazing just how many are not.

Case in point.

A buyer client of ours has met with no less than a half-dozen firms that we’ve introduced him to. Not only did it take nearly a week for him to respond with any feedback for any of the firms none of them ever resulted in a deal. As it turned out he blamed his partners for blowing up every potential deal we’ve sent him.

No unanimous partner buy-in and a glacial pace in giving feedback? That, according to anyone’s sales training manual is a bad buyer. They have since been relegated to our version of Triple A in terms of client hierarchy.

Another firm, this one in New England, is continually trying to mine us for potential acquisitions and when one does come across my desk, the firm not only takes more than a week to respond, but often has to postpone meetings because their workload is too much.

If they are so busy now, how on earth would they handle say another $1 million in volume?

Again, that one gets shuttled down to the B-listers.

One of the big takeaways from my training is make it clear that your time is as valuable as that of the prospect. Now 10 minutes into any conversation I can tell whether this is a serious prospect or I simply stand up and say thanks anyway.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with all that free time.