Author: coreykupfer

In this episode of the Fueling Deals podcast, I take you through the very important (and sometimes challenging) step of finding the right deal for your business. It is important to go into this step with a clear understanding of your goals and expectations, so that you can be certain the deal you are considering will fit your needs.

There are many options for locating a potential deal, and many companies turn to both business brokers and investment bankers to help facilitate these connections. However, other options include networking within your industry, reaching out to influencers for sponsorships or brand deals, and even talking to other professionals in your day-to-day life such as your attorney. The options for finding a deal are almost as varied as the types of deals themselves.

For this episode, I highlight some of the key things to keep in mind as you’re looking to procure a deal, to ensure that you go into this important step in the process fully informed, aware of your options, and aware of potential pitfalls and challenges you might face.

Being Prepared Before You Begin

Before you ever get started searching for a deal, you need to ask yourself a few key questions. What are you hoping to accomplish from this deal? Accelerated growth? Marketing possibilities? An exit from your business? Access to new customers or clients? Knowing what you want from a deal is necessary to be certain that any potential deal you find will fit your business needs.

Additionally, once you are clear on your needs and goals, you also need to do research to ensure that your deal will be fair to all parties involved, and so that you understand any associated fees, costs or drawbacks that may come with the deal. Analyze other deals completed by similar businesses in your area or industry. It is even worthwhile to reach out to your competitors to ask them about their experience with similar deals.

By taking these important early steps, you can better evaluate potential deals to ensure that they meet your criteria, and you can more confidently complete the deal knowing what to expect from the process. Understand the benefits and risks of a potential deal and be clear on whether it satisfies your current business needs, and you will be able to move to the next step in the process in a much stronger position.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

The true key to success is found in being smart with your money and being smart with your opportunities. Being smart with your money means that you’ll have the financial standing to take opportunities when they are presented. And choosing the right opportunities can open new doors you never dreamed of.

I recently invited renowned author and financial expert David Bach to join me as a guest on the Fueling Deals podcast. David is the nine-time New York Times bestselling author of the Finish Rich series of books beginning with his phenomenal series debut Smart Women Finish Rich, as well as the Automatic Millionaire series. David’s newest book, The Latte Factor, is aimed at today’s young people in an effort to show them that the American Dream can be alive and well for them… if they’re prepared to start working and saving for it now.

In our conversation, David and I talk about how he started developing his Finish Rich system, and why he feels passionately about showing people a smarter way to interact with their money. David discusses how an important licensing deal led to the remarkable ongoing success of his program, and he shares why he learned early on to protect himself from bad actors.

Doing Deals Smartly

After David had developed his Smart Women Finish Rich program, he sought to do licensing deals for its content to generate royalties. The licensing deal David was able to complete created many new opportunities for him and helped create the landscape where his program could flourish and grow. However, David was cautious about being exploited during the development of his program, and he took the time to obtain the relevant trademarks and legal protections for his system before he began shopping it around.

This highlights the importance of protecting yourself legally. Before you start looking into any kind of potential deal, you should consider what legal protections you will need in the event that someone tries to take advantage. And, as David made clear, before you sign any agreement, it is critical that you have a trusted legal expert look the paperwork over. Smart business and legal support leads to good deals.

David then gave insight about how he has leveraged his intellectual property, brand and value into equity positions in companies.

Teaching the Next Generation

David’s new book, The Latte Factor, is aimed at today’s millennials and younger. David wanted to show them that, despite the many financial challenges they may face, there is a clear path to the American Dream available to them if they start planning for it early. As a passionate teacher, David has long believed that it is important to learn to manage your money smartly, as early as you can.

This lesson was something David learned for himself early in his career, when he was shown how a little money saved each day would add up to a huge retirement account. This was a key lesson for David, as were still earlier lessons he learned from his financially astute grandmother who was a self-made millionaire. The remarkable thing about David Bach is that he recognized the value of these lessons at a very young age, and now he works to pass those same lessons on to the next generation. David truly believes that it is never too early to start saving for retirement, and he also believes that anyone can achieve their goals with enough diligence, hard work and willingness to learn.

Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

My goal is to always bring you new strategies, wisdom and unorthodox ideas that can help you grow your business rapidly and inorganically. With that in mind, I decided to talk to an incredible group of entrepreneurs from across various industries and business models in an informative roundtable discussion.

During a recent episode of the Fueling Deals podcast, I hosted a roundtable discussion with Walton Financial founder Scott Walton; Judy Briggs, a 1-800-GOT-JUNK franchisee; Chuck Morris, owner of Morris Creative Group; Jane Bolin, Chief Marketing Officer of Peyton Bolin; and J2 Solutions founder Vijay Khatnani.

In our interview, the roundtable group discussed how their businesses were able to use deals to accelerate their business growth. We discuss the lessons each entrepreneur learned in the process of closing their deals, and we share valuable strategies, insights and wisdom to help you find and complete your own deals. Listen to our discussion and see how, regardless of the size of your business or the industry in which you operate, deals can be used to fuel your organization.

The Benefits and Challenges of Deals

If there’s one thing I hope you’ll take from our roundtable discussion, it’s that it doesn’t matter how large or small your company is and it doesn’t matter what industry you work in, growth through deals is possible for you. These five incredible business professionals all saw the potential of inorganic growth as a catalyst for their companies.

My guests also share the concerns they felt and the challenges they experienced as they prepared to close their deals, as well as the steps they took to overcome those problems. This is a great educational opportunity to hear firsthand how the process of acquiring or merging works and to prepare yourself for any potential obstacles.

For Companies of Every Shape and Size

The five businesses represented during the roundtable come from wide-ranging industries: legal services, financial services, marketing, information technology, and even junk removal. They are family operated, partnerships, sole proprietorships and franchises. But, as diverse as they are, they all fueled their growth through deals.

Just as these five entrepreneurs were able to use inorganic growth to expand their businesses, you too can benefit from business partnership, franchise, equity barter, acquiring or merging and other deals to grow your own business. These real world case studies are a great way to familiarize yourself with the process and truly highlight the benefits you can reap from the rapid growth of fueling deals.

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Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

When it comes to deals, few things will facilitate or derail a deal the way the people involved will. Emotions and egos have an oversized impact on the success or failure of deals, and they can cause negotiations to rapidly break down over a perceived slight or imbalance that could have been worked out to everyone’s satisfaction.

I recently spoke with John Furey, the founder and principle of Advisor Growth, as a guest on my Fueling Deals podcast. John and his organization specialize in the financial advisor industry and in helping financial advisor firms grow, expand, strategize, and do deals of all kinds. John knows from firsthand experience the importance of keeping a level head and remaining fair to all parties involved, and he has also seen how emotions can have a chilling effect on deals.

In our discussion, John shares some of the strategies and advice he provides his clients, including the importance of remembering that three constituencies are involved on each side of a deal: the owners of the dealing businesses, the teams that make up those businesses, and the clients or customers who rely on those businesses. A successful deal will benefit all three of these distinct groups and help satisfy their unique needs and expectations.

Checking Emotions at the Door

As part of his work on behalf of his clients, John helps to facilitate deals. A big portion of that facilitation lies in ensuring that everyone keeps a level head. As John said during our conversation, “let’s not let a transaction die over a toaster oven”. In other words, when small, easily solvable issues with a deal collide with huge egos, the entire deal can unravel.

Being clear in your expectations and keeping a willingness to compromise are critical for any deal. It isn’t as important to have every box in your column checked as it is to ensure that both sides feel they are being treated fairly. Try to remain calm, be flexible, and prioritize the things that actually matter and your negotiations should go much more smoothly.

Attracting and Keeping Talent

One of the other functions of John’s organization is helping financial advisor firms strategize and plan for growth. Of course, business growth is at the heart of what the Fueling Deals podcast is all about, so during our conversation we explored some of the other advice and tips John shares with his clients.

One of the things John said that really stood out is that it is bright, talented professionals are vital for the success and growth of any firm. Attracting and keeping that talent is incredibly important, but doing so requires offering a clear and communicated path for those talented individuals within the firm. That involves things like compensation, career advancement and other steps that need to be taken to ensure that your great employees understand how they can continue to grow alongside the firm’s growth.

Learn more about Facilitating Deals and Growing Firms, with John Furey by listening to my episode on Fueling Deals podcast.

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Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!

In this episode of the Fueling Deals podcast, I highlight some of the key points I have been able to draw from some of the deals I have personally worked on. These deals are protected by attorney-client privilege, of course, so I can’t go into the specifics of the deals, but I do want to discuss some of the prevailing themes and key considerations that were found in these deals.

There are numerous details to consider when navigating a deal, and there are countless ways a deal can capsize or go sour, but there are a few primary points that we can look at that are important to any deal of every kind and size.

The importance of keeping your patience, appropriately pacing a deal, asking the right questions, dealing with “conversation stopping” statements, and maintaining relationships with your deal partners cannot be overstated. These critical steps will help you deal with many of the challenges, obstacles and obstructions in your own deals. I hope you’ll listen to the episode and learn why each of these steps is so vital to a successful deal.

Navigating Treacherous Waters

Many of the problems you may face when negotiating with a deal partner can be mitigated or totally avoided by maintaining a calm, level head throughout the process. Impatience can lead to losing any advantages you have during the negotiations, and it can derail the deal entirely if emotions are running hot. That’s precisely why it is important to allow a deal to carry its own momentum and avoid trying to hurry it along artificially or slow it down dramatically.

Likewise, it is important to know how to deal with conversation-stopping statements like “that’s how we’ve always done it” and “nobody has ever asked that before”. When these statements are made, it is the other party’s attempt to shut down the conversation. In response, explain that because it has always been done that way doesn’t make it right and that you are not everyone else. Then explain why it matters to you and make your case for why you are pressing the issue. Many misunderstandings and miscommunications can be avoided in this way.

Smooth Sailing

Just as there are steps to take to keep a deal from derailing, there are other steps you can take to strengthen a deal. Open communication is vitally important for building trust and letting the other party know that you’re serious. Asking questions and seeking clarification on important or confusing details can keep the negotiation process flowing smoothly.

By taking these important steps all throughout the deal process, you can avoid many of the rocky issues that can create difficult problems or even shut down a deal in progress. Of course, other issues may still come up, but by remaining patient, allowing things to move at their own natural pace, asking key questions and building a relationship on trust and communication, you have already laid the foundations of a strong deal and are better prepared to deal with any other problems that may arise.

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Corey Kupfer is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker. He has more than 35 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience. Corey is a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker who is passionate about deal-driven growth. He is also the creator and host of the DealQuest Podcast.

If you want to find out how deal-ready you are, take the Deal- Ready Assessment today!