Cold calling/emailing
December 16, 2023
by a searcher in Joplin, MO, USA
So Ive exhausted almost every business for sale website and all of my local brokers. Im thinking of sending out emails to a long list of businesses I'm interested. Has anyone ever used this technique and if so, what worked for you? Thanks again!
from University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, USA
1. Focus on building a workflow that allows you to build lists and send bulk custom emails to relevant and qualified companies. Use tools to help you do this: Upwork or Grata to build lists; Hubspot, Yesware, or Outreach.io to send bulk emails; and a CRM like Hubspot, Pipedrive, or Salesforce to track dealflow and leads over time
2. Be mindful of customization versus volume because there is a tradeoff. Choose if you want to be high volume or high customization. This is typically an easy answer according to your personality (for example, I knew I would get by better with lower volume and higher customization), but if the answer doesn't come easy to you, run an A/B test over your first 2 months searching. I would characterize low volume as anything under 500 emails per month
3. Remember the end goal to buy a company. Nothing gets you closer to this than meeting with qualified business owners in-person. What I mean by qualified is that it meets your basic criteria. Before you send one email, make sure you have your basic search criteria down so you are objective once the email responses start flowing in. This way, you don't waste your time chatting with a ton of owners who are just window shopping on the value of their business. Once you start the conversation and they respond, move to in-person as quickly as possible.
Good luck!
from Elon University in Raleigh, NC, USA
With that, I have found remarkable success walking in the door of businesses I’m interested in — 100% of them are not for sale — and getting time with the owner. If nothing else, they’re flattered someone thinks their business is worth something. It’s like they are so entrenched in the day-to-day and know the skeletons, they don’t think anyone would ever want to buy them. And they feel stuck. So you never know. None of these deals have worked out for me yet, but I’ve grown my sphere by meeting business owners in my chosen field. And one of these times, the iron is going to strike.
So I have no experience with mass-sending letters. But I think you’ll get a much better response by knocking on doors and engaging one-on-one.
Good luck!