Seeking community advice on: (i) re-engaging sellers, and (ii) payroll/HR

February 02, 2021

by a searcher in Charlottesville, VA, USA

Hi all - I am hoping to hear some thoughts/ideas from the community on the following two topics:

1) How do you re-engage sellers who appear to have lost interest? It happened to us several times when we had a great call with the seller, sent them our confi/DD list right away, but then things got in the way and we lost momentum. What are some of the ways to (i) prevent that from happening and (ii) re-engage sellers?
We've done a few things that appear to have improved the general transaction flow, including (i) a shorter initial diligence list, and (ii) trying to schedule a check-in call immediately after the first intro call. Any other tips/tricks that you find useful?

2) Does anyone have experience with Zenefits for HR/Payroll and Guideline for 401k? I heard good things, but wondering if there are contrary opinions out there. Also, does anyone know how good those solutions are for multi-entity organizations (e.g. a rollup)

Reply by a searcher
from Stanford University in New York, NY, USA

2. Wave is a great Payroll option that also includes free cloud-based accounting software, highly recommend (payroll is $35/mo + $6/FTE) - https://www.waveapps.com. Haven’t used Guideline but know the team there personally and we plan to use them once we close a deal. Really great people.

1. FWIW - We don’t get into company performance questions until 3rd convo. Conversion rates were low early days when we sent a discussion guide / data request alongside an NDA after the 1st call — found that was too fast and overwhelmed or scared off sellers. We’ve slowed things down and shifted the tenor of early conversations to build a relationship and try to pinpoint the owner’s emotional needs in the sale process. Conversion rate to in-person meeting / LOI discussion is now 1.8% overall conversion (2x our goal of 0.9%). It’s a slower, more intensive process, but we have twice as many companies at the bottom of the funnel so the tradeoff seems worth it. (Tactically: 1st call is introduction + basic confirmatory screening Qs to ensure they meet our minimum criteria (revenue, growth, margins) - we send an NDA after. 2nd call is all about relationship building and jointly casting a vision - we send a data request and discussion document after. 3rd call we walk through the data they shared with us and then shift the conversation toward growth strategy.)

Haven’t figured out reengagement of opportunities that have gone cold... seems like a craps shoot. Interested in what the SF community has to say here...

Reply by a searcher
from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, USA

I'm currently setting up payroll and benefits for a February closing. 30 employee, single site tree care business. I looked at a lot of different options/combos of services for HR/payroll. For straight payroll, Gusto had the best references (many other SMB owners in my network), and the user interface/experience and pricing both seem to be best in class. That said, while the customer service I've gotten so far is professional, it's still pretty basic, even with the "concierge" package. For example, I'm using the basic wizard to draft up the employee handbook, and they have "HR Pros" that advise at a high level on specific policies, but they're certainly not going to do the heavy lifting. But for employee onboarding it does seem to have good functionality (online checklists, employee self service, e-signing, digital document management, etc). Feel free to check back in with me in a month to see how it went! From a payroll perspective, my CPA was pushing for ADP since that's what he's most familiar with, but my interactions with ADP weren't inspiring and it seems like they'll nickel and dime you to death. For benefits, I'm using an insurance broker for HC, dental, WC. 401k I'm using Guideline through Gusto. And then for other HR needs like recruiting support, I'm using a small HR consulting company that charges by the hour. The benefit of that is that I can draft up a job description, and then hand it off to them to manage the online posting, screening calls, interview scheduling etc. And then I'll pick it up from there with the interviews and offers.

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