26 Oct Industry Veteran Glen Cooper and Targeted Prospecting
In our recent webinar, we were joined by industry veteran Glen Cooper. Founder and Managing Partner of Colorado Business Brokers, Cooper has been a business broker since 1979, and he has compiled a truth wealth of information that business brokers will find useful. The webinar can be found by clicking here.
This webinar marks the first of a six-part webinar series, in which Cooper will cover the following topics: introduction and choosing your market(s), contacts: gathering your prospect list, prospecting: choosing methods that work for you, your promise: the importance of developing a message, overcoming resistance: who does what, when and for how long? and refinement: recording results to learn and adapt for future success. In our first webinar with Cooper, he explores some of his key ideas for how to choose your market.
Before covering Cooper’s thoughts on prospecting and selecting a market, it is important to note some of Cooper’s key thoughts on the world of being a business broker. Cooper wants business brokers to understand that most businesses that business brokers attempt to sell will, in the end, not successfully sell. In fact, about 90% of all businesses don’t sell. Cooper believes that business brokers can do much better with a different approach.
Cooper had some very relevant points concerning what to expect from business owners. On average, Cooper notes, business owners tend to be very private group consisting of people who are older, likely to suffer from burnout and, in general, will be hard to reach. You can also expect business owners to have little idea as to the value of their business or where to even begin the sales process.
The simple fact is that how a business broker or M&A Advisor approaches the topic of prospecting and selecting their market can be a make or break decision. Targeted prospecting is key, but it goes much deeper than selecting what businesses you will work with.
The foundation of successful targeted prospecting is for you to be, as Cooper phrases it, “very, very choosy” about the types and sizes of businesses that you choose. He feels that many brokers go for the easy listings, which translates into having a roster of listings that don’t really work. Obviously, this means a lot of wasted time and effort, but it also means that you have a lower success ratio. A failure to be highly selective can and will make life more difficult and demanding for you.
If you want to succeed will, Cooper’s advice is to be very selective. In our next article, we’ll cover Cooper’s recommendations for how to optimize your approach and select the very best businesses for you and your needs.
