I Mailed a Handwritten Letter and Bought the Business | 338

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Business of Beers Podcast, your daily dose of strategies, tools, and tips to help you build an eight-figure business. Today's episode is a clip from one of my YouTube lives. If you'd like to hear the whole thing, there's a link below in the description. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

You know, to so to find owners that want seller financing, there are a couple different ways. Number one is you you just start going through biz by sell. Like, like, like there, there's this slogan, I don't know if it's I don't know if it's true or not, but that biz by sell is where businesses go to die. Uh, I think it's kind of funny. But so so so on the on that side of it, knowing that, that means like you could probably get some deals, right? That if someone has listed uh their business here, that often they've already tried to sell it other ways. And and that just means there's flexibility on it. And so it it just takes going out there and and starting these conversations and going through the numbers and honestly, like trying to build the relationship with with the sellers. Because the only way that seller financing works, at least like at scale and at volume, that you know, you probably want to do, is when there's trust, right? That the that the seller's gonna trust you. Because, you know, you can sign all the legal docs and you know, we're gonna they're gonna get like protection and all that stuff, but the seller like doesn't want to have to execute on any of it, right? They don't want to have to chase you for payments, they don't want to have to like have incur legal fees and have the stress of of it all when he said, she said, and questioning things and gotchas, and and so at the end of the day, they if they don't trust you that you are gonna make good on your payments without any hassle, without any delays, without any defaults, then you have a much, much higher chance of getting it. And so it works very well in franchising because franchising is a private network in that, like, you know, there's there's no outsiders, right? We all gotta like sign our names and blood to be part of a franchise. Whether that's automotive, whether that's home services or salons or anything. It doesn't matter what the brand is, it doesn't matter. We're all in the same boat. And so there's inherent trust because we're both fighting the same battle every single day. And thus, when people are ready to sell and they're ready to get out, the it's the the easiest person to sell to is is another franchisee. They're already approved, all that stuff. We we talked about that a little bit earlier. And so if you said, hey, I want to execute my strategy, I want to get in here and I want to start small, one or two locations, I want to take all my money and I'm gonna reinvest and grow it and roll it up, whatever it is, then you know a franchise network could be a good option for that because once you get your foot in the door, there's you build relationships with the people, you let them know when you want to sell, hey, I'm gonna be your guy, and then man, the deals happen, I'm telling you. So uh that would be number one, my my first recommendation. If it's an independent business that you're looking to do, then you know, I would just be I I would be looking to work these angles. If they're, you know, generally ones that have been listed longer, uh, lower prices, not much margin, those are gonna be your better options, right? It's the people who are highly motivated to sell and and and and and want to get out. Um often too, I'm I have people all the time that message me, rich ri rich dudes who don't want to get in, you know, don't want to operate the business, but have the money, they want to invest with a uh you know, with an operating partner, and they just gotta find them. So I'm telling you, the the guys are out there. You just you just gotta be able to like find those people. And so like if you're serious about, hey, I want to grow, start building your own network, right? Start finding people who are are successful entrepreneurs in in the the places that you live and belong to the local country clubs and like you know own the local businesses. And a lot of them like you know, they they they want to diversify into other things, but they they don't have the time. And so uh to to be partners with some young, hungry, driven person who's like gonna be all in on making this thing work. Again, trust. It call comes down to trust. If they trust that you are gonna deliver, then yeah, like you have not no problem, but it you will you will get the deals. So um that's what I would do. I think there's a way too up here. Um let me just like let me just see if I can get this thing. I think there's a way you can filter it as well, um that you can go when you when you're when you're looking for things if you go biz by sale. All right, find the best way to owners I mean same same concept, right? Which is like, you know, a c a couple ways. I mean, you talked about biz by sale already. Uh I think I think you can there's a lot to a lot to work there. Some of these deals move really slow, too. Um I mean a friend of mine was telling me took him he'd been contacting an owner for two years, three years. It's taken me multiple years to land some jobs. So some of these, like you'll have these conversations and they just take forever. And so you just gotta like stay on them and stay on them and build a little pipeline of all the people you're talking to. Um like brokers. I mean, we we have uh so we we primarily work with real estate brokers and we have one business guy, but the real estate brokers are the ones by side agents, commercial, who are who are calling, cold calling uh landlords of target uh properties for us. So that could be existing, you know, uh that could be independents, right? That could be uh corporate locations, so like national brands, uh, that we would then become their landlord. And depending when the leases are up, we could possibly, like if a lease was up in three years on a on a building that we would want to occupy, we could buy the building with the lease in place and then not renew the lease and then just take it over, right? Tot totally, totally uh valid strategy that uh we could do. So we're we're we're looking looking for for those opportunities. Uh we're also having them call like just just you know, uh whatever, what I'm gonna call conversion retail, which is which is those. So so we're constantly trying to create these conversations every single week. We're having them. I mean, I have the you know, one of the reasons I create content is like, you know, I have shop owners that that message me all all the time, every week almost. Now, some of them are in locations that you know are just too far from me because right now we're just in uh Pennsylvania, New Jersey. But um, you know, I got I got a couple right now that that are that are really good opportunities that that we're gonna pursue that that are in our market. So um that is the best way to find it is you gotta do the work. You can't just sit behind your computer all day. You can't just like you can't just be biz by sell. Like you gotta get out there, you gotta shake hands. Like we send letters to people. Uh I I wanted to buy, I see this next this next question I'm gonna take is about a car wash. But there was a car wash next to one of my buildings, and I had the idea of like buying it. It was a self-it was a self-service car wash. And so I I found out who owned it, and I just like I I I took a yellow piece of paper, right? Legal pad yellow paper, and I, you know, I wrote the thing, I wrote the note saying, hey, you know, I'm the owner of such and such. I would, you know, I did some research about him, I figured out, you know, some things and whatever. I wrote a personalized note and I mailed it to him, I hand addressed the envelope, I put a stamp on manly, and I did get a call. I got a call a couple weeks later from the guy saying, Hey, I got your letter. Um, you know, we're not ready to sell yet, but I'll keep you in mind. And then, I don't know, a year later he messaged me and said, Hey, we're we're we're listing the business, we're listing the the building and the real estate for sale. This is what we're asking. If you if you want it, this is you know, this is it. And I you know didn't pursue, I didn't I just decided I didn't want it at that point, but uh it worked. All right, uh same thing. I bought a and it uh years ago I wanted to get I was into real estate, I wanted to buy a rental property uh that was was one of my old neighbors. So same thing, I I wrote a hand written letter to um the executor of of her estate, and I own that property now. And so uh you want to do what other people aren't doing, right? So not many people are out there legit sending handwritten, hand addressed envelopes. They could fake it, but you know, like it's pretty obvious when it is. And so uh that's what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to do things that people aren't doing, and and it's it's working, it's working for me.