As a budding serial acquirer, whose interests will you serve?
Hint: This is a trust-based business model that requires constant capital.
On top of a growing stack of books I’ve read, but plan to re-read, is: Where are the Customers’ Yachts by Fred Schwed Jr
I have a yellow highlighter in hand, ready to memorialize catching phrases that bring back memories of those thoughtful yet almost forgotten lessons learned.
My first highlight is in the introduction of this classic:
“The individual investor is still situated at the very bottom of the food chain, a spec of plankton afloat in a sea of predators.”
In this business (and any business really) there will be predators. They are often the best storytellers and social media is their megaphone.
Followers follow charismatic, confident voices. Like disciples, you might say.
Schwed succinctly states that “if you have a persuasive and forceful character, you can always make a big splash in the street … if you can wheedle, charm, cajole or shout down others, you can make a whacking success anywhere...”
Woah, worthy of a pause.
There is definetely a better way.
To be a successful serial acquirer and for that success to endure:
You must go to GREAT LENGTHS to protect and even celebrate investors’ interests.
To repeatedly acquire new companies, you need an un-ending supply of capital. So it will serve you well to elevate the interests of others. You must put investors’ interests far ahead of your own.
So who will you serve? Many serial acquirer entrepreneurs will still be tempted to choose themselves. But don’t do that.
It certainly should not be about executives and management buying yachts.
It’s about empowering investors to be able to, IF THEY SO CHOOSE.
It’s about being exceptional operators, providing reliable, growing, transparent returns to investors who place their trust in you.
It’s about maximizing investor returns and placing your own invested capital at risk, alongside theirs.
It’s about inspiring your valued employees to become investors too, so as to compound the benefit of their hard work.
It’s about ethics, it’s about integrity and it’s about ALWAYS doing what’s right.
It’s about sharing the journey with others who demonstrate the same values. But, words are just words, it’s about EVERY DAY ACTIONS.
To be successful as a serial acquirer, you must surround yourself with others who share and consistently demonstrate the same virtues.
Investors will see through ‘every’ decision made… something to keep in mind.