Your first acquisition will be hard (and that’s a good thing)

The funny thing about success?

It’s never a straight line. It’s always a zigzag the whole way through.

Almost every multimillion-dollar business founder had to try and fail multiple times before getting traction.

But if you listen to acquisition influencers on social media, you’ll rarely hear a peep about that. Everyone paints a picture of how straightforward it is — just buy a car wash here, a laundromat there, and presto, you’re set for life.

Are there kernels of truth buried in there?

Of course.

It’s true that buying the right business can be life-changing, and set you and your family up for generational wealth. And, it’s also true that it’s not as complicated as it looks.

But no matter how you slice it, buying a business is hard if you’ve never done it before. 

You’ve got to be willing to handle failure after failure... chasing down deals that go nowhere... taking rejections on the chin... learning the ins and outs of the banking system and SBA loans... fumbling through your first negotiations... and the list goes on.

It’s grueling from start to finish.

That said...

The way I look at it, this is a good thing.

If something is worth having, then it’ll always be hard to get.

You can’t separate difficulty from reward.

That’s how it goes in marriage, having kids, real estate investments, stock trading... anything that improves your life will ask a sacrifice of you up front. And that goes double for investments that build financial wealth.

So I’ll be blunt:

You can’t come into this game with one foot halfway out the door. You’ve got to understand the difficulty up front. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme (though I wish it was!).

But if you’re committed to seeing it through, the high barrier to entry gives you a massive advantage.

Because most people won’t commit.

Like everything else in life, success in acquisitions starts with one decision:

“I’m going to stick with this until I finally make it work.”

Once you’ve got that mindset, over a long enough time horizon, success becomes inevitable.

If you’re committed to learning how to buy businesses, I’ll leave you with this:

My first acquisition took me over eighteen months. I stumbled into every mistake the hard way, but I did eventually make it. And with the right mentorship, it would have been even quicker. Most of my students inside Acquisition Ace did theirs in less than half that time.

I can’t guarantee you those exact results, of course. I can’t force you to put in the effort required. But I can guarantee to give you the right mentorship, if you’re looking for it.

If you’d like me to help you shortcut your learning curve:

Fill out our 2-minute Interested Investor Survey here, and tell me more about your goals.

Or, if you’re looking to sell a business, send me the details here, and I’ll be in touch.

I’m in your corner,

— Ben Kelly