How Do You Talk to Potential Buyers? 5 Rules For The Fine Art of Friendly Acquisition

Bzzzt. Bzzzt.

“Hello?”

“Hi Dan, I’m calling from Google. We’re interested in potentially buying your company…”

Ok, it didn’t go quite like that, but it’s true – my first call with a potential acquirer was with Google.

I was super excited! I mean… Google?! They’ve got money to burn, and I was ready to take it!

…then I proceeded to make some big mistakes. 

On that phone call, I did everything wrong. I gave them SO much information about my business that I sent them away with a step-by-step on how to do it all themselves.

I even told them how our code worked! What was I thinking…?

I was trying to sell them on my company but ended up with no offer, no callback, and nothing to show for all the answers I gave.

I let my excitement get in the way of my strategy.

So please don’t make the mistake I did. This week’s video is all about how to conduct your first call with a potential acquirer… without all the mistakes I made:

Exclusive Resource: Fundraising Like a Pro – Learn the 3 phases of fundraising and a 7 week process for starting & closing your next round of funding

As an investor, I now know a lot more about this than I used to. You’ve got to follow these 5 steps to CRUSH that phone call:

1. Fit, Price, Motivation
2. Get Them Talking
3. Prepare Talk Tracks
4. Role Play
5. Stick To The Time

Imagine if that call goes wrong. What does that mean for you?

It’s the difference between a multi-million dollar sale… or convincing an acquirer to become your direct competitor and drive you out of the market.

All because of the words that came out of your mouth.

When the stakes are THAT high, you can’t just wing it.

One of my coaching clients, Adii from Conversio, had a call from a potential acquirer recently. I coached Adii on how to use this exact framework to make that call.

And it worked.

His company was acquired by Campaign Monitor for millions. That’s a massive exit that most SaaS founders could only DREAM of.

In the past 12 months I’ve coached 7 of my clients to exit and they used this first conversion process to ensure they didn’t mess it up :).

Even if you’re in the early stages of growing your SaaS, plant this seed in your mind now by watching the video here. 

You never know when a casual chat with a new contact will turn into the business meeting that defines your future.