#271: Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) with Pete Seligman: 5 Acquisitions, 3 'tours-Of-Duty' as CEO, 2 Exits And 3 Partial Exits

In today’s episode, we’re talking with Pete Seligman. Pete is here to talk about his experience diving into the world of Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) after leaving corporate America. He is going to share what his journey has been like now that he has bought five companies, been the CEO of three of them and successfully worked himself out of the job, sold two of the companies and sold a partial stake in the other three.

Pete has the track record to prove that entrepreneurship through acquisition is not only possible but extremely accessible if you put your mind to it, create a plan and execute like hell. He proves that it is possible to buy a company, swoop in as a CEO who gets to know the people and industry, build a plan to grow enterprise value - ON PURPOSE- and successfully work yourself out of the business so that you can have options to keep growing other companies, choose to sit on the board and take distributions or sell the business.

What You Will Learn

Why it’s important to calculate risk before investing
Why Pete chose businesses he understood and how important it was when he was getting started
Why you should grow and sell businesses that you know and are passionate about - plus how to delegate tasks to get growth you desire
the importance of reinvesting back into a small business for future growth and value
Pete’s favorite way to invest and how to manage his vision while recruiting people to do the things he can’t
The three questions you should ask before placing a bid on a business
Why you need to be able to work with the people in a small to medium business
Why Pete didn’t take dividends for years and how doing that helped him sell fast
Why Pete spent a lot on recruiting people when reinvesting in the business
Understanding capacity is super important in a service business
Why you grow by taking more market share rather than the market growing
The relation growing a small business and starting a campfire have in common
Why managing multiple businesses starts with acquiring the skill of delegation
Outcomes are derived from how well you can coach your team - so long as you have the same idea of the course you need to go on
The positive mindset business owners should have when they have sold their business

Bio:

Pete Seligman one of Australasia's most experienced practitioners and a leading voice for Search Fund and ETA insights and advice.

Quotes:

06:37 - “I tried things and I failed. I wanted it to hurt, you know? If I fell off a bike, I wanted to actually skin my knee. Whereas in big corporate environments, all sorts of things can go wrong but because it’s such a big beast, you’re not really close to the action.” - Pete Seligman

19:26 - “What difference am I going to make? If there’s nothing that I can do that’s going to make it better than anyone else, then how am I, firstly, going to compete in the bidding process? And secondly, how am I going to make anything of it after I’ve bought it?” - Pete Seligman

24:37 - “Raising kids, there’s this concept of ‘quality time.’ I was reading in a book the other day, and it’s not actually about quality time; it’s about just time. In order to spend good time with you kids, you actually need to spend a lot of time with your kids, right? Because you never know when the quality is going to show up. And it’s similar with the relationship-building process with a vendor.” - Pete Seligman

38:18 - “I think it’s really important to make sure your house is in order. It makes for a better business and it makes for a more profitable business, but it also means that if someone does come knocking, you’re not scrambling, trying to figure out how to make your business look good.” - Pete Seligman

49:07 - “It’s unlikely you’re not going to find value in business operations and sales marketing in terms of top-line growth.” - Pete Seligman

57:51 - “The delegation thing is a really big challenge. It’s not easy. If anything, it’s the biggest reason why founder-led businesses hit the glass ceiling, because they can only make it to a certain number of people. Because if you get bigger than that, you need to delegate.” - Pete Seligman