The results of RISMedia’s 2023 Power Broker Report made it quite clear that the most reliable way to ensure brokerage growth in 2022 was to go out and buy it. Out of the ten companies with the highest percent sales growth between 2021 and 2022, seven had at least one major merger or acquisition in that time period. Most had more than one, and all of them increased sales by at least 20% over that time period, even as 80 of the top 100 Power Brokers actually saw sales shrink.
George Slusser understood the power of real estate mergers and acquisitions when he wrote his first book, “Acquiring Profit,” 25 years ago. While many of the nuts and bolts of facilitating a successful merger or acquisition may not have changed drastically over the years, the residential real estate landscape certainly has, causing Slusser to revisit the topic and partner with WAV Group Founder Victor Lund on the recently released, “Acquiring More Profit – The Definitive Guide to Successful Real Estate Brokerage Mergers & Acquisitions.”
The title’s emphasis on acquiring “profit” as opposed to “companies” is significant and foreshadows the book’s MO. As the authors state, “We have witnessed many M&A transactions that added revenue, added agents, increased market share and expanded overall brand awareness—but, unfortunately, did not increase the company’s profits. We believe that, by far, the best way to grow a real estate company is through acquisitions…but we want you to do it profitably.”
Thanks to Slusser’s involvement in more than 1,000 M&A transactions and Lund’s two decades worth of facilitating major industry deals and collaborations—along with the collective experiences of the myriad firms the pair have worked with—”Acquiring More Profit” is replete with real-world, first-hand experience. No esoteric theory here but, rather, practical how-to information, as well as relatable anecdotes from the authors’ respective adventures on the frontlines of M&A, including what made some successful and what made others fall apart.
“Acquiring More Profit” follows the step-by-step flow of a merger or acquisition, from forming your initial strategy and understanding the reasons why you might want to buy or sell a company, to arriving at an accurate valuation, to selling the vision and communicating change, to avoiding breakage and seizing recruiting opportunities.
While any M&A worth its salt results in financial gain for both parties involved, “Acquiring More Profit” emphasizes the importance of the emotional aspects involved in an acquisition, stressing the need to have empathy, understand motivations and fears, encourage agents and employees and have sensitivity toward the impact on family members.
“Selling a firm is often a very emotional decision,” write the authors. “Many broker/owners have invested their life’s work, thousands of hours and their savings into the firm, or it might have even been passed down a generation or two. Sellers want to know they have done the best thing for themselves, their legacy, their employees and their agents. Although money is always important, rarely is a sale only about the money.” Cultural compatibility, they say, trumps purchase price and terms when it comes to a successful merger or acquisition.
While the process of a merger or acquisition is methodically outlined in this book, its overarching value is the authors’ ability to make a very complicated subject understandable and replicable. A workbook-like companion, the Acquiring Profit Implementation System, provides readers with downloadable, customizable checklists and forms, including sample prospecting approaches, contracts, an NDA, transition plans, seller information lists and much more. The many lists, scripts and examples of forms and documents throughout the book further serve to make it a guide that you will refer to again and again, every time a potential deal arises.
Although no two deals and no two companies are ever alike, Slusser and Lund explain that there are common patterns that appear in most every successful M&A, no matter the size of the firms or the players involved. And that is what this book sets out to do—detail those patterns and decode the underlying process so that anyone can take advantage of M&A as a strategy for securing their personal and professional financial future.
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