How to Find Business Deals

Episode 880: How to Find Business Deals, with Corey Kupfer

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How to find business deals, a podcast with Corey Kupfer. Connect yourself with business leaders once you know how to find business deals.

If you want to learn how to find business deals, then you won’t regret tuning into today’s episode. Our guest expert for today is Corey Kupfer, who is an expert strategist, negotiator and dealmaker with more than 30 years of professional deal-making and negotiating experience as a successful entrepreneur, attorney, consultant, author and professional speaker. He is the founder and principal of Kupfer & Associates, PLLC, a leading corporate and deal law firm; the founder and CEO of Authentic Enterprises, LLC, a speaking, training and consulting company committed to inspiring authenticity in business; the author of Authentic Negotiating: Clarity, Detachment & Equilibrium – The Three Keys To True Negotiating Success & How To Achieve Them. He is also the creator and host of the Fueling Deals Podcast, which launched in February 2019.

You can learn more about Corey, his companies and current projects at www.coreykupfer.com.

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What you’ll learn in this episode about how to find business deals:

What Corey has been working on with his business and in the area of thought leadership since his previous appearance on Onward Nation
Why Corey’s method of how to find business deals has been effective and how it propelled him to greater heights
What issues Corey recognized that were limiting the amount of business he was getting, and how he corrected those issues
How Corey recognized that he himself was becoming a bottleneck in his business and its success
How Corey recognized, identified, and overcame his limiting beliefs that were holding him back, and how he discovered that his limiting beliefs were ultimately wrong
Why Corey decided to dig into his thought leadership, and why he launched his Fueling Deals podcast
What topics and information Corey has covered so far on his podcast, and why he feels passionate about showing how to find business deals
How business owners can find deals of all kinds, and why networking and connecting with other business leaders in your industry is key
Corey shares case studies of some of the unique deals he has been involved in or helped facilitate
What suggestions Corey has for business owners looking for and planning for an exit, and why it is important to plan for contingencies
Why it is important to surround yourself with other business owners in mastermind groups or as mentors

Resources:

Websites:
- www.coreykupfer.com
- www.kupferlaw.com
Fueling Deals podcast: www.fuelingdeals.com
Authentic Negotiating by Corey Kupfer: https://amzn.to/2ueLfil
Learn more about how to find business deals by checking out this blog from Corey Kupfer

Additional Resources:

Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
Listen to this podcast with St John Craner on how to find business deals and close it

How to Find Business Deals: Full Episode Transcript

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

Good morning, Onward Nation. I’m Stephen Woessner. And before I introduce you to our very special encore guests today, I want to share some additional context about Corey Kupfer and why I was so very excited that he said yes, to come back for another conversation, because the reality is probably been a couple of years since we had a chance to since Corey and I had a chance to record our first interview here on Onward Nation.

And there has been a lot that has been taking place within his business, some really great stuff, as well as some identification of constraints that I think it’s going to be really, really helpful for you to hear this directly from Corey in how he one identified some of those pain points, then how also he solve some of those pain points.

He’s made a couple of key hires. And then just in the green room in the pre-interview chat, we were talking about some really, really fascinating things here again, that I think are going to be really helpful to you because we as business owners, whether we want to admit this or not, we struggle with this.

And that is, you know, feeling like there’s a constraint in the business from a biz dev perspective like, well, if I go out and I sell all of that work, if I don’t have the right systems, if I don’t have the right people, either consciously or subconsciously, we slow down the pace and tempo of that biz dev, because maybe some of that work is going to fall on us.

So we move a little bit slower and instead of maybe looking creatively, as you’ll hear, Corey has done creatively to find additional resources, even if on the surface we don’t think those resources are there. Getting creative to have one first, being confident enough to identify the constraint and then to go and solve the problem.

Plus, he’s really dug in, really dug in, on his thought leadership. Like he has doubled down. And as you know, that is our theme for the year 2019. He and his team have absolutely doubled down on their thought leadership, his thought leadership. And he launched a brand new podcast. So I’m super, super excited for him to be able to share that process with you.

And what that meant early on to his business. So with all of that, I also want to just kind of remind you, core is the author of the great book, Authentic Negotiating Clarity, Detachment and Equilibrium. The three Keys to True Negotiating Success and How to Achieve Them, and then the name of his podcast. So he is the host of the brand new podcast entitled Fueling Deals.

So without further ado, welcome back to Onward Nation, Corey.

How to Find Business Deals: Corey’s Introduction

It’s so great to be back with you and the audience, even excited to be here. Oh my gosh, I am super excited that you said yes. One because of all these great things we’re going to talk about, which is going to be super exciting and very, very helpful, but also just acknowledging you are under some great schedule compression right now with your travel schedule and all the things you got a trip with to Nepal coming up here in just a few days.

So I am very, very grateful that you found the time on your schedule. So before we dive into some of the questions I want to ask you, actually take us into, you know, how I just kind of teed this up for Onward Nation, take us through this point about, you know, king of the chicken and egg that you and I were talking about from a busy dev perspective during the pre-interview and how you navigated that first to identify the constraint, but then how you navigated it to find the resources and then what the outcome was.

Let’s start there. Yeah. So let me start with a premise that, you know, I mentioned you and I say a lot and that I believe that the world is manifest from within, and I don’t mean on some, you know, I mean, we can get to a to a spiritual consciousness or energy level if you want to, but on a practical level, right?

How to Find Business Deals: Business Owners Must Always Provide High Quality Work

As a business owner, my business is only going to be as big as, you know, as anything as I’m willing to let it get or be, as an owner, and sometimes that’s, you know, there are conscious restraints, but many times those are on a subconscious level. So specifically for me, what I found was I said, hey, wait a second, I have all these business opportunities that for some reason, I’m not taking advantage of.

Right. There are things out there. There are people I could be following up with. And I’m not talking about prospects and clients. I always follow them, not talking about certain potential referral sources and key industry partners where I know if I spent more time with them and was more in contact with them, or if I attended this particular conference, which I decide not to go to, that I would get more business.

And for me, you know, listen, I’m in a fortunate position. Some people struggle, we get business. I’m in a fortunate position that I’m good at developing business. And it comes to us when I’m out there. So why am I not out there? So that’s the first question that comes up. And I realized that I was concerned.

Why was I concerned? Because I have a commitment that we always do super high quality work. You know, a law firm in my consulting business, you know, in my speaking company, I mean, I wasn’t holding off my people from even, you know, reaching out to me to do more speaking engagements. Why?

Because when I was making judgments, I got more business. Right? And it seems so crazy, right? Like, how could you be a business owner and not want to go get more business? Well, again, for me, it’s so important that we provide high quality work. And I had come out of a business partnership a few years ago where on the other side of the firm that I didn’t run, there were some service issues, which is why I split that partnership, you know?

So there were some things there that I was really, you know, concerned with. And a lot of it was subconscious. So when I realized that I’m like, okay, wait a second, I got to take a look at what’s going on for me internally. That is stopping me from taking advantage of business opportunities that are out there. So that was my first big question.

How to Find Business Deals: The Fear of Not Being Able to Provide Quality Work

Wow. Okay. So once you do so then how did you like through that self-discovery process. Like what was the answer that came back. Like what? I mean, that seems like a pretty big question to be asking yourself. Like, you really got to be honest with yourself. So what was the answer? Yeah. So what I determined was I said, okay, I’m clear that what’s limiting me is a fear of not being able to provide the great level of service and quality of work that we’re committed to.

So let me delve into that. What is specifically my fear of that? Because I have a phenomenal team. They do great work, right? Like there’s no worries there. And what I realized was there were two key bottlenecks, okay, in my firm. One was my assistant and some may think that’s a negative comment. It’s actually a positive coming out.

My joke is that she and when I say assistant, she was the office manager, bookkeeper, my personal assistant. Parallel gal on and on and on. Right. So my joke is she, you know, is able to do the work of five people, but not the work of seven for some reason, right? Slacker. Right. So, I realized that she’s a bottleneck.

Not because of who she is. She’s a rock star, but because of that, everything that she had going on. She was, you know, at a, you know, a past the limit. So that was one worry. And then the second bottleneck was me. And frankly, it was a little different for me. I mean, for her, for Don, my assistant, she was literally just volume, you know, overwhelmed with work.

And I was afraid to give up anymore with me. It was less than then, the fact that I realized that there was a type of work that I would have to be involved in, right? I love doing the high level strategy structuring, negotiating high level, strategic client advice. And I have a phenomenal associate who handles all the drafting of legal documents, reviewing.

And, but there’s sort of a level of working between those two that is overseeing the deal, running the deal, looking at more complex documentation before it goes out. That frankly, although I’m good at it, it’s not. I’m not excited about doing that anymore. I just want to do the high level strategy, structuring the ocean.

How to Find Business Deals: Analyzing The Workflow

So I have a gap in between myself and my phenomenal, you know, associate on the high level work and, owning and running a deal that I figured if I go out. So I’m also conscious that if I go out and get more work, I’m going to have to go back in and do more of that stuff.

And not only am I not super excited about doing it on a day to day basis, but also it’s going to be this thing where I go and get work. Then I got to go and come back and hear the word, and then I can’t be outdone, get more business. So I get this back and forth, which becomes difficult.

So those are the two big realizations that I got and where the bottlenecks were. Okay. So I just put this in my notes here. This is really a phenomenal lesson for any business owner in any type of service industry. And that is analyzing the work flow like you astutely did there. And then understanding, well, where are my personal gifts?

Like, what do I love to do? And quite frankly, what do I do really, really well? Like where do I add value to the business? And for you, that’s on the strategy side. And then it’s like, you know, I could do it, but I prefer not to do it. And so where in the workflow is that stuff. And you described it kind of in the middle of that.

How to Find Business Deals: The Subconscious That’s Blocking the Solution

Right. So then, we as business owners need to think, okay, if I really want to do more of this stuff and I go out and get more of that stuff, that would really energize me and add value to the business, but I then need to find a resource to do this other stuff where, yeah, I could do it.

Don’t really want to do it. Right. That’s exactly it. Okay, so then how did you solve that problem? Because if I understood you correctly in the pre-interview chat, you’re like, once you understood that, you thought, oh, I’m not. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to solve this problem. Like, where am I going to find a person that I can kind of plug into that middle gap?

Right. So, there are two things that came up. And this is where, you know, a lot of my work, whether it’s, you know, in my training, in authentic negotiating training. So I just want to deal with clients the way I deal with myself. Again, this conversation that it’s always from within.

So even when I started to realize that for a little while, I wasn’t taking action because you would think, oh, there’s some solutions. You can hire some people, you can, you know, do this, you can outsource stuff, whatever. Right? There are practical solutions. But I wasn’t acting in the beginning, so I had to take a deeper cut. And the deeper cut was, okay, what is holding me back?

And I realized that I had two limiting beliefs. That was subconscious. But I did the work, you know, to really go inside, think about it. Hey, what’s blocking me? You know, so for me, it’s always a signal, right? When, you know, intellectually there’s some action you should take and you’re not taking it as a business owner, as a person, as an executive.

Whoever you are, then, you know, there’s usually some underlying deeper reason, and it’s usually some limiting belief, a block or something, you know.

How to Find Business Deals: A Task That Feels Like Finding a Needle in A Haystack

So I had two of them that I discovered. One was that I sort of believe this position was a needle in the haystack, because, listen, there are a lot of seniors, you know, super, you know, great attorneys out there who run deals.

But I didn’t have a full time position for this person. I didn’t have a half time position for this person at first. I just need that on an as needed basis. And then it’s sort of chicken and egg, right? Then I’ll go out there and build a business and then I’ll need that more. But how do you go to somebody who is, you know, a highly paid, super experienced person and say, yeah, just work for me what I need you, and then I’ll call you.

Yeah. So I had it like it was impossible to find. That was one living belief. The second limiting belief was sort of even deeper in that, I realized that it’s possible. Not that it’s, you know, it’s definitely an atom, but it’s possible in order to find that needle in a haystack, which is the way I get, you know, thinking about it, that I might need to find somebody who maybe not, you know, day one, but at some point might be interested in becoming a partner with me because the long term incentive has to be there for somebody who you’re not, you know, paying a chunk of money to start with.

And because I had had a challenging partnership break up a few years back, I didn’t realize it, but subconsciously even, you know, subconsciously. I apparently had this limiting belief to say, you know, and it’s amazing how it’s built on each other. It’s sort of like, you know, there’s a needle in a haystack.

People can be tough to find anyway. And then on top of that, it may be somebody that eventually will want to be a partner. And I don’t want to have a partner. None of that was conscious until finally I unearthed it and figured all that out and then sort of got to transform that and realize how ridiculous it was that, hey, just because there’s a bad past experience doesn’t mean it’s the future for us.

By the way, there’s no guarantee you would have to be a partner. But even if it was, you can make it work and find the right person, you know? But it took unearthing those deep seeded beliefs, which I wasn’t even conscious of in the beginning, to be able to even start to transform it.

How to Find Business Deals: Discovering An Online Site Where You Can Hire Professionals

Wow. Okay. So, you went through the identification of the two limiting beliefs.

Then when you started to solve it, you found out that those were false. Well, yeah. So here’s this thing. What I mean, let’s yeah, the easy one was the, you know, the side of it with my assistant in that bottleneck. Right. So easy. We outsourced the bookkeeping to someone else, took it off a plate, hired a half time admin to help her out.

Right. That’s the easy one. Okay, let’s talk about me. Which is the one you were talking about, right? Yeah. So, yeah. So I have this, like, it’s a needle in a haystack. Impossible to find, of course, because of the limiting beliefs I had taken no action to really figure out whether that was true or whatever. I just had a belief that said that.

So now I go out there, right? And I haven’t been out hiring somebody, you know, for a few years. And when I find out, you know, I literally go online, I see some people and I’m like, okay, you know, I had tried to actually feel I had this thought a couple of years ago that I needed this role.

And I had gone through a recruiter and a recruiter had trouble finding people. And that one person, they sort of found me and claimed that they were available. And then they got a full time job two weeks later. So like I had all this evidence of why this was going to be a problem. Right.

So now I go on and what I find is that there’s all of these online sites now that didn’t exist, or at least, you know, I didn’t know about them several years back, and they certainly didn’t exist for a lot of my career, where high level attorneys are looking for extra work and you literally, you know, it’s sort of like, you know, the gig economy that’s happened in a lot of other professions, with some people in other professions would say, yeah, of course that’s out there. But I had no idea it was that they have lawyers.

How to Find Business Deals: Finding The Right People Through Online Sites

So, I posted on like three different sites. One I did, you know, through LinkedIn there’s something called, Hiring Esquire.

I actually subsequently heard one, called Up Council, which I didn’t post on. But basically the bottom line is I posted on three sites thinking, all right, whatever. And I just made the commitment and it cost me whatever, 1500, 2000 bucks and, you know, and posting fees. And I said, all right, well, listen, you know, I don’t expect a lot to come from this, but first of all, I need to change that expectation because I do believe in sending out the right energy.

And number two, you know, whatever. I just got to make a commitment to show that I’m serious and pay the money. 80 resumes, Stephen. Holy bananas! 80? Okay, now, you mean even if you take 40 of those and say, okay, you know, they were off the mark, they’re not right whatever. I mean, I got 40 resumes of people who, you know, would do at least a decent job.

I’ve since narrowed it down to ten resumes where I’ve been going through initial interviews. I’ve got eight people who are running now. I’m going to be offering it back for my trip to Nepal. I’m going to do final interviews, and I got to tell you something. Out of those eight, there’s probably all of them, but there’s easily four of them that are, you know, have unbelievable experience.

I mean, there are people who’ve been practicing longer than me who are looking for extra work. And these are people who have their own firm, or maybe they have personal situations, you know, where they’re not looking to work full time. And these are not people who are ultimately looking for a full time job. I actually screened out all the people who are really looking for a full time job.

How to Find Business Deals: You Can Manifest Anything You Set Your Mind To

So there’s an abundance of people that I have this limiting belief around that there was a needle in a haystack, and I’m like, I got my pick though. Wow. So, completely opposite. Not a needle is actually in abundance. Yeah, totally in abundance. And listen, you know, obviously that abundance now is down. You know, if I really want to get this super high quality, perfect person, whatever.

But even that, I mean, when you end up with eight people that you think could really do the job for, you know, by the way, you know, in weeks for a position that might limiting beliefs said, you know, wow, maybe there’s, if I get lucky, this one person out there was probably take me forever to find them.

You know, it’s, you know, amazing. And it just shows, you know, I preach this to other people that you can manifest anything you really set your mind to. And, you know, it’s really about the internal limiting beliefs. And of course, it’s so much easier to coach other people on that to realize that yourself. Well, it is, but quite frankly, an organization, we all as business owners, we all have these constraints in our business, whether it’s biz dev or workflow, like what Corey is describing or something else.

The difference here is we have to have the guts to do the self-identification, the self analysis, get square with herself whatever sort of term you want to put on it. But it’s really having the boldness and the courage to really understand what the problem is, and then also having the guts to actually be willing to solve it, that is awesome.

How to Find Business Deals: It’s All About the Risks and Choices That We Take

That is a great, great lesson, Corey. Thanks for sharing that with us. Yeah. Listen, you know, happy to I think, you know, I work with so many entrepreneurs and, you know, I’ve been active, I was active for a decade and an entrepreneur organization. I spent a lot of time with people like us. And, you know, we all have these similar journeys.

I mean, it shows up a little differently but, you know, people on the outside may think the entrepreneurial journey is, you know, sort of easy. And you get to be on Boston’s coolest thing in the world. And it is, but at the same time, it’s really dependent upon us and it’s really dependent upon, you know, it ebbs and flows.

Yes, based upon some external factors like economic things and that, you know, but in large part by our capacity to receive, capacity on our value, you know, and a lot of these things that come up for us, and the. Yeah, and the choices we’re willing to make and the risk of taking the and the bold actions we’re going to, you know, willing to do and I do love it.

How to Find Business Deals: Growing Business Through Thought Leadership

So let’s turn our spotlight or attention toward your thought leadership as a business owner. I mean, it’s something we talk about here on Onward Nation. You know, interviews with guests, often about how they were able to grow their business through their thought leadership. And so you’ve already written a book. Awesome. Great book. I know you’re very active on the speaking circuit.

You’re in demand there. Now, you, introduced this podcast, launched it, you know, just a few short weeks ago. Wonderful. So why did you just or why did you decide to get even that much more intentional about your thought leadership and do a podcast? Well, there’s a few reasons. I mean, one, I’m really passionate about business is growing inorganically, as we say, through deals and, you know, in the intro of every podcast, I talk about how there’s only two ways to grow your business organically and inorganically and, you know, organically is through providing great service and products and sales and marketing and every business focuses on that.

But only a very small percentage of businesses focus on inorganic growth as well. And there’s so many myths out there. There’s so many misconceptions out there. You know, you want to talk about limiting beliefs like I was talking about a lot of companies that don’t realize a lot of business owners don’t realize that there are deals you can do at any size, with or without capital in any industry.

You know, a lot of people think, oh, it’s only the big mergers and acquisitions the big companies can do. So really my incentive to do the podcast from a service point of view is to break through so many beliefs and have people understand that no matter where on the spectrum of size, length of, you know, time in business, industry, access to capital or lack thereof. There is a type of deal that you can do, and not every business should be doing deals, but you should at least know it.

Every business should know about it. As a business owner, executive or chief, you know a senior executive at a company, you should at least be considering whether you want to grow through deals. And it’s not just M&A, mergers, acquisitions, you know, licensing deals. Co-op marketing deals, referral arrangements, you know, affiliate deals for online marketers, joint ventures, strategic alliances.

How to Find Business Deals: There’s An Opportunity to Make Deals in Growing Your Business

There’s so many different ways to do that. So for me, yes. Is it a, you know, conscious move to put my thought leadership out there more? No question about it. But for me, it’s something I’m passionate about. It’s something that I love doing with clients. And I think that there is a missing in the marketplace for people for a place, for people to go, to just listen and learn about, you know, all types of deals.

So, for example, you know, on the I purposely chose the first episode, I’ve got an investment banker in the wealth management space talking about M&A deals, mergers, acquisition deals in that space. It’s sort of the classic like what people might by default assume is the kind of deals that are done. Okay. Then my second guest, I added Soul Cast, as my second episode, which, it’s called The Language of Deals because I talk about all the different types or a lot of different types of deals and define some terms so people can get educated.

But then, my second guest in the third episode is somebody who is a micro influencer online. And the deals that he does are deals where brands pay him to do various things, whether it’s Twitter chats, whether it’s, you know, online videos. And then they also he also the sponsorship deals because he has a conference that he does and they pay him money to sponsor.

So I wanted to show the contrast in types of business and types of deals to really get people to understand that no matter what kind of business you’re running or you’re an executive, there’s an opportunity to do deals to grow your business.

How to Find Business Deals: Finding Deals for Inorganic Growth

Okay, so Onward Nation, just circling back here, Corey’s podcast is entitled Fueling Deals.

You can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, you know, Amazon Alexa or wherever. You know, you can, you know, listen to podcasts, you can find it. But, Corey, let’s go back to the deals because I suspect you just hit Onward Nation business owners squarely on the chin, which is great.

From the perspective of that. There are all of these types of deals taking place if you want that inorganic growth. So my first thought is, how do we find them? I mean, obviously we have to build a strategy for it. Right. And you know, it’s like you just don’t find a deal and do it for the sake of doing the deal.

But like, where do we find deals like that? Where do we even start? Yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, in part it depends upon what kind of deal you’re talking about. Right. So, you know, if you’re talking about mergers and acquisitions, there are business brokers and investment bankers out there, but also, frankly, a lot of deals even on that size and that way or whether it’s deals to raise capital, get done bigger through people, you know.

So what I always say is, hey, listen, you know, one of the things I’ll do with businesses is I’ll help them analyze where the deal opportunities are, where they can find them. Right. So we’re going to look at it. We can say, okay, do you know other businesses in your industry? Some people automatically assume that, oh, well, I have to keep my competitors at bay.

How to Find Business Deals: Doing Deals with Competitors

We have a couple of guests on the podcast coming up who talk about doing deals with their competitors, quote unquote. Okay. And people like big companies do this all the time, right? You know, you see big companies that are suing each other on one thing and then they’re doing a joint venture on something else. Right? Okay.

And I’m not saying that, you know, we necessarily should be a small, small company, you know, suing somebody to do business with us. But my point is that, you know, there are opportunities to do business with people who just maybe see us as competitors, maybe they’re in different geographies. Maybe they are, you’re more upscale and and they’re down market, you know, so you’re dominantly competitors, but it’s not really the same thing.

Or maybe there’s just the opportunity to combine and do it. So, you know, you want to look at and then you also want to look at your vendor and customer supply. Right. So sometimes there’s opportunities there. So for example, a lot of businesses who try to raise money exclusively from financial investors.

And the thing with financial investors is there’s a very limited number or, you know, types of businesses they can invest in because they want high growth, super high growth. They want to exit, you know, within 3, 5 or 7 years, either by IPO, by the company we sold. And they want to get many, many multiples of their money.

How to Find Business Deals: Strategic Investors and Buyers Have Different Objectives

But strategic investors and strategic buyers have different objectives. You know, one example I talk about sometimes is that I had an interesting one. I have a doctor’s group who actually have medical practices, but they also started a seminar company where basically they provide themselves as speakers, but also other doctors as talent for conferences that are often run by pharmaceutical and other companies.

Right. So they provide and they, I had done a contract for them years ago with a logistics company that handled all of the payment and the scheduling and the, you know, logistics on site for these conferences. Well, at some point, the doctor decided that they wanted to sell us all of this. And who did we look at first?

The logistics company. Why? Well, a couple of things. Number one, they knew the business right. They’ve been doing business together for years. So there was a level of trust. There’s a level of understanding. It was a lot less due diligence that needed to be done. You didn’t have to go, you know, sell a bunch of people to know who you are.

Number two, this is the other thing about strategic, you know, bias. The logistics company was making over $1 million a year in revenue from this arrangement. Well, on the one side, you know, there’s this upside opportunity with this business. They know on the other side, though, if they know these guys are looking to sell a portion of the company and they’re not the buyer, well, there are other logistics companies out there that could be the buyer or even if they’re not the buyer that they could switch to their contractual relationship to once the contract was up and there’s a potential loss of $1 million in revenue.

So they have another factor in addition to the financial return directly from their investment in this company. They have projected the revenue source from the services they were providing. So, you know, it’s just a great example of where, you know, there may be strategic players in your vendor line, in your customer line, in some of the, you know, people you do business with on a contractual basis, who you may be able to do a different kind of deal with.

How to Find Business Deals: Always Have Plan B For Your Financial Wealth

So, you know, there’s so many sources of deals, you just have to get creative about thinking about where they come from. So what if a business owner is so awesome. Here again oftentimes we talk about this Onward Nation is that, you know, a very small number of business owners will actually be able to successfully exit their business, sell their business, and so forth.

And so I’ve always encouraged, our listeners to make sure you have a financial plan B, you know, taking wealth outside of your business, investing your hard assets, whether that’s real estate, you know, whatever to make sure that you have a very, very solid financial base just in case you don’t sell it. But hearing you say that to me makes me also think, well, if somebody wants to have an exit and they just hope that, you know, a rainbow comes or that leprechaun comes walking into the front door with a pot of gold.

And so maybe they need to be more intentional about that. So how does a business owner think, you know, at some point I want to exit my business. I don’t know if I’m going to have an opportunity or whatever. How did they investigate that? Maybe they need to be more proactive in seeking that out, no question about it.

And they need to start earlier. Right. Because a lot of times people start looking for buyers when they’re a, you know, a year out from when they want to and you’re just going to limit your options because first of all, the process takes longer. Second of all, you haven’t mentioned any of the seeds, so I’ll give you an example.

This happens a lot in service businesses and the wealth management for all the accounting for whatever. You know, if you’re in a service business and there’s no natural successor within your business because, you know, there’s always a, one of the options is to do an internal succession deal, right? Where your employees or junior partners or whatever buyout, you know, some of the challenges with those deals are that the junior people often don’t have capital, and you end up financing yourself and, you know, there’s risk. But beyond that, it’s smart to have a contingency arrangement anyway.

How to Find Business Deals: Planning for A Contingency Plan

So, I’ll give you an example. We do some of these deals in various industries. Let’s take, you know, for example, the wealth management industry, let’s say, is a small firm who, you know, manages money. But they have some quality junior people, but they’re not ready to take over the firm.

Well, listen, we’d all love to think that we’re going to choose when we get out of a business. But, you know, you can get hit by that proverbial bus tomorrow or God forbid, become permanently disabled. So we’ve done a lot of arrangements where people who know each other in the industry, do an arrangement where there’s a contingency plan where that other wealth advisor or, and again, just using an example could be any industry, you know, down the road or that you happen to know you met at a conference or, you know, you respect is the backup plan basically for you.

And sometimes they’re mutual, right? Sometimes it’s just a bigger firm and it’s one way but sometimes mutual where you say, hey, if anything ever happens to me, we have documentation in place that says that you, you know, a wealth advisor be or a cat or whatever it is, has the authority through a legal document to step in to run my firm if I’m temporarily disabled.

Right. Because what happens then when I am scrambling and, you know, my spouse does nothing about my business and suddenly they have to deal with it. So I have this plan in place where you come in and you help me run it, and then if I’m going to come back, I can take over. And then also, if something happens to be permanent, you have either the obligation or the right to buy it or the authority at least to sell it to someone else on my behalf.

How to Find Business Deals: Building A Relationship with A Potential Buyer in Case You Sell Your Company

You know, there’s a lot of ways it could be done. So first of all, that’s an important thing for business owners to have in place. Now a contingency plan in case something happens. But second of all, what does that do? Right. That creates a relationship now where you need to start to really get to know each other better.

You know, in order for somebody to step into your business in case something happens, they need to, you know, they need to have certain knowledge about what’s going on with your clients and employees and how things are done. And, you know, so now you built a relationship. So now if the contingency doesn’t come up, but you do get to the point where you want to sell the company, you now cultivated a natural potential buyer, right.

Who was thinking that they might have to buy the company anyway if something happens. So their mindset is there and their awareness is there and the relationship is built over time. So that’s an example of something you do. Now, the other thing you can do is just be out there a lot and, you know, be talking to people and building relationships with people in your industry.

Because then sometimes opportunities show up even before, you know, you think what I’ve seen I’ve seen people get offers that they’re, you know, they weren’t planning on selling, but they get phenomenal. They get phenomenal offers they can’t refuse, you know, so those things happen as well. This has been phenomenal. And so you are exactly the generous mentor for the second time that I knew you would be.

I am so very grateful that you said yes. I know that our time is quickly running short here, but before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, any final advice, Corey, that you want to share? Anything you think we might have missed? And then please do tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you.

How to Find Business Deals: Final Advice from Corey

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, listen, I think that one of the things that I would say is have people in your life because listen, up until now, you might have thought, all of this hard work I did and all these realizations I got and all this internal work, I got to figure out the limiting beliefs and then break through them and then take action was 100% me.

And that’s actually not the case. I mean, frankly, listen, it’s got to ultimately be me or be you, the business owner, right? Nobody can do it for you. But I am fortunate enough to be in a couple of business groups, entrepreneurs, organizations, forums where basically I get together with other business owners on a and one of them on a once a month basis and another one on a quarterly basis.

And we dig into, you know, what’s, basically our business success and success in life and family and everything. And so these people really supported me to work through some of these things. So, it could be lonely not to have a career as a business owner, even as a key level executive at another company.

So my biggest piece of advice is surround yourself, get it, you know, get it, get a mastermind group, get a mentoring group, get some people around you who who get to know you and then can help you work through some of these limiting beliefs and also, you know, take you in the bottle a little bit to take some action when you might be hesitating. So that’s my last big piece of advice there.

How to Find Business Deals: How to Connect with Corey

The best way for Onward Nation to connect with you. Yes. So coreykupfer.com is the hub. coreykupfer.com, that’s my site that has, you know, all my speaking. You can get the podcast through there or go directly to fuelingdeals.com for the podcast.

But you can get to the podcast from there about my book. And you can also link through my law firm. The law firm website is kupferlaw.com. But yeah, those are the best ways to get to me. Okay, Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and listen to Corey’s words of wisdom, I sure hope that you do that.

But the key is to take what he so generously shared with you and to take action on it. We all face these limiting beliefs, whether they’re conscious or the subconscious. We all have them. And it’s about having the confidence, the courage, maybe the boldness to first identify what they are and then to realize that we can solve those problems.

And Corey just gave you the roadmap to do it. And Corey, we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And my friend, I am grateful that you said yes to come back to the show for a second time, to be our mentor and guide and help us move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, Corey.

I’m so happy to have that opportunity. I appreciate you having me on again. And also, I want to say that, you know, you are a big inspiration and for me and your team supported me in launching the podcast and, and, you know, I want to thank you for that. Because for me, it’s been a blast doing that and I wouldn’t have done it without you. Thank you, my friend.

Thank you. This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

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