Two weeks ago, July 7 to be specific, I sent an email to a business owner I had been talking to back in 2021.
Back in 2021, the conversation between us had dropped off.
I never followed up, not until 14 days ago, to see if it still makes sense to talk about the project we had been talking about back then, where I would help him get more back-end sales for his ecom brand.
The business owner didn’t respond to me 14 days ago. Or 13 days ago. Or 12 days ago.
He ghosted me entirely, all the way up to yesterday, 2 weeks after I sent him the original email. Yesterday, he wrote:
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Hi John,
Great to hear from you. Yes, we still own [his brand]. Let’s pick up the conversation again.
Here’s a link to my schedule: [calendly link]
I look forward to talking with you soon.
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I recently read a book called Business Buying Strategies. It’s a book about, er, strategies to buy businesses.
The book was solid, with worthwhile info by a guy named Jonathan Jay, somebody who had clearly done what he was writing about.
But more interesting than the what-to and how-to in the book were a few bonus chapters. These featured candid interviews with various business owners who had made a habit of buying other businesses.
I made two notes for myself from one of those interviews, here reproduced verbatim:
1. In spite of apparent outward success, business owners can be fucked. They might be in a place where they can’t make payroll, or can’t pay themselves.
2. Business owners get hundreds of emails a day.
All that’s to say:
1. It makes sense to reach out and offer a way out to business owners.
2. It makes sense to follow up if a business owner doesn’t respond or if the conversation goes cold.
By the way, in case you’re interested in growing by acquisition, or in cutting down the gigantic odds of failure that go into starting up anything new, now or in the future, then Jay’s book is worth a read.
Here’s the link if you’d like to spend $7.99 on some valuable info: