10 Ways to Improve Your Top Line Revenue
Business Lunch
Could you use some freakishly effective marketing hacks that are easy to use and have been proven to work? We thought so. On today’s episode, host Roland Frasier shares 10 simple ways you can make more money on the products and services you’re selling just by making a few small tweaks. Want a sneak peek? Hack #2: friendly forms. “Friendly forms boost conversion,” Roland says. “Don’t ask for too much information. At the very beginning, keep your forms lean and simple, and watch your conversions go up.” And Hack #6: use UGC (user-generated content) photos to bump...
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Dealing with Business Breakups and Failed Partnerships
Business Lunch
You can’t always avoid a business breakup, but if you set things up right at the beginning, you can part on good terms. On today’s episode—“The Business Breakup Special”—co-hosts Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss have a candid conversation about partnerships gone bad. They share two real-life examples that happened recently—one where they got broken up with and one where they did the breaking up. You can’t let the fear of failure keep you from partnering with other people, Roland says. “Things aren’t always going to work out, and that's okay. If you’re not trying...
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10 Ways You Can Pivot Your Business
Business Lunch
How could you leverage a pivot in your business to make more money, get yourself out of a challenge, or move toward a better opportunity? On today’s episode, host Roland Frasier shares 10 major pivots you might want to consider for your business in the near future. What are some different directions you could take your business that could be more profitable or achieve some other objective? Maybe you want to be more environmentally conscious or build a better culture. Maybe you want more sales, at the expense of profits, because you want to grow your business now and worry about...
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4 Steps to Acquiring Businesses with Zero Cash Out of Pocket
Business Lunch
No cash out of pocket deals aren’t the same thing as no money down, and they can be win-win deals for both the buyer and seller. On today’s episode, host Roland Frasier talks about how to think like an investor. Some people think there’s always a loser when you do a deal, but Roland doesn’t agree. He has a philosophy of collaboration and what he calls a fairness zone. He believes it’s possible for both parties to walk away with a situation and a deal they’re happy with. In a no money down deal, the seller leaves the closing with nothing to show for it. With no cash...
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Dealing with Negative Criticism and Haters
Business Lunch
When you put yourself out there online, the haters are going to find you. How do you keep them from getting under your skin? In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier shares honestly about some recent critical feedback he’s received on his paid ads online. If this were constructive criticism, that would be one thing. But some of it has been hateful and hurtful comments—about his intelligence, his motives, and even his facial features. There’s never success without criticism. Roland encourages you to understand that this hate has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the...
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Marcus Lemonis on Capitalism, Community, and Camping
Business Lunch
Get up close and deeply personal with one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs on the planet in this no-holds-barred interview. Today’s episode is a conversation Roland Frasier had with Marcus Lemonis, CEO of and host of the hit TV show, , at in November 2021. Marcus is known for looking at the 3 Ps—people, product, and process—when he’s evaluating a business to invest in. Of those 3 Ps, he says people are by far the most important. In this chat, Marcus gets real and vulnerable, opening up about his social anxiety, his childhood wounds, his biggest regrets in life, and how...
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Why You Need to Stop Trading Time for Money
Business Lunch
You can’t build true wealth until you get out of the trap of giving away your time for money—no matter how much money it is. On today’s episode, Ed O’Keefe interviews Roland Frasier about one of Roland’s favorite topics—consulting for equity. He has even started a new business to help experts and consultants get out of that dollars-for-hours trap. As Roland sees it, there are a lot of ways you can be compensated for something. He explains those ways in five levels that build on each other. Based on years of experience, he knows that one of the absolute best ways to create...
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The Different Ways to Value Your Company | Mergers and Acquisitions Advice
Business Lunch
“What is my company worth?” That’s a big question with a lot of answers. In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier walks us through a few different ways to value your company. Last time he checked, there were 432 different ways to do this. Don’t worry. He’s only going to share a handful—and he’ll tell you which one he thinks is easiest (and he uses most often). It can be overwhelming when you consider book value, market value, intangible assets, goodwill, and acronyms like IRR, SDE, EBITDA, and ROI. Thankfully, Roland is really great at breaking down difficult...
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The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch
Business Lunch
The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch Tactics and strategies are not the same thing, and only one of them is an effective long-term plan for getting your customer to where they want to go. In this episode, host Roland Frasier sits down with John Jantsch, Founder of and the author of the book by the same name. Duct Tape Marketing is one of those books Roland believes everybody should read. It’s in his all-time Top 5 and “fantastic.” John recently released a new book called The Ultimate Marketing Engine, and it’s filled with actual strategies (not tactics)...
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Consulting for Equity: How to Double Your Consulting Fee
Business Lunch
Would you like to get paid your normal rates but also an additional amount in equity? Today’s episode is a little bit different, because it’s taken from a coaching call Roland Frasier did with a Consulting for Equity Mastermind. The Mastermind is a group he started to help consultants get equity in the companies they’re working with while also getting paid their normal rate. Listen in as he walks someone through how they can get their normal consulting fee of $75k but also get an additional $125k in equity. Getting What You’re Worth He’s talking to...
info_outlineAcquiring and selling businesses is one way to live a rich and happy life, but how do you know which companies to buy?
In today’s episode, Roland Frasier walks us through some important things to know when buying a business. This is part one in a series where he’ll be sharing some of his extensive knowledge and acquisition experience.
Listen in as he talks about the first two questions you need to answer before you buy.
How Am I Going to Define My Acquisition Criteria?
That’s question #1. If you don’t know what kind of business you want to buy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You’re like a kid in a candy store. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches by establishing criteria first. Roland uses a matrix for this. It can be as simple as a whiteboard or a piece of paper with four quadrants:
- What you enjoy
- What you have experience in
- What skills you have
- What connections you have
Quadrant #1: Make a list of things you actually like to do. Being an entrepreneur is hard. It’s more motivating to go forward and deal with problems if you’re actually passionate about it. Take an inventory of your interests.
Quadrant #2: What do you have experience in? Brainstorm all your prior experience and things you’ve actually done in the past. Write down all of it, even if it doesn’t seem relevant. You might see connections later.
Quadrant #3: What do you have knowledge, training, skills in? This is similar to #2, but this time you’re writing down specific skills you have.
Quadrant #4: What are your connections? What networking resources do you have access to? What things are you a member of? What business contacts do you have? List all of them; don’t leave anyone out.
These four things will help you determine what kind of business you want to buy. You’re looking for common threads among things you’re passionate about, have experience in, are skilled at, and have connections for. What kind of business makes the most sense when taking all four of those things into consideration?
How Do I Select a Target Type?
This is the second big question to ask yourself. How do I select a target type of business? The type of company you’re looking to acquire can fall into several categories:
- A company that no longer exists
- A company that exists but isn’t profitable
- A company that’s breaking even/profitable
Roland recommends focusing on that last category, unless you have specific skills in turnaround. Not everyone is cut out to acquire failing businesses and turn them around. It’s hard. There are plenty of profitable companies to acquire. In the break even/profitable category, if he doesn’t see things that could make it profitable in 30 days, he’ll pass.
How do you decide how profitable a company needs to be before you acquire it? Roland doesn’t care about sales. He cares about profits. There are two types of profit. The first is SDE (seller discretionary earnings). That’s how profitable an owner-operated company is. Then there’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for a company that’s professionally-managed.
You might want a company with an SDE or EBITDA of a certain amount. What do you want that amount to be? First, ask: how much do I want to pay myself for doing this deal on a monthly business? Let’s say $10k/month. That’s his new target type—a company that’s profitable and making at least $10k/month.
In addition to that, ask: what am I going to do with this company? Let it go as is, or do you actually see growth potential and there will be a little bit of investment to help it grow, either to sell or to make more money to pay yourself more?
And finally, ask: how much money do I want to budget to spend on increasing growth? Let’s say you want to spend $10k/month on growth. So you need a profit of $20k/month total. You need to find a company with an SDE or EBITDA of $240k/year.
That’s how Roland selects the kind of company he wants to go after. He asks which businesses fit his four criteria and have a profitability of $240k/year or more.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
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