Peter

How To Sell A Business

Peter · September 4, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Want To Know How To Sell A Business? Many Want To Do That Right Now.

I Wrote The Book: ‘How To Sell Your Advertising Agency. And, How To Buy One.” It Is Built For Anyone That Wants To Sell A Business.

I wrote the free, yes free, 57-page “How To Sell Your Advertising Agency” book so you will learn how to add significant value to your advertising, digital, and I mean it, whatever kind of company you have. Do you want the book? Just ask me or subscribe below or to the side. Yes, even free has its cost. But, hey, just do it.

How To Sell A Business & How To Buy One.

I bought and sold three advertising agencies. I also had two VC backed Internet startups. I get it. Here is a start for you – The Why and how of my buying an agency in 2002. The deal is to really know why you want to buy or sell and what you will do after the deal.

I will post about the other deals very soon.

Deal Number One – 2002. From New York To Oregon.

This deal had multiple objectives. I wanted to leverage my deep advertising and digital skills + buy a successful advertising agency + move out of the New York area to much greener, mellower pastures. The deal I was looking for would meet both business and personal needs.

I bought the Bend, Oregon advertising agency Ralston Group in 2002. At that time, I was living in New York and had left the position of CEO and founder of ActiveBuddy, a highflying Internet startup. We had raised over $30 million from VCs and individual investors and had patented natural language technology (earlier than SIRI) that we used to create the incredibly successful Instant Messenger Bot, SmarterChild. It ran on AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo. That was our “sample” Bot that had millions of followers because people liked to talk to a smart computer. The business goal was to create natural language Bots for brands and media. These Bots allowed people to talk directly with brands and information resources. Interestingly, our first paying technology customer was Warner Records’ hot band Radiohead. I could not have invented a cooler market entry.

Our company goal, like many other dotcom boom companies, was to sell the company to one of the majors. We in fact had deep negotiations with all when the dotcom dam burst. To make a long story very short, I did not get my “fuck you” money from a sale. Oh, don’t worry about me. I actually came out OK. Microsoft bought our technology.

After the dotcom bust debacle, I started to look for a company to buy. As an ex-Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising executive, owning an advertising agency was one of my options. I found Oregon’s Ralston Group though a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal – how 2002. Advertising in the WSJ was a smart move by Ralston Group’s owner. Here are the four main reasons I bought the agency.

The Ralston Group was a very smart and creative agency. Kevin, who would be my partner after I bought out the majority owner, was one of the best Creative Directors I had ever seen. The agency staff was also top notch. Without question equal to the talent I had worked with at Saatchi London.

The agency had a strong client list in Oregon and Idaho. Big community banks; major healthcare companies (hospital groups and Blue Cross); Sunriver Resort and Idaho Power and more. These clients came with recurring revenues. I knew that the addition of my Saatchi and digital startup background would help us grow.

The owner, who was looking to get on with her life after building the agency, was realistic in respect to agency valuation and – important to say – was easy to work with.

The agency was in the soon to be very famous Bend, Oregon. The idea of my wife and me raising our children near a ski mountain, rivers, fly fishing, mountain bike trails and, yes, even great restaurants and brewpubs, solidified the deal. We gladly gave up the usual two-month wait for a table at New York’s hottest new restaurant for 6,000 feet of fresh air.

Years later, I still view this as a very good business and personal deal.

Stay Tuned For More Stories On How To Buy Or Sell A Business. Plus More Expert M&A Podcast Interviews.

The next story will be about how I bought a design company that got me Nike as a major client. And after that one, how I sold my agency – and got lost in Mexico.

Oh, more… Here is a link to my podcast interview with a major M&A expert. You’ll hear how to sell – the details about how to do it that is.

An Expert On How To Do M&A

Peter · August 31, 2020 · Leave a Comment

I’ve got to tell you… you do not just wake up one morning and know how to do M&A. There is a fine art and science (both) to getting the smartest, best and happiest deals done.

Dominic Rinaldi is Managing Director of Chicago’s Sun Acquisitions. He is an expert at crafting the best deals for buyers and sellers. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you can learn directly from a leading M&A advisor.

[buzzsprout episode=’5231203′ player=’true’]

I’m into the universe of M&A these days because I wrote “How To Sell An Advertising Agency. And, How To Buy One.” I wrote the book for my advertising agency world because I think, well I know from my agency leadership conversations, that many advertising agency owners and potential buyers are looking at the M&A market. It is a time for some ad folks to either sell out or use the market to acquire some well-priced assets.

There is a lot of information in the interview. That said, here is a bit on getting bank financing. It sure looks like a good time to borrow.

Peter: I’ve, I’ve bought and sold three agencies. I never borrowed money. I never went to a bank, never lived through the banking experience. What percentage of sales of your middle and lower market clients require borrowing from a bank?

Dominic: The largest, most sophisticated buyers want to borrow money because they want to put leverage on that deal. So let’s talk in the terms of a sophisticated private equity group that’s looking to make acquisitions. If they have $200 million in a fund and they’re looking to go out and make acquisitions, they don’t want to do 10 transactions with the 200 million. They want to do a hundred transactions. So they’re spreading their risk. The chances are that they are going to hit a couple of home runs and also hit a couple of doubles and triples. Whereas if they do 10 deals the odds of success really shrink. So using the money to do as many deals as possible putting bank lending on it gives them leverage to do that. And it’s today’s very low-interest rates. It makes a lot of sense.

My “How To Sell…” book is free. All you have to do is use the handy get the free book link on this page to ask for a copy.

Show Notes Links To Get You To… More How To Do M&A.

Sun Acquisitions

Dominic Rinaldi’s M&A Unplugged Podcast

K2Advisor – On setting up and positioning a business for a sale

The Beatles Taxman

Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

The Smartest Advertising Executive and Business Development Consultant

Peter · August 26, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Michael Keeshan was the smartest advertising executive in the room. I know, I worked with him when he was President and COO of Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising New York and the Chief Strategic Officer of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide. If you are wondering, he was smart like an Einstein.

He also counseled major advertisers including AT&T and Novartis to pick their advertising agencies. His MagikBox search consultancy rocked.

Here is my interview with Michael about advertising agency business development and advertising agency search consultants and the pitch experience. Over his years in advertising, Michel worked on both sides of the agency/client table. As you will see, Michael was one of the smartest advertising executive dudes.

[buzzsprout episode=’5144923′ player=’true’]

This entertaining and informative interview covers how advertising, digital, PR agencies, you name it, should manage their business development process and pitches and presentations. I did this interview in 2006. Believe me… Michael’s cogent advice is even more relevant in today’s highly competitive advertising universe.

I have many other interviews with advertising agency search consultants in my book on presenting and pitching for new ad accounts. Just go here to win more pitches… There have been thousands of happy, richer readers.

Links To Other Super Smart Past Advertising and Marketing Interviews.

Cathy Taylor of ADWEEK. Hear about one of the great social media fails… C/O Chevrolet Tahoe. It was an early screw up that was very prophetic as we all moved on into more social media.

Rob Walch of Libsyn.

Hypnotism coming: Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe to Advertising Stories. Remember to subscribe.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

Is Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable

Peter · August 24, 2020 · Leave a Comment

My friend Michael Moszynski, Founder and CEO of London’s global advertising agency LONDON Advertising, recently sent me an agency Press Release with the headline: “LONDON Advertising ad campaign sees its awareness surge an impressive 50% and overtake Adam & Eve in Populus poll.” I’d say that LONDON Advertising is able to say “yes” to the question… “Is Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable.’

LONDON Advertising got to fame and unignorability by running a real broad awareness advertising campaign for the agency (and working on being famous for years). Yes, you heard me right. They actually used real (LOL) advertising to up their image and awareness in the UK. I’ve written about this campaign here: Does Your Advertising Agency Advertise Itself?

Help You Getting Your Advertising Agency Famous And Unignorable

#1. How did LONDON do it? Read their PR and think about your agency

Here is a quote from the press release (gotta love that England still has Lords)…

In a Populus poll of awareness of UK ad agencies among over 2,000 members of the public, LONDON Advertising demonstrated the power of its ad TV and Outdoor campaign to promote its own brand with an outstanding set of results.

Lord Cooper, Founding Partner of Populus, said:

“Amongst the public, brand awareness of LONDON Advertising rose by an impressive 50% in just a month. LONDON Advertising is now 6 times more well-known than highly established agencies like VCCP. The increase in awareness of LONDON Advertising was the only statistically significant change in the month between our two polls, so their campaign clearly cut through. Among the critical sub-group of consumer opinion influencers, LONDON Advertising now has the highest awareness of any of the agencies covered in the poll, at 27% – its campaign taking it past Adam &Eve.”

Here is the press release sweetly shouting about LONDON. Results of LONDON Advertising advertising campaign

#2. How do y’all get to famous?

Quick story. A while ago I moved to London to work at the original Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide on Charlotte Street. I quickly found out how famous Saatchi was when I got in a cab and told the driver the address. He said, “Oh, you are going to Saatchis.” From then on I’d just say that I was going to Saatchi. If you said your agency name to an Uber driver (let’s pretend she does not have the app for a second) would she know YOUR address?

OK. How to get to famous? Three “simple” but, ya know, like, important things.

Make being famous and unignorable an objective. A second on the idea of being unignorable… Imagine the alternative?
Is your advertising, digital, social, PR or whatever agency marketing designed to be famous and unignorable?
Show the world that you are (!) unignorable. Shout it. This is precisely how Maurice and Charles Saatchi did it. They made damn sure that the world thought that Saatchi & Saatchi was famous. This was an objective. This was LONDON’s freakin objective, too.

Oh, while you are at it, how about your personal brand? Are you famous? Did you see the video on my Home Page? For some of you… yes, I ripped off the name association idea from the great conceptual artist Chris Burden. Steal like an artist.

Need more fame???? Contact me.

Free Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment

Peter · August 20, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Here Is Freebie Just For You: My Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment

How is your advertising, digital, social media, PR agency doing? When I owned my Portland advertising & digital agency it was hard for me to tell how I stacked up vs. other agencies. As my friend Jon of Portland’s The Good, a conversion rate optimization consultancy, said on our recent podcast interview,

“It is hard to read the label from inside the jar.”

So, to help you, I am offering, for a limited time (true) a ten point advertising agency assessment. FYI, when I owned my own agency, I took all of the advice I could get. Even when I ran business development at Saatchi & Saatchi, I wanted third-party opinions and advice.

So, Why Offer An Advertising Agency Assessment – For Free?

If you work at an agency or in marketing, you know that making a high-value offer is usually a productive lead generation marketing tool. As part of my own marketing (side note, I practice what I preach) I am running a google PPC campaign that targets advertising agency leadership. Here is my ad agency leader offer landing page (it should at least be instructive as a look as my marketing). As I have often pointed out… this is a Corleone offer. It should not be refused. If you run an agency, go for it.

The offer is driving some incoming interest for my services at a time that many advertising agencies should be reevaluating their agency business and marketing plans. Right?

Levitan’s Ten Point Advertising Agency Assessment & Check-Up

This advertising agency assessment is based on my forever years of experience running major accounts and business development at Saatchi & Saatchi; CEO of two Internet start-ups; my own advertising agency and this business development consultancy. I have worked with dozens of agencies. I have seen what they look like from outside the jar.

Here are the ten points I will assess just for you:

Your business plan: How hard do you look at and possibly adjust your business plan? How will you generate maximum revenues and profits in our strange 2020? Do you make adjustments? Do you understand your Total Addressable Market (TAM)?
Your advertising agency positioning: This is a tough and hard look at your primary brand proposition. You can read about my general perspective on the value of a kick-ass positioning on this website.
Your 8-second website: This is probably one of the first ways that anyone sees your agency. How do your ranks vs. your competition? What do you say that will get me to pay attention in my 8-second look-see. In many cases, you only have around eight seconds to make me look at you and stick around vs. the other 3,999 advertising, digital, etc. agency websites that are screaming for attention. Here is my blog post about the Best Advertising Agency Websites.
Your business development plan and activity: How have you managed your plan over the past year? My whole blog of close to 800 blog posts discusses how you should market your agency.
Your outbound, account-based marketing: I’ll just ask you… you do this right? If, so, how?
Your social media activity and authority: Are you an active blogger, thought leader, podcaster? How do you look on LinkedIn; Twitter; YouTube; Instagram; and ae you a category leader? What do your stats tell you?
Your client list: How does your client list look to an outsider? Do one or two clients account for too high a percentage of your revenues? Do you know how to position your client list for business development?
Your intellectual property: Do you have any IP? Something that will differentiate and add sustainable value to your agency? You can do this. I know how to make this happen – efficiently.
Your ‘findable’ quotient: Can I find your advertising agency if I do a search for you? You should be everywhere I might search for you (your competition will probably be there)Yes, I have written about this.
Your creative vibe: Yes, clients have brought their marketing inhouse. It is easy. For example, just get some social media type folks to do the work. But, but, most inhouse client resources suck at being creative thinkers and doers. How does your creativity stack up and how do you prove it?

That’s It, Folks

If you need my educated third-party, very honest, no bull shit assessment… go for it. This is a limited time offer. Give me a shout.