7 Secrets To Generating Off-Market M&A Deals via LinkedIn.
Guest Post Jim Punzenberger
7 secrets to generating off-market M&A deals via LinkedIn.
Would you like to generate off market M&A deals via LinkedIn, organically? Also what if I told you this can be done without making cold calls, the need for content or spending any money on ads?
Last week I did just that, I booked 6 appointments with business owners interested in selling their businesses using LinkedIn and email. All without picking up the phone, I didn’t write any articles or create any videos and the best part is zero dollars were spent on ads.
In this article I’m going to outline the steps you can take to do the same for yourself. The reason why I’m writing this isn’t to get you to buy something or to click on a link, it’s to educate the M&A community and to get my name out there as I’m looking to be involved in more deals.
So take action and implement these 7 secrets now!
#1 Knowing your niche or picking a niche and creating a Prospect Avatar.
The more specific your niche, the more specific you can get in your profile and your messages. Often times when I speak with fellow M&A professionals and ask about their niche, I get responses like “anybody business with EBITDA between X &Y”. The only way to include or exclude a business as a target is by looking at the Financials, you don’t have a well defined niche. An example of a well defined niche is “Manufacturers with 10-100 employees, within 65 miles of Chicago”.
A well defined niche makes your messaging much more powerful, because the owners who you reach out to can immediately identify themselves in your message.
An Avatar describes your acquisition criteria in detail. This includes the demographics of the business, industries, number of employees, geographies, revenue and potential synergies.
The first step in my system is creating a document that details your Avatar. .
#2 Optimize your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn was designed as a job networking site and profiles on LinkedIn are designed to look like resumes. Resumes are great if you’re looking for a job, but are ineffective at generating owners interested in sellings.
Potential sellers don’t care if you have a Purple Heart and a PhD in Astrophysics, they care that you’re honest, trustworthy and won't screw them or their employees. Also that they’ll be getting the best deal and that you’ll make it easy for them. So think of your LinkedIn profile as a report building tool not a resume.
Your profile needs to speak specifically to your Avatar, touch on what makes you the best choice as the buyer of their business. Also you need to concise as you only have 2000 characters for your profile summary and another 2000 characters for your job summary.
Your profile picture and headline are your two most critical parts of your profile. These are what show up in search results and many other places on LinkedIn. My recommendation for your picture is to mirror and match your potential sellers. A professional headshot, usually a blazer without a tie and a white background. A nice smile is also critical to an effective photo. We want to appear friendly and approachable, not stuffy and pompous.
#3 Grow your LinkedIn network with your Avatar.
Finding your ideal prospects and connecting with them is a critical part of effective LinkedIn M&A strategies. In order to message your potential sellers and convert them into a meeting in my next step, you have to connect with them first.
The first step in finding potential sellers is using LinkedIn search to find them. LinkedIn uses what is called Boolean Syntax as their search language. With Boolean you can include or exclude words and phrases from your search. So the first step when learning Advanced Searched is learning Boolean.
Once you understand Boolean you can now harness the power of Advanced Search. Use Boolean with the search filters to specifically find your ideal prospects. Popular filters include, geography, industry, title, keyword and company size. The company size filter is only available with a Sales Navigator subscription. Also with a free account, LinkedIn limits your volume. If you’re using Advanced Search on a regular basis like I recommend on a free account, you’ll likely hit the limit in about a week. So this strategy does require a premium subscription, I personally have a Sales Navigator subscription so I can use the company size filter and send connection requests to 3rd degree connections.
After you find your ideal prospects, the next step is to send a connection request. Always customize the connection request, never use the default message. Use their first name in the connection request and ask for permission to connect. Growing your network is an ongoing process that’s never done unless you no longer want to generate appointments.
#4 Convert connections into leads.
There are three ways to convert connections into leads, messaging funnel, profile viewing and endorsing.
My main method is what I call a messaging funnel or a series of 3-5 short open ended messages, to build rapport and qualify the prospect. We know the prospect is busy and likely to be using a mobile device. We keep the messages short so it’s quick to read and respond to. We use questions, or open- ended messages to naturally garner a response. Then in another short message we ask if the prospect is interested in selling their business, then book the appointment. If the answer is no, leave it at that, you never know in the future when the answer may change. The last thing you want to do is jeopardize the connection by being a nuisance.
Another method is profile viewing. This strategy is based on people's natural curiosity, if you view their profile, they will be curious and likely view your profile back. So we view the profiles of owners who meet our Avatar because then they’ll likely see we viewed their profile and view ours. Now that you have an optimized profile, the profile will speak to them specifically and give them a call to action to convert them into a lead.
#5 Contact them off LinkedIn (Biggest Secret)
The one aspect of LinkedIn that is commonly overlooked is most business owners use LinkedIn, but they’re not active on LinkedIn every day. Business owners are only on LinkedIn when they have a reason to be. This isn’t Facebook that people use regularly for entertainment. LinkedIn is actually an ineffective way to communicate with many business owners because of how sparingly they use LinkedIn.
I know you’re probably scratching your head now as this is an article on how effective LinkedIn is and I just wrote that it’s not an effective way to communicate with many of our prospective sellers. Well the secret is to use LinkedIn to identify potential sellers and contact them using the number one method for businesses to communicate in 2022 - Email!
There are many tools available to find email addresses online, so what I do is use LinkedIn to identify the potential sellers then use other tools like Hunter to find their email address and then contact them via email which we all know businesses owners live in their Inboxes. It’s also a way to communicate with them directly without dealing with gatekeepers.
#6 Repetition is key
This really can be applied to most areas of life but especially when it comes to generating off market M&A deals. There is no silver bullet, just send one message and book an appointment every time. It’s going to take multiple messages to get their attention and response. Plan a sequence of messages that you’ll send via LinkedIn and Email. Don’t let their silence deter you as we don’t know when the timing will be right for them to respond and there’s nothing we can do other than be persistent to find out when the timing is right.
Also use pauses in your messaging. Have a sequence of 3-5 messages with 3-5 days of pause in between. Then pause for 3-5 months before sending them another sequence of messages. Of course if they respond saying they’re not interested then stop contacting them.
#7 Personalization and humor
The sure way not to be effective is drafting a cold boilerplate message that the business owner can easily tell you’re sending to hundreds or thousands of other business owners. Effective messages are personalized to the prospect, build rapport by mentioning something specific about the prospect or their company. Maybe you saw a picture online of them with their dogs, comment on their dogs in your message.
Also being mildly funny with your messaging will build rapport as everyone enjoys laughing. Don’t go over the top with it and you still need to be concise and to the point. I like to mention something about them - one short paragraph, integrate a joke in the message - another short paragraph, and tell them why you’re contacting them and what the call to action is. Three to four short paragraphs make one effective message.
In conclusion I just gave you the 7 secrets I used last week to book 6 appointments with business owners interested in selling their businesses. The one key to success that applies to anything in life is CONSISTENT ACTION, which applies to deal generation too. So the very first thing I want you to do is block out 30 minutes daily on your calendar to spent working on LinkedIn. If you constantly spend time everyday doing the steps I outlined above you will generate off market deals.
If you’re reading this, that means you’re a subscriber, friend or acquaintance of my friend Sebastian Amieva. I believe in friends helping friends so if you have questions related to this area contact me at jim@partnersneutron.com for 30 minutes of my time where as a favor to Sebastian I’ll answer any questions you may have to start you off on the right foot.
Jim Punzenber is an M&A professional with a background in IT and marketing. He
Is the host of “Prophets of IT” a podcast which helps IT businesses owners become more successful, the author of the book “Proven Zero Dollar Advertising Strategies” and runs Neutron Solutions a B2B digital lead generation agency. Outside of his career Jim’s interests include dog training, bird hunting, fitness, traveling and spending time with his family and friends.
See ya in the inbox!
Sebastian Amieva
Mergers and Acquisitions Expert
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