405 - Most People Plan Their Vacation Better Than Their Life!

0:00Bruce Whipple:As I record this podcast, it is Father's Day. And Father's Day always makes me think a little bit differently. Makes me think about fathers, sons, daughters, family, responsibility, legacy, and what kind of reputation a person leaves behind. That may sound a little heavy for a podcast about business acquisitions, but it is directly connected. Because in the business acquisition world, You will trade on your reputation. You will trade on it with sellers. You will trade on it with bankers. You will trade on it with brokers, if you work with brokers. You will trade on it with attorneys and accountants and employers and employees, investors, eventually with the people who decide whether they want to be in business with you for the first time and or again.

0:56Bruce Whipple:And here is the part most people miss. Your reputation is not built when you need it. It is built before you need it. It is built in the small things. Do you do what you said you would do? Let me say that again. Do you do what you said you would do? Many people do not. Do you follow up when you said you would follow up? Do you tell the truth when the truth is inconvenient? Do you prepare properly? Do you show gratitude? Do you act like someone who can be trusted with the seller's business, employees, customers, and legacy? That matters. A seller may care about price. Well, of course they do. But many sellers also care deeply about whether they believe you are the right person to carry on with their business.

1:56Bruce Whipple:That is why reputation matters. And it is also why gratitude matters. I do not think gratitude means being soft. I do not think it means sitting around and pretending everything is wonderful. I think gratitude means you understand what you have been given, and then you do something useful with it. You have time, You have opportunity. You have the ability to learn. You have a chance to build something. You have the chance to change your life and maybe the lives of your family, certainly the lives of your employees. Do not waste that. This brings me to one of the old sayings I still like. Prior planning prevents piss-poor performance.

2:46Bruce Whipple:The six Ps. It's not elegant. It's not fancy, but it is true. As I record this, I'm preparing for our two-day VIP Mastermind training event on June 29th and 30th. And yes, I am rehearsing and testing Zoom breakout rooms and all kinds of other technology I'm incorporating into this two-day training. Why? Because I do not want to find out during the training that something doesn't work. that is not preparation. That's gambling. And there's a big difference. Most people want the result. Few people want the preparation. They want the acquisition. They want the seller meeting. They want the financing.

3:30Bruce Whipple:They want the deal. But do they want to rehearse? Do they want to prepare? Do they want to role play? Do they want to test their message? Do they want to sharpen their questions? They do not want to do the boring work that makes the important work possible oftentimes, and that's a problem because in acquisitions, poor preparation shows up fast. You get on the phone with the seller. You do not know what to ask. You finally get a meeting and cannot control the conversation. You get financials and do not know what you're looking at. You talk to a banker and sound vague. You speak with a seller and sound like a tourist.

4:17Bruce Whipple:That is not bad luck. That is poor preparation. And it's preventable. Napoleon Hill wrote a lot about desire, belief, persistence, and what people now call the law of attraction. Now, I do not believe you can sit in a chair, think about acquiring a business, and somehow a seller finance deal falls out of the sky. That is not how this works. But I do believe this. What you focus on matters. What you repeatedly tell yourself matters. The goals you write down matter. The questions you ask yourself matter. the standards you hold yourself to, because those things direct your attention. And your attention, hopefully, directs your action, and your action produces your results.

5:10There's another saying I've always liked. Fear knocked on the door. Faith opened it. There was no one there. That does not mean fear is never real. It certainly is. Sometimes fear is warning you about something legitimate. But most of the time, fear is a stop sign. It is a test. Fear says, what if the seller says no? What if I sound foolish? What if the banker rejects me? What if I fail? What if I'm not ready? fine, then prepare, then practice, then ask better questions, then take action anyway. That is why mottos, goals, affirmations, written standards matter. Not because they're magical, because they remind you who you are trying to become before your emotions talk you out of doing the work.

6:08And that brings me to one of the most powerful exercises I know. Write your obituary. Not because you're being morbid, because it forces clarity. What do you want your life to have meant? What kind of father, mother, husband, wife, friend, mentor, or leader do you want to have been? What did you build? Who did you help? What did you stand for? What did people trust you to do? Most people spend more time planning a two-week vacation than they spend planning their life. That's always been incredibly scary to me, that thought. They know the hotel. They know the flights. They know the restaurants.

6:56They know the excursions. But they do not know what they want their life to stand for. They do not know what kind of reputation they're building. They do not know what they want their family to say about them. They do not know what they want their mentees, employees, sellers, or partners to say about them. That's backwards. So here is my challenge to you. Take 20 minutes this week and write the obituary you would want to be true. Then ask yourself a hard question. Am I living in a way that makes that outcome more likely? And if you're pursuing business acquisitions, ask yourself this. Am I acting like someone a seller would trust with their life's work?

7:47Am I preparing like a serious buyer? Am I building a reputation before I need it? Am I grateful enough to use the opportunity I have been given? Because the deal is not separate from the person. The acquisition is not separate from the reputation. the outcome is not separate from the preparation. If you're serious about this journey, there is still time to join us for the VIP Mastermind two-day training on June 29th and 30th. If that has interest, go over to brucewhipple.com, look at the coaching area, and see the details. And if you are interested in joining us, send me an email bruce at brucewhipple.com.

8:37I don't let anyone in that group until I talk with him but I also want to be sure that you do something and that is understand the financial commitment and the time commitment before you ask to get on a call with me. We are going to do work on the practical pieces, seller conversations, motivation, financing, deal structure, follow-up, role plays and the habits that separate serious acquirers from people who just like the idea of acquiring a business. Remember, prior planning prevents piss poor performance. That is true for a breakup room on Zoom. It is true for a seller call. It is true for a deal and it is true for your life.

9:24If you want to do a little extra work on the obituary, write it two ways. Write it the path you're on now, and write it the path you would want it to be, and take a look at those things, and see the difference, and then choose what you need to do to make the one you prefer the one that you actually make happen. So I hope that helps on this Father's Day. I hope you take time to remember what you're thankful for and grateful for, and also take some time to plan aggressively what it is you want to accomplish in your life. On that note, happy Father's Day, and again, if you're interested in that two-day training, understand the details and then if you're ready to discuss whether that's right for you send me an email bruce at brucewhipple.com and we'll have that discussion