406 - Hang Around Long Enough for the Good Things to Happen!

0:00Bruce Whipple:I want to talk today about perseverance. Not the motivational poster version of perseverance. Not the just believe in yourself and everything will work out version. I mean real perseverance. The kind where you keep going when it is taking longer than you thought. The kind where you have to change direction. Where you get disappointed but you start again and you still show up. I received an email from a mentee this week. I will not use her name, and I will not mention the industry, because when I asked her what the industry was, she said she didn't want to tell me yet, which is perfectly fine. A little different, but perfectly fine.

0:43Bruce Whipple:But her email said, I just wanted to share some good news with you. I closed my first deal this week. You have held me accountable along the way and always believed in me, even during the times when I was still figuring things out. You, your mentorship, and the community you built have played a big role in helping me get to where I am today. Thank you, Bruce. I'm truly grateful for that. So again, I asked her industry, and she said that she didn't want to tell me, and she said, I will keep you posted. I just want to acquire a few more before I tell you and make you proud. I will keep you posted.

1:23Bruce Whipple:I know without you this would never have happened. I am forever grateful. Now, that was very kind of her to say, but what I want you to hear is not the compliment to me. What I want you to hear is the timeline. She started in group coaching with me back in 2020, a long time ago. She stayed in group coaching for quite a while, and eventually she moved into the VIP Mastermind program I run in March of 2024. She was in that for a year, and then she went off on her own to keep working the process. And now, about a year later, she closed her deal. So from 2020 to 2026, this did not happen overnight, obviously.

2:06Bruce Whipple:This was not a 30-day miracle. This was not some fantasy version of business acquisition where you send three letters, have one phone call, and suddenly you own a company. This took perseverance. She hung in there. she kept plugging away. I am sure she had frustration along the way. I'm sure there were industries that did not work out. I am sure that there were conversations that went nowhere. And I'm sure there were sellers who wasted time, advisors who complicated things, and moments when she wondered whether this was ever going to happen. That is normal. This is not a sign that you're failing.

2:47Bruce Whipple:This is often the process. One of my Pantheon members, Gabriel, once said something to me that I have repeated many times. Bruce, you have to hang around long enough for the good things to happen. He's a person who had 14 LOIs blow up during COVID and today has 68 locations. But what he said is exactly right. You have to hang around long enough for the good things to happen. No, that does not mean you stubbornly stay in an industry that's not working. If the dog doesn't hunt, the dog doesn't hunt. Sometimes you need to pivot. Sometimes the industry is too fragmented, too difficult to reach, too unattractive, too competitive, or simply not producing seller conversations.

3:35Bruce Whipple:So perseverance does not mean blind stubbornness. It means you keep your objective clear while being willing to adjust the path, and there's a difference. If business acquisition is what you really want to do, you have to understand this. I cannot think of anyone I have mentored where everything just came together perfectly. There were always trials. There were always delays. There were always things that we didn't expect. A seller changes his mind. The bank says no. Financials are messy. The deal looked good until it didn't look good. A partner disappoints. You lose momentum. You question yourself.

4:16Bruce Whipple:This is part of the journey. But over the years, I've noticed a couple of traits in people who eventually succeed. First, they do not complain. This does not mean they don't get frustrated. Of course they do. But they do not spend their time making excuses, blaming the market, blaming sellers, blaming banks, blaming advisors, blaming their circumstances, or blaming me. They take the lesson and they move. That is very different from complaining. Second, they tend to make decisions quickly, not recklessly, but quickly. They get enough information and then they make a decision and they act. People who struggle the most often do the opposite.

5:01Bruce Whipple:it. They ask a thousand questions, then they ask another thousand questions, then they decide, oh, they need to prepare more, and then they want to understand every possible outcome before taking the next step. When I hear this, my gut tells me when I see that pattern, this person is not preparing. This person is hiding. Fear can have a lot of different costumes, but there's a point where preparation becomes procrastination. Yes, you need to learn the steps. Yes, you need to understand seller financing, outreach, valuation, deal structure, conversations with sellers, due diligence, and how to avoid mistakes.

5:46And if you have a board around you that's experienced, they will help you understand those things. But at some point, your preparation has to turn into external action. You have to get in the water. And yes, when you get in the water, you may get knocked around, but that's how you learn. You do not learn business acquisition only by thinking about business acquisition. You learn by making calls, writing letters, talking to sellers, asking better questions, making offers, getting rejected, improving, and then going again. This is where mindset becomes critical, and this is why I recently released Bruce Whipple's MDA method.

6:28MDA stands for motivation, discipline, and action. Because in this business, you need all three. Motivation gets you started. Discipline keeps you moving when the initial excitement wears off, and it will, usually. Action is what creates real feedback from the marketplace. Without action, nothing happens. You can have the best notebook, the best plan, the best spreadsheet, the best list of industries, and the best intentions. But if you're not taking external action, the market has not heard from you. And if the market has not heard from you, you are not really in the game yet. This mentee who wrote me this email stayed in the game, and that's the lesson.

7:16She did not have a straight line from 2020 to 2026. Almost nobody does, but she stayed close enough to the process long enough to let the process work, and now she's closed her first deal. Will there be more challenges? Of course there will. One deal closed is not the finish line. In many ways, it's the beginning, but it's also proof. Proof that perseverance matters, proof that accountability matters, proof that community matters, proof that action matters, and proof that you do not have to have it all figured out on day one and proof that this process works. Will it work for you? I can't guarantee you that, but this process works, as you just heard.

8:04You just have to keep going long enough and intelligently enough and honestly enough to give yourself a chance. So if you're listening to this and you're frustrated because it's taking longer than you thought, ask yourself a better question. not, why has this not happened yet? Ask, am I still taking the actions that give this a chance to happen? Because that's the real test. Are you learning? Are you improving? Are you talking to sellers? Are you making decisions? Are you adjusting when something does not work and it won't work at times? Are you staying in the game? And if the answer is yes, keep going.

8:48If the answer is no, then be honest about that too. Business acquisition rewards perseverance, but it does not reward passive wishing. You have to do the work. You have to take the action. You have to hang around long enough for the good things to happen, as Gabriel said. And when they do, you will be oftentimes very glad that you did. When I think about Gabriel's 68 locations now? Yes. He's very glad that he did stick around. If you want help with mindset and

9:24Bruce Whipple:execution, then take a look at Bruce Whipple's MDA method. Again, motivation, discipline, and action. The details are at brucewhipple.com forward slash MDA. But I hope this helps you to understand that if you are on the path and if you understand the steps and if you're in an industry where the dog hunts, that if you're having problems, that's normal. That's a sign that you're engaged, that you're taking actions, external actions. Some will work, some won't, but that's how you will progress. So I hope that helps. I thank that person for writing me that email. Eventually, she'll tell me the industry, but she said she wants, as I said, to put a few together first, and that's fine.

10:19Bruce Whipple:Again, hope that helps. If the MDA course is something you're interested in, briswhipple.com forward slash MDA. To your success and keep pushing. That's a big part of the success formula.