How we're generating deal flow for our acquisitions:
1. Cold calling
2. Cold emailing
2. Direct mail campaigns: Sending customised physical mail at scale
4. Business brokers: Always easier when the business is already on the market, despite what all the gurus say about brokers.
5. Professional advisors: Reaching out to accountants, lawyers, etc asking them if any of their clients have thought about selling.
6. Bankers: Speaking to the bankers in our network, asking them the same thing.
7. Our own network: Asking all the business owners we know if they've thought about selling/retiring
8. Our board: Our more local board members often-times bring us deals - I'm flying inter-state on Wednesday to visit such a seller.
9. LinkedIn Outreach: LinkedIn is god-tier for networking. 'LinkedIn Helper' can automate the outreach. We use it for finding expert consultants, sellers, investors, etc.
10. Webinars: We did this in the past, in the veterinary space, and it worked great. We'll probably kick it off again in the future.
11. Conferences: Buying a stand
12. Industry resources/reports: We did this along-side our webinars
13. Paid ads
14. Deal marketplaces: Online listing websites
Some other ideas we're going to explore in future:
12. Guest podcasting: Getting booked on other podcasts that serve our target industry's owners
13. Rejected deals: Building relationships with PE guys or larger acquirers, so we can pick up their scraps
14. Divorce and Estate attorneys
14. Running live events: Like the webinars, but in person
That should keep you busy for a while.