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What Traits Make A Successful Acquisition Entrepreneur?

Tyler Trumbull
-  February 21, 2024
What You’ll Learn
  • What entrepreneurial traits and characteristics a successful acquisition entrepreneur has.
  • Why those traits are similar to those of successful entrepreneurs.
  • How Acquira’s training can help you improve these qualities in yourself to help you close on a business.
  • Business acquisition isn’t easy – if it were, everyone would do it. So how do you know if you have what it takes?

    Well, we’ve found that successful acquisition entrepreneurs tend to have the same entrepreneurial traits as other successful entrepreneurs. Those types of people are almost always:

    • Resilient
    • Persuasive
    • A Self-Starter

    Entrepreneurs

    what entrepreneurial traits are most common in entrepreneurs

    Throughout their careers, entrepreneurs will face adversity, rejection, and self-doubt. It’s part of the game, but how they deal with these issues will define their success and the success of their business.

    Entrepreneurs are constantly searching for new ideas, new angles, and anything to disrupt the status quo. And on that search, they are bound to fail. Great entrepreneurs have the ability to bounce back from these challenges by building resilience

    Assuming they can find that one great idea, they will also need to find people to support them in making it a reality: partners, employees, and investors – each of these people will approach any new idea with a certain amount of healthy skepticism. 

    “Basically, all stakeholders require some kind of compelling story,” explains Acquira CEO Hayden Miyamoto. “So as an entrepreneur, you have to create a compelling story to attract investors, to attract a team, to attract customers.”

    To get them on board, the entrepreneur must be a great storyteller or a raconteur of near-epic proportions. In short, they need to be persuasive.

    Still, it isn’t enough to get back up when you get knocked down and it isn’t enough to be able to convince people that your idea is worth supporting. After all, no one will help the entrepreneur learn everything they need to know. No one will guide them through uncharted waters. For the entrepreneur to be successful, they need to be a self-starter.

    As Forbes points out, “A self-starter is someone who does what needs to be done without being asked or encouraged. They take the initiative on their own projects and lead themselves. They recognize that when things get hard, it’s a challenge that helps them grow as an entrepreneur and make the business stronger.”

    Acquisition Entrepreneurs

    We’ve gotten to know many entrepreneurs over the years who all possess these qualities. And these are the same entrepreneurial traits that any successful acquisition entrepreneur will need because, as we said, buying a business isn’t easy.

    Resilient

    As a business searcher, you will face a lot of rejection. Letters of Intent (LOIs) will be rejected, lenders and banks will turn you down, and deals will fall apart at the last minute. To keep going after each of these setbacks, you must be resilient.

    In fact, one of the key metrics we use at Acquira to determine whether an Acquisition Entrepreneur (AE) is a good fit is their ability to get back up again when times are tough.

    “Many people will have to pick themselves back up and look at a bunch of different deals,” says Hayden.

    Persuasive

    Just like your regular, run-of-the-mill entrepreneur, an acquisition entrepreneur needs to be able to spin a good yarn. Telling a story is crucial for getting people to work with you.

    “As a searcher, you need to persuade the seller to sell to you, you need to persuade the broker to be on your side, you need to be the buyer of choice,” explains Hayden. “You must create that compelling story to get people on your side.”

    Once you become a business owner, you also need to have a compelling reason for people to work for you, for people to invest in your company, and for customers to buy from you. You also need a compelling reason to eventually sell your business to a buyer if you want to exit the company, explains Hayden.

    “Interestingly, you need less resilience if you have more persuasiveness,” explains Hayden. “That’s because your conversion rate of getting business owners interested in selling to you will be higher.”

    Self-Starter

    Nearly everyone who goes through Acquira’s training is a self-starter. That’s 90 percent of the reason they found Acquira in the first place. These individuals wanted something different in their life, learned about Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, and found Acquira.

    This trait feeds into both resilience and persuasiveness. Jason and Jeremy are two Acquisition Entrepreneurs in our ecosystem who have faced several setbacks. 

    The two met while working in the superyacht industry and quickly realized that they made a good team. As they explain, they both decided they wanted a more stable life away from the open seas. Initially, the pair decided to pursue a franchise business. Luckily, they realized the franchise model wasn’t a good fit for them and backed out at the right time.

    Still, the pair keep trying every time they reach another hurdle. The fact that they wanted a change in their lives feeds their resiliency and persuasiveness. 

    Acquira’s Business Model

    characteristics of a successful entrepreneur

    We know that not everyone has an abundance of resiliency or persuasiveness. Fortunately, Acquira’s training is designed to help people overcome any potential deficiencies in those areas. For example, when talking to buyers or brokers, having Acquira backing you will help your ability to persuade.

    Our deal screening system will make getting back up when facing a setback much easier. That’s something that Jason and Jeremy certainly found.

    “I say one thing that we have learned is that – going through all the numbers, the financials, doing the investment thesis, and all of that – even if it doesn't work out in the end, it’s still good practice and you become more proficient every single time you do it,” said Jeremy.

    Indeed, our Accelerator Program exists to help people buy their first deal. Once they’ve acquired that business, for those who do well with integration and want to grow bigger, they receive our help in building out portfolios.

    Acquira’s business model relies on finding people with these entrepreneurial traits and helping the cream rise to the top.

    We want to build multiple portfolios around successful acquisition entrepreneurs. Indeed, our thesis is that our Accelerator will help identify these individuals, and the people who have the resilience, persuasiveness, and self-motivation to get through the program will be the people we support the most.

    Acquira’s Equity Fund

    In fact, this business model is one of the primary reasons our equity fund can attract investors. Our Limited Partners (LPs) invest in the fund because they believe that our Accelerator is a highly effective underwriting technique for both the business and the entrepreneur. 

    This equity fund also serves as a support system for any Acquisition Entrepreneurs who exhibit these integral qualities, but may not have all of the capital necessary to close a deal.

    Conclusion

    The ability to be resilient, persuasive, and self-starter are important traits for both entrepreneurs and acquisition entrepreneurs. Business acquisition is a challenging process that requires individuals to be able to deal with rejection and setbacks while being able to convince stakeholders of their idea. A self-starter is someone who does what needs to be done without being asked, and they lead themselves to success. These entrepreneurial traits are essential for individuals to buy a business successfully. 

    Acquira is a company that provides training to help acquisition entrepreneurs overcome any potential deficiencies in these areas, making it easier for them to achieve their goals.

    To learn more about that training or our equity fund, please fill out the form below to schedule a call with an Acquira representative.

    Key Takeaways

    • Successful acquisition entrepreneurs share similar traits and characteristics with successful entrepreneurs. 
    • They are resilient, persuasive, and self-starters.
    • Acquira’s business model is designed to find the best performers and support them.
    • These traits help us identify those people.
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