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533 - How To Acquire Awesome Companies For FREE!

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533 - How To Acquire Awesome Companies For FREE!

Listen To Today's Episode: 

Episode Recap:

Over the past year, we’ve bought more than half a dozen businesses. I want to show you what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it.

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Best Quote:

The people who understand these principles will be the ones who, over the next three to five years, will build a solid foundation and will literally be the ones who control the internet afterwards. I don't know how to say it more nicely than that, but it's true. 

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Transcript:

Hey, what's up everybody. This is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets Podcast. First off hope you're awesome. Second off, I got some gold to share with you guys today. This is a question people will be asking me about because a lot of you know that in the last, I don't know, 12 months I've bought half a dozen companies and a whole bunch more are coming. And people could be asking what and why and how and all the things. So, that's what this episode it's all about.

Okay. So obviously this is something that we could and probably should go really, really deep on. This could be a three day seminar. This could be a 17,000 day challenge. This could be a book. This could be a lot of other things. But I've been talking about it, just in my inner circle meetings and Masterminds and Unlock The Secrets a little bit here and there.

And every time I talk about it, people's eyes light up and they're so excited and they have so many questions. And then when I tell them a couple of the big gems, they don't believe me. So I want to blow your mind a little, get you excited. So as you probably know, we're moving into a really interesting economy and it's going to be really scary for a lot of people and really good for other people.

Those who are prepared, you shall not fear, right? And hopefully you've been preparing for as long as you've been hanging out with me, and listening to me, and talking to me, and listening to podcasts, and books. I've been doing my best to prepare all you guys for the last, almost, two decades now. But specifically really heavily over the last eight or nine years that ClickFunnels has been around. We've been trying very, very, to the best of my abilities, to you guys, the understanding and the skill sets to be able to write your own paychecks, to be able to drive traffic, to be able to understand funnels and offers and strategy and all that kind of stuff.

And so I hope you've been geeking out. I hope you've been studying. I hope you've been applying because now is the time when those skill sets are being called into play. The people who understand these principles will be the ones who, over the next three to five years, will build a solid foundation and will literally be the ones who control the internet afterwards. I don't know how to say it more nicely than that, but it's true. Right now, businesses are going on sale at a huge discount.

Most business owners don't have the chops for this economy. And so because of that, it shifts and things are changing. People are either wanting to get a business, selling their business, shutting their businesses down or some variation of all those kind of things. And so you're able to get businesses at a very, very low and inexpensive rate. A lot of times they're literally free. And so let me explain that a little bit more.

Most people in most of the markets that we're in, have businesses that aren't sellable to traditional buyers, right? So they have a business that they think is worth 10 million or 50 million or whatever. And they try to sell it to a traditional business and most people don't want to buy. And so the deals and the offers that are there for you are coming in realizing like they don't have a sellable business in the world out to the market.

But because of that, it opens up these huge opportunities for you. So for example, some of the businesses we've had a chance to acquire, or we are acquiring right now, these businesses couldn't get bought on the open market. And so we're able to come in and say, "Look, we know you don't have the ability to get purchased here, but I want to buy the business from you, but I want you to finance the business for me." So we do what's called seller financing. And it's similar to back in the day, Robert Allen had a book called No Money Down. You could buy houses with no money down. That was always confusing to me. Anyway, I didn't study enough to know, but there was this weird thing where someone's got to have the house.

But the business is really cool where I can literally buy a business. Let's say, I come in, I say, "I'm going to buy a business for $10 million, but I'm not going to give you any cash right now, but I will pay you $100,000 a month for the next five years." Or whatever the math ends of being on that. There are so many people that will take that deal right now, because first off they want to sell the business, they want to get out of the business. They want the risk, all the fear, all that kind of stuff. So I can buy the business for almost nothing. And now if I understand these core principles that you understand, that I understand, that we've been teaching you guys on, you can take a business and very quickly get it into cash flow.

So a good example is Dan Kennedy's business, we bought that. And I'm not going to discuss the price, what we spent, all that kind of stuff. But I will say this, you guys would be shocked at how inexpensive it was and then most of that purchase was financed. So what that means is we bought the company, I put some money down to get the company, so they handed the reins over to me. And then I had all the assets. I had the content, I had the customer list. I had the email list. I had all the stuff. From that, what did I do? I created an irresistible offer. Most of you guys know how this, if you went to nobsletter.com you saw the irresistible offer, we took that, we put a month together, rebuilt the newsletter, launched this offer, with a $97 month newsletter. And we added 4, 5,000 people to the subscriber base. And then the cash flow from those customers now paid off the rest of the bill, right?

It paid off the business. And now guess what? I own the business free and clear and it didn't cost me any money. The business produced the money. We're working another deal right now that we're buying that literally is coming with this huge customer, this huge email list. And after we finish the transaction and we get the business over. We put money down, but then we're financing the rest of the business. And I would say within 30 to 60 days, we'll have created an offer that we launched to that customer list that will then cover the entire financing of the rest of the business.

So it doesn't cost me anything after that, because I understand structure, and offers, and funnels, and upsells, and down sales, and cross sales, and continuity, and how to drive traffic, and how to write emails, and how to structure a thing, and all the different things you guys have been learning. We can do it really, really quickly. There's another company right now that we are acquiring. It's a software company. It's like insanely cool and same deal. This one we got completely for free. We are acquiring the company for free. It doesn't cost anything. And then we have to start paying monthly on it. I think 30 or 60 days after we close. In that 30 day window, I will take the customer list, I will create an irresistible offer, I will send an email to that customer list, making an irresistible offer. The profits from that irresistible offer will then cover all the monthly payments to then pay off the business. So the business literally doesn't cost me anything.

Are you guys getting this? Is this making sense to you. So I want you to start to do, and this is going to be something for those who have put in the time and the effort, who understand these core principles. But start looking in your market, start looking at your competitor, start looking at other people and just realize right now that there are so many insanely good offers.

When I first announced that we bought Dan Kennedy's company, I cannot tell you how many people with huge businesses came to me saying, "Will you buy mine? Will you buy mine?" Many of them just saying, "Just take it over and pay me a monthly fee. Pay me a royalty. I'd rather you have it."

Okay. Most of the people in your market, they aren't really business owners. They don't have teams. They don't have these things. They're content creators, right? They created content. They have a list, they have ideas, but most of them don't want run a business. They just want to do the content. You can come in really easily and structure a deal where it's like, "Hey, I will run the business. You give me your business, you give me your customers, you do everything, I'm going to do this, and you now are in charge of just this piece. You do the content, we'll pay you 20% royalty." Or whatever that is.

And they'll literally give you the business to have you take that piece over. Okay. So I just want you to start thinking strategically, because right now there's a lot of them out there. And over the next 12 months, 36 months, there's going to be even more.

And so now's the time to start looking at those opportunities and those deals and start finding them and start negotiating them and start contacting the people who have complimentary products or even competitive products or people who are in industries you would like to get into. Look for those things and start seeking them out.

Anyway, I can't talk more about it right now, because we're in the middle of most of these deals, but I would love someday in the future to go deeper into this. Maybe we'll do a course or a challenge or something kind of showing you guys. I know there's been a lot of people teaching some of this business stuff. And anyway, I just wanted to throw some of my ideas in, as right now, we're in the middle of it and having some fun with it, right?

Where literally we're able to pick up companies basically for free because we know the basic fundamentals of customer lists, email marketing, offer creation, funnels, all the things you guys have been learning and studying and understanding. So I hope this helps get you guys excited and just helps open your eyes to what is actually possible.

On top of that, keep your eyes open and you'll start seeing all the fun, exciting acquisitions and things we'll be doing over the next few weeks, months, and years. And yeah, ride this wave over the next couple years until we're out of this chaos, and this recession because those guys who are prepared, this could be, for some of you guys, the greatest... I mean, it's like buying real estate at pennies on the dollar right now, holding it two or three years and then watching it explode.

I have a neighbor who, when the last recession hit, he had cash, and so he went and... 2008, when everyone else was selling and crashing, he went and bought a whole bunch of land out by where I live. And he sat out for two or three years. And then the market turned, everyone started building out here and he made hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by holding this land, and was able to hold it for two or three years. And then when people started building on it, boom. Yeah. Insane amounts of money.

That's the same opportunity, I think that we're in right now, is looking out there, buying or acquiring or controlling these businesses, these assets that are struggling right now. Right now the market's weird, ad prices are jacked up. All sorts of weird things are happening. It's just this uncertain time from so many different things, supply chain issues, all that kind of stuff. It's just like understanding that, okay, that gives you the ability to walk in and get things for free or really close to free.

And then learning these skill sets, understanding the stuff you've been learning and teaching you for the last, however long. And mastering them so you can put a thing in place to get the business to pay for itself, and then hold it for the next year, two years, three years, till the market changes. And all of a sudden now you're sitting with this asset that's worth... In the case of my friend with the land, hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the cases in the businesses I'm acquiring, I think they will also be worth that much as well. So anyway, it's exciting. I just wanted to put that thought in your mind as you guys are sitting around brainstorming, thinking, plotting and scheming and all the things we do as entrepreneurs, so hope that helps. Thanks so much and we'll talk to you soon.

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