Building wealth through small and medium-sized business acquisition can be the best and most available option to build million-dollar wealth for you and your family.

However, we won’t pretend you’re not taking a gamble.

You must do a QoE because, “Who can stand to lose a million dollars?”. But we can never be fully certain of what’s around the corner for a business or an industry. That’s why pulling the trigger on your deal can be the most nerve-wracking moment in the whole acquisition process. It’s your last chance to walk away from a potential disaster.

Before you get to that critical moment, let’s talk about how you can navigate the deal process strategically so that you can ultimately close with confidence knowing you did everything you could to ensure a solid investment.

In a recent presentation to the ETA Club at Harvard Business School (link here), Elliott laid out how ETA & SMB QoE’s are different and how most providers miss 50% of the analysis. 50%!!! How? They miss that for smaller deals, half of the QoE should be focused on the Operation of the business and how they create the EBITDA or SDE.

Acquisition is the shortcut to wealth for entrepreneurs. Instead of starting from scratch with a brand new business, you purchase an existing business and build from there. This strategy bypasses the risks of a new business and allows you to go straight to the growth (read: money-making) phase.

Do you really need a Quality of Earnings (QoE) on your SMB deal?

I recently got to talk through this question and many more issues related to the business acquisition market with two key members of the SMB community— Cole Simpson and Parker Cox. We got into the weeds about what trap doors are out there waiting for new buyers, how the market is changing, and why a QoE is your best bet to protect yourself and close a solid deal.

Forget who I am. That I’ve been in the acquisition game for fifteen years. That I sell a product that helps buyers like you close a good deal on a solid business and start living the life you want. I promise this is not a sales pitch. Instead, this is my good deed for the day.

I do think you should get a Quality of Earnings (QoE) for your deal, but right now I’m not concerned with whether or not you get that QoE from me. Right now we’re talking about you and your deal.