Beyond owning a business, titans do deals

So, you have the appetite for becoming a true titan? A piffling business isn’t challenging enough for you; a chain of your own businesses is still too easy, too small. You see Darth Vader and think, ‘Now there’s a career plan!’

If you do possess the appetite for billionaire status, one of the ways in which history’s wealthiest humans have gone about things is by doing deals. Naturally, this is a complex topic, but here is what you need to know. Doing deals for profit generally means that you will:

  • buy an existing business, negotiating favourable terms;
  • sell that business, negotiating favourable terms again; and
  • increase the value of the business between the point of purchase and sale (through optimisation or consolidation).

Here’s how that might look. You identify a business that has potential. You negotiate the best possible purchase price (which is to say, the lowest possible one). You then add value to that business while you are in charge of it, either through good management practices that optimise its profitability, or by combining it with similar businesses that you buy (consolidation). You then sell this optimised business, once again negotiating the most favourable rate for you (which is to say, the highest possible one).

Buy low, add value, sell high.

In addition to this basic process, you would also buy shares in the company so that, above and beyond the profit you make selling it, you continue to prosper based on the continued prosperity of the company.

Naturally, this overview is an extremely stripped-down one. Carrying out this process is incredibly complex, and requires a wide range of skills, abilities and resources. Above all, though, it requires some fairly phenomenal willpower.

Large-scale dealmakers tend to be iron-willed, relentless, goal-oriented individuals. They are skilled at negotiating and totally focused on getting what they want. If that feels like a fit for you, I would recommend Wilkins’s Wealth secrets of the one percent, which describes the nature, and some of the techniques, of mega-dealmakers.

If the concept seems frightening to you, do bear in mind that you don’t have to buy up America’s major oil-production companies. You may purchase and optimise a couple of local coffee shops. It’s the same principle.

Or, in simpler terms, you may identify a competitor in your industry and see the value in buying this person’s business to:

  • stop them from competing with you; and
  • grow your own business by incorporating theirs.

On a smaller scale, this is exactly the same technique. It’s the idea of doing a deal with another business, rather than competing with it head-on.

 

Poverty mindset: My competitors are making this hard for me.

Wealth mindset: What if I bought my competitors? 

 

 

Douglas Kruger is a business author and professional speaker. See him in action, or read his articles, at www.douglaskruger.co.za. Douglas’s books, including ‘Is Your Thinking Keeping You Poor? 50 Ways the Rich Think Differently,’ are available at Exclusive Books, Estoril, CNA, and as ebooks from Amazon.com


 

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