Carl Allen is a world-class entrepreneur, investor, and corporate dealmaker who has worked on more than 330 transactions worth close to $48 billion. In his nearly 30-year career, Carl has analyzed thousands of businesses, big and small, in 17 different countries across nearly every business sector, including technology, pharmaceuticals, transport and logistics, engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, consumer goods and services, business services, retail, professional services, finance, packaging, and corporate clothing.
Carl first earned his reputation during his 16 years on Wall Street, working for Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, Forrester, and Gartner. There he advised some of the world’s largest corporations on investments, mergers, acquisitions, disposals, and restructuring, and helped hundreds of business owners raise both equity and debt financing. Until he almost missed the birth of his second son. That’s when Carl quit the rat race and began brokering (and eventually buying) businesses for himself.
Today he is considered one of the world’s premier experts on buying and financing small business acquisitions. Carl founded Dealmaker Wealth Society (formerly Ninja Acquisitions) because he believes starting a business from scratch is certifiably crazy! He wanted to use his highly-specialized skill set to help others realize that their dream of self-employment didn’t have to be a long, hard, up-all-night slog with a 96% failure rate in 10-years.
Carl is currently helping thousands of entrepreneurs all over the world buy existing, profitable small businesses that will immediately put money in their pockets. And best of all, he teaches them how to do this without using a dime of their own capital!
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Get to know Carl and hear about his journey from Wall Street to Dealmaker Wealth Society.
- The life-changing moment when Carl’s fifth child was born.
- Insights into what a leveraged buyout is, a strategy Carl commonly used in Wall Street.
- What Carl learned about small businesses and why he was so drawn to work with them.
- The two things Carl does today: private equity partner and coaching.
- Trends Carl has seen with small businesses during COVID; many are flourishing.
- A story of Carl’s friend who pivoted his business and is now thriving.
- The change that has happened with small business succession: children want to go to college.
- Why Carl believes that entrepreneurs should not start businesses from scratch.
- Carl’s impetus for starting Dealmaker Wealth Society.
- Considerations owners who are looking to sell their businesses should keep in mind.
- The importance of preparation when it comes to selling your business.
- As a business owner, it is your job to implement systems so you can sell your business.
- How entrepreneurs can build sustainable businesses given the ever-changing times.
- No matter the state of the economy, some businesses will thrive, and others will suffer.
- What Carl is seeing with family dynamics when it comes down to selling businesses.
- Some of the services Carl provides through the Dealmaker Wealth Society.
- If you are interested in Carl’s approach, read his book first.
- The biggest types of mistakes Carl sees sellers making.
Tweetables:
“Big deals are all about financial engineering. Small deals are a lot more about psychology, a lot more about seller psychology.” — @DealmakerWealth [0:06:43]
“My message to the entrepreneurial community is don’t start a business. Go and buy one of these millions of businesses that’s doing really well, but the owner doesn’t want to own any more, they want to retire, they want to go off and do something else. Find those businesses, build a fantastic relationship with them, convince them that you’re that safe pair of hands that can look after that business, can expand that business, can nurture it, protect it, cherish it.” — @DealmakerWealth [0:19:52]
“Business and the economy, it’s a zero-sum game. Even in boom markets, people make money, people lose money. In bearish markets, you could argue there’s a bearish market today, there’s still businesses doing phenomenally well.” — @DealmakerWealth [0:31:51]
“You can’t learn to buy a business. just watching videos. You learn to buy a business through learning, and then implementing what I teach you, and putting that to practice in the marketplace. We all make mistakes, and we all do things wrong, but there’s no failure in this business, it’s only feedback.” — @DealmakerWealth [0:42:18]
Facebook Posts:
“If you look at just the US and the UK combined, there’s about 2.4 to 2.5 million small businesses for sale right now and a lot of those are baby boomers. There are 10,000 baby boomers calling to fall, retiring every single day.” — Carl Allen [0:16:43]
“If you’re in the business and you’re doing all the work, you’re answering the phones, you’re selling the product or service or you’re making it, you can’t sell that business because you can’t sell yourself.” — Carl Allen [0:29:25]
“There are always opportunities, whether you’re in the biggest roaring market ever, or the biggest bear market ever. There are always companies that will thrive and there are always companies that will suffer.” — Carl Allen [0:32:51]
Additional Resources:
Website: https://dealmakerwealthsociety.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcarlallen/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dealmakerwealthsociety/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DealmakerWealth
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCcJzIkSSZxECZNtLG7Gteg
Confessions of A Dealmaker Newsletter: https://dealmakerwealthsociety.com/confessions-sign-up/
Buying Secrets: How to Buy an Established, Profitable Business Using None of Your Own Money: https://www.amazon.com/Business-Giveaway-Acquire-Established-Acquirer-ebook/dp/B00UC6LRIG
Discount Code: trainwithcarl.com/othersideofpotential
Sharon Spano:
Website: sharonspano.com
Book: thetimemoneybook.com
Events: sharonspano.com/workshops
Contact: sharon@sharonspano.com
Twitter: twitter.com/SharonSpano