Additional reasons some acquisitions fail

Happy Tuesday!

Last Thursday I started walking through what separates the 5% of acquisitions that don’t work out from the 95% that do.

We covered the mistakes that happen before closing:

• Skipping due diligence

• Buying the wrong type of business

• And buying a job instead of a business

Today I want to pick up where we left off, with two reasons related to what happens after a deal is done.

Andrew bought a $700K nail salon in LA with his wife after joining Acquisition Ace, and found his investor through the AA investor database.

After finding an investor in the Acquisition Ace database and putting just $40K out of pocket, he’s on track for a 300%+ return in year one.

👉 Want a community where you can find investors, build relationships, and close deals? Book a call with our team here.

Disrupting what's already working

There’s a version of new ownership that looks like confidence but functions like sabotage:

Walking in and immediately overhauling systems, restructuring the team, changing how things are done.

Doing that before you actually understand how the business works is one of the most reliable ways to lose good people and damage what took the previous owner years to build.

Employees who’ve been with a business for a decade don’t automatically trust a new owner…

And customers who’ve been loyal for years have no reason to stay if the experience suddenly changes.

The first 90 days should be about learning, asking questions, and building trust with the team before making decisions that affect them.

Changes can absolutely come (and often should), but they land very differently when the people around you believe you understand the business first.

Going through the process alone

Business acquisition involves a level of complexity that’s genuinely hard to navigate without guidance:

• Deal evaluation

• Financing structure

• Due diligence

• Negotiation

• Legal documentation

• Post-close management

…and every stage has decisions that are easy to get wrong if you haven’t been through it before.

The buyers who close successfully almost universally have some form of support structure behind them, of people who’ve already made the mistakes they’re trying to avoid.

(Inside Acquisition Ace, members learn how to structure the first 90 days of ownership to build trust and stability before making operational changes. To see how our community could help you close your first acquisition, book a call with our team here.)

What all of this adds up to

The 95% success rate for acquired businesses is the natural result of choosing the right business, doing thorough due diligence, keeping good management in place, respecting what’s already working, and having the right support through the process.

Every one of those factors is within your control.

And that’s what makes business acquisition different from most other investments - the outcome is something you shape through the decisions you make at every stage.

If you’d like to make those decisions alongside people who’ve already been through it and can guide the way, the Acquisition Ace community is built for exactly that.

👉 Book a call with my team here to see if it’s a good fit.