364: Building a Multi-Continent Empire through Strategic Acquisitions with Eliot and Dom Chapman

Show Notes

Eliot and Dom never intended to be in business together.  It started when Eliot was managing the family business and Dom was running another and to save money, they shared office space.  They started sharing ideas to help each other and that led to their first collaboration and their first business exits to go into business together with Social Chaps, a lead generation agency.  They had to go through almost a year of trial and error to figure out the best core offering.  They actually fired clients and then focused only on the core service.  The business grew 5x in less than a year.

At the 6:30 mark, Dom and Eliot go over their different businesses and how to they fit together.

The businesses are in different niches and service different client bases, but they are finding that there is great opportunity to refer across the different businesses for cross-selling.

Take us through how you manage multiple different businesses across continents and ensure they continue to stay successful…

There are two prices, the leadership side and the systems side.

Eliot and Dom position themselves as the leaders that are not involved in the day to day, with each company has a managing director and operations director.

They focus on strategy/vision and very high-level decision making.

They have reporting across the businesses in key areas that they meet weekly with their teams on.

You must have clear SOPs for the day to day needs of each business.

You must empower your teams to think freely, make mistakes, and work to make things better.

You must also maintain clear communication across all areas of the business.

Use technology to help with efficiency.

Any frameworks that you use to help run the business?

They have built their own for some businesses, but when buying a business that already has the framework in place, they would work to make it better.

Be diligent about creating SOPs for each area of the business is most important and then putting in place the mechanisms to ensure accountability that they are followed.

How have you managed to thrive as business partners and co-founders and what can you teach us about creating a great partnership?

Selecting a great partner is about self-awareness and being able to admit what you are good and what you are not.

Once you are clear on those things, then you can find a partner that compliments you.

In a partnership, the partners should be focused on different things – not just the same things.  This is how you get the benefits.

The true test of a partnership is not when things are going well, but when they are not going well.

Alignment from the beginning is very important.  Understanding each other and how you will work together in the tough times and the commitment you have to each other is the core of how you grow and thrive in a partnership.

Your mission, vision, and core values decided on together anchors you.

Strong communication is critical as well.

5 things needed to streamline a business?

SOPs across each area of the business.

Finding people you can trust to run each area of the business.

Ensuring you have congruency and efficiency with your systems and technology – keep it simple.

Have a “North Star” – a company vision that everyone is working toward and aligned to.

Create a strong culture built on core values and clear goals.  Lead with empathy.  Don’t expect perfection.

Take us through why you use acquisitions to grow and your strategy…

Eliot and Dom tell the story of Social Chaps

Acquiring businesses helps you to create complimentary services with your business and add clients rapidly.

They have gotten most of their acquisitions through building deep relationships and networking over time.

Pushing their brand is part of how they get opportunities as well.

How do you bring the cultures together of your business for alignment?

They keep them independent and allow them to be separate because they are different brands.

Where it makes sense, they add to the culture with things that improve it or make it better but try not to fully change it.

They keep the best and fix the rest.

What is your preferred method for buying?

Whichever one is most tangible for the deal!

The majority of deals have been little to no money down and incentivizing with performance.

You need to understand the motivation for selling as that helps you craft the deal.

Ask how you can de-risk things?

Any other thoughts on building and scaling businesses?

Most deals fall apart as the founders and owners are not aligned from the start.

Be trustworthy.  People will do business with people they like and trust.

Getting through $600-700k per year is one of the biggest milestones in a business.  If you can clear it, things get easier.