Once upon a time de-I was a DEAL GUY. I put together business buy-sell transactions for a living. I wasn't in the big leagues. But, I was dealing with many millions of dollars of value with each transaction. There is a bit of an adrenaline rush associated with the Deal Business. The numbers are big. The fees are big. You know you doing something significant. However, along with that came uncertainty and risk. Because you (generally) were not paid unless you successfully closed a transaction. You could have a year's worth of work end up paying you nothing if a seller got cold feet the night before the closing (that actually happened to me more than once).
Ultimately, I found the work shallow. I found that I wasn't really helping people/business owners that much. I found you needed to start working with them much, much earlier if you were going to have them get results that were really meaningful and satisfying. So I changed my career to become a consultant and that is what I did for the last 30-years of my professional career.
Fast forward to this year. I still do some consulting to help pay for my outrageous travel lifestyle. But I've gotten tired of it. Then a colleague of mine asked if I wanted to join up with him to do deals (like I used to) after we ended up selling a business together from one of my consulting gigs. As we talked it through, I realized he would do the part of the work that I really hated. And I was happy to do the work, he had no knowledge of, or patience to do. So we agreed to try and do this kind work again.
Lo and behold, one of my old clients came to me wanting to sell their business. I said, "You've come to the right place!" We took them on last winter, and last week we closed the deal. We got them a helluva price and we walked away with a nice big fee - the equivalent of two years of consulting work at my part-time basis!
It turns out that working with my partner, I can work a heck of a lot less and produce more income to support that lavish de-I lifestyle. Looks like it's back to being in the DEAL business.
3 comments:
That is exciting! It sounds pretty darn perfect if you can find a partner who likes the parts of the job you don't. I can sort of imagine doing something like that in the future, but only if the right opportunity came along.
and the US tax service is also happy to see you back in the deal business, and thanks you in advance for your contributions to our great nation.
Ahahahahahahah Alexis!!! So true!
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