Emails are Flying

The long-awaited email campaign to business brokers has finally begun. One of the stories I like to use to teach my children is the tortoise and the hare, and in particular I like to use my version of it.

When in high school and working construction with my older brother, our boss, the contractor, asked each of us to build an interior wall. We were given the plans and told to work from them. Now for those unfamiliar with residential framing, these plans aren’t always detailed or accurate. My older brother is a hard worker, and he got right to his wall. I sat down to read the plans. By the time my brother was done, I had measured and sawed the necessary boards, and was just getting started hammering. When some time later, I completed the wall, our boss came over, and asked me to fix my brothers wall. He is the hare, and finished, but didn’t take the time to see if what he had done was right. I am the tortise, and might have taken longer, but got it done right sooner.

By taking the time to ensure my email was “warmed up”, my copy cleaned up, and my process understood, I am better off than racing out with an email that would have landed in the spam folder and been ignored. Yet, I am not a perfectionist, and my email could certainly be better, and there are still three warnings in Gmass’s Spam Solver. In rough carpentry, being accurate to 1/4” is good enough, something any finish carpenter would be aghast at. I am much more of a rough carpenter than a finish carpenter.

As mentioned in the earlier posts Email it’s harder than it looks and Email Redux, I spent an appreciable amount of time preparing my campaign. There were other things that needed to be done as well. The Gmass’s Spam Solver tool showed my email’s IP address was on a blacklist, namely 0spam.org. To solve this problem, I submitted a requested on their website to be removed with and explanation as to why I should not be listed as a spammer. It took several days, but it was resolved.

Further, after much work and frankly wasted effort on email signature, brochures, etc., I decided to make it simple. My email included no tracking links, no images, and nothing but the most basic formatting. This decision was clear from the trials with the aforementioned spam solver tool, with the goal of staying out of the spam folder.

Another feature I was particularly keen on using was Gmass’s A/B testing capabilities. My experience is that testing constantly yields better results faster. Back when I led a group of over 60 folks at my former employer, I decided to lead some team building exercises. One of the most popular ones ended up being the Marshmallow Challenge.

https://www.marshmallowchallenge.com

This was a ton of fun, and while it was a great team building exercise, it also taught folks to prototype and test along the way instead of waiting until the end. I also ran this exercise with several groups of elementary children in my home school science classes. The remarkable thing was, on the first round without any hints, the children did better than the engineers.

What am I testing anyway? The comparison is between the emails below and their respective subject lines. Choosing to make the decision point at the 20% of all emails point on which is more successful. My prejudice going in is that the longer one is the better one, and my only gauge of outcome is if the brokers reply or set up a meeting with me.

I decided to send 100/emails a day and to follow up if they have not replied up to 3 times, with increasing candor on each follow up.

Long email

Subject:

Businesses For Sale

Message:

Hello <Broker Name>,
 
Are you tired of dealing with tire kickers wasting your time looking at businesses they are not interested in, and those unable to close a transaction? My name is Jordan Novgrod, and I am a business investor looking to buy a successful service business in <State> within the next 6 months, and use that as a platform to acquire other service businesses. I have over $600K in personal liquidity to purchase 1 or 2 great businesses and will leverage the SBA 7(a) loan program for companies priced up to roughly ~$5.5M. Additionally, I have a comfort letter available from the #1 SBA lending bank. If you have listings that fit my criteria, please let me know, and please add me to your list of qualified buyers. Let's connect https://calendly.com/jordanscc/30min.
 
Business
Sized $500k - $2.5M EBITDA
Priced 2-4x EBITDA
In operation for 7+ years
Stable or slowly growing revenue
Low customer concentration
Minimal ongoing capital required

Industry
Industrial services
Home services
Construction (<25 percent)
Business and professional services
Engineering services
Healthcare services
Light Manufacturing
Online service business

Location
Southeastern US

My Background
BSEE & MSEE from NC State University
17 years leading and managing teams of up to 60 staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory supporting the Department of Defense
Both formal and informal leadership roles
Excelled managing and leading engineers, IT, electrical, and mechanical technicians, and administrators.

Thanks,
Jordan Novgrod
jordan@sleepycreekcapital.com
410-775-6511 (mobile)
484 Williamsport Pike, STE 130
Martinsburg, WV 25404
www.sleepycreekcapital.com

Short email

Subject:

Business Buyer

Message:

Hello <Broker Name>,

My name is Jordan Novgrod, and I am a business investor looking to buy a successful service business in FL within the next 6 months, and use that as a platform to acquire other service businesses. I have over $600K in personal liquidity to purchase 1 or 2 great businesses and will leverage the SBA 7(a) loan program for companies priced up to roughly ~$5.5M. I would like to discuss opportunities with you at your earliest convenience, my calendar can be found here:

https://calendly.com/jordanscc/30min

Thanks,
Jordan Novgrod
jordan@sleepycreekcapital.com
410-775-6511 (mobile)
484 Williamsport Pike, STE 130
Martinsburg, WV 25404
www.sleepycreekcapital.com