If you... Bring up your illegal diamond operation in our initial meeting... Feel the need to talk about teammate terminations in the first hour... Have lost your passion for insurance, and it’s spread across your organization...
... you’re not a culture fit for us.
These scenarios may sound outlandish, but they are just variations of situations we’ve encountered during the due diligence process with prospective agencies over the years.
Of course, cultural red flags aren’t always this extreme. But for us, a poor culture fit is a dealbreaker no matter how big or small.
If you’re exploring acquisition opportunities for your agency, here are six questions serious buyers will typically ask early in the process. And if they don’t — it’s worth asking yourself whether they’re a company with a culture that you want you and your team to join.
If a potential buyer only makes themselves available for a virtual meeting and won’t take the time to meet you in person, they are showing disinterest in your business’ culture right off the bat.
The right buyer will be interested in your business’ history and will want to learn where and why you started it, and how you grew to where you are today. At Brown & Brown, we’re looking for leaders and teams that are still crazy about insurance. If we uncover that you’ve lost your passion for the business, we wonder: Has your team lost interest, too?
If a potential buyer doesn’t ask you a lot of questions about your team and makes no effort to understand their unique qualities and value, that’s a red flag.
Keep in mind: If you answer this question by listing all the problems you’re having with your team or all the ways they are falling short, that will be a red flag for the buyer!
Do you want to report to a financial executive, or do you want to report to and work with others who have the same passion for insurance that you do? If a buyer asks detailed questions about how you sell insurance, they are probably insurance nerds, too.
A potential buyer who doesn’t take time to get to know you personally likely won’t care as much about your business compared to the buyer who is interested in learning about your life outside the office.
We believe interesting people make the best leaders. We gravitate towards those who take their jobs seriously, but not necessarily themselves. We’re looking for sellers who have hobbies, a positive outlook, and a balanced life — we want to work with people who we like to be around.
If a buyer doesn’t take the time to explain how your position will change post-acquisition or if they promise that nothing will change at all, this should give you pause. Every acquisition brings changes to the seller’s leadership functions in some way, and you deserve clarity about what that will look like.
We work hard. We play hard. And we do it all with integrity. That’s our culture.
Our leaders are passionate about insurance, and just as passionate about the rest of their lives. We help you strengthen an already great business, its teammates, and its trajectory. If you share these values too, we’d love to explore what your acquisition story with Brown & Brown could look like. Email me directly at vstoll@bbins.com.
Interested in speaking with our Mergers & Acquisitions team? Email acquisitionsdept@bbins.com or contact us directly.
| Vaughn Stoll Senior Vice President & Director of Acquisitions vstoll@bbins.com | (386) 239-8899 |
Mark Prampero Regional Director of Acquisitions mprampero@bbins.com | (386) 239-7292 |
Acquisitions for Agency Owners
by Vaughn Stoll, SVP & Director of Acquisitions
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