12 years ago my wife wanted to buy a business. She was working for a massive telecommunications company at the time and she was burned out from the constant salary cuts and long hours.
As a result, we decided to look for a business for sale that she was interested in and that she felt confident she could run. We spent a few weeks banging our heads against the wall because we couldn’t find an established business that interested her, except for one. A music store.
But the price they were asking was ridiculous. Plus, it was losing money and it was in a very competitive market locally, and the online competition in this market is intimidating.
I decided to take things into my own hands. I have a friend who has been talking to me about his successful tanning salon franchise at the time, so I asked my wife if that business sounded like something she would like to run.
She said yes, and I immediately go to work.
How To Buy A Business Starting With A Business Lead Generation Letter!
There are many ways to buy a business. The first route that many people take is to do a search for businesses for sale online.
Most of the time you will find websites that list businesses for sale by brokers, and when you use a broker, you get a price that is jacked way up because they use the most favorable business valuation formula from for the business they want to sell.
So instead of using the standard methods of finding a business for sale, I decided to use my direct response marketing experience and use a lead generation technique to find a business owner who may want to sell.
This is a more favorable technique, in my opinion; you can study the different niches and businesses that interest you and when you find one that you like you can target them with a simple lead generation system.
Here’s how I did it:
- First I found a list of tanning salon owners who lived within 50 miles of us. That was easy to do and literally took ten minutes.
- Then, I wrote a letter. This took a few hours.
- The letter was personalized when it was mailed so that the name of the person I was contacting was in the salutation (important).
Here Is The Letter I Wrote!
Dear Name,
As you can see I’ve attached a genuine looking Million Dollar Bill to the top of this letter. Why have I done this? Two reasons:
1. I have some thing extremely important to tell you and wanted some way to get your attention.
2. Since what I have to tell you involves money I thought a Million Dollar Bill was an especially appropriate eye-catcher…
My name is Brian Maroevich and my partner and I are opening up a new tanning salon in ANY City.
To be frank, we prefer to buy an existing tanning salon and wanted to see if you are interested in selling your tanning salon.
If you are interested, please take a few minutes to see if it would be to your benefit. Call me at 1-888-888-8888, or the fastest way to reach me is on my cell phone: 444-444-4444.
An opportunity like this may not come again for a long time. Plus, there are no brokers involved (unless you want one of course). We are the principle buyers.
Keep in mind we are serious buyers who want to act on buying the first tanning salon within 30-60 days, tops.
You will be paid cash for your tanning salon and we will make the transaction as simple as possible for you.
Pick up the phone and call me now while it’s still fresh on your mind. Call toll-free 888-888-8888 anytime. Or call 444-444-4444 to reach me on my cell phone right away.
Sincerely,
Brian Maroevich
1-888-888-8888 | Cell: 444-444-4444
PS: We will be opening up several tanning salons in the area over the next 12-24 months. So call us even if you are not going to sell for several months: 1-888-888-8888 or call my cell phone: 444-444-4444.
What Was The Response Rate?
I mailed a series of two letters. The first letter was the buy a business letter which used a million dollar bill grabber above. The second letter did not include a million dollar bill. It was a follow up letter which was mailed two weeks later.
The response rate was approximately 50%, which is unbelievable. Many of the responses were business owners who were curious about who was moving into their territory, a few were angry because they didn’t like the ‘tone’ of the letter (I think they just don’t like competition), and the rest were several who were very interested.
Final Results Of The Business For Sale Lead Generation Letter Sequence!
- Within a few weeks we secured one tanning salon which we believed had very good potential.
- After a year we used this same letter sequence again and we purchased two more tanning salons.
- As you can see from reading the letter, we took the broker out of the equation and this gave us a better negotiating position.
If you want to learn the basics of lead generation using a letter system like this for regular products and service start here.
For email marketing and sales lead generation ideas begin here.