Mastering Mergers: Driving Growth through Agency Acquisitions With Josh Springer [The Opportunity Ep.153]

Mar 5, 2024

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Two of the fastest ways to grow your business are to increase your customer base and improve your offering to attract higher-value customers.

What if I told you there was a way to expand your customer base exponentially and enhance your offering in one clever move?

That is what Josh Springer does through the power of acquisitions. Josh is the Head of Corporate Development at Hawke Media, a powerhouse marketing agency.Josh specializes in acquiring other agencies and merging them into Hawke’s existing ecosystem. This not only enhances Hawke's services but also brings in a ready-made customer base overnight.

Now they have a more powerful team and a larger pool of clients.

In this episode, Josh joins us to explain his approach to acquisitions, from sourcing potential targets to sealing the deal.

He explains the different types of deal structures he negotiates, his growth strategies post-acquisition, and the key to smoothly merging a new agency into Hawke Media’s framework.One of the key areas that Josh prioritizes is employee retention. According to Josh,

“The value behind an agency is the people that it comes with. If you start cutting people, you start losing clients, you start messing with culture, then all of a sudden you're left with a shell that doesn't really resemble what you were trying to buy in the first place.”

If you're hungry for rapid business expansion, this episode lays out the blueprint for scaling up through strategic bolt-on acquisitions. Don’t miss it!

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

Josh’s background and how he ended up working in M&A (02:26)
Assessing the right time to acquire a new agency as a growth play (05:10)
The key to employee retention during an acquisition (08:15)
How Josh integrates acquisitions into Hawke Media’s existing structure (10:46)
How Josh sources his acquisitions (14:36)
The profit margins agencies should aim for at different valuation levels (23:36)
The quick growth levers that Josh has learned to pull on his agency acquisitions (25:48)
The types of deals Josh negotiates and structures (30:03)
How Josh measures the success of his acquisitions (38:38)
The lessons Josh has learned from all of the acquisitions he has overseen (42:55)

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Sit back, grab a coffee, and learn how to scale your business through mergers and bolt-on acquisitions!