Throwback: The Secret Weapon of Business Acquisitions

In this Throwback episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews serial entrepreneur Roland Frasier on scaling ecommerce businesses from seven to eight figures and beyond. Roland shares actionable strategies around business acquisitions, including seven key categories: competitors, media, teams, products, affiliates, supply chain, and intellectual property. He explains how acquiring proven assets—rather than building from scratch—can accelerate growth, reduce costs, and expand market reach. The conversation also covers practical tips on systematizing operations and quick profit wins, providing high-level insights for ambitious business owners ready to break through growth plateaus.

Chapters:
Introduction to the Episode (00:00:00)
Host introduces Roland Frazier and outlines the focus on acquisitions, strategic relationships, and marketing for scaling ecommerce.

Why Acquisitions Matter (00:00:54)
Roland explains why acquisitions are a key strategy for successful business growth, especially for scaling quickly.

Seven Categories of Acquisitions: Horizontal Integration (00:01:05)
Discussion of acquiring competitors (horizontal integration) as a way to double business size instantly.

Acquiring Media Assets (00:02:09)
Explains the value of acquiring media channels (blogs, newsletters, podcasts, social groups) to own customer attention.

Owning vs. Renting Media (00:03:16)
Benefits of owning media versus renting, including control over messaging and customer access.

Types of Media Acquisitions (00:04:17)
Covers various media types to acquire, including blogs, Amazon listings, and social media groups.

Micro-Influencers and Small Media Deals (00:06:26)
How small media assets, often run by micro-influencers, can be acquired affordably for business growth.

Acquiring Teams and Infrastructure (00:07:15)
Introduction to "aqua hiring"—acquiring companies for their teams and operational infrastructure.

Acquiring Products, Services, and Affiliates (00:07:32)
Strategies for acquiring complementary products, services, and even affiliates to boost sales and margins.

Supply Chain and Distribution Acquisitions (00:08:28)
Explains acquiring suppliers, distributors, and other value chain participants to capture more profit.

Acquiring Intellectual Property (00:10:15)
Discusses licensing or acquiring intellectual property to innovate and expand product offerings.

Summary of Seven Acquisition Categories (00:10:27)
Roland summarizes the seven main acquisition categories and the vast opportunities within each.

Actionable Takeaways for Listeners (00:12:01)
Host recaps three actionable steps: identify acquisition targets, raise prices/negotiate terms, and create SOPs.

Book Recommendation: Black Box Thinking (00:13:34)
Roland recommends "Black Box Thinking" and shares its impact on his business mindset.

Where to Find Roland Frazier (00:14:51)
Roland shares where listeners can connect with him, his challenge, podcast, and social media.

Episode Wrap-Up (00:15:25)
Host thanks Roland and closes the episode.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites 
Get Epic Challenge
Epic Network
Business Lunch Podcast

Books 
Black Box Thinking

Social Media Links 
Roland Fraiser on LinkedIn

Transcript:

Josh Hadley 00:00:00  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast where I interview the top business leaders in eCommerce. I'm your host, Josh Hadley. Today I'm speaking with Roland Frasier, a serial entrepreneur. And we will be talking about business acquisitions, strategic relationships and marketing as different levers that you can pull to help take your business to the next level for our audience. So ecommerce entrepreneurs here. Ideally, in that seven figure range, they've probably just crossed that seven figure mark. Right. And they may or may not have hit a plateau. Right. But they know that they want to make a lasting impact in the world. They know that their business has a lot of potential, but maybe they don't know exactly what the next steps are, or they're looking for different levers that they can pull to maybe get to that eight figure mark or grow and expand. tell me how acquisitions fit with inside of, you know, being able to scale and grow a business.

Roland Frasier 00:00:54  Yeah. So I think acquisitions are if you look at what do the wealthiest, most successful players on the planet do? They acquire companies.

Roland Frasier 00:01:05  They generally are not inventing things. They are finding people who have done something that they feel could enhance their business, and then they're acquiring from those people. Whatever it is they built. And what one of the tools that that kind of came out of teaching this is that I found there's really seven primary categories that can dramatically impact your ability to grow your business through acquisitions. The first one is what they call horizontal, integration, which is just acquiring your competitors. And that one seems like that one makes a lot of sense. But it's not just buying your competitors because like, if you want to double your e-com business overnight, you and you're doing $5 million a year, go buy a $5 million e-commerce business, and you've instantly gone from 7 to 8 figures. Right now you're at ten. Yep. literally overnight, the day that you close the deal that's done. And being able to do that with little or no money out of pocket opens that avenue up, I think, to a lot more people.

Roland Frasier 00:02:09  But it's not just acquire your competitors. It's well, who are the indirect competitors? Like who are the people that have substitute products or services for mine? And then you think you can go out and say, well, now what is it that I want to solve for problem wise? And so if you want to, if you want instant growth by your competitors, right. But if you want, let's say that you're just like, man, if I had more leads, I'd be able to really take off with this. Well then media is your play. Go acquire media. If you acquire media, particularly as the costs on Facebook and Instagram and a lot of places Google have gone up and are continuing to go up, like customer acquisition cost is a real challenge for a lot of people these days. But if you go out and acquire your own media and that can be, it doesn't have to be like you go buy a television network. It can be. You go and buy a newsletter or a group or a podcast or some other thin...