🎙️She bought an accounting firm when everyone told her she couldn't. Here's how.

Hello SMB Deal Hunters!

The first lender Gretchen Roberts talked to told her they wouldn’t fund her deal.

The reason? She wasn't a CPA, and she was trying to buy an accounting firm.

Her response:

If you’re actively searching, you’ve probably dealt with something like this before.

Maybe you’re looking at an HVAC company, a plumbing business, or something niche you’ve never worked in.

And someone along the way has questioned whether you’re ‘qualified’ to run it.

This week’s episode is all about how Gretchen handled those challenges and came out the other side with a closed deal.

Gretchen came from corporate marketing, most recently as a director at a large public tech company.

She turned 45, asked herself what she wanted for the next 20 years, and realized it wasn't more PowerPoints and Zoom meetings.

So, she jumped into business acquisition as a way out of the corporate grind.

At the end of her search, she acquired Red Bike Advisors, a remote-first accounting and tax advisory firm in North Carolina.

Here are some of the highlights from the deep dive:

🔥 How she dealt with the immediate rejections from brokers, sellers, and lenders when they found out she wasn’t a CPA

🔥 The hurdles she had to navigate to run an accounting firm in any state

🔥 How she structured the deal to protect herself from client churn (and what actually happened post-close)

🔥 What went wrong six months in when she lost multiple tax team members during tax season

Dive into the episode 👇️ 

She also shared some insights on buying a business you don’t have direct experience in:

❓ Why not knowing how to do the day to day work can actually be an advantage

❓ The ‘buying a job’ trap: how to spot an accounting firm where one person owns all the relationships and does all the work

❓ What she learned about client churn after an acquisition (she gives hard numbers and how to avoid it)

👉 Dive into the full conversation with Gretchen

And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

Member Spotlight

For those who missed it, we also did an SMB Deal Hunter Pro alumni interview breaking down Branden’s journey from leaving his corporate career at companies like Disney/Snapchat to buying a ~$1M auto repair shop less than 10 minutes from his house in LA.

But the path to close wasn't smooth. In the interview, Branden breaks down:

→ How we helped him refine his buy box after looking at NEMT, dental implants, car washes, and cleaning services. Each had issues he only spotted through the search process.

→ How he used the Pro program's LOI framework to negotiate down from "north of a million." He used our time tested tactics to drive down the price using issues he saw during diligence.

→ How we helped him get his seller to accept a seller note after they initially refused any seller financing at all. 

→ How we helped him negotiate a loan rate that he couldn’t even imagine when starting the process by targeting multiple preferred lenders and leveraging competition.

Watch the full alumni interview here 👇

And when we asked him how it feels now that he's on the other side, one month into ownership, here's what he said:

So, if you want me and my team to work with you to find, finance, and acquire a million-dollar cash-flowing business in the next 6-12 months, you might be interested in the Pro program.

👉️ Learn more and book a call

COMMUNITY PERKS

• Ready to buy and operate a $1M+ business? Get expert help at every step.

• Want to invest passively in SMB acquisitions? Get access to investment opportunities.

• Get a personal introduction to my preferred SBA 7(a) lender, non-SBA lenders, Quality of Earnings providers, or legal counsel

• Raising capital for your deal? I’ll connect you with investors from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

• Interested in selling your business? I’ll help you connect with buyers from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.

THAT’S A WRAP

Want me to interview you for my podcast? Hit reply.

See you next week with some new deals!

-Helen Guo
Find Me On Twitter
Find Me On LinkedIn 

Disclaimer

This publication is a newsletter only and the information provided herein is the opinion of our editors and writers only. Any transaction or opportunity of any kind is provided for information only; SMB Deal Hunter does not verify nor confirm information. SMB Deal Hunter is not making any offer to readers to participate in any transaction or opportunity described herein.