#276: Branding for Buyout with Ted Schlueter

This week’s guest is the award-winning, brand-building entrepreneur, Ted Schlueter. Ted is the Founder and CEO of The Grist, a Boston-based brand and marketing agency, and is a pioneer in the world of pre-exit branding. Ted created, developed and refined the Branding For Buyout method over two decades and used it successfully on high-profile exits including Pop-Corners to PepsiCo and Embotics to swedish software enterprise, Snow. He just launched his book Branding for Buyout (which i loved and used the word intentional 3 times in the first 20 minutes)

This episode is about a blind spot in the M&A market: branding. Ted Schlueter is an award winning, brand building entrepreneur. In this episode he talks about how increasing your EBITDA and multiple is how your company is valued when valuing it through the lens of a financial valuation, but branding for buyout is how you are perceived to the market if you’re selling to a 3rd party, and increasing the perceived value your brand plays in the market can alone can raise your sale price when talking to third party buyers.

Ted's work is all about branding for the future, looking at micro trends and positioning his clients as the authority in the space for the purpose of a buyout. Some companies will acquire others for their cash flow but some companies will purchase a company purely for their position and message in the marketplace. Ted thinks this is the future of M&A… listen to this interview and get exclusive insight on how to raise the value of your company through branding.

What You Will Learn

Branding for buyout versus marketing business as usual
What aspect of business Ted thinks is missing from the M&A process
What branding for the future means
How branding and positioning can increase a company's baseline price - no matter the intrinsic value
The importance of forecasts, thinking about the future critically and how you should plan
Why you should predict the market based of customer needs versus what competitors are doing
How long it can typically take to brand for a buyout
The importance of creating hypothetical scenarios when planning an exit
Why the M&A structure is due for a remodel
Why Ted thinks branding will change the climate of M&A

Bio:

Ted Schlueter is an award winning, brand building entrepreneur. He’s the Founder and CEO of The Grist, a Boston-based brand and marketing agency, and is a pioneer in the world of pre-exit branding. Ted created, developed and refined the Branding For Buyout method over two decades and used it successfully on high-profile exits including Pop-Corners to PepsiCo and Embotics to swedish software enterprise, Snow. He just launched his book Branding for Buyout (which i loved and used the word intentional 3 times in the first 20 minutes)

Quotes:

08:17 - “I think marketing exists predominantly to see more of your product or service or technology to a customer.” - Ted Schlueter

09:42 - “The last thing the buyer wants is to buy who and what you are today. They want to know what you’re going to be three, five, seven years and how it’s going to affect their business.” - Ted Schlueter

32:15 - “Workforce by design wasn’t really a category; it was an integration solutions cell when everyone was selling the pieces.” - Ted Schlueter

36:50 - “Skate to where the puck will be, not to where the puck is.” - Ted Schlueter

41:42 - “Naming and branding the technology and then sharing the experience of them using the product in real world environments. That definitely allotted eight or nine figures to the exit price.” - Ted Schlueter

46:52 - “The emotional aspect you add to this buying and selling of businesses… It’s not just about emotion, it’s about leverage.” - Ted Schlueter

50:32 - “You want to tell the story of growth. That’s mandatory. That’s why marketing exists in the first place.” - Ted Schlueter

51:00 - “You have to know how the game is played. You have to know how your business needs to be put together for an exit. And you need a lot of smart people around you to help you do that to the best of your ability.” - Ted Schlueter

58:35 - “What kind of creative solutions and spin can we put on our company so that it stands out first and foremost?” - Ted Schlueter

61:28 - “You don’t want the people that just color by numbers and say, ‘We’re going to speed dial you to an exit.’ That might not be in your best interests.” - Ted Schlueter