Templates
Asking Owners for Their Time
Before You Send One
The [brackets] are your fill-ins, and the specific true line you put in them is what separates your note from the ones owners delete. Everything here belongs to one stage of the roadmap, Learn & Choose Your Path, and every other stage has its own set on the templates index.
Learning From Owners
Informational Call With an Owner
Asking an owner in a trade you are considering for a short call, before you have a thesis or anything to sell them.
Subject: Half an hour on running a [INDUSTRY] business?
Hi [OWNER FIRST NAME], I am researching [INDUSTRY] with a view to buying and running one in the next couple of years, and I would rather learn it from someone who does it than from the internet. Would you give me thirty minutes on the phone? I am not selling anything and I am not looking at your business. Three questions I would ask: what a normal week actually looks like, which part of the work is harder than outsiders think, and what you would want to know if you were buying in today. Happy to work around your schedule, including early or after hours. If now is a bad season, tell me when is better and I will come back then. [YOUR NAME] [PHONE] · [EMAIL]
Note to Someone Who Has Already Bought
Reaching a searcher who closed a deal, to learn how the financing and the first year really went rather than how they are described.
Subject: How the [INDUSTRY] deal actually got financed
Hi [BUYER FIRST NAME], I came across your acquisition of [BUSINESS OR INDUSTRY] and I am a year or so behind you, working toward the same thing on the [PATH] route. The part I cannot learn from the outside is how the money came together. If you are open to it, I would like to ask how the structure ended up, what the lender pushed back on, and what surprised you in the first six months of ownership. Thirty minutes, any format, and I am glad to keep anything you say off the record. If it is easier to answer two questions by email than to take a call, that works too. [YOUR NAME] [PHONE] · [EMAIL]
Asking to Shadow for a Day
Asking an owner to let you ride along for a day, which is the fastest honest test of whether you want the job the business actually is.
Subject: A day on the truck, if you will have me
Hi [OWNER FIRST NAME], We spoke [WHEN, OR HOW WE MET], and you were generous with your time. I would like to ask for something bigger. Would you let me spend a working day with you or one of your crews? I would stay out of the way, carry things, and ask questions only in the truck. What I am trying to find out is whether I want the actual job rather than the idea of it, and no amount of reading settles that. I will sign whatever you need me to sign, and I am happy to come on your busiest day rather than your easiest, since that is the one worth seeing. [YOUR NAME] [PHONE] · [EMAIL]
The Other Stages
Every stage has its own emails, because what you write changes completely between hunting a listing and papering a deal.