Why Buying a Business is the Ultimate Growth Opportunity

When you’re committed to personal growth, there are many avenues you can take to pursue that growth. You can take courses to acquire new interpersonal or communication skills, you can challenge yourself with a new project, or do something you’ve been afraid of doing.

These are all common ways to pursue personal growth, but there’s also another, more unexpected way – buying a business. When you buy a business, you’re essentially stepping into a new role where the stakes are high and you have to grow to meet your challenges. It’s a great opportunity to grow and here’s why.

1. You’ll have to learn new skills fast

Hopefully, you’ll work with mergers and acquisitions broker to buy your business so you won’t have to handle anything outside your realm of experience. This is the best way to get a good deal on the right business without making rookie buying mistakes. However, once you acquire your new business, you’ll have plenty to learn.

If the business you buy is in an unfamiliar industry, you’ll have a lot of catching up to do. With a little research, you can get up to speed with the basics, but those working in the company will know you’re new to the industry. This will give you a good opportunity to ask for information, help, and advice from experts in the industry.

 Depending on the business you buy, you might even need to learn how to run the business on the floor. For instance, if you buy a successful coffee chain, you’ll want to know how the business operates before making any decisions. For instance, from an outsider’s perspective, it might seem excessive to carry six different paper cup sizes. However, certain cup sizes have specific uses and can’t be substituted.

Say you stop buying 8oz hot cups to save money. This move could cause you to lose business. For example, if your 8 oz cappuccino is popular, most coffee connoisseurs won’t want it if it comes in a bigger cup. Many won’t want a larger-sized cappuccino, either, because the ratio of espresso to microfoam will be different.

2. You’ll learn to problem solve fast

 No business is problem-free and it will only be a matter of time before you discover long-standing problems in your newly-acquired organization. When you do, you’ll need to come up with solutions fast. 

If the business you’re buying is more of a retail business that serves the public, you’ll need to learn how everyone’s roles fit together based on their responsibilities and assigned tasks. For instance, if you buy a department store and there are never enough cashiers, understanding everyone’s roles will help you solve the problem.

You might realize you can solve the cashier shortage by having sales floor team members work as backup cashiers on an as-needed basis. From there, you’ll need to develop a system for the cashiers to tell sales floor team members when they’re needed. You could implement a system where sales floor people carry a walkie-talkie that tells them they’re needed when a cashier pushes a button at the register.

No matter what problems you uncover, people working for the company will be expecting you to solve those problems so it’s the perfect opportunity to train yourself to think quickly.

3. You’ll learn to delegate

 Learning how to delegate tasks is one of the hardest things for some people, but it’s necessary if you ever want to scale your business. You can’t do everything yourself and at some point, you’ll max out your available time.

Delegating your tasks will give you time to work on aspects of your business that you can’t delegate. Like strategizing to scale your business, open new locations, or make important changes.

When you buy a new business, you’ll get overwhelmed with duties pretty fast. It will seem even more overwhelming because everything will be new, but even when the business is in a familiar industry, it won’t be easy.

You’ll have to start delegating fast once you buy a business. There’s no way around it – if you don’t delegate, you’ll drown in responsibilities that will be left undone.

Dive into your opportunities for growth

Nothing aids personal growth faster than throwing yourself into a new and unfamiliar situation. Buying a business is exactly that type of situation. Don’t worry about making mistakes because that’s inevitable. Just throw your hat over the fence and dive into all the personal growth opportunities that greet you.