Every Reason Acquisitions Suck for Everyone, and One Reason They Don’t. - From A Regular Employee That Used to Hate Them

In my time in the home services space, I've been through several acquisitions. Some of them I led, and some of them I guided. A couple of them, I was just the employee on the other end of all the changes. Some were big and complex with market capitalization in mind, and some of them were simply strategic and part of a path to get to the others. One thing I can say about every single one of them is.... THEY SUCKED! They unquestionably pissed me off and stressed me out more than anything else (and gave me far more gray hair for my age than I deserve). That is only important because I have strong opinions around the idea that they don’t have to! So, I, alongside two others, started our own business based on this idea. Here is what I “know”, and probably a few things I think I know.  

The Shit Sandwich

• It was always what I call a “shit sandwich”. The good, nicely layered and well-presented above a giant pile of crap, followed by a palatable and meticulously plated bottom bun full of false promises and monumentally ambitious “maybes”, designed to get me to fall in line and be “excited”.

• What I mean is that: The business always sold me on all the goods, held me responsible and accountable for the execution and all the legwork, while promising me great rewards for goals I likely would fall short of. I caught on to this about acquisition #1 and moved quite wearily for the next ones, but ultimately, each one felt like a giant sales pitch that compromised their integrity in my eyes as an employee.  

• The Result: I learned to position my value and effort in a way that, while my involvement would require 101% personal effort, it would benefit me monetarily first and foremost, even in a worst-case scenario. I learned to look out for me as a priority because I didn't trust the business to, instead of getting behind the business first. It gave me an opinion, but more importantly, a voice behind it. (I bet that was super annoying to deal with!) The real problem was that I was not the only one who learned to do this. Even worse, employees conspire to make sure this happens. The business effectively utilized a sales pitch (and come on, its 2024, almost everyone can see through it), to ruin its culture and deteriorate its potential.

Another Shit Sandwich?

• It was always what I call a “shit sandwich”. Nope, not repeating myself, hear me out. About 8 hours before the changes started, all employees would be pulled in, sold about what an amazing opportunity lay ahead, and sent home for the evening. The next day, a sizable portion of them would have a last-minute meeting on their calendar for about an hour before the day ended, where they would inevitably get let go, and then firmly patted on the back with a pre-written thank you and severance. (Though I'll admit, I always saw very fair severances, which was cool).  

• What I mean is that: Well, that's what I mean. But listen, for everyone that made it through the first one, how do you think they felt every day after? Or the next time they got a last-minute meeting thrown on their calendar? Sure, the company gained a lot of financial stability overnight, but I never saw a situation where productivity didn't go down which compromised the gain long term. At best, if it stayed close to the same, it was because you had A+ managers that cared about the employees more than the money, going above and beyond each day to compensate, inevitably resulting in burnout. (Queue leadership turnover problem).  

• The Result: A ruined culture that spent more time speculating on hypotheticals than they did achieving the things the businesses needed them to. Overwhelming uncertainty for the remaining employees living paycheck to paycheck. Not to mention, a payroll thrown away by paying those employees to look for something more secure to support both them and their families. Also, my unpopular opinion would be, if you can let half your staff go today with revenue growth and the idea of efficiency as a vision, you were overstaffed yesterday anyhow, and you could have prevented the turmoil well-ahead of time (and maybe even have improved your exit multiple).  

Everyone Hates Change, No Matter What They Say

• Everything was always flipped on its head, and it was always “necessary”. The growth goals highlighted a clearly disconnected sales pitch of projections and investor expectations while always bordering a nearly invisible line between them and the realm of possibility.  

• What I mean is that: The closing of the acquisition was so important that at times, the expectations of investors were set in a way to assure it, instead of with a consideration of what it would take for the employees to get there. With acquisitions often focused on a relatively short turnaround before flipping the business for a major profit, the limitations and dependencies were often positioned internally as more of a “I don’t care, figure it out.” What do they say? You can polish a turd but then it's just a shiny turd? Or something like that, but I digress. Every system was new, every process would change. Cool, I preach change, but there is a way about if you want to see success and dumping it in everyone’s laps on day one is not that way about it.  

• The Result: Most existing endeavors that could be advantageous or valuable in securing marketing position ended up with band-aids instead of stitches. It felt like every product the customers and employees believed in only ever reached 75% potential and fell short with bugs or bad processes which encouraged poor reputation and customer churn. The continuous need for new sales and revenue outweighed problems that overpromising created, and that turned into a redundancy of leadership wasting time fixing a problem, that at the same time, they were creating. Of course, you can't fix the problem, as that would mean setting accurate expectations and risking the sale. Most significantly, it resulted in employees spending more time relearning their day jobs and the systems to complete them than they did working, increasing stress and decreasing productivity.  

Is There A Point?

• The GOLDEN egg. Look, if you got this far, I know you are considering that you may be reading a post from the world's most pessimistic and jaded employee ever. Maybe that's true... but I'd be inclined to own the truth that I was a financially incentivized master delegator that spent more time on the management side creating the word tracks to convince employees that none of what I have just said is true, and I did not have it all that bad. So, what is the one reason acquisitions don’t suck? Simple answer: it gave me and my business partners the opportunity to build our business because we realized that acquisitions CAN avoid all of these things? More importantly, it gave us the opportunity to help business owners like you get ahead of these problems.  

• What I mean is that: It is that simple. Not EVERY acquisition HAS to be a tarnished experience. Whether you are the buyer or seller, you can say no to expectations that don't align with your values and visions. Believe it or not, you can put the people first with as little as transparency, which as a leader of many teams, I've seen work every time (but I assure you, it goes a lot smoother if that focus starts at the top and not just above the individual contributors). The integrity of you and your business doesn't have to be compromised by the desire for maximized profit on minimized timelines, which in my opinion, drives a lot of these hurdles. Listen, I want to get rich too, but I have a lifetime to do it (and I plan to live a while). Work with someone who cares more about a positive process, sustained culture, and protecting the values that got your business to where it is, than they do about an early retirement and beach side margaritas (which, to be fair, I hope this article rewards me with). The reality of it is, there is more to a successful acquisition than money and the moment. What about 2 years from now? How often do companies reflect on their acquisition a year or two ago when facing an employee turnover issue or product shortcoming? Customers and employees don't have to feel the impact and making them a priority is possible. Though, I would say that the most valuable thing that I learned through these acquisitions, and more importantly, through my career, was that I could achieve all the same goals, and alleviate all this discontent, by simply being honest and up front. Good or bad, no matter who was on the other end, I never compromised the values or morals that helped grow these companies to a position to obtain these opportunities. Which is why I should have titled this; “All the reasons that money hungry decisions, and poor deal execution, made my experience with acquistions,10x f***ing more miserable than it needed to be”. Admittedly, it’s not the best way to make friends, but I assure you that along the way, you make some great ones. The saying, “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast”. It applies here. Make the acquisition your smoothest process, and your business can move at its fastest pace.  

Getting ahead of these problems is important. In the long term, it creates better employees, extends customer lifecycles, and ultimately mitigates churn, allowing for incremental revenue increases that only relationships built on integrity and credibility through experience can foster. The acquisition itself has impacts far beyond our pockets, many of which won’t reveal themselves until so much time has passed that we can no longer recognize the true spark that ignited the fire. From all positions, the more everyone benefits, the more everyone benefits. It’s a simple concept, but easier said than done. Maintaining (or developing) the unwillingness to adopt the mindset of “out of sight, out of mind” pays dividends down the road. What’s the legacy of the acquisition itself? In my experience, that seems to be an overlooked question, and answering it often doesn’t allow one to comfortably say it was the intended legacy of the person who started the business—usually the very reason the business found itself in this position in the first place.

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