In this episode of the M&A Launchpad Podcast, hosts Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa sit down with Grant Hensel — a seasoned entrepreneur and acquisition professional who transitioned from starting companies to buying and scaling them. Grant shares his journey from founding and exiting Nonprofit Megaphone to launching a self-funded search that led to the acquisition of a digital marketing agency specializing in SEO for personal injury attorneys. Together with his wife Julia, Grant built upon their prior entrepreneurial experience to acquire, operate, and grow the business while implementing EOS and exploring bolt-on opportunities.
Throughout the episode, Grant discusses the lessons learned from acquiring a service-based business, navigating due diligence for digital assets, managing client retention, and building operational structure with EOS. The conversation dives into how Grant and Julia identified the right target, financed the deal through seller notes, and created growth through sales, marketing, and a bolt-on acquisition. He also touches on his fund, Entrepreneurial Capital, which supports other ETA operators, and his perspective on growth, transparency, and building long-term client trust.
In this podcast episode, we discuss:
• Self-Funded Search and Finding the Right Business
• Due Diligence in Digital Acquisitions
• Operating and Growing a Marketing Agency
• Implementing EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)
• Structuring Seller Financing and Building Trust with Clients
• Bolt-On Acquisitions and Expanding Services
• Investing in Other ETA Entrepreneurs
Guest Contact Info:
You can connect with Grant on LinkedIn or X (Twitter): @GrantHensel
Learn more about his fund: Entrepreneurial Capital
M&A Launchpad Conference:
The next M&A Launchpad Conference is happening in October 2025 in Chicago. Date and location details coming soon.
This is the premier event for entrepreneurs, investors, and dealmakers in the lower-middle market.
Get your ticket at https://www.malaunchpad.com and use code LAUNCH for $200 off.
Sponsored by O’Connell Advisory Group
Work with a trusted Quality of Earnings and Financial Diligence partner who focuses solely on business acquisitions.
Schedule a discovery call with Patrick of O’Connell Advisory Group—your dynamic Quality of Earnings partner.
Visit: www.oconnelladvisorygroup.com
Additional Resources:
Contact Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa at info@equity-launchpad.com
Learn more at https://www.equity-launchpad.com
�� Have a question or want to work with us? Reach out to Casey and Feras: info@equity-launchpad.com
🎧 Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4-9blOel6yQ
🎧 Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vMxP8B4KzJyI6i96XP7WZ?si=LgUyBEZ1RCmYYPiZXQsfmg
🎧 Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-startup-to-search-fund-buying-and-scaling/id1740382586?i=1000732330308
Transcript
00:00 All right, guys. Just take one second here real quick. When you’re buying a business, ensuring the financial health of the company is critical, and that’s
00:06 where a quality of earnings partner comes in. Quality of earnings gives you confidence in the financials of the company that you’re purchasing. It aims
00:13 to protect your investment and ensure that you’re stepping into a profitable business on day one. Patrick of Oconnell
00:18 Advisory Group is your dynamic quality of earnings partner. He’s here to help you buy the right business on your timeline. Patrick’s entire practice is
00:25 focused on business acquisitions. Your niche is his niche. And over the past decade, Patrick’s helped more than 200
00:31 buyers like yourself successfully purchase and operate enduring profitable businesses. In fact, Patrick’s helped
00:36 some listeners of this show. So, if you’re buying, looking for help with the quality of earnings, financial due
00:42 diligence, network capital, and more, head to okconelladvisor.com or just click the link in the show
00:47 notes. All right. On today’s episode, we interviewed Grant Hensel where we talked about what it’s like to go and do a
00:53 search and go buy a digital marketing agency, right? And some of the things that you need to think about while buying digital marketing agency, how do
00:59 you DD the agency? How do you DD the employees, right? What do you think about whenever you look at the contracts
01:04 and the existing customer list? Because you generally are typically buying a book of business. So Casey, what were
01:09 some of your takeaways? You know, it really hit me that it does matter to buy a business or buy a
01:14 business that you have some knowledge about, right? Because Grant had been a startup guy. He had built a company. He
01:20 had actually had a successful marketing firm that he had sold off and and and so they knew very specifically in their
01:26 thesis what they wanted to do. They didn’t know what type of agency it would be, but they really had a very bullet
01:32 point of this is what we’re looking for. And also having that his wife’s buyin, you know, and having that wife’s buyin
01:39 and they were focusing together, man, that synergy, man, compounds huge if everybody is focused on the same goal.
01:45 And so, man, just a great podcast in regards to covering about digital marketing. Marketing, buying a bolt-on,
01:52 it was just some deep stuff that I really enjoy because digital marketing, you can take it anywhere you go. Agreed. And you know, something near and
01:58 dear to my heart. I mean, I know a lot about it and it’s one of the things most companies fail at is doing a good job on the marketing side and so it was
02:04 definitely a lot of interesting details to kind of learn from this one if you’re looking to buy digital marketing.
02:09 [Music] Hey guys, go ahead and just pause the
02:15 podcast for a second. When you’re buying a business, you need to ensure the financial health of the company. The quality of earnings is missionritical.
02:21 It doesn’t matter what size business you’re buying. Patrick O’Connell Advisory Group. They’re dynamic. They do a great job. They’re going to look over
02:27 your shoulder. They’re going to make sure that you’re doing the right thing. And this guy’s done over 200 buyers successfully just like you. So, reach
02:33 out to them. And it’s okconelladvisor.com. Click the link in our show notes. Can’t live without. Hey Grant, welcome to the
02:40 show. Hey, thanks for having me. No problem. So, we got some big news, man. I guess last year you you you made it happen.
02:47 You you you conquered one of the big feats of uh what everybody in aqua the ETA world wants to do. So, why don’t you
02:53 jump in? Tell us about yourself and tell us about it. Yeah. No, we actually we acquired a business uh last year, which was
02:60 fantastic. And my background had basically been being an entrepreneur. I started businesses 10 times. two got
03:06 acquired in small transactions, seven totally failed and one did well, which is a digital marketing agency called
03:12 nonprofit megaphone. Um, and then my wife uh was working for Boston Consulting Group and wanted to have more
03:18 ownership over what she was doing. And so we did a weird hybrid where I searched and we found a business to buy
03:25 which we then acquired and now she runs which does search engine optimization for personal injury attorneys. Um, which
03:30 has been a ton of fun. She actually did a bolt. It’s right in that. and you know the
03:36 space, you’ve been there before. We’ll get to that here in a second. So, really quick, how long, you know,
03:42 whenever you started the search where you did a very traditional search, did you raise a search fund and you know,
03:47 what was your thesis maybe at the beginning, right? Whenever you started this and then kind of, you know, how
03:52 long did it take you to get there and where did you land? Yeah, so we did a self-funded search. It took about nine months, frankly, just
03:60 because I think we got lucky. Um, it could have easily taken much longer, but we submitted four LOIs, three were
04:06 accepted, two fell apart in diligence, and then one actually closed. So, not too long at the in the grand scheme of
04:12 things. And how I guess what were the source of those uh deals, right? So, you got to four, which is a lot to begin with. So,
04:18 what how were you finding your deals and what was the the thesis that you were looking at initially? You didn’t answer that part of it.
04:23 Yeah. So, initial thesis was we were pretty open at the beginning. We just said we want something that has a fully remote team and is serviceoriented and
04:32 that narrows it down wildly. Um uh or or not that much doesn’t narrow it down
04:37 that much at all. Um as we went through we eventually realized this is going to be a pretty big swing for us. And so
04:43 we’d like to do something that is within a universe that we have some experience. And so we’re eventually like let’s do
04:49 specifically a marketing agency because I had run one for nine years at that point. and we felt like at least we’ll
04:56 know the obvious mistakes that could be made uh in buying another marketing agency. But
05:02 so quick question before we jump into that too. Um we’ll keep deep diving here but um so you were an entrepreneur so
05:09 you started the businesses from ground up. You said you did 10 and so was what
05:15 was it that made you go hey I’m going to get in the acquisition stuff like what what was that trigger that said I’m doing this? I went to Booth. I did an
05:22 MBA just for no reason, just because I’m a nerd, but um met a lot of people who were doing the ETA thing. Learned about
05:29 learned a lot about the traditional model. Um not actually as much about self-funded. We ended up doing self-unded and and loved that approach.
05:36 Um but it’s it’s basically just the logic of sometimes it is easier to buy
05:42 than build from the ground up. And I you we see that in my own because I’ve so we
05:47 bought a business and then I’ve invested in uh like 11 transactions personally um
05:52 of other people buying businesses and the success rate there is so much dramatically higher than my own success
05:58 rate starting it’s just hilarious and so that was the it’s we love being business
06:03 owners and it it doesn’t have to have been something that we started from the ground up. No, I mean statistically
06:09 right it’s in your favor. I mean you get past the just getting the business going and validating the thesis and it’s
06:14 really more about refining, right? Like going from zero to one is very different than going from one to two. Different skill sets, different level of risk and
06:20 obviously different level of reward too. Absolutely. Yeah. But I guess how are you finding those
06:26 businesses? Yes. So we were finding them interestingly through brokers. At the beginning I’d never seen transactions
06:32 before. So it’s like let’s just look at some broker deals and get some reps in. And that ended up actually working out well. All four of them were through
06:40 various brokers. Uh, and interestingly, hilariously, um, the business we
06:45 actually ended up buying was listed on Flippa, which is like a marketplace for sort of like crappy e-commerce websites.
06:51 Um, but there were also occasionally like very legitimate business. I look at Flippa. I look at Flip every
06:57 once in a while. We had we we know the CEO. We had him actually at our Houston conference last year. So, had a good time with him. He’s
07:03 really good. It’s a good platform. It’s like it’s it’s more legit than people appreciate. Interview on the podcast, too. So, yeah,
07:09 you should definitely listen to that one to hear more. I I remember Flipper first came out 15 years ago. I used to be a internet junkie all over the place and
07:16 Yeah. So, it’s a good platform and it’s very much perfect for those digital marketing online type of businesses.
07:22 Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been we’ve been looking because one of the things that we talked about at the conference was, you know,
07:27 having some of these digital attributes, Facebook, social media, things that are out there that you can buy that could
07:33 aggregate for your actual business. And so just looking, right, just looking and
07:38 saying, “Hey, does that make sense?” Because, you know, there’s all kinds of crazy stuff out there, but you start looking and dialing it in and it’s kind
07:44 of neat to see the different opportunities. So, is that where you found this or did you find it through a broker?
07:49 So, we found it through it was listed on Flippa. had a broker and so we’re we’ll we’ll call that brokered for the
07:55 purposes of this but okay through flippa and then I guess what was the asking price and then how did due diligence go and you know where
08:01 do you ultimately land? So the asking price was two times earnings um uh on a million dollars of
08:06 earnings and we ended up landing there. Um we thought that was reasonable. Uh
08:12 the business two times is on the lower end for you know a business of that size. The business had no meaningful
08:20 sales and marketing engine at the time of acquisition. It was just based on referrals and sort of the owner’s
08:25 network. And so we we felt like that multiple is actually reasonable. Um and
08:31 yeah, uh the seller we really ended up bonding with the seller. He ended up turning down higher offers because he
08:37 thought we’d be a better steward of the team going forward. And why was the good
08:43 Yeah. nicest guy. Why was he selling? Oh, he was selling out of a desire to retire, which is, you
08:50 know, the most classic. The the funny thing though is that he’s not a super um old guy. Like he’s, you know, not not
08:56 very old at all. Um but interestingly, I because I chatted with the team during diligence. I went um and you know, met
09:02 uh lots of them in person, but um I was like, is it is it a surprise that the seller is retiring? And they’re like,
09:08 nope. Uh he told us for years that like at this specific age, that was when he
09:13 wanted to retire. And here we are. we’re at that age and we’re wrapping this party up. Um, he just had a third young
09:19 child and wanted to spend more time with him and anyway it was Yeah, worked out. Very nice. So, four LOIs, right? So, you
09:27 put did you put in four offers? Yeah, I mean marketing. All digital marketing.
09:33 We got more defined over time. The first one was like a um it was like online
09:39 course type stuff. It’s sort of like a It was basically like a Facebook ad engine connected to a like a funnel
09:46 that’s offering some sort of digital thing. That one was not accepted and that was for the best like that. Anyway,
09:51 that would have been a disaster. Um, one was um a online school and community for
09:58 people that had a particular hobby. That one ended up falling apart because the books were completely wrong. They had
10:05 been taking on debt from like Stripe Capital and QuickBooks Capital, like those sort of uh lenders, and their
10:12 bookkeeper actually had been marketing that as revenue and not as debt. So, they thought they were making all this money and they’re actually like losing a
10:19 lot of money and paying taxes on like fake profitability. It was a disaster. So, that didn’t happen. And then the
10:25 third one um is a funny story. It is a business that helped people uh contest
10:30 unfair, negative Google reviews. and something really good happened to the business during due diligence and they
10:36 eventually said like sorry guys we can’t sell this to you it’s a gold mine like I’m I’m sorry um interestingly we’ve
10:42 stayed friends with those folks um things you know the that universe is volatile and it evolved um and anyway
10:49 Julia ended up actually acquiring them a couple months ago so like stayed in touch and a deal actually ended up
10:55 happening just much later on so and then the fourth one was the business we actually bought and so and so when you’re doing the due
11:02 diligence. I I’ve never done a DD on a on a on really a web digital type
11:07 business. So, is the first thing you do, are you doing like a a digital asset review or are you doing are you going
11:14 straight to like a QV? Is it a pure financial play? So, how do you go through and do diligence something like
11:19 that to where you felt comfortable because your background is this? So, you know the industry. Yeah. Yeah. Marketing agencies are weird
11:25 because it’s really just a team and clients. There’s no there’s no assets of any kind like in the physical world. And
11:31 so the things that matter most are what does client retention look like, which for them was quite good. What does your
11:37 sales and marketing engine look like? For them was essentially non-existent. And um what does your team caliber and
11:43 retention and talent look like? I was actually able to meet everyone on the team prior to close, which is super nice
11:50 of the seller. And that gave us area or all over the country? All over. So actually all over the world, interestingly. Wow. So a good
11:57 number of those were uh roughly 20 something like that. Got it.
12:03 22 and and you said you said it was a million of profit and so you know the revenue is even more than that and how
12:08 many different clients was there and on that same vein how did you DD the client list right in retention and you know
12:14 were there long-term because you’re really you’re really buying a book of business and I guess you’re getting the operational piece of it too that you
12:20 know kind of but but you’re betting on the book of business more than anything else because you already knew 100% marketing to begin with. really needed the book of
12:26 business to be sticky. Yeah. Yeah. And they were legitimately very good at SEO. Like that was that’s the final component is like you actually
12:32 have to be good. It it’s very easy to have a marketing agency that doesn’t actually do anything and the clients
12:37 just turn. Um but they were actually doing good and like getting great results. So the way we got comfortable with client retention is that
12:44 essentially all of the clients signed new go forward contracts with us as the new entity prior to close that just
12:50 became effective on the close date. So we knew 100% of the clients were aware of the transition, were comfortable with
12:56 it, had been talked about. That was one of the requirements, right? Yeah. Yeah. The seller was kind enough
13:01 to like be very comfortable with that. But yes, um and those one-year contracts. Was there
13:07 an out for those people? I mean, how did you know protect yourself? Yeah. No. Yeah. They all had like 30 or
13:12 60 day outs. And so it’s at the end of the day in all forms of marketing agencies, you live by the sword and you
13:18 die by the sword. If you’re doing a good job, people are probably going to retain you. And if you’re not, there’s nothing you could possibly do to keep them. But
13:23 we just wanted to we knew that the results were good and we just didn’t want the shock of a change of ownership
13:30 and you know and the seller backing away to create issues. Um and we wanted everyone to know like to feel like they
13:37 knew about it before it actually happens that it was less of a you can already gauge if you’re going to have some attrition or not. Right. The plan totally.
13:42 So it’s a it’s a it’s a digital marketing company for and you said specifically for which industry?
13:48 specifically personal injury attorneys. So very local oriented um and very
13:54 competitive. It’s probably the one of the most competitive landscapes in all of and they didn’t have a marketing engine
13:60 for themselves, but they were providing marketing engines for the personal attorneys. It sounds like both SEO and ads, right?
14:06 It’s not just one SEO and also what’s called LSAs, local services ads. Not traditional like Google PPC, but but highly Yeah. Very
14:13 SEO focused. How many different customers was it? It was a couple dozen. Um, they’ve grown
14:20 since then. I’m trying to remember. Uh, it was probably on the order of like 25 or 30.
14:26 Manageable amount to go have a conversation with every single one of them and just, you know, hey, here’s who we are. Here’s what’s going on.
14:31 And they’re attorneys, so they understand. Like, that’s another thing. These are not they understand contracts, so they’re
14:37 like, of course, you know, are you going to keep everything the same? Yes. Is it the same people? Yes. I mean, I imagine Yes.
14:43 Yes. totally. Yeah. Yeah, it’s a sophisticated client base, which is great. So, due diligence, you looked at those
14:49 basic key factors. Now, I’m sure you and your wife were sitting at home going, “Hey, here’s how we grow this business,
14:56 right?” So, before you closed, I imagine you had already seen a lot of enhancement stuff that you can do,
15:03 right? So, so what were those and how quickly did you implement them? Because sometimes when you take over a business,
15:08 you don’t want to change much, right? You want to give it some time. So, when did when did all that start to happen?
15:14 two. The two biggest things that we focused on were sales and marketing, standing up an engine to do that, and
15:19 then implementing what’s called EOS or the entrepreneurial operating system, which is sort of like a framework for
15:24 you guys, I’m sure heard of it, uh, for running businesses. Both of those started pretty
15:30 um, pretty soon after close. Um, and yeah, cuz you know, like a week after
15:37 close, we got the leadership team all together in person. Um, I came for that one. Julie obviously was there and
15:44 introduced them to this concept of EOS which was massively helpful in the marketing agency I’d started back in the
15:51 day. Um and so we sort of shared how impactful that was and and started rolling that out. And then Julia started
15:56 doing sales and marketing very soon. It’s it’s highly conference driven in this particular landscape. lots of uh
16:03 professional development and like continuing education is required for uh attorneys and so they have all these
16:08 conferences and you just have lots of opportunities as a vendor to bond with people at conferences. So Julia
16:14 doing any of that? Nothing. Nothing at all. No marketing of any form has been uh attempted.
16:22 And really quick, how did you guys take down the deal? Like so was it you guys brought the cash? Did you guys finance
16:27 part of it? Was there seller carry? I mean, how did y’all structure that and how do you protect yourself, right? Was
16:32 there an earnout component? Yeah, cash and seller note uh were the two components we did not it’s a long
16:38 story. We basically did not want to do um an SBA loan and it it wouldn’t have
16:44 been eligible because the owner was not in the United States. Um and so like all
16:50 the clients were but uh the owner was not. So it wasn’t SBA eligible and so we had to we had to be creative. But um we
16:56 were we were fortunate to be able to make a meaningful sort of equity down payment um on the business and then the
17:04 rest was just seller financing which was good for alignment as well like we always
17:11 marketing the biggest fear is that book leaves and so totally you know especially in that kind of scenario there’s not a lot of recourse
17:17 if you stop paying that note on that seller that’s in another country so his incentive is that the business stays healthy so that actually works in your
17:24 favor to not have him here in So Grant, you know, one of the things and and so as I go out and I look for
17:29 businesses and I meet with owners, I like to get bellyto belly. I like to meet them in person. So this guy is out
17:34 of the country. Yes. So did you do most of your meetings like this digital?
17:41 No. So yeah. So we we met digitally through flippa had I think two zoom
17:47 conversations and then I think it was just after I don’t know
17:53 we boo I booked time to travel to him in person like immediately
17:59 Europe or we talking like you know yeah yeah Europe yeah Romania specifically um which is one of the
18:06 freaking digital marketing people are Romania or you know one of the border countries is pretty there’s a talent
18:12 pool. Yeah. Yeah. So, we talked once and then twice and then I think I was in Romania and spent a week with him and
18:18 met the team the week after that. Nice. Very nice. All right. So now, okay, so
18:24 due diligence, we get it closed. This was a year ago, right? So you start implementing EOS in that first probably
18:31 90 days and then you start hitting the sales and marketing stuff. Do you start
18:36 to see like immediate impact from the sales and marketing? Is it something that it’s more of a longtail or
18:42 definitely takes time. Yeah. Yeah. And uh giving credit where it’s due. All this is not me. It’s it’s my wife and
18:48 I’m sort of being helpful a little bit in the sidelines, but it’s, you know, 95% her. Um the sales marketing was
18:54 definitely took meaningful time uh to figure out, you know, how does this how
18:59 does this customer buy? What does this customer want to understand before they buy? Um Julia had did not have an SEO
19:05 background. She had been a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, which is very, you know, high intensity. the client
19:10 pays you a million dollars a week for a small team. So like she’s used to delivering at a high level but uh didn’t
19:16 have deep SEO knowledge and so those things built up. She basically built up relationships, built up SEO knowledge,
19:22 built up reps. Um and it was probably it was a meaningful it was a meaningful
19:27 number of months before like the first new client was signed from sort of proactive sales and marketing
19:33 efforts and then you know momentum starts to build after that. Okay. So then I guess speaking of momentum so you’re you’re into it a
19:40 little over a year you know how I guess how has attrition look like on the existing customer base and how many new
19:46 customers have you brought on right you know what’s been the growth been like yeah it’s it’s been good so the um our
19:52 our basically target was to keep the business like at least flat because we knew there’s going to be some attrition
19:57 it’s just going to happen um and you knew if you kept it for two years you’re you’re in the money on your
20:02 investment right totally totally yeah so it’s like okay and so that that ended up happening. So
20:08 because year one ended at the be at the end of June this past uh June. So we’re
20:13 I guess we’re like what 16 months in or something, whatever that is. Um and so year one was slightly
20:19 better actually than projected. So that was wonderful. Um and and yeah, and um
20:26 uh I should know these numbers like offhand. A meaningful number of new clients have been signed. um not not
20:31 like dramatic, but um I don’t know, probably like eight or 10, something like that. They tend to be more
20:37 meaningful client relationships. Um so you have a little bit of attrition, but you’ve added clients and so you’re continuing staying on that uptick.
20:43 But eight eight and 10 on 25 is still pretty good growth, right? Assuming the attrition wasn’t too bad.
20:48 Totally. Yeah. So even if it’s three drop, five, you know, eight came on, that’s a net of five. Five on 25 is, you know, that’s a
20:54 pretty good percent growth right there. Totally. Yeah. Which has been good. And anyway, and some of the some of the
20:59 older clients were at at very advantageous pricing to the client and so it’s been good to have sort of more
21:05 market rate pricing coming. So I imagine I imagine there’s upselles in your business too, right? I I would
21:12 imagine that you could say, “Hey, this is what you were getting at this service and guess what? We’re adding all these other services. We’re keeping you here
21:18 and we’re going to add these.” Is is that part of the the is that part of the plan? Is that what y’all are doing?
21:24 Certainly. So yeah, SEO is is interesting because it’s like building an asset. You’re building the
21:29 credibility and authority of your website. And so and it depends different cities because it’s very geography
21:35 oriented. If you are a personal injury attorney trying to be competitive in Boston, all the people on the first page
21:42 of Google are probably spending like 20 to $100,000 a month, you know, at 20 to
21:47 $50,000 a month on that. Um whereas if you’re trying to rank for, you know, like a smaller local town or whatever,
21:53 you know, maybe it’s $3,000 a month. And so that is always a conversation with clients of what geographies do you want
21:59 to be competitive in and where does it make sense to potentially invest and where are like underappreciated
22:04 geographies where it’s actually going to be pretty cost-effective. Um and and the interesting thing too on the upsell
22:11 front is that so the the review contesting company that we were in diligence with over a year ago now um
22:18 actually ended up getting acquired also. So they they did a little bolt-on acquisition and have now added that it’s
22:23 called Repzert. Um and that has been great because that a lot of those clients are also personal injury
22:29 attorneys just sort of randomly um or attorneys of various types. And so that’s been a great entry point to say
22:35 like, okay, we’ve helped you with your, you know, unfair review contesting. Would you like us to help you more holistically with your SEO and digital
22:42 presence more broadly? Of course. You’ve built a partnership there with that group. Yeah. Yeah. Through Yeah. through
22:48 acquiring them, which has been great. So Oh, well that did buy them. Yeah. We Okay. So I’m
22:54 came back around. Yeah. Yeah. You said I wasn’t clear. I was like, maybe you did buy them. Yeah. Yeah. So Okay. So you’ve made your
22:59 bolt-on acquisition was the review company that came back around. Exactly. Yeah. Phenomenal. Okay. So, that’s a whole
23:05 another business that you’ve that you’ve gotten into. Absolutely. Which has been great. It’s it’s such a perfect match.
23:12 Yeah. And for the listeners, right, what kind of contract dollars are we talking about? Like what is an actual fee? Because I know a lot about digital
23:18 marketing, but I think most listeners maybe even case don’t know a lot, right? So, explain maybe what is the actual
23:23 business model? You’ve explained the service, but maybe you could explain the business model itself. Yeah, it’s almost always a monthly retainer and sometimes
23:31 it involves a redo of the website. If a new client signs on and they have a website that was built in 2015,
23:37 probably a new website or fresh website is needed and that is typically a it depends that that’s a it can be like you
23:43 know 10 grand to 100 grand depending on how intense you’re looking and then there’s a monthly recurring component
23:49 which is for ongoing SEO activities which is content link building local
23:55 which would be like Google business profile optimization and uh review management and all those components and
24:01 then just like broader SEO STR strategy and technical implementation of like schema markup and optimization for AI
24:08 and all the million things. Um, and that is a retainer that’s, you know, $4,000 a
24:14 month to $50,000 a month if you’re trying to be number one for car accident attorney in, you know, Boston or
24:21 something like that. Got it. And then spends on top of that obviously, right? So that’s y’all’s
24:26 Well, it’s just SEO. This is SEO. So no, there’s no media spend. Um there’s no
24:32 like uh someone else would do if someone was doing paid ads like PPC that would
24:38 be another partner uh because Julia’s company just does the SEO side. Oh, you guys don’t do any of the ad
24:43 spend. Okay. I thought you guys had both. I got it. I mean upsell right there.
24:49 Yeah. He’s waiting for that. That’s his new That’s his next bolt on there. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll see. Yeah. It’s a
24:54 tough game. But then for the SEO side, right, to you know, how do you protect against the
25:00 the default of people asking like how do I verify you’re doing anything for me,
25:05 right? Because SEO takes time. And so, how do you quantify it? Especially, you call it a retainer. I call it a monthly
25:12 fee. Or are you somehow quantifying that, hey, we dip into the retainer and here’s how we dip into it, right? For
25:17 every artic, you know, every this or that, here’s how we deduct from that. Yeah, monthly fee is a much easier way
25:23 to talk about it because monthly. So then how do you quantify that you guys gave value for that for people?
25:28 Yeah. Yeah. So the the whole point SEO is weird because to your point you have
25:34 to uh explain and build trust with the client in the strategy and that it
25:39 actually makes sense and that you’re actually doing those things and that if you do both those things together like results should follow and you should see
25:45 an increase in rankings and therefore an increase in signed cases is the is the northstar for all Julie’s clients. we
25:51 want to sign cases. And so it’s basically just massive transparency. You have to be extremely transparent in the
25:57 sales process of this is the road map that we’d recommend. These are the specific activities. We’re going to have calls every month and we’re going to go
26:04 over everything so you can see like this is what we were supposed to do and here it is and now it’s done. Like you’ll
26:10 notice that this page used to be different and now here it is. You’ll notice that these pages from another
26:15 person’s site are now linking to yours and that didn’t used to happen. Um, and and there’s typically, you know, it
26:21 depends on how competitive a market is, but typically in the sort of first 3 to 6 months, you’re building momentum. And then you should start seeing like Julia
26:28 was chatting with a client yesterday who I think signed on six months ago and they used to get like one signed case
26:35 every other month kind of a deal from organic search. So, call it like six a year and then they’ve probably gotten
26:41 like five or six in the past three months. Um, which is and and these are pretty meaningful. It’s like that’s
26:47 there’s like real dollars associated with that. Yeah. They make they make pretty good money on a on a good injury case, right?
26:52 For sure. Yeah. So, it’s like that’s, you know, and they’re just they’re just thrilled beyond belief. Um because that
26:58 is massive ROI at the six-month mark and everyone’s super happy and that’s the goal is uh you got to build the trust,
27:05 deliver the work, and then demonstrate that the results are actually happening. You know, on the Google review side, so
27:11 how does that business work? What does what does that look like? Anyone? So that opens you up to all different types of people, right?
27:17 It does. Yeah. And it’s the simplest business model in the world because uh customers say, “Hi, this you know this
27:23 review.” It’s every business owner you talk to has crazy stories about like a
27:28 competitor left a review pretending to be a customer or like this person. Injury attorneys get it a lot. People
27:34 will review and say this person wouldn’t accept my case and like I’m so mad that’s so unprofessional. which one,
27:40 that’s an injury attorney being responsible if they’re like, “You don’t have a case here. I’m not going to waste your time with it.” And two, it’s
27:46 against Google’s rules. You cannot leave a review as a non-C customer. So, like, that’s invalid. And so, people will come
27:53 to Repspurt and say, “This review not legitimate. Can you please contest it?” They say, “Absolutely. It’s like 685
27:60 bucks only if we get it down. And if we don’t get it down, our work is free. So, sorry, didn’t work out.” And so,
28:07 it’s very straightforward. Got it. And so on that business, you just, you know, how to basically get to
28:13 to communicate with Google to basically get that removed. Totally. Yeah. Almost like a credit repair, but it’s a
28:19 credit repair for Google reviews. Exactly. 100%. Cool. Awesome.
28:24 I like it. What’s next? Yeah. What’s next? Yeah. We’ll see. Julia’s so um for
28:30 anyone who may be listening who owns a legal focused SEO agency, Julia’s in the market for bolt-on acquisitions. So
28:36 thrilled to have conversations like that. if helpful. Um, I love this stuff and so and now, uh, like the way I’m
28:44 spending a lot of my time is investing in other transactions like this. We’ve raised a little fund called Entrepreneurial Capital and excited to
28:50 be, uh, supporting other people like Julia pursuing this ETA path. All right. So, you’re it sounds like
28:57 you’re you’re focused on just being a essentially a fund that’s investing in other people. So, in addition to people
29:02 with, you know, personal injury related businesses, anyone that’s got, you know, an ETA that’s looking for funding could
29:08 maybe reach out to you and see if there’s a fit. 100%. Yeah, we’ve raised like 11.5 million to focus on specifically
29:15 entrepreneurship acquisition transaction. So, happy to be helpful to anyone we can be. That’s outstanding, man. Well, look,
29:22 Grant, fantastic. We’re going to go into the other part of the business, learn a little bit more about you. So, uh, this is where we ask our guests on a rocket
29:28 round. Three big questions. All right. So, what do you like to do in your free time?
29:34 We love traveling. Um, and have been able to go to lots of fun places. Um, I
29:40 went to Thailand last year and Japan and anyway, just lots of stuff like that. Cannot get enough of interesting travel.
29:47 All right, next question. Most memorable moment of your business journey. Yeah, most memorable moment is um in
29:54 nonprofit Megaphone, the digital marketing agency. We had a our core business is helping people with the
29:59 Google ad grant. Helping nonprofits with the Google ad grant. We had a a period for a couple years where we helped
30:05 nonprofits raise money on Facebook through what’s called Facebook challenges. That was awesome. And we helped organizations raise like $66
30:11 million over a couple years and then the Facebook platform kind of changed and we
30:17 basically couldn’t do it effectively anymore and we had to lay people off for the first and last time since and it was
30:23 just awful. Um, and so that is my most memorable moment in business is uh going
30:28 through the pain and suffering of that and then emerging on the other side and realizing like it’s sort of my worst
30:34 fear in life of like letting people down in that way. And it was interesting coming out of it on the other side and realizing
30:40 I’m still alive, they’re still alive, like it’s okay. Um, but learned a lot from that process. And it’s the nature of business. It is
30:47 right. We’ve got to take care of the business as much as we want to take care of people first. You know, the business has to survive otherwise you can’t help
30:53 anybody. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Very nice. All right. And your last question. What was your favorite tool or resource?
30:60 I love EOS. Um like the traction book I think is great. Um there’s Get a Grip, which is like a story version of all the
31:08 content and traction. And anyway, it’s just like been life-changing for me and for Julia’s business and cannot say
31:14 enough good things about the whole EOS. Yeah, it’s valuable. I mean, we we use the Pinnacle flavor of EOS because there was a whole EOS itself, the business got
31:21 acquired and then there’s this whole fallout and I guess there’s a sister version of Pinnacle. So, that’s kind of what we have rolled out and we had our
31:27 coach here two weeks ago. So, we do quarterly and you have an annual coming up in November. So, love it.
31:32 Very nice. All right, Grant. How can our guests get a hold of you? I am on LinkedIn uh just Grant Hensel
31:40 and um Twitterx also just Grant Hensel. Um and happy to chat or connect with
31:45 anyone. happy to be helpful. Yeah, looks like you’re looking for some good deals, so people will definitely want to reach out to you.
31:50 Great. We’ll also put that in our show notes so people can get a hold of you. Sounds great. Awesome. Grant, thank you so much for
31:56 spending this afternoon to you. Thank you. Congratulations to y’all’s success. It’s really exciting. Thanks, guys. Yeah, great to chat.
32:03 Thank you. Thank you for listening to the M&A Launchpad podcast. If you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to
32:08 support us, please leave us a rating and a review after you listen. I’m Casey Menchu and I look forward to talking with you next week.
