Soft skills are the most important for an independent sponsor, according to Kevin Wong at Lang Partners, a Dallas-based Family Office. I agree.
Hard skills (modeling, analyzing, creating materials) are commoditized.
The soft skills required for stakeholder alignment, however, are required at every step:
Entry: Convince the broker/banker that you're worth their time. Persuade the business owner that you're the right next steward of their legacy. Earn the trust of debt providers. Generate excitement among equity providers. Manage legal, QoE, and other vendors on time & on budget to close the deal.
Ops: Day 1, meet the employees, who are all nervous & skeptical. Day 2, meet the customers, who are all suspicious & opportunistic. Day 3, meet vendors, and on it goes. Don't forget the investors, lenders, and auditors who need regular touchpoints. All it takes is 1 stakeholder to change course or act out of line for you to have your work scoped out for you. Good luck.
Exit: The easy part, right? Negative. Yes, the money is inbound from a buyer. But everyone wants a piece of the pie, and it's a grueling process to shepherd everyone through the multi-multi-month DD (which is on top of day-to-day, regular work).
Stakeholder alignment is difficult, and there's no sustained homeostasis (my favorite word). Issues arise constantly, and they're yours to solve (otherwise they wouldn't reach your desk).
Kevin & Lang were LPs in the Texas home services rollup where I was the independent sponsor. They were on the board and fantastic partners throughout multiple rounds of add-on acquisitions & more.
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