Understanding Buyer Intent

WHAT MAKES A TRULY OWNER-INDEPENDENT BUSINESS? Discover the key factors buyers evaluate when looking for hands-off operations. Strong Management Team • Experienced leaders who make decisions independently. • Clear roles and responsibilities without owner involvement. • Team handles daily operations and problem-solving effectively. Documented Systems and Processes • Comprehensive operating manuals and procedures in place. • Automated workflows that run without owner oversight. • Training systems that maintain consistency and quality. Reliable Revenue Streams • Diversified customer base not dependent on owner relationships. • Recurring revenue models that ensure steady cash flow. • Multiple revenue channels reducing single-source risks. Technology and Automation • Digital systems handling routine tasks and decisions. • Cloud-based tools enabling remote management. • Automated reporting and performance tracking. Key Performance Indicators • Clear metrics tracking business health independently. • Dashboard systems providing real-time insights. • Regular reporting processes that don't need owner input. Client Relationships • Strong client base loyal to the business, not the owner. • Multiple team members managing key accounts. • Systems for maintaining and growing client relationships. The Ultimate Test • Can the business maintain performance during owner absence? • Do profits remain stable without daily owner involvement? • Is growth possible without the owner's constant presence? Remember: A truly owner-independent business isn't just about taking vacations - it's about creating lasting value that attracts premium buyers and ensures long-term success. 👉 If you find this valuable, follow me Kay Azmat for more insights!

Never send the same Cold Emails to Ozzy Osbourne and Prince Charles. The #1 reason why most emails suck - poor definition of a buyer persona. Cold emails have to be different for: 1. C-level, 2. Managerial 3. Non-Managerial You can’t personalize emails the same for these groups: • Non-Managerial: prefer individual-based personalization = 3,3x responses • Director/VP/C-level: prefer company-based personalisation = 3x responses You even have to start cold emails differently for everyone. Cold Email Opener: - to Prince Charles: Your Highness - to Ozzy Osbourne: You’re high man. Ask yourself these 5 questions before sending cold emails: 1. What’s in it for the prospect? 2. Am I being clear and concise in this email? 3. Why would they care to respond to this email right now?  4. After reading this email, can the prospect get away with ignoring it? 5 Am I educating prospects about problems or showing that I understand them? Start there -> reflect your findings in cold emails -> the results will follow. What would you add? PS. Want to write cold emails that people can’t ignore? DM me “COLD” and let's see if we can work together.

If Your Business Lives in Your Head, It's Not Sellable (Yet) Most founders start here: They know everything. Processes are in their head. “We’ll document it later” becomes the motto. But when it’s time to sell? This undocumented knowledge turns into a major liability. 📉 In M&A, uncertainty = discounts. 📌 If your business can’t run without you, buyers walk—or slash the offer. Here’s how operational maturity evolves by stage: 🔹 Stage 1: Tribal Knowledge (Difficult to Sell) Nothing is documented. Processes are inconsistent. If the founder leaves, the business risks falling apart. ✦ What to do: → List your 5 most important recurring activities (sales, onboarding, billing, etc.) → Write down the basic steps—even if rough. 🔹 Stage 2: Partial Documentation (Sellable, but Risky) Some SOPs exist, but key gaps remain. Training is slow. Execution depends on "who knows what." ✦ What to do: → Create a central SOP folder (Google Drive, Dropbox). → Ask each team member to document one recurring task. 🔹 Stage 3: Documented & Transferable (Investor-Ready) Key functions are documented. Training manuals exist. The company can operate without key people. ✦ What to do: → Set a quarterly cadence to review and update SOPs. → Add Loom/video walkthroughs to speed up onboarding. 🔹 Stage 4: Systematized (Strategic Buyer Magnet) Operations are scalable and self-sustaining. Buyers see a business that can run and grow without the founder. ✦ What to do: → Build an onboarding sequence or “training academy.” → Link SOPs directly into tools like Asana, Monday, or ClickUp. The Bottom Line: 📌 Buyers pay more for businesses that run on systems—not personalities. 📌 If your business is founder-independent, you're far more attractive (and valuable) in the eyes of buyers. 👉 Want to see if your ops are sell-ready? Download our Free Sellability Checklist (Link in first comment) #MergersAndAcquisitions #ExitPlanning #OperationalExcellence #BusinessSystems #SellYourBusiness

The average B2B sales rep wastes 68% of their time searching for content. The other 32%? Watching deals die in email purgatory. I just reviewed 47 complex deals that stalled in Q3. Every single one had the same problem: Buyers couldn't find what they needed. Sellers couldn't see what buyers wanted. Champions couldn't share internally. Managers couldn't forecast accurately. It's 2025 and we're still playing email ping-pong with PDFs. Meanwhile, the top 3% of sales teams are doing something radically different: They create digital deal rooms that buyers actually use → One link with everything: proposals, demos, case studies → Real-time visibility into who's viewing what, when → Champions can share internally without forwarding 17 emails They track engagement like their pipeline depends on it (Because it does) → CFO watched the pricing video 3 times? That's a buying signal. → Legal downloaded the contract? Deal's moving. → Radio silence for 2 weeks? You know before the "just checking in" email. They sync everything with HubSpot automatically → Buyer signals become timeline activities instantly → New stakeholders get added to deals without manual entry → Deal data stays current in both systems They see buyer intent without switching tabs → New app card shows Pod engagement scores directly in deal records → AI-powered insights reveal which stakeholders are actually engaged → Hot prospects and red flags visible without leaving HubSpot One of my clients started using trumpet 🎺 app for HubSpot 6 months ago. Their CIO told me: "Finally, a sales tool that makes buying easy." The results after 180 days: → 4.2x more stakeholder visibility → Sales cycles 23% shorter → Pipeline visibility their managers actually trust Not because of the tech. Because buyers finally get what they need. And sellers finally see what's actually happening. So? While you're guessing who's engaged... Teams using trumpet are coaching with real buyer data. While you're manually updating your scattered data They're watching engagement sync automatically in HubSpot While you're hoping champions share your proposal... They're seeing exactly who's viewing what, when. The companies winning aren't using more tools. They're using ones that actually talk to each other. Ready to stop playing email ping-pong? Try it here for free: https://hubs.la/Q03J0V8b0 (The trumpet app for HubSpot is free to install. Your buyers will thank you.)

About 2-3 months back, I found out that one of my client’s page had around 570 people visiting the pricing page, but barely 45 booked a demo. Not necessarily a bad stat but that means more than 500 high-intent prospects just 'vanished' 🫤 . That didn’t make sense to me because people don’t randomly stumble on pricing pages. So in a few back-and-forth with the team, I finally traced the issue to their current lead scoring model: ❌ The system treated all engagement as equal, and couldn’t distinguish explorers from buyers. ➡️ To give you an idea: A prospect who hit the pricing page five times in one week had the same score as someone who opened a webinar email two months ago. It’s like giving the same grade to someone who Googled “how to buy a house” and someone who showed up to tour the same property three times. 😏 While the RevOps team worked to fix the scoring system, I went back to work with sales and CS to track patterns from their closed-won deals. 💡The goal here was to understand what high-intent behavior looked like right before conversion. Here’s what we uncovered: 🚨 Tier 1 Buying Signals These were signals from buyers who were actively in decision-making mode: ‣ 3+ pricing page visits in 10–14 days ‣ Clicked into “Compare us vs. Competitor” pages ‣ Spent >5 mins on implementation/onboarding content 🧠 Tier 2 Signals These weren’t as hot, but showed growing interest: ‣ Multiple team members from the same domain viewing pages ‣ Return visits to demo replays ‣ Reading case studies specific to their industry ‣ Checking out integration documentation (esp. Salesforce, Okta, HubSpot) Took that and built content triggers that matched those behaviors. Here’s what that looks like: 1️⃣ Pricing Page Repeat Visitors → Triggered content: ”Hidden Costs to Watch Out for When Buying [Category] Software” ‣ We offered insight they could use to build a business case. So we broke down implementation costs, estimated onboarding time, required internal resources, timeline to ROI. 📌 This helped our champion sell internally, and framed the pricing conversation around value, not cost. 2️⃣ Competitor Comparison Viewers → Triggered: “Why [Customer] Switched from [Competitor] After 18 Months” ‣ We didn’t downplay the competitor’s product or try to push hard on ours. We simply shared what didn’t work for that customer, why the switch made sense for them, and what changed after they moved over. 📌 It gave buyers a quick to view their own struggles, and a story they could relate to. And our whole shebang worked. Demo conversions from high-intent behaviors are up 3x and the average deal value from these flows is 41% higher than our baseline. One thing to note is, we didn’t put these content pieces into a nurture sequence. Instead, they were triggered within 1–2 hours of the signal. I’m big on timing 🙃. I’ll be replicating this approach across the board, and see if anything changes. You can try it and let me know what you think.

There's a scary underlying concern for so many founders I know, it sounds a little like this: “No one else can run this like I do.” Founder bottleneck is a real thing. They’re still the approval layer, the fire-fighter, the growth engine, the deal-closer. And deep down, they believe stepping back would put the whole thing at risk. Which is, frankly, the exact reason they’ll never be able to sell at a premium or potentially ever exit... Tony Falkenstein, CNZM built over 40 businesses and exited multiple. His secret? Design it so you’re not needed - on purpose. He set KPIs. Built succession early. Taught his team to solve problems without him. His companies were genuinely turnkey - and that’s what made them valuable. And if you’re thinking, “I can’t afford to step away,” Let me flip that: you can’t afford not to. The market is flooded with founder-led businesses right now - especially post-COVID, with boomers exiting and M&A ticking up across the board. Buyers are savvier. They’re paying premiums for businesses that are systemised, transferable, and boring in the best way possible. A question worth asking is: Are you building for legacy, lifestyle, or liquidity? Because whichever it is, you’ll need the same foundational fix— Remove yourself from the centre. That’s how you scale. That’s how you exit. That’s how you win. M&A is hot—but scrutiny is hotter According to PwC, 57% of buyers now prioritise operational independence when acquiring companies. Founder-reliant businesses are getting devalued, even in high-growth sectors. Systems > Hustle Companies with clear SOPs, decentralised decision-making, and metric-driven cultures are 3x more likely to command premium valuations, per a 2024 KPMG private equity report. Burnout is an exit risk A recent survey by Xero found that 48% of SME owners delay succession planning due to “not having time.” Ironically, that lack of planning is what keeps them trapped. So, how reliant is your business on you? Could someone take over tomorrow? Let's chat. --- I share insights like these from Two Commas every fortnight. Want them straight to your inbox? DM me your email.

B2B vs. B2C content: Treat them the same, you’re flushing sales down the drain. Writing for businesses and individuals isn’t the same. Different audiences. Different pain points. Different approaches. Here’s how to nail both: 1) Know who you’re talking to • B2B buyers are CEOs, decision-makers, or entire teams. They care about ROI, scalability, and efficiency. • B2C buyers are individuals with personal pain points. They’re motivated by emotions like self-doubt or the desire for transformation. Speak to their world. 2) Match the sales process • B2B: Long sales cycles. Build trust with case studies, webinars, and value-packed content. Your tone should be professional and result-focused. • B2C: Shorter sales cycles. Drive urgency with stories, testimonials, and aspirational hooks. Keep it conversational. Sell to their head (B2B) or heart (B2C). 3) Structure your content the right way • B2B content highlights clear KPIs and ROI. Example: “We helped [Client] save $250,000 and streamline operations by 30%.” • B2C content paints a transformation. Example: “Imagine waking up, grabbing your laptop, and heading to the beach to work while the waves crash nearby.” Results for B2B. Emotions for B2C. 4) Pick the right channels • B2B: LinkedIn, cold email, and webinars. • B2C: Instagram, TikTok, personal storytelling—and LinkedIn. Yes, LinkedIn works for B2C too. It’s a goldmine for professionals in freelancing, solopreneurship, and entrepreneurship—if you know how to position yourself. Surprising B2C niches I’ve seen work exceedingly well on LinkedIn: • Breathwork coaching • Mindset coaching • Fitness coaching P.S. - Which audience do you target: B2B or B2C? Comment below. Let’s talk. Thanks for reading. Enjoyed this post? Follow Mike Bolton And share it with your network.

We've all had the experience many times before of landing on the homepage of an eCommerce brand for the first time that we're genuinely excited to learn more about, only to be hit with a transactional pop up asking for our email address and phone number in exchange for 15% off our first purchase before we've even had 30 seconds to learn about the brand. We we would never greet a real person this way in a real store, and we shouldn't do it online! There's a much better, more human way to greet new site visitors. Respect their time and attention (we're all busy) and pop up a welcome quiz that will ask them a few questions, learn more about them and their needs, then make a personalized recommendation to them based on their answers and THEN we ask for the email/phone number at the end once we've already engaged the consumer in a conversation and provided genuine value to them. The ironic part is this less transactional, more human way of greeting a new site visitor actual leads to more transactions!!! It's counterintuitive to how we've been trained to think as marketers, because we've been told if we want to capture someone's email or drive a sale we should remove as steps between them and the email form/add to cart button. But it turns out (now tested across thousands of brands using the Jebbit platform) that the average brand sees over a 30% improvement in both email capture rate and purchase rate when AB testing a quiz vs. a standard email capture popup box. At Jebbit we've been really excited to parter with SAP via the SAP.iO program over the last few years. Lior Weizman from the SAP.iO team just released an awesome new article (link in the comments) detailing 5 of the top #ecommerce trends going into 2024. It features the exact use case above using Jebbit as well as some other powerful use cases around customer advocacy, immersive experiences, B2B CX, and video commerce featuring other SAP partners Mention Me, Obsess, Zoovu, and Smartzer. Check it out!! I think it should be a commitment from all of us (brands and Martech vendors) in 2024 to try to continue to be more human and less transactional with our customer experiences as it's really a win win for both sides!

“Why was that buyer checked out during your discovery call?” This was my question yesterday to a salesperson after watching his discovery call. You see, there were two buyers on the call. One was highly engaged and one was far from it, even rolling her eyes a few times. The engaged buyer was clearly a technical buyer who was engaging on a high volume of technical questions. The disengaged buyer was his boss. So why was she disengaged? Buyer relevant questions. 👆This is extremely important. It feels good and safe to keep talking to the person who seems interested, who is answering questions, who wants to be there, who demonstrates urgency. All the things! But that second person was there for a reason. She made time to show up for a reason. And whatever that reason was, it was not being met. One thing was clear, it wasn’t for the technical discussion at hand. The few times she spoke, she spoke about results. Her counterpart spoke about activity. This was an incredibly important distinction between these buyer types. As one wanted to better understand the functional issue, the other was focused on executive priority. By not engaging in the conversation around results and priority, there are predictable barriers that will present down the road: New budget allocation: not happening Urgency: nope Confusion how to solve the problem: yup Loss of credibility: yup Disbelieve your solution will work: yup In sales, this is called stakeholder management. Really think about it, do you truly know your stakeholders and buyer types? Do you know how to ask buyer relevant questions?

💌 "You raise money by mail? Really?" There's look of surprise I often get when I mention what I do. It's like my mention of direct mail transports people to an era they thought was long gone. But here's the thing: direct mail isn't just surviving; it's thriving. Why? Because in our high-speed, digital world, a hand-held letter gets noticed. It's the personal touch in an impersonal world. Here's why direct mail continues to be a fundraising powerhouse: ✉️ Personal Touch: Each letter can be a one-to-one conversation with a donor, making them feel seen and heard. 📬 Stand Out: Amidst the barrage of digital notifications, a physical piece stands out, creating a memorable experience. 🎯 On Point Messaging: With direct mail, we can tailor our message with precision, speaking directly to a donor's heart and interests. 📊 Trackable Impact: We can follow the journey from mailbox to donation, understanding the effectiveness of our efforts. 🔄 Relationship Building: Direct mail isn't a one-off tweet; it's the start of an ongoing dialogue with a community committed to change. In the hustle of tweets, likes, and shares, the value of a tangible message is only growing. So, I'll keep championing the direct mail cause. Because sometimes, the most impactful connections are made when someone takes the time to open an envelope from you. #DirectMail #Fundraising #Nonprofit #PersonalTouch #MarketingStrategy