Hi, I’m Bruce Whipple and I mentor entrepreneurs interested in growing their wealth through acquisitions.
I’ve personally been responsible for creating more than $2 Billion in wealth since 1993.
That wasn’t by accident. Success (and failure) leaves clues.
You are in the right place if you are looking for a guiding hand in how to:
- Assemble a Board of Directors that gives you credibility
- Hire professionals (accountants & lawyers) on a success-oriented fee basis
- Find and contact acquisitions even when the business isn’t for sale
- Structure an acquisition
- Manage a multiple acquisition
- Manage a multiple acquisition enterprise that can be sold or taken public
I would guess if you read my free emails on business growth and acquiring a business or are looking to learn more about the services I offer you might want to know a little bit more about me.
If so, here y’go.
I grew up in New York in a nice, middle-class neighborhood.
I survived grammar school despite being tied to my chair in class to “make me behave”(they did things like that in those days).
My mother died when I was in high school but not before she taught me a lot of lessons. She was a stiff upper lip Brit who instilled that quality in me. She was a great, loving mother but there wasn’t a lot of sympathy for whining. Suck it up and fix it was pretty much the message.
I went to Northeastern University in Boston after my mother’s death and proceeded to flunk out. Quite the accomplishment for a high school National Honor Society Member.
During my junior year in college, my brother was killed in an automobile accident.
My point in mentioning flunking out of college and the death of my brother and mother is that bad things happen to us all. In life and in business we can overcome these obstacles.
So let’s get on to the path to achievement and lessons learned.
After flunking out of college I did a few things yup…that’s me on the left.
But I finally thought “For the rest of my life am I going to say I couldn’t get a college degree?” The answer was NO. I went back to Boston and convinced them to readmit me. They did and I graduated with an engineering degree.
I then went to work for The Torrington Company and loved when the Director of Sales asked me “Don’t tell me about your successes most of the time you are confronted with failures in sales.” That question was right over the center of the plate for me. I was hired and went on to take over the Automotive sales force headquartered in Detroit. This sales team was the best in the company. A group of alpha males and females among which was a Navy SEAL.
I learned a lot and had a lot of success.
After 13 years at Torrington I had the burning desire to do something more entrepreneurial. I moved my family to New York to join with a partner in an ill-conceived real estate company. We wouldn’t live long enough to make money in that business so we pivoted to a property tax consulting company. We were paid only if we obtained a reduction in the clients’ school and property taxes and then took a percentage of their savings as our fee.
We went from a tiny company to representing many Fortune 500 clients. Securing Fortune 500 clients isn’t easy but my previous experience calling on and negotiating large automotive companies in Detroit served us well. And those skills are teachable.
IBM was a huge client as this note shows. When I last calculated it the cumulative wealth we created for our clients was over $2 billion.
After another corporate assignment in which I managed a team which grew revenues to over $100 million in sales and a concentration in large account development I retired in 2015.
I retired from that business to get back to my first love…working with entrepreneurs helping them grow businesses with what I’ve learned.
If you’ve read this far you clearly wanted to learn more about me. But you should also have a question. That question is “Why are you doing this, Bruce?”
That’s a good question and the answer is that I am grateful for the success I’ve had and truly do want to pass on what I’ve learned. I love working with entrepreneurs and growing businesses and have learned how to do that. I’ve also learned how businesses can be acquired even when you don’t have the cash to do that.
Lastly, I see a ton of people selling coaching who have never built a business other than selling books, courses and putting asses in seminar seats. That just seems wrong to me.
The truth is that growing a business and being super successful is hard work. But the methods are teachable by those that have “been there, done that”. I can check that box.
I also realize that trust takes time and is earned. As we get to know each other better that is one of my goals. To earn your trust!