Welcome to episode 110. This episode is for you if you're an agency owner either interested in buying agencies to grow, or selling your agency at some point. 

It's also enlightening if you work in an agency and you want to understand the process of mergers and acquisitions. Jonathan Baker, Practice Lead in M&A at Punctuation joins me and shares a lot of tips and insights about the buying and selling process, including:
- the current state of M&A and why right now might be a really good time to sell
- the impact of AI on the changing agency landscape and his advice for content marketing agencies  
- why cultural alignment is key to a successful transaction 
- the criteria buyers typically use to assess an agency they might want to purchase 
- how concerned sellers should be about the terms of the transaction
- how far you get through the transaction before bringing in a lawyer
- how and when to tell your staff about the sale
- why you should ask about buyer funding if you're being bought, and so much more. 

Jonathan has created a special webpage just for this podcast's listeners at https://www.punctuation.com/creative and through this link you can also chat to him about anything you've heard on this episode.  You can also connect with on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com//in/jonathandavidbaker

Many agency owners come to me for account management skills training and to help their account managers develop an entrepreneurial mindset. And ultimately, what they are looking for are three things. They want more predictable client retention and growth, which is less expensive than pitching for new business. They want to hardwire account growth into the agency's internal processes so that account growth becomes repeatable. And they're also looking for ways to future proof their agency's business and gain a competitive advantage by offering the best client value and experience. If any of this sounds of interest, we are opening enrolments later this month for my Account Accelerator programme. It's a 12 month coaching and training programme and you can find all the details on my website: https://www.accountmanagementskills.com/account-accelerator