Break the glass.

Make the change.

Don't wait.

What am I talking about? I am talking about what to do after you make an acquisition. This is a very contrarian opinion. There are many blogs, newsletters, articles, X posts, podcasts, and just overall advice from people—some who have done many acquisitions and some none—that warn against changing things too fast after an acquisition.

Often, the advice is to settle in, get to know folks, learn the business, and then, over some time—usually 12-18 months—start making incremental changes. Only after you are settled in. "Do not rock the boat."

Don't rock the boat? F*** THAT!

Tip that thing over with all your might!

The most common reason people give the advice above is because change is hard. It's brutally hard. People struggle with change: changing jobs, kids changing schools, etc. Comfort is a natural human element.

I think this is wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

You should change everything you intend to change. The employees are going through a massive shift in their lives. Their employer, friend, mentor, family member is leaving them. The place they spend the most waking time at during the week, work, is now thrown into an unknown abyss. They are scared. They are thinking the worst. "Will I have a job?" "What if the new owner doesn't like me?" "Will the new owner change our insurance plans?" etc.

They have zero idea what to expect, but they are expecting change to happen—usually more than what is actually done. Let me repeat: they are EXPECTING change. They don't know what change means, but they are anticipating it.

You have a very short window where, if you can bottle that expectation and not let their minds go wild, your change attempts will be met with members embracing change or members being dissident.

They may not—let me change that—they will be very vocal about some change in terms of disagreeing with it. "This isn't the way we do it." "This won't work." "Do you know what you are doing?" You will hear all the pushback.

Ignore it. Change.

Let me step back for a second here. Don't change JUST to change. A poor change would be if the uniforms are orange, and you change them to blue because you like blue. A good change would be if they don't have/enforce a uniform policy and/or have old uniforms, so you get new uniforms and require staff to wear them.

Change things that you think will have an impact on the business, the financials, the team, the customers, the assets.

If they are on QB Desktop, and you hate Desktop and it is causing disruption, change it to QBO. Don't wait. Just change it. If they are on pen and paper scheduling, why are you waiting to change that? Change it now.

Obviously, you would need to know some of this during due diligence and have plans ready to go. Or you will learn these very early on when you are going person by person, department by department, getting to know everyone and what goes on.

You also need to communicate. Scratch that. You need to OVER-COMMUNICATE. You need to explain who, what, when, where, how. You need to be prepared to explain it to all levels of employees, and different employees have different views, and they aren't always aligned with a) the business, b) their peers, c) their previous views.

That's okay. Have a plan. Communicate.

The absolute worst thing you can do is not change much and let everyone settle into their roles they previously had. Start to think, "Oh, Johnny didn't change much. This is great."

Then, 10 months later, you become the change warrior, and now it disrupts the staff/business again. Time and time again, I see new business owners do this, and a key member of the team leaves or the system that they didn't change early has caused 10 months of disruption/lack of XYZ (usually revenue/cash).

Crazy to me.

Be considerate. Be thoughtful. Communicate. Communicate some more. Be prepared. Get advice from others who have done acquisitions of similar size/industry.

Break the glass!