Live · 90 Minutes · With Peter Lang
The Acquihire Playbook Workshop
Learn how to bring on senior talent, clients, and revenue in 30–60 days for almost no cash and the lightweight document stack that keeps it simple.
Wednesday, June 10 • 10:00 AM Central • Zoom Webinars • $99
Reserve My Seat - $99WHY THIS WORKSHOP EXISTS
Hiring senior talent is slow, expensive, and brings zero revenue with it.
The traditional senior hire is slow and expensive. A recruiter fee plus the first six months of salary, easily $20K to $100K before they've returned a dollar, half a year to fill and onboard, and roughly a third don't work out. All for someone who shows up empty-handed.
You're paying full price for zero revenue. Every traditional senior hire arrives with no book of business attached. You carry the entire cost and burden, and wait quarters for any return.
There's a faster path most owners never consider. An acquihire flips the math: you bring on a senior operator for a $1 asset purchase, a commission on the book of business they bring, and a salary, instead of paying a recruiter to go find one and hoping it sticks.
You get a book of revenue from day one. Instead of an empty seat, you bring on a senior leader who arrives with a working book of business already attached and who's trading the stress of running their own shop for the security of yours, so they're motivated to stay.
You can close in weeks, not quarters. The acquihire path runs 30–60 days from first call to close, versus 180+ for a traditional deal. This workshop shows you exactly how to do it and you can realistically do one a month.
What you'll leave with
01
A working filter
Five questions that tell you in 60 seconds whether the operator in front of you is actually an acquihire, starting with the one that matters most: would you hire this person if they brought no clients at all?
02
A defensible structure
The $1 asset purchase + commission + salary stack — and the full toolkit of variants that flex from $250K to $2M targets: guaranteed salary, options, signing bonuses, debt assumption, profit-share, backlog buyouts, and recruiting commissions.
03
The document stack
The papers that close it, the assignment & assumption agreement you need every single time, plus the employment agreement, client consent letters, bill of sale, and when (and when not) to use an APA or a TSA.
04
A 30–60 day path
From first call to wire transfer, the milestones you can compress and the ones you can't, including the three-call rhythm that gets a hesitant founder to yes.
THE TARGET
The owners this works on are everywhere, once you know the signals.
They run a small shop — typically $250K to $2M in revenue, often one to ten people on LinkedIn.
They're an "accidental entrepreneur." They hung a shingle because they didn't want to work for someone else, then discovered they hate hiring, leading, and managing. Many are barely paying themselves what they made as an employee.
They talk in monthly revenue. "We do $20K a month" is a tell, a signal they came up through coaching programs rather than building a professional firm, and a high-probability sign they can't scale past themselves.
They're tired of delivery. Feast or famine. Demanding clients. More people, more problems. They want to do the one thing they're good at, strategy, or sales, or creative, and hand off everything else.
They want security over freedom. Their income rides entirely on the business. A guaranteed salary, a real team, and a platform to grow inside of is the relief they didn't know they could get.
Operators have been quietly building empires this way for years.
Allison Partners
Scott Allison took on a divesting office for $1, then grew through acquihires, bringing on solo operators and tiny teams with their own books of business, no cash and no equity paid, to $10M in revenue. He sold 51% to MDC; MDC sold to Stagwell. He calls it "the longest earnout in history."
Square 2 Marketing
Almost all of Mike Lieberman's six acquisitions were acquihire deals — finding one-to-three-person teams with a book of business who realized they'd be better off as part of something bigger.
Hawk Media
Most of Eric Huberman's early acquisitions were structured exactly this way — profit-share on the existing book, capability covered for free, all the upside on top.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The five moves of every clean acquihire.
01. Find the Fit
Find the right target, not the closest one
From first call to wire transfer, the milestones you can compress and the ones you can't, including the three-call rhythm that gets a hesitant founder to yes.
02. Structure the Deal
The $1 + commission + salary structure
The default structure and every lever you can pull: salary, commission on collected revenue, options, signing bonus, profit-share, debt assumption. How to decide between a service agreement and bringing them on as an employee, and how to frame consideration so they stop comparing it to "what if I sold.
03. Paper the Move
Six documents, sized for the deal
The exact stack, assignment & assumption agreement at the core and the focused, lightweight diligence that surfaces deal-killers in week one instead of month three.
04. Transfer the Book
Transfer the clients without losing them
The legal and relational handoff, the assignment mechanics, the script the founder uses with their own clients, and what the first 30 days look like so the book stays put.
05. Secure the Win
Protect both sides
The protections that keep the seller motivated and the buyer covered: non-competes (and why they hold better in a purchase agreement than in employment), commissions on collected, not booked, revenue, clawbacks, severance tails, and how to hold the $1 structure when their lawyer pushes back.
A working session with Peter Lang
Your Programmatic M&A Guide
Peter has sourced and closed agency acquisitions through the exact structures taught in this workshop, the field-tested version operators use to grow and exit, not the textbook one.
WHY
The math that makes the acquihire the obvious move, backed by real deals you can go listen to.
WHAT
The five moves: Find the Fit, Structure the Deal, Paper the Move, Transfer the Book, and Secure the Win, with the tactical detail under each.
HOW
You build the offer live, applied to a real target you already have in mind.
NOW
Your three next actions, the ones you start the moment the session ends.
Your first acquihire starts here
Ninety minutes. Ninety-nine dollars. A complete, repeatable playbook for the most underrated growth move in the agency world, one most owners never share, because from a seller's side, they'd rather it stayed quiet.
It's not about winning a negotiation. It's about the clients surviving the move with you, and the operator you've been trying to hire finally working alongside you. That's the win.
Register for the Live Workshop
It's not about winning a negotiation. It's about the clients surviving the move with you, and the operator you've been trying to hire finally working alongside you. That's the win.
Register for the Live Workshop
Live on Wednesday, June 10th at 10 am Central · Recording & asset pack included