Personal History for The BIG Oak
I have gone through company mergers four times in very different scenarios. With respect to each of the companies, I will not be using company names but here is a quick description of each:
National lawn company purchasing local company (I was an employee of the purchased company)
Local company purchasing local company (I was an employee of the purchased company)
National tree care company purchasing local company (I was a part-owner / CEO of the purchased company)
National tree care company purchasing local company (I was the founder / CEO of the purchased company)
Assessing the value and end result of each of these company purchases may tell a different story depending on which side you were on. Here are 7 takeaways from these buyouts:
Employees will be upset and anxious.
Some employees will leave.
In the process of being worried and anxious, many employees will look around for other job opportunities (even if they decide to see what happens with the buyout)
On average, I would estimate that 80% of employees hang in through the transition period. Most employees don’t like change and a buyout will remove many fringe employees.
For one of these company mergers, at the end of a few years, only ONE original employee remained with the new company. That could not have been the vision of the purchasing company.
Clients (some) will leave
On average, 20% of clients will explore other companies. Any client on the fence with your company will test the waters elsewhere. Your level of client loyalty will be tested and may alarm you where loyalties fall.
Disruption from the merger will take 1 to 2 years to settle down.
There is essentially no way to avoid this. Company buyouts are messy and time is needed to sort things out.
Company cultures will clash
Many employees of smaller, local companies enjoy the “family feel” and find it important to keep this vibe post-merger. Its not going to happen. National companies will say all the right things before the buyout, but the “family feel” will be immediately replaced by policies and procedures geared to cover liabilities. The culture may try to hang on but the sterile, robotic national vibe will prevail.
National companies can provide excellent resources for marketing, technology and HR resources typically not available for small, local companies.
This is perhaps the largest benefit selling to a national company. Removing invoicing, HR and other office tasks from you daily routine is a huge plus.
National companies tend to over-inflate their value and talent.
Most national companies feel they are at the top of the food chain when it comes to providing high quality tree care and professionalism. I found this to NOT be the case. I found it much easier to provide quality work as a smaller, local company. Both national companies that I worked for had talented people, but the stress of a shrinking talent pool forced them to put employees in positions way beyond an employee’s talent or skill level. Much of the time, I found the level of talent on crews (from what I was used to) to be nothing short of subpar. The obsessive nature of national companies “needing” to grow continually feeds into this system of providing low quality tree care. This may have been one of the more shocking revelations of working with larger companies. Quality of care was a huge downgrade moving to a larger company.
