June 18, 2025

Acquisition War Room | LoL #9

Shane Pierson, Stephanie Dunn & Brian Congelliere

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Acquisition War Room — Key Takeaways & Deep Dive

Scaling through SBA acquisition sounds great on paper until you walk into day one and discover the operations are held together with duct tape, the previous owner never held a single team meeting, and one of your largest customers pays their alarm bill in tires. Episode 9 of Lords of Lending is a war room -- tacticians dissecting what actually happens when business acquisition strategy meets friction at the closing table.

In this episode: Shane brings serial acquirer Collin Trimble to the roundtable for a tactical breakdown of scaling through acquisition in the alarm and security industry. Collin -- dubbed "The Vanguard" -- has closed five acquisitions, starting with Alarm Masters, a 40-year-old business he bought through an SBA loan and discovered was operationally broken within 28 minutes of signing. The conversation covers the 90-day employee rule, the tire-for-monitoring barter story, why you are not smarter than your due diligence providers, the eBay clause that almost killed his first deal, building a Customer 360 on Salesforce, and the working capital mistake Collin will never make again.

Key Takeaways

1. The 90-Day Employee Rule -- Shut Up, Listen, and Earn the Right to Change Anything

Collin assumed operations at Alarm Masters were bulletproof -- it was a 40-year-old alarm business, after all. How do you stick around four decades without dialed-in operations? His plan was to leave the back office alone and fix the front office: sales, marketing, go-to-market. Simple enough.

Twenty-eight minutes after signing, that assumption detonated. He gathered the technicians in the break room -- the first time all of them had been in the same room at the same time because the prior owner did not believe in meetings. The techs had zero respect for the previous owner, several were halfway out the door, one had lied on his hiring documents, and another did not show up because his truck had been broken into and $3,000 in tools were stolen. All within the first 60 minutes of ownership.

"I called Shane and said, 'Hey, man, congrats.' Hung up the phone, walked into the break room, and sat with all the technicians to announce that we had purchased the business. Found out that was the first time all the technicians had ever been in one place because the prior owner didn't believe in meetings." -- Collin Trimble

Steph confirmed this is the norm, not the exception. You cannot see what is under the hood until you own the place -- sellers will not let you deep-dive into employee culture or operational dysfunction before the deal closes.

Collin's hard-won rule: be an employee for your first 90 days, not the boss. Listen. Ask questions. Be the hardest working person in the room. Every SOP he wrote, every piece of software he rolled out in those first 90 days -- none of it is still being used today. The only thing that survived was his commitment to treating employees with care and integrity.

"The best thing you can do is pretend like you're an employee for 90 days. And what would an employee do in their first 90 days? They would listen. They would ask a tremendous amount of questions, and they would be the hardest working person in the room." -- Collin Trimble

Steph reinforced the wisdom: all high performers want to jump in and fix things immediately. The discipline to wait 90 days, assess, earn trust, and then implement change is counterintuitive but critical. Shane took it personally -- the message for him was simple: "Shane, shut up." Everyone on the call agreed.

The payoff of listening showed up fast. In the absence of real leadership, someone always steps up. At Alarm Masters, it was a 20-year technician the other techs already called when they had questions. He had been informally implementing processes the owner never knew about. Collin took every employee to lunch in the first eight days, identified this natural leader, and promoted him to service manager. Four promotions and three raises in two years. Finding him was not the result of a plan -- it was the result of shutting up and listening.

2. Not All Revenue Is Created Equal -- And You Are Not Smarter Than Your Due Diligence Providers

Collin went to collect on an invoice from one of his larger customers -- a tire shop. The response: your employees have not been by to change out their tires yet. The previous owner had a barter arrangement -- tires for alarm monitoring. No cash. No documentation. Just a handshake between two guys who had known each other for decades.

That story exposed a truth most buyers learn the expensive way: the revenue number on the books does not always mean what you think it means. Barter arrangements, handshake deals, ghost accounts that were canceled but never removed from the billing system -- these are landmines buried throughout the financials of every small business you will ever buy.

"Not all revenue is created equal, folks. We found out that one of the larger customers was a tire shop and they exchanged tires for alarm monitoring. So I go out to collect for my invoice and he said, 'Well, your employees haven't been by to change out their tires.'" -- Collin Trimble

Collin said it twice and meant it both times: you are not smarter than your due diligence providers. He does not care if you have an MBA in finance. For Alarm Masters, he skipped professional due diligence because he figured he could handle it. His financial model looked nothing like reality 30 days in.

Every acquisition after the first now runs two mandatory due diligence tracks. First is an RMR audit that cross-references every customer account against monitoring vendors, contracts, and accounting records. Second is legal review covering liens, equity ownership, and deal structure. For larger deals, he adds a full quality of earnings analysis. He has spent $30,000 on due diligence for two deals that did not close -- and considers that money the best investment he has made.

"You're not smarter than the due diligence providers. I don't care if you have an MBA in finance. Your due diligence providers are better than you are." -- Collin Trimble

Brian layered on the legal side: hire an actual transaction attorney. Not your cousin who does family law. Not the general business attorney who apparently handles litigation, contracts, acquisitions, and HR disputes all from one desk. Collin's first deal nearly collapsed because his non-transaction attorneys failed to communicate a change about the seller's right to sell alarm parts on eBay. The seller saw the revised agreement without the clause and pulled out entirely -- a crisis a competent transaction attorney would have prevented in five minutes.

"You should fully expect that the seller is not going to use a transaction attorney. Their attorney is going to be their divorce attorney, their real estate attorney, or this magical business attorney that apparently does litigation, contracts, acquisitions, insurance, HR suits... That means your attorney has to be on their game." -- Collin Trimble

Collin's final point: most deals do not blow up over the purchase price. They blow up over transition services agreements, indemnities, and warranties. Getting a boilerplate agreement in front of the seller early in due diligence -- before positions harden -- is something Collin now treats as non-negotiable.

3. Culture Eats Strategy -- But Working Capital Keeps the Damn Lights On

Collin's approach to cultural integration was straightforward: he did not try to sell it. When new employees came from acquired businesses, he just said: talk to my people. Not a single employee has voluntarily resigned across all five acquisitions. People got fired, yes. People retired, yes. But nobody quit because they did not want to work there.

The reason is structural. Employees from flat, dysfunctional family-run businesses where the only feedback was getting yelled at suddenly find themselves in an environment with clear expectations, genuine empathy, and a company that is growing. Structure plus care plus momentum -- they stay because no other option offers all three.

"I created a culture of trust and respect and excitement and empathy... Whenever employees are in businesses that have hit a ceiling and there's no structure and there's no empathy, and they're going to a place where there is structure and there's empathy and they know what's expected of them, and that business is growing -- they're attracted to that." -- Collin Trimble

He used the Chick-fil-A analogy: not the best chicken in the world, but everybody understands "my pleasure." Consistent, reliable, the customer feels heard. One woman left because Collin would not give her his cell phone for midnight emergencies, burned through two other security companies in three months, and came back accepting that the policy was not changing.

But the quick-fire round revealed the lesson Collin wishes someone had drilled into his skull before day one: working capital. He bought Alarm Masters with far too little cash on hand. His rule now: figure out what you think you need, double it, then double it again. Get that money before you close, because getting working capital after -- when the SBA does not love you taking on additional debt -- is a whole different kind of painful.

"I would never buy a business with as little working capital as we did. You need more working capital than you think you do. Then you're going to double it, and then you should probably double it again." -- Collin Trimble

Steph echoed this from her own experience -- including buying a construction company she had no prior experience in. Companies fail for two reasons: growing too fast or growing too slow. The common denominator is liquidity. She advises 6 to 12 months of operating capital on reserve. The kiss of death is expensive emergency debt -- MCA loans and predatory revolvers that show up in month three or four when you realize you are short, leading to expensive equity where you give away your business because you were $200,000 short on working capital you could have secured with a HELOC.

The technology backbone powering Collin's scaling strategy is Salesforce -- a full Customer 360 housing every ticket, phone call, email, work order, billing record, and contract in a single platform. Not a single piece of software from the original Alarm Masters purchase is still in use. The migration was painful and took three times longer than projected. But now his employees can see a customer's complete history at a glance: "Mr. Customer, this is the third time you've called in the last 30 days. I'm escalating this right now." Nobody else in his industry under $100 million has that, and it is why he can scale through acquisition without losing the personal touch that keeps small business customers around.

What This Means for SBA Acquisition Buyers

If you are using SBA loans to acquire a business, this episode is the field manual that nobody else is publishing. The pretty version of acquisition is the signed paperwork and the press release. The real version is the tire barter, the stolen tools, the employee who lied on their background check, and the deal that almost died over an eBay clause.

Three tactical moves from this episode that every first-time acquirer should steal:

Secure working capital before you close. Build it into the SBA loan if possible. Take out a HELOC before you apply. Whatever you have to do. Running a business on razor-thin margins while also trying to integrate a chaotic operation is a recipe for the expensive emergency debt that Steph called "the kiss of death." Do the math, then double it, then double it again.

Hire a transaction attorney. Not a business attorney, not a generalist -- a transaction attorney who has closed acquisition deals and knows how to communicate changes to the seller's side without blowing up the relationship. Budget for it. You can include attorney fees in the SBA loan.

Use due diligence providers you trust. An RMR audit, a quality of earnings review, a lien search -- these are not optional expenses. They are the $30,000 you spend to avoid the $300,000 mistake you could not see from the outside. Collin killed two deals based on due diligence findings, and he considers that money the best investment he has made.

SBA Business Acquisition: What Lenders Really Expect -- The lender's perspective on what makes an acquisition deal fundable
SBA Deal Structuring Guide -- How to structure your deal for maximum approval likelihood
Complete Guide to SBA 7(a) Loans -- The foundational SBA loan program that funds most acquisitions

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do in the first 90 days after acquiring a business?

Listen, ask questions, and be the hardest working person in the room. Collin's advice is to act like an employee for 90 days, not the boss. Every process, SOP, and software tool he implemented in his first 90 days at Alarm Masters has since been replaced. The only thing that survived was his commitment to treating employees with respect. You have to earn the right to implement change -- rushing in with your playbook on day one will alienate the people who keep the business running. Take each employee to lunch individually in the first two weeks, identify natural leaders, and build trust before you build systems.

How much working capital do I need when buying a business?

More than you think. Collin's rule: figure out what you believe you need, double it, then double it again. Steph recommends 6 to 12 months of operating capital on reserve at all times. The most common way acquisitions fail is running out of cash in months three and four and resorting to expensive emergency debt like MCAs that carry punishing terms. Build working capital into your SBA loan where possible, secure a HELOC before you apply, and be disciplined enough not to touch your reserves unless the situation demands it.

Do I need a transaction attorney for a small business acquisition?

Yes. A general business attorney or a family law attorney does not have the specialized experience to catch the structural and contractual issues that blow up small business deals. Collin's first acquisition nearly failed because his non-transaction attorneys miscommunicated a single non-compete clause about selling alarm parts on eBay. The seller pulled out believing Collin was acting in bad faith. Every acquisition after that used a transaction attorney, and the difference was "night and day." Budget for this expense -- you can include attorney fees in the SBA loan.

What is an RMR audit and why does it matter for acquisition due diligence?

An RMR (Recurring Monthly Revenue) audit cross-references every customer account against monitoring vendor records, contracts, and accounting data to verify that the revenue being reported is real, active, and properly documented. It catches ghost accounts that were canceled but never removed, barter arrangements masquerading as paying customers, and discrepancies between what the seller claims and what the records show. In a recurring revenue business, you are paying a multiple on that revenue -- so every fake or inflated dollar of RMR translates directly into overpayment on the purchase price.

How do you maintain company culture when integrating acquired businesses?

Collin's approach is to let his existing culture speak for itself. Instead of pitching values to incoming employees, he invites them to talk to his current team. The combination of clear structure, genuine empathy, and visible growth creates an environment that employees from flat, dysfunctional operations are naturally attracted to. He has not had a single voluntary resignation across five acquisitions. The Chick-fil-A analogy works: you do not have to be the best product in the world, but if you deliver consistent quality and make people feel heard, they stay.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Planning your first acquisition or scaling through your next one? The Lords of Lending Training Platform gives you the deal-structuring playbooks, lender negotiation tactics, and post-close integration frameworks that separate buyers who survive from buyers who thrive.

Get the training at learn.lordsoflending.com/pricing

This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. Consult with a qualified attorney, CPA, and financial advisor before making business or financing decisions. Loan terms, rates, and programs are subject to change and vary by lender.