Doing It The Right Way: 13 Crucial Steps For A Successful PR Agency Merger Or Acquisition

The public relations industry is undergoing a generational shift. Many of the professionals who attend the Counselors Academy spring conference are now under the age of forty. They’re smart, driven individuals with game-changing ideas, but they lack the skills and knowledge needed to excel in the mergers and acquisitions process. They run their firms based on gut instinct and lack clear succession plans.

Relying on instinct takes you only so far, and it proves costly in the long run. Potential buyers aren’t interested in intuition. They want proof of economic stability and profit potential. If you plan on selling, you need to control your business’s profitability. And if you plan on acquiring new companies, you need the skills to accurately judge these same traits.

Doing It the Right Way: 13 Crucial Steps For A Successful PR Agency Merger Or Acquisition guides PR professionals through the intricacies of the process of mergers and acquisitions. M&A expert Rick Gould CPA, J.D., provides thirteen steps to a successful acquisition while offering sellers advice on how to prepare their company for an upcoming sale or merger.

Net proceeds from Doing It the Right Way will be contributed to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (http://www.holeinthewallgang.org).

Rick Gould, CPA, J.D., is the managing partner for Gould+Partners, a mergers and acquisitions firm headquartered in New York specializing in the PR and marketing-communications industries. The firm also consults on agency management, profitability, strategic planning, and valuations.

After receiving his BS degree in accounting from the University of Bridgeport, Gould went on to earn his MBA from the C.W. Post Graduate School of Business. He also completed the executive juris doctor program at the Concord University School of Law.

Gould worked for Ernst & Young for four years before launching his own CPA firm, which he sold in 2001 at the same time forming Gould+Partners.

A frequent speaker at global network conferences, Gould is often quoted in media and marketing trade publications. He is the author of The Ultimate PR Agency Financial Management Handbook and advises CEOs in PR firms across the globe.