Sponsors:

DueDilio is your go-to marketplace and advisory service for all things related to small business acquisitions.

and

Final Ascent, a premier boutique professional services firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, exit strategies, and growth consulting tailored for lower middle-market firms across the U.S.

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E277: Most Marketing Teams Get Axed After a Sale - Here's How to Make Yours Unkillable - Watch Here

About the Guest:

Victoria Hajjar is the founder of Ugli Ventures and a marketing strategist with deep experience building brands from the inside out. With a background that spans A&E, real estate development in China, and leading marketing departments for high-growth companies, Victoria has learned to build marketing engines that are scalable, measurable, and ready for acquisition. Her superpower? Turning messy marketing into a growth asset—fast.

Summary:

In this episode of How2Exit, host Ron Skelton sits down with Victoria Hajjar, founder and CEO of Ugli Ventures, for an energetic, no-fluff conversation about what it really takes to build a marketing machine that adds value in an M&A context. Instead of chasing vanity metrics or relying on branding for branding’s sake, Hajjar breaks down the systems, scorecards, and human factors that make marketing a driver—not a passenger—of enterprise value.

Whether you're a seller prepping for exit or a buyer looking to avoid post-acquisition marketing disasters, this is required listening. Victoria doesn’t just theorize—she’s been on the acquisition side and knows firsthand what it looks like to inherit a marketing mess… or a marketing moat.

Key Takeaways:

1. Marketing departments often feel the most vulnerable in acquisitions because buyers usually already have their own team. But dismissing the seller's marketing team too quickly risks losing the local expertise and systems that are driving current revenue.

2. Buyers should pause before overhauling anything—Victoria recommends a 60-90 day observation window before making marketing changes post-acquisition.

3. Most sellers don’t have a documented, measurable marketing system, and this lack of structure reduces perceived business value.

4. Brand value isn’t just logos or followers—it’s trust, relationships, and conversion rates. You need to prove that your audience responds to your messaging with measurable action.

5. Having one “rainmaker” on the marketing team is risky. Buyers want marketing systems that are transferable and not tied to individual talent.

6. Scorecards, SOPs, and a full-funnel strategy (not just top-of-funnel lead gen) are what differentiate valuable marketing machines from chaotic ones.

7. AI can’t replace human accountability. You can use AI tools for implementation and analysis, but you still need a human to own the marketing outcomes and make judgment calls.

8. Hyper-personalization is the future of marketing. With AI, customers will expect messages tailored to their unique context. Businesses need to prepare for that now—or get left behind.

Article:

Why Most Marketing Departments Get Axed in M&A—and What to Do Instead

Growth & Acquisition - News Newsletter

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Founding Member Shout-Out (Still room here -$400 one time)

Shout out to our new founding member. With over 30 years in M&A, this company offers the lowest priced (way undervalued) course on helping you buy good businesses. Very underpriced - get it now before they finish upgrading the site and very likely up the pricing.

Thanks to Sweetview Partners, an Acquisitions company looking to buy Texas-based B2B companies in the $1MM - $30MM revenue range. Click on the logo to check them out.