Navigating Business Puberty: Pimples, Braces and Proms with Guests Garrick Reevs and David Gowens

Join us with guests Garrick Reevs and David Gowens, the two guys who first coined the term: "Business Puberty".  What is Business Puberty anyhow?   What exactly does it mean? How does it apply to selling a business?

Why would a 30 year old company be considered a business still in Business Puberty? How do businesses mature and "grow up" and how does this impact the sale of a business?

Is your business stuck in puberty or is it ready to sell?

How to get out of Business Puberty

Contact David and Garrick by clicking below:
David Gowens
Garrick Reevs

Visit us at:
Bsalesgroup.com
DesignMySale.com

MyBizValue.com

Chapters

• 0:03 Intro
• 0:57 What is Business Puberty
• 2:52 Background and experience of David and Garrick
• 6:16 Where did the term "Business Puberty" come from?
• 10:56 Going to market the right way: not in Business Puberty
• 11:46 Getting out of Business Puberty
• 16:19 Business Attractiveness
• 18:56 How do we know when a business is ready to sell?
• 24:18 The need for an outside person to help
• 29:08 Recent success stories
• 35:45 Summary and Contact Information

Transcript

Audio file

Navigating Business Puberty,  Pimples, Braces and Proms with Garrick Reevs and David Gowan 1.mp3

Transcript

Hello. Hello and welcome to M&A murders and accusations. The good, the bad and the ugly of selling your business. We dig into what you need to know and how not to kill the sale of your business. Now here's our host. Rick J Krebs, mergers and acquisitions adviser.

Hello everyone and welcome to M&A murders and accusations. The good, the bad and the ugly of selling a business. I'm really excited about our guest today, a David Gowan and Garrick Reevs. I've been working with these guys. I don't know how long has it been, guys? Five years. 10 years. It goes fast.

Creeping toward the decade Mark, yes.

Wow, it goes so fast, but I'm, I'm sure pleased to have you on the show today and I appreciate your time. They have coined the phrase business. And when I think about when I think about puberty, it just goes back to, I mean, bad, bad memories of pupils and braces and Proms and awkward moments. You know, as we're growing up, but I love that phrase, by the way guys. I just, I love what you I love what? You're what that? Means and we're going to get into it more. But anyway, the show today is called business puberty and. I want to share a story, start a story that. I talk to when I have a people that are looking to sell a business, I always asking this question. I'm like how much gas is in your tank. Are you blinking on empty or do you have enough gas for a? Few more years. You know where? Where are you at? Where are your? Where is your energy level and a lot of these businesses that I bring in and they're looking to sell? They're clearly not ready. And I was just talking to 1:00 today in Florida, you know, and the guys got a construction company we valued. It's a couple of $1,000,000 and I went back and I used, I stole your phrase and used it. But I gave you. Credit, I said. You're.

Do it, do it. Alright guys.

Your business is in business. We've got to get you out of the pimples and the Proms and get you ready for real life. And. And he's like, well, what does that mean? Like, you know what? That you can sell the day for 2,000,000. But you know it, you spend a little time and a little effort. I can. I can say it for six or 7,000,000 just to invest a few more years into your business, into your baby. And anyway, you know, he was really excited about that and I was excited because he was excited and I'm like that's going to be much better exit. But anyway, before we get into it, give us a little bit of background. On each of you that I know you but the listeners don't know. So please give a little background about yourself and how you got into the business of advising client.

Through their exit. So, so David and I actually met quite a few years ago. We've been working together for quite some time and where our kind of pedigree comes from is a family office type of experience in finance and it's having a comprehensive look at. All different areas of finance and diving into not only the personal but the business side of things. And so that's kind of where we came into a lot of. Identifying what businesses are doing really, really well, where they're missing, where there's opportunity, where there's things that just we don't even know about that make a huge impact, not only throughout the day-to-day of the business, but also throughout the lifetime of the business and. The exit of the business and how that all kind of. Comes together so. We have been working in the financial industry in a strategic role in helping people. Kind of identify some of these. Things for quite some time.

And for those of you listeners who may be, if you're in the financial, you've probably heard of the term financial family office before. For those of you who are not in the financial realm, maybe don't know exactly what that term is, so think of it in in this way, having a virtual family office or coming from that background, it really is the pinnacle. It's the place where entrepreneurs. Ultimately strive. To say I know I've arrived when I can work with the team who works comprehensively in all the aspects of my finances are working in harmony with one another. It's moving from. Think of it in this term, it's moving from having experts to having an ecosystem. It's working from thinking of finance to thinking of your freedom. As an entrepreneur. It's working from thinking of I am an. Operator in my business, so I want. To become an owner in my business. So this is kind of some of the words I would use are this is the language of free. When you start to operate with a family office at caliber, it allows you to sit in the role that you enjoy best and where you can make the greatest impact and provide value. So better part of a decade is what we've been doing that and thanks to a lot of friends in industry, we just haven't been able to quit it and have just added more. Value since then so.

I love it. Love it. I love what you guys do and we're going to share your contact information here at the end of the podcast. But anyone that's looking has a business that's in business puberty that's looking to take it to mature. You know, I recommend Garrick and Dave. These guys are really good at what they do and really good at digging into the details. Many of the things, like you said, Dave, you don't even know what they are till you get inside, right? And you really look at the mechanics and the operations of a business and I love what you said when you talked about being an owner of these. Versus being an operator so many times, these business owners are just being operators, not really stepping out and looking at their business as a as a true owner. And the new owners do that private equity, can they come in and do that? Right. And so why not have the business owner do that in preparation of an exit? So, yeah, great. Great wisdom. Thank you. So, UM, let's talk a little bit about this. Let's talk about business, puberty and how that came about.

So we were, we were actually at a meeting and we were throwing around a bunch of ideas. We even took a took some time because we were we're just throwing out some different ideas of how we can better portray what we talk about, what we do, how we help and how we serve individuals and. I remember it pretty vividly because we decided to take a break and it was like a working break. We went out, we broke off into Paris and started walking around, you know, outside just walking and trying to figure out, OK, like just throwing anything at the table. David likes to talk about the Disney term. He had the Disney effect of. We can put anything on the table. Anything that can be taken off at the table as well. And so we started just like thinking about some different concepts and how to better portray and how to better how individuals kind of connect with. That concept, that concept of business purity, and that's where it came around. So I was like, man, it's such an awkward phase. It's such a weird like you're in business, you're doing well, but. You're not doing it. You're not. You're not at the point where you're like I've made it in my business. You're in this weird phase. Where we're not, we're. Not at the big stage where we want to be, but we're not at the startup phase either. And I kept thinking about this and then this, honestly this, this twenty term business puberty was like man, it's kind of like we're going through puberty business, puberty, if you will. That we're in this awkward phase where. We kind of know where we want to be, but we're not there yet. There's pains and things that we're going through in our business things. That we didn't expect are coming up. We've got this kind of awkwardness because we don't know where we sit and where we lie. That's where the term of business puberty came up. And David, you can. Elaborate on that a little bit as well.

Yeah, I think what's unique about this term and we all gravitated it to it very quickly, the moment Derrick mentioned it and then started playing with the term back in. Worth it? It's unlike, it's similar. And unlike puberty in the form that we've all gone through, so where it's similar is that it's the awkward phase where it's different is that you grow out of that awkward phase naturally you. Know when you go through it as an A maturing adult, you do not grow out of business. Puberty in a business, not natural. It's not natural. It's something that you have to take a concerted effort to. You have to measure, you have to see what's going on so you can be in business for six. Months or you could be in business for two years or 20 years and still remain in business, puberty. And so this was a really fun experience for us to be able to find a term that all of us can relate to. Having all experienced our junior high years.

I love it. I love it. I wouldn't want to go back.

And relive it. No, no. Yeah, none of us are friends with. Our junior high years and neither our parents were teachers.

So when I think about this. I think about it, you know, just a little 15 year old kid with braces and pimples and glasses and all this awkwardness, you know, trying to go out and get a date with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, for instance.

It's funny because it's that having the most optimal full potential but not being performed at the highest caliber, we often will use the term that have you. Are you in a place where you realize that you're offering best in class service? And products, but getting industry average results that is a perfect understanding. It's a simple way of say MI business puberty right now because when you know that you're maybe top of class but you're not getting to the top of class results, you can easily say, OK, yeah, I am that guy chasing down the Dallas cheerleader or I'm that guy. Just trying to get on the football team and by the way guys, any listeners out there, we're not promoting that. That's the only way to be successful is be a cheerleader or football player. If you knew us, none of us nerds would actually 5 have ever been on a football team. So I. Don't know. That's why our references, but. Yeah, it's. It's definitely that feeling of full knowing your full potential, but not quite understanding how to get.

There exactly and if the if the guy were to go and ask for a date from the Dallas Cowboy cheer, I think about what happens, right? And the cheerleader just Pats him on the head and just kind of makes him go away or whatever. And he keeps trying and that's. Right, not. Not a suitable suitor right now. Yeah, and I think about people going to market that way, right. And these guys, I mean, I mean, we're the, we're the team, we're the cat and the mouse sitting down to tea and crumpets and the and the sellers of the mouse. Right. These the players and many of them are sophisticated. They've been around the block, they know what they're doing and do what they're looking. And the trick is to not get eaten by the cat. The trick is down to team crumpets, right and play all nice and talk to the cat, but to not get eaten by the cat. And when you go out into the market and you're in business, puberty phase versus maturity phase. You have. You're highly likely you're going to get eaten by that cat.

Well, one thing. You want to add to this trick. Think of it in this way. Whether we're just Speaking of human beings or we're Speaking of entrepreneurs and business owners, we are often in fear of or scared of both what we know and what we don't know. The difference of being able to navigate that is knowing what to. And so when you realize if the first step is to increase my awareness and understand what I need to measure, then it allows you to say I can navigate and to design, I can design a plan around it. Then, when you're like I'm scared of what I know and I don't know, but. I have a plan. And I'm aware of where those pitfalls may be proactively. They're not going to blindside me. Maybe you can't account for every. Thing, but remember guys, there are 32 million business owners in the United States right now. That's about 90% of the US population. We're not the first people who have gone through these steps in stages. There are plenty of examples to learn from. The difference is are we connected with the resources that can communicate us to us what those are, not just the areas of. Avoidance, but areas of opportunity.

Absolutely. And the right people, you know, as we talk about this notion of exit planning, we talk about assembling A-Team and assembling a winning team of people around them. You know, they absolutely have to have the right people who are experienced who've done this before and can lead them down this path and. Lead them to maturity, right and then and then I think of the same 15 year old guy. Who later on is 25 years old and big and buff, and the football player going over and the, you know, and the and the cheerleaders asking him for a date instead, right?

It's a different. I'm still going to laugh at this football now because you guys could see who we are. None of us looked like a football player or cheerleader. We just found ourselves. An analogy we can all relate. To though right, we can all relate to it. Probably we were the guy who uh was geeking out on some sort of problem solving solution, but it isn't a an analogy that we can totally relate to. We've all been witnessed to, so yes.

So your so your position of power switches, so when you're going to the cheerleader, the 15 year old? Beginning puberty is begging for a date. But when he's insured, when he's 25, the cheerleaders begging for a date from him so it switches and he becomes much more attractive. And that's the way these businesses are after they, after they work with smart guys like you getting them ready where they need to be, then the buyers are clamoring. Then we're looking at multiple offers, you know, then we're looking at the highest price. Like is setting the high mark versus, you know, begging for a date and begging for some attention. From him I love.

It just gonna say I. Love that analogy, especially because. Like uh, the end of the joke has gone through puberty and is now mature on the other side. They know what they have. They know what is available to them, right? And so they can. They can now decipher and decide, yeah. I'll, I'll take that day or not. Right. And they know, right? One where one where the individual going through puberty and coming into that situation. We're shooting for the stars and it's hard because we don't even know what we actually have and we can't speak to it either. And so it's. It's a little bit harder from there. From that perspective, what was one of the terms I?

Can't remember whose term this is. If you guys can think of who's quote this is, please fill in the blank, but it's we often overestimate what. We're capable of what we could do inside of the year and underestimate what. We could do in. Man and I believe a handful of people have said it, I think. What's his name? I always called big hands, McGee. One Tony Robbins. So the I think he was one of the people to at least make the term popular. If it's not his term alone, but it really is just that it's saying I need to meet my potential halfway. I need to meet my attractiveness half way. I need to meet what all the things I've been blessed with you guys and business owners out there. You've been blessed with somebody. You're unique at something. You're creating value in some way. Lean into that. But the way you need it halfway is by saying it. I'm going to take the time. To do the things. That are not. I'm not going to allow to surprise me on the back end of this relationship with my business.

So anyway, yeah, one of the things to kind of add to that is we talked about this attractiveness, right? The football player is probably more attractive than the individual going into puberty. Mass pimples and those kinds of things. But at the same time, there's two sides. To that, there's that attractiveness and somebody can be attractive. A business can be attractive, but then you get to know them and maybe they're not attractive from that perspective, right? So there's both of those sides to. Say OK yeah. They look attractive from the outside. You go on a first date with them and. Then you find out that.

A terrible person.

Yeah, yeah. One person out. They cannot mess here this. Is not going to work, yeah. And so there's you've been a level deeper than that. Attractiveness and businesses have that exact same thing. They're the outside attractiveness. And when we're going through business. It's harder to see that. But then there's the underlying tract. This as well, or the readiness like we talked about is are they are they actually in a good fit and that's the other parts.

Of the part that we'll dig deeper into that as the other question. But I'm glad you introduced that, because this is more than just about the looks and the physical discomfort or the emotional discomfort that puberty. Brings there is a layer deeper to Garrick's. Point, which we're excited to dive into.

Yeah, compatibility. You can be a. That's one thing, but a compatibility element to it. And just like the dating analogy, right, I tell I tell people selling a business is just like dating. You know you're going to 1st date if you like him, you go on a second date and you start to. Develop that relationship and the. Business of selling a business is. More like a marriage. And it is a divorce. And like when we when we do these sales, oftentimes the sellers have to carry a note or an earn out. And so they had to put these people for several years, and if they go into the transaction thinking it's like a divorce, where they're fighting for every inch of geography, they can get, you know, it's not. It's not going to be a very good outcome, same way with marriage. You go in there. Fighting and beating up your wife so bad before marriage, she's. Not gonna want. To get married to you. And if she does, she's gonna hold the grudge. And we're. Gonna hold the grudge and later on.

Yeah, operate in abundance, right? Operating abuse. And there's enough economics for everybody when you, especially if you've done. The work ahead. Of time, we become covetous when we again fear what we know, what we don't know. But if we have a. There's nothing to fear. Except I'm not going to say fear itself because. That would be tacky, but go ahead Rick.

So here's my question. We've talked about it. We've defined it. How do we know when a business is ready to sell?

Great question. I think there's a couple ways of looking at this. So one kind of the seat we sit in, I think it's a good place to start with when the business is ready to sell is have you measured what matters? Again, popular term we're all familiar with, but you have to begin with knowing what matters. Sometimes as an owner, we know what matters to. Us, but we need to know what matters to. The person you buy. And so we can find that a business will become very attractive to the earlier point, which is it is appealing in all of its external qualities. Right. But is it appealing in all of its internal qualities? And So what I would draw this back down to is looking at, am I measuring the tangible and the intangible, extremely important question to ask. So then the question might be posed as well. What is tangible, tangible might be your EBITDA, your profits and your assets. Which will come with to a certain value for that business and then or it comes to a certain number. OK, let's assume that that number is $1,000,000. Well, now we would look at what is the intangible. Processes, systems, tools, resources. All these different things. How is my client? My, my how are my clients spread across our revenue? Like is it heavy weighted toward one or two clients or is it weighted across, you know a wide array and over a long period of time of opportunity? So when you start to measure all of the tangible and intangible, now you compare those and say I'm not just going into this relationship measuring. Only my. My, my, my physical attractiveness and my, my tangible attractiveness, I'm actually measuring my intangible and this is important for this reason. Most owners don't realize that your tangible attractiveness only to weighs into 25% approximately across the board. If you look at the national. Rating here 25% of what the values of your business, 75% of your business waste on the intangible. And so it's. Extremely and immensely valuable to understand. Am I using a nationally recognized process to measure both the tangible and intangible value of my business? And that will that now you can start to look at what range of value is available to my industry and this goes into what your skill set is Rick, but what rate? Where do I fall within that range? Because I can't impact. The market by saying I'm going to choose what market I'm in. You are chosen by what you do in business. But you can choose where you fall into that market of value, whether that is average or best in class. So your opportunity is going to be between where the lowest range is mid range and high range. Now you can start to play with, OK, what intangible and tangible actions can I put at play to increase? Nice value you and get a greater return out of my business. So when the question if it's how do I know I'm ready. Have you done an impact assessment? At least that's what we like to measure. We call it an impact. So have I done an impact assessment? How do I measure my tangible and intangible across the board? And if I've done that, then I can at least stay in a ready a place of always be ready to sell even if I never choose to sell. Which is the best place to be? One thing to add to that is.

That when we, when he talks about measuring what matters. We're really good oftentimes as business owners and as individuals at measuring the things that we already are doing right, measuring the EBITDA, measuring the profitability, measuring the revenue we're used to measuring some of these things. The intangible is a. Lot harder to measure and so we just don't. And that's one of the biggest mistakes is we just, we just don't look at some of those factors of like what David was saying the, the, the structure, the systems, the processes, the people that all of these other things. And it's really hard to measure those.

Very hard to quantify the metrics and the intangible metrics. Of the business.

Yep, exactly. And so we, we oftentimes push them under the rally or so we'll look at that later or but then when it comes time and those need to be measured when we're ready to sell, we think we're ready to sell as business owners. We haven't measured those. Things so we don't know where they sit we. Don't know where they stand you.

Don't have a leg to stand on. Now when a fire is looking at your business and they're saying, listen, this looked really good, but now they're devaluing you left and right in your business valuation and the data is starting to go sour because they're realizing that. You don't have a personality in your business, not literal personality, but seeing that it is all a show, right, revenue looks, revenue looks good, profit looks good, but you are a glorified employee of your business, not attract.

So I see that I see the person back to our analogy. They're in business puberty with the pimples and with the glasses and braces, and they go up to the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader. They think they're the football player. Yep, right. And they're not. And so that that's a great point that you. Bring up that. If you want to know. You need to ask someone. You need to ask an outside person and so I'll give an example of this. The other day I I'm terrible at picking colors for my clothes like I always have to ask my wife. I'll put on a jacket. Put on it. You know I'm. Like, hey, does this shirt. Match. I just. I know. That I'm not good at it. And so, you know, I'd say 98% of the time. Come out with my outfit and she's like Rick, that doesn't even begin to match. That's not even. Yeah, right. They the shoes, the pants.

You're an artist, Rick. You're artist. Just call yourself an artist.

There's a there's a series we've been watching. Better Call Saul about this attorney and he has ugly suits. You have to see the episode to understand it, but just he, in fact. He dresses so. That they will fire him. He dresses so bad, so they'll fire him and my wife tells me, hey, Saul is your man. He's your dressing mentor, Rick. That's how you dress. I'm like oh. Man, no, I really. So I realize that I have to ask outside people and I think this notion of the need the business owners don't know what they don't know. And so hiring outside consultants and people like yourself to look under the hood to look at these metrics, which they. I want to say afraid to quantify, but maybe afraid or unable to quantify and really look at this business and you know and tell them, hey, that those pants don't go with that shirt before they try and go out and get a date with the chair later.

I want to pivot this in another, maybe light suit. Think of it in this way the jaw and I'm going to play it genealogy a little bit and let's say the jock and the nerd, we're nerds, so we can use the term, but they both have something very special to offer. This is the difference though. If I'm the nerd trying to play Jock now, I'm not playing in the I don't know where my range of value is. I'm trying to be attractive in a place that I don't have those things to offer, right. Maybe I think there that the jock is really cool, so I'm going to come. And self like. It's not. Well, that's not going to sell. So the goal is not to become a, to be a nerd who wants to be a jock. That's not. The goal to Garrick's point about going deeper. It's owning who you are. It's understanding what value you have to offer. So now let's just play in this analogy for a moment. Maybe the person who they're going after, whether it be a cheerleader or a best friend, or it doesn't matter who they are, someone in home met class. The reality is, is what if? They do like. That's great. That's the job. So what is this person that they're talking to that they're attracted to actually needed help with an area where this nerd geeks out on in his phenomenally? So now it has nothing to do with the appearance of anything, because it's drawn down to. This is where this person's readiness and quality and value sits. And now we're playing in the field that they are best equipped to play it, and they have a different thing to offer. And that thing to offer is who they are. And now all we need to do is bring out the best in class of that. So when I think of the business owners in this place, it's embraced who you are to your point, Rick of Fighting Expo. This is the thing you can do it all, but you can't do.

It all at.

Once you may. Be best at what you do in your business when you think of all the places you ever hired over time. But if that's what you're going to do, you're going to become a glorified operator employee. You have to think of what is freedom to me. What does trading value and impact mean? To me, that's what matters most. Then you can sit in the role that you were meant to, or that you desire most, and the business can operate by bringing in the proper experts to fill the roles that you don't want to fill or don't. Don't understand. Need to be.

And the business grows into maturity. Right. And then when you go out, you're more attractive to people either within your space. And what I see in the market is when you become more attractive, it's a different deal. You go out with confidence. For instance, we just had a transaction we're working on and we had one letter. Well, boom. We get a second letter of intent or third letter of intent and let sellers posture their attitude. Everything changes. They're like, oh, wow, someone. Wants this, you know. You have an outside person telling them they're attractive, telling them, hey, that that shirt matches well with those pants and then you. You know, it's like.

We have further validation with other people saying that it's like, no, actually what you've got is attractive, yes. You know? Yeah and that. That actually builds that confidence.

And that makes my job a lot easier because. As the buyers. See and feel that confidence and then and then we're pushing the prices upward versus begging them for a date and begging them to come and look at us. You know, yes, hourly changes it. So tell us a little bit about couple of success stories on recent cases. That you've been working?

So I'll, I'll share one. This is a good. Friend and an. Individual that I've worked with for quite some. Time we're going to call him Judd. But I tried he. He had multiple businesses that he was looking to sell. And this plays into this perfectly. Multiple businesses that they wanted to sell, they were doing well, right, really well, e-commerce and he had and his spouse spoke and we're like, OK, what do we want out of this? What are we looking to get out of this? And they came up with a number. And I. Was like OK, where? Did this number come from did it? Come from like. Just that's what we want. Or did it come from you? Numbers like where? Where did this number come from? And he was he was. No, that's just what me. And my wife talked about. I was like, OK, cool. So let's go out and actually see what, like the attractiveness. How ready are we to sell? What does it look like in the market? These kinds of things and when we. Did private equity started coming to the table and saying, oh, OK, now you do have something that looks pretty attractive and he kind of knew what he had and what he wanted and they were coming to the table and saying how 14? I'm maybe 17 million. And it was like, OK, well, let's dive a little bit deeper and see does is this. Actually what it's worth. It can we get 20 million. Like what? What does that look? Like so, we started to dive into what? What do we actually have? What is here? Because there is some attractiveness. People are interested, right? We've got some interest. That's kind of floating around, but when we pop up the hood.

Is there wasn't an agent in there?

What kind of engine do we have? Is it? With a Ferrari. What? What is this? And so we started to dive into that a little bit deeper and started to go into what David was talking about, measuring what matters. So we started measuring what matters within this. And if we wanted to sell both of. These at the same time and roll them up. Well, after all, we said none. After we measured and actually. Knew what we had. We were able to quantify and qualify exactly what was there and the industry that we were in and be. Able to roll. It up and after bringing in all of these different factors and going from not knowing it all. To knowing and then executing on something within this this realm in this industry that they were in, we were able to get 25 million out of it. We were able to even. Break the barriers.

What a story. So once the business owner. Knew what he had. Then he could explain it to the buyers. You sell it. To the buyer. So yeah, what a great story.

I love it wasn't just attractive anymore. It was attractive and it had the back end. He was a gentleman at dinner and you have. A good personality.

He's good at football and. Can run the numbers. He can run the 40 and he can run the. Numbers, yeah. Well, and you know, it's funny we see this happen, Rick, even in just a brief conversation we had went to lunch with the friend. We'll call him Tom and just barely started this one of the earlier conversations we had. And it was funny because he started seeing some real traction. His business, he had maybe 100 different he had chairs or ownership equity in about 100 different. Yeah, uh, businesses. And he was like. I feel like I'm going in. The right direction things. Are looking really good. He was only focused. On growth at this point? And we had asked the question. So what does growth mean to you and why are you so focused on growth after doing a lot of digging and just connecting and finding out what mattered to him, how he defined freedom, what he wanted out of his business? We've found some fundamental areas that. Were needed to be redefined, he. Basically got an offer. For his business, that was insulting. To him. And he had taken that multiple, we'll just say the multiple for the sake of respect, out of privacy, the multiple was around say 44X of whatever his value was. And so he was like, this is exactly why I need to grow my business, because if I'm going to get 4X what I want to do is I need to grow my business to Y. So I'm gonna grow my business to say 10 million and then get my 4X. And we said to them that's. Really great. But can we? Introduce a different concepts to and, he said. Sure. Do you understand your range of value in your business that's closer to 15? So what's happened is you let somebody place a value on your business of 4X? And so you're living in 4X and you're going to chase down harder, work, more labor, more effort, more energy at the value of 4X. Why don't we find? Out if we can. Get you closer to 15. And then have a conversation of how much work needs to be done in order to get that. And he was like mind bomb. What the heck are you talking about? Now we're having an entirely different conversation because he doesn't need to go grow from day 2,000,000 to 10 million getting 4X. He might be able to grow from, you know, maybe 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 and get 10X.

Planet, which is an entirely.

Different conversation and a whole and a lot more fun as well.

What about you?

So anyway, that was another fun one that a recent. Conversation we're having now.

And the beauty of that conversation, he had a certain number that he wanted to get to as far as an exit as far as like what that looks like and by. Lifting that and being like, OK, if we can prove that you're closer to best in class. If we can go in and measure what matters. You actually might already be there. So now that's not even a goal at all.

Or break the ceiling on your goal and.

Break the ceiling on your goal.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Hit the high mark. Right. You'd be the high marker industry. Right.

Meanwhile, I carry in your industry.

Well, guys, I really appreciate you being on the show. It seems like we could talk about. This for hours. We'll talk more later, but how does someone get started with you? If they're interested in this, how did they get started with you? Share your contact information and tell them about next steps.

So for us, really the biggest thing for us is just having a conversation. We want to get to know who we're working with because value matters most. We want to make sure that we're leading with value, even if we don't work together. Can we point you in the right? Direction I would say is first and foremost and if you guys want to get a hold of us I would just say check us out on LinkedIn first. I think it's always great to just know who you're even talking to, know where we come from so you can check out David gallons or you can check out Derek Greens gowns, GOWENS and got yours.

Reads this Revs little different so.

We love you to just get to know us. Come friend us. First and foremost, we can send you to websites and. Send you to a bunch of. And things. But I think if you can see who we are, where we come from that conversation we can. Kick in at. A much higher caliber. When you start to know what we where, we come. From what we believe in find. Us on social media as well. We'd love to start friending you guys up and just getting to know where what freedom looks like for you and how we can make an impact and if we can be along the journey, great. If we can't, let's punch in the right direction.

That sounds great. So once again, it's Garrick. Garrick. Revs. There's no ESS. It's re grants.

Correct, correct. Yep you got.

It and then GO David Z.

GOWENS.

Yeah, because you. Want to put an A in but it's GOWENS gal yes.

Yeah, yeah, all right.

Thanks guys and I appreciate it today and I appreciate everyone for listening in to the. Podcast The good. The bad and the ugly of selling your business and. I think this. Is mostly good. Today I'm going to. Call it the good thing.

Thank you for attending our podcast. We invite you to join us for future episodes of M&A, murders and accusations. The good, the bad and the ugly of selling your business. You can also visit us at www.bsalesgroup.com or e-mail Rick directly at rick@bsalesgroup.com.