#26: How to Pick the Right Business Partner (and Why It Matters More Than You Think)

Is your business prepared for a future transition, or are you leaving its fate to chance? In this episode of Brewing Business with Brady, host Mason Brady sits down with Landon Mance, a Certified Business Exit Consultant® and co-founder of Backbone Planning Partners, to discuss the importance of proactive exit planning for business owners.

They cover:

 ➡️ Why every business owner needs an exit plan, regardless of business size
 ➡️ How to align personal and business financial goals for a seamless transition
 ➡️ Common pitfalls in exit planning and strategies to avoid them
 ➡️ The role of family considerations in business succession
 ➡️ Practical steps to increase business valuation before selling 

Connect with Landon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/landonmance/​

Website: https://www.backboneplanning.com/

Connect with Mason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonbrady/

Visit BradyCFO: https://www.bradycfo.com/

If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to rate, review, and of course, SUBSCRIBE!

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Have a business growth question you'd like Mason to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: info@bradycfo.com

Transcript

Mason Brady (00:00.2)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of Brewing Business with Brady. Today's guest is Landon Mantz. Landon, wonderful to have you brother.

Landon Mance (04:50.914)
Yeah, thanks man, really appreciate it. It's been too long since we caught up, man. So we get to catch up and record a pod at the same time. So it's all good.

Mason Brady (04:59.386)
Absolutely that yeah, I'm excited too because you know right before this we were talking a bit about family and you know and you know it is that time of year obviously we actually did an episode earlier today and the other guy and me both had sweaters on and so that tells everybody what time of year we're in too right so that's a good thing because Just a couple days here in Houston. It was 80 degrees and with 80 % humidity so it felt like summer so I'm glad to finally wear a sweater, but we were talking you know you and I a bit about family and then

Yeah, some of the questions we have slated for today to get to know more about what you're doing in life and business is geared towards family. So I'm hoping we can dig into that a little bit further. you know, cause you do have a lot going on regarding as being a business owner, as being a family man. So excited to dive in, man.

Landon Mance (05:44.226)
Yeah man, yep. I'm an open book man, so I'm willing to go in whatever direction you take me in.

Mason Brady (05:51.854)
Awesome. Well, one of the big themes here is obviously this is brewing business with Brady, right? And I am a coffee addict at heart. I usually drink about three to four cups a day, but we always like to ask our guests, like, how do you start your day? That what's in your mug to start a day to get things going right?

Landon Mance (06:09.272)
Yeah, well, you may see me sipping on this is my afternoon go-to beverage. We'll talk about that maybe, but so like you man for so I'm 40. So for the last what? don't know, probably 20, 22 years. I also have been a major coffee addict, you know, drinking coffee multiple times throughout the day.

My wife and I would brew decaf coffee in the evenings all the time. And then on October 1st, actually cold turkey gave up coffee. So now my new morning thing is called Perk. It is a, think of like a, it's a protein powder with other nutrition, nutritional things in it.

Mason Brady (06:46.5)
off.

Landon Mance (07:04.981)
and by the way, it's got like 100 milligrams of caffeine per scoop. Yeah. So that's my new thing is Perk.

Mason Brady (07:10.504)
tweet.

Mason Brady (07:16.04)
Awesome, yeah, I had not heard of Perk before. It's pretty interesting that, you know, I feel like if we had asked this question 30 years ago, or even just 10 to 20 years ago, most people's drink would have been coffee. yeah, I am experiencing with most guests on the show that coffee is the absolute minority and there are a ton of different things that people are drinking in the morning to get their day started now. yeah.

Landon Mance (07:39.022)
Yeah, probably not necessarily a good thing. know, coffee is from the earth and all the other crap that we are putting in our bodies is not. but yeah, that's interesting, man. I would think that most people would just say a cup of coffee, but.

Mason Brady (07:51.944)
Love it.

Mason Brady (07:57.99)
No, it's actually, I've heard a lot. need to try, because one of our previous guests, they were doing AG1. Have you heard of AG1?

Landon Mance (08:06.852)
I have heard of that, never had it though.

Mason Brady (08:09.126)
Yeah, I heard it doesn't taste that great, but she absolutely like it's a good friend. And she said that, like she hasn't been sick in years since she started taking that because of all the probiotics, prebiotics and the dried greens and stuff. I may, I may have to do that. So we'll see. Yeah.

Landon Mance (08:25.4)
Yeah, interesting. Let me ask one clarifying question. Does she have children younger than eight? Wow. That's incredible.

Mason Brady (08:32.316)
Yes, she does. both. yeah. And yeah, so she does. So that's worth its weight of gold when she gets to say it, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, kind of speaking of that, cause you and I are business owners, right? And I speaking to this, that this is the season too, when I feel like the kids are just bringing junk home from school and you're just going through cycles throughout the house of the winter time of

Landon Mance (08:41.028)
Yeah, no question, No question.

Mason Brady (08:58.952)
Yeah, you know, any outside appointments and business meetings you're having to cancel because you're sick and you haven't gotten sleep, right? You dealing with little sick little ones. But, you know, kind of on this theme, you're a dad to twins. You got one on the way. How do you balance the demands? And for our audience to understand, big part of the reason we want to land in on the show, you know, land and owns multiple different businesses, right? And I'm really interested to understand how you're balancing

You know, being a family man, little ones, you know, currently in the house, one on the way, and you're running multiple businesses, you know, how do you balance those demands of doing so many different things and running home life? What does that look like for you as a dad?

Landon Mance (09:43.096)
Yeah. Well, it's kind of interesting that you asked this question because I was asked this question on a podcast not long ago at all, maybe a month ago. And my answer is, is going to change today a little bit. And that's, it's a twofold answer. one is just placing a high degree of trust in my partners and my other folks that, that help operate some of the businesses that I own. the second part would be.

Mason Brady (09:46.045)
Yeah.

Landon Mance (10:12.974)
just being incredibly intentional with, I'm not going to call it time management, I'm going to call it calendar management. You know, just managing your calendar so that not perfectly because it's never going to work out perfectly, but managing your calendar so that you can be as close to perfect as you can get with things that are happening in your life to be intentional.

to achieve the things that you want to achieve outside of work. And for me, that is spending time with my wife and my twins. And in order to do that successfully as well, you also have to make sacrifices. So I don't play golf on the weekends. I used to before I had kids. A lot of stuff that I did on the weekends that I no longer do, because if I did them, then I would.

I would have to spend time away from my family. And that's just a decision that I choose to make, which is to spend my weekends basically 98 % committed to my family. And that starts with calendar management. So not taking meetings before 9 a.m. Not taking meetings after maybe four or 4.30 p.m. Pacific time for me.

And so by managing my calendar in that way, it essentially ensures that I'm going to be able to do some of the family related things, which is wake up in the morning, have breakfast with the family for 30 or 45 minutes, help get the twins dressed, and then get myself out the door. And then on the flip side of that, I am home for dinner essentially every single night of the week.

And people say, you know, some people will kind of clap back at that and say, well, that's just not realistic for me. And it's like, no, that's not true. It absolutely is realistic. It is the decisions that you have made in your life that maybe don't allow you to, to get home for dinner, or maybe there's consequences if you were to get home for dinner and time, but, don't, you know, don't, don't fool yourself for a second that the reason that you're not home for dinner every night to have with your family is

Landon Mance (12:38.328)
because of the decisions that you consciously make and those obviously have direct effects on things outside of your work.

Mason Brady (12:46.952)
Yeah. No, I, mean, it's just to that point, right? That as a business owner with it, you're going to have to make a variety of decisions and okay. You you may miss those networking events late at night that do occur. Right. But the question is, you know, how great a value add does that particularly add to your business? or are you willing to look at growth potentially in different way? Like if that is a value add that

you know, may you grow a little bit slower, right? And just know that that's just what it's going to be that, you know, I speak to most things in life that even, you know, it's like some employees, they, they want the flexibility of remote work. They want this, they want that, they want that. I say, usually there's three things that come with the job and you're only going to get two of them, you know, and it just is what it is. And, you know, there's always going to be a sacrifice to be made, but glad that,

You know, you've made these decisions that, okay, you know, that time block of, Hey, you know, I'm going to put this in the calendar and this is what's important to me. I will say, you know, your twins, said they're four, right? Yeah. at least for my, for me, like my oldest is seven and then my second oldest is five. At least at that age, you talked about golf and I have them in golf lessons at the driving range. So it'll be coming up soon. They get back out of the golf course. Right. So yeah.

Landon Mance (14:06.862)
Yeah, absolutely man. you know, just to kind of add a little bit more context around some of the comments that I made, it was not always like this for me, man. You know, when I started my first business and, you know, as a financial advisor, independent was September of 2015. So what? Nine years ago, a little over nine years ago. And that was obviously way before I had

kids. Now I was, I've been helping raise my stepson for 14 years. but when I came into his life, he was just about to turn eight. So, and he, he spent, you know, half of his time, call it with his dad. So my wife and I, well, girlfriend at the time, we had a lot of time on our hands. You know what I mean? We had, we had one kid that we only

you know, we're responsible about 50 % of the time. So we had a lot of free time on our hands. And so during that period of 2015 to 2020, so five years, you know, was I home for dinner like every night and spending all my time on the weekend with my wife? Absolutely not. You know, again, we were living much more selfish lifestyles at that point because we didn't have

kids to take care of. And when we did, again, he was only with us for half the time. So in that stage of my life, yeah, I was absolutely going to, you know, to happy hours, networking events, you know, doing all kinds of stuff to build my business. I'm just in a different season of my professional, you know, career at this point.

Mason Brady (15:54.172)
Yeah, no, that's good. I guess that's kind of interesting. Definitely want to be able to dive in some other questions that are unique to you as a person and as a business owner of multiple businesses. But yeah, I'd love to expand upon that, that you spoke of where your life is at now as a business owner, but realizing that wasn't always the case, right? And for some business owners that

do have growing businesses, but they're on the front end of those businesses, right? You know that they don't, it's, they haven't been in it for 10 years. They haven't stayed, they haven't gotten it to stabilization point. Do you feel like, you know, the nature of just having to do what you said, you know, that going out to networking events, doing all these things, really trying to, you know, hustle and kind of build and grow something. Do you think that that is required to really get a business off the ground?

Landon Mance (16:50.02)
That's a good question, man. You know, you'll hear from a lot of successful business owners that the absolute most important skill set, trait, characteristic, whatever you want to call it, for a business owner to have in the early years of running your business is essentially sales. Now, as you know, two guys that are

Mason Brady (17:12.562)
Yes.

Landon Mance (17:19.268)
pretty well versed in finance, you certainly more so than me. We could make an argument there that the number one reason that a lot of small businesses shut down is just poor cash management. So you got to sprinkle that in there for sure. But some of those problems can absolutely be solved if you're consistently bringing in revenue, new revenue, et cetera. So I do believe that to be true.

The business owners that I see that really struggle in the early years is because they just don't have that skill set of going out and building relationships, finding partners, bringing value to other folks that they can, you know, they could potentially use their services, all the things that come. those are all essentially kind of built around like having, you know, sales as a strong skill set, you know, that you can

that you can tap into. All the other things are important, but like if you're not selling stuff, you're not in business, you know? So I still do believe that that is the most important thing that people can focus on in the early years. One of the businesses that I own, my operating partner, he didn't have that kind of a background at all, right? So he's been a great operator.

but the business, him and I operating the business really together as partners hasn't really grown all that much organically. Now we're making an acquisition that will push our revenue up 40 to 50 % in 2025, but obviously that is not organic growth. it's early in our careers, in our professional journeys of being business owners,

we're probably not that focused on growth via acquisition. We want to grow organically. And so having that sales background or that sales experience, man, that's just, I'm not going to say it's essential, but it is highly required, I guess, to really be successful and get things off the ground in a manner that is, I'll just call it sustainable.

Mason Brady (19:48.7)
Yeah. mean, I like as much as, know, there's a lot of, you know, there's different terms for it, but the reality of, know, there's a lot of promises out there that, you can build a business, you know, basically on eight to five schedule or on your own schedule and build a laptop business and do all this and this and that. And, yeah, I know. right. That, you know, anybody, any one of those

people saying it, I guarantee you, is struggling themselves and they're, they are promising something, right? They're having to sell and hustle to you. but yeah, the idea that you do have to hustle a little bit, right? That it is a challenge to be a business owner, but there are deep rewards, you know, at some point that, I mean, you, you now do own multiple businesses and you're building wealth. and you get to, you know, make sure that your weekends are spent with your family and that you're cutting off at a particular time. And so, yeah, I mean, do we, do we.

eventually reach goals that are great. Yeah. so I'd just say that when you're trying to, especially when you're trying to grow a business, I think it's one thing if you are, you know, okay with, you know, Hey, I just am trying to cover my own personal lifestyle. and my lifestyle is not deep, you know, or significant. Yeah. You could do something, but when you're trying to grow a business and you feel called and led to actually grow something that's bigger than yourself, yeah, it's, you gotta, you gotta hustle. You gotta work hard. Right. so

I appreciate your input in that. you know, to this point, you are at a point to where you own multiple businesses, right? But I think, you know, on this, on this podcast, we've had people that have acquired businesses, entrepreneurship through acquisition. We've also had business owners that, you know, they've acquired strategically that they've bought businesses and consolidate them into their entire portfolio. And there's been very strategic purposes.

I'm interested to hear, and for our audience, I want to dive in with you on you own a financial planning wealth management firm and you also own a tree trimming business, right? Two very, very different businesses. I'm really interested to hear your perspective because there's a lot out there that talks about if you want to be successful in the business world, you're supposed to niche really hard, you're supposed to stay incredibly, incredibly focused.

Mason Brady (22:06.118)
I don't know that that applies as much in regards to portfolio investments, right? And the diversification strategy of investments, especially in something you're interested in, but I am really interested. What made you, given that you are, you you run a financial planning and wealth management business, what made you want to buy a tree trimming business? Something that is so different from, you know, what you're currently operating in. What made you want to do that?

Landon Mance (22:31.2)
Yeah. So it's kind of a culmination of a number of different things. So I'll try to, I'll try to, I'll try to be concise here. In 2020, I had been, you know, a licensed financial advisor at that point for, call it a decade. And I had, I have always lived,

significantly below my means. So I generally save 30 to 50 % of my income in a given year. So I had built up a decent, this is called like a stock portfolio. Okay. I built up a decent stock portfolio and you know, I was, I was 30 years old or no, excuse me, 35 years old and I'm like, okay. In our wealth management firm,

We had been working with a number of successful small business owners for years. So I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what a fundamentally sound small business looks like. So I did feel like I had that as a major advantage. And I read Buy Then Build, I read the Harvard Business book, whatever it was called, Buying a Business.

and started to get plugged into that community. I'm like, this is it. This is for me. So that was probably 2019 or 2020. And so I said, all right, I'm going to go out and my next investment that I'm going to make, just like I would put money into the stock market or a mutual fund or a private real estate deal, I'm going to buy a business as an investment. And so that was 2020.

searched very informally for a couple years. By the way, I was never setting out to buy a tree business. That was not the goal. I looked at a number of different businesses over the course of about 24 months. I was gonna buy a couple locations for a franchise. It was a doggy daycare business that I still really liked that business a lot. I looked at an accounting firm, couple other ones.

Mason Brady (24:53.608)
I'm sorry.

Landon Mance (24:55.588)
I was playing pickleball with Luke, who's my partner in the tree business. And I just said, hey man, this would have been November, December of 22. I said, hey, I've been looking for a business to buy for the last like year or two. You know, I'm really gonna need someone to partner with to actually run that business day to day. You know, what do you think? And Luke was like, let's do it.

And not even 90 days later, we were under contract to buy Nevada Tree Service. And the reason that we liked Nevada Tree Service had nothing to do with tree work and had everything to do with how they had built the business. By all standards, it was still very small. was, when we bought it, was six employees, call it a million dollars a year of revenue.

really, really, really, really healthy margins hitting the bottom line because they had no debt. They use their property as their yard, they work from home, et cetera. But what we discovered in diligence was that it really was a great small business. mean, just a really, really good little business. And it still is to this day. We've grown the team now. We've got a few more team members. This year we'll do 1.2.

1.3. So we've grown the business, you know, a little bit, but we are in the process of making our second acquisition, which will add about 500,000 of revenue. So it'll be a nice little bump, but yeah, it had absolutely nothing to do with the tree business. It's funny because to this day, my neighbors, my friends, associates will be like, Hey, let me ask you like a question about like this tree, this is I have going on. I'm like, dude, I'm like,

Mason Brady (26:48.26)
squat.

Landon Mance (26:50.018)
I was like, I'll answer you, but like, don't hold me to this because I still have never done any tree work. I've never gone up in a bucket. I still don't know how to start a chainsaw. You know, so I don't know how helpful I'll be, but I'll give it my best shot, you know? But yeah, Luke runs that business day to day. He's done a phenomenal job of doing so. You know, I still kind of manage the finances. I help with sales and marketing because those are some of my strong suits, but.

But yeah, man, it's turned out to be a really good, really good business. It's interesting because the wealth management industry, I would imagine you could probably argue is one of the physically safest industries you could probably ever be in. You're just sitting essentially, you know, at a desk behind a computer screen all day in a nice air conditioned office. And tree trimming and removal is actually one of the

absolute most dangerous jobs in the entire world. Like it's definitely on the top 10 list because you're sending, I say guys because it's, you know, it's all, it's all guys, but you're sending guys up trees or way off the ground in a bucket truck with a chainsaw attached to them, you know, so it's incredibly dangerous, but I will give a little bit.

Mason Brady (27:59.304)
Yeah, that's a lot of guys.

Landon Mance (28:16.568)
different of an answer or just I'll piggyback on my own response, which is as you know very well in the line of work that we're in, it's incredibly intimate the relationships that you have with the clients that you work with, right? There's a lot of ongoing communication. There's very regular meetings, multiple times a year, sometimes even more than that.

So it's a really intimate relationship that you have with your clients. That's why like one solo financial advisor can really effectively only serve a hundred, maybe 150 households. You go above that and it's like the service just goes down the drain. And so I got to a point in my career where I was like, you know, I need to do something different. And I knew

that if I was going to buy a business as an investment, that it was not going to be a similar business where it's a really focused, intimate one-on-one relationship. I was actually, I was intrigued, but also wanted something that was going to be a little bit more transactional in nature. Because I just,

wanted something different, you know, just the the repetitiveness of meeting with the same people year after year after year after year after year and having the same conversations. Although I still am, you know, really close with every single client that I work with now my partner mostly serves. But I just got to a point where I'm like, I just am not going to do this for the rest of my career. I want to do something different. And so

That also led to my decision making around buying a business with a service similar to the tree work.

Mason Brady (30:19.208)
Yeah. It makes sense that. mean, right. As, we're, both entrepreneurs and they're still very emotional decisions attached to our decision making process. Right? Like not everything is a purely logical, like, this has to be purely strategic. mean, it sounds like it somewhat was, but it was, there was some emotional, you know, it was emotionally driven behind it too. Right. Yep. real quick, Landon, are you hearing an echo on your side?

Landon Mance (30:41.538)
Yeah, absolutely.

real quick.

Mason Brady (30:49.466)
of me talking. Hmm. I'm hearing one really bad. Cindy will cut this out. So don't worry. So Cindy cut out what we just said here, but it is weird. I'm here myself talk now. Now it's gone away, but I was hearing myself talk there for a second and I actually have it on echo cancellation. So I don't know what's going on. once I, yeah. Yeah. Let me, let me just do a couple of things real quick.

Landon Mance (31:01.465)
Mm.

Landon Mance (31:08.598)
Okay, yeah, no worries, man. Do whatever you gotta do. But no, I don't hear anything.

Landon Mance (31:17.848)
Yep, you're good, man.

Mason Brady (31:32.65)
Okay. Hello. Hello. I think we're good. Cool. Sorry, man. Yeah. yeah. Cindy will cut all that out. I just, I was just worried that it could be coming out on the broadcast. cause it was kind of bad on my end. yeah, we'll just dive in. We'll keep diving in here. so yeah, landing that. Yeah. We, know, the reality of, you know, this was a bit of motion decision for yourself, right? And, as a business owner that, yeah, it's, it's tough cause

Landon Mance (31:38.712)
No, you're good.

Mason Brady (32:00.68)
We want every decision to be purely business strategic, right? But it still has to be driven by what's in our own heart and what's in what we desire to. Right. But, I'm interested to understand because you are managing two very different businesses. Like you said, the models themselves that, in wealth management, it's highly personal relationship driven, having touch points with clients. Well, the tree trimming business is much different, right? two very different businesses in regards to how sales works, how

client management works. That's the thing is like, there's not a whole lot of strategic alignment here that, you you did make a bit of emotional decisions to what you spoke about. And so I'm interested like, you know, how are you managing, you know, the tree trimming business part-time? Like you said, you're in, you're involved in finances, you're involved in the sales and marketing aspects, but how are you pulling this off of being involved in something so much different?

Landon Mance (32:56.546)
Yeah, just having great business partners, that is essentially what it boils down to. Just to be clear, there's a lot of talk these days, in the, I'll just call it the SMB world. There's a lot of talk around buying a business, collecting the mailbox money.

just plugging an operator into the business and just sitting back and just, yeah, just while you're sitting on the beach, drinking Mai Tai's, the checks are just rolling in and you're just, yeah, I gotta pop on a call here or there, but you know. So there's a lot of talk about that. does it happen in the SMB world? Sure, it does, but you don't see, we don't see

Mason Brady (33:27.794)
Nothing down. Yeah.

Mason Brady (33:41.642)
and reality hits.

Landon Mance (33:54.21)
Bigfoot all that often, you know, but we do see him. So my partner Luke runs that business day to day. He's the general manager of the business. I would consider myself more of an advisor to the business. I do not have an active role in the business. Does the staff and the team know me? Absolutely they do. I have relationships with all of them.

Do they reach out to me for anything at all? No, they do not unless like somebody calls and says like ask for me specifically. So I do not have an active role in that business. So to help lead and guide and advise Luke in that business, I probably spend, I'd say two or three hours a week on that business.

So very minimal time. That was not always the case. I was the one that drove the bus behind the acquisition and diligence and the post-close transition. So obviously I was much more heavily involved in things when we acquired the company. But since then, for the last call it, because we've been operating the business for 18 months.

for the last year essentially, I've been at probably two to three hours a week. I meet with Luke, we talk about what's going on in the business, we identify the things that we need to focus on, and we put kind of a plan together to do that. And then on the other side of things, my business partner in the wealth management firm, he has taken over most of the client service work. So he is mostly meeting with our clients now.

doing financial planning, investment management, retirement planning, insurance planning, all this stuff that we do, he is handling that aspect of it. And then for all the business owner clients that we have that we're doing business planning related services for, I am still very much involved in those relationships and those engagements. But my time in the wealth management firm has been cut down significantly as well.

Landon Mance (36:19.362)
because now I've got a new project where most of my time and effort is being diverted to.

Mason Brady (36:28.65)
So a lot revolves in both of these businesses having really wonderful partners, Like having your trusted partners that are excelling in their particular areas of the business so that you can plug in your areas of excellence, right? And, you know, I've also like in our CFO services business, we have also seen many partnerships that, yeah, like it does not work out, right? And hindsight's 20-20. I give an example like,

We've had one client where, you know, he got into partnership with a couple other people, but especially one of them. Definitely the idea man, you know, and definitely the guy that comes up with the fresh ideas. That follow through is really poor. And then to turn out, you know, when they actually went to go get, you know, banking and to go get credit that the guy had, you know, filed for bankruptcy a couple of years earlier.

And so there goes any chance of getting any credit, you know, in that business without, you know, the other owners or the other investors, pledging personal guarantees and basically taking all the financial risk in the business against that debt. I just, you know, it's, it's just like a case study on yeah, how to pick business, how to make a business partner. Right. But, I'm really interested to understand, you know, you have two instances in which you have partners. how, how do you pick them?

I mean, this is really important, right? And I think there's a lot of bad advice out there. I think, to your point, one was on the pickleball court. so that's probably, number one thing is that you got to find a pickleball player, right? You got to find a pickleball partner. I say that because I love pickleball. But I'm really interested to understand how you've picked them so far.

Landon Mance (38:07.3)
you

Landon Mance (38:15.886)
Yeah, yeah, so I currently I have three full-time business partners now. I've got Luke, I've got Austin, and I've got Brian. I'm not just saying this because they're my business partners, but they are three of the best dudes that I've ever met in my life. I would trust any one of these three dudes. You know, if my wife and I died in a car accident in any one of these three dudes,

stepped up to raise my children for me, I would be eternally grateful to any of them and I would not blink an eye as to them raising my children. That's how much I trust them. Now, in order to get to that place of trust, the only formula that I can articulate in words is 50 to 100 hours. You need to spend

50 to 100 hours with a person doing numerous different things to really get to know them, to understand how they act in different situations, circumstances, experiences. And you cannot do that over two or three lunch meetings. You've got to go spend time with them and their family. They need to spend time with you and your family.

You need to go out to meals and see how they treat the waitstaff. You need to go on vacations. You need to be involved in situations where things get a little tense or uncomfortable so you can see how they react in those. So you got to experience the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. And to do that, my opinion is you need to spend at least 50 hours, but up to a hundred hours with somebody

before you can have a really good assessment of what that person is like as a human being. So Luke and I had.

Mason Brady (40:18.27)
I'm glad you put a metric behind it. I mean, that is really nice to have a metric behind it, because I want to hear more from you, but yeah, I just want to emphasize that, that the metric, that much time is a significant amount of time, right? mean, that is a whole lot of time with somebody, but actually putting a metric in place for reality of really what it takes to get to know a person, this is relevant. Hardly anybody talks about this.

Landon Mance (40:44.568)
Yeah, yeah. and cause I've been asked this question before and, so I've just kind of like reflected on it. I'm like, you know, what, what does it actually take? And so I started like thinking back and you know, my partner Austin and I had been getting to know each other for years. I had brought him in on some client engagement. So we had worked together on a couple of client engagements before we became partners. Luke and I,

Mason Brady (40:48.658)
Okay

Landon Mance (41:11.432)
By the way, Luke and I are neighbors as well. We literally live two doors down from each other. Like I can throw a baseball and I could bust out one of his windows. And I've actually almost done that because Luke and I actually play catch out in the street all the time. And then Brian and I, Brian and I got connected in November, December of last year. Brian is my partner on the private equity fund that we have spun up.

Brian and I met each other about a year ago and then, you know, had a weekly standing meeting. He came out to Vegas, you know, multiple times for eight hours a day. And then we basically solidified our business relationship in call it like May, June. So spent six months and probably, I think we estimated it was like 120 to 150 hours.

over that period of six months together before we solidified our partnership. And by that time, just six short months into getting to know Brian, because we had spent so much time together and been in, you know, I met his family, he met mine. Obviously we had a bunch of meals together. We had done, you know, hobbies together. And so I had a very, very clear picture of who Brian was because

You can't hide who you are when you've spent that much time with somebody. You go out to a couple lunch meetings with somebody, like you can hide, you can hide, you can keep those skeletons pretty well hidden. But when you've spent 50 to a hundred hours with somebody, they can no longer hide those skeletons, you know, because there is stuff that is just going to come out as your relationship strengthens to where, you know, they get more comfortable. There's higher trust involved.

And when that happens, you start to see other sides of people and you're like, okay, well, wow. You know, we went out to lunch at 12 and man, he had three margaritas and you know, freaking, you know, left his phone number for the waitress and he's married with three kids. Like, wow, that was really sketchy, dude. Like that's probably not someone that I want to spend any more time with, you know, or whatever, you know, whatever the situation is and you know, however they align with your, you know, values, but

Landon Mance (43:38.532)
Certainly identifying somebody that doesn't align with your values, that will definitely transpire if you spent 50 to 100 hours with somebody.

Mason Brady (43:47.274)
Yep, 100%. It's funny because I went to an MBA program that was focused on entrepreneurship. remember sometimes they would just, their whole goal was to actually have businesses start up out of that program. That was how they were going to get additional MBA candidates through the door paying top dollar is that, well, look at these startups coming out of here. Look at these brands and everything. They literally would put us in a classroom and they said, just start talking to people and just form a business together.

I couldn't help but think, I'm like, what? This is somebody you're practically gonna be married to. With the amount of time that you're gonna end up spending and the risk you're gonna take together financially, et cetera, et cetera, this is the closest thing that you can get to a marriage and nobody would date this way, so why in the world would we start a business this way?

Nobody would start a marriage in this format. But I've also never heard anybody put it like, to put a metric to it. And I would agree with you that I think even then some people have a few short meetings and they get all hyped up on the idea. But how many times do they talk about investors invest in the team itself or the entrepreneurs themselves, right? And the ideas are dime a dozen, execution's everything.

But you can only execute if that team is cohesive and that you trust each other and that team is excellent. And so the team itself, you can do a variety of different businesses, whether it's tree trimming, like you said, like you can do a variety of different stuff. You can do dog grooming or dog, you know, overnight, you know, dog hotel or whatever. But the reality is you can do it with anybody, but as long as you have the right person with you, you can do a million things. Right. So I'm glad that you put a metric to it because I think it's relevant and.

I think what's sad is a lot of our audience, they're lower middle market business owners that they built a primary business. They may have built it on their own or they may have had partners, but they've built a primary business and they're kind of getting into that period of wealth where all of a sudden they have extra cash that they need to figure out what to do with and they want to go accomplish some other objectives. You're still talking about a visionary founder that

Mason Brady (46:03.142)
loves to take on new challenges and their primary business may be somewhat at a plateau point, I would argue otherwise, but they ultimately, they're looking for that next stage of growth and they're considering making those outside investments in their entire portfolio of things. And the biggest thing I've seen is they get in and they hop into bed with just terrible partners that end up in terrible situations. So I'm glad that you put a metric to it. That's really wonderful. Well, Lennon, you know,

You've covered a lot for us and I appreciate you providing your context and your perspective to it. I'm interested kind of as we begin to wrap up, we've talked a lot about partnerships and about picking the right partner and I can't underestimate how important this is, right? But you are a wealth manager and you decided to invest in businesses that while a lot of...

A lot of advice out there is place your money in stock market index, place your money in the stock market, place your money in real estate, do this and this and that. There's all these different investment alternative options. And one of the ones that you chose was buying a business. And then, you know, like you said, you're spending up a private equity fund that I'm sure will invest in additional businesses, right? And so I'm interested in understanding, especially from a wealth manager, why have you chosen to go down this route?

Landon Mance (47:25.506)
Yeah. You know, when, when I told my wife that I was going to buy a business, you know, she was like, wait, what? Like, are you crazy? Why would you do that? Like, why don't you just put your money into the stock market? So the reassurance that I gave her, and I guess this is, I think this is sound advice for any, you know, entrepreneur as well. Before I went out and did something like

you know, as a lot of people would see as being incredibly risky, right? Go out and buy a business in an industry that you know absolutely zero about, zero. And nor did I ever intend to learn about the industry because I knew that that would be the responsibility of my operating partner. When I did that, I mentioned earlier that I've always lived

well below my means. So I had built up what I'm going to call like a foundational investment portfolio. some of this, most of the stuff is stuff that you can, you can liquidate at the click of a mouse, right? Stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, you know, for the most part, hardly anybody buys individual bonds anymore, but in theory it's the same type of deal. So I had built up a,

pretty meaningful, you meaningful to me. I built up a meaningful investment portfolio, primarily comprised of liquid marketable securities so that I've got that to fall back on. and by the way, I had also built up a decent little cash reserve, right? So that I've got a financial backstop to where if I went out to buy this business,

and it did not work out for whatever reason, it's not gonna wipe me out. Do I have to sign a PG for my home and some other assets? I absolutely did. And if I would have defaulted on my loan for Nevada Tree Service, would they have come after those assets? Yeah, they probably would have. Would that put me and my family out on the street? Absolutely would not have.

Landon Mance (49:49.111)
So I think that's really, really important. You're always, you're going to meet entrepreneurs that like, don't think like that. It doesn't even, it's not even a concern to them where it's like, you know, they're just burning the boats as they go deeper out into sea because there's no turning back. There's no relying on this or that. There's no fallback. There is one direction we are heading and it is boom or it is bust. Well, that is not me at all.

I am, I've learned to never say never, but I am most likely not going to be the guy that's gonna build a hundred million dollar business. That's not, that's, that's not me. No desire to do anything like that. Cause you build a hundred million dollar business, you are absolutely going to be giving up your mornings and your nights and your weekends to build something like that. There's no, there's no getting around that.

Mason Brady (50:24.638)
Yeah.

Landon Mance (50:47.972)
So that's not me. So I'm never going to be the boomer bus guy. I built up a nice, very diversified investment portfolio, which consisted not just marketable securities, but private real estate deals, investment in holding company models, in funds, in SPDs, all kinds of stuff. And so I felt very comfortable to know that if I went out and bought a business as an investment, even if it failed and I had to

close it down, that it is not going to put my family and I out on the street. And I, for 95 % of people out there, that is gonna be the right strategy. And again, for those boomer bus people, don't even, they don't want a fallback because it, it almost like demotivates them. Yeah. Yeah. But that, that's just not me, man. You know, so I had to make sure that we were in a great spot, whether I succeeded or whether I failed.

Mason Brady (51:35.912)
motivation.

Mason Brady (51:47.082)
That's, yeah, a lot of business owners we talk about are not as calculated as you are as to that point that if you were gonna provide a personal guarantee on a line of debt, that what is the total amount at risk here, that if we didn't pay this back, and if I had to guarantee this thing and we had to go into my net assets, my net personal assets.

that I still get to keep my house and I still get to do this and this and that that yeah, it'll wash out quite a bit, but generally I'm gonna keep my house and I'm gonna be able to keep my family safe and that's okay. And that's really interesting because just a lot of business owners are not looking from that perspective. Like sometimes they sign that personal guarantee and they don't know what they're signing, right? They don't even know their current situation. They don't know, okay, this is really what I have at risk here. And so yeah, you're a calculated man.

Yeah, I really, really appreciate your insight here. There's obvious reasons why you've made the investment decisions you've made. Love to hear just, yeah, the personal side of it and what made you personally want to invest in it, but also, you've provided a lot of insight here to us in regards to partnerships, right, and how to pick them and how to really evaluate a partner. so I'm just so glad that we've been able to really expand upon this and get your experience, because...

You are unique in the sense of having a business way outside of what your normal primary business activities are that, you know, oftentimes we're talking on the ag side of some of our clients that, yeah, they're buying farmland, but the intent is it's supplementing their primary business. A lot of them, one way or another, their other objectives are supplementing their primary business and yours is different. And so I'm just so grateful for the insight that you've provided that this is totally doable.

but you've taken it in a very calculated way. And so, and how, you know, you provide advice on to others here of how to do that in a calculated method. So just really appreciate having you on land. This was great.

Landon Mance (53:47.108)
Yeah, thanks man. I appreciate you saying all that and great to see you and connect with you again man. It's been too long so thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Mason Brady (53:56.734)
No, appreciate you that, yeah, tell our audience where they can find you if they want to learn more about Lannan and what you're doing or to seek out some of your wealth management services or, you know, we may have listeners here that may be interested in becoming that next partner, right? That they may need to go out to the Pickleball Court in Las Vegas with you. So yeah, tell us where they can find you,

Landon Mance (54:10.37)
Yeah.

Landon Mance (54:13.976)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. Easiest place is gonna be LinkedIn. Landon Manson, LinkedIn. Dad to Twins is my first, the first line of my bio. You can't miss me.

Mason Brady (54:25.852)
Awesome, man. Well, yeah, thank you so much again for joining us today, Len. Really appreciate you, brother.

Landon Mance (54:29.676)
Yeah, thanks a lot brother. Appreciate you, man.

Mason Brady (54:31.986)
Awesome. So yeah, from here, man, that was it. I'm going to go ahead and record the intro that I really liked the direction that went, that we honed in a lot on that partnership deal. But I really think that's actually quite valuable that there's a lot of nuggets in there that I think a lot of our audience and that we can, we can share with a lot of people. So that was good, man. Appreciate you.

Landon Mance (54:52.58)
Yeah, I hope somebody finds some value in there somewhere.

Mason Brady (54:57.352)
Yeah, real quick before we go, what's making you wanna move away from the podcast, that you guys have been doing it for a while, and I have my own sentiments, I we have been doing it nearly as long, right? It's a fraction of the time you've been doing it, but we even interviewed a marketing guy earlier today, he kinda put to words what I was thinking, and so I'm interested to hear your perspective on it, like what's making you wanna consider moving away from it.

Landon Mance (55:23.95)
Yeah, for sure, man. Dude, it's crazy. Once you put podcast host in your freaking bio on LinkedIn, it's unbelievable how many freaking people start reaching out to you to offer to do this and that for the podcast. I mean, it's like, dude, probably get, sometimes I'll get five to 10 people a week. So I'll just be as, I'm gonna be just as raw as I can possibly be with you.

You know, when we started doing the podcast, we were not very intentional with what we wanted to achieve by doing it. Was it for, you know, top of funnel brand awareness? Was it to try to get clients? Was it to look cool? Cause we had a podcast. You know, I don't even really know what the original intent was. It was so long ago now. May of 2020 is when we launched our pod and

Now that we are so far into it and just looking back going, gosh, know, what is, what's been like the business result of doing this? It has been so incredibly minimal. I think we, got one, one client, one other client you can partially attribute to the podcast. Obviously it's given us great.

content to use online, but has that led to any, you know, kind of new client engagements? No, it hasn't. So we pivoted last year in January of this year, excuse me. We pivoted January of this year. So we don't bring guests on the pod anymore. Now it's just Austin and I rapping about, you know, things that we hope are important to business owners around running businesses more efficiently and

investing as a small business owner, et cetera. That has helped generate a little bit of activity. But now we're just kind of at this point where I'm just like, it's just really hard to justify continuing to do it. You know, I've lost my pizzazz, you know, for it. I'm not really excited to record pod episodes anymore.

Landon Mance (57:55.46)
I also heard something which I thought was really interesting. I do, at first I pushed back on this notion, but now I subscribe to it, which is if you are a business that's doing less than $10 million a year in revenue, there's really no such thing as like brand, like brand equity, like brand exposure. And when I first heard that, I was like, that's freaking BS.

And then the more that I internalized that and reflected on the businesses that I know that are sub 10 million, I was kind of like, that's actually pretty freaking true. certainly, I don't see any value at all in us doing it as a brand exercise, you know, a brand opportunity. So in short, man, I just am reflecting back on it going, okay,

Even if we identify exactly what our intention is, what we want to accomplish with the pod in 25, do I even feel like it's going to allow us to accomplish those things? And I just keep coming back to the answer, is probably not. So yeah, man, that's kind of where we're at with it right now.

Mason Brady (59:07.092)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, I, I spoke with somebody that is a fraction. He runs a fractional CMO firm specifically for the construction industry this morning. And I, you you said your website and your content is not going to win you new business. It's just going to make sure you don't lose it. and, basically the idea that if you have a janky website or if you don't produce any content, people wonder if you're relevant, you know, if you're legitimate in some form. and so generally they want to see those at a minimum.

but it's no longer positioning you for a win. It's just to make sure that you don't lose it and that, yeah, when somebody meets you, you you're referred from somebody, they're gonna go check out your website and go check out some of your content, see your legitimacy, but it's never gonna be an avenue in which somebody new comes in. It's going to be a supplement or a complimentary part of their buying decision, but it's...

It's just going to make sure you don't lose. It's not going to be a win. and, I can, I can, I can agree with that generally, right? that, yeah, unless you have a big ad strategy or something like that, which you and our businesses, wealth management, you know, anything advisory related, like you also can't do anything really like, you know, ads, like I just, that doesn't.

It doesn't align with our brand, right? Like it starts to devalue the brand if you started doing ads, right? That you want to be seen as an advisor and be referred in as a trusted advisor versus, yeah, we can get this done for package price, et cetera. And so yeah, for what it's worth, that's what I heard this morning from this guy. And yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with it either. So, yeah.

Landon Mance (01:00:57.252)
Yeah, I'd say I'm in the same boat as you. Let me ask you something. If you reflect back, so when did you start your business? Two years ago?

Mason Brady (01:01:09.77)
coming up on three pretty soon.

Landon Mance (01:01:11.52)
Okay. So if you reflect back over the last three years, just, I'm going to pull a number out of the sky, man. It's not relevant at all. Let's just say over the course of three years that you, you have brought 20 clients on over those, over those three years. Some, you know, kind of came and went, some are still with you, but 20 client relationships that you have, you know, worked with over the last three years.

Where would you say, like, what's the breakdown of where those relationships came from?

Mason Brady (01:01:50.122)
referral partners or referrals from existing clients. And so, even for us that as we're looking at this, that, I mean, we're strategizing 2025 that that's where we need to spend more time and attention. and so I, I still see like, yeah, I'm going to do the podcast. I just want to be careful about having high expect, you know, having the wrong expectations for it. and I think again, from a legitimate standpoint, it's not bad to

have some content out there and I'd rather do this than write content or something, right? This is still okay and fun to me to be able to have a conversation with you right now, right? And I just sit here, press record. Cindy actually came up with most of these questions. I spent 30 seconds editing them and then I show up and I press record and this is easy to me. And then you and I continue, actually we develop a relationship, right? And so there's another foundational effect to this.

So the ROI of this time spent, I can make it higher than if I were to do other forms of content. But yeah, I also want to be careful about what we do with that and that we do need to be, we need to make sure that we're getting the ROI out of it. But yeah, by all means, it's been from referral partners developing deep relationships of trust with people. And that has taken...

Those are relationships that have taken years to build. so, like you said, 50 to 100 hours, I wouldn't say it's taken that much, but our goal is to go deeper in relationships with potential referral partners. Like, hey, we're gonna go to an event and we're gonna invite people in with us anytime we're having lunch, we're not eating lunch alone. If we're having a meal, who can we invite? Who can we have participate with us and just continue to build these relationships and these friendships?

these trusted things with people, as well as our existing clients. What I'm emphasizing more is that in the first 60 days of our engagement with clients, I've heard statistically that the client is most likely to refer you within the first 60 days, because if they have a wonderful stellar experience in the first 60 days, and you're helping to solve their pain points, that is when they're gonna come out the bang and give you a great testimonial, and that's when they're on the biggest high of the new relationship to.

Mason Brady (01:04:07.804)
And so strategize around that, around what our onboarding experience looks like and following up and letting them know that, you know, we will be touching base with them at the day 60 mark and want to get, you know, feedback from them. And if it's quality feedback, you know, Hey, would you mind if that we use that feedback for our marketing materials and that type of stuff. And would you mind referring? And then we actually want to provide some incentives for referrals as well. But yeah, I just, that's what we're going to hone in on. That was what seems to be working.

Landon Mance (01:04:26.403)
Yeah.

Landon Mance (01:04:36.024)
Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good stuff, man. And that's that's exactly that's exactly exactly one of the focus changes that we're making in 2025 as well, man. So, yeah, that's yeah, that's awesome. Hey, I got a role, brother. But thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me on, man. Honestly, the biggest the biggest value out of this for me was just reconnecting with you, man, because it's been

Mason Brady (01:04:37.47)
So, yeah.

Mason Brady (01:04:56.766)
Okay. Yep.

Landon Mance (01:05:05.558)
It's been a while, man. So thanks for having me on.

Mason Brady (01:05:09.672)
No, appreciate you brother. Thank you man. Thanks man. You too. See ya.

Landon Mance (01:05:11.416)
Yep, Merry Christmas, bro. Later, brother.

Mason Brady (01:05:23.07)
Alright Cindy, so you heard all that but I'm gonna go ahead and do the intro, okay? Cool, alright.

So, are you struggling?

One sec, actually, I wanna do this a bit different.

Mason Brady (01:05:45.054)
Are you struggling with making an acquisition? Are you struggling with how to do it from being able to give your own personal time as a business owner into an acquisition and how it can be ran, how it can function? Are you struggling with how to get it done? Well, the answer is you probably need a partner, but you may already have had a horror story with a partner.

that you have gotten into business with people in the past that you would never do business with again and has left such a terrible taste in your mouth. On the other hand, you may have never had a partner before and you wanna make sure that you align yourself with the right person that can go in and help you acquire that business and that can help you run that business. If this is something you're interested in, today's guest, Lannan Mance, will absolutely school you on how to pick a partner.

and how to do it effectively. He runs and operates three different businesses and two are worlds apart from each other, worlds apart from each other. And Landon is running them successfully because of partnerships. But he will tell us today how he picked those partners and how he is executing so successfully. So we are excited to dive in with Landon and get ready to dive in or hope you enjoy this episode.

And before, and please remember to subscribe to this channel and like us on your favorite platform, whether that be YouTube, whether that be a Spotify, Apple podcast, and be sure to invite any of your friends that you find would be, would find this episode to be of value or any of our other, okay, Cindy, I'm going to redo that. Please remember to subscribe and like this channel. Do it on YouTube, do it on your major pod, your favorite podcast platform, Spotify, Apple podcasts.

This will help us and please invite your friends to check out this episode or any of our previous episodes as well. Thank you all, appreciate you.