Should YOU Buy a Business or Build One First?

In this episode of JackQuisitions, Jack sits down with Stephen Olmon to unpack one of the spiciest ETA questions out there: should you buy a business or build one first? Stephen shares his non-traditional path into entrepreneurship—from a pastor/teacher household to telecom consulting, then into the world of software, NewCo businesses, and eventually acquisitions.

They dig into Stephen’s early failed independent sponsor deals, how those bruises shaped his approach, and why he ultimately went the SBA route to acquire and scale Alarm Masters, a Houston-based fire & life safety company now rolling up competitors across Texas. Along the way, you’ll hear what Stephen looks for in alarm/security acquisitions (RMR mix, attrition, commercial focus), how they balance organic vs acquisition growth, and why self-awareness is the most underrated skill in buying businesses.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re actually built to buy a company—or if you should build first, buy later—this one’s for you.

🔍 What You’ll Learn

• Why “buy vs build” isn’t a strategy question—it’s a self-awareness question.
• Stephen’s path from NewCo entrepreneurship to acquisitions (and what changed his mind).
• A clear breakdown of the independent sponsor model and why most deals die in diligence.

💼 Special Thanks to First Internet Bank!
Looking to buy or expand a business? First Internet Bank is a National Preferred SBA lender specializing in acquisitions for the skilled trades. Their SBA loan program offers up to 90% financing for business acquisitions, partner buyouts, and commercial real estate—plus optional lines of credit to fuel future growth. Unlike traditional lenders, they take a “how can we” approach, making deals happen for both first-time buyers and experienced operators.

👉 Special Offer: Mention Owned and Operated for a reduced good faith deposit and a complimentary deal review + buyside prequalification.
Connect with Alan Peterson from First Internet Bank here: [https://alanfib.com/]  

🔗 Connect
Jack Carr — X (Twitter): https://www.x.com/thehvacjack

Stephen Olmon — https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenolmon/ 

Jackquisitions Newsletter — Your favorite source for how to buy small businesses. Real insights, smart strategies, zero gurus.

🖊️ Sign up HERE for more insights


📢 Enjoyed the episode?
 ✅ Like, Comment & Subscribe for weekly insights on business acquisitions, deal flow, marketing, and growth strategies!

📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

Transcript

 Do you recommend buying over building? That's a dangerous question. I think it really depends on self-awareness, like what you're good at and then what network you have. I do really like that business axiom that you should build a business that is sellable, so it's the Ivan Build. Maybe sometimes it should be more built than buy.

How are you guys viewing organic growth versus. Acquisition, growth. Think about predictable revenue. Where's my next dollar coming from? By far, the largest driver of organic growth for us is just mining our current customers, and we preach that like go see your customers.

Welcome back to Jack Acquisitions. Today I have Steven Oman. How are you doing, Steven? I'm doing well. I'm glad to be here. Steven, you have, uh. We've been connected for a long time through kind of the whole Twitter sphere as well as a lot of mutual friends. Uh, you have quite a backstory of acquisitions, but it didn't always come from acquisitions.

You came from kind of a different world. Yep. Do you wanna start. Telling everybody a little about yourself and your, your background. Sure. So, uh, went to Texas a and m, proud Aggie, uh, grew up in a family where my father was a pastor. My mother was a teacher, so didn't grow up in a business family at all.

And I came out of school thinking that consulting would mean that I got to like, travel to New York and Dubai and collect a bunch of credit card points. And instead I was at a, uh. Well-known telecommunications company here in Dallas for a couple years and, uh, did not do anything very sexy. And that sounds fun.

Yeah. I mean, it was, I knew a couple months in that I didn't want to have the life mm-hmm. Uh, that the partners at that firm had, and I just wasn't built for it. I wanted to do something different. And so. I, uh, I ended up moving over to a software company that a family friend had acquired with his cousin, and I like to joke that I couldn't even spell m and a until I worked for those guys and they were very kind, they taught me a lot.

And over a four or five year period got me really interested. In buying a business. So that was kind of the, the beginnings for me. I didn't, you know, grow up. It wasn't something that I thought about in my teen years, or even in in college, private equity, like none of that was on my radar at all. And so I kind of took a very backwards path.

So what drew you into that world? 'cause generally it's either you're born into it or. Your personality pushes you into it, but it kind of sounds like you had a, a different role or do you feel like one of those two fit for you? Well, probably one of the most important decisions you can make in your ETA journey is which SBA lender.

You are gonna pick a lender who will be in your corner to get you closed on the deal, as well as set you up for future expansion. That is why we partnered with Alan Peterson from First Internet Bank. He and his team take a how can we approach as well as I personally know they specialize in home service acquisitions.

Mention the show or my handsome bald head and receive a reduced good faith deposit, as well as a detailed deal review and maybe even a buy-side. Prequalification, no strings attached. Head on over to Alan FIB. Dot com. That's A-L-A-N-F-I b.com, or click the link below to get connected. I think that I got excited because I didn't know that I could do that.

Like it felt like a game I wasn't allowed to play. And then I saw a couple guys that were smart and kind of gritty and use some leverage. Um, used some structuring on a deal to be able to go buy a business, and I was like, oh, well I didn't know that that was something that would even be potentially feasible for someone like me to, to do.

And then I also was a pretty early fanboy of Mr. Brent Bishore Red Messy Marketplace. You and me both. Yeah, I continued to, I'm actually was, I was not long ago, I was in Missouri at a Main Street slash capital camp. Mm-hmm. Um, which is just, if you haven't ever been an incredible event, um, they do an awesome job.

And, uh, so anyways, those sorts of inputs led me down a path of being interested in, in doing that. And then, um, I'd say. Uh, my, my wife and I came out of quite a bit of student debt and so, uh, we didn't necessarily have a lot of capital as I left and went out on my own. So I kinda actually went the NewCo, you know, uh, route and started a couple businesses, started to generate some, some cash on my own to be able to go, start to think about buying a business in the future.

So then where do you feel like your first big success was? Was it in starting a business, and then what was that business? Yeah. Uh, it, it was, it was, uh, starting a marketing agency. With a partner eight years ago. And it's one of those moments where you step off, like we actually chose, like for me to leave my job two months before our first child was born.

Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, that'll make you work pretty hard. And it just figured it out. And I wasn't really sure, you know, my wife and I kinda had a deal. If we burned down a certain amount of savings, then I would go back into the workforce. And thankfully that never happened. But you just kind of get in the game.

You try something, start something. It worked enough to keep going and keep going. And so, um, that kind of built up. I started a couple other businesses and it just kind of snowballed from there. You, you built a few businesses. You've purchased now businesses, um, based on today's age and market with where, you know, capital sits and, and mm-hmm.

The prime rate and the future of, of the, I guess, the country. Do you recommend buying over building. That's a dangerous question. I think it really depends on self-awareness, like who you are, what you're good at, and then what network you have. So if someone, I'm gonna create a stereotype, you know, grew up, uh, with a dad that's a wealth manager, went to SMU with, worked in finance for three or four years, and dad's friends are supportive.

That could equal a, a pretty seamless transition to having access to capital, you know, some equity partners and, and maybe go down a path both on your experience and knowledge and kind of have a, a more comfortable path to buying a business like that sort of thing. Um, you know, like Red Zeer is a, a good, uh, a buddy of mine and I've really appreciated some of reg's candor, you know, over the years and even recently.

I think it's really hard. I think people underestimate it and so starting a business is what I gravitate towards in terms of that recommendation. Mm-hmm. To have like a first shot at entrepreneurship, unless you are like really uniquely built and kind of, um, it's maybe not quite as dangerous so to speak, but, um.

You know, are you coming from like a professional services environment where you can go hang your own shingle, maybe you're an attorney or, um, you, you know, have been doing due diligence at some firm, you wanna go do your own services? Like that could be a, a pretty good start. Sit back after a few years and then think, should I buy something?

So it's the. Buy than build. Maybe sometimes it should be more build than buy. Interesting. Yeah. I mean it's such a loaded question with so much, uh, nuance that I always am super interested to hear people's perspective. Hmm. I generally lead the opposite way of, of. Buy, then build. Uh, that being said with the same caveat that you put on there, just like, Hey, you gotta make sure that your skillset actually fits the business you're buying, right?

I think what we see too often nowadays is the trope of, hey, the, you know, the warton NBA that goes out and buys a roofing company, but then they can't find a roofing company, so then they go smaller and smaller and smaller. And now, now they're the ones hanging the shingles without any experience. So it's always a really interesting, uh, dichotomy there.

Um. So, okay, so you, you built a few businesses, you bought a few businesses. You recommend, you know, building maybe first, what, what are you up to today? I know you, you, are you, do you still run those few businesses or what, what does your portfolio look like in your, your day as an entrepreneur? Yeah, my largest focus is growing Alarm Masters, which is a, uh, fire and uh, life safety company in Houston, Texas.

And, um, hopefully soon in other places in Texas. And that's our goal, to be kind of like a Texan security company. Um, and I focus a lot on our m and a activity, uh, as well as, uh, marketing kind of oversee some of that, um, few other things, but my largest focus is, is there and, um, specifically kinda on the m and a side.

And then, um, I still have ownership and a few other businesses I've also sold off or closed down things that weren't successful. You know, definitely not perfect. Um. And, uh, yeah, I, I wish I had a perfect track record. That'd be awesome, but not true. Um, have the, have the failures. Have the, yeah, the, the bruises, you know.

Yeah, to prove that I've been out and around for nearly a decade in entrepreneurship. And so, um, but yeah, alarm Masters is kinda my largest focus. So how did Alarm Masters come about? What, what made you focus on the alarm industry as a home service vertical that you wanted to move into? Yeah, so I started a few businesses.

I got kind of interested in this idea of, of buying a much larger business through the independent sponsorship structure. And I had a couple failed deals, uh, where I had had committed capital and they didn't work out. And these were both, you know, eight figure deals. And, and as those, sorry, Steven to, to, yeah.

Just for everybody listening, there's some people who are newer to the channel Sure. New acquisitions. Mm-hmm. What is the independent sponsor model and why is, why is it a good model or a bad model? Yeah, the, the quick summary there is instead of raising a fund, uh, you can raise deal by deal, um, whether that's a broker deal or off market.

You've typically gotten that really far into the LOI process where it's under LOI as typically. And then you're going and raising on that deal with a thesis, kinda with a growth story. Um, oftentimes you'll see people in like a tandem, two or three people working together. Um, you know, Thomas in some people who, you know, listen to this may note, Thomas, he's a Yep.

You know, phenomenal example. Extremely smart. Um, and so, um. He's built an empire. Uh, you know, I was trying to do a, a first independent sponsor deal and, uh, I think that it, uh, at the time I felt like it fit my skillset of maybe not being so operationally involved and being more on the deal side, which is kind of how my life has.

Played out. Uh, but that was kind of the, the drivers. I felt like I could use my relational and kind of deal making abilities to be a good fit in the independent sponsor world. Um, and so I just had a couple failed deals, um, and, you know, went into due diligence and, you know, found some, some, uh, things that it just didn't add up.

And so they ended up not working out. Um, and, and off the back of that. My friend Colin, who I went to college with, sat me down and said, Hey, let me tell you why we should roll up security and alarm companies in Texas. And I said, eh, I don't know. And but if you've, if you've ever had the privilege to meet Colin, um, you know, he can, he's definitely a sell ice to an Eskimo sort of person.

And so within 20 or 30 minutes I was hooked. And, uh, what I liked about the industry, what I thought I quickly understood was. You could do projects and get nice cash infusion, but you were really building recurring revenue, which I came from a software world. Mm-hmm. You know, and my W2 passed and I was like, man, okay.

There's a recurring element. Maybe we could apply our segmented sales kinda software background to more of a sweaty blue collar business. That's interesting. Uh, there's some service work and install work, and so just the whole kind of financial makeup plus there's like licensure, um, to give you some moat in that industry.

And I got excited about it. So back, back to the independent sponsor idea. Sure. So the idea behind the independent sponsor for, uh, if you were to go and do it today would be you go out on the market, you find a deal that you really like, on or off market, however it comes to play. You get it under LOI. Then you go to where, where did you go to, was it family offices, was it friends and family?

I mean, it seems like if you're getting like a 15, $20 million deal, that might be pretty steep of a raise. So like where, how did that look for you in those early days? Yeah, I, I actually went to some of my network that I had met on what I will call Twitter and not X 'cause at the time it was still, it was still Twitter.

Um, the Twitter major song and yeah, that's right. Um, so, uh, I went to a few different people, a couple family offices here locally. Um. On one of those deals. Um, it was more kind of family office back was kind of the trajectory. Um, the other one was someone who had a fund, um, where their LPs like to kind of double down on certain investment thesis, um, and kind of co-invest alongside the fund additionally.

And so, um, yeah, a couple different, a couple different circumstances there. But what I would say is. Um, you have to know what your goal is. So some people would think about like, this permanent, you know, I talked about Brent, kind of permanent hold, evergreen, that sort of thing. Most independent sponsor deals, you know, you're still playing along the classic four to seven year private equity timeline, and so you have to be aligned with your capital partners and kinda expectations.

Um, so that's, that's kinda what I did, but again, very one-off and circumstantial just on who I knew. Um, I think that, you know, there's probably a more disciplined playbook to run if that's what I was really gonna focus on doing with the rest of my life. So, um. Yeah, but I, I'm definitely not the foremost expert on, uh, independent sponsor deals.

'cause I have two failed attempts. Yeah. Why do you think that it was so hard to get to the finish line? Was it more deal related? Specific, or, or is it the model that becomes an issue? It was much more specific deal by deal. And that, that's actually what I like about the independent sponsor world is that, um.

It's, it is more kind of, uh, unique deals and mm-hmm. Um, and funding them kind of one off, like just very different sets of economics on, on those two. One of them. It was just a value. Like we could not totally get aligned with the seller. And, uh, and actually their business exploded after we didn't end up being able to close on it.

And so I feel like I was right. Their, their business is like near two x the value of what we were trying to acquire it at. So I feel proud in my failure. Uh, and then on, on the other one, um, in due diligence, we just found some things financially that unfortunately were, uh, were deal killers. Awesome man.

Yeah, it's always interesting. So we, 'cause I've never had to deal with the independent sponsor method. I, I, I bought really, really small. Yeah. So it was able to SBA, that thing and then just grow from there. And then every add-on we've done has been within the SBA range. Mm-hmm. Uh, but it's always, it's always generally a curiosity for the people that go really big on their.

On their deals and how they get there and how to kind of manifest that into, into existence. And so, so you get through these two deals that don't, that don't come to fruition, and then your buddy talks to you and says, Hey, let's start an alarm company. Um, or a rollup specifically. Mm-hmm. Um. And so how, what was the first deal that you guys got?

Did he come with the deal already or did you, did he have one? Was this his company? Like what did that all beginnings look like of the partnership? He had spent time in the industry, so he had a lot of contacts, but he was on the, the manufacturer side. Mm-hmm. Um, and so he was selling to. Guys like us now, essentially, right?

Yeah. And so he just, he had some relationships and through a couple of those relationships, we ended up finding the original platform, albeit pretty small. Uh, but it, it was a platform for us. And, um, we were trying to, uh, find something. Since he was kind of day-to-day ops, like where he was living ideally did not blow up his life.

And so that worked out, you know, it was, um, kind of a, a good fit for us and it was a good start. And so, uh, that first acquisition was about two and a half years ago, and then we've done five since, and we have. Uh, another under LOI and, and a few more Lois that we're considering right now. So we've, we've been running pretty hard and fast the last few years.

Very interesting. And, uh, in terms of the goal, what is, what is the long-term goal of this business? Because we talked about permanent hold versus a 47 year timeline. Like what's between, if you guys don't mind telling me what's, what's your. Go with this. Yeah. To be opportunistic, like we, like optionality.

Um, I do really like that business axiom that you should build a business that is sellable, like that is attractive to buyers. Like you never know what's gonna happen in your life. And you know what, if you, um, have some crazy family event or just get really passionate about something else, like, it's always good to build a business that at any given time is a atra is an attractive asset that you could sell.

And, you know, have a, have a big win, right? Like, that's great. We're not there today. We are kind of building towards that reality of that we, that we could, you know, be attractive like that. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, in the future do we take chips off the table some and keep rolling and, you know, it's a fun industry.

Like it, it's really awesome. And I think that people are worried about AI in a lot of industries. There are advancements in our industry from an AI perspective, but nothing that's threatening, like the very like existence of our industry. And so we feel really comfortable in the kind of physical security space for a long, long time.

Uh, most times when people say roll up, I mean, I've used the term for myself. I mean, many people have used the term, it's, it's a hot word, if you will, for true roll-ups. Usually there's some kind of, uh. Capital partner that's behind that's able to really push the acquisitions, right? 'cause you're looking at, you know, $5 million companies times 10 companies, like there's a lot of money on the table.

Is this something that you guys are self-funding through, um, yourselves plus the proceeds of the business? Or if you don't mind me asking, what does that look like? Yeah, no, great question. So we actually went the SBA route. Originally on the platform. We used some of our own capital. We used an SBA alone, and we got in the game and.

So that was how we got started. And I think our original view was that we would just kind of slow grow it over a very long period of time. And then, funny enough, very relevant for this conversation. We were on a podcast, uh, so you could go listen to, um, I call him the White Will Smith. Uh, I don't know if he knows that.

Yeah. But, uh, we were on acquiring mines, uh, coming up on two years ago. Um, it was pretty early in our journey. It was, we were inside a year and. That podcast came out and we had a bunch of capital partners reach out and at first we're like, Hey, it's a waste of our time. It's way too early. But there was one group that was really interesting to us and so we kind of dated for about six or eight months and we ended up raising, uh, some growth equity from a group.

Uh, called Argentum, uh, out of New York, and they're really small from a headcount perspective. They're, they're very lean, which we respect, and yet they've had tremendous success and they've been awesome. Like they've been actually great. Like I feel like most people quietly, you know, closed door, they'd be negative about their investors and.

I mean, they've actually just been phenomenal. That's so I can, I can say that genuinely, um, blowing no smoke. And so, um, that was a little over a year ago, uh, that we closed that and that provided some capital to accelerate us from an acquisitions perspective. Mm-hmm. And also just on the organic growth side, we started hiring more.

We built, uh, we have four people on our sales team now. And, and that's continuing to kind of accelerate. Um, so. Really, really fun this last year, like taking huge strides. What, what were some of your worries when taking on a capital partner? Because I know for, for people like myself, uh, it's, it's a consideration after mm-hmm.

Your first acquisition, second, third, fourth, you're like, okay, at some point, uh, during the acquisition phase, you're going to reach. I don't wanna say, uh, internal capital cap, but for me, I mean, personally, it's an internal capital. Like SBA will only loan me so much money before I have to go out and find other money.

Um, yeah. What, what, what does that look like? You know, my two main concerns were that we would partner with the wrong people who didn't actually understand us. We didn't have shared DNA ideology like that. We would maybe just. Take money from someone and it, we really just did it out of desperation or something, but we really weren't desperate at the time, so I felt like we were choosing to take on dollars when we didn't need them.

And I liked that. Um, I actually liked, it felt like a position of power, um, in that sense. And so that felt healthy. And then the other thing that was a concern was, would they. Prevent us from running the business the way that we run it. We wanted to run the business. Would they kind of meddle with our strategy or would they support our strategy?

And so that's, I think part of why the dating process took a while because we really wanted to make sure that they understood what we planned to do, um, and that they were truly behind it. Not just that they wanted to like deploy capital and just like keep, you know, get another deal done and tell their LPs, Hey, we did another deal.

Yay. You know, pat it on the back. Uh, that it was authentic. And over the course of time we were really convinced of that. And so, um, you know, did we give up a notable percentage of the business? We did, but looking back now, over a year. We feel really good about it. Yeah, I could definitely imagine that. And so, I mean, as we're talking about, uh, working with like capital partners and old deals, that blew up, like now moving into specifics of the alarm industry.

Mm-hmm. Um. It's definitely an interesting industry. It's not one that's talked about a ton. When, when you're going through this acquisition process with these new companies, what, what are you looking for? What, what are like the big, I guess, green flags versus the red flags, um, that cause you to either buy or walk away?

Yeah, good question. So we wanna see in, in this industry, if you come from like a software world, you've probably heard MRR. Mm-hmm. You can't say MRR in the security industry. It's, it's RMR. Okay. Recurring monthly revenues. Uh, okay. So I have to be really careful when I talk to friends in the industry because I'll look silly if I say MRR.

So we wanna see a healthy ratio. Of MRR of, of RMR idea of RMR to top line revenue. So 30 to 50%, you know, somewhere in there is what we're, we're hoping to see, uh, 50 percent's like gold standard. And then, um, if we're kind of above 30%, then we feel like it's, you know, healthy enough from what we're trying to do, because.

You know, that recurring and then the service and inspection revenues that come off of those accounts is like reoccurring, is what we would say. So the recurring plus reoccurring is really kind of some of the biggest items we're looking at in an acquisition. 'cause we want to see that, you know, stacking and growing and retaining, uh, we're looking at attrition for sure.

That's a big marker. Um. You know, where are their sales coming from? Like, we're, we're more direct to end user. We don't do all these like, you know, kind of GC BID RFP Abyss. Mm-hmm. Like that's not really, uh, how we go to market. So we want to see are we a match? Like is how they are doing business kind of a fit with the way that we are growing our business.

Then also I would just say like the lines of business, like what are they selling, what are they doing? We, we do very little residential. We do it some, you know, the owners that of the business we serve, the owner of a business we serve is like, Hey, I want you to do my house too. I was like, yes, sir, yes ma'am, absolutely.

But we're not spending a dollar of marketing on residential today. It's all commercial. It's, it's heavy, you know, uh, camera, fire, alarm, uh, PA systems, you know, K through 12, um, access control, all of that good stuff. So in in, right from a valuation standpoint, in the homes like the big three home services, electrical, hvac, plumbing, you'd actually see the opposite being more valuable, right?

The, there's higher valuations in residential service mm-hmm. Than in commercial. Yep. Is it the same in alarm or is that backwards? No, it's inverted. Right? Because in those are two different industries. And so what you're, I, I think if we tried to zoom out, what are the qualities. They're two different industries in, in all of the businesses, in my opinion.

But that, that's why, because I, you know that, but what's, what's consistent, right? Like, um, the, the stickiness of a customer. So like on the home services side, you're, you tell me you're the expert, but, um, ideally you're seeing repeat revenue over the years with those homeowners. I would think, um, whether it's service calls or, uh, some sort of, uh, replacement, whatever it may be.

Yeah. For us, like the stickiness is more so found on the commercial side. Homeowners, you know, they move, whatever it may be, that what we can charge, what we can upsell. All of that is stronger on the commercial side. Yeah, I guess the, and, and interestingly enough, is that because, is that, because usually on the commercial side it's tied to inventory and product and things like, of that nature.

So is it like retail or do you, is it, you know, uh, bio labs? Like what, what, what, where do you see the customer concentration for, for the B2B side? Commercial. Yeah. So we're, it, it, it depends where you are geographically. It depends what your focus is. Um, and we, we actually have a, a industry specific podcast called Entry and Exit.

We just talked about this recently. You have to pick a lane like we're, yeah. Shout out. Um, plug, shameless plug. Um, we are, um, focusing heavily on K through 12 and universities. That's become a huge vertical for us, right. So. I don't necessarily think that, um, certain verticals are the best. It's just what have you chosen to focus on and build disciplines around and a reputation in.

Um, so overall, I would just say the stickiness of the, the customer, the, the replacement cost or, or the, of opportunity cost switching costs. Mm-hmm. For them not wanting to, to move, but then also getting kind of multi-threaded in those accounts relationally, but then also like multi-service. You know, we just, we kinda get deep and those contracts are typically multi-year.

So when you're looking to acquire a company, I mean, I would imagine that buying or finding a alarm specific school specific, uh, alarm company is going to be kind of a very difficult job. Yeah. How, how does that, how do you view. Other commercial alarm companies as an opportunity to transition and or grow organically if they're vertical.

Like let's say I was looking at a, a company in Austin, Texas. They didn't do a ton of K through 12, but they were, you know, very, you know, 85% of the revenues commercial. I'm still excited to look at that deal. Um, obviously if they were heavy K through 12, it's like even more exciting, but, but really we just wanna be growing on the commercial side, making sure they have a healthy amount of recurring revenue and reoccurring.

Um, those are the main traits going down to the verticals. We can always kind of bend and shape that over the course of time. Yeah. And so I don't wanna dig too far into this because I mean, I, these are the questions I'm going to Pepper Call in, which is your co-host on Entry and exit podcast, which is awesome podcast by the way, guys.

Mm-hmm. Go and check it out on YouTube, apple, Spotify, it's in all the spaces. I love it. Specifically, how are you guys viewing, um, organic growth versus, uh, acquisition growth? Because, I mean, like you said, you want all commercial, but you do have vertical, so it kind of creates an interesting situation. Yeah, it's both.

And so our um. The thing about predictable revenue, where's my next dollar coming from? For us, we're heavily focused on mining our current base of thousands of customers. And so, you know, our sales team, like they're out constantly and you know, 15, 20 appointments a week going to our current customers and we see.

Uh, 20 to 30% conversion every time we show up somewhere to a current customer site for net new revenue opportunity. So that playbook is working really well, and, and we do spend on other, like, digital channels and, you know, focus on. Paid ads and SEO and those sorts of things we're, so, we're very focused on organic, but the, the, by far, the largest driver of organic growth for us is just mining our current customers.

And we preach that like, go see your customers. I mean that I, that is something that reverberates throughout. I think all industries is utilizing current customers. You already have them talk to them and be nice to them and treat 'em well. And surprise, surprise, they, they continue to, to, uh, come back for business.

And so. I always give, um, guests on the show an opportunity to jump up on a soapbox and talk about something during their acquisition process that they love, they hated. What would you do differently throughout like your entire tenure as somebody in m and a that you would shake a brand new person getting into this straight outta school who wants to buy a business or who's quitting their W2?

What do you want to tell them? Yeah, I'll do, I'll do two really quick. One that's hyper practical is if you're going to use debt like an SBA loan, whatever, um, please work with a bank that is familiar with those types of transactions. I see a lot of people that, you know, maybe their dad plays golf with a guy who has a local bank in Amarillo, and sure, we'll do that one.

They have no clue, like it's just not a part of what they do typically. I would avoid that like the plague. So I would work with a bank who is funding and, and lending on those types of transactions on a very regular basis. Um, on a more personal level, I would say going back to what I mentioned earlier, like you need to take an inventory of who you are.

You need to be extremely self-aware. I would tell you go take a couple personality assessments, ask five or 10 trusted people in your life if you think that this is a wise and prudent move for you at this time in your life. Um, I have multiple friends that have gone through bankruptcy. Unfortunately, lots of sad stories.

I think people are. Getting excited about buying a business for the wrong reasons. Often it feels sexy, um, feels splashy. Um, and it's, um, oftentimes the wrong move. And so I just, I think people need to be honest and, and self-aware. Yeah. If you, if you, uh, listen to this podcast, you will not, uh, get the guru push.

For me, it is a knife fight daily. Yeah. And you have to be, uh. I mean, we were talking about some specific situations right before we started recording that are hilarious, uh, to us because we're in it daily. Mm-hmm. But I mean, to the average W2 person would go, what in the heck are you guys dealing with?

Because it's, it's really a knife fight every day for a thousand reasons. And so, um. I love those two. Those are two ones that I push all the time. I love it. Thank you for coming on today, Steven. If there's, um, where can people. Reach you? Where can they learn more about you? Where can they touch base with you?

Yeah, I'm, I'm really active on LinkedIn and X Steven Oman. And then, uh, like you said earlier, entry and exit's, a podcast that we're, you know, really trying to give practical and tactical advice, uh, to small business operators, especially in the security industry. But a lot of it is, um, applicable to other industries as well.

And so would love for people to, to check that out as well. Awesome. That's entry and exit and like I said, it, I was right. It was, it's YouTube, uh, apple, Spotify, the whole nine, correct? That's right. Awesome, man. Well, thank you for coming on today. If you like what you heard, leave me a five star review. Leave Jack acquisitions a five star review so that we can keep doing this and having fun.

We are slowly gaining followers. Not slowly. It's actually going pretty quick. Let's go, uh, our, our, our team's, uh, doing a great job on the back end. So appreciate y'all. Thank you all for listening, and we will see you next time.