How Was I Supposed To Know That?
How Was I Supposed to Know That? is a business podcast hosted by Bernard A. Williams that helps entrepreneurs and business leaders avoid costly mistakes by learning from experienced professionals. Each episode explores legal, financial, operational, and growth-related topics through candid conversations, practical advice, and real-world lessons that every business owner wishes they had known sooner.
How Was I Supposed To Know That?
A Business Valuation Starts Every Serious Deal
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The fastest way to lose leverage in an acquisition talk is to walk in with a fuzzy idea of what your business is worth. We sit down with forensic accountant Allie Aldrich of Turning Numbers to get practical about business valuation in the M&A process, from the first documents a valuator requests to the real reasons a price goes up or down. If you’ve ever heard someone say “just use a multiple” and felt uneasy, this conversation gives you a clearer, more defensible path.
We talk through what a valuation is really measuring and why it becomes the backbone of negotiations. Allie explains the standard inputs valuators rely on, including three to five years of financial statements, tax returns, and corporate or LLC paperwork, plus a detailed questionnaire that surfaces risk factors like customer concentration, debt structure, and owner perks. We also dig into “textbook clean” books versus the messy reality of many small businesses, and how normalization adjustments can change earnings by backing out perks or correcting owner pay to a market-rate replacement cost.
Because Allie brings a forensic background, we also explore what happens when valuations uncover red flags, why secure document sharing matters, and why buyers often want a valuator who knows how to find skeletons. You’ll hear why founder dependence can shrink enterprise value, how a calculation of value can help you plan before a sale, and how concepts like goodwill and intangible value are still evolving in the valuation world. Subscribe, share this with a founder who’s thinking about selling, and leave a review with your biggest valuation question.
Welcome And Why Valuation Matters
SPEAKER_01Hi, welcome to How It's Nice Supposed to Know That. This is a podcast designed for entrepreneurs to give us a safe space to talk about what it's like to really grow and scale a business. Um, sometimes uh the easy way, a lot of times the hard way, and the lessons that we learn along the way. And today we're going to be focused on the MA process and specifically how business evaluations play into that process. Really honored today to have me, uh uh to have with me as a guest, uh Allie Aldrich from Turn Numbers. Uh Ali, welcome.
SPEAKER_00Hey Bernard, welcome. Or yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Um sounds like a great topic.
SPEAKER_01Uh uh, thanks so much, and it's really, really good to have you here. Uh so um why don't we start by uh telling us a little bit more about yourself?
Meet A Forensic Accountant
SPEAKER_00So I am a forensic accountant um and I founded Turning Numbers a couple years ago. And um I am former FBI, briefly, very briefly, but I've been doing forensic work for about 15 years. Um I have my uh certified forensic or certified fraud examiner credential and my master analyst in forensic financials. Um and I I love what makes me really excited is fraud and uh business disputes, but um valuations up there with things we do.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so uh so let's so let's um I'd like to untangle that a little bit for for people like me that are that are not in your world. Uh uh and uh if you've just you have so many credentials that I was having a little bit of difficulty keeping them. Yeah. So there's the the the certified fraud examiner, right? And and what does that mean? What does that credential mean as far as your experience and and qualifications?
SPEAKER_00So it means that you've been uh you have graduated from college with accounting or some similar degree um of in business um or finance of some sort, and then you have had enough years of experience and gone through a rigorous training um and then testing to you have to pass the exam, it's a four-part exam, and then you can become a CFE, and then you need to stay up um with all of your CPEs, so that's continuing professional education every year to maintain the certificate.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And then the other credential that I see next to your name there is MAFF.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um can you tell me more about that?
SPEAKER_00That's master analyst and forensic financials. Um, and it is similar to the CFE in terms of how you get it, and um, you need to have at least 26 cases to um be able to apply for it. You also needed to have gone to educate uh to uh college as well and had some sort of finance or business degree, um uh preferably in accounting or finance, and um and then you need the experience as well. Um, and you have to have letters of recommendation and things like that. So it's it's it's and also then a vigorous uh uh course of learning and then and then a test, and then a continuing professional education every year.
SPEAKER_01So it sounds like you know all about numbers and um and what the numbers are showing and and then how to really extract information uh from the numbers. Yes. Okay, uh awesome. Uh and and um so uh you know, as I mentioned at the start of the podcast today, I'd like to focus today on on business valuations. Uh the concept comes up all the time uh in the in the context of MA. Uh but but it's one of those things that until you are in that moment as a business owner, being asked for evaluation or being presented with evaluation, uh, a lot of entrepreneurs haven't really given a lot of thought to. Uh so um wanted to take a few minutes today to to learn more about business evaluations from an expert and to help people to maybe get a little bit of advanced knowledge they can use to help them in the MA process. Because that's it.
SPEAKER_00That sounds great.
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
What A Business Valuation Is
SPEAKER_01Uh so um let's start with the basics. Um, what is a business valuation? What does that term mean to you?
SPEAKER_00So in the shortest amount of words, a business valuation basically says, what is this business worth and why? So it's and it's the backbone for MA actually. Um for not I'm additional to MA, there's a lot of other uses for it, but um at the end of the day, it's what is this business worth and why? And it's the starting point for all negotiations. So negotiations don't start until you have a number to start with.
SPEAKER_01So uh how does that process typically work? Would it be so who had who decides the valuation? Is it the the buyer of the company or the seller of the company?
SPEAKER_00Um it could be both. Um so um a either the buyer or the seller can choose to have a valuation, and in some cases both the buyer and the seller can choose to have an evaluation and then bring both valuations to the um to the negotiation table.
SPEAKER_01Uh what is involved in the in the valuation? Is it a is it a series of steps that everybody can agree on, or or is it more maybe artistic than it?
Valuation As Art And Science
SPEAKER_00So um they say that valuation is the art and science of valuation. Um so there are obviously standards that um there are credentialing boards such as the NACPA, the National Association for Valuators and Analysts, which is where I have my my MAFF from. Um they also give the CVA, which is the certified valuation analyst. Um, and then if you're a CPA, you might go to the AI CPA and get an ABV, which is another valuation analyst credential. And so there's there's definitely a consensus as to what it is that needs to be an evaluation, the methodologies that you're going to use for evaluation, the different types of background information you're going to gather for evaluation, and um the different industry tools that you're gonna use to get some background information on the on the uh industry of the business that you're evaluating. So all of those are pretty standard. Um, when it comes down to the art of it, um, each evaluator has their own assumptions that they have to make. And they're making the reason they say it's an art is because we have to list all of the reasons why we maybe couldn't do our evaluation properly, such as missing information or this typically not the case for MA, but for many other reasons like divorce or whatever, you might have missing information, you would have to disclose that there was um hinders, hindrances to your ability to evaluate. Um, and so they say the art of because you're gonna, first of all, everybody's gonna have different information available to them, hopefully the same information, but in a lot of cases it's gonna differ from one way to another. The type of business is gonna change, the industry of the business is gonna change, the valuator's strengths and weaknesses are gonna come into account for particular business and industry types. Um so it's kind of both. There are definitely standards that we all need to follow. And then there's also the art of um coming up with your methodology, why you're using it, why you chose it, um, and then the conclusions that you come to your opinions.
SPEAKER_01That's helpful. So let's start with the standard, the things that everybody can agree on. Um are you about to list those for the audience and then maybe walk us through what each of those are and what process you go through?
Documents And Financials You Need
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So um things that everybody's gonna ask you for, if you're getting a business valuation, you're gonna be asked to have all of your corporate documents. And don't confuse corporate documents to not include LLCs and sole proprietorships. Um, it's whatever you have for your article of incorporation or your trading as name, um, even if that's just that you have um filed for a DBA. Um, so doing business as or fictitious alias, um, you're gonna need three to five years of financial um statements, and we prefer five years, but you can get away with three. Um, most small businesses are not textbook clean, and so um you you what you might need to clean up your books to get ready for evaluation, but you're gonna need your books. Um, you're gonna need tax returns for three to five years.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, I let me interrupt you before we move on. Can you explain what you mean by textbook clean?
SPEAKER_00So accountants go to school so that they can learn GAP for the US and IFRS for um international. It's a way of accounting. And so whether it's accrual or cash basis, which are accounting bases that your books are kept in, um, textbook clean would say that there's no personal transactions from the business owner on the books. It would say that there's no commingling of assets, it would say that there's a true valuation for any physical, like fixed type assets that you might own, such as a building or equipment. Um, textbook clean is usually seen in large corporations where they have entire teams that work tirelessly to make sure that every I has been dotted, T has been crossed, and that quarterly there's the ability to look at the um the book value that you have for things that would be used in a valuation. So um small businesses just don't have that. They just don't.
SPEAKER_01So most small companies are not textbook clean. That sounds dangerous.
SPEAKER_00Um, it can be. Um, and sometimes, you know, it's not at all. Sometimes it's something as simple as you purchased a piece of equipment and that piece of equipment is on your books at the value that you purchased it at. But much like a car, or maybe it is a car because a lot of people have fleets of trucks, uh, as soon as you drove it off the lot, it lost $10,000 of value. So it's really actually not valued at what you have it on your books as. But your books, because you're using a textbook standard such as GAP, is going to be at book value less depreciation, which is a fictitious expense used in accounting. Um, when in actuality, if you were to have that um item looked at, say you took a Kelly Blue book value, it's gonna be vastly different than what's on your books.
SPEAKER_01I see.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of people only have that done once a year. If it's a small business, typically their CPA is helping them with that at the end of the year, as opposed to having an accountant that monthly is making these adjustments for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And so and these are all things that will have to be cleaned up as part of the initial steps in conducting the evaluation.
SPEAKER_00Correct. It's and and it a lot of it gets done in the valuation. Um, they call them normalization adjustments. And so um your evaluator will make normalization adjustments so that um things that should be textbook are brought closer to textbook for the purposes of the valuation.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right, great. Uh so thanks. So I I interrupted you. You were going through the uh the standard things that all evaluators would would look at. I think you're gonna talk about tax documents next.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're they're gonna ask you for your tax filings for the last three to five years. Um, and you're gonna want to give those two because they're gonna look at your financials and they're gonna look at your tax filings, and they're gonna hopefully see that they're the same. Um, if they're not, there's gonna be questions asked as to why they don't match. Um, so whatever you had at the end of your year should be what's on your tax return, but often that is not the case. Um, so there'll be questions asked about that. You can also expect to be asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire. I think almost all valuators have you fill out a questionnaire like what kind of business do you have? How is it formed? Are there more than one owner? Um, is there, you know, do your customers represent is one customer represent more than 20% of your revenue? Um, do you have any franchise issues or that that need to be addressed in the valuation? So it's gonna be a lengthy um questionnaire that you're gonna fill out that's gonna ask a lot of questions that you wouldn't think of to even know to answer or provide. So that's something you can expect to. It'll take you a minute to fill that out more than a minute. It's a a figurative minute.
SPEAKER_01So, what are some questions on that questionnaire that uh that an entrepreneur might not anticipate?
SPEAKER_00It's gonna ask about your revenues for the past three to five years. Um, things that you are gonna want to look up is your debt, um, because it's gonna ask questions about your debt financing. It's gonna ask questions about your customer um design. So, like, because it really matters during evaluation, if 40% of your revenue comes from one customer, that really, really, really matters. Like that's a big deal. Um, and so it it would play a role in the assumptions that your evaluator is gonna um make their assumptions based on.
SPEAKER_01So the idea being that if too much revenue is coming from one source, that's too volatile and it lowers the overall value. Is that how it works?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, pretty much.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um, anything else in the questionnaire that always either trifts people up or that you know that they really surprise them?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think most questionnaires, I know my questionnaire does, I think most questionnaires have stuff in there about um owner perks. And they a lot of times owners don't know what that means. And that's say when you start expensing your car, but your company doesn't own a vehicle, um, but you're expensing your personal car expenses because you used it for business, um, that's a perk. If you receive medical insurance and both sides are paid for by the company, that's a perk. Um, if you um receive 401k or any kind of retirement um match, that's a perk. So these are things that you're getting because, or if you're expensing personal expenses or paying, say, your cell phone bill from the company or things that that are very commonly done. Um, you go out to dinner and you're like, oh, I'm gonna consider that a business expense, and you expense it. Um these are things that that they're talking about when they're asking if you receive any perks that they should know about so that they can back them out.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh interesting. Okay, great. Uh so uh so I take several minutes probably to fill out this questionnaire. Uh and uh what happens next? Is there anything else that's that's standard as part of that process that all evaluators will take you through?
SPEAKER_00So I think that's pretty much the standard um steps that people are gonna take you through. They're obviously going to hopefully securely retrieve documents from you as the uh as the business being evaluated, um, and then they're gonna get to work.
Owner Perks And Risky Revenue Concentration
SPEAKER_01So I noticed that you meant to use the word security there. Uh can you expand on that a little bit more and what and how security is an important factor in this?
SPEAKER_00So if somebody's asking you to email them documents, that's probably a red flag. Um, email is not secure. You definitely don't want to send your tax returns with your social security number or business EINs on it, or your K1 or anything with identifiable information, your home address, you don't want to send that via email. So um you should be give provided some sort of secure link or portal that you can put your documents in that has security built into it to protect your information.
SPEAKER_01Okay, uh very good advice. Um all right, so so uh so back to the process of evaluating a valuing, I should say, yeah, a company itself. Uh once you have those initial um few pieces of information from from the client, you know, you've got their their governance documents, you've got their tax filings, the questionnaires filled out. Uh what happens next? What what's your next tip?
SPEAKER_00So some companies still use Excel, and some companies because they have uh been using Excel since long before there was software, and their Excel does cool things for them because they have uh revamped it for years and years. So whether they're using Excel or they're using software, the same thing's gonna happen. You're gonna need to input the data. And so you're gonna input the data as it was provided to you, typically from the financial statements. Um and you're gonna put that in, and then you're gonna make the the valuator is gonna make normalization adjustments, which we talked about. Um, so they're going to make sure that if you um want something that you should know is that if you don't pay yourself enough as an owner of the business, if you're not paying yourself what somebody, if you had to hire them to do your job, would get paid, that's gonna get adjusted. Or if you pay yourself more with your perks and everything combined, then it's gonna get adjusted down. So it'll be so that if you were hiring somebody to replace you, what what is that cost? So that's the cost that you're actually gonna see in evaluation, rather than um all the things that you put into your books that maybe shouldn't be there. Um you're gonna sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Uh you maybe really
Secure Document Sharing Red Flags
SPEAKER_01think of something. A lot of the business owners that I see uh do not draw salary, they don't have themselves on payroll. Uh what they do is they'll just take they'll take draws uh at various points throughout the year. Uh and they'll kind of conflate their role of owner and their role of of CEO. Uh, their role of working on the business and their role of working in the business. Uh, do you see that a lot when you when you value a company and uh and so how do you handle it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you do see it a lot. Um, and and uh so first of all, if you're an LLC, if you're not an S corporation or a C corporation, you can't take a payroll check. You can only take a draw. So that's it's a very common thing that we're gonna see. Um, but people undervaluing their position in the company, if they were to hire it out, is so common. Um, and then people are shocked when they go to get a valuation and um they're not realizing that when they have a team, that makes their company so much more valuable because it's something you can literally pass on to somebody else and they can oversee it and it still works rather than when you're the business owner and you're working in the company and you generate the revenue. So not only are you fetching the business, but then you're generating the revenue. And then you're like, well, why is my valuation so low? Well, your valuation is so low because once we take you out of the equation, there was nothing to sell. Right. So these are um, so we do see it a lot, and then people are surprised when we put in what somebody of their acumen should be getting paid. And then um, so it's it's very interesting to see the differences on how that comes out. A lot of smaller businesses are shocked that they don't really have any value because the owner is also the owner and the worker be and the salesperson, and they're wearing too many hats.
SPEAKER_01Would you say that most people underpay themselves based on their their market value?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna say that I would say more more underpay themselves than don't. Interesting. But their perks, their perks kind of creep them up. So that's so they their draws are less than what they would get paid,
Normalization Adjustments And Owner Pay
SPEAKER_00but they give themselves more perks. You see a lot more things being expensed that ordinarily shouldn't probably be expensed on their books. They're like in a very gray area as to whether they belong or not.
SPEAKER_01Right. Things like I think you mentioned earlier, cell phone use or internet use being funneled through the business, that that kind of thing. Sure. Um so I would imagine um based on your experience, both of someone who does valuations and and someone who's a fraud examiner and your FBI background for that matter. Uh I imagine sometimes during the evaluation process that you see skeletons come out, like skeletons come out. Maybe you find the business owner didn't want anybody to know about.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so you do see that. And um so they they say like the gold standard is to get a forensic accountant with a valuation credential, it's like your best valuator you're gonna get. Um that's a double-edged sword because we're trained to look for fraud. It's we're trained to look for the red flags, we're trained to so we might not be your favorite person, like if you're trying to get a business valuation, you might want a regular evaluator if you're in an MA so that they're not looking to poke holes. And we can't help ourselves. So that's just um, it's a downside to hiring a forensic accountant to do your evaluation. Um, not that there aren't a lot of upsides, and if you're proactive about it, then great, we're wonderful. But if you're not proactive about it and you have some sketchy things going on leading up to your trying to sell your business, you maybe don't want me looking at your books because I'm just trained to see these red flags and I will question them, or they will go into my report as things that I um had as my um kind of restrictions and and things that uh help me not be able to do my job to the best ability because I. Determined that the books weren't completely truthful.
SPEAKER_01So that's interesting. So,
Forensic Valuations And Skeletons In Books
SPEAKER_01but if I'm a buyer, then I'm going to want you on my side because you find all the skeletons.
SPEAKER_00That's correct. So if you're a buyer, you're going to want to pick somebody who is going to find the skeletons because you want to know that what you what's being valued is really what they're saying it is. And um, and to that to that point, I actually always try to tell people don't wait until you need evaluation to get evaluation. There's so many uses for evaluation in your day-to-day business, like strategic planning, that you can get evaluation ahead of time. And it can tell you all kinds of things about your business, like, you know, are your are your books valuation ready? If they're not, what does that mean? And how do you get your bookkeeper on track with that? Um, you know, if your business isn't something that can be sold, but your goal is to be able to sell your business, how do you get there? Who do you need to bring in? Who needs to be on your team to kind of get there? Um you know, things that we see a lot like before you ever even get to evaluation is there's messy, unreconciled financials. Um, I've I've touched on this mixing of personal and business expenses, um, overstating your assets, um, unusual transactions nobody can explain. Um, so say you get a grant and you get a large amount of money, and then three years pass and you're like, oh, I don't know, because somebody incorrectly recognized it as revenue that year. And so it looked like you had a great year, but it was actually grant money. Um uh waiting until a crisis, so waiting until a divorce or a bankruptcy, or
Get Valuation Early With Calculation Of Value
SPEAKER_00and or you're getting to the point where you want to sell or things like that. Um, a lot of people are taught, small business owners are taught that if they take their revenue and multiply it times some sort of magical multiplier, that that's the value of their business. And it's just not at all because the expenses matter and the expenses, you know, cost of goods sold by. So, like what did it actually cost to generate the revenue versus your overhead expenses and if they're set up properly or not, so that the buyer knows um how lean they can run or how lean they can't run. Um, maybe your maybe your employees are overpaid, like we you won't know unless you get a valuation. Um, and um and then the number one we thing I see is that people don't have a clear purpose for the valuation, and they also don't realize, and so this kind of goes along with the theme of of your podcast, like you know, why didn't I know that? Um valuations aren't used, you can't get a valuation for one purpose and use it for another purpose because the way that you've the methodologies used to valuate for one purpose may not be used for uh for another. And people also think that they're cost prohibitive, so they don't get them ahead of time. When you can get something that's called a calculation of value, which is a much less expensive kind of top-level, not digging into the dirt too much, um, look at the value of your business to kind of help you strategically guide your business.
SPEAKER_01So a calculation of value is a separate analysis, although maybe similar, but a separate analysis from a business valuation.
SPEAKER_00It's a less detailed. Um so you're not gonna the valuator's not gonna do the amount of digging and work that they're gonna do for a business valuation in a calculation of value. And that sold you up front. But the calculation of value helps you with so many things before you get to needing the business valuation that it's worth um looking into proactively.
SPEAKER_01How often should a small business owner do a business evaluation and how often should they do a calculation of value?
How Often To Value Your Company
SPEAKER_00So realistically, that's something they should talk to their lawyer about. Because if they have a buy-sell agreement and the buy-sell agreement says that that the business has to be valued at a certain period of time, then they need to do it at that series at those certain intervals that were required by the buy-sell agreement. If it is in their organizational documents, to say it's a an LLC with multi-members or a partnership, and they're supposed to have it valuated at certain times, um, you're gonna want to make sure that you're following those, adhering to those. So you do want to make sure that you have a business lawyer that you consult so that you know what your documents say you have to do versus the things that you're optimistically choosing to do. And if you're proactively choosing to do it, I would say by the time you get to five years, you should probably do your first one and build a relationship with your valuation person such that they continue to do the renewals for you because they already have all the previous information. They already are have done a lot of the work for your business, so it won't be as expensive if you're doing it in intervals of five years, because typically you project out five years to figure out what you're doing. So that would be my suggestion is that you find a valuator you love and kind of stick with them and use them at every in certain intervals. Um, and I would suggest five years, you know, just so that you're always looking out as far as you're projecting out your business.
SPEAKER_01That's very useful information. Um, another couple of questions.
Goodwill And Intangible Value Debate
SPEAKER_01Uh there's this concept of goodwill uh that that I hear use a lot uh when the topic of business valuations come up. Can you explain what goodwill is and how that plays a role in valuations, if at all?
SPEAKER_00So so there's um there's multiple answers to this, um, and it's gonna differ depending on who you ask. So it's one of those accountanees answers of it depends. Um so goodwill technically is the difference between the valuation, the valuation of your company and the amount somebody actually paid for it. So if your company was valued at, and I'm just making stuff up, say it's valued at a million dollars, but somebody pays you $1.3 million, you now have $300,000 of goodwill. Um, and that's a very generic textbook like version that isn't truly um, I don't know that I agree with that as being what your goodwill is, but that's what goodwill is. That's when you see it on the book somewhere, that's usually somebody paid more than the valuation said the business was worth.
SPEAKER_01Um based on that definition, there's only goodwill after the already business deal.
SPEAKER_00Theoretically. So the other version is that your people are goodwill. And so um it has been brought up in our field and it is um a point of controversy currently um as to whether or not during evaluation you should be valuing the intangible asset. So goodwill is an intangible asset, and um they want so it's it's kind of a point of discussion heavily right now in our field as to whether or not um we want to consider that as part of the valuation process to determine you know how much your employees are valued at because it already functions and works and does what it's supposed to do and can be just passed to a new owner with little friction. There's gonna be a higher level of intangible asset of goodwill. Um, so that's that's another version of it, and it's um it's kind of highly contested right now. So it's I don't have a good answer for you other than to give you our two textbook kind of answers that we're programmed to give right now.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think you're just it sounds like you're just angling to Quebec uh as a guest on another podcast, so you can uh controversy is resolved. Uh that's uh well played on your part, Allie. Uh so uh do you have any any any part in wisdom or maybe any any horror stories you can share with the audience uh to just to leave them up in the thick of them uh before we close?
Parting Advice And Fraud Training Offer
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so don't wait till a crisis. Like for all the things. If I have advice to give you, it's gonna be don't wait for a crisis. Make sure you have clean books. Um, a lot of people think that because bookkeepers cost money and they they're trying to be cheap about it, and I can do it myself. Like, you can't. Just don't. Just it's not a good idea, it's not a good plan. Make sure you have clean books, make sure that you have somebody that can actually tell you whether your books are in compliance with any kind of standard, let alone um valuation standards. Stop mixing personal expenses with business expenses. It's not it's not good for you, it's not good for evaluation, it's not good for the business. Know your purpose. Um be transparent. Um, it's always helpful if you're just going to be transparent. Like nobody really wants to put their dirty laundry out there, but if you're getting a valuation, it's good to do that. Um, multiples are not magic, so stop trying to back into your value that way and being surprised. Just don't do it. It's not favorable. Um and get get a valuator in early, like make sure that you build relationships with um valuators, like and even valuators bring in other valuators. Um, so we're all friends with each other, we talk to each other, we utilize each other because there's things that maybe one is better at than than the other, size-wise, industry-wise. Um, so get your valuator in early, make sure they know your industry. Um, and uh like that, those are my words of advice to small business owners.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks so much. I'm sure you helped somebody here today. Now, you're a small business owner yourself. Do you have any projects coming up, any initiatives you'd like to tell people about?
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, so uh I noticed that a lot of my fraud cases are small businesses being anybody under 50 employees, and um the damage is excruciating. So um I worked hard to put together a program for small businesses, which is people that are under 25 um employees, to be able to have um fraud prevention training at reasonable prices. So I have a subscription basis. Um I have a subscription basis that's um different for one to two employees versus um two to ten and then 10 to 25 or 15 to 25, um, so that they can pay on an annual basis and they'll get the new hire training for every person in their company. It's relevant to every person in their company. Um, they're gonna get um a mini risk assessment so that they kind of understand where they stand with risk assessment and risks that are they're open to now. And then um they're gonna get templates for their code of ethic and their um fraud policies to put in place and a cute little batch that says they're fraud smart.
SPEAKER_01That sounds great. Uh now if somebody wants to follow up with you, either to ask questions or to find out more about what you just described, uh, what would be the best way to get in touch?
SPEAKER_00So they can always go to the website, which is turningnumbers.com, and um click contact us on whichever page makes the most sense for you. It doesn't matter if you get it wrong. I'll still reply to you. We have a 24-hour turnaround. Um, they can also call us um at 267 388 1677, and we'll be happy to pick up the phone for those that don't like technology. Um we got you either way.
SPEAKER_01Terrific. Uh thank you so much, Allie. It's been a pleasure having you here. Uh please come back anytime. Uh I know that I've learned something, and I'm sure that everybody's who's listened in today has as well. Uh she's Allie Aldridge Aldridge. My name is Bernard Williams, and this is another episode of How Is I Supposed to Live.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.