[BTS SERIES] Chris Goade & Joe English - Grow or Sell (#147)

This week on the Maximize Business Value Podcast, we welcome Joe English & Chris Goade of 360 Consulting to talk about business growth, how to scale, and whether or not to sell. Chris and Joe are just two of the amazing speakers you can expect to hear from at our upcoming Business Transitions Summit. Get your tickets today—don't miss a great chance to learn how to maximize YOUR business value! Visit www.BusinessTransitionsSummit.com to get yours now!

Tom Bronson is the founder and President of Mastery Partners, a company that helps business owners maximize business value, design exit strategy, and transition their business on their terms. Mastery utilizes proven techniques and strategies that dramatically improve business value that was developed during Tom’s career 100 business transactions as either a business buyer or seller. As a business owner himself, he has been in your situation a hundred times, and he knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Want to chat more or think Tom can help you?  Reach out at tom@masterypartners.com or check out his book, Maximize Business Value, Begin with The Exit in Mind (2020).

Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners to Maximize Business Value so they can transition their business on their terms.  Our mission was born from the lessons we’ve learned from over 100 business transactions, which fuels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom so you can succeed.

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Tom Bronson is a serial entrepreneur and business owner. He is currently the founder and President of Mastery Partners, Mastery Mergers & Acquisitions, and the Business Transition Summit. All three companies empower business owners to maximize business value and serve business owners in different capacities to help them achieve their dream exit. As a business owner, Tom has been in your situation a hundred times and knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Tom has two books to help business owners on their journey to a dream exit: "Maximize Business Value Playbook," (2023), and "Maximize Business Value, Begin with the EXIT in Mind," (2020). Both are available on Amazon.
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Transcript

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Welcome To the Maximize Business Value Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners to maximize business value so they can transition their business on their terms. Our mission was born from the lessons we've learned from over 100 business transactions, which fuels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom so you can succeed. Now, here's your host CEO of Mastery Partners, Tom Bronson. Hi, this is Tom Bronson and welcome to Maximize Business Value of Podcast for business owners who are passionate about building long-term sustainable value in your business. This podcast is part of our series with speakers at the upcoming Business Transitions Summit. The b t s, as we call it, is our event on May 2nd. It's in Irving, Texas at the Irving Convention Center, and it's for business owners to come and learn how to maximize the value of your business and begin preparing your business for the ideal transition. We hope that business owners will come to this event and figure out what their ideal outcome looks like and start moving their business in that direction. Registration is open now at Business Transitions Summit, that's transitions with an S on the end, so business transitions summit.com. This episode I'd like to welcome our two guests, Joe English and Chris Goad from 360 Consulting. Joe and Chris will be co speakers at the Business Transition Summit on the topic of growth strategy. So welcome Joe and Chris to maximize business value. Thanks, Tom. We're glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for having Us. It's good to have you both. So, Chris, why don't we start with you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about 360 Consulting? Thanks. Well, you know, we we're a firm that's been around now for, gosh, seven and a half years. I can't believe it's been that long. Wow. But we are a, we're a sales consulting firm. We're working primarily in a small mid-market and, you know, we work with companies who are trying to, to reach their goals from a growth standpoint and really help them build sustainable sales systems that will drive growth with predictability and repeatability. So, you know, we, we work with companies in a lot of different industries. We're, you know, we say we're agnostic and, and it's been a pretty interesting ride. And we've worked with just about every industry you can think of. I, I can imagine. Of course, everybody has to sell something, right? Or, or we like to say nothing happens until something's sold. Yes. That is, that is one of my favorite sayings. You know, I also, someone said to me years ago, I had a sales consultant back in one of my early companies, this would've been back in the eighties, and he said, imagine, if you will, that every salesperson in America stopped selling for one week. The effects on our economy would last for decades, No Doubt. And I think that that's true. Sales is so important, and there's, there's a lot to learn there. And you guys do a, a fantastic job. And in fact, that's the topic that you guys are speaking on at the upcoming Business Transition Summit. Your topic is growth, scaling to exit, or should I grow or should I sell? Because frankly, a growing company is always worth more than a flatter declining company. So that's your topic. Tell us a little bit about your session. So we're really, we, we fundamentally think that great companies have great sales systems, and that's what we help our clients do, is really put in great systems that do not rely on the business owner to, to be the, the rainmaker for the business. So we're gonna key in Tom on tho on the, on the key pillars of a great sales system. And you know, those things are really around your go-to-market strategy, your ideal customers, your value proposition, the people that you have, and the roles and responsibilities that you have in your sales system. How, what's your sales process? Everything from generating a lead to managing an ongoing relationship and all the stuff that lies in between. You have to have great process defined and, and executed there. And then, you know, we call it sales execution. How do you manage this stuff? What are your KPIs, your leading indicators? How do you have true predictable pipelines of future revenue and future success? What tools do you need, whether it's c r m, business, you know, business, you know, intelligence tools, how do you hold great sales meetings that people want to attend and are productive? And all the way down to, gosh, how do I have a productive one-on-one with the people that are on my sales team? They're the face of your company. And so you want them to speak your language and really be someone you can be proud of representing your company. Boy, that is a lot packed into a 45 minute session. I dunno that we'll get to the very depth of all of that. Yeah. But I think that when, you know, when we lay out those things for people and they, they start to dig in and they understand those four key pillars and just think of the, that, you know, your sales organization is really the engine that drives your business. You know, and I know we, you know, tongue in cheek, we said nothing happens until something's sold. But you know, you, that's really true. I mean, you, you, every, everything you do is tied to the revenue that you generate in a business. And I think what's so great for us and exciting for us to be part of the, you know, the Business Transition Summit and working with you and the team around that is, you know, we've seen the effect that great systems for sales can have four business owners to really help them set the stage for that transition. Whether it's now or whether it's five years from now or 10 years, whatever that is. If you can build that repeatability and that sustainability that's driving customer acquisition and growth from, from your existing customers, your business becomes exponentially more valuable to you or to whomever you might sell it to. I think the key word that I wanna hone in on here is, is process, right? It's all about process and having a duplicatable process, whether that's in sales or anything else, but sales is no different than than any other component of a business. And you know, to me, a lot of people, I've, I've spent a lot of my career in sales cuz I, I happen to be one of those CEOs that loves sales, right? And, and, and I tell people it's not a big mystery, it's paint by numbers. If you have a process, if you have a system that you can, that you can use Yeah. And it's duplicatable, then anybody can do that stuff, right? And so it helps to have the right personality for it, but, but you can teach people how to do that stuff. So, so I love what you're talking about there. You know, it's, it's funny, Tom, we, we, Joe and I love sports analogies because we both love sports and I know you do too. We might not enjoy the same teams. Okay, that's okay. Yeah. Let's not get into that on the podcast. Yeah. But what I, what I, you know, the analogy that we like to use is, you know, I grew up in the seventies and, you know, team foot college football teams ran the wishbone or some, some variation of, you know, the triple option. And what was beautiful about that is the system was sustainable. Colleges could rely on, if I have a great system, I can plug and play players because, and guess what the, you know, if you actually look at the core of a triple option offense in football, it's really not very complicated. It's, you know, a dozen or more, few more plays run out of a dozen or more different looks and sets. And what made those offenses so unbelievably successful was just laser execution. So we look at sales as that process and that laser execution and you, you don't have to have the best plan, but you do have to have the best execution. Now if you have a great plan and great execution to go with it, well then you become Oklahoma and Nebraska of the seventies, right? Yep, Yep. That's exactly right. I I love those analogies and, and every time someone talks about the triple option though, I can't help but think about the movie Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield with Triple Lendy. Yes. One of my favorites. I was a diver, so I Oh really? Okay. Did you ever do a triple lendy? N hadn't heard it until I saw that movie. That's right, that's right. So, so Joe, what, what can the, the participants, the people who come to this session at the b t s, what can they expect to learn at this session? Well, so I'll, I'll kind of double down a little bit on, on what Chris said, but put a, some flavor to it. Sales is kind of this awesome blending of, of art and science and what most people think and what quite frankly most business owners think is it's the art, right? They'll put somebody in charge of sales, even maybe themselves, they know their business, the thing that is that they do and they're, because they're passionate about it, they'll go talk to people about it and they will sell, And then they put somebody into sales because, well, they're a social butterfly. So, so they think you gotta have that personality for it. And there's some elements of that that can be beneficial, right? You do need to be able to go talk to people, but it's how do you blend the art, the behavioral characteristics and the traits that make a good salesperson, but you better have a process. So it will very much be about what are the steps, you know, what's the how to, and kind of to Chris's point earlier, right? That go to market, the roles and responsibility of the people, the process, and then the execution component and the timing of that. We're gonna provide a roadmap for how to be successful with a sales organization so that you can land and expand with your clients. I love that. Look, you know, if you guys, if they don't come to any other session, this is gonna be a, a really great one because this can apply like you guys already know to any industry. And, and it should, and it's a, it's a topic that, you know, what I find is CEOs either love sales or they hate sales. There's no in between and Like the cowboys, Right? Exactly. Yes. The, there we go again. The but, but regardless, you have to know how to, how to have that growth. You've gotta know how sales operates. If you hate sales, you've gotta have good people on there, there running it. And if you love sales, then you need good operations people to, to clean up the messes that you're gonna go out there and make. Chris, why are you so passionate about this topic? I think it came from, you know, I tell people all the time work, I work for some great companies when I had a W2 job and, you know, I really found it interesting that every time I took over a sales organization, I was very successful as an in independent, you know, individual contributor. So I got moved up really quickly as a sales leader and, and a senior, you know, executive in companies. And my passion for sales kept me in those roles. But what I really found interesting is I would, these great companies, companies, you, you know, that everybody knows they really weren't great at building sales systems. They had great brands, they had great legacy. But at the end of the day, the way I was successful and what made me, I guess be, be able to keep those, those nice W2 jobs was really going in and taking sales teams and build, working on those foundational things and taking them, you know, what was the silver bullet or the magic or the, you know, the, the flip, the switch, the, you know, the, the just the art as, as Joe talked about, you know, we built systems and, and those systems were very successful. And I loved doing, I loved taking teams and rebuilding teams for two reasons. For, well, for three reasons. One, it, it helped me keep my job, but importantly the change that we could make in the business and the change that we could make for the people on that sales team really drove me to get up every day and challenged me and kept me motivated. And that was what I enjoyed the most. Because, you know, you probably are aware in lots of businesses, if you're not good at something, they say, well, hey, we'll just, we'll just put, we'll just put her in sales, you know, so, you know, I would take the reclamation projects and make them turn them into superstars and there's no better feeling than that. And so knowing that those great companies had those problems, we knew that those problems existed even more so in the smaller mid-market. And so we get to go out and help really change the trajectory of the, the owners of these businesses and the people who are in those sales roles for the businesses. And that's, that's better than any, you know, that's better than anything we do is just the, you know, changing lives and changing companies and, and helping them be profitable. You know, we've helped you, you're aware, we've helped companies, you know, position themselves where the C e O actually could make the transition out of his business. And those people are still our friends today and it means the world. I had a had a friend over that sold his business the other night for the Super Bowl, and he entered, you know, he was me mingling with people he didn't know that were also here at the house. And he said, Chris helped me sell my business. Now I didn't do what you do. What I did was I helped him build that sales system, got him out of the rainmaker seat, doubled his revenue and put him in a position to get the multiple that he wanted for his business. That's a great feeling, Tom. That's why I love it. I think that's why we both love It. Well, you wanna know, the only thing I heard in that whole thing is that you had a Super Bowl party and I didn't get invited. That will not happen again. I'll make sure. Wow, that's fair, Tom, you cut me real deep. Shrek. Yeah, well, you know, I, I had you, You know, have to Well I'm gonna say I had Joe over and so there's only, so you can only have so many people who are gonna command the room, right? I know. You know, for those, for the, you're right. We gotta have somebody that'll listen. Wow. I might, I wasn't gonna say it, but you did. It doesn't work if the three of us are the only ones at the party. Yeah. But yeah, Tom, I'll echo what Chris said. Listen, we're passionate about it cuz we just love helping people and coaching people to meet their maximum potential. Not where they're at, but where can they be? And it's just an absolute fulfilling thing to do With 16 concurrent sessions going on now, there'll only be four at one time. So it, that means y'all's session is going to compete against three other sessions to get the attention of the business owners. Why should owners plan to attend your session over the other options that they have? Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I'm sure all the accounting sessions are gonna be really exciting. So if you wanna have a lot of fun, come see Joe and I, but, but more importantly, I think, you know, I would go back to some of the things we said earlier, Tom, it, it is so important that companies who are looking to transition really can not only have a great engine driving sales in their business, but be able to show that to potential investors because it just makes a huge difference. If, if, if they come in and they look at your business and they're going through due diligence and they see that you've got, you've got this system solid, you've got a great team, they're being managed, they're engaged, you could articulate a pipeline that's a true predictor of future revenue. When they see that they're gonna be blown away because let me tell you, no matter how many businesses they buy, most of them don't have that. And it's a way for you to distinguish yourself from the others in the past. A hundred Percent. I love that. What do you think of that, Joe? Why, why do you think they should come to this session? Oh, absolutely. I couldn't concur more and having gone through the process, as you have many times more than me after a dozen of these experiences in, in my W2 life, that is a hundred percent true. And in fact, we help investment groups go through that process so we know what it looks like from the other side. And so we can help these small business owners be prepared for that. Don't get surprised. I've actually seen businesses with great processes and that of course includes sales, but great processes throughout their organization, well documented everybody's following them. I've seen them get much higher multiples on exit than businesses that are more haphazard and don't, and don't have things documented and aren't following processes. So that is e of enormous importance to the value of a business in my opinion. So we're gonna have you on next week, Joe, talking about a couple of things. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna focus on Chris for a second for a couple questions. Chris, I, I can't remember, is this, this isn't your first visit to maximize business value, is it? Maybe it I've been on your podcast. I have been on your, I have been on your podcast before. Okay. So, so I've asked you this question probably before, but it, it's still meaningful, right? And, and the answer doesn't have to be the same, although I will go look it up and tell you, I'm just kidding. I won't. This podcast is all about maximizing business value. What is the one most important thing that you would recommend business owners do today to build value in their business? Well, I think you, you know, from, I'm, I'm a little biased because of, you know, what I'm passionate about and what we do at 360 Consulting. But I would say if you have a growing business with killer margins for your industry, those may be different for different businesses. But if you have those two things in place, they're gonna maximize value probably more than anything you could possibly do. I, I think that that is some great advice. Yeah. If your margins are better than your industry's margins, that's enormous value. People will pay way more for that if you've already corrected that code, so to speak. So, so come to this session so you can learn how to do that. And, and Chris, I have to ask you a bonus question. What advice would you give to your 18 year old self? Oh gosh, that's a real great question. Your 18 year old self probably won't listen, but what advice would you give him? Yeah, my 18 year old self probably would not have listened. I think that I would tell my 18 year old self to, you know, I'm a student of business, but I've been a student of business by being in business for so long and doing so many different things and having fortunate opportunities to be around great people present, company included. And I would tell my 18 year old self to, to, to be around those people more, to, to dig into, to seek mentorship and to dig in and learn from people who've been there and done that and who are experts so that I could have applied that better and faster without having to hit so many trees along the road. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that is great advice to, to give to, to a young person. I, you know, I, I've heard all of this cuz I've, I've done this on the podcast for a few weeks now, man, it's the kind of advice that you, that you'd love to just grab an 18 year old and go, okay, just listen to all of this, Right? Because that's such an important one, right? You are, you become the people you surround yourself with, right? Absolutely. And so being around great mentors and, and I think that is just very solid advice even now, you know, at at our advanced decrepit age. That's still great advice for us. Yes. It's so awesome. How can our viewers get in, viewers and listeners get in touch with the two of you? Chris, you first, I think it might be the same way. Yeah, so the website is 360 consulting dfw.com. You can find us on LinkedIn and social media and you can also send us an email, Chris at 360 consulting dfw.com and Joe at 360 Consulting dfw. We keep it easy. Yeah, Yeah. And hey, if you wanna call me or send me a text, it's 8 1 7 809 5 4 6. That's awesome. Awesome, Joe, same for you. Yeah, absolutely. So text Chris? Yes. Yeah, He's my filter. I mean, like we talk to each other way more times a day than we want to. Yeah. Unfortunately. Probably more than our wives. It Is. It has been so much fun to have the two of you guys on. I really hope that folks will come to your session. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today. You bet. Anytime You can find Joe English and Chris go at 360 consulting dfw.com. You can find'em on LinkedIn, you can reach out to me and I will be happy to make a warm introduction. As you can see, I like hanging out with these guys as well. Maybe at next year's Super Bowl party. This is the Maximized Business Value podcast where we give practical advice to business owners who want to build long-term sustainable value in their business so that they can transition on their terms. Be sure to tune in each week and subscribe to our channel wherever you found this episode. Until next time, I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to go today and register for the Business Transitions summit@businesstransitionssummit.com so you can learn how to maximize business value. Thank You for tuning into the Maximize Business Value podcast with Tom Bronson. This podcast is brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners to maximize business value so they can transition on their terms, learn more on how to build long-term sustainable business value, and get free value building tools by visiting our website, www.masterypartners.com. That's master with a y mastery partners.com. Check it out. That was perfect. I wouldn't make any changes on.