Meet Mastery Partner: Mark King - Part 2 (#251)

Join Dave Casey and new host Mark King for the concluding segment of their two-part series on The Maximize Business Value Podcast. Hear the rest of the story and Mark's final takeaways for business owners.

Learn more about Mark on LinkedIn and at masterypartners.com.  

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Learn More about Dave Casey
Dave Casey is a seasoned business owner with deep expertise in all aspects of organizational behavior and a passion for helping entrepreneurs reap the full rewards of building their companies. He understands that a truly valuable business isn’t just profitable—it’s secure, scalable, and transferable. In addition to his work with Mastery Partners, Dave actively gives back to the entrepreneurial community through leadership roles with organizations like Business Navigators, Biz Owners Ed, and Liberty Ministry. Whether advising on strategic growth or mentoring the next generation of business leaders, Dave brings clarity, integrity, and decades of real-world experience to every interaction. His mission goes beyond exit planning—he’s committed to helping owners build lasting legacies.

Learn More about Mark King:
Mark King is a seasoned business leader and strategic advisor with more than 40 years of experience in corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and board governance. He served as Chairman and CEO of Micropac Industries, where he increased the company’s valuation tenfold before its acquisition, and previously held senior leadership roles at Texas Instruments and Raytheon. An NACD Board Leadership Fellow and recipient of the “Outstanding Director of the Year” and “Tall Texan” Lifetime Achievement Award, Mark now advises executives and boards on growth strategies, governance, and operational excellence. He and his wife, Patti reside in Texas and enjoy time with their two children and seven grandchildren.

Mastery Partners

Elevating Businesses to Achieve The Business Owner’s Dream Exit
The unfortunate reality is that for every business that comes on the market (for whatever reason), only 17% of them achieve a successful exit. You read that right. 83% of attempted business transitions never reach the closing table. Mastery Partners is on a mission to change that. We ELEVATE businesses to achieve maximum value and reach that dream exit.

Our objectives are simple - understand where the business is today, identify opportunities for dramatic improvement, and offer solutions to enhance the business, making it more marketable and valuable. And that all starts with understanding the business owner’s definition of his or her dream exit.
Mastery has developed a 4-Step Process to help business owners achieve their dreams.

STEP 1: Transition Readiness Assessment
STEP 2: Roadmap for Value Acceleration
STEP 3: Relentless Execution
STEP 4: Decision: Now that desired results are achieved, the business is ready for the next step in the journey!

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Transcript

MAXIMIZE BUSINESS VALUE PODCAST - EPISODE 251 Transcript

Tom Bronson (1s):

Welcome to the Maximize Business Value Podcast, brought to you by Mastery Partners, where our mission is to equip business owners like you to maximize your business value and achieve the exit of your dreams, whatever that means to you. With insights gained from over a hundred business transactions, we share real world strategies, lessons, and expert advice to help you build long term sustainable value in your business. Each episode is hosted by one of our Mastery certified partners, their seasoned experts who've helped countless business owners navigate the complexities of growth, scaling, and building value.

Tom Bronson (45s):

They bring firsthand experience, actionable insights, and a passion for helping you build a business that thrives. So, let's dive in.

Narrator (1m 3s):

This episode is the second of a two-part release. To hear part one, follow the link below. Thank you for listening to the Maximize Business Value Podcast.

Mark King (1m 12s):

Imagine with a public company, you're somewhat restricted.

Dave Casey (1m 16s):

A little bit restricted Yes. Because you get into insider information, and the use of insider information. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, you can kind of, you ought to be pushing those limits of communication down to the working level. Yeah. Particularly the key metrics that you're, that you're having everybody in the company deserve to know, are we doing well or not doing well? Yeah. Yeah. Now remember, in a public company, you're reporting your, your financials every quarter. So it's public knowledge as to how you're doing financially.

Mark King (1m 50s):

Yeah. And particularly if you've got employees that are also stockholders, you know, that shareholders, then they also, you know, they get shareholder reports like everyone else, and so they, they have a, they have a good visibility into that. You know, one of the things that has always fascinated me is, is the concept of governance and, and how that's applied. And there's, there's a different, I think there's a different connotation of governance in a public company as opposed to a, a privately held company or closely held private company. So what, what's been your experience in that area of, of governance and how did that, how does that apply?

Dave Casey (2m 29s):

Well, from a public company, I have fortunate to have a very experienced board of directors that I was able to rely on to put together our strategies and discuss our performance and discuss our corrective actions in a unique way. Often, it happens a lot in bigger companies. I don't know if you've ever been to the, you know, the, some couple-week course or whatever it is at Harvard where they talk about case studies and they talk about early days of a Hewlett-Packard board and all the problems and issues they had of communications and everything.

Dave Casey (3m 11s):

It's amazing that in a, in a public board, your board of directors really, really, has a lot of power and a lot of control. Mm. As opposed, they represent the shareholders. I mean, typically, the shareholders are not on the board. Typically. They, you know, you have a representation and a private company. If you do have governance in the board, typically the owner is the ultimate decision maker. And so the board became a board of advisors, which is a good thing to have. By the way, I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but in a, in a public, in, in the forum that I had, I was fortunate to have a, a very open communication with my board, but my board had a lot of authority.

Dave Casey (3m 52s):

For instance, when we went to sell the company, we set up a set of independent directors that were had, you know, were looking at strategic alternatives, and they went out and looked at what other alternatives we have besides just selling the company. Ah. Which is a good thing. Yeah. One thing you're always doing is a public board is you're worried about shareholders and activists coming back to you and saying, you know, you should have done this, and you should have done that, and why didn't you? Yep. So you find yourself covering, you know, all the numbers on the table. So that's what you do.

Dave Casey (4m 25s):

Yeah. That's interesting. 

Dave Casey (4m 28s):

In a private company, in a private company, the same can happen. You know, a lot of times you might have a relative or a, you know, a son-in-law or a friend or family own the shares, and they may have different expectations. So all of that must be coordinated with the right level of governance. And that's, that's probably one of the most collected areas that I see in a lot of private companies, be honest with you.

Mark King (4m 55s):

Yeah, I agree. And I've seen it where there's, certainly in family-owned companies, you see all sorts of dynamics, but, but even in, in ones where there is an active board, and that's an actual board of directors, not so much a board of advisors. Sometimes, in people, if it's an owner-led company, they tend to surround themselves with their friends or people who think the way they think. And to me, that's not as effective a board. You may want somebody without causing a lot of dissension. You may want someone who has a different level of expertise, a different outlook, maybe has served on a public board at some point, so that you can get, I just call it big company advice, even though you're a small company, you know?

Dave Casey (5m 48s):

Yeah. Two, three of the people that I had on my board had run, you know, three to $5 billion businesses themselves. That's invaluable. And it's amazing the insights they had and the help of me being in a smaller company. Yep. What insights they were able to bring to me and help me through the difficult times in thinking through strategic intents.

Mark King (6m 10s):

So I've, I've had the, the fortunate, you know, you've shared with me a little bit about some of the things you did at Micro Pack, but can, you know, as we work together, a lot of times when we work with business owners, one of the first things we uncover is that they're, they're operating day to day in their eyes just fine. But, but what's lacking is a, is a document set of, of procedures and, and, and processes. And I know that's kind of a passion of yours. So can you share a little bit about what your experience has been? What, what value that has?

Dave Casey (6m 47s):

Yeah. First of all, you know, the common sense answer is that if you're gonna sell your company and you're the owner and you're going to hand your company over to a new owner, the valuation of the, of your company becomes much more valuable when the processes and procedures are documented. Yeah. In a way that they can be, they can carry forward. And so many times we try to take shortcuts in, in that regard. And tribal knowledge is what we rely on. And with the aging of the workforce, the onboarding of new, younger generations, and the next generation of employees, the documentation of processes is critical.

Dave Casey (7m 31s):

Now, I'm not the first one; everybody would agree with me on this, but think of a manufacturing company that gets ISO certified. It's all about having the documentations Yeah. In place and the procedures in place, and validating that you're following those procedures. Yep. Now, the procedures could be terrible, but as long as you're following them, you get credit from ISO, which is the old joke I used to say is, you know, you can have a procedure to, to, to jump out of an airplane with a concrete parachute. It's not the best procedure in the world, but it, it is compliant because you say what you do, do what you say. 

Mark King (8m 9s):

Yeah, and your results may vary.

Dave Casey (8m 12s):

But I think, I think it's not only the processes that you do as an owner is important. Yeah. And so I would, I would promote the concept of, you know, your relationship with the bank to me as one of those examples or relationships to suppliers and to customers. You know, we at Masterypartners BOOKS talk about going on a listening tour. Yeah. And I think as any CEO, they should be considering going to their, you'd like top 10, but at least top five customers and just listening. Yeah. No agenda, no issue. I've always learned that you're better off when you have an issue with a customer to build a trusted relationship when things are going well.

Dave Casey (8m 53s):

Because when things go, you know, sideways, you're able to call that person by name, it will go visit that person. Yeah. And you, and you, the two of you will work it out good. Those little things, those little things are very critical to the success. And by the way, a good, intelligent buyer is gonna see those kinds of things. Yeah. Is gonna recognize the fact that you have a leadership team that has a culture of customer first, and working through the appropriate actions necessary. I think that's what we can do at Masterypartners BOOKS, is help owners to articulate that and formulate that. And it's amazing the, the ability to value your company at a higher value when you do that.

Dave Casey (9m 40s):

And, by the way, it's easier to sell because there are a lot more buyers interested when it can be a standalone. So back to your question, if you have the processes and procedures, mostly the pro, you know, the, the, the, the procedure, the processes themselves. Yeah. If you have those documented, well then you have a, a, a method to, to execute the business that's scalable and continuous, and can be recurring. Yeah. Because I lost

Mark King (10m 10s):

Yeah. I think

Dave Casey (10m 10s):

Even though it's almost a no-brainer.

Mark King (10m 12s):

Yeah. Even if, and of course, everybody's experience varies. You know, when I sold my company, I, you know, they expressed an intent for me to stay with the combined entity. And I, it's what I wanted to do as well. And I ended up staying for four years after they took over the company. But I did, we did have some very good processes in place, and we were executing on those. In fact, one of the reasons they were interested in us, the company that acquired me, was because of those processes that we were, in some way,s we were executing better than they were in some key areas. And they wanted, they wanted our team, and they wanted those processes.

Mark King (10m 54s):

You know, it, it, they had attached value to that. So I think sometimes business owners ha have a, and I, I was guilty of this for many years. I had a, I had an opinion that I'm not gonna spend a lot of money on stuff that's not directly revenue-producing. Like, you know, backend software systems and things like that. They're, that are pretty, pretty onerous expenses when you're a small company and you can't, you may not be able to attach dollar-for-dollar revenue to that, but by improving those processes, I think you make the company more valuable. And you certainly make the company run better in the interim, and probably, you know, ultimately more profitable and more attractive to somebody who is looking at it.

Mark King (11m 38s):

Even if they may have their own processes, they may not necessarily keep yours when they absorb your company. If everything's clearly documented and run well, it's gonna be easier for them to, to make that acquisition.

Dave Casey (11m 54s):

David, you're absolutely on target. I just read an, I just read some articles on supply chain management, you know, and as we all know, with tariffs and price changes and the results of COVID, the ability to manage our supply chain with the systems that we need to do that has become critical. I would say, I think it was three or four years ago, 5% of board members said it's, you know, makes the top 20. And now 70%, 75% of board members say it is in the top five. Wow. And so, the reason for that, the reason for that is that you cannot effectively manage your supply chain in the processes that are associated with that, like inventory management, buying, and indoctrinating a new supplier.

Dave Casey (12m 45s):

How do you prove that the supplier is worthy and can produce a quality product, et cetera? All those processes being documented and as automated as it can, you can get means that you're gonna be a much more efficient business. And then when you scale the business, if you wanna double the revenue, you've got that foundation in place. It's not manual, it's not done by spreadsheet, and phone calls all the time. It's done by building trusted relationships with your suppliers and understanding, you know, all of the KPIs that go with that, and doing that in an automated, systematic way. And why not? It's just one small element Yeah.

Dave Casey (13m 26s):

Creating a great company but it's so important. It is so important.

Mark King (13m 30s):

Yeah. That's wonderful. That's great advice. Well, I think that anyone, anyone that's viewing this podcast has already picked up some value from Mark King, so that's, that's a good thing. But I do have one last question. We always ask our, our, our guests this. And so really, this is the Maximizing Business Value podcast. So what, what do you define as the one most important thing that a business owner should do to build value in their business?

Dave Casey (14m 1s):

Oh, that's a, that's a tough question because, you know, you never, you, you can't say one thing without the other. Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a big proponent of the systems we talked about and the documentation and data Yeah. Having clean, cine accurate data. But probably the answer to your question from my experience is, and I'm just gonna have to use the word culture. Yeah. I think that the company that you're creating, you can give it a name, you can say, we sell a product, you do certain services, but it's really the people you have in your company that you've created, and what you created.

Dave Casey (14m 45s):

What is that worth? I learned that when I sold Micropak, the fact that I had built a very strong leadership team, and the culture is what sold the business. They came in and toured my facility, and they saw a culture. By the way, you can see culture when you walk through a facility, you know? Yeah. You always can. Yeah. When I'm a CEO, I would stop randomly and just talk to one of my employees on the line and say, Hey, what are you doing? Why don't you talk about it a little bit? You know, I, I don't have, I, and they sometimes, you know, they'll say anything and do anything, but that's the kind of culture that buyers are looking for. And if you have that in place and you have a leadership team that could run the company without you being there, then your evaluation can, I mean, I'm telling you, the evaluation goes up incredibly, sometimes double, just because. Yep.

Dave Casey (15m 34s):

They don't have to worry about managing culture, because culture is a long-term active ingredient in the valuation of a, of a business. And it's about people, and it's about the people you have. Yeah. And it's not just skills, it's how we work with each other. Do you have a learning organization, for instance? Yeah. You know, do you have servant leadership, a heart in regard to the way people work together? Do people want to help each other, or do people wanna see people fail? Little things. Yeah. But when you put all that together, I can make a successful company with a good culture, no matter what the product is. And no matter who the customer is, it always comes out on the successful side.

Dave Casey (16m 20s):

So I would say that that's the one thing that, that is probably the most underestimated valuation pro for, to maximize fraud

Mark King (16m 29s):

Valuation. Yeah. That, that is a great observation. And you're the first one in, in, in my doing this podcast has brought that up or expressed it that way too. You know, there's a lot that talks about financials or talks about owner dependency. Obviously, we've discussed a little bit about that, but culture is so important. And in retrospect, I looked, when I sold my company as part of the process, not the direct company that bought me, but the principles of the company that owned that company, like two steps up the line, they stopped by our office and I knew they were coming in a, in a couple day period. I didn't know exactly when they'd show, but they just stopped by to visit.

Mark King (17m 13s):

And we took a walk around, they got to meet a lot of the team members, and later they said that visit was what sealed the deal that they were gonna purchase our company. Yeah.

Dave Casey (17m 24s):

So I, yeah, that's what sealed the deal for me too. The same thing. Yeah. I was, I was in the process of selling to, you know, whoever wants to buy me kind of thing. You know, you go through the whole process. When, when the, when they came in to visit me, you know, I gave them the typical, here's Presentate, who we are, whatever. Yeah, sure. But when we walked around and talked to the employees, and that's what, that's what sold them on the business, so, yep.

Mark King (17m 52s):

Yeah. Same present. They, they can tell first

Dave Casey (17m 54s):

Impressions. 

Mark King (17m 55s):

The first impressions. Yeah. They can tell, you know, when you're walking around talking to folks, they can tell whether you've done that like every day forever, or if this is the first time you ever went out on a shop floor, you've been up in the ivory tower the rest of the time. So,

Dave Casey (18m 7s):

Well, you know, you, you, there's so much to learn there. I was gonna buy a company in Florida. They built sensors, and I took the tour with their president and COO, and I never forget, you know, he was walking around, and they were trying to ship something by Friday. And, you know, he was pretending like, you know, he is the authoritative type, and he went up and said, Hey, you're gonna ship on Friday or whatever, and started, you know, kind of pestering the employees like he's in charge and wanted us to see that he's in charge. And they kind of turned away and started walking away, and I watched the employees, and they just looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Yeah, yeah. You know, you could see the culture was not there. 

Dave Casey (18m 45s):

Yep. Yep. So telling, so telling. Well, Mark, I can't thank you enough. This is wonderful. And I'm looking forward to you hosting some of these, these podcasts. 

Mark King (18m 55s):

Yeah, I'm gonna, I will, I will look forward to that as an ending statement. I am excited about giving back to help. Yeah. The small business, particularly small manufacturing business, but any small business and the owners who prepare them for the, for, for the journey they're about to have. Yeah. And I think that's an exciting, exciting time for me, and I'm very excited about it and very honored, honestly, to participate and give back.

Dave Casey  (19m 23s):

Super. Well, we're blessed to have you. We're de definitely appreciate it. So with that, this is the Maximize Business Value Podcast, where we give practical advice to business owners who are really serious about building long-term sustainable value in their business. We do one of these podcasts each week, so please share, make sure you like us, subscribe, and tune in each week, and we look forward to hosting you again. Until we meet next time. I'm Dave Case,y signing off. Take care.

Narrator (19m 56s):

This episode is the second of a two-part release. To hear part one, follow the link below. Thank you for listening to the Maximize Business Value Podcast.

Tom Bronson (19m 3s):

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Maximize Business Value Podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas on how you can continue driving value in your business. But remember, it's not just about listening, it's about taking massive action.

Mastery Partners (19m 24s):

Visit our website masterypartners.com for more resources. Grab a copy of any of the books in the Maximize Business Value series on Amazon or via the links below. And don't hesitate to reach out if you want to know how to apply these concepts to your business. So until next time, I'm Tom Bronson, reminding you to relentlessly execute while you Maximize Business Value.