Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Profit Margins, Exit Planning, and Hard Lessons with Brent Bardales of Rev Your Business

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Profit Margins, Exit Planning, and Hard Lessons with Brent Bardales of Rev Your Business · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Codispodi.
0:21
Today's guest borrowed money at 23 years old to buy a struggling
0:25
medical imaging company in an industry he had worked in for
0:30
only 14 months, then grew it 30% year over year until he sold it.
0:35
While he was still negotiating that exit, he started a
0:38
completely different company. In digital marketing, most
0:42
people celebrate one successful business or exit and a career.
0:46
Brent has had three, each one sharpen the same question.
0:51
Why do so many companies grow their revenue and still watch
0:55
their profits go flat? That question eventually became
0:58
the entire reason he stopped only building companies for
1:01
himself. Brent Vardalis is a serial
1:04
entrepreneur and founder of Rev Your Business, a Miami based
1:09
growth strategy, efficiency, profitability and exit planning
1:13
consulting firm. He has built and exited
1:15
companies across healthcare, digital marketing and
1:18
manufacturing, including one that delivered 237% average year
1:25
over year growth for three consecutive years today.
1:27
He helped small and mid sized business owners build enterprise
1:30
value, reduce owner dependency, plan for an exit, and stop
1:34
leaking profit through his 90 day profit program.
1:39
If your business is working harder than your bank account
1:41
suggests it should be, then this episode is for you.
1:45
But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency.
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Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:43
today, the founder of Rev Your business, Brett Pardalis.
2:46
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:48
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
2:51
So Brett, take me back to 2014. You acquired Dadlin MRI and CT.
2:57
You had no background running a medical imaging center.
3:01
What was the actual pitch that you made to yourself to justify
3:04
doing a leverage buyout of a struggling company in an
3:08
industry you didn't know? Yeah, so at the time I was 23
3:14
years old and quite honestly, I did it because I didn't have
3:20
much of A choice. It was actually the, the
3:22
business, interestingly enough was, was a family owned company.
3:29
And my father actually started that company way back in, in,
3:33
you know, the, the early 2000s, late 90s and, and the company
3:38
was not doing well. So I, I moved down to Miami to
3:41
help him out. One thing led to another.
3:44
He needed to be cashed out. So I, we, we tried to go to the
3:47
market and, and sell the company.
3:49
Company was not doing well. And so that didn't work out very
3:52
well. Fast forward a few months,
3:56
looking for buyers didn't work. Broker we were talking to said,
4:01
why don't you try to take out a loan?
4:03
I'm like, I'm 23 years old with like $10,000 to my name and like
4:08
a good credit score, but not very strong.
4:10
And so I went to a few banks, got denied by three or four of
4:16
them and he goes, I think I know a bank that will approve you.
4:19
I, I went out, took out this loan, had no idea what I was
4:22
getting into at all, other than the fact that the company was
4:26
not doing well and, and my dad needed money.
4:29
So this was my way of paying him back for all the things that
4:32
he's done in my life. So, so I went out, took out the
4:35
loan, got into this company and said, holy crap, this is this is
4:41
a lot more than I thought I was getting into and, and required a
4:46
lot of work to turn it around. But as you said, ended up
4:49
turning it around and and I'm sure we'll get into a little bit
4:52
more detail on that. So your dad needed some money he
4:57
need to cash out. Are you comfortable saying more
4:59
about all that? Yeah, sure.
5:02
So, so he, he had owned many of these, these different imaging
5:08
facilities and companies throughout South Florida.
5:12
And in 2008, when the market collapsed at that same time,
5:18
parents were going through a divorce and, and he sort of lost
5:23
everything. And, and so this is like the
5:25
last man standing and spending didn't slow down.
5:30
So he needed to, to get cashed out again to, to, you know, keep
5:35
going. And so he, he made the choice
5:39
of, hey, let's take this thing to market.
5:41
I said, what do I get? What do I, what am I going to
5:43
do? I need to get some money here to
5:45
figure out what I'm going to do next.
5:46
And we made an agreement that I would, when we sold the company,
5:49
I would take 1000 or $100,000. The rest of it would go to taxes
5:53
and, and out and I would keep the remainder.
5:56
So did that or we, we tried to do that didn't didn't work out
6:01
and I ended up buying the company and, and he actually was
6:04
able to get cashed out and and move on.
6:05
So. So why do you think that last
6:07
bank gave you a shot? 23 years old, didn't know what
6:11
you were doing, Company wasn't doing well.
6:15
I wouldn't have given myself a shot but but I I guess God is
6:19
good and, and and had my back and had my dad's back and, and
6:23
that was that so. So what did that first nine days
6:27
inside the business look like? Yeah.
6:30
So I'll rewind just a little bit.
6:33
So when I, when I moved down to, to help with the company in
6:37
2014, my purpose was to try and go find and acquire more, more
6:43
business. And in the medical imaging
6:45
business that comes through different providers, you know,
6:49
healthcare providers, doctors and, and things that refer
6:53
business to us in the form of patients.
6:56
And when a patient needs an MRI or CT, they come to us and get
6:59
that MRI, CT. So that was my job, like
7:01
business development. Originally when it came down,
7:04
the guy that was managing the company ended up leaving like 9
7:07
months in. I took over the company and I'll
7:10
give you the real 90 days because the real 90 days started
7:13
at that point, which was I walk into a company, the company was
7:18
doing just under $2,000,000 in in, in gross revenue wasn't,
7:21
wasn't huge at the time. And so I, I came in, walked into
7:27
the office on a company that's doing like 1.81 point 9 in
7:31
revenue. We have over just about $500,000
7:34
in past due debt to vendors on like this.
7:37
You know, landscape printed a piece of paper with, you know,
7:43
an Excel spreadsheet printed out of all the vendors.
7:45
We owe 80 or $90,000 to our, our, our landlord and, and you
7:51
know, $70,000 on electricity and all kinds of stuff, right.
7:55
So they're threatening to put padlocks on the doors.
7:56
I walk in, I'm getting calls from collections agencies left
7:59
and right and just trying to keep everyone at Bay, putting,
8:03
putting, figuring out what our free cash flow was and and, you
8:06
know, putting together payment plans to sort of keep everyone
8:10
settled and slowly pay everything down.
8:13
And then, and then after that, my next call was, hey, dad,
8:17
what's going on here? Like, how did it get to this
8:19
point? But but I just.
8:21
Really had no idea what you were walking into.
8:23
I had no idea what I was walking into.
8:25
OK, so. OK, so how do you start to wrap
8:28
your head hands around this? What do you do?
8:31
Good question. So, so the, like I said, the
8:34
first thing I'm doing is figuring out what our, what our
8:36
overhead is, how much money is coming in and what money do we
8:40
have leftover. And, and so that's, that's the
8:43
first thing I do. Second thing I do is what are
8:46
the most important vendors that we have that we can't lose,
8:50
right? One of them being our landlord,
8:52
obviously, one of them being our radiology group, the the
8:57
radiologists who read the Mris and CTS when they come in,
9:01
right? Because we don't have a business
9:02
that way. And various other vendors.
9:05
And so prioritizing those, figuring out how much we owe and
9:08
then putting together some sort of a timeline that is acceptable
9:12
for them and a budget that works for us and just start, you know,
9:16
paying these things down. So under the keyboard, I had
9:18
like a bunch of labels, you know, those label makers that
9:21
you, you type something in on the screen and it prints out the
9:25
little label that you stick on to stuff.
9:27
So I had a bunch of these stacked under my, under my
9:30
keyboard at the desk. So when staff comes in, they
9:33
can't see it. And when you lift it up on the
9:34
1st of the month, I see all the different vendors that I owe
9:37
money to and how much we are paying them every single month.
9:41
And, and it just became a game of of, you know, just managing,
9:45
managing cash flow and figuring out how to be as profitable as
9:48
we could possibly be moving forward.
9:51
So when I when I got the loan, but by that point I had paid
9:56
down about half the debt and when I got the loan I was able
10:00
to get approved from A for some additional capital and pay down
10:02
all of the rest of the debt on the day that I closed on the
10:05
loan. So was this A?
10:07
Separate This is a separate loan that you use to buy the business
10:10
or same loan. Same loan so I was able to take
10:15
get a loan for for the the purchase of the company and some
10:19
additional working capital which I used to pay down all the debt
10:22
and and so from that day the company was debt free.
10:25
But between you know that that half of a little more than half
10:30
a year of coming in and sort of understanding the business to
10:34
the time that I bought it is when is when I was able to pay
10:38
down about half that debt. So a lot of the money that was
10:41
coming in was not being used to pay me or anyone else.
10:45
It was just going to paying down debt, so.
10:48
You were what, a six month point when you said you were debt free
10:52
at least to your vendors, but you still had the bank debt.
10:55
No, no. So we pay down about half the
10:57
vendor debt. We meaning I pay down about half
11:00
the vendor debt between the time that I came in and started sort
11:04
of managing the company up until the point that I bought it,
11:08
which was probably, I want to say maybe like 8-9 months.
11:16
At that point is when I ended up buying the company, then we were
11:19
debt free. So I I spent almost a year just
11:23
paying a bunch of debt down just so the company was financeable
11:26
and and it worked out that way. And so how did you start to
11:29
increase revenues? So the first thing that I needed
11:33
to figure out, if you're familiar with the medical
11:35
business, you have to deal with insurance, right?
11:39
So we have, we have, you know, cash pay out of out of pocket
11:42
patients. We've got patients that that are
11:44
insurance and that could either be major medical Medicare or
11:48
personal injury. If they get in a car accident or
11:50
something like that, they would come and then the the auto
11:53
insurance would pay. If there's a personal injury
11:56
protection won't get too into detail there.
11:58
Point is, not every insurance pays the same amount of money,
12:02
right? So we have, we have insurance
12:04
contracts with the different medical insurance companies,
12:07
major, major medical think like your Aetna's and your Blue
12:10
Cross, Blue Shields and all of them.
12:12
We have negotiated rates and depending on the rates that we
12:15
have negotiated, we get paid a percentage of Medicare
12:19
allowable. So if Medicare pays $400.00 and
12:21
we get 50%, we get $200 according to our contract.
12:25
So my the first thing I need to figure out is what are our most
12:28
valuable insurance contracts? Because we need to attract as
12:30
many of those patients as we can.
12:32
And so that's the first thing that I did.
12:35
Then it's obviously. How do you go, how do you go
12:37
about attracting more people that are using United
12:41
Healthcare, for example? Yeah.
12:43
So it that's creating relationships with the doctors
12:47
who are in network and in service a lot of those patients.
12:51
So we then need to do our homework and figure out, OK,
12:54
these are the doctors and in our radius that, that service those
12:58
kinds of patients, the patients that are, you know, are, are,
13:02
are insured by United, like you said, or Blue Cross or Aetna or
13:05
whatever it might be and focus on creating those relationships.
13:10
Once you have those relationships and you build
13:12
enough trust for them to say, yeah, I'll send my patients to
13:15
you for the MRI or the CT or what have you, then we start
13:19
getting a lot of those patients. But there, there's, there's a
13:23
bit of a, a life cycle to that and how long it takes to attract
13:27
business and, and increase volume from different providers.
13:30
So you know, at the end of the day, you're you're it's very
13:34
regulated in the medical industry.
13:36
So you've got a #1 followed by the rules and #2 just really
13:40
create the relationship and build trust like that's that's
13:43
what the business is and we were very good at that.
13:46
So. Why were you good at that?
13:49
Because it seems like there were all kinds of operational issues
13:52
before you came in. What made you guys good at
13:55
developing those relationships, building that trust?
13:58
Sure. So there wasn't, there weren't
14:00
many operational issues. The real issue was the fact that
14:03
it was cash deprived because all the money was being taken out of
14:07
the company. So we didn't have the resources
14:09
to reinvest into building relationships.
14:14
And, and so the way, the way that I did that is #1 grow our,
14:20
our boots on the ground marketing team, because that's
14:23
what this, that business was really, really heavy on.
14:26
So we have, you know, business development people out visiting
14:30
doctor's offices, introducing themselves, getting, getting,
14:33
you know, meetings with the doctors or whoever the, the, the
14:37
decision maker is who refers their patients for an MRI.
14:42
And then how do we attract them? Well, we had the, the perhaps
14:47
like objectively the best radiologist and, and radiology
14:52
group that was reading all of our scans.
14:55
So that was a major leg up #2 we were in network and we had
15:00
insurance contracts with all the insurance, major insurance
15:02
carriers and #3 we were open. I kind of extended our, our, our
15:09
hours and we had essentially 2 shifts of, of staff.
15:12
We had the morning and, and the night.
15:14
And so sometimes we were there scanning patients until
15:17
midnight, 1:00 in the morning if they wanted to be on the
15:20
schedule until that late. So yeah, we ended.
15:23
Up. And so that was a big
15:24
differentiator as well. You guys had all these insurance
15:27
contracts, you had the 2nd shift.
15:29
So those people who are busy during the day, they can't get
15:31
there until late. Now they've got another option
15:33
to go to. Yeah.
15:34
And the, and the strength of our, our reads from the, the
15:37
radiologist and the fact that he'll, if, if a doctor has a
15:42
question about one of the, the, the reports, we can, they can
15:47
get the radiologist on the phone at any time, doesn't matter the
15:50
time of day. If the patient's there and they
15:51
need to talk to the radiologist, he'll drop what he's doing, pick
15:54
up the phone, because that was the standard that I expected.
15:57
And and that's sort of what we, what we promised the the.
16:00
And I can tell you from personal experience, that's not the norm.
16:03
I had an MRI that months later, there was a question about, and
16:07
the doctor was like, oh, man, I hate having to call these guys.
16:10
They're not going to be happy about this.
16:12
Yeah. Yeah.
16:13
But you set a different standard there.
16:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
16:16
So how long did you hold this company before you were like,
16:20
OK, I'm ready to exit? So I acquired it in April 20
16:26
when I acquired acquired in April 2016 and then I ended up
16:33
selling it in July 2019. OK.
16:38
So just about three years grew at 30% year over year.
16:43
You got the deck cleaned up and while you're negotiating the
16:46
sale of this business, what do you do?
16:49
You start your digital marketing company.
16:52
I mean, most people like they take a little time off, like
16:55
man, got a little breather, I'm going to take a vacation.
16:58
You, you were like no gap in between, Like, hey, I've got the
17:01
next idea. I'm moving on to that already.
17:04
Yeah, the beauty of of being hungry in your 20s at the time,
17:08
so had no, had no shortage of motivation, still have no
17:12
shortage of motivation or, or energy.
17:14
But at the time when we, when I, when I identified the buyer and
17:20
we got into due diligence, I, I was actually most nervous about
17:26
the fact that I, I didn't want to just be sort of sitting there
17:31
doing nothing all day. Like that didn't interest me.
17:35
So I just need to figure out what I was going to do next.
17:40
I think this conversation will go way too long if I start
17:43
talking about my digital marketing background, but I knew
17:48
I was very good at that and obviously I knew how to build a
17:50
business. So why not?
17:52
Why not start that up? So I found the, we found the
17:55
buyer and then we had to go through a lot of lawyering.
17:59
It took about nine months of maybe a little more than nine
18:02
months of of lawyering to finally get the deal done.
18:07
And during that period in 2018, I want to say like June 2018 or
18:13
something like that. Well, it must have been after
18:16
that late 2018, I ended up starting the, the digital
18:21
marketing agency, which was called Earning wise Digital
18:23
marketing. And it was purely out of like, I
18:29
just need to do something and I don't know what this company is
18:32
going to turn into, but I just don't want to be doing nothing
18:34
and I want to stay busy so. And So what services
18:37
specifically were you providing like SEOPPC?
18:41
You got it. Yeah.
18:43
And So what was the trajectory, trajectory of that company?
18:46
What did you do? For how long?
18:48
Did you sell that or just wind it down?
18:50
Yeah. So, so I, I ultimately ended up
18:53
selling that company. We so I like I said, I started
18:57
in 2018 and and that company grew, grew pretty quickly.
19:04
Ended up ended up really honing in and focusing on on web
19:08
design, website design, SEO and and paid ads.
19:13
Those are the three things that really grew the company and the
19:17
SEO was a really, really big piece.
19:19
Ended up growing a, a team of SEO managers and content
19:25
writers, web developers, and, and we ended up managing all
19:33
kinds of different companies from like roofing companies,
19:36
real estate, law, Law Offices, insurance brokers, all, all
19:44
kinds of, all kinds of companies, medical billing.
19:48
And, and we managed all of their campaigns.
19:50
Grew, grew really, really quickly and then got into the
19:54
manufacturing business while doing that.
19:57
And and then like 3 1/2 years into it, in January 22, I sold
20:03
the the agency, the marketing agency.
20:06
Why sell the marketing agency? Were you just that busy with the
20:10
manufacturing you wanted to focus?
20:12
Yeah, it, it was, it was sort of a there was an inflection point
20:17
of do I want to how, how big do I want to go with this, this
20:22
manufacturing business? And if I really wanted to go
20:26
where I where I thought it would go, I'm I'm just going to put
20:29
all my focus into it and, and get rid of any distraction,
20:32
which is what I did. And, and so that manufacturing
20:37
company has started in in June, June of 2021 and and then
20:43
ultimately sold the and marketing and and.
20:45
What were you manufacturing? It was all like rubber and
20:48
plastic goods. So miscellaneous rubber and
20:52
plastic goods and most of the products were, were manufactured
20:55
overseas in China. And, and so we had a, we had
21:02
lots of of manufacturing oversight and quality control
21:06
overseas. And then we had to manage the,
21:10
the, the, the import process and ultimately warehousing and
21:15
distribution here in the US so. OK.
21:17
So you weren't doing the manufacturing yourselves.
21:19
You had contract manufacturers overseas.
21:22
You were importing the products, selling them, e-commerce,
21:25
Amazon. What were your distribution
21:27
channels? Yeah.
21:28
So, so distributing to to wholesalers or, or or other
21:33
distributors and we also were not not much E com it was, it
21:40
was mainly just selling wholesale distribution and, and,
21:44
and that was sort of a North America, Canada, US based
21:51
distribution network and all the manufacturing that was done, of
21:56
course contract manufacturing. But we had a we had, you know,
22:01
our boots on the ground staff overseas that would that would
22:04
manage the manufacturing process and oversea quality control.
22:09
And and so that was that was. And So what kind of products
22:13
were you selling? What kind of verticals are we
22:15
talking about? It was all sorts of menu,
22:20
miscellaneous rubber and plastic products.
22:22
So you name it, we were making it.
22:26
It was all sort of market driven and whoever our, our, you know
22:32
our customers being wholesalers, distributors, what they needed,
22:36
we would manufacture it and then manage the the network here.
22:39
So we've got a stat here that says for three consecutive years
22:44
the company was hitting an average of 230% average growth.
22:48
Yeah, which when you start from zero or, you know, you got $1.00
22:53
in sale to get 237% growth, like that's not a big deal.
22:57
But to do that sort of compounded year over year for
23:00
three years, talking about some pretty significant numbers.
23:03
What were you guys doing so well that led to this?
23:06
Yeah. So big piece of that well #1 is
23:12
really, really good margins. So we were, we were hyper
23:16
focused on, on you know any products that we that we
23:21
manufacture and sell that we are able to achieve about a 70%
23:26
gross margin. And if if you're familiar with,
23:30
with wholesale distribution, that's a pretty big margin.
23:35
And because of that, we were able to, we were able to grow
23:40
pretty quickly and you know, continue buying more and more
23:44
products and obviously lenders like that as well.
23:49
So we were able to to continue growing our inventory base.
23:54
So that was one piece of it. The other side of it is I love
24:01
the, the sales and business development marketing side of,
24:06
of business. And so a big thing for, for us,
24:10
especially when you're many, when you're, when you're dealing
24:12
with wholesale and distribution is managing relationships with
24:18
all of the distributors that you work with in your network.
24:20
So the, the first thing that I did was start building a, a
24:26
business development team and they're just on the phone
24:29
constantly all day and in building those relationships.
24:34
And that was a really big piece of obviously you have to have
24:37
the right data and, and all that who, who you're you're
24:40
contacting, but that was a really big piece of, of sort of
24:43
the initial growth efforts. We also used like a lot of
24:48
direct mail and things like that, that that worked really
24:50
well. And once we sort of established
24:55
our base, we then, you know, did all the traditional wholesale
25:00
distribution stuff like going to trade shows and doing all those
25:03
things and having boots and whatever and all those things
25:06
combined sort of helped it in its trajectory.
25:09
And then word of mouth sort of takes over from there once you
25:12
have enough, enough clientele. And, and that's, that's what
25:15
happened. And it was just a matter of how,
25:18
how much can we keep up with inventory?
25:22
And that was sort of the only bottleneck is how much inventory
25:24
do we have or how much capital would you have access to in
25:27
order to continue building our inventory base.
25:30
So it was, it was a, it was a unique challenge that I hadn't
25:34
dealt with before because everything else has been service
25:36
based. And if I'm lining up the
25:39
timeline correctly, part of that bottleneck, I'm guessing is
25:43
because of COVID, right? You started this in 2021 and it
25:48
was sometimes tough to get the ships in the, you know, the
25:51
freighters, the, the containers cost a lot of money.
25:54
That costs keep coming up. Is am I understanding this
25:56
right? Kind of.
25:59
So at the beginning there was we, we ran into that problem
26:03
and, and yeah, the, the shipping was incredibly expensive and it
26:09
took a long time too. So like our first container that
26:12
we ever, we ever brought in, I believe the cost not including
26:19
any customs or anything like that for 140 foot container was
26:23
like like 13 or $14,000, which is incredibly expensive.
26:30
And, and it was supposed to take 35 days to get to us.
26:33
It took 73. So you can imagine how upset
26:38
initial clients were when we tell them, yeah, you'll have it
26:41
in a little over a month. And then 2 1/2 months later they
26:44
finally get it and they have their customers and whatnot that
26:47
are expected. So we, we did run into a little
26:50
bit of that at the beginning, but we were sort of on the, the
26:53
back end of that given the fact that we, our first container
26:56
didn't come until like September 2020.
27:01
What is it 20 September 2021 or 22, whatever the date was.
27:06
And, and so that, that was one part of it.
27:10
The, the, the other part of the other part of the challenge was
27:15
simply just having access to enough capital continue to grow
27:20
because I had a lot of my money in it.
27:22
Of course, I had a partner as well.
27:26
But then when you're growing, especially with inventory, it's
27:30
just a, a, a, it's a, a cash flow management job.
27:33
That's pretty much my only job is figuring out how much money
27:36
we have on the shelves, what our anticipated sales are, how much
27:40
inventory we need in order to keep up with our growth and
27:44
ordering that product. And as you grow, you need to
27:47
build a bigger and bigger inventory base and you have to
27:50
have more money floating at any given time and manufacturing
27:54
money on the water, meaning product that's already
27:56
manufactured but still in transit and then money on the
27:59
shelves. So.
28:01
OK. So let's talk about the growth
28:04
levers that you were pulling here.
28:06
Rank them for me. If I had to guess, it was your
28:10
business development people making those cold calls.
28:13
It was then the direct mail and then after that it was the trade
28:17
shows. As far as business development,
28:20
yeah, yeah, that would be in. Terms of what worked?
28:23
OK. So how long before you said, OK,
28:27
I'm ready to sell this company too?
28:29
So, so that company had a unique ending.
28:32
So that, that one I'm sure we'll, we'll talk about a few
28:37
times throughout this, this conversation.
28:38
But like I said, I had, I had a partner and, and that company
28:44
grew to, to levels that I did not ever anticipate.
28:49
And sort of when it hit that point, unfortunately that
28:53
business partner ended up moving to another country and took a
28:57
few $1,000,000 of, of, of cash and, and products with him.
29:02
So unfortunately, I, I didn't end up selling that company
29:07
because my partner ended up selling it for himself
29:10
basically. And, and so that's where I, I
29:13
sort of pivoted and said, OK, I have a unique opportunity right
29:17
now and what am I going to do next, which has led me to, to
29:20
where I'm at now. So that one, I would have loved
29:23
to sell it because it would have been by far the biggest
29:26
windfall, but but I didn't end up selling that company.
29:29
Wow. OK, let's talk a little bit more
29:31
about this. What?
29:33
What happened? When did you first see the
29:35
writing on the wall? Looking back, what were the red?
29:38
Flags so, so good. Good question.
29:41
There wasn't much writing on the wall.
29:44
Everything was good until it wasn't.
29:46
So when, when I sort of figured it out, that was in in July of
29:51
2024 and it all just kind of came to a screeching halt at all
29:57
at one time. So I guess he was planning it
30:00
for a while, But nevertheless, it is what it is.
30:03
It's part of life and it was a great learning lesson, but but
30:08
it wasn't the end of the world. It's only money and and you
30:10
know, I've, I've made a lot. I've I've also, you know, seen
30:13
some of it fly away with with, you know that, but it's nothing
30:18
that the the law and karma can't fix.
30:22
So, Brett, you just wake up one day and the bank account's
30:24
empty. Yeah, literally.
30:26
Yeah. Wow.
30:27
It was July 19th, 2024. What did you do?
30:31
What are you going through? What's going to your mind?
30:34
Well, at first you're pissed. It's not, it's not a fun
30:37
experience. And then you just have to figure
30:40
it out. So first thing I do is OK, lock
30:45
all the bank accounts because that's what you have to do.
30:48
And, and, and make sure that, that no more money can, can be
30:53
gone. Second step was what do I do
30:55
with my staff? Because we had, you know, quite
30:58
a few employees in, in a few different states.
31:01
And so need to make sure that they get paid.
31:05
So I, I, I immediately process payroll and, and make sure that
31:09
they get their final paycheck and then have to call them and
31:12
let them know what's going on, speak to the bank, speak to
31:14
lenders, all that stuff. So it was, it was, it was a lot
31:20
of work, unanticipated work, but but a lot of work and just going
31:25
to have to take it one day at a time.
31:27
When something like that happens, it's totally
31:29
unexpected, but nevertheless really, really glad it did
31:33
happen because it taught me a lot of great lessons.
31:35
So. So did you just wind the
31:38
business down? Did you end up rolling it?
31:41
Yeah, I had to wind the business down.
31:43
Yeah, I had to wind it there. There was no salvaging it just
31:46
because there all the product was, was kind of held captive
31:51
and and transferred to Canada without me knowing.
31:56
And so no cash. No, it wasn't just that the bank
31:59
account was empty, it was that the somehow the inventory had
32:03
all been locked up away from you as well.
32:05
Yeah. All the inventory that was on
32:07
the water ended up going to Canada and not to the US, which
32:09
is what we were. It was supposed to come and and
32:14
that was that. There was no way to recover it
32:16
once it was in Canada. Wow, OK.
32:19
Did you file any criminal charges?
32:25
We we could talk about that another time.
32:27
OK, fair enough. Let's move on.
32:29
So. You made a comment that was
32:31
interesting. You're like, I'm really glad
32:33
this all happened because it taught me so many wonderful
32:35
lessons. Yeah, give us one.
32:38
Give us one powerful lesson that you pulled away from this.
32:41
Sure, be slow to trust that that would be that would be one I'm
32:49
I'm a very probably to a fault very trusting.
32:53
And you know, so, so doing doing extensive due diligence on
32:58
whoever you get into business is super, super important because
33:02
it's truly a marriage and you can't get out of it or it's very
33:05
difficult to get out of once you're in it.
33:08
And #2 I had never actually been involved in and managed up until
33:14
that point, a a company that was based on inventory.
33:17
And there were a lot of great experiences, especially growing
33:23
such a successful company so fast that I wouldn't have had
33:29
had I not been in that business. So although it was an expensive
33:33
lesson, it was, it was invaluable information that I
33:38
got, an experience that I got and, and, and it, without that
33:42
experience, I would not be as good at doing what I do now.
33:48
So I'm, I'm very, very thankful for that experience because
33:51
it's, it's it, it grew me as a, as a operator and, and a manager
33:56
of, of, of a business. And Brett, you mentioned, you
34:00
know, be slow to trust. Thinking back to how that
34:04
relationship with your business partner unfolded, what would you
34:08
have done differently? Yeah, I'm not 100% sure with him
34:17
because I'm not sure that I could have figured it out or
34:21
not, but but I, I, I, I, I would have, I would have dug a little
34:28
bit deeper into who he's done business with in the past.
34:31
Try to contact those people, get an understanding of, of what
34:35
kind of person this person was ahead of time.
34:38
That would probably be the the biggest one.
34:40
And if I had to give any advice to anybody, if you're going into
34:44
business with somebody, a business partner, it would 100%
34:48
be do a lot of due diligence and interview them like you're
34:52
interviewing someone you're about to marry and get to know
34:57
them intimately, get to know their family, get to know people
35:00
they've done business with. Meet a few of their friends,
35:02
talk to a few of their friends, get an understanding of what
35:04
kind of person this is and who they surround themselves with.
35:07
But definitely talk to people that they've done business with
35:10
in the past, whether it's as a client or or whatever, just kind
35:14
of get an understanding of how they operate.
35:17
So how did you make the decision to transition into consulting
35:19
Brett? Yeah, So I sat, I, I had a
35:24
unique opportunity, like I said, like this was I, I, I no longer
35:29
am. I'm not really doing anything at
35:31
this point. I've wound down that, that
35:33
company and I, I kind of spent five months just saying what I
35:38
want to do next. And this may be the last time in
35:42
my life that I have uninterrupted time to figure out
35:46
what I want to do next or the only time in my life that I have
35:49
uninterrupted time to, to figure out what I want to do next.
35:52
I've built companies, I've sold companies, I've been successful
35:57
in, in many, I've not succeeded in many.
36:01
And so how, how do I want to take this next decade and, and
36:07
sort of write this next chapter? And, and so I eventually came to
36:14
the realization that I love building and scaling companies.
36:17
One, but #2 I like setting them up to be able to, to exit or
36:23
sell and get that windfall and then go move into something
36:25
else, right? That's what I love to do.
36:28
So why not build a business around helping other people do
36:32
exactly that? Grow, build, scale, and if they
36:35
want to sell, add as much enterprise value as possible and
36:39
sell because I've done it multiple times.
36:40
Why not pass that that information, that knowledge and
36:43
experience on to other people so they can experience the same
36:47
thing? And so that's what Rev Your
36:48
business is all about. It's what my passion.
36:52
Yeah, that's what we do. And so you've got this profit
36:55
Rev program that, as I understand it, is built around a
36:58
specific observation. Revenue goes up and often times
37:02
profits go flat. Yeah.
37:04
How widespread is this problem really?
37:09
Well, I would say probably 8 out of 10 prospects for clients that
37:15
I talked to, meaning basically any business owner, they have
37:19
this problem. For example, last week I was
37:24
actually, I was talking to a company they do about 1616 and a
37:29
half, $1,000,000 in revenue. Number one, they don't know
37:34
their numbers. They, they, they, they didn't,
37:36
they, they don't know what their, their blended margins
37:38
are. They don't know how profitable
37:42
they actually are. But what they do know is they
37:45
need to figure it out because they're now have gotten to the
37:50
point of putting their own money back into the company to keep it
37:53
going. And company's been around for
37:56
like 20 years. So it's an established company.
37:59
And all of a sudden they're dealing with this problem,
38:01
right? And all the way up until this
38:03
point, it's just been a super successful company.
38:06
Why? And really, it's the same story
38:10
for most companies. Whether young or established,
38:14
people just don't understand, truly understand their their
38:18
their financials and they truly don't understand how profitable
38:22
they are or are not and what their operating expenses are and
38:25
what their cost of goods are, their true cost of goods, what
38:28
their margins are. So walk me through exactly what
38:32
it is that you guys are doing. Are you getting them ready for
38:35
exit? Are you like an operational
38:38
assistant or or consultant? Are you like a business
38:42
development consultant for them? Where where are you coming in
38:46
and kind of plugging holes for folks?
38:47
Cool. Yeah, good question.
38:49
So really it's we, we will come in, in 2 circumstances #1 and
38:55
we're not a business development, marketing, sales
38:58
console. That's not what we do.
39:00
What we do is imagine, imagine you're talking to your friend
39:06
who owns a business and they say, Hey, Anthony, I, you know,
39:11
I, I figured I'd talk to you because you, you're, you're
39:15
super knowledgeable and I'm having this problem right now.
39:18
We got to this point, you know, we're doing 5 million in revenue
39:21
and I don't know what to do next.
39:24
Like I'm, I'm dealing with all these issues everyday.
39:28
I'm super involved. I don't have any time.
39:30
I can't even take my, my wife and kids on vacation.
39:33
I can't do anything. I'm just stuck in this business
39:35
and, and I, I haven't been able to break this $5,000,000 number.
39:38
What do I do, right? We'll help through that process,
39:41
right? Whether that be, you know,
39:43
reducing under dependency operational efficiency issues.
39:48
They're not able to scale because they don't know who to
39:50
hire next or they don't have the, the, the budget to hire
39:53
next. They don't know how to grow past
39:57
this $5,000,000 mark for whatever reason, whether that be
40:00
a constraint of their, their, their market size or the
40:04
constraint of the local market they operate in or whatever.
40:08
That's one right. Number 2 is, hey, Anthony, I, I
40:14
know you know a lot of people. I want to sell my company.
40:17
I'm kind of getting burned out and I don't know, in two or
40:19
three years I want to sell the company.
40:22
And then you ask them, OK, great, what have you done to
40:24
plan for that? And they say nothing.
40:26
And that's when my job comes in that's to help them plan for an
40:32
exit. So number one, it's they're
40:34
dealing with some sort of a growth efficiency, profitability
40:37
issue and we could help fix that.
40:41
And or they're super involved and, and, and they want to sort
40:44
of step back from the business a little bit and they need to have
40:46
the efficiencies in place to do that.
40:48
Or two, they just want to plan to sell and maximize the, you
40:53
know, the hard work they've they've put into the company up
40:55
until that point. So Brett, walk me through the
40:57
discovery phase of Profit R.E.M. When you get inside of your
41:00
clients financials for the first time, what are the things that
41:03
you almost always find that the owner had no idea where they're?
41:07
Sure. So number, I think the number
41:12
one thing is I'll, I'll, I'll come to a, a business owner and
41:16
they'll tell me, I'll ask them the question of, of, you know,
41:19
what are, what are your profit margins like?
41:22
Do you know what your profit margins are and, or do you know
41:25
where you're most profitable? Like, yeah, I, I make 45% on
41:31
everything. And that's what, how we, we
41:34
price things. We're we're 45%, that's our
41:36
margin. OK, cool.
41:38
So we'll, we'll come in number one.
41:41
The first thing we'll do is just, you know, look at their
41:43
PNL and what is your blended margin?
41:45
Very, very simple math to do, right?
41:48
What is your, what's your gross profit divided by your total
41:50
sales gives you your margin. And all of a sudden that 45 is
41:55
actually like a 36 or a 32 or a 34 or whatever it is.
41:59
And then you say, Mr. Business Owner, you're actually, you
42:03
know, not as profitable as you thought.
42:05
We need to figure out what the problem is, right?
42:08
And that's at the gross level. Then you look at net, how much
42:11
they're actually taking home. And then, you know, sometimes
42:15
you'll, you'll see a negative Net margin.
42:18
Sometimes you'll see, you know, they're making two cents on the
42:20
dollar, two and a half cents on the dollar.
42:23
And that's just a really, really expensive job, right?
42:25
So how do you, how do you add some, some, a few points to the
42:31
bottom line and, and into their margin in order to make this job
42:36
worthwhile and turn this thing into a business that you could
42:40
continue to grow in scale? So yeah #1 for sure not knowing
42:44
what their actual margins are. Let's sidestep here.
42:49
I want to understand what is radar.
42:50
Hire OK, so that's, that's another one of my companies, my
42:55
only other company which is a a offshore and near shore staffing
43:00
agency. So we work with, with companies,
43:03
you know, they need to hire a, a, an executive assistant or
43:06
admin assistant or remote sales positions or digital marketing
43:10
positions, AI positions and, and we'll help staff them for, you
43:16
know, 50 to 80% less than hiring locally here in the US.
43:21
And do these two businesses sort of support each other?
43:24
You go in, you find a lot of operational inefficiencies.
43:27
You're like, hey, I can add some staff in here for, you know, a
43:30
pretty reasonable rate. Yeah, that's right in your head
43:32
a lot. OK.
43:34
So going back to Rev your business, one of your clients
43:40
added $158,000 in profit on the very first project they closed
43:45
after working with you. They said they didn't need more
43:49
sales, they just needed the right system.
43:52
For business owner listening right now who has been told that
43:54
their problem is a sales problem, what would you tell
43:57
them? Yeah.
43:59
So, so that client was in the the architecture business and
44:07
did a lot of a lot of commercial architecture work.
44:12
So like large projects and some larger than others.
44:16
But this particular project happened to be the after we
44:19
finished the, the profit of program, this happened to be the
44:24
first one that they had to to send a quote out on.
44:27
And that in that business, the, the reason why it ended up being
44:34
such a large number is because the way that this was a pricing
44:38
strategy issue. It was very simple.
44:41
They weren't tracking utilization and understanding
44:43
how much they were actually paying in labor.
44:46
And they also weren't factoring that labor into their costing
44:52
method. So with that, they were
44:55
completely backwards on how they were, they were estimating jobs.
45:00
One thing leads to another. At the beginning they're nervous
45:03
I we might price ourselves out of the market.
45:07
Fast forward, they send the the the quote out, it gets the very
45:13
next day it gets accepted. And had he not sent that
45:17
estimate out utilizing our new pricing method based on all the
45:22
information that we gathered throughout the program, he would
45:26
have sent that quote out for $158,000 less.
45:28
So that additional $158,000 wasn't just profit in his
45:33
pocket, it was also additional revenue, right?
45:36
So revenue increases when it's a pricing issue.
45:39
Revenue naturally increases as margins increase.
45:43
And I know that pricing strategy is central to a lot of the work
45:46
that you do, Brent, is that the most common mistake that you see
45:51
business owners make? They're not accurately factoring
45:54
in the cost of the labor. What if it's?
45:58
If it's like a a service based factoring in or, or or properly
46:04
tracking utilization is a big part of it.
46:08
Pricing is is, you know, half the time the culprit, the other
46:11
half the time it's you've got an OpEx issue, operating expense
46:14
issue or a a cost of goods issue.
46:17
But when pricing is the issue, the, the most important thing
46:24
that you need to be aware of is not pricing yourself out of the
46:28
market, right? So if, if, if I tell you, hey,
46:31
Anthony, you're priced too low on whatever business.
46:37
Your next question is to be OK, do I raise prices by 5%, ten
46:41
percent, 20%? How much do I raise prices by?
46:44
And that's a really dangerous thing to do because you've got
46:48
various, every business has various different profit
46:52
centers, right? You're, you're selling products
46:54
or services, but it's, it's a menu of products or services.
46:58
Some of your products you might be super, super profitable on
47:02
some of your products or services you may not be.
47:05
And those are dragging the rest of the company down.
47:08
So we need to understand what your blended margins are at like
47:13
a profit center category level. We need to understand what your
47:17
blended margins are on a line by line, product or service level.
47:22
And then figure out where we're losing money, where we're making
47:25
money and how to adjust pricing or just cost of goods, whether
47:29
that's controlling your labor and utilization or controlling
47:32
vendor cost or whatever that might be in order to hit the
47:35
blended margins that we need to hit.
47:37
So most of the time, pretty much any business you you look at,
47:44
there's an opportunity for 5/10/15 percent additional
47:48
profitability. Wow, That's substantial.
47:51
Yeah. And Brent, I know in the things
47:54
that you do with your clients and the teachings that you have
47:56
out there, you make a big distinction between margin and
47:59
markup that you say a lot of business owners get wrong.
48:02
Can you explain it the way that you would explain it to a client
48:05
who's been running a business a long time and thinks that they
48:07
get it? Yeah.
48:09
So most important equation you could possibly know.
48:15
So if you are listening write this down right now markup
48:18
versus margin, so. Pull over to the side of the
48:20
road, folks, that's about to give you.
48:24
So, So what is markup and what is margin?
48:27
Most people, if I ask you, OK, what's your profit margin,
48:33
you'll tell me I'm 50%. OK, great.
48:38
How much are you buying that product for?
48:40
How much is it does it cost to fulfill that?
48:42
That service $100. You bought this product, say
48:45
it's this pen, you bought this pen for 100 bucks.
48:49
You then took this pen and you said I'm going to make a 50%
48:54
margin. So I'm going to put $50 on top.
48:59
I'm going to sell it for $150.00, right?
49:02
Well, the way that you calculate margin is you've got your, your
49:08
gross profit, which is your however much you sold it for
49:11
minus whatever your cost is. So in this case, 150 -, 150,
49:16
right? And then you divide it by the
49:17
your sales price, your revenue, which was $150.00.
49:22
So in reality, your actual margin was 33% on this pen,
49:27
whereas markup is a similar equation but different, right?
49:32
So if you wanted a 50% markup, then that information holds
49:37
true. You bought it for 100, you put a
49:39
50% markup on it, $50, you sell it for 150.
49:42
So you have $50.00 in profit, right?
49:45
And the way that you do that calculation is very simply
49:49
whatever your profit is, well, it's subtracted from your cost,
49:53
$50 divided by your cost, which was 100 bucks, right?
49:56
So that's where you get that $50 markup from.
50:01
Now, if you're competing against a competitor and you think you
50:06
have a 50% margin, but you only have a 50% markup, you're
50:09
actually got a 33.33% margin you're making on this.
50:13
In this instance, you're making $50.
50:16
Every time you make a sale, every customer that comes in
50:18
$50, your competitor is actually operating on a 50% gross profit
50:25
margin for the same pen that they buy for $100.
50:30
A 50% margin on this is actually being sold for $200.
50:35
They have $100 profit on a $200 sale.
50:37
That's a 50% margin. So your competitor, every time
50:41
he gets or she gets a sale, they're making twice the amount
50:45
of money as you. They're making 100, you're
50:47
making 50. So you need to spend all this
50:50
time and effort and money to attract 10 new customers and
50:53
you'll make $500 in profit and your competitor finds 5
50:57
customers and they make the exact same amount of money.
51:00
Who has the competitive advantage?
51:02
It's the person that's making more margin.
51:04
So most companies don't quite or business owners don't quite
51:10
understand the difference between the concept of markup
51:13
and margin. And it's so, so, so, so
51:16
important. So if if you have your P&L in
51:20
front of you go, if you go on my website to, to
51:24
revyourbusiness.com and you click on the the profit Rev
51:27
service there you'll see a little free calculator that you
51:31
can use to calculate what your actual margin and, and markup is
51:35
and, and kind of understand the distinction between the two.
51:38
Super. Helpful.
51:40
Really great breakdown there. So tell our audience who is a
51:45
good fit for your two businesses, Regular business and
51:48
Radar higher. What's the size, the industry,
51:51
the geography? Any other qualifiers?
51:54
Yeah, so, so fairly industry agnostic.
51:58
We do a lot of work with with medical practices, home
52:03
services, construction and in in companies like that.
52:08
But we've got clients all across the board as far as size goes.
52:14
Typically when they enter our world, they're under 25,000,000
52:19
in revenue. So we've got clients that are
52:21
that are doing, you know, 750 to 1,000,000 in revenue.
52:25
We've got clients that are doing 202530 million in revenue and
52:29
everything in between. So the sort of that, that
52:31
market, that lower, lower middle market and, and that's on that's
52:37
on the other regular business side.
52:39
So if they're looking to to grow, expand, remove themselves
52:45
from the company, reduce owner efficiency, increase
52:49
profitability, or they just want to sell and they want to make
52:53
sure they get the most money for, for their, their company.
52:56
Those are things that that we help with.
52:58
We just took a, a, another architecture company through
53:04
the, the exit planning process added about $1,000,000 in, in,
53:08
in enterprise value to their company in, in 11 months and,
53:13
and they just went to market last month.
53:15
So super excited about that. But we, we, you know, sort of go
53:20
through that process with quite a few companies.
53:22
So for that architectural firm, oh, sorry to overstep here,
53:25
Brent, but in that architectural firm, what are the traditional
53:28
sales multiples in that industry?
53:31
Depends on on the size, but he's at about a 3 1/2 so.
53:36
So adding a $1,000,000 is going to get their valuation up three
53:41
and a half million. Did I?
53:42
Did I connect the? Dots no, we, we added, we added,
53:45
we added, we, we more than doubled their their EBITDA over
53:49
the course of the the past year, which added about $1,000,000 in,
53:52
in valuation. It's not a huge, huge company,
53:56
but made a huge impact on the on the valuation.
54:01
So they're super, super excited. But that was only 11 months of
54:06
work. Had we had more time that that
54:09
number probably would have been greater.
54:12
If you had had more time with that group, what else might you
54:14
have done? Continued the growth path they
54:19
they ended up having the most profitable year, the highest
54:23
revenue year and and the and like I said doubled their EBITDA
54:30
over that 11 month period. With that being said, you look
54:35
at three years of of financials, 2025 was phenomenal. 24 and 23
54:42
didn't have as much growth obviously as we did in 25 S had
54:47
we had this growth path for the next two years.
54:51
So we have 25, six and seven, the value of the company would
54:54
probably be three times what what it went to market at.
54:58
So yeah, but owner. Of the store Moral of the story
55:01
here is hire brand as soon as possible.
55:03
Plan early, Plan early. Yeah, three to, I always say
55:06
three to five years before minimum three years before is is
55:10
what you need to do to start planning.
55:13
So when you work with founders and executives and they've been
55:17
running their companies for years, they've had a certain
55:19
level of success. They've got habits, they've got
55:22
mental models in place already that have gotten them to where
55:25
they are. But at some point, what got you
55:29
to where you are is not going to be what you need to get you to
55:33
where you want to go. So when you run into folks where
55:37
those current habits and mindsets are actually hurdles to
55:42
getting them to where they need to be, how do you get them to
55:45
open up to something new to a young, bright guy like yourself
55:50
without shutting down to the feedback that you're giving
55:53
them? Well, I usually don't get to the
55:59
point of being in an engagement with a client unless they've
56:02
come to the, the, the reality that they need some help.
56:06
So they're spending real money to to, you know, be talking to
56:13
me. So they are not.
56:16
Up until this point I haven't had the experience.
56:18
That's not been an issue shutting.
56:19
Down the ice, Yeah. No, they're they're.
56:21
They're not. Kind of weeded that out in the
56:24
the vetting process where you and the client are both kind of
56:27
interviewing each other. Yeah, I think it's more of them
56:30
interviewing me. As long as they feel comfortable
56:32
taking my advice, they take it. And I, I'd imagine that any of
56:37
the clients that that did not end up or prospects that didn't
56:40
end up becoming a client, it was probably for the reason of they
56:44
didn't think they needed me for whatever reason or they didn't
56:47
trust my, my, my judgement for whatever reason, which is fine.
56:51
I'm not, I don't expect to, to earn everybody's trust, but, but
56:56
you know, if they do make that decision, you know, obviously I,
56:59
I, I have a, a duty to, to make the best decisions I possibly
57:06
can for them and guide them the best I can.
57:09
And, and I'm involved in pretty much every single decision and
57:13
implementing all of these, these, these things that we work
57:16
on together. So I'm not just telling them
57:18
what to do. We're going through the
57:20
implementation process together. You know, and Brett, you
57:24
yourself, you've built companies we've heard about, right?
57:27
Healthcare, digital marketing, manufacturing, very different
57:31
customer types, different cultures, operational strategies
57:36
there. I'm curious, from your
57:37
viewpoint, what did moving between those industries teach
57:41
yourself, teach you about yourself as a builder or as a
57:46
leader that staying in one lane you may not have discovered?
57:52
Yeah. We, we touched on that a little
57:54
bit before and that is first was in medical services, right.
58:01
And, and then next I moved over to digital marketing again to
58:04
service business and then moving over to the the wholesale
58:09
manufacturing distribution, all of that which is inventory and
58:15
in the service in the first business medical dealing with
58:18
patients, having you know, a physical location where people
58:22
come into digital marketing, 100% virtual team and then
58:28
manufacturing distribution that is a hybrid of virtual and on
58:34
the ground teams. And then you've got you've got
58:38
warehouses on the other side of the country and then staff
58:41
overseas. Yeah.
58:42
Sorry. So that's what it taught you
58:44
about business. What did it teach you about
58:46
yourself? Good question.
58:48
OK, so it taught me that if I want to figure something out, I
59:01
can. And it also taught me that that,
59:06
you know, the only thing, the only thing that I'm really
59:09
limited to is what I believe that I can accomplish.
59:13
I mean, I, I listen, I, I'm, I'm certainly not the smartest
59:17
person in the world. I'm, I'm not the most gifted
59:21
person. I'm not a, a, a magical person
59:26
that whenever he touches something, something is, is, you
59:29
know, turns into gold. As you heard earlier, things
59:32
happen, right? But as long as I, I maintain
59:36
some, some level of, of mental clarity and fortitude, I, I, I
59:43
can continue figuring things out, no matter how good or how
59:46
bad things get. And as you move from industry to
59:51
industry, it's, it's, it becomes hyper, you become hyper aware of
59:57
the fact that everything that you're doing or selling is just
1:00:01
another widget, another product, another service.
1:00:05
It doesn't really matter what you're selling as long as you do
1:00:07
something with with integrity and, and, and you actually care
1:00:12
about the people that you serve. You will gain trust no matter
1:00:16
the industry and the, the, the more you, you spread that
1:00:22
message or at least help people understand that you're there
1:00:25
for, for a good purpose, you will gain trust.
1:00:28
So, so whatever widget or product or service that you
1:00:32
sell, just maintain integrity and and you'll be successful in
1:00:36
that industry. Brett, what's the hardest thing
1:00:39
that you've had to overcome personally?
1:00:44
Well, there would be two. Number one was dealing with this
1:00:51
is in no particular order actually number one is, is my #2
1:00:54
most difficult thing that I dealt with.
1:00:55
But what we talked about earlier was our, our, our, our, our
1:01:01
crazy situation of partner running away millions of dollars
1:01:06
product and all that stuff. But it was only a money problem
1:01:09
and money comes and goes and it's, it's very, it's very easy
1:01:13
to make. It's very easy to spend.
1:01:15
So just keep trucking along and make your money right.
1:01:20
More importantly, you know, life and family and, and health and
1:01:24
all of that, You know, you, no amount of money could, could
1:01:28
help that. So by far the most difficult
1:01:31
thing that I've gone through was my father's passing, which he
1:01:34
passed away next month, April will be 7-7 years.
1:01:39
Wow, it'll be 7 years now. So he passed away when I was 20.
1:01:45
I was 26. He actually committed suicide.
1:01:50
And, and so with that, it, it taught me what actually matters
1:01:57
in life. And, and, and you know, if, if,
1:02:01
if I can go through that, I could literally do anything.
1:02:05
And, and, and, and that was, that was by far the most
1:02:09
difficult things that I, that I've dealt with.
1:02:11
But it was also, you know, a really good opportunity for me
1:02:15
to, you know, understand what matters and, and sort of refocus
1:02:21
and recalibrate my life on, you know, what, what is important
1:02:26
and and money is a byproduct of all the good things that you do
1:02:30
in life. But family and health you can't
1:02:33
get back so. What did that healing process
1:02:37
looks like for you, Brent Keep? Focused on on the people that
1:02:45
matter and and keep working and don't let that get in the way of
1:02:50
success and, you know, maintain relationships with good people.
1:02:55
I mean, it it, it it's not once you go through it.
1:02:59
I mean, it's no different than than, you know, losing any
1:03:04
anybody to anything. The circumstance of the reason.
1:03:07
It is what it is. It's part of life.
1:03:10
You know, life, life comes and life goes.
1:03:12
But just remember the good times.
1:03:15
He was a great mentor to me and a lot of the things that I do
1:03:21
now is because of him and his teaching.
1:03:25
So it, it was I, I would say the, the healing process was
1:03:30
fairly easy because you just have to focus on the positive
1:03:34
and, and keep moving. It's it's, it's part of life.
1:03:38
Wow, yeah. What advice would you have for
1:03:43
others listening that have lost a loved one to similar
1:03:46
circumstances? Yeah, so I've got this is
1:03:52
actually sitting on my desk, which I'll, I'll put on the
1:03:54
camera here. But he my, my father growing up,
1:03:58
every single e-mail he ever sent on the bottom of it, it said
1:04:02
this too shall pass. And and on his on his his desk,
1:04:07
he had this little wooden carve out which was on his desk ever
1:04:11
since I knew him right. And it said this too shall pass,
1:04:15
which it now sits on my desk. And the, the, obviously that's,
1:04:21
that's a religious excerpt, but the, the purpose of that is to
1:04:27
just remember that no matter what you're going through, good,
1:04:31
bad or indifferent, enjoy the good moments because it'll be
1:04:35
temporary. It'll pass And enjoy the time
1:04:39
with your friends, family, whoever, because that moment
1:04:42
will pass. It's only temporary, But
1:04:45
especially the, the difficult times, whatever you're going
1:04:49
through, doesn't matter what it is, just remember that it will
1:04:52
pass and, and whatever you might be going through a year from
1:04:57
now, two years from now will just be a distant memory.
1:05:00
And it's never, ever worth, you know, taking your life or, or
1:05:05
harming yourself or harming other people.
1:05:07
It's only temporary. That's a great message, thank
1:05:11
you for sharing all that bro. Sure, just got one more question
1:05:15
for you today. But before I ask, I want to do 3
1:05:17
quick things for the audience. First of all, anybody that wants
1:05:20
to get in touch with Brent 2 Great Ways, his website,
1:05:23
revyourbusiness.com talked about earlier where he's got that
1:05:27
margin markup calculator, so you can see the differences there.
1:05:32
Rev your business.com. He's also very active on
1:05:35
LinkedIn, so if you look up his name, Brent Bardales.
1:05:39
BARDALES. So it looks like Bardales, Brent
1:05:43
Bardales. Brent Bardales, Rev your
1:05:46
business on LinkedIn. You'll find him.
1:05:49
We'll have that link in the show notes for folks, too.
1:05:52
And Speaking of the show, if you're listening today and
1:05:54
you're enjoying, please take a moment to subscribe wherever
1:05:56
you're listening. It sends a signal that helps
1:05:58
others discover our show. So thank you for taking a quick
1:06:01
moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you could be
1:06:05
the hero advisor that helps clients give their employees
1:06:07
access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds while
1:06:11
paradoxically increasing their net profits, real gains that can
1:06:15
change how a business is valued. Contact us today at AD back
1:06:18
benefits.com. So last question for you, Brett,
1:06:22
a year from today, what is 1 very specific thing that you
1:06:25
hope to be celebrating? My first child, that's that's
1:06:31
the goal. So OK, God willing, we will.
1:06:33
We will make that a reality. You have a partner, you're
1:06:36
married. What's?
1:06:37
Married. Yeah, I've married for five
1:06:39
years this year, so. All right, wow, that's one
1:06:42
that's going to be worth checking back in on.
1:06:44
So. For sure.
1:06:46
We'll set our calendars for that.
1:06:48
Baby hanging out right here. Yeah, on our next conversation
1:06:52
that. 'D be a great one.
1:06:54
We can ask him or her their first interview questions too.
1:06:57
That's right. Well, Brett Bardell's from Rev
1:07:00
your business. I want to be the first to thank
1:07:02
you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
1:07:05
I really appreciate you being here.
1:07:06
Sure. Thank you.
1:07:07
I appreciate you having me. Folks, that's a wrap on another
1:07:10
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:07:13
Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
1:07:17
that into action today.