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From Med School to Finance: A Bold Pivot with Adam Koos · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Imagine this.
• 0:02
  You've built your business from the ground up, invested years of hard work, endured sleepless nights, and faced numerous challenges, all for the dream of eventual financial freedom and a lasting legacy.
• 0:15
  But what if I told you that 80% of businesses never sell?
• 0:19
  They dissolve.
• 0:20
  And Even more shocking, 75% of those that do sell, sell for less than market value.
• 0:27
  How would you ensure that your business doesn't become part of these staggering statist?
• 0:32
  Today, we're addressing that question with our guest, Adam Koch.
• 0:36
  Adam is the president and Senior financial advisor at Libertas Wealth Management, and he's the founder of Elevate youe Business.
• 0:45
  With an impressive career spanning over 23 years, Adam knows exactly what it takes to not only build a successful business, but also to prepare it for a profitable and satisfying exit.
• 0:58
  In this episode, you'll hear Adam's journey from aspiring trauma surgeon to financial advisor extraordinaire, and discover the pivotal lessons that can save your business from becoming a statistic.
• 1:11
  Adam will unpack essential strategies for minimizing risk, maximizing profit, and ensuring that your business is not only sellable, but sellable for top dollar when the time comes.
• 1:23
  So if you're an entrepreneur passionate about safeguarding your life's work and paving the way for a smooth, smooth and profitable business exit, stay tuned.
• 1:33
  This is one episode that you do not want to miss.
• 1:36
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:41
  Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.
• 1:45
  I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the president and senior Financial advisor at Libertas Wealth Management and the founder of Elevate youe Business, Adam Koch.
• 1:58
  Welcome, Adam.
• 2:00
  Yeah, thanks so much, Dave.
• 2:01
  I'm looking forward to it.
• 2:02
  First.
• 2:02
  First podcast in the new year.
• 2:04
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:05
  Appreciate you taking the time, for sure.
• 2:07
  If you could, Adam, could.
• 2:08
  Can you walk us through your.
• 2:10
  Your backstory and how you got up to where you are today?
• 2:14
  Wow.
• 2:14
  Okay.
• 2:15
  Yeah, I'm gonna make sure I'm not too long winded here.
• 2:18
  It's probably my biggest fault, to be honest, but I would say I went to.
• 2:23
  Well, I grew up in a.
• 2:24
  Of a small town outside of Cleveland.
• 2:25
  I'm a very, very sad Browns fan, you know, but that's how we stay in Cleveland is sad.
• 2:31
  We.
• 2:32
  I.
• 2:32
  I went to school at Ohio State.
• 2:35
  Wanted to do trauma surgery, actually, so I was going to school for medicine because I wanted to be just like my dad, who was a doctor.
• 2:42
  He was an optometrist, but I found that optometry wasn't for me.
• 2:45
  And I was more interested in something a little bit more lively and exciting and varied every day.
• 2:51
  So, long story short, I went through three and a half years and kind of had a, a big aha moment that, you know, changed the trajectory of where I was headed.
• 3:02
  And I decided to call my dad walking through campus one day and say, hey, you know, I'm not going to go to school for seven more years and do this whole trauma thing.
• 3:09
  I think I'm going to do something else.
• 3:11
  And he says, what are you going to do?
• 3:13
  And I said, I don't know, I'm still figuring it out.
• 3:15
  And he, he says, well, I think you should be a financial advisor.
• 3:18
  And I'm thinking, what are you talking about?
• 3:19
  You know, I took all these pre med courses.
• 3:21
  And he says, well, you know, it'd be like, it'd be like surgery, you know, sometimes an emergency, sometimes not.
• 3:26
  But, you know, I think that you're good with people and I think that, you know, this, this industry probably needs more people who are better with people as opposed to just number, number crunchers.
• 3:35
  So he introduced me to his advisor and the next thing I know, I'm going through an interview process that summer and I'm being hired by a national brokerage firm.
• 3:43
  And I fell in love with it.
• 3:46
  So it's, I didn't, it didn't.
• 3:47
  It wasn't planned.
• 3:48
  It kind of wasn't the trajectory I was headed in, but I thought, I'll give it a shot.
• 3:52
  The brokerage firm I worked for was one where you could kind of get your own office and you didn't have somebody kind of over your shoulder telling you to buy this, sell that, you know, telling you what to
• 4:02
  do with your clients.
• 4:03
  So I.
• 4:03
  You got a lot of independence and really good training, I thought.
• 4:06
  And then I, I was a fast starter, did really well out of the gate, won a bunch of awards.
• 4:11
  And then.
• 4:11
  But I always knew that I didn't want to, I didn't want to.
• 4:15
  To work for someone else.
• 4:17
  I always wanted to have my own, my own gig.
• 4:19
  So roughly, I'll say, three years into working for this firm.
• 4:23
  I started my company when I was, I think, 25 at the time.
• 4:27
  I was too stupid not to, you know, I was too stupid to start it.
• 4:30
  Right.
• 4:30
  But I started it anyway.
• 4:31
  It's one of those things I always say.
• 4:32
  It's not like, it's not like failure wasn't an option.
• 4:35
  You know, that cliche that failure is not an option.
• 4:38
  I honestly never thought about it.
• 4:39
  It was like you know, now that I have, you know, kids and a whole lot more responsibility, I think that it would have been a different, a different feeling.
• 4:46
  But, but that's how Libertas started.
• 4:49
  And then been running Libertas now for, you know, total career, I guess 23, almost 23 and a half years.
• 4:57
  Just after Covid, I kind of had this, I don't want to call it life changing, but more like career changing book that I read and it's called Walking to Destiny.
• 5:08
  Snider's the author.
• 5:09
  And when I was reading this, and this is just, you know, something that's really going to resonate with your, with your audience.
• 5:15
  When I was reading this book, three statistics, four statistics, we'll say hit me like a brick in the face.
• 5:21
  And the first was what most owners already know, which is the 80% of business owners net worth is tied up in their business.
• 5:28
  Like no surprise, right?
• 5:29
  Most people just shake their heads.
• 5:30
  Yeah, that sounds right.
• 5:31
  But the second statistic is 80% of businesses never sell, they dissolve.
• 5:37
  Which is shocking for me anyway.
• 5:39
  It was, it was shocking.
• 5:40
  And I thought about all the good times, all the bad times, you know, the tough times in business to think that I would have nothing left at the end of the day, you know, nothing for my family, nothing
• 5:51
  for my kids, nothing.
• 5:52
  It was just, it was shocking and it kind of made me angry.
• 5:55
  And then the other statistic, the third is 75% of those businesses that do sell.
• 6:02
  So 75% of the 20% sell for less than market value.
• 6:06
  So you even those that do sell, you're not even getting what it's worth.
• 6:09
  And then the last One was that 75% of owners who were surveyed a year later extremely regret selling their business.
• 6:17
  And the reason that they regret selling it is because they didn't make a plan for what life was going to look like after the sale.
• 6:23
  And it's kind of like the life after football thing.
• 6:26
  You know, many of us have heard the statistics about how, you know, the average NFL player is in the league for like 3.8 years and that's it.
• 6:33
  And then they're like 24 years old, 25 years old, and they have most of their life ahead of them.
• 6:37
  It's like, now what?
• 6:38
  My life's been football my whole life.
• 6:39
  Well, it's not that different from business owners where your whole life you've been building and running your baby, right?
• 6:45
  And then all of a sudden it's like it's over.
• 6:47
  So you gotta, you gotta have a really well laid out plan for what you're gonna do with all the time that you're gonna free up, whether that's do something else for work part time, you know, dial it back.
• 6:58
  We call it pre tirement or if you're gonna not work anymore, you gotta, you gotta have something to occupy your time.
• 7:04
  Because business owners are a breed of people that stay busy sometimes to, to a fault.
• 7:08
  Right.
• 7:09
  But so, so yeah, so that's kind of how I got to where I'm at.
• 7:13
  That's where, you know, Libertas is, you know, helps with both business owners and career professionals with retirement planning.
• 7:20
  So planning to make work optional someday and then Elevate is a company that helps owners basically transition from wherever they're at today with their company to becoming a company that has less risk, more profit, more free time for
• 7:32
  the owner, more sellable, reducing customer concentration, like all the different things, both tangible and intangible, to increase the absolute value of the company and then increase the multiple as well through intangibles.
• 7:45
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• 7:47
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• 7:50
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• 7:58
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• 8:01
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• 8:04
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• 8:07
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• 8:10
  Well, wow.
• 8:11
  That you, you did that really well.
• 8:12
  Laying out your, your career trajectory in just a couple minutes there.
• 8:16
  Okay, just want to go back to in the beginning.
• 8:19
  So you're pre med.
• 8:20
  You're three and a half years into pre med and you decided I don't want to do this anymore.
• 8:27
  Yeah.
• 8:27
  And then your dad says, well, okay.
• 8:30
  And it was.
• 8:30
  You were kind of following in your dad's footsteps too.
• 8:32
  And then he suggested, I mean I.
• 8:35
  That's.
• 8:35
  That's quite a 180 going from a trauma, a trauma doctor studying to be a trauma doctor to a financial advisor.
• 8:45
  What was that shift like for you?
• 8:48
  Scary.
• 8:51
  I'd been confident with most of everything I've done in my life to that point.
• 8:56
  And nobody's ever asked me that question, by the way.
• 8:57
  So it's a great question.
• 9:00
  And so I think that I felt I was scared.
• 9:02
  I think that in fact the first thing I said back to him was, dad, I only took one econ class and I don't even know what those little things are at the bottom of CNBC that go across the
• 9:11
  screen, you know, with like what they mean.
• 9:13
  Like I know their prices, but I don't know exactly what they mean.
• 9:15
  And he's like, well, you've got that virtual stock exchange account you're always messing with and you're great with people.
• 9:20
  Like, he's like, I think you'd be good at this.
• 9:21
  And I was always really entrepreneurial.
• 9:23
  Like even when I was a kid, I was always like trying to start businesses and things like that.
• 9:27
  But, but, but it was scary.
• 9:28
  It was.
• 9:30
  I kind of felt like for the first time in my life I was starting something very big and not.
• 9:36
  And knowing very little about it.
• 9:38
  Whereas, you know, everybody starts new things.
• 9:40
  Nobody, nobody ever does something for the first time and does it, does it perfectly right.
• 9:43
  But, but all the other things I've done in my life to that point were minute, like they weren't, they weren't that big a deal.
• 9:49
  I mean, it was, it was something like, you know, a part time job.
• 9:52
  Right.
• 9:52
  I've never done that part time job before or whatever, you know, not a big deal.
• 9:55
  But this was a huge deal.
• 9:56
  This was, you know, what am I going to do with my life?
• 9:59
  And then in this industry, except, you know, I know things are different now since COVID but in this industry, back then 2001, I started my career 10 days before the World Trade center went down, by the way, in
• 10:09
  case we want to talk about that.
• 10:10
  But you pick where you're gonna, where you're gonna plant yourself and that's where you stay.
• 10:15
  You know, you don't, you don't travel around, you don't change jobs.
• 10:18
  Like many people have the opportunity to live in different cities.
• 10:21
  It's like, you know, you, you pick where your office is going to be and that's where you plant yourself and that's where you're going to live and that's where you're gonna spend your life.
• 10:27
  So it's making some pretty big decisions that are very final at a very young age.
• 10:34
  And for me, it wasn't like I went to school for business, you know what I mean?
• 10:38
  I got my finance degree after the fact because I felt like I needed it.
• 10:42
  So.
• 10:44
  Okay, and so you mentioned you're a fast starter, you won some awards and did very well, like out of the gate.
• 10:50
  I mean, being that you didn't have a finance background, you had just been in med school for a few years, which is totally different.
• 10:57
  Like, what do you attribute that early success to?
• 11:00
  Honestly, just hard work.
• 11:03
  I usually, I always used to say in the beginning of my career that I would, that I always say, you know, I'm a V12 engine and nobody will Outwork me.
• 11:11
  I just need the right gasoline.
• 11:12
  So I was constantly seeking out mentors.
• 11:15
  I was, I think, probably the best thing I did for myself, and I still do to this day, even though I'm, you know, 23 years in the business, is I'm still looking for people who are smarter than me
• 11:23
  all the time.
• 11:24
  And if I meet somebody who's smarter than I am or knows more than I am or more successful than I am, I kind of nag them until they'll give me their ear, and then they become a mentor, whether
• 11:32
  they like it or not.
• 11:32
  But that sounds really mean.
• 11:34
  But, Neil, it's the truth.
• 11:35
  I have so many mentors and so many people who've either a, they're on retainer and I'm literally paying them as a coach or people who were just friends that I've, you know, befriended in the business, sometimes not even
• 11:46
  in my business and not even in my industry, just to learn and get better.
• 11:50
  And, you know, I think you've heard this, the cliche that, you know, you don't know what you don't know, or some people say there's all kinds of things I know that I don't know, but it's.
• 11:59
  I feel like the only way to get better is to seek out help from other people who are willing to give the shirt off to help you.
• 12:05
  And I actually started another company called Adrenaline Advisor Consulting, where I'm helping other financial advisors grow what I've grown for the same reason that I had all these mentors, you know, of mine.
• 12:14
  I want to pass on what I've learned and how I've built it.
• 12:16
  So.
• 12:17
  So, yeah, I think.
• 12:18
  I think that the.
• 12:19
  The answer is really hard work, just putting your head down, trying your best to focus on the right gasoline, you know, and even though you're going to make mistakes, just treat those mistakes as lessons, and then don't be
• 12:30
  afraid to make more mistakes.
• 12:32
  Yeah, yeah, totally agree.
• 12:33
  And I'm sure a lot of the entrepreneurs listening can relate to that in terms of the work ethic, the thirst for knowledge and always wanting to get better at their craft and find that knowledge that can help get
• 12:46
  them to.
• 12:46
  The next level for sure.
• 12:48
  Okay, so you're doing well at the corporate firm and getting these awards and whatnot, and your career's taken off.
• 12:57
  But you said you always knew you didn't want to just stay there.
• 12:59
  You wanted to.
• 13:00
  To open up or, you know, have your own business.
• 13:03
  So what.
• 13:04
  What was it like when you made the decision to.
• 13:07
  To launch out on your own that.
• 13:09
  Part, interestingly enough, unlike, unlike the previous question you asked about, you know, going and, you know, how'd you feel when you made the big transition from I'm going to be a doctor someday to I'm doing something completely different.
• 13:20
  Like you said, the 180 where I was scared, this, this was different.
• 13:23
  It was like I had no fear whatsoever.
• 13:25
  I was, I was excited.
• 13:27
  I was.
• 13:28
  Most people listening to this or watching it know that the financial advisory world, the financial industry is the most highly regulated industry in the world and for good reason.
• 13:39
  I mean, there's no shortage of bad apples, unfortunately.
• 13:42
  And one of my problems, well, I, I always wanted to have my own business, but it specifically in this industry, one of the problems in the industry is all the commissions and the conflicts of interest that exist with
• 13:52
  contests and, you know, all expense paid vacations to things if you do certain things or sell certain things.
• 13:59
  And I use that sell word intentionally because that's the problem with the financial advisory world and the financial planning world is that sales, you know.
• 14:07
  And so it was really important for me as soon as I was poss.
• 14:10
  Well, as soon as I was able to basically afford to hang my own shingle, I wanted to do it the right way.
• 14:16
  I didn't want, I didn't want a big brokerage from, you know, saying, well here, this is the list of investments you're allowed to use because these, you know, These companies pay $23 million a year to be on the
• 14:24
  list.
• 14:25
  I didn't want to, you know, say, well, you know, you can only do these things or you know, basically being pushed one way or other.
• 14:31
  And the firms, by the way, didn't make you use any specific investments, but they, they disincentivized you.
• 14:38
  So for instance, if there was eight investment companies on this list that we could use at this firm, if we didn't use them, then none of the, none of the revenue we earn from investments outside that list of
• 14:52
  eight counted toward what they called diversification trips, which would be, you know, again, an all expense paid trip to Turks and Caicos or something like that.
• 15:01
  So not, I just, I just couldn't, I couldn't fall into the fold of just doing this thing because, you know, let's put it this way, I could have made a whole lot more money faster doing it the wrong
• 15:13
  way.
• 15:13
  And it was crucially important for me to follow the advice my dad gave me when I started my company, which was treat everything you do like it's going to be on tomorrow's front page and the rest will take
• 15:25
  Care of itself.
• 15:26
  And so the, the plan was start this business so that you can do exactly what's best for the client at all times.
• 15:34
  And.
• 15:35
  Yeah, and pretend like it's.
• 15:36
  Everything's on the front page and the rest is taking care of itself.
• 15:39
  It's exactly how it's gone.
• 15:41
  I love that quote.
• 15:42
  So treat everything like it's going to be everything you do.
• 15:45
  Like it's going to be on tomorrow's.
• 15:47
  Front page for sure.
• 15:48
  Okay.
• 15:49
  All right, so what, so you, you didn't have any fear, right?
• 15:53
  You had success, you had confidence.
• 15:55
  Right.
• 15:56
  You had some early success corporately and then in terms of growing the.
• 16:00
  Like, did it take off the same way that your career did in corporate?
• 16:04
  Or did you, did you encounter some early, early challenges?
• 16:07
  That's a good.
• 16:10
  So I started the company in 04.
• 16:14
  So I started my career in September 1, 2001.
• 16:20
  So 10 days later, the market's already been going down and then the new World Trade center goes down.
• 16:24
  And I always use the same quote.
• 16:28
  I always say that I was 20, 21 years old.
• 16:32
  I was 60 pounds lighter, so I looked like I was 16.
• 16:35
  And I was trying to get people three times my age to trust me with their life savings while the market's precipitously falling.
• 16:43
  I mean, tough times, you know, so that was tough on, on its own.
• 16:48
  But then as things got better.
• 16:50
  2023, 2024.
• 16:51
  I'm sorry, 2024, 2003, 2004.
• 16:54
  That's when I started the company, which was a better time to start.
• 16:57
  So things were okay for a while.
• 16:58
  Like, things started very fast and they went very well and revenue did great.
• 17:03
  And then the market kind of peaked in 2007.
• 17:07
  Oct.
• 17:07
  October.
• 17:08
  And that created a new, a new set of problems.
• 17:11
  Right.
• 17:11
  So it was, it was one thing to start your career in this business during a crash because all, you know, is losses and, and resilience.
• 17:21
  But once you've built something and it's, and it's making money and it's, and the clients are doing well and everybody's happy, and then all of a sudden you start to see this dent being pushed into the side of
• 17:31
  it, thanks to, you know, the mortgage crisis.
• 17:35
  It's that, that was definitely a big setback.
• 17:38
  And it changed some things in my career in terms of how we manage portfolios before versus after that crash.
• 17:46
  It changed things in terms of how we, how I looked at the markets in a different way.
• 17:52
  You know, for instance, as opposed to, you know, being somebody who just looked at things from the standpoint of, you know, buy, diversify, and hold.
• 17:59
  You know, I thought, okay, there's got to be a better way.
• 18:01
  You know, there's got to be a better way to manage money than to just buy a bunch of stocks, bonds, commodities, you know, currencies, whatever the case is, spread it all out and then just pray and hope it
• 18:10
  goes up and hope it doesn't go down.
• 18:11
  Right.
• 18:12
  So that changed a lot.
• 18:14
  But, you know, it definitely wasn't.
• 18:15
  It definitely wasn't a smooth ride.
• 18:17
  The whole time, you know, I had staff issues where made a couple of bad hires, and that kind of hurt.
• 18:21
  And when you make bad hires, you not only lose the money that you spend, but you lose the time you spend, which I feel like it's almost worse than the money because as we all know, you can't go,
• 18:31
  but buy more time.
• 18:32
  You know, I remember Thanksgiving.
• 18:34
  I.
• 18:34
  I'm leaving the.
• 18:34
  Off leaving my house, and my mom asked me to go pick something up at the store.
• 18:39
  And as.
• 18:40
  As I'm leaving, my dad says, hey, where you going?
• 18:42
  I'm like, oh, I'm going to the store.
• 18:43
  Mom wants me to pick up a couple things like, what are you buying?
• 18:45
  I'm like, time.
• 18:46
  He says, time?
• 18:46
  What are you talking about?
• 18:47
  I'm like, I'm going to buy some time.
• 18:49
  He goes, can you pick some up for me, too?
• 18:50
  I'm like, dad, if they have time, I'm buying it all for myself.
• 18:53
  You know, I'm sorry I'm being selfish with it, but.
• 18:55
  But yeah, there was.
• 18:57
  I mean, I could give you stories upon stories of the tough times.
• 19:02
  I think we all have that.
• 19:03
  And unfortunately, there's only a few forums for us owners kind of sharing those tougher times, because that's where you kind of feel like you're on an island sometimes.
• 19:12
  Yeah.
• 19:12
  Yeah.
• 19:13
  And that's such a great point, too.
• 19:15
  So clearly you've been there, right?
• 19:16
  And so often you hear entrepreneurs talk about the loneliness and the dark times and kind of not really having other people they can turn to in terms of what it's really, really like on.
• 19:28
  On the journey.
• 19:29
  But how did you deal with.
• 19:31
  With those challenges?
• 19:33
  Man, I've been on a lot of podcasts, and these are really good questions.
• 19:37
  That's a tough one.
• 19:39
  How did I deal with it?
• 19:44
  I think the first answer is that I.
• 19:47
  I would.
• 19:47
  I just push through.
• 19:48
  I don't know if any.
• 19:49
  How many other owners are like this, but I know that when things get tough for me or stressful, I have a tendency to work more.
• 19:58
  Sometimes I'll work Evenings, I'll work in the morning, on the e, on the weekends.
• 20:01
  And I already know that the work I'm doing is not helping.
• 20:04
  Like, it's almost like you're not doing it because it's going to make things better.
• 20:07
  You're doing it because it makes you feel better.
• 20:09
  You know, it's like you feel like by putting time into more productivity that you're fixing things, when in reality it's just making you feel better.
• 20:15
  It's almost like a distraction from the tough times because you're only control.
• 20:18
  Your only control is so much, you know, you're not in control of everything.
• 20:21
  So I would say that's the first answer, I think.
• 20:25
  I think the second answer actually is really, really personal.
• 20:29
  I grew up in a very, very, very diverse suburb.
• 20:35
  And, you know, as the.
• 20:37
  As the freckled white redhead, I was more kind of the minority.
• 20:42
  So I spent a lot of time being resilient, you know, as a kid.
• 20:46
  So I think that in fact, one of the.
• 20:48
  One of the people that used to work with me.
• 20:50
  This is a big discussion we had about.
• 20:51
  One of the things that helped with my success over the years has been resilience.
• 20:56
  And I think I learned that resilience, having nothing to do with business or a job or a career, I learned that resilience by, you know, there was.
• 21:03
  There was no way I was going to be the popular kid in school.
• 21:05
  You know, there was no.
• 21:06
  I was, you know, the book you get the yearbook at the end of, you know, your senior year.
• 21:10
  I got Class Clown and Best Sense of Humor, but that's it.
• 21:14
  You know, I was never going to get the best athlete.
• 21:16
  I was never going to get the most popular, you know, So I think that by growing up someplace like that, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
• 21:25
  It taught me from a very young age that, you know, when you get.
• 21:27
  When you get knocked down, you know, pick yourself up and.
• 21:30
  And the fight to the top is there is no top.
• 21:33
  You know, there's.
• 21:34
  You're constantly going to be pushing toward.
• 21:37
  Call it chasing yourself in five years from now, you know, so I think that.
• 21:41
  And I think that that creates faults, too.
• 21:43
  It creates brain trash, where I think oftentimes we can.
• 21:48
  We can.
• 21:48
  We can look at our businesses, our goals, and, you know, we.
• 21:51
  We, you know, set a certain goal, whether it's euphoric or not.
• 21:53
  And then we hit that goal and then we go.
• 21:55
  We expect fanfare, you know, we expect fireworks, and we expect all this excitement.
• 21:59
  And then it's like, now what you Know, it's, it's almost like it wasn't that exciting.
• 22:04
  It's like the, you want to buy a car.
• 22:06
  If you're a car person and you get your, this car you wanted so bad and then you get it and you're so excited for a few days, then a couple weeks go by and now it's just the car.
• 22:14
  You know, it's not, it's not that exciting anymore.
• 22:17
  So I think that, I think that a lot of it had to do with resilience and then just, just hard work, just pushing through.
• 22:23
  I'd say those are probably the best two answers I have for you.
• 22:27
  Okay.
• 22:28
  All right.
• 22:28
  And then you mentioned your, your newest company, elevate your business and you share those stats at the beginning of the show, which are really, really staggering about the, the number.
• 22:41
  And you know, you hear, I've heard stats like that in terms of like the baby boomers and the businesses that are going to need to be, continue to run and you know, people recommending to buy them and you
• 22:53
  know, for people looking to get into something.
• 22:56
  But can you just talk about like starting that business and what it's been like in terms of helping, helping the entrepreneurs kind of, you know, plan for, for life after business?
• 23:08
  Yeah, it's, it's been really exciting.
• 23:13
  Was what I decided I was going to spend the last half of my career focusing on or the second half of my career I should call, got me so fired up.
• 23:22
  I, I always use the words.
• 23:23
  I, I was angry, I was shocked.
• 23:26
  I was almost sad.
• 23:27
  You know what I mean?
• 23:27
  Sad to hear that that's a reality.
• 23:29
  And, and I was like, I gotta save these people.
• 23:31
  Now I understand, you know, I can't save everybody.
• 23:33
  Right.
• 23:33
  But, but yeah, I think the first thing it got me doing is focusing on bringing awareness because one of the things I learned pretty quickly is that most owners are business.
• 23:45
  And I think when most people think work, they've heard the cliche, work on your business, not in it.
• 23:50
  But we're not talking about, you know, doing a business plan, doing an editorial calendar, hiring people, you know, who not how, you know, letting, delegating and letting go of control, not micromanaging.
• 24:03
  We're not talking about that stuff.
• 24:05
  We're talking about running it like a real business where, you know, most companies, for instance, that have more than 1 to 2 million in revenue.
• 24:14
  So we'll call it, we'll call it like the lower middle market between, we'll say one and a half to 15 million, they don't have a fractional CFO and they need one.
• 24:24
  And one day, if they ever hire one, they're going to kick themselves for not doing it earlier, guaranteed.
• 24:33
  I think that owners, I'm sure you know somebody, and if you're listening or watching this, you, you know somebody, or you are somebody who has been asked if you're 60, 65, 70, you've been asked, when you, when do
• 24:47
  you think you're gonna hang it up?
• 24:48
  You know, when you hang up the gloves and you, and you probably answer with, I don't know, maybe, like maybe in a year or two, maybe two years, three years.
• 24:54
  And then somebody asks you a year later and you say, I don't know, two, three years.
• 24:57
  And you just keep saying it.
• 24:59
  You're almost waiting for the business to tell you when to sell.
• 25:02
  And I think that's where you get the statistics.
• 25:04
  Honestly.
• 25:05
  The statistics come from people waiting too long, not doing things they should, doing things they shouldn't.
• 25:14
  But at the end of the day, it's like we talk about the D's and things like disagreements with partners cause businesses to dissolve.
• 25:23
  Divorce, even though the spouse isn't necessarily in the business, can decimate a company.
• 25:30
  Obviously, disease, you know, things like dementia, Parkinson's, you know, that hit people in, later in life that can ruin a business.
• 25:39
  I said disagreements with partners, death, obviously.
• 25:41
  You know, how many, how many times have you heard the story about the owner that dies only in the company?
• 25:45
  And then, I mean, who's going to run it if it wasn't set up in advance to do so?
• 25:48
  And of course, that's, that's where the company just dissolves.
• 25:51
  You know, there's nothing you can do.
• 25:52
  It's not like, it's not like a spouse or a child can just come in and start running it.
• 25:56
  You know, not before all the employees leave and the clients, for that matter.
• 26:00
  Customers.
• 26:01
  So I think that, you know, the goal here is to first and foremost get people aware, get owners aware of the need to start planning.
• 26:10
  And if we, if we take two case studies, I would say the first group of people are those who are selling soon.
• 26:17
  These people need to start planning at least two years before they sell.
• 26:22
  And in a perfect world, three years, three to four years to maximize the value of their, their company, both on absolute value and a relative value, and to plan a seamless, successful exit.
• 26:35
  And then the second group are the people who are, like me, to be Frank, who are 13, 15, 20 years from selling that think to themselves.
• 26:43
  And this is the tough part, by the way, they think to themselves, I don't need to do this because I'm not even, I'm not selling for 13 years, I'm not selling for 15 years.
• 26:49
  When the truth is it's not exit planning for those people, it's business transition planning.
• 26:55
  We're transitioning their company from wherever it's at today to where they want to be in the future, whatever that looks like.
• 27:02
  You know, most owners want more work life balance now.
• 27:04
  They're too busy.
• 27:06
  Many companies have too high of a customer concentration, you know, where like their top three or four clients account for too much of their revenue.
• 27:12
  Most companies don't have continuity.
• 27:14
  You know, there's no continuity relationship.
• 27:16
  There's no buy sell agreement.
• 27:19
  So many.
• 27:19
  So there's all these mistakes, things that get overlooked that ironically enough, if implemented 15 years before they sell, they'll not only have more work life balance, they'll not only have more, but they'll have more revenue, they'll make more
• 27:33
  money, the company will make more money, the staff will be happier, the owner will be happier, and it'll be ready to sell at any point.
• 27:41
  And why is that important?
• 27:42
  Well, what if a competitor comes up and says, wow, this is just, that's a great company you have, Dave.
• 27:47
  I mean, you've, you've built something really special here.
• 27:50
  And honestly, we're trying to figure out a reason why we shouldn't buy you.
• 27:53
  Are you even up, up for selling?
• 27:54
  Like, are you up?
• 27:55
  Are you open to it?
• 27:56
  And because you've already gone through this whole process, you know what it's like, you know the different ways to sell.
• 28:00
  You understand, you've already de.
• 28:01
  Risked you, you've already basically set the company up and that's why you're growing so much.
• 28:05
  That's why it's so attractive.
• 28:07
  And, and it's, it's, I always joke, it's like CrossFit.
• 28:09
  You know, I'm not a CrossFitter, but the whole point of CrossFit is to be ready for anything, anytime.
• 28:13
  And when you do this planning now, as opposed to waiting and procrastinating, you're going to grow, like I said, grow faster.
• 28:20
  You're going to be happier, more work life balance.
• 28:22
  And by the way, if somebody happens to come along one day and says, I'd like to buy you, you're ready to sell.
• 28:26
  Not only sell, but sell for top dollar.
• 28:30
  Okay.
• 28:32
  All right.
• 28:33
  And Adam, if people want to learn more about your company, what you do, and, and how you can potentially help them, what's the best way that people could reach out to you?
• 28:42
  I'd say two websites.
• 28:43
  So1 is libertas wealth.com.
• 28:45
  it's just just like Liberty with an as at the end.
• 28:47
  So Libertas Wealth.com is our financial advisory, retirement planning firm, investment management firm.
• 28:53
  And then the other for our exit planning business, transition planning is elevate and exit.com.
• 28:58
  so those will be the two best places to go.
• 29:01
  All right.
• 29:01
  And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 29:03
  Awesome.
• 29:04
  All right.
• 29:05
  Well, Adam, thank you so much for, for taking time to be here today and sharing all this valuable wisdom with our audience.
• 29:10
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 29:11
  No, thank you.
• 29:12
  I feel like I talk too much, but thanks so much for having me on and letting me kind of share.
• 29:16
  All right.
• 29:16
  And that's all the time we have for now.
• 29:18
  We will see you next time.