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$40M to $90M Twice: His Secret Was Making Himself Replaceable · The Turn: Blue Collar to Billions

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Greg Hirsch took a$40 million business, grew it to$90 million, took it public, then he took another$40 million business in the window and door industry and he sold it to his partner and he made a lot of money.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Greg Hirsch did something that very few people ever really do.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: He took a business from$40 million in revenue when he joined, he took it public.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then he did it again.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: He buys a business with another partner that really knew the industry.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Same revenue, it was$40 million in revenue, and they grew it to$90 million.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what his special sauce is, is actually taking a business that's at that size that you just can't quite go to the next level.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's learned over the years how to take a business like that and scale it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I for one am excited to see what he does with the next one because it's clear he knows how to grow a business.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to The Turn.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Corey Mitchell of Iconic Founders.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: The Turn is where blue-collar founders talk about the businesses they've built, the value they've created, and what comes next after they sell.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So Greg Hirsch, welcome to The Turn.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I'm I'm super excited to learn more about your story because of all the guests we've had, yours is a little different.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, you've got kind of two very different exit journeys.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: One that went to went public, which is really kind of unusual for the businesses that we typically talk to.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then you've got a second chapter uh where it you went through a managed buyout.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I want to start at the beginning, maybe just give us a little bit of background about you, and then we can kind of start down your your business journey.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us tell us about you, Greg.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Corey, thanks for having me on.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I love you know this, what you're building and this audience, and just having these open conversations to business owners and what comes next and how do you do this?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, you generally just kind of do it once, maybe, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so it gets complicated and a little scary and a little weird, but it's it's all doable.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Houston, Texas, and then came up to the DFW area, a town here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the town of Addison.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very unique town in DFW, very, very business focused, and wound up being on the city council there for six years and meeting some very interesting people who helped me kind of think about the world differently, especially through entrepreneurial entrepreneurship.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh one particular gentleman would buy businesses and grow them.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was kind of in the second half of his career, and I was like, Well, how do you do that?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd had some interest.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had my my time on Biz Buy Cell.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, so I was already going down these roads.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the longer story short, there is he had one that needed to be uh expanded.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I joined him.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh now I think they call them operating partners.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh back then it just called it, which was like 15 years ago, it was just called going to get a job.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but I joined with, you know, for some uh some uh some earned equity.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was a flatbed specialized trucking company, and I helped grow that platform from about 40 million when I got there to about 90 million about four years later.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: We realized that that nobody had ever sort of rolled up or or consolidated the flatbed truck part of the trucking industry.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We started talking to not for sale, you know, trucking companies, and um a second one came on and then a third one came on, and um ultimately we had four or five of them.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I then came back to Dallas to help us get ready to go public.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: We did that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: We brought a bunch more on afterwards, and then in 2019, my entire purpose when I started this was go out of how do you go buy a company and own it and grow it?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took myself independent in 2019, uh, started beating the streets here in DFW to look for a business to purchase that was more DFW focused, wound up finding the Pelo window and door distributorship that uh became available.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I purchased that with a gentleman uh who uh was not an owner but was very much running it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: The two of us bought it together.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we that was about again another about 40 million.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: We grew that to about 90 in about four or five years, and then did a management buyout.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the that's the progression.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's let's take a step back.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you joined this flatbed trailer business.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: What was your exact service?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this was an over-the-road flatbed trucking company, and we just we hauled stuff, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: This particular logistics business.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we own the trucks.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh it was, you know, whether we own the asset or we brokered out the freight.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this particular company uh that was the original platform was all flatbed specialized freight, whether we moved it or brokered it out.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So your trucking business, I was a mat when you said that, I was imagining that you were manufacturing or selling flatbed type trucks.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um tell us a little bit, you kind of made that sound easy, that you could just find these other businesses to buy.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So many of our listeners are, you know, they might be search funders, they might be independent sponsors.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: The hardest thing in the world right now is finding great businesses to acquire.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, how do you do that?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: What was your process to actually uncovering these, you know, sort of hidden gems, finding the right businesses that would make a good fit for your business?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: The original company was found through uh a broker relationship, and I think their deal had gone sideways, and so somebody had called that particular founder and said, Hey, we've got this one.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you interested?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he was excited about the people.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the second company that came on for the trucking was also through a broker, but outside of that, we were just pounding the phones and introducing ourselves.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, this is what we're trying to accomplish.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested, let us come talk to you.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think, especially in today's environment, with the amount of deal activity going on in the market and the amount of capital chasing a few amount of deals, it's the single biggest challenge that buyers are facing right now is how the heck do you find high quality businesses?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and and what I what I hear is once it hits like a broker, the whole world knows about it, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the business is either a good business and it gets so hard to acquire because you have so much interest in it, and it might get bit up so expensive you can't afford it, or it's not that great of a business and nobody wants it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so the trick is uncovering these gems that people don't know about.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for me, it was just beating the streets.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to everything I could dream up to go be in the right lanes.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, I had met a wealth manager, which I find that sometimes the wealth managers kind of know what's really happening in the world because they've got clients that they trust and they appreciate.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, quite honestly, wealth managers love a good exit.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're always very helpful in trying to find somebody.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And usually it's a unique situation, like they can't or don't want to sell to private equity.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Look, they see the multiple, they see that, but they also know what's going to happen to their team when they do it.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you sell to private equity and it and it goes into that machine, it's okay.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But there's just some situations where they don't want that, they want it to stay independent, and that puts them in a different level.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm out there doing is seeking the folks that just want to kind of, I'll call kick it old school, let the company continue to grow and be its own self, preferably with the management team that helped that owner be successful.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about Pella.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you you you find you find this business, you have a you have a partner in it.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um walk us through, you know, the the process of actually buying that business.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then did you buy the whole thing?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Did you you know leave the original owner in place uh to help manage it?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like talk us through how that all worked.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that one was very, it was a very hands-on situation.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: The the long and the short of it is that uh that was an OEM who uh had was fifth generation private and and they did not want any private equity inside of their world, and and so good call.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh tell our audience what an OEM is.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sorry, uh the manufacturer, right?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we were an independent distributor of a window and door product.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the manufacturer who we were buying from, okay, and who we represented their brand directly, um, wanted to protect that brand and not have private equity in there.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want that in their universe.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, this particular situation, there was a gentleman who had owned the distributorship for a few years, but there was another gentleman who was actually truly running it and had been running it for a long time and was very interested in purchasing it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were able to be paired together because he knew how to run it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I knew how to buy it and scale it, and we could learn a lot from each other.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we were very blessed that that partnership worked out well.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: We were able to do that with our own capital seller note and some bank debt.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there was just the two of us, and we were able to run forward and and and grow and scale the company.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a it was a true blessing for both of our families.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so you you you said when you bought it it was around 40 million in revenue.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: What's the what was the secret to to growing it?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: How how'd you go about that?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to sell more, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I know that sounds simple, but that's what you've got to do.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to do that, you've got to build out the capacity of that business, right, from an infrastructure standpoint.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I personally believe all these businesses are about 75% the same.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the 75%, the HR, the finance, the infrastructure, all those parts and pieces, those are knowable, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the same as your partner.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people go to Vistage and are able to have good conversations and and do these things because those it's about 75% the same.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So my my focus is really working on that 75% and then just giving whatever support I can to the people that are running the 25% and then teach them 75.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's my main focus.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one is convincing people, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: That we can grow 20% every year.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can teach people that yes, we can grow 20%.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have to build out the 75% of that infrastructure to keep up with you, but we can do it.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh you know, so tell us about it.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like that sound again, you're like you're you're making it sound easy, but I want you to like walk us through like 20% organic growth is impressive.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are the things that you got to do to achieve 20% organic growth in a business that you've acquired?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that my my assumption is Pella wasn't when you you acquired that that region, probably wasn't growing at 20% a year when you acquired it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the upside was that they had started this this prior owner had and and had started investing properly and had started a run-up.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't from like nothing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was some there was some momentum.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the key.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the big one.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're you're looking for like what it is shifting that idea of well, now we've grown to here, we can afford these three things.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get these three things and then grow into there again.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then versus guys, we want to be this, let's invest to here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little scary, but if people see the resources and they have the headspace, they'll start running.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you just say, hey, I'm gonna add three head count, that's how far they'll get.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you put it out here and you and you believe in them and you give them the right resources, you'll be surprised what human beings will run towards because it's it's fun.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the other key, okay, is that a lot of the people that are in that organization, right?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily the leadership, but there's people who are they kind of like the fact that it's just not growing very fast and they can just show up and make their whatever money they make and go home.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you start inserting a growth mentality, and it it does change.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some people don't want to do that, and they'll self-select out.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to fire anybody.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's like, nope, this is the pace we're moving at.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So what I hear is set big goals, but I'm just wondering, are you putting in, are you putting in a training system?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Are you changing the way that you're tracking their success on a daily or weekly basis?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm I'm looking for for some of the secret sauce on how you actually how you go from 40 to 90 in a relatively short amount of time of millions of revenue, because that's a that's just a very impressive growth.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: These are smart people.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: These people care, the ones you have if they're in your business and they care about it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when they see that, they come up with ideas they didn't know before.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you that every time that a that uh there's somebody out there, an owner today, and their number two or number three is saying this exactly.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's been a couple of years we've been trying to say, you know, here were our ideas, but they didn't make it to the they didn't make it, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your people are chomping at the bit to do that more than you give them credit, but you have to make the investments, you got to cut the checks, you got to build the infrastructure to go do that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, but once you do and they see you're serious, they start running, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Also have some incentives like this particular company, and it was a fantastic idea, they really did legit profit sharing um in a in a relatively you know, a middle market company was doing very real profit sharing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end of each year, they would do a profit sharing calculation and they would put it into the 401k program.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the 401k program piece, there's the you know, there's the friendly culture piece, there's the giving a crap about people piece, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it's like, hey, we're doing this together and we're gonna invest.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: One other thing I I'd like to point out about this episode is that growth, you know, it sounds easy.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he talks about putting infrastructure in place, he talks about putting, you know, processes in place and a new finance architecture in place.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: But he set some pretty audacious goals.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some people today, you know, they talk about Elon Musk and these just massive goals that he puts in front of them.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea here is, you know, if you put a 100% organic growth goal in front of someone, if they hit 20%, it might sound like a failure, but it's actually outside success.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Greg talks about putting these pretty audacious goals in front of his people.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when you have trust in your people, at least he argues, they're gonna rise to the occasion.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you have really, really good people in your organization and you let them thrive and you let them grow and you surround them with others that could raise them up, there's a pretty damn good chance that they're gonna outperform and they're gonna hit those goals, even though they may be audacious.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, what what were some of the challenges of growing at that speed?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how how do you keep up with it?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: You you mentioned the question, you said I got to build the infrastructure around them.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean by that?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what infrastructure are you putting around them so that you can actually maintain that level of growth?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because the problem with selling a lot is you actually have to perform.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm curious, what is that what is keeping up with that level of demand look like for you?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that in keeping everybody excited about moving forward, that's the hard one because the fatigue of the progress will kick in.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a lot about making sure that they're entertained, they have what they needed, they feel empowered, they're getting the bonuses they need.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's part of that investment.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like for instance, we had to the HR system needed to be swapped out.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd say that is a big one, and then that winds up spreading it out, and then modernizing the the finance side of it, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we're still hanging out on QuickBooks or whatever, it's good enough, right?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it can't scale.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so HR, finance, making sure you got the right the sales tools.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But then I go back to all those things are that those investments where people are like, oh, oh, we're not gonna trip over that anymore, or we're gonna take care of that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the other one we did, it took us a few years to get to it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll be honest with you, the healthcare is garbage.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's disappointing as all get out.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: We wound up joining a healthcare captive.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that was a game changer.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because uh A, it actually helped us get our costs down.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's you have to think different, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the amount of service that our that the team got has been game-changingly different.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anything we can do to make their lives better, I mean, they're showing up on your behalf every day to sit at their desks or beat the streets or whatever they need to do.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: How are we just making it better for the team on a day-to-day basis?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then those great ideas and that great effort that helps drive the growth comes from them when they realize, oh, we've got resources, this is actually fun, a hold.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I those are the things I believe in.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the power inside of the people and unleashing that through just cleaning up old tech and just all the stuff.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big giant modernization cleanup, and but but people don't do it.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: So let's walk us um towards you know the the end of the story.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you when you start preparing this business to sell, you uh one of the things you mentioned earlier is that Pela didn't want someone like a private equity firm getting involved in this business.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that that does sort of limit what your options are in terms of exiting.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us a little bit about that journey to take it to the point where you um you actually sold the company.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the upside is I knew that going in, right?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all knew that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no, nobody was like, that was not any kind of a surprise.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we started building out.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um we started.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big believer, okay, in building a company for exit every single day.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You might be there for another 20 years.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You might be there, you may, you may go down three generations, but if you are always building towards an exit, then you've got a cleaner, smoother, better, more valuable company.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I say that because you say, well, how did you start preparing for exit?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was on day one.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Doing all the things we just talked about was about how how has this company become, and let's let's stop here for a really big word transferable.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we've talked about to date in this conversation has been about transferability.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is the systems better?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the next person that sits down goes, okay, I get what you did here.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is this process work, right?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Are the people motivated and excited?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Have we also did you'd asked me about um training or other other pieces?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: We fully embraced vistage, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my uh that my my partner went to ownership vistage, we had key person vistage, they started an emerging group.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: We put all the top three or four senior leaders uh in there, and so our vistage bill was significant, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: But people came back because they left the four walls and went, Do you know what I heard about, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what I learned out there.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And can you can you can you tell our audience about Vistage?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people probably won't know what that is.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a member of Vistage for years, and so I'm a strong believer in it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm curious to tell just tell us what it is first and then how it how it impacted your folks.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so let's put that under leadership development, right?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: As a category, like how are you developing your people, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Vistage, there's another group out there, they're a little more niche, uh, called uh YPO, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: But YPO requires X, Y, and Z.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So let's put them over there for a second.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Also a great group if you're eligible for it.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: But Vistage, um, they said they have groups and they're you run locally in your area by somebody who's called a chairman, right?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Who's just the group facilitator?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been around for many, many years.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they get groups of say owners together.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think the main focus is owners, and they've got these other pieces.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll get, I don't know, Corey, what would you say?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Dozen, you know, um a dozen owners from the area.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In a room, and then you've got a facilitator who basically sets up monthly meetings and they're all day meetings, and they'll bring in speakers, and then you share your what's going on, and then you really have you get comfortable.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're sharing financials, information, problems at home.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's some place to get out of the corner office when you're trapped in there all by yourself.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I talk about on the turn on a regular basis is this idea of having a peer group of other executives and leaders that you can learn from.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I talked to Greg Hirsch in this episode, one of the most powerful themes he talked about was this idea of letting your team around you grow and thrive.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: He uses the term transferability.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what Greg meant by that was the fact that you've got to put a team in place that can take that business to the next level.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Almost any business you talk to, if you don't have a management succession plan in place, your business is just not worth what you think it is.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I loved it when Greg talked today about the fact that, you know, you've got to put your people around others that can lift them up.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so he talked about vistage.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was in vistage for years, I was in, I'm still in YPO, and what those things are are these peer groups where you can surround yourself with others, and it might be other CEOs or other leaders that are in a similar role to you, and they're all fighting the same challenges you're fighting in your business.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also facing some of the same successes.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes those things are hard to talk about with the people in your community or in the coffee shop or in your church or wherever it is that you go, hard to talk about those challenges of success because it makes you feel like you're out of touch with their reality.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea of having a peer group of others around you that can lift you up, I think is really powerful.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And a number of our guests on the turn over the last few weeks have talked about it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so this idea of getting your team kind of educated and giving them those resources to grow, you know, lead us to how that uh, you know, played out in the you know management buyout uh over time.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh now ultimately that management buyout was between myself and my partner, right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that was a direct, uh, a direct buyout.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, though, we'd been preparing and creating some systems and processes so that that next generation can be prepared to know that, hey, this is one way to transfer the business, right?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started educating them on how businesses get transferred.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a year or two years before I left the business, right?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: We got to the point where, okay, now we're past the whole, well, this thing can't grow or all that.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: You finally break through that and then are like, well, wait a minute, how do I, how am I a part of this in the beginning?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because then what happens is you send in the visage, you you do all these things.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of reasons that also doesn't happen is people don't want to educate their best people because God they might go out to the market and leave them.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know what to say about that.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Make them a part of the future, right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, if you don't want to do that, okay.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: But that was always part of our plan every single day is to make them a part of the future because somebody could come by and say, Well, you can have X, Y, and Z.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, Yeah, but do you have this kind of control and do you have this opportunity in the future and all of that?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden they're like, Oh, well, that's just a better job, not a better opportunity, right?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and that may or may not shake out, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where here I'm the one building it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's another important concept that I think Greg talks about that is really powerful, and that's the idea of raising your team up.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some CEOs think that the way to make your business or yourself look better is actually pushing your team down.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't disagree more.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Greg would agree because what he talked about today is raising up your team.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that allows the whole team to thrive together.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: We also created something um, at first it was just myself and my partner.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was the senior leadership team, which is basically just the two of us, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: But we we officially created the senior leadership team at senior leadership team regular meetings, okay.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that took a few years for everybody to kind of be even willing to say that, right?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and feel comfortable being a senior leader, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh ultimately we brought on um, you know, you've heard of EOS.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple different ones that are out there.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't use EOS, the other one's jumping out of my head.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh then ultimately the gentleman who became president, we started backing off, and he was running the senior leadership meetings, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he became the main person.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we started backing off slow.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple of times we had to come back in, and then we had to we could back back out, but he started leading them through that EOS.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: The first three or three years, like we wouldn't have survived an EOS meeting, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: We were not organized enough.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: But once everybody got on board and we started to get some rhythm to it, and then we were very fortunate to have an amazing leader with him, and two other great two or three other great leaders right in there with them to complement, all of a sudden they became this next generation of leadership, and we could start to be a little bit more hands-off.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very gradual process.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: One is get in the business, two is where are all these challenges?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Three is start to plant the seed that we can be a 20% growth business and we can get this done.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have to reach in your pocketbook and invest.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't pull money out of the business.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't, I mean, that we didn't, and you know, we were not men of great means.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just kept doing what we've always done, which is go to work, right?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually we started growing the value of that business through these things by investing in the people and their needs, and then the leadership piece, and then the leadership development, and then ultimately getting out of their way, which some days we did a terrible job just to ask him.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, you are not out of my way, right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Towards towards the end, the last thing we did, which I would have said, Oh, it would have been great to do it earlier, but we weren't ready.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as we started to get out of their way, we needed someplace to be, right?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we then created an outside advisory board and had the quarterly meetings there so we could have these bigger picture conversations and keep the quarterly cadence.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Once you're on one of these operating system systems, you know, the leadership team is thinking 90-day sprints, which then allowed us to then tie that to the board meetings and discuss those 90-day sprints with with them with the key leaders so they could go back.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I just discussed was under the concept of can it scale and can it transfer?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you never ever leave the business, if your business can scale and it can transfer, you will just have way more fun owning that business.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: But those early four or five years of creating transferability and scalability, they're a lift because it's a whole new way of thinking.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious, like getting us to the end point when you, you know, you you talked about this man management buyout.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like for you to get your your money out of the business?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because you hadn't been taking a lot out, it sounds like you've been reinvesting in the business all the way.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how are you able to exit from the business?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um, one of the keys, yeah, I think I'd mentioned before when we started that the gentleman that I purchased it with, he was a fantastic operator, but had never had any MA experience, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or some particularly, you know, ownership experience, just some different experiences.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh four or five years later, we've got the debt paid down, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because we just focused on getting the debt paid down.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got a completely bankable buyer.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the the five five years later, like there's nothing he didn't know.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So now not only does he know everything I know, he knows how the hell out of run that business.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is he's a total badass now, right?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and he always was, but you just don't know that you have to go through four or five years of learning how to be the owner.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: But these are really smart people, and once they learn it, you're like, yeah, that's it, that's it, that's the whole thing.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then the banks trust you.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your equity built up, you're a bankable buyer.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now it can transfer.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the situation in that case.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Was now you had an the other owner became a completely bankable buyer.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I was only bankable at the beginning because they trusted his ability to run the business, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do I wasn't magic, I was just we needed both of us to get the deal done to begin with.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, he was able to get the deal done all by himself.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: And my passion is scaling them up, right?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Once we get to a certain point, I don't bring as much value.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that that ability to sort of know where your lane is um for me is also super important.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then we just did it, it's just refinanced.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's not there's no magic here.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was a refinance um with the seller note and and have and then go get them.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll go off to go find the next one and repeat that because my passion is all the things we just talked about.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is brought to you by Iconic Founders Group.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's my business, it's one I started.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: We we really just focus on the trades.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: We focus on blue-collar industry businesses that are doing over$3 million in profit.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: We help them to grow and scale, all with the end in mind, which is getting a very successful transaction.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then we also run transactions.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was a contractor just like most of you listening.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I grew my business, I scaled it, I had a really successful exit.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: And now I've taken those lessons and I apply it to Iconic Founders Group, where we support business owners just like you.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if we can support you or someone you know, call us.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can reach us at iconicfounders.com.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: So since you left, how's the business done?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've definitely a step back and move on kind of a moment, right?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean that's that's a pretty intense relationship over the years.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't get out of the way, right, then so I I'm I'm assuming they're cooking right along because they had a great infrastructure and a great team.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I know they have a great owner and a great leader.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there, no doubt, a man of amass integrity and grand ability.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: So uh for me, uh, it's really about what my business is doing now, which is out there looking for that next group of people I can partner with and do that all over again.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so you're gonna you're gonna have another chapter in this.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: That that's my goal is to be able to repeat this.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's my scalability, transferability, repeatability, is to be able to find folks that I can go do this with again.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: So since you've taken a pause uh after leaving the business, your wife of you said 25 years, you and Barbara have been married?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you guys do anything fun?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you go have any experiences?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the that's kind of the short answer is uh A, I don't think I've been on a pause because we're out there, you know, beating the streets looking for a company.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what I'll say is um, you know, I sold my business now five years ago, and it's still a work in progress.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's an it's a, you know, I sometimes call it a business plan in progress.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's an evolution and it's it is.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's one of those things that you can do all the planning in the world, but until it happens to you, you you know, you don't really know what it's gonna feel like and how it's gonna unfold.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I always tell people, you know, don't do anything in a hurry.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you want to wanna settle in before you make any big decisions because I've seen a lot of people go nuts.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Either they race into the next job or they go and invest all their money in in something because they, you know, they they feel like they've gotta to you know be doing something.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: There's always got to be activity because that's what they're used to.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it's oftentimes not the right time to do it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: You need you your your body and your mind need to settle into this new chapter.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, look, Greg, this is super helpful.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really grateful that you're able to uh take time with us.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have to save that next discussion for another episode at some point.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but really, really appreciate the time that you've you've taken with us today and um glad to hear your story.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Corey, thank you for having me on.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this was helpful to the audience.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh you're building a great community because these conversations, where do they happen?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's there's not a lot of places that this happens.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it can seem scary and brand new when it's not, but if we all can help each other, then it's awesome.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden you go, Oh, I didn't make that up.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then sometimes we're just you know, you're like, Well, I'm supposed to be this this business owner who did this thing, and like, but then you just go in and you're a novice all again, and it can be scary, and so um I just appreciate that fact that you're building a community around it.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I really appreciate that.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've had the same experiences as you.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was in Vistage and then I was in YPO, and having these people around you that you can talk to and get support from, it's it's hard to find people like that.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and many of our listeners are in far-off places or they're in small towns and they don't know how to find people that you know that they can connect with.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: I I was talking to a business owner just this morning, and he's got an amazing company, huge business, but he's in a just a small little town, and he goes, I don't have anybody I can talk to my challenges about.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's essentially got rich guy problems, but it's like, who do you talk to when you're when you have a huge business and you've got all of these people on your payroll?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: You may have huge tax bills, you may have there's all the all the challenges that come with owning businesses big and small, and having a community around you that you can kind of talk to uh makes you feel less alone in the journey.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I look forward to trying to do here.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to your first in-person conference where we can all come together, just pitching that.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's something that I I've I've talked about, I've thought about, and uh I'm I'm glad to hear you'd be interested in it because I'd love to do that.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be a lot of fun.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds awesome.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for what you're doing, Corey.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Greg, let's win.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right, appreciate you.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy the journey.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'm on it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for watching the turn.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've had such a great time building this show, but one of the things we've noticed is we have all these people that watch the episode, but they don't subscribe.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you enjoy it, please hit the like button, subscribe, and also just forward it to a friend.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you know someone that might find this episode helpful or useful to them or their lives or their business, forward it along.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'd really appreciate it.