Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / How Richard Phillips Closes More Deals by Targeting Fewer Buyers and Moving Faster Than Anyone Else

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How Richard Phillips Closes More Deals by Targeting Fewer Buyers and Moving Faster Than Anyone Else · 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
• 0:20
  idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:24
  today's guest is Richard Phillips, Senior Partner and Co
• 0:27
  Founder of Crossroads Capital, a boutique advisory firm in
• 0:31
  Arlington, VA. They guide business owners
• 0:34
  through mergers, acquisitions and growth planning in sectors
• 0:37
  like defense, cybersecurity and government contracting.
• 0:42
  Their mission is clear, give entrepreneurs straight talk and
• 0:46
  expert analysis so they can make big decisions with confidence.
• 0:50
  Since launching in 2017, Crossroads Capital has helped
• 0:54
  clients close more than 30 successful transactions and
• 0:58
  raise hundreds of millions in growth capital.
• 1:00
  Richard brings over 20 years of finance experience to the table.
• 1:04
  He once served as managing director of Oberon Securities
• 1:08
  and founded Fill Cap Advisors. Early in his career, he
• 1:12
  sharpened his research skills at the International Monetary Fund.
• 1:16
  He also holds a master's degree from John Hopkins University.
• 1:20
  Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
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  back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
• 2:17
  today, Senior partner and Co founder of Crossroads Capital,
• 2:21
  Richard Phillips. Thanks for making the time to
• 2:23
  Share your story today. Pleasure to be here.
• 2:25
  Thank you. So looking at your background,
• 2:28
  Richard, it seems like you've always been a big finance nerd
• 2:32
  in a good way. Was that interest there even as
• 2:35
  a child? When did that first appear?
• 2:39
  Not really, you know, it came relatively late when I was
• 2:43
  studying in college. I, I wanted to, you know, maybe
• 2:46
  work at the Fed Federal Reserve or even the State Department or
• 2:50
  even, you know, in the Defense Department, some capacity or
• 2:55
  intelligence community. So I, I was more of AII came
• 2:58
  relatively late to it. You know, started as a quant
• 3:02
  that you mentioned IMF and then decided that, you know, wanted
• 3:07
  to be in get a real job business.
• 3:10
  And so, you know, and I just love all the ways you're able to
• 3:14
  deploy skills in these kind of environments.
• 3:17
  You know, whether as a bank or any kind of entrepreneur, you're
• 3:20
  solving problems and connecting the dots all the time.
• 3:23
  And that, that that's exciting, that's fun, and you know you're
• 3:26
  rewarded based on the problems you solve and the impact you
• 3:29
  make. So from IMF to Royal Bank of
• 3:33
  Canada investment banking associate at Gardner Partners
• 3:38
  like kind of like connect the dots for us a little bit here.
• 3:43
  So, you know, after the IMF and then grad school, I, I wanted to
• 3:45
  get, like I said, back into the, the business world, the real
• 3:48
  world and kind of had to ease my way into it.
• 3:51
  I needed at least one, you know, old brackety kind of bank and
• 3:56
  then ease my way into what, you know, that was more asset
• 4:00
  management. And then, you know, one, I
• 4:02
  couldn't just get an investment bank a job, right.
• 4:04
  That wasn't going to happen for me.
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  Didn't have the pedigree, didn't have the background, didn't have
• 4:08
  the, you know, I just I I'd had kind of had to get into it the
• 4:12
  hard way and then so worked out a couple boutiques and then I
• 4:15
  have to tailor then started my own shop and then the the was
• 4:19
  more of a consulting shop, but then put some capital and made a
• 4:23
  a much more professional organization, I hope.
• 4:25
  But when I my form crossroads and the idea when I had a lot
• 4:29
  more experience at that point, I had a lot more context.
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  I had buy side experience and cap raising and understood
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  financial markets, capital markets, but also, you know,
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  deep understanding middle marketing and and the deals are
• 4:42
  working were a lot bigger. And the thought, you know, the
• 4:45
  idea is, well, there's more deals happening in that lower
• 4:47
  middle market that, you know, those were you can make the real
• 4:50
  impact and those who aren't getting the attention, we
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  couldn't make the economics work even at the small shop, like one
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  of the boutiques I was at before Crossroads, unless we're doing
• 4:59
  120 million in revenue and a lot of deals aren't in that.
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  There's a lot of 10 to 30 and and you could do those all day
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  and that those ones could really benefit from the professional
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  help that comes from a, from a intermediary.
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  And so I saw that kind of blue ocean and that's why I decided
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  to form a firm to go after that market and use the skills I I
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  had learned in those other folk places, but deployed bulge
• 5:24
  bracket kind of style banking, but in the lower bit of market
• 5:27
  if you. Will and is this Phil Cap
• 5:28
  advisors that we're talking about right now?
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  I kind of, I kind of morphed that into a bigger, put some
• 5:34
  capital into it, but why not to just make a just a, it was just
• 5:38
  a more sophisticated corporate infrastructure.
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  It wasn't that sophisticated. Probably that's a real heroic
• 5:43
  use of that word. Put some capital and put some
• 5:47
  infrastructure behind it to kind of build it out.
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  That was and because what I was doing with Phil Cap was more
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  just what I would do is piggyback and subcontract with
• 5:55
  other bigger banks that didn't have like we would do their
• 5:58
  sense, we would do sort of their grunt work when they they
• 6:01
  couldn't scale and they had overcapacity.
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  So like Indian River, some of the folks who formed out of
• 6:06
  Focus, which is an investment bank here and really across the
• 6:08
  country, we would work with groups like that.
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  And at a certain point we could get our own deals.
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  And that's why it was time to kind of make it a just more a
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  more mature organization at that, at that.
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  So you went from Fill Cap advisors, you kind of morphed
• 6:22
  that into Crossroads Capital as it is today.
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  And, and when you were working, you know, at some of these, you
• 6:29
  know, boutique firms and you guys even there you were saying
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  like you kind of needed a company to be what, 120 million
• 6:35
  in order for the. Economics like that was back in
• 6:37
  like 2008 or something, 2009. So, yeah, even different now.
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  So, So what, what is it that you're able to do differently at
• 6:45
  Crossroads that you can help folks that are at a much lower,
• 6:50
  you know, market cap? Well, there was a, there's a lot
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  of and then I'll give you examples so that and I'll give
• 6:55
  you a concrete example. So there was a lot of stuff that
• 6:57
  was fluff in those bigger deals and a lot of deployed manpower
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  and other efforts that were unnecessary getting the deal
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  done, but just because it was the way it was done.
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  So whether through technology, streamline processes, you know,
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  early adopters of technology of course and anything that could
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  be streamlined, automated workflow automation.
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  So other things always quick to adopt those things.
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  We want to be able to scale and work smarter, faster, better.
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  So we could actually spend our time on the and, and that's why,
• 7:26
  you know, obviously we embrace AI with with full bear hug
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  because we think these can free us up to do the more impactful
• 7:34
  things and to do the things that were the softer touch issues
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  that sometimes get overlooked for.
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  So a key to making a deal happen, but also too, I give it,
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  I want to give you an example of so that that one shop I was at,
• 7:48
  we would, you know, everybody knows well, not everybody, but
• 7:51
  The Sims. So like a book on a on a deal
• 7:53
  when you're selling a company. Well, what we would do there,
• 7:56
  and this was like I said, this wasn't in 1985.
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  This is like 2000 and nine, 2010 or you know, they would create
• 8:03
  these leather bound books, no electronic.
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  Now imagine you're a 25 year old at a PE firm.
• 8:10
  You want to build, you know, dump the numbers into your
• 8:12
  model, do an LBO analysis and you know, get your questions off
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  that. No, we wouldn't do that.
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  We'd make sure they got FedEx to them.
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  A leather bound book, gold rim paper.
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  I'm not really not exaggerating because it would take two days
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  for the glue to dry for the book to be sent out.
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  And so like they asked for and like, where's the book?
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  It's like, well, yeah, we have to wait for the clue, get back
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  from the printers, the binding nest and the glue has to has to
• 8:39
  dry and then we could ship it off.
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  And then they got this beautiful book.
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  Beautiful, but no fun. Yeah, without function or
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  useless book, right. Because it's.
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  Why was it useless? Why maybe not useful, but it was
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  useful. It was useful from the firm's
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  perspective because that made the deal look more exclusive and
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  it made the, the buyer think, oh, Oh no, I, well, I, this is a
• 9:02
  valuable company I'm going to have to pay a premium for.
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  That was the purpose. That was the rationale for doing
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  that and giving a sense of exclusivity.
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  So me, I'm thinking as a buy side person, that's that's the
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  way I kind of see the world from a, from a banker or finance
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  person, probably because I've done more buy side work, whether
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  it be corporate development work or just work for PES or bisect
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  for strategics. What all I need is the yeah,
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  again, the numbers that pop into my model, know where the
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  synergies are, know where the costs are, nowhere improvements
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  I could make and then drill down on the stuff I don't know.
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  So I get again, a dog and pony show.
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  I don't need to determine if I want to buy, make a bid on a
• 9:38
  company or not. So that was the point.
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  Create the bit of dog and pony show, create this kind of, you
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  know, this sense of exclusivity and, and, and, and an auction
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  inflated, you know, like you walk into Sotheby's and it's got
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  nice carpet and beautiful chandeliers and now you're going
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  to have to pay more. Well, I always thought that was
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  really not, I mean, you could argue that that would trade more
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  of a premium, but people didn't value like that like they did in
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  1986. They, they do in 20.
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  Well, 2026, right, Because it's and, and things have changed
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  and, and I think a lot can be the idea is to get the best fit,
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  not the best price, the best fit, because they in essence
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  will be paying the best price because it's the most
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  sustainable price and they're going to be happy with their
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  transaction. You're going to get your earn
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  outs, you're going to get those things are deferred and
• 10:27
  contingent. Those are going to come more
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  likely to come into and, and, and just people are going to be
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  happy with the merger. And if it, if it makes strategic
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  sense, I shouldn't say this. No, you know, cultural,
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  strategic financial that order any deal anytime, any market,
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  any industry, any country or any epoch of time, those are the
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  three, you know, gaining things you got to solve on a deal and
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  if the first two fit the financial part is a math problem
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  to solve, so I would have better.
• 11:01
  Yeah. Sorry for stepping in there.
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  Richard, I want to better understand what separates you
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  from some of the competitors. And I think what I'm hearing you
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  say is, hey, I don't have that fancy overhead, right?
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  So that cuts down prices. I, you know, have figured out
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  there's a whole bunch of, you know, fluff that a lot of other
• 11:19
  folks have been including. We don't need that, right?
• 11:22
  We don't need all these extra people and all these, you know,
• 11:25
  gold plated pages. And you've given technology and
• 11:29
  AAI this giant bear hug so that it's able to make you a lot more
• 11:35
  efficient in your process, Yes. Am I missing anything?
• 11:39
  Yeah, I mean, like I said, there's a lot of you you could
• 11:41
  do with less, you know, maybe with less folks, you, you, but
• 11:45
  you, but the folks you have, you got to make them, you have to
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  empower them and you got to allow them to be able to make
• 11:51
  decisions and put them in a position to do so.
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  And with the background and the training that they're confident
• 11:55
  when they do right. It's So I, I find with a lot of
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  kids that they have, they have far better resumes than I have
• 12:02
  when I see the resumes coming out from schools and, and but
• 12:05
  what they don't have is like they don't have, they don't,
• 12:08
  they've been almost trained. And I think it's part of the
• 12:10
  schooling not to take initiative, never to take a
• 12:12
  risk, paint by numbers, everything and not think on
• 12:16
  their feet at all. But so I try to get them out of
• 12:20
  that a great deal. But yeah, I think those are,
• 12:23
  there's always smarter you could do.
• 12:25
  I'm trying to do deals cheaper and get to the the decision
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  sooner and the and get to know as fast as you can because you
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  waste too time, too much time on the maybes for everybody
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  involved ideas. I want to disqualify that PE
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  buyer as soon as I can for they're good and for mine and
• 12:40
  for the clients good because like they're just kicking tires.
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  And I used to be that the PE shops would get compensated like
• 12:46
  the BB guy. My NDA's, they signed a year.
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  They've changed that because they know people gained that a
• 12:51
  bit. So the idea is like, look, I
• 12:54
  understand what this company is and what it isn't.
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  It's not a fit. I sometimes I'll spend time, you
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  know, sort of ratcheting down that there's a thinking that you
• 13:02
  go to, there's firms that do it. The broadest auction is the best
• 13:05
  auction, the best price you get for your company.
• 13:07
  I'm not of that opinion. I think the more targeted and I
• 13:11
  think buyers like this too, frankly.
• 13:12
  And I have a colleague who only call it a sniper process.
• 13:15
  He's a strategic guy, yes, but as well as not necessarily yes,
• 13:21
  buyer with strategic interest in the and that could be APE with a
• 13:25
  portfolio company or it could be that, you know, they just
• 13:28
  understand that market, they're in that industry.
• 13:31
  So I I think it's they're not buying for cash flow, they're
• 13:35
  buying for customer. You know, there's some strategic
• 13:38
  purpose other than a cash flow. And then the neat thing about a
• 13:41
  lot of the industry that I follow, companies don't buy and
• 13:44
  sell on cash flow. Cash flows are important.
• 13:46
  But I could show you a 34 million, $5,000,000.
• 13:49
  Well, let's give you some back. I'll show you a $5,000,000
• 13:52
  EBITDA government contractor that is unsalable and I can show
• 13:56
  you a $2,000,000 EBITDA government contract.
• 13:59
  They get a bit from Raytheon and it's really comes down to
• 14:02
  capability. Capability just like location,
• 14:05
  location, location and and maybe customer access as a third
• 14:08
  there. But capability is what drives
• 14:11
  strategic interest and differentiate capability to put
• 14:14
  a more fine point on it and being able to describe that and
• 14:19
  being able to present it that people could make have use for
• 14:22
  it is really the the where where the the value out of a banker
• 14:25
  comes in. Why do they like it?
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  Because like I said, I think like a buyer.
• 14:29
  So like, what would I do with this and why is it valuable?
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  I'm not looking for scale or cash flow.
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  And those are nice to have because it proves it works and
• 14:37
  it proves I can finance it. However, like, am I really just
• 14:41
  add adding scale without any strategic benefit?
• 14:43
  Well, that's going to Peter out and that doesn't, you know,
• 14:46
  there's a diminishing marginal return to that.
• 14:49
  So a big part of what you're doing is you've got to like
• 14:52
  truly understand the nature of your client's business, right?
• 14:56
  It's not just understanding the financials, it's what are you
• 14:59
  guys manufacturing or what's the service that you provide.
• 15:02
  So then you can think strategically about, OK, who
• 15:06
  could get benefit from this beyond just a cash flow point of
• 15:10
  view? Exactly, Yeah.
• 15:12
  And and you know, that's a lot of and this is where AI could
• 15:15
  make that, you know, streamline that and find, look around
• 15:18
  corners where you might have had blind spots, find targets
• 15:23
  faster, smarter, better. The idea is to get the right
• 15:25
  targets and really understand what their strategic rationale
• 15:28
  is, is. And ideally in an ideal world,
• 15:32
  customize that marketing approach to that buyer with that
• 15:35
  purpose. And you could do that a little
• 15:37
  bit. It's hard to do like with a huge
• 15:39
  buyer pool, but that that's again speaks to the reason, the
• 15:43
  rationale. The smaller, more targeted buyer
• 15:46
  or targeted process is much more effective because everybody's
• 15:49
  done their homework and everybody's already kind of been
• 15:52
  been briefed into the what the company does and why they like
• 15:56
  it. It may often where I find deals
• 15:58
  don't work where I'm educating the buyer what the company is.
• 16:01
  If I'm doing that, they're not going to, it's not the right fit
• 16:04
  for them. You know, if I was advising them
• 16:06
  on the buy side and say hey, maybe this isn't for you, this
• 16:09
  is there's too much risk here and there's a lot lower hanging
• 16:13
  fruit you should go after before this target, especially if it's
• 16:17
  your first acquisition. So at what point do you get
• 16:19
  involved in the process? You mean with their company in
• 16:25
  like when they're getting ready? I mean, the sooner the better is
• 16:27
  the short answer to that. Because like I said, there's all
• 16:30
  this work that has to be done and the time kills on a deal.
• 16:34
  But the clock isn't really doesn't start to tick till
• 16:36
  you're really in the market, say, hey, our deals, our
• 16:38
  company's for sale or you've contacted, you know, buyer
• 16:42
  target buyers, investors, that kind of thing.
• 16:46
  So the sooner the better because there's a lot of things well,
• 16:48
  like you, you just described with what you guys do, you know,
• 16:52
  cost reduction, employee retention, where are the holes
• 16:57
  in this business? What you know, pre mortem it if
• 16:59
  I like to call it, I actually steal that from a why is why is
• 17:03
  this deal not going to happen? Where is the the Achilles heel
• 17:06
  customer concentration? What can we mitigate?
• 17:08
  OK, what can we put a boat around?
• 17:09
  What can we have explanations that mitigate why it's not a big
• 17:12
  of a problem? How does it compare to peers?
• 17:14
  So all that, that takes a lot of time and effort and, and, but
• 17:19
  the more you do with that and that takes and the sooner, the
• 17:22
  sooner you start, the the better story you could tell.
• 17:24
  And so you think about who are our buyers?
• 17:27
  Do we have, you know, build a, you know, a living data room to
• 17:31
  some extent, I would say build a living SIM, a confidential
• 17:34
  information memorandum that kind of tells your story and you
• 17:37
  know, and it'll change over time.
• 17:39
  But now you have give that to key employees as they join the
• 17:42
  firm and now they know your your story and what your value prop
• 17:46
  is. And you know, you're all the
• 17:48
  more prepared because it trying to do in the 11th hour.
• 17:51
  You're going to get like anything else, you're going to
• 17:52
  get a sub op loans. So a client hires you today, How
• 17:57
  long before typically you're taking them to market?
• 18:02
  It depends on how prepared they are and what that market is.
• 18:05
  But I mean, we put our heads down.
• 18:07
  We can go to market depending on how complicated big business is
• 18:12
  within, you know, I'd like to get it done and there's a
• 18:15
  certain seasonality to it too, but I mean within 60 days.
• 18:18
  Oh, OK. That's pretty quick.
• 18:21
  Yeah. That said, I'd rather not.
• 18:23
  I'd rather do it the way we just sometimes we don't have that
• 18:25
  luxury. Like I'd rather be working with
• 18:27
  them for 18 months beforehand trying to fix things, trying to
• 18:30
  determine, Hey, do we fix the kitchen or we leave it as is?
• 18:33
  Because according to our research, the buyers see that
• 18:38
  your house is a knock down, not as a, you know, you know, so
• 18:42
  like we don't, that's the ROI in that is not possible, you know,
• 18:47
  and sort of start to have conversations with those big
• 18:50
  strategic buyers and maybe on a no names basis or in a very
• 18:54
  informal ways, like, Hey, just get on their radar because
• 18:58
  companies will do business with and buy the companies they kind
• 19:01
  of already are kind of familiar with.
• 19:03
  It's very, you know, I, there's a school thought that most deals
• 19:06
  happen with companies have never met.
• 19:08
  I I don't know how true that is, especially now when there's so
• 19:12
  much publicly available info and, and ways.
• 19:15
  And I, I think the market and Wall Street, you know, they like
• 19:19
  pure plays and those companies that buy you will understand
• 19:23
  that pureplay and they know who you are because they, they're,
• 19:25
  there's, they're, they're looking for you and just get on
• 19:29
  getting on the radar of the right buyer to knowing who they
• 19:31
  are, whether that in the government contracting.
• 19:33
  Well, that could mean getting that teaming arrangements or
• 19:36
  just again, being part of that conversation.
• 19:40
  So when they do does come time for them to make an acquisition,
• 19:43
  they're familiar with the company.
• 19:45
  You don't have to introduce they're not a stranger and
• 19:47
  you're not a stranger to them. And that really that little,
• 19:51
  that little part helps so much in just that, that initial trust
• 19:54
  factor, which is the hardest, that first little speed bump is
• 19:57
  the hardest 1 to get over, even though it's not the biggest.
• 20:00
  And so a lot of times before the company's ready, you're just
• 20:02
  going out and having conversations anonymously.
• 20:04
  I mean, they know who you are. They don't know who your client
• 20:06
  is. Exactly.
• 20:08
  It's like, would you like a company that has we?
• 20:09
  We think there's value here. We're testing our thesis I'll
• 20:12
  talk to why I call my families peas that are somewhat you know
• 20:16
  I I can have a conversation with that will return my calls but no
• 20:21
  peas. One thing about peas they do
• 20:22
  they're actually very. It's hard to talk to investors
• 20:25
  like venture groups from an investment banker perspective,
• 20:29
  but it's very easy to talk to peas.
• 20:30
  They're waiting for your call. In fact, they they usually.
• 20:32
  Why? Why that difference?
• 20:33
  Why that difference? That's a good question.
• 20:35
  I, I would say it's, it's the dynamics of deal flow and PES
• 20:39
  have too much capital and too few quality deals invested or
• 20:42
  they're making control investments.
• 20:44
  VCs are inundated with technology plays.
• 20:48
  They don't need any more slide decks to look at and they got,
• 20:53
  you know, they're making investments where they're not
• 20:55
  making $50 investments. They're making two million, $10
• 20:58
  million investments and they're making follow on investments on
• 21:01
  top of that and usually in club deals with other firms that so
• 21:05
  they're not starved for deal flow for them.
• 21:08
  They where they, I guess, have troubles vetting the target and
• 21:13
  they, they have, you know, and understand the technology's
• 21:16
  differentiated and a banker isn't going to be able to have
• 21:19
  people. And I would argue that's not
• 21:21
  necessarily the case. But they don't think I'm they
• 21:24
  think a banker's in the way, whereas the PE shop sees a
• 21:26
  banker as a conduit. Got it.
• 21:30
  And you combine what you do traditional transaction
• 21:34
  execution with innovative technology transfer
• 21:38
  partnerships. Can you explain first of all
• 21:40
  what is meant by a technology transfer?
• 21:42
  Yeah. Well, that's a good question.
• 21:44
  I mean, we have done that. I'm, I'm, you know, it's not
• 21:47
  something we do a lot of, but I think it's fascinating because
• 21:50
  again, this is where the, we, we see these technologies,
• 21:53
  especially what they call the Sieber world in the Guncon
• 21:57
  defense world, companies have really cool technologies.
• 21:59
  It's not a company though, but it could be commercialized.
• 22:02
  It's like phase two SBI and Sibber where we let's find
• 22:06
  somebody could find it valuable who can commercialize it or can
• 22:09
  take it to phase three and bring out to the broader marketplace.
• 22:12
  And so we have done that with, you know, they've so those
• 22:16
  companies really what you're, you're, you're licensed, you're
• 22:17
  monetizing IP and we don't do a ton of that like we used to, but
• 22:22
  it's, it's a really, it's hard to do in all honesty.
• 22:25
  But like that is those companies say, oh, do I raise capital?
• 22:29
  It's like, no, you have no idea how to run a company.
• 22:31
  You, I don't want to raise, you know, if I gave you all the
• 22:33
  money in the world, you aren't the right people or And then
• 22:37
  they would tell me that. Before they come up with great
• 22:39
  technology, they've got a patent on something.
• 22:42
  Like why would I borrow money or why would I put capital in for
• 22:45
  you to build an infrastructure, But really what you have is sell
• 22:48
  it or license it to Raytheon or to Amazon or to somebody.
• 22:53
  It plugs in. It's a small piece and it by
• 22:56
  itself it's meaningless, but plugged into a power system or
• 22:59
  some other integrated, you know, system that may not be obvious.
• 23:03
  And that's where we let that research those that research
• 23:07
  muscle is helpful because that's not a traditional sale.
• 23:10
  That's like really understanding the IP, what makes it special
• 23:13
  and who could use it. And that really becomes it's
• 23:16
  very popular. We don't do it necessarily, but
• 23:18
  you see it a lot in life sciences.
• 23:19
  You can see it a lot in medical devices.
• 23:22
  We're building a whole company infrastructures is not is not
• 23:26
  wise. It's unnecessary piggyback on to
• 23:28
  what somebody else has built distribution, network,
• 23:31
  production, all this a, sales like you'd have a great
• 23:35
  technology, monetize it this way.
• 23:37
  It's a much more than building a whole company around it because
• 23:40
  A, you're not the right people and B, that takes a lot of time
• 23:43
  and effort. And what we're trying to do is
• 23:44
  shorten that time to market de risk a transaction for everybody
• 23:48
  involved. And yeah, sure, it would be an
• 23:51
  ideal world. You'd build this huge company
• 23:52
  with it and you'd make more money in the long.
• 23:54
  But like that's that's there's a.
• 23:56
  Ton of risk involved there. Ton of there's a ton of risk
• 23:58
  time and you could fall off a Cliff 1000 different ways, 1000
• 24:02
  different times. This de risks for everybody
• 24:05
  involved. So who's the ideal client for
• 24:08
  you? What's your sweet spot?
• 24:10
  Industry size? What other criteria?
• 24:13
  Well, you know, the neat thing anyway, there's really the size
• 24:16
  doesn't preclude us from working on things.
• 24:19
  It's just the other bigger guys go after those things.
• 24:21
  So I, you know, I think, but again, I don't think you should
• 24:25
  be doing, you should not be trying to sell your company.
• 24:27
  If you're under 2 million, give it up because that hot pot buyer
• 24:30
  pool completely collapses. You're dealing with less
• 24:33
  sophisticated buyers. You really don't know how to
• 24:35
  diligence and they, they grade accordingly.
• 24:38
  And so like, like when they can't diligence, they basically
• 24:40
  that the punt position is to say, well, if I can't figure it
• 24:44
  out, that's why I pay 4 times instead of five, because that's
• 24:48
  how they make up for that uncertainty, right?
• 24:50
  They just by paying a lower multiple.
• 24:54
  But I would say the most of the deals we look at are in that
• 24:59
  enterprise value column 12 to 25 and probably even tighten that
• 25:05
  up a little bit more. The buy side's a little broader
• 25:08
  because it's like we're sometimes doing Aqua hires,
• 25:10
  we're doing merger of equals. Sometimes you work on both sides
• 25:13
  of the transaction. Oh yeah.
• 25:15
  Not not in a single transaction, mind you, like I'm not in a
• 25:18
  single deal. I'm not represent buy side.
• 25:20
  But you've got some clients that are like, hey, I'm looking for
• 25:22
  something and you know. Yeah, we probably like I said,
• 25:25
  we probably do more buy side work than sell side, not
• 25:28
  necessarily by design, but you dance with who brought you.
• 25:30
  And I like to think we have pretty good muscle memory in the
• 25:33
  buy side world and because a lot of my guys were trained in that
• 25:36
  world as well. So that that's helpful and I
• 25:40
  kind of like it because those clients, the problem with sell
• 25:43
  side, you do a deal and everybody forgets who you are
• 25:45
  because like the client goes away, they're absorbed by
• 25:48
  another company. The buyer doesn't want to talk
• 25:51
  to you at all because he probably ate.
• 25:53
  There's a little animosity leftover.
• 25:55
  So they and they weren't you're, you're like the lawyer on the
• 25:58
  other side of the the argument basically.
• 26:01
  So where's that animosity come from?
• 26:04
  Because they didn't get everything that they wanted.
• 26:07
  No, I, I shouldn't say animosity.
• 26:09
  It's like, what's the word it's? Everybody's stressed out from
• 26:12
  the experience. Yeah, I mean, there's a little
• 26:14
  deal fatigue and like, you know, like it's if they like you, if
• 26:19
  they probably think you were a pushover.
• 26:21
  So you know what I mean? There's a happy there's there
• 26:24
  should be a what's the word that there should be some friendly
• 26:29
  animosity. That's such a concept there.
• 26:33
  So there. I mean that relationship.
• 26:34
  It's not like they hate they won't talk to you again, but
• 26:36
  like, you know, they you know, their your known quantity for
• 26:42
  any but there's nothing you could do.
• 26:43
  They're not going to sell their PE or you know what I mean?
• 26:45
  They just bought a maybe they want are going to do some
• 26:48
  acquisition work and but I've never had it.
• 26:51
  Well, that's not true. That's happened once now that I
• 26:53
  think about it, but it's sell side work.
• 26:56
  You do when you go away, buy side, you're plugged in yourself
• 26:59
  and all these other problems like it's a longer term
• 27:01
  engagement and they don't have to buy something, right.
• 27:04
  So you're really part of the team.
• 27:06
  You're bought into the the thinking you're figuring out
• 27:09
  other corporate development issues, But maybe there's
• 27:12
  workflow automations that can be deployed here.
• 27:14
  Maybe there's just a recapitalization.
• 27:16
  Maybe this company needs some, some, you know, capital to for
• 27:20
  growth and for other things, or maybe we need to help build some
• 27:24
  Aqua hires or some, some capabilities to bring to the
• 27:27
  shop. Maybe we need to put them into
• 27:28
  like what I'm what I've gotten good at is doc boosting
• 27:31
  problems, but one thing I am not good at or able to do is solve
• 27:35
  them myself. So what we've spent a lot of
• 27:37
  time I've spent a lot of my career just figuring out to
• 27:40
  connect those dots. There's an expert out there and
• 27:43
  putting folks into with whether it be like a group like D8 that
• 27:46
  does great work on business development for government
• 27:48
  contractors or folks who do tech audits and really rationalize
• 27:54
  the tech stack, which is a really growing part of a
• 27:56
  company's expense and stuff they need and stuff they don't.
• 28:00
  Let's rationalize what we're, we're what we're spending on
• 28:02
  with AI tools, networking tools, telecom, what have you,
• 28:06
  software, there's a lot of things that are redundant,
• 28:08
  underused and overpriced and they get grandfathered in and
• 28:12
  people forget. Just like your subscriptions,
• 28:14
  I'm sure you may have, you probably have 3 or 4 you forgot
• 28:17
  about and you're paying every month.
• 28:18
  And if you thought of like, oh, maybe I don't need that anymore.
• 28:21
  I mean that that's something that I think we've all
• 28:23
  experienced that at various times and levels.
• 28:25
  And so there are a number of ways to focus on cost cutting,
• 28:29
  making the organization more efficient and, you know,
• 28:32
  building that frost of building that rapport with the client.
• 28:35
  You're going to be their house banker when it does come hard to
• 28:37
  sell, they're going to hope, you know, you know where the you
• 28:40
  know them as well as they know themselves, which is a big part
• 28:42
  of being successful on this. You want to know where the
• 28:44
  bodies are buried to be able to be proactive, the diligence, and
• 28:49
  know where the right fit is and who the right fit isn't, you
• 28:51
  know, And I think that's a big getting to know quickly, getting
• 28:54
  back to that concept is a big part of being effective at this.
• 28:58
  What are some of your favorite cost cutting moves for your
• 29:01
  clients come in you do for a a big percentage of them?
• 29:05
  That usually yeah, no, mind you, we don't we again diagnose
• 29:09
  handed off the folks who know how to handle that.
• 29:11
  So there's a like, you know, come in that that's been great
• 29:14
  with workflow automations in Kansas City.
• 29:16
  We've worked with that that will do sort of low code solutions
• 29:21
  and it works really well. They really work well with like
• 29:24
  HVAC companies that do everything on the back of like a
• 29:26
  piece of paper or a sheet that came from a technician from the
• 29:29
  field. And how do you digitize that are
• 29:33
  things that are really heavy on the manual side.
• 29:36
  So we're so yeah, workflow automations had some good
• 29:42
  success deploying that, especially the companies that
• 29:44
  are less tech savvy because there's the most, they're the
• 29:46
  most you could do, like there's the most delta there, right
• 29:48
  where you can fix. I think the tech stack is
• 29:51
  becoming a bigger, bigger thing and being rationalizing what
• 29:55
  you're spending on and where more tech spend is not better
• 29:58
  tech spend necessarily. And how many cybersecurity
• 30:01
  solutions do you need? And are you even better, you
• 30:04
  know, you know, what is your, what really is your risk
• 30:09
  exposure? Are you dealing with the core
• 30:10
  issues in the organization HR kind of solutions?
• 30:14
  Do you have the right team or do you have the right people in the
• 30:17
  right team? We've seen this on integration
• 30:20
  issues where company buys a company, really we work with a
• 30:24
  company that does what I would call these human systems maps
• 30:27
  that when you buy something, you plug it in, you've already
• 30:30
  disrupted the organization. Now how do you put that map back
• 30:34
  together so you don't knock down the Jenga sort of formation.
• 30:40
  And so you know what, we finding the right strategic partners we
• 30:44
  could plug and play. We just, again, we identify the
• 30:46
  issue or the problem. No, we can't solve it and we can
• 30:50
  try all day. It's a waste of everybody's
• 30:52
  time. But knowing the right, you know,
• 30:54
  again, connect the dots is like, talk to these guys, see what
• 30:56
  they could do for you. And then we're objective about
• 30:58
  it because we're kind of evaluating these service
• 31:00
  providers up for the client. And I was like, OK, this these
• 31:04
  guys, we've seen them, this has been effective before.
• 31:07
  And so I, I think on the tech side, I think you got that.
• 31:10
  There's you mentioned, you know, some of healthcare costs are out
• 31:14
  of control and I think what you guys do is a big part of that.
• 31:17
  You know, can you take, you know, especially companies are
• 31:20
  self insured and what you're seeing is premiums explode and
• 31:23
  they're going to really, really high deductible plans.
• 31:25
  So what can you basically divert away from the major medical onto
• 31:30
  systems that make it a little bit more affordable?
• 31:32
  Maybe it takes the, the urgent care thing off that system.
• 31:36
  So next, when you re up, the premiums aren't going to have a
• 31:39
  30% increase because the loss ratios are lower, that kind of
• 31:43
  thing. So I mean, you're expert in that
• 31:45
  area. I mean, I, I don't know a ton
• 31:46
  about those, but those are I. Again, I know those are pain
• 31:51
  points because I hear them every day and I can point folks in
• 31:54
  direction. Do I sell them myself?
• 31:56
  No, absolutely not. I'm not an accountant by tranny.
• 31:58
  I know I could speak accounting. Yeah, you spot the problems,
• 32:01
  you've got the service providers that you trust that hey, yeah,
• 32:05
  you're somebody and it helps. Expanding that and sort of
• 32:07
  evaluating that and that, you know is, is helpful because
• 32:10
  these companies aren't always doing M&A.
• 32:12
  They're always in business. So their lights are always going
• 32:15
  on and the elevators going up and down all day.
• 32:17
  And So what can we help? And that's how we gain trust and
• 32:20
  build credibility. We solve problems so and then
• 32:24
  that you know, what we're playing for is the M and a
• 32:26
  transaction, but we we're not we're not going to win too many
• 32:29
  pitch. You know what they call big
• 32:31
  sales in our business against like Kips to Santo or the big
• 32:34
  and they're fantastic banks. So we shouldn't be able to be
• 32:36
  Kips. They're fantastic.
• 32:37
  They do. Nobody does what they do better.
• 32:39
  Maybe them and Raymond James and Baird in our industry, but in
• 32:42
  defense tech and Gov tech. But at the same time, we know
• 32:46
  the companies would be kind of embedded that that familiarity
• 32:51
  is going to win US deals and maybe we don't win as many
• 32:54
  because we're not going after as many.
• 32:56
  But that said, we we that you know what you're taking to
• 32:59
  market is a big part success in. This Yeah.
• 33:02
  You were talking before about deal fatigue.
• 33:05
  It's getting closer to the end, you know, like people are just
• 33:07
  tired. What are some interesting
• 33:11
  stories that you've witnessed as people are getting closer to
• 33:15
  that close date? What happens to people?
• 33:20
  Well, tends to be more drinking they, you know, people let their
• 33:26
  hair down and in ways that aren't really you want to see
• 33:29
  people as human, but sometimes it may be better if you didn't.
• 33:34
  It's because there's a certain level of familiarity and people
• 33:37
  start to get comfortable and maybe a little too comfortable.
• 33:42
  That said, I think there's places and deals where you could
• 33:45
  re energize a process management presentations when done right.
• 33:50
  So, you know, you had your SIM that that book I described and
• 33:52
  then you do a management presentation when you're talking
• 33:54
  to the company, The ones that are not successful or the ones
• 33:56
  that aren't really value add are just a rehashing of the of the
• 34:01
  SIM. And there's like a little level
• 34:02
  of detail where it might say instead of customer AB and C,
• 34:05
  you actually name the customers. OK, that has some value, but
• 34:09
  it's limited. It's not worth a trip across to,
• 34:11
  you know, across the country. You go 74 hours of a meeting for
• 34:16
  that. But people are talking about
• 34:17
  what are the three opportunities we're going after together day
• 34:20
  after acquisition. That energizes a room that gets
• 34:24
  everybody roll in the same direction, that creates a
• 34:26
  mission, that ethos, whatever you want to call it.
• 34:28
  And everybody starts to get excited and the people are
• 34:30
  getting bought, say, hey, I'm going to have a role in this
• 34:32
  company. I'm going to have a say.
• 34:34
  And it gets it gets buy in it. It's a like these little things.
• 34:38
  You can just see it in a room and you know, and it's but
• 34:44
  people get exhausted and that deal fatigue is with the same
• 34:47
  question 50 different times and you correct for it also.
• 34:50
  But you don't you don't burden the client with paper cuts or
• 34:53
  you don't burn the target with paper cuts.
• 34:54
  Like give me this give me this batch it to an extent possible.
• 34:59
  Ask for something once and then do your homework to figure out.
• 35:02
  Don't bother your client with endless diligence because that
• 35:06
  will wear them out and that will demoralize and they're going to
• 35:10
  deals lose value by the by being in the market because the the
• 35:13
  companies management, the company itself is distracted and
• 35:17
  they're thinking about being in Tahiti.
• 35:18
  At least the owner is in three months.
• 35:20
  So how do you keep everybody wrote, you know, on board is
• 35:24
  time kills. And so that part of it you want
• 35:27
  to be responsive on villages, you want to make it quick, as
• 35:29
  painless as possible and get to questions quickly and being as
• 35:32
  responsive as possible. And part of the big part of that
• 35:35
  is the preparation beforehand. Any eccentric personality
• 35:40
  stories that you want to share as you get closer to that close
• 35:43
  date? Well, you know, so your average
• 35:48
  business owner is a headstrong individual, especially a
• 35:51
  founder. Now they will lose about 30 to
• 35:54
  40 IQ points the closer you get to a deal before a close.
• 35:57
  I mean these are intelligent, rational people that you would
• 36:00
  never expect to be illogical. But I remember 1 situation where
• 36:06
  was somebody had the bright idea of doing it of a closing dinner
• 36:10
  before the close. So that's like the Gatorade
• 36:13
  before the game's over. Yeah, Jinx in it.
• 36:15
  And sure enough, it's like, you know, there was already bad, you
• 36:19
  know there was in the back of people.
• 36:20
  It's subconsciously people had issues and a court, a couple of
• 36:23
  scotches and somebody of importance said something to
• 36:29
  somebody else of importance that put the deal on hold for a
• 36:33
  month. So, you know, there's a certain
• 36:37
  you don't want to spike the ball.
• 36:38
  Yeah. And I think that's what it was.
• 36:39
  It was a little bit of spiking the ball by the buyer because
• 36:42
  they thought they had won. And like, basically, yeah, we
• 36:45
  own you now kind of mentality. And so you got to just manage
• 36:48
  like being that buffer, the end of the day, all the monies,
• 36:53
  dollars and cents and all the really smart people, it's still
• 36:55
  human beings that are flawed that have whatever they bring to
• 36:59
  the table. And you kind of have to, you
• 37:03
  know, you're that buffer and you that's why what we do, we're an
• 37:07
  intermediary. And you got to be coach, you got
• 37:10
  to be therapist, you got to be priest diplomat and ease things
• 37:15
  over and not and be that like that lightning rod and be that
• 37:18
  absorber of all those shocks throughout because you're going
• 37:21
  to hear a lot of you got to let it roll off you.
• 37:23
  I know people that you need a thick skin because they're going
• 37:26
  to curse at you. They're going to throw stuff.
• 37:30
  You know, there's, there's bad behavior because these a lot of
• 37:33
  these folks that they're. Kind of bad behavior.
• 37:36
  I shouldn't say bad behavior. There's bad manners.
• 37:38
  There's people who act like very, you know, you would never
• 37:42
  leaders in their church or what have you.
• 37:44
  You know what I mean? Like they, they, these are good
• 37:47
  people that could be 5% of the time.
• 37:49
  And like you, they were, they're nice neighbors and you would
• 37:52
  love to have them as a neighbor, but boy, you put the stress, you
• 37:54
  put the time, they're overtired and now they have an existential
• 37:57
  crisis because what the heck am I going to do again after I'm, I
• 38:02
  sell this company, I, I can't G50 hours a week.
• 38:04
  They're like going to lose their identity.
• 38:06
  And then they start to act up, if you will, And it's like in
• 38:09
  little ways. And sometimes they're more, you
• 38:12
  know, and it's I I've seen. Do you think they're?
• 38:14
  Subconsciously trying to sabotage the deal.
• 38:18
  A little. Just like, you know, a little,
• 38:21
  not in a way that almost in a passive aggressive way.
• 38:24
  And your role is to make sure that doesn't become an
• 38:26
  aggressive way and you kind of keep it under, you know, you
• 38:29
  just, you tamp that down a bit, but there's always a little bit
• 38:32
  of that and they'll nitpick. And then it's just once again,
• 38:35
  human nature is so fascinating because it's so predictable and
• 38:38
  it's so, you know, no matter what you're dealing with, like I
• 38:41
  said, really intelligent people you would love to have as
• 38:43
  neighbors start to act like Barbara or irrational just like
• 38:48
  folks. And it's just because they, you
• 38:50
  had stress, you had time, you had overtired and now you also
• 38:55
  they don't know what they're going to do with their life.
• 38:57
  And nobody really thought that through with them beforehand.
• 39:01
  And so now you know that that that again, you're going to be a
• 39:05
  therapist more than you're going to be a financial analyst.
• 39:08
  What do you see folks do in that situation?
• 39:10
  I've been through a few exits, not, you know, at the end of my
• 39:13
  career, but taken some gaps in between.
• 39:15
  And I think existential crisis is a good word for it, sort of
• 39:19
  like all the identities wrapped up in this company that you
• 39:23
  built. And so how are you seeing folks
• 39:25
  deal with that? I, I, you know what?
• 39:28
  They, they, the, the getting them early to check now let's
• 39:33
  say check out. But this is another problem.
• 39:35
  You could see it in a, in a company or an ownership or a
• 39:39
  culture. The owner's got everything in
• 39:40
  his head. It does not, you know, he's
• 39:44
  carrying like he know he the, the business development because
• 39:46
  he knows guys, he calls with them on Tuesday or Wednesday or
• 39:50
  whatever and that none of that's institutionalized.
• 39:53
  And so the more of that's like cooked in, it's not sort of
• 39:56
  built into the company and, and, and institutionalized, like I
• 39:59
  said, the more that becomes a problem when that guy leaves.
• 40:03
  But the idea is I have that conversation early.
• 40:05
  It's like you need to the most important part of preparation.
• 40:08
  Yes, have the data room and the SIM and have your financials in
• 40:11
  order and knowing where your holes are, what your customer
• 40:14
  concentration is being data ready, but being institutionally
• 40:19
  prepared for that change. And these guys have trouble
• 40:22
  letting go. So the early you can have that
• 40:24
  conversation and have the what they're going to do after this.
• 40:28
  I think it's a big part of that, like what do you like to do?
• 40:30
  And this is where you're kind of playing coach, therapist, you
• 40:34
  know, you kids, you know, you're in charities or you're, you
• 40:37
  know, you want to go back to teach, you want to travel, OK,
• 40:40
  like this will make that possible.
• 40:41
  And this also speaks to what you need.
• 40:43
  And so often I, I, you know, I have business owners, they, they
• 40:48
  think their company's worth what they need, you know, just retire
• 40:52
  on. It's like that's not how it
• 40:53
  works at all. But you know, you don't say
• 40:56
  exactly like that, but that is this is what it's worth and this
• 40:59
  is what you could do with it. Get them talking.
• 41:01
  This is why I think the most important ally you have as a
• 41:05
  banker is the wealth manager, not the attorney.
• 41:07
  Attorney is helpful, obviously, but the wealth manager is going
• 41:11
  to tell them what they actually need, how they could do it tax
• 41:15
  efficient. And you're going to look like
• 41:16
  the heroes banker because again, they're going to judge you by
• 41:18
  the take home pay. So the less taxes and cap gains
• 41:22
  and all the other stuff they're exposed to in the structure of
• 41:25
  the deal, the the wealth manager guy is going to help with that.
• 41:28
  And so getting them and then that what manager guy, that's
• 41:31
  what they do well, they can help them plan for their future, tell
• 41:33
  them what they're going to do, create generational wealth and
• 41:36
  that's going to get them excited about that next stage.
• 41:38
  But the idea is again, to bring in those parties.
• 41:41
  Maybe coming from you isn't the best person, but that wealth
• 41:43
  advisor, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, the RIAA or
• 41:48
  the, the Merrill Lynch guy, they, they, they, you know, and,
• 41:51
  and often a lot of these guys, the liquidity is all tied up in
• 41:53
  their business. So they don't have a Merrill
• 41:56
  guy. They have an E*Trade account,
• 41:59
  you know, so like they don't, which is fine.
• 42:01
  Look, I have an E*Trade account. I'm happy with it.
• 42:03
  But The thing is, they're everything that their whole
• 42:09
  life's going to change the way they manage money, their
• 42:11
  liquidity is going to change. Now their liquidity is going to
• 42:14
  be liquefied, right? It's going to turn into an asset
• 42:16
  that some professional on a higher level than the one
• 42:19
  they're dealing with now is going to have to handle and
• 42:22
  making that again, bringing those other professionals in
• 42:24
  account, accounting wise, estate planning, wise wealth
• 42:28
  management, probably the most important part of that equation.
• 42:31
  And that will help mitigate those fear that existential
• 42:33
  crisis will help smooth it over because they'll see what happens
• 42:36
  afterwards and someone will model and show them what that
• 42:38
  looks like. I want to go back to our earlier
• 42:43
  conversation about AI. You're talking about, you know,
• 42:45
  ways that you guys are giving it a Big Bear hug, embracing it.
• 42:49
  You know, a lot of talk about AIA, lot of hype, a lot of fear.
• 42:54
  How do you see this sort of playing out big picture in the
• 42:57
  business world? People going to lose jobs in
• 42:59
  mass? What?
• 43:00
  What do you see? I, I've seen a lot of fear with
• 43:04
  that, even with people who, you know, are I, I was at a
• 43:08
  conference, a small little conference in, in, in Tyson's
• 43:10
  Corner, which and all these people, it was a McClain.
• 43:13
  If you look at the zip code valuations there, these people
• 43:16
  were used to succeed in their whole life.
• 43:18
  And now they're smart enough to see around orders and saying
• 43:20
  like, wow, I don't know if I'm going to succeed in the this new
• 43:24
  world that I like. I used to.
• 43:26
  And part of that's true. Part of it's not.
• 43:29
  I think they're being a little, you know, you know that they're
• 43:32
  all, you know, there's this the human element.
• 43:35
  You'll never get away from that because the human element is
• 43:37
  what creates the trust. And so many of these
• 43:40
  transactions don't happen without that, right?
• 43:41
  No matter how the numbers line up.
• 43:43
  Yes, it reduces the need for as many people.
• 43:46
  Like you don't need as many analysts.
• 43:48
  You still need bankers. You still need people to sort of
• 43:52
  broker and buffer all those, those elements we talked about,
• 43:55
  right? That human element, managing
• 43:57
  personalities, all that is a human fix, not a, not a, not an
• 44:02
  AI1. AI can help you target better.
• 44:04
  AI could keep you out of the mundane.
• 44:06
  AI will help you focus on what diligence is important and work
• 44:10
  through that quicker. Like I said that that deal
• 44:12
  fatigue, a real source of that is diligence overload and
• 44:16
  diligence mismanagement and diligence, diligence ill
• 44:19
  preparedness. It can solve a lot of those
• 44:21
  problems and allow you to engage with more buyers more
• 44:25
  effectively in a shorter period of time.
• 44:27
  All those are value creating. Yes, it means a little less
• 44:29
  manpower, but the manpower can be redeployed in smarter, faster
• 44:33
  or better ways that you're going to get more out of them and
• 44:36
  you're going to get more out of the deal.
• 44:37
  And, and I think it's so yes, I think a little less manpower,
• 44:41
  but the manpower deployed in other ways.
• 44:45
  And so I, I don't think it's going to take too many jobs.
• 44:48
  It's going to take this is I think the the issue is you're
• 44:51
  going to not have a job if you don't deploy it yourself.
• 44:54
  You're going to get replaced by the person using give you an
• 44:57
  example in our industry. So I, I described it to a
• 45:00
  colleague even this morning as a what AI really is for our
• 45:04
  business. Think of it, when we, I first
• 45:06
  started as an analyst, there was, they said that you could
• 45:08
  use the mouse to build your models or you could use these
• 45:11
  hot keys and you'll be twice as fast.
• 45:13
  You'll make less mistakes and you'll get your models done in
• 45:16
  half the time. That's what AI is.
• 45:18
  It's just a like a really super steroid version of that, but
• 45:22
  you're faster. And now you can actually look at
• 45:24
  the model you made. You can think about the context
• 45:27
  of why certain assumptions. You could take the time to
• 45:29
  research and be creative about how you're presenting, making
• 45:32
  sure it makes sense, like logically, where you know, it
• 45:38
  just makes you more effective and it and it.
• 45:39
  Yeah. So you do the the model like the
• 45:41
  example with the hotkeys in two hours instead of 6.
• 45:45
  And now you you just got more time to do other things or like
• 45:47
  you're not overwhelmed and a lot of the deal fatigue comes in by
• 45:51
  people are just overworked and overstressed.
• 45:53
  And again, when you get that, you start to lose.
• 45:56
  You kind of have to take guys off the line because they're
• 45:58
  battle fatigued and they're not fighting that full capacity and
• 46:01
  they're not, you know, it's just a guy needs reps are good, but
• 46:05
  too many reps you start to get like, you know, stress injuries,
• 46:08
  if you will, like if you make 162 year game baseball season,
• 46:13
  you guys don't break their arms. They just get sore and they're
• 46:15
  and and it's not catastrophic industry like injury, like at a
• 46:19
  football game, but like it starts to wear you down and now
• 46:22
  your your bat speed is a little less.
• 46:24
  Now you can't hit a 95 mile fastball inside, you know, and
• 46:30
  that that's impactful, right? It's hard to exactly see, but
• 46:32
  you can measure in stats. So sometimes, you know, part of
• 46:36
  working less hours is going to make those hours that you have a
• 46:39
  little more all the more effective and all the more
• 46:42
  useful and productive. What are some of your favorite
• 46:44
  AI tools to incorporate in the business well?
• 46:47
  We're trying to design our own. I mean, yeah, sure, we use cloud
• 46:50
  and we use the chat versions of ChatGPT.
• 46:52
  But the idea is you could make our own kind of, you know, GPTS
• 46:56
  a little bit, but also trying to design our own with, with
• 46:59
  workflows and authentic AI work with somebody who does a lot of
• 47:03
  authentic AI work or built a lot of these things with insurance
• 47:06
  and agency. But can we use that to query,
• 47:09
  for instance, data rooms, but get to answers quicker instead
• 47:14
  of me spending six hours or analysts being 12, you know,
• 47:17
  trying to find out what's there and getting really, you know,
• 47:20
  writing Sims faster. So you're using it to sort of
• 47:23
  format. So I mean, I I like a couple of
• 47:28
  the big ones, but we're really trying to design our own and the
• 47:30
  idea that's and also too, we don't want you can't put this
• 47:33
  stuff out there. JGB is that we don't the world
• 47:36
  isn't supposed to know companies, financials and older,
• 47:39
  you know, they're special sauce. So like you can't put these
• 47:41
  things in an open AI format. You got to keep it in house and
• 47:44
  you got to keep it, you know, data protected and privacy.
• 47:47
  How do you do that? Well, you, you, you don't, you
• 47:50
  don't put it out in the cloud. You don't.
• 47:52
  You kind of have to keep it in a kind of, you know, you create.
• 47:55
  Like your own LLM or? Yeah, Yeah, you got to have to
• 47:57
  create your own. And my colleague, all right now
• 48:00
  is spending a hell of a lot of time building what will be, you
• 48:03
  know, a super analyst and what it will be.
• 48:05
  What we, I guess we'll still have an analyst, but it'll make
• 48:07
  our analysts be better and I'll make you know me not be
• 48:12
  overwhelmed as much. So yeah, we're it's we've seen
• 48:15
  what tools work. We know enough about pro.
• 48:18
  I mean, I started as a quad, so I know a little bit of
• 48:20
  programming, but you've got to build these tools yourself.
• 48:25
  But I still, I think that the broadly used ones are, are, are
• 48:29
  are good, but there's also a way to do it in ChatGPT.
• 48:32
  We never put client stuff there or, or or like deal stuff, but
• 48:35
  like general research and you can put in your own, I forget
• 48:38
  what it's called. It's just you create your own
• 48:40
  GPT. Basically.
• 48:41
  It's like, you know, it's and who not what's that is because
• 48:45
  I, I don't know, one could argue that's still in the cloud and
• 48:48
  it's somewhere, you know, it's a little bit, there's a little bit
• 48:51
  of a Moat around it, but still would never put anything
• 48:54
  sensitive there. But they're, I mean, I got to,
• 48:57
  these tools are kind of out there for folks to use, you
• 49:01
  know, and so you don't have, but you don't have to be an expert
• 49:04
  in it necessarily. You got to know how to use it.
• 49:06
  Like, I don't know how the computer works, but I know how
• 49:08
  to use it like, just like any tool, right?
• 49:10
  I don't know what makes the VCR work, but I know how to program,
• 49:13
  which made me like a God among men and a king among men when I
• 49:18
  was I. Love that you pulled out the VCR
• 49:22
  example. There are some people listening
• 49:24
  that are going to have to go Google what that is right now.
• 49:26
  Yeah, I know. As soon as I said that, like I,
• 49:28
  I, I, I'm getting to that point in my.
• 49:30
  Life. Richard, tell us like up to this
• 49:32
  point, where has most of your deal flow come from and how do
• 49:36
  you see that evolving going forward?
• 49:38
  And it's mostly come, well, certainly from referrals from
• 49:42
  relationships. Oh, because I've known I've and
• 49:46
  and it's, it's just you can't just talk to someone, right?
• 49:48
  You've got to really refine and cultivate and get them to know
• 49:52
  you. I mean, be even then it's not
• 49:54
  good enough. You got to be front of mind all
• 49:55
  the time. So it's having a big network and
• 49:59
  being engaging that network in a way that's helpful to them
• 50:02
  because you got to give before you get like anything else, you
• 50:05
  the income comes when you make an impact.
• 50:07
  And these are all cliche here, you'll know it, but that's how
• 50:09
  you got to approach referral source.
• 50:11
  You got to be adding value to them.
• 50:13
  So you're front of mind because there's a thousand other guys
• 50:16
  who do what I do or just as good, if that better.
• 50:18
  And so how do I get front to mind for that guy?
• 50:21
  You know, you have like, you know, no like and whatsoever
• 50:25
  trust and trust. And, and so yeah, they have to
• 50:29
  be like minded or I should say like minded.
• 50:31
  But you have to have a report, right?
• 50:33
  There's got to be just like an ideal cultural, strategic,
• 50:35
  financial, in that order. And figuring out who those folks
• 50:39
  are and being able to have touch points with them in an organic
• 50:43
  way and just, you know, find out what they're up to.
• 50:46
  And, and, and you have to do in a systematic way, which is hard
• 50:50
  to keep discipline there. But it's mostly come from their
• 50:53
  old clients or through referral. We don't do much lead Gen. from
• 50:59
  scratch. Very few of those ever turned it
• 51:01
  because I just we don't have the resources and frankly it's
• 51:04
  that's a tough you got to do that at scale.
• 51:06
  We just don't have that. What is the future of Crossroads
• 51:09
  Capital look like? Well, I think doing, you know,
• 51:13
  I'd like to actually say you don't have the skill, build a
• 51:16
  little skill, be nice, be able, you know, to be able to have a
• 51:19
  lot of the, you know, reinventing the wheel is very
• 51:22
  time consuming and very can be difficult.
• 51:26
  And so having some better automated processes doing deal.
• 51:29
  I think we started this thing and we started this conversation
• 51:32
  doing deals smarter, faster, better.
• 51:35
  Let's let's take that to the next level.
• 51:36
  Let's reduce the time. Let's figure out like when I
• 51:39
  told you it took two months. There's no reason it should be
• 51:41
  two months. It should be one month, right to
• 51:44
  prepare the book and all this. Now we, there's a lot of work
• 51:47
  that may have to go on before that, but the, when they hit the
• 51:49
  go button, be ready to take that to market within a month.
• 51:53
  So I think there's tools, technology and otherwise to
• 51:56
  really understand what we're bringing to market.
• 51:58
  And just for me, it's about building better ways to do deals
• 52:01
  because I never am satisfied with the speed, the processes.
• 52:05
  There's always ways to streamline, there's always ways
• 52:07
  to do it better. There's always way to better
• 52:08
  ways to engage buyers and get them to know quicker.
• 52:11
  And there's ways to get them to understand what they're buying
• 52:14
  and where the value is in a in a much more efficient way than
• 52:19
  have them just stumble upon. Yeah, you want to find
• 52:22
  efficiencies because as you said time kills deals.
• 52:25
  So we're. Never going to be a huge firm,
• 52:27
  but what I want to do is do deals smarter and punch above
• 52:31
  our weight in that regard and be just, you know, with the least
• 52:36
  bit of brain damage to everybody involved.
• 52:39
  And so that, that's my goal and I don't necessarily want to do
• 52:42
  bigger deals. Like bigger would be nice
• 52:44
  because obviously there are bigger fees, but I, you know,
• 52:46
  it's not this. I like to do more deals, to be
• 52:48
  honest. And that's what I really would
• 52:49
  prefer to do. I'd rather stack pennies than
• 52:52
  collect $5 bills, if that makes sense.
• 52:55
  And find with technology things, can we do this at volume
• 52:58
  efficiently with quality. That would be where my my would
• 53:03
  want to take these what we built.
• 53:06
  Richard, what's a big challenge that you've had to overcome in
• 53:09
  your life? Let's see, in my life or I guess
• 53:15
  in the business. And business personal, yeah.
• 53:17
  Kind of the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:20
  Like when I first started, like, who the hell does this kid think
• 53:23
  he has started his own shop? And, you know, you hear
• 53:27
  everybody talk about that imposter syndrome, You know,
• 53:29
  that's, that's sort of you, you every influencer talks about
• 53:32
  that kind of thing. I I, I think there's always
• 53:35
  like, are we good enough to this is an important decision for
• 53:40
  companies and can they really trust us to get it done or go to
• 53:45
  why don't they better in better hands with JP Morgan?
• 53:47
  So there's always that self doubt.
• 53:49
  Am I good at this enough to be able to take such an important
• 53:52
  thing as a company's somebody's livelihood, like with their
• 53:55
  company they built and be, you know, trusted, entrusted to do
• 53:58
  that. So I'm always, you know, when
• 54:00
  you have a small shop, you're just humbled every day about,
• 54:03
  you know, you get your ass handed or another you lose
• 54:06
  deals, you lose, you know, it's difficult on relationships, you
• 54:11
  know, because you I've been eat what you kill for 20 years.
• 54:14
  It's yeah, it makes it hard to plan and it creates some life
• 54:17
  stress for sure. And what but what overcomes that
• 54:21
  is like, I love what I do and I don't love doing it every day.
• 54:24
  I love running the deals. I don't frankly love running the
• 54:26
  shop, but but you know, so there's you know, are are we
• 54:32
  good enough? Are we, you know, are you know,
• 54:36
  are we for real? Are we just pretend, you know,
• 54:38
  there's a little bit of that kind of, you know, do we have
• 54:42
  all the things in place? Do we have, are, are clients
• 54:45
  well protected or, you know, are we, you know, there's always
• 54:49
  that we do enough. Are we doing it the right way?
• 54:54
  And there's always a little bit of doubt like who the hell am I
• 54:58
  to be doing this? Kind of, I should maybe just
• 55:01
  stayed as an analyst and just been a bean counter, you know,
• 55:05
  worker bee, you know, am I? Do I have the right mentality to
• 55:08
  be an entrepreneur? You know, am I maybe too passive
• 55:11
  in some ways and too aggressive in others?
• 55:14
  Like do I have the right temperament?
• 55:15
  You know, it's always a question I have.
• 55:16
  And every day I'm kind of like, you see things like, oh boy, you
• 55:18
  gotta walk that back. But so, you know, we're all
• 55:22
  broken and and perfect, but we try, you know, to just overcome
• 55:27
  and be smart and always be earnest and make mistakes and
• 55:32
  try to overcome them with just just working that much harder.
• 55:37
  We talked a lot about self doubt, imposter syndrome on this
• 55:40
  show and I had a guest many months ago that actually kind of
• 55:44
  turned the script on me, he said.
• 55:46
  You know, I actually view imposter syndrome as my
• 55:49
  superpower, he says. It's the thing that kicks me in
• 55:52
  the butt every morning to get out of bed and continue to prove
• 55:56
  myself to get up and make myself better and make my business
• 56:00
  better. And he's like, so when I've been
• 56:02
  able to reframe it as a superpower rather than this
• 56:05
  thing that is like weighing me down or holding me back, he's
• 56:10
  like, it's, it's a lot more empowering.
• 56:12
  And it's, it's interesting to me, you know, as I look at you
• 56:15
  and, you know, we've talked about the number of deals that
• 56:17
  you've done, we've talked about, you know, some dollar amounts of
• 56:21
  the number of years that you've been doing it.
• 56:24
  And, and, and, and I'm laughing, I'm smiling because I'm the same
• 56:28
  way. Like still you're questioning
• 56:30
  yourself, like, do I have what it takes?
• 56:33
  Do I have what it takes to be doing the decades of, you know,
• 56:38
  there's like documented decades of experience here that shows
• 56:41
  that, yes, you have the temperament, you have the
• 56:43
  skills, you have done it. But as human beings, we continue
• 56:48
  to question ourselves even when there's this body of evidence
• 56:51
  that says otherwise. Yeah, I mean, I think self doubt
• 56:54
  is, is important. I think it's helpful.
• 56:56
  I I don't, you know, being sure of yourself is not, you know, a
• 56:59
  hubris is not never worked for any of the, the, the, the, the,
• 57:03
  you know, the, the characters in mythology.
• 57:05
  That was always what dropped brought them down, right.
• 57:08
  And so there's always smarter, better, faster folks out there.
• 57:12
  Can you learn from them? Can you work with them?
• 57:14
  I mean, I've always done the opinion that we're small enough.
• 57:16
  We don't compete with anybody. We collaborate with everybody
• 57:19
  who will answer the phone and willing to take a call and
• 57:24
  because we don't have just like the other examples with the
• 57:27
  going out to those professional service providers or experts in
• 57:30
  certain areas, we don't have the answers.
• 57:32
  We could diagnose or cease issues.
• 57:34
  We bring in partners because like they're trusted and they
• 57:37
  know what they're doing. We could evaluate them.
• 57:40
  And I think that's part of it. Having having a network of folks
• 57:43
  you could rely on helps to offset that a bit, gives you a
• 57:47
  little bit more credibility and also gives you confidence.
• 57:49
  Like OK, you don't have the answers, but you know where to
• 57:51
  find the answer. Have you had a particularly
• 57:55
  powerful mentor in your past or present?
• 57:59
  No, you know, to be honest, not really.
• 58:01
  I've gotten good advice and bad advice and examples, good and
• 58:04
  bad. And I kind of borrowed for every
• 58:06
  shop I've looked at and every shop I've been at.
• 58:09
  I like certain things I do. I hate certain other ones.
• 58:11
  One of the reasons I started this, I kind of was looking at
• 58:14
  best practices. And so I've copied or borrowed
• 58:17
  or stealed things I liked and completely jettisoned the things
• 58:20
  I did not and mentalities I didn't like about, you know,
• 58:26
  approaching clients or approaching deals.
• 58:28
  But no, I mean, it might have been, might have made less
• 58:32
  mistakes if I had a good one or had one that was proactive about
• 58:36
  things. But I've had great teachers my
• 58:38
  whole life and that for that I'm quite grateful and people who
• 58:43
  believed in me when there wasn't a good reason to so.
• 58:47
  What's your superpower, Richard? You know, maybe connecting the
• 58:52
  dots like like being able to have this sort of sense of a
• 58:57
  German word for it. I think finger Spitz, the fool,
• 59:00
  just having a real sense of an over a situation, be able to
• 59:03
  know what a solution is almost instinctively, and then build
• 59:06
  that, then find the data that sort of backs that up and then
• 59:09
  be able to pet it. So part of that's connecting the
• 59:11
  dots, being part of that is standing back and being able to
• 59:14
  see the whole, the whole field and know where things are
• 59:18
  generally going. What will work won't work,
• 59:20
  won't, won't. That comes from a little bit of
• 59:22
  experience, but also a little bit of, I don't know, I
• 59:25
  something have a sixth sense about deals and about what works
• 59:28
  and what doesn't and kind of not wasting time and what doesn't.
• 59:31
  And so that's a little connected dots, but that's a little bit of
• 59:35
  a almost instinctive strategic. Thank you.
• 59:39
  What's your favorite thing to do outside of work?
• 59:40
  You have any hobbies? No, I'm a boring person.
• 59:45
  I loved. I mean I'd like to read sure I
• 59:48
  mean I like to stay up on current advancing and other
• 59:51
  depressing as I'll get out. But one thing about humanity
• 59:56
  you'll never you have low expectations.
• 59:58
  You'll never be who who said you'll never be disappointed by
• 1:00:01
  people? But.
• 1:00:03
  You know, I, I, I don't, I, I love what I do, I really do.
• 1:00:08
  And that's why I spend most of my time energy thinking.
• 1:00:11
  And I, it's not, it's not, you know, I didn't get into this and
• 1:00:15
  I have, I don't have the, the, the bank account or the cars to
• 1:00:18
  show for it. I mean, I think this isn't a
• 1:00:20
  glamorous job. I tell you people, it's not at
• 1:00:22
  all like what I do. Looks more like blue collar
• 1:00:25
  consulting. Blue collar.
• 1:00:28
  Sort of. You know, looks more like the
• 1:00:30
  Office than than walls. Like the Office of the Show.
• 1:00:34
  So say more about that because a lot of people, they want to get
• 1:00:37
  into this because they think it's sexy, it's super
• 1:00:40
  profitable. I mean, it can't be and it is
• 1:00:44
  for a period of time for those at the Bulls bracket that I
• 1:00:46
  mean, the look, if you're in for those reasons, you burn out or
• 1:00:49
  move on to something else. Because if you're, if you don't
• 1:00:51
  love this, it's too taxing on your on your psyche for all the
• 1:00:57
  money in the world. So I mean, no, you know, I don't
• 1:01:02
  do it for the money and, you know, sort of net worth that
• 1:01:07
  maybe shows it a little bit. And look, when you have a small
• 1:01:10
  shop, you have a lot of expenses.
• 1:01:11
  You're there's not a lot of scale you could deploy.
• 1:01:13
  Most of that money goes out. You got to keep people happy and
• 1:01:16
  keep people paid. But that that's fine.
• 1:01:18
  I mean, for me, but I get a kick.
• 1:01:20
  I was getting something done, making an impact.
• 1:01:23
  And what I always say, you know, impact first, income second, if
• 1:01:27
  you focus on that. But yeah, you know, if you
• 1:01:30
  start, but having my autonomy, don't have to answer to anyone
• 1:01:33
  but God and the client that is. I'll trade that any day for what
• 1:01:39
  managing director at a big Bulls bracket has.
• 1:01:42
  Well, just one more question for you today, Richard.
• 1:01:45
  But before I ask it, I want to do 3 quick things.
• 1:01:48
  First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Richard
• 1:01:51
  Phillips from Crossroads Capital, his e-mail address is
• 1:01:54
  r.phillips@crossroadscapitaldc.com. R Phillips to
• 1:01:59
  ls@crossroadscapitaldc.com and we'll have that in the show
• 1:02:04
  notes. If you missed it, if you're
• 1:02:06
  enjoying the show today, a quick comment or review on your
• 1:02:09
  favorite podcast app goes a long way towards helping others
• 1:02:13
  discover our show. So thank you for taking a quick
• 1:02:15
  moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, you can be
• 1:02:19
  the hero advisor that helps clients give their employees
• 1:02:22
  access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds that, as
• 1:02:26
  paradoxical as it seems, actually increases net profits,
• 1:02:29
  real gains that can change how a business is valued.
• 1:02:32
  Learn more today at Add back benefits.com.
• 1:02:35
  OK. Last question, Richard, a year
• 1:02:37
  from now, what is 1 very specific thing that you hope to
• 1:02:41
  be celebrating? Well, let's see, I, well, I have
• 1:02:47
  two grandchildren. So I guess that that you know,
• 1:02:50
  they'll be a year older, one just born 1.
• 1:02:54
  So, you know, that would be nice to see it.
• 1:02:57
  Now they're the least one of them is talking.
• 1:02:59
  So seeing how those that they get, get, get older and, and,
• 1:03:03
  and gross, but also too I, I on a professional level, I think,
• 1:03:07
  you know, we're the deals. We have a couple deals that are
• 1:03:10
  really interesting. We have a couple projects that
• 1:03:12
  are really interesting that are going to be impactful, some of
• 1:03:16
  the defense world, some in the energy side of things.
• 1:03:18
  We're trying to bring back, for instance, the nuclear power to
• 1:03:24
  to Europe in a big way. And so we it's really this is
• 1:03:28
  more about a herding of cats of a bureaucrats, think tanks, big
• 1:03:32
  conglomerates, infrastructure PE like Carlyle's of the your big
• 1:03:36
  infrastructure players, not necessarily Carlyle.
• 1:03:38
  I don't mention the name, but not them.
• 1:03:41
  But yeah, they we'd love to have them part of it, of course.
• 1:03:43
  But, you know, so that that again, you know, lower energy
• 1:03:47
  costs of whatever you whatever your leanings are is better for
• 1:03:51
  I, I think, you know, is, is a good thing.
• 1:03:54
  And it's going to make, you know, make real
• 1:03:56
  industrialization possible in Europe again.
• 1:03:59
  And I think there's security aspects.
• 1:04:01
  I think there's good, you know, political outcomes that are good
• 1:04:05
  for, you know, a successful, prosperous Europe is a
• 1:04:08
  prosperous, prosperous world and prosperous America.
• 1:04:11
  And I think, you know, a lot of what we're trying to do with
• 1:04:13
  tanks and guns, we can do with lower energy costs in, you know,
• 1:04:17
  just the, the, the end of the war in Ukraine, for instance.
• 1:04:20
  So that that's a big, big in progress.
• 1:04:22
  That's. Huge.
• 1:04:24
  That is huge and I bring it up. It's not for the M&A, but
• 1:04:27
  there's like all the skills I've learned in M&A and connections I
• 1:04:29
  have at the big sort of infrastructure companies and
• 1:04:32
  other places. Part of them are defense, part
• 1:04:34
  of them are energy, you know sort of in conglomerates and
• 1:04:39
  part of them are, you know, I'm in DC.
• 1:04:41
  So a lot of, you know, kind of lean heavy into the lobby world
• 1:04:46
  and political thing, you know, groups in Europe that are
• 1:04:49
  everybody knows this is so obvious thing you should do.
• 1:04:53
  I was going to. Say, what is your role in making
• 1:04:56
  this happen? Just like in Eddie deal, I got
• 1:04:58
  to herd the cats, got to manage the personalities and bring all
• 1:05:01
  these disparate parties together, which I do in deals.
• 1:05:04
  And whether, you know, sources of capital line them up with
• 1:05:08
  strategic buyers get or strategic targets lining up the
• 1:05:12
  right regulatory folks getting, getting, you know, this is going
• 1:05:15
  to a project like this going to have 1000 fathers and it's going
• 1:05:19
  to take a long time. And I'll just be a little a
• 1:05:22
  little cog in the machine, but it's an important thing to do.
• 1:05:24
  And I think it's going to be ton of business and a ton of deals
• 1:05:27
  that come out of this for a lot of folks.
• 1:05:28
  So I think it's I mean, it's one of those things that it's like a
• 1:05:31
  no brainer and it's going to create a lot of deal flow for a
• 1:05:36
  lot of folks. And it's going to be so much
• 1:05:38
  picks and shovels sold the rules, if you will.
• 1:05:40
  I mean that in the more figurative sense, the word, but
• 1:05:42
  maybe in the latter one as well. So like things like that, I
• 1:05:46
  think I want to focus more on those big sort of projects that
• 1:05:51
  I'm getting to a point where I want to make an impact, you
• 1:05:53
  know, and, and these kind of things that I could use my deal
• 1:05:55
  skills to kind of help steward along.
• 1:05:58
  And I'm just like a small player in it.
• 1:06:00
  And but you know, we, we got a lot of smart people pushing this
• 1:06:04
  forward. And if I could be, you know,
• 1:06:06
  part of that, so, you know, help make that happen with my
• 1:06:08
  connections or my ways of lining things up, you know, all the
• 1:06:13
  better. And, you know, happy to be
• 1:06:15
  maybe. Save the best for last here.
• 1:06:17
  Like tell us more like even what is your role like?
• 1:06:20
  How did you get involved in this?
• 1:06:22
  You know what colleague I had in Frankfurt called me and he's
• 1:06:25
  like, hey, we got this weird project.
• 1:06:26
  You think you could do something with that?
• 1:06:27
  It's like, you know what, that sounds fun.
• 1:06:28
  Let's see what we could do with that.
• 1:06:30
  So, you know, I don't, I don't the easy things that they're no
• 1:06:33
  fun. Like give me a million.
• 1:06:37
  Dollar Mountain to climb right? Yeah, you know, selling a
• 1:06:40
  $5,000,000 pool toy company, you know, $5,000,000 EBITDA pool toy
• 1:06:45
  company isn't fun for me. Someone will buy it and I'm sure
• 1:06:48
  someone will make a ton of money, but like, that's not what
• 1:06:51
  gets me out of bed in the morning anymore.
• 1:06:54
  All right. Richard Phillips from Crossroads
• 1:06:57
  Capital, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both
• 1:06:59
  your time and your story with us today.
• 1:07:02
  I really appreciate you being here.
• 1:07:05
  Thank you, it was a pleasure. Folks, that's a wrap on another
• 1:07:08
  episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 1:07:10
  Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
• 1:07:14
  that into action today.