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Buying and Selling an ABA · ABA Business Leaders

• speaker-0: For anyone that's considering or thinking about selling, if you've ever had the experience of selling your house, it's like about 50 million times worse than that. speaker-1: you know, what your business is worth. For most of our clients and partners, it's their most important economic asset, right? Not only, you know, from a sentiment, it's their baby, right? It's what they've spent their whole career building towards, but economically, it's also very impactful for them. speaker-2: Hello everyone. Welcome to ABA Business Leaders podcast brought to you by 3Pi Squared. I'm April. And today we have with us a special guest, Alex Beech. Alex is from Agenda Health. Welcome, Alex. speaker-0: I'm Stephen. speaker-1: Thank you. Glad to join, guys. speaker-2: Yeah, so today, okay. I think everyone's going to be pretty excited about this podcast because I know in just in the last couple of weeks on in social media, LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and all the places that we we hang out to support ABA business leaders. ⁓ I've seen a lot of these things pop up as far as like, okay, I'm done. I'm selling. I'm out. Peace out. I can someone take it tomorrow? Yeah, I'm done. Yes, or ⁓ Okay, I built this business. I'm ready to go to think go do something else now and My kids are you know, I'm hitting the empty nester stage and I'm ready to like retire and go travel And so let's sell this business and ash out my retirement. Let's go right ⁓ Or even the hey, I'm looking to get started But do I just start or? Do I try to buy something or do I? Yeah, like so I don't know why. I guess it just comes in waves and maybe it has to do with like the timing. Maybe it has to do with like everyone's preparing their their taxes. speaker-0: Yeah, it could be that. We to data. We need to collect data. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, so we're going to be talking about all these things today. And Alex is definitely the expert. As I said, he's ⁓ from Agenda Health, and I'll let him tell us a little bit about himself here. ⁓ And then we'll just dive in chatting about all of the things. speaker-1: Perfect. Awesome. Well, April and Stephen, thank you for having me on this morning. My name is Alex Veach. I am the Director of Transaction Services at Agenda Health. so Agenda Health is a healthcare services exclusive transaction advisory firm. So what that means said very simply is when a business owner is ready to do what you just said, right? Either ready to sell their business or ready to bring on a partner to provide some capital for growth or... ready to make a transition, a change in structure, change in ownership, whatever that might look like. Our firm specializes in that in really just four areas of healthcare services. So we have been in business for almost 20 years, founded in 2008. And so in that time have assisted hundreds of owners with transacting their healthcare businesses across the United States. And so I could go on for the rest of the time about our firm and myself and everything that we've done, Maybe I'll pause there. think, you know, specific to ABA has been ⁓ a very active segment for us and certainly excited to talk about it here this morning. speaker-0: Yeah, I think one of the things that was when we started connecting with your team was the what I liked was you all were able to provide a safe place where a seller could sell to somebody that they felt comfortable selling to versus you have to sell to PE. You can only sell to PE and just forget about it. Right. So I think that was really because like When you're selling this company, when we stopped practicing with our company and when we're guiding people through the end, it's a grieving process. like some of these people have spent 20 years plus just building this thing, sweat, blood and tears. And so giving this up to someone, it elicits a whole lot of feelings. And so being able to give that to somebody that you feel will carry on your values and your goals, can be, it can make the process much easier. speaker-1: Yeah, and Stephen, that's a premise of our front. think part of the reasons we don't work in transacting restaurants or car washes or strip malls or anything like that is we believe that healthcare is different, right? And so many of the owners that we've had the opportunity to partner with over the years didn't start their practices or agencies for the purposes of exclusively making a buck, right? It was, hey, I have a child, hey, I had... a parent, had a sibling, I had a family member, and I didn't like the experience they had, and I decided that I was gonna do it better for other families. And so, that's a huge reason that we focus in healthcare because from our observation, we felt like we didn't see enough of that out in the space, right? We feel that transacting a healthcare business should be different from transacting a restaurant or a car wash, right? And so, we take a lot of time. to understand the businesses that we get the chance to work with and partner with. ⁓ And a big part of our messaging is really anybody can put numbers on a page, right? And that's not that complicated, but ⁓ knowing the specific service lines of our clients enough to be able to tell partners and buyers and investors what makes them truly different is where I think we really excel and is a part of our process that's really not talked about enough. And so. That's a core principle of our firm. speaker-0: Yeah, I think that's great. And then the other thing that was awesome about what you all do is if if you are above three million in revenue, you're willing to do that free valuation, which is amazing. So even if you're not ready to sell, you can kind of kick the tires and see what it's like. Right. What what could I potentially get out there? How can I improve so that I can get my potential? Right. So I think that that could be very helpful, too. speaker-1: Yeah, and there's no Zillow for what's my business worth, right? You can't go online and see very quickly what your business is worth. And for most of our clients and partners, it's their most important economic asset, right? It's not only from a sentiment, hey, it's their baby, right? It's what they've spent their whole career building towards, but... economically, it's also very impactful for them. And so ⁓ we provide a complementary valuation and analysis process that is not only is, let's look at the numbers, but also with our AVA expertise allows us to ask the questions that really have an impact on value outside of how much money you made. And so it gives you a very... ⁓ a very good baseline for whether you're looking to sell in six months or six years, right? That's the other thing I love about being able to provide that is most of those exercises, we're not doing in anticipation of transacting that next month, right? We're doing, you know, as a true service and to be of service for the business owner. And sometimes that's... doing that same exercise three, four times over three, four years. And we like that because it gives us the opportunity to truly get to know the business and see it grow along the way. speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, I think having that visibility of like, okay, this is what you're making. This is how much you could potentially get. I think gives them the visibility so that they know where to go. Okay, do we do we just go ahead and sell or do we grow this for a few more years or, kind of they can get some visibility on on what they need to do. So. speaker-2: Yeah, want to slow it down just a little bit. And you kind of you guys kind of hit on it a little bit about evaluation. But I want to take it a step back and like, let's take a second to talk about what evaluation I mean, you can kind of get the context clues of like, of what we're talking about. if someone is like, completely new to this, because there was a lot of us out there who are especially clinician led businesses who are just figuring this out one step at a time as we go. and might not even know what evaluation is or what the purpose, why is it important to do that? speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. speaker-1: Yeah, so from a mechanics perspective, ⁓ we're looking at various aspects of a practice of a business. And we're making an analysis based upon our broad exposure to other agencies across the country. what you... touched on there briefly April is I think is a great point. A lot of folks assume it's just, hey, you know, how much money do I make? Right. And that's the sole point. It's it's really not that it's it's it's tons of other variables and tons of other factors, both within the business we're looking at, but also within the market more broadly. Right. Our our specialization in ADA allows us to know, hey, if if we're doing a valuation for practice in Illinois, what else do we have going on in that state? And how might that impact the valuation for we're doing? ⁓ that we're doing for that owner in that instance. So ⁓ it is an analysis of profit, but it's also a look at, with the broad, we do about 25 practice valuations every month. And so we bring in a tremendous amount of volume and that allows us to form a really good comp set for business owners that are just looking to understand, hey, how's my business doing? It's not just what's the dollar figure I could sell it for, but also, How do I stack up to my peers? How do I stack up to people that are bigger and smaller than me? Am I in line? I overpaying clinicians? Am I spending too much with this vendor? Am I growing the right way? Should I be focusing on a different payer source? Should I move from a home-based model into a clinic-based model? All of those things are things we take into account. So it is a tip to stern analysis of the business, first of all, to validate that the business is reaching its fullest. potential and output. And a lot of times those conversations are, hey, you shouldn't sell right now. Right. You need to wait. Let's let us introduce you to our great partners like 3 pi squared and others that can help you to really turn your agency into what it should be. And then let's go maximize that outcome later on. ⁓ But it's also a litmus test of whether the business is performing as it ought to as compared to our internal ⁓ comp set from the countless ⁓ other agencies that we evaluated. speaker-2: Yeah, thank you so much. was that that's so clear. When we were at the end of our business and we were deciding to what to do and we've shared before that we actually ended up not selling. We ended up just closing. We tried the process and this was what is it five, six years ago? Six years, six. Yeah, it's been yeah. But but to our knowledge, there was no one speaker-0: Remember speaker-2: out there that was doing this, Like that was really, or it really, you know, ABA, all of these peripheral support companies that are out here now that are just phenomenal. They weren't there even five or six years ago. But anyways, the point being ⁓ we tried to, we tried to give it to our staff, our clinicians, we offered our clinicians to you want to take over and they said, absolutely not. No, thank you. And then they, they jumped ship. And you know, we were told, don't tell your... Lovely. mean, I still have a great relationship with the ladies, those ladies today. But they had to take care of themselves, right? Of course. And then we looked at like selling it to another ⁓ small owner in the area, just doing like a trans, I don't know, is it, for sale by owner kind of thing. I don't know what you call it. speaker-1: Bye. ⁓ speaker-0: Wait a speaker-2: and have her come in and then like me stay on and then fade myself out. But it was so rocky and it was so complicated and it was really stressful. by that point, just wanted to be done, you know? And it was right after COVID and all of that too. So there was a lot of complications there. ⁓ So as we're learning, as we were talking to your team, we've had several conversations. ⁓ with your team and learning about this opportunity. It's one of those things that I say often these days. ⁓ I wish you guys would have been around when we were doing this or we would have known about you when we were doing this, you know, ⁓ because it's ⁓ it can be super overwhelming. But that kind of leads me into. We also coach business owners to have their exit strategy from the get go right from the beginning. And so, so you can prepare. speaker-0: Yeah, mean, you I just like for anyone that's considering or thinking about selling, like if you've ever had the experience of selling your house, it's like about 50 million times worse than that, right? Like, it just, just if you get anxious and you were offended by the buyers of the house and what they wanted you to fix, just like imagine that, ⁓ you know, and multiply it by, I don't know, infinity. So. Yeah. speaker-1: 8 millions and get marked. speaker-0: Yeah, so that's just something to be aware of right and so having someone guide you through that can be very very helpful. Yeah, but But like I don't know I mean we can take this any way you want but like I'm I like I did have a curious question because I do get this every once in a while I'll get a somebody that wants to start an ABA company and you know that they either are partnering with a BCBA or they're the BCBA themselves and they're like Should I just find a small company and buy it to kind of get started or should I do my own thing and just start from the ground up? And I'm just curious of like, as you're, you know, doing so much ABA buying and selling, do you see that a lot? Like a startup trying to get a head start? Like, do you have any advice on that? speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Just to step back quickly to touch on the last thing April said, we have owners ask us all the time, hey, when do I need to start preparing if I want to sell in X number of years or X number of months? And ⁓ the printed on a t-shirt answer that we give is the time to start preparing is when you start the business. And so ⁓ starting with the end in mind is critical because you make so many, many decisions as a business owner. ⁓ every day, right? That's kind of the name of the game, right? And so, but those macro choices that you make on how you structure your business and how you build your team and incentive structures and growth initiatives and ⁓ care models, all of those things are so, all of them have an ⁓ &A implication, right? ⁓ Like you said, Steven, it's a, know, when you sell a house, you're selling something that's fixed, right? Something that is what it is, a tangible asset. Your business is a living, breathing, ⁓ operating organism that is comprised of people and factors and trends. so that's why we built our firm the way we have. And it's focused around being able to synthesize all of that information. And anybody out there can go Google search the top five ADA providers in the country. and send them an email. That's so far from what we do. think our team is built in such a way that for some people, transacting to those larger organizations is the right move, right? ⁓ For others, and I'll segue here into what you brought up second there, Stephen, for others, working with somebody that's more on the come up, more just starting to figure out how they want to go about starting their own agency, ⁓ a ⁓ smaller, more nuanced acquirer or partner is better, right? For me, that's a really personal choice. And I think how I view that from a business owner standpoint is, hey, it's my job as an advisor to show you all the options and it's your job to choose what you think is best for you, right? So, we're gonna involve the people we think are pertinent and are going to create the valuation and accomplish the goals even outside evaluation that our client has, right? To answer your question, Steve, we absolutely have done deals. We did a transaction a years back that was a clinician got an SBA loan and just bought a business. So ⁓ I think that in terms of making that choice as you're looking to get into the space, you have to look at really two things. First is your marketplace, right? How fragmented is your marketplace? What are your competitive obstacles to growing? If there's a huge market opportunity and not a whole lot of participants, you may be better off ⁓ starting from scratch. ⁓ However, in some of those bigger metro markets where you got a lot of ⁓ competition, the need is great because the need is great everywhere with autism rates tripling over the last 20 years. competition is also really, really stifling. so ⁓ with that, think as as folks are looking to provide that service, it's first and foremost to look at the market that you're in ⁓ and an appraisal of, ⁓ is there a company that I think does it really well that I could add a lot of value to? ⁓ And some of that's monetary, but some of that is, hey, I have a network, I know so and so, I have a skillset that I don't think ⁓ this agency is really fully utilizing and I'm going to go provide that. I'm going to go fill that need. best partnerships come from meeting need. Sometimes that is money, but sometimes it's not as well. So ⁓ those are the things we talk about with business owners is they're thinking, who's my best friend? speaker-0: Like I, when, when someone asked me that question, I'll be honest, like it was like, do you want someone else's problems? Right? Cause that's normally what you're, you're buying a lot of things and some of those are going to be problems. So, you know, I, I, my, my typical go-to on that was just building yourself. Right. But I mean, yeah, you, do add some really good points to consider as you're doing this. Right. Like, so yeah. Yeah. And, and going back to that exit strategy, I didn't mean to cut that one off, but You know, knowing what that looks like at the end, right? How big, like how much money you need for retirement. Like you said, this for a lot of people is kind of, they're putting all their eggs in one basket. So knowing what they need, ⁓ certainly we can reverse engineer that. So we know how quickly we need to grow and the pitfalls that we have, right? And there's also turnover rate that we need to worry about. ⁓ especially when you're aggressively growing, the burnout rate in this field seems insane. knowing all of that can certainly help guide you where to go. speaker-1: Yeah, and build your team, right? I think that's the biggest, you know, that's the biggest advice I give people, you know, at the end of the day, what we hear from buyers all the time is as much as I'm buying this business, I'm buying, you know, the team, right? I'm buying the culture at the business. I'm buying the leadership. I'm buying the clinicians, right? The biggest, one of the largest factors that doesn't get enough air time is what ultimately is going to earn an agency the reputation that makes it transactable is the quality of care that's being provided, right? And that comes from the clinicians, that comes from the BCBAs, the RBTs. ⁓ we talk about that a lot. If a talent people is not where you wanna see them, right? She wants your staff to really put the best face on your brain that there is. as you're building, especially in the early stages, finding the right leadership to partner with you A lot of the exercise we do for evaluation is a conversation with business owners of, ⁓ hey, the business is really just you, right? If you step out, if you hop on a plane and go to Mexico for a month, right? ⁓ The show stops, right? The train stops, nobody's moving, right? you know, for the best possible transaction partnership outcome, that can't be the case, right? So a lot of... What I love doing is working with owners on, that's easier said than done, Alex, right? Where are my opportunities to, ⁓ who should I hire? What roles should I source for? And then how do we create incentive aligned structures that gives me the peace of mind that whoever I put in that seat gets incentivized the way I'm incentivized, right? And so we love having those conversations as well. think that's a big part of truly being ready for that step. speaker-0: Yeah, I think a lot of growers have that, right? Like, and we talked to so many growers and, you know, there may be two or three years in and they're working 60, 70 hours a week and they think, oh, my company's super profitable and everything's going great. But like, okay, can you take a weekend off? Can you take three days off? Right. And if the answer to that is no, right. And then this isn't as sellable as you may think it is, right? And if you decide to leave, right? Like, okay, I'll stay on for six months, but then the owner has to, or the new owner has to take over. If that person has to ⁓ hire two of you to take over your position, then this isn't as profitable as you think it is, right? speaker-1: Yeah, there's a big difference in being really great at what you do and building a really great agency that's great at what you do. Right. And so, you know, we see a lot of that where, you know, we get on the phone with these business owners and it comes from a place of passion. Right. And so it comes from genuinely thinking, hey, I got to make sure this is done the right way. ⁓ My my my father and I are, you know, have grown agenda. ⁓ from scratch. And so I personally know what that's like to kind of have, you know, the name in your chest, right? ⁓ And the ownership centric mindset that comes with that and the best entrepreneurs have that. And I think, you know, the second stage of that is being able to recognize, hey, I do a lot of things really well, but if I do everything, the business isn't a business, right? It's me through a different avenue, right? So I need to go find some other people that do some of this other stuff really well so I can focus on what's gonna be best for the business, right? And that's where True Growth is unlocked in our experience. speaker-2: Yeah, I'm so excited because before you guys even before you even landed with what you said a few minutes ago, like I already jotted down a note to go there next. And so so like it's it just shows how how in tune you are with the ABA culture for sure. And but that's something that we talk about a lot is, you know, the first year or two running a business. Yeah, yeah. You're going to wear you're going to be wearing multiple hats. You're going to be putting in a lot of hours. You know, it's it's a stage. It's it's it's. the startup, you know, like there's a whole startup culture there, right? But you do have to have a game plan and you have to have some benchmarks in place to know, when do you start shifting? Because if not, you find yourself seven, eight, 12, 15 years into still having that exact same mindset, that startup mindset from the very beginning. And so we talk about like, how can you, you know, delegate, how can you, you know, start to communicate and design. speaker-0: time. speaker-2: the roles and the policies and the procedures and the infrastructure and all of the parts to be able to grow that because I do think it's hard as a clinician owner, right? To cause if Stephen wouldn't have stepped in. And like save the day then, you know, I, none of those things were on my radar. I just wanted to provide services for kids, for families. I wanted to help. There was a need. I wanted to help that. you know, ⁓ I wanted to be there to support. then as we started growing our team, I really wanted to support our team and I really wanted to be there. And it was my, you know, my company, my picture on the door, whatever, not really, but you know what I mean? It was, it was mine. And so why not? Why wouldn't I be involved in all of the everything? And we talked to owners every day who are in the same. speaker-0: everything. speaker-2: place and so part of me is super excited that you said what you said because I'm like see you guys listening it's not just me and Stephen that are saying this you know sometimes we can hear it from another perspective and it helps us to hear it right speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, of course. Well, and you go to the transaction step of the process and you kind of try to turn your ad around and look at it from an investor's perspective. If they're looking at an acquisition opportunity for them, there's a big difference in buying a business and investing into an individual. so, especially, April, when you work that way for years and years years and years, you a lot of owners reach a point of burnout where it's like, hey, I want to sell, right? But they kind of have built a prison of their own making to be overly dramatic ⁓ where they're too involved. They've made themselves irreplaceable, right? And so, Stephen, you hit on this, but there's an economic and a dollars and cents. know, ⁓ implication of that with, hey, and that's part of what we do in valuation is, is, is, what are you doing? And what is the market replacement value for that? Sometimes that's helpful for owners to see, because it's like, hey, after we put those dollars next to those roles, it's like, I need to go, I need to go fill that, right? I need to go find that person. And so ⁓ that's a lot of what we help folks with in that stage of the process. But when we get to the transaction, it's, it's, it's, it's one of the biggest risk points that, that a buyer is going to want to solve for is, hey, what am I really buying? The fancy term for it is key man risk. If I buy this business and I pay a business owner life changing money, a lot of the time, even if they say that they're going to stay, what does that do? What does that change in them mentally to no longer be primary? And so we get our... best outcomes from business owners that have set up a team that have created incentive aligned structures and organizations that where everybody's running the same direction. Everybody has their role. Everybody has their superpower. Right. This is what I do best. And when I talk with those business owners, it's, yeah, you know, I just got back from Aruba and, I was there for six weeks because I wanted to be and I could be. And, you know, that's not for everybody. ⁓ point being, know, true, true, hey, I've built a business and an engine and that is where we get those peak outcomes and both economically and in terms of the opportunity it creates for the whole organization in that next phase of its life. speaker-2: The teams need tools that keep up with their daily workflows, adapt as practices grow and support clinicians instead of slowing them down. If you're tired of platforms like crash-stripping sessions, support tickets that disappear, or systems that require three long games just to get one thing done, you're not one. Thousands of providers have been looking for something better. That's when Office Puzzle comes in. speaker-0: Office Puzzle is an all-in-one ABA practice management platform designed to actually work. With integrated features that help with scheduling, documentation, data collection, billing, and reporting, everything is connected fast and easy to use. Unlike other systems, you're not locked into a long-term contract. At just $19.99 per month per user, Office Puzzle helps your team stay organized, compliant, and confident. speaker-2: Trusted by over 700 practices across the US office puzzle helps ABA teams work smarter so they can spend less time managing systems and more time supporting clients. Try it free for 30 days at officepuzzle.com slash three P. speaker-0: Yeah, think that like that's the best business, ABA business you can build is one that doesn't need you anymore and it still provides the same quality of service with your values in mind. And I think that that is the hard part for so many BCBAs. want, they're leaving their current company because they don't feel comfortable providing service. They feel like maybe they're doing something unethical. don't there's too many billable hours. I'm just a number. Right. And so they go and build something of their own. But, you know, we I say this all the time. But, you know, I will talk to those people two years in and they'll say the only difference between me and the place I left is it's my name on the door. Right. And it's very it's heartbreaking to hear that because that's the last thing in the world that you want want to build. But there's just knowing that you shouldn't do all of this yourself. Like that's not what you're building. If you want to do it all yourself, then be a great BCBA working for an amazing company. know? speaker-2: Yeah. You know, that's just landed to me just now. I think, you know, often our conversations have gone to the land of like, OK, we're human, right? We're humans and we're working in a human service with human people. And like, especially this age of like AI technology, it's like everyone's kind of wanting to ground back to like the humanness of things. And I think that what you just did, what you just said right now is like really key. This gives you the business owner permission to not wear all the hats, to not, you know, cause we talk about burnout, the badge of burnout and like, ⁓ I work 80 hours a week and things like that. Should we really be praising these? You know, is that where, ⁓ yes. Seasons. Sure. Yes. There are seasons where you do have to put in that extra work and you do have to really grind to get that in, but not longterm. so, yeah. So you, you business leader out there, You like not only do you not have to wear all the hats, you should not be wearing all that. speaker-0: mean, the goal should be you're working yourself out of a job. speaker-1: That's a great way to put it, Stephen. I think in practice, when you're starting, realistically, we're talking about, hey, hire that person and hire this person, hire that person. Obviously, as you're getting off the ground, I'm not hiring anybody. in practice, merging practicality with the ideology we're talking about, I always tell folks, conceive of the roles as you go along, but recognize that it's not all one role. Right. Hey, for right now, I may have to wear all these hats, but they are separate hats. Right. And then as you grow and as as it's it's economically possible to bring in folks to wear those hats that if if we're honest, in a lot of cases are going to be better at wearing those hats and filling those roles. And you might be as as an individual rising tide helps all those. Right. And so, ⁓ you know, but but I find with business owners that you the more you subscribe to that workaholic mindset, you run into the burnout wall and you feel like, hey, you know, everybody's taking advantage of me a little bit, but it's hard to step back and realize, hey, I put myself in this position, right? And so, you know, I always try to advise folks, you know, as you're building your business, think about structure, right? Think about roles, you know, separate the various aspects of what you're doing. If you're wearing a lot of hats out of necessity, that's fine. That's part of it. ⁓ But be honest with yourself about the different hats that you are wearing so that as the business grows and as you can afford to offload those hats, you already have those roles built. And you know what you're offloading as the speaker-0: business groups. Yeah. Yeah. I was just coaching a couple. They just started an ABA practice and they were like, okay, when do we add a virtual assistant? And I was like, now you add it right now so that you can get used to this person. You can understand what their strengths and weaknesses are. You'll understand, is this even the right fit for me? Is this what I'm looking for? You can then jot down the things that you absolutely hate doing and they can take those things. because this ⁓ isn't a sprint, this is a marathon, right? And if you're doing everything and half of it is what the things that you absolutely hate doing and never signed on for, then ⁓ what kind of life is that, right? And so, having those people, like you said, that can do it better. We have some amazing people that work for us. that do jobs that I absolutely hate and they absolutely love, right? And all the better. So, you know, that can really help. are good at, right. 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. allowing your and that also like allows them to independently do something where you don't have to be involved. And again, working yourself out of a job and focusing on the things that you love and focusing on the high level so you can because if you're in the The day-to-day grind, I call it mighty mouse syndrome, where you're out all the fires, you're always saving the day. You can't look at this systematically and know where the priorities are and the gaps that need to be filled. speaker-1: Absolutely. Yeah, last thing on that for me, the best buyers that we work with, their primary goal is to find business owners and especially ⁓ owners that are clinicians as well. I've heard a buyer state it this way for a business owner. We want to all the things that you hate doing that you have to do as a business owner, we want to do so that you can go really exercise that superpower, right? the business is best when you're doing what you're best at and what you're most passionate about, right? But when you have to get caught up in everything else, it limits your ability, which limits the business, right? So a lot of the transactions we do are that, right? ⁓ At a certain scale, there's a process where, hey, sometimes that's what a transaction, what a partner is. I think a lot of owners step into conversation with us or groups like us or buyers directly. and think, hey, selling is binary, right? It's all or nothing, it's black and white. I always try to advise folks, ⁓ what we do is a spectrum, right? And so it's not selling or not, it's plenty of transactions we do, are people looking to retire, people looking for change of pace in life, and people that are operating ABA in Michigan and looking to move to Florida and sit on the beach, right? And that's a more traditional transaction structure, but. ⁓ On the other end of that spectrum, we have plenty of owners that are looking for partner, right? And it's not, hey, I'm gonna sell all my equity and they're gonna take ⁓ my brand and replace it with theirs. It's, hey, so-and-so is gonna come in and invest and buy a portion of the equity partner alongside me, help me with HR, help me with billing, help me with. payroll and all of those things that may not be my superpower as a business owner so that I can go back to spending time with patients and I can go back to getting in front of referral sources and doing those things well. speaker-0: That's really cool. Yeah. So like outside of the box thinking is needed at this point, I assume. Like, can you kind of just walk us through and I assume, you know, that every sale is different, but I also assume that there are some kind of key things that kind of happen. what, like, okay, I'm ready to sell my companies in decent shape. Should I be expecting that I'm going to stay with the company for a certain amount of time, or like, can I just piece out how long does this take? it like, am I going to be done in a month or is this going to take a year? know, kind of just walking us through that kind of thing when we're ready. speaker-1: Yeah, great question. think that so our process, the transaction process that I would put a box around as, from the moment we sign up to represent a client to the moment where ⁓ they're getting a big bag of money, we look at that as an average of about six months. So there's a portion of that is prep, a portion of that is us learning the agency and Steven, to your point, learning their goals, right? What does that owner want to accomplish? Sometimes it is, hey, highest and best, right? And it's a monetarily motivated thing. Sometimes it's, hey, I'm just tired, right? And I just need somebody to come in. And sometimes there are goals that are non-monetary that affect how we market the business, who we market the business to, how we structure our presentation and our process. We're not going to the same 50 folks every time. Right. I think a lot of folks envision this like selling your house sort of process where it goes on a website and you know, we're fielding interest from, know, could be a, you know, high powered New York private equity firm could be some guy at a coffee shop with a laptop. Right. And everything in between our process is not that we are, you know, instead of a shotgun style approach, we're looking to take a sniper style approach. And we're looking to take a list of goals from clients and use that to customize a buyer pool. our process here internally, have a, know, buyer management is the terminology that we use internally, but inside the areas of healthcare services that we want to transact in, we have a team internally that's dedicated to knowing ⁓ the buyer environment in those spaces. And some of that is as simple as, you know, What do you want to buy? Where do you want to buy it? How much you looking to buy? But other things are very specific. Like how do you structure your transactions legally? Right? How do you handle integration and transition? Are you going to maintain the brand name? What's going to happen to employees? You know, what's going to happen to back office? Very specific things because transactions are not all the same. And, and owners that step into them don't always have all the same goals. And so We're taking those attributes and we're customizing a pool of buyers that are gonna fit that. The other thing that I think is really, really different about what we do is, a lot of folks I think are assuming, hey, we're gonna send out a bunch of information and then I gotta wait to see if anybody's interested. We're doing our vetting on the front end, right? And so with the fact that we are what's called a sell side advisory firm, meaning 98 % of our engagements are us representing an owner and not a buyer. ⁓ We maintain a buyer network of investors that recognize the scale and the quality of business that we represent and they want to see those opportunities. What we get in exchange is they have to enroll and subscribe to our profiling process and making sure that we have all the information we need to pre-vet as much as we can. ⁓ When we go to launch a process, ⁓ by the time a buyer sees any identifying information on an opportunity, they've already signed an NDA ⁓ and they have already been vetted in certain cases as much as three different times, right? Once in the initial profile, ⁓ once in the non-identifying teaser that we use, and then once verbally on a phone call by a member of our deal team, ⁓ just to triple make sure within what we can share previous to signing an NDA, that we're asking the questions that are gonna make or break interest, right? So in that way, instead of going out to 50 people that might be interested, we're gonna go out to 12 or 15 that are certainly interested at some level. It's just a question of the specifics and how those are going to align with their strategies. So I went deeper into that than I meant to, but I do think that's a really, it's not free for us to send out information about your business, right? It's not free for you. from a confidentiality perspective and it's not free for us from a resource and time perspective. So we're very, very targeted in that way, but we're gonna run a market process with those buyers. It's going to be competitively driven, ⁓ structured, usually four to five week process. We're not gonna put it on a website, let it sit, hope we get somebody coming in. It's gonna be, hey, this is our group. We're gonna run structured around this group ⁓ and we're going to... through that process, voters have the opportunity to talk with the buyer. We think that's a huge thing. think a lot of owners envision, hey, I'm just going to get emailed offers and I'm not going to know whether the group is a fit for my culture or is someone I like or whatever. ⁓ And so we have what we call management calls where seller and buyer have the opportunity to talk and they're going to be asking questions of you and you get to vet them while they're vetting you. We think that's crucial. ⁓ to solve for that interpersonal alignment, right? The economic and the dollars and cents part is typically pretty simple, but the cultural fit is crucial. So we run our process that way. ⁓ And so, yeah, that's our bid process, but ⁓ without going too deep into the weeds, we're gonna sign an offer hopefully out of that. And then a buyer is gonna wanna do due diligence after that, right? They're gonna wanna make sure. that they know what they're buying, right? Confirmatory analysis is another term we use, right? We've said it's this, a buyer is gonna bring in a bunch of third parties and spend, you know, usually a six figure sum, just making sure that they know what they're buying, right? So, you know, all that, that's probably a good overview of that process, but on the transition, think, you know, that figuring that out starts with what the owner wants, right? I think most buyers are gonna wanna see at least a six to nine month transition that maybe day zero is a pretty close semblance of the role that you were filling pre-transaction. Day 30, you're probably scaled down significantly. Day 60 and 90, even more so. And hey, six months out, maybe you're answering a phone call to give a password or answering a question or something like that, but that can slow down. So for owners that want to exit, It can look like that, but at the same time, a lot of the transactions that we do are owners that just want to, as I said, of offload the ownership suite of responsibilities and focus on what they're passionate about. we solve for that as well. speaker-2: when we met your dad ⁓ and I think I have a Stephen and someone else anyways, the team where we first met, that was probably one of the first things that stood out to me was that like, apparently, I'm going back to the human part of it, but like the connection and like because as a clinician, as an owner and most clinical owners that I know, like that's important, right? there's like these family is because of the families and the children that we're working with, the individuals that we're working with that like we feel some responsibility for making sure that we have at least it's, you know, ultimately it's no longer in our control once the transaction happens and it goes to someone else. Like we just have to be, we have to find a place to be okay with that. Knowing that there, you at least have some part of that more so than just, okay, here's this, you know, just a very cold, dry transaction was really cool. I really liked that. And then there was also that kind of confidentiality piece. I can reach out and say, I'm kind of thinking about selling. I'm not sure yet. I'm not worried that it's going to be plastered all over the internet that I'm for sale now. And then the other thing was how long of a process that it would take. And you know, like, I think it was, think maybe your dad had said that some people will come and say, okay, I'm ready to sell. then they expect within 30 days to be done with the whole, the whole process. So I love how you were able to go into that detail and give us more like what to expect it. And because they kind of built on those pieces and those were three of the pieces that I wanted to make sure that we brought up today. So I'm good. speaker-0: You take it. Yeah, I'm just curious about profit sharing. Like, is that something that you often see the owner leaving and they still get a piece of the company? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. speaker-1: So we, know, recapitalization is the, you know, a term that's thrown around for that. We certainly have ⁓ transactions where, you know, we've seen owners retain, you know, as much as 30, 35 percent of the equity in the business. Right. And it's a true it's a true partnership. It's buyer has, you know, we focus exclusively on change of control investments. And so we don't do any. minority work, not to say that it doesn't happen, but not our section of the playground. ⁓ we certainly have advised on several transactions ⁓ that the owners were invited to ⁓ maintain a significant portion of their ownership stake in the business. And from a buyer's perspective, most of them are going to love that, right? When you build a business, you are the business, right? you are the embodiment of the culture. Everyone that came to work there, in most cases, came there to work for you. And so from a buyer's perspective, if they can capture that and bottle that and invest in that without having to solve for, hey, what is going to happen ⁓ when that individual leaves? Some of our best outcomes come from that structure. So that's where earlier I hit on, transactions are not It's not binary. It's not yes or no. Sometimes it can be a structure like that that is in part a transaction, but also is really, we frame it as a pit stop, right? ⁓ More than a truly. speaker-0: hitting the exit rate. how, how much say, and again, I get that this depends, but I just curious what you see, cause this is important to a lot of business owners that the staff get to keep their home and especially the admin staff. so like how, how much say does the, the, the previous owner have on that? And like, what would you say to someone going through that process where ⁓ I don't have any control over who they fire anymore, but I'm still here because I signed on for a transition period. Do you know what mean? So what kind of situation should they expect going into that? speaker-1: Sure, ⁓ April, you hit on this, but I think that there's a part of this that is you're selling the business, right? You gotta be okay at some level with selling the business. You run a good process, you see what's out there, you pick the right group, you gotta trust yourself on that. And there's a certain amount of that that just to be fully transparent is something you gotta be okay with, right? you know, it's sending your baby off to college in a way, right? ⁓ And it's tough, but you have to accept, you I brought the business as far as I can bring it right, you know, on my own. And so I'm kind of bringing somebody that specializes in this next phase, right? And so that's how we frame it. And I do think that part of it is trust, right? You've got to trust yourself that you made the right decision and you've got to trust the partner that you chose to... to do what they're best at. So, you I think that's part of it, Steven, but I think that, you know, I can only speak for my deals. I know that a lot of owners kind of think about ⁓ &A and selling and kind of go in corporate selling out as the boogeyman or as what's bad for a lot of providers. not gonna, I think it would be, you know, disingenuous of me to say that no one does that. What I can say is, from the buyers that we work with, and there are some that we choose not to work with, from the buyers that we work with, I don't see transactions where buyers come in and clean house. It hasn't been my experience. Again, I'm not gonna say that it never happens anywhere, but I think that if you think about it logically, and April, you've said this a few times over the course of our chat here, healthcare is, is people, it's humans, right? And it's humans serving humans. It's so people-centric. What makes a brand ⁓ special is the people that make it up, right? So, you know, from a buyer's perspective, hey, I'm gonna invest millions of dollars into what is ultimately a collection of individuals, and then I fire half those individuals. I'm taking a really big risk that I know this business better than the owner that built it, which is a logical fallacy. Right. And so, you know, from from our experience, look, the part of the investment opportunity for the buyer is to optimize and to make things efficient and to take advantage of their economies of scale. it's in my experience so very rarely is it, hey, I'm to come in and then I'm going to sit in the conference room after I bought the business and people are just going to filter in and I'm to I'm going to hand in pink slips. It's just not that in practice because it doesn't work from from an economics, from an investment perspective. More often, honestly, Stephen, it's, hey, I'm a bigger organization. What I have to offer the staff of the acquisitions I make is bigger opportunity inside of a bigger organization, right? Most of what I saw for is not how can we fire the maximum amount of people while retaining value. Most of what I saw for in transactions is how can we make it worth so-and-so's while to stay, right? And what opportunity can we pitch and present so that We get the opportunity to show them this opportunity prior to them getting spooked, right? ⁓ So that's a bigger problem ⁓ than how do we trim headcount. speaker-0: How intrusive is due diligence? Like what kind of cavity search am I getting on this? speaker-1: Yeah, I'm struggling to come up with the procedure that is invasive enough. It is, you know, what we tell folks is, if you've put it on paper, we're going to need to have it. Right. And so and that's a big, big reason we think our service is special. And look, we think we're really good at what we do. But I tell everybody, you know, I think you should use us if you're thinking about an exit or an event of some kind. ⁓ But if you don't use somebody. speaker-0: ⁓ speaker-1: Right. ⁓ Transacting directly with a buyer. And a lot of these guys are doing their own outreach. Right. They're making their own calls and, you know, they do that because there's, you know, for two reasons and not to sound not to make them sounds, you know, bad or evil or anything like that. But but, you know, nine times out of 10, they get a better deal. Right. Economically speaking, we see as much as a 20 percent value drop in transactions that ⁓ that try to sell to directly to a buyer in transactions that we get to work. And that statistic comes from owners that have previously tried to sell directly and then come and sign up with us. We see offers higher, right? And so that's part of it, but also we're built for this. This is what we do. We don't do anything other than this. We're staffed ⁓ for this. And so we'll assign as many as four individuals onto any... any specific deal to provide that support and to help gather that information. We host all of the data sharing for our transactions. As information is uploaded, our team reviews it, files it, ⁓ and then is able to answer questions about it. I can't understate the level of invasive that it is, Stephen. It's ⁓ fully invasive. ⁓ But we are staffed and we do run a ⁓ structure in a way that is intended to make it as easy as possible. But we tell everybody in our onboarding process, hey, selling business is a full-time job, right? So you've already got a full-time job running the business. You're gonna need to bring in some help, right? So it's a hard process, but we're built to make it as easy as we can. speaker-2: So myself included, but other business owners that I've talked to who are thinking about selling feel like they have to get their business to a perfect place before it's good enough to sell or before they feel comfortable selling. And we all know there's no such thing. ⁓ And so what kind of words would you say, like especially knowing, because if I know there are people that you are listening right now that you're like, ⁓ yeah, okay, no, I can't. even call these people yet to even start thinking or talking about this because if they're going to be looking at all the things, well, project A, B and C, I haven't done yet. I'm still working on perfecting this thing. What words of wisdom or encouragement do you have for them? Because I know that you probably have yet to see a perfect business come across your desk. speaker-1: Not yet. No deal. No perfect deals from our perspective. That's a ⁓ great point, April, that topic. ⁓ And I think our valuation process is meant to help address that. Again, there have been plenty of business owners that I have told, hey, you're not ready. You're going to leave money on the table. You're not going to get the interest that you should. Here's what you need to go do. And what I love about our firm is being that we are so specified in health care. when I spot a problem that's going to be ⁓ prohibitive for a transaction, I can introduce somebody to fix it, right? Whether it's a group like 3 Pi squared or it's ⁓ an attorney or it's an accountant or someone like that, we have a whole host of partners that are specific ⁓ to ABA and to the various markets that we serve outside of ABA as well. ⁓ I, you know, what I tell everybody, you know, I think transparency is key and ⁓ explaining our services to folks. You know, our compensation is success based, right? So I'm not gonna get paid for the valuation ⁓ and I'm only gonna get compensated when we achieve that successful outcome, right? And so with that, if I'm telling you you're not ready, it's because I don't, you know, I don't think I'm gonna be able to make money, right? And so, you know, we have... the exact same incentives with business owners, which is a really cool thing. Cause we truly get to partner with folks and walk through that process with them. And so ⁓ that's that, but I think ⁓ perfection is always just one project away. It's always just one order away. It's always just one hire away. know, I, what I tell folks on that is two things. Most of the time people that I speak with are saying, Hey, you know, I just opened this new clinic or, ⁓ you know, I just hired this new person that's going to bring in, you know, a new market for me, whatever. ⁓ I tell owners all the time, if a lot of folks think they need to grow to the maximum point and then they need to sell right at the pinnacle, the problem with that is from a buyer and an investor's perspective is if that's what you do, you have only down to go. If you picture a peak, you're either going up or you're going down, you're very rarely stagnating. From a buyer's perspective, they're not investing ⁓ to maintain a business, they're investing to grow a business. So from a growth perspective, ⁓ not to say that owners should not capitalize on the low-hanging fruit opportunities and grow their business as much as they can, but ⁓ definitely think it's worth looking at it from a buyer standpoint and thinking, hey, when I go to have conversations with investors, what opportunities am I gonna tell them that they're gonna have? And so that exists from a growth perspective, but also internally. ⁓ I think that goes to knowing yourself as an entrepreneur and knowing the structures and processes that you're going to be able to solve for on your own, while also ⁓ recognizing that larger organizations are going to have inroads and networks and opportunities to make things better that you don't have. So I think there's part of that process that we run is, hey, what problems are facing the agency? Which ones are solvable? And which ones are going to be great for us to talk about? with a buyer of, if so-and-so could just solve this, this thing would be a rocket, right? And so that's a lot of what we do as well. speaker-0: curious if there are any common deal breakers, like just for folks thinking, okay, I'm ready, I'm gonna call you up, I'm gonna figure this out. Like, are there things that you're like, these are the absolute bare minimum that we need to have in place? speaker-1: So, through diligence, think accounting is a big thing. I think a lot of owners are running their own books or trying to run their own books. that's a big thing. A lot of our work is financially driven. And so a lot of valuation is financially driven. so ⁓ the process we run is we try to spot those variances that might be journal entry errors or ⁓ know, reconciliation, ⁓ things like that. ⁓ But, you know, having a good accounting resource is so critical, right? And it's so important ⁓ because part of what a buyer is going to do ⁓ is called a quality of earnings, right? So ⁓ it's, you know, said simply, it's, hey, is the business as profitable as we've said that it is, right? So, you know, knowing that upfront, I think is really critical. ⁓ Having a good billing and collection processes down your RCM function, I think is critical as well. If a buyer comes in and you're operating ⁓ an insurance-based business and you're struggling to get paid for the services you've provided, that presents a problem from our perspective on, we need to understand why we're not able to collect that revenue the right way. we need to be, from a buyer's perspective, if I'm buying a business, it needs to be able to collect revenue for the services that it rents. That's a big thing as well. And then thirdly, and we spent a lot of time talking about it already, is just that key man risk. I need to be able to tell a really good story about what the business has been, how it's grown, and how you built it into what it is. But the second half of that story is why it doesn't need you anymore. And you're proverbially ready to send that kid off to college. Right. And so I think that's a big, a big obstacle as well that we have to solve for is, Hey, you know, you have to build your business with the intent of building a business, right? Not, not in the intent of being everything for everyone. speaker-0: Is utilization ⁓ or like cancellation, session cancellation something that you guys are looking at or is that a concern? speaker-1: think utilization is important, right? From a staff standpoint, from a clinic standpoint, I think that is certainly important. But at the same time, I think it goes back from a buyer's standpoint, if we're looking at a growing business that still is under utilizing its staff, I think there's, from a buyer's perspective, there's an opportunity there because we all know this, but one of the biggest challenges that faces ABA are staff. ⁓ But from a buyer's perspective, at that size and scale, an ability to recruit directly from the sources, ⁓ use recruiting resources that might not be available for smaller agency owners, a long waitlist can be an exciting thing from a buyer's perspective, right? So ⁓ that's something where when we see it, we love to talk about it. speaker-0: And then just some quick questions like, are you seeing, is accreditation making a meaningful decision right now? speaker-1: I don't think, so, you know, it's not something that makes or breaks deals, Steven, from my perspective. I think that there are certain buyers that have accreditations that like to acquire other agencies that have those same creditations, right? And so I do think that it can be a value add, but I don't think it's a deal killer. speaker-0: And then what about like having standards in place like regulation, compliance, HIPAA compliance? Is that something that comes out in due diligence or how does that work? speaker-1: don't have a ton of compliance issues. We've worked with some providers that have caregivers that are functioning as 1099 contractors instead of W2 employees. That's a big transaction issue from a risk perspective. so would say if you're operating that model, always better from a transaction standpoint to have those individuals be W2 full-time employees. that's where I think... being knowing what you can accomplish internally and what you need to bring in a vendor for doing periodic compliance checks, bringing in organizations that can help you check under the rocks and open the closets is never a bad thing to do periodically. Sets you up well, a buyer is gonna do it ⁓ when they go to do their homework. And so always, always good to be prepared for that. speaker-0: And so just so everybody listening can hear this again You're not supposed to have contractors and this just another reason why you shouldn't have contractors. So rbt's Don't do it. ⁓ was talking with a company I don't even I'm not even gonna talk about it. Okay, so and then you know one other thing Do I have to have a clinic to sell or can my in-home agency, is it just as valuable? Are you seeing higher returns on a clinic-based center? speaker-1: Yeah, great question. ⁓ I think clinic-based agencies has a broader buyer pool. ⁓ And I think it comes down to utilization, right? If you have clinicians that are driving from patient to patient to patient, you're not getting your best margin out of their time, right? And so I think from a buyer standpoint, ⁓ That's a factor that's looked at. We have buyers that look at home-based ABA providers. We have buyers that look at school-based ABA providers. And so I don't know that it's a sell or not question. think though, ⁓ certainly as you're building your practice, building around ⁓ central focal service of being in clinic and serving kids in clinic ⁓ is going to be what allows us to maximize your buyer pool. doesn't mean you can't do some of the school based opportunities and serve folks out of their home as well. But, but, you know, I would say, you know, 60, 70 % of the business being in clinic at a minimum is, is, is what allows us to maximize the buyer pool and, and therefore competition. speaker-0: Sure. Because you want to like, I assume I'm very similar to a home, right? Never, never having sold a business, but I would assume that you want to play buyers off of each other, right? Like, so, Hey, we got this price. Are you sure you want there? You know what I mean? Is that kind of the how it works? speaker-1: So there's a version of that that's certainly at play, Steve. And I think we try to be very intentional on how we structure our bid processes because for us to get deals done, need buyers, right? So for us, run, tough but fair, right, is the goal. We want to create a competitive environment that drives folks to really understand our clients and the businesses that they've built. and puts them in a position to feel like they need to bid their best to win the deal. We don't share offer outcomes in between buyers just because we feel like it. We want our buyers to feel like we respect their investment into our process as well. They need to know that, hey, if I do what Agenda asks and I bid my best, they're not going to take it across town and ask somebody to beat it by, you know. half a million dollars or whatever and I get lost, right? So, you know, we run a process that's centered around, hey, we're gonna give you the right amount of time to ask questions, to meet the seller, to fully understand the opportunity. We're gonna emphasize the competitive nature of our process and we're gonna ask you to come with your best, right? There are sometimes instances, Steven, where, you know, we do that, we bring five or six offers, two or three of them are really, really tight. ⁓ on top of each other. The sellers really like both parties and we'll say, hey, you know, we're really not not able to choose out of these two. So, hey, we're going to take you two and we're going to do kind of an impromptu heads up second round where, hey, both of you are going to have the opportunity to revise your bids. You don't have to, but if you don't, might lose. And so we'll do things like that. Our goals value maximization, but at the same time, we want buyers to feel like they have the opportunity to win if they speaker-0: I gotcha. speaker-1: if they engage the right way. speaker-0: Yeah, that makes sense. then I just curious question. Are you seeing like, have you seen anything unique propositions or ABA companies that have really cool things that you're not not seen in a typical ABA company that has helped the buying process? speaker-1: Yeah, know, I, Steven, I wish I was more trained up on that. I know there's a ton of opportunities in AI ⁓ to make the service better. I know ⁓ there was a group that recently raised some capital for more of a telehealth-based service model. ⁓ We don't see a ton of that ⁓ in our own transactions. And I think, look, you know, as AI permeates the space, you know, even further, speaker-0: Okay speaker-1: groups are going to invest in it, right? It's an opportunity to ⁓ be more efficient with clinicians' time, ⁓ which is the goal when you have ⁓ clinician wages only going in one direction. ⁓ And at the same time, it's an opportunity to serve patients better, right? More clinical efficacy and efficiency. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: uh... is is always the goal right so i i don't know that there are a bunch of folks to do that well i uh... i stay in my lane on that topic i'm not smart enough for all speaker-0: No worries. then like, cause a lot of the, a lot of ABA companies, I don't want to say a lot. I don't know the data, but there are many ABA companies that also have their own clinic. So they bought the place rather than leased the clinic. own the clinic. Are you seeing that? Like, is that a part of the sale or does it depend or like, how does that kind of work? speaker-1: Great question. I think generally speaking, what a buyer is going to want is to purchase the business and in instances, which is common, where the owner also owns the real estate involved, they'll want to sign a long-term lease ⁓ with the business owner to be their landlord. So for us, it's an opportunity for owners to kind of have some mailbox money from that rent. a buyer will do a fair market rent analysis to make sure they come up with a a fair arrangement, but you get a long-term tenant in your space at a market rent level. And so that's part of what we're doing in the valuation exercise where it's applicable as well is where owners own the real estate, the businesses and sometimes they're charging higher than market rent. Sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's no rent at all. Right. So that's part of the normalization exercise we're doing so that they get a valuation from that that is net of any effect that that might have. speaker-0: Okay. And then the last question I have, and then I'll throw it back to you. If we missed anything, I get that this is a high level, right? Like this. ⁓ what about rate negotiation ⁓ for the ABA companies? Is this something that they should be focusing on? Do you have any feedback on that at all? speaker-1: So I think on the commercial insurance side, we've encountered ⁓ practices that struggle with that. There are some great third parties that do that really well. I advise folks to work through those groups. It's going to cost you some money, but at the same time, they're going to be better equipped for that than you are. Insurance companies are, I think, pretty notorious generally for ⁓ being hard to negotiate with. You know, same as I genuinely think everybody that wants to sell their business should hire somebody that does it for a living. You know, I think the same in that, in the context of rate conversations with payers. You know, we also do a lot of work with Medicaid-based agencies as well. so, you know, we've seen rate cuts in Indiana, North Carolina, we're starting to see it Colorado. And so, You know, those are conversations that we're having with business owners. think that, you know, easy when rates are increasing to think, hey, there's always more opportunity, but as rates start to come down, ⁓ you know, we try to plan with people around that to time that the right way as well. Right, right. has been really good for us at Agenda. We have 45 practices that we're in some form of exit planning with around the country. We have 10 transactions we've closed in the last 12 months and two more that we're hoping to add to that count here in the next few weeks. And so, know, the space has been really good for us. We are, you know, again, our primary focus is serving and partnering with business owners so that they know. Right. And, you know, so that they know what their businesses were, so that they know market trends, so that they know how to run their business better. And so, you know, that's the last thing I would cap off with is ⁓ this is your most important economic asset. It's also your legacy. Right. And it's the culmination of your career. ⁓ You know, knowledge never hurts. Right. So always, always, ⁓ always excited to have a conversation ⁓ to help owners really understand their business. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, it's just have the conversation, right? Like even if you ultimately decide, yeah, this isn't for me, just having that knowledge can do so much. like you said, getting that information, because you talk to so many ABA companies, you have a general idea on what is working, what isn't working, best practices, and then they can take that information and then build something even more amazing, right? So I think The more knowledge you have, the better off you are. yeah, and that's what's awesome about you guys and why this is a really cool partnership that we can do. speaker-1: Thanks for having me on. speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. We're so thankful ⁓ that we were able to make space for this conversation because it's super important. And hopefully it's even the first of many conversations as we continue to work together. All right. So for those of you listening, remember we have a podcast hotline. So if you have any questions about today's podcast or any podcast or if you have a story that you want to share or or any information to add to what we've talked about, feel free to call our podcast hotline. The number is in the show notes. ⁓ we would love to hear from you. ⁓ the information to reach out to Alex and his team at Agenda Health will also be in the show notes. so. ⁓ And then also there's links to our website to be able to also access it through that. So yeah, so everything you'll need will be right in the notes. ⁓ And we hope that you have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. speaker-0: See ya.