Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Capital Tactics' Dino Lucarelli on Why the Win-Win Is Not Weakness, It's the Only Strategy That Lasts

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Capital Tactics' Dino Lucarelli on Why the Win-Win Is Not Weakness, It's the Only Strategy That Lasts · 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
0:12
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. As you listen today, let one
0:17
idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
0:21
today's guest is Dino Lucarelli, CPA and Founder and Managing
0:26
Director of Capital Tactics, a Cincinnati based financial
0:29
advisory firm that guides business owners through mergers
0:33
and acquisitions, capital raising and financial
0:36
restructuring. Along with M&A support.
0:39
The firm provides business valuations, cash flow planning,
0:43
and day-to-day financial management, all to help middle
0:46
market companies unlock lasting value.
0:49
Since launching in 2021, Capital Tactics has already advised on
0:54
dozens of successful transactions and Dino himself
0:58
brings over 3 decades of leadership as a CEOCFO and board
1:03
member, plus a long standing role as an MBA instructor in
1:07
Business Valuation and M&A at Xavier University's Williams
1:12
College of Business. His blend of classroom insight
1:15
and real world deal making has earned him a reputation as a
1:19
trusted voice and corporate finance.
1:22
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Back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:20
today, the Managing Director of Capital Tactics, Dino Lucarelli.
2:24
Thanks for making the time to Share your story today.
2:27
Happy to do it. Thank you, Anthony.
2:29
So, Dino, what first sparked your interest in finance?
2:33
It's very simple. I was always worried as a young
2:38
man about would I be able to sustain myself and live a happy
2:43
life? And I was talking to an advisor
2:45
in high school who said if you go into business, you'll never
2:48
be out of work. I said, OK, I'm going to take up
2:52
accounting in in school and college.
2:55
I did that and I've never been out of work since.
2:57
So it was just a question of sustainability.
3:02
Where did that initial fear come from?
3:05
I think growing up in a, in a household where my father worked
3:09
very hard and he was in sales and the sales business can be
3:14
very volatile and there were a lot of highs and a lot of lows.
3:19
And it taught me that I wanted, I wanted more sustainability,
3:22
more consistency in my life and in my career where I I wasn't
3:28
living and dying on the next transaction, but I was able to
3:33
build a, a knowledge base and work from that knowledge base
3:37
and help create value for organizations and companies
3:40
where I had a continuing role. So let's talk about some of your
3:46
earlier roles before we get into what you're doing now at Capital
3:49
Tactics. You were at Arts and Young for a
3:53
year and that is the VP of Finance at a publicly held
3:56
company, Edison Brothers Stores. It actually guided them through
4:00
Chapter 11. Early on in your career, what
4:03
was that experience like for you?
4:06
It was amazing. It was an opportunity to expand
4:10
my skill set and to to challenge myself to be my best self.
4:14
When working in a multi billion dollar bankrupt company, one
4:19
finds himself in in front of very, very accomplished
4:24
professionals, whether it be bankers, attorneys, deal people,
4:27
strategists. And what was interesting about
4:31
that opportunity was it it It forced me to rethink how I
4:36
approached opportunities, how to work for the win win instead of
4:42
the win lose. It forced me to think about the
4:45
dimensions of each facet, whether it be the legal or the
4:50
financial or the HR component or the IT component, to to become
4:55
well versed in a variety of disciplines instead of just
4:58
simply focusing on finance. And in so doing, I was able to
5:03
meet some incredibly interesting people who taught me a lot and
5:07
helped fortify me for the next phases of my career.
5:11
Say more about that Win Win philosophy, because I have to
5:14
imagine a bankruptcy even though I've not been one through 1
5:17
before. There's a lot of tension right
5:19
there. Things haven't been going well.
5:21
How are you trying to set up Win Win?
5:24
You think about the constituents in a, in a bankruptcy, of course
5:28
you have the financial partners who want their money, but then
5:30
you also have employees who have worked hard for the company
5:33
who's who didn't really directly contribute to the bankruptcy.
5:36
Often times in a, in a situation like this, the bankruptcy was at
5:41
Edison Brothers was a function of some poor decisions made at
5:45
the top. And so when I'm looking for a
5:49
win win, I want a solution that doesn't result in termination of
5:55
all the employees and closing of all the stores and breaking of
5:58
all the leases and having a whole bunch of people out of out
6:02
of the money. What I was looking for is how
6:05
can we satisfy the creditors, keep the employees working,
6:09
build a sustainable organization kind of a phoenix from the ashes
6:14
and and rethink how we go to market and continue to operate
6:20
in the community, pay taxes, be a good corporate citizen and let
6:25
our employees, vendors and customers continue to have
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access to our services and products.
6:31
That's a win win. Often times bankruptcy is, is a
6:35
situation where it's a pure financial play.
6:38
Shutter the doors, pull all the cash, send everybody home.
6:44
That's, that's a very, very dire circumstance.
6:48
And I had the opportunity to Edison Brothers to work with
6:51
people who shared a similar philosophy.
6:53
And we ultimately were successful at doing what we what
6:57
we set out to do, which was to keep the sustainability going.
7:01
That's great. And I presume that that
7:03
continues to influence the way that you approach deals today.
7:08
In every deal, Anthony, we look for the win, win.
7:11
I, I put myself in the shoes of the other party on a regular
7:14
basis just to understand how would I interpret this if I were
7:18
on their side? You know what, what are their
7:20
concerns? What are their fears?
7:22
And am I, am I, is there an overreach on either side?
7:24
And let's let's do our best tonight.
7:26
I have an overreach. I just, in fact, was just on a
7:29
call today, just a few minutes ago with this, this podcast with
7:34
the representative from another side of the deal.
7:37
And we were negotiating some, some things that it kind of
7:42
popped up in the last minute of the deal.
7:43
We're supposed to close. And it was very collaborative
7:46
conversation. It's not like, you know, we're,
7:49
we're, we're stuck on one side and it's, it's this or we walk.
7:53
We, we don't ever take that approach.
7:55
Now we've had people doing deals, threatened to walk the
7:59
deal at a very early stage. That's when it it becomes even
8:03
more challenging to to show them that our intent is pure.
8:08
We work from a posture of fairness and we want every
8:12
party, every constituent to feel like they were treated with
8:15
respect. And that I think is what has
8:18
sustained us for 23 years, 22 years, whatever.
8:21
Before it was capital tactics that was looked like a tactical
8:24
group. We basically did the same thing
8:25
with different name. But that's how we've been able
8:28
to, to win favor with, you know, parties that otherwise could be
8:33
in a contentious situation. And you know, we don't, we don't
8:36
like contentious situations. We, we work very hard to, to
8:40
jump to the other side and take their, take their position and
8:43
understand it and then make concessions that are fair.
8:47
Interestingly, a long time ago I ran into a person who I thought
8:50
was very, very highly, highly respected and he told me that
8:54
compromise is a tool of the week.
8:57
And it was, it was staggering to me as a young man to hear that
9:01
what I thought would be a, a, a very admirable trait, which is
9:06
to compromise and look for mutual wins, mutual gains.
9:11
That's the right way to do it. And my upbringing and my
9:14
schooling, my and my faith is one of treat people the way you
9:19
want to be treated. It's very simple, but it's not
9:23
always implemented properly. Yeah, it strikes me that there's
9:28
probably not a whole lot of your type of mindset in this line of
9:32
work, right? There's there's a lot of ego,
9:35
there's a lot of bravado. There's a lot of, I'm going to,
9:37
you know, squeeze every last penny out of the deal that I can
9:41
get for myself or for my client. Is that what you run into a lot?
9:46
Sadly, that is so true. The, the prevalent behavior is
9:51
for me to win, you have to lose. And early in my career, I read a
9:56
book called getting to yes, it has, it's very well known
10:01
popular book and it talked about how do you cause all parties to
10:05
feel like they're being satisfied in the situation?
10:09
So one of the things that I think sets us apart is the fact
10:13
that we do work towards mutual success, mutual gains and, and
10:19
the, your, your assertion is absolutely correct.
10:22
The majority of people who do what we do don't behave this
10:26
way. And so we sometimes have clients
10:29
or would be clients who have a very aggressive posture towards
10:33
deals. And I will tell you that we
10:37
don't take clients on who have that demeanor.
10:40
We we will just simply say, look, we're not the right 5th
10:42
for you. What we want to do is fair
10:44
deals. We want to do deals where people
10:47
are rewarded for having built great companies.
10:50
We don't want to disrespect them.
10:51
We don't want to try to job them because they don't have the
10:54
right attorney or they don't have the right accountant or
10:56
they happen to be very kind hearted.
10:59
We just completed a deal where the sellers were not represented
11:05
and they didn't have a third party on the other side, you
11:09
know, to represent them. And we worked very hard with my
11:13
buyer and I did with them to make sure that what we did was
11:18
fair. And it I would be proud if it
11:21
got published on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
11:23
Oh, that's an interesting way to run a business, huh?
11:27
Well, the financial people, that's a fairly common saying it
11:32
when people start thinking about financial reporting and what's
11:35
right, what's wrong. And I always use that as the
11:38
barometer. If this if this were on the
11:39
cover of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow, would I be proud of
11:42
it? And so when you hold yourself to
11:44
a standard. Like that?
11:47
It things get exponentially harder, yeah.
11:52
So OK, we talked about the Edison Brothers Stores Chapter
11:56
11 that you helped guide them through.
11:57
You learned a lot there about this win win philosophy.
12:00
Although it sounds like this is kind of baked into your
12:02
upbringing, your faith, you're just, you're kind of wired for
12:06
this. You also were the CFO of a
12:10
publicly traded company, Pomeroy Computer Resources.
12:13
Tell us about a powerful lesson, learning experience that you had
12:17
there. Do you know?
12:20
That was a very fast growing organization that was, was going
12:28
1000 miles an hour to grow, to become big in the, in the early
12:32
stages of the personal computer boom.
12:34
It was, it was essentially, and I hate to use this trite saying
12:40
it was definitely drinking from the fire hose.
12:43
We had a company that in four years, three years of my tenure
12:46
went from 400 million to almost a billion dollars in revenue.
12:50
And what happens when you grow is you have to learn, you have
12:56
to continue because I was growing with the company.
12:58
And so it puts a premium on your willingness to listen and to
13:02
interpret and understand and, and venture into new worlds that
13:07
maybe are new for you, but but always work from a posture of
13:11
what's best for the organization, what's best for
13:14
our people, our customers, our suppliers.
13:15
So it, it helped me create a holistic view of the world and
13:19
also helped me with risk taking because there were things like
13:23
that I had never done, like talking to Wall Street analysts
13:26
about our stock and our stock price.
13:29
Financial reporting became very important and one of the stories
13:34
that I, I recite a lot is that there's a, there's a report that
13:38
gets done by every public company every year.
13:39
It's called a 10K report. It's an annual report that gets
13:41
followed with the Securities Exchange Commission.
13:43
And effectively our, our 10K was a bunch of words.
13:47
It didn't really stipulate what was going on in the company and
13:49
what the risk factors were and all the things like that.
13:52
So I took that out of the hands of legal and I wrote the 10K
13:56
myself after 10 years of being a public company.
13:58
And I read it and I, I did what the SEC asks you to do, which is
14:02
talk about the good, the bad and the ugly and give us a forecast
14:06
of what's going to happen. Tell us what's what's coming
14:09
down the Pike, what's good or bad, and tell us risk factors.
14:12
So the 10 KS that I had reviewed prior to me taking authorship
14:18
never talked about any risk factors.
14:20
And So what I did is say, look, there are huge risk factors.
14:22
There's this convergence of, of data and telephony.
14:25
There's this issue of a, of a company named Dell that's, you
14:29
know, the big giant taking over the world.
14:31
IBM is on the decline. And so we went from having no
14:36
risk factors in our 10K to having pages and pages of risk
14:40
factors. And it wasn't that I was trying
14:42
to, to downgrade the stock or downgrade the company.
14:45
It was just let's be eyes open. Let's tell our shareholders what
14:48
they deserve to know and let them make decisions.
14:51
And interestingly, after we did that, the company stock had been
14:55
trading at about $12.00 a share for the 45 years prior to my
14:59
involvement. After my second year of
15:01
involvement, the stock rose all the way up to $28.00 a share and
15:04
stayed there for a long time. After I left.
15:08
Some things happened and you know, the stock didn't prevail
15:11
at that level, but while I was there and while we were being
15:14
very transparent and telling the shareholders what they wanted to
15:17
know, they felt like they were getting the best information.
15:20
And you think that transparency was what led to the stability in
15:23
the higher stock price? I don't think there's any doubt
15:26
about it because in the past when I went to Wall Street, they
15:29
said, oh, this is a family run business in Northern Kentucky.
15:31
And what I did is establish us as a real force in the, in the
15:35
technology world. And again, drawing it from 400
15:38
to 900 million and telling them the things that they already
15:43
knew but wanted to know if we knew.
15:46
I think that caused them to have more confidence that we were.
15:49
We had a 360 view of the world, and it wasn't just our way or
15:52
the highway. So you were just mentioning
15:56
before that Lucarelli Tactical Group founded the end of 2018
16:01
was basically the the precursor to capital tactics that you run
16:06
today. Walk us through sort of the
16:09
connection between those two companies and how the idea to
16:12
start Lucarelli Tactical Group came about.
16:15
It was really a resource planning issue as a small firm,
16:19
Luke Roy Tactical Group. I started it effectively after I
16:22
left my last corporate job in 2003 and I grew it to 8 people
16:30
and we worked closely with accounting firms, big accounting
16:32
firms and accounting firms are constantly looking for new
16:37
opportunities, new business lines.
16:38
So we did, we did a lot of work with a particular firm here in
16:41
town that's very large and they, they wanted to buy us because
16:46
they felt like that was a new line of business they could take
16:48
on. And we did.
16:49
So we sold our firm into their company and then I ran the
16:53
business unit for them. And after about three years it
16:58
was, it was, there's not nothing wrong with either side, it just,
17:02
it just wasn't a good fit. Accounting firms bill by the
17:06
hour. We don't bill by the hour.
17:09
You know, I might bill at the end of a deal.
17:12
That's when we and we, we, we're success fee based.
17:15
So I might burn 200 hours that would otherwise be billable by
17:19
an accounting firm, but I don't get paid till maybe nine months,
17:23
10 months, 11 months, 12 months down the road.
17:25
And I think that over time that expenditure of hours became
17:33
worrisome to the leadership of the firm.
17:35
So we parted as friends and we still do lots of referral work
17:40
between the two firms and it's fine.
17:43
But not every merger is successful.
17:48
And while I wouldn't say that ours was unsuccessful, I would
17:51
say that we're better off a part and independent.
17:54
So now I can use their work to do audit work that otherwise
17:59
they couldn't do for my clients because there would be a
18:02
perceived conflict of interest. So we we separated.
18:06
I bought my company back and I renamed it because I felt like
18:10
it it, it had, we had established A broader appeal and
18:14
I didn't want it tied to my name so much.
18:17
I wanted more of a, more of a corporate name because the
18:20
companies with which we work tend to be sizable companies.
18:24
And, you know, they don't. I don't really feel like running
18:28
a business with a single person's name is the best.
18:32
I feel like it's better to have a corporate presence where
18:35
people recognize that you you're growing like they are.
18:39
And that way when a client comes, they don't insist on
18:42
talking to the guy whose name's on the door.
18:45
They understand that there's lots of folks that are there who
18:47
can help them in a similar. Way that's exactly right.
18:50
My team are very talented people and you know, I, I stand as
18:55
advisor to deals, but my people run deals and, you know, they're
19:00
very talented and I, I don't want to be the critical link in
19:05
the chain. That's that to me, that's a
19:07
single point of failure is inappropriate.
19:09
And so that doesn't happen anymore.
19:11
And when people hear capital tactics, of course they think of
19:13
me because I'm the founder, but they also think of Lisa or Chuck
19:18
or Eddie or Chris. And so we, we do have, I think
19:24
we have a, a broader footprint and, and I think we, we stand as
19:29
a firm instead of as an individual who's looking for
19:32
success. You said that you do sizable
19:35
deals, Dino. Tell us what kind of size we're
19:38
talking about. We purposely, so my, my
19:42
background is coming from multi $1,000,000 cover 100,000,200
19:46
million, 500 million. What I recognized in those roles
19:53
is that the smaller companies anywhere from 5 million in
19:55
revenue up to say 50 million were under represented.
19:58
They didn't have a professional CFO, they didn't have corporate
20:01
counsel and staff. They might have had a, you know,
20:04
a good tactically skilled accountant, but they didn't
20:08
really have a professional CPA firm.
20:10
And so I recognize that that size of company, 5 million to
20:13
say 50 million in revenue were not represented properly in the
20:18
market and they didn't have the level of professional advisors.
20:21
You know, a company at at a billion dollars in sales has a
20:24
$400,000 CFOA company at $20 million in sales.
20:29
Maybe they have an accounting degreed person who's learned
20:35
QuickBooks. And so it's not to demean them,
20:37
it's actually to help them. I, you know, my father had a
20:40
small business in the Cincinnati market.
20:42
I helped him set it up and been very successful.
20:44
And I recognized that he didn't have the kind of skill sets and
20:48
couldn't really afford a $400,000 CFO.
20:50
So it, it taught me that, you know, there was a, there was a
20:53
niche, there was a space where I could do great work and feel
20:58
like I was creating real value instead of working in a
21:00
corporate giant. So we could have a dividend
21:03
increase of a nickel next quarter.
21:05
We're saving companies, we're helping companies go, you know,
21:08
borrow $5,000,000 and, and buy another add on company in Saint
21:12
Louis. So we're doing things that are
21:14
really organizationally changing, you know, development
21:20
of companies. OK, so let's talk more
21:23
specifically about everything that you guys offer.
21:25
You're helping companies sell their business.
21:29
You're helping folks buy businesses.
21:32
You're helping them finance these deals.
21:35
What else am I missing here? Do you know?
21:37
Buying, selling, financing. We also scrub the books to do
21:41
the due diligence. There's a whole body of science
21:43
of accounting and financial science of you look at a
21:45
company, you really want to do a forensic review, you want to
21:48
dive in and look and make sure that you're getting what you're
21:50
getting. So we look, we look at that
21:52
along the way. Sometimes companies approach us
21:55
and they're not ready to sell. We, we look at the company and,
21:58
and you know, they'll say, let's, let's sell and we'll do
22:01
an analysis and we'll find out. Well, there's some challenges
22:04
and and you have some rather significant opportunities for
22:08
improvement. And if you make these changes
22:11
with these improvements, you'll be a much better company.
22:14
You'll optimize the transaction for yourself and you'll deliver
22:18
a better company to the buyer than it is today.
22:21
So we'll do a ton of restructuring work.
22:23
We'll help companies, you know, look at themselves, look at
22:26
product lines, look at their operations, look at their
22:29
staffing. And we do pretty detailed
22:33
assessments of readiness for sale.
22:35
And if they had a certain score, we'll take them to market.
22:38
And if they don't, we'll help them implement these changes so
22:42
that they are ready to go. What you don't want to do is
22:46
have a a seller go to market. And this is one of the areas
22:50
that is rife with with deception.
22:54
You take a company to market that's flawed, you get a quick
22:57
check and the seller is, is suboptimized.
23:01
That's just not in our DNA. And we see that a lot where
23:06
buyers will take advantage of companies that have flaws.
23:10
And our ethos is that you've, you've taken the challenge,
23:14
you've taken the risk, you've put your whole financial career
23:16
at stake for your business. We're going to help you exit the
23:20
right way and, and, and fairly. And, and then we'll tell them
23:23
eyes open, you're, you're not ready.
23:25
You're, you know, you can get an additional 30% in value and you
23:30
can create more value for your associates and more
23:32
sustainability for your company. And I've used that word a lot in
23:35
this, in this podcast. Sustainability is the key.
23:40
You know, one hit wonders are not interesting to me.
23:43
The ability to build something that sustains and lasts is where
23:47
real value is created. And that's the thing that I'm
23:51
proudest of that we've been able to do.
23:54
So tell me about the timing of all of this work because, you
23:58
know, I've been through some exits myself and I know the way
24:01
that a lot of entrepreneurs are wired, Like when you come up
24:04
with the idea that you want to sell, you want to start marching
24:07
towards that as quickly as possible.
24:09
But it sounds like you're coming in and saying, hang on a second,
24:12
we got a lot of work to do here first.
24:14
How was that generally received? There's a fair amount of work
24:18
that's necessary to prepare a company for sale.
24:21
We do presentations to chambers and the like and talk about
24:23
this. And I would not to dumb it down,
24:27
but to put a, put a, a visual to it.
24:30
If I'm hosting a dinner party and I'm going to have our local
24:34
congressman attend and some dignitaries, I want to make sure
24:39
that we use the fine China. I want to make sure that the
24:42
house is right, the yard is right, everything's just
24:45
perfect. I want, I want everybody to walk
24:48
in and feel happy. On the upside, you know that
24:50
that this is as good as it can be.
24:53
And so we want our companies to look as good as they can look.
24:56
And sometimes that means we have to make some structural changes.
24:59
The typical deal that we do, whether it's a buy or sell,
25:03
you're probably looking at a year, a year to get it done.
25:06
We do some some things internally to create additional
25:09
sustainability. We will put together the story
25:13
and tell the story and that takes some time back and forth.
25:16
We will put together the financial history and then we'll
25:19
put together the financial future forecasting.
25:22
And in that respect, we're able to come to the market with a
25:27
very robust offering. And with that offering, we then
25:32
feel like we're we're providing real value to our buyers.
25:36
And if we happen to be and if we happen to be on the buy side,
25:41
we're helping them to understand what their real criteria are.
25:44
We have people come to us and say, oh gosh, I'm going to buy a
25:47
company. Like what do you want to buy?
25:48
Well, I don't know, I don't care.
25:49
Like, well, no, that's not the right answer.
25:50
The answer is we have to buy something that you have some
25:53
particular interest in or some particular experience in or some
25:57
secret sauce that you bring to the table.
26:00
I had AI had a seller come to me a couple of years ago and he had
26:03
some serious money, but he had never run a business.
26:06
And he had, he had developed his money through some very
26:10
successful sales in a large organization.
26:13
He had several $1,000,000 of investable cash, but he had
26:16
never run a team. He had never operated a
26:19
business. He didn't understand finance.
26:20
He understood how to sell. And I said, look, keep your
26:23
money in the stock market. You're not a good client.
26:25
I don't think that you're you're going to bring anything special
26:28
to the table. And if you can't bring
26:32
improvements to a company because of your particular
26:35
orientation, your skill set, your background, you probably
26:39
shouldn't buy a company. You should probably just, you
26:41
know, you. Actually talked yourself out of
26:43
a client in that case. I did, but at the end of the
26:46
day, you always want people to feel like they were treated
26:50
fairly. I always want my constituents
26:53
and the people who follow me and trust me to tell them the truth.
26:57
You don't stay in business for 20 years by turning a quick
27:00
buck. You just don't.
27:02
You have to look at the long term, look at the win.
27:05
And this may be a bit of vanity, but I'm very proud of the
27:09
reputation we've established. I'm proud of the fact that we
27:13
have built and sustained for a number of people, not just
27:17
growth companies, but sustainable and sustaining
27:20
wealth, family wealth, generational wealth.
27:24
Recently I, I received a call from one of my former clients.
27:26
He bought a company in 2018. We helped him at the closing
27:31
table. He said to me, gosh, we've been
27:33
at this so long. I feel like that when I pay you
27:35
your fee, your, I will have paid you $8 an hour for your work.
27:40
We laughed. Well, that was in 2018.
27:43
He just sold the company for $40 million.
27:46
He has now generational wealth and he came back and said, let's
27:49
do it again. So let's go back and buy another
27:51
company. And that's, you know, in in a
27:55
nutshell, that encompasses who we are.
27:57
You know, we want to do great deals for great people, help
27:59
them build and be referenceable that they can come back to us.
28:04
You know, give us an example of a client's situation that was
28:07
kind of messy and how you navigated the path for them.
28:12
So we often run into situations where the client's disciplines
28:22
are suspect. And so we'll run into
28:27
circumstances where we have some highly intelligent people who
28:34
are not playing by the rules and and we will discern this over
28:39
time. So we had a very well spoken,
28:45
highly educated, successful entrepreneur who wanted to sell
28:51
his company. And as we started peeling back
28:54
the layers of the onion we were, we became more comfortable than
28:59
originally the what we saw was right.
29:02
But as we got deeper and deeper in the situation, what we
29:05
learned is that we were being used as a pawn to help them sell
29:13
their story, which had some significant inconsistencies in
29:17
it. So we, we dispatched that
29:21
client. We decided after nine months to
29:27
detach ourselves. And you say, well, gosh, how did
29:30
it take nine months? There's some very smart people
29:33
out there, some very deceitful, deceptive parties out there that
29:38
can be very convincing and they'll build a whole team
29:41
around them to be very convincing.
29:43
But ultimately we found the truth and we decided that this
29:47
was not a good client for us and we we exited.
29:50
What can you say about what you were finding?
29:53
Maybe is a lesson to folks listening on things to look for.
29:59
When someone surrounds themselves with otherwise highly
30:03
skilled professionals who are in on the deal and they have a
30:07
piece of the action, I think about what the motivations are
30:11
for people to shade the truth or to hide things.
30:21
And when you, when you in a nutshell, say it this way, when
30:27
things don't make sense in dealing with a client from a
30:30
logical basis, they do make sense.
30:34
It's just that I'm missing an important fact.
30:36
I'm missing a material fact. And when I have that uh oh
30:39
feeling, I dig in. And I'm very accomplished at
30:43
digging in with my audit background and my CPA
30:46
certification. We dig in and unfortunately what
30:49
we did is we did find, we did, we found some very strong
30:54
obviously fraudulent behavior. And you know, it was, it was
30:57
inappropriate. And that's not an area that we
31:00
play in. And now if he would have said
31:02
let's fix it, I would have fixed it for him.
31:04
OK, so let's stop talking about that client.
31:06
Do you know, because I can tell that you want to be very careful
31:09
about what you say and don't say.
31:11
Let's talk more in hypotheticals.
31:13
What are some red flags that you have found in deals in the past
31:18
that have given you reason to pause?
31:21
When a, when a, a company is executive centric, there's one
31:27
or two key executives that control the company.
31:30
Those people then control the future of the organization.
31:33
So if we find a company where there's a hero and that person
31:37
is referred to on a regular basis as this is the person to
31:41
talk to, that typically is a is a weak link.
31:45
As I said earlier in my, in my organization, I don't want to be
31:48
a weak link in my organization. I want other people to have
31:50
skill sets to do what we do. If we find erratic financial
31:55
performance without explanation, that's a problem.
31:59
If we see that the IT environment has not been
32:01
refreshed, then the company has not been maintained on a current
32:04
basis. That scares us.
32:06
If we see that there's a heavy concentration in a customer or
32:10
supplier, we get worried that that could dry up or they could
32:13
hold us hostage. If we see that there's high
32:16
turnover in the employee base, that means that the company
32:19
probably has a culture that needs fixing.
32:22
So those are some of the red flags.
32:24
And we and we, we run up, we actually have 12 attributes of
32:27
highly successful companies and the opposite of those attributes
32:31
is what we look for to decide if we want to do the deal.
32:34
How about red flags in terms of indicating possible fraud?
32:40
The concentration of financial reporting into a single person
32:46
is usually the scariest thing we're going to because they
32:50
control everything and it all comes off their desk.
32:53
The unwillingness to expose us directly to their financial
32:59
people is a problem if they don't have a third party's tax
33:04
firm or if they do and they don't want us to to talk to
33:07
those people. Those are very scary situations.
33:12
If you see a a company that is constantly churning, whether
33:17
it's vendors, customers or associates, culturally that's a
33:22
challenge. And so these are things that
33:25
come out smart buyers know what to look for.
33:28
So we don't ever hope that they don't ask the question.
33:30
We assume they're going to ask the questions.
33:33
And if we haven't answered the question in advance to
33:35
ourselves, shame on us. We didn't go to market prepared.
33:39
So this is, there's an awful lot of psychology, important
33:44
psychology that goes into selling a company.
33:46
For instance, one of my, one of my clients is a bit grumpy.
33:51
And so we, we got in front of a buyer, perspective buyer and he,
33:54
he was a little grumpy. And I, I chided him afterwards
33:56
and I said, listen, you know, you're not like this all the
34:00
time. You're a little guarded.
34:02
Let your guard down. We've got a confidentiality
34:04
agreement. Talk to them the way you would
34:06
talk to a friend and tell them what you'd like, what you don't
34:09
like, what you challenge yourself with, what the next
34:12
buyer would do. And let's treat these people
34:14
with kindness and respect and don't be scared of them.
34:16
And so that works. And that's so we, we often want
34:21
very, you know, the ultimate transparency.
34:24
Tell the truth, be very clear. Oh, we have a great new
34:27
customer, except he's starting to get a little edgy with us.
34:30
He's looking for price concessions.
34:32
Oh, well, let's deal with that. It's better that you told us
34:35
upfront. We can work that into the
34:36
transaction. But let's not just assume
34:39
everything's fine and you hope we don't find it.
34:42
Because ultimately, I guess this is a, a philosophy.
34:47
All things come to light, all things become known in time.
34:50
And from my perspective, if I want to stay in business and do
34:54
great work, I want to make sure that I'm as transparent as
34:58
humanly possible. Let's talk about the work that
35:03
you've done in the past with Xavier University, taught there
35:07
for 20 years, MBA level M&A and valuation courses.
35:12
Is it unusual for this there to be this like 1 foot into
35:17
academia and 1 foot into corporate America, or is that
35:21
pretty common in that space? No, it's not common.
35:26
I think there there are, you know, there are adjunct
35:28
professors that contribute to universities all over the
35:30
country. But in terms of what we do, I
35:34
think I was the only adjunct in the finance department for a
35:36
number of years. And the reason that we were able
35:40
to, I was able to do work there is I have a particular skill
35:44
set. I do exactly what I was
35:46
teaching. I do it every day.
35:47
So for me, it was, it was an opportunity to perform in front
35:53
of a group of really smart people who we're going to ask a
35:56
little awful lot of questions. And it, it gave me the
36:00
opportunity to challenge myself to instead of being preachy, you
36:06
know, be helpful, be a coach and coach these young people now
36:10
over the last 22 years or whatever.
36:13
We stopped in 2021. The COVID thing really killed
36:16
their their enrollment. But over the last 20 years in
36:20
teaching, I do have so, so many wonderful friendships and have
36:24
been invited to sit on boards as these people have become, you
36:28
know, matriculated through and become executives and companies.
36:30
And it has paid dividends in terms of just enjoying the
36:33
social aspect of feeling like I contributed to their success.
36:37
And I have a number of people in the community.
36:39
There have been over 800 MBAs come to my class.
36:41
I've had a number of people who routinely call me up, thank me,
36:45
tell me about the new success, tell me about their new
36:47
promotion, invite me out for drinks.
36:50
And, you know, it feels good. It feels good that I've
36:53
contributed to their success. And we, you know, no adjuncts
36:58
teach for the money. That's not that's not the game.
37:00
You, you teach because you have a passion inside yourself.
37:03
I was fortunate to have gotten outstanding education all the
37:07
way through. And I think that was one of the
37:09
things that helped me propel me to my.
37:10
Success. Let's talk about capital raising
37:14
because a lot of businesses really struggle with this.
37:17
What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to
37:22
securing funding and how do you help your clients with that?
37:26
Probably the biggest misconception is people think
37:28
that the banks are out there and and all I have to do is show up,
37:31
give them my tax returns and they should lend me money.
37:34
It's, it's not like that 25 years ago it was kind of like
37:38
that. You know, you could go into a
37:40
bank and with a signature loan, you could borrow $250,000 and
37:43
write, write your name on a, on a loan application and give them
37:46
a personal financial statement. Now it's you have to come
37:49
prepared. You have to show a successful
37:52
history. You have to show a, a great
37:54
financial library. You have to show all the
37:56
hallmarks I talked about. Good it, low turnover, no
38:00
customer concentration, strong financial underpinnings, good
38:04
team. And and those people think they
38:08
can just go to the bank and because they've been around for
38:10
20 years, the bank's gonna lend them money.
38:11
That's not the case. The banking industry, they're
38:14
all about risk. And the fallout of 2008, 2009
38:18
taught us a lot. But what, what, what people,
38:23
People don't look to have to take the same risk.
38:26
So I'll have somebody say, well, you know, I want to buy this
38:27
company. We need to borrow $5,000,000,
38:29
but I'm not going to sign a personal guarantee.
38:32
And I say to them, well, now let's just think about that for
38:36
a minute. And not to be controversial,
38:37
let's think about it. They're going to take $5,000,000
38:40
risk on you, but you're not willing to take the same risk on
38:44
you. You want them to be all at risk
38:46
and you don't want the risk. Why would they do that?
38:49
And do you think that's a fair expectation?
38:52
It's not a fair expectation. But 20 years ago, personal
38:57
guarantees weren't nearly as prevalent as they are today.
38:59
And now, you know, it's just if I have somebody who doesn't want
39:03
to sign a personal guarantee, we don't work with them.
39:07
That's one of your filters. What are some of your other
39:09
filters like what's a good fit for you guys?
39:11
Do you know? When, when somebody has
39:14
unrealistic expectations, we're, we're worth this.
39:18
And then we say, well, no, you're not.
39:19
You know, we have to look at his eyes open.
39:21
So someone has a has an unrealistic value expectation.
39:25
When someone says we're going to sell our company and I want to,
39:28
I want to be gone in 30 days, inappropriate.
39:31
Somebody's going to buy your company.
39:32
They need you to stick around. They need you to stick around
39:34
for six months, nine months a year.
39:36
They, they, you can't, you can't take a take a check and run.
39:40
So that's, that's important. Sloppy financial records are a
39:46
death knell to doing banking, to getting financed, to getting
39:50
deals done. And, and then absentee owners,
39:54
you know, we, we recently we had a deal fall apart.
39:58
We worked with this client for a year.
40:01
And he decided it was going to take and leave, go to Florida
40:05
every every other week and sell real estate down there.
40:09
And so when we started watching the company performance, it
40:12
started waning. And as his interest declined in
40:16
the company and increased on the personal side, the company
40:19
ultimately became less valuable. And we were not able to sell it
40:23
because he, he, you know, he left it unattended.
40:27
He did not have a strong team behind him and so the absentee
40:31
owner is also very scary. So in a situation like that,
40:37
you've done a whole bunch of work for a year, you guys are
40:40
paid on a success fee. What happens in that case?
40:43
We eat it, really. We eat it, you know, again.
40:48
And what I, what I want on my tombstone is somebody to say he
40:55
treated us fairly. If we don't get the deal done,
41:00
they don't get the deal done. So I have to be judicious in how
41:02
we take on clients who we take on.
41:04
That's why you're so selective up front.
41:06
You've got all those filters you.
41:07
Have filters and, and, and that's that's a rarity.
41:11
I mean, what I just said to you it's probably happened three
41:13
times in 20 years. But at the end of the day, most
41:18
people are really trans or they're fair.
41:20
They, they're fair. And when we talk about it, and I
41:23
say to them, look, we will get you fair value and that's yours.
41:26
You know, here's what it looks like.
41:27
And if you are willing to do that, then let's do it.
41:31
You know, let's let's. And by the way, doing it the
41:35
right way is far less expensive than doing it the wrong way.
41:38
You might save a little bit on the purchase price, but you're
41:41
going to have the lawyer's paper in that deal and your lawyer
41:43
bill is going to be excruciating.
41:46
And so it it's, you know, you're going to pay one way or another.
41:50
And, and ultimately, think about the, the process of trying to
41:55
ingratiate yourself to a seller. You're a buyer.
41:57
You want them to want you. They have their legacy at stake.
42:00
They have their friendships at stake.
42:01
They have their relationships with their vendors and
42:03
suppliers, companies and, and customers.
42:07
They want to be sure that you're going to treat everybody with
42:11
respect. So how do you demonstrate that?
42:13
Treat them with respect. So in the 20 years that you've
42:17
been doing this, Dino, what are some of the biggest changes that
42:20
you've seen in the way that M&A deals are done?
42:29
Probably different structures to get deals done in the past.
42:36
Again, speaking in generalities, in the past deals were mostly
42:40
cash deals. Now we see deals that are cash
42:44
some future on out perspective. Sometimes there's a seller
42:50
financing where the seller takes a piece of the pie.
42:54
Sometimes there's a rollover of equity where the seller sells
42:57
80% and keeps 20%. And so the currency that we use
43:03
for deals is far more creative and it's and it opens the door
43:08
to getting deals done that otherwise would not get done.
43:10
So for instance, we recently had a transaction with a company and
43:14
the owner had built a really strong company, very successful,
43:18
35 years in business, great. He had more work than he could
43:20
do and he had several people, like 50 people on his team.
43:23
He had one guy in particular who wanted to buy the company, but
43:26
the guy didn't have the skill set.
43:28
So what we did is I brought in a buyer, we granted him 15% equity
43:34
in the deal to stay and run the company.
43:37
He was happy because he didn't have any financial investment.
43:39
He now had a strong financial backer in the the main buyer,
43:44
the owner was like, gosh, this is as good a transition as can
43:46
happen because my general manager is the face of the
43:48
company. So that was very different.
43:51
And those things didn't happen with nearly the frequency that
43:54
they do now that allows deals to get done where it's not so
44:00
reliant on the bank lending. And so one other point I'll
44:05
make. The other thing is we see a lot
44:07
of companies trading stock for stock.
44:09
So, you know, we'll give you so much money and so much of our
44:14
stock as currency. And so now, you know there are
44:18
tax benefits to be accrued on that and so that we can be much
44:22
more creative with deal structures than than we were or
44:26
than was true 25 years ago. So as you look forward, Dino, do
44:31
you think there's other areas for innovation and how deals get
44:38
done? I do I I'm still toying with the
44:42
notion of how AI helps deals get done.
44:45
But we have some diagnostic tools that are AI based that we
44:48
use to shorten the cycle of understanding the company's go
44:53
to market where we can, we can create in a tenth of the time.
44:59
Now the story about the company and the market in which they
45:03
operate so that we can be quicker, prompt, more prompt to
45:08
market. And we have better data than we
45:11
had if we were just researching through Internet searches.
45:14
So recently I had a, a fellow call me from Cleveland, OH,
45:19
which is, you know, 300 miles from us.
45:21
And he had an interesting company.
45:23
He had a company that was infusing certain foods with
45:25
certain other foods. And he's asked if I would give
45:30
him some help with the capital raising.
45:31
So I I did a very deep dive into AI and we produced a 25 page
45:36
report about the industry, the market, what was going on in the
45:39
competitive landscape. This guy's been around for five
45:42
years. He said that was the most
45:43
comprehensive analysis he's ever seen on his business, including
45:46
all the work he and his team have done over the last five
45:48
years. So how are you guys going to
45:53
leverage this more going forward?
45:56
That's an interesting challenge. I think it's not imperative that
45:59
we do it, but I think if we can become more efficient and we can
46:02
leverage our skill sets and leverage the tools out there, I
46:05
just think that we'll be faster responsibly to requests and I
46:09
think we'll be able to take on a bigger book of work with without
46:13
having, you know, an exponential increase in staffing.
46:18
Where does that extra work come from?
46:20
Where do you guys find your clients or how do they find you?
46:24
We do some outbound marketing, which the effectiveness of which
46:29
I'm not sure. So we, we've done some podcasts
46:34
locally, we've done some radio advertising, we've done some
46:38
public relations work where we hired a firm to we, we were
46:41
published in a number of journals.
46:44
But, but the answer is, and this may not be the best answer, but
46:49
it's my truth is it's reputation based.
46:53
When when somebody goes to buy or sell a company, it's probably
46:56
the most important financial decision they will have made in
46:59
their life. And so I can hire and not to
47:03
demean this industry, I could hire an insurance broker, I
47:06
could hire a wealth manager. I could.
47:09
But if I'm talking about the most important asset that I
47:12
have, I want to talk to that person.
47:14
I want to look that person in the eye.
47:16
I want to know that they're referenceable.
47:18
So I would say 98% of what we get is reputation based.
47:25
People know us. I'm constantly posting things on
47:28
LinkedIn to talk about what we do.
47:30
Having again, taught over 800 MBAs in the community, being
47:33
active in various associations, you just constantly in front of
47:37
people. And when people recently we have
47:41
AI, have an, I have a writer doing a success story in one of
47:44
our deals. That's what we do.
47:45
We write a success story to talk about how, you know, make
47:48
something happen and the writers come back and said, my gosh, the
47:53
people were so gushing about how well you would you treated them.
47:57
And I think that's the thing that causes people to want to
48:01
work with us. Virtually everybody who comes to
48:04
me has talked to somebody about us.
48:06
They already have vetted us through the court of public
48:09
opinion or whatever it is. I don't get cold calls to do
48:14
deals. We just don't.
48:17
You don't place cold calls to get deals is what you're saying?
48:20
No, what I'm saying is we don't have.
48:21
Poor people, people don't come to you cold.
48:24
They've come to you through somebody that knows you.
48:27
Right. I constantly have people saying,
48:28
hell, we want, you know, let's let's beef up your website.
48:32
And I'm like, well, my website is there as a proof point, but
48:34
nobody's going to look at my website cold and say I'm going
48:37
to, you know, I'm going to trust my biggest asset with this team.
48:40
What they do is they'll look at their websites, say, well, at
48:42
least they might be quasi legit. And then they make some calls to
48:45
people they know. And you know, as I said, we've
48:47
we've done so many deals and we've been known for So what
48:49
long that it's not hard to find a reference for us.
48:56
I'm going to shift gears on you now, Dino.
48:58
I'd like to explore a serious personal challenge that you've
49:01
overcome in your life, how you got through that, and what you
49:05
learned going through it. So I'm 5 feet 5 inches tall and,
49:12
you know, as, as sometimes little kids get picked on.
49:15
So I developed early on a fairly straightforward and direct
49:24
approach to people. And it I, I learned at a young
49:33
age. In my early 20s, I took the Dale
49:35
Carnegie course. And in that course, what I
49:38
learned is that I was coming across in a way that was
49:43
oppressive, offensive, too strong, too direct, not
49:48
thoughtful enough. It didn't reflect how I felt
49:52
inside. What it reflected is my reaction
49:54
to, you know, being bullied as a kid.
49:56
And, you know, and So what I had to do is start working very hard
50:00
on self improvement to, to be a kinder person, to be not
50:06
defensive in meeting new situations and to work really
50:10
hard to soften my language, soften my approach.
50:15
What I want to do is marry up what I felt inside with how I
50:17
behaved on the outside. And it was a hard challenge to,
50:20
to meet. I would say I still, I still
50:22
deal with it. You know, often times clients
50:25
are happier to talk to my people than to me.
50:29
I tend to be very direct and, and I don't think it's a bad
50:33
thing, but I think it comes off sometimes as too, too, too much.
50:40
And that's, that's something I work with every single day to
50:43
be, to let people know that I really do care about what the
50:48
future is and, and what we do. And I really do want to play by
50:52
the rules and I do really do want to be proud of our
50:55
engagement together. And that's, and I think we make
50:58
progress. I've made a lot of progress, but
51:00
it's not been without consulting a number of mentors who have
51:04
helped me in my life to be my best self.
51:08
What do you think has been most helpful to you and kind of
51:12
smoothing out the rough edges of Dino Lucarelli?
51:16
I'm constantly seeking feedback. Are you comfortable with what we
51:20
just said? So rarely do I get off a phone
51:23
call with a client without saying, are we together?
51:26
Are you, you know, we in agreement?
51:28
Is there something else you'd rather do?
51:30
I'm constantly second guessing myself to make sure that they're
51:33
happy. I could be totally sated in what
51:36
I do and to God, I'm right. I did the right thing.
51:38
It's all you know, done it 100 times.
51:40
But unless the party on the other end of the line or the
51:44
other side of the computer is happy, then I've I've sub
51:48
optimized the result. So my sense is I want people to
51:52
feel good and I want them to tell me is this is I've said
51:55
anything that's offensive to you, let me know.
51:57
If I've done anything that you don't like, let me know.
51:59
Here's our approach and let's talk again.
52:01
Such and such day. And I, I do my best to get
52:05
agreement and consensus on what we do.
52:08
And it's worked. I mean, clearly I'm a different
52:10
person than I was in my 30s. In my 30s, I was chop chop, you
52:13
know, I was, I was good to go and, and, you know, always on on
52:18
edge. Now, you know, sometimes it's
52:21
just I'll call a client, let's just go out and have a drink
52:23
just to have a drink. We don't have to talk business.
52:26
And that's the difference for me.
52:28
You're mellowing a bit as you get more mature.
52:32
I would say yes, but it's, it's probably also a conscious
52:34
decision. You know, it's, it's naturally I
52:37
think as we get older, but, but I, I really do believe that in
52:41
the past, there have been situations where I've, I've
52:45
given people the wrong impression and the impression
52:47
was, was detrimental to our relationship.
52:50
And, and so now I'm like, let's just be really, really careful.
52:53
And it's worked. Nice.
52:56
Do you know what's your? Superpower.
53:01
I've said it already before, I would say transparency.
53:04
I just tell the truth, you know and, and it it sounds silly in
53:08
the construct of a deal, but people aren't stupid.
53:14
People get it, you know, and it we, we all have people different
53:18
times trying to run a game on us or trying to convince us of
53:21
something that they may or may not believe is true.
53:22
But there's a financial incentive.
53:25
I'm, I'm just open about everything.
53:28
And if, if there's a problem with the deal, I'll tell the
53:31
client, Hey, I don't agree with you.
53:33
Here's why and here's what you should be thinking.
53:35
Enough. Tell me where I'm wrong.
53:36
I mean, I'm not afraid to have the hard conversation because it
53:40
always comes from a, from a position of decency and
53:44
kindness. And I used to, I used to joke if
53:47
you have to talk about ethics, you probably lack them.
53:50
But I've changed my perspective on that.
53:52
There's, there's a lot of people in our business who do really
53:56
bad things and I fight against that every day.
53:59
We had a deal, I'll give you an example.
54:01
We had a deal with another person like me on the other side
54:04
of the deal. We worked for four weeks to get
54:07
to an agreement. We signed an agreement to get a
54:10
deal done. Now we had a four week period to
54:12
get the the documentation done, called me two days later and
54:15
said, hey, I got a better offer. I'd like to take that offer.
54:17
Are you OK with that? And I said, no, our contract
54:20
exclusively says you cannot do that.
54:23
He said, well, can we just do it this one time?
54:26
I said, sure, you can do it that one time.
54:27
So I have my buyer. So I said, yeah, go with it.
54:30
Well, that deal fell through. He came back to me and I said,
54:32
hey, ship is sailed. We bought another company.
54:35
And so that that is so common. And when I told the fellow on
54:39
the other side, he's a very well respected guy in the market, I
54:42
said, you know, in 22 years I have never done what you just
54:45
tried to do to me. I've never done that.
54:47
I would never do it. It's the worst thing you can do.
54:49
It's called retraining The deal you got, you know, I got $10
54:52
million on this piece of paper. I'm going to go sell that down
54:56
the road. I'm going to get 12 million.
54:57
I'm going to sell, you know, retrade the deal.
54:59
And that's exactly what they did.
55:01
And it turned out to their detriment.
55:03
So that's that's a really bad thing.
55:05
And so I have to be really careful to not be considered as
55:08
doing those kinds of things. I've been accused of it, you
55:11
know, because people are so used to people doing that.
55:13
There are real circumstances where things change in the
55:16
construct of a deal. Somebody loses, a customer picks
55:18
up a new customer, you know, gets a big award, big government
55:21
contract. That changes the dynamic of the
55:22
company. So there can be reasons why
55:24
things change, but I've never yanked a deal out from under a
55:27
buyer or had a seller go the other direction because there's
55:33
more money in it. We we make decisions with people
55:35
we want to work with. We work with them, we work with
55:37
them to success. And if they start to show
55:42
challenges in their ethical behavior, we're out.
55:45
We're out. Yeah, it's clear, Dino, that
55:49
your, your ethics and the transparency that you provide or
55:54
something that are, you know, really cornerstones to what you
55:57
guys are doing at Capital Tactics.
56:00
Yes. And again, when when there's
56:03
several bad actors in the market and you distinguish yourself as
56:06
being not that. So I got to get this around.
56:11
I hired an author to write this story and she's, she's calling
56:15
around talking to people in the industry.
56:17
And she said, you know, one of my clients told her he talked to
56:22
like 25 people about me before the he signed us up.
56:26
And everybody had the same refrain about how, you know, I
56:30
was good to work with and on. And that's, that's there's,
56:33
there's, I don't know if you put a monetary value on that, but I
56:36
certainly put a lot of relationship value on that, that
56:40
people feel like when we deal with them, we can, you know,
56:43
we're going to shoot straight. Do you know what's your favorite
56:47
thing to do outside of work? Well, suddenly I have a great
56:51
family. We're Italians, so I have three
56:54
children and 9 grandchildren. So I I love spending time with
56:58
them. But my, my individual hobby, I'm
57:01
an avid, avid cyclist. I, I love riding a bike.
57:04
I used to race competitively on a bicycle and I still have an
57:10
enormous group of friends that I ride bikes with.
57:12
It's a social activity, but it also teach me healthy.
57:15
And so that's, that's, you know, when I, when I die, I want my
57:19
bike to be buried in my casket with me.
57:23
And what's the tombstone going to say other than transparency?
57:28
You did it the right way, I like that.
57:31
Dino, I've just got one more question for you today.
57:33
But before I ask that, I want to do 3 quick things for the
57:35
audience, First of all, to get in touch with Dino Lucarelli.
57:39
His website iscapital-tactics.com,
57:43
capital-tactics.com and his e-mail address is
57:48
dinodino@capital-tactics.com. We'll have links to that in the
57:53
show notes. And Speaking of the show, if
57:55
you're enjoying it today, please take a moment to subscribe
57:59
wherever you're listening. It sends a signal that helps
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others discover our podcast as well.
58:03
So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now.
58:07
And as a reminder, you can be the hero advisor that helps
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clients give their employees access to therapists, doctors,
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Contact us today at adbackbenefits.com.
58:24
So last question for you, Dino, a year from today, what is 1
58:28
very specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?
58:32
We have expanded our footprint to working with larger private
58:36
equity firms and I'm looking to do a deal north of $100 million
58:45
in value that that not just in from a financial perspective,
58:50
but from a, a developmental perspective that would that
58:53
would put us in the big leagues in the investment banking world.
58:58
And I think that's always been my objective is to have, have a
59:02
sustaining company that when I decide to retire, which could be
59:05
3-4, five years, this company will continue on with the people
59:09
that I've built and the relationships we've built and
59:11
the clients that we have so that we don't leave them high and
59:14
dry. And I think going into that next
59:16
level of size of deals is a big objective of ours.
59:22
Dino Lucarelli from Capital Tactics, I want to be the first
59:25
to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us
59:28
today. I really appreciate you being
59:30
here. And thank you, Anthony.
59:31
This was a great experience. Folks, that's a wrap on another
59:35
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
59:37
Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put
59:41
that into action today.