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Could Your Business Survive Without You? John Wiley on Planning Your Exit · A Place for Seniors

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to a place for seniors, where we share the real truth about what seniors need.
• 0:05
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• 0:18
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• 0:27
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• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, thank you for joining us.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is a Place for Seniors Podcast, and I'm Alison Carmen.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have John Wiley with me from the Exit Factor of Scottsdale.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you own that franchise, is that correct?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, John, I'm so glad you were able to come because this is a subject that people don't think about.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: What I do, of course, is senior living.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that is usually for people in their late 70s, early 80s.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: The that is the best time.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Most people don't think that's the best time, but it is.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh to start thinking about it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things you deal with a lot of times is people that don't think about how they're gonna leave their business.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not selling their business, it's getting their business ready to sell.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: To be transferable.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: To be transferable.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's not always a sale.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a transfer to a family member or it could be a sale.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think one of the things that you always talk about, which I've been trying to do since I started my business, which is not make me the center of the business.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fact.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about you and why you got into this, why you saw this need and what the value of it is.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh I've, you know, I've been uh I've owned five businesses over the course of my life.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I started all of them.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I've been the one that showed up.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I could do this five times.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is tough.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Built teams and noticed opportunities both with products and services over the course of my life and built those teams.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And some of those companies that I built were were able to be transferred and and uh one of them particularly wasn't.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It crashed and burned to the ground.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw got the t-shirt, I crashed a company, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh you know, so that it's I've lived uh an interesting life, an entrepreneurial life like that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's uh it's been a lot of fun.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh later, later on in life, I became the chief of strategy for a private equity firm.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd asked me to come on as the chief of strategy, um, not to help them with their numbers, because they could look at those balance sheets and see, you know, hey, is this a business we want?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do we have the money?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: All of that.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: They uh they approached me and said, Would you come do it?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because we need to s somebody to make sure we're not buying a toxic company that's not transferable.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, first I turned them down.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then they called back and said, no, no, you have to, and that's another story.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and they they got my attention and and I said, you know what, I'll do it.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll do it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was about getting to meet founder owners, 30, 40-year-old companies, um, started by somebody, yeah, right, who's now wanting to move into retirement, uh-huh, which is aligned closer, you know, to what you do.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, let's face it, you know, 10 out of 10 that are born are gonna die.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're we're gonna pass away.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through seasons of life, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, 10 out of 10 business owners will transfer out in some form or fashion.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Either they'll it'll shut down or they'll have health concerns or there's just the market or just they're done.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it's gonna happen.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But here's why it leads up to what I do here at Exit Factor.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: When I was chief of strategy to buy these companies, they wanted to sell to us, we wanted to buy, we had the cash, everybody was happy.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would parachute in and make sure that that the culture that we're buying wasn't toxic.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, making sure that the business wasn't completely dependent on the owner's presence in order to run.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if that were the case, or to what degree is that the case?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: That represents risk to the buyer.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of risk and a lot of risk.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so because if that owner leaves, boom, the business is gone.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is it are the vendors connected to them?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: How much of the business goes through their cell phone?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how much of it is by they just didn't know how to build it different, or how much of it is, and this is not an I don't mean this in a bad way, how much of it is just identity.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I get my identity from being in the center and I get joy from it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And why would I give that away?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that makes your business not transferable.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why this matters is if you're building a business as and you're inadvertently making it too risky, right, to for someone to step in and you think that you're just gonna be able to put it on the market and sell it like your competitor did and walk away with X hundreds of thousands or X millions of dollars, and you're planning your retirement on that, and then you find out when you go to the market to list, nobody's buying.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the statistic.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in PE, private equity buying companies, I lived this statistic first.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I learned about the stat later.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Statistics are meaningless until you humanize them.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I, yeah, right.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of did it backwards.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I hu I lived it first, and then I went and found out that, oh, this is the statistic.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I experienced.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one year we had five construction companies we wanted to purchase.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we didn't end up closing a single one of them.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to sell and we wanted to buy.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, when it came down to it, um, we couldn't always get the money together.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: We had the money, but they became too risky.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: The lender would get nervous.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: You see, every buyer has a lender.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone's Elon Musk.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Walk in and write a check.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just face it 99.99% of the time, a buyer to buy your business is got a lender.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if the lender doesn't like what they see and the lender's not lending, the buyer's not buying.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: As much as they want it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the the reason this matters is for us, is like, you know, so we worked a year to buy these five companies, and I had to go to five owners who now were excited to buy.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I got to meet their teams.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's, it's, it's, we're dating.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, I'm gonna bring them on the minority cap table.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna get their life stream, they're gonna retire, they're gonna get uh, you know, some cash from us, sometimes an owner carry note.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're excited about that because it's mailbox money, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have a seat on our board, they still get to be involved if they want.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's loving it.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I have to go, sorry, we have to leave.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have to pull back.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they get really mad about that.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like really mad.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Really mad.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And after a while, yeah, because they're bought into it.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're bought into it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're ready.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we wanted to, we're disappointed.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting ready to buy it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now they realize they've got a business that not only will we not buy, but then we showed them why we won't buy, and that'll take them, it would take them three or four or five more years to clean up the books or fix what's wobbling under the hood, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and what's usually wobbling?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, over over dependency on the owner.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Owner dependency.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say that, I'm imagining owner dependency is things that if I was I am the owner.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the things that I have now I no longer do, like payroll, like um, all the systems that we've built, all the underlying systems, the way we take in uh customers, the way we pass out customers, all of those things are now in systems.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not reliant on I'm not the bottleneck.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're talking about?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: That and sometimes it goes over to business development and sales.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: An owner's gonna shuck off what they don't want to do eventually and hire somebody.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's what they love.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they still want to stay in and play in the sandbox.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that that can if it which is great.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the joy of being an entrepreneur.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you need a plan for extracting yourself if you want to sell or transfer and not have it crash when you transfer it to a to a relative.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have a plan in place to extract yourself out intentionally, fully out before you fully exit.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just cold hard stop.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the lender sees that.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: The lender's like, we're not taking that risk.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Every vendor contract runs through the owner, all of the business development, all the sales.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because usually most owners want to stay with the sales.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they want to be the first touch.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: They want all that.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: They want the control of the reputation.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I saw this happening, I thought to myself, back when I was still in PE, because I don't buy companies anymore.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm on the other side of the table.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I did years acquiring.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's like, okay, I'm done.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to I'm going to do exit factor.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what we do is um we help them find out years before they want to sell.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why you want to come in and consult now.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now to show them and it's not, it's not all, it's just not like we, it's not about us having an opinion.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: We come in very uh with qualitative, quantitative.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I ask 92 questions.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: To to, and each question has a purpose to show me what is making this business potentially risky or unrisky, like strong.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's making you weak and what's making you strong in the eyes of the buyer and the buyer's lender?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: You may be living with it and think it's fine.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm we've been running our business for 15 years.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a problem.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you're not the new buyer.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're not the lender.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So when I take this exhaustive questions and I come back and I hand them this report that says this today, as your company sits right now, independent of when you decide to sell, your company is worth X and X right now to the open market if you decided to sell tomorrow.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Could be good news, could be bad news.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just whatever it is.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's whatever it is.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've looked at all your financials, which we can run the financial models, but here's what I've done.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've measured the four areas of risk that every buyer is looking at.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I know's lenders.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the buyer's lender.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I know the four tributaries.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I call it intangible capital.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your balance sheet is your tangible capital.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's four areas that every buyer that's worth, you know, the savvy, a savvy smart buyer is going to study these four areas for how risky is this?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: If it's too risky, then they're going to either trade you down much lower or just completely walk away.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I measure these four areas and put them on a scale of risk.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I do that by comparing them to other people in their vertical in the same class, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you whatever you're if you're an electrical company, I'm going to compare you to electricians.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a plumber, I'm going to compare you to plumbers.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the last five years, who has sold in your industry for how much?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like a market analysis.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a market analysis of your open market value.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what you could sell for today isn't the most important thing that I bring to the table.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's here it is.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show the business owner what is suppressing their value today.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's suppressing your value today, making it too risky, and you don't address it 10 years from now or five years, or when a life event happens that nobody was planning on.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: That happens a lot.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've had Well, if you have an aging owner, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a weird thing.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have a heart attack.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wife can have a stroke.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen lots of scenarios.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of scenarios where it was unplanned.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Totally unplanned.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's better to always be ready to exit.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's a non-issue stuff.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Then it's a non-issue.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I make the timing of the exit whenever it is irrelevant.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're always ready.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You remember um elementary school.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: You remember uh fire drills.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I do too, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up in California before we moved to Arizona and when I was in the fifth grade.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: But in California, we did earthquake drills.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then we did bomb drills.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We did fire drills.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're drilling us constantly, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Under the desk, out the door.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: But my point to that is is when we were when we were children, they taught us, you know, how to get out of a building quickly.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll remember, there was always somebody in the parking lot or somebody in the playground with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: What were they doing?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Tracking.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're tracking, they're measuring.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Measuring.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I do at Exit Factor.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't run fire drills, I run exit drills.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to run a drill through these 92 questions as if I'm buying your business.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: As a buyer, as a buyer, and I'm going to measure it all.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not buying your business.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Switzerland.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to come and show you what every buyer's going to see.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then show you how to fix it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You it would be best if you and I lived our whole life and never needed to exit a burning building.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: But we've been taught as children how to get out of an ex out of a burning building.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can live our whole life and never need to exercise that knowledge.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I always hear somebody that says, I remember from school, you drop and roll.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Drop and roll.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But crawl under the smoke.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a business owner, you're going to exit your business.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have to.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's inevitable.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can live your whole life and never exit due to a fire.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're ex, if you're a business owner, you will exit.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there's going to, there's going to be a clip more than a stopwatch.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Better to know now how you score.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And get that fixed.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And why that matters for aging, the aging population.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 64.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: The baby boomer generation ended in in uh in in 1964.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm 64 years old, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm the very, very tail end, you know, of the baby boom generation.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at everybody, you know, older than me that were ahead of me in that, in that uh uh that tsunami of births that came through because of the war, right?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at it and I I get both sides.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Since I'm at the tail end of the baby boomers, I look at, I can, I relate to both generations.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I can look at it and go, okay, right.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So baby boomers, um, you know, uh have started with a ladder and a truck.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or or a piece of paper and a pen and maybe a typewriter.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: No computers, no cell phones, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make us better.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that we're a yellow pad.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or yellow pad.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: We learned to do it without anyone coaching or helping us.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: They knew their trade.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: They knew what they wanted to do, they knew what they and then also the people around them, they taught them how to do it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and so boomers, by and large, are kind of resistant to having somebody come in and measure or coach or consult.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I figured it out.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know what I'm doing.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm that guy.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you've spent what I would say to a business owner, um, just like in your space, I would imagine some people have an idea of what going to uh uh a supportive living place.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about, you know, uh critical care, but just a intentional community.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it you know, they're most people don't know.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they don't know that they're like uh they're like uh growing salt now, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know that.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: They they think it's a place to walk into, you know, with stinky, stinky the rooms and and you know, like when I was a kid growing up, we'd go to nursing homes and you just couldn't wait to get out.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally changed.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so with us, with the with the boomer generation, um they they they they they're not willing to let somebody come in and run that fire drill because of just how we're wired.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they're risking their retirement and the value of what they could get out of their business by not being willing to run that fire drill.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not coming in to run your business.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna hand you the report and you can self-correct.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting and what I appreciate is the younger generation, yeah.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Entrepreneurialism's on the rise.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be exiting two.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be 64 eventually.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm finding with the younger generation is they're far more open to having these these pro the these done, like uh an assessment to be coached, to have somebody come in and uh teach teach me.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Computers were in colleges in the 90s.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we're looking 30 years ago, almost 40 years ago, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So those people are now 30 or 40 years older.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they've been using a search engine to find things out.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a little different, yeah, funny, yeah.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, people went to libraries and studied, you know, how to do something or bought a book on something, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And but now you've got a whole generation of people that understand, hey, I do, I can get help and I can ask for help, and I can do it better if I do that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, you're right.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I think about the last place I'll ever live.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where that'll be.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I want it to feel like vacation.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I just wherever it is.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want it to be vacation, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm all for that.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tell business owners.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want it to be interesting.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fun, interesting.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting people.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I live my whole life.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm deeply curious.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Deeply.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so wherever I end up in my last place, you know, it's gonna be by design.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not, you know, it's gonna be something that uh there's a lot of products like that out there today for for people that are that are uh getting older.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I tell I tell business owners, not every person that's going in, you know, getting older owns a business.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: The majority don't.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: They've worked in businesses but didn't own them.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: But for those that do own them, uh the way I frame it is also like this.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Look, you've spent the entire time you owned your business, you spent untold money getting to know your customer.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who's your client?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who's your perfect client?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they live?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: What are their spending habits?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: What do they need?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is the felt need of your target, your avatar?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like who are you serving?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you as a company show up to meet their needs?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not about what you as the owner can get out of them.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what is I what do I as my own, as an owner of a company, what value am I bringing, right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm always thinking it's always changing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're always learning.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, you're always honing your message so they understand, and you can add the value and then you get a remediation if you get monetization in exchange.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll say to an owner, how how much money have you spent over the decade of owning your business on knowing your customer?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: How much marketing, how much research?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, it's a lot.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but it's a lot.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'll say, Well, how well do you know them?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about them.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they can rattle it off.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: My perfect customer.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, because they've spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars knowing them.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'll say to them, but what about your last customer?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know them?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: They'll go, What do you mean?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: What's the last customer?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Your last customer walk out the door.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Your last customer will not look like all the other customers you prepared for.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your last customer will be the one that buys your business.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's your last customer.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you spent all that time and money honing and getting your product or service to be transferable so goods and services could exchange.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: But yet you've spent no time considering the unique needs and perspective of your very last customer.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I help you frame that.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to show you what the what they're concerned about.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're you think you know, but you you're you're imagining from your perspective of already owning it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: You that's true.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're I don't want to say your opinion doesn't matter because that they find that offensive.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you're not in their shoes.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're comfortable with the last 25 years.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I would also say is you know the buyers.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know the buyers.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know what they want.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know what the market's doing.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what the market's doing.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you really are the key to understanding that last buyer.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: But you're not selling the business.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting the business ready to sell.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it has to be done early on.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'll tell you my experience, and this was a year into it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was it, right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was the salesperson.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was getting the contracts.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing everything.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then I brought my sister on.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: She does all my contracts now.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I have somebody that wants to work with me and wants to enlist my help, I send it to her.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: She was my first outsource kind of person.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I started adding different people.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got a coach.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: I got somebody similar, not necessarily exit factor.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's not anywhere near the same, but somebody who stepped in and said, Allison, you're too much of the business.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: You need to, if not you, who?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they kept saying to me.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: If not you, who?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And don't tell them what to how to do it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Tell them what you need, what the end result is that you need, and see what they come back with.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I started doing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was very foreign and not super foreign to me because I wasn't a process engineer.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to go into companies and go into their different departments and improve their processes with under.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding all their processes.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it was pretty easy for me to understand that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I started that two years ago.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not near the point where I'm out of it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's still a lot dependent on me.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's owner dependency is just part of it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's the four intangible capitals.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's human capital.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because the most important thing you have are are the team members.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: The team members.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so a buyer's going to look at the human capital and go, well, who are they?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, are they attached only to the owner or are they attached to the business?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they're your sister and she's 80?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going to look at that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And are there agreements in place?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: How are, you know, what contractually they're going to the buyer's just really going to take a good hard look at the human capital.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: How much of that capital is going to stick around?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a big one.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then the the second one is structural capital.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that rep, that's represented by you alluded to it earlier.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's processes and procedures documentation.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's framed like this.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: How much of what we know to run this business goes home every day at five o'clock inside of people's houses?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you just pray and hope they all come back tomorrow.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's tribal knowledge, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: How much of what we do?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the question becomes to the buyer well, all of this that happens here, how much of that is written down?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And how often is it updated?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And where is it documented?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And how often is it revisited and updated?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And how quickly can I get to it?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if so and so, if Sally Sue didn't come in tomorrow, could Joe over here step in and do it?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And do it?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And how would he find that?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is no, no, and no, nobody's buying.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's just not, it's too much risk.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's structural capital.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I measure all that.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone's going to come up weak in some area, but I'm going to show them, okay.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: But within that realm, here's the most important thing to work on to elevate it a little bit.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you've prioritized it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you look at, okay, here's this, this, and this and this.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But these are the most risky.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do these first.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: For 90 days, fix this.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then 90 days after that, I give them a plan, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just like, oh my gosh.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: So so there's that structural.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we Do you stay with them?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can't.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I can do a full comprehensive report, hand them a report.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's three reports.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's everything they could self-correct.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very and you walk them through it and tell them.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Show them everything.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm done.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or they can say, hey, you know, I'm really busy running my business.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like all this fixed.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got three years of runway or four years or five years.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Can you come once a quarter, once a year, check in on me, help us get these?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a custom made consultancy.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Show up once a quarter, meet with their team with very clear running.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know it's wrong.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I know what the marching orders are.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, once a quarter, that's every three months.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you give them something assignments.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then in the next three months you look and see.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not coming in to take over the company.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, right.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not running it.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things that need to get fixed.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, if you get handed an assignment, somebody in the company, I'll call you and check on you during the quarter.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: How's it going?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you stuck?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: How can I help?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then we at the end of the quarter, we all get together.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Did we do it?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did we move the rocks?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did it happen?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then that do we kick off the next quarter with, okay, here's two things we're going to work on.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I just keep doing that over the years.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I call myself a value acceleration strategist.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because as those things get fixed, the value of the business is going up, up and up over time.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so so we'll let's finish the four capital so we don't leave everybody at hand.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: But he didn't say the other two.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are the other two?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we had we had uh human capital and structural capital.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: The next one is customer capital.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's no monetization without a customer.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And how are you getting your customer capital?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: How do they come?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a one and done?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there reoccurring revenue?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are there contracts?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this just all, you know, they just show up and we exchange money and they walk out the door.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it is.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever that is, it measures strength or risk.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: If there's contracts and it's recurring revenue, it makes you stronger.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's all those things, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make, if you don't have those things, it doesn't mean you're failing.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just means we might kind of want to work on a couple of things so you get more higher number when you go to sell.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Close those gaps.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last one is uh the hardest measure and the hardest to fix.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very important.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's social capital.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, what's that?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Social capital is what do your vendors say about you when you're not around?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, your reputation.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your reputation.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: What do your employees think of you?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your company.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your culture.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if the company, if the company is you, then it's like, what do they think of you?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because the company has become you.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because you see, a a consumer can do business with a company through a company.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: The DNA, the values of the company, or it could be through the owner.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if it's through the owner, that's very risky.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's weaning them off of because when you're the founder starter, everything runs through you.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely everything.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not true.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: You started with your uh yellow tablet and you went and you you got a customer, and then he told somebody else about you, and you started doing that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So social is got it gets measured.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a forward-facing brand with a product and you've got an, you know, um a Yelp account or this account or Google and stars and ranking, you know, that that's part of it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that can all get corrected.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: But if they're ignoring it, no one's touching that, and you know, it's a it's a flaming mess.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh buyers are not gonna buy your company.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a plan for addressing those things.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is so important.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, because I run into it all the time.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm always telling people is you have to be aware that a certain age, and and we're reaching it right now, anything can happen, right?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't care if you're gonna sell your company or not, but you have tons of people.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a company, you have a ton of people dependent on you.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's their livelihood.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but that's their livelihood, right?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's they they think they're working for somebody for a long time.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're invested, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're not leaving.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so now if you if you have a heart attack or you have a stroke, um, I think somebody extreme pretty young in their 50s, uh, in one of the companies that I know of, I think it was actually um one of the financial firms that we actually know, um, had a gentleman have a massive heart attack.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so he wasn't coming back to the firm.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: What was everybody gonna do with their customers?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: What were they how are they gonna manage this?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: They were scrambling, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think about that, and you think about what I work with all the time is people not understanding the risk of their own demise, their own, you know, you may survive that stroke, you may survive that heart attack, but it may take you months or a year to get better.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now your company can completely fail in that time, or if you have all the processes done and you have your your your house in order.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Your house in order and you're actually now you've got real value in your company, it's still gonna feed your family, it's still gonna feed your employees, it can run without you, and it can run without you.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a plan that if something happens to you, it's already written down, somebody can get out that paper, they know what to do.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's legally say I make sure all that's present.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: When I show up to work with an owner, it's who's your wealth advisor?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Who's your CPA?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who's your like I'm your bookkeeper?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who are they?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: If there's any gaps, my job is to help close that gap.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because it makes the business, and this is the key word, transferable.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Transferable.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding that.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think that, you know, our entrepreneurial minds don't think that we're ever gonna die.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we all think that we're gonna be here forever.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we built this baby, and this is our baby.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is our baby, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really hard.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think at I think younger people are probably easier to ask for your help, but I think, yeah, definitely our generation and people older than us.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even even very, very strong CEOs don't think about that all the time.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, well, John, I really want to thank you.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: See, it flaw it flew by.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: I loved hearing about it because it is so true.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Your business is very, very similar to mine, where we have to plan.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the planning people out there now, all these different people that can help you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're also, I know the cost of doing that report and everything is super reasonable for what you're providing.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not something astronomical.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you can absolutely afford it and you need to afford it because if it you have to have, you have to have this.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for coming on.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's so important.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you one stat on the way out the door.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Clients that engage us and go through our consultancy for at least one year sell for 56.7% higher than they did because I know what they were worth when they came in.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: 56.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that little bit for our for our assessment.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nothing.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: 56.7%.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the average increase.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's important.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to have you um like and subscribe to my podcast, as well as go to my website, which is a placeforseniors.org.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: I have seminars every month, two, twice a month.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you can always register for those seminars on the events page.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you again, John.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, you're welcome.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, and we'll see you next time.