WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Ambitious Coaching Lab.
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How are we doing?
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I'm your host, Dr.
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Cam Lynch.
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Each week we explore the real tactics, tough conversations, and breakthrough moments that drive coaching success.
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Let's jump into today's episode.
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Well, hey friends.
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We've got Tom Bronson with us today.
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He's the president of Mastery Partners, founder of the Business Transition Summit, founding partner of the North Star Mergers and Acquisitions, and a seasoned expert in exit planning, MA, and business strategy.
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You're the author of three books.
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I've read one of them.
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Need to get the other two.
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With over a hundred business transactions under your belt, you help business owners build, grow, and transition their companies with competence.
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And we were talking before we hit record here.
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We actually met where I'm based out of in Greenville, South Carolina at an event.
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And so that kind of kick-started our relationship.
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And we've had the, I guess it's the thing to do, the LinkedIn uh acquaintance relationship.
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So we've uh kind of stayed in touch for that.
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So I am very excited to have you on the show and just dive into your practice.
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So welcome, Tom.
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Awesome.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for having me.
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I'm excited to share what little bit of wisdom that I have with your audience.
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Love it.
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Well, on that, let's just jump in.
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And do you mind sharing a little bit about how you got into the exit planning space?
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Absolutely.
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So when you mentioned that I have a hundred transactions under my belt, that is my personal businesses, right?
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Buying and selling companies uh through the years.
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I sold my last, and by the way, someone says, God, how do you buy a hundred businesses in a in over a career?
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Well, I did a couple of massive roll-ups, right?
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And so uh so, you know, in one company I bought uh 72 companies, in the other company I bought 17.
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Well, that's 89 of my acquisitions right there.
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And so, and I held those companies for a very long time, on average, about 17 years.
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And so, so when I sold my last company to a publicly traded company, that was my second exit to a publicly traded company.
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Um, I started to get nostalgic about uh transactions in general.
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Uh, I'd been an owner operator uh for years and years.
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And I started thinking about the whole ecosystem around mergers and acquisitions, and started looking for data on success, right?
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And so now the problem is there's no repository of information.
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There's no one place you can go to get all of the data on transactions.
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Uh, some transactions you have to find out about uh on public channels, other transactions are recorded in various places, and some transactions are never reported at all.
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And so, but what I did was um had our team uh scrape, build, buy any data we could find and try to aggregate it.
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And what we came up with was a whopping 17% success rate for business owners who attempt to transition their business.
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Now, when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about what we call small business.
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That's under 100 million in revenue, which by the way is 97% of businesses in the United States uh today.
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And so, so there's only a 17% success rate, meaning that 83% of attempted transactions never reach a finish line.
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Now, that doesn't mean that they won't eventually, uh, meaning that for the average business that sells, it comes on in the off the market five or six times before it closes a transaction.
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And to me, that's a horrible statistic.
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Um, you know, we'd we'd found other places, you know, EPI and BEI and some of these other folks are are all talking about, you know, there's probably a 20 to 30 percent success rate.
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Well, we narrowed it down.
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We think it's genuinely the number's about 17%.
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And I detail all the information in my first book about how we came up with that.
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But so I started thinking about, huh, could I start a business that would help business owners be successful like me in exiting my businesses?
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Because I've sold 100% of my businesses uh first time, right?
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And and I'm not smarter than other business owners, uh, for sure.
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In fact, um I'm I'm usually the dumbest guy in the room, which is fine, right?
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I'm I'm okay with that.
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Uh, and uh because I surround myself with smart people.
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But is there what am I doing differently to make my businesses more slabable uh and transferable than the average business owner?
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And so we came up with a strategy around that uh and started putting that together.
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And uh and then, of course, I went and got my SIPA uh so that I could have some credibility.
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I always assumed that uh doing 100 transactions did not give me enough credibility to say that I know what I'm doing in this space.
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And so so I so I wrote a book about it.
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I got my SIPA uh and uh and our practice was launched in 2018.
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So that's how that's how I arrived here.
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I wasn't I never intended to be a consultant, but uh as as my uh wife knows, I have no barriers to risk.
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Uh and so I wanted to start a new business and off we went.
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How cool and now I have three businesses in the space.
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Yeah, man, it took off for you.
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Uh that's uh that's fascinating.
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I mean, it's it it even ties into as you were talking through that, it's fascinating to me to hear you talk about how, you know, even with a hundred under your belt, there was still that desire, I would call it mastery.
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You wanted to become that master.
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You went in, did the research, found statistics, you went in and got the certifications, wrote the book, got that much more credibility.
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Do you feel like that has added uh credibility is the word that comes into my brain.
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But I mean, does that give you, as you're going in on top of the experience that you have, you have some, let's call it just academic knowledge through writing a book and all that kind of stuff.
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Has that helped you as you're interacting with prospective clients?
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You know, honestly, I think that once people hear my story, they realize that I'm like them.
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Uh and so since I've walked a mile in their shoes, uh, that's really all the credibility that I need.
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But it never hurts to have some you know certification, you know, under your belt.
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Never hurts to have now three books uh that I've written, uh, and one of them co-authored.
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Uh and so and it just it meets people kind of where they are, right?
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Uh the we we've done 250 podcasts in the last several years.
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Uh, we've got you know blogs.
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So uh what is the most important thing?
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I don't know.
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It's a combination of all of it, right?
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At the end of the day, I I uh you're you're spot on.
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I mean, people buy from people they trust, right?
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They feel like you've walked in their shoes.
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I empathize and and can even uh resonate with that.
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And then I'm gonna want to do business with somebody that's like me that I trust that's been through it before.
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So not uh well, sometimes we overcomplicate things, right?
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Yep.
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Um, so let's talk a little bit about how you kind of have packaged your value proposition as you're working with clients and how you've come to build your your consulting offering.
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Can you talk a little bit about how you got that?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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In fact, uh what I what I did was uh as soon as we came up with the statistic of 17% uh success rate, I challenged uh some folks that that had been working with me in a number of different businesses and and uh and thought quite a bit about it myself and and uh brought some folks that I've worked with through the years, and I said, hey, what is it that we do to uh successfully prepare a business for transition?
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What are we doing that the average business owner isn't doing?
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So let's just start with what are we doing?
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And so we came up with a list of things that we do uh in order to make sure that our businesses are transferable and valuable and uh and attractive.
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And uh and we started packaging that into what ultimately became our uh signature product, which is our transition readiness assessment.
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And it it basically is it started as over 500 questions uh that we ask a business owner in order to arrive at a solution uh or to arrive at a conclusion, but we've now pared it down, it's more like 375 questions, but we examine everything from corporate governance to finance operations and all of that stuff.
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And we've got a scientific way that we go about asking questions with a business owner.
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The the assessment takes uh typically you know four to six hours to do it.
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Uh, a lot of folks do it in uh, you know, over a two-day period.
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Some of them uh do it in one day because they want to just rip that band-aid off.
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Uh, and the outcome, though, is a heat map that that gives us a score of how ready a business is if a transition opportunity shows up on our doorstep tomorrow.
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How ready are we and how likely would we be able to transition that business?
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And the cool thing is it's by department, right?
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Because finance might be light years ahead of operations, or vice versa, or or maybe you've got some legal issues that we've identified and things like that.
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So so it all starts with our signature assessment tool uh that we use that we have refined through the years uh in order to understand where a business sits today.
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The second thing we do is then, well, along with that heat map that we deliver to them, we do a valuation.
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Because now it's as if we've done a uh due diligence on the client.
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So we know where the challenges are and we know what might come up at the end of a due diligence, and we can give a really more accurate market valuation of the business.
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What would it get if it was sold tomorrow?
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And um, and so that's kind of the that first deliverable.
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The second deliverable, we do another interview where we where we invite them into some of our our dreaming uh space.
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And so, what does the ideal exit look like for you?
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You know, that's a that's a question that most business owners have never been asked.
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If if you could paint a picture as beautifully as we have today on what your current business is, if you can paint us a clear picture of what that exit looks like, then we can build a roadmap to get you from where you are today to where you want to be.
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And so, and that's we call that the roadmap for value acceleration.
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And then our coaching really kicks in.
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Uh, our coaching is a uh is a monthly accountability meeting, if you will, where we project manage it and we make sure that they're doing the things that they need to do in order to prepare their business uh for transition.
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So, so that's our consulting practice uh offering in a nutshell.
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Yeah, I I love that because I think that assessment probably gives you so many nuggets of understanding where that organization is.
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And then how often do you find the business owner is is say surprised by the results versus has a has a good pulse on, yeah, I probably could have told you that kind of thing.
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I mean, does that does that make sense as far as that question?
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Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
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We really uh here, we tell them from the beginning, we're probably not gonna tell you something you don't already know.
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Uh, but we're just gonna point out the obvious.
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Uh and and so it's it's most business owners don't realize why their business is not transferable.
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Uh and we tell them, look, we need to do an assessment of the business.
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And they, well, does it really do we really have to do this?
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Can we not just go sell it?
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Well, we don't know if you're sellable uh yet.
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We need to assess the business and find out if you are in fact sellable.
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And usually about halfway through the questionnaire, an hour or two into it, they go, okay, I get it now.
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My baby's ugly.
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Yeah, I I understand.
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Yeah.
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Um, okay, let's get busy and fix these things so that uh so that I can have a transferable business.
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And again, we're never we're rarely pointing out something they don't already know, but it's just holding a mirror up to it and going, okay, this is what it looks like.
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This is data that came from you.
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Right.
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And this, by the way, is why a buyer will uh not pay you the the highest value for this business, right?
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We discovered these things, you know, that uh that do that.
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You know, obviously some of the bigger things that might prevent a deal are are flat to no growth, right?
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Or declining.
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If they're declining, that's a problem.
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Um, you know, a a growing business is always more valuable.
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Owner dependency, right?
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We want to know if the if what to what every business is somewhat owner dependent, but we need to know to what degree is it owner dependent.
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If something happens to you and you don't make it home tonight, what happens to your business?
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What happens to your family?
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Uh, and those are the kind of things that we want to know because that tells us whether or not a business is transferable.
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So a tremendous amount of value in and of that, almost the preliminary conversations.
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What would you say to other advisors, or maybe take it from the lens of a differentiator from other advisors, of how you've been able to package the value?
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Because I think a lot of consultants, coaches struggle with pricing.
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Like, how do I value my services?
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And you are packing a lot of value in, even from the front end.
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Can you talk a little bit if you feel if you feel open to it, of just how you've been able to get that value and build kind of the pricing structure around things?
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Absolutely.
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And I will tell you that that has been a constantly evolving process for us.
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Um the initially, the assessment, including the valuation and the roadmap, those are all those have all been fee-based for us.
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So you can buy these and then jump off the ship if you don't want to keep going with us.
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Although we do tell our clients, we we tell them from the beginning, you know, you can you don't have to go on with us in our phase three, which is the consulting.
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Uh we call it relentless execution.
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You can, if you can have the bandwidth to do it yourself and and uh have the team to be able to do that.
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But I I want to caution you, uh, you won't, uh, because every business owner does what I call stirring the sauce.
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I got that when I owned a pizza restaurant, um, an Italian uh restaurant.
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And if I ever caught myself back there stirring the sauce, that meant that I was not focused on my business.
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I was focused in my business.
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And so for almost 100% of our clients that buy the assessment and the roadmap and then decide not to continue forward, they never take any action on it.
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And so the outcome is not different.
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They're not ready when it's time to transition the business.
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And so, so, uh, so but the ongoing uh uh coaching, that is a retainer uh that they pay us.
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And it gives them, you know, initially when we first set this up, we were thinking it was time-based.
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We'll give you so many hours and that kind of thing.
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Now we're really more outcome-based, right?
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We just say, look, uh, what you're buying from us for our retainer is the knowledge that we have in order to help you get where you want to be.
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Uh and uh and it's not time-based.
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It's, you know, we one month we may work with you two hours, and one month we may work with you eight hours.
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It doesn't matter.
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Um, the whole point is we're gonna help you get through this process, and we're gonna provide you the tools that you need in order to get through this process.
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And so, so now that was the way we initially established it.
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And our current offering is we're starting with a retainer up front.
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We're just saying, here's the retainer, and this is the work that's going to be done in that first uh few months.
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We have a minimum number of months because we do have that stuff built in on the front where we're doing a lot of work and moving toward the uh ongoing consulting.
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And so uh now we we're uh off our new offering is uh just straight up retainer-based and with it with a minimum number of months, and and then we can also prove out the ones that go, well, what's gonna be the value of the ongoing consulting?
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Well, they get that experience right from the beginning.
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That's probably a lot more scalable for you as well to be able to get that repeatable, get them in, give them the experience.
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It's it's more of a predictable, it's probably easier to just build that out, I would assume, correct?
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Well, yes.
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Um, when we talk about scalability, you know, I I am thinking about there's a lot of folks that may be listening to this that are solo practitioners.
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Solo practitioner is never a scalable business because it depends on one person.
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If something happened to you, the business doesn't go on.
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And so what we've done is created our intellectual property around our whole assessment and roadmap.
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And then we have other uh what we call certified partners at Mastery Partners that are um that actually take our IP and go out and uh implement it at their client sites and then they pay us a fee.
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And we also uh uh do a lot of the back office stuff for them.
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We do all their, we handle all their billing, that kind of thing.
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That's how we've answered the scalability is now that we've got our intellectual property uh set and our process to do it, uh we bring on an onboard um uh certified partners if they're the right fit.
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By the way, most of our certified partners are former business owners because that's part of the magic for us.
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That's a business owner as opposed to some line responsibility, sales or marketing or operations.
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A business owner has a much wider field of view, typically, than somebody who is myopically focused on operations or finance.
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Uh now, it doesn't mean that there aren't other folks that can do that stuff, but what we're looking for is somebody with a broad mindset, with an eye to corporate governance, finance operations, sales, marketing, everything, and and have something to offer in all those uh fields.
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And so that's that's what we typically look for in new advisors that we bring on to our business.
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That's how we've solved the scalability issue is bringing on new folks.
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Our next step, although we haven't started doing it yet, but our next step is to go out and seek advisors in other parts of the country uh in order to bring some local flavor.
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However, our business, we work with people in all 50 states.
00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:37.680
And so uh, you know, the fact that you can do a Zoom call like we're doing right well, or whatever this is, a Riverside call video call.
00:20:37.839 --> 00:20:45.599
Yeah, video call, uh, you know, uh does make the business a little bit more scalable so that you can go to other places.
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:47.759
Yeah, that's that's great.
00:20:48.079 --> 00:21:08.960
The one thing that I want to make sure I point out uh to those that are listening, um, is it goes I I I just happened to catch this as you were talking, but the vision that you have of I think you said it in it it's a big thing for us to look into having business owners coming in to be those partners that are coming in because they have that experience.
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:16.960
I think that goes back to what you said on the beginning, which was centered around people want to work with people that have walked a mile in their shoes.
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:25.839
And so that goes into a deep-rooted vision that you have for your practice, and that translates out into the partnerships that you try to find.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.599
So I I love that that thing.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:32.319
That's another, you got an extra um, you know, core competency that we talked about.
00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:39.279
Um, but let's talk a little bit about business development, finding those right fit clients.
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:48.720
Um, can you talk a little bit about just your process of how you have gone after the business development game to find those right fit clients?
00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:50.319
Yeah, at the beginning it was hard.
00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:59.759
I mean, it was hard because one thing that uh in and for your for the advisors and the uh the uh coaches that are listening, I think.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:09.599
That my comment here will resonate with with most folks, and that is there are three universal truths about business owners.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:18.480
They don't want any help, they don't need any help, and they damn sure don't want to pay for any help.
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:30.720
So therein lies the biggest challenge of how do you business develop with people who don't realize that they need help?
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:35.519
Because, you know, there's a there's a there's sort of a cause and effect here.
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:39.839
You know, business owners, no matter their size, are getting calls all the time.
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:41.359
I want to buy your business.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:48.799
You know, I'd like to uh I represent a company and we want to buy your business, or we've got a buyer and they're really interested in your business.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:53.839
What most business owners don't realize is those are just business development calls.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:23:00.160
Those are just somebody, so you know, some analyst dialing for dollars.
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:00.400
Yeah.
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:03.039
They're not really interested in your business.
00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:06.000
They're looking to see if they can go sell you.
00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:33.680
Or if, you know, if if in some cases it's private equity calling, and what they want is uh for you to get engaged with them because if they can build a fence around you and uh and negotiate a deal to buy you without you running a process, they're probably gonna get a really good deal because you have no idea what your business is worth.
00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:39.359
We do a lot of valuations for business owners who call me and go, I got an unsolicited offer on my business.
00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:41.039
I don't even know if it's good.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:49.680
Okay, we can do a valuation on the business, but you really probably want to think about cleaning up some of the mess before you get started.
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:53.759
So, so I'm I'm going a little bit down a rabbit trail here.
00:23:53.839 --> 00:23:56.079
Back to the business development question.
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:05.599
Over the years, we have built out a really uh great network of other service providers.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:09.039
A lot of financial advisors, right?
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:26.000
Um, because they're working with business owners, some CPAs, some attorneys, uh, but people who serve business owners in and around sort of the MA space or the business space, uh, we get good referrals from them.
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:34.240
Our best referrals come from our clients who who call folks and go, you really need to work with these people, right?
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:43.519
You you need to work with Tom or you need to work with Terry or Dave or Darren or whoever uh because it's made such a huge impact on my business.
00:24:44.000 --> 00:25:00.799
Um and uh and of course, you know, we've got a we've got a business development process that we go through with any client, which starts with a lot of discovery and understanding and and uh developing a scope of work, but it's a combination of all the above.
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.880
We we have a few people that are experts in certain industries.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:13.440
For example, Darren is an expert in the roofing uh business, so he speaks at roofing conferences all over the country.
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:23.599
Uh Terry does a lot with um uh telephone, wireless Wisps, things like that, um, wireless, you know, ISPs.
00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:25.359
And so he speaks at a lot of conferences.
00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:28.160
He was just speaking at a conference in San Antonio last week.
00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:38.000
And uh I do uh I out of my former industry where I sold businesses, I'm invited to speak frequently at conferences.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:40.960
And so that's a huge part of our business development.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:52.000
Once people hear us speak and understand the things that they need to be thinking about, then uh then um they uh start to realize they might need that help and and seek us out.
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:57.440
The last thing that we do is, of course, you referenced this at the beginning, our business transition summit.
00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:01.039
That's an event business that we started uh four years ago.
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:05.440
Uh we just did an event this past week in Scottsdale, Arizona.
00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:08.160
We've got one coming up in North Texas.
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:18.160
Uh, this will be our third event in North Texas where business owners come and our objective at this event, we're not there to sell them, we're not there to beat them up.
00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:30.799
We're there to educate them on the things that they need to be thinking about in order to prepare their business and themselves for that future exit.
00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:43.519
Because it's based on the premise that, and I say this right on stage at these events, can we agree that every business on the planet will eventually transition?
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:49.440
And wouldn't it be better if you did it by design rather than default?
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:57.119
Because a lot of businesses do transition by default, and that's a sad, sad outcome, in my opinion.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:08.640
So talk a little bit on because a lot of coaches and consultants that I I talk to on a regular basis want to look into the the event game, right?
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:15.039
Whether that's uh lunch and learn or more of a formal larger scale thing like you're doing.
00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:25.359
Talk a little bit about how you go from the conception all the way through actually getting prospects out of that, if you can, just a little bit to kind of talk through that process.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:26.079
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:32.720
In fact, what I want to say here, you know, Business Transition Summit, that's that is a separate business for us.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.359
We do want to go into other markets.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:43.039
And so if you think that your market might be a good spot for this, partner up with us and we'll do a lot of the heavy lifting.
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:47.519
We have a team of folks that do all of the uh the back office stuff.
00:27:47.599 --> 00:28:00.319
We negotiate the the space, the food, the uh we work with a local board of directors to establish a uh an agenda for the day and find good speakers and things like that.
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:11.119
So uh let me just tell you, we started out doing lunch and learns, and then of course COVID happened and we and we and we pivoted to do uh webinars and that kind of thing.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:33.920
But holding a one-day event focused on the things business owners need to be thinking about, either A, building value in their business, or B, thinking about uh the outcomes of a transition, whether that be tax or you know, various other consequences of the different types of uh ways that you might exit your business.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:45.279
Um, it has been a magical uh thing for us uh because business owners come and they realize, okay, I thought maybe I could do this on my own, and now I realize that I need help.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:47.519
I might need help in sales development.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:53.279
And so we partner with folks locally uh who uh work with sales development.
00:28:53.359 --> 00:29:11.039
We partner with marketing firms, we partner with CPAs and and whatnot to to uh and and certainly wealth managers to make sure that that all the resources are in the room, that uh a business owner knows that there are people here who can help me on my journey.
00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:16.960
Uh and so so it is uh I will tell you the first one we did was scary as hell.
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:20.640
But like I like I mentioned, I have no barriers to risk.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:30.240
Uh I remember the the conception of it was, you know, prior to COVID, I was planning on doing something, but I hadn't really committed.
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:35.599
But then when life started opening back up again, it was summer of 2022.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:41.119
My wife and I had been on a trip and we were driving home from somewhere in South Texas.
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:48.400
Uh and and I looked at her and I said, okay, I'm going to the Urban Convention Center and I'm going to rent it.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.359
And that's going to be the line I draw on the sand, and we're going to do this.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:29:54.960
Uh and I did.
00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:57.599
I called the Urban Convention Center the next week.
00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:00.720
I stroked a check for$75,000.
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:04.960
Uh, and the next thing you know, I'm committed, right?
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:06.400
You know, that's that's the deal.
00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:08.079
Burn the boats, moving on.
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:19.519
And so we did that first event, and we wound up, we wound up investing uh in our business after sponsorships and and uh folks uh paid admission.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:26.960
We wound up still investing a little over$200,000, but it was a great investment uh in the future.
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:37.599
Uh now we uh we've learned ways to make our that business a little bit more efficient, but we are looking for different places to take this around the country.
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:43.279
This year we'll do four Scottsdale, North Texas, Austin, and Little Rock, Arkansas.
00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:46.480
Uh we did Little Rock last year and we're gonna go back there again.
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:51.759
But but uh the event can be a great opportunity in any market.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:54.400
And don't go reinvent the wheel.
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:57.759
We've we've got a whole team of folks who invented the wheel.
00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:02.720
Well, it's yeah, and I appreciate you saying that and kind of outlining that because there is a lot of value.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:19.279
I mean, whether you are a business operating system coach or a um in the financial world, you know, whatever it is, you're helping businesses and business owners become better in some form or fashion.
00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:29.039
And so that's something to think about because then you're going in in a highly engaged audience that's ready to go and interested in learning.
00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:30.400
They've already raised their hand.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:33.519
Hey, I want to improve myself or my business.
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:39.759
And so, to Tom's point, you know, why reinvent the wheel when you can kind of partner with other organizations?
00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:45.359
Because it is trying to do this on your own and getting 40, 50 people in a room is exhausting.
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:46.160
It is very hard.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:48.000
Now it's if you can make it work.
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:55.519
Yeah, our first event in Scottsdale earlier this week, uh, very first event, we had 75 people in the room.
00:31:55.759 --> 00:32:02.000
Uh, here in North Texas, uh, the first year we did that, we had 140 people.
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:04.799
Uh, the second year it was 200.
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:06.559
This year we're capping it.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:09.519
We're actually capping it at 250.
00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:14.960
Uh, and so uh, and for any, I I hear this frequently.
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:19.759
It's one of the criticisms that I hear frequently from advisors.
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:24.880
There's no way my clients would come sit in a room all day.
00:32:25.359 --> 00:32:32.480
Well, if you provide them with a tremendous amount of value, then of course they will.
00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:42.640
And and when I hear that from an advisor, I tell them, you are limiting your outcome based on your own limiting beliefs.
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.839
You are inventing roadblocks that don't exist.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:53.200
Because a business owner, if he perceives that it can be a game changer for him and his business, then they'll leave.
00:32:53.279 --> 00:33:06.319
You know, I had a conversation with a business owner who was at uh uh Scottsdale uh on Tuesday, and and he said, Man, I really thought that I was gonna come here and have, you know, just a nice day, learn a few things.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:15.359
He said, Man, I I realize now I've got a lot of work to do in order to uh get my business ready for for transfer.
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:18.240
Exactly, exactly, right?
00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:22.000
And they walk out going, okay, I get this now.
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:23.839
I love that outcome.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:25.759
Yes, absolutely.
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:31.440
Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on and sharing just so many stories and wisdom.
00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:43.359
Um, I I have benefited from this conversation, but I always like to ask guests as we close just a couple questions of more reflecting back on their uh successful career, if you will.
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:56.000
But let's say you are looking back, you got all the knowledge and experience that you've gained over the years, but you're looking back at rookie Tom, who's just thinking about starting to get into consulting.
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:59.039
What advice would you give, give rookie Tom?
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:01.279
Uh it's a business, right?
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:10.800
Um I realized early on what I tried to do starting out was I was looking for another company to maybe buy or get into.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:16.960
And I was part-time uh trying to work on my consulting practice and build that.
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.000
Both of those things are full-time jobs.
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.360
And full-time to me is like 60 hours a week.
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:26.000
So I can't do two 60-hour a week jobs.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:32.559
So focus, you know, figure out where it is you want to go and get very tightly focused.
00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:42.719
Uh, think about the outcomes that you're looking for for your clients because it and stop selling them on what you do.
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:48.800
Listen to what it is that that they need and then bring solutions to them.
00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:50.719
Focus on their outcomes.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:52.079
That's the most important thing.
00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:57.360
You know, uh, Donald Miller wrote a great book, How to Story, you know, how to create a story brand.
00:34:57.440 --> 00:34:58.800
I forget the exact name of the book.
00:34:58.880 --> 00:34:59.679
It's a great book.
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:02.800
It's probably the easiest marketing book on the planet.
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:09.360
And it's all about making your um process customer-centric.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:14.239
You're not the hero of their story, they're the hero of their story.
00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:18.559
So you need to point that out in the way that you go out and market to them.
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:23.679
So, so that would be my my biggest advice is focus on this 100%.
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:32.159
Find if you don't have tools already available to you, then go find tools that you can go out and deploy.
00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:37.440
If you're interested in talking with us about our process, I'm happy to have that conversation.
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:40.159
Or, or Dave is happy to have that conversation with you.
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:42.639
I I love Don's writing on marketing.
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:43.280
It's so good.
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:45.920
So the you're not you're not the hero.
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:46.639
That's it.
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:47.280
Let's go.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:54.639
Um, and then last question uh what is a lesson that you're in the middle of learning in this current moment?
00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:01.119
Well, uh, I think it probably has to do with branding.
00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:03.599
We're we're talking about our branding.
00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:09.199
We're talking about one of the things that I learned early on, or I didn't learn until it was really late.
00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:18.480
I mean, if you buy my books, you know, the uh there's me and there's me and Susan, and then, you know, on the back of the other, there's me.
00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:27.840
Well, what happened was unintentionally, uh, my business is I became the brand.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:30.480
And that's always a bad move.
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:36.079
Here I am advising business owners to that owner dependency is an issue.
00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:42.000
And suddenly I woke up one day and went, oh boy, I've got some owner dependency issues.
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:55.760
And so, so we're going through the process of what we lovingly call the detomification of the businesses so that I it it doesn't revolve around me.
00:36:55.920 --> 00:37:09.440
The reality is that the things that we do can be done by the folks that that are out there that doesn't need me in order to execute uh at a very high level for our clients.
00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:11.519
And so uh that was a mistake.
00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:15.440
I wish I hadn't done it that way, uh, but it is what it is, right?
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:17.119
And so now we just have to deal with it.
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:22.159
We've as as I said in the South, and you you know, you're in the South, so you might get this.
00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:26.079
You throw the dead cat on the table, and then you got to do something with it, right?
00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:29.440
I uh I'm ashamed that I've heard that before.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:32.320
You know, it is what I have, and I'm a cat guy.
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:35.280
You can't see some of the cats over here staring at me.
00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:37.360
Or the dead cat on the table.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:38.400
Oh man.
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:39.840
Well, that that's so good.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:50.800
And I I really respect you for having the humility to see that, be aware of that, and then also really take the the steps to actually address that.
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:53.920
So, so kudos to you um of of that.
00:37:54.239 --> 00:37:56.239
But thank you for coming on.
00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:02.320
If somebody wants to get in touch with you about any number of things that we talked about today, what's the best place to get in touch with you?
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:08.480
Uh, you know, you can start at uh Mastery Partners, that's Masterwithawhy, masterypartners.com.
00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:12.239
You can go to Northstar-Mergers.com.
00:38:12.639 --> 00:38:15.519
Uh, there's a link to me on either a spot of those.
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:19.840
But if you're really interested in BTS, go to the business transition summit.com.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.519
You can see upcoming events, you can see kind of agendas and things like that.
00:38:23.679 --> 00:38:29.920
And um, I'll just throw out my cell phone is 817-797-1488.
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:31.199
Call me.
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:32.480
Love it.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:36.000
We'll uh we'll link out to some of those things in the show notes as well.
00:38:36.159 --> 00:38:37.840
So if you just want to find it that way.
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:41.360
But thank you again for coming on and sharing your wisdom.
00:38:41.440 --> 00:38:42.639
I I appreciate it.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:48.559
And uh, if you are listening and you are a consultant, a coach, this is what we do at 90.
00:38:48.639 --> 00:39:01.360
We want to help coaches and consultants and fractional executives build their practice to be successful because we believe the more healthy business coaches and consultants that are out there, the healthier the business world is going to be.
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.400
And that's a better world.
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:08.000
So and by the way, let me just throw in there I'm a user of 90 in all of our businesses, and we love it.
00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:13.679
It makes the the whole process of running our business so much easier.
00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:14.960
Oh, well, thank you.
00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:16.239
I didn't ask you to say that.
00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:17.679
So that's great.
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:19.199
Uh no, I appreciate that.
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:21.920
Yeah, that's uh we uh we're all about that.
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:24.320
So we thank you, Tom, and uh thanks for tuning in.
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:25.760
We'll see you next time.
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:29.599
That's it for today's episode of the Ambitious Coach Lab.
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:34.880
My hope is that something here helps you sharpen your craft and keep building a coaching practice you're proud of.
00:39:35.119 --> 00:39:38.079
Before we wrap, a quick thank you to our sponsor, 90.
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00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:09.920
Again, that's 8020 for 20% off.
00:40:10.159 --> 00:40:11.440
Thanks for hanging out with me today.
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:12.239
I'm Cam.
00:40:12.559 --> 00:40:15.119
Carry on as you grow your ambitious coaching project.
00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:16.559
See you next time.
00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:02.560
Welcome to the Ambitious Coaching Lab.
00:00:02.799 --> 00:00:03.919
How are we doing?
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:04.959
I'm your host, Dr.
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Cam Lynch.
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Each week we explore the real tactics, tough conversations, and breakthrough moments that drive coaching success.
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Let's jump into today's episode.
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Well, hey friends.
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We've got Tom Bronson with us today.
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He's the president of Mastery Partners, founder of the Business Transition Summit, founding partner of the North Star Mergers and Acquisitions, and a seasoned expert in exit planning, MA, and business strategy.
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You're the author of three books.
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I've read one of them.
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Need to get the other two.
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With over a hundred business transactions under your belt, you help business owners build, grow, and transition their companies with competence.
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And we were talking before we hit record here.
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We actually met where I'm based out of in Greenville, South Carolina at an event.
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And so that kind of kick-started our relationship.
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And we've had the, I guess it's the thing to do, the LinkedIn uh acquaintance relationship.
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So we've uh kind of stayed in touch for that.
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So I am very excited to have you on the show and just dive into your practice.
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So welcome, Tom.
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Awesome.
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Thank you.
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Thanks for having me.
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I'm excited to share what little bit of wisdom that I have with your audience.
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Love it.
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Well, on that, let's just jump in.
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And do you mind sharing a little bit about how you got into the exit planning space?
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Absolutely.
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So when you mentioned that I have a hundred transactions under my belt, that is my personal businesses, right?
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Buying and selling companies uh through the years.
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I sold my last, and by the way, someone says, God, how do you buy a hundred businesses in a in over a career?
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Well, I did a couple of massive roll-ups, right?
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And so uh so, you know, in one company I bought uh 72 companies, in the other company I bought 17.
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Well, that's 89 of my acquisitions right there.
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And so, and I held those companies for a very long time, on average, about 17 years.
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And so, so when I sold my last company to a publicly traded company, that was my second exit to a publicly traded company.
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Um, I started to get nostalgic about uh transactions in general.
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Uh, I'd been an owner operator uh for years and years.
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And I started thinking about the whole ecosystem around mergers and acquisitions, and started looking for data on success, right?
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And so now the problem is there's no repository of information.
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There's no one place you can go to get all of the data on transactions.
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Uh, some transactions you have to find out about uh on public channels, other transactions are recorded in various places, and some transactions are never reported at all.
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And so, but what I did was um had our team uh scrape, build, buy any data we could find and try to aggregate it.
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And what we came up with was a whopping 17% success rate for business owners who attempt to transition their business.
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Now, when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about what we call small business.
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That's under 100 million in revenue, which by the way is 97% of businesses in the United States uh today.
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And so, so there's only a 17% success rate, meaning that 83% of attempted transactions never reach a finish line.
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Now, that doesn't mean that they won't eventually, uh, meaning that for the average business that sells, it comes on in the off the market five or six times before it closes a transaction.
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And to me, that's a horrible statistic.
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Um, you know, we'd we'd found other places, you know, EPI and BEI and some of these other folks are are all talking about, you know, there's probably a 20 to 30 percent success rate.
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Well, we narrowed it down.
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We think it's genuinely the number's about 17%.
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And I detail all the information in my first book about how we came up with that.
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But so I started thinking about, huh, could I start a business that would help business owners be successful like me in exiting my businesses?
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Because I've sold 100% of my businesses uh first time, right?
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And and I'm not smarter than other business owners, uh, for sure.
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In fact, um I'm I'm usually the dumbest guy in the room, which is fine, right?
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I'm I'm okay with that.
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Uh, and uh because I surround myself with smart people.
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But is there what am I doing differently to make my businesses more slabable uh and transferable than the average business owner?
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And so we came up with a strategy around that uh and started putting that together.
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And uh and then, of course, I went and got my SIPA uh so that I could have some credibility.
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I always assumed that uh doing 100 transactions did not give me enough credibility to say that I know what I'm doing in this space.
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And so so I so I wrote a book about it.
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I got my SIPA uh and uh and our practice was launched in 2018.
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So that's how that's how I arrived here.
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I wasn't I never intended to be a consultant, but uh as as my uh wife knows, I have no barriers to risk.
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Uh and so I wanted to start a new business and off we went.
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How cool and now I have three businesses in the space.
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Yeah, man, it took off for you.
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Uh that's uh that's fascinating.
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I mean, it's it it even ties into as you were talking through that, it's fascinating to me to hear you talk about how, you know, even with a hundred under your belt, there was still that desire, I would call it mastery.
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You wanted to become that master.
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You went in, did the research, found statistics, you went in and got the certifications, wrote the book, got that much more credibility.
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Do you feel like that has added uh credibility is the word that comes into my brain.
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But I mean, does that give you, as you're going in on top of the experience that you have, you have some, let's call it just academic knowledge through writing a book and all that kind of stuff.
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Has that helped you as you're interacting with prospective clients?
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You know, honestly, I think that once people hear my story, they realize that I'm like them.
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Uh and so since I've walked a mile in their shoes, uh, that's really all the credibility that I need.
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But it never hurts to have some you know certification, you know, under your belt.
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Never hurts to have now three books uh that I've written, uh, and one of them co-authored.
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Uh and so and it just it meets people kind of where they are, right?
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Uh the we we've done 250 podcasts in the last several years.
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Uh, we've got you know blogs.
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So uh what is the most important thing?
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I don't know.
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It's a combination of all of it, right?
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At the end of the day, I I uh you're you're spot on.
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I mean, people buy from people they trust, right?
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They feel like you've walked in their shoes.
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I empathize and and can even uh resonate with that.
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And then I'm gonna want to do business with somebody that's like me that I trust that's been through it before.
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So not uh well, sometimes we overcomplicate things, right?
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Yep.
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Um, so let's talk a little bit about how you kind of have packaged your value proposition as you're working with clients and how you've come to build your your consulting offering.
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Can you talk a little bit about how you got that?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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In fact, uh what I what I did was uh as soon as we came up with the statistic of 17% uh success rate, I challenged uh some folks that that had been working with me in a number of different businesses and and uh and thought quite a bit about it myself and and uh brought some folks that I've worked with through the years, and I said, hey, what is it that we do to uh successfully prepare a business for transition?
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What are we doing that the average business owner isn't doing?
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So let's just start with what are we doing?
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And so we came up with a list of things that we do uh in order to make sure that our businesses are transferable and valuable and uh and attractive.
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And uh and we started packaging that into what ultimately became our uh signature product, which is our transition readiness assessment.
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And it it basically is it started as over 500 questions uh that we ask a business owner in order to arrive at a solution uh or to arrive at a conclusion, but we've now pared it down, it's more like 375 questions, but we examine everything from corporate governance to finance operations and all of that stuff.
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And we've got a scientific way that we go about asking questions with a business owner.
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The the assessment takes uh typically you know four to six hours to do it.
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Uh, a lot of folks do it in uh, you know, over a two-day period.
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Some of them uh do it in one day because they want to just rip that band-aid off.
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Uh, and the outcome, though, is a heat map that that gives us a score of how ready a business is if a transition opportunity shows up on our doorstep tomorrow.
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How ready are we and how likely would we be able to transition that business?
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And the cool thing is it's by department, right?
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Because finance might be light years ahead of operations, or vice versa, or or maybe you've got some legal issues that we've identified and things like that.
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So so it all starts with our signature assessment tool uh that we use that we have refined through the years uh in order to understand where a business sits today.
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The second thing we do is then, well, along with that heat map that we deliver to them, we do a valuation.
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Because now it's as if we've done a uh due diligence on the client.
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So we know where the challenges are and we know what might come up at the end of a due diligence, and we can give a really more accurate market valuation of the business.
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What would it get if it was sold tomorrow?
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And um, and so that's kind of the that first deliverable.
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The second deliverable, we do another interview where we where we invite them into some of our our dreaming uh space.
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And so, what does the ideal exit look like for you?
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You know, that's a that's a question that most business owners have never been asked.
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If if you could paint a picture as beautifully as we have today on what your current business is, if you can paint us a clear picture of what that exit looks like, then we can build a roadmap to get you from where you are today to where you want to be.
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And so, and that's we call that the roadmap for value acceleration.
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And then our coaching really kicks in.
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Uh, our coaching is a uh is a monthly accountability meeting, if you will, where we project manage it and we make sure that they're doing the things that they need to do in order to prepare their business uh for transition.
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So, so that's our consulting practice uh offering in a nutshell.
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Yeah, I I love that because I think that assessment probably gives you so many nuggets of understanding where that organization is.
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And then how often do you find the business owner is is say surprised by the results versus has a has a good pulse on, yeah, I probably could have told you that kind of thing.
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I mean, does that does that make sense as far as that question?
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Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
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We really uh here, we tell them from the beginning, we're probably not gonna tell you something you don't already know.
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Uh, but we're just gonna point out the obvious.
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Uh and and so it's it's most business owners don't realize why their business is not transferable.
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Uh and we tell them, look, we need to do an assessment of the business.
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And they, well, does it really do we really have to do this?
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Can we not just go sell it?
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Well, we don't know if you're sellable uh yet.
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We need to assess the business and find out if you are in fact sellable.
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And usually about halfway through the questionnaire, an hour or two into it, they go, okay, I get it now.
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My baby's ugly.
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Yeah, I I understand.
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Yeah.
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Um, okay, let's get busy and fix these things so that uh so that I can have a transferable business.
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And again, we're never we're rarely pointing out something they don't already know, but it's just holding a mirror up to it and going, okay, this is what it looks like.
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This is data that came from you.
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Right.
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And this, by the way, is why a buyer will uh not pay you the the highest value for this business, right?
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We discovered these things, you know, that uh that do that.
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You know, obviously some of the bigger things that might prevent a deal are are flat to no growth, right?
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Or declining.
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If they're declining, that's a problem.
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Um, you know, a a growing business is always more valuable.
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Owner dependency, right?
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We want to know if the if what to what every business is somewhat owner dependent, but we need to know to what degree is it owner dependent.
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If something happens to you and you don't make it home tonight, what happens to your business?
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What happens to your family?
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Uh, and those are the kind of things that we want to know because that tells us whether or not a business is transferable.
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So a tremendous amount of value in and of that, almost the preliminary conversations.
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What would you say to other advisors, or maybe take it from the lens of a differentiator from other advisors, of how you've been able to package the value?
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Because I think a lot of consultants, coaches struggle with pricing.
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Like, how do I value my services?
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And you are packing a lot of value in, even from the front end.
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Can you talk a little bit if you feel if you feel open to it, of just how you've been able to get that value and build kind of the pricing structure around things?
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Absolutely.
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And I will tell you that that has been a constantly evolving process for us.
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Um the initially, the assessment, including the valuation and the roadmap, those are all those have all been fee-based for us.
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So you can buy these and then jump off the ship if you don't want to keep going with us.
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Although we do tell our clients, we we tell them from the beginning, you know, you can you don't have to go on with us in our phase three, which is the consulting.
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Uh we call it relentless execution.
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You can, if you can have the bandwidth to do it yourself and and uh have the team to be able to do that.
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But I I want to caution you, uh, you won't, uh, because every business owner does what I call stirring the sauce.
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I got that when I owned a pizza restaurant, um, an Italian uh restaurant.
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And if I ever caught myself back there stirring the sauce, that meant that I was not focused on my business.
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I was focused in my business.
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And so for almost 100% of our clients that buy the assessment and the roadmap and then decide not to continue forward, they never take any action on it.
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And so the outcome is not different.
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They're not ready when it's time to transition the business.
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And so, so, uh, so but the ongoing uh uh coaching, that is a retainer uh that they pay us.
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And it gives them, you know, initially when we first set this up, we were thinking it was time-based.
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We'll give you so many hours and that kind of thing.
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Now we're really more outcome-based, right?
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We just say, look, uh, what you're buying from us for our retainer is the knowledge that we have in order to help you get where you want to be.
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Uh and uh and it's not time-based.
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It's, you know, we one month we may work with you two hours, and one month we may work with you eight hours.
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It doesn't matter.
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Um, the whole point is we're gonna help you get through this process, and we're gonna provide you the tools that you need in order to get through this process.
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And so, so now that was the way we initially established it.
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And our current offering is we're starting with a retainer up front.
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We're just saying, here's the retainer, and this is the work that's going to be done in that first uh few months.
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We have a minimum number of months because we do have that stuff built in on the front where we're doing a lot of work and moving toward the uh ongoing consulting.
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And so uh now we we're uh off our new offering is uh just straight up retainer-based and with it with a minimum number of months, and and then we can also prove out the ones that go, well, what's gonna be the value of the ongoing consulting?
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Well, they get that experience right from the beginning.
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That's probably a lot more scalable for you as well to be able to get that repeatable, get them in, give them the experience.
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It's it's more of a predictable, it's probably easier to just build that out, I would assume, correct?
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Well, yes.
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Um, when we talk about scalability, you know, I I am thinking about there's a lot of folks that may be listening to this that are solo practitioners.
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Solo practitioner is never a scalable business because it depends on one person.
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If something happened to you, the business doesn't go on.
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And so what we've done is created our intellectual property around our whole assessment and roadmap.
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And then we have other uh what we call certified partners at Mastery Partners that are um that actually take our IP and go out and uh implement it at their client sites and then they pay us a fee.
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And we also uh uh do a lot of the back office stuff for them.
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We do all their, we handle all their billing, that kind of thing.
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That's how we've answered the scalability is now that we've got our intellectual property uh set and our process to do it, uh we bring on an onboard um uh certified partners if they're the right fit.
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By the way, most of our certified partners are former business owners because that's part of the magic for us.
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That's a business owner as opposed to some line responsibility, sales or marketing or operations.
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A business owner has a much wider field of view, typically, than somebody who is myopically focused on operations or finance.
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Uh now, it doesn't mean that there aren't other folks that can do that stuff, but what we're looking for is somebody with a broad mindset, with an eye to corporate governance, finance operations, sales, marketing, everything, and and have something to offer in all those uh fields.
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And so that's that's what we typically look for in new advisors that we bring on to our business.
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That's how we've solved the scalability issue is bringing on new folks.
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Our next step, although we haven't started doing it yet, but our next step is to go out and seek advisors in other parts of the country uh in order to bring some local flavor.
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However, our business, we work with people in all 50 states.
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And so uh, you know, the fact that you can do a Zoom call like we're doing right well, or whatever this is, a Riverside call video call.
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Yeah, video call, uh, you know, uh does make the business a little bit more scalable so that you can go to other places.
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:47.759
Yeah, that's that's great.
00:20:48.079 --> 00:21:08.960
The one thing that I want to make sure I point out uh to those that are listening, um, is it goes I I I just happened to catch this as you were talking, but the vision that you have of I think you said it in it it's a big thing for us to look into having business owners coming in to be those partners that are coming in because they have that experience.
00:21:09.119 --> 00:21:16.960
I think that goes back to what you said on the beginning, which was centered around people want to work with people that have walked a mile in their shoes.
00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:25.839
And so that goes into a deep-rooted vision that you have for your practice, and that translates out into the partnerships that you try to find.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:27.599
So I I love that that thing.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:32.319
That's another, you got an extra um, you know, core competency that we talked about.
00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:39.279
Um, but let's talk a little bit about business development, finding those right fit clients.
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:48.720
Um, can you talk a little bit about just your process of how you have gone after the business development game to find those right fit clients?
00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:50.319
Yeah, at the beginning it was hard.
00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:59.759
I mean, it was hard because one thing that uh in and for your for the advisors and the uh the uh coaches that are listening, I think.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:09.599
That my comment here will resonate with with most folks, and that is there are three universal truths about business owners.
00:22:09.759 --> 00:22:18.480
They don't want any help, they don't need any help, and they damn sure don't want to pay for any help.
00:22:20.400 --> 00:22:30.720
So therein lies the biggest challenge of how do you business develop with people who don't realize that they need help?
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:35.519
Because, you know, there's a there's a there's sort of a cause and effect here.
00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:39.839
You know, business owners, no matter their size, are getting calls all the time.
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:41.359
I want to buy your business.
00:22:41.519 --> 00:22:48.799
You know, I'd like to uh I represent a company and we want to buy your business, or we've got a buyer and they're really interested in your business.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:53.839
What most business owners don't realize is those are just business development calls.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:23:00.160
Those are just somebody, so you know, some analyst dialing for dollars.
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:00.400
Yeah.
00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:03.039
They're not really interested in your business.
00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:06.000
They're looking to see if they can go sell you.
00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:33.680
Or if, you know, if if in some cases it's private equity calling, and what they want is uh for you to get engaged with them because if they can build a fence around you and uh and negotiate a deal to buy you without you running a process, they're probably gonna get a really good deal because you have no idea what your business is worth.
00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:39.359
We do a lot of valuations for business owners who call me and go, I got an unsolicited offer on my business.
00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:41.039
I don't even know if it's good.
00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:49.680
Okay, we can do a valuation on the business, but you really probably want to think about cleaning up some of the mess before you get started.
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:53.759
So, so I'm I'm going a little bit down a rabbit trail here.
00:23:53.839 --> 00:23:56.079
Back to the business development question.
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:05.599
Over the years, we have built out a really uh great network of other service providers.
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:09.039
A lot of financial advisors, right?
00:24:09.200 --> 00:24:26.000
Um, because they're working with business owners, some CPAs, some attorneys, uh, but people who serve business owners in and around sort of the MA space or the business space, uh, we get good referrals from them.
00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:34.240
Our best referrals come from our clients who who call folks and go, you really need to work with these people, right?
00:24:34.400 --> 00:24:43.519
You you need to work with Tom or you need to work with Terry or Dave or Darren or whoever uh because it's made such a huge impact on my business.
00:24:44.000 --> 00:25:00.799
Um and uh and of course, you know, we've got a we've got a business development process that we go through with any client, which starts with a lot of discovery and understanding and and uh developing a scope of work, but it's a combination of all the above.
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.880
We we have a few people that are experts in certain industries.
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:13.440
For example, Darren is an expert in the roofing uh business, so he speaks at roofing conferences all over the country.
00:25:13.599 --> 00:25:23.599
Uh Terry does a lot with um uh telephone, wireless Wisps, things like that, um, wireless, you know, ISPs.
00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:25.359
And so he speaks at a lot of conferences.
00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:28.160
He was just speaking at a conference in San Antonio last week.
00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:38.000
And uh I do uh I out of my former industry where I sold businesses, I'm invited to speak frequently at conferences.
00:25:38.079 --> 00:25:40.960
And so that's a huge part of our business development.
00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:52.000
Once people hear us speak and understand the things that they need to be thinking about, then uh then um they uh start to realize they might need that help and and seek us out.
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:57.440
The last thing that we do is, of course, you referenced this at the beginning, our business transition summit.
00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:01.039
That's an event business that we started uh four years ago.
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:05.440
Uh we just did an event this past week in Scottsdale, Arizona.
00:26:05.599 --> 00:26:08.160
We've got one coming up in North Texas.
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:18.160
Uh, this will be our third event in North Texas where business owners come and our objective at this event, we're not there to sell them, we're not there to beat them up.
00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:30.799
We're there to educate them on the things that they need to be thinking about in order to prepare their business and themselves for that future exit.
00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:43.519
Because it's based on the premise that, and I say this right on stage at these events, can we agree that every business on the planet will eventually transition?
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:49.440
And wouldn't it be better if you did it by design rather than default?
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:57.119
Because a lot of businesses do transition by default, and that's a sad, sad outcome, in my opinion.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:08.640
So talk a little bit on because a lot of coaches and consultants that I I talk to on a regular basis want to look into the the event game, right?
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:15.039
Whether that's uh lunch and learn or more of a formal larger scale thing like you're doing.
00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:25.359
Talk a little bit about how you go from the conception all the way through actually getting prospects out of that, if you can, just a little bit to kind of talk through that process.
00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:26.079
Yeah, absolutely.
00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:32.720
In fact, what I want to say here, you know, Business Transition Summit, that's that is a separate business for us.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.359
We do want to go into other markets.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:43.039
And so if you think that your market might be a good spot for this, partner up with us and we'll do a lot of the heavy lifting.
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:47.519
We have a team of folks that do all of the uh the back office stuff.
00:27:47.599 --> 00:28:00.319
We negotiate the the space, the food, the uh we work with a local board of directors to establish a uh an agenda for the day and find good speakers and things like that.
00:28:00.640 --> 00:28:11.119
So uh let me just tell you, we started out doing lunch and learns, and then of course COVID happened and we and we and we pivoted to do uh webinars and that kind of thing.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:33.920
But holding a one-day event focused on the things business owners need to be thinking about, either A, building value in their business, or B, thinking about uh the outcomes of a transition, whether that be tax or you know, various other consequences of the different types of uh ways that you might exit your business.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:45.279
Um, it has been a magical uh thing for us uh because business owners come and they realize, okay, I thought maybe I could do this on my own, and now I realize that I need help.
00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:47.519
I might need help in sales development.
00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:53.279
And so we partner with folks locally uh who uh work with sales development.
00:28:53.359 --> 00:29:11.039
We partner with marketing firms, we partner with CPAs and and whatnot to to uh and and certainly wealth managers to make sure that that all the resources are in the room, that uh a business owner knows that there are people here who can help me on my journey.
00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:16.960
Uh and so so it is uh I will tell you the first one we did was scary as hell.
00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:20.640
But like I like I mentioned, I have no barriers to risk.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:30.240
Uh I remember the the conception of it was, you know, prior to COVID, I was planning on doing something, but I hadn't really committed.
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:35.599
But then when life started opening back up again, it was summer of 2022.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:41.119
My wife and I had been on a trip and we were driving home from somewhere in South Texas.
00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:48.400
Uh and and I looked at her and I said, okay, I'm going to the Urban Convention Center and I'm going to rent it.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:53.359
And that's going to be the line I draw on the sand, and we're going to do this.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:29:54.960
Uh and I did.
00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:57.599
I called the Urban Convention Center the next week.
00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:00.720
I stroked a check for$75,000.
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:04.960
Uh, and the next thing you know, I'm committed, right?
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:06.400
You know, that's that's the deal.
00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:08.079
Burn the boats, moving on.
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:19.519
And so we did that first event, and we wound up, we wound up investing uh in our business after sponsorships and and uh folks uh paid admission.
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:26.960
We wound up still investing a little over$200,000, but it was a great investment uh in the future.
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:37.599
Uh now we uh we've learned ways to make our that business a little bit more efficient, but we are looking for different places to take this around the country.
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:43.279
This year we'll do four Scottsdale, North Texas, Austin, and Little Rock, Arkansas.
00:30:43.359 --> 00:30:46.480
Uh we did Little Rock last year and we're gonna go back there again.
00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:51.759
But but uh the event can be a great opportunity in any market.
00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:54.400
And don't go reinvent the wheel.
00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:57.759
We've we've got a whole team of folks who invented the wheel.
00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:02.720
Well, it's yeah, and I appreciate you saying that and kind of outlining that because there is a lot of value.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:19.279
I mean, whether you are a business operating system coach or a um in the financial world, you know, whatever it is, you're helping businesses and business owners become better in some form or fashion.
00:31:19.440 --> 00:31:29.039
And so that's something to think about because then you're going in in a highly engaged audience that's ready to go and interested in learning.
00:31:29.119 --> 00:31:30.400
They've already raised their hand.
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:33.519
Hey, I want to improve myself or my business.
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:39.759
And so, to Tom's point, you know, why reinvent the wheel when you can kind of partner with other organizations?
00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:45.359
Because it is trying to do this on your own and getting 40, 50 people in a room is exhausting.
00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:46.160
It is very hard.
00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:48.000
Now it's if you can make it work.
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:55.519
Yeah, our first event in Scottsdale earlier this week, uh, very first event, we had 75 people in the room.
00:31:55.759 --> 00:32:02.000
Uh, here in North Texas, uh, the first year we did that, we had 140 people.
00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:04.799
Uh, the second year it was 200.
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:06.559
This year we're capping it.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:09.519
We're actually capping it at 250.
00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:14.960
Uh, and so uh, and for any, I I hear this frequently.
00:32:15.039 --> 00:32:19.759
It's one of the criticisms that I hear frequently from advisors.
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:24.880
There's no way my clients would come sit in a room all day.
00:32:25.359 --> 00:32:32.480
Well, if you provide them with a tremendous amount of value, then of course they will.
00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:42.640
And and when I hear that from an advisor, I tell them, you are limiting your outcome based on your own limiting beliefs.
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:45.839
You are inventing roadblocks that don't exist.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:53.200
Because a business owner, if he perceives that it can be a game changer for him and his business, then they'll leave.
00:32:53.279 --> 00:33:06.319
You know, I had a conversation with a business owner who was at uh uh Scottsdale uh on Tuesday, and and he said, Man, I really thought that I was gonna come here and have, you know, just a nice day, learn a few things.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:15.359
He said, Man, I I realize now I've got a lot of work to do in order to uh get my business ready for for transfer.
00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:18.240
Exactly, exactly, right?
00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:22.000
And they walk out going, okay, I get this now.
00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:23.839
I love that outcome.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:25.759
Yes, absolutely.
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:31.440
Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on and sharing just so many stories and wisdom.
00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:43.359
Um, I I have benefited from this conversation, but I always like to ask guests as we close just a couple questions of more reflecting back on their uh successful career, if you will.
00:33:43.440 --> 00:33:56.000
But let's say you are looking back, you got all the knowledge and experience that you've gained over the years, but you're looking back at rookie Tom, who's just thinking about starting to get into consulting.
00:33:56.240 --> 00:33:59.039
What advice would you give, give rookie Tom?
00:33:59.599 --> 00:34:01.279
Uh it's a business, right?
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:10.800
Um I realized early on what I tried to do starting out was I was looking for another company to maybe buy or get into.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:16.960
And I was part-time uh trying to work on my consulting practice and build that.
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.000
Both of those things are full-time jobs.
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.360
And full-time to me is like 60 hours a week.
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:26.000
So I can't do two 60-hour a week jobs.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:32.559
So focus, you know, figure out where it is you want to go and get very tightly focused.
00:34:33.039 --> 00:34:42.719
Uh, think about the outcomes that you're looking for for your clients because it and stop selling them on what you do.
00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:48.800
Listen to what it is that that they need and then bring solutions to them.
00:34:48.960 --> 00:34:50.719
Focus on their outcomes.
00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:52.079
That's the most important thing.
00:34:52.159 --> 00:34:57.360
You know, uh, Donald Miller wrote a great book, How to Story, you know, how to create a story brand.
00:34:57.440 --> 00:34:58.800
I forget the exact name of the book.
00:34:58.880 --> 00:34:59.679
It's a great book.
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:02.800
It's probably the easiest marketing book on the planet.
00:35:02.960 --> 00:35:09.360
And it's all about making your um process customer-centric.
00:35:09.760 --> 00:35:14.239
You're not the hero of their story, they're the hero of their story.
00:35:14.480 --> 00:35:18.559
So you need to point that out in the way that you go out and market to them.
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:23.679
So, so that would be my my biggest advice is focus on this 100%.
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:32.159
Find if you don't have tools already available to you, then go find tools that you can go out and deploy.
00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:37.440
If you're interested in talking with us about our process, I'm happy to have that conversation.
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:40.159
Or, or Dave is happy to have that conversation with you.
00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:42.639
I I love Don's writing on marketing.
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:43.280
It's so good.
00:35:43.440 --> 00:35:45.920
So the you're not you're not the hero.
00:35:46.239 --> 00:35:46.639
That's it.
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:47.280
Let's go.
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:54.639
Um, and then last question uh what is a lesson that you're in the middle of learning in this current moment?
00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:01.119
Well, uh, I think it probably has to do with branding.
00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:03.599
We're we're talking about our branding.
00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:09.199
We're talking about one of the things that I learned early on, or I didn't learn until it was really late.
00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:18.480
I mean, if you buy my books, you know, the uh there's me and there's me and Susan, and then, you know, on the back of the other, there's me.
00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:27.840
Well, what happened was unintentionally, uh, my business is I became the brand.
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:30.480
And that's always a bad move.
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:36.079
Here I am advising business owners to that owner dependency is an issue.
00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:42.000
And suddenly I woke up one day and went, oh boy, I've got some owner dependency issues.
00:36:42.079 --> 00:36:55.760
And so, so we're going through the process of what we lovingly call the detomification of the businesses so that I it it doesn't revolve around me.
00:36:55.920 --> 00:37:09.440
The reality is that the things that we do can be done by the folks that that are out there that doesn't need me in order to execute uh at a very high level for our clients.
00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:11.519
And so uh that was a mistake.
00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:15.440
I wish I hadn't done it that way, uh, but it is what it is, right?
00:37:15.519 --> 00:37:17.119
And so now we just have to deal with it.
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:22.159
We've as as I said in the South, and you you know, you're in the South, so you might get this.
00:37:22.239 --> 00:37:26.079
You throw the dead cat on the table, and then you got to do something with it, right?
00:37:26.400 --> 00:37:29.440
I uh I'm ashamed that I've heard that before.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:32.320
You know, it is what I have, and I'm a cat guy.
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:35.280
You can't see some of the cats over here staring at me.
00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:37.360
Or the dead cat on the table.
00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:38.400
Oh man.
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:39.840
Well, that that's so good.
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:50.800
And I I really respect you for having the humility to see that, be aware of that, and then also really take the the steps to actually address that.
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:53.920
So, so kudos to you um of of that.
00:37:54.239 --> 00:37:56.239
But thank you for coming on.
00:37:56.400 --> 00:38:02.320
If somebody wants to get in touch with you about any number of things that we talked about today, what's the best place to get in touch with you?
00:38:02.559 --> 00:38:08.480
Uh, you know, you can start at uh Mastery Partners, that's Masterwithawhy, masterypartners.com.
00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:12.239
You can go to Northstar-Mergers.com.
00:38:12.639 --> 00:38:15.519
Uh, there's a link to me on either a spot of those.
00:38:15.679 --> 00:38:19.840
But if you're really interested in BTS, go to the business transition summit.com.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:23.519
You can see upcoming events, you can see kind of agendas and things like that.
00:38:23.679 --> 00:38:29.920
And um, I'll just throw out my cell phone is 817-797-1488.
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:31.199
Call me.
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:32.480
Love it.
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:36.000
We'll uh we'll link out to some of those things in the show notes as well.
00:38:36.159 --> 00:38:37.840
So if you just want to find it that way.
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:41.360
But thank you again for coming on and sharing your wisdom.
00:38:41.440 --> 00:38:42.639
I I appreciate it.
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:48.559
And uh, if you are listening and you are a consultant, a coach, this is what we do at 90.
00:38:48.639 --> 00:39:01.360
We want to help coaches and consultants and fractional executives build their practice to be successful because we believe the more healthy business coaches and consultants that are out there, the healthier the business world is going to be.
00:39:01.440 --> 00:39:02.400
And that's a better world.
00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:08.000
So and by the way, let me just throw in there I'm a user of 90 in all of our businesses, and we love it.
00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:13.679
It makes the the whole process of running our business so much easier.
00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:14.960
Oh, well, thank you.
00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:16.239
I didn't ask you to say that.
00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:17.679
So that's great.
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:19.199
Uh no, I appreciate that.
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:21.920
Yeah, that's uh we uh we're all about that.
00:39:22.079 --> 00:39:24.320
So we thank you, Tom, and uh thanks for tuning in.
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:25.760
We'll see you next time.
00:39:26.559 --> 00:39:29.599
That's it for today's episode of the Ambitious Coach Lab.
00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:34.880
My hope is that something here helps you sharpen your craft and keep building a coaching practice you're proud of.
00:39:35.119 --> 00:39:38.079
Before we wrap, a quick thank you to our sponsor, 90.
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00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:09.920
Again, that's 8020 for 20% off.
00:40:10.159 --> 00:40:11.440
Thanks for hanging out with me today.
00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:12.239
I'm Cam.
00:40:12.559 --> 00:40:15.119
Carry on as you grow your ambitious coaching project.
00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:16.559
See you next time.
