Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be on the buyer's side of a private equity exit? Adam Coffey has spent the last twenty years as CEO of three private equity-backed national service companies and intimately understands the unique concerns from the buyer’s perspective during a sale. Through his experience executing a buy-and-build strategy, he has bought and sold more than 100 companies ranging in size from $1 million to $1 billion.    In this episode, Adam unpacks the strategies that allow PE firms to get the huge returns that have made the industry—for both investors and sellers—so popular. Adam dives into the three different areas of growth he focuses on to achieve a 30% CAGR, a recipe that even worked on companies that were at a stagnant 5% growth for years. He also talks about how private equity firms create their strategic planning and investment models based on what ‘good’ looks like for their investments. Tune in if you’re ready to capitalize on growth and be more knowledgeable about the buy side of the deal table.   What You Will Learn  How a private equity firm structures their investments with their limited partners and future stakeholders (e.g., previous owners who sold) How a private equity firm structures their investments with their limited partners and future stakeholders (e.g., previous owners who sold) What the perceptive is like as the CEO of a PE firm negotiating a purchase with one of the founders of a business The rule of 72 that private equity firms use to double, triple and quadruple their investments Understanding the role of a PE firm makes you less likely to get screwed on a deal A detailed overview of the buy-and-build strategy from a private equity CEO’s perspective Why Adam doesn't like earnouts, even though it might be good for him as a buyer The math behind rollover investing and the real reasons why the second bite of the apple (second sale of the company) can mean even more money than the first sale How to using a phone book to identify if an industry is fragmented and ripe for a rollup The three primary levers private equity firms use to get a higher multiple on their investments Where and how the investment thesis of the PE firm plays a role in the deal structure and how that impacts how they view a target acquisition  The three types of growth private equity firms use when performing a buy-and-build How an entrepreneur’s personality influences if a private equity firm will even make an offer   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Adam Coffey has spent the last twenty years as CEO of three private-equity-backed national service companies. Through his experience executing a buy-and-build strategy, he has bought and sold more than 100 companies ranging in size from $1 million to $1 billion. CEO, board member, best-selling author, Forbes Business Council member, and an acclaimed guest speaker, Adam Coffey, is an inspiring and authentic leader who creates high-performance cultures and drives transformative growth. Over the past 21 years, he has had the honor of serving as President and CEO of three national private equity-backed service companies, each in different industries. Two of the three companies he built achieved enterprise values of $1B. Throughout his career, Coffey has a proven track record of achieving notable outcomes for stakeholders. His career average at exit is 4x MOIC (Multiple of Invested Capital).   Quotes: 07:03  - “The military taught me something about discipline, teamwork, leadership. Really great foundations to build a career on.” - Adam Coffey 08:30  - “There’s always a plan in place. Great recessions happen. Pandemics happen. You always have to be flexible and adaptable. But generally, if you have a destination in mind, and if you have a charted course to get there, you’re going to be more successful than someone who wakes up every morning and has no idea where they’re headed.” - Adam Coffey 13:00  - “[Private equity] has permeated every part of the business world at this point. This is going to be the first year (in 2022) where more than 50% of all M&A activity–on the planet!–is going to involve private equity on one side of the table or the other or both.” - Adam Coffey 14:38  - “I look at private equity as a tool and they look at me [as a CEO leader] as a tool too.” - Adam Coffey 23:45  - “Frankly, most venture capital funds don’t return more than a 2X multiple of invested capital.” - Adam Coffey 25:48  - “The more an entrepreneur knows about what private equity is, and what their needs are, and what’s going to happen to them on the journey, the better position they are to be successful. Right now, if you happen upon an entrepreneur that sold to private equity, half of them will say that it’s horrible and ‘I’ll never work with those guys again.’ And half will say, ‘Oh, I had a good outcome. It was great and it was fun.’ It’s hit or miss because it was left to chance because people don’t know what a good partner looks like, or what their needs are, or what their partner’s needs are, so you have a 50% hit or miss rate with people.” - Adam Coffey 29:18  - “The joke amongst P.E. guys is, ‘Earn-outs are a lawsuit waiting to happen. The only question is, ‘Who is the plaintiff?’” - Adam Coffey 37:35  - “I’ve always been a transparent CEO. If I’ve got 3000 employees, all 3000 employees know how much EBITA we got, what our revenue is, and where we’re going and…” - Adam Coffey 50:15 - “People tier products and services. Think of Mercedez Benz. You got a lot of money? They’re going to sell you an S-Class. What does S stand for? Spensive. It’s a spensive Mercedez.” - Adam Coffey   Links and Resources: Linkedin - Adam Coffey AdamECoffey.com CEO Advisory Guru The Private-Equity Playbook The Exit-Strategy Playbook Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

“Take your customers through a journey by telling a story” is a phrase we have all heard before, but have you ever learned how to actually put storytelling into action that generates the results you want in your business?On today’s show, David Mann — who is a leading expert in creating simple messaging — shares with us how to master your sales and marketing by turning your IDEAS into WORDS that inspire ACTION.David believes in opening opportunities — and therefore growing the value of your business — by closing communication gaps. When David graduated from Northwestern University's theater program more than three decades ago, he has earned an enduring reputation as a dynamic theater artist, author, educator, speaker, and the creator of storytelling programs for lawyers and business leaders.David’s philosophy:If it's clear, they'll understand. If they understand, they'll care. If they care, they'll take action.   What You Will Learn How much time you actually have to capture someone's attention, no matter their level of interest How one person shows force you to grab - and keep - an audience's attention, and how that helps David create stories for businesses and lawyers  How to tie your marketing and messaging to your products and services and ultimately to the EBITDA and value of your business The role practice, revision, and truth-seeking play in creating your business message and how that imitates art Why it’s so important to talk to your customers and understand what they really want How to balance your message so it speaks to a very specific audience but also presents a generic statement that the audience relates to What it means to sell with a good story and how to apply it to your business Why every product or service you offer needs to link back to the core idea of what your business does and how it helps your customer make progress towards their goals Why the first words a customer reads should speak about them, not you The truth about authenticity and why being authentic and gaining trust takes practice What role messaging has in defining your business How just talking about what you want for your customer is a great exercise to find your message   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: David Mann is a story specialist who teaches leaders and attorneys how to make an impact by clarifying their message. He has used his skills as an actor, director, and playwright to help business leaders and attorneys win cases and grow their businesses. David teaches at Loyola School of Law in Chicago and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. His case story guidance has produced winning verdicts in cases ranging from medical malpractice to securities fraud. For business leaders, David has created executive presentations and impact messaging for companies in finance, construction, medical devices, airlines, strategic planning, and IT. As a professional theater artist, David has directed or acted in productions ranging from Shakespeare to Disney. He has created six critically acclaimed one-person shows, and he is a recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship for Storytelling.   Quotes: 13:10  - “You felt dumb too? I felt dumb. It felt like there was this big secret.” - David Mann  15:15  - “From the point of view of the person putting out the material, you can control how clear and not clear it is.” - David Mann 17:10  - “Everybody is an audience when you want to connect and make somebody care about what you have to offer.” - David Mann 18:27  - “Chris Voss, the FBI investigator, says you have seven seconds to get them to pay attention so they give you another ten seconds, so they can give you another 30 seconds. It expands.” - David Mann 19:00  - “Everybody walks away mentally when they’re not interested and they’re going to be doing that after seven seconds if you don’t get their attention.” - David Mann 28:50  - “It should say it in words and ideas; it should say, ‘This is about you.’ That’s why I chose the phrase, ‘Own your stage.’” - David Mann 35:07  - “The process might be something you can articulate very quickly.” - David Mann 43:45  - “You need to have the data of who your customers are and what they think. You need all that. But that’s not going to lead to a message. That just sort of stays in a vault. The message is a whole other step.” - David Mann   Links and Resources: A Simple Message Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

Shahar Erez is an expert in the gig economy. He’s co-founder and CEO of Stoke, an on-demand talent platform empowering companies to adopt a hybrid workforce model that scales as quickly and efficiently as needed. The platform provides a streamlined interface to make sure all your “non-employees” are operating according to the correct policies, legal constraints and workforce classification. Because let’s face it, most of us only need a specialist’s help a few times a year—but when we do, we need that person right now.Services providing on-demand specialists have been growing in popularity in recent years for both employers and workers alike. As companies downsize and turn more positions into remote work, the number of skilled workers becoming permanent freelancers has increased significantly in recent years. Shahar understands this all-too-well and grew his company into an appealing $110M acquisition for industry giant Fiverr in 2021 that took only 15 months once he exited a strategic "stealth mode."In this interview, Shahar shares how this trend toward freelancing is dramatically impacting the economy and how you could be capitalizing on it. We’ll look at the changing labor market, how companies access talent, and who is competing for that talent. This is a must-hear if you’re looking at creative ways to get the knowledge and talent you need, without breaking the budget.   What You Will Learn Shahar explains his mindset about the risk of leaving corporate America to start a new business with 3 little kids The mission behind stoke and why COVID accelerated their mission The mismatch with what companies need/want from an employee and the compensation they’re willing to provide (or that the company can afford) Why highly skilled freelancers have more job security - and potentially a higher income - than taking a traditional W2 job  Why Shahar has the “grab a beer rule” when looking for capital The definition and strategy overview of “stealth mode” and why it’s important Why Shahar only paid attention to FOUR KPI’s and still does today How Shahar confronted the out of the blue offer and why he believed being blunt helped the transparency aspect of the deal Why the 45 days post LOI is the time to perform for an entrepreneur  Why Shahar wasn’t nervous of Fiverr taking his code during the due diligence process   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Shahar Erez is a tech-scene veteran and serial entrepreneur in Israel and Silicon Valley and has 20 years of executive experience in engineering, product and marketing under his belt at companies like HP, VMware and Kenshoo. He sold his gig-economy on-demand talent platform Stoke in 2021 to Fiverr for $110M, just fifteen months after putting it up for offer. He has a BA from IDC University as well as an MBA from the Technion Institute of Technology in Israel, loves to read, is an amateur cyclist, and has three children.   Quotes: 08:30  - “Throughout my career, I learned a ton. Growing up in Israel, our exposure to the western world was limited.” - Shahar Erez 10:34  - “I wanted to feel that innovation again. I think I met with 10 different CEOs and VCs and I thought, ‘I don’t want to work for any of these dudes. I don’t think any of these guys will let me execute the way I want.’” - Shahar Erez 11:08  - “I wanted something that could be fun, that would let me innovate the way I thought of innovation, that would let me execute the way I thought execution should look like. There’s no choice, I’ll just start something new.” - Shahar Erez 21:39  - “One in every two Americans is freelancing.” - Shahar Erez 24:31  - “The world out there is changing and it is very difficult for corporate America to understand that the world is changing.” - Shahar Erez 25:06  - “The amount of reach to potential customers is constantly changing. And freelancers are the ones opening your mind to something interesting.” - Shahar Erez 34:21  - “I think it’s super important, when you’re raising funds, to make sure that you’re taking it from someone that you’ll be willing to have a beer with afterwards.” - Shahar Erez  37:17  - “The future is freelancers.” - Shahar Erez 46:15 - “If you want to have a scalable business, do things that don’t scale. So in the beginning, don’t put any effort into scaling. Don’t try to scale. See if you can make it work.” - Shahar Erez   Links and Resources: Stoke Talent Shahar Erez, Linkedin Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

Feisal Alibhai was born into an entrepreneurial family but decided to venture out on his own after Wharton and a short period on Wall Street. By the time Feisal was 35 he had scaled internationally to over 15 countries, employed 10,000 people, and was doing $100s of millions in revenue. Then his life changed. At the age of 35, Feisal received a surprise stage three cancer diagnosis.    On today’s show, Feisal walks us through what it was like getting a life-altering diagnosis and how it changed the way he looked at his life and business. He reflects on his new mindset, and the shift in his approach from a work-work-work to a “game time then, and game time now” view. He shares his insights on stress and health, as well as some key measures every business owner should take to keep their mind and body healthy for the years to come.   What You Will Learn What drove Feisal to start his international business in repressed countries lacking resources widely available in developed countries How owning both sides of a market - the buy side and sell side - can create a protective moat, increase enterprise value, and keep competition out The customer insights Feisal gained from personally going into every world market - accompanied by armed guards - and how that impacted his strategies How a cancer diagnosis almost derailed his business alongside his personal life What kept Feisal’s business performing during his 10-month absence Why Feisal was able to sell his company in under 10 minutes The challenges of bridging significant market gaps between dominant and emerging markets Why preparing for crisis in a business is essential to not only preserve the wealth created but also to allow one to focus on the present issue When to tell you’re physically present but not mentally The impact of giving it all at work and half-assing it at home Why Feisal says stress doesn’t cause sickness, but how someone handles it does   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: As a 35 year old 3rd generation family business entrepreneur with over 10,000 employees in 15 countries, Feisal received a wake-up call one day with the news that he had stage three cancer. He felt his life was over, but when he was unable to visualize saying goodbye to his two toddler sons, he chose to do whatever it took to transform the cancer. Looking back, he recognized all the warning signs he had missed, and spent the next seven years helping his family and friends to prioritize what matters most. In 2013, Feisal founded Qineticare, the world’s first family health office. Qineticare’s mission is to empower individuals and families through an integrative wellbeing journey of self-discovery to transform their way of being to live a meaningful life.   Quotes: 14:23  - “That was our goal. Was to have the average person be able to afford the Disney, the Cartoon Network, the Warner Bros. and be in fashion.” - Feisal Alibhai 15:40  - “I’ll be very honest: I wanted to be financially independent. I didn’t want to depend on my father or the family to support me.” - Feisal Alibhai, on his driving “why” when he started 17:07  - “The mission statement was to bring to the third world, what the first world takes for granted. That was really about providing accessibility and improving quality of life.” - Feisal Alibhai 26:34  - “The second game that was different was really the long game. How do you change lives? How do we improve the quality of life? Then you’re playing a different game because a lot of my competitors were serving the core. ” - Feisal Alibhai 33:49  - “The questions I would ask are as brutal as, ‘Did you have time to eat? Did you have time to sleep? Did you have time to go to the bathroom?’ This is the level of hardass I was. [...] So don’t tell me you didn’t have time. Because you had time. Because if you did any of those basic fundamentals, you had time.” - Feisal Alibhai 46:33  - “All those projects in Pakistan happened because I had a three hour window with nothing to do.” - Feisal Alibhai 49:06  - “I had a tumor the size of a Rubik’s cube that was pressing against my lung and my lung had collapsed.” - Feisal Alibhai   Links and Resources: Feisal Alibhai LinkedIn Qineticare  Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

A physician by trade and an entrepreneur by passion, Dr. John Shufeldt has become a healthcare venture capitalist helping other entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses. Like many entrepreneurs, John noticed a problem within his work space that he wanted to fix. And another. And another. Over the course of his career, John founded 15 businesses, including NextCare Urgent Care—which he scaled to 60 locations generating over $100M in revenue—and MeMD, a telehealth company that he sold to WalMart in 2011.In this episode, John talks about why efficiency was his core focus in the founding of NextCare and why he hired a CEO to take over the “operator” part of the business instead of running the day-to-day himself. He also talks about the process of selling MeMD to WalMart and why he chose them as the buyer based on what they wanted to do with his company after they bought it. John's ability to maintain his vision across multiple ventures will inspire you to tighten up your own and see what you're really capable of achieving.   What You Will Learn Why efficiency was the core focus of John's franchise urgent care businesses Why John hired a CEO years after he started and what led him to make that decision John’s definition of founder versus operator and why they are vastly different Why building a company culture from the ground up is so important The “if only” look John experienced that drives him everyday How John knows if he’s on track or off track Why doing something different will increase a businesses intrinsic value Why John chose WalMart as the buyer of MeMD based on WalMart’s healthcare vision How John learned the lesson of “hire for culture fit”    // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Dr. John Shufeldt is an emergency physician and the ForbesBooks author of Entrepreneur Rx: The Physician’s Guide To Starting A Business. In 1993, when John noticed the ER was overcrowded with minor illnesses and injuries, he launched his first urgent care practice. The business saw explosive growth, expanding from one to 60 locations during his tenure doing over $100M. Shufeldt has founded about 15 businesses, including NextCare Urgent Care; MeMD, used by more than 450 providers to virtually treat more than 6 million patients (a telehealth company that was sold to WalMart in 2011); and Tribal EM, dedicated to improving the delivery of healthcare for Indigenous People. Shufeldt also is the business manager and a founding partner of Empower Emergency Physicians, where he continues to practice and “in his spare time” has started a VC firm that raised $20M to invest in local healthcare startups. In addition to his medical degree, he has an MBA, a law degree and a Six Sigma black belt.   Quotes: 12:03  - “We grow the business, then hire the staff. But what I try to do over the years is, ‘Let’s build this thing to handle a hundred patients a day officially, then when we’re only at 50 or 60, we’ll be screamin’.”        - John Shufeldt 15:58  - “I was never one of those fragile perfects who got knocked off the ledge and laid there. I was always like, ‘So?’ and just got back up, because I was so used to screwing this up.” - John Shufeldt 23:31  - “I’ve always coached people to have that fallback. I realized, in emergency medicine, if I’m not working, I’m not making money.” - John Shufeldt 32:04  - “I will be damned if I am laying on my deathbed with that look on my face. I heard this quote,’The definition of hell is on your deathbed, you meet the person you could have become.‘ That was that guy and I thought, ‘That’s not going to be me.’” - John Shufeldt 38:13 - “This is how I always start off these conversations, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if…?’” - John Shufeldt 47:10 - “At the end of the day, you need to be able to look your investors in the eye and say, ‘You know, I did well by you. Not only did we create value for your investment, but you also get the legacy of this business that is now going to expand and do x.’” - John Shufeldt   Links and Resources: About John Shufeldt John Shufedt, LinkedIn Walmart Health To Acquire Telehealth Provider MeMD AZ Inno - Emergency room doctor raises $20M for Phoenix genetic sequencing firm Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

In this episode Andy Cabasso shares his story of leaving the grind of the legal industry to start, grow, and exit JurisPage (a Marketing Agency focusing on law firms).  Even though Andy’s new company was a professional services firm, he explains how he created a hyper valuable marketing agency by focusing on their niche, implementing productization based processes, and never going outside their skill sets and scope of services - even when clients begged him to do a unique project. Andy gives examples on how he scaled his agency using streamline procedures, independent contractors, and focusing NOT on paid ads but content and affiliate marketing to get leads. Whether you’re a professional services firm looking for ways to scale the business and make it more valuable so it can give you exit options, or a business owner looking for an inside scoop as to what makes a great marketing partner, this episode is for you! What You Will Learn The challenges - and solutions - to scaling a professional services firm  Productization in a service versus standardization in a service and what the difference is between the two Why specialization in a services firm helps you increase client satisfaction, profit margins, effectiveness of your marketing, and the ability to scale  Why - and when -  a fixed scope / flat fee pricing structure works in a services firm Why Andy shifted his payment plan for clients to a percentage-by-project (at the start of the contract) and why that approach got his projects through the pipeline a lot faster Why it’s so important to partner with a niche specific agency as a business owner seeking marketing help How Andy leveraged partnerships and affiliates for scaling his agency rather than paid search How Andy reacted to his out-of-the blue offer from a competing agency Why coaching and mentorship was particularly helpful to Andy’s exit Why Andy didn’t want his offer to be based off EBITDA  Why you must be able to hand off most of the day to day in order to get a good offer    // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Andy Cabasso is the co-founder of Postaga, a new all-in-one platform for link building and email outreach. He is also co-founder of Offsprout, which helps web design agencies more easily build websites for their clients by using white-label website building tools.  Prior to Postaga and Offsprout, Andy capitalized on his life as a lawyer and co-founded JurisPage, an Internet marketing agency focusing on helping law firms create a professional Internet presence and get better visibility online. Andy’s mission is to help make businesses on the Internet more successful. JurisPage was acquired by Uptime Legal in 2016. Quotes: 07:56 - “No matter how productive or efficient you can be, I can bring in ways to automate things and streamline things.” - Andy Cabasso 08:45 - “Your revenue is tied to hour and a billable rate, not at all tied to productivity.” - Andy Cabasso 13:17 - “There were two aspects of business that we would turn away regularly. We would turn away one-off projects and we would turn away customers that weren’t in our niche.” - Andy Cabasso 19:04 - “The idea of a productized service is that, we’re creating a very thick scope projects so that nothing is a surprise, so that you can adequately price for it knowing (generally) the range of time it’s going to take you.” - Andy Cabasso 22:04 - “To be clear, we didn’t get it right on day one.” - Andy Cabasso 30:03 - “That was part of our marketing. It was, ‘We are in this niche. We are law firm marketing.’ So, just doing websites for law firms.” - Andy Cabasso 31:06 - “You can’t market a law firm the same as you market a restaurant in Minneapolis.” - Andy Cabasso 40:01 - “Making sure that I’m making it as easy as possible for the people who are going to be 46to send customers my way, is very important.” - Andy Cabasso 46:15 - “Here is where we’re at. Here is our trajectory. Here are our numbers. If you have this asset, and this is where it is, what would you tell someone else to do?” - Andy Cabasso   Links and Resources: Use Coupon Code Podcast50 For 50% Off Your First Three Months on Postaga Andrew Cabasso Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

Shawn Burcham is founder and CEO of PFSbrands, a branded food service company that he started in his garage and grew at over 100% ARR year-over-year for the first few years. Now the company does $100 million in revenue and has an excellent culture that incorporates financial literacy at all levels. Shawn even wrote a book about it all called Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight Talk Strategies for Success to help other entrepreneurs achieve their goals as well.   On today’s show, Shawn talks about when he hit a multi-million dollar threshold and realized he needed to start setting goals and teaching his employees financial literacy so they could better understand how the company ran, made money, and reinvested to keep scaling. He believes culture is at the core of a company’s success, and should always lead naturally into an ESOP before an owner considers exiting. He explains his journey of turning PFSBrands into an ESOP and how it has benefited his business, company culture, and the community around him—and makes it accessible to any business owner. Whether you are looking to build a sustainable company culture or exit your business through an ESOP, this audio master class is for you.   What You Will Learn The benefits of actively teaching your employees financial literacy  The business model and growth strategies Shawn used to scale his company from his garage to $100M Why you need to build a good company culture before you ESOP, not after  A basic breakdown on how ESOPs work, when, and why Why setting and chasing goals is so important to Shawn, how it helped him scale, and why clarity on one’s vision is so important for every business owner The tax advantages of an ESOP Shawn’s argument for selling the equity in the business to an ESOP if you still want to be the leader of the company What can happen if you combine company culture and financial literacy in your company regardless of whether you are and ESOP or not Why Shawn’s journey as an entrepreneur  dramatically changed in 2011 after he picked up and read his first book since grade school  The three reasons Shawn chose the ESOP route to exit his equity ownership of business   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Shawn Burcham, author of Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight Talk Strategies for Success, is the founder & CEO of PFSbrands, which he and his wife, Julie, started out of their home in 1998. The company has over 1,900 branded foodservice locations across 40 states, is now doing over $100 million in revenue and is best known for their Champs Chicken franchise which was started in 1999. Prior to starting PFSbrands, Burcham spent five years with a Fortune 100 company, Mid-America Dairymen (now Dairy Farmers of America). He also worked for three years as a Regional Sales Manager for a midwest Chester’s Fried chicken distributor.   Quotes: 07:45  - “ I just wasn’t cut out to work for other people. I just always felt I could do something on my own.” - Shawn Burcham 16:13  - “I had some competitors in the private equity world, and I just saw what it did to their cultures. I saw what it did to their people. In many cases I saw the companies go away from the local area, maybe even the state that they were founded in.” - Shawn Burcham 21:31  - “We were always looking back. I knew what I was doing but I didn’t know what I was doing. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know.” - Shawn Burcham 26:43  - “That was my ah-ha moment in 2011. I was like, ‘Man, I gotta share what I know so people can actually know how they’re contributing.’” - Shawn Burcham 28:23 - “It’s cool to see so many people involved in our business, through just the line-ownership, if you will.” - Shawn Burcham 30:08  - “I just became obsessed with reading because I recognized what it did for me.” - Shawn Burcham 30:33  - “We do that all the way through our company. We encourage reading. We have a book club. Our senior leadership team is required to read, especially certain books. It’s been a game-changer.” - Shawn Burcham 35:46  - “I always like to say, it has to be for me, it has to be 51% about the company and 49% about the people. Because if I can’t keep the company stable, then ultimately I’m not going to be able to accomplish the goals of helping everybody within the culture, and with the success standpoint, of improving their own personal life.” - Shawn Burcham   Links and Resources: GRITTbusinesscoaching Shawn Burcham, LinkedIn Twitter: @ShawnBurcham1 Facebook: Shawn Burcham PFS Book: Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight Talk Strategies for Success, by Shawn Burcham Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

An avid builder is probably the best way to describe Will Pemble. Will is a serial entrepreneur who loves building and selling businesses. His most famous venture was building Web.com, a domain hosting and services firm that he sold in 2008. If you haven’t seen Will in business headlines, you may have seen Will on Youtube or Netflix talking about and showing his backyard roller coaster amusement park with five fully functional roller coasters. In today’s show Will talks about vision. In his early career he attended college to become a pilot purely out of interest. In college he learned how important it is to have a crystal clear vision and direction on where you want to go or else, you crash. Taking his pilot philosophy to business, he talks about how the slightest adjustments in the day to day operations of your company can affect the long term value of your brand in the market and valuation when you decide to exit. Understanding what you want from your business before you take off (start) will make those trainwrecks that we all know too well way more manageable from a leadership perspective and strategic planning perspective. If you want to learn about why vision clarity is so important and have a couple laughs in the process, this episode is for you.   Disclaimer: more-than-usual swearing   What You Will Learn How Will knew his job at IBM was not the right fit and took the entrepreneur path Why Will believes flying an airplane relates to starting and growing a business Why Will believes if wrote an acquisition plan for the sale of web.com, it would have sold for way more. How if you are clear where you want to go, the trainwrecks within your business will be more manageable Why undervaluing and overvaluing ASPECTS of a business rather than the whole entity is one of the biggest mistakes Will makes Why discipline will allow you to make better emotional decisions Why time management is a skill that will allow a company to compete with the big players Why business owners need to practice for emergencies just like pilots What Will looks for in a deal structure (his favorite aspect)   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Internet pioneer Will Pemble built and sold Web, one of the largest web hosts on earth. As a Top 100 Domain Name Millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Will has been building and growing businesses of all shapes and sizes for over 25 years. In addition to Web.com, Will built and sold a national technical training company, and one of the first Internet Service Providers in San Francisco. Through his executive and personal consulting and coaching, Will brings his passion for giving back to millions of people in person and online. Will's success extends well beyond the business world. Known worldwide as "CoasterDad," Will and his kids have built several backyard roller coasters which have been featured on Good Morning America, Discovery Channel, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and dozens of television shows worldwide. Will has been featured in hundreds of online media outlets, including AOL.com, Hackaday.com, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Make Magazine, Edutopia, to name a few.   Quotes: 12:14  - “If I had made the decision [to be an entrepreneur], it would be because I wasn’t suited for anything else.” - Will Pemble 12:50  - “Could you imagine just getting up and being satisfied? I can’t imagine anything like that.” - Will Pemble 12:57 - “That’s why I am an entrepreneur. I’m always either seeing a problem and wanting to solve it, or creating a problem and wanting to solve it.” - Will Pemble 15:50  - “Everything ends up being the ingredients of whatever goes on next.” - Will Pemble 21:19  - “All day, everyday people in business make choices that directly impact the present and future value of their company.” - Will Pemble 30:00  - “The answer is yes, what’s the question?” - Will Pemble 36:37  - “How do I objectively assess the value, not just of the whole company, but how do I objectively assess the value of the components of that organization?” - Will Pemble 41:15 - “There are thirteen steps that you take in order to effectively delegate to someone, a task.” - Will Pemble 41:39 - “You can bank on delegation, if you do it well. Time management is the only thing you can’t get more of.” - Will Pemble    Links and Resources: CEO of Goal Boss Will Pemble, LinkedIn Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

Lowell Ricklefs is a 30-year veteran in the SaaS and M&A space. He is currently co-founder & CEO of Traction Advising, a company that helps B2B SaaS companies get acquired. Before starting his firm, Lowell was the COO of a publicly traded company he helped bring to a $260M exit. We cover a lot of ground on today’s show around why buyers want to purchase a business and the real reasons why sellers want to exit. With decades of experience in mergers and acquisitions, Lowell gives his thoughts on business owners tying their identity to the business and the impact that has on everything else, from your family to your health. He has seen this many times — as a buyer as well as an investment banker — and when it comes time to sell, these kinds of owners have a really hard time letting go . . . even after saying, for years, that they want out. We get into the weeds about why it’s so important to understand what you want from the business, emotionally and financially, and the potential challenges you’ll face if you aren’t clear on your intention. If you’re ready to run a better business, this episode is for you!   What You Will Learn The drivers behind financial buyers vs strategic buyers Why strategic buyers will buy a company to avoid losing out on a competitive advantage rather than the benefits the new company will provide Why playing “the emotional game” will place your business in the right hands when selling Why Lowell believes selling a business is no different than a product or service Why certainty and alleviating risk (that the buyer identifies) before the deal is final will suppress the “ripple effect.” How the owners identity impacts what they want long term for the company Why it’s important to understand what you “what you want to leave behind” when it comes to an exit Why Lowell moved to SaaS startups after being in the corporate world for years How a consulting company can create automated platforms to solve a problem in their business and sell it to similar companies with the same problem Why no attorney should solely do a deal and who they need on their deal to get the deal done right   // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Lowell is the CEO & Founder of Traction Advising which specializes in helping B2B SaaS companies with >$5M ARR get acquired. Lowell’s been a Co-founder/CEO/Chairman, COO of a $120M public company, Startup CRO and Global VP Rockwell. He’s a Global Mentor, Investor, Board member and CEO coach. With company buying/selling experience of more than 30 organizations, he knows what internal stakeholders need to approve a transaction. As a founder/CEO he knows what it’s like to start up a company, build a product, hire employees, raise money, find customers, keep them happy and make payroll. He leverages this experience to craft acquisitions that get the best outcome for the founders/investors structured to maximize success.   Quotes: 09:21  - “Ultimately the company is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. And that can be wildly different, and they can pay for it in different way.” - Lowell Ricklefs 22:53  - “The goal is to have multiple options because it drives competition and drives the price up.” - Lowell Ricklefs 28:00  - “I find some people don’t realize how much of the business has become an extension of themselves as a human being.” - Lowell Ricklefs 30:35  - “It’s easy to lose perspective when you’re in the middle of a deal, when the emotions and the stress are high.” - Lowell Ricklefs 32:52  - “Many people don’t realize that you can sell to a financial buyer and you can still run your business.” - Lowell Ricklefs 36:06  - “There are a lot of singles, doubles, and triples that are good businesses. They’re real businesses. They add real value to other businesses. But they don’t have the hockey stick growth.” - Lowell Ricklefs 46:50  - “Understand how the buyer operates.” - Lowell Ricklefs 50:05  - “A truly risk-free deal is never going to happen because neither side will agree to it.” - Lowell Ricklefs   Links and Resources: Email: Lowell@tractionadvising.com Lowell Ricklefs, LinkedIn Traction Advising Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp   Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!  You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.

Tae Hea Nahm is a venture capitalist who has invested in over 200 B2B companies leading to 11 unicorns like Marketo, TalkDesk, and Workato. Tae Hea is also the founding CEO of software startup, Airspace (who sold to Cisco for $450 Million) and the co-author of Survival to Thrival.  In Today’s show Tae Hea talks about his four steps for nailing your go to market fit so you can unlock your growth and scale your company. He uses a great metaphor of a surfer to hit the point home. We pick apart the steps from Nailing the Customer Journey and solving your customer’s urgent pain (the wave), building the go to market playbook (the surfboard), Operationalizing the playbook and allowing marketing and sales to work together all being backed by clear metrics or magic numbers (continuing to ride the wave). If you are a believer in frameworks for scale, this episode is for you!   What You Will Learn What it means to “catch an emerging wave” when starting a business Founder-led growth vs repeatable process-led growth What “go-to-market fit” is, and how it’s all derived from repeatable processes Tae Hea’s surfer metaphor for directed towards B2B CEO’s Why it’s so important to focus the entire customer journey on transforming your customer to a hero The four steps to take when going to market from Tae Hea’s book, Survival to Thrival Why it’s important to clearly identify when your customer receives their first piece of value Where marketing and sales hand off responsibilities in the customer pipeline Why it’s so important, as an investor, to see the business from the founder’s eyes in order to provide guidance effectively    // USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment   Bio: Tae Hea co-founded Storm Ventures, an early stage VC fund based in Silicon Valley and investing worldwide. Storm has invested in nearly 200 B2B software companies leading to 11 unicorns, including Marketo, Pipedrive, Solarisbank, Talkdesk and Workato. At Storm, Tae Hea was the founding CEO of Airespace, a B2B startup, which was later sold to Cisco for $450m. Based on his experience, Tae Hea also co-authored Survival To Thrival to help founders unlock growth by finding go-to-market fit. Tae Hea majored in applied math at Harvard and has a JD from University of Chicago Law School. He was born in Seoul, Korea.   Quotes: 07:29  - “The first thing we looked at is, ‘Is there an emerging wave?’ And creating your own wave is almost impossible.” - Tae Hea Nahm 08:05  - “People are only founders, generally, if they’re really passionate about something.” - Tae Hea Nahm 12:00  - “You need product/market fit to have that product-happy customer and the best indicator is retention.” - Tae Hea Nahm 12:50   - “In B2C, you only need the product/market fit but for B2B you need both: product/market fit and go-to-market fit.” - Tae Hea Nahm 15:39  - “That’s how we want to give people the visual feeling of how to unlock growth, is to go from paddling to surfing and become a surfing unicorn.” - Tae Hea Nahm 19:24  - “The most important thing in catching the wave is to identify the urgent pain for your ideal customer profile.” -Tae Hea Nahm 24:07  - “The first step, we say, is you have to nail your customer journey. Where you start, where you end, and every step along the way.” -Tae Hea Nahm 31:27  - “One very good go-to-market is (if you can), is you land with product-led and you expand with sales-led.” -Tae Hea Nahm 37:40  - “The next thing is, you have to figure out who does what. And that’s the key to riding the wave: operationalizing that playbook.” -Tae Hea Nahm   Links and Resources: Survival to Thrival // Book and Website GTM (Go to Market Fit) website “Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series - Tae Hea Nahm” YouTube video Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp   Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, or on my LinkedIn.