Intentional Growth

Daniel Marcos, Co-Founder of Growth Institute, talks about what drove him to write ImpactX, a book about the four stages of a business, and how the age-old metric of revenue per employee can be the best indicator of the overall health of your company. However, he also found limits on the number of employees you should have for each stage if you want to avoid some seriously adverse effects. Find out why Daniel says 12 is the perfect number of employees for "profit and drama" and why you should jump from 12 to 60 if you want to have an industry-dominating business. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview The The magic number of employees that brings the perfect balance of cash flow and drama How three phone calls led to one of the fastest-growing coaching businesses in the world. Daniel’s incredibly interesting founder story, including one of his favorite early successes of how his online trading business was acquired within six months by Argentina's then-largest financial player. How Daniel paid off $1 million in debt and started his coaching business. Why Daniel partnered with Verne Hardish (founder of EO and Scaling Up) to create Growth Institute. The four stages of every business, from his book ImpactX. How to assess and use the metric of revenue per employe Why the complexity of a business exponentially grows as employee count grows and what you can do to manage the challenges. The importance of creating space to think as an owner. How to create systems that make ‘everything float’ and why this is a double-edged sword if you’re not ready for it.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Daniel Marcos is CEO and Co-Founder, alongside Verne Harnish, of Growth Institute, the leading online executive education company for C-level executives at fast-growing firms. In less than a decade, Growth Institute has been recognized among the top 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the USA, with over 40,000 members across 64 countries. Daniel is a keynote speaker and a CEO Coach, with a mission to help one million entrepreneurs scale their impact and reduce drama in the process.   Quotes: 17:42 - “The biggest mistake we make as entrepreneurs is that we believe our business and ourselves are the same thing. So if your business is a failure, we believe that we are a failure.” - Daniel Marcos 30:28 – “No one really teaches you how to be a CO.” – Daniel Marcos 36:32 – “The average mid-market business in the US does an average of $120,000 in revenue per employee, per year.” – Daniel Marcos 47:35 – “Scaling up makes everything float, and some stuff stinks.” – Daniel Marcos 49:20 - “Business is made out of people and people are messy.” - Daniel Marcos 53:06 - “We have become the bottlenecks of our businesses. We are the biggest bottleneck of our company.” - Daniel Marcos 53:30 - “You don’t build a great company if you don’t first build a great team. And if, first, you don’t become a great leader.” - Daniel Marcos   Links and Resources: 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.

By focusing on the right metrics, like cash flow and enterprise value, and combining these with the right strategies and use of capital, Kevin McArdle was able to quit corporate America and buy a couple of small online businesses that he snowballed into a portfolio of 38 highly profitable SaaS companies doing eight figures in revenue. Tune in to hear how he did it and what Kevin and SureSwift Capital are doing to take their growth to the next level. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview Why Kevin left corporate America to start acquiring businesses. SureSwift Capital’s unique business model that flies in the face of traditional private equity firms. How SureSwift Capital went from buying $50k websites to multi-million-dollar businesses. Why Kevin and his partners decided not to raise money for a fund — at least with the first 38 companies — and why they’re raising funds now. How Kevin finds SaaS companies to buy that are highly profitable, inherently more risky and highly scalable. The best ways to use the profits of a company to fund organic growth and acquisition. Why acquisitions are a team sport. How to buy a business and get your money back in 24 months. Why the smartest entrepreneurs make it their job to replace themselves. How SureSwift Capital creates more valuable companies after they make an acquisition. Questions to ask if you are talking to private equity or another professional business buyer. How information asymmetry impacts the deal negotiation.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business? Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are you company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Kevin McArdle is the co-founder and CEO of SureSwift Capital, which acquires SaaS businesses from independent founders and takes them to the next stage of growth. They acquired 38 businesses within five years and recently completed the raise of their first private equity fund for their next investment.  Kevin’s passion for personal relationships and driving business results are at the heart of SureSwift’s impressive growth to date. Prior to founding SureSwift, Kevin was a Vice President at Cerner Corporation, a global Healthcare IT firm. In his 15-year tenure at Cerner, Kevin held positions in sales, sales leadership, operations, general management, and client management, eventually becoming one of the youngest Vice Presidents in the company’s 35 year history.   Quotes: 11:15 - “We’re buying businesses that are inherently riskier than a brick-and-mortar business. There are no assets to be auctioned off.” – Kevin McArdle 12:22 - “Buy-and-hold is a strategy for us, it’s not a religion.” – Kevin McArdle 19:04 - “Being burned once or twice are always good lessons. Making mistakes are always good lessons. Working has really taught me more than just sitting in a classroom and learning about business.” – Kevin McArdle 23:30 - “There’s this odd segment of the world-wide economy that is massive, yet most people don’t even know it exists.”  – Kevin McArdle 30:10 - “The profits of that business should fund that business.” – Kevin McArdle 34:50 - “Acquisitions are very much a team sport.” – Kevin McArdle 35:35 - “The smartest owners know to start replacing themselves.” – Kevin McArdle 39:25 - “My vanity metric is cash flow” –  Kevin McArdle   Links and Resources: Sureswift Capital website Twitter: @kevin_mcardle 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.

Today's M&A game isn't played by timid people—it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and you need to know what it takes to thrive. Enter Elliott Holland. On today's show, we talk strategy when competing in the barbaric sport of buying and selling businesses. Learn what makes different investors invest, what they’re looking for in deal terms and how to expertly share the risk during negotiations. This episode is an absolute must for any business owner looking for funding or considering becoming an investor or buyer themselves. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How buyers think about the risk of a company. The crucial role trust plays in closing a deal. The difference between a buyer-centric structure and a deal-centric structure. What happens after an LOI (letter of intent). Why being light and humble about predicting future cash flow can be a good thing. How  buyers assess a seller’s determination to closing the deal. The biggest ‘gotchas’ sellers should look out for. How buyers handle risk through price and terms. The difference between deal breakers and surprises. Why Elliott calls the purchase price the ‘country club’ number and how you can overcome it. The three different types of concentrations to be aware of (vendor, employee and customer) that can reduce the value of a company. How working capital plays into closing the deal. The benefits of sharing risk with the person across the table, rather than making them your enemy. Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Elliott Holland has more than 10 years of experience executing middle market deals as an entrepreneur, spending his own money on diligence. He fully understands the challenges in executing good deals and avoiding lemons. He trained at Harvard Business School and spent almost a decade as an independent sponsor and business buyer before starting Guardian Due Diligence. The firms he has worked for have completed billions of dollars in transactions and have successfully bought and scaled over 57 private, primarily owner-operated businesses. Elliott has experience on both sides of the table—on the entrepreneurial side raising capital and the investor side spending it wisely. He is one of the few deal guys with deep experience doing both, which allows him to better think through complex buyer-seller issues. Elliott also holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a Bachelor of Science from Morehouse College, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.   Quotes: 10:00 - “The biggest pots of money in the nation and world are the investors in private equity funds.” – Elliott Holland 20:44 - “Wall Street will convince you that the only thing that matters is the biggest thing you can do, and I think people are bucking the system on that.” – Elliott Holland 26:24 - “Because of the purpose of the acquisition, the actions post-close will go along with that.” – Elliott Holland 28:02 - “ Finance, particularly alternative investments, particularly direct deals, is a barbaric sport. Everyone has sharp elbows, whether they’re willing to show them to you or not.” – Elliott Holland 32:47 - “The pain the seller takes during diligence, is the additional cost they have to take in order to sell their business.” - Elliot Holland 33:57 - “For me, a big piece is how quickly I get data. It’s one of those muscle memories; when I get data slow, I know it’s bad.” – Elliott Holland 48:29 - “You sometimes need to be a little light and humble (in this process) to be smart because when we are talking about the financial forecast--let’s just be completely honest--we’re predicting the future.” – Elliott Holland 50:39 - “I’m an engineer. If there’s something mathematical you can’t explain to me, somebody’s lying.” – Elliott Holland   Links and Resources: Buyout: The Insider's Guide to Buying Your Own Company by Rick Rickertson Guardian Due Diligence LinkedIn: Elliott Holland Elliott-Holland.com 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.

Having a dream and hustling are not always enough to reach your full potential—capital is required to fuel that growth! Sarah Dusek shares how she raised $17 million for a minority stake in her industry-pioneering 'Glamping' company, Under Canvas. She sold it only a few years later to Private Equity for a hefty ROI. Now Sarah wants to change the investment landscape for women entrepreneurs, who receive only 2% of all available funding each year in the US. To help fix this problem, Sarah became a venture capitalist to provide women and entrepreneurs in South Africa access to these funds. Here’s her story, and how she is using business and capital to make an impact on the world.  What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview The truth behind why it’s so hard to access capital and break into “the club.” How turning down $7 million got Sarah $17 million instead. The value of really knowing the business you’re in and understanding what’s valuable to someone else when deciding to sell. Why, despite being pioneers in the industry and building their own tents, Under Canvas chose not to sell the tents they made as a new revenue stream. How anger drove Sarah to becoming a venture capitalist and the success she’s seen investing in the underserved market she came from. What metrics people need to know when working with business buyers and investors to make your business an appealing investment as well as a sustainable operation. The broken environment of capital allocation, including the fact that only 2% of venture capital is given to women each year in the US — and what Sarah’s doing to change that. How to evaluate the type of capital you’re receiving, as well as the source, to see if it’s a match for you. Selling your company doesn’t mean the end of all things. Capital (from the sale) allows you to “dream another dream” and solve another problem.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Sarah is Co-Founder of Under Canvas, the leading US adventure-hospitality company that offers luxurious glamping accommodations just minutes from America’s most popular and iconic national parks. In 2017, under Sarah’s leadership, Under Canvas received a spot on the coveted Inc. 5000 list and Sarah was named to the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women list from Ernst & Young. Under Canvas has set an unprecedented standard in ecological development while also redefining experiential hospitality in a meaningful way. She later sold it in order to launch the next great mission of her life: to help grow scalable, sustainable businesses that have the power to transform communities, cities and nations. 2019 marks the launch of her next enterprise, Enygma Ventures, a Venture Capital Fund focused on women founders and entrepreneurs in South Africa.    Quotes: 12:45 - “The reality is that nobody ever goes into business to sell a business; they go into business to solve a problem.” – Sarah Dusek 14:41 - “So when you can marry [the idea of] solving a problem that you care about and that is meaningful for you to solve it and you can build a sustainable solution (i.e. build a sustainable business), that’s a very big marriage made in heaven.” - Sarah Dusek 18:10 - “Less than 2% of female founders receive the venture capital funds that are distributed in the US every year. My journey to become one of the 2% of women able to capitalize their business was a very, very painful, difficult, frustrating journey.” – Sarah Dusek 23:49 - “Nobody knows what they’re doing the first time the do it. You’re making it up as you go, trying to figure out so many things as you build a business” - Sarah Dusek 26:00 - “You gotta learn fast, because it’s expensive to fail.” – Sarah Dusek 29:59 - “Think about the brand that you’re building and what you want to be known for.” – Sarah Dusek 35:00 - “What could be valuable [about my business] to someone else one day?” – Sarah Dusek 71:14 - “Our job as investors should be just to unleash all the potential there is in entrepreneurs for the greater good-which should, as a by-product, make money.” – Sarah Dusek   Links and Resources: LinkedIn: Sarah Dusek Under Canvas Enygma Ventures 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.

On today’s show, Gail Golden, MBA, Ph.D. and author of "Curating Your Life", and I, get into a discussion about energy management versus time management, and why there is no such thing as work-life balance. Knowing we have 168 hours in which to live our lives each week, this episode focuses less on the fallacy of “making more time” and instead reframes the conversation around how you choose to spend that time, why you should embrace mediocrity in the things that don’t serve you and how to cut to the quick of long-term goal planning through three basic questions: 1.) Are you having fun and enjoying what you’re doing? 2.) Are you making the impact you want? 3.) Are you creating more wealth and value in your business? After this episode, you’ll be able to start the process of identifying what you eventually want out of your business and your life, re-curating your current situation, identifying how you should spend your time, and how to intentionally create the business and the life that you want. Through the practical exercises she has for you as well as her no-nonsense attitude, you will be able to start this journey of professional (and personal) self-discovery, which will lead you to a more intentional life. The most important takeaway from this episode is the fact that how you spend your time will directly impact what you get from your business and your life.   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview Why Gail says work-life balance is a fallacy and time management is a bullshit concept. When to embrace mediocrity for mastery elsewhere. The ways your energy could be better spent, using a simple stove metaphor. How to say no without offending people. The three questions everyone needs to ask themselves before making drastic changes. How to recognize it’s time to adjust your exhibit and update what your statement pieces to say about you, your beliefs and values, and your legacy. When you should feel shame versus guilt and how to kindly tell yourself to let it go (or grow up). The purpose in taking breaks and embracing the rejuvenating powers of downtime to keep your energy high for the tasks that matter most to you. What you could do with 10 employees you can’t with 1,000, therefore you need to adjust your approach and learn to farm out some of your hats. Why “you can do anything if you want it badly enough” is a destructive myth and what a healthier approach is to goal fulfillment. Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Gail Golden, MBA, Ph.D., helps leaders hit peak performance by drawing on her unique background as a licensed psychologist and an MBA-holding entrepreneur.  She is the Principal of Gail Golden Consulting, an international network of senior management psychologists and consultants.  Gail’s new book, Curating Your Life, shares what she’s learned from coaching hundreds of leaders on how to direct their energy toward identifying and accomplishing their most important goals.  She has been quoted in Fast Company, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Crain’s Chicago Business, The Chicago Tribune, and numerous other publications   Quotes: 36:07 - “If it’s recharging my batteries, if it’s giving me some kind of reprieve, don’t feel guilty about that.” – Gail Golden 39:37 - “Sometimes people think about it in terms of legacy. How do I want to be remembered?” ”– Gail Golden 43:10 - “Sometimes I think you have to do experiments. You have to try stuff. Goodness knows entrepreneurs are good at that. They’re risk-takers. They’ll try it out.”– Gail Golden 44:55 - “He said to me, ‘Gail, there will be people who will not hire you because you’re Jewish. There will be people who will not hire you because you’re a female. There will be people who will not hire you because you’re fifty years old. Those are stupid people and you do not want to work for them.” – Gail Golden 47:02 - “Re-curation often involves loss and loss involves pain.” – Gail Golden 48:24 - “I had a choice, that I could be bored or I could be scared and I chose scared and that reassured me because to me boredom is worse than fear.” – Gail Golden 55:43 - “Intentional means I’m very clear about the decision I’m making and why I’m making it.” – Gail Golden 56:43 - “If you’ve got a service that can be helpful for other people and you don’t make yourself easy to find, that’s unethical.” – Gail Golden   Links and Resources: Gail Golden Consulting “Curating Your Life: Ending the Struggle for Work-Life Balance” by Gail Golden “The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal,” by Jim Loehr, and Tony Schwartz 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.

On today’s show, I’m talking with Anese Cavanaugh. Anese created the IEP (Intentional Energetic Presence) methodology on how you show up, being intentional, the way you take care of yourself. She also created a company out of her ideal beautiful job (Active Choices Incorporated; better known as IEP methodology) and has written two books, Contagious Culture, and Contagious You. In this episode, we’re talking about how you can reenergize your leadership energy by building a healthy, happy, contagious culture within your business. The most important takeaway from this episode is the importance of culture in your work environment. Leadership and the culture are two critical components that make it fun for your team to do the hard work they have to do. People are what it takes. It starts with you and how (or if) you’re showing up. What do you want your impact to be? Once you start to name your assumptions, you start to realize they're only assumptions and they're probably not fully real. And there's things that you can get curious about.   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How recognizing that you’re part of the problem gives you back your power. Why you need to take better care of your energy. What the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®) is and the vital role it plays in your business. When burnout isn’t about your financial asset, but the role you play in it. How writing out her ideal job description and crafting her intentions inspired Anese to start her first company. Who is responsible for creating the culture in your business and how you can improve it. If you take care of your people and are being intentional about your impact, the money takes care of itself. (or: Money follows if you treat your people right and are intentional about your impact.) How to identify the lowest vibration in the room and the best way to deal with these people—even if it’s you. It’s better to be clear and clean about your intentions because people can pick up on the energy behind your ask and react poorly to feeling manipulated. When and how you can “reboot your presence” in the moment for better outcomes. What “energetic hygiene” means, how it affects you even when you aren’t consciously managing your energy and what you can realistically do to improve it. The impact of letting employees linger on in the business longer than they should, from what it says to your other staff to the resources you’ll waste even months after you release them. Why direct engagement agreements can save team morale and solve issues before they fester. Anese’s Five Magic Questions that show your intentionality, the way you're taking care of yourself, the way you're showing up, your level of presence and the culture you're creating: Are you having the impact you want to have? Do you feel the way you want to feel? Do people follow you because they want to or because they have to? Do people work with you or stay married to you because they want to or because they have to? What kind of a culture are you personally creating? Are you living in alignment with your core values?   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Anese Cavanaugh is devoted to helping people show up and bring their best selves to the table in order to create significant positive impact in their lives. She is the creator of the IEP Method® (Intentional Energetic Presence®), an advisor and thinking partner to leaders and organizations around the world, a keynote speaker, and author of CONTAGIOUS CULTURE: Show Up, Set the Tone, and Intentionally Create an Organization That Thrives (McGraw-Hill, 2015), CONTAGIOUS YOU: Unlock Your Power to Influence, Lead, and Create the Impact You Want (McGraw-Hill, 2019), and THE LEADER YOU WILL BE: An Invitation (a leadership storybook). As a leading voice on intention, energy, and presence in leadership and culture, she helps people unlock greater leadership potential, collaborate more inspiringly, create more openly, intuit more bravely, and lead more joyfully and effectively. Top innovators and executives in companies like IDEO, Zingerman’s, Cooper, GM Financial, Vistaprint, 15Five, Fitbit, Vivayic, Kaiser Permanente, and others have engaged with Anese to strengthen team health, maximize leadership impact, and optimize company culture. In addition to appearing in publications like Harvard Business Review, The Huffington Post, CEO.com, Forbes, the NY Times, and others, Anese has a column, “Showing Up” on Inc.com and writes regularly for subscribers of AneseCavanaugh.com.   Quotes: 06:42 - “If I'm clear and connected to my intention, that helps create everything down the line.” – Anese Cavanaugh 16:17 - “Whether we're the owner of the company or whether we're the front desk person or we're the janitor, we're creating the culture of the company just by the way that we show up and the energy we're bringing to everything.” – Anese Cavanaugh 17:42 - “If you take care of the people, you take care of focusing, and be intentional about the impact, the money and finances take care of themselves.” – Anese Cavanaugh 27:10 - “If you’re clear and clean about your intention, and your intention is in service of something good, it is much more likely to happen.”  – Anese Cavanaugh 32:55 - “Do you exhaust your team before you even say ‘hello’ on screen?” – Anese Cavanaugh 46:21 - “$483 to 605 billion was lost in United States in 2016 due to actively disengaged employees. On 2016, actively disengaged employees only made up 16% of the workforce.” – Anese Cavanaugh 58:46 - “In your intentions, your intention has to be greater than your discomfort. Your commitment than your intention has to be greater to your desire to be comfortable.” – Anese Cavanaugh 62:22 - “Underneath every single complaint is just an uncommunicated request.” – Anese Cavanaugh     Links and Resources: Anese Cavanaugh - Intentional Energetic Leadership, Official Website IEP.io The Anese Cavanaugh & The IEP Method Facebook Group Anese’s books YouTube Channel: Anese Cavanaugh 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.

On today’s show, I have the co-founder of FeedbackPanda and author of Zero to Sold: How to Run, Start, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business, Arvid Kahl. Arvid and I talk about how he was able to build FeedbackPanda from scratch to $55,000 MRR with only two employees, all within 24 months. We dive into what it means to manage versus own your business, which leads us to something that was discussed in the last episode with my partner Pat Hobby: Annual income versus long term value creation. My favorite moment was Arvid's answer to the question: Why did you decide to sell? The most important takeaway from this episode is to know the difference between your management role versus your ownership and to know the value of your business. If you want to dive into the concept of long term value creation, it all starts with understanding business valuations so you can create more value in the direction that you want. You can learn more about that in our digital course.   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How Arvid spotted a problem in the market and why he built software to solve it How FeedbackPanda was able to grow to $55,000 in MRR with only two people. What B2BC (Business to Business Customer Sales or Prosumers) is and why it’s a great market to sell to. The best way to build a business that is marketed by word-of-mouth within your client’s communities. The best ways to replace yourself in your company to resolve burnout and keep your options open. How to get your company noticed by potential investors and strategic buyers. How Arvid and Danielle structured the sale of their company after educating themselves about the particulars so their main mission would continue with the next owner. The importance of doing both sides of due diligence—while you’re going through your own skeletons, you should be looking for your buyer’s. How goals impact your drive and ability to be receptive to new opportunities for growth. What founder bias is, why we’re prone to it and how it plays a role in how you choose to manage your business. The consequences of not fully understanding the differences between annual income and long-term value creation and what Arvid would do now if he could go back.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Are your company's current initiatives intentionally designed to increase the value of the business? Do you know what you want from your business long term and why? Do you know what your company is worth? Do you know the differences between Management, Family Transitions, PE Firms, ESOPs and Strategic Buyers? Does the business have a written strategic plan on how to achieve the desired normalized EBITDA and valuation?   About the Guest: Arvid is a German writer and entrepreneur set on using his documentation software engineering skills to help business owners automate processes where possible to free up valuable time. Inspired by a work problem his wife, Danielle Simpson, was having, Arvid created a software program that addressed the specific issue she was facing in her online teaching role. Realizing this solution would be useful to more people in Danielle’s field, they bootstrapped FeedbackPanda (an EdTech software-as-a-service company) to improve the work experience for virtual teachers. Ten years later, they successfully sold to a private equity firm that would follow the mission established in the beginning: To genuinely help as many people as possible.  To that end, Arvid has written a book called Zero to Sold—How to Start, Run, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business about building said company and all that he and his wife learned along the way. He’s also editor-in-chief for The Bootstrapped Founder website where he writes about bootstrapping, startups, engineering, and mental health. He’s also working on a second book called Audience First publicly. You can contribute to it and his outline is online to review.   Quotes: 04:45 - “It’s incredible how dedicated teachers are. That’s one of the things we figured out from the beginning when were were figuring out who we wanted to serve. We later built FeedbackPanda to serve online English teachers. How much dedication they have for their craft, right? They love teaching.” - Arvid Kahl 18:46 - “Most of these little niche businesses that actually have successes at being, they don’t have money to waste. We [trained?] with, like, a hundred euros. Honestly, at that point, that was probably about ten percent of our monthly recurring revenue. That was a big expense. For others it wasn’t a big cost. For us, it was a big experiment” - Arvid Kahl 24:26 - “This is important to understand. Like, this is a step among many but it is a step that few people reach because the systems that are in place are so heavily disincentivizing from taking this path.” - Arvid Kahl 58:44 - “The moment we sold, I knew, ‘Okay, I need to do something… soon. So let’s figure out a couple of ideas.’” - Arvid Kahl 69:47 - “It means saying no, I think. That’s something that I’ve learned the hard way because I’m a people pleaser, I guess that’s what you’d call it. But saying no is fine too and it’ll lead to more success than saying yes and, kind of, half-a**ing it.’” - Arvid Kahl   Links and Resources: Zero to Sold: How to Run, Start, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business by Arvid Kahl Audience First website Arvid Kahl official website The Bootstrapped Founder Website Twitter: @arvidkahl Arvid Kahl on Medium 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.

Many business owners and entrepreneurs want to know how much money they can pull out of the business (and how little they can pay in taxes!) each year. This strategy can make sense... however, what if you’re walking over dollars to pick up pennies? Today’s episode is all about how to shift your mindset away from solving for annual income to focusing on growing the long-term value of a business.    What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview The difference between annual income and long-term value creation mindsets. How to weigh short-term decisions to pull cash out of the business vs. reinvesting to grow its enterprise value. The benefits of regularly tracking normalized EBITDA and how that helps keep your mindset focused on long-term value growth. How to use the financials to forecast the value of a business. Why higher net income and more revenue aren’t always the top metrics for measuring value creation. How your mindset impacts where you spend your time, money and energy. What the J-curve is and how to use it like a private equity firm to create a more valuable business. How to use your business’s financials to tell the past and future stories of your company. What to do with your “extra” money every year. Why creating a sustainable, predictable and transferable cash flow gives you the freedom of more choices. How your why (ultimate purpose) influences your pain points and drive. The importance of crafting a narrative that frames your financials to a buyer. How to tap into the financial value of your business without selling out.    Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board.     Podcast Summary "How much can I pull out of the business this year?" "What are ways to pay as little in taxes as possible?"   Do these questions sound familiar? There is nothing wrong with maximizing your take-home dollars from your company. However, what if you are stunting the long-term value of your business and, therefore, limiting the number of choices you'll have with it down the road? Having choices is another way of saying freedom. Choices are a result of having a valuable business with sustainable, predictable and transferable cash flow. Making the right decisions comes from understanding what you ultimately want from the business (and why) and what all your choices are. .  If you’re currently solving for annual income (salary, perks and distributions) rather than focusing on creating a more valuable business, you’re potentially trapped in a mindset that is limiting the future options you have with the business. In this episode, Pat and I discuss how to compensate yourself properly from your business while also reinvesting in strategies that increase the value of potentially the largest financial asset you own (your business). It’s crucial to understand the very real tug-of-war between the desire—or need—to take most of the distributions out of the business and the one to reinvest that cash back into the business. Pat and I break down what creates value and how to measure and forecast that value (and net proceeds) into the future of a business, all without selling.  We believe this clarity can help shift an owner’s mindset away from pulling every dollar out of the company to becoming excited to reinvest into the business. It’s much easier to pass up the next personal desire—the next boat or second house—when you clearly see how reinvesting impacts the value of your company. Remember: Freedom is the result of growing a more valuable business that creates options to do what you want without sacrificing the things that are important to you.   About the Guest: Before Pat Hobby became the co-founder of Arkona, LLC, he started with a background in accounting and numbers, as well as being the CFO of quite a few successful companies. Now both Pat and Ryan run ARKONA as well as the ARKONA bootcamp. We started Arkona with a mission to help entrepreneurs and business owners get clarity and control on how to grow and exit their businesses through educational boot camps and consulting services. We want to help business owners better understand the world of M&A and level the playing field between sellers and buyers (who are almost always more skilled and experienced in M&A) so owners who want to exit can achieve their goals, both financially and personally.   Quotes: 06:00 - “Annual income is-- a lot of business owners are looking and saying, ‘How is my business doing?’ They may just look at their financials and see if they made income. They may just look at their net income and see how much money they have in the bank. I think it stems from not understanding what the options are. They’re just saying, ‘Okay, I’m working really hard and I want to be rewarded for it. And the way they think to be rewarded for it is to take out money this year.” - Pat Hobby 10:15 - “You mention the word return and that gets to figuring out what your investment in your business is.” - Pat Hobby 17:11 - “So you may have pocketed some extra money along the way, but if you haven’t invested in those types of things, when you go to sell your business somebody is going to say, ‘Well, your cash flow is not transferable to me. You’ve got all this risk here.’” - Pat Hobby 29:20 - “I have a friend and she says that denial is the more powerful force in nature and it certainly can be. And the whole purpose of what we do, why we get up every day and go to work, is to help business owners understand.” - Pat Hobby 38:00 - “You buy a company, you want to harvest the value that the previous owner left on the table. That sounds harsh. That doesn’t mean you didn’t pay fair value for the business. But you’re saying, ‘Okay, as it sits today, I’m going to pay you fair value but I think you’ve missed some opportunities to create value in this business.” - Pat Hobby 50:32 - “You can get to the point one day and say, ‘I can make a change in my ownership role without changing my management role or I can make a change in my management role without changing my ownership role.’ So many times people think, ‘I have to do those at the same time.’” - Pat Hobby   Links and Resources: 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.

This is Part 2 of a 2-part series with Saud Juman, who last week shared his sensational journey on becoming intentional. This week, we talk brass tacks about pivoting his business model, exponentially growing into a multi-national company and his eventual exit to private equity—all while staying true to his original vision and ‘why’.   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview What forced Saud to pivot PolicyMedical's business model and why those changes enabled exponential growth. How to identify the real problem your clients are trying to solve. Why finding and catering to the right clients and customers is important. How to involve your clients in your marketing and service offering development. How to turn your company into a revenue-generating engine. The cost of complacency as an entrepreneur and the impact it has on the business. Why hospitals in the US sign up with accreditation agencies, what is involved and how it impacts business. The impact meditation has on focus and staying true to your ‘why’. Why mentors matter, Saud’s formula for finding mentors and what makes a good mentee. The value in face-to-face contact as a vendor and what questions to ask to strengthen your ties. How to turn clients into raving fans that will go to bat for your company. Why your exit number can be a date and not a dollar value. How to use your personal ‘why’ when vetting potential buyers.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board.   Podcast Summary: In the second half of this two-part interview, we’re going to cover how Saud started PolicyMedical, pivoted the business after it hit a wall, and what he did to explode their growth. ​Saud grew PolicyMedical into a multi-national business that developed numerous hospital data management systems trusted by over 3,000 healthcare organizations. He shares the tactical strategies implemented to enable this exponential growth while also staying true to his ‘why’ and the impact he wanted to have on the world. Saud gives expert advice about turning customers into raving fans that generate value for your company that you didn’t pay for by addressing the cost of complacency (or 'what happens when you stop paying attention to what your customers really need').His own journey to learn what his clients wanted involved a huge road trip, at the advice of his mentor, that ended up accelerating his growth in ways marketing hadn’t.He also gives some great advice about finding a mentor and what it means to be a good mentee.Saud’s episode is a lesson in intentionality and how planning can help keep your focus on the big picture while allowing your business to be flexible to changes that happen without warning. Knowing who you are, what you want, and what strategies you need to employ to get you there is essential for success. Saud eventually sold to Private Equity for a very large number. How did he do it? Today’s episode covers the tactical decisions that led him to exit PolicyMedical and how he was able to negotiate all the things that mattered to him and his ‘why’.     About the Guest: Saud Juman loves basketball and business. At a young age, his mother encouraged him to get out and form his own league so he could follow his passion. After that, there was no stopping him.Saud created such a successful business in university that he had to find a way to spend their profits or else pay them to the university. He created scholarships, funded trips and events, and found creative ways to give the money back to the students. Fast-forward to today and Saud has grown, run, and sold a multi-national business called PolicyMedical Inc. that developed numerous hospital data management systems trusted by over 3,000 healthcare organizations. He’s passionate about mindset and serving others.   Quotes: 17:04 - “We listened to the customer in terms of what their problem was, what their pain is, and we were singularly focused in always being able to provide a solution.” - Saud Juman 19:31 - “When you start getting a little bit of success in the form of sales or whatever else, you can easily become complacent, lazy, and lose sight of what the customer really needs.” - Saud Juman 31:28 - “That’s one of the greatest shortcuts you can give yourself in business: finding the right mentor.” - Saud Juman 32:25 - “The number one qualities of a great mentee are: Responsiveness, proactiveness, and showing you’re listening to what your mentor is saying. - Saud Juman 48:32 - “I instinctively think, ‘Why not me? If it’s going to be someone, why not me?’ There are not barriers, there is just effort, and energy, and work to create this. And, by the way, it’s not that hard.” - Saud Juman 60:01 - “I realized that I was still running the company as an entrepreneur and not as a CEO, even though it said CEO as my title. My actions were still running it as an entrepreneur and there is a difference.” - Saud Juman 61:51 - “And so someone broke it down for me: [Investment bankers] are pretty much real estate brokers for your business. So then I got really specific. I came up with a criteria for an investment banker.” - Saud Juman 66:36 - “Know who you are because for me... at the end of the day, I’m just a kid from Scarborough. I wrote down, on a little piece of paper, my deal makers and breakers and I put it in my wallet.” - Saud Juman 70:26 - “I wish I would have listened to my wife more often. For those of you that have a significant other that’s not a part of your business, just because they’re not a part of your boardroom table, that doesn’t mean that they’re not one of the best advisors that you can possibly have.” - Saud Juman   Links and Resources: LinkedIn: Saud Juman www.Saudjuman.io Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Episode 224: Owning Your Exit (Part 1): Underground Nightclub Owner Turns Healthcare Tech Entrepreneur   Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!

On today’s show, Saud Juman shares why having a gun pulled on him when he was a nightclub owner in Toronto, Canada, caused him to exit the industry, meditate for 10 months, and start a tech healthcare company called PolicyMedical, Inc. that grew to nine figures and eventually sold to Private Equity. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How Saud owned his exit from the nightclub scene after having a gun put in his face. Why Saud started a successful tech healthcare company after 10 months of meditation. Why you should proactively change before some big event happens. How to align your ultimate vision for your life with the one you have for your business. How to recognize the signs that you’re in a “pit” and need to make some changes. The importance of taking time to listen instead of constantly consuming. How meditation can help you get clear on your vision. Why you need to understand your drivers (your “why”) before you build a business.  Why it takes rigor and discipline to be able to hear yourself and take action on what is most important to you. Why negative emotions like shame can spur positive change. How to keep true to your long-term goals while making tactical short-term decisions. Why you should stop and critically assess how each business decision is getting closer to or further from your ultimate goals.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Podcast Summary We have quite a treat for you today. In this episode, I’m talking with Saud Juman as he takes us from his first venture in university to transitioning into the nightlife in downtown Toronto, Canada. He details the experiences he had which caused him to reconsider how he was living his life and operating his business, thereby instigating the change that would eventually bring him his greatest success yet—PolicyMedical. I broke this episode into a two-part series because I think Saud’s story does a great job highlighting why it’s absolutely crucial to understand who you are, what you want from your business and life, and why, before you build your strategic plan to grow and exit the business. In this episode, Saud and I focus on the story that helped him get clear on his why. The big takeaway from this first part of the series is to listen to yourself first. As Saud puts it, you “own your exit” by knowing your 'why' and putting pen to paper describing what you want before you implement a strategic plan to grow value. It’s that focus that allows you to clear obstacles from your path as you execute on the strategies that get you to your goals. It takes rigor and discipline to maintain this focus and to really listen to your thoughts.  There’s nothing more eye opening to make you realize what matters to you in life than an unforeseen event that changes your situation and limits your choices. The key is to have a valuable business that gives you the chance to pivot when necessary, no matter what gets thrown at you or when.   About the Guest: Saud Juman loves basketball and business. At a young age, his mother encouraged him to get out and form his own league so he could follow his passion. After that, there was no stopping him.Saud created such a successful business in university that he had to find a way to spend their profits or else pay them to the university. He created scholarships, funded trips and events, and found creative ways to give the money back to the students. Fast-forward to today and Saud has grown, run, and sold a multi-national business called PolicyMedical Inc. that developed numerous hospital data management systems trusted by over 3,000 healthcare organizations. He’s passionate about mindset and serving others.   Quotes: 38:21 - “I kept on saying show me the path of excellence I’m supposed to take in order to be of service to others. Because I’ve always had this believe that all of us are supposed to be really great at at least one thing.” 42:06 - “Make no mistake, it takes rigor and discipline to get to that place to hear yourself. You can’t just go on a light little hike and all of a sudden you’ll hear yourself.” 52:12 - “When I feel like it’s time to move onto something different, or bigger… When I start feeling that, that’s when it’s time to own your exit.” 56:59 - “I actually realized after I sold the business, the ingredients that I was chasing in an exit, I had already achieved about three or four years before the exit.”   Links and Resources: LinkedIn: Saud Juman 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, on my LinkedIn.