E106: Nate Lind - From Start-Up Success To Selling $100M Worth In Transactions as a Broker - How2Exit

[00:00:00] Ron Skelton: Hello and welcome to the How2Exit podcast. Today I'm here with Nate Lind, author of Maximum Exit and a business broker at Website Closers. Thank you for being the show today, Nate. Looking forward to learning from you and, like, seeing what you have, what you're doing out in the world today. 

[00:00:15] Nate Lind: Absolutely, we've got some war stories to share, both, wheeling and dealing and looking at, opportunities that are out there and helping folks get to cross that finish line. 

[00:00:23] Ron Skelton: So everybody that listens to the show though, they know my first question. It's my favorite joke. Like I always say, you were born then you ended up on a show about mergers and acquisitions. Can you fill out the gap in between? How did you get into this space? 

[00:00:34] Nate Lind: Well, it started actually with a failed acquisition. I was looking to buy a supplement company and the owner of the company had written a book about ginkgo biloba and kind of like the, it was a whole like brain focus, brain, eliminating brain fog, niche. And, it didn't pass due diligence. I ended up learning enough about the business. I love the margins and the scale of supplements and vitamins. I had a previous career in real estate. I'll skip that for the benefit of your podcast listeners and just focus on the [00:01:00] internet side of the business. But I really wanted something that was scalable and, and evergreen.

[00:01:05] So, it didn't end up passing due diligence. I decided to go ahead and launch a business instead and had a bit of a storied career of selling vitamins to a lot of people across a lot of countries and dealt with the logistics and operations and credit card processing. And I had one point in time, I had a 16,000 square foot office building and, and 26 people, reporting to me. We had, upwards of a hundred, hundred 50, people in customer service and fulfillment that we outsourced or used third party vendors for. So, had a lot of experience with it. And, in 2016, I had a monster year, monster year. We sold $36 million that year. A beard care products. I had this big honk and beard.

[00:01:49] I sponsored the World Beard and Mustache Competition in Austin, Texas. And I built some technology around, e-commerce that helped me understand and analyze was I making [00:02:00] any money or not. Was this profitable because most of my sales were on a subscription, so I had to pay upfront for advertising and I wasn't gonna get money back until later. So it was a pretty big investment. And I wanted to make sure that, we were gonna be making money. I ended up selling that piece of technology, to a shopping cart in 2016. Was my first experience selling a business. And, it was kind of an incredible situation. The shopping cart, entity reached out to me.

[00:02:27] They had already, it was a gateway that bought a shopping cart system, and they were looking to buy up some other technology in the space. And they had knew about me because I was running trade shows for, affiliate companies and companies related to affiliate marketing and the advertising side. So the companies actually own the products that were doing the advertising. So they knew about me. I was, kind of an interesting individual with the expertise in this. And I've been doing a lot of speaking and other engagements to make myself, known. They reached out to me, asked me how much I wanted.

[00:02:57] I shared a crazy number. I thought in my head it wasn't [00:03:00] making any money. It was just something I was, paying for myself. I had a couple of licensees from some friends that wanted to use it too. And ended up, negotiating a deal that was, for this small boy from Kansas would've, 10 times out of the cost of my parents' home. I was pretty dang happy with it. Fast forward a little bit further, I ended up meeting the founders of website closers, Jason Iran, because others were selling their business with website closers. And, I had a couple of different conversations with them and was meeting with them at different events.

[00:03:29] And, I had a large influence in e-commerce and affiliate marketing and stuff. And I thought, well man, maybe an interesting way for me to monetize the influence I have in this, in this niche would be to step into a broker's role and start, start wheeling and dealing on behalf of my friends. And I did. In that first year, I kind of came on like wildfire. It was 2020, I should take that back. The first year was a little bit challenging cuz of the pandemic, but year two, I sold close to 40 million worth of companies and, I continued to [00:04:00] this day. I've sold 16 companies in the last, last year and a half or so, upwards of a hundred million in total transactions. Closed between buyers and sellers.

[00:04:08] And I love this. I love being able to, work the negotiation, find a buyer, pre-screen the buyer, get, good offers from my clients. I love recording testimonials with them after I'm done of my 16 transactions. I've got 13 incredible testimonials on my YouTube channel and people telling me stuff like, I've changed their life. I've done this, I've helped them, put away, the kind of money that they're looking for to use for passive income. Most of us read Rich Dad, poor Dad, and somewhere along the way, the way we forgot to invest some money into passive income and we find ourselves still working as workaholics.

[00:04:44] So this is, I think, the best opportunity for an entrepreneur. To put a war chest of money in their pocket to then use for real estate or shoot. Right now the fed rates are so high, you can make a pretty good income off of t-bills and bonds. So, that's really what I'm [00:05:00] passionate about. I love being able to help the family provider bring home a big win for the family.

[00:05:05] Ron Skelton: I would a venture to say that real estate's not really passive.

[00:05:09] Nate Lind: In many cases. You're right. But it's a heck of a lot more passive than running a digital or internet or e-commerce, especially an e-commerce business.

[00:05:16] Ron Skelton: I come from that space. I still have some properties and I own or financed every single one of 'em all. And to this day, like even this week alone, I found out to the people that I owner financed to haven't been paying their property taxes and now I've gotta get engaged, involved and like, threaten the foreclose or whatever, because they're in breach of contract. If they don't go straighten this out or like, have to cut, $4,000 checks for each one of 'em cuz they haven't paid it in two or three years, so it's not passive.

[00:05:41] I don't think I, I thought I made it as passive as possible because somebody else is servicing the note and I owner finance them off. So I just like, I just thought I was gonna get, just get checks. You still have to get involved. Right. 

[00:05:52] Nate Lind: Well what is passive right now is a 4% yield on, on bonds and t-bills. If we trust our banking systems in the federal government.[00:06:00] 

[00:06:00] Ron Skelton: So if you trust the government and the banking system, so.

[00:06:03] Nate Lind: Well that's how I got to here. So I've been doing this now for three years. And,

[00:06:07] Ron Skelton: Are you still, sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Are you still in the supplement company you at?

[00:06:10] Nate Lind: Not anymore. Yeah, it was really a big change of passion for me. I had a business partnership that was, I felt was fairly toxic and, was living in a part of the country that I wasn't really all that excited for anymore. So I made a bunch of life changes, life moves, and when I sold that, the technology, I ended up just, winding down the e-commerce business. I didn't realize that there was a, there was a market for them back then. And, but even knowing what I know now, you really have to be thoughtful about the sale of the business and you need to sell 'em the upswing. It's amazing people, it's just one man show. Businesses that are selling, we're selling those all the time for millions of dollars.

[00:06:43] But the one key thing that is, important for everybody is it needs to be, its income needs to be stable or better yet growing. And, 2016, I had a peak year. 2017, it declined. 2018 it declined. And, you're just not gonna find buyers with, an appetite, especially in that size. Smaller [00:07:00] deals, blogs, newsletters, stuff like that. Maybe not so much a big deal, but a 36 million company that is dropping in, in revenue year over year is not gonna garner a whole lot of interest. Yeah, it just scares people away. So I learned how to sell and I also learned, timing is important. So two big valuable lessons on the front of all this. 

[00:07:19] Ron Skelton: Before we turned on the mic, we actually, talked a little bit about. Like profit margins and stuff. What was the, and you don't have to gimme the exact number, what is the ballpark of the profit margins of a supplement company if you're running it good?

[00:07:31] Nate Lind: Yeah, mine was my, it was probably 12 to 13%. And that tends to be on the high side. I encounter a lot of clients that it might be lower, somewhere between 8%. If you're over 20% and you're selling, supplements or something like that, you're doing great. And usually it's cuz you're in control of the media cost or the advertising. For me, I was having to pay, an affiliate network and affiliates to help drive those sales. And they cost a boatload, you know, I was spending anywhere between 40 and $80 per client I was [00:08:00] acquiring. So I had to make sure I was making over a hundred dollars per client. And that was over time. And if I wasn't, I was losing money. 

[00:08:08] Ron Skelton: So you had to track that, it wasn't your initial sale. Like you had to look at the average, lifetime value of a customer and figure it out. Okay, the average lifetime value of customers, they're gonna buy this four times, or, and then I'm, before I have to remarket to them and bring 'em back on board. Like I know, I buy vitamins and try new things all the time and I'll buy 90 days worth, and then I'll buy another 90 days and then I'll might, then I'll fell off and try something else. Some, Dr. Huberman or whatever his name is, will say I should be, taking something else to help me sleep.

[00:08:33] And next thing I know I'm taking a different vitamin so I can get that shift. Now, the reason I'm curious about it is I bought a bunch of books on it and I thought about getting into the vitamin business, cuz, if you can't see it, but I've got 'em stacked up over here. And I found some stuff that really helps me out in that space.

[00:08:48] Nate Lind: Yeah. It was a four hour work week that inspired me. He had, he was talking about, brain fog, and doing supplements and stuff and, that's kind of what led me down that path. And yeah, before I know it, he sold over a hundred million worth of vitamins.[00:09:00] Sure didn't pocket a hundred million dollars, but, I got away with a couple of seven figures here and there and, that was really life changing for me. But, yeah, that's a tough business. There's a lot of competition in it, but those are some of the businesses that we sell now on, on our marketplace. We sell fact and vitamins and supplement companies are some of the best selling, have some of the most interested buyers in digital marketing companies.

[00:09:21] Have a ton of interest. I've sold three in the last year. I just closed a, business that sells, security cameras. They private label security cameras from China and mostly wholesale them to installers. A little bit of e-commerce sales. But yeah, we sell all sorts of businesses. If they've got a little bit of a, a thread into e-commerce or digital, we sell them. They need to be able to be purchased by somebody remotely. That's kind of the big thing is. We don't have just concentrations of Tulsa, Oklahoma, companies or buyers or, could Phoenix, Arizona. We've got buyers from all around the world and in the businesses that we list. They need to be operated, be able to be [00:10:00] operated by individuals anywhere. 

[00:10:03] Ron Skelton: So, I've had the CEO of Flippa on here. I've had the chief marketing officer for Empire Builders(Flippers). So out of respect, can you tell us a little bit, because I mean they've had full shows where you just talked about their thing, and I think this is the first time I've had anybody from website closers on there. Can you give us a spiel of what website closers is and kind do it justice for my audience so they know to go to you guys too? 

[00:10:22] Nate Lind: Yeah, it's like it, it's like selling real estate. There's different brokerages will handle different size transactions and have different neighborhoods that they service. So Flippa for instance, it says self-serve platform. You're gonna log in, you're gonna find yourself listed mostly with websites under a hundred thousand dollars. I'd say probably 80% of those listings are under a hundred thousand dollars. It's self listed. Could be blogs, could be newsletters, could be a variety of different, stuff.

[00:10:49] A lot of 'em maybe aren't making any money and people are just selling, the technology and maybe some of the inventory if it has some inventory. And, so microtransactions. Empire Flippers is kind of the [00:11:00] next level up. They publish a, an annual, like kind of inventory and it usually comes out to be between 125,000 and $150,000 in average transaction size. It's also, it's pseudo self listed. You have to go through a lot of, a lot of process yourself. They do give you some guidance. I know Greg as well. I've had a number of guys from Empire Flippers that passed events and, respect their authority in that space. Their marketplace again for kind of that next level.

[00:11:26] Higher in, in revenue and price. And then, website closures, we're one of the bigger boys in terms of like the size of businesses that we list. Our average transaction size, about two and a half million dollars. We focus on 1 million to 150 million. We are a boutique lower middle market firm. We only focus on digital technology SaaS, apps, marketing businesses that service the digital universe, manufacturers that service those business. We pretty much anything around digital technology and [00:12:00] internet, and then one layer out in the business to business services that supports those businesses.

[00:12:06] That's what we sell. I just have listed, we've got under LOI business, that's an online marketplace. So if you want to, buy and, buy your own, plot of land in, in Georgia, you could go to their website and buy some stuff. And so they deal in physical land, but because they're selling it online, and they're using, they're also using the mls, they're using lands.com and other, ways to sell their products. That's where we would have a buyer that's interested in it. So yeah, we focus on that, larger, transaction for the average entrepreneur. That's life altering money. A hundred thousand dollars maybe, maybe not. But, 2, 3, 5, $10 million. I've closed several transactions in the 20 to $30 million range, and that's life changing money.

[00:12:49] So that's really kind of where we focus on. That's what I love. That's the part that, I wanna see, a transaction from my client, really put some money away for 'em and, give them an opportunity to go chase that second [00:13:00] mountain of life. Now they've summited the success and the status of having made it. And, sold the business, which is, an elite few of entrepreneurs that build and sell businesses. And, they put away seven, eight figures, in your, your savings account. It gives you a really interesting opportunity to go and do something else in the universe. Like what else does your spirit pull, what's your spirit resonate with next?

[00:13:24] Some philanthropy, some investing. You keep things casual. You wanna be, an advocate out there, it's really, only up for you to decide. 

[00:13:32] Ron Skelton: Now if you're doing e-commerce, you have a inventory. That's one thing. I call it, stuff in a box. I'll put it that way. If I don't do stuff in a box businesses anymore, that's not the word I usually use. But, It's funny is I laugh because, I started, with that buddy of mine was like, Hey, let's just, let's do this thing on Shopify. And, so we found the products we wanted to do. We were gonna learn Shopify. We were just kind of doing it. We, I'm an entrepreneur at art. We toy with things occasionally. So we named the, business, SIB products. When Spotify asked my [00:14:00] business partner what SIB stood for, he said shit in a box.

[00:14:03] And not only did they not allow him to set up the account, they permanently banned him. He can't go on Shopify. Somehow it offended him. It really just like, they were just like, yeah, get outta here. And he's really good at negotiating. He just passed law school. It's not like he's not, like he can't talk himself out of trouble. But somehow they took real offense to it. But, Other than that, if you're not tied to inventory having, and I guess you can just fulfillment centers too. 

[00:14:23] Nate Lind: But all of my clients do. In fact, that's something if you're a supplement company out there and you're fulfilling outta your house, stop it immediately. Find a three PL and move all your stuff over there. I've got a number of clients who I've tried, and I want to sell those businesses. They are not getting sold. So if you've got us, if you're shipping stuff outta your house, if you ever think you wanna sell, number one, do yourself a favor.

[00:14:44] That's a lot of work. Go ahead and find a three PL, they're not very expensive. You can negotiate 'em down to 60 cents a box plus maybe only 10 cents per item to pick and pack into it. So if you've got three things in there, I've gotten negotiated down to 80 cents to ship three items in, [00:15:00] in the same box, and then all you're doing is paying postage, but they can actually negotiate a better postage rate than you ever could. So you, you may end up saving money on the whole transaction.

[00:15:08] Ron Skelton: Like, you just put it in this roll-off bin and we can roll it up in the truck. I was, it got to the point where I was like, it just didn't make sense. And I shut it down because it wasn't, I make, I was making six decent six figures as a director of operations at a technical company and I was doing this on the side and it wasn't passing my income there. But it sure was eating up every spare moment of my time. And, so I ended up shutting that one down.

[00:15:31] Nate Lind: Me neither. I had no idea my vitamin company was sellable back in 20 17, 20 18. I didn't meet Jason Iran, so 20 late 2018 and then 2019, 2020, I had already shut the business down.

[00:15:42] And that's something that, people don't think about a whole lot. If it's not making, if it's not scratching that, that itch, if it's not a passion for you. That's the best time to think about selling, and if you're not gonna sell and you're not that passionate about it, you need to think about maybe shutting it down because you're, I've done that whole routine where you're just grinding away, just [00:16:00] trying to, keep things going.

[00:16:02] Man. It's really hard to do that when you don't have any passion. Most of my clients, they're bored, burnt out, or they've got a burning new passion for something else. It's the three Bs I call it. And. Almost always when that's the case, their business is going to be facing a state of decline. Cuz mentally they've checked out.

[00:16:21] And, that's the hardest thing is to check back into something. If you don't have a passion for it, you've gotta find some new, some way to rejuvenate yourself or get that thing moved over to a buyer as quick as you can, or just shut it down before it turns vicious on you. So when I shut that down, I went around and gave all those t-shirts, away to homeless people around the area.

[00:16:39] So there was you during the summer, you see it be wearing poker t-shirts everywhere. I just went out, just passed out. I probably had three, 400 shirts left by the time. But the reason I, so one of the reasons inside of that business is I was probably only making, I probably didn't price it right. I think I was making three to $5 per shirt, right?

[00:16:57] Profit, what I thought was profit, but the grow, it was growing [00:17:00] so fast. I had so many orders that every penny I could scratch. A lot of times I would. Take all the money from sales, I put it in the same account and then when I go order the next order, I had to forecast what I would need. Cuz it took a little while for the guys to, to screen.

[00:17:11] So I didn't have my own screening equipment or anything. I had somebody else doing that stuff and the lead time. So I would order enough to match what my thought, my forecast sales would be. And now we ended up having to put money, more money into it. Right. Cuz I was like, it wasn't making enough money to cover the growth.

[00:17:26] And I was like, at the end of this I'll get a check. And it was at some point you're. Yeah, there's enough money sitting there right now if I just turn off the website, fulfill every order I have and give the rest of it away. It was a fun project and I'm done with this thing and that's kind of where I went with that.

[00:17:41] But, yeah, and I had smart man, I had t-shirts for years cuz I had a bunch of 'em my size too. You probably were single-handedly convinced the entire local area that all these, homeless folks were had some gambling issue. It's funny is, there's actually, I don't think I did it, but there was actually a problem with that in the area [00:18:00] where the, the locals were trying to get the hours of the local casinos and card rooms shut down where, so they couldn't run 24 7.

[00:18:06] And one of the things they cited is it's causing homelessness and stuff. And I started thinking, is it because I gave a thousand t-shirts away? Like I'd win jackets for like winning tournaments and stuff and I didn't like their jackets. I'd give those away. So they're people walking around with, tournament jackets and I would just, all my clothes that, at that point in time I was living in San Jose area.

[00:18:25] I'm up in Northern California now in the Redwood Forest. But back there, there was just so much homeless. If I had something that didn't fit me or didn't want anymore, I'd just say, I'd pull up to somebody, go, Hey, you want some warm clothes? So I'm a big guy, whatever I, we gave away would be a decent layer on top of whatever else they had on.

[00:18:40] Even then when I fought, when I was skinnier and was into martial arts, I was 2 0 5 or better. So, . Okay, so you got a book out, right? It's Maximum Ex. Tell us about the book. That's it. Maximum Exit. So what I did was, I spent some time, this is probably the end of the second year, of being a business broker.

[00:18:58] I've had so many [00:19:00] transactions that I've seen, work out well. Some that, kind of hit the, the skids. We gotta like, put things back together again. An average deal breaks nine times from the time that we get an LOI. So it's not uncommon for there to be problems and challenges.

[00:19:13] And, I just found that there wasn't a whole lot of good material out there. Most of the things that I was explaining to my clients, I was doing it over and over and over again. And, when I was having calls with people, I do free consultations, so, anyone that has kind of like that itched, what's my business worth?

[00:19:28] I do a full on, comparable based valuation based on the, the thousands of sales that we've done and give them a real number, just like what a realtor would do. You wanna sell your house, you, they need to get you comps. Like, what's it worth? And what are the comps?

[00:19:40] We do the same thing and, most of the time I'm answering the same questions and it's literally on the front of my cover. People are asking, what's your multiple? What's my multiple? They want to know who's buying it, and they want to know how much are they paying? Like, those are the money questions.

[00:19:53] How much am I worth? who's gonna pay that and how much exactly are they gonna pay? And then how are they gonna pay [00:20:00] it? What's like the structure of the deals? So I get into all that. And I also share a little bit of exit preparatory, stuff for folks. I talk with them about how they, how their financials need to look, what their financials need to look like.

[00:20:13] For people who read the book. And for any member of your, your audience that's listing, I'll give 'em a free digital copy of the book. In the book, I've got another link where you can go to, you can look at some of the materials I've gotten. Some of 'em are examples of financials that, that, the business sold. And then examples of some financials were the business didn't sell. And I put comments in there as to why. Why this business didn't sell? So people can see examples of what you need to do. It's really important that people have, are fastidious about their record keeping.

[00:20:44] You need it for due diligence. This is like the, I imagine it's kinda like the log for an airplane. Like I keep hearing stories and, I've got some friends that, private pilots they talk about, like the log of the plane is like as valuable as the plane itself.

[00:20:58] Your business is only [00:21:00] as valuable as your financials portray it to be. No buyer. Gives a crap about the Shopify storefront. These larger transactions, smaller deals, yeah, they'll go along for it. But these bigger ones, they don't care about what Shopify says sold because what they don't see is how much money did you have to spend in order to get that sale.

[00:21:20] And that those numbers can be wildly off. You can overspend on stuff, and then you're not making any money. So all of a sudden you got a worthless business because a negative, seller discretionary earnings business is not gonna transact for a positive number. , at least not from my experience. Other platforms, other strategics, maybe that happens in unicorn situations, but, for us, you need to have positive income.

[00:21:45] You need to be able to portray it and communicate that effectively. And the most trustworthy way to do that is an export outta QuickBooks or Zero, or any other financial system because the buyers want to see. The profit loss statements by month [00:22:00] as far back as you can go. And they wanna see your balance sheet by month as far back as you can go.

[00:22:06] And they're gonna look to see if you've been inputting your invoices on the balance sheet or if you're doing it on just whenever you get an invoice and you just put it as an expense, that's cash base accrual. You're not gonna get, as good of a deal as if you were to go ahead and input those POs, those purchase orders and inventory on your balance sheet, and then expense them as units are shipped, on your expense report.

[00:22:27] So I get into some, or on your, your income statement, so I get into some details around how all that looks. And again, this is focusing on these businesses that are seeking to exit over a million bucks. That's where, kind of the, the money deals are, and what buyers are looking for is they need that level of due diligence.

[00:22:44] So I get into quite a bit of information. It's not a, it's not a real long book. It's about 130 pages. You can read it in an hour and a half. I give it to my clients as well. Usually I'll ship 'em a physical copy and, give 'em a digital copy as well. It's really helpful for people that are going through the [00:23:00] m and a process.

[00:23:01] I talk a little bit about due diligence. What's going on there. I talk about how to communicate your desire to exit the business. Do you tell them, God, I hate this thing. Take it like, I can't, or do you tell 'em, man, I don't know how much longer it's, I've got this. Like, it's really going great now.

[00:23:17] I don't know how much longer this is gonna go. You can do much better at this than I. Holy cow. If you were to say that to a buyer, you'd scare them off. Or do you tell 'em, God, I love this business. I could stay around for years. And if you mean that, and indeed you do love the business and you're looking for a partnership, maybe you're only gonna sell 60, 70, 80% of it, man, you're gonna have buyers jumping to get your attention.

[00:23:42] They want that kind of confidence from a seller. So I give a little bit of coaching on how things come across and why. And remember, in the buyer's eyes, you have to answer the question that's unique to, that's not unique. That is, omnipresent in all of marketing. What's in it [00:24:00] for? So the buyer is thinking, what's in it for me?

[00:24:03] Well, what's in it for them is a low risk, high reward purchase, and you have to communicate that your business is not super risky. It is got risk, they all, all life does, but it's not super risky. And that the likelihood of its revenue and growth and potential that it's had over the last year or two is likely, most likely to continue as long as they don't jug it up.

[00:24:30] So those are some of the things that I get into it. And again, your audience will give you the link whenever you want it. People can go directly to nate lynn.com/gift and download the book, and read it. Awesome. Awesome. We talked a little bit about this before the show, noticed, I've only been in this 

[00:24:48] industry for a couple years and I'm still learning.

[00:24:49] The reason I started the podcast is to learn from various people, and one of the things I've learned is, valuations are done differently in different segments and different industries. So we were talking about the show that [00:25:00] brick and mortar's done one way that these small newsletters and blogs and B2B sites and stuff I'm looking at done a totally weird different way that's actually alien from everything else on the market.

[00:25:11] And then, some of the, even at the same level, some of the different websites do valuations and present the price at a different way. So how are these websites that are a million plus, valued and how does that, yeah. How do people understand that? So we're in, in m and a jargon, we're lower middle market, small business, SMB and lower middle market, and in mm-hmm in that for these businesses, we only do comparable based business valuations.

[00:25:40] So like you would get from a realtor, if you're selling your house in the local neighborhood, you're gonna ask 'em, what's, what am I worth? They're gonna go look at the other businesses that have sold. Now what's tricky here? There's no mls and there's no public records for, for these transactions.

[00:25:59] They're all private [00:26:00] transactions. They're all bound under a confidentiality. So you have to go to a marketplace that has the most transactions and internally, They can do the research for you, but you'll, they, I can't divulge my past clients the exact details of our transactions. I can usually share the deal structure and I can, like how much in cash and how much in equity, how much in earnout, how much in seller note, that sort of stuff.

[00:26:26] I can usually sell, share that as a percentage, but I can't share what the exact price was and give you that and make it publicly available because I'm under contract not to, but what we can do. As brokers and I own my own franchise of website closures, I've got two associate brokers that work for me.

[00:26:44] And what we do is we scour all of our database for the transactions that, that have sold. I interview and talk with my colleagues and find out, okay, here's another supplement company. How much did this sell for? What was the deal structure like? So I have to go and do [00:27:00] that sort of research, to be able to provide the comparable base for my clients.

[00:27:04] But I need to know three things. I need to know what is the potential client or the prospect that's communicating to me their desire to get a business valuation. I need to know what your earnings are. I need to know what it is over the past several years and at least over the last year, cuz I need, so the timeframe, I need to know your earnings and the timeframe of those earnings.

[00:27:27] And then also I need to know a variety of factors about the business. I'm assessing it like I'm a buyer for what is its risk profile like, I need to understand what's transitioning, what comes with the business? Does it come with inventory? Does it come with staff? Does it come with debt?

[00:27:43] Are there other issues that are, deal that the business is dealing with? I need to understand what's its most likely trajectory, what's its pro, what's its potential, it's profit potential. So I, this is something also I include in, as a free gift of view, to viewers and listeners in my book.

[00:27:58] I've got also on [00:28:00] audible people that are interested. They can actually download a self-assessment. Multiple spreadsheet that I have, there's 27 factors that go into it from zero to four. Most of my clients' businesses are trading between, two and four times trillion 12 months, earnings.

[00:28:17] If they're bigger, they'll get an earnings bump as well. I've got all that figured in as well. But you can go through that spreadsheet and you can kind of take a self-assessment. How, is there any intellectual property with my business? Is there anything that defends it from competition? How hands-on is the owner involved day in, day out, operationally every day, 40 hours a week, 80 hours a week, or none?

[00:28:39] I sell businesses of all the above clients that are, they're in the, involved in their business 60 hours a week, and some that are involved zilch. And that has a different factor. So when you figure all those 27 factors, and I'll usually do this for free on, over the phone, takes me about, 45 minutes or so to interview somebody and ask all these questions, and understand this.

[00:28:58] Meanwhile, I'm working on my [00:29:00] spreadsheet. At the end of it, I give them their multiple. And, if they have given me their financials, usually it happens as a second stage. I need to get the financials. I'll help figure out what their earnings are. Because honestly, most people, they, it figuring out their earnings can be a bit tricky, especially not knowing what ad backs buyers are allowing or penalizing.

[00:29:20] So I can give that real time, but when I've got both of those and I use a comparable basis of what else is selling on our marketplace, I can give a very thorough business valuation, let's say an example of a, a add-back that somebody would penalize. Well, a hotly contested one is the owner's salary in the business.

[00:29:39] Oftentimes it, we're sell side, so we push to have the salary included as the, as earnings. And most buyers will, they like to say, well, well wait a second. Someone's doing that work. If you're not doing that work, I'm doing that work. And the time value of my. There's a value to my time that's going to cost, or I've gotta go hire somebody to go do [00:30:00] that work.

[00:30:00] That work is not just done magically. No one just like, snapped their fingers and that stuff is done. So we have to figure out there's an expense to that work effort being done. So that's one that not necessarily penalized, but it is not just scuffed under the rug, that comes up, in most owner operator businesses.

[00:30:17] Less so when, owner's not materially involved in the business. I've got a listing where the owner is a musician. He's in California. He's in, he is a musician, and the business has been running, itself, with two, higher level thinkers. Wouldn't call them leaders or executives, but, two, one sales guy and one operations gal.

[00:30:36] And, he didn't do anything. He hasn't done anything in 10 years. This is a 22, 22 year old business and for the last 10, he's been basically just been collecting 600 grand a year and doing nothing. So pretty sweet business and we got like seven Lois on it in the last couple of weeks. So buyers are seeing the value of that and they're not penalizing it based on, that he's pulling 300 grand a [00:31:00] year outta that 600 grand a year, cuz that's his money and he's not doing anything, to make the business run to do that.

[00:31:05] He's just collecting that as an owner's draw. So yeah. That's an example that comes to mind. Some others, they're kind of like penalties are, sometimes they're, outright dismissal of the business and it's, if there's something around like the, the customers rep, if there's reputation, with the customers, if they're the, the kind of the, reviews and, different aspects of the bus, it's reputation.

[00:31:25] If it's at stake, I that's can be, game changing. Where a buyer's just gonna say, no, I'm not interested in it. So that comes up from time to time. Other things that are argued about, not so much, for travel cell phones, meals, like that kind of stuff that usually is allowed no problems.

[00:31:42] If it's something that could be seen as revenue enhancing for the business. Like if you're going on trade shows that you're marketing the business, let's say you've got a supplement company and you're setting up booths at, supplement World or Vital World or whatever it is. And having some sales and negotiating deals with [00:32:00] people and, you can't really get away with saying that's an add back cuz it's legitimately creating revenue for the business and there's a cost associated to that.

[00:32:09] So, couple of examples for you. Okay. So what's your favorite transaction? I mean, what's a, what's, just think about on the deals you've done in the last couple years, what's your favorite one? I've got one going on right now that I'm in love with. I've told the owner, I've been friends with him for years.

[00:32:25] I met him at a, at an event prior to him listing a business. Mm-hmm. , he had sold a business with Jason Iran, and he and I got along so well. He later came to me and said, I'm gonna list with you Nate. And, it's an online land marketplace and, he's buying is similar to what I did in real estate.

[00:32:40] I was flipping properties. Mm-hmm. , well, he's doing that, but he's flipping land. And, he's just done it in a real methodical way. He is got a system, he's got a process by which it's identifying, it's identifying land and, and he is, making, discounted offers on it. And then, selling it for a profit.

[00:32:57] I usually, like, I haven't sold a whole lot of [00:33:00] businesses that are, that, we don't, it's not quite brick and mortar. It doesn't have like a physical location. It's operated outta his house and his partner's house, so it can be remotely moved anywhere. But, yeah, we put a really aggressive offer together for it.

[00:33:14] I gave him some, allocations for some massive add-backs and, the buyers love it. And, we got multiple offers on it. Some over asking price. And, the winning offer was not just a really compelling, really compelling offer for, closing cash at close and all of the nice things that you really want.

[00:33:31] But, it was actually in a, being a partnership and, and a massive line of credit. It's a very, very well endowed buyer. Not sure if he's a billionaire, but he's got a lot of incredible, projects that are public, it's not just like talk, right? Like, Hey, I've done this, I've done that.

[00:33:46] It's like, you, you can search this individual and you can see press release after press release, after press release, of them being mentioned and featured and. Hundreds of million dollar businesses, so 200 to $800 million businesses. And [00:34:00] that he took notice of it and, just took a shine on my clients.

[00:34:03] And, the way that has come together has been incredible. I've, I told the owners like, there's a way you can figure out how to franchise this, and this is, this will work. And, in Puerto Rico, you let me know because, I would love to head that , head that up. But that's shiny object for me.

[00:34:18] I make a great living as a broker. I don't know that I would, sling in, 10, 20, $30,000, lots of land. I know people doing it. I probably have to Oracle. I used to own our local RIO, the Real Estate Investors Association, with a couple partners, and I still have contacts. I still even run one small mastermind, just a few of us to get together and I help him get real estate transactions on one of the guys in the Mastermind.

[00:34:38] He's flipping properties like lots and, he learned from somebody online and he's doing it. And, I like the concept. I dunno if I try it out here. California is absolutely insane with all their rules and it almost costs as much money to get all your permits and, basically you wanna build a house on a lot here, you gotta hire a lawyer team to get past the permits and the city officials to get something done.

[00:34:59] So [00:35:00] yeah, so that, that's my favorite one. Cool. So what's the worst one you've ever dealt with? Like, what would, what goes wrong? When it goes wrong? What goes wrong? What causes it to go wrong? What makes a bad deal? Usually it's the individual that's just generally disagreeable. I've taken, there's two particular deals that come up where, The person's just toxic and, they just have a negative bias.

[00:35:21] Everything is doom and gloom. Everyone's out to get them. No one's treating them fairly. And I was earlier on as a broker and I was, I think, a little bit more interested in trying to prove myself amongst the firm and try to get deals done. And I had a little higher threshold for dealing with, these types of personalities.

[00:35:39] And, one in particular was, just the way that he talked about his CPA was, using a lot of, a lot of cuss words referring to him and just like down, talking to CPA and, I need the CPA to get these deals done. Like, I usually, they're more important than the owner.

[00:35:54] Like the financials have gotta be clean. And, yeah, just come to find out he wasn't, he was taking a [00:36:00] lot of money in cash and they weren't reporting the, all of the income, which that should actually be a benefit, not a negative. , but it starts to erode buyer's faith that who they're dealing with is a person of high integrity, that is someone that's trustworthy.

[00:36:14] So that one in particular, and there was another one where the individual was just so full of negative self-talk. I couldn't get him to get out of his own way when he was sharing the business, with buyers and he had a very conspiracy theory sort of focus on the world and that everyone was out to get 'em.

[00:36:33] And, yeah, literally the last text I got from him was the F word them and it was ref a reference to the buyer. And, I didn't bother responding. I didn't bother to re renew the engagement. I told my administrative staff, I'm. He's done. I don't care what happens. I just don't have time for that kind of stuff.

[00:36:53] I do not wanna work with people who do not want to be helped, that aren't willing to listen to my guidance. I'm not doing this [00:37:00] cuz I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing this because I have a mastery at doing this. I love doing this. I want to see the outcome of my client pocket millions of dollars, and I'm going to do everything I can to help that happen.

[00:37:12] And if they are not interested in that, then we're on the wrong bus. Like, you get off my bus, or please stop and I'll get off your bus. I don't know who's driving this one, but, this is not meant to be. So I love all types of businesses. But the people that are involved with it, they have to have, some level of optimism and positive focus.

[00:37:32] They need to be curious, they need to be kind, and they need to be, generally agreeable or no one, I can tell you this, no one wants to work with you now. No one's gonna wanna work with you in the future and no one sure as hell is ever gonna wanna buy your company. What's interesting is, I have about 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 or five friends of mine that own publishing companies say they help people write books, and all of them have been bugging me for years.

[00:37:56] You gotta write a book. You gotta write a book. And now that I've been doing this for two years, like, look, take what you [00:38:00] do from real estate. Take what you know in this space and write a book. Service is what you know, in this space. And, I say, you know what, it's not a bad idea. So we have one coming out, and it's not even just me.

[00:38:11] I did a collaborative thing where I've interviewed 110 hundred 20 people by now. And, so I wrote the skeleton of, it's basically the book's called Not Two Sides. And it's like, this is a collaborative effort. It's about building rapport, a B2B transaction, and it takes for a lot from, my real estate experience.

[00:38:26] NLP certified, there's all this stuff I've done and I know this is a people business. So you just reinforce that. Like if you can't get along with others and you can't build rapport, the buyer and the seller has have rapport. There's not two sides. It's not us and them, it's not a numbers game. This is a transaction where two people need to collaborate, work together and find a solution that works for both parties and, a lot of people.

[00:38:48] Especially in MySpace where I'm constantly in with new acquisition entrepreneurs, like I'm new to this, I run meetups and I'm around new people all the time, and they're all lo logical. Like, the numbers weren't good, [00:39:00] right? They don't look at the people side of this. So the book's called, not two sides, but the whole premise is is what does it take to build a rapport?

[00:39:06] And, it's myself and about other 88 other people. So I wrote the skeleton of it and then we're collaborating with people ringing in case studies and stuff. But you just reinforced the whole thing. I was like, Yeah, we've traveled a parallel universe, my friend also N l p, master Certified Practitioner.

[00:39:22] I believe in the presuppositions of N L P people are inclined to, to lead with positive intention. There's a number of things that I feel strongly about, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that get in our own way and, unfortunately there's just, typically, and I can get way down into the whole like, therapy world.

[00:39:38] Cause I do a ton of, on what I call entrepreneurial therapy. Just help me manage my client's emotional state through the process cuz these get emotional. One in particular, he's been trying to, like, we've had an offer to close since before Thanksgiving. He's drugged his feet for months. because this is his baby.

[00:39:57] Yep. And he's scared of letting [00:40:00] go. We got a big section about, excuse the psychological side, excuse, like the, psychological roadblocks you're gonna run into that the people tie their emotional, not only their personal identity, but some of the, some of these businesses this's their whole world. They identify as the business.

[00:40:13] When you ask them who they are, they'll tell you they're the CEO of so-and-so. It is their identity, so it's not, it's harder than giving away your daughter at the altar to some other man. Like it's the, that's at least an external person right here. You're selling your soul. In some cases, what people feel is like their core identity and, it's a massive conflict because they often are conflicted with the money because they got into.

[00:40:38] usually because they wanted to attain deeper wealth and they wanted the freedom on the other side of what that wealth would enable them. So they're conflicted. They want to do this, and also they don't want to do this. So I watched this Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde sort of approach where people are dealing with the conflict.

[00:40:55] And, ultimately I can't solve that conflict for them. And this has given [00:41:00] me a tremendous amount, of emotional resiliency. And zen-like moments for me to just shake my head and walk away and, leave it alone for, for the night. Because I can't change. I don't have anyone in my control.

[00:41:12] I can share with them, what I think is likely to happen. I can share with them, Based on my experience I'm seeing, and offer them advice if they're asking for it. And usually there's, they're asking for it by, engaging with me to guide them through this process. But they're the ones that have to make the decision.

[00:41:30] They have to decide, ultimately, I'll share with them what the price is of the business, that we will probably see bids at. But they have to decide the listing price. They have to decide to take a deal or not take a deal, and then they have to decide whether to actually close or not. So they've got three big decisions along the way, that they're confronted with money.

[00:41:47] So their relationship with money is often, at the forefront of this. And then also they're, that caveman, aspect of like, what are they providing to the world and how are they showing up in the world, tends to be them [00:42:00] as the primary. And it's us, it's mostly men. I've sold several women's businesses, but most of the men, relatively speaking, they are the corp, they're the family provider. And so when what is making the money is gone and there's a non-compete that you can't do it again that way. Right. That's a huge issue for them because yeah, if you've attained a skillset to be able to go hunt deer with a bow and arrow, and now all of a sudden you're transitioning that to somebody else and they're giving you a dagger, and you gotta go, kill that same deer.

[00:42:31] Well, you gotta get faster. You're older now and you've gotta get faster. Like you've gotta get sneakier like, so people will start thinking to themselves, oh man, like how am I gonna do this? But the reality is it's not as scary as you imagine. And I've made and lost millions. I've been, I've sold successful businesses.

[00:42:49] I've shut down and bankrupt businesses. I can, I am living proof it gets. The more you do this, the second and third time I became a millionaire. It was way easier than [00:43:00] the first time. And it it's just interesting. You also get such an incredible, profound sense of confidence and faith in yourself that when you go and do it again, man, that no one can take that from you.

[00:43:14] I never worry about paying the bills. I never worry about market fluctuations. I sleep peacefully at night knowing that I control my own destiny based on what I'm providing to the universe and the service that I offer, and that people are gonna be inclined to follow me on that. And guess what?

[00:43:31] You can jump on my bus and I'm gonna spread that, that fairy dust on you too. And we're gonna get you across the finish line and a massive payday on the other end of that. Somebody. Yeah, that's, I'm gonna, so I'm gonna tell you something and I want you to correct me. If I gave him bad advice, somebody asked me what the most important, he's working on the deal.

[00:43:49] He says, what's the most important thing that I can do? And the business looks good. So he's already passed the financials. He knows it looks good. And I told him the most important thing he could do at this point is find out what the seller plans to do next and [00:44:00] help him live into that reality.

[00:44:01] Right. If you, because he's at the stage, and I could pick up some sense of the story you told me, the seller. His wife wants him to retire, he kind of is okay with it, but he's got somebody, he's dragging his feet a little bit. And I was like, if you don't figure out what that individual wants to do next and help him live into that reality and, you're not trying to bolster his story or anything, like just find it out and then, cuz even by asking the questions, he might discover something for himself.

[00:44:26] He wants, but if you don't ask the question, he may never really sit down and face that reality of what am I gonna do next? And you wanna deal with it now as opposed to three months from now when you're trying to get him to a closing table. I love that advice. We had to do that with my client. The original deal was a big chunk of cash and then a seller note and, come to find out he wanted to stay.

[00:44:48] he didn't want to just, drop the microphone and walk off. So we had to re redo the deal and we just sh and it was easy. The buyer was really flexible. He's bought 46 companies, so they're a private equity fund and they do this all the time. So [00:45:00] we just shrink the amount of that seller note. Mm-hmm.

[00:45:02] down and, and slipped in 10% equity. So the entrepreneur could have still an ownership sense. Yeah. Like still be entitled to, and still have, be able to identify still as the owner of this company, but now with a new, bigger partner. And they've got a track record at rolling up competitive companies.

[00:45:22] And exiting them again. So they were gonna buy him, I think we got, an over four times multiple offer. They're going to put that together. They've already got two other companies. So they're at, he's the third company they're adding to this roll up. So altogether after their transaction, they're gonna be close to like, I think five to $6 million in trillion 12 months ebitda.

[00:45:42] And at that level, you're starting to get to six x seven x in trillion 12 months EBITDA evaluation. Mm-hmm. . And their goal is to grow it to 10 million in trillion 12 months ebitda. And there you're starting to look at six x to eight x trillion, 12 months, multiple. And that's real [00:46:00] money now. So if he sells that 10% down the road, that'd be another couple million bucks for.

[00:46:04] You know, I interviewed Adam Coffey. He's got a book or two out on private equity now. And, he's an advisor in that space, but he did the Heat and Air company, where he sold it private equity. They, and then he stayed the CEO through three or four of those sales. And the last sale that they did, they rolled it up to a billion dollar transaction, like with a B.

[00:46:20] And, I asked him, I said, well, you, the first time you sold it, you sold what? He's like about 80% of it. And he kept 20. And I said, was the ch at any time was the check for that 20% bigger than the 80? He says, yeah, on the, I think it was the second or third sale, he got a bigger check the next time on the next transaction cuz they scaled it so fast.

[00:46:36] So a lot of times these entrepreneurs don't understand that by going the PE route, your second or third check could be as substantial or more substantial than your current one, even though it's only 20% of the company. , right? Yep. 20% at a eight x is probably, I don't, I'm not gonna play, live math here, but 20% of eight x is probably greater than 4% of or four x at, at 80%.

[00:46:59] [00:47:00] So, yeah. Yeah. I don't, I, I can't do the math on the fly either, but I know that it works out pretty favorably for folks that are willing to retain some equity. And I can tell you, if you're listening and you've got a bigger business and you think it may, it might sell for over 10 million, even most of the business is selling over 5 million, you're gonna have to retain some equity.

[00:47:20] Mm-hmm. , the buyer's not gonna be willing to just like pay, pay you a hundred percent, let you disappear. You're gonna have to stay involved. You don't need to do any more work. That's another big myth. , you never have to do any more work after the sale than you did before the sale, unless you agree to, and you say, I want to do that.

[00:47:36] Most of the time people, they don't want to do it. Like they want to take more time off. They want to be, more strategic as opposed to bo being more operational. Yeah, that's common. That's mostly what happens. You tend to take more of a strategic role in the business. But especially for businesses over 10 million, it's very rare that you sell a hundred percent of the equity.

[00:47:56] Most of the time it's like a 80% sale or [00:48:00] 70% sale, maybe 90%, and you're gonna have some equity long term. It's because the buyer, they then they know that you're involved in this thing long term. So you gave great advice and I would recommend that, whoever it was that you were sharing that with.

[00:48:14] you may need to have that conversation with the seller and find out. Would it feel better if some equity was still on the table and maybe he needs to bring forth like, what's his vision? Mm-hmm. , where's this thing gonna go under his management and get the owner fired back up again?

[00:48:30] To help get that's what we had to do. That happens a lot. The two things I always say is know where they're going and then understand where they get their sense of status from. Like, is their business, what makes them them? And if it is figure out is this new thing they tell you gonna do this new future they're living into, does that give 'em status?

[00:48:47] And if not, figure out how they're gonna get their status. It could be from becoming a key player on one of their volunteering at one of their favorite charities. They have to have something that gives 'em status. Or especially for our male egos.[00:49:00] Men are different than women. I'm not gonna get into that game.

[00:49:02] But for the male ego, the psychological side of it, if we don't have that, what makes us important? We're liable ballistic with what we know, right? That it, it causes a fear of change. And, so I always like, know what that person wants to do next. And does that give them the same level of status they get now?

[00:49:21] And if not, how can you raise the status of what they're gonna do next? We really are cave men and cave men. Women, when you think about it, women are seeking security and, and safety and men are seeking status cuz that's what draws women to them. That's how they are defined. Back in caveman days. We haven't evolved that much in 10,000 years.

[00:49:39] I, I can get all into evolutionary tech, evolutionary psychology. I've looked deeply into that after I got divorced. So, yeah. We're just cavemen and we're still out there hunting. We're skinning, skinning animals and bringing back the furs and bringing back the meat. And when all of a sudden that's disappeared.

[00:49:54] What is it that we're able to do next to continue to recreate that for ourselves? So we're at the [00:50:00] top of the hour now. Let's make sure people know how to get ahold of you if they wanna work with you. What's your favorite way to contact, or have people contact? You just go to nate lynn.com.

[00:50:09] You can fill out a contact form. I'll do a free valuation for you. If you go to nate lynn.com/gift, you can get my book for free. You can get all my, all the goodies that come along with it. I'm sharing, the, what's my multiple spreadsheet? I've got a bunch of information around good financials, bad financials.

[00:50:25] I'm showing, some information about like what kind of businesses I've listed recently and what kind of buyer interest. So if you, if you've got a business out there that's, an internet technology, app business, SaaS business, that kind of stuff, or stuff related to that, you can see. And I show screenshots of my Gmail like.

[00:50:42] It's crazy. I get hundreds of responses. We'll have over 150, 200 NDAs for any business I list if it's got some growth to it, and if it's, you can see in the financial summary that it's growing. Yeah, I love working with entrepreneurs. I love working with folks that are considering their exit.[00:51:00] 

[00:51:00] Oftentimes it may be a year or two down the road, and if you just wanna talk about, how to put together the strategy for it, I'll give you a snapshot of what your valuation looks like. Now tell me where you're forecasting this to go. Tell me what number you're looking to sell for and I'll tell you how long it's gonna take you to get there.

[00:51:15] And then we'll follow up in three months, six months, 12 months, how many clients I've been working with. And I do free consulting for them. If they're con going to commit to engage with me, then I'll commit to consult with them. Because I, I know that together we're going to get a transaction across the line.

[00:51:30] At the end of the day, I don't need to have it done overnight. I don't need to have it done in two months or six months. Let's find the right time and let's make sure that that they're getting the sort of war chest of money they're looking for. So nate lynn.com and you fill out the contact form and you go straight to me.

[00:51:46] I'm check, I'm on my. All the time. I do way better life balance nowadays. I do tune out in the evenings and spend time with my loved ones, and on the weekends as well. But the lovely thing about m and a is nothing. It needs to be [00:52:00] done overnight, right? So we will get, get back to you. I do it usually.

[00:52:04] I, I'm known for having done, responses within a couple hours of first, reach out. So yeah, reach out to me that way and tell me a little bit about what you're doing and where you want to go. And I'll tell you, how long it's gonna take you to get there, or if you're past, past due and let's get it done now.

[00:52:17] Cool. Let's end with a little bit of wisdom. Three things. If somebody only could pick up or remember three things from the show today, what would you want their three takeaways from what you said today to. Sell when you actually don't need to sell. Sell when things are growing and they're effortless.

[00:52:32] When things are easy. Work ahead of time to make sure your financials are updated. Make sure that they're properly categorized. Make sure that you've got good labeling. I get into some specifics in my chapter about how to label in your chart of accounts. Some of your different expenses.

[00:52:46] Legal expenses could either be an add-back or it could be an expense. So you may not know, estate planning is an add back. Cease and desist and like legal, litigation defense and trademarks and that sort of stuff. Not always. So I get into some [00:53:00] details around that. And then the third thing is think about what was it that inspired you to be an entrepreneur in the first place?

[00:53:07] Was it to be operational and hands-on in the business that you're in? Or did you have another goal in mind? And just take a moment, spend a little bit of time walking, running, jogging, like whatever it is that you do for exercise or to get out of the house. And just remember why did you become an entrepreneur in the first place and what's your goal?

[00:53:24] And have, are you headed that way? Have you completely forgotten about it? Give us some thought because I firmly believe that selling your business, that the, what you're spending the majority of your time on, that's going to probably get you closest to your goal more than anything else that you could be doing right now.

[00:53:41] And be focused on relentlessly driving towards that exit. Awesome. I appreciate that. Thank you for being on the show today. Hang out for a second after we turn off the recording. Thank you. Awesome. That's it guys.