E140: Building A Diverse And Resilient Holding Company: Lessons From Trish Higgins

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: Welcome to the How2Exit Podcast. Today I'm here with Trish Higgins. She is a partner at Chenmark Holdings. And, we're gonna talk about holding companies, hiring people, finding the right people, the market in general. We're just gonna have a good time today. Well, first of all, hi.

[00:00:13] Trish Higgins: Hello. Great to be here. 

[00:00:15] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, thank you for being here. I almost jumped right into the first thing. It's like, tell me your background. How did you end up, in mergers and acquisitions? In a holding company? Just kind of how did you get your start in this space? 

[00:00:25] Trish Higgins: Sure. So, pretty unplanned.

[00:00:28] We started Chenmark in 2015. So Chenmark, we are a family run business. So it was started by myself, my husband and my brother-in-law. So we are sort of a weird family business. And all three of us had a background in more traditional finance. Sort of right outta college. Nothing that was explicitly related to m and a.

[00:00:52] Sometimes people hear finance and they think, that we knew everything. And like, my husband knew a lot about trading currency, but that's not particularly helpful in m and a. So we sort of had a finance-ish background, more in the public market sector. And we all sort of in different ways felt like we wanted to do something a little bit different.

[00:01:12] It was, sort of, in our mid to late twenties. We looked around and we're like, is this really what we're gonna do for the next 20 or 30 years? Like, it just didn't feel like the right path for us? And so this idea of, hey, maybe we could buy a small business. And there are these businesses out there that have, been around for a long time.

[00:01:35] They have really interesting cash flows. They're too small to kind of sell to your cousin, but too big to sell to a traditional private equity firm. This kind of idea we heard in a couple different places and it just really resonated with us. So we didn't have this big grand plan. I mean, it started with just googling, how to buy a business and looking at all the normal websites like BizBuySell and all that stuff.

[00:02:02] And we were still all working in our jobs, sort of traditional jobs at the time. And as we spent our weekends and evenings on this idea it became, more and more interesting. And, finally, we said, okay, this is actually what we wanna do. And from the very beginning we always said we wanna buy multiple of these businesses and use the cash flows to buy more.

[00:02:25] And so it started off as a very sort of incremental, organic idea. And when we bought our first business, it was the first time we'd ever done an acquisition, ever. So really learning by doing,a lot of learning by doing. And then when we had our first company, we never managed anybody.

[00:02:44] We'd never done anything. So it was all pretty brand new. So we just stumbled into it 'cause it sounded like a lot more fun to spend our time in this world of sort of small business m and a, for the next 20 or 30 years, than it did to sort of stay in a traditional finance job. 

[00:03:00] Ronald Skelton: That's really cool. And I liked that you're humble enough to go, yeah, we didn't know everything, but we just figured it out. 

[00:03:05] I have too many people, like I kid around one of the guys, like, I think I got this pretty nailed down. And I was like, look, dude, I've got a master's degree. What I always joke around is I got more college degrees than the average school should have.

[00:03:14] I've got a master's degree in marketing. I've, freaking taken two courses, like full blown, like, courses on this. I've interviewed 160 people and I still consider myself a newbie.It's one of those things, you don't know what you don't know until you start getting into it. 

[00:03:27] There's just always something to learn. There's so many different strategies, and things that comes up and different industries and industry nuances and stuff inside of this. That's why I joke, we were joking earlier, I was like the perfect business for a guy like me with ADD 'cause it's always changing. There's always something new. But I love the humbleness of, yeah, we were in finance, but this is something new and now we're working on figuring out. Now how long ago was that? 

[00:03:50] Trish Higgins: That was, we did our first acquisition in 2015.

[00:03:53] Ronald Skelton: 2015. So we're at eight years now. So you're eight years in, you've done multiple acquisitions now, right? What is the lessons learned? Like, what have you, I know you were talking about ahead of time, like kind of, you get a lot of questions about HoldCo or HoldingCo strategies and, business structures and stuff.

[00:04:09] How would imagine that your business structure now is not identical to what it was after the first purchase? 

[00:04:14] Trish Higgins: So you, when we started, we just had a single entity LLC. I mean, it was not a holding company, which is all the hotness now. It was just one company. And then we was around when we had three companies.

[00:04:31] And our idea had always been to be able to sort of share cash flows freely between the companies. And when you had multiple sort of LLCs, that becomes more difficult to do. And so, then it was, okay, we have this problem, how do we fix it? We're gonna formally sort of create a holding company structure.

[00:04:52] We converted to a C-corp and we did that, a couple of years later. So it wasn't this sort of, when we started, we still sort of have the, well analysis we did. It was, you buy one company that has cashflow and then you use that cashflow to buy another company. And then you have cashflow from two companies and you can use it to buy the third and so on and so forth.

[00:05:14] And we wanted to buy companies we felt like we could own for the long term that were steady and, enduring and somewhat boring. And that was the plan. And so that, the core of it is still very much exactly what we do. But the sort of technical structure and all that stuff, and sort of how it's being implemented and, a lot of the, the things that make us Chen Mark as opposed to just another generic, holding company. That was all learning by doing over the years.

[00:05:48] So I do get questions from people that are thinking about starting out and all they wanna talk about is the sort of technical legal structure they should start out with. And I'm like, that's a valid thing to think about but, there's probably more important things to think about, if you're interested in the structure.

[00:06:04] Ronald Skelton: It's funny how you can change things along the way, like, in other industries. 

[00:06:07] I was in real estate and, everything was like in the same LLC. And then I had one case where an attorney called me and said one of my tenants had fallen on the stairs and the guardrail was loose and it was icy out, blah, blah, blah. And they see that I own X number of properties and, they were trying to settle out.

[00:06:26] Luckily, I have a friend who's an attorney, he looked it up and found a car wreck that had, there was a police report that she's in a car wreck that exact same morning. 

[00:06:34] Trish Higgins: Oh, interesting. 

[00:06:34] Ronald Skelton: Right. With an uninsured motorist. So she had made up a story, is what I think. So I basically, showed her attorney this and said, look, I'm got an attorney too.

[00:06:43] I don't think it happened at the house. The guardrail was not loose. I went over and checked it. And, you didn't have a chance to loosen it up 'cause I videoed me shaking it. I swear if I didn't, they probably would've went over and loosened it up or loosened it up or something.

[00:06:54] But, I was like, it's not, and I'll see you in court. Right after that, everything went into trust. Like, nobody could see that I own more than single property. It just, how do you do something different, right? So when you were saying that, I don't know the HoldCo structure.

[00:07:08] So you went to C corp. I was thinking you're gonna say like series LLCs or something else. I didn't know there's a bunch of different things we do in the real estate space that might work on this. But you're saying the C Corp models away and that allows you to have wholly owned subsidiaries underneath there and then you can move cash flow from one to the other if you need to.

[00:07:27] Trish Higgins: Yep. Absolutely. So everything as subsidiary is an LLC, but there's sort of a holding company structure that's a C corp that owns everything. And then that allows us to freely move cash, kick it back up to the holding company level so that the holding company is the entity that's buying the next acquisition as opposed to the original LLC.

[00:07:49] So we have some companies that just generate cash. They push it up to the holding company. And then that's what buys things. So far it's worked fine for us.

[00:07:56] Ronald Skelton: And it's always okay to tell me that's none of my business. So I'm gonna ask some questions here, right? Like, ah, we're not going that far. How many companies do you have now? 

[00:08:03] Trish Higgins: Yep. We've got 10 companies now. 

[00:08:04] Ronald Skelton: 10 companies. And general ballpark, they're what size are they? Between a million or two? I don't wanna get too detailed. Like it's, some of this is none of my business, but I'm curious because it leads to where, like what you've built so far.

[00:08:17] Trish Higgins: Yeah, so I mean, in terms of revenue, we have a lot of different types of companies. So everywhere from some companies have more closer to three to 4 million of revenue, and some are north of 15 million. 

[00:08:28] Ronald Skelton: Oh, cool. That's a good, that's a good range. And then, what industries are you in, like currently?

[00:08:33] Are they diverse or are they- 

[00:08:35] Trish Higgins: Yes. So when I explain them, it seems like they're random, but just keep in mind that unifying sort of thread is that we want long-term enduring demand. And sort of steady businesses that good operations give you a competitive advantage. So our first acquisition was in commercial landscaping and snow removal. So we have a number of those businesses. We have a lawn care and tick and mosquito control business.

[00:09:01] We have, some tourism businesses. Some in Maine, some down in Florida. We have an agricultural business, a food manufacturing business, paint distribution, and power equipment.

[00:09:12] Ronald Skelton: You say?

[00:09:13] Trish Higgins: Power equipment. Like lawnmowers and stuff like that. 

[00:09:16] Ronald Skelton: Is that like renting, leasing or selling or what they?

[00:09:18] Trish Higgins: Mostly selling, but some rentals as well. 

[00:09:20] Ronald Skelton: Okay. And then the other one you said, what was the distribution company? 

[00:09:23] Trish Higgins: Oh, paint distribution. Paint stores. Yep. 

[00:09:25] Ronald Skelton: That's interesting. I grew up, my father was a painter. I grew up a painter's son. And he worked during the day and I grew up working during the summers and probably, I guess the first two years outta college before I ran off to the military and a paint factory making paint.

[00:09:38] They're only in Oklahoma. I think they have an office. They used to have one in Little Rock and one in Denver called Anchor Paint. But local paint, and they made both latex and oil base. So I've been in a factory and poured pigment and latex in there, and a giant multi-thousand gallon giant mixer.

[00:09:54] Trish Higgins: It's just one of those things that you don't think about, but then once it's sort of on your radar, you're like, oh, there's, a lot of people use paint. 

[00:10:02] Ronald Skelton: I'm trying to think if you have any cross-sell or upsells across those. I guess the lawn care, the tick control and the pest control companies, they have some cross-sell upsell.

[00:10:10] When I got the pest control company, before I moved away, I was thinking at, okay, what would be the best plugin companies that own around that? And I think I was thinking cleaning services, right?

[00:10:19] Nobody finds more bugs than the cleaning lady. And then handyman services, because one of the biggest ways to keep bugs in and out of a property is exclusion. You know the change thresholds and stuff. So your criteria pretty much is, it runs really well. It is got some longevity and, the numbers are there, the finances are right.

[00:10:38] And I guess that there's a safety in being really diverse. And that, if you have a downturn in, tourism for a while 'cause of covid, you've got other companies that can feed that if it's if that's what you wanna do, right? 

[00:10:50] Trish Higgins: Yeah. So that kind of comes back to our backgrounds a little bit because we were more in the public markets and portfolio construction in that world is kind of what it's all about.

[00:11:03] And that was our background. And so we came into it with the mindset of, okay, businesses create, generate cash flows. The more uncorrelated those cash flows are, so the more diverse your portfolio. The more valuable that stream of cash flows is to your portfolio. 'Cause it's more durable.

[00:11:22] So it's sort of the, in the finance sort of market world, it's your sharp ratio, is sort of how much return are you getting, like per unit of risk essentially. And so we definitely use that sort of framework, when thinking about getting into the small business world where we said, okay, each individual small business has a lot of idiosyncratic risk.

[00:11:43] Like anything can happen. It's a crazy world. But a portfolio of small businesses can actually be incredibly durable. And so that was the theory. And sort of what's been a guiding principle for us going as we've grown. And it was interesting to see it play out, especially in covid was probably the biggest sort of test.

[00:12:03] Where we certainly did have tourism businesses that were impacted, but food manufacturing did very well because we supplied grocery stores. And, everybody was going to them 'cause no one's going to restaurants. And then home services, landscaping and all that stuff did very well on the residential side 'cause everyone was at home and looking at their backyard and saying, this needs to look a lot nicer.

[00:12:25] And so then overall, we did okay. And that is one thing we're very focused on. Building is something that is sort of resilient in any sort of economic environment. So we don't necessarily need to be the top performer in any one given year. But our theory is that, then if you look at our performance, hopefully over a 10 or 20 year timeframe, our consistency will be sort of a hallmark of our, of our performance.

[00:12:55] Ronald Skelton: I love that, that you took that from your finance, and portfolio building and applied it to this. Because a lot of people are like, I need to build things that have correlation and they're thinking more strategic. I can upsell, cross sell. I can do that. But you're looking at it from a financial point of view, that's why I lot, I kind of smiled real big when you said it.

[00:13:12] 'Cause it makes perfect sense knowing your background and your long-term vision. Almost probably a better way, most people should probably look at it as opposed to, I want 15 lawn care places and 10 pest control and a couple of home cleaning services that way 'cause they all work together and we can share clients and sell it.

[00:13:31] Like yeah. We get one disruptor that moves into the space. It'd be like owning all the mom and pop, five and dime stores when Walmart moves into town.

[00:13:37] Trish Higgins: Yeah. It's sort of one of those things where I think we have, tried to be very conservative with everything we've done. 

[00:13:47] So we're always thinking about margin of safety. If something goes wrong, what's gonna happen? The big goal for us is to make it through whatever comes our way. And so, that has definitely led us away from saying, Hey, we're just gonna focus on one industry or one geography or pay higher multiples.

[00:14:06] 'Cause we really like that type of company. Really focused on just being conservative and consistent. Which from, when I talk to small business owners that are looking to sell, there are some that want their, the top price, for sure. And we generally are never that. But, there are others who, if they care about sort of the long-term, sort of viability about their company, kinda like what happens to the company after they sell, then we tend to be a good fit for them. Because we can point to saying, Hey, you know what, the reason I'm not paying the highest price for your company is because if I do, then that generally implies I'm using a lot more debt to buy the business. Which means maybe a better financial return for me if things work out.

[00:14:56] But if they don't, then it's just gonna go into bankruptcy and people are gonna get laid off and, I'm just making a lot of these types of bets and some of them work out and some of them won't. And there's a reason why we don't pay high multiples, and it's so that we can be good long-term sort of stewards of businesses. Which is, we have a different orientation, I think, than some other buyers. And so, sometimes that resonates with sellers. Sometimes it doesn't. 

[00:15:22] Ronald Skelton: Are they all geographically as diverse or are they all in one general area? 

[00:15:26] Trish Higgins: Yes, they are all over the place. So we do have some concentration in New England because that's where we started. But we have two companies in Western Canada. And we have company down Tennessee and down in Florida. And so, we really look all over the place.

[00:15:42] Ronald Skelton: Okay. So let's talk about, you've got 'em, they're all over the place. Are you guys are currently, searching still or are you still looking for other acquisitions? 

[00:15:50] Trish Higgins: Yeah, so we're still looking for other acquisitions because we're still sort of very focused on using the cash flows that the company's produced to buy more businesses. 

[00:15:59] We're not really using the earnings from the business to fund a fancy lifestyle or anything like that. And so we're still very much in, our goal is how do we increase the equity value of Chenmark. And supporting the companies we own is the first priority and then the second priority is buying more companies. 

[00:16:21] So definitely still looking for acquisitions. Pretty active. I think we're lucky in that, I think it's easier to buy businesses once you own businesses. Because I think that we can generally talk sort of the operator talk with small business owners that are looking to sell. And not necessarily sort of paint it as like a financial buyer in that way.

[00:16:43] So we meet a lot, we end up getting a fair amount of inbound, particularly from industries that we already have ownership in 'cause people talk. And we do outbound as well. But I wouldn't say we're quite as aggressive with our sort of outbound effort as maybe some others.

[00:16:59] I don't know that's a good or a bad thing. It's just sort of the, we've been very hesitant to kind of build a permanent kind of outreach team or anything like that. And so, I'd say our efforts reflect our investments. 

[00:17:12] Ronald Skelton: I've always thought, like, I'm doing some acquisitions now, but like when I hit a certain point, there's some things that are key to a HoldingCo.

[00:17:18] I wouldn't mind owning like a marketing agency, a accounting, bookkeeping company. To service all the businesses you run. And usually, they can pick 'em right. They can be really good businesses anyway. Did you guys do that? Is that part of your portfolio? You've got an accounting member or finance backgrounds, but, is that on the radar? Did you guys already do that? 

[00:17:37] Trish Higgins: We have certainly looked at some from that angle. Um, but nothing's kind of worked out. We do have a team sort of in our headquarters that focuses on, we call it the shared services team. So we do have some sort of centralized marketing, technology, hr, and sort of financial resources for the companies to use.

[00:17:59] But we have never, yeah, we've certainly looked at some, but it just hasn't worked out.

[00:18:03] Ronald Skelton: Okay. Yeah. So you built it as opposed to buying it. I was just curious 'cause I was like, that's one of the, in my vision in my head is like, okay, the thing I'm building when it gets to certain size, probably looking at a marketing agency and I've got a marketing background, but, marketing agency and probably outsource a lot of the CFO type of stuff until I hit to a point, and then I can either buy one or bring one in house.

[00:18:24] So I was curious on your thing. Now, you're using company capital to do these acquisitions and it's probably some debt. Did you guys raise outside capital at the beginning? 

[00:18:34] Trish Higgins: Yeah. Well, when we started off, we used our own and some friends and family capital to get started. And then since then we've been sort of internally funded. I will say that in 2015, I would not say that investor appetite was high for giving money to a, husband, wife, brother, brother-in-law, combo with no experience creating a HoldCo. Appetite was pretty low. So we were sort of force to play with, or to work with what we had.

[00:19:03] Ronald Skelton: And it probably helped you 'cause you don't have the outside. The reason I was asking that is, I was gonna ask you if you have the outside pressure to liquidate things. In this space I'm in, which is online media holding company, I interviewed one of the top guys and then within a few days he actually sent me an email trying to sell me in one of his holdings.

[00:19:19] He sent it to everybody, but I was on the list. And I was like, why would you sell this? He'd already turned it around and said, it wouldn't be an acquisition for me because it's at its peak. He's really good at doing what he is doing. I didn't have any room for improvement. But, I started thinking about it and then I realized he raised money to do it.

[00:19:32] So now he's got investors who want to be, he made a commitment three, five year or whatever it was. And now he's gotta sell a really good holding and something that's really profitable he actually love running. Or buy out his investors. And if he buys out his investors, he has to at least market to all of us to see what the price would be to buy it out. So you don't have that outside pressure 'cause of the way you raised capital. 

[00:19:52] Trish Higgins: Yeah. It's sort of that I think Charlie Munger saying is sort of, you show me in the incentives, I'll show you the outcome. And I feel like we're playing a totally different game if you wanna consider it a game than, other people in the m and a space.

[00:20:06] Because we don't have a need to return capital to shareholders. Which if you take money from people, you do need to, like it's their money. You're just being a steward of it. It changes your behavior and the decisions that need to be made. 'Cause the decision to sell has happened before you even bought the company.

[00:20:29] Whereas for us, I don't know that we would never sell something. I can't really say that. You don't know what's going happen. 

[00:20:34] Ronald Skelton: Everything's for sell at the right price. 

[00:20:37] Trish Higgins: Like, it is not our intention. And when we are underwriting, we're not modeling an exit. We're just modeling cashflow yields over a long period of time.

[00:20:49] And like, that's what we're focused on. So we don't spend any time thinking about selling. That's just not what we do. But you know, obviously, if somebody came along and was gonna pay some sort of stupid price for something, like, we'd certainly talk about it. Like the answer might still be no. But it's our jobs to be capital allocators you have to talk about it.

[00:21:09] Ronald Skelton: Just declare it here and let's see if there's any billionaires out there to try to prove you wrong. She said she'll never sell. 

[00:21:14] Trish Higgins: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

[00:21:15] Ronald Skelton: Prove her wrong. If you're listening law write a billion dollar check.

[00:21:18] I bet she does. I bet she sells. to turn around and build something bigger and better. Sorry, I'm laughing about that. I do wanna get into, we talked a little bit about the show. As a Holdco, one of the best things that you have to perfect is having the right butts in the right seats, right?

[00:21:31] Knowing, what a good operator looks like. Especially when the owners wanna retire out and leave. What does it take to run that type of company? What are their, what are the industry knowledge base that the person has to have? And then what makes a good operator? And I've, we've done it wrong.

[00:21:47] Some friends and I have, got into some businesses and picked the wrong guy to run it. And it hurt. We've done this for a while there. It was every person I put on the show is like, how do you hire a great operator? And I'm curious on, if your answer's any different than theirs. So, the question is, how do you hire a great operator? 

[00:22:02] Trish Higgins: How do you, so I tell you, have not to hire a great operator first. Because we have done this and it, is hard. Is that if you have a deal that's about to close and you don't have anybody to run it, and so then you just go out looking for somebody, who seems to fit the bill and you have time pressure and you can overlook a lot of red flags about, Hey, maybe this person's not the right fit for this job. 

[00:22:29] But if I don't hire them, I don't have anyone to run the company and I need, I wanna close the deal and it'll be fine and you can explain a lot of things away. And so, I think that, what we have found, because we certainly have made mistakes in this realm. I think it's hard to do.

[00:22:47] And we're certainly, by no means perfect and we'll continue to make lots of mistakes. But, the number one thing is, I think giving ourselves time to get to know a person. So that we can make sure that they align with us from, first and foremost, like a values perspective. Like, do we wanna operate and conduct ourselves in the same way?

[00:23:11] Like, do we trust each other? And then also then, okay great, we have this sort of, you're one of us. Like we're both trying to achieve the same thing. Then also be able to evaluate the analytic capabilities. Like then, this is a person that I trust in terms of treating people properly and that sort of stuff.

[00:23:33] But then do I also trust their analytical capabilities, right? Because you can have really great people, but like they can't do the job. So then it's values first and then it's does person have this analytical capability? And from our perspective, the best way to evaluate that, is to give ourselves time to know, to get to know people in lots of different sort of settings before they eventually kind of are in a full leadership role.

[00:23:59] But just kind of looking at someone's resume and then putting them in a spot, I think can lead to some pretty poor outcomes. It by no fault of those people, right? It's just not the right fit. 

[00:24:11] Ronald Skelton: I like to joke around. There's no such thing as a bad employee. Some people would just be better off and played somewhere else.

[00:24:16] And I used to joke around the,I've had the managerial responsibility at certain companies for over a hundred, almost 200 employees, and you bring in people and they just don't work. And I'd have to look, go to HR and say, Hey, I am letting so-and-so go. Well, they've only been here for two weeks.

[00:24:29] What happened? I was like, they interviewed well. That was my answer. I just walk out. It's like, they interviewed well. And then I'd leave 'cause, I explained it to her twice already. She knows what I meant by, they interviewed well. They interviewed well, but when they got there, they just couldn't perform. Right. 

[00:24:40] Trish Higgins: And it is such a weird thing because, and we have started spending more and more time on our interview process to help this, but it is odd. Or a code I have not yet cracked, is that people can interview well, but then you really know how they're gonna do after they've worked for you for a week.

[00:25:00] Yeah. A week or two, and you're like, Hey, is this person gonna work out or not? Like, you can kind of just tell in a way that you can't tell when someone's interviewing. And I don't know how to recreate that in the interview process. 

[00:25:12] Ronald Skelton: Way I did it in the tech world was I'd bring 'em into the first outage we had, like when things broke.

[00:25:17] And especially if it was anything that, especially when it was something in their realm. I was like, I'd just tag one of the new guys and say, Hey, come help me with this. We have an outage over here, I need extra hands. And just see how they perform under pressure. And,when you're running a company as big as we were running, those things happen often.

[00:25:31] Like little products would go down or whatever, and you were able to handle, see how somebody handles under pressure. I bet in a startup, you just acquired this, you put 'em in the seat. Now the problem is, it's disruptive to the people there. 

[00:25:42] You put an operator, somebody who's the general manager, CEO, whatever title you wanna give him temporarily until you know he's the right person. And then two weeks later you gotta let him go. That is just chaos to the people there. 

[00:25:52] Trish Higgins: Yeah. It's hard, and then it makes you seem like you don't know where you're doing, even though it, that's the right or long-term decision. Yeah, it's difficult.

[00:25:58] Ronald Skelton: I was, you said the same answer as everybody else did, by the way. So you win the prize, there's no magic, there is no magic answer to this question. It's a tough thing to hire for, the other question I has as a HoldCo, do you have anybody, you or your husband or your brother-in-law or anybody on staff that just could operate anything? And that's the guy that goes, has to go run it until you get the great person.

[00:26:19] Trish Higgins: Yeah. I mean, definitely when it started, there was one situation where my brother-in-law had to, I think he's a fantastic operator. I like really a great operator. And so he stepped in twice to different companies when we had sort of nobody to run it or we're looking to that.

[00:26:35] And I've run a company for a couple times myself when we, we didn't have anybody to run it. And part of our sort of evolution in our thinking about this is, okay that, he did that first and then I did it. And then it's like, okay, well we can't keep buying companies because there's nobody to run them.

[00:26:56] Like we can't run multiple companies at once, for the long term. And so it kind of goes back to that, same thing with the converting to the C Corp thing. It's like, okay, well now we've come across a problem. How do we solve it? And we sort of, I'll give my husband credit on this 'cause it's kind of his sort of project, in sort of solving this was, let's start, a sort of a leadership, like a training program. Where people come in and they work at first with us maybe evaluating deals and then they work in the operating businesses and some sort of, senior leadership role, but not the CEO role.

[00:27:37] And then that's the pool that we'll pick from to be the CEOs. So that's what we have now. And we have people, and it's so far it's worked really well to, both give people the sort of experience they need, getting up to speed. But then also for us to sort of be able to say, Hey, we've got this deal, but if no one in our leadership teamis the right fit, then we're just not gonna do it. 

[00:28:02] So that program is, I think, three years old now. And it's grown over time and it's been really good for us, and it's allowed us to grow. And I think without that, we wouldn't be the size that we are now when we certainly wouldn't be able to kind of look for. 

[00:28:16] Ronald Skelton: I love it. You leaned on your agricultural business, right. Instead of hiring operators, you've grown 'em. 

[00:28:21] Trish Higgins: Exactly. Exactly. 

[00:28:21] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. We'll just grow 'em right here. And there's some rapport that goes along, and they've worked with you, they've worked beside you. You kind of see eye to eye. You can't get that from somebody on off the street, right?

[00:28:33] Trish Higgins: We've traveled together, we've gone to retreats and holiday parties and dealt with good things and bad things. By the time someone becomes a CEO, we know them as people. We typically know their families. Often we have people who join us and they're single, and by the time they come CEO, they're married and they have a kid.

[00:28:51] You get to know them. And I think that's really important. And we now say, it's slower 'cause you do have, and it's a big investment I think, at least for me. I really dislike overhead. I kind of manage our overhead budget and I don't like overhead. And I think, shifting our mindset around, okay, this program, is almost equivalent to if you're in a company and you're buying a new machine or something that's gonna help you grow and work more efficiently.

[00:29:22] The leadership training program, it's in the same bucket. It's an investment that we're making in people that may be in the first six to 12 months doesn't pay off. But if we can bring someone in and train them up to be a good CEO, then, if I take a slightly longer sort of perspective on it, then that investment will pay off, time and time again.

[00:29:46] So I think shifting, at least for me, my mindset around this training is an investment. Not necessarily just a cost on the P and L. For me was like, at least emotionally, like a pretty big hurdle to get over. But, it's been a great investment for us to make. 

[00:30:01] Ronald Skelton: And it enables you to make acquisitions you may have had, may or may not have made otherwise.

[00:30:05] Right? Or you would've tried to convince the owner to hang around for a little while longer and that type of stuff. I like what you're doing there. What about, like knowing the right, the right butts in the right seats of people there? So the CEO is one thing, but a lot of times there's other shifts and other things that happen when a company's acquired.

[00:30:22] There's employees that are just staying there because the loyalty to the owner, they leave. There's some turnover with every acquisition. Do you guys have people you lean on to get those positions filled fast or do you, you just got really good at recruiting people or? 

[00:30:35] Trish Higgins: Yeah, I'd say it's a mix. And so typically if we're looking at an acquisition, we'll have the CEO come in, and then one person who's in sort of stage two that's usually filling a hole. But then our kind of goal is to always have enough people in the pipeline. So that if there is an unexpected departure that we can then go back, go to the pipeline and ask people to move into things.

[00:31:01] And so it's a fair amount, it's actually a pretty dynamic thing. Because, somebody hands in their resignation or you have a performance issue and you're like, okay, well who can go be the whatever of this company? But I think so far, what we've really realized is, before we had this program, if you have no talent bench, you have no bench depth. 

[00:31:23] Then either you make a lot of compromises you wouldn't otherwise make for the, for people who aren't the right members for the team, because you have no one to replace them. So you can, people can get away with bad behavior or, unreasonable compensation demands or all those things. Or just lack of performance because you're scared that you don't have a replacement.

[00:31:46] And so we found that having this pipeline gives us the ability to say, okay, hey, this person is not the right person. And we think at least, we know this person better than a person we'd hire off the street. And so, we can try to fill the hole there. I think it's pretty clear when it's not the right, like when it's a bad fit. I think that's very clear. 

[00:32:07] And I've heard this a couple different places. When it's a great fit, that's also pretty clear. I think the hardest cases is there's, when it's sort of, like a B minus. It's kind of a fit, but it's not great. And then it's kind of how do you deal with that is, still something we struggle with.

[00:32:22] But I think we've gotten a lot better at, when it's not the right fit. 'Cause I believe, you can just feel it when it's not the right fit. Then you act to your point, you act quickly. And then you figure it out from there. I think a lot of people are scared about making those moves.

[00:32:37] I think we've realized, that typically your gut is right and if you make the move and you can usually figure out a solution that ends up being better. 

[00:32:45] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. I've noticed that almost every company has one or two guys who are just there because the owner's afraid to fire 'em, because they know this or that. Or it's weird loyalties.

[00:32:54] Right. Their father worked here. Yeah, he's kind of a slack off. His dad retired from here and I owe it to him. In the back of my head, I'm like, I don't. Right? So we talked about what you guys look for acquiring the companies. How do you find, the best talent.

[00:33:09] What's some lesson learned? Like what do you know now that you wish you'd known day one, on this process? 

[00:33:15] Trish Higgins: For the talent specifically? 

[00:33:17] Ronald Skelton: No, just for anything in acquiring these businesses are diverse across. You've done so much at this point. You got a lot of knowledge. You've learned some lessons, and there's gotta be a few of 'em that, I wish I'd have known this on day one, right?

[00:33:28] Trish Higgins: Sure. I mean, it's sort of like one of those, if I'd known everything then (might not have done it). Yeah. Well, might not have done it, but also like, even though like the mistakes we've made have been painful, they've all resulted in learnings and creating something better. So the employee training program that we have now has been really great for us. 

[00:33:52] But we couldn't have created that before we started. We had to have some really terrible experiences, and make some bad decisions and, struggle with it to be able to create it. So I'm a firm believer that, you kind of have to go through the struggle a little bit to, to be able to create something unique.

[00:34:12] Otherwise, you could just get HoldCo off a shelf and it would all be the same. And yeah, that's not special.

[00:34:17] Ronald Skelton: You gotta have a few of those. I'll never let that happen again. 

[00:34:20] Trish Higgins: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But in terms of lessons learned, I think one, on the m and a space going in and something, in this world, and I don't have experience in big deals, I can't speak to that.

[00:34:33] But I get the impression that there's sort of a, a code of conduct. All your lawyers are generally experienced in deals of this size. So there's, there's certain things that are agreed to be acceptable and not acceptable in sort of bigger m and a. Whereas in the small business world, you can really get anything.

[00:34:54] And you can get a seller who hires a trust and estate lawyer because it was his best friend in elementary school and he trusts him. And that person can know absolutely nothing about m and a even though they're a lawyer. So I think especially coming from you sort of big, big finance stuff, where there's sort of a level of, I don't wanna say professionalism, but a level of kind of like what's right, what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.

[00:35:21] And I went to business school and, I took a negotiations course. And I think that one thing I've really learned is, things are a lot different in the real world. And I like that. I think it makes life interesting and,even when these crazy things happen, like I think that's, it's just part of the experience, makes my life more interesting.

[00:35:43] But sort of understanding that, when you're negotiating a deal with somebody, they can have very emotional responses to things that may have nothing to do with the specifics in your deal, but just about the emotions of selling their business. Their advisors may be out of their depth and because they're outta their depth act in irrational ways or erratic ways.

[00:36:08] And so I think that going into it, sort of knowing, especially with our first deal, kind of having a better sense of the psychology of the sellers, I think would've been helpful. And I think it's still really important to getting deals done in this space. 

[00:36:25] Ronald Skelton: I won't say how many times, but I can tell you, I can tell you for sure I've had to call the seller's attorney before and say, look, you're not helping this guy at all. You're actually hurting them.

[00:36:34] I'm not gonna acquire this. Namely for other reasons, but, you're not qualified to do what you're doing right here and you're hurting him, right. And it was, one of 'em was a divorce attorney. This guy hired as a divorce attorney. He really liked him, did a pretty good job on his divorce, protected his assets and stuff.

[00:36:50] Now hired him to help him sell his, four and a half million dollar, four and a half million dollar EBITDA business. And the guy didn't even know, you could tell he Google in terms. He just didn't know any of the terms were. 

[00:37:00] And what should be on these. And he was like, throw in fits about things on the LOI that are just on every (?) Plate LOI there is, right? Why is this non-binding? If you're gonna, you're dragging my client through this it has to be, you have to commit to this. Like, you're the wrong guy for this.

[00:37:13] You're hurting him and you know it, stop it. So I'm gonna tell you things that my attorney or nobody else is willing to say to you, 'cause I'm not afraid of you. I don't know you. And I just call 'em up and say it. It's not uncommon for small business owners to lean into somebody they know, family member or a friend of a family member, or the guy who's formed their LLC.

[00:37:32] I don't care if the guy's a business attorney, who formed your LLC. If he doesn't have mergers and acquisitions experience, probably the wrong guy. 

[00:37:37] Trish Higgins: Right. Right. And also I think part of it in the deal process, starting probably a little naive in that. If somebody says something, I take it like at face value.

[00:37:48] And then, I think now I think I've realized, especially in the deal process, it can be very emotional for people and sometimes they don't even know what they want. So a simple question of, do you wanna be involved in the business after the acquisition? It's not that they're, the person's lying to you, it's just that they don't know.

[00:38:06] Right? And, they won't necessarily know that until after the transactions happened and, maybe they do, maybe they don't. Just, all these things where it's like, oh, well the person's said this, so therefore that's true. I think that I now have a better, much better appreciation for, multiple layers.

[00:38:25] The emotional component of deals, all that sort of stuff that, I certainly didn't have going in and I think would've been very helpful to know from the job. 

[00:38:36] Ronald Skelton: That's a good one. So on the emotional side, the seller's reluctance and, like I, I've seen quite a few and heard a lot of people on the show tell me quite a few deals fail to close at the final line because the seller comes up with something weird.

[00:38:49] And when you really boil it down to, I've called a couple of the sellers up 'cause they, they said who they were and I called 'em up. They wouldn't go on camera, but I was like, why did you not really sell? And nobody gives you the first answer the first time. But I'm trained in NLP and a bunch of other stuff. Cognitive behavioral therapy and stuff.

[00:39:03] I dig in a little more than most people. So when they give you, they give you the answer like, one of the guys, he wanted to take the sign I had and that sign's been in my family over the bar. And that sign's been in my family given to me by my great-grandpa and stuff like that.

[00:39:15] And I was like, really? The sign? And you just go silent. Like, you just reinforce the question. And if you do it two or three times, like, yeah that sign was given to me by my grandpa, blah, blah. Like, cool by your grandpa? And just let 'em tell the story. Eventually is like, I don't know.

[00:39:28] I guess the real story is I didn't know what I wanna do next. I was like, and they'll go plastic 'cause they get it that you just, you're not buying it. You're not saying anything rude or anything, I approach it differently. So I do the same thing when I'm on the cell phone with sellers.

[00:39:38] It's like, if we get this done or when we get this done, what are you gonna do next? Going on vacation with my grandkids 15 years straight. Don't they have something they need to do? And they're like, no. Just like, okay, what are you gonna do after that? And we've gotta build a vision.

[00:39:50] We gotta understand what they're gonna do 'cause otherwise they're not gonna go to that end. If they don't know, there's a pretty good chance that you know you're gonna have issues towards the end. 

[00:39:58] Trish Higgins: Yeah. I think if I were gonna chart out like the emotional volatility of the owners, it's sort of like straight, straight, straight.

[00:40:06] And as you get closer and closer to the close date, it like spikes. And then all these, you can think, oh, we're a week away from close and everything's done and all we need to do is just transfer some funds and it'll all be good. And then like that's a trap, as far as I can tell.

[00:40:21] Like something is gonna happen in the next five days and the seller's gonna come up with some, sometimes I think, when these crazy last minute requests comes up, it's because they're scared or they don't actually wanna sell or whatever, and they're trying to sabotage the deal.

[00:40:35] Ronald Skelton: It is. They don't know what to do next. And that's, they're thinking, oh my God, I've gotta stop this. I don't know what I'm gonna do next. Or they realize that the money isn't what they thought it was. Right? $2 million sounds great until you realize you are making a hundred K a year. You're, 65 years old.

[00:40:49] When you're 75, even if you just paid yourself and, maybe made a million dollars after tax after the sale, they figured out the tax and everything else. 10 years from now, that's gone. Your cash flow's gone. Yeah, you're not working anymore. But, are you gonna adjust your lifestyle? 

[00:41:02] If they do the math, that's one of the questions I ask, have you talked to a financial advisor? Or, will this, transaction actually fund the future you're drawing for yourself? Have you talked to, I'm not that guy. Have you talked to somebody to make sure that works? 

[00:41:14] Trish Higgins: Yeah. And then I think they, it is surprising to me sometimes we've had some situations where, it is that very last minute, and that's when they talk to their tax advisor. 

[00:41:24] And their tax advisor will say like, well, either this structure that you agreed to doesn't work for you or all these other things. And, it can really, it can be a bit of a wild ride. So I think for, I think that part of it though going into it, and this kinda the lessons learned is, to have a bit more, you can expect these things.

[00:41:43] You can have some more patience so that when you know they're gonna happen, and so then when they do happen, you don't react in this, can you believe this person is doing this? And it's like some sort of like, you don't take it personally. It's more of a like, I understand you're going through something right now and let's see if we can work, work through it. 

[00:42:00] Ronald Skelton: You get to that point where you're like, oh, it's this again. And you can just like, okay, I was kind of expecting something. So, yeah. What is the solution to, I mean, I'm no licensed therapist or anything, right. 

[00:42:10] You can't be the coach and you can't be the therapist. Number one because you're the acquirer and that's, they're not gonna have that, rapport is one thing on a business transaction, but to get inside of their head, how do you walk 'em through that? How do you get, just give 'em time. So when you see these difficulties arising, do you advise like, maybe you should talk to a financial advisor or maybe you should talk to a therapist or?

[00:42:31] Trish Higgins: Yeah, I think one is the suggestions, but you know what, it's sort of one of these things where another learning is that, we can both be talking about the same thing and have the same conversation and walk away with two completely different takeaways.

[00:42:45] 'Cause I really think that, especially once emotions are high, people hear what they wanna hear. And so going back to someone and saying like, well, we had this conversation like, and you said this is not really like a useful thing to do. So I think that one thing we found is that, as you get closer to the close date, is talking about it in the past tense.

[00:43:08] And talking about the, not like if the deal closes but, when the deal's closed or like, okay, well the deal's done and now we're just doing like the administrative stuff. So trying to talk about it and the conversations. Have them sort of psychologically commit to this. 

[00:43:25] We have already agreed to everything. This is purely administrative. To take away this sort of like, I think signing documents and like, there's a lot of like culture around like the deal signing and it becomes very significant. Trying to like lessen that. So we've even done things like, we're gonna have the closing dinner before we even like technically close. Like just psychologically move yet.

[00:43:47] I think can be helpful, but then sometimes, it's not like that's a magic thing. Sometimes,you do just have to say, listen, like this isn't gonna work for us. And I think that the biggest, I think, point of leverage for us at this stage that we didn't have when we started was, any given deal if it doesn't work out, like that's fine for me. Right? 

[00:44:09] Like, if we don't do it, like, okay.I may be out legal fees, which is annoying, but we move on. Whereas when we started, you don't have a deal and you're like right at the beginning. I think that you can push things and maybe accept more than you should.

[00:44:25] And most of the time what we found is saying like, Hey, like if you're making these claims, we don't find them to be reasonable. They're not gonna work for us. We're happy to do the deal we already agreed to do. And when you wanna do that, let us know and then you just walk away. And I think that a lot of owners are sometimes like surprised by like, oh, what do you mean? You're walking away and you're like, yeah. So I think sometimes. 

[00:44:48] Ronald Skelton: I've done that in the real estate world a lot. Like the offers, the offer, it's on the table if you ever decide to come back to it. Unless the market changes drastically. If you decide six months from now my offer is great, pretty good chance I'll still buy your house.

[00:44:59] I think you could do the same thing in business. I like, look, we structured a deal this is what makes sense to us. Unless something fundamentally changes in the business, just know that when you're ready that this deal's there.

[00:45:09] Trish Higgins: And that's what we do. And sometimes, often it'll be, listen, if you think you can get a higher price or these terms or whatever from somebody else, then like, you should do that. Right? Like, that's gonna be a better fit for you. You're gonna be happier. So like, go and explore that. And if it doesn't work, then like, we're not going anywhere.

[00:45:27] Like that's fine. And I think a learning is too, is not taking that personally. Knowing that person is going through their own situation with selling their business. They may have a lot of their own sort of self-worth and confidence tied up in the business, whatever else is going on and not burning that bridge.

[00:45:44] 'Cause we do have people who come back to us because I think we're better at handling that situation now. Whereas when we first started, I think we probably burned some bridges 'cause we'd just be like, you can't treat people like this, kind of thing. 

[00:45:56] Ronald Skelton: I like looking at people's background too. There was a guy, unfortunately, I couldn't go very far with him 'cause he got himself in some trouble and he had a bad rep in the industry. But I realized by looking at his background, his LinkedIn and all his, looking at the websites and stuff that were out there, he had been building and selling companies just like his third one.

[00:46:12] And then to find out why he is also his third marriage. So he basically builds a company with a spouse and then gets divorced and has to sell it. But that wasn't the reason I didn't look further into the one he was in but, the guy's like, man, you're one of the nicest people I've talked to about acquiring business.

[00:46:26] It's like, look, I wanna keep you as a friend. Whether I buy your business or not, I wanna keep you as a friend. Why? Because you built this one and you sold, you're just selling it to me. I can see you've already sold two or more five years from now when you're done with the next one you built, I want you to call me up.

[00:46:37] Trish Higgins: Fair enough. Yeah. 

[00:46:37] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, 'cause you might, I might be interested still. So there are people who are really good at taking something from an idea, taking it to revenue, find a product market fit, and then they kind of just, that's where they focus. And you want those people.

[00:46:52] Keeping great rapport with them is awesome. But I could see where you're like, there's certain times where you're just like, look, the deal is the deal. We gotta either take it or walk. How many of your operators stay? I mean, the business owner just stays around it, either part-time or full-time after. Is that common or?

[00:47:07] Trish Higgins: Very few. Very few. Most are looking to leave and retire and we've just found that tends to work out better. Often people will stay on for some sort of transition phase or consulting or, some sort of limited role. But even, usually with somebody has a limited role, they kind of fade away.

[00:47:24] But we're also working typically with owners that are in their sixties or seventies and if that's their stage of life. 

[00:47:32] Ronald Skelton: So I've always had concerns about, like I've had, we had one where the guy was younger. And he is like, look, I want to hang around, maybe 15, 20 hours a week max. I'm doing professional golf on the side and I want to take more time into that.

[00:47:45] And I was like, problem I see with that is, is it's not theirs anymore. Right. And they're still gonna wanna walk around and control it and tell people to do things like it is. And there were some clear things he was doing, like paying people out of the cash register. It was a, fairly profitable, but detailing window, he did a bunch of stuff. 

[00:48:03] We looked at a couple of these. We were actually looking at, window tinting,the cash flow on 'em pretty good sometimes. If you ever look into those places that do window tinting for auto dealerships and stuff. And then they do the,or window tinting, car detailing and, like stereo upgrades and installs.

[00:48:19] But their primary customer base are the local dealerships. They usually make really good cash. Like this guy was doing in, three to $5 million at one point. I've seen 'em doing six or 7 million. With a team of 20 people, 25. So pretty good revenue for the number of people.

[00:48:35] But, if that place was going from sun up to 10 o'clock at night. I mean, it was a factory. They were cranking stuff out. But they were paying people, the one guy said, well, I have 13 employees. And, I was like, I've been here three times, I've seen 17 once, 18 another. Oh, we have some guys in here.

[00:48:51] The contract labor. They just come in when we're really busy. I said, cool. Why are they not on your books or on your payroll? Or you just pay 'em at the, out of the cash register at the end of every day. It's like, how do you track that? He goes, what do you mean track it? I started digging into his finances a little bit and noticed that he didn't itemize anything.

[00:49:07] You couldn't tell the window tinting jobs from the detailing job. Basically there was so much cash at the end of the drawer at the end of the day. And they just put that in a cash, and I was like, okay, so they have no idea. Right? So there's just like, so you can't have those guys hang around 'cause you don't want that to happen anymore.

[00:49:21] Trish Higgins: No. They gotta change their behavior. So I think it's a very special person who can be in charge and then not be in charge, but still stay and be productive. 

[00:49:30] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. That's why I asked the questions like you, sorry, I didn't mean to talk over here. That's the reason I asked the questions.

[00:49:34] Like, a lot of times you just don't want 'em to stay. Right? You like, they're gonna do more disruption than they are benefit. But you want 'em, like, and I don't know. I don't know where near where you're at right now, but I think I want people to be accessible by phone if I need you. Okay, I've got fire. Can you help me put it out? But not being the day-to-day operations and in front of the employees. 

[00:49:52] Trish Higgins: Yeah. I think you wanna have, I mean ideally we have a good relationship. They're happy with what's going on in the company. We can call them for advice, because they know things we don't know.

[00:50:04] But then ultimately, I think it can be confusing for everybody else in the company if it's kinda like, well, this used to be my boss and they're telling me to do something, but there's this other person. And I think it can be make it much more difficult. Which is why we kind of prefer the kind of, yes, I intend to retire.

[00:50:20] I am just sort of consulting or kind of, phasing out. Because it's always odd to me if somebody says like, oh, I wanna sell my business, but I wanna stay in a full-time role, for the long term. And I'm like, well, Like, why do you wanna sell? If you think there's a ton of growth here and a ton of opportunity, why would you wanna share it with someone else? 

[00:50:39] And I think sometimes view financial buyers as like having this like magic, like book of business secrets or something that can help 'em achieve things they can't on their own. And it's just not true. Like anything we can do, anybody else can do.

[00:50:54] Ronald Skelton: Short of running out and buying another companies and bolting 'em into 'em. Right. I mean, they'd have to learn a little bit to do that. And you guys could do that. You can buy a, a mid player in a market of landscaping and go buy three or four small players. One of the things in the landscaping business and, I know somebody that used to own one, he would buy a accounts up from people. 

[00:51:10] They were trying to get out of it. So he'd just watched Craiglist constantly. He usually could buy accounts at one X. And he would have them walk around and introduce 'em. And he'd lose some of 'em. But, it was a real, it was best marketing thing he'd ever found. 

[00:51:22] Trish Higgins: Yeah. Our landscapes, our locals or services businesses do. Pretty into that sort of thing. 

[00:51:27] Ronald Skelton: Cool. So, what can myself or the audience do for you? You guys have a need right now? Are you're looking to acquire a particular type of thing? You're looking for leadership people to get into this training program? This is your chance to, do a call out. Tell the audience, one way we can help you out. 

[00:51:41] Trish Higgins: Sure. So I'll go with two if that's okay. Always looking for new deals, so that, you can always send them our way. And then if, always looking for operators. So if people are interested in our leadership development program, would love to connect with you as well. 'Cause we can't buy businesses unless we have good people to run them.

[00:51:56] Ronald Skelton: That would be a great thing. I just posted today on Twitter. It's funny, it's like, not everybody should be buying businesses. Most of you guys don't have, don't have the operator experience to be a operator. And if you tell 'em you're gonna hire an operator, most of you don't have the experience to be the chairman of the board either.

[00:52:12] How many leaders have you coached? Right? If you're out there and you think you're wanting to do this, but you're not quite ready, this is a perfect opportunity for you. I think it'll be a beautiful thing for you. Somebody to do, to step in and learn that skillset, work for you guys for, as long as it makes sense for both parties. And then later on in life that they want to acquire one of their own.

[00:52:32] Now they've got their, now they're an operator. Right. 

[00:52:34] Trish Higgins: And hopefully you like us so much you'll never wanna leave. 

[00:52:37] Ronald Skelton: Exactly. Yeah. You might move back up to corporate and help do that, do the next acquisition. Do the next one and do the next one. So I really appreciate you today.

[00:52:46] So you just said if somebody's looking to sell, what's your buying criteria? I know people want 10 year old, a million dollar EBITDA and above. They have a criteria. 

[00:52:52] Trish Higgins: Yeah. At least a million of earnings, is sort of our threshold and, with a history of profitability. And a company that's been around for, has a history, a track record. That's pretty much it. 

[00:53:06] Ronald Skelton: Track record, million dollars plus in revenue and a good history and you're profitable. Right? You're profitable and not on the decline, you're not hurting. Okay. Awesome. Well I appreciate you for your time today and I learned a lot. It was fun. And I think we can call that a show.

[00:53:21] Trish Higgins: Awesome. Thanks so much. Appreciate you having me on. 

[00:53:23] Ronald Skelton: Hang out for a second. That's your show guys.