E141: Navigating the Emotional and Practical Challenges of Business Transitions with Laurie Barkman

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: Welcome to the How2Exit Podcast. Today I'm here with Laurie Barkman. She's been on the show before, but she's got this cool thing out now. We want to chat again about what you've done in the last year or so since we chatted last time. I appreciate you being here today. Thank you for being on the show, Laurie.

[00:00:13] Laurie Barkman: Oh, Ron, it's awesome. You have a great podcast. You do so much wonderful content. Thanks so much for having me back. 

[00:00:19] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, it's funny, as I dialed it back a little bit for the summer. I was doing two shows a week and it was like, for the summer, the kids are off and stuff. They're like, dad, can I have more time?

[00:00:26] So now we're only doing one show a week for right now, but probably have to spin it back up. I just got a lot of people in the queue wanting to be on. We'll probably do two shows in week. 

[00:00:33] Laurie Barkman: Popular, popular guy. 

[00:00:34] Ronald Skelton: I enjoy this part of it. It's like, pretty much accomplished what I originally set out for, like building my skillset and stuff.

[00:00:40] But then I realized I like doing it so much. I'll probably keep this one going. As a matter of fact, I got a little side project going on the side I'm playing with. That's fun too. Like a little second pod, but it's nothing to do with mergers and acquisitions. It's just fun project. 

[00:00:50] Laurie Barkman: And you've been on my pod and it's, it's always fun to get you on the other side of the mic. And you said you don't normally do that, but you came. 

[00:00:56] Ronald Skelton: That's the only one I've ever done. I get a request once a week, so to be on somebody else's pod. I was like, yeah. And mainly just 'cause I considered myself such a newbie when you asked me. But, I just got asked again yesterday.

[00:01:07] And I was like, it would be four or five weeks out before I even consider it, because I'm booked that far ahead of time with, my calendar's just like crazy right now. But, good stuff. I'm evaluating businesses to buy and stuff like that too. So let's go back, remind anybody who hadn't heard the first show.

[00:01:21] 'Cause it's been a year or so. Give us your origin and story, kind of how did you get into this space. And then we're gonna jump right into, the knowledge you have that you poured into your book and, your new release and everything. So that'll be fun.

[00:01:32] Laurie Barkman: I'm the business transition Sherpa, and that didn't happen overnight.

[00:01:35] That was a, that's on my own journey. And it began when I was the CEO of a privately held company. I was the part of a long-term succession plan. I was running one of the divisions of a third generation privately held firm here in Pittsburgh. And my goal was to be with this company till I retired, you know, be there 20 plus years.

[00:01:56] And lo and behold, it was a three year journey. Because we were acquired by a very large, global company. And as one of the executives, I was part of the m and a process. Sought up close and of course involved in the acquisition integration and found myself on the other side of that coin on the other side with, of every integration.

[00:02:19] Sometimes things start to, get chopped up a bit, and that's what happened with me. And I joined a private equity firm for about a year. Got some experience on the other side of the deal table and realized I really liked it. I've always worked close with entrepreneurs, either in startups, as a corporate entrepreneur, even big companies.

[00:02:39] I was somebody who was always looking for growth, looking for new ideas, how to maximize value. And eventually in my career, found my self learning more and more about exit planning. And my interest was on the value creation side. How do we grow our company so that someday someone else is gonna wanna acquire it from us?

[00:03:03] And that's really how I got started in all this. I would say it's about three, four years ago. But the m and a journey for me started in 2015. So I've been kind of a deal junkie. Looking at this from both sides of the coin and really enjoy it. I really love working with business owners. The business Transition Sherpa today, what does that mean? 

[00:03:22] It's really a journey that we're on. And as owners, we're working so hard, to create value and how do we capitalize on that. So I work with owners, pre m and a, from value creation to letting go. And on the transaction side, I'm a certified mergers and acquisitions advisor, and that's the deal side of it.

[00:03:43] Whether it's buy side, on the growth. We either are doing organic growth or acquisitive growth. And I work with clients on the buy side, but certainly on the sell side, from getting ready to letting go. 

[00:03:54] Ronald Skelton: So awesome. So you've got the experience both sides of the table. You've been, on the side of working for a company that got acquired.

[00:04:01] You've been on the PE firm, on the acquiring side. Now you've been in the advising side for a while. You've got your own show. You talk to, talk to people like I do all day. Every day you haveconversations with people in this space. What do you know now?

[00:04:13] Like, what do you know now that you wish you'd known like, day one? Like in the early stages, there's some things you just kind of, that just don't hit you in the beginning, that kind of you develop over time. Man, if that would've been useful to know one, when I first started this. 

[00:04:25] Laurie Barkman: There's so many things. Yeah. The show is called Succession Stories. And it's a wonderful opportunity to hear stories and then connect the dots. I've always tried to be a dot connector or a builder. And so what I've learned along the way is that, it really is about beginning with the end in mind. And I guess I've inherently always thought that way.

[00:04:46] It's not necessarily easy to do. So when it comes to working with business owners who are in their sixties or older, they're sometimes open-minded about these concepts. About getting ready, about letting go. What does it mean to create value? And then in other times they're really not. They're more closed-minded.

[00:05:08] So I think one of the main things here is there, there's a psychology to working with business owners in exit planning and as a mergers and acquisitions advisor. And I would like to think that I probably have more EQ, than the average m and a advisor. I can't prove that one way or the other, but I do find myself often talking with owners about the practical, of course, right?

[00:05:34] The numbers and the financial. But it's also the emotional. I just was texting and talking on the phone last night with a client. We were in the car and my husband said, oh my gosh, is that your client again? And I said, yeah, it's okay, it's okay. And so he heard one side of the conversation, but I was very calm.

[00:05:51] She was kind of, like spinning up in her head. She was starting to get excited. She hadn't eaten all day. She was working on the financials. She was working on something she didn't wanna be working on. And she was getting agitated and then she was starting to take it out on me. But I didn't react in the way you thought I might.

[00:06:08] Right. I'm not gonna react back. It's not ping pong. I needed to walk her down from the emotion and get her back to, okay, take a break. Go eat dinner, go outside, it'll be okay, we'll talk tomorrow. So this just one small example, in the big picture, this is a very emotional thing.

[00:06:26] And there's these small everyday moments where, we just need someone else to be walking with us. And that's again why I call myself a Sherpa because I have a process, I have a framework, but I'm with you. I'm with you on this journey. Let's do this. And it's not gonna be easy, but let's find our way.

[00:06:42] Ronald Skelton: You call it succession stories, right? I've watched some of 'em, but I don't know for sure here. Are most of the people you interview, they've already sold their business? Or you interviewed a lot of people like me that are just kind of full spectrum. Some of 'em are in it, some of 'em sold. Some of 'em are advisors in this space. 

[00:06:58] Laurie Barkman: Definitely advisors. I talk with all kinds of advisors. And definitely people looking in the rear view, but I'm so glad you brought up this question, Ron, because I've been thinking about this. I'm going to start to have more people on my show who have not yet gone through succession. And the way that I'm gonna do it is, because it's almost like a taboo topic.

[00:07:16] You can't talk about it. Oh, we can't talk about retiring. Oh we can't talk about selling. They talk with me privately, but I wouldn't necessarily wanna air everything on the, on the show. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start a Subseries. It's still my show, but as a series.

[00:07:31] And we're gonna talk about legacy. And we're gonna talk about what it means for them to think forward and having that vision for a transition in the future. And it's not pinning them down to anything. It's not revealing anything they don't wanna reveal. But I feel like it's a safe space to start to talk about this emotional side of it.

[00:07:48] I had lunch today with a, I'll call him a former client. Even though he's kind of in the zone of being my client again. And why he was my client back a couple years ago was we did strategic planning. And I knew that one day he's gonna have a transition. He is coming up on 60. And I knew three years ago we would be in a position where he's gonna wanna talk about, either selling or selling to a management team, et cetera.

[00:08:14] And I've stayed in touch and he's a super nice guy. And we had lunch today. And I said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this part of the show. And I wasn't even necessarily inviting him, I was really just looking for feedback. And he is like, great, when do you wanna schedule me? (There you go.) And I said, yey, this is gonna be something.

[00:08:28] So I'm gonna have more and more people coming on. I have a gentleman that we've already recorded and he told me, he said, I've announced that I'm going to retire in three years. I've already told my people. I'm starting to tell customers. I said, great. You're gonna be the first person to come on my show and say I'm looking ahead at this. I think that's a really important message. 

[00:08:50] Ronald Skelton: It is. And, I think it's a bad idea to hide it and wait, and like, I've met a lot of business owners. Like, don't say anything to employees. You're here as a sales rep. I told everybody you are doing X, Y, and Z. And I was like, what does that make me look like when I come back if I do acquire it?

[00:09:04] You told everybody I was here on a false premises and now I'm like, now I'm the owner? I don't like that model. But it happens. One of the reasons I was asking about the people who have already exited and how many of those you had on the show. 'Cause I have a hard time getting people who have exited mainly cuz of multiple reasons, right?

[00:09:22] A lot of the companies, they have non-disclosures. They can't talk about the deal, they can't talk about the size of it. So out of fear, they'll say something they're not supposed to, they don't wanna be on. But on the other side of it is, I probably had that conversation, Hey, would you like to come on the show? With 30 or 40 people in that at this point.

[00:09:38] And there's an overwhelmingly number of people who aren't happy with their exit. It's really actually kind of, shocking to me. Some of these are, two of 'em were $25 million, $30 million exits. They're like, oh, cool. $30 million exit. What did the cap table look like? Was that mostly you? Yeah, I owned 80% of it.

[00:09:57] Cool. Are you happy? You don't sound very happy. Like the tone of your voice is like, I'm miserable. He goes, I don't know what to do now. The money isn't that important. I had money before. We were making good money before, so I had investments before. I don't spend anything different. It didn't change his life.

[00:10:10] 'Cause he had a great business. When you're selling something for 25, 30 million, you probably are making these enough money that, the windfall check isn't, he said, man, the tax guy had a bigger partier than I did, is what he said. Right.

[00:10:21] But, I have a hard time getting people to come on the show and talk about it because they don't want to talk about the experience. And I was like, there's a lot to learn for other people. We had some, but it's, I'd probably get told more no on more on that than any other topic. 

[00:10:33] Laurie Barkman: That's interesting. Yeah, most of my folks who have sold, we haven't run into that third rail, necessarily, don't talk about this or that. And if they do, we don't go there. Build to Sell with John Warlow, he certainly get a lot of folks on. And it's interesting you brought up this topic about regret. I just did a presentation on this, it's fresh in my mind. And there's certainly a lot of psychology and everything and around regrets and there's some great books.

[00:10:59] Bo Burlingham, excuse me, has written a book about it. And I think, Daniel Pink has a book out about regret. And it boils down when it comes to business owners. There's also a statistic from the Exit Planning Institute. You might have seen this, Ron, that they did a survey a couple years ago, or probably several years ago at this point, that 75% of business owners one year after the sale expressed regret.

[00:11:24] While only 5% are happy with their net proceeds. It's a pretty big spread. And we can have regrets about many things. We can regret the financial terms. We can regret how things went with our employees. We can regret what it means for us and our identity. And I think for many people, and it's not just selling the business, but identity is so critical.

[00:11:49] It's our mission, it's our purpose. And if we're the founder or we're part of the family business and we haven't planned what this transition's going to look like for us, it's really difficult. And I have a feeling that much regret comes from the identity separation. People are floundering. They had a, a prestige.

[00:12:10] They had a standing in the community. And, there was one gentleman who came on my show, fourth generation family business. His brother was the CEO and he was not a key executive, so he did not participate necessarily in the financial benefit of the sale. But the family business had a consumer product.

[00:12:31] You could go down an aisle in the supermarket, you could find it. It was bleach, like a, just a bleach product. And he said after the sale, he couldn't even walk down the, that supermarket aisle anymore. He just couldn't stand to see that product. It hurt him too much. He gave the examples of, yeah, we would sponsor the baseball team and our name was on the T-shirts and it gave him a standing and he was really proud of it.

[00:12:55] And then when the family business sold and became part of a big corporation, just wasn't the same for him. And he definitely went into a depression. So I don't know that, that's regret per se. I think it's, again, tied to, what roles do we have outside of work? Who do we spend time with our tightest relationships because of work?

[00:13:17] And if the answer is yes, you're gonna feel a massive separation. Not only from the day-to-day work and feeling like you're productive, but then also socially. And that can put you into a withdrawal. You really miss it. 

[00:13:31] Ronald Skelton: I get it. And, whether you're, selling for, a multimillion dollar business or you're selling, your parents' business 'cause it was left to you and It doesn't take long for you to tie your identity to it.

[00:13:41] Right. Especially, I mean, a lot of people are like, well, my identity's not really tied to this. I've been running it for four years. It was my dad's business. Not what I wanted to do. I never wanted to be an X, Y, Z, but somebody had to step up and run it and now it's the time to do what we gotta do.

[00:13:54] There's still some of this identity tied to it because of that family. I like that you brought that up and this guy wasn't in, he wasn't the CEO, but it still impacted him. And to negate the conversation of that impact because, he doesn't think it's gonna bug him or she doesn't think it's gonna bug her, I don't think that's necessarily true. 

[00:14:12] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. There's so much planning that goes around a business transition. That's why I wrote this book. The Business Transition Handbook. And I start the chapters with the goal setting and talking about a transition mindset. And I can be in a room with 20 CEOs and ask a couple of questions and I can already then tell, are they negative? Positive? 

[00:14:30] How do they feel about change? How do they feel about this potential thing? Just by asking them, okay, if I say the word transition, you know, what comes to mind? And in my book, I have this whole list of words and I want you to circle then, and then I want you to kind of think about, or what do they, what's the connotations of positive, neutral, or negative?

[00:14:51] And if they're more negative, are you really gonna wanna participate in this? No, you're not. You're not gonna do it. 'Cause you're gonna feel like there's a pebble in your shoe. It's horrible. You don't wanna do it. If you're more neutral to positive, yeah, you'll probably participate. And guess what? You'll probably have a better outcome.

[00:15:06] And we do see that correlation with some results. And also, if you think about it from a business owner standpoint, when a business is in crisis, the owner's got a health issue, there was a death of an owner, a divorce, or dissolution of a partnership, a disaster like covid, right? With things out of our control.

[00:15:24] If a company went to sell, when they're in crisis mode, what's gonna happen? There's gonna be a discount. Folks like yourself are like, yay, discount. Yeah. But from the seller's standpoint, that's, that's a joke. And then on the positive side, if there's positive reasons why you want to sell the company, like we're really growing. And we wanna continue to show this growth and we don't wanna go on the other side of the curve.

[00:15:47] We wanna grow while the getting's good. That's a positive thing, right? And you can understand, yeah, that might yield a premium. So there's this middle zone. I think the middle zone is a big watch out. So what would be a middle zone? Well, middle zone could be retiring. Why do you wanna leave? I wanna retire.

[00:16:03] Is that neutral? Probably. Is it gonna have a big effect on your company value one way or another? Maybe, maybe not. Probably more neutral. But if we start to be complacent, if we said, well, I'm retiring in 10 years. I'm not gonna invest in a computer system that needs to be out. I'm warning Windows XP from 2001.

[00:16:21] Well, I don't wanna spend the money to upgrade my computer systems. Or my website's really old and I'm just gonna ignore it. Or, my guys are so loyal and they're all around my age and, oh, isn't that nice? But yet we're all gonna retire at the same time. That starts to become a complacency. What happens if we take our foot off the gas with our customers, with our processes, with our people?

[00:16:46] It could go one way or the other. So that's the watch out zone is. What's your mindset on transition, and then what does that mean as you run your business, as you start to get towards this proverbial finish line. 

[00:16:57] Ronald Skelton: I've seen more than one business where the entire executive staff was within a few years of age of each other. And some of 'em were like, fraternity or sorority brothers and sisters, right?

[00:17:08] They just kind of, they just grew in the business together. They all maybe formed it in college or right after and recruited their college buddies into it. And, here it is 30 years later and,in one case I actually asked the owner, I said, who's staying when you go? He said, what do you mean?

[00:17:21] I said, I kind of looked at your org chart and they had photos on it. When he sent it to me, like, and I looked up their LinkedIn profiles, I said, I'm pretty sure everybody's about your age, right? And he is 72. And he said, well, yeah. I said, how many of those people are telling you should be retiring right now?

[00:17:34] And I think it was four out of his top five executives. When I got to the point where I talked to him like, oh yeah, we've been trying to get him to retire for years. We're leaving shortly after he is. I was like, that's a real problem for you. Like, I'm instantly not interested. And anybody that does the due diligence enough to learn this, you're gonna have a problem. 

[00:17:51] And it's a problem that takes a year or two to solve because you can't just bring somebody off the street and deem them an executive of, when you're taking your entire executive's team, four out of five, well, five out of six if you count the CEO, five out of six leaders out of the company.

[00:18:06] And the sixth one was one of the executive's, other's executive's son, he was in his forties or something. And when I talked to him, I don't think he was positive if he was staying. Like, he was there, everybody was there without a loyalty to the owner.

[00:18:18] Laurie Barkman: Which is really valuable when you're in growth mode and building value, but then when you're looking to transition, it's a risk. 

[00:18:26] Ronald Skelton: Oh yeah. It's absolutely a risk. You brought up the book and you started kinda giving us outline. Let's talk about what's in the book. Let's talk about, why did you put it together? What's in there for people to take a look at? 

[00:18:36] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. The Business Transition Handbook is about avoiding succession pitfalls. And creating valuable exit options. So each chapter is a pitfall to avoid. I was writing the book and I stopped myself midway. So the process took me quite a while. I had the fortunate situation where I had a good body of work to start with.

[00:18:59] I was using my show as an inspiration for stories. And when you have over a hundred episodes and over a hundred transcripts, oh my goodness, that's a lot of content. And originally I thought this is gonna be a book where, I'll have stories. It'll all be about stories. And then as I started to write, I'm like, oh, I don't like this. It's too much. 

[00:19:18] So instead, I pivoted a bit and I tried to put myself in the seat of the reader and I thought, well, what pain points do they have? And when it comes to pain points, what are the most common ones? And I was drawing from my experience, and I was drawing from my clients, and I was drawing from the show.

[00:19:34] And I came up with about 10 to 12 of them. And those eventually became the chapters. So each chapter essentially is a pitfall to avoid. So when you dive into the chapter, of course there's content and education. I'm trying to share some knowledge, but I wanted to make it actionable. You're not gonna read this book and be done in five minutes.

[00:19:53] I want you to really go through this book. You dog ear it, you write in it. I've even created a digital companion to it where all the exercises in the book, people can go to my website and they can download a PDF of like 35 pages of exercises because each of the, especially if you get the Kindle version, you're not gonna have the benefit of writing in it.

[00:20:13] So I was really mindful of that. And there's a chock full of exercises and things to do in it. But each chapter ends with takeaways, key takeaways, and a little summary table so you can write in your notes. And, the stories from my show or stories from examples, are woven in each chapter. So it comes to life.

[00:20:34] Someone has said to me, Lord, I feel like you're, I'm kind of with you on your show. Like, I feel like I'm listening to you talk. And I like that aspect of it. That's again, to what I was saying earlier about being with you on your journey. You know this book is one more thing you can take with you. And people who are reading it are entrepreneurs.

[00:20:52] Companies small to big. I think you really can be an entrepreneur in any business. As an acquisition entrepreneur, I think you also, if you're a reader interested in this topic, you'll also benefit by understanding the psychology of the seller a little bit more and the a little bit of whatever we say to the seller as a buyer, I think you can relate just from the other side.

[00:21:14] So I think it's got a lot of value for, for folks in the lower middle market and even larger companies too. I have a friend, she works for a very large consulting firm, and she read it. She said, I understand my business partners so much better. And just some of the concepts that we cover on innovation and growth, really can be highly relevant for any company.

[00:21:34] Ronald Skelton: Well, give us a sample here. Tell me a, story or something from the book here. A key takeaway or. 

[00:21:40] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, one of my favorite chapters is, Who Should Own Your Business After You? And it's a great chapter. It's really fundamental. And acquisition entrepreneurs are mentioned and so are you my friend.

[00:21:51] You're in there. 'cause you were on my show and I did take an excerpt from the show that you were on. And this chapter is about framing. Framing it so that you think ahead as a seller. You think ahead of who might own my business after me. 'Cause let's face it, 100% of business owners are going to leave their company one day, but most are not prepared.

[00:22:12] So acquisition entrepreneurs are in the ready. they're what part of a category of financial buyers is how I've explained them. So the way I laid out the chapter was I said, okay, there's three types of core buyers. Strategic buyers, financial buyers, and related buyers. And I describe each of them.

[00:22:27] And I describe a little bit about why, how they're different or similar to each other. And particularly for financial buyers, I think an interesting, one of the interesting things for folks they might not know is that there's this whole big, big sector of private equity. We are familiar with private equity. But we're not familiar with, family offices as acquisition investors you know, that buying companies.

[00:22:50] We are maybe familiar that they invest, they donate to charities and things of that nature, but to acquire companies and invest in them like private equity groups, isn't that interesting? Because the key difference is, buy and hold for a family investment strategy for infinity. Versus a private equity group that's looking at a five to seven year turnaround.

[00:23:12] And that's a key distinguishing factor when you think about fit. And who the right fit is for the buyer. So many, or for the seller excuse me. So many times in my show I can't even tell you. When we talk about with a seller who came to the table and who they ultimately picked, every one of them has said they weren't the highest bidder.

[00:23:33] They weren't the highest bidder, they were the best fit. So it was a fair price, it was a good price, but it was also culturally a fit and other characteristics. So the encouragement in this chapter, is to understand the types of buyers that are out there. Think about who might be your best fit, not literally the name of the company, but characteristically. What characteristics they have.

[00:23:55] And try to understand what pain points you solve for them. Can you solve pain points for them so that they're interested in you? And also they can't replicate you. 'Cause that's the conversation that everybody's having outside of theof the boardroom, right.

[00:24:09] Is like, well, do we build what they do or do we buy them? So I don't know, this is really one of my favorite chapters if someone is thinking about selling eventually. Whether it's to family, whether it's to a third party. And again, even if you're a buyer, just to understand the framework and the layout of, who else is out there that is looking for the same deals you are.

[00:24:27] Ronald Skelton: When I first got into this space, one of my mentors was over in Europe. The first time I ever even heard, and I have a master's degree in marketing. But I didn't grow up around money. I grew up in a poor farm boy neighborhood type of thing. My parents lived on Pecan Grove.

[00:24:40] We had cattle and my dad was a painter. My mom worked factory jobs. So I never even knew what a family office was and then somebody, one of my mentors was from Europe, he mentioned, I was like, oh, it must be a European thing. And then I, one day I was looking it up and somebody else said it and I was like, wait a second, there's families out there that manage their family wealth as an office altogether.

[00:24:57] And they usually, they kind of start off at that 50 to a hundred million dollars worth of family wealth to manage. That was a new concept for me. There's a few other phrases like, I didn't know that once you hit over until I got money or whatever, and got around it, I didn't realize that once you hit a certain amount of liquid, you get a whole different banking system. 

[00:25:13] Almost every big bank has a hidden private banking system that they do for their bigger clientele. And, didn't know that existed. That said, I think acquisition entrepreneurs, and I consider myself one of those, fall on that financial thing.

[00:25:27] Not all of us are looking for like fix and flips or deeply discounted. I own a holding company. Those are long-term purchases. I do look for discounted stuff that needs a little work, but it's still growing and profitable. I think I could do it a little better. But in that realm, there's a buyer for every business.

[00:25:45] Sometimes, like if you, if your business is poorly run, the only person that's gonna buy it is another operator. I don't what class you put that in. I think you had a name for it there, but if you're a heat and air guy, you don't have anything in systems and stuff. All you have is a client list and you've been doing it for 25 years, probably only be able to sell that to another heat and air guy who wants to expand his client list.

[00:26:02] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, and we also talk about that. Is recognizing what your assets are. In a manufacturing company that has inventory and machinery, we can look around and say, yeah, okay, we see all of our assets. But in a digital business or a business that like you, a great example you mentioned of the customer database, there's assets we create that are intangible and they do have value.

[00:26:23] And the beautiful dance we do to try to find the market, bring the market together of the buyers and sellers is, who really sees the value of what you have to present. I spoke with an attorney yesterday on my podcast and she helps business owners protect their assets. And the conversation we had was, a lot of times people go to an attorney when it's too late. 

[00:26:46] There's an issue, we gotta have a lawsuit, blah, blah. Versus I've created these assets. I wanna protect these assets and grow these assets so that one day I can monetize them. And some examples would include, like you mentioned, our customer database. It could be our trade secrets and knowhow, which might be our processes of how we do something.

[00:27:03] It could be a trademark or patent, something that is protected. But it's also our contracts. There's inherent value in that. So one of the, one of the aspects in the book is to take an inventory of what you have. And not only,is it attractive to a potential buyer, yes or no. But is it transferable?

[00:27:23] One of the statuses we might have as a business owner might be, from the small business administration, a minority or veteran LGBTQ plus. You can get women, women owned business, you can get small business owner statuses that are very particular to who you are as the owner. Right? 

[00:27:42] Well, how transferable is that? And if your business is tied, if revenues of your business are tied to that status, again, think about who might own your business after you. If 50% or more of my, of just making this up, if 50% or more of my revenue is a woman owned business, came let's say from government contracts because of that status.

[00:28:06] If the new owner didn't have it, they would look at your forecast and say, yeah, that's not gonna work for us. Right? Therefore, the price is different. All the financials are gonna be different if we own it, and therefore the price is, half of what you think it's gonna be. That's the mindfulness I want people to have when it comes to, and that's an extreme example, but it is, it happens. And to be mindful of, for your assets, how attractive are they to a potential buyer? And then how transferable are they? 

[00:28:31] Ronald Skelton: And you brought up a great one. Some of those programs, I qualify for some of 'em, right? A disabled veteran. I actually have a, a Cherokee card. I have, there's a lot of different things I probably qualify for some of them. Certainly not the female one, that the typical, typical white guy here.

[00:28:46] But, I have enough of those that it's important. But you also gotta know that some of that preferential treatment, has a timeline, right? We talked to a marketing agency where she was just lost because she had a, she was a women-owned business. She sounds like, she's getting preferential treatment.

[00:28:59] She sold marketing and web design stuff to government agencies. And I think it's either three years or seven years is all that preferential treatment's allowed. And then she just has to bid like everybody else. And she never adapted to learning how to win those without her special treatment. She was just losing business after business because she couldn't compete in that realm.

[00:29:18] She never learned how. Right. And then she's wanting to sell it to us and like, we don't know how, and not a female owned business. And without changing the name of the LLC and coming up with new EINs, we couldn't requalify to be,refresh that cycle. So we'd had to, it would've been too disruptive to even do. 

[00:29:34] I get that. So let's go to the next one here. But we were talking about, minority owned businesses, different preferential treatments. How that transfers over. The other side of the, you know, all that transfers over is those relationships, right?

[00:29:45] You talk about in your book on how to foster somebody else in the company that take over those relationships and get that ready so that there's a safe pair of hands in-house that, that any buyer can use. Or what's your thought process on that? Because I run into that a lot. Or the owner's just too tight into everything that's going on?

[00:30:01] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, absolutely. If we can have a business that can thrive without us, that's gonna just start us on the right path. One of the check-ins is on the sales process. Are we, as the owner, the primary face? Are we the brand? Are we the rainmaker from a sales standpoint? And maybe we don't have a sales process.

[00:30:20] And we're kind of duct taping it together, which is like a double whammy. So if you have a sales process, yay, celebrate that. But get other people involved. If you're in a sales meeting with a client and you're the owner, and you're the only one from your company, stop, right? Just don't do that. You've gotta see yourself as an enabler of others into the sales process.

[00:30:42] This gentleman I mentioned earlier, the client, very small team. Like very small team. Five, four people, and he was the rainmaker. So when we did strategic planning, we set a three year goal for him. And, for revenue target and then we, the detail of the plan was, well, how are they gonna get there?

[00:30:59] And one of the things we identified was some sales training and putting a sales process. So it wasn't only about my client. He was the face we had to prevent, we had to prevent issues around that. So here we are almost three years later, and I asked him, I said, what do you think about the process?

[00:31:16] And he goes, you know what? It's not so much about what I think, it was the team. They really benefited. And now here, here they are, it's about two years after the training and they will bring things up in a way to, connect the dots for client needs or messaging. Now they do marketing services so they, they think about this, organically anyway. 

[00:31:38] But, they didn't know the sales process. They didn't think about cross-selling. They didn't think about, really how, to have a client relationship over time. What that means, it's not just a transaction and a six month project. This is a client we wanna have for years.

[00:31:55] So how do we support that? And that really made me happy to hear. But it really created a lot of value from a revenue standpoint. They are tracking to the original goal. They have a stretch goal they wanna hit in the next couple years. But it was really satisfying to know that here's the same client who in a couple of years, he's gonna sell.

[00:32:15] And he is on this trajectory now of what we had set for his course. And it's a good message for everyone, which is really a core message of the book, which is when time is on your side, you have more ability to create options. You have more time to close a gap in value if there is one. And when we're out of time, we're out of options. 

[00:32:36] Ronald Skelton: So when I first got into this space, I found something I thought I was interested in. And, I'm not gonna call 'em out here 'cause it's like, I don't think NDAs ever expired so I'm not gonna call 'em out. But, I thought I was interested and they were just a little chaotic and I'm okay with that a little bit.

[00:32:49] But, one of the things I convinced him to do is, 'cause he was the sales guy. I said, find yourself a rockstar sales guy and it'll be fun for you at first. 'Cause like, set up little competitions. You sell, they sell, you sell, they sell. And then find a second guy and make that your lead sales guy trained him. 

[00:33:03] And then, he goes, I can help out reform both of 'em. I say, good. Set the thing that those two sell, you sell, right? And then at some point quit selling. Like start dialing it back. You got three guys. I said, the worst case scenario is your business grows. And it was a very sales oriented type of thing that he was doing.

[00:33:19] I reached back out to him about, four or five months ago to see how it was going, 'cause still kind of interested in. If it's performing better, I might be more interested. And he's like, well, I'm not selling it, I'm having a blast. He goes, like, I go on four vacations a year now. One of the sales guys is kind of, really stepping up the role.

[00:33:35] It almost could be the CEO. And that's one of the cool things with this if you like, especially you as an advisor. If you walk these people through this, they may end up with something on the other end. They don't have to necessarily retire out of right away. Right. It's up, it's proficient, it's running well, and unless I need the money for retirement, you can, I always joke around and say, passive income's a myth. But I don't think the four hour workweek's a myth. 

[00:33:57] I think if you built a company right, you could go in as the advisor or the board of directors. Meet with your CEO, meet with your general manager, whatever you wanna give the title of him, and step away from it and actually have it run better. Knowing what it was with you there.

[00:34:10] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. You can for sure. And I think that's a very individualistic type of decision. You mentioned the four-hour work week, Tim Ferriss and he had a supplements company, yet he still sold it. And one of the things that I quote from his experience is, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

[00:34:26] Even though he got the business to run without him very successfully, it was always weighing on him. You know, and he talks about that as being one of the primary reasons why he chose to sell. So it just depends on the threshold of where we wanna have our mind share.

[00:34:41] You might not physically be in the business, but your mind is. And so if it weighs on you like that, then it might be time to move on. 

[00:34:48] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. There's always gonna be a time to move on. Right. I totally agree with that. But, it's like I always kinda make the same analogy of like, you got a used car.

[00:34:55] I'm trying to get a new car, I'm gonna go trade it in, but I want my best trade in value. So I'm gonna go have it detailed and I'm gonna have that little nick in the window fix. And next thing you're driving it around for a couple days before you trade it in.

[00:35:04] You're like, this isn't so bad, why do I wanna trade it in? It's nice, it's clean, it runs great, all the little quirks that you thought, you know, and you end up keeping the car longer. I think that happens sometimes in business if they're run really well. You don't necessarily, at some point you need to. If you're in your late sixties, early seventies and you're trying to play this game, I think it's a bad idea because, it's gonna be disruptive whether you're doing a four hour work week or a 10 hour work week. If something happens to you and it's not a hundred percent in control of somebody else, there's damage done. 

[00:35:33] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:35:34] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. Now we're at the stage right now where, we're advising people. You've got the books out there, what's the plan with it? Like, I'm gonna get dig in a little bit for, on your marketing side. I'm a marketing nerd.

[00:35:44] You're a advisor. You're out there. You got your podcast running. How's the book performing for you? Are you using it kind of a business card? Do you send the book out and,potential clients or, I know I got a copy I was telling you before the show. I was like, my kids moved it or something. I couldn't find, I was gonna wave it on the show and now like, like they moved it on me and I was like hunting for it everywhere.

[00:36:02] But, so my apologies I didn't get the wave of the book in everybody's face. 

[00:36:05] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, no, that's okay. You can point to my book that's standing behind me there. 

[00:36:09] Well, it was really fun. I had a launch party. And I had family, I had friends and I held it at a restaurant. It's a restaurant, but then down in the cellar they make mead. Honey, right. So they make mead. And one of the owners who sold the business is a friend. She's a fellow adjunct professor with me at Carnegie Mellon. And she was on my show.

[00:36:32] And when she was on my show, she had an LOI, I think it, and they might have been already getting the purchase agreement, but she couldn't, she didn't talk about any of it. So by the time my episode came to air, I think within a week it was announced that she sold the business. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is such a full circle connection.

[00:36:49] So I, when I was looking for venues, I chose that venue. Anyway, I just wanted to share that little fun story. So she, I asked her to say a few words, and introduced me at the party and, I sold books there and designing and stuff like that. So that's the real in person, fun stuff.

[00:37:04] And then virtually it's been, the response has been wonderful and people have been gracious to, to read the book. They can get it on Amazon and there's this digital, PDF that I mentioned, if they wanna get a copy of that, they can get it from my website. So the feedback so far when in book reviews, and people sharing their feedback with me is just really amazing.

[00:37:24] And I really appreciate the feedback because it's so nice to know how it's helping people. And I think it's also a way for, I wanna work with larger companies. Let's say companies that are, Five to 20,000,000 and 25 million in revenue. But smaller companies, especially women-owned businesses that are under a million in revenue and there are a lot of them out there.

[00:37:46] Some of them have come to, wanna work with me and I'm trying to have an offering for them. Regardless of gender, but regard, for the smaller companies that want this advice, it's the same advice. Now, here's a, an affordable way to get it, it's a little more DIY, but it is available and I think it's a way to share the message more broadly.

[00:38:05] I am thinking that it could be a course also. So I haven't committed to that, but that might be something that I do next year. I'm also doing, speaking engagements. I'm working on various presentations as a keynote and workshops. I do workshops for CEOs and business owners, and the feedback on that is always very, very good that it's always enlightening.

[00:38:28] People benefit from the education. Even if they'll say, oh, well I'm not doing this now. And I say, I know, but you will do it at some point. So those, that's the marketing and it is like a calling card, just like the podcast has been for me. It's funny on my business card now on the back, I have a picture of the, my icon from the show, and I have a picture of the book. And two QR codes for each. 

[00:38:49] So if you wanna check out the show, you wanna check out the book, and it makes it easy to connect with me. And I do think that it's an interesting way that we are, have evolved as marketers. I've been a marketer for 25 plus years, and in the evolution as an entrepreneur marketer, that we are marketing ourselves and our service and how we benefit, right?

[00:39:09] And, there's so many more tools available and there's an infinite number of possibilities. So one of the things that I always have to check in on is like, not driving myself crazy to say, oh, I should do that, or I should do that, I should do that. And just be okay with what I am doing, own it and do it really well.

[00:39:28] And if it's not working, then try something else. And so I've been trying to get better at that and not feeling almost like a guilt, like a fomo. It's like a marketing fomo. Like, oh, I should do that too. 

[00:39:39] Ronald Skelton: It's like the, I was gonna ask you like, do you have anybody that wants to be coaches underneath you?

[00:39:43] 'Cause then you could do the, like look, I'll bring in three coaches. They'll handle everything that's under the 25 million. I have a system, I have a process, I know how I want it to go. These coaches will take care of you, and then you get to focus on the bigger guys that need individualistic attention.

[00:39:58] Laurie Barkman: I like that idea a lot. I haven't initiated that yet, but maybe if people are listening and they wanna talk with me about that, I'd be open to it. I do have a framework and a process and a platform that I'm licensing and people can get trained on that platform as well. And, it could be a really good, that could be a really good partnership. So that's a really cool idea. 

[00:40:15] Ronald Skelton: That'd be a cool way to, to do like, I did it in the real estate world. There's certain things I wanted to do and everything else. I kind of knew who was there, so I would help them. They would call, they knew they could call me at any given time and ask me questions, but when they got one of the deals I did, they just forwarded it to me.

[00:40:29] So we got a lot of referrals that way. And then, because I mean, a lot of these people that are just becoming advisors. Maybe they've got an exit or two behind me. If they've been a broker for a while, they know the basics, but they wanna do more advising. They're not ready for a 25, $30 million exit where you are.

[00:40:44] Right. So they can refer those up to you and then you give 'em more, I think it's a symbiotic relationship you could create with somebody that really wants to be in the space. 

[00:40:51] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. 

[00:40:53] Ronald Skelton: Cool. I'm gonna go back to my marketing nerdness here. What's next for you as far as you're speaking, you got the book out there, you got the coaching thing.

[00:41:02] Are you just still, like, you got the podcast. Are people like buying the book and they wanting to come on the show? 'Cause I'm seriously looking, maybe putting a book out in the next year or two. Broader, broader concept, but I already have the title picked for it. But, uh. 

[00:41:16] Laurie Barkman: Yeah, I think that writing a book is a very serious endeavor in the sense that it takes a lot of time. And, I'm the kind of person that from a quality standpoint, if I don't think it's good quality, I'm not putting it out there. 

[00:41:29] So that's why I had to stop and rewrite and the whole thing. So if you're gonna write a book, I'm definitely gonna encourage you. You've got a lot of great stories and a lot of things to share with your audience. and I'm happy to talk offline about, about book writing.

[00:41:41] I'm gonna give a plug for, a company that I'm working with called Book Thinkers. And you're a marketing nerd, so you'll like these guys. So as a podcaster and as an author now, there's these communities, right? You join these communities. So when I became a podcaster, I was like, wow, it's just the door open to the connections you make from podcaster to podcaster.

[00:42:01] So what I'm trying to do as a podcaster is, I certainly enjoy the craft, right? It's a great, it's a medium. I'm enjoying it. I like storytelling. I love asking questions. It fits me. And what I'm trying to get better at with the show, is having, be a conduit more tidy with business development.

[00:42:19] It has been. I have had literally of clients that have called me up, I've been listening to your show for, years, blah, blah, blah. Now I wanna be a client, that has happened. And that's pretty cool. Right. And there's an ROI bump done. 

[00:42:31] At some point then what's the get right? There's gotta be some of that. And one of the things I've been thinking about is the guesting, strategy. And that's why I wanna have more business owners who come on, who are future thinking. And I think that'll be a great way to not only showcase some of my clients who I've worked with, but also potential people that I might wanna work with at some point.

[00:42:54] I've always, from day one with the show, had collaboration partners. Right? Financial planners and accounting firms and law firms. That's always been part of my collaboration and hearing stories from business owners. But this other aspect of looking forward is new. So that's my encouragement for all the podcasters out there, is to try to find that real connection that you can. Not every guest you have is going to be a client.

[00:43:19] We know that and that's okay. And that's, but I think for me, this is something new that I'm trying out and in relationship building, right? Because the show is a calling card for, for folks to listen. How can we use this content to create a relationship with each other? Like you and I now this is our third conversation.

[00:43:37] Right? Because you were on my show and I'm now on your show twice. I think if I came to the Redwoods and found you in California, you and I could hang out and have a beer. We would be friends because we've been talking for three hours.

[00:43:49] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, we would know each other.

[00:43:50] Like you'd see,that's one thing I'm just now getting to the point of. I'm sure you got to the point of this too. At some point where you're, usually if it's somewhere business related, like I'm at a conference or something like that, or I even if I go down, I'm gonna give myself away.

[00:44:00] I was playing poker in a poker place right by one of the colleges and one of the guys saying poker beside me was a professional ball player, but he's doing a business degree. And he looked over at me, he goes, you look really familiar. Do you have a podcast? I was like, yeah. He goes, man, I watch your stuff.

[00:44:14] I'm gonna buy a business as soon as I, I say he's a pro ball player, a professional baseball player, but there's different tiers, right? Like he wasn't, he is not in the, San Francisco Giants or whatever. But he was in like a, levels two or three below that. But he gets paid to play baseball. But yeah, you get noticed out in the street a little bit, just kind of fun.

[00:44:33] In business conferences it's a lot more, like if I go to something or if I show up at a networking thing, a business networking thing, BNI or one of those things and I'm kind of visiting something. People know who I am sometimes. So that's fun. What I'm doing, and I'm just gonna share this with you 'cause it might be helpful to use.

[00:44:47] I have a little campaign I run every once in a while, so I'll call that know a guy. And I tell people all the time, if you're, get stuck in a deal, right? If you're working on mergers and acquisition, you're trying to buy a business, sell a business, grow through acquisition, and something's in your way, don't let that happen, man.

[00:45:00] After interviewing 160 people, I probably know a guy. So reach out to me. Tell me what you're dealing with. Tell me who, what you're trying to, what the roadblock is, what you're trying to get past, and if I can make a referral for you, I will. And full a hundred percent disclosures, I ask everybody that's been on the show, do you pay for referrals?

[00:45:16] A lot of times I give referrals to people who don't pay. It's just the, I always try to send people to the best possible referral, whether they pay me or not, but I'm also a little bit of a capitalist. So if they're, if you've got a referral program and it's available, I'll use it.

[00:45:28] But that said, I think I'll make more money in the next, this year and next year on the podcast anyway, than I will ever from my sponsors, anything from all those referrals, by probably five x. 

[00:45:39] Laurie Barkman: That's awesome. Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great idea. It's clever. And it adds value.

[00:45:45] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. Like I know people that raise capital. I know people, brokers and advisors. I know lawyers really can't do that very often. Most states have state laws that say a lawyer can't pay a referral fee to anybody that's not an attorney and not on the case. But, most of the other ones can. SBA lenders, I got SBA lenders that'll gimme between one or 2% of the entire loan.

[00:46:02] Like, that's a heck of a referral. Just keeping that database and knowing really who, and it helps me when I interview people. Like at the end of the interview, I was like, would I really send anybody there? Because some people I don't. Not you, I would definitely would.

[00:46:14] But some people I like, yeah. You know, I know great information. Do they know enough to entertain us for an hour? Yeah. Do they know enough that I'm gonna let somebody do a multimillion dollar transaction? Uncertain. I don't know I've had any, like, I've never, maybe one where like, yeah, not. But there's been a lot of uncertainty. Like, I'm not there yet.

[00:46:31] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. No, I get that. Yeah. And I think referrals are really powerful. My clients, I tell 'em, look, my Rolodex is your Rolodex, and if I make a recommendation, they usually go for it. When you become a trusted advisor, they trust the other people you trust. Right?

[00:46:46] Ronald Skelton: Right. And it works. Right? I'm a big blue ocean person. I really believe that people need help occasionally. They get stuck and they're afraid to ask for help. So if you've got the, the gumption or the moxie to say, Hey, man, I'm stuck over here. I need some help. I don't care if I know you or not.

[00:47:00] a lot of people think, that's another thing about these podcasts it's really cool. People that do introduce themselves to you, they think they talked to you like they've known you forever and you just met them. But I had one kid, he actually sent me this message, and it was kind of a, I've jokingly call it a fanboy message, but he's like, I know you're never gonna call me, but my number's this.

[00:47:17] I'm in college. I've watched a hundred and something hours of your show. I'm making all the way through. Like this kid spent a hundred hours of his life listen to me, speak to random people, advisors and brokers, and brilliant people in the world. But he spent a hundred hours his life.

[00:47:29] I just dialed the phone, I dialed him right into there. It's like, Hey, man, this is Ron he's like, it's like talking to a celebrity. I was like, yeah, not really. I'm just an average Joe. And now he's going to our networking things. He's already on a business track in college, but he's meeting up with these guys and learning this space and, hanging out at the things that we set up for people to hang out in.

[00:47:47] And I think he's gonna make it. I think he's gonna be in this space. And, he's already talking about trying to take internships at, at PE firms and stuff. I was like, dude, that's a tough track, but you'll learn a lot, right? You're talking 60, 70 hour a weeks on a lot of these guys. They really work their interns hard, but you're gonna learn an immense amount of stuff.

[00:48:04] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. That's really cool. It's fun when the audience reaches out. It's nice to know who's listening. 

[00:48:09] Ronald Skelton: Cool. Let's circle back around the book here. the book's out there. Who's the perfect, like, who is a book written for? So if somebody's out there thinking, is this a book for me to read? Who's it written for?

[00:48:18] And who's it perfect for? And then I know any of us can read it and gain some knowledge from it. But like, usually when you write something, you have a persona, like you're talking about in the chapter of built. So you talk about creating a business buyer persona.

[00:48:30] The outline of who should be the, who's the ideal candidate to own your business. We call that a, persona or a, what's the other word for it? There's another nickname for it. Who's the perfect person? Like if you're doing X, Y, and Z, you really should buy the book and you should really call me.

[00:48:44] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. You're a founder. You're an owner either through founding or buying the business. But you're own the business and you're probably working in the business day to day. From a stage of life standpoint are starting to think about your next transition or your transition in your entrepreneurial journey.

[00:49:03] So this is not necessarily a book for startups. Although I don't wanna discourage a startup, if they're reading it. They're gonna get a lot of value out it, right out of it, because they're, they're in business building mode. So there, there's that. But I think for the intention is clearly for the seller.

[00:49:18] That said, a secondary audience would be, people who are working in family businesses. Perhaps you are part of the family ownership structure, or if you are a next gen leader in an organization, I think this book will help give you an appreciation. And if you're a second in command at a privately held company, I think it'll also help you.

[00:49:38] And for the acquisition entrepreneurs out there to see the other side of the table look at things from the other side. The other lens, I think this will also help acquisition entrepreneurs too.

[00:49:48] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. And if your mom or dad's trying to get you to be the second generation business owner, you don't wanna do it. Buy them the book as a gift. 

[00:49:55] Laurie Barkman: Yes. And jump to chapter 12. Yes. 

[00:49:58] Ronald Skelton: There you go. I get a lot of that. I actually, that's one of the outreaches I get more often probably than the business owners. The show is called How to Exit, but we talk about so many things. So I don't get as many business owners trying to exit the watch that I like.

[00:50:10] But I also get, I've got cold calls, like, people hunting down my phone number, call me and go, Hey, my dad's trying to leave this business to me, I don't want it. How do I sell it to him? Like, the day I get it, I want it sold. One of the guys, like, I've got a, I'm an MD, I got a medical thing. And my dad, has this factory and he wants me to drop out of, you're gonna make more money taking over my manufacturing company.

[00:50:29] He is like, I just don't wanna do it. And I was like, work on getting him to sell it. He's not, he built it for me. Like, he's not gonna sell it. He built it for me. So that was a fun conversation, but, now I'll just say, Hey, here's a book, here's a website, here's somebody to go talk to and, let's get this thing ready 'cause it takes time. 

[00:50:45] He's not gonna take over that business and run it for three years. He probably wants to get somebody working on that, those steps right now. 

[00:50:53] Laurie Barkman: Yeah. That's why I put a chapter in there about that. From a management team perspective and from family.

[00:50:59] Don't make assumptions. There's one of my clients that his second in command literally packed up with his wife and moved to Spain, 'cause she's from the EU originally. And he could, they could live anywhere in the EU. And two years ago, right around Covid, they did, they moved to Spain and they're buying a house and he's not moving back to the states.

[00:51:19] And my client thought that this might be a person to buy the business one day. But as soon as that happened, Out the window. That's why we wanna have options. 

[00:51:29] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, you wanna have an option, you ought to have contingency plans. Plans and contingency plans, right? 

[00:51:33] Laurie Barkman: That's right, that's right. 

[00:51:35] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. Well, tell us, how do you want people to reach out to you?

[00:51:38] Like we, now we know who the book's for. They can get it on, I've got it open right now on Amazon, so you can get it on Amazon. They can reach directly to you. So what's the best way for people to reach out to you? 

[00:51:48] Laurie Barkman: The business transition sherpa.com is my website, and the book is on there, the podcast and some assessments.

[00:51:56] If people wanna take a personal readiness assessment, they're more than welcome to do that. A lot of the themes we talked about today, they can take that and set up a call with me. We'll go through their results. They can also take a business readiness assessment. And if they put in some financials, they can even get an estimate of value, which is really cool, for no cost. 

[00:52:13] Yeah, which is really cool. And so please do that. Please visit there and also connect with me on LinkedIn. Let me know you heard me on How2Exit 'cause Ron and I would love to know that. Yeah, and just reach out. You can set up time with me, book a time with me and we'll talk about your goals.

[00:52:28] Ronald Skelton: And I really encourage people to do that. This is like the second or third convers, this third conversation we've had on, behind the mic. And then I see a lot of the content you post, so I feel like I've talked to you a lot more. You really put out a lot of good information out there. It's really helpful to the community.

[00:52:40] And, I see all of small, medium businesses at a community. Some people just don't realize they're in it yet. But if you own a company and you're doing, say, less than 10 to 25, depending on an industry, less than 25 million in some industries, but,I'm talking valuation of selling.

[00:52:56] You're in this small, medium business community. And now the trick is, do you wanna get engaged with the rest of the members of the community and help move yourself forward or not? I appreciate you. I think that's, if you don't have anything else to add, we'll just call that a show and, tell people reach out and get that book.

[00:53:09] Read it. I'm gonna find out what my kids did with my copy and finish it or get it on my, I just realized I could just put it on my Kindle, so I might just go straight for that. But, I appreciate it and we'll call that a show. 

[00:53:18] Laurie Barkman: Alright. Thanks so much Ron.