E212: Alliances for Acquisition: Christopher Wick Shares the Power of Partnerships in Deal Flow

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: Hello and welcome to the How2Exit Podcast. Today I'm here with Christopher Wick and I'm looking forward to this conversation. It's been a long time since we've chatted. You've done quite a few more acquisitions and,I think we have a great topic to talk about today. So thank you for being here today.

[00:00:13] Christopher Wick: So glad to be here. Thanks for having me again. It's been a few years. I look a little different. I've got some more deals to share, so I think it's going to be a really fun time together.

Yeah, you grew a full beard and I let my goatee turn into a full beard. So we, we both changed and I cut about a foot of it off. So, Okay, cool. 

[00:00:31] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. So, uh, we talked about, what we were going to chat about just a little bit ahead of time. Before we do that for the people that haven't met you before, or don't know who you are, could you give us a little bit of your origin story and your background?

[00:00:42] Christopher Wick: Absolutely. It all started with an aha moment. And I love to share this aha moment as frequently as I can, because I want your listeners to have the same aha moment. When I was 29 years old and I'm 35 now for context, age does not matter. It's just a mile marker. It's how I remember all things throughout my career.

When I was 29 years old, I had everything on the outside that people think that they want. I had wealth. I was traveling all over the world. I had written several books. I'd won over a dozen awards. I'd helped over 500 companies personally as a marketing consultant. I was helping people leverage social media to grow their businesses.

But at the age of 29 years old, I asked myself a very good question. I asked myself, what are 'The Greats' doing that I'm not. And the greats for me were people like Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Warren Buffett. I asked myself, what are they doing that I'm not doing because I have everything. I've got a great lifestyle business.

I was an agency owner, a great speaker. But for me, I wanted more. And the answer that came to me was, 'The Greats', what they're doing that I'm not doing is they own multiple companies and I only had one business. I'd helped hundreds of companies, but I only had 1. and so at the age of 29, I said, okay, I'm gonna go out and buy businesses.

So with no training, no education, and no experience, at the age of 29, I bought my first business. And this is when the journey really begins. And at the age of 29, I bought my first business. In 11 months, I turned it around, I improved the business, and I sold it to another investor, and I tripled my profit.

So at that time, I was 30 and like any good entrepreneur, I thought, aha, I know what I'm doing. So at the age of 30, I decided to go and do it again. At the age of 30, I bought my second business, and I lost my entire investment in five weeks. So then at the age of 30, I'm totally humbled. I've got one great success.

I've got one terrible unsuccessful deal. And that's when I realized, okay, I need to learn what to do. I need to learn how to do it, and I need to learn from anyone who's got more experience than me. And then that was when I found the man, the legend, one of my heroes, Roland Frasier, and I went into the Epic program.

That was when I was 31 years old. And yesterday, I closed my 32nd deal. So in five years, I have done 32 deals in addition to the two that I did before I had any training, any education. Now I don't say this to impress you or to impress your listeners. I say to impress upon you. If I can do it, I promise you, anyone can, because I'm certainly not more talented.

I'm certainly not more gifted and I'm totally not smarter than anyone listening. I'm just really good at taking action. So I'm just very grateful to be where I am now. I'm grateful for the deal I closed. Yes, I'm grateful to share some of my wisdom today. But that's how it all began, my friend.

[00:03:48] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. And you've been on a heck of a journey. If you think about it, anybody that's out there doing this, the concept of doing 32 deals in five years seems large and big because we know how many deals you had to look at and to evaluate to actually get to 32, right? There's the, it's almost like the real estate world.

The joke was, if you wanted to buy a house, you got to look at a hundred, run your numbers on 10 of them, place offices, offers on three to five of them and get one, right? This isn't much different. There's a numbers game to this, especially if you're looking at off market deals. You know, you got to go out there and look at a hundred, have conversations with 40 or 50 of them.Maybe get to an LOI on, you know, a dozen to get the one closed.

That's the traditional old method of going about it. You mentioned before the podcast that you've, you're doing a lot of joint ventures and partnerships and that type of stuff. That may expedite the deal. And it clearly gives you more because everybody's probably doing their own lead gen too. So they're bringing stuff to the table.

You're bringing stuff to the table. So it gives you more to look at. Why did you move from solo, I'm just going to do this on my own and hire teams in it to, to actually considering partnerships and doing deals with other people.

[00:04:59] Christopher Wick: What a great question, my man. Because this is another aha moment I want your listeners to have. When I started doing deals, I didn't feel like I was really good enough to partner with anyone. So I was just doing a lot of deals on my own. And some deals I've done and to be clear, the 32 deals I've done in five years, some of them have been businesses, some of them have a website, some of them have been Facebook groups.

Some of them have been social media assets. So it wasn't 32 companies. There's lots of ways where you can do acquisitions. But in the beginning I was like, okay, I need to get credibility because I only had a 50, 50 success rate. I was new at mergers and acquisitions. So the limiting belief that I had was, I need to go get good and then I'll partner.

Well, by golly, I wish I didn't have that belief because, I've done 17 deals in a year and a half and then I had this aha moment. And I had this aha moment from my mentor and now business partner, Roland Frazier. We were at one of our live events, and have you ever had an experience where someone asks a question and you're like, damn, that's the question I want to ask. Have you ever felt that?

[00:06:05] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:07] Christopher Wick: Yeah. So this girl stands up and she says, Hey, Roland, I want to know, like, how can I structure my schedule better to get more deals? And then what Roland said next was fascinating. And I'll never forget it. What I heard him say, and I'm going to use my own words because Roland and I, we've got a lot of similarities, but we also talk very differently.

So I just want to own, like this is how Christopher Wick is saying it. I heard him say, I structure my calendar for infinite deal flow by partnering with people. And I'm, I'm in the room and I'm one of the teachers. And I hear what he said and I was like, infinite deal flow? And then I realized I shouldn't be doing this on my own.

I've done 17 deals. I've done more than enough deals to prove I'm good to partner with anyone. So deal number 18, to all the way to deal number 32, which I did yesterday, I have never done a loan. Now let me tell you what was so different between 18 to 32 versus 1 to 17. Well, 1 to 17, crazy schedule, fully booked calendar, talking to all these sellers, kissing a lot of frogs.

Now, what my deal flow looks like, I have so many partnerships with my private clients, with my students, with Roland Frasier and Deanna Rogers, where we're always looking at deals and we're doing them together. So we have leverage with deal flow. We have leverage with talking to sellers. And then when we close a deal, we have leverage on who's doing what. 

And oh my gosh, my schedule is so different. So my message, and I tell this to our members in our program, do not be like me and wait until you're good enough to partner. Don't be like me and say, let me get some street cred. I just helped one of our members, get under LOI for their very first deal and we're already partnering with them. And that's what I wish I would have done. Because the leverage that I have with me and my business partners is we help other people get deals done and then we're also adding to our portfolio. And as a business partner I'm very generous.

I'm very generous with equity that I give and receive because I want everyone to win. But, oh my gosh, so the aha moment for whoever's listening, I want them to hear what my mentor said, to structure your calendar and your lifestyle for infinite deal flow. Infinite deal flow. And now that I'm living this, where I partner on deals with my clients, my students, and then my amazing team, Roland Frasier and Deanna Rogers, our amazing epic team, we have so many opportunities to not only win for ourselves, But to help our members win, which is so important.

So for anyone who's listening, do not wait until you're good enough to partner. I promise you, you're good enough now. And it's really about the deal. Good deals find people and good deals find money. So just get a good deal and then bring it over to us and let's partner together.

[00:08:58] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. It's brilliant. It's the same way that, like, I'm always parallel, put in parallelisms in there with real estate because, they say if the deal is good enough, the money will follow. I really believe if the deal is good enough here, people will want to partner with you.

People will want to bring money to the table. If the deal is good enough, there's probably assets and stuff that can be collateralized. And if you have to go down a loan path or you have to do something creative and do,some type of, uh, asset based lending or something against it later on, either for growth or for acquisition, it's available to you.

So it's, uh,a lot of people, when I chat with them, they say, well, I can't seem to get one across the,the rails. And so show me some of the stuff you're looking at. And they're digging through the garbage bins to be quite honest. They're looking through the Biz Buy Sell of the world where I was like, you do understand that every acquisition entrepreneur and every person on the planet has dug through those. 

And if it's been on there for more than six months, it's probably got some more somewhere. Right. And I'm not saying that, I jokingly say that, but you know, I used to tell people all the time to quit digging through MLS for real estate deals, cause they're already formed through.

And one of the best deals any of my mentoring students ever got in the real estate space pulled off of MLS. Right. And,it was a bank owned property and he, he, tripled the,the income he made off that one property more than any of my other students ever. So there, there are gems everywhere.

I get that. But, uh, I love the way you're saying, don't wait. Every one of us at some point in our lives, either have it now or in the past, have that imposter syndrome, right? You feel like, somebody is going to find out. I don't quite know where I'm, what I'm doing here and we all have it. Most likely, if you're in this space and listening to this show, you bring skills to the table, right?

There's something you do well that would be great in the partnership. And, just don't discount yourself on that. I, I'm a big fan of partners myself. That's all I do these days. I don't want my calendar full. I don't want to do an acquisition where I have to, you know, okay, I bought this thing. Now I got to go pull 80 hour work weeks and run it because it's mine, right?

I'm not interested in that realm. So I do kind of what you do in the realm of, I just look for people that are already got a great project going on. And, I become part of the project. I partner up with them. I help them generate leads. I help them close deals and thenget equity for it.

[00:11:09] Christopher Wick: Absolutely. And it all adds up. And you know what? There is no deal too big or too small. And even when it comes to small deals, one of the limiting beliefs I had in the very beginning of my journey was like, well, I need a really good deal. I mean, I need to bring like a monster deal. And now at this stage where I've got many companies in my portfolio, it all adds up.

And as long as I can serve someone and help them have better momentum and get them better results, I think that's a huge win. When something's that's really important to know for your listeners, is the most important thing that I do every single day is deal flow. And typically I schedule the first hour of every working day is for my deal flow.

So this morning as I log in and I'm getting ready for, today I've got three podcasts interviews. I've got three staff meetings. I've got all this amazing stuff. But before I do that, I spent an hour in deal flow because that feeds the machine. So after 32 deals done, I've kissed thousands of frogs.

I've had lots of meetings. Some went nowhere, some went places. But one of the things I really appreciate about partnership, is I teach my clients and my partners how to have effective deal flow. And then when they send me a listing, I'll tell them, don't go down that trail. That's going to be a waste of time.

Or when one of my members or partners is in the middle of the deal and there's a snafu and they need me to talk them off the ledge or to give them some negotiation advice, that's what's so beautiful about partnership. And even when I do my own deals and even on my own deals that I source on my own, I create on my own, I still partner once I close the deal. 

And when I partner, especially with my mentors and business partners, I know there are certain things that I know how to do and there are some things that are way over my head. Where it's like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to close the deal and I'll bring it back to my partners and I'll figure it out.

Because there's always an answer when you're working together with other people. I'm only limited to my 35 years of experience. You're limited to however long you've been on this planet, but together, we're going to have 50, 60, 70, 80 years combined experience. And to me, that's the power of leverage. So when Roland Frasier mentioned infinite leverage, infinite deal flow, I really heard him say, okay, partnership is the goal.

And even though people think, okay, well, business partnerships is adding more relationship. There's a lot to handle. I'll tell you what, when you've got a business partner, then you can divide and conquer. You can do what you're really good at. And your business partner can do what they're really good at.

And one thing I'm really good at is taking insane action. Whether it's one hour a day, every day on my deal flow, even now where I've got plenty of deals, but I still do deal plugs. That's what feeds the machines or me just consistently focused on what's the next right thing to do. Who do I need to call next?

What meeting do I have to have next? And when people partner with me, they know he's going to follow through. Nothing's going to fall through the cracks, because I'm so consistent on taking action. And maybe that's what your listener needs to hear. Maybe they're not the smartest guy in the room. Maybe they're not the most experienced, but maybe they're really good at being consistent like I was. And consistency led to me to being smart and having great experience because I got the reps. 

But in the beginning, all I really had to my name was, I was just going to work insanely hard to get what I wanted and whatever my teachers told me to do, I was going to do it and run with it. I wasn't going to question it. I wasn't going to doubt it. If they told me to write letters, I wrote letters. If they told me to send out a text message, I sent out a text message. I was just going to do whatever it took and I kept doing it until I got deals and my deals got better and better and better and better.

Like deal number 31, is a screamin deal, whereas maybe deal number two was just an okay deal.

[00:14:44] Ronald Skelton: Well, deal number two is the one that failed, right? So I don't, if I call that one okay.

[00:14:48] Christopher Wick: That was deal number two. My first two, I actually don't count in my numbers. 

[00:14:53] Ronald Skelton: Okay. Okay. 

[00:14:54] Christopher Wick: I've technically done 34 in like six years, but yeah, deal number two, that was a disaster where I lost my entire investment. And I tell that story to my students every single time I teach about due diligence, because had I done better due diligence, I wouldn't have lost my entire investment.

But you know what? I think I've told that story now probably 300 times and it's been heard by hundreds of people. And by golly, if it just helps one person not get into a crappy deal then, then it was all worth it to me.

[00:15:23] Ronald Skelton: And the cool, the cool thing is you've recovered from it, right? You know when you do what you do and they do it like that, and the creative structure deals that we, we talk about in the different programs that you're involved with and ones i've been involved with. If you're not taking out huge SBA loans where everything in your world is collateralized, if something fails, it fails. You wrap it up, clean it up and move on.

It's a little dangerous you play in the SBA game because they collateralize everything and your puppy. You know, and you know, most people like to keep their puppies. So, there's a different, there's a different structure to these these type of deals. Let's talk about you mentioned something inside of there that kind of caught my attention.

And you said you do deal flow is still your focus. It's an hour of a day. For those guys that are listening, maybe they're just getting started. Maybe they're just, they can't figure out deal flow. 'Cause I'll tell you, that's the number one topic. We have meetups, we have hangouts or, for our listeners to come hang out with us twice a month.

One's coming up this coming Tuesday. That said, uh, the first Tuesday and third Tuesday of every month, I meet with my listeners and people from different networks and stuff. Almost always deal flow or lead generation for finding deals in various industries is the number one, like, how can I do this better? So what does deal flow look like to you?

[00:16:40] Christopher Wick: So, you can automate and you can use CRMs and you can use AI. That's really not my jam though. How I have built my deals is I do one to one reach outs. And even like this morning when I'm doing my deal and I've got lots of deals coming in because I have deals from my private clients. I have deals for my students.

I've got deals for my business partners, but I'm never just going to rely on someone else's deal flow. So that means even just me, just Christopher by myself, I'm still going to do one to one reach out. So even like this morning, I'll kind of just give you a snippet into what I did. I did 23 outreaches this morning.

And I did this in between a podcast interview and then a meeting and a mastermind that I'm in. And I had about 15 minutes. I thought I'm going to knock out at least 20. That was my goal. I reached out to 20 people on LinkedIn. I sent them a connection request. Sent them my intro message. So you don't even need sales navigator.

You could if you wanted, but I, you don't have to pay for that. I currently have sales navigator because my team needs it for all sorts of stuff that they do. But I personally click on a LinkedIn, I go and send them a message, then I do all my LinkedIn outreach, and then I send them an email, and it's really from me. And there's cold email program, and like my CMO, he does all this amazing cold email ninja stuff, and that's great. But when it comes down to me, and putting the message out there, I'm always going to take that action of one to one reach out.

What that gets me is, it gets the authenticity that I'm a real person. When I reach out to someone, they know I've not used AI that I've not used a CRM. Now, are there ways where you can use, like, for example, Roland Frasier's amazing with AI and teaches all this amazing stuff. When it comes to me and how I understand the world, I leverage my best asset. 

And my best asset is taking action. Even like you mentioned, like when deals don't work out and you bounce back. I use the example of, have you ever seen those clowns that you punch and they just pop back up? Dude, I'm that clown. I tell people I'm the clown. You can continue punching me and I'm going to get back up.

I can do something and fail and I'm going to get back up. And y'all it's been 35 years and I keep just getting back up and I don't care. My best asset for me is taking action every single day. I've got really strong muscles when it comes taking action, which is why this morning in between a podcast interview and a meeting with my mastermind, I've got 15 minutes and I knocked out 23 reach outs.

Because when I do that every single day, in addition to deal flow from networking and my business partnerships and my members, I always have deal flow. And when you're an M& A entrepreneur, deal flow is the fuel and the engine. The moment you don't have deal flow, you don't have deals. And so that's why even after doing 30 deals in five years, every single day, take an action, take an action, take an action.

And I honestly, at this stage, with how big my goals are, and with how ambitious I am, I do not see that ending anytime soon. I revealed to some students of mine last week, I had them guess at what's my goal for the next three to five years. What do I want? I had them put in the chat box. Maybe you want 30 more deals because you've done 30 already.

Maybe you want a hundred more deals. Maybe you want 75 more deals. With the way that I'm operating today, what I want in the next three to five years is, I want minority interest, equity, or control in 50 to 100 companies. That's what I want. And here, I'll tell you why I want it. You might think I want it just because I want to line my own pockets and income is great. Impact though is far more important to me. Because if I have interest equity or control and 50 to 100 companies, that's 50 to 100 ecosystems of families and employees and communities and customers that we serve.

On my own, just Christopher alone can't impact that many people, but having that leverage of 50 to 100 companies, that is going to be monstrous impact to really change what is really inspirational to me, which is to really impact our economy. Impact our local economy, impact families, impact education. Now, do I become super wealthy in the process?

Absolutely. I live a life of total abundance and I'm so privileged and I'm so grateful. And it's because I care so much about impact and I will not stop taking action. I'm going to be that little clown that just keeps getting back up. And I just don't stop because I'm not motivated by money. Money is great and it's necessary and I need it and it's a good fuel to have in the business. 

But what motivates me intrinsically is helping others. And there's no, I will never reach that goal. Monetary goals, I will reach and set new ones and set new ones. When it comes to serving others, I will never be satisfied. I want to continue to give as much as possible.

[00:21:36] Ronald Skelton: I'm a big fan of that. I'm a believer, a believer in that. I had, when I, even when I was in Tulsa running the real estate company, I had a buddy of mine come in and he,he did manual labor. It was raining real hard. So he didn't get to work that day. He stopped by and he heard me answer the phone.

Right. And I said,Ronald Skelton and I named my company and I said, how may I be of service? And after I got off the call, he looked at me and said, you know, at that time I own two. It's like, two different companies. You have this, you have that, why in the world would you answer the phone that way?

Well, you know, those people should be serving you. A lot of those guys are your point employees. I was like, no. The reason I have everything I have is I'm always of service, right? That's my, how may I be of service is the way somebody sends me a, a cold email and like, Hey, can we have a chat? I'll, you know, how can I be of service?

I don't tell people no usually until I know I'm not interested in what you're trying to pitch. But, uh,at least,I always try to figure it out where's somebody going and how can I help them get there. If I can do that, it's the old Zig Ziglar, I think it's the one they had.

It's like you, you can have anything you want in your life as long as you help enough other people get what they want out of life, right. I'm a big believer in that. I believe in it wholeheartedly. And I like what you're doing in this realm, helping, helping people get where they're trying to go. It seems like, it would be a lot to, get that kind of deal flow and stuff.

But when you think about it, if you're, if you reach out to 20 people a day, that's a hundred people a week and that adds up, right? 5, 200 people a year. That's more than most people have. When I get these people on, when I get my listeners joined in and stuff, they'll ask me, all these different questions.

It's almost the same answer every time. Like, how do I figure out what industry I should be in? Talk to more sellers. How do I get a deal across the line? Talk to more sellers, right? It's the, uh, the old adage is, you'll know what, you'll know more as you build this muscle of talking to sellers, trying to figure out where they're trying to get and helping them get there.

I talked to probably 50 to a hundred sellers in the coffee industry before I realized I didn't want to be in the coffee industry. I really thought I did. I really thought I could take the coffee industry, find a good roasting companies, turn them into subscription based services. I had this whole business plan in my head. And it wasn't until I've interviewed probably 50 to 100 of them. Some pretty, some people that did a lot of stuff imports.I have people and connections that, you know, bring beans over from all different parts of the world.

And then really learning the inside of what that industry is like. It's kind of like the diamond industry. There's a lot of dirtiness to it. 

But, uh, you won't know these industries. You won't know what business you want. If you're, if you, you know, I have people say all the time well, I'm industry agnostic. Well, of course you are. You haven't talked to enough business owners yet. 

[00:24:07] Christopher Wick: And you're so smart to have gone so deep in that industry before doing a deal. Because I see, I especially see, people who go into an industry that they think is going to be sexy or fun, like SaaS, or they go into technology, but they don't even realize the pain points. And one of my favorite criteria of business is, is really like the boring stuff. Like a waste management company.

How boring, like who wants to say, Oh, I own waste management. Well, me, I love businesses like that because look, AI is going to come in and slice and dice so much of what we do, but we're still taking out the trash the same way. Or we're still doing plumbing the same way, or we're still replacing roofs the same way.

And so I like to focus on BOBs, boring old businesses. I don't want the sexy SaaS. I've owned a SaaS business before and I was like, okay, this is too techy. There's too much complicated. And when you understand an industry, like how deep you went in the coffee to know, like, I actually don't want this. Oh my gosh, you just saved yourself years of time, tens of thousands of dollars.

And when I partner with my students and we get to partner on deals together and I say, don't do this deal. Ask me how I know. And I tell them why it's not a good deal. Well, I've just saved them. Years of hardship. I've just saved them tens of thousand dollars of investment. Ask me how I know because I've lost it myself.

But to have someone to go to to say, hey partner, hey coach, is this a good deal? That gives you the opportunity to make sure like, yes, this is a sound decision. Like when I did deal 18 and beyond and I never did a deal alone again, I had someone to ask to say like, hey, is this deal good? Should we still do this?

Or they get to ask me, hey, how's this look? And then you get two heads are better than one. But in the beginning, as entrepreneurs, I think many of us are trained to do it alone or to work hard enough to be worthy or to be good enough to do it. And what I tell people is, no. Deal one, start off with a partnership and the leverage you're going to have in the experience you get to piggyback off of is going to be huge.

[00:26:08] Ronald Skelton: So I have a running joke and all of our listeners have probably heard it by 50 times by now. And I'm going to, I'm going to tell you the joke ahead of time just because it leads to the question I'm going to ask. What's the number one cause for divorce? Well, the number one cause for divorce is marriage because you can't get divorced without being married. The number two cause for divorce is failed communications. That's the,failure to meet expectations is the word I'd actually like to say. Each partner goes into a marriage or a relationship, they have set expectations of the other person.

And somewhere along the lines, I'm blessed I've been married for 16 years. We got over that a long time ago. But, things just don't line out exactly how this mindful picture, picture perfect thing you had in your mind. I think in the business world, your business partners often spend more time with you than your spouse.

Right. If you think about it, when I get home, my time, I'm home anyway. My, my studio is four foot from my house, right? This is a portable studio. My, I work from here. I do everything from zoom. That said, when the kids in the family are around, the time and energy is split between my two children and my wife. Luckily for me, she has Fridays off and we do a Friday date, date day every day. So I don't really schedule much on Friday so I can go to the beach with her, go do, go, you know, get sushi and take it to the beach or whatever we choose to do. That said, how do you pick good partners? How do you make sure that expectations are set?

You know their skillset. They know what to expect to you. Cause that's, that's the number one cause for any type of, of, uh,what's the old song with, that says, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Rock and roll song. Yeah, I'm sure it was quoted from something else. How do you get over that?

How do you, like, you got so many different partners right now. You have so many different moving pieces. How do you manage it all?

[00:27:49] Christopher Wick: I do. And I'll give you a mindset thing and I'll give you a skill set thing. I always say a good coach teaches mindset. A good coach teaches skill set. A great coach teaches them both. So, on a mindset perspective, when you're dating, and I think dating is a great analogy. I love that you brought up marriage and divorce because it's so similar to the world of business.

When you're dating, you're going on a couple of dates, you're getting to know them. And those couple of dates, how I translate that into the business world is those are a couple of deals. Or those are a couple of transactions or conversations. Where people get hung up is they don't know who to choose or who to go to.

And my answer is just, just get started with something. Make your best judgment, do your due diligence on a business partner, but get started, even if the transaction is small. Maybe your first one is, but maybe the third or the fourth is a multimillion dollar transaction, but you determined your relationship and your character then.

So the mindset is, is just get started. The second mindset piece is what I really embody and this is what leads to this skill set piece. I have a document. And this is going to sound neurotic and it's because it is. But I have a document that I use to track all of my time. It's in a spreadsheet and there's no template.

So don't send me a bunch of emails. Ask me for the template. The document is this, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I've got a couple of tabs in the beginning. One of those tabs is a list of every single business I own, every single business partner I'm partner with and every single private client that I serve. And every week I look at that list and I asked myself one question. This week, how can I over deliver for this person and this person and this person and this person?

The reason why I'm mentioning this and this is the skill set piece of looking at your list every week. Or looking at it frequently or whatever cadence is authentic to you. Is I may not be an expert in finance or I may not be an expert in a particular business my client is in but I am an expert in over delivering.

I am an expert in following through. I am an expert that I will never forget. And so when I look at that list frequently, I look at the people that I'm serving and every week I ask myself, how can I over deliver for this person? Some weeks, there's really nothing to do because the deals are going fine.

But some weeks it's like, I need to jump on an extra call with them. Or I need to send them a video, or maybe I need to send them a white paper to serve them. So what's interesting is even though I've got lots of business partners and lots of relationships, no one feels like I'm too busy for them.

Because the reality is, is I'm not. Because the whole reason I exist, the whole reason my business has thrived is because of them. I don't have children, so I can't speak about parenting. But I do like to make the assumption that the more children that you have, you don't run out of love. Is that a fair assumption to make since you have kids?

[00:30:49] Ronald Skelton: Right. Yeah, it's not allowed.

[00:30:52] Christopher Wick: Plenty of love. There's, you can have, two, three more and you'll still have love. The only thing that we're restrained by is time. And when you master time, and when you're very organized and structured, and I like spreadsheets, and I keep it real simple. I don't do fancy formulas and stuff.

I just use little rows. But when I've got my little spreadsheets, I'm fully empowered to know I will not let anything run through the cracks. I will not forget anything, and I'll never drop the ball. And on the occasion that something happens, like life, and maybe sickness, or maybe an accident, my business partners will have so much of a track record to know he's always on it, he always takes care of it, something just might be wrong.

What that creates is it what's, um, J Abraham taught me years ago, the law of reciprocity. So when I give so much in that Zig Ziglar quote, that's on my website, my personal website, Christophermwick.Com, as the two quotes I live by. One of them is you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough people get what they want.

I live that every single day. But that's because I've got the mindset, how can I serve that? Even if it's a tiny on that list of all the people I'm partnering with, I've got deals that represent multi million dollar deals, and I've got deals that are kind of startupy. And they still get the same space on that list.

And they still get that question. How can I over deliver for that person this week, this month, et cetera.

[00:32:17] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting. I run all of my, everything I do, I run through four questions. Three that I answer, ask, in every it's our agenda in every meeting. And then one I put in quarterly. Just want your feedback on this cause you've got so many things going on. So I always start with the pat on the back.

So what are we doing really well? Right. I want to know what, especially like the teams I only talk to every few weeks. What's going really good? What's happening that's just really working? And then, the next question is, what can we do better? Like, you know, what can we improve upon those types of things?

Where are we having problems? What can we do better? And then the third question is always, what are we totally missing? Like whatever competitors that we, we cover like, what, what are other people doing in the space and, what are the customers asking for? What can we, you know, what are we totally missing here?

We're, there's some things we're missing. And at least once a quarter, I'm like, what are we doing where, what we're doing regularly that we probably shouldn't be doing at all, right? There's some stuff that's now fluff. It's not working. We've determined it's not working and we're still doing it.

But everything, almost that's the agenda of almost every meeting I have. Like it's as simple as that. If so, maybe i'm just getting old I'm 52 now. So it's like just keep it simple. what do we do? Really? Well, like what's really working? What can we improve upon? Right. What are we totally missing? Like, because somebody will know. Especially got bigger staff and you're meeting with different people in a regular place.

There's somebody in the company like, man, we're totally missing this. This widget needs a, a buckle over here or whatever. You know, they know. And they just sometimes are afraid to tell, Some people just have to be asked. Sometimes you just have to ask people things. They have the knowledge.

You just, they walk away from me and say, yeah, I probably should have said something. So what is your thought process? Do you have like some kind of a set agenda when you get these guys on calls? Or, uh, what does it look like when you're working with your teammates?

[00:33:51] Christopher Wick: Well, I love those questions. And one of my mentors, Tony Robbins, taught me years ago, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of questions you ask. And so one of the questions I ask when I begin every single meeting and so the people that have meetings with me as they hear me say this on your show, they'll recognize this.

But I always say, what would be the best thing you could get out of our time together today? That is me asking, what do you want? And of course, if I just said, hey, what do you want? That's not very nice. So you have to soft it a little bit. So what would be the best thing you ever time together today to become laser focus on the outcome?

I have a couple of strategies. Number 1, unless it's a big staff meeting, no meeting I have is longer than 30 minutes. None of them. Unless it's a big staffing. I typically have a big staff meeting like once a quarter in various businesses, but anything can be covered in 30 minutes or less. If it's gone longer, we have changed topics, which needs to be a different meeting.

So, for example, I was in a marketing meeting today. And we're talking about our outcomes for particular event. Then we start to go down the tech area, which is tech is so not my jam. So I'm like, okay, hold on before we go down the tech lane let's just go back to the core agenda. Y'all can go run off and do the tech later together since you are the techie people, because that's a different topic. Secondly, is I want to focus on one outcome. So with my private clients, my private clients who meet with me twice per month for 30 minutes at a time. Even though we have 30 minutes for that call, I have actually timed and I have measured my coaching calls with a one to one client on average.

I meet their outcome or I solve their problem in less than 12 minutes. Now, this isn't me saying I'm such a great coach. I can fix your issues in less than 12 minutes. Why I'm using this as a statistic, is most of people's meetings are highly unproductive, or they've got too many outcomes, or there's too many topics, and our brains cannot handle that.

I'm a total nerd about neuroscience and neuropsychology. Because this is what really controls our behaviors or our habits and our actions. And if we understand this, we can leverage it. So when I ask someone, what's the best thing you could get our time together today, if my private client tells me, I need to figure out how to do this contract. Or I need to figure out how to generate this much revenue.

That becomes my only focus. I don't care about anything else. I want to help you meet your outcome. And that's where I feel I do a really good job as a coach, as a mentor, as a business partner, because all I care about is the outcome. I don't care how long it takes. If it takes me 12 minutes or 28 minutes, I don't care.

I just want to meet your outcome. And if I can solve your outcome every single time we meet, that means that's going to lead to prosperity and abundance for you because you're going to have someone along the way helping you overcome these obstacles. So one thing that your listeners can take away, is when you have your meeting ask a good question to start off with. 

What's our outcome for today? What's the goal for today? Or you can borrow mine. What would be the best thing you could get our time together today? And you'll be surprised. Sometimes my clients will say, Oh, I want to get through this contract. But sometimes your clients will say, I'm having a really difficult day with one of my kids and I just need to talk it through. And if you can help that entrepreneur clear that headspace and then now they can be focused on the multimillion opportunity they're working on, then you've solved that challenge.

And I think when your outcome focused versus time focused, that's when the magic happens. Because it doesn't matter how long I spent something. If I work 40 hours a week or 25 hours a week, it doesn't matter as long as I'm hitting the results.

[00:37:27] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting. I do the same thing with small business owners and business owners in general. And it comes across a little differently because I have a quirky sense of humor. So I can do things and say things that most people probably can't get away with. So don't repeat me word for word, unless you probably could get away with it.

Cause you got that, that same, like I want to have fun while we're doing this kind of mentality, people will get that right away. But one of the things I'll do is after we build a little rapport, one of my favorite questions is like, out of all the things you can be doing right now and all the people you could be on the phone with, what has you on the phone with a guy who buys businesses and does what I do? Like, you know, what can I do to be of service? Where are we going? And, uh, usually that gets the conversation going as to why, why they're even considering talking to an investor or a, deal buyer, or what are you going to call this, mergers and acquisitions guy.

But I usually wait until we're deep into rapport before that, because it, I ask it a different, a weird way, I guess. You know, a lot of people go like, I can't say that. Like, it sounds rude when I say it like that. Don't say it because I, you know, I don't want you to offend people, but that's just how I, I can do it.

So the how important do you feel report is in the dealmaking on both sides? Both getting the deals done and finding the right partners.

[00:38:37] Christopher Wick: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. Is building rapport, but also asking, how can I be of service? Because I have experienced many entrepreneurs not asking for help or not asking for the help that they need because they're scared. And one of the things that I want to model is authenticity and transparency. Where when people hear me speak, they know like that is the total freaking truth.

Like he's not going to sugarcoat it. He's not going to puff himself up more than what he's got. Because I think one thing that we get really disillusioned by in our entrepreneurial community, it's only seeing when people are successful. Only seeing the Lambos or only seeing the mansions. And the reason I so voluntarily tell my story about my first deal, I tripled my profit 11 months and I thought, aha, I know what I'm doing.

And then my 2nd deal, I lose my entire investment in like 6 weeks and I think, aha, I don't know what I'm doing is right away I'm leveling the playing field. And when we are on equal ground, that is when rapport happens. Rapport happens in connection. Rapport happens when you can find similarities and then also let the BS go.

So when I go into a meeting one, they know I'm not going to go into the meeting puffing myself up and pretending I'm someone I'm not. The reason I count my deals is so people know, like, he is legitimate. Like, he closed deal number 32 yesterday. So they know it's like, well, I've done, over 600 deals.

You can say that when you get to a point. When I was a marketer, I helped over 500 companies. But when you're in the beginning and when you're not doing dozens, you're not hundreds be authentic with where you are. When it comes to business partnership, when you bring down your walls and I do a really good job of bringing down my walls because people know I'm not a techie guy.

I don't understand a fraction of the AI stuff. And right now I really don't care that much because it's not really impacted me too much. I will soon care one day. But right now I'm just focused on what Christopher can control and I can't control the AI and all that. But when I bring down the walls and people know, okay.

He's not techie. He's not going to get too fancy. He's not going to get complicated. And he's really not, and I even tell people it's not because I'm more gifted and talented, it's certainly not because I'm more smart. It's just because I take action. And everyone's capable of that. Everyone's capable of taking action.

So when you're wanting to partner with someone, don't just walk in with your achievements and your, your highlights. It's easy for us to feel good, more focused on our highlights. But can you also tell about a time you lost? Can I tell the story hundreds of times I lost my entire investment in deal number two?

So people know, now I really know what I'm doing because in the beginning, I didn't. That I think is so worthy of building that connection and that, that trust. And I think what my business partners have in me, whether it's a small deal or it's a multimillion dollar deal, is they have trust. They have trust I'm going to be authentic. They have trust that when I say I know something, I'm going to tell them that. And they also have trust that when I don't know something, I'm going to go figure it out.

[00:41:45] Ronald Skelton: It's interesting as a, being authentic, people ask me all the time. They say, well, why, you've been an entrepreneur all your life. You started multiple companies. Why buy them now, instead of starting the next thing? And I'm like, well, first of all, I'm 52 and I'm a very logical guy. So I know that for everyone I started, I didn't tell people 10 ideas.

I, put money into. Spent hours and hours in, pulled 60, 70 hour weeks trying to get up and running and it just didn't get traction and I had to switch gears. Most of the ones that people see that actually, I either grew sold or did something with, is because they were getting traction.

Anybody that's in the startup game knows that you're, you got a toy with a bunch of ideas to make one stick. It's a numbers game that's very brutal and expensive. To where in this game, it's a matter of picks, it's like a relay race. You don't have to, you don't have to go out there and, and practice to run the marathon.

You just need to pick up the baton where it is and take it to the next runner. I'm a big fan of, um, looking at something now and saying, how can I improve upon it? As opposed to all the different things you have to ask inside of that startup world, which is like, is there going to be product market fit?

Is there, you know,the customer is going to believe your story, like, and really own it and take it into their own. Will you ever even have a customer, right? I've actually created, you know, companies out there where I thought it was a great idea and it was everything I could do was pull a teeth to get a customer, right?

My friend, you know, friends and family were my customers cause I gave him a super discount or gave it to him for free so I can have a customer on the webpage. I just not wanting to play that game anymore. Maybe it's age and patience. Maybe it's the fact that, I want more time for the kids and stuff, so I don't want to pull 80-hour work weeks and, the crazy stuff you have to. 

But why is it that you love this industry? You clearly have started other stuff before you got into buying them. What is it you like about this as opposed to just coming up with an idea and hiring a team? Clearly you got the funds to do it now. You got the funds, you got the knowledge, what stops you from popping startups up?

[00:43:36] Christopher Wick: You know, I think new shiny objects are very seductive for most people. I also think the word more is very seductive. And one of the things, and I really relate to your age and also your wisdom. And some of the wisdom that I have after dozens of companies bought and sold is, understanding we are going to have the greatest impact.

Are there times where I will make an exception and look at a startup? Yes, but that's very infrequent because I need something that already has momentum. That's also a different mindset. When I was in my twenties and I built my agency from nothing and I scaled it, then I later sold it. That was a huge accomplishment.

But it was also very difficult and very unproven. When I go into an existing business already, we have something that I think is more powerful than any business asset you could ever gotten and get in the word is history. One of the most dangerous words I think is potential. I always tell my students, if you're dating, you don't date someone for the potential of who they could be.

You need to love them for exactly who they are. So don't get caught up in NRE, new relationship, energy, and think about the potential of what they could be. Don't wish that they were taller or shorter or richer or poorer or more healthy or less healthy. Love them for exactly who they are. When you look in the existing business, you see the history of what the business has done.

I don't want to be sold on the potential. I tell my sellers, if you could have by now, you would have by now. Let's look at today and yesterday. Let's not talk about tomorrow because that's where my certainty comes from. Is this going to be a good investment? What went so wrong in deal number two all those years ago, is I didn't realize how much of a startup it was, and that was where I failed.

I failed to do proper due diligence that I did not verify the history. I just went in because I was coming off this great success of selling my first company, and I thought, aha, I'll do it again. And then I realized, oh, okay, you really got to do due diligence. So when I go into an existing business, I have capital H history instead of the capital P of potential, which I don't want.

Now, I do think this is a very exciting time for people really caught up in AI and tech, and that's just a different personality. The personality that I have is I want to focus on predictable, repeatable and valuable. I think when we get into the potential, that's just for a different type of criteria.

That's a different type of investment profile. I'm likely not going to invest in the next Uber and for the 0. 001 of the venture capital funds where they find an Uber or they find a really cool startup, they're okay with those odds. I remember a venture capitalist I met 10 years ago, he says, I'm just hoping one out of every five deals works.

So he's going to invest in five, hoping one works. I don't like those odds. And for me and for my personality and for the certainty that I like, is I want to go into something that already has existing success. I don't want to create it from ground zero. I've done that before. 

[00:46:41] Ronald Skelton: It's a lot of work. And it's like a,it's the VC game, right? You're, you know, that I love what you said about him. Like he wants to invest in X and only one or two of them have to work. That's the VC game. Most of them do the model where if they've got, they invest in a hundred and only two or three of them make it, they're okay.

Right. Cause they've taken significant equity of those companies and they're playing the unicorn hunting, right? They're looking for the one that's going to go 100x. They're going to be the Uber, and if you really look at Uber, it's, I don't think it's profitable yet. They're still pumping money into that thing.

Same way with Amazon. Amazon got money, it's profitable now, but Amazon got money pumped into it for years before it actually turned a real profit. That's a tough game to play. I liked it. You said, uh, you, you've invested in history and not, and not in potential. I bet that doesn't go over very well with the brokers.

Do you deal with many broker deals?

[00:47:33] Christopher Wick: You know, man, I, I have never in my five years of doing acquisitions full time, I have not seen a broker deal under my watch go through. I've heard about them. I've heard of some of them happening. Right now I'm actually doing an experiment or some of my deal flow. I'm going after an industry that's very old. And part of me I've included reaching out to some brokers.

Just to test the theory, just to make sure what I'm teaching is still sound. Cause as a teacher, I want to be the greatest student. So I'm always testing my theories and by golly, I've had four brokers tell me today, I cannot schedule a call with you. I want to get on a call with you before I send financials.

And I told them, I said, I have so much deal flow. I need you to send me the finance or at least bullet points before I get on a call. I can't give every deal 15 minutes. And what they don't realize they're doing, is here they have a buyer who's fully capable, fully funded, and you're going to miss out because your preference is because you don't want to get financials before the call.

What was the call going to be about? Are you just going to ask me who I am? You can go look online. So I'm, I'm very challenged because I have not yet met a broker who really wanted to make a deal happen. I think there's so many barriers to entry. There's so many snags of get on my calendar. I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that with hundreds of deals coming at me weekly. I'm not just going to hop on for a 15 minute intercall. Send me something, man. Like, because I want to make a deal. So I have not yet seen a deal. Have you seen a deal under your watch with a broker go through?

[00:49:06] Ronald Skelton: No. We've, uh,yeah, I guess my partners did one in Australia, but it like, they, they vowed against all brokers for all future. Like it was really rough. The broker almost killed the deal multiple times. So there's a difference in the world in me, in my world anyway, I think there's a difference between a broker and an advisor.

I've seen sell side advisors that like they worked with them for years. They've coached them. They've mentored them and they got them ready for sale and they, they bring a deal to you. There's a difference between that. And a broker somebody's, they've only been with them for three or four months. They've got the numbers reworked and they're trying to sell you on the potential of this rework, remastered set of books that they, they cooked. 

Yeah. Sorry for my biased opinion. But I've had a few, I've had a few good brokers here on the, the show that they really work with their clients. They reallydo great things for their clients. And, um, you know, it's the people like at Quiet Light and,in some of these other places,They're getting deals done, right.

They're closing deals. And they're doing well by both sides, but I think it's the barrier to entry. I think that's actually keeps the gene pool murky in the broker world, right. Most States have no legal requirements whatsoever to be a broker. And if they do, they're, they're askew. Here in California to be a business broker, you have to have a commercial real estate license.

Be a commercial real estate broker, totally two different things. Have no, absolutely nothing to do, do with each other, other than occasionally the business might own some real estate. Quite often if it's, if, if the business was created before the eighties, that was a popular thing to do to buy your, buy your, your building you're in.

But, that said, there's no other, the business is the business in the, and the real estate is real estate. It should be treated as two separate entities.These brokers, a lot of them just don't have the training they need to do the right thing. That said, I've seen some really good ones too. I personally, I go off market because I like building rapport.

[00:50:54] Christopher Wick: You know, if there's a broker who wants to get a deal done and you've got some amazing businesses in your book, like bring them to me. I want to do a deal just because it's been half a decade and I haven't seen a broker. Please prove me wrong and I want to do more deals.

But if we've got these processes we're following like, Oh, I need to have an intro call before I give you some. If I've already signed your NDA and I'm the one that reached out to you, go ahead and send me some bullet points or something. Don't make me get on a call because there's, there's, you're gonna lose, you're gonna, the best investors are not gonna hop on for a quick intro call. That's not gonna happen.

And the newbies and the ones who are willing to take that time, I just think you're gonna get a better client if you help meet their needs. And my needs are, I just need bullet points or I need rough financials so I can understand. 'Cause, what am I going to ask you if I don't have financials? Well, I'm going to ask you, why you started the business?

Like that's, that's going to be later down the line. 

[00:51:46] Ronald Skelton: So for me, it's the, I can think of another, like, the other one would be bench, benchmark. I've had three different things I looked at from benchmark and they did a really good job. So me, rapport is more important. I, as long as I've seen your CIM first, right? I have to know the numbers are probably in the ballpark. But you know, at that point, once I know they're in the ballpark, I could care, I don't want to talk about numbers on the first call at all. 

I do want to talk. What did you build? Why did you build it? Where is it going? Where do you see the future of it? I want to see the culture because, by getting to know the owner gets to know the culture faster than anything. That culture is 90 percent of that, the owner.

And a lot of people don't believe that, but it is. If you really look at the owner or owners and see how they behave and how they interact and how they answer questions and their culture, are they calm or are they super hyper? All that comes in and it's going to reflect in the culture of their business.

I've turned more than one company away because there's no way in the world I can manage it, the way that the previous manager did. Uh, this, this has been on the podcast probably 40 times now, but there's an engineering company out of Dallas that got the guy on the phone and on zoom call, I seen somebody come in and ask him a question on zoom call.

And he kicks a trash can across the room. he's screaming and cussing. And this happened within, we did three calls with him and two of the three calls he blew up at something. With all love and due respect, I'm giving you help for your next call. Right. 

[00:53:03] Christopher Wick: For sure. Absolutely. Very important to have that culture fit.

[00:53:07] Ronald Skelton: And so I do go into rapport fairly quickly, but I get your point. It's like, I gotta, I gotta got to know the numbers work. Cause there's so many companies out there where, you said you scheduled it all and you got busy stuff to do. And you get like, you know an hour into it. And they finally like show you some numbers because you didn't get them ahead of time. You're like, your broker told me you're way bigger than this, right?

[00:53:26] Christopher Wick: I I can't do anything. Like if the deal doesn't work financially, I know I can't do it. So why even get into the intro call? So you just, you have to make certain that meets your criteria. Maybe it's what you're wanting to look for.

[00:53:36] Ronald Skelton: My thing is always not just in revenue numbers, but I always want to say like, you know I'm looking for something like a growth product. I need margins of this or gross profit. I wanted to see performance, right. And the broker said, well, they're not quite there, but you can get them there. It's like, look, you don't understand.

I'm not looking for something I can fix. I'm expecting that, I said, that's a huge ego. And I wanted to bring this up to you. It's a huge ego for somebody to go into a company and go, I know you've been running this for 30 years, but I'm going to step in and change everything and do it 10 times better than you ever did. To me, that is absolute BS.

For all these newbies out there, they're talking about, they're going to go in and improve, improve, improve. You're saying that you're going to take over a business from somebody who's been doing it for 30 years. Knows 30 years of the industry. Has been working with lawyers and financial advisors and anybody he had to work with to get to his point in 30 years, and you're going to improve it overnight? You better check your ego at the door.

So, I look for things that have a big enough profit margin that if I'm not as efficient as my ego says I am, then we have room for my learning curve and my team's learning curve. So that that's important when we talk to the, the brokers all the time. Like, no, it's not doing as good as it could, but you can fix it.

I was like, you just raised the red flag, man. And you're like, what do you mean? I said, I'm not looking for something to fix. I'm looking for something that works well, that I can learn to grow and I can make, maybe I can improve it later on. But I don't change anything in the first six months, unless it's technical.

I'm a nerd by previous trade. Like I might change your background or your website. I might put it on something that's a little faster. I might do some nerd stuff in the background to it, to make it more efficient. Throw up a website when there's not one, that type of stuff. But, uh, as far as changing the way you're, you or your employees do their day to day operations, not for six months, because I don't know what the hell you're doing.

[00:55:12] Christopher Wick: Right. Absolutely.

[00:55:14] Ronald Skelton: So we're, we're at the way hour. I know you've got a timeframe here. Three cool takeaways. Something that, if somebody can only hear like one or two things, or they can only remember one or two things from the show, maybe three, what would you want them to walk away with?

[00:55:27] Christopher Wick: Today, I want them to walk away with to work with a mentor and a business partner to help them have more momentum and get better results. And for any of your listeners, if they want support, they can reach out to me at Christophermwick. com. I've got a big green button that says email me and my team.

If you've got a deal, I'd love to help you with it. I'd love to help you get the really good ones and skip the bad ones. And help you also integrate your deal and how to acquire a deal and then really grow it. And how do you, what do you do once you are the dog that catches the car? What do you do next?

That would be the big message is to partner. Partner, leverage, create that leverage that my mentor told me about years ago, and then go do more deals by having more momentum.

[00:56:10] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. Thank you. We'll call that a show and hang on for just a second.

[00:56:13] Christopher Wick: Okay. Thank you for having me.