How2Exit Episode 77: Ryan Tansom - Entrepreneur, Speaker, Podcaster and Educator.

Ronald Skelton  0:06  
Hello and welcome to the how to exit podcast where we introduce you to a world of small to medium business acquisitions and mergers. We interview business owners, industry leaders, authors, mentors and other influencers with the sole intent to share with you what it looks like to buy or sell a business. Let's get rolling.

And now a moment for our sponsors. I want to highly recommend you get acquisition Aficionado magazine every month acquisition aficionado magazine brings you tactics for business buying and selling you won't find anywhere else learn firsthand from industry leaders who share their success stories featuring in depth interviews and stories from leading figures in the business acquisition industry. This multi platform mobile magazine speaks to acquisition entrepreneurs wherever they are in the journey and I want you to visit acquisition aficionado.com today. Hello and welcome to the how to exit podcast today. I'm here with Ryan Tansom,  Ryan is the co founder of was ar, 

Ryan Tansom  1:12  
Arkona, 

Ronald Skelton  1:13  
Arkona butcher that and the host of international growth podcast. Thank you for being on the show today.

Ryan Tansom  1:20  
You bet I love it, Ron and it's intentional growth. It's all good. You're definitely not the first to do that.

Ronald Skelton  1:25  
I, I actually 

Ryan Tansom  1:26  
like Mr. International.

Okay, we'll, we'll take it. We actually had someone do that in my marketing coordinator. We're gonna call you Pitbull. Now. I'm like, Come on, man.

Ronald Skelton  1:33  
So intentional growth. Right. And that's actually an important question, right? Looking at something with intent. It makes it I, I love the tagline because I mean, a lot of people have afterthought. So let's just jump in with your origin story kind of how did you get started in this space, just kind of

Ryan Tansom  1:50  
not

Ronald Skelton  1:50  
story

Ryan Tansom  1:50  
 being intentional. That's how I realized that the word is really damn important. Absolutely Ron, my like exposure to business came from my dad. He was a hustler. Still as ostler he started our family business in the early 90s. Because our house bought $250,000, it used Panasonic copiers. And the rest is history man, he had 38 terms and sold them all and just kept going. So I worked in other business, my whole life man, like moving copies around helping them move buildings and then cold call back when I was in high school, swore my grave would never go work for him like a lot of second generation family families are and then o nine hit financial crisis, the bottom of the margins, and the equipment just disappeared. And at that point, we're doing 21 million in revenue, 115 employees. And so I started full time. And I was in a banking meeting with my dad and a CPA meeting and we lost like little over 900 grand that year. And so we spent the next five and a half, six years turning the business around. So like, I, I don't think I've replaced and turned around about 60% of the employees by the time I was 25 sold a couple branches for cash. And then we rolled out a new accounting and ERP system, I build out the manage IT service and the software automation, rebranded so that you go to a head to head with all the other kind of business to business tech players get to this point where like, I was the executive vice president. So I was pretty much running the business, a lot of the operations and my dad was in the visionary. So we kind of tag team and the top part of the company kind of became my baby like it was just like my vision I kept like, I really just enjoyed the people where we're going. But what happened was my dad and I had this proverbial Groundhog Day conversation, which is when you sell on here, it's like selling, not selling, selling, not selling and selling, not selling. like, Dude, I'm losing my mind as the one that's running the ship, depending on whether we're selling or not like is going to impact all of my decisions. So we got to this point, ron. we're like, in now I can articulate this way better now than I could 10 years ago. But he wanted more distributions and more cash, like he did not want to talk about copiers, and you wanted to essentially just be an investor Just get the hell out. But I wanted to reinvest for growth, we put millions of dollars back into the next strategy, the business manage IT, so that you have one stream of cash flow, you're gonna reinvest it, and you're taking it out, and you have to be aligned with where you're going. So we didn't understand how to get aligned. So it ended up happening, we ended up getting to the point where we felt so trapped that we ended up hell with it, let's just sell the business. So in, in 2014, we pin the company up against a couple of handful of local competitors, sold it in 2014, paid a lot of taxes like 53 and a half percent and then paid off our debt fired 60% of our employees and I went, What the hell was that? As I'm sitting in a cube next to an intern after running a $20 million business at the age of 27, and I'm like, alright, what did we just go through and honestly run like, your podcasts, my podcasts, all the things that are out there? 10 years ago, none of this stuff was out there.

Ronald Skelton  1:52  
Right.

Ryan Tansom  2:06  
 And I realized that a lot, a lot of entrepreneurs, I was in this stage like a CEO peer group. So I was like, most people are doing what my dad and I did, which is even though we had a $20 million business, we had a lifestyle business, we were sucking all the cash out of the company. So salaries, distributions and perks versus saying, hey, if we reinvest this cash flow, it could grow an asset and grow the equity value of this thing. But we didn't know how that worked. We didn't know what we're doing. So as revenue, gross profit checking account, revenue growth rabbit checking out month to month, the month and then you just never get off that hamster wheel. So it's kind of this whole, like shift in mindset that I had after

result.

Ronald Skelton  5:19  
That's very, very common. It's predominant. And throughout all the businesses, I've seen all the business owners I've known. And it's interesting I refer to most entrepreneurs is accidental entrepreneurs, right? They never intended to start out like create a business. They just, they made something a widget or whatever one of their buddies said, I like one of those who made one for a buddy and the next thing and they know another guy wanted one. And pretty soon They've taken all their free time up. And they start thinking I'm making more money doing this. Or if I did a fad, a couple more hours, I'd make more money doing this, and I would quit my day job. And then they move into it. And there's no formal training, no accounting training, nobody's ever told them like managing a company like an asset, a financial asset (inaudible).

Ryan Tansom  5:57  
(inaudible)

You start with income. And by the way, I can absolutely validate the accidental nature of that because, Ron, for the first couple 100 of my podcast interviews, I used to start with, like, tell me why you became an entrepreneur. And like, I didn't try to it was an accident. So I guess, I, I stopped asking because it was like, well, there's so few people that actually intentionally become an entrepreneur to grow the a valuable asset. It's like I found an opportunity. I wanted to disrupt an industry or I hated my job or my boss. I mean, it's still the total E Myth for sure.

Ronald Skelton  6:28  
I actually, my father told me I was too young to work for him. He owned a painting company. And when he went to work, I grabbed a push mower and tied it to the back of my bicycle, and drug it five and a half mile we lived in the country, the nearest little housing area was five and a half miles into town. I just drove it all the way into town and like bicycle broke, I threw it in the ditch record, get it later and pushed it the rest of the way. I mowed lawns all day. And after. It wasn't until he didn't even really kind of know what I was doing this he kind of did, I think but he just didn't, didn't click until I got bit by two pitbulls one day. And the police called him said I'd been bid on the legs by these dogs and telling him what's going on. And he said, Well, let me talk to my son. He's like, he goes, I couldn't stop him. He's over there mowing the lawn. As soon as I got the dog secured away from me said I told this guy you guys already paid me he's already left I'm gonna go finish his lawn. And I was like cutter push mower on this lawn with bloody legs are these dogs are bit me pretty bad. After that, I think you don't have to do that anymore. Come work with me. If you're strong enough to do that, and determined enough to do that you can climb a ladder and hold a paintbrush, 

Ryan Tansom  7:25  
as

you said painting sounds a little bit safer than that circumstance.

Ronald Skelton  7:29  
But that wasn't even the first case when I was even younger. Like fourth grade, we moved to the country in the fourth grade, I was mowing lawns with my older cousin. And we got so we learned so many accounts, my dad and my cousin's dad and my uncle had to go out and help us finish when they made a stop. So 

Ryan Tansom  7:44  
that's awesome.

Ronald Skelton  7:45  
 Some people are like, there's some people accidentally falling into some people. It's just your general nature. Right? Figure out I want x in order to get x, I gotta go do some type of hustle, I gotta go mow some lawns, I gotta do something. Let's talk about like that shift you made you actually went from you came out of this exit. And you started looking at ways to help other people. And I really liked that the whole thing on your website where it's view the who doesn't say their view and run your company like a financial asset, right? So it's kind of what was that shift like and kind of give us a high level of that we can start diving into what's the actionable steps that people can take to start looking at it that way.

Ryan Tansom  8:21  
The shift happen around is that after we so after I quit, I lasted 60 days at the sellers, I'm sorry, 60 days of the buyers our company, no real plan after I was like, I'm professionally unemployable. I'm not cut out for these meetings that I don't have any control over. And so I actually joined this gentleman, he had a wealth management firm, it was very, very, very, very small. He was managing essentially one family's money. And I was like, I don't know, like, let's just go with sure we now have some money, I never had a pot to piss in and all my dad never got some money, like someone's got to manage him as well learn how to do this too. So for about 18 months, very, very rough learning experience, because I did not sign an operating agreement with him. I did not know the stuff that we're talking about, went in there and helped him build a firm, major disagreements and I so there was a whole partnership dispute or lack of partnership because it was no partnership. But what it ended up doing is helping this guy build his wealth management firm for 18 months rather than like 12, 20, 20 million, 30 million bucks, something like that. But what the key part of that Ron is one is it was not for me. I was like No thanks. Like I, I don't like personal wealth management, but we're clicked for me was cashflow. There's three financial statements for every business income statement, balance sheet cash flow statement, and cash flow is tied to an asset that we all want that creates wealth. And I'm like that company that we just had like that, like what the hell like this thing is an asset. It's not a lot of people what I realized was just like my dad, and I'd say you just kind of hope someone's going to sell it because you think of strategic reasons. Like Oh, someone's gonna want to eliminate a competitor cross sell their markets, get the people I always thought about the strategic reasons someone wants to buy a company. But then there's this whole world of private equity and all these other investors that like, they want cash flow, and they want that cash flow to grow. So like after that we saw, there's like the intersection of business and money happened for me, it was like, oh, like, this thing is a business, I'm really good at that. I mean, I turned the whole business around with my dad. And we were like, we know how to run and operate companies. Well, if we did that with some financial discipline with a financial goal, that can be even more beneficial for people. So I ended up with like consulting for like five years kind of flopping around and trying to call it the 1.0 version, where I created these five principles that I really wanted my passion around is I will love teaching people how this stuff works. Because I do not like to be told what to do. I'm willing to listen, if I respect the person, if they've done if they've got the credibility. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are the same. And I was so sick of consultants back when I had the business, just sucking off the cash flow and second off our need to do things. And so like, I don't want to be part of that. So I was like, Hey, I just want to teach people how to do this. So that way, like, they can be control and control their destiny, because it controls a big thing that I think a lot of us want control, which is why we take this risk. So after consulting, that's where it really dawned on me. Like there's so few people that really understand valuations and how to grow equity value to make it all worth it run, like I know that I want to create wealth, enjoy, work, and make an impact all those things. And that's what I no, notice a lot of other entrepreneurs want to do. And when you're not living in the intersection of all those, you could be making a lot of money, having a lot of fun, at some point you're gonna have, why am I doing this? What's the impact that I'm gonna make, or you can be making a big impact, you can be having a lot of fun. If you're not making enough money, you're going I gotta get rewarded for this. And so the whole goal is the reward. So why are you doing this? I mean, the amount of people that look at me and say, What's your goal? They're like, ah, 20 million in revenue? Who gives a shit? What if it's worth nothing? You're gonna do all this for 10 years invest all your time and energy and capital and it can be worth nothing? Don't you want to know what creates value and how valuations work so that way, you're paying attention to the right things. So that's really the underlying passions, I just love having. I love helping other people understand how to clarify that long term goal, and then how to get there.

Ronald Skelton  12:15  
One of the things I see is there's a little bit of a myth people see like software as a service companies. And we think something like Shopify stores, there's a few out there that can trade on revenue, multiples of revenue. So they'll hear a story about somebody getting two times three times revenue. And they think, well, that's how this works. So my brick and mortar or concrete company is going to get three times revenue. And this is not how this works, right? So I've actually had a call last week, I guess it was no, yeah. Last week, I said, Hey, I'm talking about selling my company. Here's what's going on. Like, first of all, I'm not a broker or advisor, I'm interested in buying it, if it's the right kind of company start talking about like, what is it you're wanting to do? I need three and a half million dollars. And I was like, Okay, well, cool. How did you come up with that number? That's two times my revenue, and I was like

Ryan Tansom  12:57  
or do that or my retirement number. And it's like, they'd be like me to send you around, like, hey, I, I want you to pay $2 million for my house, let's say for 700 grand. Why? Well, because that's my retirement number. Well, that has nothing to do with the value of your house.

Ronald Skelton  13:10  
It's like, okay, they just my first instinct, if I'm really interested in a company, the first thing I say, like cool is, yeah, we can get you there. And it's not because I don't know enough about the details of their company. And a lot of times how they get you there's (inaudible), you're gonna need to go to work with an advisor, and you're gonna have to double your company, because you're just not there yet. If you really need that number, like if it's a retirement number yours, you, you can get there, you probably get there two to three years. Right. But it's not gonna it's not today. And there's a lot of stuff you got to do. Right. There's a 

Ryan Tansom  13:38  
yup

Ronald Skelton  13:38  
so

Ryan Tansom  13:39  
well, going back to your cashflow comment, Ron, is it every business and by the way, every country, city, government, and household everything will eventually come down to cashflow. There's no way around it man, Shopify or any of these companies. What's the trailing 12 months of EBITDA of Snapchat? Well, it's negative $600 million. Show me if I give you money, how is it going to come back in the form of cash flow? So like revenue, multiples are just a proxy for cash flow? It's some sort of like way of someone saying, Hey, this is how much cash flow eventually generate my old business. And 20 million in revenue, it's usually two thirds 1/3 to 1/3 was equipment revenue that was new every year Ron and then two thirds was recurring bank finance, Lockton fights. So our old industry prior to the last couple years, that's been very wonky for a lot of other people as well. It used to trade on one times revenue of maintenance contracts, all they're doing is having a proxy for the EBITDA multiple equation.

Ronald Skelton  14:42  
right

Ryan Tansom  14:42  
Because, because like you wouldn't know unless like so for example, in my old industry as hay ron, what, what size company you have, no, I got 10 million dollars, I can go well, 10 million, well, it's gonna be two thirds maintenance contracts. And what so it's about that you can like do some back of the napkin math and see what kind of cash flow that could have. So I just wanted to make That note that, yes, things trade under multiple revenue, someone's got to make money somewhere, somehow, some way, because the money's gonna have to go to back to people and pension funds, who the teachers or the cops have to use the money to buy groceries and pay their mortgage. So like, I just think we've lost some stability. So we've lost grounding over the last 10 years on that concept.

Ronald Skelton  15:22  
So you put a lot of thought it is just kind of go through the process, right? So somebody comes to you there, maybe they think they want to sell they don't realize they might want to sell now, but that they really they don't realize it's a couple years out, what is the conversation look like that you're gonna have with that potential business owner,

Ryan Tansom  15:38  
I'll take some kind of just general scenarios usually started to get a phone call. And just before I get in this rant, just be clear, we're not investment bankers or brokers either. So we have a training, we have a training business, and we have a fractional CFO business. That's it. But we always are helping people view and run their company like a financial assets. So there's a lot of tie into m&a We help people acquire if we're on the floor, they have a CFO of ours, or help them, sell it if they're engaged with us. But we're not bankers or brokers. It's just the concept that matters. And why is because so start with how the conversation like the sequence of events usually happens. It's usually like someone like you ron like, someone calls me up and says, Alright, Ryan, I want out like, I don't know what your job or your asset. And the first usually people look at me like, What do you mean? Well, you get a W (inaudible) paycheck, whether it's guaranteed payments, or it's payroll to do something, that's a job that's different than this asset that you have equity in. So I can like almost immediately people that have very little understanding of what is this company worth? What does the equity valuation? How is that separate from my job, we got to start, we got to start there. Then the next thing is, there's really three things everybody should be thinking about. One is what is the target equity valuation, you want at any point in time in the future, we all like I am completely convinced that if we have enough time, energy and capital, there's nothing you can't do. As long as it's a good idea and you execute upon it, you have enough time, energy and capital, do whatever, you can create a unicorn, but you might take it for two years, but like, you start putting a constraint on it run. And now we have our decisions and trade offs. So if you said I want a $10 million equity valued company in 2030, now we're gonna have to figure out what is the revenue and the gross profit? What essentially how are we going to fund that growth? How does that growth impact our salary, our taxes, and our potential available distributions? So the first question was, what is the target equity valuation you are in a point in time? The second question is what is the annual income you want along the way through salaries and distributions, because if you said, Hey, I needed I need 100, grand and sour, or 100 grand and distributions on top of my 115 salary, that's gonna limit the amount of money we can reinvest for growth. So you might have to push off your timeline or reduced to the valuation. It's just pure logic. So again, first thing target equity valuation at a point in time. Second one is the target annual income you want along the way salaries and distributions. The third thing is what is the role that you want in operations as a job along the way, as well, and it can evolve, it could go from engineer or chief marketing officer or whatever the heck it is. And you can say, hey, in year two, as we get to this big gun, I want to hire a CEO, then I want to move to the chairman of the board or whatever, like, you can at least paint out the role, the equity and your income. Now you've got a framework run to like make decisions, and you say, okay, hey, executive and meta conference badass, I can't wait to give him some equity. It's like, well, then your company needs to be bigger because your equity target Ron is 10,000,000 in 2030. So the company needs to be bigger. So that's what makes it worth it. So you have a framework to like, make decisions that we all have every day.

Ronald Skelton  18:51  
A lot of people don't realize that I want my revenue dude, like you were talking about earlier, what my revenue to be 10 million like, okay, great. How do you think that's impacting the company? What are your margins? Like? What are the profits? Like, there are so many other things that come into play and 

Ryan Tansom  19:03  
say

oh, let's give an example that like, like, going back to real estate, if I put a bathroom on my roof, if I spent 50 grand on a putting a bathroom on my roof? Would that make my house worth more money? If no one values it Who gives a shit?

Ronald Skelton  19:17  
right

Ryan Tansom  19:18  
 So again, if we like it, what do you think about like, reinvesting back in a company ron? Like, this is like so I live in Minnesota? So like, let's see at a million dollars in cash flow or EBITDA. So you have a million dollars, you pay 350 grand in taxes. You got 650 leftover you, let's say you take 250 math correct? No, 150 out, you got 500 grand left. So you took 150 and distributions, you have a half a million dollars. Now you got your constraint, because you took your money out, you paid your taxes, you have a half million dollars, what are you going to do with it? People don't know these make shit up every day. It's like, well, we're gonna do this marketing platform. We're gonna do this accounting system. We're gonna like launch this product and just kind of hoping that it's gonna work out and it's like no, like way to synthesize like, hey, if I remember As a half million dollars, here's how I would love, love to hear people say it says, We're gonna hire this executive, we're gonna pay this, this recruiting fee, hire this executive, we're gonna roll this out, it's gonna derisk the company, because we're going to have more sustainable, predictable and transferable cash flow, and therefore, there's going to be a higher multiple, because we derisked the cash flow, we reinvested the money for a return. But no one has the, like the framework, and they're just guessing. So like going back to the toilet on the roof, it's like, that's what people are doing. It's just like buying and doing random stuff. It's like, well, how do you know if anybody values that? Wouldn't it be nice in what people value is sustainable, predictable and transferable cashflow.

Ronald Skelton  20:42  
Earlier, we were talking about the business owner like I want out, and you brought up a, a good point, your conversation, the first thing I always ask them is, like you said, you went out of your job or your asset. A lot of people don't realize that they love their assets, they love the company, like the people and everything else, they just have got to a position where they hate what they do, they're burned out or what they're having to do every day. It's like, I learned a lesson inside of the real estate world is don't solve the problem until you have the deed, right. A lot of times that these guys get on the phone with like, Look, you really don't want to sell this business to me, like we only do burnout. If you love the business, you love the people, you hate what you're doing, and you're running it wrong, if you sell it to me, you're gonna have to sell it to me at a discount, or you're gonna have to fix these things. And I promise you,

Ryan Tansom  21:24  
and, and so to and or stay with an urn out, because they didn't run it, they didn't build it correctly.

Ronald Skelton  21:30  
yes

Ryan Tansom  21:30  
So they didn't actually get out of what they wanted out of

at all.

Ronald Skelton  21:35  
 And the thing is, like, one, once we, if we went to the steps I'd want you to do during that earnout phase, at the end of it you're gonna resent me for because you're gonna be back to doing what you love. Right? Because that's what I want to do inside of the companies is like, what are people really good at? What do they really love? And is there any overlap between them too, sometimes there's no overlap, they really love to do something, they just don't have their finger skills to get it done. And other times there's good overlap, but they're doing they're really good X they want to do X but some reason their company's got him assigned to do and why. And

Ryan Tansom  22:05  
what and it being able to clearly articulate that is the first step, 

Ronald Skelton  22:09  
right

Ryan Tansom  22:09  
right? Like, oh, there's a job that I get a paycheck for? And oh, there's an asset. Now what do I want with both? And like Ron's, there's a wonderful example I have with a client of ours where like, when you think about those three things that I was talking about target equity, valuation and point in time, target income through salaries and distributions along the time along the way, and then what's your role? So a lot of people can't immediately afford to hire a CEO or GM or President like, that's everybody's I shouldn't say that's everybody's, it's a high frequent, like goal of a lot of people I talk to, I want to be able to to be more passive, okay. Make sense? Well, usually, the constraint is people cannot afford their lifestyle with their income. If they were to hire the $200,000 person, they're stuck. So the way to get out of that is to have your three financial statements tied together with a projection towards that equity goal. And you say, okay, in May, I'm going to get to a point where my cash flow, not my income statement, but my actual cash flow from operating activities, can afford 20 grand a month of distributions while hiring the $200,000 person. So that's why I like your role being clear in your role, and your income is huge, with that target as a context, because then you can go okay, in May or June, I can afford this person, I can elevate up to just distributions without impacting my lifestyle. And now I've got an asset that can continue to grow without my involvement. And I met a client did just that hired a president with a recruiter and he's moving to frickin Hawaii next year. It sounds like a joke. But it's actually true. I mean, the guy, he's a Yeah, his, his a fantastic human being he bought the company. It's a manufacturing firm from his dad. He's a psychologist, or he was a psychology degree. And he's like, I just wanna, I want to do other things. And he wants to have this asset without selling it. But there's like this plan to get out of that role. First.

Ronald Skelton  24:02  
There's a kind of a new or I don't know how new it is, a lot of smart people have done it over the years. But there's a newer, it's resurging. And it's this retiring out of your business but not owning it. You don't necessarily have to sell it side of this. I, I guess the reason I'm saying this is with what you guys do, I think it would be a great if somebody were to do what I'm about to tell you, your, your company sounds like it'd be perfect to do this to help somebody get their butt to retire in place, meaning that they still own it. They step out, they become the chairman of the board, they do monthly vision like hey, making sure everybody's still on track quarterly planning calls and stuff like that, but they're not in there on the day to day basis. I think that's available to more companies than the owners actually imagine. I think a lot of the owners don't see that as like a possibility and.

Ryan Tansom  24:47  
That's why they call and say they want out because they're burnt out because they're so trapped in their own job. I mean, it could be a $2 million job or $20 million job like my dad and I had I don't care what it is. You got all the personal guarantees. You feel like you need to be the CEO Honestly, Ron, if my dad would have stepped aside, in like year five and just been a salesperson, we could have had $100 million company, but he thought he needed to be the CEO. It's like, dude, like, you get the attention span of a gnat like you are not a good leader, like you go, you're a copier sales guy go close deals. And so like, I think that there's all these narratives that we tell ourselves, right? And by the way, you want to buy companies and so do I like, cash flow, man. That's why,

Ronald Skelton  25:27  
right. 

Ryan Tansom  25:28  
It's so funny, ron Like, people are like, Hey, I got this out of the blue offer a call like 25 million bucks, can you think I should take it I'm like, you know, you're gonna do, you're gonna sell your company, you're gonna pay a bunch of tax pay off your debt, let's say you walk away with, let's say, it's 80 million out of the 25 you're gonna spend the next 12 months trying to figure out what to do with it, because we have high inflation, government bonds, or junk, and you got all this shit. So you're gonna have like a full time job, how to preserve your capital, and half of the time people that sold companies who are dealing with that kind of wealth and go in and buy companies anyways, because they're like, now that I get it. I don't have to be the CEO and I just want to collect the distributions and have the equity and so it's just like this full circle it's like save your spare yourself some of the misery and be intentional with the decisions before you make a big decision

Ronald Skelton  26:15  
it's interesting as I know I, I have a friend right now who's in that same that exact thing. He built something up it was in the real estate space but he was the CEO that he built something up he sold it I really don't like he, he actually participated in some stuff in the Mergers Acquisitions face because he's looking for something else to do. And I was like, never had a W two job when last call I had with him he's like, kinda would like to go work for a private equity company or something. I've never had a W two job, I don't know how to go go about doing it. I've never even had a resume. Right? Do you. There, there's a big lesson aside of there is your business. If you're out there, you're listening to this, you're thinking about selling your business, you're a business note or not a wealth manager. And unless you've got a wealth manager plan, you're about to be handed a big tax check, or your picks big tax liability and a bunch of money you don't know what to do with or how to do it, deal with it. Right? I'm a real estate junkie. So if I get cash laying around and go buy more houses and owner financed them out to people, the problem with that is right now I'm setting the stage where that's even scary, because they're overpriced. We're about to have a big correction. It may not be six months, I'm not predicting anything, you might be sick. There's the real estate markets always been cyclical, it's going to have a correction, it's usually on about a 12 to 15 year cycle to being on who you ask. And we're about 12 to 14 I think we're about 14 years into the cycle right? So there's got to be a correction and I don't want to be buying something fresh right now. But that's still not even wealth management because everything's in one basket so even with what I've got going on (inaudible)

Ryan Tansom  27:39  
its gonna to be diversified man and there was interviewed Mike Michalowicz, I think that's how you pronounce it. I always mess it up from profit furred first and he was talking about it, he thought he had the Midas touch after he sold his company. And it was the touch of death, like everything he touched was not a good investment. And it's, I see that as a very common theme and where people are like, Oh, I built in grew and sold a successful company, I can do anything. It's like, well, copiers, and IT services way different than a software development firm that is doing water monitoring out of California, that's a startup

Ronald Skelton  28:13  
right

Ryan Tansom  28:13  
way different type of business. And there's different people different things. And it's just it's a word of caution that like, get your savings where it needs to be and then have some play money. But I think back to your old point, companies are assets. And if you're choosing to keep your company or sell it, right now you're the equity owner of that, whatever the equity actually is worth, like understanding how it's valued. And what you have the ability to do with it is important. That's kind of goes back to that tagline that we have is view and run your company like a financial asset. What do you want with financial assets, we want them to grow in value, right? When you when they grow in value, you want to have the options to sell them to people that want the want them at the fair price, and you want to make sure you mitigate taxes along the way. I like that because there's this whole extra planning industry and like, I got certified like, seven, eight years ago or something like that. I'm like, okay, Ron, do. Let me ask you a question about this topic. Do private equity firms do Exit Planning

Ronald Skelton  29:08  
private equity when they're when they're?

Ryan Tansom  29:11  
And it's not a trick question. I don't want to trick

Ronald Skelton  29:13  
let's say

everybody. I've talked to the private equity firms, they actually have an exit plan in, in place that I've taught you, the ones I've talked to have an excellent plan in place when they're bought the (inaudible). So private equity.

Ryan Tansom  29:22  
yeah cause it's an asset right?

Ronald Skelton  29:24  
 Right, they know what they're like they're buying this to do this. There's the intended purpose of

Ryan Tansom  29:29  
intentional, right it's

Ronald Skelton  29:30  
yeah

Ryan Tansom  29:30  
 same thing with you when you buy real estate, right? You buy the real estate at a price and you want to grow it you're not like quote and quote, do an Exit Planning. You're just an investor, right? You're buying something and growing it and having the choices to monetize it when you want. I think that's the one of the big takeaways and everything results in cash flow and cash flow results in an equity valuation.

Ronald Skelton  29:51  
In the real estate world, I want to buy it at a discount right? Then I want to sell it to I want to clean it up, sell it at full price and earn interest on the whole valuation. Right, that's the same thing inside of here, I want to buy something that at a cost seems reasonable to me that makes sense to it that I see as a discount, because I'm going to do X, Y, and Z and make it better. And every business buyer out there thinks they're gonna fix something, that guy has been running it for 25 years, but you're gonna change it, you're gonna make it grow. Okay, I laugh at that to some extent, because it's not as easy as a, as, as lot of people think the (inaudible) short of like, what we do, like the fastest way to grow these things is by other companies and bolt them on late. And always you can keep the people and do the integration side of it, and understand the cultural matches.

Ryan Tansom  30:30  
That's 1000 times harder than putting the deal together with some equity debt, though, like I honestly like I, I Amen to what you said, but it's like, I talk to these PE firms. And I'm like, like, oh, yeah, let's roll up all these marketing companies or these, you know, home remodelers or home service companies. I'm like, no shake. Well, that's a genius idea. Like does like 2000. Other people have thought about that. Let's say you raise the money, which in the last 10 years has been very easy with 0% rates out there. And then there is the money go by the companies. I know you've got experience in this my business partner, they rolled up 18 companies and 20 months. Good luck, integrating 18 accounting systems, 18 HR systems, 18 payroll systems, 18 CRMs, like, Oh, my God, and you have human beings that have redundant positions that have egos and have feelings and like, so you put all the deal together, and you had this beautiful spreadsheet with the straight line math. If all of that goes well, you got yourself a monumental task and what I've been watching depending on the PE firm in the role of it's like hot potato, the roll this stuff up multiple arbitrage and throw the pile of shit on to someone else. That's it, someone's gonna have to clean it up. And someone's gonna have to realize the cash flow at some point.

Ronald Skelton  31:44  
What's the guy that owns tiny? Andrew I think is his first day. And that's kind of the model I like right now. He's bought companies. I think they're worth I think he's got enough companies that he's hitting that billion dollar mark. Right. tiny.com. You know, I'm talking about

Ryan Tansom  31:57  
actually I dont

Ronald Skelton  31:59  
 and he owns 

Ryan Tansom  31:59  
(inaudible)

Ronald Skelton  32:01  
Meza labs. And no, it's but the, the, the his concept, I mean, he, he does sell off some things. But his portfolio is crazy, right? If you look at what they own, like, he was on a podcast not too long ago, and he's like, Well, we we bought the local bakery. And it was because it's his favorite one in town, he doesn't want it to go, it's a good business that makes money. So he buys it and puts it in, in his (inaudible). But uh, I think I, I liked the concept of the holding company. There's some things I'm looking to acquire right now to get the word out there. But I'm also not opposed to buying things to fix them and sell them that do the, the business flip. How many of your customers are like, that sounds like a majority of your customers now are? They've owned it for a long time. And they're trying to figure out what's next? Or do you have some acquisition?

Ryan Tansom  32:46  
(inaudible)

Ronald Skelton  32:46  
Customers?

Ryan Tansom  32:47  
 Yeah, I've definitely have some acquisition entrepreneurs, I have a gentleman and he bought up sign company a couple of handful years ago, from a Baby Boomer and his goal. The goal is to view and run the company like a financial asset to create wealth and not just pay attention to vanity metrics. So like, it doesn't matter. I mean, like, Apple and Amazon have three financial statements, and their valuation is based on a multiple of EBITDA,

Ronald Skelton  33:11  
right

Ryan Tansom  33:11  
I know they trade on a multiple revenue, depending on but like, everything will boil down to cash flow. So does the laundromat down the road that's a couple 100 grand in revenue. So like, everybody's got three financial statements. So like, it depends on how people want to create their wealth and what their intentions are, I'd say half of our people are people that want to like I mean, they've shifted their mindset from listening to the podcast, going through training, and want to spend three to five years of intentional effort to get that equity growth that they want to have the choices that they want. Other people like, hey, I want to do this right from the start what I see with some of those people, they become actually acquisition entrepreneurs themselves, you know, I mean, so they buy that first company, and then it's like, hey, once you get the platform going, you get your financials built, you got your strategy built, you get your strategy rolled in your financials, you get your key executive team, like bolting on another company is not that difficult. It is, I mean,

Ronald Skelton  33:58  
the integration, right? The people side

Ryan Tansom  34:00  
yeah

Ronald Skelton  34:00  
 of it, getting the people to stay motivated and not leave. I was talking to a company guy right now. That's all he does is the, the integration of people. He's on the show a few weeks ago. And I came up with a brilliant idea. And I'm thinking about hiring some software engineers typic, pull it off, because I can't find it out there. And that's to to baseline. Every employee you have on LinkedIn, any of the job board sites out there and glad watch glass doors and stuff. And watch as you do your announcement, right of the acquisition or exit and start really tainted tension of leading indicators, like how many people updated their LinkedIn profile, most people don't update their LinkedIn profile until they're ready to start looking around.

Ryan Tansom  34:14  
 That's awesome. Yeah, totally makes sense.

Ronald Skelton  34:42  
 If you knew that, on average, if you have 100 employees on average, you get one or two LinkedIn updates a month because you're watching the profiles of all your customer, your employees. And all sudden you decide, hey, we're, we're getting acquired by XYZ Corp and 35% of your company updates the, the resume.

Ryan Tansom  34:59  
I will Love to see the data on acquisitions, how many people immediately go update it? I wouldn't be surprised if it's the third every time.

Ronald Skelton  35:07  
And

Ryan Tansom  35:08  
 it seems reasonable.

Ronald Skelton  35:09  
 But the advanced side of that software tool would be start tracking, like clusters. So if you ever watched, especially the tech industry, where I came from originally, when somebody like when I left from one tech company to another, within about 12 months, a lot of my employees working for me again, because I pulled I pulled them right, because I know they're good. I know what they do. They like working with me. A lot of times I, I got the ride the.com crash back in early 2000s. A lot of times when we were leaving, because we didn't have much of a choice, right, like site.com blew up, I was the senior director of excite.com. And so when I left a couple of the guys there, they had to go with me the next place, right? And then

Ryan Tansom  35:43  
 nice. Yeah, yeah

Ronald Skelton  35:44  
 they definitely sold the Symantec and okay, we sold Symantec, we don't want to work over here, what are you working now? Right, I take spam company I was working for got bought by Symantec. And so there was just that. So if you could cluster that inside of there to like, who, who's worked for the same your your managers and your leaders who's worked for him at two or three different companies?

well, It, it's why people go look right away is because of uncertainty.

Absolutely.

Ryan Tansom  36:07  
This is why a clear goal, and a clear plan on how to accomplish that goal that's reasonable. And based in reality, you go talk to people about that, man, people are very receptive to it. You don't I mean, like, it's just like, I don't know, I'm, I'm a visionary at heart, right. So like, I love finding that picture. And then beating the, beating the drum of like, this is where we're going to be in that tree leader. And it's a little bit more of my default mode, the amount of people if they just articulated their goal, target equity value, how are we going to get there and then got the other people on board, getting acquiring a company, I mean, people are yearning and starving for leadership man, clear direction of someone they respect, I think, if you like, focused on some of those soft skills, then I mean, again, you get the deal done, then you like, you can mitigate some of the Exodus with just being a frickin human. I don't know.

Ronald Skelton  36:58  
right

It's all like communication, everything I've said this before. And I'll say it 100 million times, everything you have. Now, everything you want to have in the future, everything you've ever had in the past, is a direct correlation to conversations you've either had, should have had or avoid having, right. So all your success or failure, the, the difference between, and it's a horrible example, because of his last couple of years. But the difference between me and like a real estate investor, like what Donald Trump was, was, I was out there talking about to homeowners about buying houses, and he was out there talking about banks about buying and building golf courses and skyscrapers, right? Both in real estate, just a different conversation, a different communication with different people. So it all boils down to the conversation, that communication.

Ryan Tansom  37:38  
I get it

Ronald Skelton  37:39  
So one of the things as i look on your website is one of the things I've noticed with a lot of business owners, and I've kind of figured out if you guys deal with some of this, too, is a lot of times you start looking at these businesses and they've got the wrong butts in the wrong seats. Or they got the wrong butts in the seat anyway, one way or the other. And it's just because well, this guy did something to me for me 10 years ago, and he saves the company 20 grand, he hasn't done shit, since then. He's still here, and I got loyalty to him, I'm gonna keep him in place. And as far as running your business, like an asset, you can't think like that, right? There, there are people in almost every company that I find people in almost every company, there's only one or two referred to as poison pills. They hate being there, they hate their job, but they just show up every day. And when they're around, nobody wants to work with them. The question I asked is like, as you're going through the process and stuff, is there any, you know, when you're looking at running this thing as an asset? You guys look at the personnel side of it, too, like who's in the seats of what are they capable of accomplishing

Ryan Tansom  38:33  
oh it's crucial, man, like, I think I'm just kind of the overview I give us like every business, it's like the same things have to happen every single time, ron.  Like, if, if we went and bought a business, whether you own a business right now, currently, or you're gonna buy a business. Think about it. Like if you're if you are committed to keeping your company, you're essentially repurchasing it, you're deciding to keep investing in that asset. So the first thing that you and I would do if we went and bought a garage or a company, we'd (inaudible) we'd know what it's worth, because we would buy it. So we now have our point a right, what's the buy price? Point A, this is the order that I would approach every single business in. We now know what the price is worth. Well guess what I need to figure out what the hell's going on. So I would build the financials the way that we build them, which is the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, tie those together, get the trailing 12 months to understand the history of where things are been. Sit down, build an annual budget from the ground up. So you start with sales, you go okay, sales, what are the different product lines and the different, different product lines and services that we're going to sell over the next 12 months. Separate them have your cost of goods structure tied to the revenue lines with the margins that you think you're going to hit in the months that you're you're going to hit not divided by 12 Because if you're seasonal, you're not gonna have any cash in May if all your shit comes in in December so like build a 12 month budget. Then you tie your income statement you have your finance team build the balance sheet and the cash flow statements. You tie those three together to see into the future. your income, your gross profit, your EBITDA your distributions, your taxes and the future equity of the company. So I did that for the first year, put some basic, basic assumptions from years two to five, tie that to an equity valuation that I won five years by the company, that's the framework. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing? So that's the framework, then what we do is to say, How's our strategy, build a good strategic plan, roll that strategic plan into the financials and know how much it's gonna cost? Then you need a team, who's an implement that will get the KPIs, get the team, let them execute, like how using like, something like traction or Eos, like, so the team is that people are gonna be doing it. And so the way that going back to your point, I mean, we had a business for 20 years. I could Jeff and Stan and I could go through these people for 20 years, they were on our team. And I was a soccer player growing up, like, just because your goalie saved a goal. Five years ago, if we're losing right now, it's I'm sorry, dude, I love you. But like, you suck, without being too facetious on that round is like, I don't like conflict that much, , I can always see the best in everybody. So that's, that's a difficult thing for me. So I did a little bit of self preservation. But what I would do is this plan that I just mentioned, and the KPIs that are based in truth and reality, and where we want to go, because we want to go there for a reason that is clearly articulated, I can sit down if it was you that I was having an issue with, like, we said, this is where we're going. But whether you're a purchasing manager, you're the sales director or the CEO, there's a list of three to five KPIs that would be successful for your job. We tied it to the goal, we all talked about this, and you're not doing it, like what are we supposed to do about this? So I put it on that person, and I let them essentially hang themselves. And so instead of its, I hated the life of being in a world of subjectivity, or the CEO, or owner could just be like, at their third emotional that day doesn't like someone. It's like, no, no, that's the goal. Here are the numbers. Here are the strategies here, the KPIs, and this person is doing their job. So I really think that people are huge.

Ronald Skelton  42:04  
So what's the plan? What's the goal? What's the plan to get to the goal? What are the KPIs, the tracking points of interest to tell you, you're on track to get to the goal? And the thing I would do and I'm doing right now is evaluate the companies is who do I need? Or the kind of the job description of the people I would need to get to make that occur? Like, what skill set would the CFO need to do his role in this position? I don't care who's in there. Now, I'm not going to look at that resume.

Ryan Tansom  42:30  
yeah

Ronald Skelton  42:31  
 Skills that I have is like with the current goal, the plan to get to the goal, the KPIs that I have, who's done this before, that would fit my model and what, what were their success traits? And then you take that job description go, does that match who I have? Is it close enough? I can train him to get him there. Or do we have a real problem, right?

and the

Ryan Tansom  42:51  
sports team, right? Like we have, like companies or sport. This is my favorite sport, man.

Ronald Skelton  42:55  
We're 48 minutes into this already. I'm loving this conversation. Let's kind of dive into storytime, my favorite time. Tell us something about like, tell a company Tell me about a company that was your favorite. Maybe it's a turnaround story. Maybe it's just a full freaking cool project. Right? One of the favorite things I said, What's the weirdest thing you've ever worked on? I had a company on here. So we built a giant unicorns that people can ride in New York, a little spring unicorn, as you may 

Ryan Tansom  43:17  
yeah, yeah

Ronald Skelton  43:17  
tell them for York that are size big enough that you and I could get on? What's the most interesting thing you could tell me about the client you've had?

Ryan Tansom  43:24  
Oh, man, I think it goes back to that, that guy was telling you about who is moving to Hawaii, he's just done the hard work. And he deserves the outcome that he has, like, I just love that I love the story like and, like, the more of those stories that I can help manufacture the better. Like, I was blind, I was just doing random stuff. Then I got clear on my goals. And like, did hard work against those goals. I know people were that they were losing significant amount of money over the last couple years, because of all the reasons we know and willing to clear or clarify their target, and then sit down and do the hard work to get there. It's so many people just think shits gonna fall in your lap. And it's just like, I don't know, like, there's this a phrase that I like, I don't, I can't remember. For the life of me, it's like two months ago. Happiness lies in the delta between reality and expectations. I love this. Let's get that in line. So I think your, your question is, I have a lot of stories. I know people that when they go through the training, or they're working or honestly or they just listen to my podcasts or whatever it is, and they're like, oh, like, and then they kind of have that light bulb moment. There was a gentleman also, he was like, Dude, it's like seeing the matrix is like taking the red pill and get it. So I think it's, I, I don't know, Ron, if there's any particular one. I'm trying to think there's I mean, I got a lot of crazy horror stories. That can be a whole episode itself. What's the stupidest things you've seen in the business from employees doing? I got plenty of HR stories may or may not be illegally wanted to be shared.

Ronald Skelton  45:00  
Yeah, I, I just did a marketing coach as a girl little marketing coach for Jay Conrad revenue. Jay Conrad Levinson, steamed guerilla marketing thing. You know, one of the I'll give you a quick word for radio guy calls me. So I got to cut my marketing budget. I need money. So we were doing good, man, we're growing well, you want to cut it? And he's like, Well, I need money for attorneys. Okay. I mean, money for attorneys for what? Well, I'm getting the divorce. Divorce. I just did the repeat like the NLP thing. I'll repeat it. Sometimes we tell me the deeper story, right? I was like divorce. Yeah, the wife figured out I'm cheating with the secretary. And I was like, okay, you don't need a marketing coach, you don't even need a business coach, you probably need a psychologist or some moral. moral guide.

Ryan Tansom  45:35  
 Yeah,

Ronald Skelton  45:36  
 I'm not that guy. It's every business has the same type of story. A lot of these

Ryan Tansom  45:40  
(inaudible) and people, man,

Ronald Skelton  45:43  
 we're all

Ryan Tansom  45:43  
 business. yeah is all in People, man, like you can look at a spreadsheet and it can you, you, like spread all, all the financials are is the story that's actually happening in the business.

Ronald Skelton  45:53  
It's interesting that I had a realization hit me while you're talking, I love that type of stuff. When it happens. I don't do my own accounting. Because I'm horrible. I haven't taken enough, I've got enough college degrees, I've had to take enough accounting classes and know what it is. But rarely, even open my own QuickBooks, I'll take a look at it. And I get reports and stuff. But I'm not the guy to enter. But you think about most of the business owners out there. And I've tried to do it, it's just my heart's not in it. That said, QuickBooks doesn't make that easy. I don't think there's a single thing where it says where you can log in. And just like, I just want to log in every day and see my three statements without actually having to like click Generate Report and stuff. And there's no dashboard out there, this like, all the accounting software should just plug into those, I should be able to pull them up and see live at any given time. I don't think I think it's overly, overly complex. I think that somebody's

Ryan Tansom  46:42  
unnecessary

Ronald Skelton  46:42  
unnecessarily complex, I think somebody could go out there and create a tool or a carny mechanism for the mom and pop single operator type of companies that will do enough at the county to keep them out of trouble. But help them run it like an asset, like you're talking to help them always see those statements, help them understand what those statements are, and put them in a way that they could do it on a day and then

Ryan Tansom  47:07  
 make some sense out of it.

Ronald Skelton  47:08  
make some sense out of it and not intuitive, like I've got, I like to use around take up more college degrees than the average full should have. And if I really wanted to figure it out, I'm kind of half into right now, just because I'm evaluating company after company after company, and I'm tired of sending stuff over to a forensic CPA and go, why not? Hell is this like this? This doesn't look right, right. They just, you know, there's no clear cut that says x, y. This is done by step one, two, and three, everybody can do it slightly different. And it's not necessarily wrong, how they did it, but it's just not how I've seen it the last 50 other times. So you're like, why did they put that there? Did you think there's actually a play out there to make something simpler? Like

Ryan Tansom  47:44  
 they have

it that's out there. And before I get into like, what the solution potentially is. So like, I was a copier sales rep.

Ronald Skelton  47:52  
right

Ryan Tansom  47:52  
Finance was my worst degree in college, I just want to constantly be saying that, like you have more college degrees than me, Ron, I didn't have number two on that. And my point is, like, I've never met an entrepreneur that doesn't, that isn't capable of telling one hell of a story. They've told they can tell one heck of a story about where they've been where they're going. Every single time then the follow up question from any investor, any bank or anybody is going to be prove it. The way you prove it isn't the numbers. The numbers are just the story of the business. It's the language of the business. Yes, there's a lot of jargon and acronyms and all that crap. It's all over. But the whole story that you said, you just said like why did they put that there? All of that? I don't even know what that story is that you're referring to? But I don't even have to because all I can think of is he's either talking about a revenue line or a cost of goods say, Okay, why is that there? I don't know, why did they buy that shit and put it there? I don't know. My point is every entrepreneur should be concerned of that. The financials are reflecting the story of the business, having your Chart of Accounts, organized in a way that you can tell a story about it. Like I, I bought a consulting company, that's 10 million in revenue. And their revenue line was one line. It's a consultant. What does that tell me? Absolutely nothing. This tells me nothing. Oh, well, actually, what we do audits, and we do the interim CEO stuff, we do this. I didn't know that prove it. So my point is, there's this like, if you can't tell the story around your numbers, you don't have to do the accounting, no one listening to this should do their accounting or their bookkeeping minutes or pay someone to do it, but you have it set up right. And as long as your AP and your AR and the things are happening and their expenses and the revenues falling into the buckets that they should then go into your talk or your play about the software. So it's called Jirav. It's J I R A V. jira, jirav. It's spelled jirav is what it looks like. Point is it's an FP and a Financial Dashboard. You literally it's an API connection to people's QuickBooks or Xero or whatever their accounting systems are. So our team has so we have a training program with this offering we're, we're a value added reseller of them and we ever Sophos services. So like, for a like ridiculously nominal fee, you can go in there we have our templates, so we don't have To clean up everybody's books, but it's to the point where it's telling you the story that you want to be able to see. So I have a commercial cleaning client as a commercial cleaner as a client. She got her numbers into this, she's like, I finally can see, for the first time what I've been feeling for 16 years. And that's what you're talking about, right? Like, instead of looking at some crazy report, like one PDF of an income statement from QuickBooks one PDF of a balance sheet, like, what the hell's this mean? It doesn't mean anything, but it's more about into the future, which is like predictive analytics of what is the output we want? Where if I grow my revenue, and these product and service lines by x, I have to hire these people? Which is why, and that's gonna result in this much cash flow, which is Z. Is that a good thing for me? And what is the value of the company? Like? I'm convinced that every entrepreneur knows those questions to ask, they just want the right information, or they're talking to a CPA that's never ran a business, we're only talking about the end of the year tax planning, if they're even being proactive.

Ronald Skelton  50:58  
We've covered a lot of topics and I've asked you a bunch of questions here. What should we be like? What am I missing? 

Ryan Tansom  51:03  
Just think

about just thinking about these questions, those three questions that I was saying, start at Target equity value at a point in time that you want, what is the target annual income you want through salaries and distributions on the way? And what is the role need to look like that you want on the way as well? Just think about it, and you're going to be in like the 2% of people that are starting to actually think about this stuff?

Ronald Skelton  51:24  
How do people reach out to you I want to make sure we know how people can tell them about your show, tell them about how to reach out to stuff to

Ryan Tansom  51:31  
everything's the website arkona.io AR K O N A.io shows out there materials about our what our stuff we got more content videos and, and links to the calendar or my LinkedIn or anything like that. So best place to the website for sure.

Ronald Skelton  51:46  
Okay, cool. myself where the audience could do anything for you. If we could help you in any way, shape or form? What would that be? What would you be your big ask?

Ryan Tansom  51:54  
Check out the podcast, hopefully, I'm bringing value just like you are. And if people are experiencing that value, then they can share it with others. But yeah, intentional growth is on the website. It's also on all the major channels as well.

Ronald Skelton  52:06  
I put you on my, my listening, listen to listen to part of one on the glass drive. So you're on my drive list at times, I don't drive a whole lot now because I, I moved to the vacation resort area of California. But I drive

Ryan Tansom  52:16  
nice

Ronald Skelton  52:16  
to the ocean over here and I'll download it up. So that's about 25 minutes. So I get to listen to chunks.

Ryan Tansom  52:21  
nice

Ronald Skelton  52:21  
When you say we were talking earlier about somebody else in this space. And I thought I'd let sit here at the ocean. I technically could. But this is California and that it it's called it's it this morning was 48 at my house in the Redwood Forest. Right, so I drove

Ryan Tansom  52:33  
It's snowing man

Ronald Skelton  52:33  
it doesn't snow here very often. I kind of live in a unique area where the ocean kind of keeps it cool, but never cold enough to snow because I'm 

Ryan Tansom  52:33  
right

Ronald Skelton  52:33  
I'm about 20, 20 minutes, about 15 miles. Right off the Pacific coast in California. I often take zoom calls with that in the background. They're like how do you get your background to move? Like I turned off the voice isolation and they go no, it's real. Those 

That's awesome man

are at a park bench overlooking the ocean, I found a spot that like four bars of 5g right, there you go right.

Ryan Tansom  52:57  
I Love it. I Love it

Ronald Skelton  53:04  
 right off of a cliff. I appreciate having you on here today. I just wanted to make sure everybody knows how to get to, like, what's the big takeaway, like you already kind of covered this already. But let's listen to show on one big takeaway somebody listened to the show,

Ryan Tansom  53:17  
make it all worth it man. Like, I told you the three things that you should think about. And then the overarching theme is view and render company like a financial asset. Or if it's just going to be an annual income and it's a job just admitted then you can avoid all the flashy objects and all the random stuff that you would distract yourself with. We just put so much damn work into being entrepreneurs, like make it worth it and create wealth, enjoy work, make an impact and make sure that you're doing you're progressing towards that outcome of more choices instead of just spinning your wheels. So make it worth it.

Ronald Skelton  53:50  
Well hang on up for a second after the show. I do appreciate you having a wonderful day. I do appreciate having you on here. Thank you. I guess we'll call that a show then. 

Ryan Tansom  53:57  
Appreciate it, man. 

Ronald Skelton  53:59  
Hey, it's your host, Ronald Skelton. I want to thank you personally for watching the show today and invite you to call our new hotline 918-641-4150 that's 91864141 to five oh, call us and tell us about our show, ask questions, suggested guests or even tell me about a business you have for sale and we'll reach back out to you. Again that number is 918-641-4150 call our hotline leave us some information. Thank you. I don't want to announce our new channel partners the ITX marketplace since 1998 ITX has created 5 billion in value by selling more than 225 it businesses in 20 countries. IDX works exclusively with it enabled businesses generating between 5 million and 30 million who are ready to be sold in m&a to decision makers who are ready to buy for over 25 years ITX has developed industry knowledge that helps determine whether a seller is a good fit for their buyers. Before making the match ITX mergers and acquisition marketplace we have partnered with has a proprietary database of 50,000 plus global buyers seeking it service firms managed service providers, Microsoft service providers software as a service platforms and channel partners with Microsoft Oracle ServiceNow itself and the Salesforce space. If you haven't IT enable business you're ready to sell. I want you to visit the I T exchange net.com/marketplace How to exit that link will be in the show notes visit them now. The investors and entrepreneurs professional mastermind the investors and entrepreneurs professional mastermind combines that additional peer to peer mastermind introduced first in Napoleon Hills famous book Thinking grow rich with accountability partnering where your peers help you ensure that you set goals take action and get results. If you want to scale blow past roadblocks and achieve success faster than you might think it's possible. I suggest you take a visit over to tiepm.com That's T i e. P m.com. And check out the investors and entrepreneurs professional mastermind