How2Exit Episode 8: Scotty Schindler - Australian Entrepreneur, Business Coach, Speaker, Author and Surfer

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.

Today I'm here with Scotty Scotty is an author, a founder of a business, he's actually went through the acquisition or the liquidation process of and you found that that business from from the very start all the way through to a successful exit. So we'll talk about that your author is also the author of a book. And it looks like a coaching system around helping people repeat your success. So I always like to start off Scotty with kind of tell us your, your background, you know a little bit about yourself, you know, started where you want to start, if you have a painful childhood, I won't dig there. Right. But just tell us about like, you know, who is Scotty and why, you know, what is there, what is there cool to know about you? Thanks. Thanks for the introduction. And great to be here, by the way.

Scotty Schindler  1:17  
It is 630 in the morning over here. So I'm sort of sipping my coffee at the same time. So if you don't mind, that's, that's quite all right. Hey, um, yeah, look, I started, I started from a pretty ordinary background. Not that that's any advantage or disadvantage is just a fact. Right? But anyway, long story short was after 10 years, in the sales business, I was in the insurance work for an American Insurance Company. And after 10 years of that, I decided to have a go on my own and start my own company. So you know, I just went out and had a go, and all of a sudden, you know, 20 years later, the overnight success was there. And I'd had two successful exits out of that, because there was the first exit. And I promised to stay along, we did a second exit, I got a nice bonus. And then I didn't like the third. after that. The third chapter, which was the new owners, I didn't like them. So I got out. And otherwise, I was gonna stay in the business forever, I thought it was going to be my retirement sort of, you know, years and just cruise along as the founder. And even they didn't like that idea. So but, you know, I did go on a pretty successful journey, and I only wanted to start a small business, I had no idea was gonna turn into a large business, certainly not a mega business, you know, but it was a great business. I mean, it was such a good business. And the other reason why I wanted to exit in the end was not because I wanted to cash in, was because I wanted to do risk and I wanted to take the business on a global kind of scale, and do that with other people's money. So it was a bit of a ha bit. As it turned out, that didn't work out. But that's, you know, that was the risk I took at the time. It still worked out really well for me, don't get me wrong, I'm not upset at all.

But I really would have seen if we if we had have if we had a really tried to go aggressive with it, and market it overseas and do all these wonderful things. What could have happened? What was the real potential of the business? So you know, a bit yeah, I started a business in 2000 around technology. And at the time, you know, I was people didn't even know what Google was. My software as a service wasn't a term, but that's what I was doing. There was no cloud. But I started a business doing exactly that. And you know, it was some people say I was a little bit trailblazing a little bit early. At the time, it didn't feel like it at all.

In fact, at the time, it felt really bad because the big tech crash of April 2000 happened. And, you know, I was only looking at Amazon shares the other day, you know, at the end of 99, the Amazon shares were like 90 cents. And by mid 2000, there were five sets.

The Tech Tech wasn't really the flavor of the month in 2000. Right? So you know, that five cents and look at Amazon now. That's a whole nother story again, but you know, tech wasn't really that cool. But I started a technology business or tried to start a technology business in 2000 and four years later, I actually had one

Ronald Skelton  3:56  
so interesting as I I was a defense contractor back then working for the government just came out of the military and all my friends were making millions doing the.com thing. So I jumped out of defense contracting and dove into the.com Around the year 2000. Lark and got really good at a liquidated equipment and happen to you know, be the bad guy. And you know, I was there when ISP channel shut down that probably they're probably never heard of them, but excite dot com when it's like dot calm and excited home went under, back in the day when it was head to head with Yahoo and Google. I ran Excite. So yeah, you know, I thought I was gonna go out there. And, you know, I turned a job down at Google was because I told them, they were already too big and I wanted to work at a stock startup and went to work for a company that created anti spam anti virus, and I quit looking up what that stock options would have been worth.

It breaks my heart too much, right? So funny thing is, you'll Fast Forward 20 something years or 15 years later, they offered me a or they started interviewing me to run a data center here in Oklahoma. And even though I was done with

Technology, he already went out and got a different degree, it was doing something totally different. I went through like six rounds of interviews because I wasn't dumb enough to turn out a job from them twice. So but so tell us about I mean, not only do you you know, I was reading your profile and you're a really interesting guy, I don't know why they picked that guy for the United States for those those sexy commercial, the most interesting man in the world, because like, he doesn't serve at firefight and all the other stuff. So now that you've sold your business, you're, you know, on your profile says you're retired, I don't wanna say semi, semi retired because you seem to do a lot more work than most people. I know. 

Scotty Schindler  5:35  
 So, hey, well, I've got a I've got a problem, right? I've got ADHD, and, you know, I, I, well, I sit here right now I'm fiddling with things as we talk, right? So I'm hyperactive, I always have been. And I actually friend asked me today, you know, we ever really gonna start working ever really gonna retire? And I said, Well, you know, I mean, this is just fun. Now, all I do now is just, I just walk around trying to achieve some more goals, you know, some challenges in life. That's all I do now. And I guess the reality is, that's all I've ever done. Anyway, the only difference is the sense of urgency isn't there? Now, you know, I don't need to put food on the table anymore. It's just now doing it for fun and doing it for the challenge and you know, setting some goals. So you know, it's a completely different thing. And don't get me wrong if the surf was good every day. We wouldn't be talking.

Ronald Skelton  6:25  
I lived in Hawaii for almost three, three and a half years in the Air Force. And I tried to go surfing once. I'll give you the short version of it when the lifeguard screams No, Holly boy, no, you're doing something wrong. And I woke up on the beach with a what I thought was a 300 pound Samoan guy about to give me mouth, the mouth. And I was like, no, no. But uh, I crashed bird and got knocked out and drugged out by the lifeguards. And after that, I decided that, uh, I'll go back to you know, night diving and scuba and, you know, but the surfboard or for for people who, you know, have more time to spend on the water. I regret it a little bit. Because, you know, I really do love the ocean. So I think I should have went back out there. But I was a full time college student I was in military intelligence. So we're just busy with all the crazy stuff going on in the world and to take on another sport. It wasn't at night. It was difficult for me to do. So,  I took up night diving instead of surfing and a lot of the guys there in Hawaii, they took up surfing, some of them got hurt pretty good.

How do you make the gap from, you know, surfer by day and founder entrepreneur by night? Is that a is that a lot? Is that common? I mean, I guess in some other sports, you're, you're the High Achiever anyway, in a sports field. So I see competitions and stuff. 

Scotty Schindler  8:30  
It's, is it common? I don't know, a lot of good sports. People aren't very good at business, even though they shouldn't be right.

would want to travel the world just surfing. But I was actually lucky, I failed at that because it meant it meant I had to then start thinking about other jobs and other careers. And in the end of the day, I was blessed. And you know, so but I have achieved a lot at the amateur level. So I still okay, but the reality is I also didn't surf for almost 10 years. So during my 20s All I did was work and it was when you talk about entrepreneur and lifestyle. So when I left the insurance business, it was because I didn't have that balance in life. And I thought building a business would give me that balance. That's what I think

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
Well, it did. Now the reality is, most people don't get that whereas it did for me, I had a few rules that I needed to live by. And that was what gave me the balance. So I really wanted to use the business judo and the time duplication, those things I've learned during the 90s, from the insurance business, the American Insurance Company had great systems. And I said, Well, I want to start a business just run around systems. And it took me a while. But that's what created the lifestyle for me. And I started surfing again, because I could, you know,

Ronald Skelton  10:30  
so one of the questions I love to ask is, like, if if you had started over, what would you wish you had known? Like, what do you know, now that you wish you'd known? On day one, you're starting this, you know, read that your your, your, your software as a service, real estate, property management software is what it sounds like, to me.

You know, if what do you know now that it would have been really useful to know on day one of that business, 

Scotty Schindler  10:57  
That it was gonna work?

Ronald Skelton  11:00  
I don't know. A lot of times, it's just I think there's this blind, not, you know, I may call it not knowing any better, that drives a lot of entrepreneurs, right. I've met a lot of entrepreneurs. I've interviewed a lot of other writers. And one of the things they say is, man, if you know, find anyone how difficult it would have been on everyone started, or if I didn't know how, you know, how regulated this industry was, I had done something else, but they just didn't know. And they jumped into it, and they bulldoze their way through it. You know?

I guess that would be the opposite. If you knew this would work. And you knew you could exit, you could have, you know, taken a little extra risk, right? 

Scotty Schindler  11:36  
Yeah. And you know, I started so I took six attempts to start a business in two years. So I started doing,

what if I knew then what I know now it would be we'll keep going with the other two, you know, because they could have been big news too. But at the end of the day, you know what one thing that was really good as well was the fact I became very focused on one industry. So being self taught, and you know, moving from the city back to the country area, I really wanted to create a lifestyle. So the fact I focused on just one niche industry and didn't let other distractions come along and distract me on other possibilities and opportunities. mean I had success in that industry. So I often wonder whether the other businesses would have been just as big if not bigger, or whether I just would have been a jack of all trades and master of none, which I've seen plenty of people do over the years, I've seen plenty of people, they even come and went within the industry was like what happened that company go, you know, so I was very lucky that I actually stayed focused on one industry as well. 

Ronald Skelton  14:27  
It's interesting see we have a little bit of a similar backgrounds in the fact that, you know, I actually once got a job offer for, you know, website development because I was fluent in HTML and I thought this job isn't gonna last. They offered me 50 grand a year to write HTML code for a website for documentation project for defense contracting. And it wasn't six months that I turned it down to do something else but it wasn't six months after that before the WYSIWYG started popping up and you could just type in a word processor and get it so glad I turned it down but uh, I weighed in and tried PHP myself

And it's mostly about real estate, because I have a real estate background, but it's like this all these get rich, quick gurus, like if you do this, you make a million dollars. Like, yeah, that's not how that works. Um, but in that, in this span of what, 20 years or so that you're making this work? What were some of the best resources, you come along the way like, you know, were there any coaches programs or something just took you to the next level? There's anything you stumbled across, it really helped out? 

Scotty Schindler  16:46  
Well, no, believe it or not, it's really weird, because now I do a bit of mentoring, advising. And I really had very little myself, other than within the industry, I went within the industry to get the advice I wanted. I had most of that before I started. So like I said, I was very fortunate that I worked for an American Insurance Company, who understood the power of developing people. So by the time I got to 2000, I'd had 10 years of, of, you know,

of just being drummed with motivation. And, you know, goal setting was just not an option. We just did that all the time. And I was I was on a trajectory already. So I didn't, all I needed to do was prove it. I didn't need. In fact, I heard I heard Elon Musk say, you know, he was talking to entrepreneurs. And he said, Well, if I have to motivate an entrepreneur, they're not an entrepreneur. 

Ronald Skelton  17:37  
Right? I believe that all I always tell people like, well, I don't, I'm looking for motivation. And they don't look for inspiration. Motivation is a what I call a very fickle beast. Right? It comes, it goes, it'll lead you when you most need it. Motivation is a temporary thing, inspiration of why I derive for doing something will carry you through when it actually gets tough, right. And a lot of entrepreneurs, they just don't get it, it's eventually gonna, you're gonna have rough spells, right? You're gonna have industries that cycle up and down economy cycle up and down, you know, some programmers gonna do something stupid and break the code, there's just, there's just the roller coaster of things outside of the entrepreneurial life. And if you're reliant on quote, unquote, motivation, I think you're gonna slide backwards more than the average guy who's just, they're inspired, they're driven, they're doing something because there's, they enjoy it, you know, win, lose, you know, succeed or fail. They're there to do it, because they believe they're helping the customers and they enjoy what they're doing. So, you know, 

Scotty Schindler  18:37  
The reality is, I read a lot of books in the 90s, and stuff motivational. And at the start of the journey, I was still reading a few motivational books. And then I started to change I was reading a lot of knowledge books to like how to program but anyway, then then I started changing to more autobiography type books, you know, people that have climbed Mount Everest and people that have done some rock bands. And you know, I started reading more about autobiography and what people had experienced rather than how to or why to but you know, what was it like on the other side, and how they do things. So I started changing the style of books I was reading. So that was an interesting journey. I went on with just even reading books, so I didn't need any more motivation. I didn't need any more inspiration. I had it all I was rolling. So I changed the style of book I was reading because of that. 

Ronald Skelton  19:25  
So you actually have a book coming out and I'm going to read the title so don't mess it up, build a business you can sell make the most money now and when you sell now that's that's I see it on Amazon. So I say it's coming out but it's it's already available on Amazon because that's what I was reading it from. But the, Tell me about that you went from reading these books to now you built a business, you've had a successful liquidation. Now you got a book out there to show other people. So tell me a little bit about that. And I'm friends with your co author Lana. So that's just to put that out there people people know, right? Wanna

Scotty Schindler  19:59  
Lana came up. So the short story is Lana. I was never going to write a book like this that was never on the agenda. Did I want to write some books yet. And actually Lana came to me about two years ago. And she said, Well, what are your books? And I said, I haven't got one. And she said, Okay, let me know when you write one. Anyway, she came to be mid year last year, a little bit before that was like May or June or something. I definitely know by June this, this had actually come to fruition. She said, I've written this document. So she, as you know, if she was in the business acquisition world and stuff, it's businesses people have and they want to sell, but they can't sell. They're not really businesses. They're just jobs. They might even be really good businesses, but they're really just jobs. You can't really buy them and acquire them, because you know, they're not relevant. And she said, I've, I've written a 17 page document that I'm going to give to these people to help them out. She said, Do you mind having a look? So I said, Yeah, sure, I'll ever look over it know how to look through it. And I went, Hey, Lana, this is almost a book. And somewhere between that conversation, the end of that conversation, we decided to co author a book that we did. And it was really designed to help those people who are in business or starting a business and want to set it up the right way. Because one day, you're going to want to get out of that business at one point. And that could be because you've had enough it could be because of health, that could be because of a change of lifestyle, or it could be anything at all, but at some point in time, you're going to start a business, and you're going to want to get out. And it's a lot easier if you make the decision now what that exit is going to look like in the future years or something that you just closed down because you've made the money out of it something you want to on sell, is it something, what is it? So anyway, we wrote this book. So we went on this journey, we set a goal that every week, we'd catch up and just write a couple of chapters each, not chapter sorry, paragraphs each and just build a build a build a build it, we mapped out the framework. And then, you know, the goal was by February this year, we have it written and then it took months to get it online because the co authoring thing was an issue. Anyway, we got it all done. So now it's up. It's been live, I think for about a month that we're sort of releasing it this month and letting the world know about it. So it's been really good, so Lana was excellent. And she comes from her side of an investor side of things. And I come from someone who's actually been through the process twice, and just different perspectives. So it's really good. But the part I like, or the irony is, I've always promoted build a business you can keep. If it's not a business you want to keep, it's probably not gonna be worth much for someone else either, right? So build a business you want to keep. And that's why the second tagline was to make the most money now and when you sell.

Ronald Skelton  22:33  
Since you're saying that somebody asked me the other day, so I'm an acquisitions and mergers too. And speaking to your point, and a lot of people have businesses or jobs, I got a guy right now he's trying to sell me a pest control company, and it's him and one part time guy in a customer list. And he doesn't get it that when he leaves, half of those 260 People aren't going to hang around, because you know, he actually mowed their lawn when the grass is too high. He's the pest control guy. But, and I it's one of the things I own, I own a little pest control company, but uh, I want to grow it through acquisitions, but he just doesn't have much he doesn't get it too, because he's been servicing everybody and doing extra favors for him. Like he picks up limbs when they're done on the ground. This is all there, he's up by the lake. He doesn't get it. He just has a, you know, self directed, you know, jaw hub. And you know, where he's wanting three times his earnings, it's just the stock gonna happen.

Scotty Schindler  23:22  
Well, the reality though is, is that he just needs someone like that to buy the business. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that someone else who wants to buy a job, he's got the great business for them. You know, it's just not for you, for example, as an investor, and that's part of the things we try to cover in the book is that, you know, no, no, you kind of buyers are and you who you are as a seller and, and work that stuff out in advance. You know, that guy is selling his business to an investor isn't going to work. But doesn't mean Tom down the road is not gonna think that's a great job.

Ronald Skelton  23:51  
Right? And I'm looking at it because I was like, I've got I bought the pest control in the first place to give relatives a job, right? I have some a cousin and an uncle who were getting retired from one because the owner was retiring and they talked me into buying it. So I still might take a stab at it. Just to give them more clients. I don't is one of those. It's an interesting buy. I bought it just because like, you know, I have relatives that said, hey, we'd really like to do this. And I told him no, for two years flat and then one day, I seen one online that like and realized that it was claiming it had a 40 something percent profit margin. I'm like all bullish. There's no way right. So I started doing the research that it's not uncommon for pest controllers to have 35, 40, 45% profit margins. Like why am I telling these guys no. So I went out there we got that thing and I still it's still too small. The number one rule in our in our space is don't buy yourself another job. And it turns out, it's too small. It's another job. So until I get a couple more small acquisitions, so it's grows enough, then it was not the proper thing for me to do. But that said, a lot of business owners come across that and one of them asked me that now what's your opinion on this? Because he asked me says if I if you If my goal is to sell this, what should I be building, I said, build a business that doesn't need you to run, and you absolutely love being there that you're going to hate to sell. Because if you love it, that's going to come across in your conversation with the investor. And if it doesn't need you to run, he's not going to ask you to hang around for five years, because you've already got that problem solved. That's what I'm looking for. And when I, you know, you know, when I'm looking for something I'm looking for, does it run itself? Like, you know, how many weeks a month? Can you take off without it crashing and burning? Right? And, you know, is it something you love to do, like the customers understand the passion that it was built around? Because that's a hard thing to replace, or infuse into something that never had it? Or hasn't had it years? So what's your gut on that?

Scotty Schindler  25:40  
That's true. I mean, if if you can't be redundant in your own business, the business is relying on you. So you got to build a new redundancy. You know, in fact, it's an interesting thing, and I tried to teach staff the same thing I'd I valued them more, when they were less dependent on in the business, when they had the ability to be able to create systems themselves. That meant I didn't have to rely upon them, I didn't have to depend upon them, or, you know, if they can make themselves redundant to with systems or processes, or teams, or whatever, that meant, I valued them even more. But most people as an employee struggle with that because they want to build independency in their job, you know, so whereas I, myself had that motto, and it was really hard to get employees to get to that next level. So you know, they all wanted that. But you know, this is my job, you know, I'm gone, I really want you to be the next level. And it was hard to do that. But certainly for myself, I mean, I spent in 2008, I spent six months in a caravan just traveling around Australia, where the business was growing, that was me testing the business is the business gonna run with or without me, in fact, was interesting, because the business still grew that year. And I'm sure I lost a bit of business because I wasn't there. But the business grew exponentially because of the belief that people had in themselves, because I just let them run it. I just went on the road and we spoke, you know, it was remote. But you know, I just let them run the business, they did the same thing. In 2010. When I went to Bali, I did the same thing. In 2012. When I went to America, the business could run and the people were empowered, because they got given that opportunity to grow themselves.

Ronald Skelton  27:12  
That's interesting, I was just listening to an audio book. And I listened to so many, so I'm not exactly sure which one it was. But it was talking about building a business to sell or that same and there was a conversation about it. And maybe it's just the podcast, but the person was talking about the way to test it is set down right now schedule a one week vacation at least one week to 10 days, 45 days out, right? And tell your team that's doing it ask what's going to break when you once you get done with that one, do it again, every 30 days, take one week off. And then once you once you get through, there's no problems take two weeks off, you know, and within a year, you know, the way he had it set up within a year, you're only going into the office about one week out of the month. And that's when you know it's up running doesn't need you. And he says, you know, the funny thing is, is mostly entrepreneurs that actually do this, tell me their business, you know, they're a little shocked and a little bit insulted that business runs better without them. Right? It grows faster without them it you know, it, they landed customers, he never thought they would land because, you know, he wasn't that it wasn't there to slow him down. Right? Yeah, or to questioning, we should all be shouldn't be going to you know that customer, they're too big. Let's go. Let's focus over here that you just let him run. So I can get that. You talked about in this last little segment where you're talking, you're talking about teaching this stuff. Tell us a little bit about what system is at 1357? Or you just say 1357? Or how do you

Scotty Schindler  28:40  
what's 1357 Okay, um, so what I did was I in 2018, after I'd exited, and I was retired, I was doing nothing I was sleeping until like, 9:30 in the morning going, wow, I've got this business hangover. You know, I'm just sleeping every day. And like nothing else to do, right. So I was like to sleep, there was no pressure, everything was gone. And there's only been one day and I went wow, you know, actually pulled that off. So the things I wanted to do in 1999, and the things I tried to implement in 2000 2001, and so on eating with business, you know, I mean, I actually not only don't manage to achieve it, I actually went the full cycle and got the full exits as well. I went wow. You mean is that really achieved that and I thought so what my terms at the time in 2000 was business judo, time duplication. And those two business fundamentals or systems I had to have in the business. So we talked about time duplication, just one of those things. So this is what I teach people now. And it's not because of what I read in a book. It's not because of, you know, something I thought about now and reflection. I had these systems that were non negotiable about starting the business, and that's why it took six goes because I had to have these things work. So, like time duplication is the one thing Every successful person understands. So they duplicate themselves. They duplicate their products, and they duplicate their money. And most people struggle to get one of those three. But if you can get all three, so if you can duplicate yourself, duplicate your products, duplicate your money, you got all the success you ever want. I'm not saying it's easy, but most people struggle to do any of them. But if you can do all three, you've got everything you want out of life. And that was the thing with the company. So the reason why I made myself redundant was because I needed to duplicate myself. The reason why I chose technology is because I could write code and reuse it. And when I started making money, I bought investments for money. Every night, I was making more money asleep than I was awake. Didn't start like that, though. So over that journey, there were non negotiables business Judo was another one, the business of thirds was another one. So it was the rule of 100. I mean, I learned that because of building up sales teams in the 90s, but I understood the system. And then there was sugar and cream. So now I just teach people those same things. And I've wrapped it around a 135 and seven, so those five that I just gave you them with business solutions. The one is about the people, the three is about the conditions, actions and needs. And you need to know those in business before you get to the business solutions. And the seven is the seven ways to manage time, which is the last thing most people think of this the one thing everyone wants more of is time. So I have a system that I use to create time, and manage time, and I wrap it around a success triangle. So the balance of leadership sales and business development. And if you can crack that if you've got, if you can even crack half of that system and get that right, you'll have an exponential amount of success. It just, it's just going to happen.

Ronald Skelton  31:45  
Interesting, I get the concept of duplicating yourself, right training people delegation and stuff. And I certainly get the aspect of you know, duplicating your money I'm, I'm an avid real estate investor. And you know, now I'm invested into businesses. But time like everybody's taught it, you only have a finite amount of time, right? It is how many times anybody time somebody talks about time management. I remember the my father, right, my father one day, I said that, I need you to do this. And this before you go, we owned a painting company. And he needed me to pick up some supplies. But when I went to the job site, I think that I don't have time for that I got you know, I thought it was wrestling practice or something. And you know, Dad did the same thing that Dad always at, you know, not hard, doesn't sound abusive, but he taught me in the back of the head a little bit, you know, the little, hey, you know, he said times not had it's made and you'll make time to do anything, you're really interested in it. And if I tell you to do something, you should probably be really interested in it. And he'd walk off because then I knew if I didn't do what he said I was in trouble, right? He's like, what he says you probably should be interested in something. It's like, son do this. Are you? Are you gonna you're gonna have one, right? We're gonna have a dog. And but that's stuck with me. So when somebody says like time management, and then you hear people talk about time only being finite? Could you go a little deeper in that without giving the secret sauce, right? I want people to go check it out and check out your program. But what are like the the high level ways of managing time?

Scotty Schindler  33:11  
Well, that gets into the seven. That's the seven unique ways of managing time. regard to time duplication. You know, how do you work smarter rather than harder? You're How do you achieve twice as much in half the time? I mean, how do you do that? In fact, I often say I work till I was 70. I just did it and half the time. Pretty simple. I did that through duplication. I did that through duplication, every single thing. And I was very smart about what I did. And in hindsight, look, I thought everyone was doing it. I didn't realize that not everyone does this stuff. And then I've now that I'm out here in the world trying to tell people about it. I realized that people go, Ah, okay, I haven't heard it like that before. And I can do that. But the thing is, with time duplication, or any of those things, it's look, the, the 1400 and 40 minutes, we get a day as a constant. Nobody can buy any more of it or any less of it, it's going to happen, whether you're I like it or not. It's a constant. So your ability to be able to tap into the effective use of time is the difference between the ordinary and the successful. That's how they do it. But mostly, it's a mindset. It's not the 40 minutes a day, it's not the seven days a week or the 365 days a year, we've all got exactly the same amount. But it's the mindset around that. Is that Well, okay, how do I how do I now leverage on that? So I can work smarter? How can I do twice as much and half the time? Now, I can't tell you what you do in your business in a pest control business or some other builder or someone in a cafe. But I can tell you, they can all duplicate time. They can all do it. They can all put systems in their business to duplicate themselves. They can all put systems in the business to duplicate their products. And when they started making some money, they can put that into somewhere else to make even more money. I can all do it. But it's a mindset thing you've got to want to do it.

Ronald Skelton  35:05  
It's interesting is what a lot of times when my calendar gets too full, I look at and go, what items on this calendar Should I not be doing? And I should be paying for somebody else to do. And that's something I'm often that somebody would do it much better than I would do it anyway, right? It just happens to be on my calendar, because somebody asked me to do it. And I said, Yes. Or I thought it needed to be done. So I put some time on the calendar, when often more often than not, I'm probably the not the exact person who's best in the planet to do it. So is that a little bit of what you're talking about? Is that there's a lot of cases? Yeah,

Scotty Schindler  35:40  
let me give another example of it. So you know, we've all heard a single use plastics. But what about single use of time? So when you talk about your calendar, and what's the most effective thing you're doing right now? Well, what's the thing that's going to give you, you know, more than one result back from that one amount of effort? What's the duplication of the effort you're doing now? Or is it one to one, you know, so right now we're doing something right now. That's, that's one to one. But it's not, it's going to go live, it's going to go be seen by 10, 50 or 100 people, and it's also going to live for a long time as well. So this is a form of duplication. It's not just you, and I haven't a chat. This is a form of duplication, hey, the books a form of duplication, we've done the effort once. And for the next 10 years line, and I might make a couple of bucks out of it. It's much duplication, if you can do more and more of these with your products, whatever it is. So that's the thing, you know, what's the one? What's the one to many, as opposed to one to one? It's that sort of mindset. And if you got to pick 10 things you're going to do this week, you know, what are the 10 things that are going to still pay you next year? What are the 10? Things that are gonna save you time next week, as opposed to trying to do the one to one things now sometimes you have to? Okay, but I'm not talking about that, that you have to it's what are the things I'm doing that are gonna still keep paying me next year? What are the things I'm doing that has saved me more time next week? That's the duplication mindset.

Ronald Skelton  37:08  
It's interesting, because I'm a big fan of that multiple outcome conversations, right? started a conversation with no set outcome other than I want to work with the guy or I want to hear what they're up to. And then during the conversation, multiple outcomes are available. In the same way with this, right? We're doing this on video, it'll go out to all the podcast channels, right? I'll actually transcribe it at some point, when I when I fire up a blog, the content will be on there. Right? All actually send you a link to it, you'll be able to take the transcript of the video do anything you want to with it, right? So I give all my all my guests full access. So that gets to live in all kinds of realms. I never thought about it. Now, do you put this as kind of enlighten me is like I see where I'm doing that in some areas. And now I look at and go, Okay, where else? Like the reason I love real estate. And the reason I look for things like the pest control company is you get a customer, and they pretty much need you, you know, regularly if there's an area that's prone to say ants or whatever, you're not going to permanently destroy them, right? They're going to move back in, you're going to kill the current nest. But that's just something that's going to come back. So I like anything that's recurring. So I land a customer, I treat them well. Well, they're my customer, hopefully for years. So I get that. So yeah, I think that's, I see what that applies to all kinds of areas.

Scotty Schindler  38:23  
Let me give you another example. So one of the things with the software that when I wrote it, because I was self taught programmer. And as a salesperson, I understood the sales process. So in the real estate industry, I just had this, you know, ability to be able to think like a real estate agent, even though I've never sold real estate software. Now sorry, even though I've never sold real estate. So my motto was, if they put two minutes into the software, I'll show them how they get 100 minutes for free. So I not only did I have time duplication as a motto for me, I gave them time duplication as a model of the product. So that every time we wrote code, so when staff would say this is a really good idea, like Okay, so you've created a button. So what, what to do what's, what's the 100 minutes, a real estate agents now going to get for free because they click a button. And then if they can get 100 minutes for free, then it's a good button. You know, it's a good form. It's a good process, whatever it is, it's good, because the agents themselves will save their 100 minutes. So it's time duplication in the way the product work the way clients interacted with everything. So like I said, Time duplication is not something I'm trying to teach you now because of something I think is really cool. No, no, this was a foundation layer for me in 1999. I just had to work out how to make it work in business. And it took four years and then I had a business and then it was just on top on top and top on top, top top top top.

Ronald Skelton  39:52  
It's interesting because a lot of the acquisition targets we look at what they're missing are systems and processes, right? That's what we can come in and improve Right, or they're missing, you know, brought in, in their marketing into digital or whatever. But most of the time, they built a business, what I call organically, like they fixed whatever it broke directly in front of them. But they didn't do what you did and start with systems and processes from day one. So you know, as a mergers and acquisitions guide, that's an easy target for us, right? Because I can bring in guys that are experts in Systemising things, making them repeatable, making them scalable, to where, you know, it's, that's easier for me in my world, I think, than bringing in somebody who has the heart and passion, or has even just like, I think it's easier to to find the guys that can systemize things, organize them and get them done, then, you know, to get a group of creatives to work on the same project. Right? That's, that's tougher. So, you know, I really like where that where that conversation took us because I it's enlightening. For me, it's I think it's going to be enlightening for all the the audience members, we're at 40 minutes, and I normally wrap this up about 45 or so. So one of the questions I like to ask is, like, out of everything I spoke with, you know, we spoke about, and I've asked you, What should I wish, what areas should we have covered? Right? What did I miss, there's something out there, like, we should really talk about this, if we're gonna help business owners, you know, create a business that they can scale and eventually they sell is there, is there's some area that we should be like, talking about?

Scotty Schindler  41:26  
Well, you know, the reality is, we could talk for about 10 hours, if not 10 weeks. So there's so many things that we didn't cover, that's just the reality of it. There's so many things. I mean, I mean, one of the things if I had to give a tip to any entrepreneur is the sales is the frontline of your business, get good at your sales systems get good at that, because that's the lifeblood of your business. So learn how to do presentations and close deals and get paid, that is a fundamental necessity, it's just you can't have a business without that, there's no such thing as build it, and they'll come, you got to build it and sell it. So that is a fundamental, so I can talk about that one all day. Lucky for me, I spent 10 years doing door to door or business to business. So I had the ability to be able to go into a door and walk out with a check. So that was one of the things that made a difference between me and a programmer actually knew what to program you know, I could go out and make things work as a programmer and I learned how to get better and then I paid people that were better than me to be better than me that I had the ability to go and get paid and that was one of the biggest differences in business. So if you're in business and you're thinking about you know what next look if you if you can't write down your sales process or you can't write down your sales system in a map where you don't have one you need to do your in programming terms your if else if I get a lead on don't do this, if that works Else, I'll do this. What's the process? What's the system what's the stages you take people through to have that presentation to onboard them and retain them what are those systems and processes? If you can write those down you've got one but most people can't write it down

Ronald Skelton  43:06  
if you could present that that type of stuff to a guy like me you your business is sellable, right how many I probably not including the roll up we're doing right now which we spoke to you know, well over 100 marketing agencies that we're working with not including those guys but outside of that realm. I probably spoke to yet another 100 business owners that business networking events and just you know people think and then when the sale or broker calls me and I always ask always ask what is your sales cycle look like? So I present it like from you think somebody is interested until they write you a check? What does that timeline, what is the process and nobody to this day has been like crystal clear on step one is this step two is this step three areas well, it kind of goes and you can just tell by the way they're almost making it up as they go is there is no standard process right? And I did a little bit of insurance I did. Aflac. Right You know, you know Aflac is the crazy duck said American it's supplemental insurance for like to cover your expenses, where the newer metal cooler health wouldn't. So, so like time we missed for more extra money for hospital bills, that type of stuff. But uh, we went door to door, you know, inside of businesses too, and the training behind that was impressive. But for most business owners, like if you don't have that background, and, you know, I've heard people go Yeah, we use Sandler's as a cool explain the Sandler sales model. It's a it's a very popular question based consultant base sales model. And they send some guys to Sandler but they don't know the process. The owner can't tell me their sales cycle. And that's not a red flag and leaky. It'll kill the deal, but it's it to me it says discount. You know, you're gonna get it at a better price because that's one thing I have to fix.

Scotty Schindler  44:56  
Yeah. Well, actually, you asked What's something we missing? Most people, I mean, I, we talked about a little bit in the book, but without the book, people need a sale system, they 100% need it. Most people don't have one, they can't write it out. They can't explain it. They get leads, they just closed deals that they have a business nothing wrong with any of that. That's, that's perfect. But imagine how much better be with a system.

Ronald Skelton  45:22  
Right, I get it. So you went through? There's a question in the back of my head, I want to get up before we're done here. You've been through to liquidity events, same business, right. But you've been through it twice. What were things that happened during that liquidity process, that acquisitions process where you're working with somebody acquiring your business, that business owner should know, right? There's something happened along the way, they wanted a particular set of information. Was there any like things that surprised you through the process, the first time that you made sure was there the second time or

Scotty Schindler  45:52  
No the one thing I did notice, though, was look, you know, presenting the business and having the people want to buy the business was easy. Look, I paid a merchant banker to put it all together, right? I didn't do that myself. So I paid a person to do it smart enough to use business judo, pay someone, but I was alive for the journey. So I did all the presentations and stuff. But he did all the deals in the backroom. So the one thing I learned, though, was when it got to the solicitor and the due diligence, and all that sort of stuff, and that gets ugly, that's where things break, because the solicitors and accounts that asking all these nasty questions of each other. And that's where you start to take things personally. It's like, what are you talking about? And that's when things can get really ugly. And so you got to be prepared for that more than anything else. The actual ability to you know, talk to someone about your business, and then think it's a value is actually the easy part. Then when they go Yeah, can we have a look under the bonnet and they start picking out all the pieces of it. And I really start to interrogate it, it can get ugly. And it did both times. But it was probably just process. But both times? I mean, what's going on here? Is this really worth it? You know, and I've seen businesses pull out when it gets to the legal process, I person the other day with a million dollar investment in his businesses startup, and it got to the legal part, and he's pulled out.

Ronald Skelton  47:03  
Yeah, I get that, uh,

Scotty Schindler  47:05  
I'm gonna get it that I go, Wow, it's so hard because the the listeners only get paid by asking questions and causing trouble, right. That's how they make their money.

Ronald Skelton  47:15  
Right. And that's a very brilliant idea to actually hire, hire an investment banker to help you sell your business because they can present it in such a way that you have multiple bidders, right. And they can keep they've been through it, they can do that. Personally, I don't I don't want to deal with them. But that's not what you're looking for, you're not looking for you, as the business owner, are not looking for an easy purchase from an acquisitions and mergers guy, you're looking for the best value in your business, right? So if you've got a business out there, you're listening and you're doing anything more than a million dollars EBIT. And you can afford it investment banker where you're ready to sell, I absolutely would recommend that. Right. I think that there's huge advantage to that.

Scotty Schindler  47:56  
So he really got paid. He really got paid in that process when he was the mediator between the both parties, you know, hey, Scotty, it's okay. And you go to them, okay. And it really tried to hold the glue together. So, you know, and in, instead of, you know, getting beaten up by solicitors asking nasty questions of each other. And arguing almost, I've been on the phone. I remember, they're asking about the non compete. And the one party was asking for two years, and they were arguing my party was arguing, I said, Hey, guys, listen, to take a leave to use non compete in there. Because when I sell this business, I'm not attacking another one next week, right? If I'm getting out because I want to go on another journey. I'm not getting out because I want to start another one to compete with you. So live two years in this not a problem, right? But the arguing going on was like, well, we'll all guys slow down. It's okay. And that sort of stuff was only one of the situations, but it was constant. And I guess they're trying to protect me. They're getting paid to protect me. And when they protect me, so the more they try to protect you, the more they get billed. So yeah, yeah.

Ronald Skelton  48:56  
Well, you know what, one of the lessons I learned after the second or third evaluation of a business is never never say, Who the hell taught you how to do accounting? Some of these medium sized business owners, they didn't they didn't they, their accountant does their taxes, and less than slide on how they do their actual accounting. The two don't rectify, they don't reconcile, right, you look at their tax returns, you look at their business and like how the hell did your tax person come up with that? Right? So and that's expensive. So you know, what they understand, you know, they don't get is now I have to employ. I have a girl here and she goes by Kat. She's a retired forensic accountant. I now have to employ somebody who's really skilled to try to like map this out for me and make sure that everything is okay to where if you just would have a regular bookkeeper and accountant, check your stuff now and then it would make it a little easier to get through that due diligence process right and I'm no accountant by any measure, but I know when I see something that's really mixed this stuff right. You know, we had one company who had no Millions and millions of dollars in accounts receivable. And one day I said, Well, what's this big loop? Here? She goes, That's everybody under $10,000. So you mean, why didn't want it I'm not putting a single entry and every one for every client that owes us a few $100 in the in the books, and I was like, What do you mean, you're not, you know, these guys? Oh, you know, 600 1500 $1,800 a piece. So she just globe grabbed him into almost a million dollar line item. They said, you know, other business, you know, I think no, that's not how this works. So, um, yeah, I get that the process of the due diligence. That's what a lot of like, I tell people, that's where a lot of deals go to die. Right? They, they die in due diligence, because either feelings get in the way. You know, one person gets upset and doesn't, you know, why are you questioning my, you know, integrity? And that's no, you're not, you know, I've never questioned anybody's integrity around the business. I, you know, I'll tell you if I think you're out of integrity. I'm not afraid to do that. But uh, what I'm questioning is, you know, is this tax is this up to code is this your, you would call it in the real estate world be up to COVID? This is a standard accounting practices, right? You know, can I hand that over to my bookkeeper, and they know what to do with it, because that's what's eventually going to happen, I have to hand over to my team, and they got to know what to do with these items. And, but to be so to be tough skin, make it through the process, I think, just understand that when people in the acquisitions and mergers are asking you questions, it's not. It's from a stance of almost ignorance. They don't know why you did what you did. They're just trying to figure it out. So yeah,

Scotty Schindler  51:33  
and it is, it was probably the toughest part, presenting it getting to talk to people having conversations is actually quite easy. I mean, I had plenty of them over the years. And then when I knew I finally got serious about, you know, wonder what I wonder what I could do with this business if I had other people's money as well. That's the journey I went on in 2014. And I thought with other people's money, man, I could I could go to America or do all sorts of things and have no risk and all fun. You know, I've had my chapter. Let's see what else happens. And yeah, so it's when I got to due diligence that really changed everything. I mean, it was fine. I was comfortable with it all was all there. But just the Argy bargy was a little bit like, Whoa, I can imagine most people would fail at this part of it. Most people would get emotionally, you know, and just give up too hard. So

Ronald Skelton  52:22  
well, Scotty, we're coming up to the top of the hour here. And I want to make sure people know how to get a hold of you. So what's the best way if somebody wants to learn more about what you do? Learn about your book, learn about that 1357? You know, the system? What's the best way for them to get more information?

Scotty Schindler  52:42  
Well, the, the obviously LinkedIn, I'm on I post on there, because it's a business platform, I enjoy the business stimulation. So you can follow me on LinkedIn, just under my name, Scottie Schindler. Yep, that's the one. The other option, of course, is to go to System 1357, you can Google it as the only system 1357 in the world. So that's pretty cool. So there's no one else doing it, which is good. And then you go there. And you can log in this is a bunch of free videos of courses, you can buy if you want to. But there's a bunch of free stuff in there. Because I openly share a lot of free stuff, you know, I get paid in a little bit of consulting, I don't need to get paid for every time someone watches a video. So people log in every day and watch the videos, which is great, you know, and, you know, the reality is, you know, I, when someone asked me, I'll just leave with this thought, right? So this is more about business than anything else. When someone asked me should I start a business? My answer is always yes. Because the best thing about being in business, and the best thing about being an entrepreneur is that you get paid what you're worth. That's right. So if if you're worth it, and you can prove it, you will get paid it. And that's why I love business.

Ronald Skelton  53:59  
Got it? Well, I appreciate your time today. Is there any? That was a great, like, wrap up. Is there anything else you want to add before we call it the end of the show?

Scotty Schindler  54:08  
That'll do for today?

Ronald Skelton  54:10  
All right. Well, I enjoy living.

Scotty Schindler  54:12  
I want to talk now Amazon?

Ronald Skelton  54:14  
Yeah, yeah, definitely the book. I should have put a link for that. So what I'll do before I send this out, the all the post is in the description. I'll have a link directly to the book on Amazon for you guys. So they know how to click on there. And then you are actually having a LinkedIn is it still going on tomorrow? LinkedIn

Scotty Schindler  54:31  
is still going on tomorrow. We're having a lot on our getting together and doing a LinkedIn Live, which is going to be new for me. So we'll see how I managed with that. So we're gonna do a LinkedIn live instead of a zoom call. They're just gonna have a general chat for whatever it takes and ask answer questions that might come in live and have a bit of fun with that tomorrow.

Ronald Skelton  54:50  
So cool. So if you're hearing this and you want to join in on that, I'll put his contact information back up. Follow him on LinkedIn. There's LinkedIn live happening tomorrow. They're gonna to answer questions about the book, and you'll be able to get to know meanwhile, I keep looking forward to your posts of the beautiful oceans and I see a lot of your motivational posts there's always that ocean scene nearby or something that I I'm in I'm landlocked now I live in Oklahoma we have lots of lakes but I've missed living in Hawaii living in California and being around the water so I tell my wife we didn't we need to go back every year because that's where I recharge. i Teacher tellers because I'm a Pisces, but it's that's BS, right? I just love the ocean. It's a peaceful recharge for me. So, but I look forward to that. I look forward to staying connected with you online and if you ever need anything from me whatsoever, reach out and if I can do it, I'll find a way or find somebody that can help you out.

All right.