In this powerful episode of the M&A Launchpad Podcast, hosts Casey Minshew and Ben Suttles sit down with Beki Darlin, President of WAEE and a trailblazer in the world of business acquisition and consulting for equity. Beki shares her inspiring journey in the M&A space and explains how she’s helping reshape what entrepreneurship and equity ownership look like for women.
From creative deal structuring to overcoming gender bias, Beki offers actionable insights on the unique challenges—and opportunities—facing women in business. This episode is a must-listen for those looking to grow their business, invest smartly, and foster a stronger community of female founders and professionals in the M&A world.
In this podcast episode, we discuss:
- Consulting for equity: What it is and how it works
- Navigating gender bias in business transactions
- Building a supportive network in M&A
- Opportunities for innovation in architecture and design
- Why community is key for women entrepreneurs
- Leveraging AI for business education and growth
You can connect with Beki via LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/beki-darlin/
Additional Resources:
Sponsored by O’Connell Advisory Group – Work with a trusted Quality of Earnings and Financial Diligence partner who focuses solely on business acquisitions.
Visit: https://www.oconnelladvisorygroup.com
Access our archive of video interviews on YouTube
Join our Community at the M&A Launchpad Conference – Premier event for entrepreneurs, investors, and dealmakers in the lower-middle market.
https://www.malaunchpad.com
M&A Launchpad Hosts Contact – Casey Minshew & Feras Moussa
Email: info@equitylaunchpad.com
Looking to buy or sell a business? Connect with the team at Equity Launchpad for expert guidance and hands-on support throughout your transaction.
Visit: https://www.equity-launchpad.com
🎧 Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/08V7wGcuaMhuR4SoZBBWjD?si=jgDOT0DkT3KRVEVsszsOgg
🎧 Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empowering-women-in-m-a-with-beki-darlin/id1740382586?i=1000714670443
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Transcript
00:00 all right today we interviewed Becky Darling she is awesome she’s built an incredible woman’s organization all
00:07 around business acquisition she’s been at every one of our conferences and events putting together panels all of
00:12 these pieces big part of her life was doing consulting for equity yep and then I think just because she’s been around
00:18 it and said “You know what i’m going to do it.” The opportunity came she’s halfway through her due diligence of putting this deal together so I’m truly
00:25 inspired by Becky like hanging out with her meeting her ben what are your thoughts yeah I mean she’s a spark plug she’s got a lot of energy she She’s a
00:31 connector too so she’s she’s trying to drag in various women and and other in and other people and entities to try to
00:37 you know ultimately get people educated on the space and I love that and I think that one of the things that you know I
00:43 continue to encourage is is more women in the M&A space because I think it’s needed um you know and I think on top of
00:49 that you know I mean she’s just an incredible business woman in her in her own right right so I mean I think that the deal structure that we talk about on
00:55 the show is was was pretty creative and uh solved a solved a problem that
00:60 probably would have cratered probably 9.9 people out of 10 easy you know they would have just walked away and said “I
01:06 can’t make it work.” And she you know over over a lunch was able to kind of work through the the the challenges and
01:13 and come up with a win-win so you know really really excited to have had had her on the show yeah let’s jump right in
01:19 [Music] all right hey it’s Casey here mark your
01:25 calendars for November 1st it’s going to be another M&A launchpad conference this is going to be power-p packed we
01:31 continue to add incredible value around independent sponsors the ETA women in entrepreneurship anybody that’s thinking
01:38 about buying selling acquiring growing anything around your business this is
01:43 going to be very very nice there in Chicago on November 1st and you can find us at the mna launchpad.com
01:50 you’re going to use the code launch and this is going to give you $150 off of the event we look forward to seeing you
01:57 out there November 1st in Chicago M&A Launchpad hey Becky welcome to the show
02:03 yeah thanks guys thanks for having me it’s nice to see you again yeah it’s exciting i also joined here with Ben i
02:09 don’t It’s a special moment for me he’s the first one he joined us with as our partner and it’s just been exciting usually with Ferris yeah yeah so you
02:15 know I’m taking over for the next few few shows ferris is out out of the country on vacation and so you know we
02:21 want to keep the momentum going on the podcast so excited to be joining my my my business partner Casey here and you
02:27 know we know Becky this is we got a great uh guest today that’s going to kind of tell us a little bit about her story but uh excited to add some value
02:34 today yeah so Becky why don’t you why don’t you tell our audience you know about your background what you’re doing in M&A and all this fun stuff that we’ve
02:41 talked about yeah so I kind of had a crazy journey getting here i actually
02:46 started out my professional career wanting to be an attorney um but I was married to an active duty military
02:52 member at the time and Uncle Sam likes to make you hop from state to state which isn’t great for a law degree um or
02:59 practicing law so I actually shifted into uh sales and marketing about 15 20
03:04 years ago and worked my way through up that up through that had uh my own
03:10 marketing agency that I exited and then went into a fractional chief marketing officer chief revenue officer kind of
03:16 role was scaling these companies with exponential growth growth and was wondering why I wasn’t getting a piece
03:22 of the upside which led me to kind of the consulting for equity and kind of into the uh ETA world um where I
03:31 realized I could do literally the same thing that I was already doing on a retainer basis for a piece of equity
03:39 um in conjunction with these fabulous operators who were acquiring businesses and so it kind of just scaled through
03:46 there and then wound up which we’ll get into a little bit more developing the women’s group and then pairing as a
03:53 growth partner on an acquisition that turned into full 100% owner operator um
03:59 position on it so that is kind of what brought me here today that is exciting
04:05 yeah very exciting i I will let me just kind of go back just on a little bit of that so I’ve heard a lot about
04:10 consulting for equity right i mean there’s there’s people that have written books about it and all that good stuff
04:16 how tell us about that because it sounds like you know I I mean maybe some of our listeners don’t want to go out and get a
04:21 loan they don’t want to get you know do all those pieces but man they want a piece of the deal bringing their skill sets how does that all play out
04:28 yeah it’s a fabulous question and it was actually something that attracted me originally because I didn’t want to be
04:34 in that full-time owner operator role originally i just I just wanted to handle my lane of expertise which was
04:40 sales and marketing and growth right and so that allowed me to go in and do that i think a lot of people when they look
04:47 at structuring it they look at structuring it cold to a new company of you don’t know me from Adam but I’m
04:53 going to come in and also give me your equity which doesn’t really work um but what does work is to do a probationary
05:01 period of 90 days or so and say “Hey this is how we work together if things
05:06 are going well and I create growth for your company then any of the growth that
05:11 I create for your company I would like a piece of the equity out of that growth i’m not taking out of what you already
05:17 have in your pocket but if I’m bringing additional growth to the table I deserve to have a piece of it.” And usually
05:24 business owners are pretty immunable to that because they realize like that’s not something that they need to have on
05:30 their plate it’s something that they were looking for an expert to come in and do anyway and then it better aligns
05:37 your incentives they want their company to grow you want their company to grow and everybody is working for the best
05:44 good and as if you’re getting into search and you do have marketing or
05:50 finance or operation or some like specific skill set that could directly contribute to the growth of the company
05:57 then that can be a really good way to like indefinitely extend your runway so you don’t have to make a snap decision
06:04 because you only got two months of runway left and you haven’t gone under LOI on anything like it gives you the
06:10 opportunity to say no to the wrong deals until you can find the right deal but
06:17 also keep yourself in the search and looking and building the skill set that
06:24 may be hard to do if you’re still full-time at a W2 for all of your income and I think the one thing that’s that’s
06:29 interesting too about this is it’s it’s it’s kind of a concept where you can get some of the upside without as much of
06:35 the downside right there’s not a lot of risk here there’s already there’s already a business you’re working with the business owner you’re like you had
06:41 mentioned you’re not taking anything they’re not taking a part of the apple that that they already have right you’re saying “Hey I’m going to grow more
06:47 apples for you and of that I’m going to take a little bit of this this new apple.” And I and I love that because I think you can people that maybe don’t
06:55 have you know they’ve got great skill sets but again they either don’t want to take out a loan maybe they don’t have a
07:00 lot of cash in the bank there might be a myriad of reasons why searching full-time or even just going and trying
07:06 to get a business like you said there’s a there’s a finite amount of time that you have to get it done too which is a lot of risk too um that’s an easier way
07:13 to kind of get into the game so yeah i I couldn’t agree more i you know at the end of the day there’s a lot of ways to
07:18 get into the deal right and uh and so so many people sometimes are like well it’s all or nothing and I really like that
07:24 whole angle it’s like look while you’re searching while you’re thinking while you’re learning contribute your skill set to a team yeah because that’s one of
07:31 the hardest things to do at H&M you know it’s it’s like been you know gathering people executive level people to help
07:37 you run the business you know that’s the power and uh you know and if you don’t have a lot of cash to pay those members
07:44 maybe there’s some equity too so that’s another way to attract a Becky to your team on the marketing so pretty amazing
07:49 Becky so then so then what follows on after that so like you start doing the consulting for equity and then I guess
07:57 you you said hey I’m gonna I want to do this self um kind of not really uh so with the
08:04 consulting for equity the other benefit of it is you can work with multiple companies at the same time so it’s more
08:09 of like a fractional model so you get what I call like a deal making light because you’re learning the negotiation
08:17 skills and you’re learning the terms around what is equity what what is what
08:22 kind of equity am I negotiating for and you can kind of build that skill set um
08:27 for me the current deal that I’m uh pursuing a 100% acquisition of um I
08:35 originally was the growth partner on it so I originally was not supposed to be in the full-time operator role i had
08:41 paired with somebody who was going to take on that day-to-day operator role they did have a background in its in the
08:48 architecture and interior design space they had the background in the architecture and interior design and I
08:54 was like I know how to grow the company we’re like great we’ll team up and I’ll run it and you’ll grow it right and so
09:02 um through some of the regulations that came out with this new administration
09:09 their participation wasn’t feasible anymore because they were a Mexican citizen and so we’re using you’re
09:15 talking about under the SBA guidelines the new guidelines that change the brand new one
09:22 did that just make its way through i think that just passed right yeah so the the one about the uh order executive
09:29 order about the citizenship of ownership came through in March but the the SBA
09:37 50108 update just went into effect June 1st so we’re we’re fresh fresh on that
09:44 um so that was we had gone through such
09:50 negotiations with that deal and we can talk a little bit more about that deal um but it didn’t make sense to walk away
09:57 just because of that change that kind of forced our hand to if we were going to
10:03 use the SBA program it had to be a US citizen that did all the financing and
10:08 the deal was still a good deal so it didn’t make sense for me to walk away
10:14 from it um and the more I got into exploring cuz then now now the question
10:19 is I’m shifting from consultant for equity where I only have a minority share and I’m not responsible for the
10:25 entire company to I’m buying two companies that I will be 100% responsible for in an industry that I
10:34 don’t have deep industry experience in so how do I mitigate those risks
10:39 those are great questions to ask no and I think I’m I’m actually curious right i mean I think you know I mean and let’s
10:44 let’s let’s dive into this deal right i mean you’ve told me a little bit about it in the past but I think our listeners
10:50 would love to kind of hear you know how you found it how you’re structuring it how you’re d-risking it like you said
10:55 because I think that’s that’s the one thing that like whenever I got into this business it’s like how do you go buy a company in an industry that maybe you
11:02 don’t have a whole lot of deep experience in right you know so I’d love to kind of understand your your how you
11:07 did that and how you’re derisking a deal and that’s because I have a ton of Chrome experience
11:13 that was it 20 years so the first line of defense or risk mitigation that
11:20 people were going to is a partial equity rollover right that’s your first play of I’ll keep the current sellers on but at
11:27 a minority equity share and then I will just take over operations and we’ll move
11:33 forward with it so the original deal that we structured um this is for an architecture firm an interior design
11:38 firm it’s about 770 in total combined IBIDA they’re separate entities but
11:45 we’re buying them in a package so um so originally we were just going to have the sellers stay on for minority and
11:52 they were going to continue doing the architecture and the stuff that requires
11:57 the industry experience and that derisks it for the SBA because they’ve been running the business successfully for 20
12:04 years if anybody knows their business it’s them um and then the SBA 50108
12:11 updates came out and said if you’re doing partial equity roll over no matter how much the sellers are having they
12:18 have to personally guarantee that for 2 years and it has to be a stock sale and all of these other requirements on it
12:24 that effectively kind of killed our deal structure um and I got that structures i
12:32 mean that’s just a I just like I’ve been doing the SBA stuff for 20 years and I do not understand that one and and we’re
12:37 not here to unbundle that why they did it but just crazy yeah and I mean you
12:43 know Yeah i because I think at the end of the day you use that as a way to kind of try to you know mitigate how much
12:48 cash you have to put into the deal and you’re drising like keeping that seller on is like smart it’s not a bad thing
12:54 unless they’re saying “Hey most sellers are not they don’t work out now working with a seller that have stayed on maybe
12:60 that’s their concern i don’t know but sorry that happened to you that that kind of ruins the deal in at least that
13:05 structure for you it was stressful because we had taken a lot of time to negotiate to the point of
13:11 getting to a signed LOI on this it was an extended period like I think it was 5 months or so to get an actual signature
13:19 and literally the morning I got the signed documents back the update came
13:25 out and said this deal structure no longer works so I had to go back like I
13:31 honestly kind of panicked for about two hours or so um I was in California at
13:37 the time and I was like I you know what i’m just going to go find a Texas Roadhouse i’m going to have a steak and a Dr pepper so I feel like I’m at home
13:43 again and I’m going to figure out what to do with this deal and I just spent a
13:49 lunch hour with my daughter had a great time focused not at on the deal at all and I came back within 2 hours with an
13:57 idea of how to restructure it ran it by my attorney and I said “Hey is this
14:02 feasible is this something we can do?” They were like “Yeah we’ll sign off on that.” I went to their broker i had to
14:08 explain to the seller’s broker kind of what the update was and what the deal
14:13 structure was but I think that proactive nature of it they were back on board they’re like “We trust you we believe
14:21 that this is something that you know at the end of the day you know what we want out of this deal and if the structure
14:28 accomplishes that outcome we’re okay if the details are a little
14:34 bit changed here and there and I said great and and I love just to unpack that
14:40 because I think that’s that’s where a lot of people fall flat where they’re trying to kind of creatively maneuver
14:47 their way because they don’t want to ruffle the the the business owners there’s feathers or maybe they’re they
14:52 might scuttle the deal but I feel like being proactive and just communicating some of these challenges along the way
14:59 you know 99 times out of 100 that’s the better way to approach this right versus trying to like kind of keep it close to
15:04 the chest and then you know when things are are no longer you know um you can’t push anything further right then you’re
15:11 like “Oh sorry i don’t think the deal is going to work out but here’s I think people get end up getting pissed.” So that’s probably the better way to
15:16 approach is be proactive in communication right and just understanding and maybe it’s even an
15:21 educational point when you’re talking to the business owner the first time like things are probably going to change there’s going to be some es and flows
15:27 especially through a due diligence or an inspection period you know we’re going to have to go through and and and a QV
15:33 is going to be another point of contention right when you’re doing your financial due diligence um which you’ll
15:38 always have issues there you’ll always have issues right and I think you know communicating that you know if there’s a broker obviously through them because
15:44 they can be the advocate too they want the deal to close so they’re going to try to try to go to bat for you a little bit but yeah never trying to keep it
15:51 close to the chest i just don’t feel like that’s the right move well and I think that that carries on beyond the acquisition too i don’t know if I caught
15:58 this was it So did you find it off market did you guys find it how did y’all find the deal so it was brought to
16:03 me the operator um had like given the buyer profile to a couple of different
16:10 brokers that specialized in or that uh had architecture firm deals cuz not
16:16 every broker does and they had sent us a couple that we were looking at and this was one of them um so it was an onmarket
16:24 uh listing um but we wound up the deal structure was
16:32 also great and I’m gonna go into this after the everything is solved and I can give more details but we beat out
16:39 everybody else that came to the table with more cash because our structure considered the owner’s legacy and what
16:46 they wanted for their people and I was able to communicate that upfront we’re
16:52 not going to be doing as much cash cuz also that reduces your capital gains implications but we’re able to because
16:60 you’re going to have that rollover equity in the original deal it’s actually going to put more money in your pocket on the back end so we’re taking
17:08 care of your people you’re going to get more cumulatively it just doesn’t come up front in cash nice i see you weeded
17:16 up weeded out the other guys because you brought in legacy consider the employees but the rollover
17:21 equity then becomes a concern right so that that’s where Got it and how long in that process did you guys get from that
17:28 conversation to then you had to go to her and say “Hey roll over equity is off the table or it needs to be
17:34 restructured.” So I had kind of had my eye on it but like I said like the day that they
17:41 agreed to the rollover equity structure in the LOI was the day that the update
17:46 came out and said rollover equity is a no-go and so within two hours of me
17:53 getting that update and having the steak and Dr pepper because that’s really really important was uh I talked to the
18:01 attorney and the broker and I said I’m happy to reddraft an entirely new LOI if
18:07 you want me to with the new updated deal structure or we can just get started on due diligence and hammer those details i
18:14 can send you what we’re proposing to mitigate that but it achieves the same outcome so if we’re good to go with
18:21 starting on due diligence then we can start on due diligence and work that out in the purchase agreement they’re like
18:27 “Yeah we’re totally okay with it.” Just gave us an overview we had to have a call with the broker and the sellers and
18:33 just kind of go through this is how it’s changing this is what it means um and
18:39 essentially what we did was we were able to structure it in a way that one of the things that they’re very concerned about
18:44 was taking care of their people so they had a couple of key employees um that they wanted to make sure had
18:51 good retention bonuses and I had a problem in that I am not a licensed architect so for me to buy an
18:58 architecture firm in the state of Colorado which is where this one is based is I have to have a licensed
19:05 architect as a minority owner and the architect of record who handles all of that side of stuff i can handle all of
19:12 the business stuff but I have to have somebody in that role um and so what I
19:17 did is I just drafted a plan where the key employees stepped into that minority
19:22 equity place they become the ones that are now the head of and because they
19:29 hadn’t previously owned the company it’s SBA compliant right and so the sellers get 100% equi
19:38 exit SBA compliant we can create a separate entity where they can advise
19:43 for 12 months and contract for 12 months so there’s no interruption to the works in progress the agreement that we had
19:50 already had was kind of a 12-month transition period so it keeps everything
19:56 in place it just delivers it through a different method um well done thank you
20:05 that’s how we were able to kind of get there and so you know kind of you you
20:11 said there was about a fivemon like have you guys closed yet or you I mean like just to kind of give our listeners kind
20:16 of an an idea of like how long I think everybody’s always so surprised how long some of these things can take can take
20:22 right yeah so I’m about 50 days into the due diligence period um but I have just
20:30 gotten to the part where we are finalizing things with our equity gap partner um and everything else is good
20:37 to go so we’re on track to close within the 90 days even though it’s SBA and a
20:44 double acquisition which in and of itself honestly guys I think is a little impressive
20:51 i absolutely think so and and and SBA is very slow right now and so good for you
20:56 to be on top of it and get them what they need they’re they’re trying to figure out everything over there yeah yeah so you know kind of going back to
21:03 our earlier you know conversation about buying companies in industries that maybe we’re not as familiar with right
21:10 and so how do you bridge that gap i mean I know obviously you’re going to have some some equity ownership from the key
21:15 employees they’re obviously going to have that that you know that experience right but how do you get comfortable
21:21 right owning now an architectural firm you know when you’re not an architect
21:27 right yeah and and the other qu the the the the second part of that question too is why architectural firms
21:35 great we’ll tackle the first one so I think it is any CEO when you’re stepping
21:41 into the CEO role of any company your job is to not know all the things but
21:47 your job is to know how to find the people that know the things um so one of the things that I did
21:55 immediately when I lost my operating partner was I started looking for some sort of COO
22:04 that had the experience that I could bring in to partner with me on this and
22:10 I actually found an amazing fractional COO who has 17 years of architecture
22:15 experience she served three years in operations and finance for a big
22:21 architectural firm she was a past president of the AIA in North Carolina
22:27 like she has the chops and I had a conversation with her and we worked out
22:32 an agreement for her you know upon close i’ve got a 12-month contract with her
22:38 that also derisks it for the SBA because they’re asking that same question right
22:44 i had a good mentor of mine he said it’s get the book Who Not How right it’s
22:50 finding absolutely and that’s that’s exactly what you’re doing absolutely because I architecture was
22:58 not on my radar at all the only reason that I originally got into it was
23:03 because I saw the potential for growth there and from that business like growth
23:10 lens value acceleration there’s a lot of opportunity there it’s also like a lot
23:16 of other markets where it is a highly fragmented market um that has a lot of
23:22 opportunity there that people don’t know how to take advantage of because they look at it and they think I’m not an
23:28 architect but you have people who aren’t dentists doing dental roll-ups and you have people who aren’t physicians doing
23:34 medical rollups and all of people who aren’t HVAC operators that are doing
23:39 HVAC rollups so it’s just a matter of this is a problem how do I solve for
23:45 this problem in a way that derisks it enough that I have reasonable certainty
23:51 of success here yeah I love it yeah and so I I just want
23:56 to say to the listeners right so we have known Becky for a few years now she’s she’s been at on a panel at every one of
24:02 our conferences she has been pulling together women to come in and talk about M&A and so Becky I I want to first
24:10 congratulate you on the deal we wanted to talk about that because that’s a very exciting point but you know we’re kind of getting that midway and I want to
24:16 start talking about the other stuff right because you’re very engaged you’re very much about giving and I think
24:22 that’s why some of the great things are happening to you is because you give give give and we’ve seen you on our panels and our event you’re just it’s
24:28 it’s awesome so why don’t you talk to us a little bit about your organization how you started it and man why why should
24:35 more women be in this industry yeah so uh my organization is called our
24:41 way uh it’s our women’s acquisition entrepreneur ecosystem and it was born actually out of a random
24:51 tweet that somebody put a tweet out there on SMB Twitter that said “Why aren’t there more women in acquisition?”
24:57 And I it hit me and I it was kind of cognitive dissonance for me because I knew a lot of women that were in ETA
25:05 even though I was not fully involved um in the world quite as deeply as I am now
25:12 and what I realized is it’s just like a lot of industries they’re out there but it’s highly fragmented they all are
25:18 high-erforming very ambitious driven women who are doing it all by themselves and think that they’re one of one out
25:24 there and so I had the idea of well what
25:29 if I could aggregate all of the resources so think of like learning
25:35 about like acquiring a business is a 10-p part problem most of the resources out there solve one or two parts of a
25:43 10-p part problem and I was like well what if I could create a solution for women that solved 10 parts of a 10-p
25:48 part problem where we had the buyers we had the sellers we had the due diligence
25:54 providers we had the lenders and we had the education and the network to kind of
25:60 connect all of them together because what women really need in this space is
26:05 they need community of people who think like them and approach business like
26:10 them which they’re not getting in a lot of the other great organizations that are together they go and they’re still
26:17 one of two women in a cohort or and and that’s great but it’s not customuilt for
26:25 them in a like they have to translate everything when they’re learning about stuff um or they use an approach that
26:34 maybe is more aggressive than they feel naturally comfortable being and they would rather be a little bit more
26:40 collaborative but where do they get the feedback on how to do that in a way that
26:46 doesn’t give up any leverage um so we wanted to create the community we wanted to create a professional network that if
26:52 they didn’t have it in this space they could just tap into our network and women are natural connectors so we’re
26:58 like hey I know people if I don’t know people I know people who know people so like let me hook you up just tell me
27:03 what you need and we’ll get you connected um and the last is like they don’t have the same access to funding to
27:09 capital and a lot of them come from an entrepreneurial background where they
27:14 maybe don’t have the MBA they don’t have the B school alumni network um they’re just out here hustling figuring it out
27:22 and if if we have people that have access to those networks and know how to
27:27 help them learn how to talk to investors in a way that they’ll pay attention to and be taken seriously
27:35 um then I think that that’s a really great resource for them to have and that’s why we call it ecosystem because
27:40 it’s not one part of it it’s all of it yeah and and and kudos i mean this is
27:48 this has been one of the things that I’ve loved about Becky is just you know I think sometimes you just got to shine a light on a problem and you know but
27:55 you know not only shining a light but you’ve also kind of solved you know which is like hey this is the this is a
28:00 group that you know is here to kind of collaborate and kind of help each other you know and and and I and I love
28:06 anything that kind of drags more women into these types of spaces i mean I’ve been in IT I’ve been in commercial real
28:11 estate you know obviously M&A at this point too right and all of them are are
28:16 male-dominated and I think you know that’s something that I’ve tried to over the years kind of encourage more and
28:21 more women to be a part of because there’s a lot of opportunity out there but as you said right you know they might not you know have the resources or
28:29 you know the connections or they might not feel comfortable kind of playing in some of these spaces and I think it’s just ultimately it’s all just about you
28:35 know um providing you know for lack of a better word a safe space for everybody just to kind of just talk and like you
28:41 know communicate and learn in their in in that environment and so kudos you
28:46 know I mean as a as a father of a daughter you know I want to see her get into these spaces and so but there needs
28:52 to be more of these and and we need to encourage that to to kind of happen right because I think that there is a
28:58 lot of opportunity um even in like don’t even think about like traditional like where would a women like fit in as an
29:04 entrepreneur like I think you know they would they would kick ass in a lot of different spaces you know they just
29:10 don’t even think about it that way because it’s like oh you know what’s chrome plating right as a completely male-dominated oh yeah you know type
29:16 business but you know I think that you know you just have to have the tools and the resources and the connections to be able to pull it off um so yeah love love
29:24 to hear that so Becky let me ask this just straight up when you because you’ve gone out you’ve talked to a lot of
29:29 sellers do you feel like women are treated different when they’re at the table with a seller than a than a man is
29:35 do you think that that’s something that you’re up against or is it in the or is it in your head or or they really treat
29:41 you differently i I think it’s a combination but I think that there are some places where it just it’s really
29:48 like glaring almost to the point of like it’s 2025 i can’t believe this is still
29:54 an issue um where we’ll have for example we have a lot of women that are in partnered searches with their spouse or
30:00 significant other and they’ve talked about I’m going to be the operating spouse
30:07 like I’m the one with industry expertise but they only ever want to talk to my husband or they defer to my husband or
30:14 my spouse or we’ve had uh husband wife teams that have independently submitted
30:21 like NDAs to brokers and Without question the females are always asked
30:27 for proof of uh income or proof of fine funds when the male counterpart is just
30:33 sent the sim and there’s no gatekeeping there’s no verifying are you serious
30:40 about this there’s no extra hurdles to jump through now that’s not all case and not always the case i’m not going to say
30:46 that all brokers treat women that way because we have some amazing brokers that we found that treat everybody kind
30:53 of equally which is how I think it should be of if you what they’re filtering for is are you a qualified
31:00 buyer or are you a tire kicker and that’s some of the you know is it in your head kind of thing that we’ve
31:07 adjusted is if you go it doesn’t matter what your gender now you could be an
31:12 alien and go to a broker and be like hey I want to buy this cash flowing business and I have no money and no experience
31:18 and I don’t know what you’re looking for but send me the SIM they’re not going to send you the SIM and that’s not because
31:24 of kind of like you inherently it’s you’re not prepared like you haven’t done your
31:31 homework to be taken seriously but if you do your homework and you are
31:38 in a position to be taken seriously and you’re still met with gatekeeping or bias then that’s when it becomes a
31:45 problem and when we need to figure out is the deal good enough to jump through
31:51 these hurdles and kind of navigate some complex gatekeeping or are you better
31:57 suited going and talking to a broker who’s going to treat you like a human being and understand that you’re serious
32:05 about what you’re doing and be able to give you opportunities or do we look at an offmarket search where you talk to
32:11 sellers sometimes the sellers are the same way i think it’s just a matter of
32:16 like humans are going to human and so you kind of have to understand what is
32:23 this human across the table from me looking for when they’re trying to
32:28 accomplish what they’re trying to accomplish like a broker if they’re a good broker is trying to help the seller
32:35 sell the business well what do they need to know they need to know that the person who’s buying it isn’t going to
32:41 take it and run it into the ground immediately because they don’t know what they’re doing so I think that there’s a
32:46 little bit of like gatekeeping that should happen but if you’re a qualified buyer you
32:51 should have access to those opportunities so in your association meeting are y’all
32:56 like working on with the women like posturing and objectives and things like
33:02 that so like for instance when I I literally met with a seller yesterday okay and walked into the room two
33:08 brokers seller across the table drove up to Dallas u fairly large-siz deal first
33:14 thing the broker say “Casey you know we appreciate you’re here um but look you know we hear that term independent
33:20 sponsor to us it means you have no money.” And I said and I said rightfully so i said at this moment for this deal I
33:27 do not have any funding to buy this deal today i said but you know if you’re not
33:33 going to treat me like everybody else in this process I’ll just walk right out the door i’m good and the seller said
33:39 “No stay.” And and and I and and it was just one of these moments like where you know it’s a lot of posturing and I don’t
33:46 know if I And look I I can’t speak for women i’m not a woman i have two daughters i love them to death um but
33:53 posturing is such an important thing if you play poker and I think guys naturally kind of have always had to
33:59 posture each other because I knew growing up growing up the older guys I mean if you didn’t have your hand over
34:05 your chest or something they’d punch you you know and so it’s like the the females don’t really have to play that
34:10 and I think there’s this whole methodology and science around posturing um like when you come in it’s almost
34:16 like I always have a I have a little five a little 30 second pitch that basically tries to overcome these
34:22 objections and so I wonder if like you know if you do teach those that’s great if not I think that could be really
34:28 great for women to have like here’s your five posturing techniques when you talk on the phone with a with a with a broker
34:35 or you know what I mean because these are those things that you know we do naturally as guys because we’ve had to
34:42 i think women do it naturally but they do it differently they do do it
34:48 differently yes absolutely so for women a lot of times there’s a
34:54 lot of subtext that we have to pick up on in order to be able to um operate in
35:01 the world like there are a lot of things that are said without being said or body
35:06 language things or it’s the same type of posturing that come like they’re they’re just trying to check you and see if
35:12 you’re going to stand up and if you’re a worthy opponent or not right right yes
35:18 but for women sometimes one of our greatest leverage points is being
35:24 underestimated because if we can come to the table and we know our stuff and we know your stuff
35:30 better than you know your stuff like one of our best ways to do that is through research um which is part of why the
35:36 aggregation makes a lot of sense is if we know all of the plays and we can have
35:42 a contingency plan for A through Z and somebody comes at us like independent
35:47 sponsor we think that that means you don’t have any money we would probably take a similar stance
35:54 to what you did but we would take it a little bit differently in that you know
35:60 you’re right we don’t have the money we do have access to all of these resources
36:05 that we’d be happy to bring and deploy in this case but if that’s not of interest to you then I’m happy to go
36:11 elsewhere so it’s similar but like slightly nuanced right where it’s not if if a woman came and tried to go
36:18 toe-to-toe with a man using male posturing they would lose 100% of the time that is a great point
36:26 come in fully in their feminine and but are firm and know their stuff then I
36:35 think people just as humans take that seriously they can tell when somebody’s
36:40 serious and will get business done and in business and acquisition so much of it is can you execute like that’s the
36:47 question that everybody is trying to answer from the broker to the lender to everybody is trying to say can this
36:54 person get it done and I can tell you without a doubt that women especially
37:00 minority women and especially veterans can get it done because they’ve been
37:06 getting it done on multiple levels their entire life against increasing odds like
37:12 they’ve had to maggyver the situation and figure out a way to make it work because they don’t have any other
37:17 options so if you want somebody who can definitely get in there and has the resilience and the grit and is able to
37:24 figure it out and make it work and collaborate and connect with people that’s where women shine but they have
37:30 to do it from being a woman as being a woman rather than trying to model it
37:35 after how a men man would approach it love it that’s a great answer i love
37:41 that so you know I mean and speaking about negotiations and stuff like that I mean I think everybody Don’t Split the
37:46 Difference you know I love that book you know I mean just an ex FBI negotiator and I think those are those are ta tips
37:53 and tactics that anybody doesn’t matter if you’re a woman or or or a guy you know just understanding how to just
37:58 negotiate that’s the one thing that you know as a as aspiring business owners or as business owners right people that
38:04 want to want to get into this space you’ve got to know how to sell and you got to know how to negotiate it’s just
38:10 it is what it is and if you’re not comfortable doing it make sure that somebody on your team is because you’re always doing it right what Casey was
38:17 just describing and what you probably had to do right off the bat is how are you selling Becky and Becky’s vision of
38:23 this company right you know and I think that’s that’s how you encourage people to to trust you right you know at the
38:30 negotiating table is like okay and then and you even got past that you even said you know I’m not going to give you as much money up front as these other
38:36 people but the only reason they’re really going to take that Yeah you had a creative structure but you ultimately built that rapport and you and you built
38:42 that trust and that’s that’s one of the most important things too big time so I think having that skill set and
38:47 regardless if you’re a woman or a man you know is important but I was curious Becky so like what’s next right you want
38:54 obviously you want to get the deal closed you know are you already are you already kind of looking to acquisition
38:60 number two or maybe it’s another industry what’s what’s what’s the next plan yeah I already have like several
39:06 targets on my radar i just requested a sim for one today right before this call
39:12 because I have a vision for this company it was always intended to be a platform
39:17 company for a pretty extensive roll up towards IPO over the next seven years um
39:22 we may not go IPO but if we build for the most stringent case then all of the
39:28 other options are available to us if it’s a really clean build so that to me
39:34 makes sense the architecture space is right for it and we’re bringing an element um that I’m very very excited
39:41 about which is neuroscience into architecture and interior design um
39:47 which is a wide blue ocean that has a lot of potential over the next seven
39:53 years with especially with the addition of AI you know AI will replace some
39:59 things it’s not going to replace everything and there’s a lot of ways that you can use it in complimementary
40:05 um methods to uh help extend things even with our way I’m kind of dialing it back
40:11 for our way is we have a couple of AI tools in the works that literally
40:17 somebody can come in take a quiz on their base knowledge of business and
40:22 entrepreneurship and acquisition and the AI tool will custom create an education
40:27 plan based on their weak areas that’ll help them get their skill set up quickly so that when they go into negotiations
40:34 if if deal structuring is a weak point for them or if you know high finance
40:40 they don’t really understand all of the the options available to them they get a quick schooling on it it’s kind of like
40:46 a hands-on MBA type of program but customtailored to what they need on
40:53 their journey to be able to execute on what they’re doing which I think is a really fantastic use of it with the
41:00 acquisition bringing in wellness tech and health tech to create literal
41:05 high-performance homes where if you live in this home you will perform better you
41:10 will make more money you will have a higher quality of life and you probably are going to live longer and bringing in
41:16 the scientists to run the baseline studies so that we have the scientific data to support our claims that we’re
41:22 doing um I think it’s a really exciting space to be in and so my next frontier
41:29 is kind of creating and moving into more of I call it independent equity because
41:35 it’s a different model than private equity um where we’re not trying to extract the value out of companies we’re
41:42 trying to take what’s there and yes and like plus add on to whatever
41:49 their legacy is expand their legacy they can have sellers can have a full exit
41:54 but it really is kind of built on the way that women run businesses and want
41:59 to create more community and collaboration and bring it back to you
42:05 know what really matters as we’re moving into a time where we’ve got AI deep
42:10 fakes and all of these things that are kind of promoting disconnection in a way um we’re promoting connection through
42:16 the way that we do business and the kind of businesses that we do and giving people access to things that they didn’t
42:22 previously had have access to using those kind of tools so that’s
42:27 a brief snapshot of what I’m up to i love it you got to have a big vision and uh and I love I love how we all think a
42:34 little bit differently about business and that’s what makes us all unique uh but having that that mindset especially
42:40 as a female and being a business entrepreneur like yourself I think you have an advantage over us guys because
42:45 we’re kind of just meattheads at the end of the day right we’re all pounding the same tool book and you’re like thinking totally outside the box which I love uh
42:52 so no that is great so I think right now Becky we’re going to jump into our rocket round but um very much thank you
42:60 for all all that you shared yeah great great story and I think it’s a inspiration and I mean I think the
43:05 organization that uh you know and we’ll get into we we’ll share with our listeners kind of maybe how they can reach out to you maybe be a part of that
43:12 that organization as well um and ultimately start their their entrepreneurial journey so let’s get
43:17 into this all right the rocket round this is where we ask our guests three very important questions all righty
43:23 first one what do you like to do in your free time uh I like to go to axe throwing
43:30 competitions with my daughter all right do you participate or you just watching uh we actually were we both
43:38 competed in the World Axe throwing league challenges she competed at the adult level emma I brag on her she’s a
43:45 little baby badass but um yeah we just do axe throwing leagues for fun it’s a
43:50 great bonding for mom and kid and she gets to play with sharp objects which
43:56 you know that might be the first on on this podcast that is the first absolutely i love it i love it yes
44:03 all right so let’s do the second one here so most memorable moment in your
44:08 business journey um I have to say I mean I’ve talked
44:14 about it a little bit but I think that launch at Texas Roadhouse kind of
44:19 defined that I’m all in because I could have walk I could have walked away at that point and just gone back to the
44:26 consultant for equity and kind of stayed in my lane and what digging in at that
44:31 point and saying no I will find a way or I will make one kind of locked me into
44:37 the ability to have that big vision that’s now laid out for me that I feel
44:44 like I feel like this is a piece of my life that I have been searching for for
44:49 a long time and I didn’t even know what it looked like until I got here um but now that I’m here there’s no way I’m
44:55 letting go like this is I’m all in this is what I’m doing now forever so love it
45:01 um and you know for our listeners just to kind of tag on that Becky I think because you know you’re you’re involved
45:07 in the events you’re out there you’re around people you’re surrounding yourself with those people it’s almost
45:12 like that pivotal moment where you’re like now it’s my time it’s my turn i’m here it’s given to me and all of those
45:19 things gave you that confidence knowing that there’s a lot of people out there us everybody that will help you along the way so that’s pretty it matters
45:27 getting engaged and getting involved even if you’re not ready to do it today get engaged and start getting around the
45:33 people doing it you know and that’s why we host our events and that’s why we do what we do so we can all come together and tell our war stories and things like
45:40 that to help build the confidence to pull the trigger so congrats on that one i think one of the things that I really like about your events that I appreciate
45:46 about your events too is every time that I’ve gone there are always people that
45:52 are doing bigger things that should have been impossible right and so then the
45:59 thinking starts to go from well one acquiring one business is impossible
46:05 to no that’s totally doable well what if I want to acquire like a chain or what
46:10 if I want to acquire um a bunch of different complimentary business and you
46:15 you just start to think bigger because you’re around people who think bigger and then you get connected with the
46:22 resources to actually execute on that and I think that’s what really makes the difference between um the people that
46:29 are able to do big amazing things that make their lives really like elevate
46:35 their quality of life it’s not easy but it makes their lives better because they’re doing these big bold things and
46:42 they can see what they’re really capable of and that’s what if you find it easy please let me know i would I would sign
46:48 up for that any day we can do simple not easy all right last question here what is
46:54 your favorite tool or resource um my favorite tool or resource that’s a
46:60 really tough one because there are so many really good ones um but I do have
47:05 to say that learning how to prompt chat GPT the right way um will help you
47:13 shorten the learning curve for a lot of things um the quality of your prompts do
47:19 do dictate the quality of your output but I’ve been able to do some amazing
47:24 things with um like there’s a prompt that can help you get McKenzie level insight into industries and kind of look
47:33 at blind spots and if you look at it from that perspective rather than outsourcing your thinking to it it winds
47:40 up being a a really great tool nice love it love it well Becky again
47:46 thank you for joining us how can our listeners get a hold of you um the best way probably is through
47:53 LinkedIn you can find me Becky Darlin which will probably have the spelling of my name here somewhere because it’s
47:58 tricky um other than that uh you can get a hold of me through our way which is owe.com
48:07 and I will be around at all of your events like you guys aren’t getting rid of me so they can always We would not
48:13 want to we’re expecting a whole room of women at these events this is what we’ve
48:18 got to have you are doing it well look thank you so much for spending your afternoon with us
48:24 congratulations on your project we’re going to have you back when your deal is done and you can tell us all about that
48:29 fun stuff absolutely i would love it thank you both so much you’ve been so great all right thanks Becky have a good
48:37 one all right thanks thank you for listening to the M&A Launchpad podcast if you’ve enjoyed today’s podcast and
48:43 would like to support us please leave us a rating and a review after you listen i’m Casey Mchu and I look forward to talking with you next week
