In this episode of the M&A Launchpad Podcast, hosts Feras Moussa and Casey Minshew welcome special guest Rory Tyer. This past year, Rory bought a retail garden center in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. Although Rory had a career before his dive into ETA (Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition), he spent several years searching for the right type of business to buy. Rory’s previous career ventures included being a singer/song writer, videographer, and even in the seminary. Once Rory found the business, the work began to secure, acquire, and operate. We dive deep into the intricacies of searching for and acquiring a business, as well as what challenges Rory faced in this process. Besides owning and operating the South Pleasantburg Nursery, Rory spends time as an executive coach.
Rory drops many coaching tips throughout the episode. In this podcast episode, we discuss:
- Owning a Nursery
- Executive Coaching Tips
- Working With A Seller
- How Life Changes in ETA
You can connect with Rory by LinkedIn or Twitter (X): @rorytyer
Additional Resources:
- Looking to invest in M&A opportunities or partner with an advisor to acquire, scale or sell your business? Visit Equity Launchpad
- Work with a Trusted Quality of Earnings and Financial Diligence Partner who focuses solely on Business Acquisitions: Schedule a discovery call with Patrick of O’Connell Advisory Group—Your Dynamic Quality of Earnings Partner
- Access our archive of video interviews on YouTube
- Get in touch with show hosts Casey Minshew and Feras Moussa at – info@equitylaunchpad.com
Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4dUL2Yhy8wSIEXVUvB4C9F
Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/acquire-a-local-retail-garden-center-with-rory-tyer/id1740382586?i=1000681889219
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Transcript
00:00 on today’s episode we interviewed Rory
00:02 tyer where we talked about really going
00:04 from kind of business and coaching and
00:06 going and doing your first search and
00:08 buying a nursery and starting to dissect
00:10 the nursery business right what it looks
00:12 like how the interaction went with the
00:13 seller how they structured it and
00:15 ultimately some of the questions to ask
00:16 about a seller and a business and really
00:18 kind of what’s what’s happened since
00:20 then so Casey what some of your
00:21 takeaways yeah you know Roy is a AIT
00:23 he’s an executive coach prior to buying
00:25 a business so leadership and thought
00:27 process and and a lot of the way to
00:29 dialogue and work with people just
00:30 probably a very Master Level very very
00:33 methodic very methodic and and you can
00:35 tell that he’s got a very a lot of just
00:37 bit wisdom in that sense but now he goes
00:40 and buys a small business right yeah
00:42 which is really like having interacted
00:43 with him not quite that you know he’s
00:46 not a he’s not the kind of guy who have
00:47 thought would buy Nursery right which
00:49 you no and he bought a nursery and then
00:50 he bought a business and the owner and
00:52 the seller walked him through the
00:53 process of all the negatives too right
00:55 very open and dialogue but he saw TR he
00:58 got some trust I do believe he got a
01:00 very strong purchase price multiple all
01:03 the above y um and it was just very I
01:06 thought incredible conversation so you
01:09 know for for those people that are
01:10 looking for a nursery or thinking about
01:12 this kind of space want to think about
01:14 how somebody went out and had a career
01:15 and searched and this is one of those
01:17 podcasts you got to dive into yeah
01:19 absolutely and I think you know some of
01:20 the other stuff that’s kind of
01:21 interesting to think about is really
01:22 where’s he taking the business moving
01:23 forward right I did like the landscape
01:25 design idea of right is an easy way to
01:28 you know to kind of tap in you already
01:29 know your business you already know your
01:31 customers easy sell you already had guys
01:33 doing it and that’s kind of just a
01:35 growth pattern from there so all right
01:37 Lots done packing this
01:41 one all right guys just take one second
01:44 here real quick when you’re buying a
01:45 business uring the financial health of
01:46 the company is critical and that’s where
01:48 a quality of earnings partner comes in
01:50 quality of earnings gives you confidence
01:52 in the financials of the company that
01:53 you’re purchasing it aims to protect
01:55 your investment and ensure you that
01:56 you’re stepping into a profitable
01:58 business on day Patrick of ok Advisory
02:01 Group is your Dynamic quality of
02:02 earnings partner he’s here to help you
02:04 buy the right business on your timeline
02:05 Patrick’s entire practice is focused on
02:07 business Acquisitions your Niche is his
02:09 niche in over the past decade Patrick’s
02:12 helped more than 200 buyers like
02:13 yourself successfully purchase and
02:15 operate enduring profitable businesses
02:17 in fact Patrick’s helped some listeners
02:19 of this show so if you’re buying looking
02:21 for help with the quality of earnings
02:23 Financial due diligence Network capital
02:25 and more head to oconnell advisory
02:27 group.com or just click the link in the
02:28 show notes hey Rory welcome to show good
02:31 to be here thanks for having me you bet
02:33 man so tell us a little bit about
02:34 yourself yeah so I live in Greenville
02:37 South Carolina I’m married I’ve got
02:39 three kids between the ages of two and
02:40 seven and uh in May of this year I
02:43 bought a retail nursery and garden
02:45 center here it’s about 12 or 13 minutes
02:47 from my house depending on traffic and
02:50 uh I did a bunch of different things
02:51 before that but I had been looking for a
02:52 business to buy locally for a couple of
02:55 years and so yeah we’ve lived here in
02:56 Greenville since 2021 and uh really
02:58 happy that I’ve got a business here now
03:00 so we’re really putting down Roots love
03:02 that business by the way we you know
03:04 I’ve driven by facilities and things
03:06 like that looked at one she had a
03:08 firework stand that she also ran highly
03:11 profit business great but they added
03:13 fire they did a firework to on top of
03:15 what they did it was and not knowing
03:17 exactly what all you do but we were we
03:19 were pretty impressed with the operation
03:20 the margins and all that so good for you
03:23 I’m finding a good company and yeah and
03:25 it would make a lot of sense too because
03:26 you know around June most retail
03:28 nurseries April and may are pretty big
03:31 months and then June you start to see a
03:33 slide in revenue and then after J like
03:36 like by the time you get to the end of
03:37 June you’re about to transition to July
03:39 your Revenue just craters uh it’s just
03:42 extremely seasonal so it actually would
03:44 be an awesome thing to add we I’m like
03:46 do I have space in my parking lot like
03:48 could we set
03:49 up 10% of those commissions all right
03:51 the way they do it is is exactly what
03:53 they do it’s Christmas right or it’s the
03:56 New Year’s right before New Year’s one
03:57 week and then right before Fourth of
03:59 July so they
04:01 both of those are like slow times yeah
04:02 both of those are slow times it’d be
04:04 great and they make cash it’s it’s a
04:06 cool business so anyways it’s it’s it’s
04:08 cool we’ll get on to that later yeah so
04:10 but you know so was that your first
04:11 acquisition really quick for the
04:12 listeners it was all right so what did
04:15 you do before that so just before that I
04:17 worked for a couple of years for a very
04:19 large like Professional Services and
04:21 accounting firm it’s not one that a ton
04:22 of people have necessarily heard of but
04:24 it was like the 23rd largest CPA firm in
04:26 the US this year so I was a director and
04:28 they initially brought me on like I had
04:30 a contract with them with Consulting and
04:32 coaching company that I had co-founded
04:34 with a couple folks and they brought me
04:36 in to train a bunch of their people who
04:37 were future Partners right so they had a
04:39 cohort of like 11 people because they
04:41 grown a lot and they needed some
04:42 leadership development so I I’m an
04:44 executive coach by training do a lot of
04:46 leadership development and facilitation
04:48 and so they had contracted me to create
04:49 and run a program for them that went
04:51 well and then they offered me a job and
04:53 initially I was over there like internal
04:54 Learning and Development program but
04:56 from day one they asked me to come on as
04:58 a consultant as part of a small team
04:60 team working with this like pretty large
05:02 IT services company that their
05:03 leadership team needed a lot of coaching
05:05 they were you know the it was founder Le
05:07 and he had like 40 direct reports uh
05:10 they were realizing it was a problem so
05:12 they brought us in to like help change
05:14 that structure and and focus on culture
05:16 and trust and did that for a while and
05:18 then eventually I shifted over and was
05:20 doing that full-time and so by the time
05:22 I left I was working mostly with
05:24 commercial construction and
05:25 manufacturing companies and so these are
05:26 typically family run businesses anywhere
05:29 from like 30 million to 300 million in
05:31 annual revenue were the clients that I
05:32 was covering and usually it’s just some
05:35 combination of they need recruiting help
05:38 the you know the owner is burning out
05:40 maybe it’s a second generation owner and
05:41 they’re trying to make a lot of
05:42 Transitions and that’s not going that
05:43 well they just realize their leadership
05:45 team you know it’s a bunch of blueco
05:47 collar mostly guys who started out like
05:49 driving equipment and have worked their
05:51 way up to now they’re leading you know
05:53 multi-million dollar segments of the
05:55 company and they haven’t received a lot
05:56 of like formal leadership training so I
05:58 don’t know how much you know about
05:59 Construction industry culture but it’s
06:01 like Ty we have one of those so
06:03 definitely we’re buying another one so
06:04 definitely know some of the culture in
06:06 there yeah you know like the idea of
06:08 hiring a leadership coach just in a lot
06:10 of construction companies just like why
06:11 are you wasting money on that or like
06:12 you know why are we doing group coaching
06:14 as a team but like we I mean it was
06:15 really fun like I learned a lot about
06:17 the industry and um got to help with a
06:19 lot of very real business problems like
06:20 retention and and communication and
06:22 strategic planning and um you know
06:24 before that I did a few other things I
06:26 was vice president of a nonprofit for
06:27 several years I actually co-founded I
06:30 said a consultancy with a couple of
06:31 folks which is kind of what got me into
06:32 Executive coaching got my certification
06:35 uh I’ve I’ve been a singer songwriter in
06:37 the past and independent videographer I
06:39 had a very I was in seminary at one
06:41 point like I’ve uh I’ve had an
06:44 interesting path you know so when I
06:46 first learned about the idea of buying a
06:47 business I think the first mental model
06:49 I had to shift was like who can do that
06:51 because it wasn’t me like I don’t come
06:52 from a family background of parents that
06:54 started or own businesses my Dad and Mom
06:57 are both very much were career people
06:58 they’re retired now but
07:00 me too yeah and so so ultimate I mean
07:04 what what drove you to go buy a business
07:06 right I you know obviously know sounds
07:08 like a fairly successful background
07:10 right jumping in starting a business is
07:13 a whole different kind of bag of worm
07:14 well he was coaching people and all of a
07:16 sudden you realized he was like like if
07:17 this knucklehead could do 300 million of
07:19 Revenue if that guy can do it I can do
07:22 it yeah I mean it is interesting you
07:24 realize as a coach like when I’m
07:26 coaching people most of the time the
07:29 problem is not knowledge the problem is
07:31 action and I so either it’s
07:33 indecisiveness like there and and we got
07:35 to get at the root of like what is it
07:36 that’s causing you to delay making this
07:38 decision or they have already made the
07:40 decision but they don’t want to act on
07:41 it and we have to get at the roote at
07:43 what is what it’s delaying your action
07:44 do you have assumptions about what’s
07:45 going to happen or you just need
07:47 somebody to help you look at it from
07:48 different perspective so when I’m
07:49 coaching all these people you start
07:50 realizing like it’s not necess I mean
07:52 I’ve coached some very smart people but
07:54 it’s not always that they’re smart it’s
07:55 just that they were persistent over a
07:56 long period of time and they owned
07:59 something so that’s other you know just
08:01 the idea of the the concept of owning
08:03 assets and I think this is probably
08:04 still true for like a very large maybe
08:06 becoming less true as this stuff spreads
08:08 more on social media but like I still
08:10 think a lot of people don’t understand
08:13 the distinction between making money and
08:14 owning assets that make money and you
08:16 know so I like I was the first time this
08:19 ever occurred to I was on Twitter and
08:20 there was a guy he was Anonymous at the
08:22 time and he had this m&a master class
08:24 which was just like he was a lawyer and
08:26 it was very dense like legally but it
08:29 was all about like
08:30 lots of stuff to think about mergers and
08:32 Acquisitions I didn’t know what m&a was
08:33 I didn’t know what ebit though was and
08:35 it just like I I couldn’t explain why it
08:38 was so interesting to me I just read
08:40 every like every newsletter he wrote out
08:42 and eventually I read the Harvard the
08:44 hbr guy to buying a small business and
08:46 so that book was like I couldn’t unsee
08:50 things after reading that book I was
08:51 like wait there’s like a whole
08:52 government program the SBA that is
08:55 literally designed for people that are
08:56 not independently wealthy to buy
08:59 businesses and ensure continuity and
09:01 then you can like run that business and
09:03 get into it even if you don’t have that
09:04 background like it was just a it was it
09:07 was honestly one of those moments where
09:08 you’re like looking at a scene for the
09:10 first time and seeing a bunch of stuff
09:11 that you never saw before and so you
09:13 know I really enjoyed my job I worked
09:14 remotely I liked my team I enjoy
09:17 coaching and Consulting I still do have
09:18 a handful of coaching clients but I had
09:20 to travel you know the HQ for our
09:23 company was not in Greenville I’m the
09:25 only person here and I’ve got young kids
09:27 so you know travel gets it’s fun up to a
09:30 certain point and then you keep going
09:32 back to the same spot and you’re like
09:33 this is not you know I wasn’t I’m not
09:35 like going to New York City a few times
09:37 a month right it’s other places and so
09:39 that just wore on me my wife works
09:40 full-time and I was like I want to do
09:42 something different like what if I
09:44 actually like owned a business that had
09:45 deep Local Roots here in the community
09:48 and you know initially I was open to
09:49 remote businesses as well because I’m
09:50 used to a remote working culture but
09:52 after a while I started just looking
09:53 around what was around me and that’s
09:55 kind of what eventually led me to
09:56 contact the former owner of the nurs you
09:58 said you said a couple things there want
09:59 to kind of go back to one of them was
10:01 about idea about the ownership right
10:05 yeah I read a book by uh it was Andrew
10:06 G’s biography and one of the things he
10:09 talks about is like he bought a steel
10:11 car like a rail car he bought one and it
10:14 was the first time he generated income
10:16 from some from an asset that he bought
10:18 right and he said at that point he
10:20 realized that profits were better than
10:22 wages even if you go without wages for a
10:24 long period of time to get to profits
10:27 and that when I read that that is what
10:30 hit me in my entrepreneurial journey I
10:31 was already an entrepreneur but I didn’t
10:32 realize exactly why or what that was
10:35 right so very powerful that that mindset
10:37 of ownership right that’s a that’s a big
10:40 piece so yeah it’s off to you for going
10:42 out and execute and you said something
10:43 funny because we literally just had this
10:44 conversation probably 30 minutes ago
10:46 which is you know you you didn’t know
10:48 about the SBA world right and once you
10:51 see it you’re like this is so obvious we
10:54 were talking about it really we’re
10:55 talking about the conversation we were
10:57 having was around you know multif family
10:59 Lending and once you know about Fanny
11:01 and Freddy and there’s a whole
11:03 government agency dedicated providing
11:05 the best-in-class financing around that
11:07 product well it seems so obvious and so
11:09 simple but 99% of people don’t know
11:11 about it and so again knowledge is power
11:12 I mean there’s a lot of Truth to that
11:14 statement yeah
11:16 yeah yeah and so then you know you
11:18 decided to go buy your own business what
11:20 did you have in mind at first right and
11:23 then let’s talk about how you ended up
11:24 with the nursery cuz I can’t imagine you
11:26 were like you know what I’m going to go
11:27 buy a nursery and that’s going to be
11:29 want a roller ska ring I got three kids
11:31 I can just keep them going around in
11:32 circles that’s right yeah yeah I mean
11:35 I’m like and it’s funny because brick
11:37 and mor to retail is like I I knew
11:40 because we weren’t going to move to buy
11:42 a business right so a lot of people you
11:43 you search Nationwide and you run this
11:45 sort of massive Outreach campaign a lot
11:47 of people will get interns to help them
11:48 and like I’m not at that level okay so I
11:52 knew that I needed to be open to lots of
11:54 different business models and I felt
11:56 confident like that at the core of most
11:59 business models were things that I could
12:00 understand there’s things you can’t
12:02 replicate like industry experience and
12:04 Industry connections and like someone’s
12:06 specific work ethic or or knowledge but
12:09 like there’s you I was like I can learn
12:11 a lot of this stuff as long as I don’t
12:12 have to like get an like become an
12:14 electrical engineer doing a very
12:15 specific process and that’s what the own
12:17 their business does like as long as it’s
12:19 not that I’m sure I can learn so I
12:20 looked at a bunch of stuff and I would
12:21 have told you that brick and morar
12:23 Retail was not something I wanted to do
12:25 because it has a reputation and
12:27 understandably so of like you know
12:29 higher
12:30 is it’s kind of your main challenge is
12:32 like not only do you have to hire people
12:34 but you have to train them you have to
12:36 schedule them out you have a physical
12:38 premises so like in South Carolina and
12:40 probably a lot of States like you have
12:42 the highest level of liability for a
12:44 customer who’s on your property because
12:46 you’re explicitly inviting them in so
12:47 like trip and fall liability as an
12:49 example like if a customer Falls in your
12:51 property and wants to sue you the burden
12:53 is against you in the heaviest way it
12:55 possibly could be you have to be able to
12:56 demonstrate that you did everything you
12:58 possibly could and so you know there’s a
12:60 lot about that so I started looking at
13:01 listings with Brokers because it was
13:03 like well these are businesses for sale
13:04 I can look through those look I’m Biz by
13:06 sell whatever uh I got in a few broker
13:08 email lists and you know I just remember
13:11 going through lots of cycles of like
13:13 kind of being excited about a thing and
13:15 then you kind of go through learning
13:17 more about it maybe you talk to the
13:18 broker you talk to the owner and I would
13:19 walk away feeling like either wow I’m
13:21 kind of stupid there’s like a lot of
13:23 obvious stuff that I should have asked
13:24 or that I had to ask about and they can
13:26 tell I know nothing I should have done
13:27 some more research or you walk away and
13:29 go they they must think I’m stupid
13:31 because the price that they want for
13:33 this there’s just like maybe I’m dumb
13:36 but I cannot think of a way to justify
13:37 this and So eventually you start to
13:39 figure out which of those instincts are
13:40 correct and which of those are not and
13:42 like you know I so I went through the
13:44 cycle of looking a lot of broker
13:45 listings I I looked at a lot of stuff
13:47 that could be run remotely I went pretty
13:49 deep on a couple and found reasons to
13:51 walk away from those and eventually I
13:53 got to a point where I just kept us like
13:55 a Google sheet of businesses that I
13:57 noticed around Greenville like I’d see a
13:59 truck or I drive past a building or I
14:02 would like a couple of them I called to
14:03 do work on my house like there was an
14:04 there was a a plumbing company HVAC and
14:06 plumbing company I was like I might be
14:08 curious and I had some stuff I had to do
14:09 in my house so I called them and had
14:11 them come just so I could like meet some
14:13 of their taxs and you know maybe have a
14:14 reason to call the owner afterwards or
14:16 something and but it was a long I mean
14:18 it was two years I’m working full-time
14:20 and it was not like it I would not put
14:24 forth myself as like a model for anybody
14:26 the way I did it was very half-hazard
14:27 very like situational and like intuitive
14:31 but you said something
14:33 sorry you said something that was like
14:36 but the difference it goes back to like
14:37 what you were saying with your coaching
14:39 it’s about action yep like you went deep
14:41 you talked to Brokers you went down the
14:43 rabbit hole like there are so many
14:45 people out there that might be listening
14:46 today that are searching but they’re not
14:48 engaging like how many calls have you
14:50 actually had with the owners the sellers
14:51 yeah yeah yeah the best you you have to
14:55 do calls you have to set a goal I tell
14:57 people all the time like just five touch
14:58 points a week if you nothing else just
15:00 like each week I’m going to have five
15:02 touch points with something I’m going to
15:03 send an email I’m going to make a phone
15:04 call if you do that and just write down
15:06 what you did you’ll look back in two or
15:08 three months and you will have learned a
15:10 ton and you will have made some progress
15:12 and it’s worth going deep like even you
15:14 you like you’re like okay I’m going deep
15:15 here like I’m gonna go in you probably
15:17 saw some fla red flags and then all of a
15:19 sudden you’re like but I’m gonna keep
15:21 going because I’m learning yeah you
15:22 learn something new from every meeting
15:24 with an owner and like seriously you
15:25 learned something about the business the
15:27 industry their background some how they
15:29 structured something the screw-ups that
15:30 did I mean it’s you have to be
15:32 comfortable constantly learning right
15:34 yeah and you learn about what works like
15:36 what questions can I ask that like and
15:39 this is something that actually part of
15:40 my coaching background that helped me
15:41 like the when you start a question with
15:43 the word why it almost always triggers a
15:46 slight defensive reaction in people it’s
15:47 like inherently yeah defensive so why
15:50 did you do that that question it’s a
15:52 perfectly reasonable question like if
15:54 I’m coaching somebody and they ask they
15:55 tell me like hey well this is what I did
15:56 yesterday this is how I responded I
15:57 might say ‘w why did you do that
15:59 immediately they’re on the defensive
16:00 there’s a whole lot of other ways to ask
16:02 that I can say uh what led you to that
16:04 action or like where do you think that
16:07 came from that’s another really great
16:09 way because and that’s what you’re
16:10 trying to get at it’s like why did they
16:11 do that but you don’t have to say that
16:12 same thing with talking to business
16:14 owners or or negotiating any these
16:15 transactions like you need to find a way
16:17 to ask questions that that put them in
16:20 the driver’s seat in the way in the
16:21 sense that like they owners love to talk
16:23 about themselves in their business they
16:24 love telling stories and at some point
16:26 you have to do actual diligence you have
16:27 to push people and doing it in a way way
16:29 to like I had to learn like as an
16:31 example I sent a stupid email to a
16:34 broker once in a business that I had met
16:35 the owner for one time in person and I
16:38 had a bunch of questions about the
16:40 numbers and about the model and I
16:41 decided I’m just going to list these
16:42 questions out and send this to the
16:43 broker which was really dumb like I
16:46 should have just called him on the phone
16:47 and been like can I talk to you about a
16:48 couple of things and I probably should
16:50 have chosen my questions more carefully
16:52 and and I sent those questions and the
16:53 own the broker responded with like a
16:55 single email he was like we disagree
16:57 with some of your assumptions you know
16:58 we’re not going to talk anymore
16:59 what you’re talking about is the art of
17:01 positioning I talk to my partner about
17:02 this all the time and the same point you
17:03 were having I mean I was literally
17:05 talking about it last week to someone
17:06 that reports to me and it’s basically
17:08 you know you lead with hey I saw this
17:11 here’s how I came to the conclusion can
17:13 you walk me through how you interpret it
17:15 right like that’s very let’s
17:16 collaboratively go solve this thing and
17:18 work ahead of it versus hey like this is
17:21 BS tell me why it’s very and I mean it’s
17:25 a skill you build over time so all right
17:27 so you found this company kind of
17:29 jumping into the company right so really
17:31 quick was this the first one that you
17:32 were move forward on or was there a
17:33 different one before that that you made
17:35 some real progress on that fell apart
17:37 yeah I signed a letter of intent with
17:39 this remote company it really a small
17:42 consultancy that really was centered
17:43 around this one guy in his history so
17:45 the business was not transactable and I
17:47 at that point in my journey did not I
17:49 was too eager to get something under Loi
17:52 and I didn’t fully think through like
17:54 what the guy needed in fact I haven’t
17:55 kept in touch with them and I’m curious
17:57 if anything has happened because they
17:58 wanted a lot of money for it but
17:59 basically this guy was working with a
18:01 very particular client he had been doing
18:04 a lot of inperson Consulting around some
18:06 Revenue drivers for that particular
18:08 industry and that client and he
18:10 transitioned that into a zoom based
18:11 group coaching thing so in my mind I’m
18:13 looking at it I’m like oh my goodness
18:14 this is super scalable you have a
18:16 curriculum you have a bunch of reviews
18:18 and proven results and I think what I
18:19 underestimated was the extent to which
18:21 like he had CEOs of these Target
18:22 companies who would just call his phone
18:24 you know and like talk with him and it’s
18:26 really difficult to transition that kind
18:27 of a thing unless you do it over few
18:29 years as a mentorship and I ended up
18:31 sort of proposing that to him after we’d
18:34 already signed an Loi and I sort of had
18:35 like a moment of like well this isn’t
18:37 this doesn’t make sense I don’t know
18:38 what I was thinking and that was on me
18:40 like I I wasted a bunch of his time and
18:42 the broker’s time there were a couple
18:44 other things that I I should have caught
18:46 and it so and I told them I said this is
18:48 on me you know I apologize I didn’t
18:50 think some of this through and that
18:51 learning was really valuable to me like
18:52 it grew my self-awareness I was like
18:54 okay I’m a little too eager to buy
18:56 business because I like the idea of
18:57 leaving what I’m doing and that’s that’s
18:59 a little bit of a beef that I have with
19:00 a lot of the content around this is like
19:02 I don’t want people listening to this to
19:04 think that being enamored with the idea
19:07 of having your own company is enough of
19:09 a good reason to go out and risk a lot
19:10 of things to buy business especially not
19:11 with a personally guaranteed loan and at
19:13 that point I would have been willing to
19:14 take a risk for really bad reasons on a
19:16 company that I should not have taken
19:17 that risk on and uh I walked away which
19:20 felt bad at the time and then felt good
19:22 as I got further from it I did feel bad
19:24 that I wasted his time but so that was
19:26 the first one I had a couple serious
19:28 conversations with others but they
19:29 didn’t go to Loi there was a local
19:31 company so interestingly when my first
19:33 real forray into looking at local
19:35 businesses was I made some posts in some
19:36 local Facebook groups so my neighborhood
19:38 Facebook group here like the way our
19:40 neighborhood is there’s a bunch of areas
19:42 where I know business owners live and so
19:43 I just made a post hey I’m looking to
19:45 buy a business from someone who wants to
19:46 retire and I got like three or four
19:47 leads one of them turned into a
19:49 short-term Consulting project uh paid
19:52 with the mutual understanding that like
19:54 we’re going to try to see if this could
19:55 be a good fit and it wasn’t we figured
19:57 that out after a few weeks but we ended
19:58 on good terms terms I got paid a little
19:60 bit they got some help with the way they
20:02 were structuring their offer for the
20:03 business you know for their what drove
20:05 their revenue so that was encouraging I
20:07 was like okay I can get into a context
20:09 and learn something quickly this is what
20:10 I do as a consultant anyway so let me
20:12 keep doing that and so this the nursery
20:15 I like I had gone through kind of a dry
20:17 period where I didn’t have many leads we
20:19 had moved here in 21 right so we and my
20:21 wife and I like to landscape and garden
20:23 together since we’ve had kids we involve
20:24 them in it it’s a great you know you can
20:26 just have my wife and I used to do
20:27 together too yeah it’s great yeah it’s
20:28 like it’s a great Hobby and so we’ve
20:31 been buying plants at this nursery and
20:32 the the way our property is it’s it sort
20:35 of feels like you’re in a park so you
20:36 kind of go down from the main road a
20:38 little bit and we’ve got all these
20:40 mature trees all around the whole
20:41 property and a few huge Pines on the
20:43 property and the REI River actually
20:45 borders one side of the property you
20:47 can’t see it that well but if you walk
20:48 over there so it just feels and and it’s
20:50 like our building is old right the
20:52 nursery will be 60 years old next year
20:54 the building is not quite that old but
20:55 it’s old so it feels kind of rustic kind
20:58 of like you know and it’s just and it’s
20:60 a big property you can walk around for a
21:01 while and see like all these plants and
21:03 so at someday I just got into my head
21:04 like huh this seems like a healthy
21:06 business and it also sort of feels like
21:08 a business that’s run by someone that’s
21:09 in it for a long time because they have
21:11 no marketing you can tell there’s stuff
21:12 that just hasn’t been uh updated or
21:14 changed and so I I sent him an email and
21:17 my initial pitch was I would like to own
21:20 a business someday here’s a little bit
21:22 about what I do I’m interested in
21:24 meeting business owners to interview
21:25 them about what it’s like to run their
21:27 business and I love your Nursery I’ve
21:28 been buying plants from there for the
21:29 past couple years but I’ve never worked
21:32 in one and I don’t know what the
21:33 business is like I’d love to interview
21:34 you just about what it’s like soft sale
21:36 I like the intro that’s good yeah yeah
21:39 and I I think more people should
21:41 consider that especially if your goal is
21:42 to like build trust with somebody local
21:44 where you can just say I live here I’m
21:46 doing something but I’d like to do
21:47 something like what you’re doing someday
21:48 can I just buy you lunch and so he yeah
21:51 and it it worked really well he
21:53 eventually by the time we connected on
21:54 the phone he’s a super straightforward
21:56 guy so at some point on the phone that
21:58 first phone call he was just like why
21:59 are you interested and I said well I I
22:03 don’t know whether your business is the
22:05 one I want to buy but I’m looking to buy
22:06 one from someone who wants to retire and
22:08 there’s no pressure to talk about this
22:10 right at this moment but if you were at
22:11 all interested and youve thought about
22:12 retiring I would love to keep having
22:14 conversations about that and knowing now
22:17 what I know it was like very much just
22:19 right place right time he had been
22:21 thinking about it his daughter had just
22:23 gotten pregnant uh so you know
22:25 grandchild on the way and he was just
22:27 he’d been in it for like 25 20 between
22:29 25 27 years he bought the business from
22:31 the founder you know back in like the
22:33 early 90s and so oh so he was already
22:35 aware of the buy he was he was yeah
22:39 which and that’s an underappreciated as
22:41 for me a lot of business owners have
22:43 never either bought or sold a business
22:45 they’ve just found it in run one and so
22:48 I providentially like hit the jackpot
22:51 with somebody who Not only was familiar
22:52 with the concept had done it himself so
22:55 understood the pressures that you feel
22:57 as a new buyer it’s different right
22:59 running a business with debt on it is
23:01 extremely different than a business
23:02 that’s been profitable with no debt
23:04 because you’ve just bootstrapped it and
23:06 he also had a I found out later he was
23:09 part of an industry group and there’s a
23:10 consultant in that group that had done a
23:13 business valuation exercise for him I
23:15 think a year and a half before we talked
23:17 and that gave him a range and he had
23:19 kind of anchored to that range and it
23:21 was very fair and the business had grown
23:23 since then but that’s what he was still
23:24 anchored to uh and so he revealed that
23:28 pretty early on we had a sit down
23:29 meeting I I told him listen again no
23:32 pressure but I’ll need to know some
23:34 sense of what your tax returns have been
23:35 like the past 5 years because that is
23:36 what A lender is going to want to look
23:38 at and so again no pressure but whenever
23:40 you decide you want to share that and
23:41 like he had them in a manila folder for
23:43 me like like for like the first or
23:45 second in-person meeting and I remember
23:47 looking at them because I you know it’s
23:49 an inventory heavy business I knew that
23:51 it was seasonal I had no concept of how
23:54 much money and like it’s not the largest
23:55 business in the world but it it made
23:57 more I mean I think his his
23:59 discretionary earnings I would say
24:01 average over the past 4ish years was
24:03 probably around
24:04 800,000 okay and it is and he was
24:08 playing zero tax games like you know a
24:10 lot of owners will run everything they
24:12 can through the business to try to
24:13 minimize their taxes and that makes it
24:15 difficult when you want to sell because
24:16 you have to try to justify to A lender
24:19 no no no it actually made this much it
24:21 just never made it to our tax returns
24:23 and that game you almost can’t win and
24:25 so for him that was not it was just he
24:27 had just made honest money and paid
24:29 honest taxes nice makes uh and he was a
24:32 super high super high integrity guy he
24:34 was at the nursery today actually I was
24:36 I caught up with him for like an hour
24:37 because we had an employee issue with
24:39 somebody that had been working for him
24:41 uh and is is now working for me and just
24:43 wanted his perspective on it and so
24:45 that’s awesome yeah yeah it was he’s a
24:47 great guy like you know it’s a big a
24:50 good advice like this’s a good there’s a
24:52 good lesson moment for our listeners is
24:54 you know we have been very successful
24:57 with keeping the owner involved like
24:60 having them around having them a part of
25:02 you know it’s it’s the Legacy
25:04 conversation right they love these
25:06 things it’s their life and uh that
25:09 advice and having that resource oh man
25:11 it is it is huge especially if their
25:12 seller financing you or you know
25:14 providing some of the equity so you 100%
25:17 And you just as much as you’re doing due
25:19 diligence on the business you really
25:21 should doe diligence on the owner and
25:22 really understand you know is that
25:24 because you’re you know typically it’s
25:26 not just they rid your hands of it again
25:28 people structure some of deals that way
25:30 but the deals that we’re doing you know
25:31 we’re in it for a couple years with the
25:33 owner and you want a good healthy
25:34 working relationship and that’s paid
25:36 dividends for us did you get seller
25:38 financing did you did you I did so
25:41 really quick so it was 800,000 SD yep
25:44 what was the multiple you bought it
25:46 at uh we so Allin yeah Allin it was
25:50 about 2.5 million okay so a little over
25:53 three 2.6 uh that that included like 600
25:58 some thousand or 700 some thousand doll
25:60 in inventory cool so he included
26:02 inventory into that value that’s real ni
26:04 that also included the real estate I was
26:07 gonna ask about the real estate so I
26:08 mean yeah you bought you bought the
26:10 business at of 3.1 all in with the real
26:12 estate and everything else what is the
26:14 what do you think the real estate’s
26:15 worth it apprais for 520,000
26:18 nice uh and so this guy so just a little
26:21 bit of you know SBA Insider baseball in
26:23 case this is helpful so when you
26:25 purchase a business that has real estate
26:26 if the sometimes like in my industry
26:29 I’ll use an example um of a grower right
26:31 so Growers tend to have a lot of acreage
26:34 and it is almost always the case that
26:36 the value of that acreage to a developer
26:39 is way higher than the cash flow that
26:41 the growing business that they have
26:42 generates and it can create a problem
26:44 like if I wanted to go to one of my
26:45 Growers and I thought about doing this
26:47 and asking to buy them out like there’s
26:50 no way you like the the economics are
26:52 just so upside down typically the cash
26:54 flow that the business generates
26:56 compared to the value the land that um
26:58 but there’s there’s ways to make that
26:60 easier one way is you um have a good
27:02 portion of seller financing another way
27:04 is if the value of the real estate is
27:06 50% 51% I believe or more of the total
27:12 transaction then you can um combine I
27:15 believe you can get like Blended
27:16 amortization with the SBA and so there’s
27:19 10 year and the 30 you get the 10 and
27:21 you get the 10 and the 25 sorry the 10
27:22 and the 25 yeah Blended and so in my
27:25 case um it was reversed it was a lot it
27:27 looked a lot more sized and so I had two
27:30 separate loans I had the 7A and the 504b
27:33 and the 504b has 25 year amortization
27:35 the 7A has 10 and what the owner was
27:37 willing to do so the land appraised for
27:39 higher than what we had agreed on and he
27:42 was okay letting me shift some dollars
27:45 from the 7A loan because you know in the
27:46 purchase agreement you have to be very
27:48 clear like what is the value we are
27:49 assigning to this even though it’s all
27:51 one bucket and that’s what he was most
27:53 concerned about was what’s the one
27:54 bucket but he was happy to let me move
27:55 some money from the 7A to the 50 4 B to
27:59 lower my debt service um my debt
28:01 payments you always want to maximize
28:03 that amortization yes yeah and my lender
28:05 was willing to lend up to 100% of the
28:06 appraised value right so so there’s an
28:08 amount we agreed on there’s what the
28:10 lender was Will to lend to right because
28:12 that’s what it appraised at and so that
28:13 difference I was able to shut poll from
28:15 the 7A which had you know again shorter
28:17 amotization so that was fun so then let
28:20 me dissect it real quick so you bought
28:21 it for roughly 2.5 y right real estate
28:24 was worth
28:25 500,000 you had essentially inventory
28:28 worth 00,000 so that’s 1.2 million so
28:31 really you know yeah so really the
28:33 business portion you bought for 1.3 on
28:35 800 SD right yes so you know you’re
28:38 buying it for one and a half X
28:40 essentially is like is one way to look
28:42 at it right so that’s a sweet deal and
28:45 and it is so and I and I’ll you know
28:48 like right on the face value the numbers
28:49 and this is where having you know being
28:51 connected with industry insiders and and
28:54 using a lot of critical thinking is
28:55 super important because yes face value
28:57 those numbers sound awesome there’s also
28:59 and this is so I would say the seller is
29:02 probably 50% of why I went forward with
29:04 this because I figured out really
29:05 quickly that he was super honest I mean
29:07 he would just he would casually bring up
29:09 super unflattering things about the
29:10 business in conversation just like by
29:12 the way you should know I was like man
29:14 if I were in your seed I would I would
29:15 have saved that card you know like uh
29:18 but he’s just he’s I mean high integrity
29:19 he’s a Christian you know we share faith
29:22 and and we connected on that basis and
29:24 like just you you can’t I mean that’s
29:28 just the sort of sellers like a diamond
29:29 doesn’t and so I was like man I got to
29:31 do this because I know that I can trust
29:33 him so one of the things that I’ve you
29:35 know I and I’ve and since I’ve I’ve been
29:37 on a couple other podcasts and I’ve had
29:39 conversations with people who are
29:40 looking at nurseries or something in the
29:41 green industry and what I tell people is
29:44 I feel like the multiple I paid and the
29:46 price I paid I do think it was a little
29:48 bit low because money was not his top
29:50 concern his top concern was the business
29:52 continuing on being in the hands of
29:54 somebody like-minded and and he has two
29:57 kids that still work for me in the
29:58 business and he wanted them to have you
29:59 know to be set up to have long careers
30:01 if they want it so that’s one thing I
30:03 mean he was anchored to valuation that
30:05 was a little bit out of date but he was
30:07 not the sort of person that wanted to
30:08 push that because money wasn’t his prime
30:09 concern the other thing though is that
30:12 multiples are sort of meaningless until
30:14 you make them Concrete in a particular
30:16 industry so for a Retail Nursery that
30:18 doesn’t grow anything right we only you
30:20 know we buy from wholesalers and sell it
30:22 retail there’s a bunch of stuff that you
30:24 have to think about number one you buy
30:25 inventory and now you got to keep it
30:27 alive right it’s it’s not like a widget
30:29 that can sit on the shelf for forever
30:31 and still be useful so some of your
30:33 inventory could potentially be getting
30:35 more valuable like you could maybe grow
30:37 something and up poot it although
30:38 technically you need a different license
30:39 than when we have to do that so we don’t
30:41 do that but a lot of your inventory is
30:42 becoming less valuable and so you’re
30:43 either going to end up needing to
30:44 discount it to move it or you’re gonna
30:46 have to put in the trash um or or it’s
30:48 just going to die you know because that
30:50 happens and that’s number one so it’s
30:53 not you know it’s not just any retail
30:55 business it’s retail with a significant
30:56 like expiration date on most of your
30:58 inventory the second thing is he some of
31:00 his most knowledgeable and hardworking
31:02 team members are at or near retirement
31:05 age and so there is a cliff coming for
31:07 me over the next couple of years that’s
31:08 going to be pretty significant I’ve been
31:09 hiring to try to start training up
31:11 people ahead of that but he was aware of
31:13 that he didn’t have any formal
31:14 management structure so he had a pretty
31:15 flat team with very little formality
31:17 they had no team meetings they had no
31:20 you know no one-on ones they had just in
31:22 the beginning of this year adopted a
31:23 brand new Point of Sales Inventory
31:24 management system which I’m glad I was
31:27 brought in after that learning curve but
31:28 we’ve been optimizing it but the
31:30 property itself needs some upgrades the
31:32 building you know the building is at the
31:33 point where I can’t upgrade anything
31:35 about it because it is not up to code
31:38 like if I change anything like we only
31:39 have one bathroom it’s like a 8 and a
31:41 half acre property we have one bathroom
31:42 and if I want to put a new one I have to
31:44 bring everything up to code so that’s a
31:45 lot of money uh weather if we get like
31:48 six rainy Saturdays in spring right the
31:51 seasonality in general like we make
31:53 probably 70 plus% of our Revenue in
31:56 about 3 months in the spring and then
31:58 the Summer’s kind of dead and then you
31:59 get like a bump in the fall which Sor
32:02 right now right yes so we have like
32:05 Christmas greens and stuff right now but
32:06 like the volume of of that and the
32:08 activity is nowhere near what it’s like
32:10 in the spring and if you have six rainy
32:12 Saturdays in the spring we don’t have a
32:13 ton of covered outdoor shopping even if
32:15 we did your revenue is just I mean it
32:17 can tank the whole rest of your year and
32:19 you don’t really have an opportunity to
32:20 make that back up and so I say all that
32:22 to say and there is some analog to this
32:25 in basically every industry I think and
32:28 in my and it’s just like oh there’s all
32:29 these factors not just about the
32:30 industry but about this specific
32:32 business that’s building these people so
32:34 I feel like I think I got a good price
32:36 but I don’t think I got a bargain in the
32:39 sense that I think there’s like a risk
32:40 premium that the owner was very
32:42 self-aware about that it was sort of
32:43 baked into how we negotiated so I just
32:46 want to make that clear because if you
32:47 just have the numbers it makes it sound
32:49 like oh my goodness like this is like
32:51 and like I I feel wonderful about the
32:54 business and about it like no no doubt
32:56 and this is one of reason I really like
32:57 proprietary searching because I think if
32:59 you can find someone that you can build
33:00 a trusting relationship with and educate
33:02 them you can often get something for
33:04 under Market which I think is great but
33:06 in this case I don’t think it was that
33:07 under Market because of some of those
33:08 risks and some of the real factors about
33:10 the business wow fair enough no it’s a
33:12 fair way to look at it and so I guess
33:13 you know to maybe to bring it all home I
33:15 mean you know you’re roughly what seven
33:16 eight months into it now yeah so May 7th
33:19 was the first day so yeah I guess a
33:21 little over seven months so how you’re
33:22 feeling about it yeah uh it’s I mean
33:26 right now is an awesome time like it’s
33:27 the fall it was a beautiful fall day
33:29 today like I have a little deck out back
33:31 of my where I have my desk and I can
33:33 like look back over the back part of the
33:34 nursery and there’s this like beautiful
33:35 tree I mean so most days I feel like
33:39 incredibly blessed and thankful even
33:41 when I’m stressed I feel that way I will
33:42 say a couple of surprises so like the
33:45 team is actually more competent than I
33:46 even understood that they were and so
33:48 like I’m not the one that has to open or
33:50 close the store and that’s the thing
33:51 that when you look at inperson retail if
33:53 you want to buy something you have to
33:55 commit to like you may end up being the
33:57 person that has to unlock it in the
33:59 morning and close it down and like clear
34:01 out the register drawers in the evening
34:03 and you might have to be the one
34:04 cleaning the bathrooms and so on and so
34:06 forth and I knew all that going in and I
34:08 was anticipating have to do that more
34:09 than I’ve had to and that’s been a gift
34:11 because I’ve gotten to spend more time
34:12 with my kids as a result um and I’ve
34:15 gotten to work on some strategic stuff
34:16 like marketing which the business hadn’t
34:18 really done but now we have a newsletter
34:19 we have a customer loyalty club we have
34:21 you know I’ve got a couple little local
34:23 sponsorships in the community and uh you
34:25 know we’re working on a better signage
34:26 program on the property stuff like that
34:29 so work on the business not in the
34:31 business it yeah and I’m and and I’ll
34:34 get even more there there’s some key
34:36 people that I’m setting up for more
34:37 leadership roles and helping to train
34:39 them and um yeah I can imagine the
34:41 training the training stuff would be
34:43 right up your alley man you get
34:44 everybody out well and let me tell you
34:46 this has been humbling for me so I I
34:49 mean a lot of my work is like leading
34:50 team like facilitating meetings right
34:53 trainings all this stuff and I’m used to
34:55 doing it in a bluecollar environment too
34:57 like I’m coming to these construction
34:58 companies and like you know a lot of
35:00 them it’s like talking about emotions is
35:02 is we just don’t do that right but we
35:04 have to talk about things like fears and
35:06 hopes and all stuff well so with this
35:08 team you know there’s like a logistics
35:10 challenge we’re open from eight to six
35:11 during busy season right and so every
35:13 time you’re open there has to be at
35:14 least like two or three people who are
35:15 watching the register and are outside
35:17 ready to greet customers and help them
35:19 so if you’re going to have a team
35:20 meeting you either bring everybody then
35:21 an hour early so now you’re paying
35:23 everybody an extra hour of payroll and
35:24 making them get there at 7 or 7:15 or
35:27 whatever uh or you make them stay late
35:30 or you adjust your hours or but then not
35:32 everybody’s scheduled to work that day
35:34 right like we have about 16 17 people on
35:36 staff and maybe only 10 of them might be
35:39 there that day so so what we’ve done is
35:40 I have two team meetings on a Monday and
35:42 a Tuesday at 9:00 am so I’ve got three
35:44 or four people there in front everybody
35:46 else is upstairs but even that it has
35:48 been hard for me like I have my own
35:50 self-limiting beliefs that I’ve had to
35:52 do with around like you know I don’t
35:53 know how much people actually enjoy this
35:54 are they even getting anything out of
35:56 this like does this matter if we have a
35:57 team meeting every other week and like
35:59 it does matter and their enjoyment is
36:01 not the point I want them to enjoy it
36:02 but that’s certainly why you do it and
36:04 it has been way harder than I like to
36:05 admit to coach myself through that and
36:07 do it uh as somebody who you know feels
36:11 like I understand how people work and
36:13 I’m used to coaching and leading people
36:15 which I am it’s just it’s it’s different
36:17 when there’s yeah it’s just a very
36:19 different pressure I’ve been a little
36:21 humbled you said something earlier
36:22 though that was 30 million to $300
36:24 million companies yeah right so you’re
36:26 coming into a you’re coming into a a
36:28 lower Middle Market company that yeah
36:30 you know you you’re getting you have an
36:31 audience you have a team you have a
36:32 group of people right yeah and this time
36:34 you’re talking to three or four people
36:35 at a time and you’re just like looking
36:37 at yourself like are they hearing
36:39 anything Nur you know typically you know
36:41 it’s it’s probably younger people too
36:43 right and so lot of them are aging
36:46 there’s like a there’s this it’s kind of
36:47 like a barbell distribution like we’ve
36:49 got a number of folks who are in their
36:51 low 30s and a little younger and then
36:53 we’ve got a couple folks in the middle
36:54 and then we’ve got folks who are in
36:55 their 60s and older and it’s like yeah I
36:58 mean and a lot of it is just the culture
37:00 I think the the deeper Point here for
37:02 anybody is Shifting number one it’s
37:05 almost impossible to fully understand a
37:07 business’s culture until you’ve been
37:08 swimming in it for a while I got to work
37:10 on the business for a month before we
37:12 closed because he found out that some of
37:13 his employees were talking about like
37:15 they had discovered that that he was
37:16 going to sell it and he decided I don’t
37:18 want there to be rumors let’s just bring
37:20 you in on a Saturday morning and
37:22 introduce you and we’ll let them know
37:23 that it’s not done but we’re working
37:24 toward that and then I just started
37:26 showing up every day to like learn
37:27 everything I could and that was really
37:28 valuable but like I learned maybe a
37:31 tenth then of what I know now you know
37:33 about really the culture and the culture
37:35 culture is like what people assume it’s
37:38 and it’s what PE how people act when
37:40 they’re not thinking about what they’re
37:41 doing right like this is stuff that you
37:43 don’t really know until you are around
37:45 people in deep and you experience
37:47 conflict right that’s when you start to
37:49 to understand culture so changing that
37:51 like one aspect of our culture I would
37:53 say has been informality has been the
37:55 previous owner was really the driver of
37:57 a lot of stuff if leaves needed to be
37:59 blown he would just go out there and
37:60 blow the leaves uh he he would like
38:02 float between all kinds of things in the
38:03 business and like meetings and structure
38:06 was just not part of the culture and so
38:09 you know there’s a part of it where like
38:10 I respect and care for these people a
38:12 lot of them know way more than I’ll ever
38:13 know about plants I don’t want to do
38:15 something that’s unnecessarily
38:17 frustrating and also I genuinely believe
38:19 if we can like nudge in the direction of
38:20 having some more structure it’s going to
38:21 be better for everybody and and at a
38:23 certain point you have to realize like
38:25 like some people are going to get up
38:26 more with that and some people or not
38:28 and you can’t let whether other people
38:30 are on board be the ultimate barometer
38:32 of whether you made the right choice
38:33 because that kind of feedback can only
38:35 get you so far at a certain point and
38:37 again I’m dealing with I had somebody
38:39 leave I we were setting on an early
38:41 retirement date and this person left
38:43 early without telling me because they
38:44 were frustrated with me and like said
38:46 some pretty hurtful things and you know
38:48 you’re just like okay like I I I have to
38:51 just keep going and doing the things
38:53 that I think are right and trying to
38:54 care but that the reality of getting
38:56 into an existing culture and you don’t
38:58 underestimate how difficult can be to
38:60 both understand but then let alone try
39:01 and change an existing culture if you’re
39:03 thinking about buying a business like
39:04 you just can’t underestimate that it’s
39:06 so there’s so many facets to the company
39:08 like when you thought about searching
39:09 for a company and finding a business and
39:11 now you’re in the business and you’re
39:12 realizing like oh my God you not only
39:14 are you the psychologist you’re the uh
39:16 the bottle wash keep I mean it’s like
39:18 there’s all these other things that you
39:19 just did not know that were there and
39:22 I’ve been through a few now and I’ve
39:23 been through a lot over my years I’m
39:25 just as an entrepreneur and and that and
39:27 I’m still just blown away at how it
39:30 really comes down to the people in so
39:33 many ways and and 100% so it’s just uh
39:36 but you’re gonna get it you’ll get it
39:38 you know seven months is H is still kind
39:39 of early oh it’s still new I tell people
39:42 I’m like look I don’t I don’t know that
39:44 I’ve succeeded
39:46 yet in search you succeeded in search
39:49 you succeeded in the part where 90% of
39:51 the people listening today may never
39:53 ever get to which is a huge success
39:55 right but the cool part is is that
39:58 you’ve bought a business and you have a
39:59 relationship with a seller that right
40:01 there alone you’re GNA have success we
40:03 just don’t know to what extent is your
40:05 success right and the only way you know
40:07 that is is that is is whatever that next
40:08 phase of what you’re doing because I can
40:10 already tell you’re already thinking
40:11 about another acquisition and so you’ve
40:13 got now a baseline as you stabilize land
40:16 the plane at H&M it’s taking us about
40:19 two years 18 months to to to land the
40:21 plane and we only lost two engine and a
40:25 and a and a tail and a tail Wing you
40:27 know it’s like
40:28 and we didn’t hit the we didn’t hit the
40:30 runway on a full dive into the ground we
40:32 scraped it and we came back up the other
40:34 end you know that’s kind of the joke but
40:36 it’s like you know that’s the
40:37 integration part right you’re coming in
40:39 and you’re just right at that point it’s
40:41 just uh that’s the fun part man but I
40:43 can already tell you’re already thinking
40:44 like what are the Strategic vies that
40:46 was gonna be the last question I was
40:47 gonna ask I mean you still looking to
40:48 acquire more or you’re just gonna double
40:50 down and just kind of you know build up
40:52 what you have yeah that’s a great
40:53 question so we I mean one of the main
40:55 changes I made um a couple months ago
40:57 was we launched our own in-house like
40:59 landscape design and installation I had
41:01 a couple of young ambitious guys who
41:02 were doing it on their own and like
41:04 working themselves to death because they
41:06 would work full days at the store and
41:07 then go do their own thing and I said
41:08 guys let’s let’s like bring this in
41:10 house I think you’re undercharging I
41:12 think I can help you level up your
41:13 marketing and our brand and our customer
41:15 service and we can raise our prices and
41:18 we can like run this more efficiently
41:20 and we’ll like all do better and so far
41:22 that’s been proving out I would love to
41:24 buy like a landscaping company or like a
41:27 n like an irrigation company or
41:29 something like that so I I’ve also you
41:31 know my background is in Professional
41:32 Services and i’ I’ve thought about a
41:34 professional services company so I’m I’m
41:36 Leary of diving into another company
41:38 that’s totally different before I really
41:39 feel like I have designated named
41:41 leadership positions and a lot more
41:43 structure in place at the nursery but I
41:45 think if I found a small Landscaping
41:46 Company where made sense and I could add
41:48 experienced people and equipment at a
41:50 reasonable cost to what we’ve already
41:52 got going I think that would be great in
41:54 my alley you’ve got a foundation that’s
41:56 the key right build that Foundation get
41:58 it deep you know that and then the scale
42:00 is going to be there awesome man
42:02 exciting man all right well we can go
42:04 ahead and move on to our rocket round we
42:06 re ask the guests the same three
42:08 questions so first question what do you
42:10 like to do in your free
42:11 time I I love to read really nerdy
42:14 fantasy novels like lots of nerdy like
42:18 if anybody wants recommendations on like
42:20 what is a world that I can get into
42:21 that’ll last me like 10 books and I can
42:23 forget about reality I’ve got that for
42:25 you no kid so yeah that’s
42:28 awesome uh and so what’s your most
42:30 memorable moment in your business
42:32 Journey oh man
42:35 um I think there are probably two so one
42:38 from a while back I remember the first
42:40 time I was paid to
42:43 fly I don’t remember what country this
42:45 was I got to I I’ve I’ve gotten to do
42:47 leadership development and facilitation
42:49 in a few different countries and early
42:50 in my career I got to go alongside one
42:53 of the people I co-founded that
42:54 consultancy with and I remember being up
42:56 at the front of the room facil itting
42:58 and leading this group of like
42:60 multinationals and part of this big
43:02 nonprofit and it felt like like kind of
43:05 an out-of- Body Experience like why how
43:08 am I here I’m with I’m in this other
43:10 country like I’m like leading this whole
43:12 room in this really impactful experience
43:14 how did this happen so that’s one like
43:17 that was the beginning of I think me
43:18 like broadening a view of the world of
43:19 like wow a lot of things are possible
43:21 and then I think honestly the feeling of
43:23 getting through the closing on this
43:25 business like I can remember when when
43:27 the final papers were signed and I could
43:30 just come to the nursery and like okay
43:32 that’s behind me I can just do this and
43:33 then you start realizing like oh the
43:35 business like money is coming in and I’m
43:37 not personally doing work like I’m a
43:39 coach and a consultant so I’m used to
43:40 like if I don’t work the hour and do the
43:42 thing the money’s not coming in so that
43:44 I think that first few weeks I just
43:46 remember being like is there any like is
43:47 is everyone going to stop coming you
43:48 know like is it just going to fall apart
43:51 so I think that when that when I was
43:52 like oh my gosh I think this might have
43:54 worked like that moment was big a huge
43:56 it’s a great moment all right last
43:58 question what’s your favorite tool or
43:60 resource so when I did a lot of
44:02 leadership development I used a sele a
44:04 collection of tools uh called leadership
44:06 Essentials and they were like developed
44:08 in part by one of the guys that I
44:10 co-founded this by former consultancy
44:11 with and there’s a particular framework
44:13 that’s super easy to remember it’s
44:15 called SBI and it’s a situation Behavior
44:18 impact and it’s a framework for giving
44:20 feedback that can actually help change
44:22 people’s behavior can either reinforce
44:24 specific behavior or help like draw out
44:27 the con consquences of and and limit
44:29 behavior and so because I think in a lot
44:32 of a lot of the situations I’m in a lot
44:33 of situations I see in my business it’s
44:34 like people don’t know how to give
44:36 feedback to each other they don’t know
44:37 how to say it because they don’t want to
44:39 make people defensive they don’t want to
44:40 come across the wrong way there’s not a
44:41 culture of like high cander and so
44:44 situation Behavior impact is the idea
44:46 that if I’m going to tell you about if
44:47 I’m G to give you feedback I need to
44:48 start by bringing you back to the
44:50 situation he remember yesterday when we
44:51 were on that call with the Prospect and
44:54 you were taking the lead behavior is
44:56 like call out the words or the action
44:57 that they did in a non-judgmental way
44:59 right so at some point you interrupted
45:01 the prospect as they were asking a
45:03 question because you wanted to highlight
45:04 a feature of our product that you
45:07 thought they were really interested in
45:08 and then you get to impact which is the
45:10 impact on you when that happened and or
45:12 the perceived impact on somebody else
45:13 and I might say when that happened uh I
45:16 felt a little bit alarmed because that
45:18 was it seemed rude to interrupt and I
45:21 sensed that the prospect felt kind of
45:22 flustered because they were in the
45:24 middle of trying to like ask us some
45:25 questions but you just immediately
45:27 jumped to a feature and so I sensed that
45:29 like they were a little bit reluctant to
45:31 talk after that and why this matters is
45:33 because when we’re in a sales process we
45:35 want to make sure to put the client like
45:36 the prospect at the center and their
45:38 needs not our product right so in like a
45:41 very short amount of time I use
45:42 situation Behavior impact to give
45:44 feedback to help somebody alter their
45:45 behavior and I think if more people
45:47 practice that it can unlock like a lot
45:49 of personal growth cool all right I love
45:52 it awesome well hey Rory thank you very
45:54 much pleasure talk people get a hold hey
45:56 thank you guys for having me yeah so I’m
45:57 pretty active on Twitter or X whatever
45:59 you’re calling it it’s just Rory Tire um
46:02 you can find me on LinkedIn and those
46:04 are probably two best ways to get a hold
46:05 of me but yeah if you’re thinking about
46:06 buying a business whether it’s in this
46:08 industry or not uh I searched for a long
46:10 time and I’m now in it and whatever help
46:12 I can be I would be happy to be help
46:15 fantastic so nice to meet you nice to
46:16 meet you you guys too and thank you for
46:18 having me on I appreciate it you bet
46:20 thank you for listening to the m&a
46:22 Launchpad podcast if you’ve enjoyed
46:23 today’s podcast and would like to
46:25 support us please leave us a rating and
46:26 a review after you listen I’m Casey menu
46:28 and I look forward to talking with you
46:30 next week
