Unknown Speaker 0:00
If I want to sell, well, I've got to build up my management team. Well, if I want to grow my business, I have to build up my management team. If I want to stay or keep the company, but I want to take more time off, I have to build up a management team, building real value, versus having a good cash flow and then shutting down the business. What do you think their offer was? I have no idea. $25 million and if there would have been nobody else there, they probably would have accepted it. So we said, Can we accepted it. So we said, Can we please run a process? Can we create Pomo, the power of multiple offers? And in 10 days, we had a signed letter of intent, and in 46 days, we closed the deal at $51.3 million

Unknown Speaker 0:37
what if the biggest risk in selling your business isn't market timing, but waiting too long to prepare. I'm Lara necessian, and this is CEO behind the scenes. Today we're talking about what really happens behind closed doors when business owners are approached with unsolicited offers, and why the decisions made long before a sale can mean the difference between a clean exit and lasting regret. My guest is Scott bushki, founder and CEO of Cornerstone business services with more than 25 years of experience and hundreds of transactions across industries, Scott has advised owners at every stage, from early growth to complex exits, helping them to sell on their terms, not someone else's. Scott, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Excited to be here. I'm so looking forward to having a great conversation with you and Scott, you have been advising business owners for nearly three decades. From your perspective, what has fundamentally changed around the M and a landscape over the past few years? Yeah, I think a lot of the core principles are still the same, but I think things just get more and more complex. There's more due diligence from the buyer groups. There's more different types of buyer groups out there you know, over the last 1020,

Unknown Speaker 2:02
years, the essence of private equity and family offices entering, you know, the marketplace and becoming such a big piece, you know, globally, really has kind of changed how the game is played a little bit. And one thing that I've heard you speak about is the fact that business owners today are receiving more unsolicited offers than ever before. Why do you believe that buyer interest has increased so dramatically? Yeah, I think it's really the law of supply and demand. There's so many buyers out there with all the private equity family office corporations, and they're getting returns. You know, they're getting good returns. It's so hard to find good employees these days that it's easier to grow through acquisition than it is organically when you do it right. So I think that these buyers know that well. If I'm competing again, you know, like last year we had, we averaged eight offers per client on the sell side. So if you're competing against seven other buyers, or the only buyer at the table, you know, who's going to get a better a better deal. And a lot of my clients, I try to explain it to them, you know, think of buying a house, you know. And most people have purchased a house before, and let's just say it's, you know, we're here, where I'm at in the United States right now, and it's a million dollar house, and that's what the asking price is. And you're looking to buy a house, and you're looking for months with your spouse, and all of a sudden your realtor calls you and says, Hey, we found the perfect house. It's the number of bedrooms that you want, it's the big kitchen that you wanted, it's in the school district that you wanted. It's the size of the lot that you wanted. Everything is exactly what you thought it would be, and it's a Wednesday, and you're called, and you're like, Well, I'm busy at work. Can I can I go on Saturday, Sunday? That would be best for me. And they call the other realtor, it's like, yeah, you know, this house has been on the market for 110 days. No one's looking at the house. There's been no offers put on it at all. Yeah, come Saturday, Sunday next week, whenever you want, no one's looking at it for whatever reason. And you go and you go and look at it, you're like, oh my gosh, this is exactly what we wanted. But it's been on the market for 110 days. There's no offers. The asking price is a million dollars. Where are you going to come in? Well, you're not going to come in at the million dollar mark. You're committed something substantially less. You're basically going to buy it for as little as you possibly can. And now that same house scenario number two, you get that same phone call from your realtor on a Wednesday. It's like, yeah, it's everything that you wanted. It's, it's, you know, schools cost starting up in a month. You know, you're in the school district, whatever it might be for the kids. And you're like, Okay, can I go on Saturday, Sunday? Like Saturday or Sunday? It's like, there's already five showings on on Thursday, and all the I've got you the sixth showing, and all the offers are due on Friday at noon.

Unknown Speaker 4:46
Now, what offer you gonna put into the house? Probably a much different offer than you were in the first scenario. And then to kind of even sweeten it a little bit more as you're coming out in that sixth as you're coming out the seventh family's going in. It's.

Unknown Speaker 5:00
That family that you just can't stand, like their kid bullied your kid in school, or they're just a know it all, or you just can't stand me, they kind of wink at you, like, get the heck out of my house. You can't afford this house. I'm buying this house. Like, Over my dead body. Is that family buying the house over us? And that's where you get this competitive nature. So it's the same house, it's the same square footage, the same bedrooms, everything's the same, but you probably put in at least two, if not three, different offers as you're sitting there thinking, you know, listening to this podcast. And that's the same thing with business owners getting to sell their companies. If there's one buyer at the table, they know 100% of the time they are going to get a better deal. And that's what they're trying to do, is a buyer's trying to do two things. They're trying to buy the company for as little as humanly possible, get it for as low as possible, and they're trying to put all the risk on the seller. So if it doesn't work out, the seller takes even a bigger hit. And you know, we've run case study after case study after case study that we can talk about over the last six years, comparing when it's an unsolicited offer compared to what we run our process. So we call what we call pro Mo, the power of multiple offers and just how the results are so, so different. But that's why that they're doing. It is because they know that if they get into a competitive situation, they're gonna have to, they're gonna have to pay more and and one quick story I will share. We just closed on a transaction about a month ago, and it was a smaller transaction, but the owner was about working with a with a private this happened to be a private equity group, and they had started at 5 million in value, and they had worked up to about a $10 million valuation, but from 5 million to 10 minutes, all earn out, and the higher that it went when They negotiated, the crazier the terms where their financial advisor introduced us to the client said, Look, they're working with this buyer. They've got, actually, a letter of intent going back and forth, but they haven't signed it yet. They just don't know. They kept laying in bed. Am I? Are we getting the best deal or not? Are we leaving money on the table? Could there be a better buyer out there, and the water would have, could have, should have, kind of mentality. So they decided to work with us to do it, what we call an RMA, or a real market analysis, to really understand what is market value. Not what you know, what we want, what they want to hear, but what is reality. Looking at other deals that have been done, looking at talking with industry experts, everything else, obviously on a confidential basis, and we thought it was right around $10 million but our average cash at close is around 85% so they would have got a lot more cash at close.

Unknown Speaker 7:23
So she said, You know what? I get one chance to do this. I want to do it right. I'm gonna hire your cornerstone. We're gonna go in and yeah, I want you to create a competitive marketplace on a confidential basis. So we did, and she sent an email to that buyer and said, Hey, I just want to let you know I like you guys. I want to continue working with you. You're gonna be part of this process, but I get one chance to do this. I'm gonna make sure that cornerstone takes me out to market, and then I can choose who my best fit is. What they told them, when she worked up from five to 10, they told the fan or the owner that that is the highest they could go. They couldn't pay a penny more. Like, I'm sorry. We went from five, we've doubled our offer. It's a 10 million, no more. She sent that email five minutes later, five minutes the phone rings. What's it going to take for you not to sign with Cornerstone? Or how much more money can we have to pay you to not sign with Cornerstone? Because they knew that they were going to lose a deal, and they did. We got nine other offers, and we ended up closing at 14 million. So she and they got 12 million cash at close versus the five that she would have got. So it was like, we can't pay anymore. What's it going to take for you not to not to sign up with Cornerstone and run a process? That's why they're doing the unsolicited offers. That's such a fantastic success story. It really is. I'm curious, from your perspective, talking about unsolicited offers, specifically, why are they so tempting, and why do so many owners fail to what is it that they're missing when they're saying yes to too quickly, when they're being tempted by the offer that's being presented to them? What is that opportunity that's being missed? Interestingly, we just did a national survey of 750 business owners and from ranging from 5 million to 100 million in value. So these are not and 45 to 75 year old, old people, men and females. So these aren't, you know, just started companies are doing 200,000 and just don't know what they don't know. And in that study, 55% said, if we got an unsolicited offer, we would probably accept it if we assumed it was reasonable. And it's unbelievable, because it's flattering. You know, you've built something up. And in our study, it showed that 76% of those people that we asked them, How did you get into business? 76% they founded their business. You know, they burned this thing up. It's their baby. It's our clients talk about, you know, when they give up, when they sell their company, it's almost like giving up one of their children for adoption. You know, that's adoption. You know, that's what they talk about the most, which is, you just that emotion. And if someone said, hey, you know, boy, your kid, he or she's a really good kid, you know, or boy, your your kid's really smart, or your, your kid's the best athlete in the school, you know, it's that flattery of, yeah, I burned this up, and someone's getting.

Unknown Speaker 10:00
Me recognition that I built something that's a value. Holy cow, that's amazing. Oh, I want to buy I want to pay something for it. What we also found out in the in the study, is that over 60% of business owners have never had a valuation, Never, not let alone in the last year or two, to really understand what is market value for their company today, never. So when they don't know what it's worth. They've never gone through this before. In the study too that came out, we really found kind of reading in between the lines is that, you know, if I asked you, what are the traits that make a business owner great or an entrepreneur great? You know, it's things like, you know, grit, and I can do this myself, and problem solving and complex thinker and all these different things, because that's what it took to build this company up into your pivot. You learn from your mistakes, and you lose a customer, you go get another customer, but when selling a business, you get one chance, and it's like all those traits that helped you build, start and build and grow your company. Now we're working against you, because, like, Oh, I know my business better than anybody else. Why wouldn't I sell my own company? But yet, the analogy I like to give is, think of think of you. You know, if you're the best tennis player in the world, so from a little girl through grade school through high school, through college, through university, pros, Olympics, you're the best. You've never lost. And it's not just you get you're gifted, but you work at it and you and you grind and you practice, and you've got that like I know when I step on the court I'm gonna win in the game of tennis. But now I bring you out to my country club to go about for golfing. And you've never played golf in your in your in your whole entire life, never picked up a club, never putted, never swing a club. And also, now you start talking with the club Pro, and they start talking about how hard golf is. You're like, how hard can golf be? The ball doesn't even move. I'm I'm hitting serves at 100 miles an hour and running all over the place. You get to walk or drive a cart to the ball, and you get in these big clubs to hit with. I'm sure I'd be great at it, because your confidence of tennis would come over into golf, because it's a sport, and you're good at sports, and everything you've done, you've done well, but it's the same thing. Now you bring it back to the business world, there's these business owners. They're the tennis players. They're really good at tennis, but they've never played golf before. And who do you think is going to win that golf match? The Club pro who's played that course hundreds, if not 1000s, of times, knows where all the bunkers are, knows how to read all the greens, knows where all the water hazards are, and that's all he or she's done is play golf, or the really good tennis player that's never played golf before.

Unknown Speaker 12:32
And that's what happens, is the club Pro is going to clean their clock every single time. And that's what happens, is they go, man, you're really good. And, well, yeah, I'm really good. And, you know, like, flatter, flatter, flatter. Hit the ego, hit the ego, hit the ego. And then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, great. You know, we can close quick and, well, maybe sometimes even throw it a really big number, and then they work it down and chisel it down and through diligence and everything else. But it's just something that, you know, what are, what are any of us good at? The first time we do something, you know, really not anything, and let alone it's your largest financial asset, it's probably 70 to 90% of your net worth. You're emotionally tied to it because, you know, again, almost 80% of them started the company from scratch. You don't 60 plus percent don't know what it's worth. 65% said they're deeply tied to the business. You know, it's who they are. It's our identity. So you can, you can just start going in line of mistake, mistake, mistake that are made. You know, even when I started 27 years ago, even up to today, with all the AI and Google and everything else, it's still such an interesting marketplace, because everybody wants to keep it confidential. No one wants you know. I don't want to know that someone's that I'm selling my company. No one wants to know they're selling their company, which makes sense. You don't want your employees and your competitors and your customers thinking you might be selling your company. Usually, nothing good happens. But they don't talk to anybody until they're burnt out tired too late. And then, if you're burnt out tired, and somebody calls you, going, Hey, you want to get out of this thing, I'll pay you money. Like, yeah, where do I sign? You know, I had people call. It's like, boy, if anybody gave me 10 bucks today, I'd be out of my business, because I've had such a bad day. And these buyers are constantly just dialing for dollars, and they hit every once in a while. And they don't have to hit that often to really do well. So that's that's why there's so many people calling, and that's why business owners jump on that, because a lot of times they don't sell too soon. Most wait too long, and they're tired, burnt out, sick, and then somebody comes along and says, Hey, I really like your baby. You've got a great athlete, great kid. Let me take this on. And that's where they just get completely ripped off. And I can share a case study now or down the road, if you like, about that. I would love to hear that. And I think what you're really sharing is it's a completely different skill set, building a business versus selling a business. And it's easy to allow that emotion to sort of take over, because it seems like a great opportunity. But I would love if you could share about that, that case study.

Unknown Speaker 15:00
You've got. So we got brought in by a trusted advisor of a client, and they said, Look, we want to work with you. We want to help. We've got two buyers interested in our business. It was a Friday at two o'clock. We got two buyers interested. We want to make sure we do this right? We want to bring buyers to the table. And we had a great conversation. And we left about five o'clock on Friday night, and we said, Okay, we even had the appointment to set up and do the interview to start learning about the business on the following Tuesday. And somewhere between five o'clock on Friday night and 2pm on Sunday, the owners thought to themselves, well, wait a second. We've got the two biggest buyers in the entire industry knocking on our door, begging us to buy the business. One's already come and visited us, taking us out for amazing steak dinner and tell us how great we are. The owners been in the industry for 40 years. They sat on all the national boards. They know everybody. They know the industry inside and out. Why do we need to pay cornerstone? So they called us on Monday and said, you know, we thought about it. We're going to do it ourselves. If it doesn't work out, well, we'll call you back. But we do want you to do what we call an RMA, or a real market analysis, to really, again, understand what is the true, real market of the company in today's marketplace. So why we were doing the RMA takes us, usually about three weeks. The first offer came in about a week after we had met, because they had been talking for months before that, and the first offer came in at $31 million it was 26 million at close, and 5 million in a seller note over five years. And the following week, we came in with our RMA. We came in at 43.3

Unknown Speaker 16:29
and they said, Well, yeah, you know, 43.3 is a lot more than the 31 but that was a second biggest buyer. Now we have the biggest buyer. They've got the most money. They're backed by private equity. They're the biggest in the industry. They we've got the most synergies. They've come to our place now twice and told us how great we are, how great our management team is, how many synergies there are, how we're going to, you know, build, you know, conquer the world together. And their offer came in the next week. What do you think their offer was? I have no idea. $25 million again. They pumped them up, pumped them up. And if there would have been nobody else there, they probably would have accepted it. Probably would have accepted it. So we said, Can we please run a process? Can we create, we call again, that running our structured sale process where we create pro mo the power of multiple offers. And we did that. And he said, Well, you got a short window. So we said, Okay, fine. We had been warming up a couple buyers confidentially in the background, just in case it needed to happen, they said we could do that. And so we went to a handful of buyers very quickly. And in 10 days we had a signed letter of intent, and in 46 days we closed the deal at $51.3 million on their own with 40 years experience knowing their business better than anybody else. 31 and 25 with Pomo, with an m&a advisor, Mr. Banker, 51.3 and the interesting thing is that the seller didn't tell us until after the deal closed, is that same buyer came to them nine months earlier and said, We want to buy your business. I said, Great, we're thinking about selling. We're kind of burned out, looking to retire. And they said, but we're backed by private equity, and we have, like, a written mandate. It's not like we don't want to or can't, like we can't, we cannot pay more than a five multiple. The multiples of that industry are four to five times, so they're on the high higher end, but again, just in the range. And they said, you know, if you want to do that deal, we'll do that deal all day long, but we can't pay any more in 10 days. I had them at an 8.25 multiple, so obviously that was all BS. It was just what they said to sellers, to say, Yeah, we like you, but we can't pay anymore. You want to do the deal still. It would have been $30 million by the way. So without us, 2530 and 31 with us, 51.3, it's where you create that urgency, you create the scarcity, you create competition. You just like going back to that house. You know that house analogy, when you get boy, there's seven people bidding on that house, you're probably going to pay more than if you're the only buyer there, and there's no one else around and nobody's been there for three months. That's what we can do with the power of multiple offers, and with our structured sale process, it's such a significant difference. It really is. And when you see these deals go wrong, so to speak. Is it generally to do with price, or is it a multitude of factors, a lack of preparation, the wrong structure, the wrong resources and support like, what is it that you're really seeing that is making such a significant difference between someone that's trying to run something like this by themselves versus having the expertise and the right support around them. The number one reason that businesses don't close, typically, a seller's expectations, it's something that they build up they don't know. They've never got it valued by anyone that understands the marketplace. They just want something or they need, I need 30 million to live the lifestyle I want. Well, no buyer cares what you want or need. It's what's the value of the company, what's the future cash flow the company that you're buying? So it's usually value, and then, yeah, sometimes terms, they go, I gotta have all cash at close. Well, I would say, on average, most deals get done between 75 and 90% cash at close.

Unknown Speaker 19:56
And the reason for that is either the buyer or the buyer's lender.

Unknown Speaker 20:00
Or typically once a carrot out there, big enough that if there's an issue in the future, that that seller will come back and help the business out. You know, they might lose a customer or issue that they have internally, or whatever it might be, but that's usually it's either they will they want more than what market is, which is the biggest, or, yeah, they're not flexible on terms or, or, to your point that they're completely not prepared, which is another big one, that people prepare way too late. They wake up one day and decide I want to sell, and that's the interesting we found out in the study, and that I've seen for over, you know, almost three decades now, is that you would think that selling a business is a business decision that, you know, there's this plan, there's this great board that works together for five years and builds it up, and now we're ready to sell. Ready to sell the business. I would say, 90% of the time, the reason for sale is a personal decision or a personal issue, not a business decision. So I want to retire. You know, the United States right now it's all these baby boomers looking to retire. You know, they talk about 10 to $14 trillion of of of assets changing hands in the next handful of years. It's I'm tired, I'm burnt out. It's not fun anymore. I'm bored. Very rarely, is it? I prepared this thing for five to seven years, and now I'm going to sell it off this and you know this great plan, if they did that, that would be the ultimate and ideal, and they would get so much more for their company. But it's typically they're waking up to something that's more reactive and it's more personal. It's usually not a great personal thing to why they ultimately decide to sell you often ask business owners a simple but confronting question, why wait? I'm curious to know from your perspective, why starting earlier is so critical when it comes to exits and really building that long term value, there's two big things that I've seen besides the valuation that make people either sell their business or not sell their business. And the first one is, do they prepare ahead of time, you know, even just 1234, years, but ideally three to five years. And the other is, do they have a team of specialists, deal team specialists around them, yeah, which we can get into people again wake up one day and it's just not fun anymore. They're burnt out, they're tired, and they go up. It's time to sell. And it's interesting, because again, the the study that, the big study that we did, we asked them, why wouldn't you sell your business? Their number one answer was, my business is doing so well. I'm making so much money, why would I want to give that up now and then, it's proverbial up, and then over the S curve, and oh, now I want to sell because I'm it's not, it's not doing as well. I'm burnt out. It's not fun. And it's like, it's so counter to that you should want to sell when things are the best. You're driving sales. EBITDA is going good. You're excited, because now these buyers are hearing the excitement in your voice, and like, you know, with you, Mr. Company owner or private equity firm, if, if you with all your money, you could take this to such a higher level that I could take you with, you know, with my checkbook, and they get that excitement. It's like, oh my gosh, look what this thing's doing versus, well, this is what it's done, but now, here's where it is, and now we got to buy it. And can we bring it back up or not? We don't know. So we're not going to pay that big multiple anymore. So again, people wait too long. And a story I like to share, and it goes back to the RMA of getting that real market analysis done, it's people don't get valuations on their businesses. I mean, they make, you know, 1234, 5 million or 10 million a year, and they don't spend, you know, five grand, you know, on an RMA a real market analysis. We'll update them for three years at no cost, and it's just trying to help them understand, what is your value today, and then what could you do to enhance the value? Because when you don't know, you have no idea where you're at, and it just blows my mind. It's like, you know, I've got kids in high school and grade school right now, but can you imagine if you had kids do grade school, elementary school, grade school, high school, college, university and everything else, but they never got a report card. Like, is my kid an idiot? Or is she, you know, brilliant? I have no idea. I've never seen a report card. Yeah, business owners do that for decades, and to have no clue what their company is worth, a story I like to share of taking it because you might find out that, hey, it's worth more than I thought, potentially. Or there's ways you can net out taxes and save tax dollars that Well, I could live my deal lifestyle now. Well, then why would you wait? Because why are they doing this in the first place? It's typically to get financial freedom and be able to live the lifestyle that they want. And a story that I usually share when I talk around around the country is that my dad was not an entrepreneur, but, you know, worked in a in a company for 28 years, and one day he came home, and you know, the retirement age is 62 you know, and that he was retiring at 62 and he was 60, and he came home from work one day, and my mom asked him, How was work? He said, It was great. I retired today. She's like, What you retired? You're thinking about retiring? We didn't even talk about this as a couple. He's like, No, I'm not thinking about it. I'm retired. I've signed my papers. I'm not ever working again. She's like, What in the hell are you talking about? And he said, Look, they came to me. I've been there for 28 years. They want younger guys in that don't.

Unknown Speaker 25:00
Don't have to pay as much. I got third my two extra years of my pension. So I got my 30 years pension, even though I only worked there 28 years. I got a full year salary as my severance. So I got one year already paid for so and then I got my vacation paid for. So all I gave up was one year, but I get two years of my life to do whatever I want. So he traveled with my mom. He came up to see the kids and travel some of the grandkids. He played golf with his buddies. He did all the things on his bucket list that he wanted to do, and thank God he did, because at 62 when he should have retired, 10 days before my wedding, he was on the golf course having a great round of golf. And I get a call from my mom that he had a massive stroke and was flight for life down to Madison, Wisconsin, and get down there quick, because we don't know if he's going to live or not, and he lived through that, but his brain was never the same again. You know, here he was, was a master accountant, just great with numbers, and now he couldn't draw a clock where the two and the, you know, the hand goes show two o'clock. And he couldn't do, he would do everybody in town's taxes, and now he couldn't do his own taxes, and he couldn't walk, and he had to learn how to walk again. And then he died five years later of cancer. So he worked for 62 years to have a stroke, live for five more crappy years, and then die. He's like, that's that's not a life. You know, at least he got two years, two years, where, at 60 to 62 he could do whatever he wanted, because he saw an opportunity. He found out that, hey, we asked what my value is, more than I thought it was, and they took advantage of it. And that's what I talked to so many business owners, is like, why wouldn't you want to know? Because you might find out you're worth more than you you are, or you don't need as much as you think you need. Because everybody's like, well, how much you need retire? I need 10 million, 20,000,030 minutes never like, $7.23 million it's always some round number, and they're just guessing. So you might find out you need less, or you might find out you're worth more, or you might find out that, boy, you thought you were that 10 million, and you're you're only at 6 million, so you've got a much bigger gap than what you thought you had. But now at least, you have the energy and the passion to still fix those things, because it's some of those things take time, versus waking up one day wanting to sell, and you're always thinking, it's worth 20 million, and find out it's worth 12, and now you're burnt out tired, and you go, Oh man, I got an $8 million gap, wealth gap. How am I ever going to fix that? I'm not. And now my lifestyle is something very different than what I thought it was going to be. So that's the biggest problem, almost a pandemic, with what why business owners don't sell is that they just wake up one day and want to sell, and they don't do any preparation. And the more preparation they can do, there's people that can help them. They don't have to do it all themselves, because, again, in our study, 32% said they don't even know where to start or who to talk

Unknown Speaker 27:34
to. So it all starts with a conversation. That's what you know, we talk about. It's always the conversation. It's not about the birds and the bees. It's about how, when and why are you going to get out of your business? And we can help them understand, you know, what are the goals, what are their options? And just help them figure out what that looks like, absolutely. And I want to get to what that looks like in just a moment, but before we do, we've spoken quite a bit about the motivation for someone wanting to sell their business. But what is it that buyers actually want? What is it that they're actually looking for? I know you mentioned price earlier, but what is it that they're looking for when they're going to acquire these types of businesses? Yeah, it depends on who the buyers are, but there's typical value drivers that they're all looking for. One is, is is the company sustainable? You know, is it? Is there a management team there? I've seen companies that are doing two, 3 million in EBIT, but the owner is the business. If you take out Scott and nothing else runs, because everybody's just waiting for Scott to give him direction, then there's nothing transferable. So is the company truly transferable? You know? What is their secret sauce? You know? So do they have a management team? Do they have process and systems? Why do they win? If you're the low cost leader, that's not gonna be very valuable versus Well, the average margin in our industry is 15% and we're at 20% people are paying us more than the average to get our product or service. Again, that's valuable. You look at almost putting your buyer hat on, looking at where's the risk. So again, if I'm the if I'm the business, there's big risks there. What's another single point of failure? Well, if a customer is 4050, 60% of the business, if that customer goes away as a buyer, I'm out of business. So you know, most buyers want to see that top customer as a percentage of sales at 20 or 25% or less, ideally less than 10% but they'll work at 20 or 25% typically. So our customer diversification, a good management team process, systems really put in place

Unknown Speaker 29:35
the how we do it here, you know, really that culture all the way through, and then margins. You know again, do you want a company doing 10 million in sales and 2 million EBITDA, or a company doing 100 million in sales and 2 million EBITDA? Most people would want the 10 million in sales because they're dropping 20 cents to the bottom line versus two cents to the bottom line, because that's a lot of work to for 100 to do 100 million just to drop $2 million to the bottom line. So most.

Unknown Speaker 30:00
Groups want to see at least a 10% EBITDA margin, or above, ideally, you know, growing at least steady. You know, they don't want to see a declining they don't want to see a Yo yo, where it's up one year down the next, because they don't know what, you know, what to expect. So at the end of the day, they're looking for predictable future cash flows. Most, 98%

Unknown Speaker 30:18
of companies are, you know, based off of a normalized future cash flows or EBIT number from the bottom line, not, not revenue, if it's recurring revenue, then you're looking at multiples of revenue. But the vast majority companies are sold on that future cash flow. And how do those drivers change depending on whether an owner wants to sell scale or stay in the business longer? Yeah, I don't think they really change, you know. I think you know whether you're you just want to maintain it, or you're growing it, or you're looking to sell, because if I want to sell, well, I've got to build up my management team. Well, if I want to grow my business, I have to build up a management team. If I want to stay or keep the company, but I want to take more time off, I have to build up a management team, you know. And same thing with customers, if I can have really well diversified customers, well, I can sleep better at night, and it it makes the company easier. You're just de risking the company. So I think whether you're, you know, looking to maintain or grow or sell, what I'd say, would say different, if you're, if you're building a lifestyle business where it's all about you, and you know that you're not going to sell at the end of the day, well then it can be a little bit different, where it is all about you, but know that that you got nothing that transferable at the end of the day. And that's, you know, kind of a building, you know, real value, versus just building, you know, having a good cash flow and then shutting down the business. And something that you've touched on is the fact that preparation and the sale process itself can cost owners millions if it's done poorly. Where do you see those biggest value leaks occur? You know, the common mistakes that business owners make when there's not an investment maker in the game is they'll deal with one buyer. The buyer will ask them, you know, hey, well, you know, what do you think you need for your business? Or what you know? What are you thinking? You know, basically all what you're trying to get is, what's that asking price? Because when I get an asking price, what have I just set? I've just set the ceiling that I know I'm not going to pay any more than that, especially if I'm the only buyer there. We had a deal. Was actually over in Moscow, Russia several years ago, and it was started in the United States, and then they moved over there, and a $3 billion company wanted to buy a small consulting company, and the owner was only doing about a million in sales, about $300,000

Unknown Speaker 32:24
in cash flow, you know, small company, but he had really built out a very good niche, and he was hoping to get three to 5 million for the business. And he was 38 years old, young guy. He's like, I don't have to sell. I'm doing well, I'm just starting to make some money. But if I sell, I'm gonna, you know, I gotta get three to, you know, three to 5 million. Well, if you looked at the company at, you know, a million in sales, $300,000

Unknown Speaker 32:46
in cash flow, you kind of back envelope. No assets. The assets were 12 desks, 12 chairs, 12 computers and a Land Rover parked out front. Those were the assets, about 58,000 in assets, which was basically the Land Rover. So no assets, some good customers. It's about the know how of what they built, and who they had, and the relationships that they built. So they were helping North American manufacturers in the railroad industry get into into Russia and get their products parts, you know, the parts of the trains and the widgets and everything else into the year into their system, was the third largest market in the world. And he's like, Well, if I can get three to five, I'd be great. Well, back to the envelope. Was a million dollar value, you know, three times the $300,000

Unknown Speaker 33:26
you know, a million dollars. But I took the time to really understand where were the synergies, what was the opportunities? And they wanted an ASCII price. We said, we're not giving you asking price. You guys are a lot smarter than us. You're 3 billion. You can figure it out. And he my client, wanted to ask seven and hope to get three to five. Well, we went our route, and the opening bid was seven and a half, and we counted at 12, and we ended up at $11 million and so he would have left so much money on the table if he would have done it himself, because he would have been like, I want seven, and they would have been he would have got $4 million and be like, Yes, I did a great job, but he would have left $7 million on the table. And so it's, it's setting the asking price, uh, piece, mailing things out, you know. Okay, hey, I need this. Oh, here it is. I need this. Here it is. Again, working with an investment bank going through our structured, what we call our assurance 360 process. First of all, we're going to figure out if the numbers make sense. And there's three numbers that every business owner should know, which we can talk about. But then it's telling the story. We're diving deep with that business owner. They want to put the story together. So what's the highlight of the company? Where's the history? Where's the credibility? Where is it at today? What's the product and services that they do? Why do they win? What's the growth opportunities, especially with the different types of buyers we're going to what are the specific synergies, maybe, between some of those different buyers, and putting that all together, and at the same time doing research on who are the right buyers. Is it a private company, public company, domestic, international, private equity, private equity platform, private equity add on, which they already have a strategic company or a platform, or is it a family office or something else?

Unknown Speaker 35:00
And we're doing all this research globally in understanding who are the best fits, and then the seller signs off on those things. So what making sure the story is told right to the right buyers. And now we run this proactive process. So instead of one buyer kind of coming in and out of that buyer network, let's go find a different buyer. In about a 30 to 60 day period, we're bringing all these buyers together, and there's no asking price. They signed an NDA or confidential agreement, so they keep things confidential. Now we are, on behalf of the sellers, controlling timing. We're controlling the process. We're controlling when all the offers come in, because that's one thing, to get an offer today and an offer a month from now, but it's all about getting all the offers at one time within a two to three day period. So we control that, and that's when the seller truly knows what their value is. So when they don't do that, when they just get one just get one offer, when they piecemeal things out, you know, if you don't tell the right story to the right group of people, right buyers, you're going to leave money on the table, because you can have the best story, but the wrong buyers, or the, you know, the best buyers, but the wrong story, you don't nail the story, and then running the process. So it's those three things of right story, right buyers, and then in the right order, in the right timing, if you don't do those things right, you're going to probably leave a lot of money on the table. And, oh, by the way, what most business owners do that is they'll try to do something like that. Again, more piecemeal, one buyer at a time, and but they take their eye off the ball, so now the buyer drags this out. Now if there's one buyer, they drag out the process. They control the timing. And over time, you know what's gonna happen? Well, they take their off the ball after ball, and next thing, you know, oh, sales dipped a little bit. EBIT is down a little bit. So, yeah, I told you that I'd pay a five multiple, but that was at 2 million any but now you're at, you know, one and a half million EBITDA. So I'm gonna have to take two and a half million dollars off the deal. But you want to close next week. We can close next week, and now they got a hit already. Now they're taking another hit in value. So it's just those things that they and again, they don't know, because they've never been through before. So they just think this is normal, or hey, I'm again, I'm burnt out. I just gonna wave the white flag at some point and say, enough's enough. Just take my business and so I can get out of here and go do something I want to do this feeds into what I wanted to speak to you about, which is the fact that we've touched on this is a different skill set than the things that helped you to grow and build your business. And I want to talk about the benefits of having a specialist team of people around you, and where Cornerstone really comes into that. You know. Why do you believe that this trusted, integrated advisory model really can help amplify and increase those returns, versus operating in this more independent, siloed approach. Yeah, we're all better together when you have the right specialist all working in the client's interest. Good things just happen. So we have that even within cornerstone, a lot of investment banks or m&a advisors will say, Okay, we've got one person, and they're going to be your person. Well, that person has to be the person who goes out and find the client. Then they've got to be the copywriter and write the book and tell the story, which they're not probably good at. Then they're going to be the research analyst to try to do research about who the buyers are. Then they're going to be the investment banker or project manager. Project manager to run a process. Then they got to process NDAs. They got to set up data rooms. They have to do all these different things. I've talked to hundreds of investment bankers. I haven't found one person that's good at all of it, but we've all got our guy given abilities. So some people are really good at writing stories and writing the copy. Some people are really good at doing research and understanding the tools that we have the best in class tools. Some people are really good at being investment maker and negotiating and seeing the synergies and holding people accountable and setting expectations. And then other people are good processing things and getting things in deal rooms. And when everybody uses their God given abilities and a team of five or six works a deal versus one, we are going to get better results, and we've proven it. It's, you know, we're getting eight offers last year. Just some of our stats. We got eight offers per client. We've got 85% closing ratio. We have a 24% premium, where we talk about doing those RMAs, of what that real market analysis is, of what other companies have sold for similar size and scope. On average, we're getting 20 plus percent more, not because Cornerstone is great and we just know how to negotiate. It's because we create pro Mo, because we create buyers. Bring the buyers to compete together, and when we can bring them to compete together, you're going to get a better price, you're going to get a better value, you're going to get a better chance to close, faster chances of close, because we control the timing and everything else so and not only that, but we're also going to help them build up their team around them and really understand who should be on the team. So the team is the investment maker, but it's, again, it's not just us. It's also the they're a CPA and attorney, but we might have, typically, we have to bring also an M and A attorney involved. So we have several M and attorneys all over the world that we can bring in to help them work the deal. Because, again, that's probably another big mistake that business owners make, is when they do go to market, if they just use their CPA and just their regular attorney. And again, I like, I like to tell stories. So I liken it to, you know, the business owners had a doctor, and he goes to for physicals, you know, annual physical once a year. Been doing it for 30 years, and that.

Unknown Speaker 40:00
Doctor and that business owner know each other really well. That doctor knows his body better than anybody or her body better than anybody else's. And and they like each other, so they're comfortable with each other. Well, all of a sudden, you know, they come in one day for the exam, and he's got a he or she's got a headache, and they go, yeah, let me run some let me run some tests. We do a scan, and they find out he's got he or she's got a tumor in their head,

Unknown Speaker 40:22
and you're like, Okay, I gotta have to have brain surgery. I could die on the table. Am I gonna go to the brain surgeon that he or she that's all they do on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last 10 years of their life, is do brain surgery? Or are you gonna use your doctor because he or she is a doctor who knows you better than anybody else and likes you, but probably gonna kill you on the operating table? It was like, Well, of course, I go with the brain surgeon. Brain surgeon. But yet, people so often go, Well, yeah, you know, I should use it in my attorney, but I like my attorney. They're a good attorney. And you know, they helped me set up my LLC. They helped me with some employee issues. They helped me some collection issues. That is not the right attorney. And so besides our team at Cornerstone, it's who's the the tax people? Who's going to help mitigate taxes, who's going to be the MA attorney to driving the legal side of things? We also bring in a financial advisor, a wealth management firm, up front as well. Because I think that there's three numbers that every business owner should know before they ever even consider selling their business. And the first one is, what is that real number? What is that RMA going to give you that real market analysis? What is a real number? Because there's so many groups out there. Groups out there that they'll tell you whatever you want to hear to get a $50,000 retainer or just to get a client. So like, Well, I think it's worth 20, but you think it's worth 40? Yeah, what the heck? Let's try it. Pay me 50 grand, and if not, we'll all point fingers. Why? Nothing happened. So it's what is that real number? Because we always say it's one of our values is we're going to tell people what they need to hear, not just what they want to hear to get a client or to get a retainer. So that's number one is, what is my RMA number, my real number? Then it's like, who cares what your real number is? Most people get taxed. So what is that number after taxes? What is that net number in the States, there's things you have to do well before the letter of intent comes in. If you go, Oh, the done, the deal is done. Now. How can I save on taxes? You've eliminated almost all of your all your options. It's got to be done well ahead of time. So now you can understand what's my real number. Now, what's my net number after taxes? Let's just say for easy numbers, my real number is 10 million bucks. My net number is 6 million. But because they did some things, I had a year to prepare, they got me six and a half million. So now I know that six and a half million, but I still don't know what does that does that mean for me and my family, until I said that with my wealth management, my wealth manager or my financial advisor, to say, what is that? We call it the lifestyle number. We trademark the lifestyle number. What is that wealth gap? Because if my lifestyle number it says I need 8 million to live my ideal lifestyle, and my net number is six and a half, well I've got two choices. I either lower my lifestyle down to six and a half. And know what that looks like because I'm tired, burnt out, bored, sick and I don't want to do it anymore, or I go, nope, my wealth gap is 1,000,005 and then in the RMA, not only we tell you what your value is and why, but then we'll also tell you what you could do to enhance the value, the biggest one, two or three things you could do to enhance the value. And then they work on that with a coach or by themselves. We don't do that work, and then they just keep coming through that loop. So now, instead of what happens most times, as we talked about earlier, people wake up one day, it's not fun anymore. I want to sell. I have no idea what the value is. I have no idea what my net number is going to be. I pray to god I can live off of whatever I need. And they go to market, and it's just gut wrenching. Should I shouldn't die? Is this enough? Is it not enough? And they have no idea if our process is different. We bring in all of these people up front, because if the answer is no, that's a good answer, even though it's a client that we not going to take to market today, that's good for the client, because they're not going to reach their goals, and we want them to be able to reach their goals, so we're helping them understand making that smart, well informed decision. And then again, we work the process. And the other thing is that we found is that if you have the right people at the table, again, things are just so much better. So one thing that we've built out is our cornerstone international alliance. So not only do you get the cornerstone team, but you get the alliance as well, which is 34 other firms with two over 200 investment bankers that we did in 2025 is just going to come out that we did over 2.5 billion in enterprise value in just one year alone. We did more than one deal per day of every day of the of the year, and you get access to all of that. So not only do you have our team, and we've got a great team in Australia, we've got people in the UK, we've got people all over, all over the all over the all over the world, and we continue to build that out because we want access industry experts. We want boots on the ground in different parts of the world. You know, we want to bring the world to every deal that a cornerstone Alliance member works on, our partner works on. And that's the exciting thing, because if you're siloed, I've seen this where maybe the CPA, I've literally worked on a deal where the CPA was going to do his or her thing. And they told me, when we called them to get financials, like, well, just so you know, we're not going to be too helpful in this transaction. And we're like, Well, you've never done it before. We can walk you through it. He's like, No, I bill this client $40,000 a year, and it's one of my biggest clients. I don't want to lose them, so I'm going to do everything I can to blow this deal up. Literally told me that.

Unknown Speaker 45:00
Yeah, like malpractice one on one. So sometimes they're looking at their own pocketbook versus the client's pocketbook. And so we want to make sure we've got the right team all focused on taking care of that client. And when you do that, that's when the magic happens. That's when it gets really, really exciting. And speaking about putting the right team together, and how critical that really is when it comes to creating and building your own team, what is that one trait that you find essential in every team member that you bring on board, grit, passion and grit, 100% Yeah, it's that's an easy one, because you are not sitting in front of the smartest guy that you've talked to probably every other person has been. But as far as passion and grit, and I mean, I've put 70,000 hours into this industry alone, and the people that we have all care so much about, our clients, our business owner clients, it we've picked people up, not in our industry, but because we've seen them go through other really hardships and fought their way through it, because we know they'll lose that for our clients. And you know, we love what we do because of the impact that we bring. You know, what other industry do you get to help someone sell their largest single, largest financial transaction their life that's going to completely change their lives and their kids lives? Probably, you know, that's our mission statement, is create positive, life changing events for all the lives that we touch. We just worked on a deal and we got to the literally seven months in market, or seven months working on a deal we're going to close a week later, and the buyer decided that they just didn't like the business model. Made no sense at all, because it didn't change. Everything was the same. The whole team wanted to do it, but one guy said, Nope, I don't want to do the deal. And we get zero, you know, we just put, we put probably 500 hours into that deal. So you got to have that passion like, Okay, let's go. Let's do it again, again. That happens one out of 10 times, roughly for us, every deal takes on a life of its own, a little bit within our process. And you just got to make sure that you're, you're ready to take on whatever challenges they are day after day. Building Cornerstone meant that you, at some point, were working for yourself with very limited team, with very limited support, needing to own every single decision and take responsibility for that. How did that really shape your leadership style and the way that you lead today? Yeah, what I started was myself and my assistant at the time, and now there's about 20 of us, and I think it really is just that, lead by example. I'm not going to tell you to go out, bust your butt and I sit back and on the couch and watch TV. Early on, I put in hours after hours after hours, and really helping coach our team up and building the team out is do what you say you're going to do, you know, not just to the clients and the customers, but also to your employees as well. So they can count on you, and you've taken all of those years of experience and turned them into really practical tools. And in fact, you have a best selling book called finish strong, sell your business on your terms. What was the moment that you realized it was important to put this work and this message out to the world. I was writing articles for publications and newspapers and magazines for 15 years prior to this, and I sat down with a copywriter said, you know, we probably got a book here, and we should probably do something with that. Because again, when I started cornerstone, it was all on the premise that there's got to be a better way. There has to be a better way. Because when I was working for another firm for two firm for two and a half years, and seeing that about 20 to 30% did sell, which meant 70 80% didn't sell, I could see what the mistakes that they were making the owners, and I could see what the business broker model, where I saw the flaws, in my opinion. And so I said, There's got to be a better way to help more business owners. And I can only talk with so many business owners, that's why I speak. Why I speak more nationally and internationally now, in trying to get that message out to more masses. But I wanted to write a book, and it's not just how to build up your value for the most value and call corner sell it. It's a book that's truly holistic. I wanted something where, if you were 10 days or 10 years away from selling your business, this book would still bring value to you. So it was all about helping them. It starts out very simple. It's a simple read. It's 130 pages. And more importantly is I created a companion workbook called is, again, fit a strong workbook that you can get as well. So you read a chapter and then you go do some homework assignments. You read a chapter, and do you because I've, I'm an entrepreneur, you know, you read a book, it's like, oh, I got all these great ideas, and I'll get up to them tomorrow, and then tomorrow never comes. It's like, oh, I just wasted all those opportunities that I had. So I wanted someone that read, read a couple pages and then have some reflective questions or take a small assessment. It's easy, bite size steps that they can take, but it's all around, when do you want to get out of your business? Because if you ask a business because if you ask a business owner when you're going to sell most times, you're going to say, five years. And then if you go, well, two years later, you go, hey, when you're going to sell your business? Guess what? Five years. Because that's always close enough that they or their spouse are kind of getting excited. Like, hey, we're getting there. We're close, but far enough that I really don't have to do anything yet. Like, oh, that I got a couple years before I.

Unknown Speaker 50:00
To actually start preparing my company for sale, so it helps them kind of put a flag in the ground of when do you truly want to get out, and then we get into what do you want in a sale? Everybody talks about value, value, value, multiples, purchase price. But what about the structure? What about do you want to stay for three months? Or do you want to stay for three years or more? What about protecting the employees? What about the legacy? What about the name, staying or going, whatever it might be. There's so many different deal terms. One whole chapter is just on what's important to you. What are your values? We have a checklist, or it's an assessment that they take and they got to put it. You know, the first time I gave this out, I said to a client named Burke out on the East Coast, and said, Burke put a one by the most important, a two by the most important, and so on. And there's 10 items. Thinking, there'll be a 12345, he sent it back. There were eight ones and two twos. I go, Burke, there needs to be a three and a four and a five. He's like, Well, they're all important. I go, I know they are, but you've got to be able to choose, take the time to really reflect, because as you get closer to getting your deal done, nobody gets smarter and nobody gets any more rational. Think about really, what's important to you. Important to You, because that's another reason why business owners, you know, when they have seller remorse, that's you know number one is they leave money on the table. They sell to an unsolicited offer. When we run a study for six years, we've never lost to an unsolicited offer. I just spoke down about a month ago, and they asked us, just to add, you know, what was the starting bid to what you're what you ended up getting, and it was a 73% premium, 73% difference between what the unsolicited offers were, and when we ran that process and brought pro mo to the table, what the final purchase price was that they ultimately sold for. So they either left money on the table, or they only thought about value, and then they find out that the culture is terrible, or their employees hate working there, or they don't sponsor the Little League team or the soccer team, or whatever it is anymore in their small town. And then lastly, it's they don't know what they're going to do after the sale. So I want to get away from this, because I know this isn't fun anymore, but I don't know where I'm going to

Unknown Speaker 51:56
and so you see people, you Oh, man, they boy, they died a year after they sold it. Boy, they were depressed, or whatever happened, that's wise, because they think they're just going to turn this excitement and this passion off as entrepreneurs like no, you're going to just transfer to someone else. And Bo Burlingham was ink magazine editor for years. He wrote another book around seller remorse, of people that even did sell and got a big chunk of money. And he said the worst question they could be asked at a cocktail reception or something, being out was so what do you do now?

Unknown Speaker 52:25
Well, I used to be the owner of Cornerstone, and we did all this stuff, and now, now I don't do anything right now. I'm in between. And geez, my my cell phone. It's 10 o'clock and my cell phone hasn't ranked seven times yet this morning. You know, they don't have any of that purpose. So who do they serve? They serve their customers. They serve their employees. Well, who are they going to serve now? So we have a whole chapter in there about, what are you going to do after the fact? What's that bucket list that's going to get you through your first year or maybe two? But then we actually say another section of what's important to you, what do you want to be remembered for? It's like almost writing your eulogy, because people get so tied up in the money, and they don't think about, well, I maybe want to be a great father, a great grandfather, you know, for myself, or I want to start this, because I have this cause I've always wanted to start or be a part of. I wanted to coach basketball, or whatever else it is. And they forget about that, because they're really worried about what other people think, Oh, I got to be biggest. I got to be the biggest in business. I got to make more money. I got more money. And all of a sudden they dropped dead in their office. It's like, what was it all worth at the end of the day? So we go through, you know, when do you want to get out? What's important to you? What do you want to do next? What are all the options? You got nine or 10 different options and hundreds of mix and matches of those options. Most people know I could either give it to my kids or give it to my sell to my competitor down the road. Well, those might be the two worst options out of the nine. So what are the pros and cons of all the options? So they might find out in my book that they don't want to sell to a third party. A third party. I just lost a client. But guess what? That's great, because now they're doing whatever they want to do, and there's all kinds of other things in there. Yes, there's the value drivers and what they could do short term and long term, but it's really this holistic approach, because I've learned if they could start planning sooner, and if this book kind of gets them kickstart and they do some of that work within the workbook, and they build a team around them, they will have a much better chance of selling their business than if they just wake up one day and reactively respond to an unsolicited offer or just shut the business down. Because that's the worst thing I see, is that people been in business for 3040, 50 years, and then have a going out of business sale. And it was a good ongoing business. They just didn't know what to do, and they just ran it too long and just, you know, took the nosedive and ended up shutting the doors, and now your legacy is gone. All that value built up gone. All the 10 or 100 or 500 employees gone. You know, in my small town, people were had to move out of town to go to another to get a job. Well, now these kids are getting uprooted from their schools and their friends and going someplace else. I mean, the ripple effects are absolutely huge. So the more that people cannot educate themselves, whether it's through, you know, speaking or the book or the workbook, that's what I'm extremely passionate about, because I know I've got an abundance mindset, and the more people that are educated and know good things are going to happen. Because when they can sell and they can truly change their lives and their.

Unknown Speaker 55:00
Kids, lives in their communities, lives and whatever else is important to them. It's just, it's just a great, great experience, very powerful. Thank you for sharing that. Scott here at CEO, behind the scenes, we have a tradition. We wrap up all of our interviews with the same two rapid fire questions. So the first question I wanted to ask you is, what is one thing that you've changed your mind about recently, and why I thought I always needed to be in the center of Cornerstone like it would not work without me. And I have since working with scaling up, and in some other things, EOS have built out a team, and having a team there that can run the company and made that investment and coach them up. That last year, I took off two months. I took off July and December. I didn't take off more than two weeks in the 24 years leading up to last year, and I was able to go off two months in the same year. And I know that I'm the more I take off, the more I take off, the more valuable My company is, because I want to sell my company someday too, or transition my company. I'm not just going to shut it down so that that was a huge, you know, mindset of, well, no one can do better than I can. Well, there are a lot of different pieces of the puzzle that people can do better than I can, and it's getting the right people that are smarter than me in the different pieces that really build out that management team, which is which has been a game changer for cornerstone. And second question, what is one thing that you've not changed your mind about a belief you'd want to share to help others lead or live better? It all comes down to passion and grit from us. When I look at cornerstone's philosophies, it's the model was quantity over quality. It was tell everybody what they want to hear. Get as many clients as you can, hopefully sell some. We flipped that on our head. On our head, going when we started, and still today, 25 years later, it's quality. First, it's take on less clients and do a better job. Have a team do the job versus one person, and tell people what they need to hear to make a well informed decision, not just what they want to hear to get a client. So it's been kind of that whole Less is more, which everybody goes, oh, I need more. I need more. I need more. We've actually stepped back and go, Hey, let's take on less at a time and then grow and scale from there, and we can be this so much better. So that's kind of what we've hooked on to, and it's something that will never change within cornerstone. Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that Well, Scott, thank you very much for joining me for this conversation. Your perspective about selling a business, not just as a single transaction, but as a long term strategic decision, has been incredibly insightful, and it has been such a pleasure to have this conversation with you today. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. Likewise and to our audience, if this episode sparked questions about your own business, you can learn more about Scott's work and resources, including, finish strong, sell your business on your terms through Cornerstone business services. If you enjoyed this episode, then please be sure to subscribe, rate and share it with someone who is navigating growth succession or an eventual exit. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time on CEO: Behind the Scenes.