The owner of Metro Business Advisors, Dave Driscoll, was recently featured on the Smart Biz Show. Listen to (or read) his entire interview below.
You’ll Learn:
- The two life cycles of any business
- Your best defense against a knowledgeable buyer
- What can make or break a business sale
- Tons more!
About Dave Driscoll
Dave Driscoll is president of Metro Business Advisors, a mergers & acquisitions, valuation and exit/succession planning firm helping owners of companies with revenue up to $20 million sell their most valuable asset.
Listen to the Full Show
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Full Interview Transcript
Ron: Well we are excited about the show here today. We have a great guest, Dave Driscoll, who is president of Metro Business Advisors. [He] is here to join us today and Dave we want to welcome you to the show.
Dave: Pleasure being here.
Ron: Thanks for being with us. So Jeff, Dave’s company is a business brokerage, valuation, and estate planning firm here in St. Louis. I am excited to have him on today because he comes from a lot of experience of being a business owner and knowing exactly what it is like to be a business owner and what it is like to know when there is an end to your business. And realize that you have to build value to your business because some point in time you have got to move on whether you like it or not. [I am] so excited to have him here today.
Jeff: You agree with all that?
Ron: I do. Well tell me about your experience as a business owner and how that got you where you are at today with this company.
Guest: Well I started my own business when I was twenty-four (24). It was in a manufacturing industry. And it was one of those things that I was working for someone and I thought I could do a better job and I just said “well, I have really got nothing to lose so this is what I am going to do.” It was a very small manufacturing company. It was quite successful; I worked very hard over the years, lot of struggle up and down in a very competitive market place. Went through, what I would say, ‘all the chairs of ownership’. You start up and your adolescent, you are mature; all those phases that you go through and truly that is what happens. Every time you grow a little bit, you grow with your employees, you face all new challenges. So at the end of the day after about twenty-eight (28) years the whole industry had changed dramatically for me and it was really my time to say “you know I want to get out of this business. That was probably three years later than it should have been and I had missed a number of opportunities along the way to exit the business probably on more terms than I could dictate.
So there is that missed opportunity when you are not looking for it, it is going to be presented to you. So when it came time to really exit the business I kind of did it my own way, traditional way, all those things. But what I had learned throughout that process is that exiting a business, building a business is a very singular event. It is totally emotional, it is totally personal and folks get wrapped up in that and they get wrapped up in working at their business. And at the same time they need to be working on the business. Meaning you have to recognize where you are in this space and time in the sense of, “okay what kind of planning? What am I doing so far?” Someday I am going to exit this business either by transfer it to my children, to a key employee or to a third party. What kind of value am I pushing for? Is it my retirement? It is my job? You know those types of things. That is the kind of stuff that I think when owners when they are in the depths of owning a business have a very difficult time getting their arms around. There is the phone rings, the client calls, you are always jumping through hoops and have this tendency to put your own needs absolutely dead last. And everybody else is ahead of you, your employees, your customers, time passes very quickly. And then all of a sudden you are sitting there going “’this just does not feel good anymore”. I want to try to do something.
Ron: Well all these planning opportunities, all these thought out opportunities that you might have had over the past ten, twenty, thirty years all come crashing into a real small period of time over a couple of years and some things just take time to build value in a business. Think about it, you start a business thinking you are the guy or the girl and you are the center of the universe but what you come to realize as that business grows; you are the least important person when it comes to value. You are the least important person in that business.
Jeff: Because you are going to leave at some point in time.
Ron: Right and the old saying ‘some buyer is going to come in and hand you a check with a big bag of money and you are going to walk out the door’ and what is the expectation of that buyer for tomorrow to make the same amount of money to do all the same amount to have the same type of impression the next day. That is all the intelligence walking out the door all the experience. So you have to build that second in command. It is Jon and Derrick Glasson do that in their business. Build that second in command which is a very critical asset to building a business. Second of all, it is just you knowing what to do with cash flow. Most importantly though is that owners see all this money coming they have all these discretionary expenses. They might be a little challenging or aggressive on IRS rules what they expense to do and stuff like that, that is all fine. When it comes to the end of the day, what sells a business is cash flow. It is identifiable cash flow. Think of this scenario as you are sitting at a table across from somebody who wants to investigate buying your business and it shows in the books that it makes a hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($150,000) a year and you lean over to the guy and say “it is really more than that.”
Dave: Oh really?
Ron: You cannot sell what you cannot prove. Right, so if your methods up until that point were that you played a few games, you cannot verify it. So at the end of the day you are not going to get the value for it.
Dave: Let me ask you this question, and I am big believer that every business has a life cycle and some people disagree with me. But if you look at a Blockbuster video, when videos came out you had the little ‘mom and pop stores’ in the little residential areas that were renting video and then the big Blockbusters came and basically put them out of business. But now people stream their videos on cable so now Blockbuster is gone, the same with book stores. You know every business has a life cycle. It does not mean the owner did anything wrong, it is just what happens. The beast is so big and competition comes in. So are you a believer from your experience that every business owner should think about in a sense of what stage you are at because you never really know when the life cycle of your industry may hit, or maybe you do, but you know when it is coming.
Jeff: I do not know the life cycle of the business, when you are in it you understand, you should understand. But there are two life cycles that is going on. One is the life cycle in your industry and the other is your own personal life cycle because when you are young and twenty four and starting a business you have got nothing but energy. You are going to push; you are going to drive through it you could go through brick walls. As you get into your middle ages and you are having children, you focus is on your body and your family, you have got to provide for your family. And then as you get into early fifties, things change, your energy levels drop. Your interest levels, whatever it is it is a physical, emotional thing that goes on. And there is the time that you are really most vulnerable is when I am fifty and really putting bench marks on something and then it changes for everybody. Between that fifty and sixty year old level is really where you would have to make a lot of hard life decision as to where we are going. And those are the most critical times. If you are prepared moving into that phase then you can evaluate your options as I present it to you. If you deny that phase and maybe push through it and get to the other side you may be at a position where your values are diminishing because of your lack of interest.
Host: Fantastic. We are going to take a break here and then when we come back from the break we are going to expound upon that a little more and talk about when is the right time to move along in your business. We will be right back.
Announcer: Welcome back. Send us a Tweet at Smart Biz show at smartbizshow. Now here are your hosts Ron and Jeff.
Ron: Welcome back to the Smart Biz show. I am Ron Ameln along with Jeff Arthur from Excalibur Coaching and we are here today with Dave Driscoll who is the president of Metro Business Advisors and we are talking about building value in your business and thinking about how to exit your business at some point in time. And I would say Dave exiting the business is not an exciting sexy subject for business owners to talk about because as you said they are so involved in their business. Is it difficult for you when you go out and talk with business owners to get them to get them to start thinking about exiting?
Dave: Like pre-arranged funeral plans?
Ron: Almost, yeah exactly.
Dave: A little bit because it all depends on what stage they are in that development. The last segment we talked about the stages of your industry or your personal life. Is when I was a young man in my forties (40’s) I am sixty (60) years old now but at forty-two (42) years old I had a business. I was probably doing about seventeen, eighteen million dollars in revenue, about a hundred and fifty employees and really cranking. I had exceeded all my wildest expectations as far as a business owner goes and a very large public company approached me and said “we want to buy your business.” Well, forty-two (42) years olds in the middle of it, raising kids, high school, all that stuff with the kids and I was completely defined by my business. I was one hundred and fifty percent (150%) involved emotionally in my business. If I were to sell this business, how would I define myself?
Ron: You would be lost. You would be home on a couch every day.
Dave: Yeah!
Ron: Growing a big beard.
Dave: That was scary! How would I define myself? What would I do? You have to realize [the entire] prestige and the ego tied up in a business that totally defines an owner. Well that prestige and ego is a driving force but at some point in time it can be a negative force and keep you from making the decisions that you need to make in the right timing. I turned them down, ok? At that time it was more money. I was thinking big blue sky over what they were thinking and I made a lot of mistakes in that negotiation because I talked to them for awhile. I made a lot of mistakes in that negotiation thing; they are coming to me so I can be negotiator.
Ron: I will get double in six months, that kind of thing.
Dave: Yeah. They are smarter than me; they can do this every day.
Ron: Right, right.
Dave: That is what owners have to realize too when you are dealing with buyers is that do not think you are smarter than they are because they have seen a lot of businesses out there and this is your first time at the play and you are nothing but putty in their hands.
Ron: Right, right.
Dave: So anybody [who is] looking at selling their businesses or transitioning, always have competent advisors because that is your only defense against very, very knowledgeable buyers. So it is that life cycle Ron, it is that emotional involvement. As I got older and such, then I looked at the industry cycle, particularly my business was in a converted printed paper product and particularly they had to be envelopes. I manufactured envelopes. At the highest point I manufactured about a billion and a half a year, sold them in the mid-western area. Well think of envelopes, now think of technology and you say to yourself “who uses envelopes anymore?” I mean everybody pays their bills online, you [do] communications through emails, you are moving PDF documents, all that stuff and it is a big challenge for the industry. My advice to owners is what I learned in my transition is never take your eye off what is just beyond the horizon in the industry. You have got to be out there in front looking at him, where is it going? You have got to take chances there too. I was so emotionally involved with my business that I denied that beyond the horizon view and that is where I said I probably waited three years too long before I really sold, before I really transitioned out. So it is a lot about visibility on an ownership, it is about controlling your emotions. As I said to you during the break, every business owner has to be prepared to sell their business tomorrow because you have no idea when that offer is going to come. And when the offer does come, you want to be prepared with your best shot that goes to ok, “how am I handling my taxes?” We talked about all these expenses, “how am I handling my H.R.?” What are my H.R. policies and procedures? Because H.R. is a big deal now-a-days when you are dealing with taking on future liabilities of employees when you buy a business, because when a buyer wants to come in and say “what kind of system do they have in place for the management of those people?” If you have those management systems in place that is an asset. Another thing is how protected is your brand?
Ron: What do you mean by that?
Dave: Protection of a brand. Well if you have a sales people out on the street, you have people out there who are promoting your products. You know I am speaking this from a business owner’s stand point; you have to secure those people. You have to secure those people as an asset because if they are not obligated to you and that business and if they want to leave, they can take your brand and go and compete against you and devalue your asset, your brand. So when you are in negotiations for the sale of a business, the buyer might come to you and say “are your key employees and sale representatives on non-compete agreements?” and if you say yes they will check it off the box because that means it is an asset value. So look what we have done here, we have gone through a “ok do not build the business around yourself, secure your employees, make sure that your books are accurate, correct all the time, position yourself to entertain a buyer at any day because you have no idea.” Just like one company that came to me, they came to me and they wanted to buy my business, I was totally unprepared emotionally, and I started out the bidding which I wanted to create a bidding war like everybody does but saw after. I thought after I created this thing totally out of unrealistic expectations, these are professional buyers. Once I opened my mouth, which was the first mistake, is the first guy who lays out a price is the loser. So when owners look in to sell their businesses, do not start the bidding yourself because then you will always be bidding against yourself because you are going to set the high water mark. But I set mine so high, the conversation ended so another mistake. Everything I do in metro is basically learnt from mistakes that I have made along the way of owning a business and with the realization that business owners will do this once.
Ron: Right, right.
Dave: They have been the master of their own destiny that capture their ship, their whole career and they are getting into something they have never done before and they are going to want to try to control the situation but you do not have time to learn, you do not have time to make mistakes.
Ron: You know when I bought the business that I own right now my attorney told me (and I still remember this, he has since passed) but he said you know “when you run a small company (and then you obviously ran a bigger company but) when you run a small company you are six months from having somebody come in and buying you at a premium and six months from being out of business at any given point of your life span of the business. And that is something people do not think about, they do not think about the end no matter what because they are so involved in what they are doing, they do not think about the end.
Dave: That is right and knowing when to exit, what we talked about, industry, knowing it is maybe just you are too big, the industry has gotten too big for you and feel uncomfortable in it and it is maybe time to move on. Or emotionally you are saying to yourself “I do not have the steam to fight that battle anymore, employees I just cannot handle maybe the involvement of the employees in their own personal lives” and all that other stuff which we know happens from a ownership stand point. Or you just do not have the energy to fight those battles anymore and you want to be with your family. Those are the signals that you have to be very aware of in your business and your industry to give you the signals to start taking action. If you miss those signals you are going to be behind the curve and then maybe your life’s work but I call your life beyond business will be in jeopardy. You might not be able to have the earnings; you might not be able to sell the business for what you need to sell it for to maintain the lifestyle and the retirement that you have dreamed of.
Ron: Yeah it will definitely. (break)
Jeff: Hey folks we are back to the smart biz show this is Ron Ameln and I am Jeff Arthur and we are with Dave Driscoll. And you know as I said off the air, I kind of sat here listening and I wanted to say again what we just talk about for the purpose of the audience. But as I listen to you discuss the learning curve that you went through and one of the things you have identified, and I have not literally taken count but I think you said it about eight times about where you emotionally were at, at different phases and stages of not only your personal life but the life of the company. As I was just explaining off air that tension (using the word tension whether correctly or not) but the tension between the lifespan of the company and the owner personally and how that can fit together or not. But you used the phrase earlier on that you were defined by your company. Who you were as a person was defined as ‘I am the owner of this company and that is who I am’ and how that may have worked against you whatever these proposals were brought to you so how you want to elaborate or come back to that?
Dave: Being emotionally involved, think about it, there are so many ingredients sitting on that hook; your business is the hook, you have your family, you have your ego, you have your financial well being, you have the financial responsibility to your employees, bankers, customers all of that stuff is sitting on that hook.
Jeff: Not to interrupt you, but if I can even say that, adding to what you said, I worked with business owners, and you can jump in and go ‘no Jeff, you do not have a clue’. But the thing that they struggle with is they got into the business to manufacture the Widget. They do not want to be working on the taxes or dealing with the employee problems or talking to the bankers or all those things you just said but they have had to learn it.
Dave: Correct.
Jeff: If I am going to make it I would have to push through this and figure this out one way or another and now I have emotionally invested in this.
Dave: Absolutely. Think of the accomplishments that you have made!
Jeff: Absolutely, I mean that is the thing as I work with business owners they are like “holy crap! I just figured out how to do this. I am not going to just sell it or quit it or give it up!”
Dave: Jeff there are times I would sit in my office and I would have to just step back, shake my head and say “I have gone so far beyond where I ever thought I would have ever done. And that creates an emotional attachment and it certainly feeds your ego. And then all of a sudden now you are the center of the universe.
Jeff: [This] is part of what fights against the very thing you are talking about.
Dave: Exactly!
Jeff: With the legacy and the (3:22-3:33??) whatever it is fighting against you, the very thought process of (3:36-3:37??).
Dave: Exactly, you know, it is good to be king. You are in that position where you have that strength and that ego and your identity. And think how that can cloud you to miss those opportunities, to hold on too long, not to prepare, to do all those type of things because tomorrow, that is tomorrow. Well, tomorrow comes as we talked about in our age cycle and when you get into that early fifties (50’s), early sixties (60’s), you are an old thing. You just get tired, your needs change. It goes from ‘pound and pound and pound’ to “I do not want to work that hard, I want to be more with my family, I want to travel a little bit, I want to do something different, I want to have a life.” Now this is this continuum that you always have to check into yourself, your perfect example of being a coach able to help people; look at that. And say separate the person from the business, something I did not do. I was wrapped up and that caused me to make decisions and maybe be overly aggressive when I should not have been. Maybe invested into an industry that my blinders were telling me all “that is going to happen to somebody else and it will not happen to me?”
Ron: Yes (and again not to interrupt but feeding what we just talked about) if I have overcome dealing with the bankers, if I have overcome dealing with the tax people, if I have overcome dealing with the employee issues, if I have overcome dealing with the being land-locked and having the ability to move and whatever else. The next chance you give me I will overcome that too. It is just fine. Look at the track record. I am here because I have slay the dragon, rescued the damsel in distress, I have swam the moat, I have killed the alligators. I can do this. And then all of a sudden it is like, wait a minute, there is no longer a need for my industry and now what do I do? Which as I am thinking about, you said they came in with their level and their asking and your response was “no we are going to shoot for the moon and take Saturn and Mars with us”. Because that emotionally is exactly your type of view and you guys do not have a clue as to what I have swam through and overcome to get here, you [do not understand] the value of this company.
Dave: So the practical things that you can do as a business owner is to check yourself.
Ron: Yes.
Dave: Is (and I say business valuation) know what the market value of your business is at all times; adjust that every year according to your performance. You do not have to; once you do your first evaluation making your adjustments is not that big a deal until you realize what it takes to do evaluation. I say that as a best management tool and when you check you can have because you are going to prepare yourself for that you do not know who it is going to knock on your door to buy your business. The first thing he is going to ask you is “what? What do you want for your business?” and if you apply all the motions in the world after that you could miss an opportunity. Sure if you knew what the value of that business was going in, they you would have a general sense of this is where it is what it is worth, set my ego aside, this is what it is worth. The second thing is always have our process is what I call ‘Life beyond Business’. It is three questions you have to ask yourself, this is where you and your advisor can be prepared for. One is, ‘Who is my target?’ the answer could be family, it could be third party, and there is a lot of value components that are a part of that too. Chances are insider’s key employees and families do not have any money. Well if you want to retire you need some money so that is a key missing ingredient. So the first question asked was ‘Who is your target?’ The second one is, ‘How much after taxing come do I want to live the lifestyle I want to live for the rest of my life?!’ and third is ‘When?’ The third establishes your timeline and the earlier you ask those questions of yourself, ten years, five years before you even think about you want to exit, there are certain things you can do that will help you prepare to finally when it gets into how much money I need to live on for the rest of my life, taxes become a big issue in the sale of a business because you are the largest single non-productive shareholder in your business (8:01-8:02??). And all you do, they have no capital investment.
Jeff: That is a great description.
Dave: They have no capital investment and you just send them money. So when you sell your business, you are going to have a big pot of money. Well it is not what you make in selling a business, it is what you keep. And if you are a single owner of a C Corporation, selling it you are going to get taxed twice. If you are single owner of a S Corporation you are going to be taxed your individual rates. Huge differences! It could be differences from forty percent (40%) to sixty percent (60%) big numbers. Well take ten, take a million dollars and say “who wants to have two hundred thousand bucks?” You do. You can get that through great planning. So prepare for your life beyond business, that is step one, that is going through ‘Who?’, ‘What?’, ‘How much?’ and ‘When?’ Two is find out what your business is worth. Three is ‘if there is a gap between what your expectations are’, ‘how much money do I need to live on the rest of my life?’, and ‘the value of your business’; learn that early. Because there is a way to close that gap going forward through proper management, maybe growth, maybe cutting off on probable divisions, maybe acquisition, whatever it might be. But you know what your target is, if you know all that stuff before eighteen months you have said “I have had it out here, I am out of here.” You cannot do anything at eighteen months.
Jeff: Now you can make a planning decision.
Dave: Now you can make a planning decision.
Jeff: So question off what you said, I have forty questions. I am sure Ron has more than that because he is smarter than me, but one question I wanted to ask that is almost rhetorical but I am curious what your answer is. You walk into companies, you talk about their need to (the things you are talking about) the need to assess the value of the company and a part of that I think has to be doing an assessment of the market that I am in. What is my industry doing? If I am making envelopes, what is the envelope industry doing? What does it look like? What has been happening in the last five years? What does it look like it is going to? How many? And you talked earlier us doing business and that being the focus in all the business but in the business but on the business as well. But if you go into the company, how many of them know what is going on in their own industry?
Ron: We have got about ten seconds before we go to break.
Jeff: Oh yeah so…
Dave: The minor percentage.
Jeff: Wait, wait, wait!
Dave: Oh wait we have got ten seconds?
Ron: We do.
Jeff: Ok we will hold that off until the next segment. Sorry about that I thought I was watching it closer than that. So this is the Smart Biz show this is Dave, I am Jeff, this is Ron. We will be right back.
Jeff: Hey folk we’re back. This is the Smart Biz show I’m Jeff Roger this is Ron Ameln and this is Dave Driscoll. We had to cut you off to go to break and now we’re back, talking about how much does the owner understand what is going on is his own industry or her own industry.
Dave: It really depends a lot about the industry there could be business owners, let me just kind of put some trail on this.
Jeff: Sure.
Dave: I particularly focus on businesses that have 2 million dollars in revenue up to about 20 million dollars in revenue. I’m in kind of a right underneath an investment banking market but higher than me, what they called the mainstream market.
So I see a lot of different businesses there, there are many businesses in there and the on the lower that are people’s occupation. They are providing a service you know they’re heating air condition and all those types of things. Absolutely! Those folks have to be knowing of what is on the technological trend, so they can constantly be, one responding to the customer’s needs because they are getting pounded by that all the from the medias. And then secondly they have to make sure their technology is up to par to compete with our competitors.
On the higher end you are dealing with companies that on a different situation where industry-focus has to really be good to obsolescence. Like envelope industry, obsolescence, it was like I say the telegraph did to the buggy web or to the pony express. You know the telegraph came along no ponies riding any more.
Speaker: Right, right.
Dave: You know and so it was the first thing and it was a tipping point, everybody has read the books about tipping points, the black swan events. So all those type of things that happen and it really truly was and in the future for that industry is going to be lot less players and lot bigger companies, little guys get squashed.
Those are the type of things you have to constantly have that visibility for, it changes with every business. Now you ask your question, ‘do I see them doing that?’ Everybody’s at a different emotional state. The larger the investment you have the more you have at risk. My advice would be the more in tune you should be to those changes.
Speaker: Right, correct.
Dave: If your business is on a two million dollar level and it is your career and it is your job and you are supporting your family and your risks are not as great as the guy at 20 million who has got (02:31-02:32??) buildings, real estate Ta Ta da Ta da all of that stuff. How much you got to lose? You know you got to look at it that way you know. You got to look at how much do you focus on what I got to lose. Gauging you risk and quantifying your risk as a business owner is something that emotionally you don’t want to do it because you don’t want answer. To think that, you add up all your personal risk as a family man, as your kids go to their school, all the mortgage you got your business debt you add that up and go “yeeks” it is you know how much money do you owe and you’re responsible for, that could be a daunting thing.
But knowing that is can be a great tool to help you guide your future from your impacts to those threats. You start feeling yourself uncomfortable; follow your intuitions but make that your intuition is supported by education. That you know about your industry and you know where it is going and you can see those threats, try not to be surprised.
Jeff: Well and you just said, I know you want to talk more about making sure full disclosure when you are selling and that kind of stuff. It is interesting because once again you said emotionally you don’t want to do that and you also want to be educated which I would say would come back at do level to the advisors that you bring in.
Ron: Absolutely.
Jeff: To help you with that and again I work with small business owners. That have trusted the wrong advisors and gotten just their clock cleaned, it didn’t work at all. Because the advisor was a much better scam artist than actually advisor. So you are saying that out there “I am a small business owner, well ok, I don’t know how to.” You know you are right I emotionally don’t know how to do that but I a bid to what you are saying. Who do I talk to besides Dave Driscoll?
Dave: Well a lot of industries out there have associations. Get involved in your associations; your national associations, your local associations; network with other business owners. I always found it good, I did not do it, but I should have, is to have an independent advisory board with people that you trust. I think Ron that you have done some articles about this in Small Business Monthly.
Ron: Right.
Dave: Is it people that you really trust to tell them what your thoughts are and get their opinions, these people are out there and they have one hundred percent different exposure to industry than you do and that perspective is invaluable. It is not to say you have to do what they say but it just brings a new perspective for you to make your judgments as to what you want to do.
So those independent advisory boards, do not create your resources early. The guy who goes out and says “ok I am a business owner; I have got a task to do. I want to sell this business, I want to be prepared for it, I am going to go out and find a resource.” You know ‘ABC’ it is that cook book method. You know just go out and do it, I am ready to do it, so you might get the wrong guy.
Jeff: Absolutely
Dave: You know so give yourself time, create your resources early. We out soliciting for you know we contact owners every month and talk to them on the phone, networking. I am not out selling anything; I am not looking for a transaction. I am just saying I am a resource I am here when you are ready to talk because I really truly believe. Jeff and I want to get back to this. Emotion, there are so many things that I deal with that are just pure tactical. The tactical side of it is where (05:51-05:52??) you never done it before. They understand it but they have never done it, they do not know the sequencing, they do not know all that stuff, okay yeah. You are going to have one shot to do it. The emotional side is what is going to make a break, you sell yourself personally. People who sell their business just because they had a bad day or something life event happens to them also, once that closing [occurs] it is done and you got to be prepared after that for your emotions. Emotionally you have to be prepared to come to that closing table and emotionally you have to be prepared, “where am I going afterwards?” So that is this life beyond business continue, to me it all wraps up in the emotional side of those things. I do a lot of challenging thing from an emotional stand point. I was like “hey what are you going to do? What are your hobbies?”
Ron: And that would seem to me to be one of the real stumbling blocks to get these business owners to actually make the right financial decision. Because what will they do? There is no tide into their company.
Dave: Completely!
Ron: What in the world are they going to do?
Dave: That’s right.
Ron: I mean I am a business owner and I was telling my wife one day that if all of a sudden my business stops, I got to tell you I do not know what I would do. Because I do not really have a lot of time to do stuff around the house and so. So I am just not used to doing it. What would I do? And I went home.
Dave: Well it goes to taking free time, goes to taking time off with your family. Do not put business number one put your family number one. Go out and do things, experiment, take vacations, go hunting, go fishing, whatever. Take the kids some place, start creating something other than business life that might be interested in going forward because you realize that business is not going to be there forever. I mean, you are going to leave. One way or the other you are going to leave either [foot] first or on your own (7:20-7:21??). But you know you are going to leave so it is about family, it is about all this stuff in. I always say it because I had this little vision, this little film that runs in the back of my head all the time about “well you know, when I am out of this business this is what I am going to do. There could be big boats, there could be cars, there could be, fancy vacations.” Well reality comes into play as you get a little older you think well “I can’t do those type of things” but you always had that little vision that is running in the back of your head and that is your reality of what you would like to see. Pursue that a little bit. Do not block that out. Try to find that balance, because some day it is just going to happened. And as I say I am sixty (60) years old and I have been in business all my life and I am in that stage in my career where I am saying “I am not dumb, I am just looking for something different.” I have taken on a totally different from a manufacturing of a tangible product, I was scared to death when I got into this new thing but I got so much more energy out of it but knowing I have already been here, done this and I can help this segment of people understand a little more about it to help them find their life beyond this.
Ron: I love the fact that you are taking your experiences and you are helping others who are going through the same thing. You are able to say “hey I have been down this road, I know where the potholes are, I know where the speed traps are and I can help you with it.”
Jeff: We are out of time man.
Ron: We are! Dave, how can people get a hold of you if they want to give you a shout out?
Dave: Well Ron, Jeff, I really appreciate the opportunity it is Metro Business Advisors they call it ‘M&A Brokerage firm’. We deal with succession exit planning (which you know everybody has to plan for that), business valuation and the sale of business so.
Jeff: We thank you very much.
Dave: Appreciate it.
Jeff: Thank you for joining us on the Smart Biz Show. We’ll see you next week.
Announcer: We hope you enjoyed this week Smart Biz Show with your host St. Louis Business Monthly, Ron Ameln and excaliber couching institution, Jeff Arthur. You can find us every Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. right here on KSLQ 104.5. Ron and Jeff invite you to follow them on the show or ask your questions directly on their Facebook page: facebook.com/smartbizshow to follow and send your questions via Twitter visit @SmartBizShow. Send the show a voice message question by dialing 800-652-7288 (ext. 803). Voice messages may be played on the air. Our podcast and other queries on the show and its host can be found by visiting St. Louis Business monthly’s website: sbmon.com. Thank you for tuning in.
