23 Acquisitions 19 CPA Firms and 4 Fitness Companies E:5 John Bly Top M&A Entrepreneurs

All right, we are recording. So, uh, welcome to this episode of the top M&A entrepreneurs. I want to introduce you to John Bly. He's the, uh, you can see this, he's the author of Cracking the Code. Now this is written in 2012, but it is an evergreen book. John, thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me, John. I'm looking forward to sharing some ideas. Appreciate you taking time to read the book and have me on. Ah, it's beautiful. I gotta tell you, when I, when you said Evergreen, we were talking about this just earlier. It is, I mean, the, the, the techniques and everything you learn in here are good 10 years later. There's really nothing's changed. You know, it's funny, so I started thinking about writing the book, uh, 10 years ago, and I started saying, who else has written books? There's a million books out there on, uh, selling at the time, but there wasn't anything on how to acquire a small business. And so I was like, well, jeez, I'm advising on this. I'm doing it myself. I, I should write a book to help, uh, entrepreneurs, business owners figure it out. And I tried to write it so that they could, uh, read it on a 3 hour flight and execute at least most of it themselves. Yeah, that's beautiful. So let me, let me just go a little bit. A back about what you do. Now you're a CPA, right? I am, yes. And we are doing this on April 13th, which means he's crazy for taking time out of doing somebody else's taxes. Yes, and, you know, I, I, I, I think every time you get an opportunity to talk to somebody else, uh, especially given your background and the environment you play in in the M&A space, uh, I feel like I got to take those opportunities. You just never know. Yeah, so the book was written almost 10 years ago, and you talked about doing about, uh, I think, uh, 210 acquisitions at that time. What are you right now? Yep, so, uh, we, I've done 19 in the accounting advisory space and 4 in the fitness space since then, uh, and have sold a few as well. So, um, Yeah, spending a lot of my time, uh, you know, both internally and externally on for uh for clients on growth strategy. Yeah, so I, I, I wanna talk to you about that. Now you also uh provide a service, advisory service for other companies to grow through acquisition. How how does that look? I mean, what do you, what do you, how do you broach that subject with them and say, hey, would you like to grow better than 10% a year? Uh, let me show you how. A little bit, but I'll tell you, um, between the book and, uh, and just sort of general PR, um, you know, speaking, etc. uh, it ends up being mostly inbound lead generation. Uh, people end up coming to me because they've seen me or they've heard me or somebody's referenced it. You know, you referenced a couple of books that I'm, that, uh, that others have mentioned me in, and, uh, and that tends to turn into opportunities. Yeah, I gotta tell you, I'm gonna go back to that real quick. He's. He is mentioned in by then Bill. And from another one, my friend Jason Griffith Griffith, identify acquire retreat. He's been mentioned here twice. Well, that's great PR right there. It is, and, and so, uh, so, you know, it was a couple years after, uh, I wrote the book that I kept referring this stuff out when it was time to, you know what, I was referring pieces of it out to then bring it in house and do it ourselves, because, uh, I was just getting asked about it too many times. Beautiful. So, so tell me, how, how do you guys charge when you work for somebody else? How do you, what does that look like? Yep, so on the buy side, it's a very small retainer. It depends on the size of the company, and it depends on It depends on how, if they've done it before, then our fees are usually less cause we know they're gonna actually execute. If they, if they've never done an acquisition before, um, it's generally a $2500 retainer for six months, um, and then a contingency fee of, uh, depends on the sliding scale of the size of the business they're trying to acquire, but somewhere between 2 to 5% of the of the uh success fee when they've, uh, finished the deal. Now do you have to be a broker dealer to do that, to take a success fee? You do not, if you, if it's in the small business space, so you're you're there's a a a regulation that allows uh under the SEC uh no action letter that that allows people to not have to be a registered uh broker dealer RIA. Oh, well, that's cool. Yeah, cause they're asset, they're asset transactions, not not uh stock transactions. Right, right. I, I love this dance, so you mentioned that because everybody, you, you talk about this, there's this dance between buyer and seller. Uh, buyers wanna buy assets, sellers wanna sell stock. And I love the way this juxtaposition is, and you've got to come with some kind of like dancing meeting in the middle for this. It is, you know, it it it um. People, the the the sellers want to sell stock, they think because either they're getting the advice from their accountant or their attorney, and they think that that's the only way to get capital gains, they believe. And so then they, you have that issue on one side, and you've got the, the buyers on the other side who want to buy assets so that they can take a write-off over a period of time. They can get a step up in the basis and either amortize it over 15 years or some of the fixed assets, they may be able to write off a lot faster. And so, finding the right balance. And then also, you know, sometimes we're helping the seller, uh, figure out that, that they're getting bad advice on, uh, uh, on just how much tax it's really gonna cost them. Yeah, that's, that's the key. I mean, we, you, if you try a business, buy a business in the tech world, it's frothy multiples right now. I mean, you just like looking at a, uh, asset business and they want 15 to 19 multiples. They're going, well, I, I, I'm not gonna, it's like a $3 million dollar business. How am I gonna get my money back in 15 years? I don't even know if I'm gonna be on the planet, right? Yep. I, I don't get that part, yeah. It's a, the, the sass world and the multiples are a world that I, uh, we rarely, if ever, play in because of that. I, I deal in the, in the economics that makes sense for investors and for buyers and for how to, how to, uh, capture ROI. It's challenging for me to understand the growth pattern of, of SAS businesses that you're buying. And, and 13 to 15, you know, we see sometimes companies that are losing money, uh, you know, valued at millions and millions of dollars. It's just, it's tough math for me. Yeah, it doesn't, I mean, it just doesn't make sense to, to, you know, these people that want, you know, millions of dollars down, uh, with a higher multiple, and then they say, well, what are you gonna do with the money, right? Yep, how are you gonna grow faster, etc. Yeah, um, how often, I got a question here about how often do you see businesses that really want to say, You know, the buyer wants to buy, and I'll give you a 100,000 a year for 10 years. How often does that come along? Cause most of the times they want a big chunk of money and they put it in the bank, it's, it's an ego thing, right? But they also want to go buy stuff. Yep, the, the, I'd say that it happens fairly often that the buyer wants that. It's not that often that it's not that often that that's the final result after the buyer and seller have had some discussions. The ones where I think that makes Uh, the most sense and and get done between buyer and seller are usually a couple scenarios. One is, it's an emergency situation for the seller, uh, usually health related, or they really have to get out, um, and they're willing to take any sort of offer. That's one. Another is, um, you know, the business is really in a lot of trouble and so paying over a period of years based on what the business could be, not what it is today, um, is another real scenario we see where it often trades like that where it's a, uh, you know, a small amount down and uh and uh a chunk for years to come. Yeah, I could see that. There's a when you come in to save a business, that's kind of a different earning type deal, you're coming in, you're like, I, I, I, well, I can plug this into my business and we can 10X it really short period of time. That's right. Yeah. Or just I come in and I just showed you, here's what you need to do, you're missing this, this and this, yeah. Yeah. So you're, are you staying in the, let's say 1 to $25 million dollar range? Is that what you're kinda, yeah. Yeah, and, and smaller on the buy side sometimes we'll find somebody who, you know, buys somebody for $500 or $750,000 or something. I mean, you know, if they have an existing business sometimes in their own market, it's, you know. It's not bad to, you know, go down, um, downstream a little, but 25 million on the buy side, we generally don't quite find companies, cause if you're gonna buy a 20, a company for $25 million you may be, you know, 200 million $300 million in revenue. Um, we're generally playing in a space smaller than that. So I'd say most of our, most of our buy side deals are under 5 million, um, Transaction value. So I gotta ask you, I'm gonna go back to your 19 acquisitions for fitness. So what led you to get into the fitness space? Yeah, so it's a recurring revenue model, so it's not SA, right, which is, uh, which is different, but it's a recurring revenue model. It also has, um, you know, a unique selling point, which is, you know, every January is sales season. It's a little bit opposite retail, where, uh, retail might make all their money in November and December. The fitness business. Um, you have people who have New Year's resolutions, and they come out, uh, in January, so you can sort of count on that selling cycle. And then, um, the last thing is, it can be, uh, owned and operated by different people. So, one person can be owner when, uh, when there might be general managers in place who actually run the day to day operations. And a lot of small businesses, that's not the case. Yeah, now are you just looking for businesses where there's a management in place, and they can, you can be decentralized? Generally, yes, I, I, I've got enough on my plate. Uh, I'm happy to be board of director, advisor, uh, you know, owner, but, but day to day operational, not very interested, just got too much other stuff. How much time do you spend, put into those 4 fitness business? Not much at all. One hour a month or so. Yeah, about that. Oh, that's amazing. And did you have to replace the owner or hire somebody for? Not really. I mean, my wife spends a little bit more time on it, um, but not a lot, um, that we just generally hire GMs to run them. Oh, yeah, that's beautiful. And they just report to you like the numbers, like the Warren Buffett, just roll up the numbers and that looks good. You're not gonna hear from me until something goes bad, but please tell me beforehand. That's right. Yeah, that's really cool. So the businesses you sold, what kind of business was that? Pieces of the accounting advisory, so we, we, uh, over time as we grew, we decided, hey, look, this didn't fit our model um anymore, right? So it's, you know, if you look at where we started to where we are today. There were times when we were doing stuff that didn't make sense, given the size were anymore, and we found other accounting advisory, uh, firms who it made a lot of sense for. So we sold downstream. So we were the sellers of, you know, chunks of clients to businesses that were maybe 10% of our size. Yeah. So was that You know, a personality issue or cultural fit, or just the, the, the niche of the service they offered didn't niche. Yeah, it was more niche in the service offering, um, and it fit better. They were looking for a different offering that we, that we were that we weren't quite aligned with is really the way to put it, um, that, that maybe some uh some significantly smaller business was only focused on that. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. You ever read Warren Buffett's book about, you know, selling a business, he made a mistake selling cause he keeps forever and he's like, hey, he was like selling a Monet for a Manet or something like that, and just never do it again, because if he took a long time to make a decision, he stayed with it forever. He's never had capital gains taxes, and he doesn't issue a dividend. Yeah. Yeah. He's a, he's a really interesting investor, that's for sure. He's very unique in his approach. Yeah. So these, uh, I, I, I have to ask you, since you wrote the book, has there been anything you've learned that's just different from what's happened here, or you just refined your skills so much better? Refined, I would say the thing that the thing that has, there's a couple of things that have changed. One is, um, some of the debt opportunities have changed drastically since the time of the book. Uh, interest rates have stayed low, but the way the SBA program, for instance, I talk about that, some of my some of my book has, uh, has changed and actually down payment requirements can be significant. less than what I wrote in the book. Um, so there's, they, they redid those rules about 3 years ago, um, and changed some down payment and, and amortization requirements. I would say the other thing I've learned is, uh, certainly in the pandemic, there's some different diligence being done than pre-pandemic. And whether that stays permanently, um, is to be determined, but certainly there's significantly different due diligence being done today than uh you mean by SBA, the government, or no, by, by uh buyers, by CPAs, by attorneys, just a lot different. We're having to look at things that we never looked at before. Uh, are you talking about like posting Facebook, you mean, or what? No, no, more, um, more just like client by client. So for instance, Uh, rather than paying attention to specifics, uh, you know, maybe at a higher level for a $2 million transaction, we're getting into what are the underlying clients and how, and how are they affected by what's going on in the country, right? With, are they, are they serving restaurants? If so, what's gonna happen in the restaurant industry? How many of their clients could go out of business? What does that mean for the recurring revenue stream? Are they, uh, are their ultimate customers, uh, you know, in the hospitality industry? And if so, where are the hotels? If they're at the beaches, they're probably fine. If they're in the middle of, uh, you know, downtown, yeah, could be very different. And so we're paying very close attention to those, you know, granular level of details because a hotel, a hotel, a hotel is not all the same. Right now, we're finding that a hotel at the beach is probably full every weekend. Or if you're in Florida and Texas, occupancy like 30%, so it's a different, yeah. And if you're in California, right, they're they're they're not allowing the type of uh openness that Florida or Texas is, so you've got it, so the diligence is very specific, uh, that didn't have to be done in the past. Yeah. And now are your campaigns to purchase a company, are they, are you doing this year in, year out, or is it just coming across every now and then it just cut the deal flow comes to you? Year in and year out, because I believe it's a little bit like sales. It's the reason I, you know, uh, uh, you said at the beginning, I'm doing this on April 13th and I'm a CPA in busy season, right? Um, I believe you have to constantly be looking cause you never know when you're gonna find a good opportunity. Uh, it doesn't mean you have to do it right away. Maybe the timing doesn't quite work. Maybe, uh, you delay it 3 months, 6 months, a year, whatever, in some cases, we've had conversations that didn't turn into deals till 345 years later, but you stay friendly, you share information, you have some discussions, you know, the timing's not right for one party or the other. And but if cultures or life events. I, uh, uh, I'm working on an acquisition in the IT industry, and, uh, his, his wife, just, he called me up and he says, his wife just got in a car accident. Uh, head on from a drunk driver. Now she's gonna be OK, full recovery. She was a triathlete, uh, but she's gonna be laid up for a while, and that is a life changing event on how you think. So he wants more money down. Yeah, it changes, uh, some of those life events change things for people and um and it changes the way they look at the long-term future. Yeah. Um, I got, I, I was gonna go back to this year in, year out. Yeah, I was, uh, I, there's this, uh, printer business in, uh, Missouri that every year he sends about 500 letters to printers in the geographical area, and he gets one or two every year. I think he's made over the last 20 years, 20 acquisitions. It's a perfect little model for yep, yeah, yep, yeah, we've uh we've historically done that, the letters, the letters, I know it's, uh, you know, 2021 and email and, you know, lead gen and campaigns and everything, but the reality is the founders of most companies don't get a ton of actual mail. And uh and so they open them more often than they open the 300 emails they get a day. Yeah, and that's a sweet little letter said, hey, I'd be interested, very simple, right? Yep. Super simple, 23 paragraphs max. It's gotta be, you know, pretty generic, but not so generic, right? Because if you're going to produce 500 of them, you can't write 500 customized, you'd have to do a lot of research on each individual company. No. But, you know, it says something like, uh, we're looking to grow, we're we're interested in your market, uh, we're already in the space, we've already done some deals. To the extent you have any interest in discussing your future, um, we'd love the opportunity to have a 15 to 30 minute conversation. Yeah. And how much do you allow them, you know, and there's this odd feeling because if you get them on the phone, they like talking and they like they Uh, the sellers, like there's always this belief it's worth more than it is, you know, there's a big space in the backyard for a pool, but there's no pool there. Yeah. Yeah. How, how do you, you know, and if you look at Warren Buffett's model, he will say, hey, you send a letter, you get something back that you're interested, and then he, he'll get the financials and say, and they'll write back or call back and say, hey, we would worth this, and if you're interested in selling, how much do you get in the conversations with the buyer seller? You know, not a lot at the beginning. I'm, I'm a big fan. I started the book with culture. I'm a big fan that culture has to be a fit first, cause if not, sometimes, uh, people fall in love with the deal, they fall in love with the numbers, and, uh, and they, then they fit a, a square peg into a round hole in it, and it turns sideways, you know, 6 months, 5 years later. Yeah, I, I'll, I'm a testament that I chased a, uh, library of courses on Udemy that was doing 2 million a year, 97% profit. And I chased it for almost a year, and it, it was like Moby Dick, man. It was gonna pull me down, just like Moby Dick did. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it could be, it can be, uh, you know, people like the, the way the structure of the type of business or whatever it might have been, or the profits or the the clientele, but If the people don't fit and the culture's not right, um, you know, you can, you can look across, uh, big publicly traded companies everywhere, uh, not just now, but over the last 30 years, and they buy somebody and, and 2346 years later, they spin them back off on their own. And, uh, it's because they didn't really focus on culture. They focused on, that's my belief anyway. They focused instead on, uh, stock price and performance and things like that. Yeah. Now, are you doing any public companies or are they all private? All private. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Now, what would you say for, uh, do you consult with just companies or do you, do you take clients and say, hey, look, can you start a campaign for me and uh help me acquire a company? But like, I'm starting from total zero, but, yeah. We do that as well, although, um, it's more challenging and Unless they've already owned a business. So, for instance, uh, you know, whether they're, uh, I'll say a retired banker or something, um, you know, I use quotes on that because I don't mean retired as in they're actually retired, but they've stopped, you know, commercial banking and they're gonna do the next thing. And the next thing is they're gonna be an entrepreneur and they're gonna buy a business. That's not generally easy to find a target. The reason being, uh, the parameters are so broad. Instead, what we find is the person who You know, owned a business, sold a business, and wants to do it again. That individual buyer, yes, that fits our model a lot better, cause they've already done it once. They know what it takes. They also, um, generally have a much stronger opinion of what type of business. The person who says, I would like to buy a company that does $5 million in revenue and a million dollars in Ibaton, I don't care, the industry, is not a target for us. It's two shotgun approach. You could look almost anywhere, and there'll always be a problem with the type of business. And uh the one who says, look, I'm looking for a uh a homeowner's insurance company that does 2 million in the Southeast or in, you know, Atlanta, Charlotte, then we get business for them, you know then we get focused. Yeah, so I, I gotta ask you about the be prepared or surprise, surprise. Um, the buyer has unrealistic expectations of what the seller's business is. What what do you mean by that? Obviously you've seen some war stories where, you know, just you see these numbers, it's doing 5 million and 2 million but it looks fantastic, and you chase it, and then what happens? So you just, you look under the hood and it's not what it seems. Yeah, or, or you buy it and then you're in it and you don't realize what you didn't know. So they, you know, sometimes buyers, it's been our, our experience that buyers focus a lot on financial diligence, and they think, I gotta tie out P&Ls and tax returns. I gotta make sure the bank approves this, but they don't do all the other due diligence. They don't do the diligence on the people, the systems, the process, and uh they find out that, you know, the, the owner. For instance, you know, was working 90 hours to keep it together, or, um, you know, had everything in their head and, and wasn't written down. And so there's not a process or there's not a team of managers in place to help, you know, sort of the, the, the, uh, the effect of the flywheel and continuing to roll on its own. And so I think that that is the, is potentially the issue, especially if it's an individual buyer who's coming from a big corporate background. Um, they're used to really nice systems, right? If you, if you work at a big bank or a or a big manufacturing plant or whatever. You know, that does 100 million to a billion or more, uh, those systems were all built before you even were there, uh, essentially, and so you got the benefit of that. And now having to build your own systems, if you take over for an entrepreneur, is challenging. Yeah, I had uh I had that pie thrown in my face. I, I had a business, e-commerce selling hearing aids online, and when I first tried to sell it through Empire Flippers, Joe, the CEO at the time, he just started the company, said, hey John. The first question you asked me, you didn't ask me about sales or revenue, you asked me, how many hours a week do you spend on the business? And I said 50. I go, it's too much. I go, what do you mean? He goes, I'm selling businesses doing $400,000 a year where the guy spends an hour. You need to automate everything, put systems in place, delegate, you can do it with 90% of it with technology or VAs or something. And yeah, that was a hard cold water lesson to, you know, I spent a year and uh put it in, put all that place and I was able to sell it later at a year, so. Yeah, sell it easier, sell it faster, probably sell it for more, uh, it sold over the weekend. Yeah, put it up and it's sold over the weekend, yeah. Yep, and that's that's the sort of thing I'm talking about is, you know, people, people are surprised at just how hard, not all, but a lot of entrepreneurs, uh, and founders specifically, um, how hard they really work. If you bought if you bought a current business, you've already put some systems in place, you bought it because you didn't want to work, uh, you know, 100 hours that the founder did to build it. Yeah, nobody does. That's crazy. That's like building a job. You wanna stay above the business, not in it, on it, but but above it, yeah. Yeah. So what's next for you? I mean, uh, 19, are you gonna get, you got a goal of a revenue goal or an acquisition goal or what? Yeah, so we'll continue to, we'll continue to grow in in strategic opportunities. I mean, there's not a goal necessarily. There's, uh, you know, we've got, now we've got, uh, 700 people across the east coast of the US and, um, and we'll continue 70 employees, yeah. That's amazing, man. That's isn't that considered a Fortune 1000 company? No, I don't think so. I think it's nice of you to say, but no, uh, but, you know, I think it's one of those things where we're really focused on strategic opportunities in new markets. So for instance, uh, you know, Uh, added New York City last year, and added, uh, Nashville, Tennessee last year, um, and, and we'll continue to look at those, but then also in our current markets, finding opportunities that make sense, whether it's specific niches or other services that we don't currently offer. Yeah. Now, is it just gonna be focused on CPA businesses? I know that your, your, your friend uh Jason, my friend Jason also does CPA business out of Nevada and it was interesting. Cause uh a CPA business came to my lap, they wanted to sell, but they're in a really small town in Reading, California, uh, and I didn't know what the multiples was, so I just turned it over to Jason, he goes, oh, it's 1X sales. Yeah, like that. And now it's the problem with it with, uh, it's not a problem, but it was for Jason, it was, is it a cultural fit? Do I want to drive or fly out to Reading, California once a month or once a quarter? Do I want to do that if I have 3 kids? And the answer was, Like, maybe yes or no, depending. Yep, yep, and that drives the, that drives the decision making because it's not just about profitability. If it is, you end up in bad situations a few years later, if it's all about profitability, uh, and that doesn't work long term. Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, I, I, I Making those decisions, does it fit within my family versus just profit, because it is a really successful business. It's been there for 30 years, very profitable, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. And they have to go there to help them for a couple hours with clients, and that's tough, yeah. Yeah, not easy to get to and uh and and not maybe the place that the family wants to tag along to, right? If it was in uh Orlando, maybe the family wants to tag along and go to Disney World while uh while he's working. Yeah, I got a question for you about the 19 or the 4 acquisitions. How, how many of the, how many do you think, what's your number now, like your ratio, how many you look at to the ones you turned down because of the numbers? Yeah, it's, it's probably close to 12 or 13 to 1 that uh that we look at um to try and get one deal done. That doesn't mean that we turn down the other 11 or 12, just to be clear. It means that Somewhere along the way, the deal doesn't get done, whether they're not interested in selling today, or we can't agree on terms, or maybe we just don't fit culturally, but it's, it's in that 12 to 13 to get one done. Yeah. Now, is that pretty mechanical for you today? There's a very, there's a process, and if they don't want to fall out, you know, they just don't get in the pipeline. Yeah, pretty much it is, it has to be at this point because we've tried to systematize as much of it as possible, um, to be able to fit and, and again it all comes down, it all starts, uh, with culture, and then we worry about profitability. We can figure out numbers, we're all accountants advisories. You know, CPAs, that's easy enough to figure out as long as everybody's rational and reasonable. It's the other stuff that's not, right? The emotional decisions, do you, do you want to give up control? Do you want to give up ownership? Do you really want to retire? I mean, all those sorts of things are more emotional. Yeah. Now, do you buy unprofitable businesses and fix them? No. So it's just profitable 100% of the time. Yeah, yeah, I'm not, there are plenty of people who do that. It's not in my DNA. Yeah, that uh rehab in a business or renovating a business is a lot harder than you think. And if you're really gonna do that, you're not gonna be spending, you're not delegating anything to anybody. You're spending 60 to 100 hours to fix that. Yeah, one of my old neighbors, this goes back, uh, 56 years. One of my old neighbors did that for McKenzie Consulting, right? So, huge, huge consulting, uh, firm, and he was as good as they came. He was a, a Wharton MBA, really smart guy, and he was, uh, he would go in as interim CEO and turn around companies for 3 to 12 months. And it's a, there are people who are unbelievable at it, and he is and was, and, uh, that's just not me. Yeah, no, I, I remember I was talking to some guys in investment banking that did that McKenzie, it's like $100 a week. Yes, and things pop up on Friday nights that require you to fly somewhere for, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday meetings because you're, you know, you're turning around a company, you're turning around a company that may be losing $100 million a quarter, and next thing you know, you gotta get them profitable. Yeah. So what's the first thing you ask for from a business? Uh, with that process. Yeah, so start with conversations, to be honest. I don't ask for numbers or financials or anything. Uh, um, start with usually at least, uh, a 30 minute conversation today, today it's different because, uh, if you look pre-pandemic, it would be 30 minute conversation followed by a lunch or drinks or coffee, you know, for at least an hour before I'm interested in looking at anything financial. Because there's, there's no point, there's no point if we can't, if we can't understand each other, if we, if we don't think we serve clients in a similar pattern, if we don't treat our employees in similar ways, um, you know, it's probably not gonna work. Uh, I, you know, that the start of the cultural fit, so important that you guys fit it ethically, you know, everything that, you know, customers love you, uh, it's so important, but if you can get to that number. Yeah, yeah, before, because otherwise, what I've just seen it too many times where people take the numbers and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, they'll fit, they'll definitely change. I don't care that they're 65 years old. They're gonna change over the next couple of years working here. Uh, that doesn't happen. People don't change very often. It takes big life events, like some of the ones you were talking about, John, that uh that change people. Otherwise, you don't just all of a sudden change when you're an adult. Yeah, now at 65 years old, you're pretty set in your ways. I'm gonna change for some uh younger guy that wants to do this, this and this. No, thank you. My, my, my teenage, my teenage kids are pretty set in their ways as teenagers, right? Never mind me at my age and Hey, I got a question. So, what do your teenagers do? Are you bringing them into the business, showing them how to work above the business? Yeah, so, um, we talk about, uh, my wife and I both talk a lot about our businesses at home, and we talk about, um, them with the kids so that they can see and hear what it's like, that we talk about, uh, not necessarily specific clients as an example, but we talk about like what we're doing on a daily basis. And in some of my business travels, I take the kids. So, for instance, uh, about a month ago, I had to go to, I had to go to Texas. Um, and one of the dinners I had the opportunity to bring the kids to, and they got to, they got to, uh, meet the person I was with, a business coach. Uh, I spent the evening with him 4 or 5 hours, and, uh, at a really nice restaurant, the kids got to be part of that experience. They got to ask questions, they got to listen. And, uh, you know, it's cheap, cheap, uh, learning lessons at these ages. And so my kids have traveled with me a lot in business settings to, to listen to speakers, um, to be part of the environment so that they can learn what they don't like, what they like, and, you know, at least how dad's, uh, going about business. That's good parenting. I mean, you're instilling something into the, uh, you know, what they can use in the future, and this is, you know, this is something when people say it's like, ah, it's unfair, you have privilege. No, it's generational. It's cause you're a good parent and you, you know, you brought your kid to a business meeting. Yeah, you know, it's funny like how the world works. It is, and, and, and no better way to learn some of those things than in real life experiences, not just reading from a textbook. I, uh, I'm a firm believer that learning is all different varieties and to the extent I can be part of my kids' learning. It's helpful. Yeah, I'm gonna try and do it as much as possible. Uh, that's beautiful. John, I wanna appreciate your time on this. This has been fantastic. He's got a great book. I mean, it's 10 years old, but it's evergreen. Go get it. It's on Amazon. I'm not an affiliate, but uh go get it. It's great. Uh, John, thank you so much for your time on this uh interview. Thanks for having me, John, really appreciate it. Yeah, well, good, let's let's uh let's work on a deal in the future. I might have something that you need, yeah. I'd love that. All right. Take care, John. Bye. Bye. Let me, uh, let me, uh, I'm gonna take it off record. Yep.