Best of: Sometimes, Dreams Do Come True

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman if you've been listening to this podcast you know we spend a lot of time talking about all the things that can go wrong for a business owner and yes in part because we started recording these conversations just a couple of months before the pandemic hit we've always had plenty of challenges to talk about even this year with the worst of the pandemic behind us we've been talking about everything from excess inventory to Lost clients to layoffs to ineffective Market to surviving the Valley of Death so with that in mind this week I've chosen to replay an old episode both because it offers an inspirational message and because well we hear at the home office could use a little break it's the episode we recorded 2 years ago when Karen Clark Cole sold her business especially given that Karen had only recently been through a tough period that prompted her to take time away from the business the conversation is a nice reminder that sometimes things do come together it's also full of great advice for anyone who thinks they may want to sell their business one day even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these conversations brought to you by a principal sponsor of the great game of business will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report wiek magazine named the best newsletter for business owners and which you can subscribe to for free at 21h house.com we can also find transcripts of our our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me on this special best of podcast are Jay gos CEO of the gos group whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home Karen Clark Cole who is CEO of blink a seattle-based user experience research and design firm and William vanderlan CEO of Vander blumen Search Group a houston-based recruiting firm that works with churches and other faith-based organizations the episode is titled sometimes dreams do come true welcome Karen Jay and William it's great to have you all here let's start with the obvious Karen congratulations thank you are you thrilled yes I am um for a lot of reasons give us one no give us four well one I'm I'm happy to be through the process it was absolutely grueling and had has gone on really since the beginning of the year so it's been a long grueling uh eight months nine months and um the last three have been uh super grueling and then the last month um one level above that like wildly grueling I don't know so um well we're going to want to hear more about that yeah I feel like I I need a year-long vacation but um that's not going to happen because for the second reason we have um a big job in front of us we have a unbelievably great partnership with the company who acquired us so um disguise the limit I'm super excited it's the it's the best of all worlds in in my mind I'm excited hey Karen I'm curious I've talked to people who've had uh similar outcomes that you've had and they've all said to me man if I had it to do over here three four things I would have done 5 years ago so the process wouldn't have been as grueling so do you have any like just top of Mind things or yeah that took a lot of time and if we' have done that five years ago or yeah it's a good question William so three three and a bit years ago we had decided to take on investment money so that we could grow the company and in that point we were looking at selling a third of the shares to get investment money and that process was long and complicated and then in the end we pulled out it it just we just couldn't get to agreement and it was that that was so stressful that I had to take a leave of absence um and so what that did though is it got us ready for this time so for this time it was grueling in that it was just intense due diligence like it was public company KPMG Law Firm you know Bank Consulting we were being grilled at all angles in all ways and and even by our investment banker standard just the highest level of due diligence that there is and so um but we stood up to it we did great we came out with flying colors um so I'm really really proud of our little company um for for surviving all that and then coming up you know no problem you know everything all systems it go so so it was not so we really were prepared and that's because we had that um you know false start three years ago but more importantly we got the valuation that we wanted in fact we got more than we had ever thought we would ever get because we were the company was organized for our for our profit for our iida for our revenue for our gross margins we've been tracking that really closely for the last two years just to make sure that there was there was nothing that could bring us down when it came to the valuating the company um and so so we really were uh in in great shape and also there's been many other companies that have come to us over the course of 21 years trying to buy us and so we knew we knew what the important trigger things were in as the making sure the eida matches and the then we have our net and then you know the Top Line middle line all those lines all have to be going in the right direction plus we have to have you know be in a hot market we've got to have great retention we got to have you know all these things that we know really matter uh we we absolutely had in place so it was perfect timing for us for all of that well you you also correct me if wrong going to save literally millions of dollars in taxes by doing it this year than waiting until next year yeah I mean it's it's unclear if it's if it's really going to change but but even so and in Washington we have we have other things coming so that didn't get us started this year but it made us want to finish this year for sure for sure are you sticking around yeah you know I love my job it's never been a retirement strategy for me it's just uh how can we grow take over the world and and not have the risk because up until two weeks ago Kelly my co-founder and I were were absolutely solely responsible for the the health and the financial um all the financial risk of the company you know our houses were still connected to the line of credit to our leases to everything um so we're the guarantors for everything in the company personally uh and so you know taking big risk to grow and and really Go Global which is what we want to do um it's it was just too much at at the scale that we were going to head to and so now we have a a partner in crime who's has so many great um just great things that we can benefit from and you know lots of really smart people with Global Experience and you know we're on a global stage overnight and then I'm not I'm not the only one figuring out the vision figuring out how to get there working on the strategy I've got people to help me do that now which I'm totally ready for is to have some mentoring and some support and some um colleagues to help Drive the company forward so so yeah we're a holy owned subid subsidiary so um what the our company's going to operate pretty much exactly the same as it has been you know even our tax ID is the same our bank accounts the same all of our employment Agreements are the same and um I'm still the CEO everyone has their same titles roles and responsibilities um I have a new boss um which honestly it's fun I mean he's really great smart I'm going to write that phrase down um I have a new boss and it's fun I'm going to write that down it is I got it I'm going to just I'm going to write that down in a year from today I'm going to call you we'll have it on the podcast and I'm just going to go so is it still fun that's all yeah but I like things that are complicated and hard so this is good I'm ready for a new challenge you were bought by an Indian company called emphasis is your boss in India no he's based out of New York so the leadership uh we're actually owned by emphasis us Corporation so they have couple of different corporations in the company and so we're owned by the US part of the company all of the leadership are based in New York and Manhattan actually so we in inherited a beautiful office in Midtown so I'm pretty excited about that too correct me if I'm wrong but in your case versus my case you need to grow it because you're in a hot growing technologically driven business that you can't afford to go oh I'm just going to sit back and just Coast a little bit I I assume that that's part of that you know I get it I think right you need to stay out there or you'll get smothered by somebody else Jay you're you're totally right we will be we will be you know they will pass Us by and step on us as they're going by I Karen it's interesting to think back when we uh started this podcast at the beginning of 2020 as you referred to a moment ago you had come through this period where you had been trying to uh bring on an investor and I think you told us that you went through a period of time where every week you thought the deal might close and it didn't and it was so stressful you took the sabatical that you referred to you came back at that point when you came back did you know that you were going to shift strategies and try to sell the no we had we committed at that point just to focus which we did Focus back internally on the company um you know get get everything back in order CU my eye was off the ball during all that and so um which was another lesson from that you know is to make sure that you know day job is most important in all of this um you know all of the due diligence and the hundreds and hundreds of meetings that I've had and so no we focused um on our organic growth internally on getting our systems in order on getting all those things that I talked about that we know are necessary just to have a healthy company um brought in a new coo and he really helped with um making sure that we had a close eye in our utilization and that we were you know running the company in a in a really ship shaped kind of way just so that we would um you know not have any ill effects from from that that sort of tumultuous eight months that we had before and then you know a big part of deciding to do this was our clients are really asking and our employees as well to to be able to build the products that we design so we we really I use the metaphor Arch Architects and construction business of we're we're really The Architects so we were're working on the strategy what should the building be what kind of building is it a house a warehouse you know and then we take it all the way through to design you know measuring the last you know stud and the last nail and the you know the size of the windows all that stuff but then somebody else builds it and so so our clients want us to be able to actually launch the products that we design and our employees want to be able to see their stuff go live as well and have some sort of involvement control be able to help it and so we just we just couldn't do that and building an engineering practice is really risky because it's totally different than our design work and so we've been toying with ways to do that you know for the last 15 years seriously in the last five you know really trying to figure out how can we do it and so at the beginning of this year we started looking seriously at ways to um be able to do that like should we take investment money again to try to um hire somebody to come and build this practice internally like somebody really high level who knows what they're doing um and then building a practice ahead of the work is a big investment because we you know we just build by the hour and so we we generally don't hire until we're we have the we can see the work at least in the pipeline so when you you close on a particular day and that day money shows up in your account and all of your liabilities go away I just want to know what goes through somebody head when they go to bed they wake up the next morning and they realize they've got a zillion dollars sitting in an account somewhere and they're completely set can you just give us that emotional when you open your eyes in the morning what you thought about yeah um God I don't know I mean it's awesome I mean it's and and for me the Jay it wouldn't be awesome like I'm not interested in going and retiring I'm not interested in leaving the company and so for me to have all of what you described and I get to go fast I mean I love to go fast and I love to go big and I've got big ideas that morning I had to get up really early cuz I had five meetings all all to do with what are we doing now and so I haven't had like honestly I haven't I haven't had a lot of sleep in a long time and it's not coming anytime soon I've been you know cuz now we've got the New York time and we've got some folks in India some folks on the leadership team are in India so our calls are late and they're early and then they're everything in between so it's been kind of non-stop but I'm you know like I'm on fire this is what I love I love to be busy I love to be doing big exciting things so I just I just feel um it's less of a kind of relief feeling and it's more like you know like holy crap like this is like all my dreams come true like all of them at once and it's just this most I it's my you know my veins are tingling it's like that that's a good no that's a good answer so did you buy some new shoes I bought a new purse okay there you go it's really nice okay and then I also just want to know the day you made the announcement to the employees what was that yeah you think everyone knew no and no there there were a couple of dozen people so so blink has 28 shareholders and had 28 shareholders and so that means that the money that the company received and and there's a big earnout portion so the money that we received up front gets get split Pro prata across those 28 sh holders so it was not all to me um or Kelly so we we're majority shareholders but then we have you know 26 other folks who participated in this sale and so they all had to agree to all this they had to review and sign six different documents times 28 people over the course of three days it was really intense and we were docu signing like fly documents flying back and forth my CFO he was absolute Rockstar because we had to Route them one at a time through all these people and so meanwhile I'm communicating with all the shareholders to have everybody on standby these documents are coming and they had to be last minute because we were literally negotiating up until half an hour before we had the closing call like I at at one point before it was going all through the lawyers and then the investment bankers and then to us and then the you know and then the reverse that was sort of the the pattern with a 100 calls in between with various different due diligence folks uh different work streams but then at the end it was just me on the phone phone like all weekend early in the morning late at night 7 days a week negotiating directly with the emphasis with their their head of uh legal and business and then and then in the end in the sort of Final hours it was you know by text while he was on the call with somebody else something just came up texting me cuz he can't call me cuz he's on the phone and it was like that and then we had the closing call um which was a zoom call with all the bankers all the lawyers all the business owners there were 30 of us on the call everyone just sort of went around their boxes saying like check check check just like a flight taking off and and after months and months of this and I get I got goosebumps just thinking about that moment and I was and everybody went around I was just waiting for one more thing cuz it was like that like one more text one more item that we have to clear and everyone went around check check check and then the the main the head lawyer on their side said all right we're good I'm going to initiate the funds transfer and at that moment I just started shaking I could I'm like this is it like we we because everything was already signed and I was like oh my God I I assume it was incredibly rewarding to see these 28 people get a bigger check than they probably ever had in their life Jay that is the thing I am most proud of is that you know not only did you know Kelly and I make this up and you know do well for ourselves but wow we brought a lot of people with us and I'm so proud of that you just the ability to be able to do that is it's that's this is lifechanging are most of those 28 people still employees oh yeah everybody is yeah we haven't lost anybody yet hopefully we won't we're working really hard so to answer your question Jay so then we had to because they're a public company the timing was was really um tricky so we had to we did our official signing and so we everything was docy signed but we still printed out the forms the CEO came to Seattle the head attorney who was our main business guide came of Seattle and a couple of others so we all got in a room and we signed the documents and then at that moment we considered it closed and so then they have to make an announcement to the stock exchange in India and then we I made an announcement to we had an all hands company meeting and we got everyone to come I made an announcement there so most people didn't know um and then I followed it up immediately with a letter to the employees with all the details cuz I knew the announcement would be shocking for most people and so then they then they had time to read that letter would had a lot of information in it and then we had a a group practice meeting so we have sort of five main practice areas in the company and the heads of those practice areas had you know group meetings with all those folks to answer questions that were right away for two weeks now we've been doing I guess it's only a week and a half my God we've been having a lot of one-on-one meetings with everybody so we're covering everybody in the company we have daily Q&A sessions with me and Kelly at lunchtime so all kinds of vehicles and then in the staff meeting I'm talking walking through questions again so we just want to make sure that everyone hears and sees it you know in every way shape and form that that we are the same company essentially um you know with this just kind of turbo boost infusion into the company of not just um well I mean the cash isn't coming into the company so it's not even that we just get this boost of you know we're just Global and everybody everybody wants to have a big impact in the company that's why we're here and so you know I think a lot of people can see that that this is going to allow us to have a bigger impact so what we need to prove in the day-to-day is that the things they love about blank are the same like our cultural framework is the same you know I'm still there I still care about everybody you know we all have you know nobody's employment agreements even Chang like we're still the same legal entity so far and I've had a lot of calls with clients to help them understand that you're it's the same but better you know so it's been exhausting you earned that purse you did thank you Jame how did you manage to to keep the secret you said that most it was shocking for most employees I think Co helped us you know cuz everybody still pretty much remote good point and so you know like and then you know my calendar we had to be really careful about making things private for sure but you know I don't know I mean I I don't know but we did you know it's just we're careful and and Co helped for sure that is funny that Co happens and like someone's going to come back to their office somewhere in this country and find out the office has been going gone for 6 months and now it's a restur you know it is kind of a funny concept yeah Karen I think you said uh something about the The Upfront payment is is there an earnout aspect to this deal yeah so we got uh 70% cash upfront which is great and high and totally amazing we could hardly believe it and then the 30% is um earnout over a two-year period so half of it after the first year and half of it the after the second year and those are dependent on us hitting our revenue and our gross margin targets which are our targets so it's using our model and you know we just have to stand behind our own model and so this is not even taking in all of the additional Revenue that's going to come from us just being a combined entity like already all of their customers not all of them but a lot of their clients are like hey when can we get some of that design work like hey we want to meet these guys and and it's working on both sides so there's going to be a lot of additional uptick and growth from that um but but our targets we we have to sort of preserve the core and make sure we're growing in our own way um as the as the highest priority CU they you know they they just paid a lot of money for what we do and they don't want to get in the way and they want us to you know keep doing what we're doing because that's what they love so Karen how much of your brain for you know next 100 days say is focused on uh current client retention versus okay let's grow yeah it's um it's probably half and half I mean we have a lot of great people in place in the company who are really more tightly connected to the clients than I am so with all of our current work I'm not in the current Project work and so our teams are really you know they the care and love and feeding of our clients and and it's really you know at the end of the day as long as we keep producing great work there's kind of no question so we just have to focus on producing great work and just being focused on what we do best yeah I I think given what you do if I was a customer I would buy the story that you've got better resources versus every time my bank gets sold and they try selling me their bill of goods yeah right it's always a downhill but in your case I would think that is an advantage that you joined a bigger group that's got more resources so I I don't think you're going to have any big retention problem we actually just got one one client we were working on landing and they once they found this out they were like oh that's that's actually good now we know that you're you're big you're strong you're not going away and that to me is the most exciting thing like now I can say with with 100% certainty that we are a generational company and our grandkids can work at blank and that for me is like wow I can I can go to the Grave knowing that it's it's pretty awesome so of all of your employees was there anybody anybody from top to bottom that was concerned about tell just tell us about the one person that was the most concerned I would just be curious as to did you get any out of left field like oh am I still going to be able to park on my same spot whatever loads of those kind of questions yep loads for sure um and you know like I said I sent out that document right after the announcement which had it had a huge Q&A section that um that we tried to preemptively answer a lot of those kind of questions um but they still come up and you know somebody didn't see that one or they didn't hear this conversation or that conversation or you know luckily I have really good rapport with most of our employees you know some of them are new and I I don't know them as well but you know for them it's they have to trust and it's a leap of faith and so if they feel like they trust me and I'm being authentic right now in terms of how I'm describing why we did this and why now and you know what what the future looks like I really have to call in all my trust uh tokens cuz now's when I really need it so so that's largely what we're asking people to do is just trust us give us a chance and um you know give us feedback of what you're seeing that you like or don't like or you know so we're just listening a lot of listening the 28 people how did they get I assume they didn't get handed a check you know it just showed up in their bank account is that how that worked yeah I got direct deposited yeah the next day anyone come to your office and tear saying I just want you to know that I'm going to be able to buy a house for the first time or I'm able to pay off my student loans or did you have any anecdotal things like that not then but when I so what I did to let people know I so I had to let the shareholders in to the Under the Tent um about 3 weeks prior to closing and so what I did is is I had a a one-on-one meeting and it was over Zoom which was kind of great cuz you get you know there's some up close and personalness that you get in Zoom that you don't get in real life so so the conversations were really um really personal which was you know I just thought like who could ever imagine that a zoom meeting could be more personal than an inperson meeting it's crazy but it's really true and so um I had a call a oneone like hourlong call with every single shareholder and I told every single person myself and I I talked them through it and I answered their questions and you know at that time they were all like that like everybody had something they're like oh my God I can get I can have a wedding like oh my God I can buy a house like car I can get divorc yeah no I didn't have any of that luckily but but at that moment there were you know there were there were some tears for sure and it was really um it was moving it made me really proud was the meeting where you told the rest of the employees over Zoom or person yeah it was in Zoom because everybody's remote and we have five offices so people are spread around the country um and then you know we were actually Kelly and I were going to go on a tour and go visit all the offices and meet people in person but we actually got push back from our shareholders saying they thought that would be more stressful because people are not really comfortable coming into the office all the time yet and if they you know if they they would feel obligated if we were there and um they just thought being available on Zoom would better so we created all kinds of different venues like for a companywide forum where people could drop in if they wanted and then we're we're making sure that we're still scheduling a lot of check-ins with people so so you know that was I was totally ready to jump on a plane and fly around but it it um most people thought we shouldn't Karen I think um you told us that when you were trying to land an investor to back blank the idea was that you wanted to go out and buy other similar companies to yours and kind of roll them up is that the plan now that you have uh emphasis as a backer yeah it's less it's not the plan the plan is just to grow organically and then to um to add engineering to our clients to grow those accounts so it's more of an account grow strategy for our clients as well as their clients so that we can be full service and really focus on expanding the clients that we already have we really committed to doing all of the in it's not even integration we're not integrating anything and not we're not touching anything in the first six months there's going to be very little systems integration um if at all after that but we're we're working very collaboratively with emphasis and us to decide you know what would be good for blank where can we you know like would it be better if we if we use their accounting system for example like different ways to make us more efficient but but nothing is being handed down and we're just working collaboratively on how to go to market together on how to talk to our you know clients as a team together when to do it when not to do it um but you know down the road if it makes sense to do an acquisition we can and it's and it is possible for sure but but it's not we're not even thinking about that yet Karen I'm I'm wondering thinking of our listeners like say there's somebody that's man that's that might be five years away what what are three or four quick pointers say hey do this now so you won't have a headache later make sure that you have a real accountant or CFO like we had a CFO on board much earlier than companies our size would have and that has made all the difference so our accounting we are absolutely by the book for everything all accounting practices and so you know there was no retrofitting of how we um you know how we record any of our Revenue how we record any of our expenses all of that kind of stuff was absolutely by accounting practices so what you just said is very important and smart they call it recasting where they go back and they say oh well let's take that out and put that's a very very important smart point you just made cuz you you you hired an accountant a the CFO who was used to doing stuff in the public Arena which is extremely different than being in the private Market yeah like we've been operating like a you know essentially like a any kind of public company since for a long time that has made it you know that made a huge difference um the other thing is um just being careful with spending I think you know just having an eye on what's coming in and what's going out and really understanding what makes our business successful like for us the the main levers are utilization uh so meaning we need everybody billing to clients and so we can't hire ahead of the curve we can't have people on the bench in between projects that's really expensive for us so just having a really clear understanding of what the levers are um and for us it's it's pretty straightforward um and then mostly you know focusing on really you know it sounds squishy but having a clearly defined great culture I mean this is something I talk about a lot we treat our culture like a business we have you know a framework we have ways to measure it to manage towards it to hire to fire all those things make it so that you know when we have an event like this our employees are they are they are all in and they really you know we have a really trusting relationship with them you know everybody is um they're just they're just really invested in the company and so that really helps when we have to you know give them some news and we couldn't tell them ahead of time cuz we're normally I'm normally really transparent in how we're running the company and um you know I do we do monthly profit sharing and I run through all of the numbers I talk about what are the what are the levers that allow us to be more profitable how can they help um so I'm really open about what we're doing in the company but for this I couldn't be and so you know they have to trust me that I just couldn't um and they you know they have so far so so to the opposite of what William's saying because I agree people are out there thinking oh what should I be doing I would also like to say if I was 20 years younger I'd be thinking oh my God I got to do something like that and no I don't like this was a great thing for you it makes perfect sense everything you said makes perfect sense but has absolutely no um application to my I'm in an opposite situation I'm not in a growing industry I don't need to grow it like that so so anyone who's hearing this should think about does this apply to them maybe but maybe not it's it depends what kind of business you're in Karen did you have other suitors uh loads yeah loads well part of the process I just want to go back though and just you know to Williams point I think you know I I say this all the time particularly to high school kids right like you got to do what you love if you don't love the business it's I don't you can never pull this off right like if I hadn't spent 21 years of Blood Sweat and Tears be I wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't love what I was doing and that's why I'm so excited about the next chapter because I love it I think that's the biggest advice to anyone rather than getting ready for a sale just make sure you think your business is great but yeah we had loads of um like dozens and dozens and dozens of pitches basically that the investment bankers lined up with companies who were interested in because at the beginning we were exploring sort of four options for how do we get engineering inh house at blank and one was I I was started with we get investment money and we build it ourselves we get investment money and we buy us you know an engineering firm a small one that we can then take inh house and grow you know one of the options was to not get money but to have a really close partnership with an engineering firm that we would just go to market with and then the fourth option was really the investment bankers presented this to us which hey there's a lot of engineering firms who have the opposite problem and they are bigger and they can just buy you um and so so we started to exploring that option and not just engineering firms and they brought to to the table you know ad agencies all kinds of digital agencies you know the the gamut um and big global companies it was it was pretty awesome to see that they all want to be in our space walk us through how you found this Investment Banking firm I mean that's a trick in itself yeah um it was you know it's all relational Kelly had met um one of the principles at this uh firm Clear Sight advisers you know the The Firm we hired last time didn't serve us very well and so this time we were we were way better at interviewing them at knowing what we cared about and mostly honestly we just like them and and if we're going to work together really closely for what turned out to be eight months like every day several times a day talking to them um you know we had to really like them and trust them and so that that was the the biggest thing tell us about how you handled the uh the suitors did you end up with a bidding war yeah that's what that's the whole strategy so this is where we just let these Bankers do their job and we were just like ah why are we talking to that company they're like well it's going to help us get leverage and um you know so there there was some of of that going on for sure I mean it's a it's a business these guys that this is what they do for a living is they want to make sure that you know ultimately it's our choice but they want to make sure that we are positioned the best way possible in this in this market of who's going to be who's going to snatch us up their job is just to set us up so that we have all the choices we want they did due diligence on us at first to create a big deck that they could present to these companies and so they know how to do that they pitched us and then Kelly and I got in there and and then we had you know pitched the company in in you know like multiple two and three hour long meetings they were really really intensive um but you know it was worth it because in the end you know what What mattered to us is that we wanted to keep blink alive and be able to grow this thing and keep doing what we're doing and keep serving our clients and be able to employ all of our employees and a lot of these companies you know their model is take us and kind of spread us around inside the company and so you know that that was really not interesting to us we that's not what we wanted to do we wanted to be able to provide engineering keep our core the same and so you know this just ended up being a match made in heaven and it was very unlikely like I didn't think being bought by a big engineering firm was the way we were going to go I thought it would be more like um you know bring it in house and you know find someone who would invest in us to take some risk off the table but but I didn't expect it would go like this it was exhausting what what those guys put us through the bankers you know and they'll tell you like three sometimes 6 hours of pitching a day over over the course of a two-e period when we were in that phase and by then I couldn't even talk my voice was totally raw but we just trusted them that they and we you know they did all the negotiating for us you know in the end we were negotiating the finer points but in terms of the big broad swas they they did all that for us I think this is the case and tell me if I'm wrong I'm sure companies get people coming to them saying Oh we want to buy you and I think the advice is you really need to have an investment banking firm because you're not going to get the best deal if you do it that way you need to go through what you went through to get the best deal isn't that true absolutely and it and like I said it was exhausting but but not only the best deal financially but just in terms of the terms right like what sure so many pages and pages and like oh my God the legal documents and the back and forth you know and then also have a law firm that you love so we've we've had a law firm that we've been working with for probably a decade now and they were they went through this last thing with us and they were telling us like you guys this is a bad deal you got to walk away and so now they were so proud of us that they're like you know God we were with you guys through all that and we're so happy that that we got to this point but they were they had our back the whole way through um so you know the bankers and the lawyers worth every single penny hands down Karen did you do uh due diligence on emphasis well a little bit um you know we we we asked them a lot of questions in our interviews but we don't get into their books but but that's Clear Sight our advisor's job is to make sure that these guys they they have the money they have the you know they're financially stable they are exactly what they say they are they do all that beforehand so that we you know they don't bring us anybody who doesn't pass those tests so but but we yeah we did lots of interviews with them you know in terms of talking to them like you know for me you know Equity inclusion dver Dei is really important so I you know I asked them a lot of question about that we had you know a lot of you know good conversations about just you know what they believe in and what they stand for one of the critical pieces of this is you got 70% of your cash out of it which is great that's smart CU you never know what's going to happen you just don't so but it's not like you took 40% that wouldn't have been a great thing you got enough out of out of it up front that I'm sure things will go well but if not you came out great either way and I think that's an important piece it's true William I don't know if you can answer this you've talked to us recently about uh the amount of time that you've taken away from the business and how you increased that um every year uh it it sounds a little bit like you're trying to make yourself um kind of operationally irrelevant is is that with the idea that you might want to sell your business someday no the I think the idea for me uh I got some advice a long time ago it said you know Wise younger leaders spend their early years creating options for their later years and so me moving back away from operational relevance at our company which just I love that phrase is is more of a you know when I get to I've probably got 10 12 maybe 15 years of relevance left before I'm the old guy that needs to go find something else to do when we get to that point I want to have every option available to me wait how old will you be then what I want I get that age in 12 years how old would you be in 12 years I'm 51 so you'll be 63 H I'm 65 so I'm wondering what does that mean I you're irrelevant that's what it means I'm irrelevant Point proving right so um yeah I I just know that's terrible listen listen we have a succession practice the vast majority of the time when people call us for succession they're calling us later than everyone else on the board wanted them to call us you know most people stay too long I don't want to be that guy and I want to have every option in front of me if that's hire a CEO and just be chairman of the board and have the owner's income great if it's sell the company to employees awesome if you know what whatever the option and if I am critical to the success or failure of the business then I have eliminated options so that's that's the thing Lauren there's no oh here's what we're going to do is just wouldn't it be cool if when it is time for me to step aside we had every option available a so you don't want to be some old loser 65y old on Lauren's podcast is what you're saying there people that are there people that are 65 75 and 85 that are still killing it I just know the overwhelming number of people that we manage success for stay a little longer than they're than they're um than they're than they're aware you know what I can tell you in what you do you're dealing with people that are in professions you know they're in the clergy I could totally see that that whereas if you own a company and you take yourself out is I have to where no one's calling me all day I really am only working on the company that's where the difference between owning a company and having a profession is I can see what you're saying with somebody who's in the clergy it's it's got to wear you out after a while just like being a dentist or a lawyer or anything else but if you own a company you know and you've got people around you taking care of stuff I think you could work to 80s something and not necessarily have a problem that's my theory at least I know they say retirement is bad for your health Sanjay Gupta says that and I believe him it's it's good for your brain to keep working maybe it's a different job though Karen do you have an employment contract for a specific period of Time 5 year non-compete do you expect to stay for those 5 years I'm going to stay till the day I die wow seriously what else am I going to do and besides it's retirement is dangerous they say well I didn't you there are other options besides retirement no but I love it you could start a podcast if I do anything it's that's funny because I'm like you guys you can lock me up for 20 20 years if you want I'm never doing this again you don't have to worry and uh I said the only thing if I was to go start another business it would be goat farming or really want to have like rent goats that makes perfect sense you could use my goats for a day and they'll eat your blackberries makes perfect Jay Jay Jay now you're showing your age you rent the goat to do yoga I have seen that okay but do they do yoga all day long they don't cut the grass in the morning and then do yoga in the afternoon maybe you can get a bivocational okay there's there's your business Karen I just have one last question for you Karen which is you know entrepreneurs talk all the time I mean how many I can't imagine how many times I've been told you know I wasn't a good employee I realized I had to go do my own thing I don't take orders well are you at all concerned about now being an employee um no I can't wait for somebody to tell me what to do I'm going to that down too in my fer of the year from now I can't wait to have someone tell me what to do oh my God you mean I can just go to work and like that' be amazing but no I mean they they don't they God they don't want me to do that they want they need me to keep running the company right like who else is going to do it they don't know how to do it no I have to tell you sincerely this really sounds like a great thing for you and I don't necessarily I don't think you're going to have any problems and good for you it sounds like you found the perfect situation for you for your company for your employees and hats off to you there aren't that many people to pull that off 21 hats off to you yes very very big congrats very big congrat thank you it's pretty surreal I mean I have to tell you I'm like whoa my thanks to Jay goz and William Vander bluman and especially to Karen Clark call Karen thanks for uh for taking us through all this yeah thank you wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren 21h hats.com that's l r n21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think you can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]