E3: Top M&A Entrepreneurs Mark "I Buy Revenue" McRae

Help our So, welcome to the top M&A entrepreneurs. I have a guest. He's another epic member. What epic uh group are you and Mark? Yeah, I was the original. Um OG another OG, yeah. The Pizza Group, the Betaro, great. Mark McCray, he's uh let's just, I, I'm reading this bio that you sent him he's a serial entrepreneur has started and owned over 30 businesses. Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1964, and uh the first business at the age of 7. So I have to ask you, what was the business at age 7? Well, it's funny, my mother and father were market traders, so they used to sell things in the flea markets. And, um, my job was to help them, um, in the flea markets every weekend. So, uh, what I decided to do, um, one weekend was I noticed that everybody who came into the markets, they always came unprepared because it's usually just, uh, it was some kind of social event, so they would. You know, they wouldn't bring bags to carry things and things like that. So I bought. If I remember correctly, I bought bin bags, you know, these black bin bags you get at, you know, 10 pence each, and sold them at, at, uh, 20 cents. I stand in the, in the corner and just sell black bin bags. And within a month, I actually made more money than my mother and father. I've been independent since then. There were days where they had, you know, the, the, this whole apparatus around them, and I was selling these plastic bags and I made more money. Oh, that's so cool. Now I, I gotta tell you, this is if you characterize this, this is, that's a picks and shovel business. Yeah, like gold mining, none of the gold miners made any money. The only people that made money were to sell the picks and shovels, and you were a picks and shovel there. That's very cool. So it's kind of been I've owned. Different types of businesses since then, even when I was in school, I'd sell chewing gum or I'd sell, you know, sweets or um you know I would deal in, in vinyl records as they had them in those days. Your audience might not remember those. Yeah, no, no, I, I'm in the same age group as you, so we were over those records. It's just like you can't walk around the house, you can't stomp around the house because it skips. It's a. Yeah, so tell me about this, uh, your epic, and you've made 10 acquisitions in your career, uh, and 3 since M&A. Now, why did you take Epic if you're already You know, making acquisitions. Well, I think it's like anybody who's interested. I mean that I still buy books in finance. I still, you know, try and learn every day. I still would never, uh, purport to be an expert, um, uh, it's a passion, so, uh, and also the way that I tended to do it pre epic was just brute force and ignorance. It was just buy something. Whereas Epic, you learn a lot of different strategies about how to finance things, how to put deals together, how to try and do it without trying to take money from your own pocket. So, um, you know, anybody who's has a passion about something, they really have. A kind of eclectic, um, knowledge that they've got from everywhere. So, you know, the, um, I think that Epic is a great starting point for somebody who's never been in M&A. And I think M&A generally is a kind of a misnomer. I think that the, um, dealmaker is probably a better description of it. You know, because the M&A, that whole industry is actually very old fashioned, you know, it hasn't kept up with the times, and I think that somebody who sees an opportunity and can see a way to exploit it or to, uh, add value to it or to, um, you know, bring together those resources, which is probably the true definition of an entrepreneur, the ability to bring together resources to make something happen. And I think that there are quite a few people in um the Epic Group who sort of uh they epitomize that deal-making process. But yeah, so I think that the true M&As, you know, the lawyers of the big banks and institutions who are going after $100 million deals and upwards, I think that's a different animal from the people who are in the epic Group. Yeah. So the the companies you purchased before the sheer brute force and ignorance, and now you go to Epic, you get this training and it shows you all kinds of new ways to no money out of pocket. So what do those deals look like? I mean, the size of them and take the first one example, you tell me about that one. I think uh a pre-epic uh was probably a health food business and in terms of size in the US it's probably about I don't know, $250,000 and um it looked like a good idea at the time, so I just bought it. Um, I mean, obviously, I think that, uh, the, in order to be successful, uh, as a dealmaker and mergers and acquisitions, I think you got to have a core skill. In other words, I see a lot of people who struggle that come in from um things that are either they're not financed, they're not business, they've had a traditional, uh, they work, um, I don't know, say as a school teacher or something, and they, they haven't been exposed to that. Uh, I think they really just struggle because the, as a lot more goes into most deals than most people anticipate, you know, they think that if you can do a deal, that's, that's the deal over, where it's just the beginning of the story, you know, so, um, one of my, having owned so many different businesses in different countries gives me a broader perspective, uh, on how business and finance works. And it gave me a lot more touch points. So whenever I bought a business, I was always looking to apply, you know, that philosophy of a business as a machine, and if you make that machine work better, it gets more productivity, it goes faster. So, you know, I'm looking for businesses that are kind of old clunkers that I can turn into Ferraris. So, uh, you know, so the, uh, one of the things I look for is not so much the industry, and I know a lot of people like to try and keep their, their businesses in the same universe, and there's a lot to be said for that. But I'm more interested in the people, and it's a kind of, you know, built to last philosophy, you know, that book that it's, uh, it's more important, the people who are on the bus than where the bus is going, because if you get the right people, you can point them in any direction. So I've had a team of people around me now, where the majority of those people have been with me for 15 years plus. So are they employees of your company or? Oh, OK, yeah. So my core team has been with me a long time, so they know my strengths, I know their strengths. I know where we I think we can add value to deals and um I think I've got a gut feel, you know, it's a very visceral thing sometimes when you buy a business, it can just be. You know, it hits that button. You just know that's gonna be good. Mhm. How, how did that start? I mean, because there's a lot of people in Epic, uh, that look at this and go, OK, if I, uh, I'm outside the industry, I don't have knowledge, but how do I start building this team and the expertise, uh, you know, and I see Patch Baker does a great job at it. Adam Lions does a great job of obviously. You, you got 15 people working for you and use them on the same deals on there. How did you just start doing that, going, I know that's what I need first, or we should have that guy, or this person. I think it's more a it depends. I mean, I think Patch and Adam are great people to learn from, and I think that people who are just starting off should start off, uh, you know, I see people who have never owned a business who want to come in and do a $10 million deal. And I haven't seen, I haven't seen any of them work yet. In fact, I've been called into 2 or 3 epic ones to try and help salvage some of those deals. I think they should get their feet wet, you know, do some, uh, take over the administration rights for some Facebook groups, buy some forums or blogs or something to get that sense of what it takes to run a business. With my own, um, you see the, the sort of normal. The journey or course that I see people who want to do mergers and acquisitions is they, they see the idea that it's a way of making a lot of money quickly. So then the next jump they make is, well, I need marketing, right, so they think I need to acquire a marketing company, and that's usually a mistake and uh because it's a very specialized field, and marketing today is not what it used to be. You know, I spoke with over 150 marketing companies last year. Um, it's the industry is not for, uh, people who don't know how that works. They'll get eaten alive, basically. So, to answer your question, it's a bit of a long way to answer it is that, um, my own journey has been, I've added people as I've needed those skills. There was a deal last year where I wanted a board for credibility. So I literally designed what I thought would be the perfect board. So I needed a very high profile person as a chairman for credibility. I needed a mergers and acquisition lawyer. I needed somebody who was in accounting that was familiar with that. I needed somebody who was in a similar field from the acquisition that I was targeting. And I, I handpicked those people from LinkedIn. I didn't know any of them, and I got them on a Zoom call like this, and I had a little slide deck and I said, OK, this is what I'm trying to achieve. Um, this is why I think you would be the right person for it, and this is the reward you're going to get if you agree to come on board. And of the 5 people that I handpicked like that, all 5 agreed to come on board. So, um, so there's different ways to do it, you know, so if you are, and I think, you know, mergers and acquisitions and deal making and business in general is the, you know, I, I would encourage anybody to do it regardless if you don't know what you're doing, but I think that your expectations should be realistic. Um, you know, often I find somebody who will ask me to help them on a deal because they've got past that initial introduction. They've done the letter of intent, and now they actually have to run the business, and they don't know what to do because they've never owned a business, and it's common sense. Um, so, uh, there, there's different stages at which people get stuck. And you only no one did that, uh, when you look at those businesses and they come to you, are these epic members or these uh just other people from all over the world? Well, lately it's been epic members because that's the environment um I was in or quite active in last year, but previously it was kind of uh it was scattered. It was just, you know, word of mouth or uh you know, it was introductions. Most people will do most deals through some kind of connection. The cold outreach doesn't work that well, but you know, it does work. It's just much harder. Takes longer, yeah, definitely, and more numbers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, what's when you come, when somebody epic comes to you, because I, that I'm seeing a lot of that, a lot of collaboration between Mac and Emmer cause you described it perfectly. A lot of these people, some haven't owned a business before, or completely unrelated field, or not familiar with sales or something into the process of of funnel and uh how are you coming in? Are you coming in in with an earning? Are you asking for something, or what's that look like? I always come in with no intention, and otherwise I'll tell people uh that uh I'm happy to help with no uh hidden agenda and no uh intention of getting any kind of percentage or reward. Uh, because my hope is that during the process they realize my values, so the, you know, they'll offer me something, uh, but, uh, in the process of that, it, it allows me to let people let their defenses down because I'm not trying to make money from you, and there, there is, uh, you know, so, uh, you know, a good example is that, um. When somebody has, uh, they're getting close to closing a business and they actually have to deconstruct that business in order to understand it and figure out how they can scale that business, that can be a sticky point for a lot of people, because businesses are all similar, they're a vehicle to make money, um, but the mechanics of it can throw a lot of people. And certainly in deal sizes, so there's one kind of sector of deals, say, $10 million plus, where most of the management's in place, right? You'll never need to understand that much about it. And then you've got those deals that are kind of between $1 million.05 million dollars or below, right? Getting deals below 1 million is hard because the financials are usually very lumpy. The business is run really badly and it's very hard to get your head around whether there's actually anything there. But of one of the smaller businesses there, uh, you almost inevitably have to get involved. You know, there's no such thing as a totally hands off, hands-free, I bought this business and it's going to kick out something. Um, you've got it's true. Yeah, yeah, so exactly. So, but, um, you know, that's usually how I find myself involved with businesses is through some kind of Um, they've asked for advice, and it's not that I'm, you know, some kind of genius. I've just screwed up more than anybody else. So in the process of all of all of the businesses, I've made all the mistakes. I've, I've paid, you know, the school of hard knocks. Yeah, yeah. So if I ask you, how would that look like, you know, we got a couple businesses we are looking at to acquire, um, you know, one was in the $6 million range in revenue, but Uh, I, I think the guy is too involved in the business, so we'd have to replace him, and I don't want a job, and my other partner doesn't want a job, so. If we brought a business to you, you'd look at it and go, hey, no, we could scale it, but we need to put this C-suite in place. Well, it's interesting you say that there's a couple of businesses where um I've looked at for other people, where they're determined to try and make a business work that is failing and will, will fail. You know, so an example of that, there was a uh a business that I was asked to have a look at where they made $26,000 per year, and the group wanted to add sales, a marketing, add this, add that, and, you know, I said, why even bother? This, this thing, this just doesn't make sense, trying to put all of these resources. Into something that fundamentally probably won't do any more than it's doing that. Uh, so some people get this idea in their head that just because somebody will do a deal that you should do a deal. So if you have a $6 million deal, right, so, you know, um, I assume there's a reason why you want that particular business. Uh, and then there must be enough of the, you know, distributable profit to make it interesting for you. But once you've removed that person from, and you always have to assume that they're going to leave anyway, regardless of whether they intend to stay on or not. Um, that, you know, so what is the market rate for a manager or CEO in that industry? And do you have enough knowledge of that business to oversee that transition? So that's what I mean about there's always usually a point at which you have to know something about the fundamentals of how a business works. You know, I, I, I have to, I have to point out, and that's like, you know, what Warren Buffett says, you know, I only buy things I understand. And it's, it's really true because if you look at a SAS business or a marketplace business, you know, technology stuff, both of those have two different KPIs and drivers that build the business. And if you don't understand those, you'll, you'll never be able to grow it. And if you've never done it, it's just gonna be a very expensive process to learn. Mm. There's um I was listening to a book, um, uh, an audio book, um, and I can't remember the entrepreneur's name who specializes in Sas products. Smith is his son name, and it's L. Smith, but I can't remember his first name, might be Frank. And uh uh he discovered that in SAS, for example, that most of the companies are very badly run. So what he added to it was processing procedures for how those companies can and should scale, and now he's got a billion dollar business. Um, yeah, it's L Smith, I can't remember his first name. I'll write that down. Yeah, uh, and, uh, so his whole thing is about how you run a business. That's the value that he added, that he could go in there, take a sas company where there was a bunch of programmers. And uh the value that he added was in procedurizing the whole process. Uh, and because Sas companies are terrible. You know, another thing that I are terrible to work with and terrible to run generally, you know, um, uh, I've had a couple and I don't enjoy them, you know, so a lot of people aspire to have a SAS company because they think they're going to be the next Zoom or they're going to be the, you know, something like 98, 99% of SAS companies fail because it's the frothy, uh, multiples they get on them. Exactly. Well, that brings me to another point about multiples, so. You can get a sheet that will tell you what company multiples will sell for. I don't believe in that at all. So I don't care, and the reason I don't believe in it is because a lot of my deals are self-funded, and if I can't get all my money back in 3 years, I don't care what you call it. I'm not interested. Right, so you might have the best ass thing in the world, and if you give me a 15 multiple, you know, good luck. I'm not gonna wait. Yeah, I'm not gonna wait that long. So I'm not gonna be on the planet that long. Yeah. So I don't, you know, as people say, well, this should have that multiple and that should have that multiple. And it's great to sell it, and I might have the same argument if I was selling one. But to buy it, I tend to, I like to, to focus on old companies. I like them to be going for 10 years plus. I like them to have had no losing years, so I want steady growth, uh, preferably at least 10% per year. And, uh, usually they're boring, right? So they're, uh, and that suits me great. I'm what is that? Yeah, what does that look like? I find them more offline now than online. So, uh, you know, uh, I bought a medical aid supply company last month, and, um, you know, not particularly exciting, uh, that was, you know, uh, so something that if I was having a conversation with you and you told me, listen, I've had this business 30 years and um I'm thinking of retiring, um, but I've, you know, I don't have any children, what should I do next? And we have a look at the financials and it looks interesting. That's a business for me. Right, so it's something that's uncomplicated, because I'm uncomplicated. Something that is, I think is going to be there, you know, uh, next year, as Warren Buffett says, you know, he, he was a big investor in Gillette. People, men will shave, not always. Wrigley's chewing gum. They're gonna chew gum for a long time to come. So I'm not looking for complicated or the next big thing. I'm actually the opposite. I'm looking for something that has longevity, and I don't buy to flip. I buy forever. Oh, so you've owned all, I mean, at least you've owned all these businesses forever? Most of them, and some of them until I've got this something happened, they've morphed into something else, or somebody's come along and offered me something, but I've never gone out and actively said. I've got a great business. I'm going to, you know, it makes, uh, I'm going to try and sell it for 4 or 5 or 10 times what it's worth. I'm looking for a hedge fund to invest in it or I want to do an IPO. I'm not that. I'm more like Warren Buffett. As long as it's doing OK and it's making money, I'm happy to own it forever. Well, what am I gonna do? I mean, if once you sell the business, you're going to go buy another one. Yeah. How are you setting that up, uh, you know, getting paid back? Well, let's talk about how you buy them now. I mean, let's say take the first those 1st 3 post epic. How are you buying those now? Are you using the same strategies that Roland taught? No, not really sure of what you've learned over your career. Yeah, you know, so let's take uh a marketing company, right? So of the 150 plus marketing owners that I spoke to, and it's another thing I think is a bit uh. I think people think they're gonna talk to people who want to exit all the time. Of the 150 people I spoke to, only 1 person wanted to exit. Right, so, um, and that was for digital marketing agencies. So you know, and of those 150 people, one wanted to exit, one was looking for money, and the other 99% of them were looking for ways to grow their business. They would be prepared to give you a piece of their company in exchange for growth. And that's what most people who will cold call or knock on doors for businesses are gonna find. It's not gonna be that everybody's, you know, putting their hand up to say, I want to leave. Um, most business owners are not in that, you know, they're not looking to leave when you call them. Um, unless there's, you know, I call it push and pull. So when you're, you're kind of trying to find businesses, you'll find that people aren't looking to sell. But if you've got some kind of deal for funnel where people are approaching you, that would be different, right? So then they would be looking there's a reason why you're perceived as the savior or the, yeah. So that's a different thing. Um, but, uh, so of those companies, uh, the digital marketing agency, and we'll take away the extremes of people who earn 4000 to $50,000 a year or 18 $20.30 million dollars a year, but the majority of our digital marketing agency's revenue is a million dollars per year. And the seller discretion in the earnings is $250,000 per year, 25% for a typical digital marketing agency. If they're a CEO company where they generate their own traffic, then the margin would be $45 or $450,000 per year. And on a business or a deal like that. Then, um, you know, it's fairly easy, or, you know, so I would buy that company myself without asking anybody else to, to invite them in. Uh, and hopefully with some of the strategies that I learned in Epic, not put, for example, uh, if a company was earning $250,000 750,000 dollars, not put $750 up front, be creative about how that was financed. And for deals that were over a certain amount. I have a small group, not a, not a big group, where I know that, for example, this person would be happy to invest with me for 100,000 and that person might be 200,000. And most of them are ex-partners, so, uh, you know, so people who have worked with me before, if I tell them there's something good, there's a small group of people who would trust that because I don't invest in a lot of things or buy a lot of things anymore, and I'm very, I'm a very conservative, you know, person and I think I'm a good husband of money. So, uh, you know, I, I, I, I keep mentioning Warren Buffett, but, you know, he would probably think I was stingy. I don't think there's any wrong with that, man. The guy's lived in the same house for, uh, 50 plus years and has spent a total of, I, I've got 4 or 5 books on Warren Buffett and people wrote about him, and he's only spent like a couple $100,000 over 50 years just on supplies for his business. That's running a $300 billion empire. And I think like that. So if you look at some of the things that I have been involved with. I've been remarkably, uh, frugal. Um, I've never been a person who would walk in and say, I'm going to deck out this new office or I'm going to buy this office building. I've always been the type of person that, you know, can we get secondhand furniture? What's the minimum we can buy? Well, how do we make this run well? I can be extravagant outside of business, but I think the measure for me, if we're, if I measure a businessman, it's how well he runs that business. And if you can run your business in the smell of an oily rag and produce something phenomenal, that to me is admirable. If you're going to work in a Lamborghini and you're worried about payroll, I just don't understand that philosophy. Now these businesses that you bought since Epic, do the owners stay in place, or do they, you got your, your team takes over? Both, um, so typically when you buy something that you, you, you're already in, and for me it would be marketing, then you've got either you buy something as a platform and you bought things onto it or you're absorbed, and every deal is different, so I might have a conversation with you and you say, well, that's interesting, I'd like to do it and I can see the the the reasons why there's a lot of synergy between us. Then you would stay on, and as long, and that's why I buy revenue. I don't buy the future, you know, I just buy revenue. So if I know that you're, I can count on X, I'm happy to have that person run it forever. I'm not an egotistical person. I don't need to own things so I can say that I'm the owner. I'm looking for money at the end of this. Yeah, and how are you making your money back when you invest in the business? How are you structuring it where, you know, percentage of cash flow is moved to a different bank? How does that look? Well, again, it depends. Every, everyone is different. Some of them are just, you know, uh, specifically for that. So let's say you buy a business at a million dollars and it's making, make it easy, $300,000 distributable cash. Now, is that money more valuable in that business, you know, did you see something there that would, there's a reason why you can turn that $300 into $600 next year? And that's why you bought it, you move that money in there, or you could have bought it for, this is a good cash cow. I'm gonna take that 300, move it over to this business where I can get a better return. So it's really money management, you know, it's, uh, where is that cash most valuable? Where, where can you use it, yeah, yeah. And are your business is in an ecosystem when you buy? I had this conversation with uh Patch, the last call we did and You know, he does Richard Branson's Virgin where, you know, he's got an airline to take people to his islands. He's got a phone that people can buy, he's got this, a tourism business, and he's got music, and they're all buying in this ecosystem. I think maybe, uh, you know, patch is, you know, uh, is a much larger operator and he is a great strategic mind. And, uh, I, um, I think also if you'd asked me that question 10 or 20 years ago, I'd probably think more like Patch or Richard Branston, where you know you can go and do all these things and travel here and put together things like that. You know, I really want to try and do it from my laptop now, you know. If I can't do it from Zoom, I'm not that interested. That's good. It's just like, can I do this business, buy this business from Zoom. That's it. So if I, uh, you know, and all of the deals I've done in the last year, I haven't seen them or met the, the people in person, you know, so there's, it's just been in Zoom. But um I, you know, I don't buy a thing with the intention of I have a tourist company and I'm going to add an airline to it and then I'm gonna add loyalty programs and all that. I buy a thing because it's making money now, and that's all I'm interested in. It's very basic. Yeah, again, you said I buy revenue and I it's just boring businesses. That's what bon calls it too, yeah, yeah. So I don't think of I'm gonna buy that and strategically I'm gonna add to that from here. Uh, naturally, the natural evolution is that if you're in whatever space it is, whether it's us or marketing or you tend to attract people like or similar to that. Um, and, but I will look at any business just because, uh, I've had such a diverse background. I've got, you know, a kind of a, a, a good knowledge on a lot of different topics. I'm very good at Trivial Pursuit because I, I'm constantly reading about all this stuff, so the, uh, and like, you know, why did you take uh Epic? I, you know, I try and read a book a week that's related to business or finance. I, you know, I attend a lot of virtual summits. I, the, it's a passion, so I'm still interested in it, and if you were to say to me, you know, if we took away all of the money aspect of it, I'd probably still like to do this because I'm fascinated by how a machine works, you know, how that engine of a business works and how you can improve on it and how you can, you know, a lot of the time people don't know what they don't know. So when I'm looking at, for example, a marketing company, and I can see that their business is usually divided into two parts. It's like, how do you get business and how do you run business. So when you're deconstructing that business, if you first look at how do they get business, and I can see that they've got one stream of income or one stream of new business, their, their funnel, and I have experience of another 10 ways to do that. I'd be pretty confident that when I buy that business that's already profitable, I can multiply that. Yeah. So where are you at with, you know, how your funnel looks for acquisitions? You said that they just kind of come to you now. Do you have an active funnel? I mean, take a look at Roland's funnel, Epic, and he's on a course 11 now, so he's adding 1000 people come to him. And his podcast, a million downloads, he's got a fantastic funnel, and he takes the cream of the crop of, you know, businesses that he works with. Yeah, look, Funnel is a Warren Buffett, right? So he's kind of in that J. Abraham, uh, Warren Buffett, he is at a different level. So as an investor, for example, um, you could say. It would be egotistical and naive to say that I could buy shares and be as successful as Warren Buffett. I'd like to think so, but the reality is, it's unlikely. So if you're going to enter any industry, but let's say mergers and acquisitions, it would be naive to try and have as much deal flow as Roland, right? So, uh, and then you want to be that person. I don't want to be Roland, you know, he's a very busy man. You know, I'd like to plod through my day. Um, so in terms of deal flow, I was very active last year, and I put together a team specifically to do cold outreach and bring businesses to me. And, um, uh, and that resulted, you know, so you put so much in, I got so much back. And this year I'm sort of taking it easier, and I don't look for any deals at all. It's things about once a week somebody will contact me with an idea or they want to talk or they've got something. And that's, I'm comfortable with that. I like to really plan things out. I like to really, you know, if I'm going to work with you, I, I want to know I have enough bandwidth to commit to you and have enough time to think. I, you know, I really like to, uh, before I move that chess piece, be convinced that's the right move. Um, and if I feel under pressure, I don't operate as well. So I don't, I won't take on a lot of things if it if it makes me so busy that I, I know I'm not gonna do well. Yeah, this is the time factor is such a, the only commodity you can't buy. Hm yeah. And I'm very jealous of my own time because, you know, I'd, you know, I have a very leisurely day uh and before Epic, I people used to I used to joke with people that You know, I, I would eat when I was hungry, I'd wake up when I felt like I'd had enough sleep, there was no real structure to my day. You know, people say I have this on a very structured day. I wasn't one of those people, I just. If I want to go to the movies, then I'll go to the movies today, you know. So the, and when I, when I made it really structured, I got a lot of results, but I wasn't enjoying it that much, you know, it was kind of, uh, I felt that by, you know, Zoom call 150, I hated it, you know, I was like, oh, this can't be bought. And the thing that bothered me the most was the structure of the timetable. So like if I'm looking at a deal, for example, I will, you know, look at the deal and I'll go away and I'll think about it and uh I'll kind of, you know, stick pins in it all the way around and go for a walk and Uh, but when you, when I have a, a Zoom call every hour on the hour for 5 or 6 hours during the day, um, I always felt I was not quite on top of it all, you know, so that's why I kind of backed off from it. A, because, you know, uh, the businesses that I have are, are reasonably OK, and I have enough deal flow trickling in to keep me content. Yeah, are you doing any deals with other Epic members right now? No, no, no. The, the one I kind of fell over about two weeks ago that the, the owner backed out, uh, but, uh, no, I'm not, I, I was very active. I still look in an epic whenever I go into social media, but I'm not on social media every day anymore. So the, um, I find that very distracting too. So I, you know, I, when I work, I want to, I'm very productive when I work. So if I, if I'm going to work for an hour, everything gets switched off. Phones, the door is locked, I have no noise, no, I like absolute focus. And, uh, and that's kind of how I, when I do work, I'll say, well, I'm going to do 4 hours today. I'll work for an hour, take a 10 minute break, work for another hour, take a 10 minute break, and try and achieve. There's usually something I have to get done. It's it's freedom. It's the freedom, yeah. I think we're all working towards that, right? Wealth and freedom. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, that's a good point. And at what point, you gotta ask yourself, what do you want to get from this? You know, would another 0 in your bank account change my life? It wouldn't change my life. Um, I wouldn't do anything different really from what I'm doing at the moment at the. Uh, maybe another 4 or 50s I started flying around an airplane. Everybody has a price. Yeah, that might do it. But uh, I'm, I'm at a spot, John, in life where I'm very content, and I want to be with them, work with people who are real, and I think I can, you know, I want to like the person I do business with. I did a deal with somebody who, uh, recently, who turned into a nightmare. And I, you know, that person became somebody else when in the 1st 30 days I 10x their business. And they thought that their IQ went up when the business was 10x and uh that became a problem for me because I, I didn't enjoy the conversations anymore. You know, I was starting to just when I'm talking to them, it wasn't fun, you know, so, uh, I want to only spend time with, where people, with people that um are that I enjoy. So if you have a business and I can make $10 million from it, and you're a real arsehole, I won't do it. You know, regardless of the amount of money. And so you sell that business with that that we're in the process of untangling ourselves. And that is the only reason really is, you know, we are diametrically opposed and our beliefs and um what we want to achieve from something. So I, you know, I have a, a good track record. You know, I don't think I've had a business that's failed, but they might not be meteoric like everybody else's. Um, so, but people who are in and around my universe have been in and around my universe for a very long time. There's nobody who I've been a partner with that wouldn't be my partner again. Most of them have become lifelong friends. You know, so, uh, and that also helps, you know, in the terms of mergers and acquisitions. If you need an opinion, and you can go to your network and say to people, you know, what do you think? Or, or, because I'm a very merges and acquisitions is a team sport. It can be done, I believe it is, yeah, because you have to have all these different opinions like I could see points of the deal where we need to bring in or we could do or we could offer. Yeah. So, um, I think the original question was about deal flow, it kind of happens organically for me now, for now, yeah, this is a big question, and I fall for this is kind of a weakness is extricating myself from $5 tasks. To focus on the big stuff where you put systems in place. I mean, did you, did you ever have that problem or did you were always in, you know, I need to put a system in place, I need to put people to do this. You know, one of the things I did in one of my first careers was with casinos, and one of my first big deals was to, to own a casino. That is that it taught me from an early stage that everything must be proceduralized. So when you're uh in a casino and you're a dealer or a roupier. Uh, and the first thing you do is you show your hands to the camera that you've got nothing in them, you've got no turn ups or there's no pockets. Every move that you make is in a very proceduralized way. In the old days, you used to go count the money. There was a procedure for everything that you did. You put it into certain denominations that had to be the right way up. The paperclip had to go over a certain way, very proceduralized. And I've taken that forward in every business that I've owned is how do you proceduralize that? Now, In terms of when you start growing, um, you know, the first question, and that's one of the interesting things, John, is that when you take over a business, you'll inevitably find that the owner is doing things he shouldn't be. So, and one of the things that I, right, the owner can't see those because he's been doing it for so long and custom or that's the way it should be done or whatever. So I like to tell people, yeah, take a week off, and then they're like, fuck no, the business will fall apart if I'm away, well, let's see. Let's see what what holds together and what falls apart. Take a week off. They probably haven't had a week off in the last 10 years, but they, they'll find that their team usually will hold it together, but it allows me to see where the actual problems are and what's really necessary. Uh, and, um, I, you know, why you gotta ask yourself, why am I doing this task. What's the end goal? So, um, in companies like Upwork, you know, the outsourcing companies, and that particular company, I think I've hired over 500 people now and probably outsource people over 1000 people for various tasks. And one of the things I'm quite proud of actually is when you hire people in Upwork, you'll see that the, you get to give them a score, but they get to give you a score. So my score in Upwork, for example, is 4.8 over say 500 reviews or some people who have been hired. So I get a good score is because everybody knows exactly what's expected and uh and, and how they're going to be measured and how they're going to be monitored. So, uh, and that's another thing that I think I can add value to in a business is how do you, you know, how do you proceduralize processes and procedures in place where it can be scaled, because you can't scale if you don't do that. You can't have a franchise company and open 100 franchises in a year if the engine is wobbly, because the faster you go, the more wobbly it's going to get. So you've got to get that nailed down. So looking at, um, you know, so your first As a business owner or as an M&A person or as somebody who's interested in business, your biggest leverage point is thought, right? Your biggest leverage point is thought. So if you have an idea here and you have and just execute it, you get the result six months later. But if this part over here is wrong, you get a bad result. So leverage is your highest form. I thought it was your highest form of leverage, so I'd like the business owners to be thinking about where are we going and how do we get there. And um I actually have a course that I put together for business owners uh called VSPOE which is you got to have a vision about where you want to go, uh, you got to have a strategy to get there. You gotta have the right people to get there, and or is one of the most important things is uh one decision. And that decision should be, will it get me to my goal faster? And you can apply that to anything that you ask yourself. So should I go to the restaurant tonight and have a beer? Will it get me to my vision faster? No, so you don't do it. Um, so you could ask that one question about every single thing, and there's the reason why that question is there, which we probably don't have time to go into, and then execution. Right, so how do you get that uh execute to get to that point? So that is you have operating systems like the entrepreneurial operating systems or measure what matters or different approaches that you frameworks that you can apply to businesses. My own personal one is the one that I invented because I think there are stages smaller businesses don't need, you know, the entrepreneurial operating system. It suits. Businesses that maybe 50 people plus where you start to have that division of uh tasks. So, uh, And one of the ways to do that, if you're asking for yourself, John, is to keep a time audit for a week is just write down everything you do during that day and see what really you need to be doing. If it's done on a computer, you probably don't need to be doing it, right? So that's number one. And there was a time a few years back where I went through, I had this notion that I was, I wanted total, uh, they call it utilization of staff. So in big companies. They have a number, let's say you've got 1000 people, and they want to know how productive they are over that 8 hours, the utilization of staff. So, uh, they'll find they're not very productive. So if you have a marketing company, there's virtually no marketing companies that have all of the original people sitting in an office. It's all outsourced because you don't get utilization of staff. You, if you have a full-time Facebook person, you might not have enough work for them for the whole week. So they tend to be all contracted, they're all contracted out, right? So the, uh, so I installed software to see what people were doing. And if you work for Upwork, they they they record your computer screen for any hour that you charge. So if you're an Upwork outsource person and you go for lunch, you don't get paid. You go to the bathroom, you don't get paid. Right, so it's a 100%, um, optimization of labor there. And you can, there's a lot of arguments for and against it, but that the reality is that's a lot more productive than if you're in an office with 10 people and you go in and you have a coffee and you find out how Auntie Sadie's doing or the latest drama or what traffic problems you had. You're lucky if you get a few hours of work done during the day. So, you know, even before COVID, that model was kind of dying and social media and social media is just a waste of time, I swear, yeah. I found that, and I don't monitor the staff anymore, but that exercise that we did, something like 60% of the time was on, it was on, you're gonna like this, John. It was at that day, it was, uh, YouTube, uh Facebook, there was no TikTok, and porn. That's what people are looking at when they're working for you. So really. So, and you're working in operations. I owned a call center at one time. We had a 100 seat call center, and it's a very measured environment. You have things called predictive dialers, and what they do is they monitor how long the average person takes to make a call, and then it dials somebody before you finish the call because your average time is 3 minutes. And so you don't have even a second before your next call, it's like bang, bang, bang, bang. So, uh, in environments like that where there's a lot of metrics involved, you get better utilization of the people who are working for you. Yeah. And it comes back to that again, John, making your engine work well. You don't need to be that, you know, anal about all of the information, but you don't want a lumpy engine, you know, you don't want to be away from your business and worry that somebody's doing what they're, they're not doing their job. There should be measurements and processes in place where you can look at a dashboard and say, on your iPhone, uh, yeah, that's going OK. Do your uh key people own uh equity in the business? No, none of them do, and, uh, you know, again, I don't believe that you should have partners, right? So, my, in the old days, or even now I still see it, you get a guy with an idea who doesn't know how to design a website, who brings in a web designer as a partner because he can design a website. Yeah, and that's a commodity. Today it's a commodity, a commodity. Yeah. So anything that's a commodity is the wrong reason to have somebody as a partner. It's either insecurity or you don't know what you're doing. There are times where I've had partners in, uh, where it made sense, either financially, I needed the money, or they had some unique expertise where it made sense, or on occasion, it's because, uh, a friend and I just want to do something for fun, we'll be partners. But as if there's no reason to have partners, then I don't believe you should have partners. If you can hire the person. Yeah, I get it. Uh, Mark, we're almost at the end of the hour, and I wanna thank you for joining me today. This is fantastic wisdom from Mark McCray from Scotland, yeah, from Scotland, Bonnie Scotland, John. Uh, and it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you so much. My relatives are from, uh, Scotland, uh, uh, McAllister. Yeah, there you go. And John, if anybody wants to reach me, they can get me at Mark McCray just my name.com. I'll tell you what, what's right now, it's gonna happen because I, I do these interviews and I did it for with Marty and I did a patch and people reach out to him for guidance and advice, etc. coaching. Yeah. Great. Yeah, so if anybody wants to have a chat, uh, you know, like I say, I'm more interested in, and, you know, if there's some, something that would be interesting for me and that person to work together, uh, they can reach me at either Markmcree.com or my email, which is Mark at Markmcree.com. And this call was, I mean, a really clear indication how to work with Mark. I mean, boring businesses, uh, buying revenue. Warren Buffett type style and putting systems in place. So can I add some, yes, that's exactly right, John. So, uh, you've done a few of these interviews right now. Yeah, yeah, uh, of what's the three most important things that you've picked up or were epiphanies for you or the light bulb went on. And those conversations. Well, the, the, the systems in place and hiring the people and using up work, uh, you know, it's definitely uh affirmation of the style you do. I love what Warren Buffett does, and his ability to make a deal with a handshake, you know, he'll call somebody, send them a letter, I like the business. They send him their documents, and he likes it and makes an offer, and it's a handshake deal. At some point, you know, like, how do you become a Uh, somebody that can, uh, know the other person on the other side of the table or on the other side of the table and say this is a good person, this is an ethical person, and I want to do a deal with him. Mm. I think that you get a sense of that as well from when you talk to somebody, often enough or frequently, and numbers don't lie, right? So, and the, and the trading game, you know, in finance game, they used to say you can't be half pregnant, so if you've got the numbers and you can show them, it's hard to avoid that. Uh, but I'm very much like that as well, so I like I why I say I'm more interested in the person. Um, I don't care if, if it's the right person, whether they're an employee or a potential partner or whatever it is, and you can, you can see that there's genuine intent to try and make something happen, then I'll overlook a lot of stuff, you know, you don't have to have an MBA or a degree or anything. I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for somebody who is trying to get somewhere and has more energy than me. Business is energy. Right, so as I got older, I have less energy. I'm looking for people who want to do all the night shifts and do the crazy hours and, you know, and go and do all this stuff I don't want to do. But that's what's important, right? So if that thing about procedures was one of the, the biggest things that you learned, what was the thing that you learned that you shouldn't do? You know, it's it back to this, it's the procedures. I mean, I shouldn't be doing any of this stuff, and I, I need to ask questions before like can I outsource that to Upwork? I, I really should be doing that and putting that systems in place. I think it's gonna change my business and who I am if I have more confidence in that. Then I think you should look at, uh, you know, that measure what matters. Oh yeah, I, I've got it. And I use it now. I, I read it like a couple of months ago, and I, I build my business around that now, like, and I just work on those, uh, uh, the objectives and the key results. Yes. Then you're gonna get there, right? So the first thing is acknowledging that, you know, like I said, you don't know what you don't know. But once you say, OK, there's a, I've got something missing, and you start that journey to finding the missing piece, that's the first indication that, you know, you're going to get there, cause you can't start the journey if you don't know there's something missing. Yeah that's right. If you don't see it, yeah. So the realization that there is something missing is. You're, you've done fantastic just with that part, John. And have you, uh, enjoyed your epic experience? I love it. I love it. I mean, it's really given me an eye opening about, I mean, it's it's literally if I'm looking at a puzzle and I didn't see what the picture was, it now gives me a picture, and I just take the puzzle pieces and put them in a place. Mm. Oh, great. Yeah, John, thank you so much and uh hopefully we can do this again.