Should I Buy the Family Business?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week we bring you another entrepreneurial Fishbowl with Chris Hutchinson of TreeSet group as you may remember this is a virtual exercise where we offer a business owner or in this case a potential business owner the opportunity to pose a challenge he or she is facing to a group of owners and entrepreneurs from the 21 hats Community as part of a brainstorming session in this case it was Bailey walr who explained why she has mixed feelings about whether she should buy the Miller waldrup Furniture business that her parents own as you'll hear Bailey has some real concerns the business has been down of late it's predominantly brick and mortar and she would have to work out in ownership structure with a younger brother the 21 hats brainstormers ask a lot of good questions including whether the business is profitable whether it's been paying family members a market wage and whether it owns the real estate they also offer some Smart Suggestions plus it all ends with a very surprising offer from Jay gos even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges in fact that's the whole idea behind the 21 hats Community engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insights only another entrepreneur can offer if you're interested in learning more step one is to sign up for the morning Morning Report which highlights the most important news of the day for business owners so you don't have to go looking for it step two is to get on our slack Channel where you can ask questions get vendor recommendations and tap the wisdom of a very impressive crowd just search for the 21 hats Morning Report to sign up for a free trial joining me this week on the podcast are Chris Hutchinson of trebet group along with his co-founder and wife Diana Hutchinson plus marcha Bacher of space to think David Barnett of business buyer Advantage Michael Bice of Vortex engineering David bilstrom of flashing red light Chris Campbell of ritzer Paul Downs of Paul Downs cabinet makers Kim Guyer of eok service Jay gos of the gos group Ty Haggler of trig Eric mesner of mesner B Farm Josh Patrick of the sustainable business Megan perona of AR Manufacturing and Lisa Peterson of wealth Clinic the episode is titled should I buy the family business all right let's do this are you ready for some fishball let's go welcome to Fishbowl 3 led by our terrific facilitator Chris Hutchinson as most of you know our goal here is to have some fun maybe learn some things and most of all to try to to help uh a business owner or would be business owner with an interesting challenge our guest of honor today is Bailey waldrup she's considering as most of you know whether she should buy the Family Furniture business uh from her folks more about that in a minute uh but first Chris do you want to give us a quick reminder uh how this works and what you're going to lead us through happy to do that what we're going to do is is uh Lauren's be working with Bailey at the beginning to sort of frame out what's happening around this and then once we get to a certain point we're going to enlist you as members of this community in small groups Diana's um helping facilitate here and she'll break you out in groups for about 12 minutes you're actually going to be uh thinking about what questions you want to ask to understand things better I'll Prime you on that as we get there and then once we get that back Bailey will pick something that she really wants advice on and then we'll set you back out to go thinking about what sort of advice Next Step a cautionary note or um a success tip and those will come back to Bailey and uploaded by you so that Bailey has the best of the best of our thoughts and information to support her in that decision one uh really important reminder which is we are recording this for a podcast so the first time you speak please tell us your full name and your business what you do so let's get started Bailey can you help us kind of by setting the the scene here a little bit tell us about the business who started it and when yeah thanks Floren um and before I start I just want to say thank you to everyone for being here and uh lending your expertise I'm excited um so the name of the business is Miller walr Furniture um it was started by my great grandpa in 1952 and so my parents are the current owners their third generation um it's a retail furniture store in Southeastern New Mexico and West Texas um we've got three locations of retail furniture and then a freestanding mattress store so it's kind of when you talk about the business right now it's a hard time to talk about retail Furniture um we're economically just seeing a hard time um in lots of different ways we we do well when the housing market does well and then of course everything is so expensive right now so people don't have a lot of discretionary income and then we're also seeing kind of like a post pandemic bus um because we did so well in the pandemic and we ate a lot of our demand so right now is a hard time in the furniture business but historically we've done very well um and and when we're doing our best we're usually around like 15 million in sales and we have anywhere from like 50 to 60 at least and you know that in part because you've been playing a role in the business business tell us about that Bailey yes yeah so um I'll give you a little bit of my background just because I think it helps frame the decision a little bit for me so I uh went to school for accounting and got my CPA license and went and did CPA things for a while and decided pretty fast that that wasn't what I wanted to do and so I decided that I was going to go try out the family business and at that time it was to rule it out um needed to just decide that I was done with it so that I could decide what the rest of my career was going to be um but I got into it and I ended up really enjoying it so I've been doing it since 2018 and I've worn a lot of different hats uh as as a family member goes in a family business but right now I'm the CFO of the company and so I lead everything financially and I lead a team of about five people directly but then of course as a family member wear a lot of hats for guiding the business and where it's going to go and a lot of longterm vision and making sure that we're headed in a good direction and um who owns the business now my parents own the business 100% they they own the whole thing yep they own it all and how old are they they are in their mid 60s um and they're they're getting ready to be done um or well it depends who you talk to but my Dad's getting ready to be done um and they're looking forward to handing over the range just as quickly as possible um I told them two years ago that I would let them know by the end of next year whether or not I was all in so I I still have about a year to make this decision do you have siblings yes so I have a brother um he's involved in the business he's been involved for the last couple of years he's younger than me so I'm young I'm 31 um my brother is of 25 um so we're we're kind of in an interesting space because this is the first time in the family business where a sibling pair has both been working in the business and both has interest in ownership so the blueprint for ownership transfer for our family has always been that there is one one sibling interested one child interested in the business so we're feeling a little lost as a family just what what could that look like um for leadership and ownership if we both decide that we want to have some piece of the business going forward um and so that's that's definitely a big part of the decision as well is deciding what that could look like and and does that set up me and my brother's relationship for Success I've said it many times that what's most important to me is me and my brother's personal relationship so I'll walk away if it feels like that's going to be in compromise based on how everything is feeling so that that's been an interesting dynamic as well um also very interesting that you know we have all four of us working in the business every day so it's a lot of a lot of fun but a lot of chaos too tell us about the chaos well you know I think um anyone that's involved in a family business knows that uh family family businesses are just hard you have your family Dynamics and you have your business Dynamics and so uh you know you have your your family things that that get to you and then they get to you in the business and so uh there's definitely the chaos there of figuring out how family Dynamics play in in the business and um you know how all that works as well got it uh let's open this up for questions Chris you want to uh lead this if you have questions please put them in the chat and we'll see how many of those we can get from Bailey the best questions by the way are ones with how much or how or start with what rather than yes no questions are you going to do this you know wouldn't you like to include this process what we're trying to do is jointly learn it's not anything you have an answer for it's we're going to learn what B's perspective is and that's going to help inform us so that when we go give tips they're really helpful so the first couple questions we have Michael my name is Michael Vice I run Vortex engineering which supports the modernization of ships and submarines for the Navy and San Diego my question was you know when you say you they own it 100% do they also own own as an asset all the real estate and all the property uh along with that yes um my parents own all of the real estate everything in in the business there still is some like a little bit of debt that they're paying off like in relation to some of the assets but they own it all yeah and so that's definitely a question um to in transfer of ownership there's so many different ways it could look right like they keep the real estate we pay them rent we buy the real estate from them you know the I think the possibilities are inless and how it could be structured that's great well let's keep asking questions Paul Downs Paul Downs cabinet makers uh my question was is there any debt and that was I guess answered but I always prefer to hear answers that actually have numbers in them rather than there's some or there's a little second thing would be what were your revenues in the last two years because you mentioned what your Peak years were 15 million but what's it what's it looking like now and then the last last one was have your parents set an asking price for this yeah okay lots of questions so since it's not my business I won't share like exact numbers about the debt but definitely the goal is my my family has like a fiveyear plan for the debt to be completely paid off so that when the ownership is transferred that it's completely debt free that's the goal and then we're on track to do that right now as far as sales so yeah 156 million was where we were during the peak of like our Co boom then we went down to 12 and now we're more like 10 um so we've definitely seen a decline as it has everyone has in the furniture industry but I I feel really hopeful that we're going to be able to Pi it back up and then I was that you had another question I think I didn't yeah have your parents set a price oh no no we haven't set a price yet the goal is to find a payment I think that would be doable for the business but also be fair them and set them up for their retirement well yeah um Josh Patrick uh the sustainable business do you uh want to buy the business and does your brother want to buy the business yeah that's a great question I mean I think part of the reason I'm here is I'm I'm unsure if I want to buy the business um right now my my brother definitely does and he's all it well if you were sure what would be happening uh what do you mean by that well if you were sure you wanted to either buy the business or Not by the business what would be your decision points for that what's preventing you from answering that question yes or no yeah I think I think it's threefold I think I need some like Clarity around a good path forward for me and my brother to be partners in the business and what that would look like I think that's the first thing I think second thing is I just need to ease some of my thoughts about my anxieties of uh the future of like brick and mortar retail and and where the business is going in that direction and then I I think third and I don't know if this is a question anyone on this podcast can answer for me um but just a little bit of like an existential question of this has been in my family since 1950 too it it's all my family has done it's what I grew up in you know do I want to go pave A New Path for myself uh my name is David Barnett I run a Consulting business where I help people buy and sell businesses and so the first question I have is are the family members being paid a fair market wage for the work that they do so are you getting paid the amount that strangers would be paid if they were filling the roles yes that's a good question we for the most part yes okay and are there positive earnings in the business right now is it making money right now we're at break even um and this is the first time in company history that we haven't been profitable this is also a hard time to think about get over but now you said you the buildings so is the company paying rent to anyone um the company itself you know we're set up in like different LLC uses so the company business is paying rent to the llc's that own the real estate but it's all under the umbrella of my parent okay and is the rent being charged a fair market rent or is it just the amount you need to cover the mortgage payments um a little bit of both I would say two of our buildings are are probably not at market and then I would say one of them so if you didn't own any of the real estate if you had independent thirdparty landlords this company would probably be losing money right now yeah for sure okay and my last question was can you give us any idea about how much money is tied up in inventory um so our our goal is to be at about like 20% of of our sales in inventory right now we're a little high at 30% um so that that puts us at like like and a half three three million in inventory right now yeah perfect thank you I'm Megan perona I I do the books at uh another family business AR manufacturing uh we're a CNC contract Machine Shop in Oregon um and uh I do have a similar situation because my parents are in their mid-60s and both my brother and I uh work at the business uh and and so there is a we're we're in a similar seccession plan uh but I have no interest in owning it but uh I was going to ask you you've spoke a lot about uh like your own feelings about owning the business and your brother's feelings about owning the business but are there other spouses Partners people involved in those decisions and how do they feel about it yeah for sure I mean yes like my brother's wife and my husband definitely have a lot of um thoughts about it and I think both of us are viewing it as a decision as like a family unit not just like my decision it's my whole family's because the family business so it would end up being impacted um I think my husband is is where I'm at with it is we see a lot of Pros we also see some tricky things that we're trying to navigate and so we're definitely seeing it as like a a group decision for sure okay great um let's see I'm looking at the questions and I'm wondering how much more we need to know before gets to pick the the the thing that she really wants the advice around well David billstrom you have a question uh about Bailey's motivations here so could you share that briefly yeah this is David bstrm and um flashing red light is my consultancy that covers a broad range of of advisory including businesses so biley this may seem a little odd but what do you do when you go on vacation where you go and if that's if that's too specific then maybe a different way of asking it would be if you weren't doing this like next month or two from now what would you be doing yeah so that's a great question I'm I'm trying really hard right now to come up with like a plan B for if I don't um take over the business that way I I'm actually like deciding between things I don't just up in a place by default and the the dayto day of what the business is I I really love it like if I if I don't take over the furniture store I'll just go start my my own thing from scratch and so I I really enjoy the elements of like having employees that I can make a difference in their day-to-day I enjoy retail um I enjoy owning a business in a community and being involved in the community that way and I get the most energy out of out of that experience of owning a business so there's a lot of things that I really love about it so your question about like if this were to all fall off the table I would probably just go go try to recreate it um but it would be my own thing it would it would be not something that is part of the family business thank you that's yeah thanks for being vulnerable yeah Chris I think Jay goz has a question or two help us use your experience to understand what what the situation might be well I can give you some comparing notes I've been in the furniture business for 35 years my sales are similar and I can tell you the entire industry it's not the pandemic interest rates are high people aren't moving people buy furniture when they move moving's probably 50% off it's everybody that I talk to including me down 20% that's pretty much what you're down so that is normal two I could have guessed your inventory level because again I'm at the same place you are and that's exactly what I would have guessed your employee count exactly the same as mine per Revenue dollar and um so I think the business is okay I I do think it'll rebound because as soon as people start moving again they'll start buying furniture again this went completely different than I thought because all I heard is oh she's a CPA and I was gonna give you a whole lecture about how being a CPA is J there's a question there some place what's the question okay I'm gonna just cut to the chase then the fact that you said you didn't like being a CPA you love employees you love retail I'm not here to ask a question I'm here to give you a reflection of I'm also in the business and I'm a family business owner I'm here to tell you it sounds to me like you should try to buy the business and the key part to this is if anything goes wrong you can always change direction and sell it later this isn't a lifetime you know commitment so Jay Jay is previewing our next step that we're going to go to well I'm also filling in the blanks for people that didn't know if the numbers I'm trying to validate her numbers are all normal and that she will that the business shouldn't be in trouble that everybody I know in the industry I talk to reps everybody I've ever heard is off about 20% so I'm just validating the business isn't sick it's it's it's a it's a extremely high interest rate environment coming off a low interest so so J if you were Bailey what question would you ask yourself to better understand what you need to do next you know what she just answered my question right before she said I love retail I love the customers I love my employees you know what that's what I wanted to hear and I think that she's got to figure out and I would get some outside Consulting on this not me about how to deal with your brother and the relationship and stuff but I think that there's a nice opportunity here for you and your brother perfect Jake you know it's it's one thing that happens when we feel a resonance and a connection between people's experience and our own we want to help them out and Jay you are no exception you are trying to figure out how can you help Bailey as much as possible because I sort of can tell you can feel her pain and the challenge and the possibilities since you've lived it what we're going to do here I think is we're going to change gears we don't have a perfect situation we don't have perfect information and we haven't answered every question however we have a pretty good list that if you have um group map pulled up you'll see there's seven or eight items on there and what we'll be doing is looking at all these questions and answers that you provided where do you want advice so it might be one or two of these like this is the thing I want advice on so uh we don't provide you unasked for advice uh unasked for help is often isn't helpful and what we're trying to do is figure out what you want to know about and then we're going to as you're looking at this I'm vamping slightly the group's going to get into smaller groups of probably three to four people and have a conversation around that particular thing what's the next step what's a caution or what's something that um will help make sure it's successful and I don't know if there's a there is a question okay Eric please State your question I'm sorry I know we're short on time my name is Eric mesner uh I am the accounting department and co-owner of mesner be Farm a much smaller business than yours uh but I just want to understand it seems like your brother has a has a stake in this question and so I'm curious if you could provide a little bit of detail on like what his competencies are what role he plays in the business now do you feel like he'd be interested in like silent partnership or some type of co-ownership that he doesn't maybe have as much decision-making power as you can you just fill in some of the details there yeah so um my brother is like extremely eager uh he like would run the business tomorrow if someone would let him um he's very hardworking and he's actually in the day-to-day I work very high level on the business um as a CFO I'm working more on the business he's he's like in the business um he's also worked retail like on the sales scoor before um for a a competitor and and I haven't done that so he has a lot more on the ground experience I think that like right now on paper with our our different levels of experience and just our and just frankly our age I know I'm young at 31 but he's also even younger at 25 and hasn't gotten a lot of experience in the business yet or like outside of the business and so just on paper right now like organizationally I'm I guess like ahead of him in the work chart he's like our advertising manager and I'm the CFO so if we had to make a decision like tomorrow about the business like worst case scenario something were to happen to my parents I would definitely be like runner up for being the one that's like in charge I think what's hard about all of this is that because he is so young we don't we don't know where he's going to be in 10 years and so we're making all those decisions now about like our current competency levels and experience but in 10 years when he's got a lot more experience than maturity under his felt he could be he could be a totally different person and so to answer your question like I think he's very open his goal is he just wants to run this business and he want to do it with me um and so I think that he is very open to like different levels of like what that relationship could look like at least at least right now that's how you feel okay thank you Bailey let's look at the um questions and answers basically the things that came from you I think Di's probably putting the last one in and I'd love for you to pick which one of these would you like this assembled group of experts who passionately want to support you to to really help you with yes I'm looking at this the yellow board here yes and there's some 10 items on there we we we just have time for one so just pick which one would be powerful yeah I I think that if anyone has ideas about like structuring of leadership and ownership with my brother I would be very interested to hear about that okay which particular one is that I think there's the one near the bottom this says younger brother 25 is also working in the business yeah there you go thank you so what you're you're asking for help with is a structure leadership with your brother in the business that's I think what we're going to be providing it for yeah I think so okay wonderful so what we're going to do is we're going to break you out um you're going to go away for 12 minutes it'll be about 10 minutes actually we need to make it 10 minutes Dana so it'll be eight minutes and then you'll get a warning Lawrence looking like he wants to interject so I will definitely let him interject here boy you are a good facilitator here's my question could you be more specific about what you're hoping the suggestions will say about your relationship with your brother running the business um from a distance it's easy to talk about various ownership structures or management structures but you have it sounds like particular concerns about your relationship is there anything else we should know about your relationship with your brother in order to best offer suggestions about how to manage that situation um I don't think so I think just in general me and my family have all kind of come to this consensus it's really hard whenever you have like a Business Partnership and there's no one to have the final say and so I think we're curious in in how things can still be fair as of both being siblings and children of my parents to both of us but set up the business for Success so that decisions can be made and that the employees have like a clear structure of like who they go to and what that looks like I am less worried about money like I I am I am fine at the end of the day if if it's 50/50 split as far as like how money goes I'm more worried about how does leadership look and how do we set up like authorities so that it it's set up for Success so if I can interject the question is it's not so much about running the business specifically with your brother it's more a question about partnership how two people owning a business can make decisions and effectively manage the operation is that right yeah yeah I think so great thank you Lauren for that clarification so that should be on the top of everybody's mind as we send you away for 10 minutes we're going to put you in random groups and the idea is have a conversation what we hope to do is populate this with the great ideas cautions success tips and then we'll come back and see which ones get the most votes let you share those and B we hopefully walk away with some great ideas it'll be eight minutes and then there'll be a two-minute countdown warning let us know if you have any problems we'll see you in 10 minutes [Music] okay so at this point Chris splits everyone up into virtual breakout groups of three or four people and he gives them about 10 minutes to brainstorm ideas which they can then enter on a virtual whiteboard then all of the participants give a thumbs up to the ideas they find most promising once that's done we go through the ideas that have been liked the most with Chris asking the person who articulated the idea to explain it to the whole group David bilstrom goes first followed by David [Music] Barnett welcome back please add in your thoughts if they're not already here and then go ahead and upvote the ones that you think would be most helpful based on what you heard from Bailey and your own experience so just go ahead and upvote those and in a moment what we'll do is move to sorting them by likes so the ones that have the most likes are going to be the ones that people get to share let me just say we're getting close to uh our time deadline it's possible we will run a little bit over if you have to go you have to go just you can just wave and uh say goodbye we wouldn't go more than five or six minutes over if we do go over so two new IDs popped in people are liking those or letting them sit that's okay too I think we'll take about 30 more seconds and then we'll move to the answer sorted by likes so this order will shift and we'll see which ones are uh sort of on top so the idea here is not to solve the whole problem just convey your um your suggestion um so this first one is equity ownership structure so David go ahead and just share that then uh it was actually a a group effort between marcha and Megan and I but um I've personally experienced this and I've had clients and dear friends go through this where they get into business um together and then due to a sudden change change outside of their control they now have a new business partner that they never would have chosen and so the customary solution to that is to have an airtight Buy sell agreement that anticipates changes and since you both are so young I think most of us here over 50 would say you're absolutely going to have changes it's just the way life unfolds so that's where that comes from it's a cautionary great advice David thank you for that how about our next one parents like they have a simplified idea we'll just sell it who is that and can you share it one of the Impressions that we kind of got is that the you know Bailey's talking about buying the business her and her brother and then all of a sudden it's like one day they will be the owners and all of a sudden Everything's changed um we're wondering if the parents don't have kind of a simplified idea of what it's going to be like to sell this business because the current state of the business is one where if they had outside landlords this business would be money the only reason it's breaking even today is because of past investments in real estate and so I mean Bailey and her brother are not going to be able to go borrow millions of dollars and go write a check to their parents and become the new owners of this business the business wouldn't be able to make the payments on that you know I help people buy and sell businesses but a lot of what I do as well is I help people with partnership dissolutions and so one of the one of the issues is that um you need to have an or chart in a business even a family business and know when you're wearing the Hat of a position at at the company for example president or vice president of sales or head of marketing or whatnot and that's a different hat from your ownership hat owners meet at The Boardroom table they talk about the long-term direction of the business they give instructions or Express you know what kind of strategy they want the president to undertake the president's in charge every day at the business and so bayy and her brother are going to end up in an org chart in one or more roles each and one of them is going to be above the other one of them is going to be the president and when they're at work every day they need to operate within that word chart and every decision that is made can't be resolved through an instant boardroom meeting the whole organization grinds to a halt it it becomes management by committee all the time and I'm not sure how your parents run it uh Bailey but you need the structure and your brother has to be on board with the structure and understand you know what his jobs are all the time and and because I would imagine the way that you're going to be able to get this done if you choose to move forward is you're probably going to end up buying this over a period of time from your parents slowly bit by bit which means that there's going to be a number of years where all four of you are going to be the owners and that could be great because it means that your parents are still going to have a vested interest and be there to give you guidance and advice and and may be able to help some of that interaction between you and your brother when you guys have your regular board meetings thank you David great um we have a good one here it's got quite a few votes the recommending around Partners counseling who made that suggestion that was me go ahead Josh from what I heard before you start making financial decisions and legal decisions and accounting decisions it's important to know what the rules of the game will be and how you're going to interact with your sibling when you have Partners whether it's a sibling partner or partner partner and there are some really good therapists out there who don't do couples counseling they do Partners counseling and my recommendation before I even started thinking about any of the technical stuff which is all relatively simple and straightforward believe it or not it's the soft side of the business where people really really get into trouble in my experience and I highly recommend um Partners counseling get everything straightened out there then if you decide to move forward you move forward thanks Josh I'll pick this last one out the uh 51 49% who's got that cautionary tail or success tip yeah that was me Michael Bice Vortex it kind of goes along with the ownership uh being able to make decisions so you're not blocked on uh a veto I've found that if one person doesn't have a veto over the other one you may be blocked with no decision um so one person has to make the final decision so having that defined the other part of that was because um there are benefits to women-owned businesses uh in enshrined in law having you Bailey as as the owner or predominant owner if you buy the business then you would have that ability to access that preferential capital or ability to to get um access to those those benefits uh that the federal government provides that's perfect okay great okay Lauren um I think we're almost had wrap up time and I just wonder if you want like to ask Bailey what she wants to do next based on this advice actually I'm a journalist so I always want to know more uh I can't resist see this is why I ask him this because I know this is gonna happen what what's the thing you want to know more of Lauren to help Bailey Bailey one thing we haven't really addressed here uh before the group is how important in this decision your Toler tolerance for risk is especially given the fact that you're by training you're a CPA that's your background even if it's not your passion to what extent is that Financial entrepreneurial potential for risk uh a factor in you're deciding whether you're going to proceed with this or not yeah that is a good question um even though I don't enjoy being a CPA in the day-to-day work my temperament is probably more that of a CPA as far as my risk tolerance goes so this is definitely a question that I'm asking myself right now um I think part of what I'm considering and kind of hedging my risk is that my um husband has a pretty stable job um and I think that if we were to go down this direction he would continue to stay in that role um and not be involved in running the business so that we can kind of hedge our risk a little bit until we get more comfortable and I think also the way that we structure how ownership is transferred whether that be paying my parents like a consultancy fee or maybe doing like an owner finance type transaction I think there's ways that we can go around it that will feel more comfortable to my risk tolerance but on the other side of that I think I don't want to just slide into doing this because my risk tolerance is low because this is also like an easy way to go about you know owning owning my own business and getting to be an entrepreneur as well so I think it's it's a multifaceted question do you have any questions at this point before you sort of share with us what your next steps are going to be I think this is super helpful um thank you everyone for your thoughts I think I think if anyone just has any like burning thoughts that they want to get out I would be interested to hear them looks like Jay has a burning thought has your parents I don't know which one of them or both are you sure they wouldn't be relieved if you said Mom Dad just sell it and take the cash and move to Florida are they where do they I don't know if they tell you the truth I mean there are parents out there that I know that don't want their kids to be involved like they had to and they're happy to dump it and but they might not want to say it all do you have an idea where their heads at I I honestly think my parents want both me and my brother to make the best decision for us and they they know that they'll figure it out no matter what direction they go down we don't have a blueprint for selling it to a third party so I think that they don't really know like what that would look like um and so I think that there's some hesitancy there just because that's an unknown um but I I think everyone here just wants to do what's best for the business and for for everyone's like well-being but those are two you see that's my point those two things are contradictory maybe what may be best for the business is not best for you and vice versa so that's where it gets complicated I mean I've I'm I'm living it so I you know my kid is no longer involved he's not going to be taking over the business I know lots of people in that situation so it sounds like you have a good shot at this could be a good thing for you and your brother anybody else with a burning thought just so you know you're ebit assuming when you're making money again the the multiple on that probably three and a half times or something it is probably likely that liquidating the business would raise just as much cash as selling it just saying I'm in that situation myself just it is a reality so keep that in mind going forward because trying to find a buyer and dealing with that whole thing uh who knows my point is it's not going away tomorrow there's always assets there your parents will always be able to get their money out of it one way or the other chis Where Do We Go From Here well I just want to Bailey is there any specific Choice uh based on the information you heard about your next steps I really like what you all had to say about um the leadership and the boardroom and not leading by Committee in every decision that is made um I think there's a lot of threads to be pulled on there and so I'm excited to explore what that could look like for now in our business and going forward so I think there's a lot of really good thought there will you come back in six months or a year or whenever is appropriate and tell us what happens sure yeah hopefully I don't disappoint you guys would you consider me adopt you and taking over my business I'm just asking just keep that as an option my parents about that one day yeah just just keep your options open that's all I'm saying good thank you all one thing before you go everything we do at 21 hats is created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs to help us all learn together so if you get something out of this podcast or out of the morning report please tell a friend tell an enemy tell every business owner you know your word of mouth entrepreneur to entrepreneur will always be the most effective way to build this community for all of us thank you it means a lot this episode was produced by another entrepreneur Jess dubron founder of blank word Productions thanks for listening everyone