Finding the Right Fit: Preparing Your Business for a High-Value Exit with Don Montgomery

My goal in helping support my clients and any of the listeners who are entrepreneurs is to help them facilitate getting the highest value exit that they can. Can you talk about some of the steps in the process of what it looks like when someone is getting ready to exit their business? What is the role of an advisor, of a broker in helping a business get their business ready and get it listed? Hello. Hello and welcome to the Wealthy Entrepreneur Podcast. I am your host Bob Govreau. I am so grateful to have you here today. Just as a bit of a reminder that this is the space where we dissect the elements that contribute to entrepreneurial success from mindset and leadership to profits and revenue. What I'm always looking for is to bring value to this audience of business owners and entrepreneurs. What are the skills, knowledges, connections that we need to make in our lives to help enhance the value, wealth creation and impact that we can continue to have together? And this is exactly what we're going to be talking about today. This episode is titled the Path to a Profitable Exit. Insights from the mergers and acquisitions expert Don Montgomery. And Don, who I'm going to bring in in a moment. Don is the CEO of a mergers and acquisitions company, is the founder of called True North. He's built his 25 year career around enhancing the customer experience and sales and management eventually leading to his role as president of Pentax Medical. And over the years Don has led and participated in extensive long term strategic planning. Has obviously found a void in the market in order to support entrepreneurs just like you in exiting with the greatest value and helping support you to get ready for an exit in your business which we all need to plan for. So I'm really excited to be able to bring Don in here today. Again a mergers and acquisitions expert who focuses on supporting businesses and he's going to talk about this for sure. That are in the, you know, 2 million to $20 million range is really his sweet spot. So if you're looking, and you should be as an entrepreneur, you should be looking to have your business ready to sell even if you don't want to sell it. What are the factors that would make this get ready and create value so that you can exit and maximize your wealth or that you could successfully transition your business to a potential buyer. This is a very, very important conversation and I'm really excited that Don is going to be joining us today. So without any further ado, let's bring in Don McGgomery, the CEO and founder of True North M and A. All right, thank you so much, Don, for joining me today, you know, and I'd love to just hear. And I don't know that I actually have asked you this in the past because we've had the opportunity to. To connect and collaborate, at least on one file. And I'm sure there'll be a lot more in the coming future. But I'd love to hear a little bit about dawn, the journey of the entrepreneur who got into this business.

Sure, yeah, I. Interestingly, and I'm not sure how many entrepreneurs find themselves to be reluctant entrepreneurs, but I had a pretty typical postgraduate migration. I spent 20, about 25 years in the corporate world. I graduated, went into the healthcare medical world, wanted to be in a. In an industry that was stable and helpful to mankind and wanted to be doing something and selling products that were helpful and those sorts of things. So spent about 25 years in that industry, very much on the sales side of things, but then worked my way into management executive. And the last 10 years or so of that was as the president of a company called Pentax Medical, which was a Canadian distributor of endoscopy equipment and services. And the interesting thing about that for me was I spent all of those years in the corporate world, never really even thinking about whether I was an entrepreneur and I was entrepreneurial in the way I went about my business and building my market share and had pretty good successes. But about 25 years into that, I got into, effectively a disagreement with my President of the Americas boss, and we were not aligned in what needed to happen in the company. And the long story short, as I came in one day, even though I was arguably one of the more talented folks in the company, in the corporation, and I was hitting pretty great numbers in terms of employee satisfaction, client satisfaction, market share compared to any global entity. And yet I came in one day, he was sitting in my chair with an envelope in his hand, and I knew it was over. And the reason I tell it that way is that despite the success, despite my efforts, I had no control, I had no leverage, and I had no equity in what I had done. I had had a good run, I had built up great friends, great management teams, had a great experience, but at the end of the day, I had no control over where. What was going to happen to me. And so I think largely because of that, it was such a powerful moment in terms of my lack of experience and my lack of control. It really was the driver that said, okay, whatever you're doing next, you have to have equity, you have to have control. And so I turned around and went to buy a business. And I decided that the only way for me to do this was to have my own business. There's really two ways to have your own business. One of them is to start your own business and the other one is to buy a business.

One is easier than the other. From experience I can tell you that.

Well, so, and, and that's where my story gets a little wobbly because I, I was about to go down the road of buying a business and that was 10 years ago. And I went out into the market. I was mostly looking for businesses in western Canada. I was living in Calgary at the time. And as I went out to meet over the next three to five months, I went out and met pretty much everybody that was selling, representing their clients. So that could have been commercial realtors, it could have been business brokers or M and A advisors. And something hit me in the face bigger than anything else I had seen and that, that these people were largely unprofessional, unprepared, and had no passion doing what they were doing. And so I switched courses very quickly again and started True North. Because in my previous experience, what I had been was very strong in communications. I had been able to build relationships, able to build trust. But I realized that none of these people were doing this as well as I thought I could and that there was an opportunity in the small business space. And the differentiation there just to, just to make, help, help your audience understand is I was looking for a business that was approximately 2 to 5 million dollars in value. And those are the types of clients that we started to serve when I started True North. There's plenty of experience, plenty of knowledge and know how in if you have a 50 million business, $50 million business, or $100 million business, there's plenty of investment banks and banks and bankers and accounting firms that know exactly what you're doing. But in that small business space, they didn't. You know, the folks that we, that we were running into when we were looking for a business really didn't have that professionalism and passion and knowledge to be able to do it well. So that became the beginning of True North. We started, As I said, 10 years ago, selling businesses that were approximately 2 to 5 million in value. And we've grown that today we've moved up market after skinning our knees and helping folks in all kinds of businesses and sizes, we've learned now how to find better quality businesses. We've looked. Now we are more particular in terms of the fit. We don't we don't profess to be a great fit for everybody, and we don't think everybody should think we're a great fit for them. It's a, it's a tumultuous jewelry, so it's, it's. You really need to have a good fit and a good partner.

Yeah, I love that. And you know, everything, every good business starts with a void in the market. And I can agree. You know, it's interesting because the way that we connected, I was essentially looking for the same thing I was. Not necessarily for me, but for my clients who I just feel like there's a lot of people. Statistics would, would tell us that there's a lot of people that are going to be exiting in the next 10 years. And, you know, I was looking to say who is the partner that we can bring in that can help support those clients in this space? Because it, it was actually hard to find Don. So I can appreciate that, that this all started on the idea that there was no one there and no one supporting this market. So.

Yeah. And to this day, we, as I said, I could write a book now on the number of stories on some fantastic successes and accomplishments and great journeys and friends that we've developed along the way, and some horror stories and bad decisions that we've made in terms of that fit and understanding a business or understanding. So definitely been a journey, but I think we're creating some pretty great finishes now.

Yeah. And I know you guys are expanding pretty heavily as well, because I know I, I believe that everything started out West. It's kind of moved across Canada a little bit as well, expanding markets. What is your, what's your plan with the company overall?

Well, so the goal since the beginning was to really provide a high level of service to that small business owner. As I said, the banks and the accounting firms on some of the bigger businesses that are upmarket. If you've got a $50 million business, you're very well served. But it's really more to serve, you know, what is a much bigger market, which is businesses that are 50 employees or less, probably more north of 10 employees somewhere in that 10 to 50 or maybe 10 to 100 employees. And the goal for True north is to develop a well known safe place for people to call and go get help. We're going to talk later, I think, about some of the process. And a big part of the process is building your team. And that's one of the things that we can help with for our clients, is helping them build a team. Of knowledgeable folks that are going to be able to handle different aspects of the journey. But more than anything, we're trying to build a brand and a team of people across the country that is easily reachable, easy to get in front of, easy to sit down with for a coffee. It's not a big and scary thing. And I think we can provide a lot of value in doing that.

Well, I can tell you you guys are doing a pretty damn good job at that because every time I feel like constantly you guys are connecting and wanting to have that coffee and that chat and have been super supportive in any of the conversations we've had. So. So some things are going right, Don, I'm going to say that for you. Let's jump into. Like, I know my listeners. Everybody at some point has the goal and the ambition that they will be exiting. And you know, my goal in helping support my clients and, you know, any of the listeners who are entrepreneurs is to help them facilitate getting the highest value exit that they can. You know, whether it's with me or whether it's bringing in key partners like you guys. Can you talk about some of the steps in the process of what it looks like when someone is getting ready to exit their business?

Sure. Although I prefer to call them key factors than steps. And the only reason I say that is they're not necessarily in sequence one after the other for different. For different folks. And when I saw this question in our notes, there's four or five areas that I think are key factors. And yes, they will happen, but they'll all be part of the factors, but not necessarily in order. Probably the first one is a matter of personal readiness. So it's not so much about their timing, it's more about being ready.

The emotional side, that's another one of.

The factors that the readiness. For me, the readiness is a combination of emotion you may have. In many cases, you've got a partner in life, you've also got potentially a partner in your business. Sometimes those are one in the same, some of those, sometimes those are two. I can tell you that I sold a business a number of years ago with two partners that were probably about 25 years in age, different than each other. One was about 40 and the other was about 65, and we were 6. This is very early on. It's part of the learning process. I was talking about before we were. We were probably six, eight months into the journey, sitting in the lawyer's office, talking about offers that we had on the table. And I had to stop the Meeting and say to these two very kind gentlemen, have you guys talked about selling your business ever before before, like me asking, Because I asked both of them, do you really want to move forward? And one of them was, absolutely, yes, now is the time I've got to go. Like, I want to get in my RV and go travel the world. The other one is like, no, I don't want to sell. So. So there's a readiness there, and there's. There's emotional and big implications of the discussions that all need to happen. There's also family. What are your plans? Do you have plans for after the sale and exit from your business? So that's the readiness thing along with the readiness thing, I would say. And this could, you know, all the tax issues come into this. But are they wealth ready? Do they need to sell the business to be able to retire? In some cases, this is the biggest. In most cases, this is the biggest single liquidity event in anyone's lifetime. And so many times one of the early conversations that we'll be having, if we're just meeting someone or it's just early in the process, they're like, well, yeah, I want to sell my business, but I don't know what it's worth and I don't know how much I need. And so there's a big element of readiness or wealth readiness there. And then there's other. You mentioned the emotional factor. For sure, I would say, almost without exception, this is a very emotional journey for most owners, even though they go into it going, I'm not emotional about this. This is just a means to an end. I don't care. Just get me the, you know, optimize my exit and get me out. But it becomes emotional during the process. The other factor is the time investment that actually the journey itself is going to take. So they might be ready from a age perspective or, you know, I'm ready to retire. But they need the time to set aside to do this. The process of. Actually, once they engage us, it's about a year. But before and after that, there's other things that. So they need a lot of time and bandwidth to be able to get through the process effectively. And then probably the fifth and last factor there is, is the business itself ready to be sold? And I think we're going to talk about some of those things that add value and make it easier and more difficult to sell. But those are. That's, that's the last one is, is the business itself ready?

Yeah. No. Super insightful. A couple years ago, I Think I was mentioning to you, we. We acquired a company. It was about 30ish employees. The owner's name was David. Fantastic guy. He and I are really close. Dao. I had, I went and had lunch with him in Ottawa maybe a month ago, and I said, how have you enjoyed the last couple years? And he said that he was gutted. He said, you know, younger guy, he was in his 30s, exiting early, gonna do something else for sure. But he talked about, you know, the fact that this was really tied more to his identity than he thought it was, and he felt very empty and vacant after. So to your point about the readiness, you know, feeling whether you feel it, you know, you almost have to be prepared for that, because I'm sure from your experience, you see a lot of people feel like a loss of identity and a shift in their value once this has gone through.

Yeah, there's no question. We, we. And you know, I mentioned, I mentioned one of our clients that, you know, said, I'm not. This isn't emotional for me at all. We got to the other side of his sale. The money was in the bank, the deal was done, he had transitioned. And as soon as they said, okay, we're. You're through transition, thank you very much. He, he actually went into a depression for a while and needed to talk to someone about it and, and figure it out and, and understand. He was. In the end, he was happy that he had sold the business and got it prepared and all the rest of it. But it did it, you know, and he was probably, I would argue, one of the, One of the people that I would say, okay, you're handling this all pretty well, and maybe this isn't going to be that emotional for you. But it hit him and as you said, it gutted him for, for a little bit. A lot of us do identify. I've. I've put my blood, sweat and tears into my business, into True North. And I'm sure when it comes time to make an exit, I'll probably kid myself about how difficult it'll be, certain elements of it.

Yeah, no, my wife and I talk about this all the time now. My wife's not part of the business, but we talk about the idea of it. It sounds glorious, you know, the idea of retirement on a beach somewhere and just living in paradise at all times. But the reality is it, you know, it's a little bit, A little bit more than that when you get to the other side. So I, I can just imagine some of the situations that you've seen. Wanted to talk about, I understand businesses getting ready and, and time and for sure, you know, the tax implications of not being prepared structurally can have a dramatic effect on them. But what are some of the common pitfalls that you've seen that people could avoid when preparing their business to exit?

Common pitfalls. So I think, and this might be, this probably sounds pretty self serving, but most people do, or a lot of people do a great job of running their business. They, they started either, you know, painting, painting houses and developed a painting business or they, they started as a truck driver driving one truck and they built a, they built a great business over time based on their knowledge base of what they knew how to do and doing it well. And then they turned that into passion and customer service and built, rather than being a truck driver, they built a trucking business over time and became great at it. And now they've got a 10 or $20 million trucking business. And they did that slowly over time, out of their experience. But when it comes time to exit and to sell, I think the biggest pitfall is not knowing what you don't know. And the self serving part of this is the folks that try to either respond to an unsolicited single offer from a private equity company, for example, and there's probably lots of your listeners that could relate to this and go, oh, I get an email every week from somebody saying they want to buy my business. In many cases those are sophisticated, knowledgeable buyers that are hoping that, that that business owner responds and says, okay, well, I'll talk to you about selling my business. One of the most important things that a good M and A advisor will do for our clients is create what we call a multiple buyer scenario. And the reason that that's the most important thing we do is it's really the proof that we've done everything well and we've created now a situation where we have 8 or 10 or 15 or 20 buyers for your business all submitting offers at the same time. And so if you take those two scenarios, one of the single buyer on the other end of the phone saying I want to, I want to buy your business versus the scenario where we go in proactively and manage the process and now we have a dozen buyers that want to buy your business, Most business owners would go, okay, I want to be that. That's what I want to do. I need multiple buyers, I want multiple offers, I want to choose and get the best price and the best fit and the best terms. And yet many of them will respond to that. Single offer and go, oh, this is pretty exciting. I've got somebody that wants to buy my business. The problem is they have no control, they have no leverage. They don't know what they're doing most of the time. And the person on the other end of that offer knows exactly what they're doing. To maneuver you into a way and tell you that your business is wonderful and tell you that it. It's not quite worth 12 million, it's only worth 8 million, and here's why. And you have no. Nothing else to. To base any. Anything on. So I went a little off topic there. But not knowing what you don't know is a big pitfall. The other pitfall, and it's kind of in the same, same tier really, as going to market or taking your business to market by yourself. You've never sold a business before. You don't know the process, you don't know the materials, the. All of the different things that you need to know to get it done right. And you're likely not going to come out of that process with the optimal result. I was actually, I was thinking about an analogy because one of your questions was, you know, what's the value of the team? And the reality is, Robert, if you and I said, next year, let's go climb Everest. I don't know if you've ever done that before. I certainly haven't. And yet, if we were going to decide, let's go do that together, the first thing that we would probably do is look for somebody with experience that knows what they're doing, knows the journey, knows the equipment, knows the people, knows.

The costs, has maybe walked the trail once or twice, knows where the bears are.

Exactly right. So that's probably the biggest pitfall that we see is people either just responding to an unsolicited offer and going down that road, or trying to just take on the journey and climb Everest by themselves. And we all, you know, unfortunately, we know how that ends for some people, even with the best of teams.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I. I can tell you, as you know, many business owners, as their business continues to grow and they continue to build it, you do start getting those unsolicited offers more frequently. I know for myself. I had an interesting one come in a couple weeks ago where they said, oh, we'll give you 12 times earnings. I was like, how do you held? Are you coming up with 12 times earnings? But it sounds intriguing and to your point, Don, they. They sucked me in and, you know, at least that we were Going to have a conversation about it. One, I wanted a benchmark for perspective. I'm not ready to go anywhere just yet. But it was interesting to. When you start getting a little bit of interest, you go, okay, well, let's check this out. So you're right. Sophisticated buyers who are knowing exactly what they're doing, getting in a potential very marketable business into situation where they've got all the control. Yeah, yeah.

I spoke to somebody in the insurance space not too long ago. They had exactly the same thing we were just talking about. Somebody called them and said, you know, we're. We're offering somewhere in the ballpark of five to six times earnings. Actually, it wasn't earnings. It had to do with their. Their gross revenues. It was a healthy multiple. We did a little bit of research. They were intrigued. We did a little bit of research and found out it was about half of what they could be getting if they knew what they were doing and if they had, you know, a partner, that was part of the process for sure.

And you gotta, you know, for anyone listening, you've gotta keep in mind what the ulterior motives are of other people. You know, like there might be somebody, I would say for my ideal exit, there's gonna be a buyer who values my business more than it's worth, because it's more. It's worth more to them than it is probably to me, where they've got the opportunity and they really want it because maybe five times earnings, they can turn it into 10 times earnings overnight because of the opportunity they have on their table. But it's certainly fascinating to even go through this process with some of the clients. So obviously, you and your team are a key advisor. You are the Sherpa who's gone up the mountain, who's seen it, who's done it, has seen the. The pros, the cons. What is the role of, of an advisor, of a broker in helping a business get their business ready and get it listed?

Yeah, so that's a great question. And, and I would go back, I'd use that, that analogy of, of the climbing Everest. Right. There's a lot of people and players along the way that are going to do different things in the M and A world. When we're actually presenting to some of our clients, we have a circle with the client in the middle, and we're almost like a lifebuoy or we surround the client and depending on which trajectory, if it's a tax question, if it's a value enhancement issue, we are really the guide or the knowledgeable expert that can recommend a business coach, a value enhancement consultant at tax. Different points, some. And by the way, some people say, when is it, When's the right time to get connected to an advisor? The answer is as soon as you think of it. It's never too early. Because even if somebody contacts us and says, you know, I'm thinking about selling my business five years from now, we can start working with them now to put them in touch with a business consultant or a coach to help them build value into their business so that when we go to sell their business, their business might be worth two or three times more in terms of a multiple of their earnings. But along the way, there's going to be tax advice that we can, we can point them in the right direction of a tax lawyer, tax accountant, make sure they qualify for things like lifetime capital gains exemptions and family trusts, where appropriate. All of the different connection, all the different pieces along the way, we're able to help them navigate and figure out the best way to use. And in some cases, we can help them save a lot of money, too. There are law firms out there that will charge two or three times what it should cost to sell your business. We know the appropriate amounts, and because we're alongside, they don't, you know, they tend to keep their pencils sharp and, and be more within reason than knowing they're. They're talking to somebody that's never sold their business before. So why wouldn't it cost $200,000 to, from a legal perspective to do that? We know that's too much. And so that's because we do it all the time.

Yeah, 100% makes sense to me. I'm guessing too, with your experience, you talk about the lifeboat, but you probably have all of trying to keep the analogy or the metaphor going here, but you probably have all the lifeguards around you that are qualified and everything to know, okay, here's my go to person with this, with that element, you know, tax and accounting, business valuations, that sort of stuff. So a lot of value in that too. Instead of people having to go and do their own due diligence and finding you don't know what you don't know. Right. And you don't know what experience people do need. So a lot of value there. When you're, you know, coaching somebody or working with them, what are some of the, like, documents and items that they should be pulling together sort of proactively or know that they should have in order to set, you know, this process up for success.

So the most, the most important documents. There's two ways to look at the documents. One is what are the documents that the client is going to need to help us take them to market and get their business sold and then go through the process of due diligence? And I can tell you that, you know, due diligence is. Well, there's probably a few medical. Medical examples that I could, I could share. But you know, it's a little bit like going to the dentist. It's painful, it's not fun, but you have to do it. And once you get through it, it's better on the other side. And so the documents that come into play for that or for getting your business ready for sale are everything from obviously starting with the financials. That's a big piece. And you want at least six or seven years financials. Five's the absolute minimum. But most people want to dig a little bit deeper than that. And even on the financials, as you're preparing to go to market, if you're thinking in the next couple of years, something you could help your clients understand better, the value of Review engagement financials vs just notice to reader or consolidate. I can't remember the new term that's.

Being used now that compilation.

Compilation financials. Thank you. So the financials, all of your tax records to show that the company's always paid its taxes. Your notice of assessments. As I think about employees, one of the things just to again let your listeners hear or make them aware of is if you don't have employment agreements with your employees, you should not. Having employment agreements with employees makes it very difficult to sell a business and becomes a bigger issue as you're going to sail and exit. It just becomes another thing that decreases the value or is a burden to the buyer and therefore decreases. It makes the whole thing riskier. And risk means decreased value. So that's other. And if there's property involved, then all the real estate, of course, on the corporate side, all of the minute books should be not only complete but up to date. A lot of people don't keep their minute books. So those are probably the biggest areas pre market. And then when we go to market, it's primarily two or three documents that we prepare. One's an NDA to cover, make sure confidentiality is addressed. Another is a teaser which is, you know, to use the analogy of fishing, which that's your bait in the water. It tells the buyer what type of business is, doesn't tell them where it is, probably shows some high level financials, but doesn't identify where the business is and who the owner is. And then the SIM itself, which is a 30 or 40 page document that we put together that is really all of the history of the business. It's the story of the business, all of the financials, all of the normalizations. Basically, what is it that justifies the value we're asking for? And we're not usually asking for a value per se, an exact value, but we're identifying what the earnings capability of the business is and what the likely multiple is and letting the buyer come to their own conclusions in terms of what the business is worth.

Yeah, super, super interesting there as well. And you know, I know the answer to this and this wasn't something we talked about before, at least getting ready for the podcast, but I know it's something that we talked about in, in the past. When you think of being a broker and, and looking for a broker that can help support you, you know, you talked about the multiple, multiple buyer experience is really the one that you're, you're trying to create for somebody who's selling, you know, it's, it's hard to believe when someone is thinking of selling their business that there's a market out there with multiple buyers just waiting for them. With someone like you and with True north, how do you, not that I want you to reveal your secret sauce, but what is it that allows you guys to find multiple buyers? And I know, I know the answer because we've chatted about it and I think it's super valuable. But what, what allows you to come to the market and, you know, bring this, this new business on there and bring all these prospective buyers. How does that work?

First thing that you have to, that anybody would have to understand is that there's really three types of buyers out there. Everybody. Most people have heard about the private equity world. And depending on the size of the business, private equity are looking for businesses that are doing about 2 million in EBITDA or earnings a year and higher. So, so sometimes a business won't necessarily qualify for private equity, although they may qualify as what private equity calls a bolt on. If they're an H Vac company today and they're doing about a million dollars in EBITDA for, for example, that, that might be a great bolt on opportunity for a company. And you're in Peterborough, Bob, and just imagine a private equity company's bought, you know, a large H Vac enterprise in the Toronto area and now they're looking for bolt ons in Peterborough and Kingston and, you know, that sort of thing. So size does not necessarily play into that. And so private equity is definitely one group of buyers. The second group of buyers, which is our primary group of buyers, would be Strategics. So again, using the H Vac example, an H Vac company that's got a business in Peterborough, we would be going and looking and using. We have several tools that we use several software tools and applications that we're able to put together lists of Ontario H Vac companies, Canadian H Vac companies, and we'd be looking for companies that have synergies with the company, our client. You mentioned before that somebody contacted you and said, you know, that they would make an offer at a certain multiple and that's probably somebody that's rolling up accounting enterprises. And so because of the networks that we're a part of, because of the associations we're a part of, we know who the consolidators are. We're dealing with one right now in Ontario, actually, that's a North American roofing consolidator, and we're working with them to sell them an Ontario roofing company. And so that's all part of the expertise and the skill set that we bring to the table. But we also use tools to do it. But Strategics is the second one. And then the third one are individuals and entrepreneurs that there's an amazing trend in Canada of folks like myself 10 years ago where either something happened in the corporate world to them or they've discovered in the corporate world that that's not getting them what they want, whether it's fulfillment or net worth or control. And so there's a num. There's thousands of people out there in our buyer database that we know of that are looking for businesses in Toronto or businesses in Calgary or businesses anywhere in Canada because they just want to get out of the corporate world and buy someone's business, much like I was trying to do 10 years ago. So that's part of the art and the skill of what we bring to the table when we do it 100%.

And that's the exact answer I was hoping that you were going to share because I know how much value goes into that network of having buyers reach out to you and being able to plug that into a business that's potentially selling that they don't have those connections. You know, for the most part, we all try and not ignore our competition, but we try and keep our distance. So we aren't necessarily forming relationships with some of those strategics or those Potential buyers. But, but you guys are in the position to bring them forward, which I think business owners who are listening, this is where we're going to get that maximum value. Right? Like if you want to sell and exit for the greatest value, working with like a true north. And Don and his team is going to bring all those potential buyers who are looking for you that don't know you exist. They bring them all to you at the forefront and anybody was available. It's like you think back in the days where those faxes would go out, where you had your 99 cent coupon, you hit 5 million fax machines. But it's like, okay, everybody who's got the fax machine, here's the deal that's coming through. You know, anybody who wants that is going to buy it immediately. That's why it works so well. This is, you know, similar situation for a business selling. These guys have the network to be able to, you know, put your business in front of the right buyers that fit your qualifications too. Like I know, I know a lot of businesses go, it's not all about the money. You know, I want to make sure that my clients are taken care of and my team's taken care of. So if there's somebody who's coming in who is, you know, a bit of a bully or you know, has bad intentions, we would take less money to make sure that it's the right fit and that everybody's taken care of. And you know, those are things that Don and his team help with as well. So anyway, nothing but, but positivity being sent your way. Don, for all the great work that you guys do, thinking of what's happening in the industry, like are there any emerging aside from the private equity people clearly reaching out and soliciting people, unwelcome solicitation. What, what sorts of emerging trends are happening in the M and A space?

Yeah, so there's. On a, on a, on a. On a more very current basis. You know, the, the, the change in interest rates recently and the, the, the recent shift in the Canadian economy on to, on the positive because we're now past the post Covid period of time and interest rates coming down even just a slight bit has been a pretty positive thing with, with most business owners. And in, in our world of the M and A, however, we never really saw a big slowdown in M and A in the smaller sized businesses. The bigger thing that's happened or been happening over the last number of years that I think is very timely for business owners is the Law of supply and demand. And as I think I've shared with you before, Robert, there are not enough good quality businesses out there for sale. As I've, as we've talked about, we have thousands upon thousands of buyers in our system, all of which, and that's again all three types. But there are so many people and so many corporations looking for quality businesses to buy. That more than anything else is protecting the value of those businesses. When we are able to get them to market, when we're able to find them and find the owners and get them to market market, the value that they've been getting for their businesses is still considerably high. So that still exists today when we, even anytime over the last couple of years when we've met business owners, we've shared the supply and demand issue and opportunity and that has not changed over the last couple of years. We are consistently getting multiple buyers, consistently getting strong offers and able to get deals done at the at. Call it the high end of the range if it's a quality business. The other thing that's happening though is the slow onset of the baby boomer tsunami of wealth and the number of businesses that are out there. We were just looking at stats the other day. 60% of Canadian business owners are over 50 years old. And BDC recently reported that about $2 trillion worth of businesses over the next decade are going to change hands. So over time that supply and demand reality is going to start to shift where today there's tremendous amount of demand for the few businesses that are on the market as baby boomers start to let go of their business businesses and there's many, many more, if not, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of businesses that come to market that supply and demand will start to impact values. So we still think now is a great time and we've been saying that for at least a couple of years or even right through Covid, not obviously businesses that were massively impacted by Covid because that did impact their value. But the baby boomer tsunami is kind of the next big thing that's probably already happening. It's very difficult for the economists to, to tell when it's actually peaking. But it's bdc, which is a pretty big authority on these things, says that over 50% of all baby boomer, sorry, all business owners are going to try and sell their business sometime in the next five years. So there is a tsunami of businesses coming and that will affect values at some point.

Absolutely. And hey buyers, prospective buyers, get on Don's list. Make sure that you get on the list so that the fax sends you out your coupon. Right. We want to know when, when those types of businesses become available. And you know, I, you didn't. You cited bdc. I was actually going to as well because I had the opportunity to go be present with the chief economist from bdc, I'm going to say about a month ago. And yeah, he was talking about exactly that. The 60% of the workforce also exiting the workforce and we do not have the supply of the younger people coming in at a fast enough pace. So not only from a business standpoint is that gonna cause a little bit of havoc, but as a business owner, finding talent is also going to be one of the greatest challenges as well. Not that I'm trying to race anybody to start exiting from their business, but you know, there's a few economic challenges we have to deal with over the next five to 10 years. Business owners like let's, let's just be prepared for that. Don, this has been fantastic. I appreciate your, your insights, your wisdom. If somebody were wanting to reach out and connect, get on the buyer list, talk to you about potentially selling their business, what's the best way for anybody to get a hold of you?

So probably a couple of things I'm happy to share my email. Donrunorth MA as in mergers and acquisitions ca. So donrunorthma CA Anybody that wanted to just get on our buyers list can send an email. Just go to our website, which is true north MA and there's a sign up form there and we also get a criteria for as to what they're looking for, where they're looking for a business, what kind of business, what kind of business and in, you know, what kind of value they're they're interested in. But yeah, get through, come through our website is, is probably the easiest way or send me an email.

Amazing Don, thank you. So just as a bit of a recap here, lots of insights guys, we talked about some of the steps in the process of exiting, how to plan and prepare for it, some of the strategies related to increasing value, the common pitfalls that we have, the role of advisors, some key documents and we even talked about some of the emerging trends and, and maybe even looking at this and saying when is the time going to be right based on some of the risk factors that we have as a potential seller as well. Don, thank you so much. I appreciate you jumping in and joining us today. For everyone who's listening, if you've got any questions, comments, throw them in the comment section below. Happy to reach out, connect with you, connect you with Don and his team as well. If there's something here that you feel has been super valuable that you know can help someone else, make sure that you share this out with them. We want to help empower as many entrepreneurs as we can with the right financial information to make maximum impact and change the world. And it starts with you helping connect us with the right people as well. Make sure you hit follow. We want to see you here next week. We have an episode coming out every single week, so don't miss out on that. But once again, thank you for your time today, for joining us. Don, once again appreciate you, my friend, and look forward to seeing you guys all next week.