Position Yourself To Open Powerful Doors And Create Explosive Opportunities With Luke Havard

How do you make business problems disappear? Wrap em in bacon for business owners, marketing execs and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less. Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo. Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits. Every week our chefs will serve you proven recipes for ramping up your revenue. Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo. Alright, welcome back to Bacon Wrap Business. I am Brad Costanzo. Really happy to have you. Hey, so if this is your first time listening to the show, you're in for a treat because you're going to hear me really sit down with guests that a guest that I want to talk to about things that I want to talk about. And this is not like a typical business podcast. If you're a longtime listener, you'll know that I don't have a set agenda, but the people that I have on the show are people that I legitimately want to know something about. I'm very curious about what they're doing and how they're doing it. And I enjoy letting you eavesdrop on my conversations. If you want to ask me any questions afterwards, if you want to get in touch with the host, I'll provide you the contact information. But to ask me any questions or give me any inside advice, tell me what I miss, tell me how much you love me or tell me how much you hate me, you can always reach me@askbradaconrap.com now, if you're listening to this on an iPhone for instance, or an Android, you can subscribe. I know in the iPhone you can just go to the podcast app and hit subscribe on bacon wrap business. Or you just go to baconratbusiness.com iTunes. It'll take you right there. Because when you subscribe, you get all the episodes right there in front of you and then you can see all the various reviews we've got. A review came in recently from Greg Stett and I'll just read this to you because you know, it makes me feel nice and warm and fuzzy. But he says I don't listen to podcasts. In all honesty, I only ran across this show searching for something else. I listened to one episode, then another. I went back and listened to them all, many more than once. There's pure magic here. You'll find interviews of truly accomplished individuals on a wide variety of topics, each expertly unfolding years of experience and insider secrets in a way that anyone could understand. I like this guy already. I often felt like a fly on the wall. Amazed that I could even witness the these conversations. At first I wondered why these experts are letting it all hang out. But I didn't wonder for too long. The answer is Brad. Me, I don't know Brad Costanzel, but I hope to someday know him. He's a fantastic host. Now this is my favorite part of the review. Smart, funny, friendly, insightful and self effacing. My guests all seem to personally know and respect him and if you listen to his accomplishments, you will too. I could go on and on, but this just makes me feel good. It probably doesn't do much for you. That being said, if you want to leave a review on itunes, just go over to the itunes app or go on the itunes app on your, you know, your phone or your desktop and leave me one. Maybe I'll read yours on the air. And once more, you can always reach me at askbradakenrap Business. Now let's get into the heart of today's episode. So I have got Luke Havard. Is it. Hey Luke, you're there, right?

I'm here.

How do I pronounce your last name? Is it Havard or Havard?

Havard.

Havard. He's British, so it's Havard. So Luke is the managing director of Desentis Group. He's a trusted advisor and an investor to small and medium sized businesses and C level leaders. He specializes in finding, facilitating and executing high level partnerships and joint venture deals, which is the kind of stuff that I just absolutely love and can talk about forever. His experience is working with clients in North America, Canada, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, UK and Europe. I have yet to see any companies he's working with in Antarctica, but I'm sure that's coming. He advises local and central British government, sea level leaders and the Fortune 500 companies. And he's on today to get his brain picked clean. And just like the review said, let it all hang out. Luke, welcome to the show.

My brother Brad. Thanks for having me.

Awesome. So you, you've got a lot of things that I could talk about. We could make this like a six hour conversation, but I kind of want to get into the heart of it because let me tell you what really got my attention. When you emailed me and we were chatting and you said that some of the stuff that you're really good at. So you said that the topics of building a high level business, relationships and partnerships is the most effective way to learn, collaborate and scale a business. And that's one aspect which I've built an entire business on. Strategic alliances and joint ventures. And it's one of the most effective things that I do help when I help my clients. I'm always looking for those high leverage points. Then you also said with Descentis Global Partners, you help businesses raise money via ipo, exit or leveraging these relationships with private equity firms. And I have a couple questions on that too. So I don't have a super good agenda for this, but I do want to ask you to tell me a little bit more about yourself. I listened to a previous podcast and you said that, you know, you don't have, you know what you do. You dropped out of college or.

Oh man, I was thrown. I was thrown out of school. Yeah. So I kind of give you a brief overview of my history.

Yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, thrown out of school, barely kind of scraped out with any qualifications. I went to college by the skin of my teeth and I was lucky enough to kind of pass that just because I think the people at college sort of felt sorry for me and the rest of my classmates. In college, I was introduced to these wonderful things called drugs and more alcohol. And I kind of, my life kind of just spiraled out of control. And so out of college, you know, I was, you know, into the drug scene and then the football violence, which, you know, being British, as you mentioned earlier, football violence is something that we do in England. You know, it's not enough to go and watch a football game, which you guys call soccer. It's, you know, it's, it's even more fun if you can have a full on punch up with, you know, the opposite supporters team, of course. So, you know what, what football hooligans would do is they'll meet and they'll effectively kick the living daylights out of each other and they won't watch the football. So I was kind of one of those guys. I was involved in all that kind of scene. And you know, it was just a very colorful lifestyle that I was involved in. Really, it was a mask to kind of hide the fact that I had very low self esteem and didn't feel that I was worth very much in life and that I had much to offer. And so, you know, fast forward a couple of years into my twenties, I had to run away to Australia because things were getting pretty hot where I was. And so I was there living in Australia and I had nothing. I had no qualifications, no experience that I thought was really worth value. And I was pretty suicidal in life. And I had this something I would call an encounter. I don't know what Your listeners believe. I don't know what you believe, but all I can speak of is my experience. And I had this spiritual encounter. I had an encounter with God.

I thought you were going to say aliens.

No, it wasn't a third type of encounter. No, it was. No, but equally is crazy for a lot of people, I believe. But you know, at the end of the day, I'm not some woo woo guy, so I think a lot of people kind of take it off me. But anyhow, so I had this encounter and I wasn't this woo woo guy at that time either. So I wasn't kind of, you know, even focused on looking for things like that. But you know, I think sometimes in life things happen to you without, you know, you, you know, actually looking for it. So I had this encounter and I had this kind of experience and I kind of thought, you know what, I can even continue the way I'm going and I'm going to die because I'm just abusing myself so badly. Or, you know, maybe there's more for me in life. Maybe I can be someone. Maybe I've got something to offer this world. And so what happened is that moment I kind of just said, look, you know what, God, if you are real and this is real and I'm not just tripping out here, then I'm going to give over my life to this experience and I'm going to trust that, you know, you've got my life in your hands. And from that day onwards, I was supposed to go to rehab and you know, try and have some help getting off the drugs and the drink. But I never touched drugs since. And that's been well over 10 years now.

That's amazing.

I didn't drink for four years straight. You know, I have the occasional drink now. It's not something that controls me though. It's something that I can choose and choose to stop or start. So I found myself there, Brad, in this experience where I had nothing really to offer. Very little experience, very little self confidence or self esteem. And I had to figure out what is it I'm really good at? What is it I can do. That isn't something I have to really try it. But something is a natural skill of mine. And what I was really good at was just talking. I was really good at connecting to people, making connections very quickly. You know, I was doing street sales basically for some hostels and hotels there. And I could, I could. I mean, I was supposed to get like eight people a day. And I remember my record was I Came out up the steps and then I think it was like nine o'. Clock. At five past nine, I clocked off and finished for the day. Because I got my eight people in five minutes. I realized I was really good at connecting with people. And to be honest, if I look back at every single thing I've done since that point, it's always been around connecting to people. And the better I've got at connecting to more high level people, obviously there's been real strategy involved in what I say and what I do and how I position myself. So that's kind of a bit of a quick.

Yeah, I love it. I think that's an amazing story as well that you went through all of that and then you kind of found not only your way out of that kind of darkness that you were going through, but then you realized early on one of your unique abilities and then capitalized on it. And I think a lot of people, myself included, it took me a while before I capitalized on my unique abilities. And when I wasn't, when I was doing things that I really shouldn't be doing, that were not in my, you know, my area of flow and my zone, I just wasn't doing them really well. And when I was, you and I have a lot in common because, I mean, hell, I've got a podcast. Obviously I'm good at talking and I love talking and I love building relationships. People have referred to me as having this golden Rolodex of folks and like, man, you seem to know everybody and it doesn't really feel like that. I just, I forget that not everybody has as many great relationships and has the ability to, to connect. I sometimes take it for granted. But that said, I love not only doing it, but I love the strategy behind doing it well and doing it in a way that is able to insert you into opportunities like with big people, with the ones who can help move mountains for you. And it sounds like that's one of the areas you've been really effective at. So let's, so let's talk a little bit about that right now because that just brings up something, a couple of questions that are really cool. And then I want to get to more of the descent of stuff and some of the bigger work you're doing. So there's a. I've had this conversation a million times on here and with a lot of people about how to build relationships, how to build rapport with people. And honestly, if my listeners listening to this and doesn't know the basics of building rapport, which is a give value first, don't be a completely self interested asshole and you know, act interested and curious about the person you're talking to. That's, that's some basic 101 stuff. What is the. I like to, you know, the show is bacon wrap business. What are some strategies? What are some bacon wrap networking strategies? The stuff that just really, you know, what are. Maybe give me some examples of some really high level connections you've made in the way you've done them as opposed to just, oh, I just stumbled across this person and chatted him up for sure.

I mean, one thing I want to just kind of say is a precursor to that is because there's a ton of people, we talked about this off air. There's a ton of people out there teaching networking and all this kind of stuff. And the one thing I really think they miss quite often, I haven't seen many people actually doing it is they don't know how to position themselves to begin with. And I think this is something that I've learned the hard way of being, you know, I've had my fair share of doors slammed in my face. And so I think before I even discuss the certain strategies I would use, I think because those strategies will only work if the positioning is right to begin with. And so what I mean by that is, for example, if someone is a fitness trainer, personal trainer, whatever you call them now, and they want to go and do a kind of partnership or connect with some kind of big online fitness platform and they want to promote their stuff or whatever, if they go straight up and say, yeah, I'm a personal trainer, whatever it is, pt, the platform will say, who gives a monkeys, there's hundreds of thousands of you guys out there and you're all the same.

Yeah, so what?

So what? First and foremost, it's positioning yourself as different. So the first thing I've always done is say look. Because my background would be as an advisor or a coach, some people would call it. And now really as we would call ourselves as business builders or scalers, investors. But essentially there's loads of people out there calling themselves similar things. So what I always did is I looked at everyone else and they were saying we're coaches or we're trainers. And I'd say I'm a trusted advisor. And when I would go to somebody, the person that I want to work with. So one of my first clients that I connected with was on Twitter in my coaching business, if you like advisory, business consulting. And you know, I positioned myself as a Trusted advisor. Now this guy that I connected to on Twitter was a senior director of global clinical research for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies on the planet. Now if I just gone in and said I'm a coach, you'd say, so what? We buy, you know, hundred of you guys in just to work with our teams. What's the difference between you and any other person? Well, I was a trusted advisor. I said, look, yeah, yeah, those guys are coaches. What I do is I'm your confidant. I'm the guy you go to when the shit hits the fanbody. And you don't want to go to those guys because they don't know you like I know you. And I'm going to be there and I'm going to give you, you know, strategy and concepts that they just don't understand. But by the way, I'm also going to tell you what you really need to hear, not what you want to hear. Is that okay? And he was like, dude, yes, let's talk. You know.

Yeah, I think it's. You put yourself kind of on their level. Like, listen, I'm not, I'm not sublimate. What is it the word? I'm not subjugating myself to you. I'm trusted advisor. I'm not, I'm not here to your business.

No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. So that's what. And by the way, that actually works really well into what I'm going to say now because. So, yeah, having the right positioning, it sets you off on a whole different trajectory than just going in there and saying, look, here's what I do, some generic thing. And so what happens? I had this, giving you one example, just one of so many like you view. So there's a guy who sold his company recently for two and a half billion in the uk, probably one of the most successful E commerce guys out there. And you know, so I connected to this guy on LinkedIn and then I thought, okay, how can I kind of deepen this relationship? Because he doesn't know me from Adam. So what I did is I thought, I looked at his kind of profile. He wears like Converse with like a kind of sports jacket and jeans, ripped jeans. He's not a kind of C level, sort of suited and booted type of guy. So I thought, you know, I can connect to this guy on a different level. But it's interesting. Of course he's going to have a LinkedIn kind of account because everyone does. But where else would he be more personable? And I thought Facebook. So I went over To Facebook. Sure enough, he's there. I connect with him there and said, hey, you know, It's Luke from LinkedIn. You know, I'd just love to kind of connect with you and what have you. And I said a few more things and he, so he accepted my request. Then very quickly, it was around Christmas time, I was like, hey, so? And so I hope you're having a fantastic Christmas. I'm currently in Germany at the moment. You know, obviously he knows I'm from the uk, so I was already putting a bit of kind of interest out there and I said, you know, where are you? Where are you at the moment? And he said, you know, I'm at home. And wait, so back up.

So back up. So you had never connected with him before and you went to, you went to Facebook?

Yeah, only on LinkedIn. I connected with him and then I thought, you know what? So he has one point of contact straight away, LinkedIn.

Okay, you guys were connections but you weren't, you hadn't been chatting.

No, no, we weren't close. We didn't know each other from Adam. So then I went to Facebook. Then I thought, you know what, Because I knew his profile, he was, you know, has in his own personal profile the way he comes across. I did some research on him. Basically I dug deep, I found out a lot about him and he really does kind of do the kind of dress down and he's kind of a very chilled out guy. So then I went to Facebook, made this intro.

And when you did the intro, that's what I was gonna ask, like, did you do this via Facebook email or like you posted on his wall?

Yeah, no, I wouldn't post.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, no, no, hey, no, I did it for a personal message and he said, yeah, that's fine, yeah, yeah, I know you from LinkedIn. So I'd already, so that's really important, have some point of contact so they don't think you're just some freak who's reaching out and there's no kind of references.

Do you remember what you phrased that initial message as well?

Not the initial one, just hey, it's Luke. You know, we connected on LinkedIn. Hope you don't mind me connecting you here. I'm quite a down to earth guy as I'm sure, as I know you are. Just prefer to kind of, you know, build relationship this way, if I'm honest. And he's like, yeah, me too, perfect.

So that's where I was going. So it's not, it's not really, it's not rocket science, it's just being real. Because what's weird is that so few people are real. Like they will go into a connection, they'll send you a six paragraph email as the introduction. Like you're just like, hey, I'm just, look, I'm just connecting over here. We're connected over. It's not, it's not rocket science, it's just being authentic and, and not an asshole.

That's right. And by the way, that's my way of flushing out the A holes.

Yeah.

Because I don't want to be connected to anyone who's going to be like that anyway. So if you're not, you know, if you, if you can't accept a down to earth open and you know, open message like that, then I don't want to be friends with you anyway. I don't care how rich you are or how influential you are. And so anyways he accepted that and I knew already I had that sense. Yeah, that's the way he likes to communicate. That's the way he likes to roll. So then I said, hey buddy, I hope you're well. It was near Christmas Day. And he really responds on Christmas Day by the way, and said, I hope you're having a fantastic Christmas. I hope you know the business is booming. Here's what I'm just doing, just some very snippets. And then he comes back. Yeah, great, thanks. What are you doing in. Ah, so I've got a bit of rapport, a bit of dialogue. Then I said, I did some research and you've got to be careful with this one. Now my wife is from Colombia, South America. I knew his wife was from Brazil. I said, hey dude, so my wife's from Colombia. Your wife's from Brazil. Do you go to Brazil much? Open ended question. He goes, yeah, we do, yeah, we visit quite regularly. We had this. I knew straight away we have similarities. He understands what I understand now. I said so how's your Spanish? And he's like on boquito. And I'm like, yeah, me too. You know, we start having these little jokes about Latin, Latin America and some of the things and then we go for a bit more dialogue and it's like, what are you doing at the moment I'm doing this. Hey, would you mind? I said to him, look, I know you get this all the time buddy, but I've got something pretty interesting I'm not going to pitch you. It's an idea. I think you might enjoy it yourself. Can I, shall I send you an email. Is that okay? He's like, for sure, just send it over. Because I already said I'm not going to pitch you. Which is really key.

Yep.

Because he does angel investing and all the rest.

He's pitched constantly. Everybody wants something.

So sent him this email. He loved it, goes, dude, that's brilliant. Really like it. And he's giving me insights now. He's giving me free insights and value. And I'm like, listen, who do you, you know, I know these, these people X, Y and Z. Would it benefit you if I connected you to them? So I'm kind of reciprocating for his value add and we're going back and forth. So that's just one example. Now this guy has floated a company for two and a half billion dollars. He doesn't know me from Adam. And that's only over a few interactions. So. And that's one of hundreds of connections like that that I've had. By the way, I've also done this with Fortune 500 companies. Like I've had. One day I may have shared this on another podcast. I'll give you a very quick, brief sort of overview of this. I had an idea, like, I think 9:00 o' clock in the morning, by 9:30 I was executing on the idea and it would involve collaborating with big sort of blue chip corporate companies.

Are you able to be more publicly more specific on what your general idea was?

Yes, yes. So what it was is I was going to offer some training and this is just another side project. I love doing lots of little things, you know, as you do too. So it was some training for graduates because at the end of the day, who cares if you've got a degree or even a master's degree now because so is everyone else. So what sets you apart? So I got some ideas on this sort of training because that's kind of my thing helping anyone to position themselves. And so I contacted these big corporate companies and said, hey, look, you know, I just want to ask you some, I just want to interview you and understand what it is you look for in, you know, fresh graduates. Or do you actually look for people who aren't graduates? Like, what is it people have to do in order to get the job with you? And I'm not joking, like 50 of these top companies, from Apple to Microsoft to SAP to Dell, you name it, they all responded. Here's our personal email to the person you need to contact. And I emailed a bunch of those guys and that was like, people say, you can't. There's too many gatekeepers now. But I got through to the HR directors of some of those biggest companies and that was with a tweet.

So here's what I love and I've got something really specific to kind of follow that up with. So in order to get your foot in the door with some of the like, some executives at like Fortune 500 big old companies, you said, I want to, you know, I'm interviewing people like yourself basically about what it, in essence what you're looking for, what it takes to position yourself to get a, to get noticed, to get a job at your company.

Right.

Is that kind of the essence? So the fact that you interviewed them, this is so huge and so few people know it. So interviewing, asking to interview somebody else for anything, whether it's a podcast like this, whether it's an article you want to write, whether it's a book, it's flattering, people love it, people will take time out of their day for it. And you don't have to be a New York Times columnist to do this. So backing you up, like I've done that, I did that in the health space and I interviewed 26 of the top health thought leaders and from doctors to health practitioners to health business owners, supplement owners or whatever, people that I wanted to build a network with. And I simply said, I mean there was a whole process to this, but I just said, look, I'm putting together this series, et cetera, from a book, audio series, I'm going to give it away, that I just want one question, which is what is your number one piece of advice for people to maximize health and wellness? And this was just really simple. Yours was even, I think, much more brilliant. But I just asked to interview them and I think I had an 80% acceptance rate. But one of the keys to letting them know is letting them know that I was interviewed like that. I was approaching and asking other people who are their peers that, oh, you know, I've reached out to X, Y and Z and these people are in etc. And they almost all said, yeah, I'm happy to help. It was a quick 10 minute interview. Most importantly, as you'll agree, I didn't really care as much about the interview as I did the relationship that I got from the interview.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Now I've got on my Rolodex, you know, the vice president of IBM, you.

Name it, now I can reach back out to them. We've done something before, you're right. And you didn't go in asking. Yeah, you asked Them for something with is their time and insight. But you didn't ask them, hey, can I get your time so I can pitch you something and get your money? You were asked. Yeah, so like you said earlier, we're like, we think the same, just with a different accent. I love that because. Yeah, you just validated something that I've done and continue to do. And by the way, folks, listening, one of the reasons I do the podcast is not because I like to hear myself talk and it's really not for you guys listening. I hate to be the breakers of bad news, but I've got this big audience and they listen and some of them love me, some of them might hate me, but I do this to build relationships with people like you. And I'll tell you what, there is no better in what I found networking hack than starting a podcast.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, it's like I said, the funny thing is it's not about having to kind of do anything massive. But you know, the thing was with that kind of thing we just mentioned there, actually, the way I positioned, positioned it, it was as much for. It was way more for them, the corporates, than it was for me or even the graduates. Because I said, hey, look, if you want some of the best graduates in the world, how about you get me to train them for free? I was like, I know exactly what you want from those graduates. I'll be your mouthpiece for free. Would that benefit you? You don't have to recruit massive recruitment firms. You don't have to pay them hundreds of thousands per person, you know, just get me to do it for free. And it was like, oh, yeah, so you did this.

So you did that. That was in essence your pitch. But you did that after the they, you interviewed them or.

No, I did that before. Like I said that beforehand. And then what I said I was going to do is create a product that would, you know, cheat, you know, a low cost product. And I was going to get other people to sponsor the product and then go into students and give it to universities, you know.

Okay, so you positioned it as, this is what I'm training the. I want to train these people, etc. I want your help, I want your insight and help in doing this. And then obviously I can help you and train people for you. Okay, cool. So where did that kind of eventually lead to? Maybe it led to a, like I could see it leading to an info product, but did it lead to doing business in one way or another with some of these companies that you reached out to.

Yeah, actually, it did. I mean, the funny thing is the product thing, I've still got the product. Haven't really done much with it from honest. Because what actually happened is the relationships led to something even bigger. Okay. So the relationships led to coaching opportunities and advisory opportunities because they're like, damn, you're pretty good at this whole connecting thing. How on earth did you do that? And I just broke it down. I was like, see, there's this thing called Twitter we got to do is send it to me. And they were like, wow, that's really simple. I'm like, yeah, it is. You guys. Over complicated.

So did you end up coaching some of the people that you had reached out to?

No, not the people I'd reached out to, but they would refer me to other people. I probably should have coached some of the people I reached out to because they were doing the social media side.

But they refer you up the ladder to other people?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, so once you're talking to a director of hr, then, you know, they're on the director kind of level, so they can just sidestep you. And, you know, I've ended up coaching, you know, Senior Directors and VPs and you name it in different ways, just in how to communicate with one another and how to kind of do partnerships. Because again, like we spoke about, that's for me, and that what we do now in Desensis, partnerships is everything. I mean, you look at the biggest brands on the planet, everyone thinks Richard Branson. Everyone goes on about Richard Branson. He's the entrepreneurial poster boy. But Branson didn't make his money from building his own company. He made his money from partnerships. Yeah. You know, if you look at Branson, what he's done, he's got a company of. I don't know exactly how many it is now. Is it 300 companies?

It's crazy.

Probably more. But, you know, the point is, all of his pre. His first companies he started were pretty much, you know, weeks away from liquidation sometimes.

Yeah.

The point was that when he sold his company and he had a lot of capital, he then started buying other companies, doing mergers and acquisitions and grouping companies and doing partnerships. Now, a lot of big companies still don't do that. Yeah, they still think, you know, we're in this on our own and we don't need to look. Look around at what's happening. We don't need to kind of change our strategy. And then, whoops, suddenly they go bust or they, they, they, you know, they Instagram turns up And Kodak's gone. And that's. That's what I was kind of coming in and coaching these leaders on strategy and saying, hey, open your eyes. The world is changing. Facebook might seem like it's for the kids, but this thing is going to take over. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm not on Facebook, Luke. We don't do that. I'm like, you should do that because it will take over a couple years later. Ipo, you know, and these guys then are going, oh, my goodness, thank goodness we listen to you. Because, you know, the problem is, I think, is, you know, for your guys that are listening here, entrepreneurs, business owners, this is what we are supposed to be doing. You know, we've got to keep our finger on the pulse. We've got to understand that this world is changing so quickly that we've got to constantly keep investing in ourselves, in knowledge and keeping our eyes open to what's going on, what are the opportunities. And as we spoke earlier off air, Brad, the most powerful concept is partnerships. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's said that our network is linked to our net worth.

You know, so our net worth is linked to our network. Yeah. So I've mentioned this on a couple other of my shows, so my loyal listeners will know. But I've got kind of a three and a half question exercise that I do whenever I'm building my own business or working with a client. And it is 100% designed around this concept of partnering and thinking. Okay. I don't have to have all the resources and I don't have to know everything as long as I either know or can find the people who do. And those questions are, I call them three and a half. Because the first one, it's a who, what if, and why not. But it's who else has what I need? But who else needs what I have? And it takes a second. There's some real thought that goes into this. And usually it's who else needs what I have? Which is the, okay, well, what do I have? And you have to think about this. And a lot of people don't really. I mean, your Rolodex alone, your contacts is something you have the contacts you have. Maybe you have capital, maybe you have a customer list. Maybe you have a distribution list. Maybe you think of all the things you would like to have, but what do you bring to the table? But then also, who else has what you need? Well, do you need customers? Do you need distribution? Do you need creative? Do you need money? Do you need what? There's people out there who have it. I don't think enough people really take a systematic approach to inventorying what they have, what they need. And then the next phrase is what if? And this is an open ended question. I go into what if, what if we partnered, what if we did this? And I just kind of think of scenarios like what would be a dream scenario? And I just kind of whittle it down and get it to where it actually I come up with something and more often than not, I come up with a really kind of cool idea. My last question is, why not? Is there any reason why this might not work? And if the answer is no, I reach out and try to make something happen. And man, I got to tell you, exactly like you're saying you can make magic happen when you do that.

Yep, absolutely.

Okay, so we've talked a lot about, you know, connecting to those hot, you know, at those higher levels. Do you do some. Another couple questions on that. So when you are connecting at anything from small, medium sized businesses to really large ones and really, really connected players, Is there a typical agenda that you bring? Like, okay, I want to connect with this person because I know that I can make this opportunity or are you just kind of building these connections in the hopes that the opportunity will kind of come up when you, you know, through the connection? That makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. There's a two things for this, obviously. And here's being honest here and here's what I've learned over the years. I used to connect with anyone and everyone. Yeah, and that's good because you get variety and it's nice, you know, especially if you get lots of different Christmas cards and whatnot. But in business terms, it, for me personally, it needs relevance, needs to be key. So is it relevant? Is there any synergy? Do they need what I sell or have or what I can do, or do I know someone that they need? And like you just said, so what I do now is I've got like, I mean, some days, no word of lie. I can check my LinkedIn and I've got 500 invites in a couple of days or a week. And so what I'll do is I'll go through them and I don't use any bots or auto things. All I do is I just do it myself. So I'm literally getting really good at clicking delete, delete, delete, delete. So if I don't know these people and I don't see any relevance, boom, they're gone, they've got to jump out at me. And so what I do is if I think, okay, that looks cool, that looks good, I could do something with that, I could help them or maybe I know someone who can help them or something like that, I'll add them. And I just have a pre, kind of a template email but. And here's the but Brad, because we spoke about this before, I really tailor it to their needs. So what I say is, hey, thanks for adding me. Just here's some quick info about me. I mean they should have read my LinkedIn profile already but a lot of people don't, I can tell you that much. So then it will say so you know, I'm the managing director at the Census Group and we help to scale, achieve more liquidity, raise capital or achieve a lucrative exit strategy for small to medium sized businesses. We located in the uk, Europe, the usa, Canada and we have partners all over the world. World. I'd love to hear more about what you do. If there's anything you think that the Census can do for you, be more than happy to jump on a call and help you out Luke. That's it. And so in that, doing that, what I can tell you, I mean you'll know this Brad, but maybe other people are going, okay, so what's in that? What's in that is, it's look, you contacted me for a start so you know I'm going to respond to you. And I think I've been given almost they've given me permission to do so because they're reaching out to me. So I've accepted your request. I'm going to just give you a brief overview of me and what I do so that you know. So all businesses by the way, they're only looking for three things really. They're only looking to grow and scale. They're only looking to get raise capital or to exit. I mean that's it. So you know, that's basically what I do. So I know that I can. If they're a small to medium sized business and they're looking to do one of those three things and it's very relevant for them right now in those areas, then boom, they're going to be interested already and they're going to know exactly what I do. Then I say, look, we're global by saying we're based in these locations, then I say, hey, I genuinely would like to know more about what you do. I've read your profile but tell me more specifically about what you do and if you think that we can Help happy to get on a call and discuss this further. And by doing that, I think if there's someone who doesn't fit that bill, I mean, usually I won't even connect with them, but I'm kind of giving them permission then. And I'm telling you, Brad, right now I've got about 12 different deals that we've got on the table and I can pick and choose which one we want to do.

Beautiful.

And it's because we positioned it very, very well. Yeah, we could do it more intricate than that and more eloquent or whatever. But to be quite frank, I think what I look for is, so when I'm going into a business, I think, can I realistically, can we scale that business? Does that business, or could that business potentially need to raise capital? Or would that business be good to sell? Or now if it's a business that say around 5 million at the lowest end, $5 million at the highest end could be. Well, it could be. No word, it'll lie. It could be up to $500 million. I don't mind. We know people who can. We know who we can exit that to. We do know people we can do that with through our contacts. So if we think we could exit it, great, then we'll hone in on that. If we think that they may need to raise capital, then we, then we'll look at that. So really it just comes down to if they're in that kind of small to medium bracket, I'll look to connect with them. And again, like I said, I'm not opposed to connecting with people if they don't fit the bill. But I'm really more selective now about who I do branch up with.

Right. Yeah. So that's a really good segue into some of these bigger deals and the descent to stuff and the equity. Because that's. Unless you have a lot more you want to really add about the connecting and the building of relationships. But I think it's perfect because the next step is the better your connections, the better the opportunities and the bigger the games that you can get in. I know for a fact you're in some pretty big games right now. You're in some pretty big deals that, you know we're not going to go into. But just, you know, I want to kind of find out about now the Descentis. So you've got great connections. Descentis does amazing work. You know, whether it's raising capital or helping to increase valuation and helping to take people towards maybe a roll up, maybe an exit and Whatnot. So you do some equity deals, you do some cash deals. Let me ask you about the equity deal. So let me say, let's say I've got a, let's say I've got a five million dollar company doing five million, you know, whatever. Maybe it's a, I don't know if there's certain types of businesses you like to work with, product, e commerce, service, etc. More than others. But one of the issues for consultants doing equity deals is it sounds really sexy. But in practice it can be really hard unless you've got the ability and skill set to make an exit. Because equity doesn't mean crap if there's no real payouts, etc. Like if you have a minority equity, you might never really get paid. And I've seen some consultants, I can say that I've done this in the past where I thought I was doing a great deal doing an equity deal but then I didn't see any cash from it. And they didn't have the ability, I didn't have the ability at the time, years ago to know about the, you know, you really make the deal on the exit when you have equity. But there's also the profit sharing deal. So when you go in question number one, do you typically, is it a true equity deal? Is it a really a profit sharing like okay, you're going to give me 10% of the upside of this or et cetera, or is it a combination?

It's a combination. I mean we wouldn't really want to do just equity unless we knew that they were going to exit pretty quickly.

Publicly traded.

Exactly. I don't mind if it's doing that. And we are looking at, we are involved in some of those as well. But yeah, so one we're working on right now, 20% equity. And by the way, this is just for advisory board role. So not even for like, you know, we're not really getting involved that much. What we'll do for that was we'll do a lot of introductions. So opening doors to some big players, I mean, you name it, we could open doors to, well, to Apple, to Coca Cola if on that sort of scale, or other small to medium sized businesses if we wanted to.

And that's global, so obviously globally. So it's not. Yeah, I mean you're based over there in England, but you, you, you've got.

I'm based in England, my partner's based in the U.S. so yeah.

So you've got it kind of covered.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We have other partners all around the world, in Asia, Australia. So, yeah, we would take the 20%, and that's only because we knew with this particular person they wouldn't want to go higher. We have sort of discussed another deal for 30% equity, and then we would look at 10% revenue share. So on certain deals that we would bring in, and by the way, we're getting, like, even already before we even, you know, signed this deal. We've got other deals coming in who want. Who fit the bill perfectly to integrate into this deal. Has it been.

Has it been challenging to. And it may depend upon the positioning that you had going into it, but has it been challenging to get some of these business owners to agree to an equity position? Because as a business owner, that's giving up equity is. That's like giving up part ownership of your child? Yeah.

Yes and no. I mean, it depends again how you position it. So, yes, there is always a bit of resistance. I mean, if someone's not resistant at all, then there's something they haven't got, something to be that worried about losing or giving away. So that's, you know, we want to see some kind of fight, but then that just ups the ante for us to kind of stack our value even more, which we do very well. So we'll say, listen, yeah, you can have the whole hundred percent of your pie, or we can give you a very, very big piece and you can still keep 80% of it and we'll just take 20. Yeah.

Yep.

Doesn't that sound like a better deal? You know, we'll do that. We'll say, look, hey, if you can meet these companies like X, Y and Z on your own, great, go and do it. But if you know you can't, and you know you probably won't be able to, and you may never be able to, then you should probably take this deal because we really, we really have your interest, you know, your interest first in this. Otherwise we would be asking for a lot more.

Okay.

And I'll be honest with you, there was another deal recently and, and we asked for 50% revenue and they took it. We said, look, it's just not as attractive as it could be. And we said, we know he can help you, but we just don't see that your heart's in as much. And really, you think that we're going to carry you, and that's not how we roll. We will work hard for you, but you've got to put in the other side of the work. You've got to reinvest into that company and whatnot. And they weren't interested. They wanted to just get an easy ride. We said, okay, well you can have an easy ride, but we're going to take 50% of that now.

You took 50% of the revenue share. Okay.

On new deals that we help them bring in.

Nice.

Because for us it's literally just opening the door.

So that's the next question. Because there's so many things you can do to grow a business, right. And one of them is the strategic alliances are more marketing advice services like let me help you improve your, you know, improve your offer. And if you have a website, right, let me, let's improve your sales funnels or your copy, et cetera, et cetera. But do you guys primarily focus on opening those high leverage relationships and introductions or do you go in as well get your hands dirty with like all types of marketing advice services, etc.

Yeah, I mean, look, when I say scale and I don't mean what can.

You do, I mean what do you typically.

Yeah, so both, it depends on what the business needs. So obviously under scale, I mean, heck, put it this way, we can come in and do everything from how you structure the organization to grow bigger and so that it doesn't fall apart when you do, you know, we can help you to kind of work on your hiring, your teams, your strategy, your business plan. Because if you want to raise capital, first thing we need to look at is your business plan. Because we're not going to go to anybody on anyone's behalf unless their business plan all adds up and is realistic and actually proves that they know what they're doing. And I'll tell you what, it doesn't matter how much money you've made. Still, people can't do a decent business plan and they can't put their projections right and all sorts of things don't add up. So we'll go and do that to, you know, looking at their own leadership, helping them, you know, because obviously that's my, that's my background, you know, as an advisor, sort of helping people on their psychology, their communication, really understanding what's limiting them from moving forward. Because you know, obviously when you look at a company, you know, it's the same as the captain of the ship. If it's not going in the right direction, well, look at the leader. And so we'll do that as well. All the way to. Again, if it's literally you need more clients, then we'll look at your marketing strategy. We're not going to go as deep we've got friends. We can call in for that if we need. And sometimes we will. But yeah, literally it will be looking at. Okay, well if you were to have those connections over there, what would that do for your business? Well, that would, oh my goodness, that could be a huge contract because they need exactly what we have. Great. Well, let's have a few phone calls, we'll have a few dinners, we'll see what we can do. Or what would happen if you could do a massive joint venture with that company over there? Well, we know them, so let us see if we can set it up for you because if you go, they're going to just close the door on you. But if we go, they owe us a favor anyway. So it's likely they'll probably do it. By the way, for us to do those sort of things, we have to know 100% that the company we're going to be doing it for can deliver. Because that's all redep. That's our reputation. I mean, so my business partner is a member of Young, the Young Presidents Organization.

Yep, familiar.

So he can, you know, it's literally, I don't know exactly know how many members are in that thing but you know, it's every major president or C level executive in the world.

Yeah, it's big.

So yeah, so I mean that's how we can do it. We'll just, you know, make a phone call in that. I mean he's ex Harvard. You know, for me I'm, you know, I've had some very influential friends in the UK here. I mean we'll be hopefully going for a dinner in November time with.

A.

Guy who is a cbe so you know, knighted by the Queen, he's a lord. And so you know, when you know people who are in the House of Commons or Parliament or you know, high up in government and they, they can open doors that way. I mean it really does come down to who is it that you have in your network? How close are you to those people? I guess at the end of the day what have you done in order for them to want to open the doors for you? And yeah, I guess what's in it for them too. So that's the way we always look at it. We always look at it. In the case of does everything add up? We don't want it to be one sided. So we really, before we even work with the company, company, we're really looking at how valuable is this thing. I mean right now, Brad, I wish I could tell you some of the things we're involved in. It's freaking ridiculous.

Yeah.

Technologies that you wouldn't believe, like artificial intelligent things that you'd think, my goodness, that's something out of like, you know, some movie. But it's really happening. And so we're on the brink of being on advisory boards for some of these guys. And, you know, they really, what they really need right now is not money. People are throwing money at them. What they need is the right doors to be open. And so that's what we'll say. We'll say, listen, don't worry about. We don't want any money to be on your board. Give us 6% equity in this startup, which is very, very high, by the way. But that's for both of us. That's a split. So 3% each. But we're saying we're not going to do your typical advisory role. We're not just going to sit there and hand you advice. We're going to go out there and we'll fly over to such and such. Yeah.

You're giving us ownership. We will take ownership. We will treat it like it's ours.

Yeah. And we'll go and get the deal that you're looking for with someone like Universal Studios if you want it. So that's what we'll do. It depends on what they need. I mean, if it's less hands off and they just need some advice and need to bounce ideas, cool, we'll do that. We'll take less ownership or less equity, whatever. If it's more, I mean, raising capital, then we're going to take a successful. When we do that for someone, you know, the same if it's, if we're going to exit a company. But in essence, the big challenge that most people have in these situations, they've done an amazing job to build their own company to the stage it's at. They just don't know some of these things. I mean, unless someone's already sold their company, they're not really going to know how to do it. Yeah. And they're going to get screwed if they try on their own.

So when it comes to working with some of the. When it comes to working with some of these companies, how much time are you really having to spend on some of them? Because, I mean, obviously the bigger the deal is and the bigger the stakes, the more important it is. And you're not working with hundreds and hundreds of companies at the same time. Obviously. I mean, you only got so many hours in the day. But I've noticed that in my Own consulting is one of the challenges I've had is in fulfillment of, not that I can't fulfill, but it just gets to be ridiculous. Like you get to a point where you can't scale your, you know, because what you're selling, you're selling you and your partner's Expertise, Time, Rolodex, etc. It's not like a service that you're just churning out, you can outsource and hire away. So realistically, how much, how much time is this really taking? Is it a full time thing with each company or do you sometimes make just the right connection and it gets easy?

Good question. I mean it's different strokes for different folks. Is the answer to that one? I mean, look for those who are not familiar with the whole startup scene, advisory boards, non executive directors roles, I mean it can be different for different things, but essentially, let's say they're a startup, it's going to be a bigger push to begin with and once they level out, once they get some traction, it could be a couple of hours a month. Really. I mean it's Luke, look over this thing we've just done or we're going to do a press release. What do you think? Looks great. Go and do it. That's it.

And then do you guys do much of the fun? Like if it's a press release, if it's any certain other strategies, are you doing that for them or are you working with their team to kind of get it done?

Yeah, again, we might just say send it to us, let's have a look. Looks good. Bang, straight back to you. Do it.

Yep.

We might get on the call with them and say, yeah, look, here's how you would stack the value on that, here's how you'd position it, here's how you put your buyer, whatever, you know, we might work with some of their team on it, but we're essentially we're, what we do is we really, we move fast. So we're going to try and if we've got 45 minutes to do this, we're going to get it done. We're not going to monkey around, we're not going to sort of chit chat. We're going to get this thing done and get it out the door quick. And that's the thing with all of these guys. I mean, again, can't really say too much, but there's a really cool business we're involved in and they, I mean, let's just say this, there's a couple of major brands that we all spend time on every single day. They are set to disrupt this industry big time.

Wow.

But here's the thing. If they don't move quickly like all of these guys, their technology could be. Someone else could come up with their idea.

Oh yeah.

Or they will steal their idea.

They will. Yeah. I mean it's, it's such a, the game of business right now is so fast paced.

Yeah, yeah. So we'll say, look man, you need to freaking get this done quick and this is going to take some of our time. Okay. But we want more then if you want us to put some energy behind this, you've got to put your money where your mouth is. And that's what we'll say. I mean that's how we do things. We just evaluate based on what we think we're going to need to put into it versus how much, I guess how much the company is going to be worth, how much value is going to be involved in it. I mean for a company that could be worth 100 million, we'll probably put in more time for a company that's only going to be worth five, you know.

Yep.

But we'll, we'll kind of. And again, it's different for a startup as it is to an established small to medium sized enterprise. So it really does depend on where they're at, what they need. For some people, I'll be honest with you, I told you off air about someone pretty well known that we're going to be on a board with. Now I know for a fact the only reason he's on the board is because priority, you know, people will put someone on a board because it looks good for them. You know, they know full well that person is not going to be in the trenches with them. Yeah. That's just going to give them extra kudos. And so for instance, we might be the guys who actually do the extra work for them, you know, because that's what we do. We do get involved. But effectively, yeah, we're looking. And for anyone who's listening, the play on doing this, this kind of business, this way we can do. We also, by the way, if people are listening and you are a certain level, if you are at the 1 million, you know, plus and you're looking for consulting, then we, you know, we can look at doing consulting with companies and we would do that on a fee basis. But why we do equity in other companies is because we see the, the long term value.

Yeah.

If that company is going to get sold, which they all, you know, especially in the startup industry, they're all looking to sell very, you know, reasonably. They're looking like five, ten years and again out of the game. You know, hopefully with 100 million in the bank or more. If they're going to go in ipo, then, you know, we want to be involved in that story. So we're happy to kind of stick around and take equity and not see any money because it's, it's a bigger play than just a fee. At the end of the day, it's far more lucrative and more intelligent to be involved at that level and to stick around and to put in hard work up front. Because imagine this, imagine you do help them get a lot of traction, and then they say, hey, look, we don't really need to speak to you for a couple of months. And now you've got an equity share in a company that's going to be worth hundreds of millions. I mean, let that sink in for a moment. That's the value. That's the difference between doing fee work and spot in the right company at the right time and getting in early. But that does take a bit of skill as well, because we. No one, to be honest, when it's a startup, no one really knows. Everyone likes to say that there's all these people out there, investors, and they're commentators, but let's look at their whole portfolio and let's see how many of their companies that they've put real money into actually takes off and flies. It's not always the case.

That's a great point.

So, yeah, that's kind of our strategy. Really?

Cool. So what's a nut you're trying to crack right now? Whether it's in your business or anything else, Whether you're. Are you looking for certain types of relationships that either myself or some of my listeners might have? Are you looking to, I mean, obviously getting the word out, explaining what you can do so it's attracting the right people. But is there anything right now that you're just trying to crack that nut and figure out? I need either a skill, a resource, a person relationship for this.

Wow. Just one, huh?

There could be multiple nuts.

Yeah, there's. Yeah, there's multiple nuts. But, you know, one thing, two things. I'll say, you know, we, we're really interested by companies that have real promise and that are going places. And we, you know, basically our business model is to partner with the right people and to help them accelerate their growth, growth exponentially without them having to go and do all that hard work. Look at it this way it's almost like running a marathon. And we like to help people just run the last 10 yards and get the medal at the end of the day because we're going to help you to accelerate that quickly. So we're interested in meeting more types of people like that who've got that kind of business potential because we're all about those win wins. We're not in it to kind of just do it for ourselves. We really think, you know, the reason that we are able to have the success that we do is because we're all about saying, hey, it's leverage. Let's leverage other people's visions and dreams. And the other thing we're kind of looking to do, another venturing business is you alluded to it earlier and it's on our website. We've got a partnership with some other guys who do something similar but different and very cool. And we're looking to do what's known as roll ups. So it's basically grouping different types of companies and they come. And typically they would be in the same industry. Different niche, slightly different niche.

So do you have any, do you have any different specific types of industries that you're particularly looking at?

High growth really? It doesn't really matter too much. We're not, we're not trying to be the experts. What we do is this.

When I say high, you say high growth. But I mean like, are you looking at, you know, tech, brick and mortar? Anything in particular? Is there any that you're working on currently? That.

Yes, there's, we're doing at the moment recruitment. Because in the UK at least, I can't speak for, I assume it's the same around the rest of the world. But in the uk recruitment is on fire. Everyone's, you know, it's the hot thing. It's big, big money because, you know, companies, they want basically to have people recruit top talent for them. So what we're looking to do is do recruitment roll up. So grouping recruitment, smaller recruitment agencies, we can basically double their value overnight by taking them public. So we're looking to do those kinds of groupings. But that's just one example. There can be different industries as long as they're high growth. It can't be an industry that is kind of just plateaus and it's cottage. We're not looking for things that. It's a nice idea, it's nice, yeah, you're a solopreneur, whatever, you know, that's not. We're looking at, we're looking at things that can scale, if it can scale. But it's early on and they know at the moment they're struggling maybe to get the capital they need to grow, or they just don't want to be stuck in this thing for another 10 years before they can actually enjoy it. Because that's what happens. You know this, I know this. Everyone just works their ass off and then suddenly they wake up one day and they're all. And they've spent their whole life building this thing and now they can get a Ferrari. Good. But you didn't live while you, well, you didn't do it whilst you were in your prime. You know what I mean? And we want to kind of say to people, hey, what if you can shortcut that by, I mean, one, you group a company, here's what happens. Suddenly you've got a larger profile overnight. Second, bigger companies that you want to do deals with will come to you because you've got security, you've got backup. It's not just you anymore. It's these other people involved. And you can partner with each other underneath that group. You can do joint ventures and strategic alliances. The third thing is, well, you'll double the value of your company overnight in shares when we take you public. So do you know what I mean? It's suddenly this amazing concept, and I can't take credit for this concept and neither can the people we partner because it's not, not new. It's just different the way they're doing it. And they, they were the ones who kind of came up with it. And they're doing it right now. And we've just gone, hey, we love what you're doing. We've got extra skill that you don't. Let's, let's do something together.

So, so give my, give my listeners a short example of what a roll up would look like. Let's say Brad Costanzo owns a recruiting company. Let's say I do high tech recruiting, you know, for high tech individuals or whatever, software engineers, etc. That's my company. I'm grossing. Let's just say I met, you know, maybe this is the right number. We're grossing about 5 million a year. I don't know if that's a good number. Low, high. But just use that as an example. Okay, so explain to my listeners what a roll up would look like in that situation.

Well, essentially it's finding other smaller, you know, companies like that size or smaller, smaller. It doesn't really matter. But, you know, you don't want to go too high because then it gets more complicated.

True.

Essentially the idea is you don't really, you don't want competing, so you want non compete. Because obviously under one name like recruitment or construction, there's different types of.

You want complementary companies.

Yeah, absolutely. So you say, look, hey, you're looking for people really that are open minded. They've got to understand that there's super value in grouping. They've got to understand that at the end of the day you're going to slog your guts out all your life. Or do you want to accelerate everything you're doing in a very unique way? And here's what we do, you retain like most of your autonomously. We're not trying to run your business. We don't care about you being the boss. You're the boss, be the boss. What we're doing is we make value from helping to kind of structure the deal. And you get, you know what you can do when you go public, you can take shares off the table, which is cash, and then you can, you know, you can do what you want with that cash without selling your company. Cha Ching. So what you do, it's just a very clever way of leveraging money that some people value your company at.

Right. And then, and then kind of drilling down a little more even specifically there. So I'm the, we're going to take my company public. And people don't realize that you can take almost any type of company public. Sometimes it's harder, sometimes a handful of steps involved, but. So there's different ways to do this. But with yours. Are you talking about. So I am. This is me being the CEO, taking this public and then purchasing some of these companies under, where I am, the flagship there, I'm buying them. Or are you talking about, look, we're gonna take this public with a handful of other companies, we're gonna do all this and I'm just one of the other ones that's benefiting from a roll up. Or is it? I'm gonna help this client basically go acquire and get vertically integrated or whatever, just acquire other companies in its space to where I'm still the lead. Is it a little bit of both? Is it?

It's a bit of both. But what we're doing, talking, the easiest way to do it is to say, look, me, let's talk. Me, Luke Desensis. We're the vehicle. So we create the group, we bring the members, all these separate people into the group, separate companies. And then as a company owner, business owner being under this group, suddenly you obviously have all the added benefits of the group and you can increase the value of your company. We just operate the group. We take it to the ipo. Because let anybody try and do that on their own, unless they're, if they're under, I don't know, say, you know, 50 million, it's going to be pretty hard.

Okay, so when you do the ticket to the ipo, is it you're taking my company, the ipo, or you're taking me the group? The group.

When you come under the group, then you, you, you're valued the value, it's the combined value of all the companies.

So who becomes the de facto CEO then?

Well, we would operate the group, but everybody underneath the banner is still operating their own company. Okay, so we say that do whatever you do normally do, you know, as you do normally, but the combined benefit is that obviously the companies are now worth a hell of a lot more than they were when you were just solo.

Right. So let's say there's four companies. This probably depends. Let's just keep it really simple. Let's say we're all doing five. Let's say all of our financials look approximately the same.

Yeah.

So is this okay? Well, I own 100% of my company now, but with this roll up, I'm getting, you know, 20% of the group of the IPO company, or what does that generally look like in financial terms?

Well, I won't go into the specifics so much, but we would get a percentage for setting up the deal and we get percentage of each of the companies that our group company starts to have an equity stake in all of those companies and their value on the, on the market and you know, the company, the individual companies themselves, basically, they increase in their own value in share value. So basically, although the market values the whole group in terms of all of the valuations. So if they're all 5 million and there's 4, then it's going to be, you know, your 20 million, but then obviously. So that would, you know, take that value up significantly. But then as your company, you would still have, you'd still have, you know, your original kind of value plus whatever the market, you know, increased it to. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. So that's how they would do it. I mean, it's, it can be very complicated if you want it to. But I try to make everything simple, man. I'm not interested. You know, it took me a while to get it. So don't get me wrong, if people are listening, I don't get it, buddy. It's like cool. I didn't either. But the point is, look at any company that goes public now, tell me who's worth more, private or public? It's always public, always. And that's why all these big tech companies, that's what they dream for, that's what they all do it. They're in Silicon Valley going, 10 years from now we're going to be billionaires. That's what they all want. And that's what happens when you've got a certain structure and leverage. Well, that's typical with tech companies especially because obviously tech companies can be a billion dollar company very quickly if it's that type of company, if it is an Instagram or Facebook or an Uber or whatever. But if you're a normal SME, small to medium sized enterprise, it's very unlikely you're going to grow like that. So we're offering an opportunity that, you know, most business owners will never have in a lifetime and they don't have to do any more work or have any higher overheads to do it. Yeah, you know, it's so, it's brilliant. It's genius. And when I heard this and I heard our partners talk about this, I was like, freaking heck, that is brilliant. And like I said, I didn't fully get it, but I got it enough to say, let's be involved. How do we get involved? So that's one thing we're looking to do. It's not easy, it's a process. We're still working on it. And again, goes all the way back to relationships. I've got a relationship I'm cultivating in the recruitment industry and in various other industries and we're trying to leverage those because look, we can go out and do all the work ourselves and bring in people to a group or we can have someone who is a trusted advisor or trusted authority to them already and they can do it and they become a partner with us. So we're always looking at how we can partner. That's how we do everything.

I love it. I love it. That's it. It's powerful, it's proven, it's fun. There's nothing more fun than getting into a really good and powerful partnership. Man, Luke, this has been awesome. I am, I've had a lot of fun. As I said in the very beginning, I didn't know where this was gonna go for sure. But I mean, you and I are in a lot of ways kind of from the same cloth. And hopefully maybe there's some business we can do in the future, whether someone with my connections or yours and stuff. I mean, it seems like both of us are really able to spot opportunities and love being in different opportunities. We like the variety of the game and keeping it fresh with new relationships, new ventures, new opportunities and things like that. So I always like keeping in contact with folks like yourself. If people want more information from you and they want to go deeper down this rabbit hole, how do they get a hold of you or find more information? What websites or information do you want to give them?

Okay, so if people want to personalize get hold of me LukeHavard, then you can find me on Facebook. Pretty easy to find on there. You can find me on Twitter, just lukehavard, all lowercase. You can Find me on YouTube. I also have some videos out there. I did a lot, a lot of videos in the past and I've just left them up there. LinkedIn, if you're interested and you've been listening, you're like, you know what, I would love to have some coaching or insight from Luke in terms of how you just the way thought I think and how we do business and we leverage stuff, then, you know, reach out to me on LinkedIn. Luke Haver, again, if you're a bigger business and you're looking at, you know, you're interested in exits or raising capital or whatever it is you're interested in discussing, we're happy to have conversations. Just go onto the Desensis Group website, which is basically ww.decentisgroup and I'm sure you'll have in the show notes, Brad, our details. So if people are interested, just reach out to me and let's talk. We always say, look, we don't mind having conversations no matter where they go. At the end of the day, if there's some value that we can add to people, we can just advise them on what not to do or what to do. We're happy to chat.

Perfect. Well, look, I appreciate you being on the call today and I hope my listeners got as much value out of this as I did. A lot of fun, a lot of actionable advice and value. The topics were broad and many, but I loved it. I will absolutely be keeping in contact with you guys. If you have any questions, if you have any insights, if you have any things you're working on right now and you might want my eyeballs on, send me an email to askbradbaconrappbusiness.com if you're not subscribing to the show on itunes or stitcher, do that hit the subscribe button. Listen to more podcasts if you're not already. And hey, tell your friends about me. Post this stuff on social media. It's the way that I grow. I don't ask for money for the show. I do this because I truly love it. I like putting this out there and I like having the opportunity to talk to people like Luke and expand my own personal relationship. If you have any questions, ask bradbaconrightbusiness.com and until next time, Luke, thanks a lot for your time and we will talk really soon, buddy.

Hey, thanks man. It's been a privilege.

Absolutely. Talk to you soon.

Cheers. Bye Bye.