Keeping the Key Employee: On Trust, Surprises, and Transforming Top Dog Into Raynmaker

This is an episode I've been waiting years to record. This is the real truth between Jason Trinka and myself about all of the truths when I bought the business and what were the key moments in that transition for Jason, who was effectively operating as a GM. We go through a lot of these details, what helped him turn the corner and believe that this was the right opportunity for him to stick around. And then towards the end of the conversation, we get into some of the nitty-gritty details. You can see we're still working through it. We talk about comp, we go there, uh, all live, unscripted, so you're not going to want to miss this. Bought the Biz is a podcast for ETA entrepreneurs who've gone from searching for a business to actually running one. It tells the real story of what happens after the deal closes— the day-to-day operational, emotional, strategic, and leadership challenges that just don't show up in the highlight reels.

The show is story-driven and practical, sharing real experiences from operators along with clear, actionable takeaways you can use in your own business today.

I'm Garth Fossano.

I'm Christi Loucks. Welcome to Bot the Biz.

Welcome to another episode of Bot the Biz. This is one that I have been so excited about and maybe a little bit fearful for as well. I don't really know how this is going to turn out or where it's going to go, but it really builds on a lot of what Christi and I have been talking about of the transition of your search business. And today we have Jason Trinka on who was effectively the GM of the business that I acquired 3 years ago. And so we are going to dig in and understand all about what happened, what went well, what didn't, what were some of the key moments both for Jason as well as myself. And hopefully this can help some of the other searchers out there that are starting to think about that transition plan. So before we jump in, Jason, do you want to just give a quick intro?

So I've been doing sales most of my life, but I actually had a background coming out of college where I was going to be a cop. I, you know, came into the world thinking I'm going to be an officer of the law. I had a degree in criminal justice, psychology, sociology. I got accepted to Denver PD. And then in 2007, '08, the economy went sideways and everyone that had their retirement withdrew it. And I got put on a mile-long hold list. And I looked at my debt and I said, I got to figure this out. And I started getting into traditional call center work, which was yucky, uh, brick and mortar. Think cubicle, think Y-jacking and lines in. And I started doing that and, and then found this need to help support small businesses, franchise owners, and, uh, helped create and drive a call center for many, many years. And then, uh, Garth came in and, and took over the business and We've made a lot of fun pivots along the way and it's been a fun journey and ride and here we are.

All right. But like to make sure we set the stage right, you were effectively the sort of number 2 at a business that had been around for 15-ish years. And that's sort of when I stepped in and you might define number 2 a little bit more.

Yeah, I mean, some people might call me a number 1, some people might call me a number 2. You never know. But no, I think that, yeah, running the entire operations for the call center business as that company, Top Dog Sales Center, was a huge part of what defined me as a person for a long time because it had been so much of what I poured my life and energy into was creating this thing. And then, we've done nothing but change this thing. And it's been so much fun to change this thing over the last couple of years.

But has it? How has that really felt?

Everyone that knew me before Garth came into my life would say I was someone that would draw a line in the sand and would not budge. I was unflappable. Mappable. I was the immovable object. And since meeting Garth, I've done nothing but change and change some more and change again and change a little bit differently and look at things. And it has been uncomfortable, but in like the best way ever. And that's where I think embracing the change and not holding on to an idea too tightly has been one of the most fun things that I've gotten to do in the last couple of years is let go a little bit more and open my mind a little bit more and embrace possibility a little bit more and keep driving at those things.

Okay, I'm going to jump in here with my first question. So knowing what you just said, you've evolved. Garth has helped you blossom into this innovative, flexible person. What did you first think though when Garth came on as the new CEO and owner of Top Dawg? When you first heard his like, "Hi, I'm Garth and I'm here," like speech, which by the way, I seen at least a version of it. What was your initial reaction to that?

Ah, if we're being honest, it was, it was scary. It was terrifying to have a known quantity family member, my older sister, leaving or transitioning a business to someone that I had not met or known or had really any background or dealings with. And that was terrifying. It was challenging. It, uh, I felt a little betrayed on the front end of the conversation, but Karth was a good guy. I mean, again, he's genuine, he's honest, and he had vision for the company in a way that I never really thought possible. And so it's easy to look at someone like that and go, okay, I'll give you a shot. See what you're about.

But you were kind of dealing— so then you had like this multifaceted reaction, right? Where did you know that the transaction was happening ahead of time?

I did not know that the transaction was happening ahead of time. It was a surprise for me. And that was something that I honestly— everyone was surprised at how I reacted to it. My sister, my family, my parents, my wife, everyone was like, I can't believe you're handling this in this way. And I went, you know, it is not my, my default standard drive mechanism, but there was something that just felt different about this. And, uh, and that's where I decided to, to really buckle down and lean in instead of lean out.

I want to add a little bit of context on this too, because it was a surprise to me that Jason was surprised, uh, when I saw it. And so, um, I did not think that this was going to be sort of a moment of contention. I thought that Jason was aware. Some of the ways it was described to me was that it had been discussed but wasn't something that was going to move forward. And so it felt like, well, maybe it had not been explicitly said in the right words. It was definitely implied to me that he was sort of understood what was happening and that this was the long-term plan. So that was a very interesting moment for both of us.

So then here's the next question. Did you know that Garth didn't know that you didn't know?

Yes, I was made aware of that on the front and behind the scenes side of things and was told, please don't blow this up. And I had every opportunity to make a lot of noise and make his life a lot harder than it could have been. But I didn't want to do that. Um, that's not something that I've ever felt or, or wanted to do as a person, so I wasn't about to start now. Um, and punishing someone who's stepping up and stepping in and doing this didn't feel like something that was on my moral compass as a thing to do.

I mean, that's very noble. I don't know that everyone would have that same—

No, a lot of people were surprised I didn't burn it down and walk away.

Yeah, I mean, were you at ever any point like close to quitting or leaving, or what was I mean, you had to have gone on some sort of like emotional journey in all of this, right? Like the ebbs and flows, or were you— did you not have those like ups and downs?

Oh no, massive ups and downs. Massive ups and downs. And there was— I had just had— so I had one daughter in the world at that point, and I had just had a son. And there was all the stress of kids and newborns and lack of sleep and hormones and craziness and all that happening in the background too. And so there was all these like layers of conversations happening. And at the end of the day, the decision that I made that I've kind of held as, as my core belief is life is too short to cut out family from your life. So I've really leaned into the relationship with my sister and we've, we have a deeper and better relationship now than we did when we were working together, which working with family is hard. So that's not a super shocker for a lot of people, but our relationship is stronger than I think it ever has been. And we've been able to grow past that. And one of the things that I always come back to is like, if Garth hadn't bought the company or stepped into this role and I had been given a clear opportunity to do this, I would have never done what we're doing now.

Yeah.

I would have not made this move. And, and it's hard to say like I would have never, but like I really don't think I would have. I think I would have just continued to keep a status quo going, which would have been fine, but where we are now in the future, I look at it and I go, I'm just excited to be here on the ride. Like, this is a fun time to be alive in everything that we're building and doing. And you only get one chance to do stuff like this. So.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So then, Garth, let me ask you a question. What was your experience on the other side of this whole thing? Like meeting Jason, knowing the relationship, like how did you approach the entire situation? Knowing what you knew and then what you didn't know.

So the deal closed on a Friday and you like took possession on Saturday. And I think what happened was your sister Chelsea gave you a call on Sunday to let you know what was happening. And the plan was for me to get intro'd on Tuesday morning to the leadership team because the business runs virtually and remote. I think you and I and Chelsea may have gotten lunch on Monday or Wednesday or even Tuesday that week. I think she kind of called me and based on some of the things she was saying, I kind of knew something was already off the rails a bit in that communication. And it's like we were already going a little bit into damage control mode. So like before even the first business day of, you know, stepping into the company, which I was pretty surprised about because I had thought sort of everything had been, you know, I did not think that this was going to be sort of a big deal. Um, but clearly I realized very quickly that's something that there, it was a big deal. And, um, yeah, I was a little bit nervous about the implications of that. Cause now like the buck stops with me. If Jason quit, that would have been sort of my thing. And, um, you know, my mode was to approach this with like real authenticity, which was my game plan the entire time, not just because of this. Um, but you know, I was already looking at, okay, like what's going to be the impact if this guy leaves?

What am I doing for it?

Yeah. Just going into like damage control mode already. Um, which was, you know, definitely disappointing, uh, that this was not made clear during due diligence that this was going to be an issue because it was clearly known.

It wasn't an issue.

It turned out to not to be, but you know, again, like as you're, when you're a new ETA operator in your first month, you're going to have a bunch of things thrown at you that you weren't planning. And here was one of them.

Well, I think that's the point, like diligence. I mean, you talk about so many things and you go through so many elements of the business and operations, but there will be things that are missed inevitably. And sometimes those things are going to be big, sometimes they're going to be little. But no matter what, when you step in on day one, I will pretty much guarantee that there's going to be surprises. In some way, shape, or form.

Yep. Let me back up a second. Trust takes time to build, and just because I say that there's a vision, uh, doesn't mean that you're gonna believe it or anyone's gonna believe it, and, uh, or that I even believe it. So like, what were some of the key moments for other folks to understand that we had and shared together that sort of helped make you believe that this might be a little bit different?

I think there's something that you did really well in, in the beginning, and you've done a lot really well over the course of the time.

We also want to hear the mistakes too. Those are really fun. So feel free to throw those out there.

But some of the things that I think that made this a process for me to be a part of and not something to resist is you gave me the level of autonomy that I had built and earned in the business with my sister, and you continue to give that to me today. And that's where I look at it and I go, that means a lot to me. I have worked my butt off to get to that point, and you didn't treat me like a GM. You treated me like a co-founder. You treated me like someone that was in it for the long haul, and that allowed me to also be in it for the long haul. You gave me the freedom to run the team and continue in my day-to-day operations. You didn't make fast changes to anything. You got into the business, you were slow and thoughtful with some of it, and then you slowly started making changes to pieces. Along the way and introducing different ideas and technologies and things like that. And I think that that allowed it to be a process of transition instead of rip the Band-Aid.

Did you mean to do all that, Garth?

You know, I— it's funny that you say I took my time because like, that was my plan all along. But looking back, I think I should have gone even slower on some things.

Is there anything that sticks out there, like examples?

Yeah, this, this isn't specifically with Jason, but, you know, I think about a month to 45 days in, I knew we needed to make some changes to the org chart. Um, and like the specific example is that basically everyone in the business was in COGS and we needed someone doing sales. We needed someone in like, uh, someone doing account management. We needed to sort of transition this business so that it could become more scalable. And so I started drafting up what that org chart would look like and shared that with someone on the team. And it was definitely one of those record-scratching moments. I, I ended up, uh, buying flowers and driving to her house and having a chat with her afterwards. But that's like the genuine, authentic side of me. And, you know, I think what I did would have been very common in my sort of consulting career, like, let's draft up Proposed org chart sheet. Let's start socializing it. Let's ask questions, see what people like and don't like. And, and I, uh, there wasn't much discussion with the person who didn't like it until I showed up at her house with flowers. And that's okay. I think part of the process too.

Yeah, yeah. And honestly, you've introduced structure to a system that was largely unstructured, just running. Um, everyone was just running autonomously with very loose structure organizationally. And so watching you put in that organizational structure that allowed us to grow was something that a lot of people weren't prepared for, aware of, knew existed?

Yeah, actually what's kind of funny is I think there was a, there was a fair bit of structure. I would say it was like slightly outdated relative to the way an entrepreneur would organize a business today, but not bad. But it was all hidden. Like if you had a task, you knew it and no one else knew about it and was involved.

No SOPs.

The SOPs were like all in all their individual silos and there were no shared information across those. And so I really tried to break that down. And I think that gave people a lot more visibility into what was happening in the company, which if you're going to keep it status quo, it's fine if you don't have that. But if you're going to try and grow and scale, you need people to be more cross-functional.

Okay. I have questions about the evolution of top dog to Rainmaker, right? Because Jason, you've been along for that ride and Garth, you're like the visionary for this. What's that experience been like for you, Jason, going through call center guru, like starting there, call center guru to this AI, like magical thing you're building now?

I've gotten to learn so much and, and learned so many different aspects. I feel like I have a set of skills now. I feel almost like Liam Neeson. I have a set of skills. I could go out into the world and, and do so many different things now that I didn't feel like I could before. So watching how all of these different parts of the business have ran and then come together, I thought has like, that has been super cool. There's been some really hard moments along the way though, and Like, I'll never forget, I was on the road and I was, I got a call from a customer in the prior state top dog world as we were making this transition into the Rainmaker world. And they were someone that I've worked with for years, someone that I had a close personal relationship with, I would have considered a friend. And they were just laying into me, yelling at me, swearing at me, coming at me that we've, you know, messed up their business. And it's like, there's all these things that we are responsible for, for them. And I remember just getting off of that call and feeling like I just like, I can't do this. And I called my wife. And she, she talked me off the ledge. But she gave me a piece of advice or a conversation idea that, like, I've held with me this entire time. And it's, you can always stop this, and you'd be exactly where you're at when you stop. But if you really grab ahold and see it through, you might be part of something special. That is being built that's, that's not there now and really being at a frontier level. I mean, there's still some oceans to be explored. Space is a final frontier for, for sure. But like the rest of Earth is here and like I look at this and I go, really being a sales frontiersman feels so cool to watch how technology has shifted and grown and changed in the last couple of years so drastically. I remember sitting at a restaurant in Denver with Garth when he told me about Rainmaker, the idea of this autonomous sales platform. And I remember 2 years ago, approximately, looking at him and going, yeah, okay, like, you think so? Sure. And kind of thinking like, man, we're way early on this game. And then I remember, I mean, 2, 3 months ago, even just thinking like, oh my gosh, we got to go faster. Like, you know, we got to keep going because it's— everything is happening so cascadingly quickly.

Yeah. So, okay. And then, wait, Garth, I know you're about to say something, but I have a follow-up question to do. So to, to come in to an existing business and convince people that they were going to change everything, right? And it's going to be an entirely new company, what steps did you take, whether it's with Jason or like the broader team, to bring people along for that ride and to like convince them that this would be a good idea? Because what you did is not what a lot of people do, right? Like a lot of people come in, they just want to continue running the business. Maybe there's some cool innovative things, but like this massive transformational shift that you guys are, are running is like very unique.

Just to— I'm going to back up a second before I answer that. That was never the plan. When I stepped into Top Dog, I sort of saw a 30% chance that the business would run status quo as is for 10 years. So 10-year horizon in a small business is effectively forever. I thought that there was probably a, you know, 30% chance we would see some modest growth through entering some new verticals because there was some client concentration question marks in the business early on. And then I thought there was sort of a 30% chance that we would scale really significantly in this small business sales space in many new verticals. And then there was this small little bit that was like, hey, maybe the technology will be ready and we'll be able to do something something truly transformational for the small business space that's a little bit different than the outsourced call center sales play. And we're on that sort of like 10% likelihood path, which was, you know, never the goal of the acquisition, but sort of what has unfolded. And that's the opportunity that's presented, presented us a couple of things that we did in the business that worked out really well. I would sort of say we took the, the middle path of those three. Like we expanded into some new verticals, proved out some points, but the core business really grew through a couple of things that Jason and I put together like this, this like lead generation program by directly integrating with lead aggregators. That was one example that drove a lot of revenue for our clients. About, I think we kicked that off like 6, 8 months after I joined. And that really, really helped our clients as well as our business. And so from a balance sheet perspective of the typical ETA business, we didn't— I didn't have a PG sitting over my head basically when we made the transition. So I think that's also one of the reasons that it was incredibly unique for us. Now, in terms of bringing people along, I don't think I had some sophisticated strategy there, to be honest. I think we just tried doing sort of the right things and building a little bit more of a community and making some investments in events in our team, like in-person events for a remote team. And I think that that was pretty unique, I would say. The other thing, if someone's trying to sort of do this tech multiplier on their businesses, you've got to bring in some of the right people. And so the CEO that we brought in is undoubtedly the right person to be leading the company.

You do have an effect though, Garth, like You just like, I mean, what, like we met one time and then all of a sudden I was like, yeah, I'm going to do a podcast with this guy. I hardly even know him, but yeah, it sounds amazing. Like you're just like a golden retriever and you just like get everybody all excited.

And it's funny because in the top dog version of the company, I believe I was called the golden retriever by—

You're absolutely a golden retriever.

I mean, why would you not be positive? Life's too short.

Yeah.

So what, what parts of—

are there any parts of this story, right? This evolution or like, you know, Garth and Jason, like your relationship that we haven't maybe hit on that you think is important for either like an operator to understand or, you know, Jason, from your perspective, like you're the incumbent operating like person, you know, what do people—

Yeah, I think there's two things that I want to add to that because I think that there are some specific moments that I think probably helped along the path. Um, one was I sent a worksheet out to you and we both filled it out. That was sort of like, where's the business going to be? I can't remember. We did like 3, 5, or 10 years. And we filled those out. We went for a hike. We just talked about, I don't even know what on the hike, uh, probably a little bit of our vision, probably a little bit of family, all those kinds of things. And then we went to, I think, like a coffee shop or got lunch and went through our worksheets. And in my mind, that must have been one of the moments that helped move the needle. For you and seeing what the opportunity was, but I'm also curious if you might be like, "I don't even remember that." No, I remember that deeply.

And I remember the breakfast burrito that we had after that hike. It was a good breakfast burrito. But no, I think that was one of the moments. I think when you showed up at my house with gifts for the kids and were playing with the kids, I think that was a very large moment for me as well. I've been very family-oriented in my life and with how much I deliver at work, if I can't also treat it a little bit like a family in a professional sense, of course, it makes it a lot harder. I like to be honest. I like to be raw. I like to be who I am. I like to be able to show up and have opinions and have them be heard for better or worse. And I like to involve people in my life that are positive like that. And just good people all the way around. And so I think showing up like that was great. I think that there's been a couple of other pivotal moments for me. I think sitting down with you and Joe at Dairy Queen, or no, Wendy's, at Wendy's, that was a fun one. Just sitting and having a conversation about the future and the company and where I could fit into the vision that you guys had and how I could be a part of it. You haven't really gatekept a lot I think that's one of the best parts. Like, you're a fairly open book.

But is there anything that you think early on did not go as well as maybe I had intended, or I should have happened, or could have been done better?

Uh, there, there is only one moment, um, but I think that this is actually, uh, something that sticks out in my mind now as like a, uh, one of the many positive shift changes. And I had a hard time with one of my kids and I missed a meeting and the basic conversation was, if you didn't show up, like, that's on you. And I was like, well, that's true. And it wasn't a big deal at the time. It felt like a big deal at the time, but it was one of those things that also just allowed me to step back and go, I don't need to be here for every little piece of everything anymore.

So I think what happened was you missed a meeting and we made it like the leadership team made a decision and you didn't get to be a part of it. Is that right? Yeah, I do remember that now.

Yeah, and that was one of those moments where I was like, hmm, um, but also like it was the start of me realizing that this is a team that can do more without me having to do it all anymore. And I think that was something that you've continued to show and do along the way.

Yeah, I think that's probably a really consistent theme for people stepping into ETA businesses. I think that in the small business side, there's going to be a lot more of sort of like— I don't know if this is the right word, but like command and control leadership styles are probably going to be a little bit more common. I mean, that's sort of like, you know, startup small business mode of just like just trying to survive. And that's going, you know, as these businesses grow and sort of become into the right size for target ETA operators, that culture and that feeling is probably still going to be in them. And so that was That was something that I think took us like, I mean, 2 years to really break down that belief system. A long time.

Um, there was one time I'll, I'll share this one too, because I think that this is a really fun one. Um, where again, as someone that wore many hats in the business and would often hop into the front lines to help out and, you know, do, do all the jobs. Um, there was a moment where I was told to let that go and focus on something else in the business. And I had a really hard time doing that. So hard of a time, in fact, that they had to forcibly remove me from that part of the business for a second for me to go, okay.

Yeah, yeah, we did do that.

I, for my own benefit.

It, yeah, that was, that was hard for me to do, by the way. Why?

It's hysterical looking at it.

Because you let, like, what was hard about it?

Um, because I knew that it would be disruptive to what Jason was used to doing, but I knew that that really needed to change. Like, you know, as I mean, in these businesses, when someone has done and run something for effectively 15 years and you're trying to get them to shift, like, clients, customers call them, they pull them back into that mode. And so it was sort of impossible to extract Jason from this despite like the clear conversations we were having. And as we were trying to have new people step up into those roles, it was difficult for them. And so we literally just had to shut off Jason's access a couple of times.

Message received loud and clear.

And I think that that was panic attack inducing for you. I think you were like, you know, the problem is like, you know, our CEO is making those decisions. Those decisions were, I mean, hard for me even to make with the, 2 and a half years of history we had at that point. But then, you know, so Joe would make this decision and then my phone would light up from Jason, you know, what's going on? We can laugh about it now, but it was a little bit at the time. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome. Have we covered all aspects of the story? All lessons learned, big lessons.

You know, one we haven't touched, we can decide if we're going to actually touch this compensation.

Yep. Okay.

Say more, Garth.

Yeah, say more.

You're supposed to be asking the tough questions, Christi.

How did your compensation talks go?

Oh, they were— those were hard for me.

You've said that multiple times now on multiple podcasts. I don't— you do not like comp discussions.

You and I have talked about like comp becomes like one of the primary things you end up dealing with when you step into these businesses. You had the same thing. And I think Jason and I had that out for 2 years.

Okay. So you can—

so we're still having it out.

Yeah. Maybe it's still ongoing. You just don't— another thing you don't know, Garth.

It's not my conversation anymore. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

So you come in, Jason's like, I would need a $200,000 raise.

I should have said that.

What was the scenario?

That was actually almost what the way the information came to me.

Okay.

It's not far off. Um, and, uh, and so I had all the, the comp, uh, sort of from in, in sort of really difficult data formats to understand. I knew that there was a profit sharing plan in place. I probably did not ask enough details about the profit sharing plan. I'm very, used to what a typical profit sharing plan is. And so I sort of thought like I knew what was happening. And then I think, I don't remember if it was like 2 weeks before close or 2 weeks after close, I realized it was a very unique profit sharing animal that was not a standard profit sharing plan.

You totally missed it in due diligence.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I think like you see something in due diligence and you're You know what that means, or you assume you know what it means. Yeah, thank you. I was gonna kind of get to that part, but yeah, um, and it doesn't, uh, and then I think in a profit sharing plan, you have a really unique challenge in, uh, ETA where you've fundamentally changed the P&L of the company when you step in. And so a profit sharing plan on, you know, for Jason on September 15th, now on October 1st, is a totally different thing. And it's sort of unfair to him because he had no decision in that process. But it's also like tricky for you as an ETA owner because, you know, how do you keep that person whole and also make your SBA debt payments too? And so that's a really, uh, tricky process that I think people need to think through and be prepared for. In some of the ETA Mastermind articles. I can't remember exactly the name of the person who wrote this one. I think it was Jim Sharp. I think he suggested doing profit sharing after interest and principal payments in the new business. But if there's an existing model in place prior to when you step in, like, that doesn't work because all of a sudden someone's taking potentially a pretty significant pay cut, even when the business performs in the same way.

Mm-hmm. I mean, just, I know this story is about you guys, but I had a similar situation where my team was getting profit sharing bonuses based on performance, but the founder had no debt. Like there were no other payments. He was just pocketing everything and then sharing some of that with the team. So when I came in, like we still had, we had to restructure the whole bonus plan because I was like, we had to take a 19% interest rate loan. So like, haha, LOL, no profits for you for a while or for me. So we had to completely change everything and that was very disruptive based on what their old comp was.

So I think we did something similar and I think that that was a particularly difficult and painful process for us, Jason, to sort of share what a new plan would be like. I think that was one of the change moments that was hard.

Yeah, I'm in it for the long haul.

I got equity now, I'm good.

But I think that I do remember one of the commitments I made to you was to keep you whole, which was my way of sort of putting in a plan that would keep you on par for where you were the year before.

Yeah.

Sounds like we have other people that deal with this now.

But yeah, the conversations are— I think the biggest thing is too, is like being able to see it strategically, but also knowing that there's like science behind comp, which a lot of people, I think, don't— owners, maybe, you know, operators coming in, like, don't understand that you can't just throw money at a problem necessarily— not a problem, but like at a situation, let's say that— and expect it to one, fix anything, or align with your financial position. Like, you do have to look at bands, you have to look at, you know, other roles in similar geography. Like there's a whole mathematical process to compensation that I think people miss and they just want to come in, address the conflict and like put money in front of people because that usually solves it short term, but it's not necessarily the most strategic, most logical thing to do in the long run.

I mean, it makes total sense to me from where I was coming in. I knew what appropriate bands were for a call center. I knew some of the science. And so I stepped into something that had been built very differently. Frequently.

So yeah, I think sometimes buying Christmas dinner is more than a bonus.

See, oh, that is so true for a lot of our, our team too.

Yeah, sometimes they're the intangibles of, uh, giving, uh, small gifts along the way mean way more than monetary, uh, over the course of it. And again, once you get to that level, again, they seem to always want a little bit more.

Yeah, I've heard that from you, Jason.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Me? Not me. Come on.

You're generalizing. Well, I mean, I don't know. I just— look, I don't— Jason, I just met you. Garth, we met like 4 months ago and here we are. Um, but I do think that it's very like evident that your relationship is really like strong and healthy, and I think that speaks to both of your characters and just like how you've managed that transition and that, um that evolution of the business. So just props to both of you for like being good dudes.

I think I would never buy a business again without meeting the key employees.

Would you have still bought this business if you had met me first?

There's a good question.

That is a really good question.

Now you gotta answer honestly. Come on now.

Um, you know, I think like the 2022 Jason, like it might have been, you know, I think you were in a very different place. I I think if I had met you beforehand, it would've taken sort of a yellow flag of not meeting the employees to a complete red flag, and I would've walked away.

Fair.

And that's because, not because of you or your expectations of the business, but because of your expectation to be running the business in the future. And I think I would've wanted Chelsea and you to work that out first versus using me as the catalyst to go figure that out.

It all worked out, which I'm happy for. If you met me now, how about that?

I think that would be an easy yes. That would be, that would be fine. Yeah.

I think we're onto something. The other thing that I was going to say is, Garth, like, I just am amazed constantly by the network of people that you have surrounded yourself with over your years in doing this. And I think that is a huge credit to who you are as a person, but also the success of the company. And like, just, I mean, again, Joe, Eric, Doug, Derv, Anil, the whole group of people that we have here and how they're all interconnected in some way or in most ways, I think is amazing. And like, what a strong network of incredibly capable people.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's part of the magic when you're building a company is you got to get all the right people. On the bus and, uh, got the right people here. Awesome. What did we miss? Anything else?

All right.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for asking us some of the tough questions, Christi. Thanks for coming on.

Did I? Hopefully they were tough enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's good.