043 - Ian Smith - The Acquirer's Playbook

Ian Smith helps companies grow, and mostly through what, well, I guess a lot of people would call the ruthless tactics of acquisition, right? I know Ian as a warm, insightful, and thoroughly human-centric leader who cares deeply about the people he serves. So let's see how he does it in this episode of Walking the Walk. Inspire, empower, and guide people to their very best. These are the people who are walking the walk.

Your host the original Sensei Leader, Jim Bouchard.

You know, Ian founded The Portfolio Partnership in 2009, and over the last 8 years or so, Ian and his team have scaled over a dozen New England-based businesses, many with overseas offices in Europe and Asia. Ian's career covers a 30-year period of creating remarkable businesses in Europe and in the United States, and he shares his wisdom and experience in a series of books he calls his playbooks. And in my hands right now, Ian, I have the one you gifted me, The Acquirer's Playbook. A little process map that works. Well, first of all, it ain't little. I'm on the leadership side, not the management side, so I look at all these flowcharts and steps, but you have broken it down to really, I think, a logical— yeah, all joking aside, I could even understand it. So if I can understand it, I think anyone with some serious business acumen can understand it, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, straightforward. Yeah, yeah, and it's codifying things. People love complex things broken down and that's how I learned. So, that's how I wrote it. You know what I mean? You break things down.

Well, that's one of the biggest, I think most important responsibilities of a leader is to take complexity and make it simple, right?

Right, right, exactly.

And I know that's something you do. I always enjoy listening to the way you explain things.

Well, I think that we both enjoy— you're much doing it more comprehensively than I ever did, but certainly teaching and speaking on a subject really tells you how little you know about it. You know, it really tells you that you know quite quickly, either you learn or you stop doing it. But you know, I found writing and talking about these things, which I don't do that often, but it Over 10, 20 years plus, it sharpens you up, and then as you start to execute and do it, you really do get to know a subject really, really well, and only then can you explain it simply.

And the writing helps so much too, doesn't it? Because when you see it carved onto the page like that, it really helps you focus it.

I don't know, somebody smarter than me, I think, said something simple that hit me when I was doing the blog posts 10 years ago when I started doing this blogging thing. And it's almost, you know, I write to see what I'm thinking, which that was such a simple way of putting it for me because I would have very sort of clear thoughts on almost any business process way beyond acquisitions, your recruitment, financial metrics, salesmanship, marketing. Until I wrote them down in 300 or 400 words, I'd be like, okay, it's Actually, I do have a logical thought process on this, but it's something that it's very difficult spontaneously just to throw out exactly what you know. You really have to order your thoughts. That's what writing does. It really orders your thoughts.

Oh, absolutely. And you know, I know you're dealing with something, with a process that's highly technical, and it needs to be expressed that way. But you know, I'm cheating a little bit because I know you, but It seems to me that in your writing there's, there's, and this is what our whole focus is, you know, there's a humanity that comes across. And I know that because of our conversations and listening to you, um, that there, there is a huge, huge emphasis on the humanity behind this process, right? A lot of people just look at this as let's go grab this company, pay a fair price for it, right? Or better than a fair price. And, and, oh yeah, but talk about a little bit about the human beings that are behind this process. You know, how do, how do you, let's approach it first from the idea that somebody's going to scale up and especially especially if they're going to acquire another company. What should they be looking for on the people side? It isn't all just on the balance sheet, is it?

Oh no, superbly well put. I mean, I think that, you know, the way I look at it, sometimes it's unnerving to think of it this way, but acquisitions are really, really easy. You just overpay. You know, I could buy anything if I've got the number right. I'm not going to sell to you, Jim. OK, you say, well, how about $50 million? You say, look, come on. I've been at this a long time. I'm not going to sell it for $50 million. All right, how about $85 million? OK, where are we meeting for dinner? It's like, I mean, no, OK, not everyone's got a number. But I'm just saying that the difficult part of making acquisitions a success is the human part. That's the very essence of why you make them successful. And I was thinking about this in terms of the humanity part. You know, people used to say to me, you know, I really don't want to have another conversation about this with you because you'll just persuade me of the way you're thinking. I don't want that. It's like, because I come at things, I only know how to come at things from an open, transparent, kind of fair way. It's just the way I've been wired. My girls, both daughters, seem to be Am I right? We just, as a family, you know, it leads to fairly open discussions. But at least we're quite transparent. I mean, I see in executives— I know you see this, Jim, as well— this inward thinking, this lacking of transparency, this lack of openness, it just leads to bad places. And I think in the acquisition context, a leader that isn't prepared to be transparent and open about their direction and their strategy and their storytelling, you know, they're never going to go to a good place. So, because when sellers first enter a dialogue with an acquirer, you know, acquirers have got to turn the volume up on empathy, you know, on selling or at least explaining their story. And often that first step is where the misstep starts. It doesn't start on page 25, it starts on page 1.

Right.

They're arrogant. They're not particularly great storytellers. They don't seem to be engaged in the seller's life. They're not even trying to kind of look at the cultural fit. And the sellers are really smart people. They've built a $30 million business. You know, there's not that many people do that, or $10 million, or $5 million. I mean, it doesn't matter what the number is. And so the biggest failure— the reason acquisitions are a failure is it can only be measured by the post-acquisition integration part, because a lot of acquirers can get over the line by buying it and overpaying. The success of an acquisition is Is it a happy place? Has it been a success 2 or 3 years on? And so, to get that success, you've got to look at the cultural belief system of the seller because you're going to be living with them for the rest of your— I mean, you're buying a house with a family still in it.

That's a beautiful way to say it because, you know, so many times, you know, especially I think acquirers that are hyper-aggressive and only focused on the financials. We know we've heard, and I've run into leaders that have made this mistake. They went after what looked like a nice ripe piece of fruit, but without looking at that culture, you're trying to take it. And when you're acquiring a company, I like the way you say that because you really are bringing them into your family. Yeah, right. And so the culture is hugely important, right? How do you identify if that culture is a good fit? And what's the reflection? Because of course, I know at the level you're dealing with, I know you do management while walking around too. So you get to know front lines. But what are some of the tells from the leaders in an organization so that you can suss out if— and believe me, I'm not judging. I've learned in this business, I'm not judging what type of culture you have. An NFL locker room looks a lot different than the Red Cross, right? But having said that, The NFL guys wouldn't work well in the Red Cross necessarily or vice versa, right? So how do you find that right marriage? What's the tell in the leader?

So this is the job. I mean, you're right on top of the jugular issue which is behind the research of why acquisitions have got such a bad track record. This is actually the nub of the research which if we back up a minute and I'll say a couple of quick things just to bring a reality to what you're actually doing. So when you're recruiting a person, and you're recruiting a new payroll clerk, a new finance director, it could be a new warehouse manager, it doesn't really matter. You're focused on that person and their background. When you buy a company, you're recruiting 156 people on a Monday morning. You're recruiting a whole— instantly you've got another 150 or 10 or 15 people. So when you think of it that way, you've got this tiny window when you first approach a target to get to know them in the next 3 months, 5 months, 6 months. But it's a relatively short window. I mean, we encourage people to— acquirers to get to know the market and get to know people over years. IBM are very good at that, or Oracle. They will have partnerships, so they'll get to know people. And then it's no great surprise to then acquire them. It's kind of like the pre-acquisition stage of getting to know them. But—

Acquire or qualify them, right? Qualify them. Because you can see that they're not a good fit.

Right? Well, exactly. But the secrets of what you say, how I've built it into my process is why I think it's a wee bit different and why it's got a better chance of success because there's no guarantees in life, right?

I think we're singing in harmony there.

Yeah. We're all old enough, made enough mistakes to tell people, trust me on this one.

Yeah, there you go.

No, no, it doesn't work like that. No, it does. And I think what I decided was that what is missing from any kind of process map, because look, the process map at the end of the day should involve a couple of building blocks. You strategically work out which direction you want to go in, then you search. And it's very difficult to hide a $25 million company. I mean, you can't hide it under a rock. They tend to sit above the ground. You know, the search engines are there to find things. I mean, believe me, you mean back in the '80s when I brought out the 15-inch Bible of Compass or some other search tool, I had to use the You would turn 4,000 pages to find the company. Now I press a few buttons and I've got search engines helping me. So search the company based on that strategy. So finding them is not the issue. And ultimately, you're going to talk to them, do a deal, and buy it. So I mean, somebody said, well, that's how it works, right? Yeah, but the subtlety is I've got 25 stages in that little process of searching, finding, and buying. And in those 25 stages, I've got way up in stage 6 and 7, and in 14 and 15, I've got it dotted everywhere, post-acquisition integration thinking. So I'm saying to acquirers, how dare you engage with a seller with the audacity of not thinking through how you're going to bring them into your company, whether there's a fit, whether they'll enjoy the experience. Forget the checkbook. How dare you engage with and break yourself into somebody's life and not articulate why you think it'll be a happy marriage. And I'm telling you, half of acquirers don't even think that way because it's not in their process. Whereas I'm constantly asking people, and I've heard acquirers say to me, "Look, Ian, it's awfully early to be thinking about how we'll run the company." Well, you've phoned them, you're meeting them. How early is that?

It's so interesting you say that. Because sometimes when I'm speaking, again, and I've learned over the years too to stay brutally focused on the human side of things, you know what I mean? But having said that, a lot of times I'll go to an event and, you know, when I, well, I should back this up a little bit. Sometimes when I'm speaking, I'll throw something out there and somebody will say, well, geez, how did you know that? You know what you said? I said, because you didn't know who I was last night and I was sitting at the bar next to you. And they had no idea. They had no idea who I was.

No idea.

And so I'm just listening. Right? I'm listening. And some of the things I'm listening, and I want to throw this at you and see what your response is. I think a lot of times when, and it obviously fits so nicely in what we're talking about today with acquisitions and selling, people do, they ask an awful lot. They talk an awful lot about what people are in certain roles. And it seems very little about who the people are. Right? And then there's a shock afterwards. Well, the person could have been, I often say this, you know, Too many people confuse the word leader with high performer, for example. So, someone's produced the results, yet the company's culture might be in shambles. And I tend to look, I don't know, like one of the tells I'm looking, I always want to see what the churn is. You know, how many people are turning over in that organization. But what are some of the things that we can get to understand who the leaders are and who the people are in this company?

Yes, so I think what we're finding is, and I think research is helping, you know, Gallup or whatever, and you've talked about this, there's so much more research now and care and concern about engagement and the results of research on engagement and the corollary and impact of bad engagement. I grabbed some stats as part of an acquisition speech I did a while ago, and I was talking about this engagement thing, and I said, I mean, you know, I said, you know, basically, you know, 71% of American workers are kind of pissed off at work.

Hugely so, exactly.

Hey, there's some good news here. You know, 29% are happy. They were laughing. I said, no, there's even better good news. That's the best there is in the world. That's the biggest number. I mean, Iran is something like 12 or 6. The UK is about 25%. And I mean, 29% is a good score. And so, I think when you look at leadership and identifying leaders, I mean, we've just— I'm just finishing off the integration of a French acquisition with a Massachusetts-based private group. It's a big private group. And you'd think the French language, I mean, it was a tough barrier. You know, there was a lot of English spoken. But you know, But the thing that really worked well in the integration phase and why it's working well is that we've got a culture in the acquirer. It's an ESOP, Employee Shared Ownership. And it's a very— their biggest genetic kind of piece is their relationships. They're a big fan of— it's all about relationships inside the company, no matter where you are in the company. And this target, despite the French language, were all about relationships. The owner of 721, who was a genius, very paternal, openness, trying to make people build on the relationships. So in fact, that shone through in meeting after meeting after meeting. And so, you know, and then if you take the opposite of that, an advertising agency in New York having to expand into the software world by buying companies with Java developers in them, Well, you just feel the immiscible liquids there. You just know that's going to be tears before bedtime. You can feel it.

Yeah, yeah.

And it is a— see, I'm a big fan of the concept that there's no bad or good employees, there's just good and bad fits. It's all about fit. You know, of course, some bad apples. Who's kidding who? But I'm just saying, Norm, I think—

and it's the same in general. In general.

In general. Yeah. And I think if people would— and the research backs this up— if people, if acquirers would just factor in the fit piece. Strategy, yes, it has to be the right strategic fit to expand in that aerospace market or that high-tech semiconductor manufacturing. I mean, you're not going to buy a pizza chain, right? So the strategic imperative is there. And you have to be ready for the financial performance. You don't really unless you really are good at them, I wouldn't recommend turnarounds. You know, buying a company cheap could be the most expensive thing.

Right, right. It's hard to fix bad.

Oh well, I mean, the post-acquisition costs are horrendous.

Yeah, yeah. Some things are better left to die.

You know, there are some specialists that are good at it. Good luck to them. But the third thing is cultural and belief systems, which if you think about it, that latter part is the biggest underpinning factor for the integration success because if you don't have that, you can have all the processes in the world. And we've got some great integration processes by department of things you should be worrying about, right? But if the fit isn't there, people can game the system.

That's the thing, isn't it? Too often, I think people forget it's people that are running these processes. So, if the people are— But I like it. I don't want to lose sight of this. You said something. You know what? I got to do a commercial for you first though. If anybody, you know, anybody's listening to this, I know Ian just said he doesn't do very much speaking these days. He should, because I'll tell you what, you should have him come. Not only is he one of the most knowledgeable people in this area that I've ever run into, but he's also so thoroughly entertaining. You just have— he has a great way of presenting things. So invite him into your organization, invite him into your next meeting, and long before— I'm going to say long before, you know, if you have any plans on your horizon for scaling, Now's the time to bring him in and hear what he has to say. And I promise you, he won't give you— well, I won't even say a hard sell. You're like me. You won't even sell. You just explain things and then people can— but let's get back to this thing about the bad fit. One of the things we've been working on a lot lately is organizations that want us to help them overcome a resistance to change. And when I first started hearing this, I said, well, why do you want to overcome the resistance? I said, if people have Concerns and they're sharing them with you. That's a positive. It's sort of like what you just said with that data about engagement. If people are willing to talk, that's a good thing. Let's address their concerns early. Let's get them involved. Let's get all levels involved early and often. And then, it'll ease the transition. Don't overcome the resistance. So I think sometimes when you see employees, the employees on the front lines look like bad employees. I'm going to look first at the leadership because I believe what you're saying. Look at the recent events at Wells Fargo, for example. Were those all rotten people or were they good people put in a really rotten circumstance?

Absolutely. Yeah, I think responsibility— I immediately go, when someone leaves a company, it's my fault, not theirs. I mean, I've always believed that.

It's a good first place to look anyway, isn't it?

To start with. That's right. In terms of the kind of discovery phase of solving the problem. I always start with that part. Now, the diagnostic phase may be, okay, it wasn't my fault. I mean, you know, because when I look at the detail, but I think that that's right. The kind of leadership gap is evident prior to acquirers get on the acquisition trail. They just take it with them on the acquisition trail. I mean, it's not like if they suddenly discovered that they're not very good at leadership when they're buying another company, you know, And that's why I also say acquisitions are for operators, meaning, you know, I was in investment banking for a while and I, I, I worked very, very hard to make sure that the process and the meetings would end up in a place where people joined the company in a good frame of mind because, you know, the problem with people, people can can pretend to be in a good frame of mind and they'll get even after the deal, which is the worst thing because they've got the money. I mean, they might be on an earnout, maybe on extra money later, but they've probably got the barrelload of the money. So, they're like, yeah, who cares? And I think that's where, again, the human side of things with acquisitions, you know, it could be any project. It doesn't have to be an acquisition, but One of the very basic lessons I learned through interaction, because interaction in an acquisition, it really should be framed as a negotiation. I mean, you're almost negotiating when in the calendar you're going to meet. I mean, everything's a negotiation in that sense, in a nice way. It's not just like a pricing meeting where you're negotiating. You're negotiating information, facts, clarity, you know, your concept.

Character.

Character. It's always, you know, it's a little dance. But one of the secrets I learned early which is disarming in these quite intense conversations, because trust is the thing you're trying to get a real grip on and be natural, right? You're just trying to get that trust. People often deliver a message and the instinctive reaction sometimes, especially when you're tense, is to have an anger, an angry reaction. It's almost like, What do you mean? Instead of instinctively taking a step back and asking why, ask the question of, so why do you believe that? Just help me understand why you believe that. And when they actually do that, sometimes, number one, they're flawed, and therefore you can unpack that. Number two, they may have a phenomenal insight, in which case you're wrong, they're right, you know, but now you understand why. And in negotiations with acquisitions, that skill set is highly intensified. So if you're not good at it in an HR sense inside your own company with regular meetings, you're going to be atrocious on the acquisition show because the lights and camera are on. It's much more intense. So I learned some of those skills in the most horrendous stage, which was there was no safety net. It was tightrope walking without a safety net, which is dangerous. If you get good at it, it's okay. So I think that human part keeps coming back again and again. You know, do you really— you know, Warren Buffett famously said that he knew more about the targets than he knew about themselves by the time he got to detailed negotiation. And that's not a bad mindset to adopt that workload because number one, it's very flattering. If you tell me that you've looked at the Portfolio Partnerships website and the team, and you're very impressed by last week's press release of the acquisition in France, I'm like, okay, this guy's doing some homework. I think that's— I've always prepared. It's a pain, it's an asset, whatever. I've always overprepared. No, that's perfect.

That's perfect. You know, of course, that's the mentality we're always talking about around here with the Black Belt mentality, right? Warren Buffett's a good example though too, because talk about a great example of a human-centric leader. You put the mythology aside. And I've heard him talk about this where, you know, a lot of times when he's assessing investments, when he's assessing where is he going to put his— well, not just his money, his clients' money, right? You know, he does look at the character of leadership. That's very important. And he's been burned very few times, you know.

He has. That's right.

But obviously we're all going to get burned sometimes. But yeah, uh, you know, that's it. We talked about the relationship thing. Can you give a couple of other— what are the, what are the qualities that you look for in a leader when you're, when you're advising someone to acquire a company? What are the, you know, you're looking at their leadership, what are the like top 2 or 3 qualities in their leadership that really tells you, you know, this is a good company, uh, right, you know, we're putting our money in the right place?

Yes. So, I'm always looking for how often do they do town hall type meetings to inform all the employees how we're doing. I'm nervous of the presentations that are heavy on promises and light on delivery of what we've done.

So, right there, I want to focus on that one before I go any further because I know you have such a vast experience with international business, and specifically I've got a couple of people in mind that I'm going to send this to because I can anticipate some of your answer. But the idea that, that idea, that transparency you talked about earlier, this idea of the town hall, sharing information, getting input from all levels, right? You know, that's a challenge in some places. And we've had a couple of people, especially I remember some of our friends in Jamaica who said, and I understand what they're saying, they said, well, if we go and we seek input from from our subordinates, it's looked at as weakness or incompetence. I don't know what I'm doing. And they want to change. They understand, especially as we're dealing across cultures internationally, that that has to change. That mentality has to change. But yeah, just elaborate on that a little bit. How important that is and how have you bridged that cultural gap at times? Because I know you've probably run into that.

Right. So what I've found is that I think the The overseas kind of cultural thing, whether you're looking at it through a UK lens like I was—

And it happens here too. I don't want to make it— Yeah, yeah.

That's right. Or you're looking at it from an American lens, which I do now as well. So whatever lens you're looking at, first thing I might surprise you by saying is that the cultural gap across countries is overdone. It's way overdone.

Right, right.

The basic humanity— I've been in Japanese boardrooms. I've been in— whether it's to do with a Sarbanes-Oxley, an accounting type legislative issue that affected the world, there was a Japanese Chinese version of SAR, BEIN, OXY, a technical accounting thing. But there's always like boardrooms operate across the world in very similar ways. And it's about clarity of why you're having a meeting. It's, you know, I don't care whether it's 400 people in a town hall or the 3 or 4 leadership management leadership team getting down around a table. Why are you meeting? Not enough people are asking the question, why does this meeting exist? If they just act— because it may have been put in place in 1974, right? They're still meeting every Monday. It's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, well, time out. So I think, so I think these town hall meetings, be really clear on, on what it is the objective is. Is it just information? Are you looking for feedback? Is there a Q&A session? What's your expectation? And I think the other, the other tip is when you're having these meetings, I think you've got to be very, very careful when you garner input. Now, this could be a kind of customer initiative where you're asking the customer things like voice of the customer, or it could be employees or anything. You've always got to put a health warning on that, and people miss this part, and therefore they get into trouble. Ask for feedback, but you've got to say to people, hey, just so you know, I can't answer and I can't action all of it.

But there you go.

I welcome that input and that will go into our discussions. And, you know, you've got to trust me on that. Like, right, you know, it will get as much weight.

But, you know, but are you— are you seeing that that's less and less of an issue that way? That, you know, are these holdovers where people feel threatened, you know, by soliciting that input. Is that dying off? Is that something that—

I think it is. I think it's dying off.

Because we know we can cite all kinds of research to show that even if you have a deep cultural belief in that type of mentality, right, it's not effective anymore. And it's because of what you said, you know, and it's interesting. Some of these are holdovers too from, you know, certain cultures we're working in now. And, you know, it's— well, I think you'll understand the spirit I'm saying.

Yes.

Some of the countries in Africa, it's holdover. They had a very communal type of organic management culture, right? But then because of the colonization, there's vestiges of, and I'm gonna say it's not just UK, but the industrial age American European model, which was command and control, which simply, it worked when people were just extensions of machines for a short time, right?

Sure, sure.

But you just said it, people are people everywhere. The basic fundamental human needs, and we're only gonna do our best when we know our leaders care when we know our work means something, when we know we can grow and develop. So, yeah, how do you overcome that threat?

Well, here's two examples. One from the acquisition world that are quite useful. So, I, for one of my clients, so, you know, our work often involves us. It's almost like I call it fractional C-suite where our work takes us inside our clients, you know, one day, two days, a week, every week. We're actually embedded, you know, in Marlborough, in New Hampshire, whatever it may be, right? And we're performing these— we're kind of the acting chief marketing officer, or we're the acting CFO, or we're the acting COO, or we're acting—

You're grafting yourself to that company. Yeah, yeah.

We're embedded to enhance the team. And people know why we're there. And so, I found a very, very, very smart lady to fulfill a kind of marketing manager role. And I've always believed this, but she is a great example that she's so smart, incredible education, incredible person, very open, not a bad bone in her body, just the right kind of individual culturally as well. And we perform reverse mentoring, reverse mentoring, because she knows things that is bringing me up to speed quicker. It could be search engine optimization, it could be social media, really, it could be something that— but because I'm still at this old age prepared to learn, Well, there it is, right?

There's the heart and soul of it.

Yeah, I'll explain it, but equally I'll explain to why in Salesforce, why a sales process is more important than the Salesforce automation part. It's about the process. You know, all it does is, I mean, you know, you can have crap and automate crap. That's the way it works in the world. She loves that. I don't think she's had that much. So, but then I was lucky enough in the '80s in Thomson's, the publishing giant, to be mentored by a really, really smart boss who was prepared to put the time in. So, you know, what comes around goes around. So I think, so that's helping. And then on the acquisition side, I think what you're seeing more is the arrogance of acquirers is being toned down much more now as they recognize that tricks and tips that the seller is doing, could be a spreadsheet model or database or a process, is better than theirs. Like there's things in France they're doing that blew our mind. It's really, but these are really, really smart engineers. Why wouldn't they be smarter than, I mean, do we know all the answers? I don't know.

You know, Mark, I just heard an interview with Mark Cuban and he says that it was funny because I was ready to, I still probably will write the blog and take the opposite point of view because he spoke against mentors. Now, when he was talking about it, it was obvious that he had mentors. He just wasn't calling them that. And he said it exactly what you just said, you know, this question of leading up we get a lot these days. Of course you can if people are, you know, open to it. And, you know, the idea is that, um, he said he wanted to surround him— he always hired people that were smarter than him. Well, that's exactly what we're talking about. And that's right, that's that leading up or mentoring from— how did you say it? Mentoring from reverse mentoring.

Yeah, that's the phrase I heard.

It wasn't mine. No, no, but we should do it. We should do a whole episode out. We've got to wrap things up for today.

But sure, you know, Ian, first of all, it's been way long. I know, I know. Crazy.

We love, you know, the new— well, it's not so new anymore, but Walking the Walk's been around a little more than a year now. We've had great guests like you, and we want to share your wisdom all over the world. So hopefully you'll come back on a regular basis. I'm going to hold you to that, actually.

Right. Sure.

That's not a question. That's a, you know, that's a statement. I know. I always preach command and control is over. I said, no, you're going to be back. You're the boss. Look, I'm still a badass, right?

That's right.

Whatever you say. I'm a baddie. I can't get rid of that. But anyway, and I'm going to say again, you know, from the heart, anyone who's listening today, yes, and you want to know not just about, you know, the mergers and acquisitions, Ian has such a, just a broad, you know, scope of knowledge when it comes to business and leadership and management. So have him come to your to your organization and have him give a talk. And again, I promise he won't do the hard sell on you. You'll get great information and then if you want to do business with him, well, there you go. That'll happen organically.

Yeah, no, and email, whatever the way you want to reach out to me.

Well, let's start. Yeah, tell people how to get in touch with you, how to get to the website, how to get these great books.

Yeah, I think the best one is just my email because I can then, you know, I'm always literally checking it way too often. It's Ian, I-A-N, at TPP, that's Tommy Peter Peter, tppboston.com.

And the website's portfolio-partnership.com, right?

That's right. That's right.

And the books are available there and on Amazon and everywhere fine literature is available, right?

That's right. That's right. Anyway, you want, there's a book section there which actually technologically links to a company called Amazon, which is amazing.

And you'll see it right there, Ian Smith right next to Steinbeck.

Absolutely.

Well, Ian, thanks so much. Hang on for a minute afterwards and there you go. Ian Smith, The Acquirer's Playbook and lots of other great information for you. Thanks so much for being with us today.

My pleasure.

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