Ep 81 | Frozen Founders: The Psychology Behind Exit Decisions w/ Jeff Munn

Welcome to the Exit Engine Podcast, episode 81. Welcome to the Exit Engine Podcast, where we help founders, owners, and entrepreneurs turn their businesses into assets buyers fight for. If you're looking to grow smarter, reduce risk, and ultimately exit stronger, this is the show for you. I'm your host, Joe Stapleton, and with me as always is my partner in value and salability, Mr. Jon Kniff. Good morning, Jon.

Good morning, Joe. How are you today?

I'm doing good, man. It's cold. It's December when we're recording this. It's a week or so before Christmas, um, and it is, uh, freezing out.

Yeah, it's, it's so— it was so cold this morning. It was the coldest day of the year this morning, frankly, and I'm ready to be somewhere else or be somewhere warm.

So the last time apparently it was this cold in December was 2022. We looked it up last night because it's like, we were like, it never gets like this.

You're right.

You know, and anyway, it's unusually cold, but, and we're probably gonna, but it'll probably warm up for Christmas. Anyway, speaking of warming things up, here's a truth most founders won't admit out loud. It's not the pressure that burns you out, John. It's the indecision.

I like that. I like that.

So the idea here is that when we talk about exit planning, there is a— all of this obviously revolves around very much around the founder or the owner, right? We've talked about this all the time. The problem is that often the entrepreneur is sitting on a gold mine of opportunity. But often when they start going through these machinations of exit planning and exiting and selling the business and things like that, there's a paralysis that can set in, right? There is an emotional component. We've talked about this before in the podcast. There is an emotional component to this that will touch almost every aspect of you as a person as well as the company, right? The reality is, is that there is a— while this whole thing is like, wow, this could be really great, there is a, a kind of a lurking danger that we want to address and talk about today, because this whole thing can get very kind of complicated and very complex, and it can— and there can be— and it's a roller coaster, isn't it?

Well, and it, it gets wrapped up. It's not just the company, right? It's, it's your identity. It's, it's part of the company is one thing and it grows. But as you work more and as it becomes more a part of your life, it's difficult. And we found founders have difficulty separating their life from their company.

That's it. And what comes with that, especially as you go along, is this kind of paralysis can set in, right? It's I'd rather do nothing in a way, right? Because it feels a little bit too big. The reality is, though, is that you probably do know what to do when it comes to these things, right? It's just that you need the clarity and the courage, frankly, to choose it. And what we're trying to teach people is that, you know, because everything that we talk about in our planning process begins with mindset, because you do need to change how you have been doing things. And Jon will say it every, almost every episode. Let's say it again.

What got you here will not get you there.

Exactly. And so changing yourself or understanding yourself, or at least being able to get some clarity around what am I feeling now and why am I feeling like this when I should be in this, like, the most kind of exciting time of owning the business, right? We want this ultimately to be a really, really good celebratory thing that isn't just about how much money you got, but About the fact that your employees were taken care of, about the fact that, you know, about the fact that you've transferred the business to a good place, that you've been able to actually earn out, be able to have this process go well and work in your favor, right?

Yeah.

So to that end, our guest today is Jeff Munn. He's the host of the Pick Now podcast. He's a keynote speaker and executive coach to founders and leadership teams scaling to 9 figures and beyond. Jeff helps leaders cut through the noise, reclaim their energy, and make the decisions that unlock momentum without burning out or breaking what they've built. So whether you're trying to scale, pivot, exit, or just get out of the constant swirl, this conversation will help you reframe the stuckness, trust your instincts, and lead from clarity, not fear. But first, John, let's talk about the new ExitEngine ecosystem. We've just launched what we think is going to be a very valuable and important platform for those of you who care enough about their business and your own futures that they want to learn and grow towards successful exit.

It's everything you'll need to plan and execute a successful exit on your own terms and timeline. ExitEngine helps founders grow smarter and exit stronger by providing diagnostics, roadmaps, coaching, community, and advisory support that reduce risk, increase value, and make their businesses buyer-ready. It's the first exit planning ecosystem in the world, and you can start for free. Now just go to www.myexitengine.com.

So Jeff Munn is a transformational executive coach, speaker, and the host of the Pick Now podcast. After 3 decades as a lawyer, a consultant, and senior executive across healthcare and financial services, Jeff now works exclusively with founders and leadership teams navigating the chaos of high growth. His clients are typically scaling fast but carrying too much. Calendars are jammed, pressure is high, and the weight of every decision falls on their shoulders. Jeff helps these leaders slow down, get clear, and move forward decisively with less stress and more joy. We're all about joy, John.

Ah!

Through his signature Pick Now method, Jeff teaches that the real stress comes not from the choices themselves, but from the delay in making them. His approach helps founders unlock clarity in real time and create extraordinary futures. Without sacrificing themselves or their teams along the way. Jeff Munn, welcome to the Exit Engine Podcast.

I am so happy to be here, Joe and John. Really been looking forward to this conversation.

That's awesome, man. Thank you so much. Look, we try trying to make a safe space here, you know, to be able to talk about some of these things that aren't necessarily about— that aren't necessarily the things that everybody thinks about when they think about selling their business, right? The things that people are talking, thinking about all the time are things like, uh, how much money am I gonna make, right?

What's my multiple? Why am I getting— why am I getting less than my competitor who sold last week, you know?

Exactly. So again, we— what we— but what we all know because we've been through it, right, is that there is way more to this than just the financial end. It's not just about product, process, and people. It's about the founder themselves and where they are mentally, Right. And, you know, you talk about decision is the delay. Can you— let's talk about that, right, first. What is it about— what is the stress in the decision and why is it the thing that kind of causes so much strife?

Well, you know, it's interesting. I think that people think they're not ready. They know what they need to do. They'll make up all kinds of excuses around why they're not ready. It's like, I just got to run the numbers one more time. I just got to have one more conversation. They're just scared. That's really what it comes down to. And the analogy that I always like to use with people is like, if you're going to go skydiving, you know, the plane is coming across, the door is open, you've got your parachute on, you've checked the parachute, you've checked the backup, your brain is going to create all kinds of reasons why you're not ready to jump. But the only thing left to do is to jump. It's actually The point at which you are most afraid is the point at which you are ready. And that is completely counterintuitive to what most people think. It means you've already done everything that you could possibly do. And it's like, oh, am I actually going to do this? Because if you're not ready, you're still in prep mode, you're researching, you're, you know, you're thinking about all these different things, you've got stuff to do. And then you get to the point where you are ready. There's nothing left to do. I was like, okay, am I gonna jump or not? And that's when you get scared.

That's actually an amazing point because I think that tracks. I love the analogy because I think that's exactly right. There is so much to do up front, and the closer you get to this being a reality, the scarier it becomes, right? Yeah. Which is just— which is— the whole thing is weird because you would think that— now, I'm sure there are people out there that'll tell us, Oh, no, mine, it was so great. And I was so confident the entire time and blah, blah, blah. And that's fine. I'm sure there's 1 or 2 people like that. Right? Yeah.

Yeah.

What we know, because we've been through it, and I can, again, talking from my own personal experience, it was exciting to be able to be in a position to sell the company. We were burned out. You know what I mean? I had been doing it for 10 years and working it really hard and, you know, in 16 and 18-hour days for know, for a long time. And so we were ready, you know, mentally to like be done with this. The problem was that it was the, the sale itself was pretty much fine. It was the aftermath of the sale that really caught us all off guard.

Right.

And me particularly, I can't talk, speak to all my other partners, but for me it was about what do I do now? And as this whole thing unfolded, I was kind of like, Like a deer in headlights the entire time.

Yeah. Yeah. And there are sales where it's like you're so burnt out, you're so spent that you just want to get away.

Right.

And, you know, they come back and they change the terms at the end. You know, they do all the things they're going to do. Right. And it's just like, you know what, I'm exhausted and it's still way more money than I ever thought I'd get. So what the hell? And people really get taken advantage of during that time. That's one thing, and we can talk about that. But the other thing is there's this idea of like, are you running away from something or are you running towards something? And when you're running away from something and it's just like, I'm exhausted, get me out of here, almost always I see people like in the aftermath saying, oh my gosh, like, what do I do now?

Yeah.

Because they haven't done any prep for it, right?

That's crazy because when you think about it, because it's like this, the, the, the, this is supposed to be— again, this should be a major event. This should be something that you are celebrating. This is your life, potentially your life's work, right? Yeah. And, and, and being able to say, hey, look, I've built this thing and now it's an asset, right? And I'm going to transfer this asset and I'm going to make a lot of money. But the problem, what they don't realize, is all the things they have to go through, the, the We think that the check clearing at close is the end, but it's not. It's just the beginning.

And your point about running towards something or running away from something versus running towards something, we always counsel our clients to set up their personal goals before they think about— one of the first steps in exit planning is setting up your personal goals. So it's like, well, if you don't have those goals, how will you know when you get there? Right? How will you know?

Exactly.

Yeah. So talk about that a little bit is like, how do you help them sort of reframe their focus so that it's more focused on running towards something as running away from something?

I think the most important thing to do is to start way before you get to that point of exhaustion. Yeah. Because once you get to that exhaustion point, you're not gonna think about it clearly. You're gonna come up with something. It's like, oh, I'm gonna be on boards, or, oh, I'm gonna be an angel investor, or, oh, I'm gonna do this. Instead of like, well, what is it about the business that you really enjoy doing? For some people, building a business that will essentially run around without them, like, that's good. And like, it's like, oh, I didn't know it could be like this. I mean, the analogy that I'll make is a couple of my early coaching clients before I was coaching, you know, mostly founders, They were frustrated with their boss, with their job, with the, you know, oh, this is horrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We actually created their dream job without them ever leaving. And sometimes that can happen for a founder. When a founder sees what's actually possible, it's like, why would I want to leave this? This is amazing.

Yeah, like if you're right, if they hate doing finance or they hate doing whatever task it is that it's not part of their ideal job, Great. Hire a fractional CFO to run the numbers and deal with the accountants and the tax stuff.

Right, right. Like create an actual leadership team to run the team, you know, depending on what size organization you're talking about, you know, a lot of the people that I'm working with are at the point where they have like a real leadership team, they have functional heads. And, but they'll, they'll get in the way of those people. They will micromanage them. They'll, they'll hire people to do things the way they would do them instead of saying, actually, I'm hiring this expert, like They know finance way better than I do. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's interesting. It's like, you know, your point about a leadership team, the worst thing you can do with a leadership team is hire them and then either undermine them through not your support, not giving them support, or hiring other people to actually get the way— get the things done the way you get them done. Right.

Which is self-defeating. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. If you're just hiring someone to do something exactly the way you've done it, you're not really accomplishing anything.

Yeah.

No, it's one thing to have a note-taker or someone who's like a minion, but what you really want at this level is you need to start getting to a place where you can start to pull back, right? Because the whole notion of this whole thing is that you are not going to go with the company, not for very long anyway, right? Maybe 2 or 3 years. You're gonna have an earnout period. You're gonna have to make sure the transition happens. And things like that. But the reality is, is that, you know, this is the time to start thinking about this, to Jeff's point, is not when I'm burned out, when I'm tired. And that happens so much when we— so often when we come across people, it's that that's where they are.

Yes.

They're burned out.

Yeah. Because they don't think about selling the business until they psychologically have to sell the business.

Right.

And that's exactly when all kinds of bad things are going to happen.

Yeah.

So, so, so back to your point, I don't want to like dismiss that question because I think it's a really important one around running to. Yeah. It could be anything. Like most of the people that I'm working with are really good leaders and enjoy leading. And so it's not like unless they're actually, you know, 70 and they're going to retire, Right. It's some other frame for that leadership. It's like, how do I examine what really gives me joy in this job, in this, you know, in this role and create that as the next thing? And it could be, I'm gonna use these proceeds and I'm gonna start another business, or I'm gonna go back to the early days. You know, it's funny, I was, I was giving a talk to a group of exited founders here in Colorado a couple of months ago. And almost all of them were reminiscing about the times when it really sucked, like when we were just grinding and we didn't know it was gonna work and we felt like all full of, you know, full of life and purpose. And some people will like, yeah, I wanna start something up again. And some people will think, I never wanna do that again. But it's, again, if you're Until you're in the space where you can actually step back and think about that, you're not going to figure it out. You're just going to instinctively jump to a different version of what you've already been doing.

Yeah. What is the thing that you think keeps people stuck in this kind of indecision loop? Do you think— I mean, obviously the fear, right? I mean, is it solely based in fears that you've been in your experience? And what is that? And what is the fear?

I think it's a combination of 2 things. One, definitely fear. 2 is when it was early on and it was just you and your partner, maybe, you know, like you and 3 people or just you in a lot of cases. Like if you messed up, it didn't feel like the consequences were as big. But when you've got 100 people working for you, when you got 200 people working for you, Every decision feels more consequential and gets scarier. People are counting on me. So it's like this combination of fear because you don't know how it's going to work out until you try. And people don't get that. They think, oh, well, if I plan better, somehow I can make sure this works. It's like, no, there's no way you can make it work. You can only take an action and see what happens.

Yeah.

And the other is, oh my gosh, you know, now there's like 200 families counting on me, so I've got to get this right. And I think that it becomes scarier because it feels more consequential.

Yeah. And like letting people down, right? You don't, you know, to your point about fear, it's all, it gets back to fear, right? It's either your personal fear about screwing something up for yourself or the secondary fear when you get bigger and frankly more successful. and more people are relying on you, you don't want to let them down by making a seemingly dumb decision that you don't— obviously, you don't know the outcome, but you want to make that decision for all those people.

Right, right. And I don't think, especially now, I mean, it used to be, oh, you'd work in a factory and you'd put in your 30 years and you'd get your pension and you were loyal to the company and the company was loyal to you. And obviously, that's not the case anymore. And I think the only thing that we can do as entrepreneurs and founders and leaders is, can I create a deal with my employees where, you know, I don't know how it's gonna work out. I don't know how long this company is gonna exist. But what I do know is you are important to me, and it is important to me to build your skill set. in a way that is valuable to you here. And if it doesn't work here, is gonna be valuable for you somewhere else.

Man, that, like, that type of communication though, Jeff, is so— it's so hard for a founder to get their head around. I'll speak for myself. Like, when I was selling a company, it was, you know, I was part of the team selling the company and I wasn't the CEO, but communicating like some similar things to the employees was really difficult, right? 'Cause it's like, you wanna keep the secrecy of the deal. And, you know, you don't want to give them too much information, but you want to let them know what you just said, Saurabh, in such an articulate way that it's not just about what we get at the deal, it's building their skills. So whatever happens, if they leave the company, if something happens, it's— this is about me serving you as much as you serving the company and the cause.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because we don't And I mean, we can talk about earnouts. I'd be curious what your experience is with earnouts, but I know so many people who buy— I know a guy who walked away from $30 million because he just, he was bought by a strategic. He totally disagreed with what the strategic was trying to do and he just said, screw it, I'm out of here. Left $30 million on the table. And I always tell people, don't Don't count on that earnout. Like, really just think about the cash you're getting at close because you don't know what's going to happen between you and the end of that earnout.

And being in a position to be able to negotiate favorable earnout terms is really what this is all about at the end of the day. Because this is the notion. If you learn and you know, and one of the ways that you can get over this fear of what will happen or the unknown, which I think is probably what it is, right? I mean, most people are like, I don't know what's going to happen. And like you said, there's a lot of pressure. And I want it, and I really need to get this right. There are so many people counting on this, you know, and all that stuff. And I go, I don't want to waste the last 30 years of my life by blowing this. Right?

Right.

It's not necessarily the right way to look at it. And I'm sure that you coach people, right, in order to kind of like be able to talk themselves down off that ledge, because it's not, it doesn't have to be that serious. Right? I mean, it's a matter of—

But it can feel really stark, though, to your point. It's like, oh my God, It's all riding on this. The last 30 years is riding on this.

The whole thing is going, oh my God, if I don't get this right. And of course, when you do have the deal with an earnout, and not everybody does, but 90% of people do, the reality is let's talk about that earnout period. Because I think, again, that's where the actual unknown actually mostly lies, right? Because if I can at the beginning, early on, before I'm burned out, whatever, start to build my business toward exit. Okay. Understanding that there are things that buyers are going to look for, and, and I know what those things are. And if I can get those things right, or close to right, or most of them right, that I'm going to actually be able to have a lot more leverage in terms of the things that I want to happen, both not just the price tag, right, but the actual negotiation of the entire deal. 50% or more of which relies on an earnout period, right, to be able to actually make sure the transition happens effectively.

Right, right. And there, I think it's really important to notice and to understand what you're going to have control of during that earnout period and what you're not.

Right.

Because for the first time, you know, the person selling the company doesn't have the final say.

That's it. Yeah. And, and, and you could, you could be reliant on a sales team that's let go. You could be reliant on whatever it happens to be, right? Because if you think about it, you know, we just were dealing with this over the summer, is like the, the new owner can come in and do whatever he wants. I mean, in reality, yeah, there's things you can, you can put into the agreement and there's things that, that are said and that are promised. And but if it's not in the contract and it's not stated and it's not part of your note, well, Sorry, it's not papered, it's not in there, it's not on the contract, it's not on the agreement. So, so we, again, we're counseling people on, yeah, you're probably gonna have an earnout because that's what the buyer wants, to have you stick around. But, but right, your point, Jeff, don't rely on that income in any sort of way, shape, or form because it's so— something can be changed on a Tuesday that affects things in the next 3 years.

Yeah, I, I just dealt with this last year with a, um, Construction industry guy built a decent-sized company, sold it for I think thirty million dollars to a bigger company that was probably worth you know a hundred or so. And a lot had been said to him so that you know my my client you know I I think at the time was it wasn't even forty, and he was like being groomed to like take over the bigger company and was told all kinds of things about how important his view was and blah blah blah blah blah. And there was an earnout. And basically once the sale happened, they effectively ignored him and just went a totally different direction. And, you know, he's— it's not like he's not getting paid handsomely now for doing nothing.

Sure.

But psychologically, that did a lot to him. It was like, you know, I used to matter. People used to care what I think, and now no one, you know, no one cares.

There's so much more to this than money. And I think that the idea is that it's one thing we all think of the price tag and everybody wants to know their value, valuation. It's like the valuation doesn't matter until you agree, until someone agrees to pay it. So the, the, the point is that that's fine. And if you only care about money or whatever, again, money is a big part of it. Let's not— we're not trying to diminish it.

Right.

But what we're trying to show is that, and what Jeff's entire kind of focus is, is in preparing mentally for how this stuff is going to actually unfold. And if we start it early and you start to understand and move towards exit in a major, in a kind of an intentional way, that you will uncover all the things you need to know and to be able to adjust, fix, right? And you can't get to everything necessarily, but at least you'll know what to expect so that you can actually start to kind of— again, the unknown goes away. If I'm back to your plane example, if I'm about to jump out of the plane, what's my fear? My fear is that I'm not really sure that I'm gonna make it, right? I mean, that's the point. It's like, it's a— everything in your nervous system is telling you that this is danger, right?

Right, exactly. Yeah. So So to your point about it's not all about money like this, you know, for my client in this particular situation, yeah, the money, it was a good deal. You know, the business was valued fairly and all that. But a lot of that, well, what's my next thing going to be? What am I running toward? It was like, oh, it'd be really cool to run a larger company on a larger platform, to acquire businesses, to Bring into that platform. And when that didn't happen, he really went through an identity crisis. Yeah, because he bought a smoothie shop just to have something to do.

Wow.

I mean, could you not?

Yeah, well, no one's gonna tell— he can run the show, right?

He can make everything work. And he's gonna build a smoothie shop empire. Like, it's like, oh, and like, he's got that entrepreneurial, like, juice going again on a much smaller scale, which is a little bit unusual. But he's got some money to do it this time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's an excellent, an excellent point. It— because it— there's so much of this is about, again, putting yourself in a position to be successful, not just in, again, that initial, you know, you know, cash hitting your bank account, but in understanding what it is I can negotiate. And again, yes, there are always going to be stories about people that, that are untoward and do things and, and say a whole bunch of stuff to you to be able to get the business, and then, you know, That exists, right?

Yeah.

Um, but I think again, by and large, if you are educating yourself now, right, years before you're actually ready to go about what is— it could happen and what is all that stuff, then, then you're prepared. And that step out of the airplane becomes a lot more manageable. If I know for sure that I'm gonna, that I'm gonna be safe when I jump out of this airplane, well then that, that The jumping out of the airplane moment doesn't really affect me. I just go. And once, once you've done it, once you've, once you've skydived a bunch of times, right, you actually learn that that step isn't as dangerous as you think. In fact, they say that the most dangerous part is the plane taking off.

Probably, yeah.

Right? Not the jump out of the plane, which is crazy, right? But that's actually because that's where people—

Actually, the most dangerous part is probably driving to the plane.

Right, exactly. The car, the car ride is a much higher—

yeah.

Hey, I'm Jo Stapleton.

And I'm Jon Kneff.

You know, Jon, most founders put everything they have into building their businesses— years of sweat, sacrifice, and problem solving. But when it comes time to exit, many are shocked to learn that what buyers value isn't what they thought.

Here's the truth: buyers don't pay for potential, they pay for proof. Proof that your business can grow without you. Proof that your financials are clean. Proof that your processes are clear and repeatable.

If you wait until a buyer shows up to think about these things, you're almost guaranteed to leave money and control on the table. ExitEngine was built to change that.

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It's not about selling tomorrow, John. It's about making sure that when you're ready, your business is worth what it deserves to be.

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Being killed in a car accident.

Yeah, it's like preparing, you know, we've prepared clients for obviously exits. And the one thing that we've noticed that's so difficult is preparing them for that lack of control, right? Yeah, they get the money and The whole point of the money from the buyer's perspective is they give them the money so that they don't have to listen to them, right? If they don't want to, right? And it's interesting the way that we counsel them and we tell them this all before, but then afterward it's like, well, he's not listening to me though. Like, I don't— but John will get it. Like he said in conversations and in text messages that he was going to listen to me. And we said, well, we said, remember, like they gave you the money so that They kind of don't have to listen to you, right?

Right, right.

And that, that's a, that's a leap to get them to understand that. And when we say it, it feels a little bad when we, when we tell them that, but it's the reality is, look, you, you have to prepare before this because the money's gonna be there. You're gonna have enough money to do whatever you want, but the psychological point of it is you're not gonna be the person that people are coming to for questions. You're not gonna be solving all the problems. It's Yeah, you might be part of it. You're not going to make the final decision.

Yeah, John, I want to fine-tune what you said. Yeah, you're going to have all the— you're going to have the money to do whatever you want except for continue to run your company.

Great point, right? Because that was— again, that's the thing that you want to do, right? You've been given this money, but wait, but no, we can't take that job, or you're costing this job incorrectly for the Construction example. It's like no, no, like right. We're making that decision now.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's let's talk let's talk a little bit about this pick method because I want I want I want to kind of get into your a little bit into your kind of philosophy here because I think I find it fascinating. So talk to us about the pick method. You've actually built a podcast around this and all that stuff too.

So yeah, yeah.

Pick now.

I mean it it is literally as simple as the words pick now. Right. And and people overcomplicate it and they think well you know. So, so when you use Pick Now, it's on something you already know you need to do. This is not about analysis and figuring out the options. It's like, what is that thing that you haven't done that you know you need to do that for whatever reason you just can't seem to do it?

Mm-hmm.

And for a lot of people, it feels so big That I just, I'm stuck, you know, like 200 people are counting on me or what, however it occurs to me. But there is something that I can do, some small action that I can take that feels like, okay, I can, I can do that.

Mm-hmm.

I can have, you know, the, let's say I need, I know I need to fire my CFO. I can have a conversation with another CFO. I can set up a performance conversation with the existing CFO. You know, I can, like, every one of these things is gonna feel difficult. And there are things that feel overwhelming to our nervous system.

Right.

So just to the point where it's like, that's not doable. Sometimes you can just rip the Band-Aid off and do it, and you're really close. It's like, I'm going to jump out of the plane. I'm just going to do it. I'm sick of this. It's exhausting. Sometimes I just need to take a little step that's just a little bit shy of totally ripping the Band-Aid off. But the other thing is that there are things that I believe about the choice that aren't true. One is that I can be clear before I pick. Clarity comes after the choice, not before the choice.

Interesting.

There's no other way. You cannot figure out everything in your mind before you do something. You can take an action and see what happens and then take another action and see what happens and take another action. And so for the, the Pick Now method properly applied, it's not just one decision. It's like What's the thing on my desk that I'm kind of dreading doing today? What would happen if I just did it? And a lot of times what happens is relief. Oh, relief and clarity. It's like, okay, I'm finally in action. I finally see what's next. And then the next thing's gonna pop up, you know, pretty clearly. Like, you think you can plan it all out in advance. You know, ever been in a difficult conversation with someone and you like try to plan it all out and then like What does that plan last you? Like 30 seconds? The person says something you weren't anticipating at all and it's like, oh, oh, it's about that. And then what happens? You figure it out and you say the next thing and the conversation flows naturally anyway. But all that time around thinking that you could plan it out, I mean, you're gonna like, there's no way.

Yeah.

The thinking, the thinking was the thing that got you in the— it was actually—

Yeah. It's like, well, what if they say this? Or what if they don't like it? Or what if You know, what if they quit?

Or what if they, you know, I was thinking, well, yeah, the stress comes from the worry, not the, not the actual, you know, conversation, right?

The—

I remember this, having to reorganize a group of people underneath me. It's like I was dreading it and I was dreading it for like, you know, nearly a month. And yeah, once I, you know, once I did the small tasks and got everything right, contacted HR, got everything in order. You know, the conversation, no, it didn't go as planned, but I got it done, right? It was, yeah, that half an hour sort of was terrible, but it was over, you know?

Right, right.

And it's so much, it is never as painful as we are afraid that it's going to be. I can't tell you how many, how many times I had a client who I worked with him for, I think about 3 and a half years. And We would joke that he always waited about a year too long before firing someone. And he would make up these stories around, oh, well, people, you know, it's going to cause disruption and I don't know how to replace this person.

And, you know, but their aunt is sick. Yeah.

And almost every time the team, the reaction from his team was, Finally, like they were happy that he got rid of this person. They had seen it coming. They knew he needed to do it, and it was actually hurting morale that he was letting this person who was not meeting their standards continue to. It's like I you know a lot of it's my fault. I got to give this person a second chance. I've got to give them.

It's like no, no they they and because they question your judgment to your point. Exactly. Judgment. Right? That, that again, this exact thing happened to me is, is they, they started questioning my judgment and coming to me directly to say like, what is the story? Like, why aren't you doing anything about this person? It's like, oh gosh. And yeah, it was, it's bad.

So let's, let's, let's just, let's just drop this back down into the, you know, back into like specifically around like exit and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So here I am, I am standing at the precipice of this thing. I am, I am, I have done, you know, I'm early on. I've started to kind of think about this stuff, right? But what you're saying with the pick now thing is to be able to say, look, when you are in these situations around decisions, okay, that what you want to be able to do is to say, look, you are, you somehow, some way, whatever, okay, nervous system activated, whatever it is, I am, I am blocking myself from making these decisions. And, and when I am, and I'm doing that out of fear, I'm doing that out of the weight, whatever. And by the way, that's all my own filter, right? 100%, right? So we know that, you know, again, it's what I've seen, it's what my, my brain is saying is danger. Okay.

Well, and also whatever your, uh, whatever your particular, um, you know, whatever your particular poison is, like for me, it's like Well, what will people think?

Yeah. Right?

And everyone has like a different version of like, well, what will people think if I make a mistake? Or what will people, you know, or yeah, what will I think about myself? Or what if I fail? Or, you know, what if I'm not enough? What if people figure out I'm a fraud? Right? There's that psychological stuff going on too, in addition to, you're exactly right, all the filters. And I only have my source of information. I don't have all the information.

Exactly. I have one. I have a, I have a perception, right? That's dictated by my perspective. I need to be able to change my perspective in order to change my perception. But the problem is that that's really hard to do. You need to get out of yourself to be able to change your, you know, your—

Especially when you're triggered. When you're already triggered and scared, your, your perception gets narrower, not broader.

So yeah, we have seen, John and I have seen people kill Literally, I mean, the fact the word sabotage is going to come up right now because I literally just wrote an article about this the other day. Okay. This notion that people are, are constantly out there sabotaging themselves and that it's an instinctual thing to do. So, right. The problem with this, all this is that your brain that's designed to protect you, and that's really, by the way, all, all it really does.

Okay.

Right.

Right.

Is sending off an alarm, right? The alarm's going off. Uh-oh, danger, danger, whatever that is. But the reality is, is that the— when I am— in order to overcome that, I need to do some specific kind of work. Right?

Yeah.

So what— talk to us about— again, I'm— the decision-making is not just that you don't just walk into companies and go, okay, so what you're gonna do is You're gonna pick now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Let's unpack it a little bit. I just want to unpack it a little bit more. What— talk to us a little bit about the process and what do you encounter and what's the resistance like and what do you generally have to see people overcome in themselves, you know, in order to be able to kind of just, you know, be able to move forward?

Yeah, so, um, I'm gonna give the consulting answer. It depends. But one of the things that I do with clients early on, you know, I typically work with clients a year at a time. And because a lot of the work that we're doing, it just takes some time to like let go of some of this stuff. And it really is about, you know, you could talk about positive thinking and affirmations or like putting stuff on top of the crap you've already got isn't helpful.

Right.

It's more about like, how do I let go of those things that have been getting in my way? And one of the— it's paradoxical, but one of the quickest ways that I've found for people to see and let go of their stuff is that we spend 2 days together away from their office with as little to do as possible. And finally, they go through the withdrawal of not checking their phone every 5 minutes. And their nervous system normalizes, and they'll just all of a sudden they'll say like, oh, I don't have to do it that way. And so it doesn't really help me to say— it doesn't help them for me to say, you know, you don't have to do it that way, right? If they're in the midst of the amygdala hijack and whatever term you want to put on it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, like we got to get them out. Once we get them out of fight or flight, and there's something, there's something about 2 days, like 1 day, I've had it happen to people on the first day. But I think if we had only scheduled 1 day, it wouldn't have happened on the first day, if that makes sense. It's like that space of like, oh yeah, we got, we have plenty of time. We're just like, oh my gosh, the sun's out.

Well, because someone can make it through the day, right? You start at 8 AM and like, okay, I can do this till 5. Like, no problem until 6 or whatever it is. When you have that second day, I can imagine that there's either an epiphany or like, wow, like, okay, let's do this, you know, let's try this.

Yeah. Like, yeah. And they will discover it depends on the person. I've had people, you know, one of my clients was considering a big business partnership and he'd never done anything like that before. And he was telling him all He was telling himself all these stories around how things were, you know, things are good. Like, why would I risk that? And it's like, because that's what we do. Like, if you get to the point where you're not risking anything, you're bored, you're depressed. Like, we have to. grow. Like, we just can't not grow as human beings if we want to feel alive, you know?

Right.

Um, and so he just looked at me like we were finishing a long lunch. It's like, what am I afraid of? Let's do it. Okay. That was the first day. The second day, we just kind of walked around a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, it seems like that, that self-actualization, right, to use a term that don't really understand the meaning of. But it's, to your point, they have 9 things on their mind. You're not giving them the 10th or the 11th thing. You're trying to help make one of those 9 decisions sort of easier for them, but they have to come up with the decision or they have to come up with the realization.

Right. Well, and I love what you just said, John, because when you slow down, it's obvious what the next thing is. Like, you're no longer like juggling the 30 things on you. Like, how much time do we spend at the beginning of the day when the, you know, we're jacked up on caffeine and we got our to-do list and like, oh, I've got 36 things to do, which one should I do first? And then at noon we're still thinking about which one should I do first. It's like, slow down, it'll be obvious which one to do first. Do that and then the next one will come up and then the next one.

Well, it's so funny, it's like take that little, you know, Take that little step, like you said earlier in the podcast. It's like, don't think about— again, you don't have to boil the ocean, but like, okay, we can start with taking one pot of water and putting it on the stove and turning it on and preparing that. So, you know, do it one pot at a time, if you will.

There's so much advice out there too, though, about— and I think this is where one of the things that we've gotten ourselves into as a society in general, especially in America, There is a kind of bro culture about grind.

Yeah. Grind, productivity, right?

Hustle, like your side hustle. What are you doing?

Absolutely.

All that stuff. And as founders in particular, we get caught up in that because we think that that's— because, you know, again, we built the business that way. And when we get to the point where, what, you know, it's like, why does it have to be different now? What's— why doesn't this work anymore? Right. And we find, by the way, you know, just not for nothing, but we find that happens most often in the $2 to $5 million revenue range.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Because, yeah, I would agree with that because most of my clients I'm thinking about, they're in the— typically they're in the $10 and up range. So they've moved past because when they're in You know, I don't put a revenue range on it, Jo. I call it the hair on fire stage. You know, it's like I've got to do everything. It's like I can't, I can't, I can't coach them at that point.

Yeah, no, no, right.

Yeah, they've got to like, I've got to kind of see if they can get through that phase, right? It's like, okay, right, it's time to bring in another person. What would that person look like? It's time to bring in a second person. What would that person look like? Or I already did that. I worked with a client where She had brought in a head of sales and a CFO, and we spent the first 6 months of our engagement were on her realizing she'd brought in the wrong people and firing them. And that was really hard.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's really hard.

Yeah, because it was a challenge. Like, she was doubting her own ability to like, where did I go wrong in picking this person? They looked great and it wasn't the right person. And then how do I do all that stuff with the team? And what's the team going to think if I'm firing 2 of my senior leaders?

And yeah, all that goes around. And again, it's a matter of— but I think when we talk about growth, because again, this is where what you're bringing up is a point at which, again, you get over this kind of $5 million range and you're probably in a place now where you are backed off a little bit. Okay. And so that back off probably opens your mind up just enough to let Jeff Moon in, right, to be able to say, hey, look, now I can take the, you know, these, again, these kind of smaller steps towards, you know, again, moving myself in the right way. But when you're growing, right, when you're in a, when you're in a mode where you, what you're trying to say is like, forget about exit for a second, right?

Yeah.

And again, we know that exit planning is a lens. OK. And what we're trying, what we, what we, what we try to say is that, or believe is that, that when you, when you are growing your business toward that intentional goal of exit, whether you actually get to exit or actually sell the company or not is irrelevant.

Right?

It's about being able to set a place so that you can grow your business in a healthy, sustainable way.

Right?

Because at the $5 million thing is an inflection point.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

It's about whether or not can I get to the next level, right? And then if— and then what are the steps I'll need to take in order to get there? And you bring up this idea of like being able to get the guy away from his office for 2 days. You know, what we talk about is, can you go— can you go away for a week and not contact the office every 5 minutes? You know, that's the first exercise, right?

Absolutely.

Vacation, because you probably haven't taken one in 15 years or in any meaningful way where you're really gone. Something—

taking a vacation is such a good test. Yeah. Taking a vacation and not checking in. Oh my gosh.

Right.

That's— and it can be the most painful thing for the owner or the founder because like, that's, that's, that can be oftentimes the first time that like from their ego's perspective that they feel like if they're not needed, like, oh, wait a second, my business is running without me. And it's like, Yeah, your business is running without you. Like, not a question. That's the goal. Exclamation point at the end of that, like a positive exclamation being like, yes, you can go for a week on the beach and not call in every day or get a check-in every day.

Right. Yeah.

Then there's this, right? Which is that, and again, this is also truth. The question is, and what you're deciding when you do that is, is it me or is it them? Uh-huh.

Right?

Because the reality is you need to know either way. Okay?

Yeah.

And when you take that vacation, if they can't stop calling you because you gotta make a decision and they can't really, can't handle it, well, you got a different kind of problem, right? You've got a problem. You've got the wrong team. And that's a whole other thing.

Well, maybe.

All right.

Because even, even, I mean, I, I ran into this. I was, um, uh, I had a, a, a client where, uh, she was convinced that her people wouldn't take ownership and she wanted me to come in and trained them. And they were all the client-facing people who managed all the client relationships. It was just like healthcare industry. And I did a 1-day session with her team. And what I learned very quickly is that it wasn't that they didn't want to take initiative. They didn't think she would let them.

I know.

Yeah.

And that's cute. And that gets back to communication, right? It's like, it's, yeah. Well, I haven't told them, or they don't understand that I want them to take ownership of it.

Right.

The team comes back, it's like, we're afraid to take ownership because if we make a decision, if we make the wrong decision or the one that she wouldn't make, then we'll get our nails done.

Yeah, she's gonna redo it in the way that she wants it or whatever, instead of like, yeah, you made this decision and, uh, and it's different than I would have made. But I see why you did it and I see the value in that and let's go with it. Like, that's step one, right? Like, can I hire someone who's smarter than me, who will do things differently than me and, and be okay with that?

I remember this. I remember, sorry, that exact, again, that exact situation came up when hiring people. Like, they would, people on my teams would always come to me and say, do you want to meet the person that's going to be the product specialist? And I was like, That is the last thing on my plate that I would ever want to do. Not because I'm not interested in it, but like, I want you to make the decision. And frankly, you know, you have to make the decision. I'm not going to bail you out by saying no to the person or yes to the person to validate what you want. And once, once she heard that, she's like, oh, great. Like, was it the person I wanted to hire? Probably not. Did they work out better than I— Than, than I could possibly have achieved or thought of? Absolutely they did.

Well, and you go through this shift as a leader where the people that you initially brought on are probably people that you instinctively want them to check in, want them to be good at being micromanaged, all that stuff. And then you realize that's getting in your way. And some of them will come along and say, great, I get more authority and more freedom and more, you know, and some of them are like, I'm not comfortable with that.

Right. Now that's what I'm getting to. That was what, that was my point. Yeah.

That's exactly your point. Yeah.

Yeah. There are all those situations where it is them. Okay. But, but yeah, but it's, but I will say this, it's them, but it's still you. Right. Because you have enabled them. And either way you have enabled—

Or hired them specifically to be that. Right.

And it's kind of unfair when they've made that decision and they've said that to you and they're like, oh, great, that person's good in that role. They can't grow any higher because we can't give them more responsibility if they need me to be, you know, involved in every one of their decisions that I'm trying to have them help them make.

Yeah.

But this vacation test is real. And I think that the idea is that to be able— it's a really great way to start thinking about what's this going to be like when I'm not here? And one of the best ways to discover what's going to work and what's not is to literally step away and just see what happens for a minute.

Yeah, 100%.

It's a good test. Is that, is that, is that something that you would, you would sponsor? I mean, you know, in general, I've done that with my clients.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When's the last time you took a vacation?

Right.

What would that be like? Yeah. How much, you know, even the 2 days is a good test, you know, and I can tell how it's going to go with a client. Like, how, how able are they to like Well, he just—I just got to check in after lunch.

It's like, or I can't be away. I know this Friday I can't be away because blah blah blah blah blah blah. Whatever it happens to be, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

We'll make up all kinds of stuff to justify our micromanaging. That's it.

That's the thing. We're always looking for reasons why it has to be, and we will. And again, our brains will use all that past experience or whatever it is, right? We think, you know, to to to to to tell us this or to show us that we're, you know, to make us. again, what you're pointing out in your work is the indecisiveness that comes as a factor of your overthinking, your fear, you know, your lack of control, whatever that is, right? And, yeah, and I think that the— what I love about what you preach is the clarity around this stuff comes from stepping back, not from doing more.

Yeah.

And in the growth situation, that is like, that is Absolute gold, because it's the thing that's preventing me from growing is the overwhelm, right? It's the, I don't know, from the, the fear that comes up out of this stuff is like, well, I, you know, am I the right per— you know, I mean, not, not, not that I think everybody's asking themselves that question, although we'd like them to, you know.

Yeah.

Am I the right person to even do this, right? Because what are my options around that? What I love about what you're, what you're teaching is the fact that it's a matter of Step. It's doing less, not doing more. It's not add another thing on top of my plate that I got to work on. It's what kind of— that won't work. What can you remove?

Right, right. Yeah, it's like, and, and we're using fear to justify our current identity. Yes. Instead of thinking like, well, where, you know, what is the— where do I want the business to go? where do I really want the business to go? Not when my fear shows up, but like, where do I really want this business to go? And I probably want to work toward an exit. I want to be less relevant to the business, you know, ultimately totally unnecessary to the business. Well, what kind of identity do I need to let myself do that? And when we work from the level of the identity rather than the level of like strategy or tasks, it ends up being a lot more successful. Because if I'm trying to do those strategic things from my current insecure identity, I'm never going to get there.

Well, talk about that, the identity. When you just, if you can give an example of getting someone to that point of where they're thinking about not tasks and objectives that they're doing, but their identity, like what did that look like in one of your engagements?

Yeah. What's the story I tell myself about like what I'm good at, why people value me? Do people value me because I have, you know, do I think people value me? That's an important caveat because I'm the one who solves all the problems and I'm the decision maker and I can move quickly and I can keep lots of things on my plate. If that's what I think is my value, I'm gonna look for that all over the place, right? And I'm gonna burn out and maybe I'm gonna get sick and my relationships are gonna fall apart. But my identity is great and I'm gonna be like scratching my head like, what went wrong?

Right.

But if instead my identity is like, I want to be a strategic business owner who enjoys enjoys those things that I'm really good at and lets go of all the other things. Right. Well, then, then I'm going to look at that same issue differently, and I'm going to think about, okay, how, how do I use every one of these moments as an opportunity to offer my perspective and my years of experience and then let go and let this person learn?

And so what you're saying right now is I identify with so much personally. Right? Because I went through, you know, I went through an exit. I went through a bunch of different other companies after that that didn't go, right?

Right.

Things like that, which is, again, that's a, that's a harsh reality. Okay? So you get to the—

Yeah.

You do the one, it's successful. Hey, look at me. And then look how great I am. And now you try to get into the next one. The next one doesn't happen. Right? And then the next one doesn't happen. All right. Now you're hearing, hey, talk about an identity shift. Suddenly you're in a place where you're like, holy crap, this didn't work out at all. Um, what, what I did back then I got lucky on or something or whatever, and I don't really know what I'm doing. But what I can say is that what that has led me to over all that stuff is to know that, man, I can't wait to be able to step back from all of this, you know what I mean? Right? Like, I can't wait to be the guy who gets to show up and do this and nothing else.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, because there is that magic There's that magic piece that you're, that really, you know, Joe's the only one that can do that and you love doing it and there's some kind of magic to it. And if you could just do that all day, man, that would be great. And you've created this organization around you where you get to focus on that. Oh, that's a beautiful place to be.

And it's Google, right? If you think about it, like some of the Google founders, you know, Sergey Brin and the other guy, They became, you know, they became not the chief executive, right? They became the chief founder or the chief technical officer. They chose that, right? They own 30% of the company each, but they didn't want to be the chief executive. And that took time and a lot of growth for them to be able to get there.

Right. No question. And I think, but what is so funny that I, when I look at the— and again, this is why, you know, because we've all been through this and so many of these founders haven't been. That's what— that's— this is why we're doing this, right, is to try to show you from our experience to avoid the things, avoid the mistakes that we've made, right? Right now, I didn't— I didn't even know there was a resource out there for any of this, right? And maybe, maybe 15 years ago there wasn't. I don't know.

Yeah.

Idea that, that there's help, right? That, that you don't have to do this alone, that you can talk to people like Jeff, that you can come to, you know, to, by the way, to myexitengine.com at any moment right now, sign up there and start getting this kind of help, right? Is, is, is, I, I think one of the things that just, that, that changes, it's a game changer. 80% of, Jeff, you know this, 80% of companies that, right, do not sell. Yeah. And they don't sell most, and, and that most of them then, then die on the vine. This isn't about they don't sell because they keep going. No, no, we're talking about companies that could sell don't and die on the vine. That means 20— only 20% of people are actually, actually getting through this, right, in a successful way. And I'm going to say successful in quotes because, again, what we know is that of that 20%, 93% of people report that they were unsatisfied with the way that the transaction went. Okay. So, the reality is, is that, you know, we, we are facing a situation out here that, A, Should be one of the most, one of the greatest moments of your life, frankly. Right, right. And on top of that, you've got, you've got all that there is. The knowledge of what you're about to jump into is completely unknown to you. Yeah, yeah.

And you've done this once, and the people you're working with have done it countless times. Yeah. And it is not This process is not designed to make you happy.

No, correct.

No, the goal is designed to extract as much out of you as possible so that whoever that financial partner is, whether it's a strategic or a private equity or whatever, they get the best deal possible. It's not designed to make you feel good about yourself.

So true. And it's such a good point to remind people about because Again, the objective for them is, oh, you know, make me, you know, intuitively it can be, oh, I want, I want to feel good about this transaction. Like, no, no, the buyer wants, to your point, wants to get as much possible value as she can get from this deal. Right. Regardless, not regardless of whether or how it affects you, but that's not their ultimate goal is to make you feel good.

Yeah. They want, they want a deal. They want to be able to show, they want to be able to make as much ROI on the other side as they possibly can. And they want to make sure, now again, strategic buyers are, you know, going to be slightly different maybe than private equity firms and things like that. So there's, there are slices in here, but the point is, the point is the same that, that, you know, what, what Jeff has said, and, and again, as many people on this podcast have come on and said, not just us, that understanding this, uh, uh, yourself is always gonna be the first step, right? Before you do any major thing. Right?

Right.

But in this particular case, it's, it's the, it's gotta be the first step is gotta be understanding yourself and the process and what's likely to happen and the way things are going to go. And again, you can't know it all right ahead of time, but what you can—

Yeah. The one thing I would add to that that I have found is really helpful for people is knowing what are you willing to walk away from? Yeah. Because these organizations will try to extract as much as possible and there will be these last-minute crises. It was like, oh, you know, we took another look at the numbers and we really think it's this, or, you know, we, we looked at the quality of earnings and we just don't think it's there, or, you know, whatever. And I know of 2 people personally who said no to a deal and, um, 2 years later got a deal for twice as much. Literally.

That's— that, that is actually— again, this is what this does for you, right? Is that all this Creates options. Yeah. And that's what this is all about. Exit planning in our world and the way that our philosophy looks at it, it isn't actually about selling necessarily. Yeah. But it is about being able to drive the business in a direction that creates, ultimately creates health and sustainability of the business so that you have options about what to do.

Right.

And it is likely that it takes 2 or 3, very often takes 2 or 3 deals Before one sticks.

And talk about, like, at the identity level, to be able to say, you know what, I understand the value I've created and you're not recognizing that, and I'm going to move on.

Right.

When the whole system is designed to trigger you and make you afraid and make you feel like, you know, you may never get this opportunity again. It's now or never, right?

And it's just That's it. That's a great point and actually probably a great place to end. Jeff, what a great conversation today. Thank you so much for doing this. I mean, really, really great.

Really enjoyed it.

It's just, again, this is the stuff, right? And John, we talk, you know, we're doing this all the time, but to be able to have people like Jeff who get down into this very kind of specific, right, kind of specific niche And are talking about this, the mental aspect of all of this, your ability to be able to decide, your ability to be able to make decisions, your ability to be able to lead through a transition like this is really— yes, it might be the ultimate test of your leadership.

Well, yeah. And his 2-day step back. Right. And he didn't phrase it that way, but the ability to step away and to do To do the work upfront, to realize it is sort of the first step, right? It's to realize that you need to take a step back and you need to work on the business from the perspective of, you know, work on yourself first and take a step back to say, okay, like, what do I get? What do I have to do to prepare myself to sell this business that is a business, but it's also part of my identity?

It's a huge part of my life.

Yeah.

Awesome. It's been your work for your, your, your external work and your internal work for however many decades you've been doing this.

That's it. Because most people are not doing this for a couple of years and then moving and then selling their company for a billion dollars, right? I mean, this is years and years and years of, of grind and of, and living in fight or flight, you know.

And yeah, it's like you said, Jeff, it's a one-time thing that, that again, they've been successful their whole life. Like, why wouldn't they be successful in selling their business? Whereas What we're doing, right? What you're doing is working with these people all the time. You've seen this before and you can help guide them through it. And sometimes that's the most difficult part for an entrepreneur to trust somebody who hasn't been in the trenches with them. And we've experienced a lot.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, Jeff, how can people— what's the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to get in contact?

Well, Joe, I will ask you, I've got a little link to my Pick Now. It's kind of a Pick Now decision. Vision sprint, I call it. It kind of gets people in motion. So that's one way to do it. LinkedIn is probably, you know, I'm on LinkedIn all the time. I mean, that's how you and I met, Joe. So, you know, reaching out that way. If people want to send me an email, it's jeff@jmunn.com. That's, you know, I look forward to hearing people mention that you heard me on this podcast and yeah, let's dive in.

Awesome. Well, we'll definitely, and we'll give you a link obviously in the show notes, obviously out to that, you know, to your you know, to your website and to your stuff as well. Make sure that that's there. So, Jeff Munn, thank you so much. You know, host of the Pick Now podcast.

Yeah.

And a leadership coach who's really helping, you know, leaders be able to make better decisions, be able to kind of reduce the chaos, increase the clarity of what they're doing and where they're headed, especially when it comes to obviously to growth and exit. Jeff Munn, thank you so much for being on the Exit Engine Podcast. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, Joe, John, great conversation. Yeah, take care. Well, I'm sure we'll see each other soon.

Can't wait for what's next. It's awesome. All right. All right. Hang out there for a second. Hey, John, I want to, you know, I think again, there's been so many people that we've come across. And again, this podcast is a place for I don't hear this anywhere else, and we're out there all the time. And I think that the reality is, is that we have— we are so lucky to have hooked up with people like Jeff, to have them in our kind of ecosystem, right? Where you, as our listeners, if you are ready to start thinking about this, if you've got a business that's, again, anywhere in the, you know, $2 to $100 million range, right? And you need to start thinking about this stuff, This is where you want to start, right? I mean, the idea of understanding that you've got to have it at ExitEngine, in the ExitEngine ecosystem, you're going to have access to all kinds of people like Jeff, right? People who are going to be able to give you a specific thing based on your specific needs with your specific issues, right? This isn't a cookie-cutter process at all, is it?

Yeah. And you'll get to all the things like that everyone talks about everywhere, that the EBITDA and the revenue and And the financial statements and the SOPs and all those things will need to be dealt with and you'll talk to. But the first step, as Jeff pointed out earlier in the podcast, is take the first step, move things down to bite-sized chunks, to little things you can start so you don't view it as something that's impossible to get accomplished. It's like, start with those little things. Start with this, right? Get your mindset around that you're gonna sell your company and prepare for it. All those other things can come later.

That's it.

And really, the best way to start is by visiting www.myexitengine.com right now. You'll be able to get into the ecosystem. You will get— you'll start taking the assessment. You'll start to understand exactly what's happening under the waterline in your own business. And that includes your— you, okay? When we talk about the waterline, you are one of the things that's under the waterline. Right? You have to be able to look inside yourself. You have to be look inside your business and be able to understand the way that a buyer is going to look at this stuff, adjust this stuff. And guess it guess what? The best part about all of this is this: that if you decide you don't want to sell one day, that option will become apparent. Okay? You won't have to necessarily do it. You maybe decide, hey, you know what? I'm gonna hire a CEO and I'm gonna I'm gonna step back, but I'm gonna still own this thing and I'm just gonna sit on the beach while everybody. This great thing that I've built runs itself. There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

But the way to be able to examine your business by understanding what is the— what are the things that I— that aren't right, because you don't know what they are. It's what— how— why is it that you don't know what they are? Because you're so busy doing these other things. You're doing stuff. You are— you are in the weeds. You are making decisions all the time. You're putting out fires. You're hiring and firing and looking at this stuff and talking to this client. And doing all this stuff. Jeff's whole strategy, and I love this whole thing, was stop, right? Stop. If you have any chance of selling this business, the first thing you got to do is you got to stop. That's what he's saying. I love it because it is not about doing this other thing and get into this program and do this thing. It's a holistic Look, exit planning is a holistic look at your business that includes yourself. And if you can do the first thing is to say, how do I get myself out of this? Right? I'm gonna have a lot more success moving forward. Right?

Yep. Yeah.

Cool. Well, uh, uh, so if you want, guys want to reach out to us, obviously you can do that anytime you like. You can reach out to me directly at jo@myexitengine.com or john@myexitengine.com. Please like, subscribe, and share this wherever you're listening to it, whether it's on Apple or on Spotify or on YouTube or anywhere else. Please share this with a business owner that you love. This is the kind of information that we're trying to get out there to make sure people can exit on their own terms when they're ready. And we've got several ways for them to do that, so check out myexitengine.com as well. John, as usual, thank you for being my partner. I really appreciate it. Jeff Munn, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it. We can't wait for what's next. Have a great day, guys. And remember, it's all about value and salability, right? myexitengine.com. Check it out today. Thank you very much. See you guys.

Bye.