The Exit Engine Podcast Number 48: Meet Reed Hansen!

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Welcome to the Exit Engine Podcast, episode 48. So, you know what I love, you know, I love about your story, Reed, is the fact that you are an agency owner, but you are, uh, you clearly got into the agency business, right? Because you actually bought an agency.

Yes.

Yes. Fascinating. Tell us, tell me that story because John hasn't heard this yet, but tell, tell us a story about how you came across this thing because there was a prior relationship there, right?

That's right. So, uh, my wife is a photographer and owns a photography studio and was doing quite well. She's a real process oriented type and had outlined some processes that she thought could be supported by some automation, you know, repeat— repetitive processes. Now she'd hired a booking agent, a lady we'd met at church. And her husband is a tinkerer, an entrepreneur. He'd had a few exits himself. And he was hearing these stories from his wife and decided to build an agency and started collaborating with, with my wife. You know, I was, with my marketing experience, I'd been kind of giving feedback and some insights on things that she could be doing for cold outreach and, and ads and whatnot. And so she gave him a lot of process information that he used to build a marketing automation platform. And took off. He was early. He had a platform that could text. This was early on when that started to become more prevalent for a lot of businesses to send automated texts. And for photographers, it was super useful. They, they tend to work with people that are maybe— they have an expectation of a lot of like quick communication, short, short and brief communication. And so that texting became really valuable. Anyway, he quickly jumped up to, you know, in the hundreds of clients of photographers across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. And, but, you know, as I said, you know, the agency took off, but the entrepreneur, his name is Jared, was also not totally content in just doing the same thing for years and years at a time. And so he gave, He reached out to us and offered us a chance to purchase the agency. Now, it's helpful because we'd been client number 1 and, you know, had provided a lot of insight into the product development. And so we started talking about what it would look like, what the size of the deal could be, and other conditions. And Um, you know, happy to go into those details, but, uh, over the period of a few months, uh, we hashed out the details, created a contract, uh, and transferred ownership. And he was nice enough to stay on for a couple months to, uh, sit like 9 to 5 with me on Zoom and do the operations of the business until I got my feet wet. You know, of course, there's still a learning curve, uh, beyond that for me, but I felt really prepared that way. So I'll stop there. Of course, there's a lot of angles to that.

Yeah, well, my first question is, so when you were going through that process and you, like, the day that he left, right, there was some day when Jared was there on a Tuesday and he wasn't there on a Wednesday, right? So what was either, like, A, that day like? And then, you know, how have you transformed the business from what he provided to you? Like, how much change have you made from what you bought versus to what it is now?

Yeah, great question. So when, fortunately, there were a couple employees that came along with the acquisition. And I mean, I make it sound like I bought people, but I, that's not how it was. But they, they were, we had a support person that was based in the U.S. and a couple offshore support people that were, were doing work, not, non-customer-facing work, typically. And so it was really nice to have, to have that expertise continue. But like you said, the day, the, the next day, after he left, well, you know, all of a sudden, I'm, I'm like, OK, I want to try to answer questions without having to say, hey, Jared, what would you do?

Right, right, right.

And so, you know, I'm starting to like, find user groups on Facebook and Reddit and, you know, other, other technical resources, you know, the FAQs and the YouTube channels of other users. And, and I started to develop like this process where if I couldn't figure it out, that I had, had a prioritized list of who I could go to. That's just for the technical aspects of the of the software, but then beyond that, there were business questions.

Yeah.

Somebody said, you know, I will leave if I don't get a discounted subscription going forward, or I wanted you to do this custom work for me and I need a price. And so it, you know, like each time I had to kind of, I mean, each task, you know, was like hours long and I had to talk to, people and try to do calculations and make decisions, which over time got those tasks, the time required was shortened. And, you know, kind of like riding a bike, you know, you get into the groove and it doesn't feel like you don't have to think about it as much and you just—

Yeah, and you have to decide what you're gonna do, right? It's like those custom software requests, those custom projects, it's like, Again, it's either a binary decision. Either you're going to do it or you're not going to do it.

Right. And by the way, there are reasons for doing it, right? That are, you know, money obviously is the primary driver. But then the other thing becomes a matter of, well, is this a skill set that I can do if I'm not going to make money on it? Is this something that's going to help me down the line in terms of getting other clients? Is it a stepping stone to something else?

Right.

Yeah.

Those decisions that we're kind of faced with all the time as founders.

Yeah.

You know, in terms of the growth trajectory that we're making, right? Because you can have a vision for where it is. I mean, this guy didn't set out to do this, right?

No.

And I think it's the most amazing thing. It's a very, very common situation that we find founders in often is that they've kind of fallen backwards into a business. Yes. Right?

Yes.

But, but what, what your story shows, Reid, I think this is so, so amazing, which is why we're gonna, we're gonna talk in depth about this today is because you have been able to take something, not only did you give this guy the idea basically, I mean, essentially, right?

Right.

But then eventually he sold it to you back in a weird way, which is, again, it doesn't sound, it's not quite as stark as that, right? But at the end of the day, it is kind of an interesting phenomenon. And John, when we talk to founders, right, about about exit, the thing that we're always telling them, right, is essentially is that you've got to be kind of removed from the business, right? You've got to be able to be in a place where you've got a management team and you've got kind of things happening. You've got your operations and your systems and all that stuff. But I think that the interesting thing is that when that stuff happens, there's a point at which you're, as the owner, where you have to start doing that stuff. And in this particular situation with Reed, Reed basically took on this company And while a lot of that stuff was there, and he had actually been kind of instrumental in making sure that stuff was there as a client, now as the owner, he's got to basically make decisions every day about now the new trajectory of this company.

Yeah. It's like you buy, you know, again, I always go back to restaurants because I grew up in restaurants when I was younger. So it's like, you know, when you buy a— you bought your business and the restaurant's open, right? Right. The orders are coming in.

Right.

It's operating. Yeah, it's like you took over, you know, in mid-shift at 6:15 on a Friday. And it's like, great, like, I will plan— I'm not going to be planning my exit at 8:15 when there's a huge dinner rush. I can do that later. I need to, I need to, you know, service the customers who are in here, make sure they keep coming in, and I can do all sorts of that planning stuff, you know, later on down the road instead of, you know, when customers are actively asking you questions and you can actually take a step to take a breath and say, oh, I have no plans to sell this now. I know if I wanna sell it, I have to do a couple of these things.

Yeah, absolutely.

No question about it. I think, John, we're gonna get Reed's story here. So let me set this up and introduce Reed real quick. So Reed Hansen is the owner and Chief Growth Officer of Marcus a digital marketing agency that specializes in helping photography studios and other creative businesses grow through marketing automation, AI-powered outreach, and strategic advertising. Before— this is the interesting part— before he acquired this Market Surge business, Reed was in technology sales, right? Did a, um, was selling, uh, you know, has a strong foundation in systems thinking, scalable revenue generation. He's also got a podcast. He's a content creator. He's a passionate believer in blending personal brand building with innovative tools to drive sustainable growth. In the last few years, Reed has transitioned from supporting his wife's photography business to purchasing and expanding a niche agency into a, into a broader service offering. His journey gives him a unique perspective on buying a business, modernizing it, and creating systems that don't depend solely on the founder, a crucial theme for any entrepreneur thinking about scaling or exiting. Welcome, Reed Hanson, to the Exit Engine Podcast. Thanks, Reed, for joining us.

Thank you. My pleasure.

I hope that introduction did you justice.

Yeah, I think so. And you raised a couple points I'd love to drill into.

Please.

One thing that you mentioned is my prior experience. I thought when I bought this agency, I thought, I've got this in the bag. The prior founder was mostly just taking word-of-mouth referrals for new clients. And I'm like, I'm a sales guy. I know how to pound the phones. And, you know, volume equals sales. And, you know, and I, I, over the course of the months after I bought, I just found that, like, I was wrong, you know, and I had to learn that the hard way. Particularly, you know, I was coming from mostly product businesses and also a sales role where I was selling a company or a, you know, somebody else's services.

Right.

To where, transitioning to selling myself as the consultant marketer. And, you know, I just, you know, floundered for a long time until I took some, some different actions to, to grow the business. So, yeah, go on.

And what would— to drill in, what were those actions? Like, I can imagine that you had, again, you took your, what you knew, and you applied it to the new business. So what did you, What were those actions that sort of made the difference and made the change?

Yeah. So the— now what I'm finding is like the founder and owner and leader of an agency is I, whether or not I'm actually like doing all the work of the, that we're hired for, they want to feel, the customers, new clients want to feel secure that they've got an expert, like a likable genius. You know, I'm kind of have to—

I like that, yeah.

Put on that hat, you know, but to, to do the service for them. And if, if that is missing, if they see it's like a sales, sales guy only, it's just not as appealing. You know, they, they want to be led and advised by somebody that is smarter than them or thinking about things they're not thinking of. And, and so I, the actions I took, and it just kind of started earlier this year, I started generating content where my, you know, I am the writer of this blog. I am the, my face is on these things, these publications. I created a YouTube channel, which I try to post on several times a week, talking about problems in the field. So it's For, for whatever reason, I, I don't know that I have the full grasp of why this works, but, um, putting my face out there has really helped our, our company grow.

Right.

And, you know, and so, you know, along with that, I do, I have had to learn a lot of things that I didn't learn before, and I have to talk credibly on AI, um, SEO, best practices for ads, uh, you know, and new developments in marketing. and marketing tech. And, you know, but I just, I have to be out there. I have to, and I also have to be in face-to-face meetings. I have to be, you know, doing a lot of Zoom meetings and just networking like crazy. It is not, it is not a volume game that drives those.

It's interesting. This is, so this is really fascinating. So there's, there are 2 points here that I want to, that I want to dive into, because I think, again, this has major ramifications for exit planning. Right. The first is that you had to change kind of how you operated as a human being.

Yes.

Okay. And with what, 20 years, 15, 20 years worth of experience behind you already, right? In the way that you were doing it, as you mentioned, you were in IT sales and things like that where your role was not to be on camera. Your role was not to be, right, to be the, you know, kind of using LinkedIn Maybe you use LinkedIn, whatever, for sales stuff. But, you know, there's a nature of— the world has changed significantly in the last 20 years, especially from a marketing standpoint.

Yeah.

And for individual consultants and agency owners and anybody who's in the service industry, and by the way, and beyond that, the product people are like this too, you need to be out there, right? In order to be able to make these sales, as you're saying, They are, they are inextricably linked to your credibility and authenticity as a human being.

100%.

But the—

but here's the problem.

Yeah, I know where you're going with this.

And you know where I'm going, right? And John, it's a little bit early in the podcast for it, but the reality is that— but what got you here won't get you there, right? And the problem is, is that now you're in a situation where you are the entire business. And what do you do and what are you doing to basically navigate that situation where, you know, because we've talked about this already, you know, because you've acquired a business and you've been through this and you've had a little M&A experience, you understand that your closeness to the business eventually will be a problem.

Right.

So, what are the What, what are you— what's your thinking in, in all this, and how do you bridge this gap?

Yeah, and that's a good question. You know, I, and I'm very cognizant of the impact of losing the prior founder, Jared. And, you know, it's just over time that I've realized, like, oh, you know, they, the— you may see my dog moving in the background, but he thinks I'm talking to him. But the, what I've You know, I guess realized through, you know, tough lessons is that people were hiring Jared, and they were, you know, when they, when they engaged with our market search company, and that they need, they need like an individual that they feel is their trusted adviser. Now, I, you know, it's funny, this conversation just like raises in my mind, I have not really taken the steps I need to do that. Other than I have, so I've hired an additional customer-facing employee who's, who's great. And they, you know, I've worked closely with them to be the 2 customer-facing project managers I have. Between the 2 of them, they are developing greater trust with our existing clients. And, you know, developing more skills and more expertise and A lot of the things, the new services we've added in these past months, they are starting to master. And so my hopes is that, at least from the skills standpoint, that, that give, you know, in a few months or a year, that they will be prepared to do everything that I do. But it does raise the question of like, what's really driven our growth success has been us talking about it or the content we produce. And it does make me think that I may need to put additional faces on our video channel and our, you know, our blogs and have additional experts on staff.

Yeah, it's interesting when you come in, you come into a business and you have all these users who know the product way better than you, right? Like, I I've been in a similar situation and you get on that first phone call with a group of people and it's like, oh my gosh, like they know way more about the product that they're buying from me than I'm as the, you know, essentially as the product manager.

Absolutely.

So it's like, you know, and also I don't know if you're a photographer, I don't know anything about photography, it fascinates me, but like that, the learning curve of being able to talk the talk and walk the walk must have been, I mean, even with your wife being a photographer, must have been a little bit Sort of daunting, right?

Yeah.

And I am not a photographer. And so, yeah, fortunately, I've been working with my wife at least part-time for many years. And, you know, I've assisted her with a lot. So I at least knew the vocabulary, if not the actual practice. But yeah, the— But when we come down to the marketing tools, I, you know, I have an MBA, I have years of experience, but I Um, and I do have some experience running the marketing for my wife's business, but when it does come down to like the nitty-gritty, the actual details, like where are these buttons located, where are these, um, where do I find this individual field that keeps corrupting my email campaign, you know, it, it, uh, uh, it was a little touch and go for a while there where the customer is like, well, I know the answer to this, why didn't— why don't you know?

Yeah, exactly.

So then now you're in a situation where you've got to— you've obviously learned that stuff, you've gotten kind of past that on your own. And now you've grown, and you've grown into a place where you are, you know, obviously, you know, right now you're an unqualified, you know, success at this point in terms of, you know, you're making money, you've got revenue, you've gotten right, you're doing, you're doing well, and you can feel the growth. And the big question now becomes, okay, if I look at the trajectory of my business out over the long haul, right, which could be, what, 10, 15, you know, could be 5 years, 10 years, whatever, right?

Right.

You want is obviously options, but the, but the ability to be able to say, okay, um, I have to now make an intentional effort, right, to— I can be the face. You can be the face of the, of the, uh, of the company. You can do that, right? The question becomes, because by the way, even after you sell the company, potentially you could still be the face, right? Right. That's happened. You've seen that happen, right, in, in, in brands. You may— I, I think the first thing that comes to mind is Papa John's.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

Right.

Papa John's was the thing. He started the company, he was the founder, whatever. He sold the company to a private equity firm and they kept him on as the face of the thing, doing the commercials and doing all that stuff. Right. And then of course he had a whole other issue.

For good or bad.

For worse.

Right. That's—

then there's the— that is the rub right there. Right. As soon as the founder goes and does something wrong, uh, or whoever the spokesperson is. So, but anyway, so the point is that that can happen. Right. That is a possibility. That is a, that is a, that is an exit trajectory. But The steps you're taking now are what is what's so key.

Yeah.

Because you can transition these people, right? You can show that these people are just as smart as me and I've hired these people. And in fact, these people are smarter than me.

Right.

And so the project managers or your client success people or whatever can't— should be obviously trained on what you're doing, but they can— the relationships that they build with the clients and all things are the ones that are going to really matter over time. And that can happen. It just has to be some, in most cases, it has to be like an intentional thing, right?

Right, right. And, you know, and I guess I'm learning as we're talking, because, you know, these are things that I've had way back in the back of my mind. And honestly, sometimes it feels like we're so busy, I don't have the time to think about, you know, what's, what's the 2-year impact of You know, certain actions I take or certain decisions I make, you know.

And that's, look, that's, that's, you're not alone.

I mean, I think that's the reason we work with Reed is in the same boat, right? They've built a business. I shouldn't say everyone, but 90% of the clients we work with are doing the thing that made their business be this successful. And they, you know, it's not like they're working 40 hours a week, right? They're in the business all the time. They're working in the business all the time, and then they realize they have a, you know, they have an epiphany like maybe you're having, or a thought of like, wow, you know, do I want to do this for the next 20 years? Or, or what do I, what do I need to do to make this more valuable to be saleable? And a lot of it comes from, from burnout, right? We hear from clients when they're burned out, and it's sort of they've reached the top of the hill and they're on their way down because the business suffers and they haven't addressed any of these challenges. And they come to us and it's like we're catching, to a degree, a falling knife. So it's good you're thinking about it now.

So yeah, no, great advice. And, you know, I do, I feel fortunate that I've had jobs where I really haven't enjoyed the work or enjoyed the people I work with. And I just feel fortunate that I really enjoy this work. I'm planning on an exit someday. But, but for now, I, I just really like what I'm doing. And, um, that's great, you know. So I, I do feel fortunate. I'm not, not anywhere near the burnout. I'm still kind of like—

Good, that's good.

Ramping up.

But yeah, I mean, look, if you're gonna do something, yeah, I mean, the key to life in general, right, is finding the things that you like, you're passionate about, right, and leaning into it and being able to do that. And then you don't feel like you're working because it's just kind of like your calling or whatever, right? And, and, and again, that will last for a while, you know, but ultimately, right, there'll be other things or something else will come along or some other business that you want to acquire or, you know, those kinds of things obviously pop up and it's hard, they're hard to know. And of course, what you're trying to avoid the whole time, right, are the 5 Ds. And Jon, we haven't mentioned the 5 Ds in a while.

We haven't. I always miss one of them. So, I'm—

I've got it down now. Ready? Here you go.

Ready?

5, the 5 Ds. Okay. Death, Divorce, disability, disagreement, and dissolution.

I always forget dissolution.

Yeah, it's always the one that's the thing. So anyway, it's just a fancy way of saying you go out of business, right? But the point is, is that, is that remember that those are the, the 5 ways that most people exit their companies, okay? About 80%. All right, so, um, which is a staggering number. But, but, but I think the learning, you know, that relates to Reed here is the fact that, is that, yeah, Reed is a couple of years into this, right? And again, he's already correctly thinking about the longer-term thing. He may not, again, he has days where he's, Reed, where you're, like you just said, your head down because you're trying to grow this business and you're trying to grow something that you feed your family with. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not, it's right now, it's again, it doesn't feel like a job to you because again, it's a It's an everyday challenge and it's, you're, you're kind of meeting your, uh, you're meeting the moment, so to speak, right? You're kind of showing up to it every day and learning and growing, and that feels good. But there will be a point, right, where you, that you will get to where it will be humming and it will be doing well, and you might start getting bored with it. I mean, this is the truth, right, John? I mean, you, it's very possible you were the kind of person that will maybe want to move on to something else. And the ability for you to have at this stage started to say, hey, these are the things I need to at least have them on my radar screen, right?

Yeah.

Let me ask you a question about the business because I have to say I'm not all that familiar with this type of business. But is it— so, are your clients paying you on a monthly basis or on a project basis or is it both?

Yeah. No, great question. So, when I bought the business, It was primarily a technology platform, a CRM. And to put a finer point on it, it was built on the GoHighLevel platform. So whether or not you're familiar with that, it's a framework that you can use to— and you can rebrand it as an agency, but you have like sophisticated CRM functionality. But within that, they built a lot of custom automations that were really helpful for photographers.

Got it.

But now an exercise I've taken over the past year is to add a lot more additional services, including like website development, SEO, ads management, and some other things. But we are trying to be a broader— we engage on a broader level with our clients, do more, not have them have to cobble together a bunch of consultants to make it work.

So— It's a great, it's a great model. Here, because again, it starts with the platform, right? And now I've— so I've got something that's immediate, it's actionable, it's right there. It's monthly recurring revenue, right, for you. But it's a service that's ongoing and easy to— and obviously easy to set up and all that stuff for your clients, right? But now what you're doing, then you start stacking these additional services on top, and these additional services don't come through the platform necessarily.

Right, right. But, you know, I'll say that we have You know, they're expensive, pricey custom projects that you don't want to just trust anybody. And so if we can, you know, what we've found is that we do have a good track record with our clients of supporting the technology platform, and they then will trust us for a $1,000 custom web page or something like that.

So you've demonstrated competence, right? They're happy with the platform, and it's like, hey, You know, the, the, the, if you can have an integrated service or do, you know, you can provide me with one service and you've done it, why wouldn't I go to Reed for website development and other ad products and projects?

And I'm painfully aware of like, there's millions, like it's a very commoditized space. There's millions of providers for this. And so trust is just at a premium.

Well, that's it. And look, that's, that's what gives you a competitive edge. And I think this is why the model is so brilliant because you were getting in there not with advertising, right? You're getting in there with CR, with basically with like process management, right? And something that's, that's, that's a relatively, that's, that's high value to the, to the, you know, photographers, um, at a relatively low price point, I imagine, right?

Right.

As well, because again, it's a subscription situation. But then what you're able to do is when that, that trust is there and that capability is There, you're the first phone call.

Well, yeah, who wants to vet 6 vendors when it's like, oh, I want to do a website? Yeah, I gotta, I gotta talk to these vendors, I gotta see their demos, I gotta, you know, do the, do the comparison in an Excel spreadsheet, which we did when we were, you know, when I was younger. I remember doing that, being like, oh, put a whole presentation together. It's like, no, no, I'm gonna call Reed because he did it, he did a great job with our, with this. And I, I saw the web, I saw the email that he sent around on the YouTube Where I saw the concept thing that he put on YouTube and it said, oh hey, check out our new, our new product website or whatever it happens to be.

So right, go to him for my SEO because he did such a great job here and I know him and it's a thing and it's always going to be at least your first stop, right? Maybe, maybe something happens where you end up not, not taking that client or whatever, but at the end of the day, so to put us stacking these services on top of this platform. So back in the day, you know, when I had the digital marketing agency Again, it wasn't, it wasn't a platform, but it was a— what it was, the in-person situation. It was, it was the presence. We would embed ourselves inside the client's offices.

Oh, great.

Because, because we called it the power of presence. The idea was that there was these large organizations that we were in, and we were people, and suddenly we were like people on the team. And they were like, well, you're just here at every meeting. And suddenly some other outfit would come in and some other you know, piece of the organization would come and want the stuff that we did because they saw it. We saw that we did it. We were advertising ourselves right in the middle of the entire organization, starting with a piece of it. And by the time we left, you know, Realogy, we had like, you know, most of the brands and we were doing some work for, you know, for, for almost everybody. So you're doing the same thing, right?

Right.

Which is that you're starting in this best— that, that place is your platform. And now you can extend, there's an extensibility to it, right?

Right, right. Yeah. And, you know, I love all these throwing around genius and, you know, all this, I accept. And, you know, but it has worked. And honestly, it's, I don't, it is just completely different from my past experience. Like I, you know, like really was trying to win on functionality or like we had a different product. that was like doing something very different. But, but in this, in this world, it really is about like, how deeply engaged am I? Or how, how much am I, how likable am I? How, you know, how trustworthy am I?

Yeah, I mean, you're, it's your, it's your authentic nature, like you as a, as a person coming through. And people can, you know, that's what this, that's what this fundamental change has been over the last 15, 20 years, right? The social media thing, say what we want, there's ups, there's downs, there's all kinds of— right, we can— right, but at the end of the day, if you can harness it correctly and use it as a, you know, you can use it as a major leverage point. Because again, it is all relationships at the end of the day.

Yeah, it's a different way to communicate, right? I mean, when I wrote down— you wrote— I wrote down blogs and YouTube, and it's like that. It's a different way for people to communicate. Some people like to watch a video about it. Some people like to read about the latest features and the best things that are coming from Market Surge and from Reed. And it's like, you know, they see your face, they see your blog. Oh, he's the one communicating these things. It's really, it's powerful. Yeah.

I'm trying to think back though to the agencies that I worked for right before I became an entrepreneur. And I'm trying to imagine some of the people who ran these agencies even attempting to have a TikTok video. I can't even imagine these old guys with suits. suits and stuff and the whole thing who were running these agencies back in the '90s, you know what I mean? Before it really switched over to, you know, it's fundamentally changed, you know. The other thing is, Reed, is what, from a new business development standpoint, right? What is your, what are your levers there in terms of new business development and how has that, you know, how has that changed since you've owned the company?

Yeah. So, You know, my parameters coming in, I was thinking like, well, I have a pro— like an ideal customer profile that I can work with. And the more of those that I talk to and, well, first, the more that I contact turns into meetings and demos.

Mm-hmm.

And those turn into advanced conversations and sales and ongoing clients. And it was like almost completely a flop. I don't, I don't know that I really got any new clients out of, out of that approach. And, um, you know, I, I still would here and there get a few word-of-mouth referrals and, you know, we'd take those. Um, and then next I thought, okay, well, advertising, you know, the, you know, I'll do some, uh, you know, you know, send out ads that are also targeted and same same thing, you know, it was, you know, I was showing like all the cool bells and whistles on the platform. And, and then, but, you know, just almost by accident, I, you know, had an opportunity to guest on a podcast. And, and it, what the funny thing that happened was, you know, first I'm like, oh, bonus, I'm gonna get like somebody listen to the podcast, they're gonna think I'm super interesting and want to work with me. Well, that didn't happen, but I did get 2 calls from existing clients when I, when I sent out the social media posts that I'd appeared on this podcast, from existing clients that said, oh, I'd never thought of hiring you for managing our ads. And, and so my parameter has changed to the, the more and the higher quality content that I can put out, The, the more that my existing clients will trust me, and they're now also referring more people. So I almost put my sales efforts almost exclusively on the quality of education and the value I can deliver and just kind of put out there, both to existing clients and to the public.

That's an incredible learning.

That's an incredible learning for like the people out there. And I just want to make sure that everyone caught what Reed said is that, you know, like it's, you know, These, these service— these sometimes ads and going out to people and, and, and trying to hit people over the head with your services is not the way that this works, right? It's not the way it works. It's like, you know, looking to your existing clients for an additional share of wallet, um, and sort of just demonstrating your competence through your products and how your, your products can help is just— is the way to go.

All I can think about too, Reed, is that we had the exact same flop when we started Exit The exact same flop. We've tried to go out advertising, advertising, advertising, right? Total flop. And the reality is, again, for the same reason, it's like we're not competing with other exit planning communities. That's not right. Or a podcast. That's not what we're doing. What we're competing with is every single other service business that's out there trying to sell them anything. Because there's a share of wallet, right? That is, it's not the share of the market, it's the share of the wallet. The reality is, I can't, you know, there's going to be businesses out there need to be able to spend. They're going to spend money and they only have a certain amount of money to be able to spend on everything, right?

Totally.

And so, now, what you got to do is, you got to pick your spots and you got to make sure there's efficient everything else. And so, who are you going to go with? What's the thing that's going to You're gonna go the thing that resonates the most, and it might take 7, 8, 9, 10 touches, right? From in order for you to be able to be for them to be able to make that decision. And again, it's not necessarily the decision about should I go with this SEO provider or this SEO provider? It's should I do exit planning or should I do SEO? Like that's sometimes the decision that's being made.

Interesting.

And so, your ability to be able to, and, you know, I think that we've captured this too, is, and look, this is the advice that we would give to anybody, especially on the advisory partner side of things, is to say simply, look, you being out there talking about what you bring to the table in terms of what your personality is and what you're right, it's still not going to be for everybody.

Right.

We talked about this last week, Jon, right? I mean, it's like you've got, you're going to have a certain percentage of people that aren't going to respond at all. In any, anything you do with them, right?

Yeah.

But the ones that do, you get them, you pull them in, and then your business grows. Not because you get new clients from your, from your content all the time, but, but what you get is that you get respect and, and you get— and you're showing your ability to be able to do that to your existing clients who then become your referral machine, right?

Yeah.

Right. And that's how this works. We don't— we didn't know this is how this worked. Right? But that's been one of the fundamental changes in the marketing landscape in general over the last 10 to 15 years. And anyone who doesn't understand this and is trying to do this stuff, and I see, we see this all the time because we spend a lot of time on LinkedIn where we get most of our clients and where we find advisory partners. And the reality is, is that I see so many CEOs and so many companies out there Trying to do social media as a company, and and I'll tell you something that you we started that way. I didn't realize that it isn't about Exit Engine. Nobody knows who Exit Engine is. Exit Engine doesn't have a personality yet, right? It's getting one, but because why? Because it's attached to John and I, right? And so when we're out there and it's our faces and our stuff and our wisdom or whatever, or our you know whatever we see in the the way that we see the world. That's what resonates with people. And that's the way. And then when you get those clients, you have those clients already. And even if you're talking to your existing clients, I mean, the way that we use our existing clients to be out there talking about us, right? And just, here, repost this, right? The way that we get our advisory partners to be able to work together, to be able to kind of grow these networks is really what this is all about now. And I think Gary Vaynerchuk is probably a great example of what he's saying is that basically he's like, Stop spending money on advertising. Stop. Like, stop, right? Be out there and make sure that you're out there with this kind of social selling. Be on the social media side of stuff and take advantage of it. And if you can't be you for whatever reason, find somebody in your organization who can be the face of this thing because a faceless organization will not move the needle with with people very much anymore, without them be— having— or being a very, very highly established, you know, brand, right?

Yeah. You know, maybe one other thing I, I would add to that is I have seen huge benefits. Like, I'll, I'll say I am not that good at this. Like, I'm not like that great of a video presence. You know, like, I, I'm, I'm very self-critical. And, and I've watched a lot of people that are very good, like Gary Vaynerchuk and, and others that are Great on video and they like high production. I will say like I have seen huge benefits of doing this like badly, you know, at the 100 level. You know, like I, I, you know, it's authentic read. Yeah. Well, I, I think there's something to that.

Yeah. So Stanley Tucci, if you're, if you're familiar with Stanley Tucci, um, he's similarly follicly challenged of all of us, but he's, his Instagram is incredible because his Instagram It starts off with, are you filming? Are you filming? And it's like, intent— to your point, Joe, or it's like, it's intentionally amateurish, right? He's like, I'm gonna start the— I'm gonna start the burner. And like, he has that, that, that vibe. And it's like, people—

Reality to it.

People love that reality, that, that authenticity to it. Um, I mean, clearly our, our, our podcast is produced, but it's like, it's a lot of it's just conversation. It's people— people like to listen because it's not highly, like totally highly produced. So yeah.

Yeah, I think there's, yeah, there's definitely something to that. It's, you can't, you can't fake authenticity, of course. No, that's the thing.

And so that's the thing, you're being your, you're being your natural self and your, and your, and your followers appreciate that. The people that see you appreciate the fact that they can identify with it or whatever it is, or they can feel like they know who you are and they're going to spend a bunch of money with you. And again, to them, Yeah, whatever. But no matter how much money it is, to them, it's a lot of money. And the reality is that they want to make sure that what they're going to pay for, they're going to get the results. And the only way they can do that without getting the results first, right, which is a whole other strategy, but is to be able to get to know the person who's going to deliver this stuff, you know, as much as they possibly can.

And Reid, we mentioned, you know, you mentioned some incredible learnings you've when you took over the agency. Is there anything else that you would like to impart to some of the listeners about what you've learned about, like, taking over a business or anything from your entrepreneurial journey, do you think would be helpful?

Yeah, so, you know, I have a lawyer in, in the family, a brother-in-law, and we, we just tossed out the idea to him just for his 2 cents. And he did recommend that we hire a lawyer, not him. He said, you know, don't mix family and, and, uh, legal work. But, um, we, we hired an attorney to review, um, every bit of information about the business that we had, like past signed contracts. And, and, uh, in the acquisition agreement, uh, he did put in some provisions, um, for like— he helped me identify a lot of risks with the business that could happen.

Yeah.

So, you know, like, what if we You know, people are mad that Jared sold, you know, we're just totally dependent on Jared, and they left in a very short timeframe. That would obviously change the value of the business. And, and so we had a few triggers in there that, and actually, I mean, they came to fruition, a couple things that, though we'd agreed on a price, the price came down because a few of the contingencies kicked in.

Right.

We also had a prior agreement which we— with a partner that my attorney identified as very problematic. Like, it was like so broadly worded about some intellectual property that he's like, this could be a problem, you know. And there's no like end date, there's no termination clause, there's nothing in there. And he was right. And this This did turn out to be a problem, but again, it was mitigated by some triggers in the in the contract that changed the buying price and changed the the what. So I you know unfortunately we had a few we did have a few legal issues that bubbled up, but having a good good partner that that like in my in my lawyer that helped me look at these risks ahead of time that. That saved us a fortune.

Yeah, I mean, the advice we give, you know, we certainly don't give, you know, legal advice here. We don't give tax advice. That's why we have experts. But I mean, a good attorney, a good accountant, even in just obviously the risk mitigation and the finer points of agreements and the finer points of your business are great. But simply the language that they're using in the agreement, right, in the contractual agreement. As an example, how is the purchase price determined? Is it for compensation? Is it capital gains? That can make a huge difference in the tax treatment that you're taking. And those are the types of things you hire a good attorney for. And I think it's really, really well smart of you to have them review the whole business, right? Not just in the context of the purchase agreement, which is obviously very critical, but all aspects of the business and have he or she point out that these things could be problematic. And of course, they, you know, some of them came to fruition. So it's such money well spent.

Absolutely. And it, you know, I mean, it's like we're talking about, you know, acquiring a business for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like, we've saved this money and it's just, you know, now it's gone. And then, and then, um, now to look at another upfront cost of like over $10,000 to have this review done It's like, oh man, it's just like more money. But that was a very worthwhile investment.

Yeah, I think you're— look, we're bringing up a subject here that's actually, you know, worth talking about for a second. Because again, you're on the acquisition side of this, okay? But the idea is that you will one day be on the sell side of it, right? And what you'll want to do and taking this learning that you had because you were the buyer, right? Now you're going to be able to see your business Through the eyes of a buyer.

Yes.

You're going to now know that I'm going to go take care of all these things. I'm going to show the buyer that the contracts are buttoned up, that all the things that I've done, all the things that I've learned from being the acquirer, now I'm going to be able to make sure those things are all aligned the right way. So, when your buyer comes along, you're going to be able to actually say, hey, go Take a look. I mean, get your lawyer, you look at all this stuff. I'm an open book. I'm totally transparent. Here's my— here's the file with every single process, documentation, contract, right? You know, whatever, but, you know, financial document, whatever, right? Here's my insurance. Here's the real estate deed. Here's the— right? Whatever those things are, because that's where people start getting hung up is they don't think about things like, Oh my God, but you're interested in seeing my contracts? Yeah, because I got to know exactly what this risk is, right? What have you promised and to whom, right? And what are the ways in which you operate the business under the covers? Because I can see the top of the iceberg, right? But what I can't see is what's underneath the water. And that's the thing that most, even owners, don't really know what's there under the surface.

Yeah.

Because like any other business, it's been, uh, what happened yesterday is compounded by what happens today. And, you know, kind of that building, that building process of building a company is brick by brick. And some of those bricks are corrupt, and some of those bricks are rotten, and some of the things aren't right, or have holes in them or whatever. And I need to be able to find out what those are before I even take the step to even think I can sell this company.

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I, I don't necessarily have a real risk-averse personality, and so it was a little counterintuitive. But, um, the, the thing with, you know, at least in this field of contracts and, and legal issues, it's, um, it seems like there's no ceiling on what the damages can be from that arise out of legal situations.

Yeah, no, it's a great point because again, and it is, it can be, it's, it's So guys, the lesson here, right, is that again, we're talking about it from the buyer's side.

Yeah.

Understand that when the buyer is doing it, the buyer has no idea who you are. They don't know, right? They're going to get to know your story and learn who you are because again, there is a certain amount of partnership that happens, especially at the beginning. They're going to get to know that they want to see every single thing that's going on. And if they're experienced and know what they're doing and have advisors themselves, Okay, then they are going to, they are going to want to look at every single thing they can possibly look at.

Yeah. And if you think of it from a buyer's perspective, right, when they're looking at a business that they may think that they know a lot about, that all they're seeing is risks, right? All they're seeing in that P&L that you provide to them is a risk is, oh, that revenue is tied to a contract that ends in October. How much of their contracts end on a monthly basis? Are all their contracts on an annual basis? Things like that where you buy a business in December and all the businesses are renewing in 3 weeks and then you're taking it over. We've had that situation before where someone has no idea until they ask one question and it's like, oh yeah, all of our contracts renew in December. And they were literally buying the business in November, first week of December. It's like, oh my gosh. To your point about the read that you experienced, it's like, whoa, That's something that you've really got to mitigate, right? When you're the buyer of the business, to say, to A, understand that, and then B, how can I mitigate this? How can I deal with this?

Right. Absolutely.

And how much time would you have— right, how much time could you have saved as the buyer if the original owner had provided all this stuff to you from the beginning, right?

Yes.

That's the thing. You make it easy for the buyer to do and you You're right, exactly. Now, you had to go out and spend some money to do it. Now, it was the right thing for you to do because, you know, you did, like you said, you probably caught some things that could have turned into hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of, uh, worth of risk, right?

Right.

Um, but then, but, but again, you're, you're, you're, you're going to be a savvy seller.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because you have been on the buy side.

Yeah, yeah. And I, I've seen some of the downsides too, the, you know, the things that happen to me that, you know, I, I would probably alert a buyer of, like, hey, you should consider this, and really factor into the valuation and the acquisition agreement.

When you looked at the company originally, when you were first discussing this with Jared, did you see anything in that company that you saw was opportunity that was maybe something that hadn't been done, but basically you saw immediately as kind of opportunity for I did.

And, uh, for one was that he was very heavily weighted on photographers, and I saw that a lot of these practices could be, uh, you know, transferred to different lines of different industries, different lines of business, industries that I was even familiar with from like past experience. Like, you know, I've, I've worked in landscaping, I've worked in, um, uh, pest control, and some expertise that I could bring from outside. And so, so for one, just same product, different industry, different lines of business. Then 2, I, you know, I was aware that a lot of our clients were hiring outside vendors for SEO, ads, and that, that was something that it would be a lot easier if you had one person to call for problems that related to both the automation and the ads.

Yeah.

You know, there's pluses and minuses. Like, software is great because the profits are very— they scale very quickly. The services scales a little slower, evenly, but slower.

Right.

And, you know, there's ongoing maintenance and it's your time and that's a limited resource. But we, you know, so those were the main opportunities. I saw at first.

But it's interesting. So that's a key point, right? Sorry, just to know that when buyers are often going to be looking for that stuff, right? The question is, I need to be able to take this business somewhere, right? In order to grow it, in order to make more money, to recapture the money I've just spent, right? Which is, I'm sure that you're still in that stage of amortization at this point, right? In terms of investment.

Right.

But the reality is that you have to be able to Nobody's going to buy a business that they don't see immediate value in. And that, again, there might be things that cloud that value. And the reality is, as you go through due diligence and stuff, as you even did, the price starts going down because you're like, well, I got to do this and there's this problem and whatever, and there's this risk, et cetera, et cetera. So again, the best thing that any seller can do is to be able to head these things off at the pass as much as possible. Right? It's like being an attorney in a courtroom. I know the answer to every question already.

Well, yeah, and kind of the flip side of that, we refer to those as like marketing inefficiencies, right? The things that are available to the new buyer that either weren't exploited by the seller, but also on the flip side, in your business, like the blogs and the fact that the blogs and YouTube and your social media presence is such a large portion of the new business development that you have to mine, you know, Those are types of things that if the buyer doesn't maintain those things and doesn't maintain communication with the business and understand how revenue is generated and how, you know, you're consciously gaining more share of wallet, that can be something that the buyer takes as, you know, doesn't understand. Or if they don't understand it, it can be a huge risk to them if they don't maintain those activities.

Yeah, absolutely. And that would be something I'd really underline to a But again, it's a matter of positioning, right?

This is again why this takes, you know, you're gonna actually say that out loud and say, hey, look, here's the opportunity for you to take this, you know, allow them to see it as an opportunity as opposed to a problem, right? Yeah. And those are the points. I want to go back a little bit because we talked, you know, we've talked a little bit about where you are in this, made this acquisition. You're starting to grow this business now in, you know, in some other ways. Things are going well. But take us back now because you have come out of a— this was a very circuitous route to get here. You were not, you're not like a traditional agency guy, right? You're not even really like a platform guy. You've been in a bunch of different industries, this whole thing. Talk about your background. Take us back, you know, to how you kind of— where did you start? And how did you, you know, Tell us to fill in the gap. How did you get, how did you get here?

Yeah, well, you know, so I mean, I could even go back to undergrad and I, just a funny anecdote. So I majored in Italian thinking that maybe I would go work in international diplomacy or international law. My, I married a woman whose father was a lawyer and he immediately talked me out of it. He said, yeah, lawyer law careers is miserable. And so I abandoned that but kept the major. Loved, loved that.

What's that?

And the girlfriend.

And the girlfriend.

Yeah, still my wife today.

And, um, you know, they, uh, but I did love literature and Italian culture. And they say if you, uh, you know, love what you do, then you'll never work a day in your life. I've never worked a day in, in, uh, either of those, either of those fields. So, uh, jumped into the technology industry and, and a sales role with a startup and then was able to level up and join Oracle and learn a lot of sales best practices there. Oracle's probably one of those evil corporations, I'll say, no offense to anybody that works there, but they, but they're very good at making money.

Yes.

And, and, you know, I learned a ton while I was there. Decided to get my MBA And after my MBA, I found myself right back at Oracle, selling a different product, and, and then had some stops at a couple digital agencies in business development. Primarily, we were selling services to build mobile apps. And a lot of novelty around that earlier in the 2010s.

Yeah.

And then, and then the opportunity came— I live here in Evanston, Illinois— to do a business development role at the Kellogg School of Business. And we created custom programs for companies with the faculty of the business school. And, you know, did that for a few years. The last— the years I was there, and then the few years before, I was part-time doing marketing for my wife's photography studio. And she, she has a boudoir photography studio. If if anybody knows what, what that is. But, um, she, um, you know, we found that really interesting and, and it took off. And, um, you know, and then a few things converged like you see, and, and, um, I've ended up here. Um, I, I don't know that I'd ever— I would have ever pictured this role. Um, but I do think it was like really valuable to be in touch with an entrepreneur. And, you know, and I've made an effort to do more and more of that, look for entrepreneurs. It just seems like things bubble up around them, you know, and opportunities, ideas. You know, they're risk-takers. They're, they think about solving problems. And these are, these are people definitely to stay close to and learn from.

Yeah, because they have to solve problems, right? I mean, because entrepreneurs, they don't have buckets and buckets of money or buckets of team— teams of people at Oracle. I negotiated with Oracle on a contract deal a while ago. We won't get into that, but that's a story for another day. But like, but entrepreneurs need to solve the problems. I mean, Jo and I are constantly putting out fires and dealing with things because it's the two of us. We have to do it. So.

Yes. Yes.

And you learn and you get better. And like anything else, anything you apply yourself to. But look, you bring up an excellent point. The fact that you, as a founder, that you can surround yourself with other founders.

Yeah.

Because, and again, it may not even necessarily in your industry. And in fact, probably better for them not to be in your industry because there is a whole level of learning and insight and stuff that comes from outside the specific thing that you do. We get very myopic about our own businesses. Right. And our ability, and we're seeing the thing through our own lens so often. and that it's difficult to kind of break out to that. But when you start sharing your stories and talking with other people who have been through it, you're right, the entrepreneurs are like that. I mean, you know, the reason that Jon and I are partners is because we see the world the same way, you know, and we have different skill sets that we bring to it, right? So, that's the other thing that makes it work. In your case, you know, what you've been able to identify You know, is a, uh, it, you know, again, you took an opportunity, you saw something that was there that was growing, the timing was right, whatever. You guys had made some, you know, had put some money away or whatever it was to be able to, you know, do something with it.

Yeah.

Um, and, and again, and making an investment, but what you've done ultimately is that this wasn't an investment in a, in a platform or in some, some thing that some guy built. This was an investment in yourself.

Yeah.

And I want to point out to everybody that every founder out there, that this is what this takes, right? Is that it is an unconditional belief in whatever it is that you are doing, right? That's what the mindset is. And the first step in our process of exit planning, right, is creating, is developing an exit mindset because it takes a change in perspective, right? So we all have, as human beings, we've got 2 things all the time. We've got perception and we've got perspective. And the reality is most of the time we sit from our perception and we stay in one perspective, right? But what entrepreneurs can do is they can take themselves and lift themselves out of that perception, right? And change the perception so that they can change their perspective. And once you see your perspective change, now I can look at this business And I can see the flaws, right? I can see the holes. I can see the problem, right, that, that everybody is trying to solve. And I can clearly potentially even now see the answer, right?

Right.

But I— but the fact is, is that when you are— in your case, what I love about what you've done is that you have been— you, you were an entrepreneur the entire time and didn't know it, right?

Fair.

Yeah.

Right. You were, you were in that place in the thing where you were like, yeah, you know, I, like you said before, you said it perfectly. Here are the things I love to do and I didn't work, I didn't do, I didn't do them professionally for one second in my life. Right.

Right.

Right. You just, it's like, I, like, I, I, I always wanted to be a football coach.

Yeah. Okay.

I, I, I get to do that a little bit with my, you know, with my 7-year-old. Right. But I mean, the reality is, is that, uh, you know, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna be an NFL coach at this point. This is something I've had to accept, and this is the way that it is.

Is that— is that news we're announcing right now, Joe?

I am officially withdrawing my name from, uh, yeah, just so everybody knows, okay? It's not because I don't love it, it's just because I found something else.

Sirianni is safe.

Things can change. Um, no, but hey, no, but I think this is a good— this is an excellent thing because you have a mindset that you didn't even know you Right. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's absolutely fair, you know. And I mean, I think that, that little bit of discontentment with what I was doing, it, you know, I was always like seeking something a little bit more with each new role. I was like, ah, you know, I'm not quite getting this professional yearning fulfilled. And, you know, and so, you know, that's like my most recent jump to higher ed. And And then try to do a side project. And so as I dabbled in these things, I picked up additional skills and learnings about myself. And it is funny how things kind of cascade in a— or crest in a moment like this where opportunity to buy a business and it turned into something really great for me.

So right now, MarketSurge, essentially you've turned, you've taken this You know, photography CRM, basically, right? Photographer CRM. And now you've turned this into a full, a fully functioning, you know, kind of strategic and, and executional, you know, marketing agency.

Yes, yes. Yeah. And it's, you know, been a big effort. And I have had a few, like, dead ends that I pursued. And But, but we're better for it and can really speak from experience because we've, we have tried so many platforms, so many, you know, vendors, so many processes. And, you know, so we can really speak from authentic experience about what does and doesn't work.

Well, that's, that's—

I mean, that's so valuable because, again, you, you figured out what didn't work in order to get to what does work.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's awesome. Reed, where can people get in touch with you? Let's talk about your podcast real quick. Talk a little bit about the podcast and where people can find it.

Yeah, so this year I started a podcast called Inside Marketing with Market Surge. You can find it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, also available on YouTube. We interview thought leaders, coaches, consultants, people in various, they have various relationships with marketing. I interviewed a ghostwriter who writes biographies for executives. And we, so we have a lot of interesting conversations. And our format has kind of evolved to bringing these same interesting people, but rather than just doing kind of an open-ended conversation, we're talking about like news of the day. And so— You'll get to hear interesting people's perspective on, you know, like, oh, what's this new innovation in video AI? And how's that going to impact—

Super cool. Yeah, that sounds awesome.

And by the way, you guys are both welcome, either together or separate. I would love to have you on as guests on the podcast.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, we'll definitely, we would love to do that too, obviously, for sure. So where can people, let's talk about the website, all your contact information and get that out Absolutely.

So, uh, marketsurge.io is our website, and you can reach me anytime, reed@marketsurge.io. Uh, you know, we're on all the socials, but, um, email is probably the best way to find me. And I would love to have open-ended conversations, or, uh, if you, if you need any support on your marketing, uh, we, we would definitely love to work Reed, it's awesome.

It's awesome to know you. I'm so glad that you're in our network. You know, Reed is one of these people that I think, again, is that, you know, it seems to me that if you had a marketing challenge of any kind and that you picked up the phone or wrote an email to Reed and the whole thing, that Reed will respond to you immediately and probably give you a great deal of insight, probably for nothing. Would that be accurate?

100% true. I I try to talk to anybody that'll talk to me, and I want good ideas. I want new ideas, and I love to share everything that I have.

That's awesome. Well, Reed Hansen, the owner and chief growth officer for Market Surge Digital Marketing Agency. Again, the website, Reed?

marketsurge.io.

marketsurge.io. Listen to his podcast and get to know Reed. And again, we will be— Reed will be here and part of our network as well, so you can reach out to us anytime as well. Quick reminder on the podcast, a couple of things to talk about, John, real fast.

Yeah.

First of all, we have the full— this episode, I think, will be the 2nd episode that we're in video on YouTube, right? So we just started, we just released last week to YouTube. So now, all the podcasts have always been on YouTube, but now we've got the video version. So everything's there and you get the see our bald heads and smiling faces, right? So, that's there now. So, go check that out. Would love you to like and subscribe there if you could. Same thing when you go to Apple or Spotify, wherever you're listening to the Exit Engine Podcast, please go subscribe.

And share.

Share it, man. Share it with an entrepreneur or an owner or founder that you love. They will thank you for it later, for sure. You can find us Same thing, just like Reed, you can talk to us directly whenever you want. You can reach me at jo@myexitengine.com or john@myexitengine.com. Find us on LinkedIn. We're all over the place. You'll see our content, and you're going to see more coming from Reed and us in the next few months, we hope, as well, because we've got a lot of valuable information to share. We want to basically share it with our entire our entire audience. Thank you, Reed, again so much for being here today. Really appreciate you being on the ExitEngine Podcast.

Thank you, Joe. Thank you, John.

Thanks, Reed.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, everybody. John, you know, this is a great story, right? This is the ability for us to be able to show not only that someone who's a great advisory partner, but somebody who has been through this acquisition situation and is in that— is a founder trying to grow his business in the right direction and set himself up for an eventual exit later on.

It's inspiring is the word that keeps coming into my head during this, is inspiring. Because it's— yes, there are challenges along the way, there are things that Reed encountered that he overcame, and, and it's just— again, I think of just the word inspiring, inspiration to, to all the people listening.

He's a roadmap, you know what I mean? He is a guide, he's a Sherpa, you know. This is the kind of thing that you can follow, you know, what he's doing here and the way that he's taken on, you know, growing the growth stage of his agency and him being, you know, kind of the face of it and being out there and using the social media and being, you know, being kind of up to date in terms of where the marketplace is now and how we're developing new business and how we're helping clients. He is on the cutting edge of that right now. So it was so great to have him on. Guys, thank you so much for listening to the Exit Engine Podcast today. Again, I'm Joe Stapleton. That's Jon Kniff. We are here every week. And by the way, a big announcement too is that starting in September, right after Labor Day, you're going to get 2 of these a week. All right? We're going to start, we're actually going to move, and there's going to be 2 releases of the Exit Engine Podcast every week for you to be able to listen to and help set the right exit trajectory for your business. And to help you raise the value and salability of your business and hopefully exit one day on your own terms. Thanks so much for listening today, guys. By the way, tomorrow is the 4th of July as we record this. So, happy birthday, America. And we will talk to you all very soon. Jon, have an awesome holiday and thank you so much. We'll talk to you later.

Thanks, Joe.

We'll see ya.