How Regular People Get Rich Buying Boring Businesses - JackQuisitions Feed Drop

How do I have a sector in the tight buy box where brokers, lawyers, CPAs, people know exactly what I'm looking for, and if they see it, they can pass it my way? How do I do that if I'm remaining loosey-goosey on the sectors that I'm looking at?

What's the game plan? What's the goal, man?

The one that stands out a lot right now, and it's super niche, janitorial cleaning business. And that would be so perfect.

It's just a very, like, people-oriented business, and the less people The better.

I'm a relationships guy. That's that's what I enjoy most. That's the beauty of ETA in general is you get to have it your way.

Welcome back to Jack Positions. Today we have Chris Barr. What's going on, Chris? It's a long time no talk.

We are back, baby. It's been a weird month. Unfortunately, it got. totally knocked off my horse of my search via some personal emergencies. We had a major catastrophic flooding in my place, had to move under duress. It was all wonky. So, that's been a full-time job the past month unfortunately, but shook it off, off to new beginnings, new chapter, back in the saddle. So, stoked to be here, man.

I will say, you know what would've been absolutely more terrible than having to go through all that? would be having to go through all that and just taking over a new business where you're expected to be there every day dealing with that full-time business while then you have this entire, excuse the language, but a shit show going on in the background.

Absolute shit show. And well, that was the funny thing, man, is honestly kind of through the process and really, especially the past few weeks, there's been like, and not to get like weird, too vulnerable on the show, but like a lot of shame, you know, like I'm a searcher, like I'm here to like, Through thick and thin, when things are good, when things are bad, like I show up and I diligently grind to go find the business I want to buy. Um, but my wife just recently started a business that's actually up and running. She has customers, she has contracts, and she's breadwinning for the family right now. So when I have a little bit more flexibility and she has a live business, it kind of falls on me to run point with, with the personal stuff. So had to kind of realize everyone's circumstances in their search are different. My circumstances, you know, led me to need to take a month off to deal with this. So it is what it is, man. But yes, thankfully did not have a business to run in conjunction with all that.

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So speaking of that, so you, you had this issue and you're getting back into it. What does that look like for you? What's, what's the game plan? What's the goal, man, coming back into the saddle?

You know, it's funny because, uh, when I got knocked off the horse, I was kind of in a place of reinventing my search engine and kind of what it looks like after having killed the pressure washing deal. So I was already kind of in a reinvent mode. And so it's kind of an ironically good place to come back to is really starting fresh again. So what does that look like? I'm really back to the basics of re-engaging my brokerage network. re-engaging what my on-market search engine looks like, which is again, mostly going through the listings, going through my brokerage network, and then kind of refining my off-market search engine, which kind of need the on-market one before you have any business doing off-market search engine work. But kind of how can I come back at that better this time around? How can I automate more workflows? I wasn't really doing that the first time around. What's the untapped potential with AI for automating a lot of like outreach and stuff like that that I can be tapping into that I wasn't previously. So I think reinventing off-market and on-market engines is really—

But yeah, before you continue, there's a lot to unpack there. So I like to start with the first thing is your original thesis, right? Is that you were going to look for a trades business that was more or less unskilled labor, painting, landscaping, pressure washing, things like that. Uh, in terms of your thesis and what you're looking for, because ironically, right, you got to— almost got to the finish line on the exact business in the exact location that you were looking for episode 1. And so going back into this, right, if you, if you were to now, if, if we say this is day 1 all over again, like, Mm-hmm. Is it different now or is it still the same idea, the same business? thesis? You know, has anything changed?

Great question. And that's like the one I was most excited to get to for today. So I'm glad you're kind of reading my mind there. But yeah, it's kind of really tightening up my buy box. And initially pressure washing was kind of like my darling sector that I had, you know, if I had my pick of the litter. After seeing the competition landscape and kind of some of the other options that I could reach out to. As much as I love the sector, I don't think that there's another concept in the area that's going to be as good at what I found, and I don't necessarily want to compete with the deal that I just passed on. So I'm kind of putting pressure washing to the side as much as it pains me to do so. So where does that leave me? As you mentioned, kind of unskilled labor trade service business, but again, on the unskilled side. And a big part of my approach the first time around, which I realized was a mistake on my end, was trying to keep it agnostic because I'm hunting in such a tight geo area. And so I figured if I'm really only looking in these 4 counties and especially really just mainly Palm Beach County, let me be flexible, agnostic on the type of businesses that I'm looking for. And it's funny because we talked about this on a previous episode of like, Personal branding. How do I become HVAC Jack? How do I have a sector in a tight buy box where brokers, lawyers, CPAs, people know exactly what I'm looking for? And if they see it, they can pass it my way. How do I do that if I'm remaining loosey-goosey on the sectors that I'm looking at? So it's, and so if that's where I'm really torn at and kind of shredding that agnostic idea, Trying to tighten it down. Where exactly I'm tightening it to, I wish I had more answers for you today, but that's been a big part of my work the past week is trying to uncover what plays to the projected growth in my area because Palm Beach is going to be exploding. I see developments coming up left and right. So whether that's the porta-potty guys who suck the poop out or whether that's paving or surveying, what are services that really, really play to the growth aspect of my market. And so that's kind of what I'm trying to identify and select and kind of corner in regards to specific sectors. And again, wish I had more answers for you today, but that's kind of where my thinking's taken me so far.

Okay. No, that, I mean, that's completely fair. And a lot of times, right, it doesn't matter because even though it did for your first day, first day, realistically everybody ends up finding something kind of close or close, or they get pulled off into this other direction. Which is okay. I mean, that's, that's part of it. Um, I mean, you have to try though to, to— it helps to come up with a thesis and then aim towards it. Um, septic's hot in your area right now. Not in your area, but like in the outskirts of your area. Septic in Florida is big business right now. Uh, we, we get a lot of traffic on our podcast for people looking for septic help. Very interesting. Um, also unskilled. I just don't know if I could do it forever.

Yeah, trust me, it's, it's, it stood out, but it's like, it's a, it's a messy business.

It's literally the wrong kind of mess, man. Um, but with that being said, is there any kind of, uh, north stars? Like sometimes what I like to focus on is it's overwhelming to choose like one industry. Um, what generally has helped me in the past is, uh, looking at less about industry agnostics and looking at focus on specifics of business style and model type, right? So, for example, when I was searching, I didn't look specific. I knew I wanted to be in residential. I didn't want to do industrial. I didn't want to do commercial. I wanted to be in residential. So, what that does is it doesn't get you out of the agnostic focus on just like the 10,000 things, but it shortened the bubble to say, okay, well, now we're only doing residential. So, do you have any feelings in that way? Because I know that historically, right, you've actually led more towards B2B. Are you still feeling that B2B pull?

You know, yes. And there's still something that, and it's hard for me to put my finger on because I was going to say ticket price, but you can do high ticket price services for residential for sure. You know, that's not specific to business, but it seems like especially when it was the pressure washing side, do I want to go chase $800, $1,200 jobs on residential, or do I want to chase $30,000 jobs with HOAs and municipalities and all that? So I kind of still like that generalized approach because if you can have, again, higher ticket items that B2B and GovCon can play to, but you're able to diversify them out and have, again, high volume of high ticket prices seems kind of like the best of all worlds. So I'm not opposed to residential, but the experiences I've had and the knowledge I've gained has kind of all been geared toward that B2B and GovCon work. So I think I still have a preference for it just simply because it's familiar. But other than the familiarity, I'm not necessarily opposed to residential. The one that stands out a lot right now, and it's super niche and I don't think I could find it, but I had a buddy who's a fellow searcher and he just Um, started negotiating on a GovCon janitorial cleaning business, and that would be so perfect. And it's, again, it's a, it's a very, very niche one. It's a, I'm asking, I'm asking a lot more so than I did on the first episode, but, oh man, especially with the veteran preferred, um, small business programs and the set-asides for that, you know, I, I would love to find a way to wedge myself in that.

Oh yeah, you're the one who connected me with Jed Morris, right?

Yep.

Yeah, I met him down in Dallas for our Quick Staffers meetup. Really good guy. Yeah, good guy. But yeah, he's doing GovCon. I was like, that— something's ringing the bell here. Yeah, interesting, man. Very, very interesting.

I—

you couldn't catch me with a 10-foot pole near janitorial services, but first, I mean, it works for a lot of people, so I'm gonna leave it there. It's just a very like people-oriented business and what you— I think you find when you run, you know, we had a, we had a group of, uh, I think it was not ServPro. Not ServPro. ServPro is the, um, ServPro is the— maybe it was ServPro. Anyway, janitorial company guys come through here and I was talking to them about it and I said, you guys tell me I'm right with this. And, and they were like, yes, 100%. One of the hardest things is the amount of labor to revenue costs is just so difficult. You're running a people business. That's all people all the time. They have to show up and people cause the most problems, right? Systems and then your internet connection and your systems and your AI doesn't generally cause problems. People do, whether that's residential people from a sales perspective or whether that's internal people from your internal team.

Yeah.

So the less people, the better in some instances from, from my, my approach. But some people do really, really well managing people. So.

And that's what I've heard. And that's really the one skill set that I'm excited to lean most on through kind of the operating process. Once I actually find something that I can get closed is I'm a relationships guy. That's, that's what I enjoy most. And so if I can get a business that, for your exact reason, scares a lot of people off because it's so much people management, but that's the one area where I feel most comfortable. Seems like a little bit of leverage that I might be able to tap into.

So, you know, also tight margins, but maybe not in GovCon.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Sweet, man. Yeah. So that, that's the first one I wanted. That's interesting that you went that direction. I didn't think you would go that way, but hey, here we are. GovCon makes sense for you though, just because, right? Like preferred small business, preferred veteran. Like there's lots of opportunity there. Um, I, I think that's for everybody in any kind of GovCon contracts. I, we looked into 'em from an HVAC side. And they're so highly specific. It's wild. But from a, like an IT or cleaning or kind of these fencing services, like there's some good money to be made.

Yeah. So it stuck out. It's kind of a recent area of interest. So ask me next session, you know, I might turn away from that one. But for right now, as we're kind of redrawing the playbook, it's something that's popped out for sure.

Okay. So we said B2B, potentially high people leverage business. And then I was trying to think of what was the other one? I had one more for that. You want bigger contracts, so less poop scoop picker-upper, $50 a ticket route-based. You're looking for big purchases.

Yeah.

That's what I was going to ask. Okay. So Tier level, right? Are you looking like janitorial? I would consider a tier 1, right? That's a tier 1 business. HVAC's a tier 1 business. Plumbing's a tier 1 business. But, I was talking to someone today about a tier 2 or tier 3 business. I think it's probably tier 3. Do you have any preference? So, the tier 3 business in particular was AeroSeal. So, rather than me owning an AeroSeal equipment that pumps those, the little microbeads through your equipment, and then as it exits out the holes, they jam up and seals your ductwork. So this company, all they do as a franchise is they just go around, they get contracts with all the HVAC companies to sell it. We take a certain percentage. It was like 20%. They take the other 80%, do the work, and we just sell. So really interesting business. I mean, high ticket. They're like $5,000, $6,000 jobs, probably more in some areas where there's more ductwork. So you're making $4K per job. And then it's B2B in the sense that your sales actually aren't to the individual, even though you could probably run the residential side. The sales really are to other HVAC companies because that equipment costs like $120K. Like, it's super expensive.

No, I think that kind of that tour tier 3 concept does honestly sound appealing and I am definitely not opposed to it. I think as I'm in this process of redefining my thesis and my buy box. I think that that is, and you kind of mentioned this earlier, that we kind of start off with one vision, then get kind of pushed or pulled in certain directions based on findings and kind of the course of fate, if you will. So would I see myself targeting more of a tier 2 or tier 3 sector after kind of exploring a more tier 1 sector, just simply because those opportunities are more easy to identify? Target. There's more active listings out there. There's really more volume for me to review, which is really what I need to get back to is reviewing a high volume of deals. Could that process lead me to a more tier 2 or tier 3 sector? Absolutely. And would I be opposed to it if I came across the right opportunity? Absolutely not.

Because I mean, right, tier 2, tier 3 actually, I think, fit your personal goals a lot better, right? Tier 2, tier 3 are great businesses, Right. I love them. Water heater only business or this aerosol business or, hey, we just do pipelining businesses like astroturf only, no landscaping. They do great because they only get to like maybe $2 or $3 million top line, but they have decent margins on the bottom side. Their issue never is growth, right? They usually generally have— or excuse me, their issue is growth. They can only grow up to a certain point and then they're capped. Right? They're capped because there's only so many people who want AeroSeal at any point in time in, you know, those 4 counties. So to grow bigger, you have to go county by county by county versus a plumbing business. They're not generally capped because every house you put in, there is more plumbing, there's more toilets than, than there are businesses to be able to handle them. And so for you, because as I think that— and I don't want to speak for you here, but as somebody who has said multiple times on the show, like, hey, I'm not Jack, I'm not the hypergrowth person that you are. I'm just looking for like a nice wage, build something in my community and enjoy. Like, I think that fits really nicely because they tend to be, I don't want to say more laid-back businesses, but they tend to be simpler, right? Because you're, we just only do aerosol. We partner with HVAC companies. Like that's, that's the business model.

No. And it's, and it's funny and you, you more or less got it right in kind of my non-attachment to hypergrowth or anything like that. And again, I used to feel very guilty about I used to feel like, ah, I'm not the go-getter that Jack is out there. And I wish I— maybe I should be. Exactly. So much shame around that. But again, I think that that's— or for example, I felt a lot of guilt around specifically drawing my search around my geo area that I want to be in and be like, ah, if I was a real searcher, if I was a real go-getter, I would do a nationwide search and I'd go where the opportunity is. And it's like, nah, man, that's the beauty of ETA in general is you get to— it's like Burger King, man. You get to have it your way. Like, you know, I get to paint and say, I love where I'm living. I want to stay in this area. I want to be a pillar of this community right here. I can look at it and say, I don't have any hypergrowth needs. I don't need to do any kind of roll-up or exit strategy or something like that. I can own a well-functioning business that has consistent profitability and show up and kind of build my own nice little program. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think that I had to come to terms with that and it took a little while, but yeah, I think that for those reasons, yeah, a tier 2 could really fit my end state agenda pretty well. So yeah, excited to explore that a bit more.

No, I definitely agree. And you had it. That's the key. That's the only There's very few, there's very few benefits to actually ETA. I mean, some of the big ones are generational wealth that you can drive. That one's a given. But the other one is you build your own adventure, is have it your way, do what you want. You have to deal with the consequences. It's not, you know, free from consequences. That being said, though, like, that is the key is, again, people not—

Yeah.

being able to tell you what to do. You can make those choices, which I respect that at any point in time. So now that you— we've kind of locked down what you're looking for and kind of going back in your mindset, what strategies are you initially taking? You've talked a little bit about AI. You talked about, you know, your broker network. Where's your starting point and what is your focus? Because, right, you, you listened to the podcast last time and our advice, and that's what drove that lead, correct? It was, uh, correct.

Yeah.

A, um, somebody working to scrape data or walk us through how that last lead came to play. And then are you doing the same strategy this time or are you going to moderate it, modify it?

Yeah. As much as I wanted to target pressure washing that first time around, pressure washing is so small and there's so many kind of like local yokel, small-timey operators that I was like, I can't cast my net that tiny. So I included pressure washing and painting because those two tend to play off of each other. So I had someone scrape data, found someone on Upwork to go find me every pressure washing and painting company in my 4 counties. And I kind of gave them some guidelines because as much as I'd love to, like, businesses aren't going to post what their revenue is on their websites. Would be nice. Yeah. It'd be super nice, but not the case. So I said, hey, listen, look for site images that have team pictures, look for branded trucks on their websites and webpages, et cetera. So kind of look for the descriptions of what kind of contracts they service. So I kind of gave them some guidance of what to look for and said, go find me everybody. Went chugging through that list and Yeah, I ended up getting in touch with the operator who's like, are you a broker? Like, what's your deal? And me like, no, I'm like, I'm trying to buy a business. Like, oh, because we're actively trying to sell, our last buyer just fell out and we're about to take it back to market. So I was curious. I'm like, oh my God, this couldn't be more perfect. So yeah, that's kind of how that one ended up not really falling into my lap because it took a lot of building a machine and working that machine to get there. But when it When it tips and it falls, it really does seem like it happens all at once.

Yeah, but not— I mean, yeah, it was a machine. It took a little bit of work from a systematic point of view, but from like a— the ability for someone else listening to copy that, it wasn't like— that's not an overly expensive—

No, cost me $150. I think I had to pay that guy on Upwork.

So $150 to drive, scrape all that data. If you're hyper-focused on a specific industry or a specific area, it's a really easy thing for somebody to do. The SOP is not hard to generate for that individual either. And so great opportunity to copy that strategy, utilize the strategy. And my favorite thing is you mentioned like, how do we focus some of our AI initiatives moving forward? And, you know, I'm, I'm the anti— I love AI, but I'm the anti-AI guy in this case because the amount of AI garbage that we get Daily, weekly, hourly. Like my inbox is just full of it. It's, hey, are you selling your business? Hey, are you selling your business? And I think that's an opportunity. And I've said it before on here and anybody listening, I'll say it again. The opportunity is to write something unique to somebody, a business owner, because anything that's actually unique gets through and people read it because it's different and unique. My LinkedIn inbox has 25 35, 45 different messages that are AI, AI, AI, AI, mass-produced, mass-produced, mass-produced, mass-produced. But if you said, hey Jack, I saw you on, on Jackquisitions and, um, you know, I was curious about this, you know, you talk a lot about your business and da da da da da, I wanted to know this, this, and this, and, and hey, we are looking to buy the business, are you interested in selling? They'd at least get an answer back, you know what I mean? Like, I think it would take more time up front to do from a time sink, but you would actually get a response from me rather than a vomit generation that we usually get, word generation vomit coming from ChatGPT. So probably one of the most important decisions you can make in your ETA journey is which SBA lender you are going to pick, a lender who will be in your corner to get you closed on the deal as well as set you up for future expansion. That is why we partnered with Alan Peterson from First Internet Bank. He and his team take a how can we approach, as well as I personally know they specialize in home service acquisitions. Mention the show or my handsome bald head and receive a reduced good faith deposit, as well as a detailed deal review and maybe even a buy side prequalification. No strings attached. Head on over to alanfib.com. That's A-L-A-N-F-I-B.com, or click the link below to get connected.

Sure. And I think that wasn't really so much my vision on how to use AI, and I'm still very infantile in kind of how to go about using that tool for what I'm looking for. But I've like, and I'll be using AI for something and it'll suggest like, do you want me to draft this for you? I'm like, no, I hate your wording. I like my words. I like, It's sounding like a human, not things sounding like you. So I would still be kind of drafting any mass email blasts. It's more how do I use them to kind of automate responses, kind of automate who's getting response, automate traction, automate kind of results, KPIs, stuff like that, metrics more I could follow than the actual messaging that I still am very intent on coming from me. And as far as kind of that personalized, I mean, because that's in the, I was actually just rereading the HBR Guide to Buying a Business today, which is like the Bible. And so it was kind of talking about this approach of mass blasting letters and emails and all this stuff out there versus doing it in a personalized fashion and kind of the pros and cons of each. And I think you really have to do both to do it effectively. And the Machine Gunners have a phrase which I love, which is accuracy by volume. Like you gotta throw enough rounds downrange to hope that something will hit eventually. So I think that doing Tangentially, it's alongside with personalized outreach for more kind of targeted businesses that I really want to chase. Being able to kind of juggle both, I think, is what I'm looking to do on my next round of searching.

I will say that it has to at least somewhat work. Somebody has the secret sauce somewhere because, I mean, otherwise everyone wouldn't do it. So I've seen it with mailers. I've seen people, you know, they're hoping for that 1%. I think where my point comes across though, or where I'm really trying to drive across for most searchers out there, is that you're not going to be able to generate that volume. It's, hey, if it is a 1%, which I would probably argue it's less than that—

Oh yeah.

For a good business, because we've run those campaigns before and we've seen 4 to 6 to 8 leads and they're all really hot garbage. I'm talking to one right now. I'm not under NDA because he's a solo shop that shut down. So mind you, he has shut down his shop. Not that it's still going. He's had it down for about 6 months now and it did $370,000 in top line. He wants $300,000 for it, for his business. That's no— and that's just his book of business and his 50 reviews.

Right.

So that's some of the stuff you get. Um, but yeah, knock off about 5 zeros and we could talk. But, uh, yeah, exactly. So, you know, volume does work. Um, it has to. But the volume that you and I would have to generate to be able to get that is like— and, and not to mention, like, they— I don't think that that volume is in the Fort Worth area, or not Fort Worth, um, Fort Lauderdale or Fort Myers area. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have 100 HVAC businesses in that county, so how would you even get to that 1% type of stuff? And then the one that is going to write isn't, you know, is not the one you want.

No, I 100% agree. And again, I think that relying on, again, as much as it's a grind and a slog, that personalized pick up the phone and call somebody. Yeah, it's a grind. It's a slog. It's not always fun, but it's, that's kind of my bread and butter coming from a real estate brokerage, coming from a VP of acquisitions background. Like, That's what I do is I pick up the phone and I dial for dollars and I, you know, I talk to people. So, you know, it's something I'm always— it's always going to continue to be my bread and butter. I guess my question is doing more of a mass volume approach and kind of getting that machine gunner's mentality of accuracy by volume and throwing stuff out there. Does it hurt you? You know, it might not be the most effective route, but is it something if, especially if I can automate it and kind of have it going on passively on the side, Is it something that works against me in any way? And it very well could, even from an opportunity cost standpoint, or maybe it's, oh, I recognize your name. I get the freaking junk emails from you. There are ways it could run counter to what I'm trying to do, but seems like it also couldn't hurt to have it go on my side.

That's actually a fair point. I don't think it hurts you. I don't know of a single name that I saw that has given me that junk mail.

Yeah.

I mean, if it came from like a branded something or another, maybe, but most of the time it's some search group doing some search thing and that's what you get and you don't remember any of it. So I'm with you on that one actually, that it probably doesn't hurt. And there's a— you increase, right? There's different types of luck. There's a whole— there was a whole book on it. I, I'm not going to speak to it because I didn't read the book, but I heard someone give a synopsis once, which is solid work to, uh, give people advice on a podcast with. But essentially there's multiple different types of luck and like just trying something increases your chance for that type of luck. So, I mean, you can't, it can't hurt you. And if it increases your chance of getting lucky and someone seeing the right email at the right place at the right time, why not? Small cost association probably as well. That was a solid bit, guys. Everybody, if you want to clip that and say whenever I think I'm talking about something that Uh, is important. Just, just send me that and be like, Jack, shut up. Something about some luck, about some fucking thing. Get it? Good times.

Stolen Valor. Stolen.

Yeah, I now have to go read the book. So sweet, guys. Um, awesome, man. Uh, I'm really excited to see you getting back into this. I mean, I, I'm sorry, I don't think for all the listeners out there and for you, Chris, I'm, I'm I'm giving our chances of getting this closed by December 31st pretty little, but I'm hopeful.

I am too. And you never know. But I think that was the other good kind of light bulb that came on is researching a lot of averages. I think the standard is like 18 months for a search is what it takes a lot of people out there. 2 years is not uncommon. So, you know, heck, if I am where I am at this point, I'm not too far off track. I still feel confident we'll get something closed. Am I going to meet your 1-year timeline? I wish I could, Jack. I'm not super hopeful myself, but—

That being said, it's also, you also like, I mean, I think I killed 3 deals, man. Like we killed 3 deals before we found our gem, which wasn't that good. So like it happens. This is kind of what I'm getting at is you like nothing that's happening in your timeline. Outside of the fact that we put a very, very, um, you know, fast and, and loose, uh, timeline on you, you know, it's normal. So enjoy. Um, I'm excited to see what comes next and if, if we start to drive, you know, new areas and new locations and new, um, industries. So it's gonna be fun.

Yeah, that'll be exciting. I'm excited to keep you guys posted.

Awesome, Chris. Well, thanks for joining us, and thank you listeners for joining us today. Um, we're almost at 300 subs on YouTube. Big stuff. If you like what you heard, like, subscribe, share, pretend you're gonna share to YouTube. Just copy the link and say, hey, we're gonna share this, and then never share it with anybody. Um, need to trick that algorithm into getting us in front of people. We appreciate y'all, and, uh, see you next time.

Bye.