Episode #639 - Getting Tech-Driven Results with Eric J. Gall, Founder at Edison Business Advisors

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

And I've heard that it's going to be very, very useful in basically creating the raw material for you to, you know, the stuff that, you know, when we have to speak or we write a book or we do anything, you know, you start accumulating your pile of, of information that you want to cover or sort through and, and then when it comes time to actually do it, then you dig in and say, what do we have? Let's sort through it, make sense out of it. But AI seems to be able to help with that first, first stage and probably do the first stage a whole lot better than you would yourself. But then you can put your twists on everything. You got the foundational stuff, but then you can put your twist on it, which really adds value and makes it a quality product. But it's, it's going to be, seems like it's going to be bland. And the way I just, I, I find most books on winning out there in the marketplace, like written by a sixth grader who just learned how to do something successfully. You know, it's like this is the answer, you know, it's like somebody who's got, you know, a trading philosophy. It worked one time in the market. This is how you do it, you know, follow my trading principles, you know, and, and then that cycle might not come again, you know, around for 17 more years. But you don't know that, you know, you think it's always going to work that way.

It's, I think it, you know, I think that's in, you know, in every industry, you know, there's some guy out there who did something right once and, you know, probably did it wrong 10 times, who's written a book and they're celebrated as some hero, you know, and I get everybody going here, why don't you write a book? You know, you should write a book about this or write about that. I'm like, I'm too busy doing deals to write a book. You know, if I slowed down and I didn't want to do deals anymore, I didn't want to help buyers, help sellers, then, yeah, it makes sense for me to write a book. But, you know, right now, why would I do that? I've got, you know, I've got a full plate as it is.

Well, you hit the nail on the head about Why I wanted to do this is because I find that, you know, listening and being, hearing things from high achievers are just priceless to people on the way up, however, it's hard to get the things you're telling, you know, we talk about on, on these podcasts. Most of it is never. Has never really been discussed with the people, with their own people, their own team, because you're busy doing stuff. They don't know how you think, how you evaluate. You know, when you get into a situation, you know, how you unravel it and find the, the, the, the key thing to go for. And the, you know, the, the first question ask, you know, they. There, you're. You're busy doing it. You know, let's. We're. We're on the attack. And so this is why these types of conversations can be so incredibly useful. Because, you know, this, this kind of thinking gets addressed and once you hear it, it's not rocket science, you know, it just makes, so most of the stuff makes perfect sense once you hear it, you know, it's like, duh. But, you know, somehow I didn't think about that before, you know, and so what's been the biggest. I'm going to get into these awards after this, but what's been the biggest help for you in terms of accelerating your development, personally?

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of odd. I had a, you know, when I was working on that, on that with that Main street firm.

Yeah.

You know, my broker used to tell a story about, you know, the certifications you can get in the industry. And he was telling me a story about a guy who, you know, was sitting outside the door while another individual was in there, you know, and he was listening to what he was telling, you know, the board of directors, and he was telling them that, you know, make sure that you get someone who's certified in this craft, you know, because he saw the other guy outside the door who he knew wasn't certified. And, and he, you know, because they asked him, what is the one question we should ask any, you know, all the other brokers we interview make sure that, you know, they have a certified business intermediary certification. And so the guy left and the other guy walked in, and sure enough, the question came up and they asked him, you know, what kind of certifications do you. Do I. Do you have? And he says, well, I have the jfbi. And they're like, what's that? He's like, well, while all these other brokers are out getting their cbi, I was, I was just out there just effing doing it. But that said, I still went and got all the certifications, and I do think they're valuable and I do think they're a differentiator, you know, which goes back to a lesson I learned in Ford Motor Company from a great mentor I had there. And he said, you know, if you're looking at marketing yourself or a product or anything, you know, you're one of three things. You're either cheaper, you're different, or you're better. And if you can, you know, convert on two of those and convince your audience on that, you're, you know, on two of those, you know, you're going to dominate the market. So no one wants to be cheaper, so you better be better and different. Right? Yeah, right. That's always been a focus to me.

And so let's talk about the. One of the ways of differentiating is, and establishing your credentials is these awards tell us the stories of how you got going on that. And, and you know, that seems like it's a significant part of your background and your, your life, you know.

Well, a lot of it is just, you know, being, you know, a member of an association that gives out awards. Right. So I, you know, there's three I belong to. One is the Business Brokers of Florida. Right. So that's our state association, which I mentioned earlier, with over 900 brokers in the state of Florida. There's the International Business Brokers association, which, you know, is international in scope. Right. You know, it's probably about three times the size as our BBF group. And then there's Mergers and Acquisition Source, which is a lower middle market group that I belong to too. So having three memberships and then selling a lot of businesses tends to win you a lot of awards from all three of them.

Yeah. And so why would you. They don't just give the award to everybody in there, but that is an environment in which you can compete and win awards for performance, which is what you want to be doing anyway. And it keeps your competition competitive juices flowing. You can measure yourself against other people. And why did you get in the international thing? I mean, you, you sell internationally?

Yeah, ibba. Well, you know, I don't sell internationally per se. You know, it's mostly the greater 48 states. But IBBA, I would say probably 90% of 90% of its membership is North America. You know, 10% is Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia. So it's still predominantly a US based organization. But, you know, they Certainly invite everyone around the world to join. But there in 2021, at 32 million that I sold did get me second place.

Fantastic. Talk about selling 12 businesses in 2021. Did you have time to swim?

That's, you know, it's pretty normal deal volume for me is to do, you know, 10 to 12 deals a year, you know, so that, you know, it just was kind of the perfect storm of a year when I've got a lot of great inventory of larger deals. The largest deal I did, you know, was a machine shop up in Pennsylvania. That one was, know, 15 million, so almost half of that, 32 million total, you know. And I did, you know, several other, you know, businesses kind of in that, you know, two to six million dollars range as well, you know, and those were businesses such as, you know, electrical contractors. I did a medical billing business. You know, I did, you know, even some small ones in there too that weren't very large. I think I did an $80,000 restaurant, you know, that was a resale for a friend of mine. So, you know, it kind of ran the gamut of a bunch of different, you know, businesses, different sizes. But, you know, I had a lot more alcohol, lower middle market deals than I normally would get. I like to have, you know, you know, anywhere from four to six of those every year and then balance the rest out with Main street stuff that's local here in Florida.

What's the biggest learning experience that you've had from going through these, these deals recently, let's say, or that comes to mind, you know, that, that, that you wind up telling people about more than others. Because, you know, when you started talking, you said, well, I can talk about stories all day long, you know, but usually come from adventures you've had, things you've accomplished and stuff like that.

Well, you know, I mentioned, you know, people learn from failure. I have very, very few deals that once I get them under contract, actually don't transact. But I did have one earlier this year that didn't, you know, and it was a little bit of a lesson learned. And it was a dental practice and the dentist created, you know, a phenomenal business. And we had a buy. I had a buyer engaged right away. They made him a great offer. He liked the offer. And we started through the due diligence phase. And, you know, I occasionally ask him, is everything going well? And he said, yeah, it's going fine, you know, but it was, I was going fine, not it's going fine. Yeah, I'm happy. There's just like a Little hesitation in his voice, and I never pushed it hard enough. Yeah, you know, I would say something like, you sure? Are you sure? And he'd say, yep, I'm okay. And we got about a week before the closing. And he said, I can't. I can't sell to these guys. And I asked him, well, wait a minute, we're a week away from closing. What's changed? And he said, well, they never brought their chief clinician in to meet me. I never got to talk to a dentist, you know, a fellow dentist, about what their plans are for my practice and what it, you know, what their philosophy is versus mine. So I, I've talked to all these finance types, but never someone like me. And I'm just not comfortable with that. And I said, well, what if we bring someone in, you know, you know, tell them, you know, here's an opportunity to correct it. Bring them in and, you know, see what they can. They can do. And he's like, well, no, they kind of upset my landlord friend because they came in guns, ablazing and telling, trying to tell him exactly what to do. So I don't feel comfortable there either. Well, by the time, you know, I got through the entire conversation, there were three, you know, issues that he. That I knew existed, but I wasn't. But he would always say he was okay.

Yeah.

And the reality is he wasn't right. And I kind of had it in the back of my mind that, you know, his eagerness to sell would overcome those.

Yeah.

Things. But it didn't. So that's probably the, the, you know, most recent lesson I've learned is that, you know, trust your intuition. When you think there might be something wrong, dig into it. Make sure you don't let that problem fester.

You know, most successful people are second guessed all the way through their lives. Have you run into that? You know, in terms of trust? You're learning to trust your intuition because that's, you know, that's ref. That's refined over the years from failure as well as success. And, you know, you've, you only got some, you know, one thing to go on, and that is trust your instinct. You, you go into business for yourself, so you, you can be the one to make those decisions. You know, they're not always right, but along the way, you get second glance. You know, one thing is, I'm just glad I was not cut, called out to be a politician, because every time, you know, you can, you can turn the biggest parrot. You could take Mother Teresa, turn her into a demon, you Know what I'm saying? That Mother Teresa, she was out there. Sure. She was dressed out like that, you know, and, you know, make, you know, make up all kind of bad things about anybody. And it just, you know, I take it all personal myself, you know, like they're attacking somebody. I know they're really clean cut. They say, oh, sure, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like you just want to strangle them, but you can't, you know, and you to be able to just shrug that off, I find very difficult a lot of the time, but not usually for me personally. But when they're around, they're attacking people around me that I know that I want to protect, you know, but that, that hur. And, but there's no way to. I guess second guessing is a good thing. It keeps us on track and keeps us honest. What do you think?

Well, you know, any, anytime you, you know, something happens and you don't get the result or goal you want, you know, you know, going back through the process of what went wrong.

Yeah.

You know, and figuring out, okay, here's the lesson learned, you know, here's the corrective and preventive actions I can take in the future to keep it from, you know, reoccurring, you know, is an important part of the, the process. So as a process engineer, again, you know, that's a big part of, you know, what I do. So, you know, those, those check boxes, you know, are now into my process, you know, to make sure that, you know, if it's a dental practice or something similar or a medical related practice, you know, that chief clinician or that key person that, you know, faces off with, you know, the owner, you know, is someone that they get to talk to and share philosophies with and bond before the transaction's complete.

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