How to Buy Your Company with Someone Else’s Money & Create Multiple Liquidation Events

Welcome to the entrepreneurial rollercoaster.

Steel was the highest value and the most secured deal that we've ever put together.

I've never seen strategies like this before.

In every business I've ever worked with, we've been able to find hidden money very quickly.

You're a dream for business owners and entrepreneurs because of what you do.

I took it from a seven figure deal to an eight figure deal. That's 70% increase. You're leaving so much money on the table if you don't at least consider this.

You think upside down, sideways, back and forth, same time is pretty fun.

Get some help where you need help.

Yeah, I think that's a good setup for the big strategy that we're going to reveal next.

Hey. Welcome to another episode of Capability Amplifier. This is Mike Koenigs, and I have a very special guest for you today. Let me tell you what. What I'm so excited about, and that is if you're a business owner, you know how hard it is to grow, and much or all of your net worth is tied up in your business and it's at risk. Welcome to the entrepreneurial roller coaster. So imagine being able to grow your business and buy revenue at a discount with someone else's money. And if that made your head spin, I promise you're gonna really enjoy this. Now also, being able to take money off the table without losing control or ownership of your own business, or even being able to get a stack of cash right now by buying your business from yourself with someone else's money. So Corin has invented a system called billion dollar exits, and he has a unique combination of skills and has created some strategies that I've absolutely never seen before. So his simple way and unique way of pairing business owners with money, finding ways to accelerate and multiply the value of a business using a series of strategies that he calls value multipliers. What I love about his strategies is he creates a situation for you as a business owner to have multiple exits. So you're gonna learn a lot in this episode, so take lots of notes. And he also has a great giveaway that we'll share at the end of the episode. So welcome. It's nice to have you here today.

Thanks for having me, Mike. This is fun.

All right, well, it's been a ton of fun for me because I've been able to be with you and your wife Leanne over the past three days. We've really dug deep into your business, what you do, how you do it, and I swear to you, I've never Seen strategies like this before. It's super exciting.

Yeah. Thank you.

All right, so I think the first way to get rolling before we get into the meat is talk a little bit about how you got into this business in the first place. And what do you call the business you're in?

The business is called billion dollar exits dot com. And essentially what we do or how we got to this point is I've always been fascinated with billionaires. What it took to become a billionaire. Billion dollar exits, really big business sales. So building a business and then selling it for some reason, I've just always been fascinated in this, even from being a little kid. So a little bit strange as you call us all aliens. Right?

Yeah, right. That's right. Well, I mean, it's like, I mean, the moment we met, I was like, there's a guy I've known all my life. You know, it was my reaction. And you know, you're, you're a dream for business owners and entrepreneurs because of what you do. You just think, you think upside down, sideways, back and forth the same time. It's pretty fun. So keep going.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've always been fascinated in this, this topic. And when my wife and I left Australia nine years ago now to travel the world, we wanted to find a way to keep, keep on the road, keep traveling and not be tied down to a location. So we left our corporate jobs behind, started buying, building and selling online businesses because that's location independent. And at the same time, a lot of my friends were asking me, how do you buy businesses? How do you sell businesses? Believe it or not, my first engagement, I actually got paid in lunch. I got lunch for free in Berlin, which was very nice. So that's how I kind of got started, became a sell side advisor. And my whole thing was when I had businesses I wanted to exit, I wanted them sold. I didn't want to list them, I didn't want to think about selling them. I just got an asset to sell. Let's sell it. So that was the whole, that was the whole thing.

All right. And I think getting there is also an interesting journey. So just the fact that you've been fascinated and modeled and study a lot of billionaires, you're a big reader, I know that about you. But your origin story itself, that led to having a lot of sales jobs. Why are you so good at selling? Maybe that's the best way I can set this up.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, my first memory of selling. I haven't told you this yet. First memory or recollection of selling. I was raised a Jehovah's Witness, so I was door knocking from a very young age. I believe this was about 3 years old. I was with a family friend. Door knocking. I guess when you have a little kid you can sell more magazines or something, I don't know. And knocked on this door. We're in New Zealand. My dad's a Kiwi. And this, he must have been 7 foot tall. I don't know. I was a very small, small kid. He looked about 7ft tall to me. Had Maori tattoos on his face. So tribal tattoos, motorcycles on the front. So much so that the person I was with took a step back when the door opened and I sold him the magazine. I didn't care. I'm like, this guy's buying this thing anyway.

So, so, and, and. All right, that's actually a great story. No, you didn't tell me that. That's really funny. So let's. The other question I had for you is I know you've gone through the pain as well of being a business owner and you had what I call the eight figures figure debacle. So I think that's a good setup for the big strategy that we're going to reveal next.

Yeah, absolutely. So as I mentioned, we started out as sell side advisors. So I was really. My whole focus was how do we sell the businesses we take to market. And the first eight figure deal we worked on actually was a debacle as you said. We focused on what we'd done before to sell businesses, but it just wasn't enough. And when this deal didn't close, I took it very personally.

In a lot of ways. But it also led me on a quest. It's been over four years now, spent over half a million dollars trying to figure out what it is that takes that causes billion dollar plus deals to close. And can we bring that to smaller businesses and also model billion dollar exits for small to medium businesses?

All right, and so what's the bad story? What's the debacle?

Yeah, absolutely. So we had everything lined up. We found a great business to sell. It was growing, found the right buyer, right fit, Everything was set up. And three days before close, it was actually a Father's Day. We had a final call three days before close. Everything was looking fine. And then the buyer called me and said, we need to renegotiate the deal. There was nothing actually wrong with the business. It was on the buy side. They had an issue and it was completely out of my control and I was the bad guy. Basically because I'm the middleman. So, yes, it was a very horrific experience. The client had also spent a ton of money because we were so close to close and I never wanted to go through that again. And, and that's really led to where we are now.

Got it.

Yeah.

And I know, speaking from experience, the pain of selling a business. We've talked about this for the past couple days. It's time kills deals. And I've been 8, 9, 10 months into due diligence. And of course, during that time we took our eye off the ball. The value, my sales declined because we, we were getting prepped for a sale. We'd already spent the money in our minds, you know, changed our lifestyle in our minds. And then the buyer wants to renegotiate or the deal falls apart. And I know you and I have talked about that. So let's talk about happy things because I want to talk about the billion dollar exit strategy that you have. And I think this is one of your really unique strategies that you've developed over time. I've never seen anything like it. So once you set it up with a good story, you know, one of the clients that you've done this with, and then let's tear the strategy apart.

Yeah, absolutely. So something I always like to do when I start working with client is figuring out when is the right time to sell. We often start with not selling as the baseline and then move forward from there. So about two, two and a half years ago, started working with this client that we're thinking about. How do we prepare for the eventual sale? How do we make sure we get the maximum value out of that deal? Fast forward a couple of years. They called me up and they said, hey, what if we, we're really good at what we do operationally, we're good. What if we started acquiring smaller brands and growing via acquisition? So this started the conversation again. I did my usual try to sense check. Are you really sure you want to do this? Because this is a big undertaking. And fast forward, I guess the, the takeaway of this one is help them raise $55 million. They're well on their way now to 100 million in revenue and in a very short period of time.

Yeah, just, just for the record, we spoke with them yesterday and about how much time from the time you got them their money had they climbed from where they were to nearly 100 million? I think context is really important here.

It's going to sound unreal, but about three months.

Yeah, it's totally, totally crazy. And when you hear the strategy, it's going to make a lot of sense. So bear with us here. Okay, keep going.

Yeah, so part of the, part of the strategy we came up with with them, I guess the background is I like to figure out how to do something, not follow the beaten path so much as how else could we do this. So one of the things I knew would be an issue. They had built a business to eight figures in revenue and they wanted to essentially create a new business to go acquire in the same category. And I knew this was going to be an issue for the investors. I'm an investor myself as a you. We want our companies we invest in to be really focused on what they're doing. Right. We don't want to split focus and we also want to share in the upside with them. So one of the things we came up with was what if we created a way to acquire the business that built. So the founders took the chips off the table, raised capital so other people's money to go and acquire other brands, other businesses. And that's what we, we did.

All right. And just to contextualize this a little bit, so here they are, they're moving along, they're selling products, they built this eight figure business, they want to grow and instead of selling traditional equity, and I think that's another thing, is the vehicle. The method here was brilliant. You bought the own business, so they got paid. They at least got that relief which any business owner knows. It's like God, if I just had a few million dollars in my bank account that I could use for whatever my lifestyle is, or, or, or, you know, it's like, God, you might spend five or 10 years building it, but then, so.

The new business bought the old business effectively, even though it's the same one, you grab money. But then it got more interesting because what'd you do with the money?

Yeah, absolutely. So then they went and bought ebitda. So they bought other companies to scale the business much faster. So at, in that same three month period, if they were just organically growing, they would have had to invest more capital back into the business, not been able to take millions of dollars off the table and grow like everyone else does and still have that, that fear of what if everything goes away tomorrow. So this strategy is completely the opposite of that. They take some chips off the table, significant chips off the table, using a vehicle, mostly based on debt. So took out a loan basically to acquire their business and an additional line of $55 million to go and acquire other businesses. Quite fascinating. Yeah.

I think again, the way I like to frame it is imagine you had a business and you know how hard it is to grow organically. It's slogging. You've got everything at risk. It feels like all the time, having done that for 30 years, it's a grind. And thinking like one dumb mistake and it's going to cost me a huge part of my net worth. That's what happens to most entrepreneurs. It happened to me multiple times. So you come along and say instead of selling what you have and maybe having, by the time you pay your taxes and attorneys, accountants and everything else, there's not a lot left over. And it's like there's no way you can live on that. And it's like, I'm going to pick my lifestyle. You know, there's just so many choices to make. So here you can grow, use someone else's money and grow with someone else's revenue. And one of the things that you've shared is it's also possible to buy businesses that are bigger than yours. So why don't you talk a little bit about thinking beyond where you are because that is another mind expanding exercise.

Yeah, absolutely. I guess most entrepreneurs, and I've been guilty of this myself, probably still am, to be completely honest, is we think about what we have, not about what's possible. So most people think, okay, if I'm going to go raise money for my business, it's about my business. The counterintuitive thing is there's more capital available for larger businesses because it's harder to. It's hard to grow assets to scale. So if you have a great operation team, a great vision, a great niche that you're in, as these clients are, you could actually go and find larger businesses to acquire. And it's easier to raise capital for a large business that's an ongoing concern, especially in the form of debt, where you don't need to give up equity, which means you maintain the bulk of the equity and if not all of the equity in the business you're growing. Right. So that's quite cool to think about. It's not about the size, it's about the strategy, the vision and finding the right partners as well.

Yes. And that's ultimately what you're great at. So let's do a couple more case studies because I think the fastest way to reveal some of the wisdom and the nuance is through those. And then we'll go through the process you go through to get people there. In your case, there's a three Day strategy system for going through and actually exercising and getting a big chunk of this done. So let's have at it. What's another case study?

Sure. So we had a client in the home improvement space. They were looking to sell their business and in this case they didn't want to do a lot of prep work. They just wanted to go. They'd done a lot of things right in the business. It was a target target focused, target market, highly profitable, growing, lots of room to grow. So we knew that there'd be a lot of buyers that are interested in this business. We took that business to market multiple bids. Through our process, our team managed to negotiate a 70% increase. 70 from the initial round of offers to where we closed and a very quick close, under 70 days total until everyone got paid. And also in the type of business it was, we've formally just focused on E commerce and Amazon based businesses. So being a single channel that limits value and this deal was the highest value and the most secured deal that we've ever put together. So it was a massive deal. It took it from a seven figure deal to an eight figure deal. That's 70% increase that the team negotiated with the buyer. And yeah, that was a great deal.

All right, so why don't you talk a little bit about why did you get so much extra money and where did you find some of the hidden money or help the buyer find that hidden money? Why were you able to get so much more?

Yeah, one of the pieces I forgot to mention was before going to market, before going through the process, the client had actually been approached by multiple buyers and they'd actually convinced them that selling or only taking 50% of the value at close was a good idea. So much so that they said to us, hey, we want to just take 50% of the deal value at close. We said, no, no, that's crazy, we're not going to do that. So through the process part of the negotiation, one offer was actually nine times earnings, which sounds like a great deal. But the terms sucked. They were very little cash at close, a lot at risk. So one of the things we always focus on with our clients and depending on who the buyer is, what the situation is, one of the main levers is how do we secure as much cash at close and then whatever is left outstanding as far as deal structure, how do we guarantee that that's going to be paid or have some security there that that's going to be paid? Right. So effectively, as I mentioned to you yesterday, we want that cash at Close to be a hell yes number at minimum. Right. And then anything else is really a bonus and that's what we manage to do here. Obviously by having multiple buyers, we were able to create a bidding war. But by using our deal analysis spreadsheet and our experience, we were able to focus on the right things to negotiate as opposed to just the sticker price, which is the deal value, which most people just focus on a multiple or what's that? Total deal value.

Got it.

Okay.

All right, next case study. This one is actually in the electronics business.

Yeah, absolutely. So this was a 30 year old family, multi generational business, used to be a brick and mortar store, became an online business and due to a couple of changes in the, in the industry, in their supply chain, they actually, the two brothers that own the business, wanted to sell the business very quickly. There was a change happening. They needed to sell, they didn't want to put in the work to basically turn the business around. So my team and I got our heads together and we said, okay, who, who's the perfect fit for this deal? So what we were looking for was someone with strategic leverage here. They needed infrastructure leverage and they also needed ideally to be in the space or want to get into the space. So what we managed to do in a very short period of time was find a, a buyer that was really perfect for this situation. They had the infrastructure that this business needed to continue growing and they also were in the space so they wanted access to these customers that was cross selling, upselling opportunities. So it was really lightning in a bottle in a very short space of time. And what I learned on this one is sometimes in some situations there is only one buyer. I normally say one is none when it comes to deal making, but in some situations one is all you need. And if they're the right fit, they're going to pay a good amount for that business. And the clients were actually surprised with how much they got paid at the end of the day, which is a pretty great story.

Yeah, no, I remember you sharing that. Worked out to be roughly double what they had anticipated. And other than picking the right buyer, was there any other big lessons from that and what wound up happening?

Yeah, so the biggest lesson, there's a number of lessons from this one, but timing can be a really important thing. As you mentioned before, time kills deals. So if there is a special situation like this one, you really need to move fast. You can't mess around. In this case, there was an inventory based business. So they were literally running out of inventory on even Some of their top sellers as we were going through the diligence process also the, the clients had not kept their books 100% clean. So there was some errors found in the, in the process which did impact the price. Luckily we were still up so much that it was, it was fine. It was still a great deal for everyone.

All right, all right, good. And the next one you have is also in the consumer space.

I want you to deconstruct this one as well. So tell us a little bit about the deal, what the strategy was and how you put it together.

Yeah, absolutely. So this one was great. It was a husband and wife that owned this, this business. It was a travel business and, or in the travel space right before the pandemic I might might add. So we spoke to them. When we first spoke to this, this business, the profitability was so low. A lot of things were just wrong in the business basically and it was almost unsellable at that point in time. If they had a push to really sell, we maybe could have found someone. But what we did, we gave them, we, we dug into the business, we found a few levers to pull. So in this case they'd essentially created too many products. So their product suite was too broad. They hadn't really looked after, they weren't focused on profitability, which is a big no, no when you're going to sell, when you're scaling, that's a different thing. But when you're going to sell, you really want as much profit as possible. So they had too many SKUs weren't focused on profitability. So we got them to go through on a SKU by SKU level to see what's really selling, what's not, liquidate what wasn't selling as best they could and also look at pricing. So could they raise prices? Could they optimize their profitability? So in this one, in over a nine month period, just by focusing on those two levers and one other which was actually getting their books in order, three things there, they took them from roughly a 9% net margin to 23% net margin when we went to sell. Now that sounds good, but it doesn't. What was the result? The result was almost six times the value of where they started in a nine month period to when they sold. Then they could have actually got more. I think if they had have waited until the new year, although that was right when the pandemic happened. But no one would have seen that coming.

No, no, for sure, for sure. So why don't you talk a little Bit about this one, you found a strategic buyer. And I think that's the other thing is picking the right buyer with the right kind of pain can result in much bigger margins. So talk a little bit about that, and then we'll get into the levers of the dials themselves and what the 10 big ones are that you do.

Yeah, absolutely. So in this case, specifically the buyer, we had multiple bids on this business as well. Multiple buyers interested, which was great. The buyer that ended up winning, they went just that little bit further. And the reason for that was they had infrastructure that. And they were. Their main business was actually in a restricted category. So they had potential issues coming up. They didn't know if they were going to be able to continue operating their business as it had been, but they had infrastructure. They had staff in the same city in Chicago, actually, which is where the. The clients were living.

So they came and visited the clients. They did all the nice stuff to get to know them and say, hey, we can take this over and expand. So they were actually looking for not only a way to grow, but also some downside protection in case the legislation changed and they couldn't no longer do their main business.

Yeah. So I think, you know, framing a deal and knowing who's in pain and how to give them upside is a big part of that brand story. So any other big lessons learned from that particular transaction?

We found a lot of hidden money in this business by going through our process before it was fully fleshed out into the ten dials. We found a lot of hidden money in this business just by focusing on the right levers and as you say, the pills inside the bottle can't read the label. As business owners, it's really hard for us to look at our business objectively, and especially if we don't have the context of benchmarking against other industries or even our own industry. In some cases, we don't know how our business would compare. So having a third party come in and help with experience to say, this is how, this is how it looks, this is what we can do about it. It can have a massive result. And if you don't do that step, you're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Got it. All right, well, let's transition to more of the process and the levers and the dials we're talking about, you develop 10 that you look at when you're prepping a business for sale. And to set this up a little bit like two of my businesses, I sold with a broker, and both experiences Were stunk.

They were ultimately someone who I felt provided very little value.

They presented bad deals with. We had to sift through them all. They weren't great coaches. They didn't provide any value for us to increase the value of the transaction, really. I mean, all they did is they were matchmakers. And like I said, if you. It was sort of like we had to go on eight bad dates to go on one good one. And even that, you know, wasn't awesome. But.

So that's one side of this. And then when you work with financiers, whether it's VCs, private equity, et cetera, et cetera, there's a whole bag of other bad things that goes along with that. And you've created this really fascinating hybrid model. So why don't you talk a little bit about how you workshop people to growth and selling, because that's part of what makes this unique. And then what happens next. Is that an okay setup?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so hit it. How do you. How does someone work with you and teach us the dials and the levers inside of the context of that?

So would it be helpful to work through the days of the workshop and the actual points?

I think that would be great because it's sort of like, okay, my goal, I'll set this up. Let's pretend I have a business, and I may or may not even know what it's worth or whether or not it's saleable. So that's one. Or I've had my net worth tied up in it for a really long time, and I want to take some chips off the table, but I may or may not want to sell it, and I don't even know what's possible. And then I would like to find some money, but I don't even know where to start. And I also know that I should be making or keeping more money, but I'm not, and I need someone to guide me. So those are some of the scenarios. I'm sure there's a dozen more. Are there any others that you'd want to set up here for like a typical individual you're working with, which is, you know, maybe you want to be acquired or, you know, whatever it is. Are there any other scenarios I'm missing or living up?

Yeah, absolutely. So something I come across quite a lot is clients that they see a lot of upside in their business. They're not at a level where they think they want to sell and they. They don't know how to. It seems like such a leap to get where they want to go and they don't know how to get there. That's another.

So the bottom line is they have a number in their head. I was, you know, it's the FU number. It's like, what do I want to walk away with by the time I pay everyone, which I don't even know what that's going to cost, and I pay taxes and other things I don't even know about, and then walk away with X so I can live happily ever after or at least have a break, a mental break before I do my next thing.

Yeah. Okay, good.

All right, next up.

Yeah, absolutely. So that's actually where we start. So we do a three day workshop with our clients one on one to figure out exactly what they need. So we start with what we call the freedom numbers. So you mentioned a few numbers, but we really go layers deeper into this and it almost gets a little bit woo woo. But it's very useful to think about because numbers that are real to you matter. Now I'll give a quick example. A friend of mine actually interviewed him on my podcast. He thought he sold for his number. It was a $2 million exit. I'm great. I'm good.

What happened was he had a clear plan of how to invest that money, but he didn't have the track record and the history of investing yet. So when he started investing, he actually had lower returns than he was expecting, which isn't uncommon. But also he realized, actually, I need a little bit more money than I even thought. So over time he learned this. He actually came back and bought a business through us, which is great. And he just exited recently, which is awesome. So he's had that experience twice. This time he did know his number and he knew exactly what returns he could get. But until you actually go through that exercise and stress test those numbers, that can be a really big thing. Another thing is people often sell out of fear. Another friend of ours, they, they sold their business literally because they had half a million dollars in inventory tied up in a warehouse. And they were wondering, what if it all goes away tomorrow? We've got this inventory that was one of their main concerns because it was in cash. Right. Like you said, to scale a business, you're putting all your money back in. You might see revenue increase, you might see profits on your income statements, but it's not in your bank account yet. So that creates fear, tension, definitely tension at home as well, can be depending on what you've got going on. So, yeah, we really dig into this and figure out what that means for you. There's no right or wrong answers. But we also take you on a number of exercises to figure this out for yourself and really gives you clarity on what that number could be for you.

Okay, so number one is your freedom. Number.

What's number two is hidden money. We touched on this a little bit before. In every business I've ever worked with, we've been able to find hidden money very quickly. And this isn't just by growing your sales. In fact, that's usually the last thing we ever look at. There's money that's being wasted in your business, and you may not even realize it. And part of that is benchmarking. We've seen so many businesses, we can actually help you figure out what metrics to look at and also from an investor's lens, what they think about when they look at your business. And it can actually uncover hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in your existing business.

Okay. Yeah. And that's one thing I've learned just in talking to you, is because you've worked with so many different kind of buyers, you know, what their biggest red flags are and also their green lights and what they don't care about, which really won't. And it might be a big deal to another kind of a buyer, but they'll. They know the value they're buying or they're looking for, or you can reframe what that is. Okay, so number two is hidden money. What's number three?

Leverage. We look for absolutely every point of leverage we can find in your business. So this could be leverage to help you scale. It could be in hr. It could be. It could be gaps in your business as well. It could be distribution leverage. We look at all the angles that are possible for your business. Again, it's based on your business. There's nothing worse than generic advice and trying to piece it together yourself. It takes forever. Like you say, we like to compress time. So often in just three days, we can take nine to 24 months of work into three days. So we really compress time and give you that clarity. Right.

And I know you've got this comes up a little bit later, but it's worth mentioning now. You've been doing this so long, you've got a huge Rolodex of who's who can solve just about any kind of a how problem. Okay, so leverage is number three. What's number four?

Profit boosters. So we literally go into your business and find ways for you to boost your existing profit. I mentioned A couple of levers with that one. The travel business earlier, taking that from a 9% net margin to 23% net margin in nine months. There's always levers that we can find for you to pull as the business owner to actually not only make your business more profitable, but take more money yourself to put in your pocket and take home, which is exciting.

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so after Profit Boosters comes my.

Favorite topic, something I've spent the last nine years working on is lifestyle optimization.

And one of the biggest things here is we often delay. We delay. We try and hit this number to delay. Then I'll do this, if this, then that. So when my wife and I started traveling, we were sitting on a bridge in Barcelona watching the fountain show. I don't know if you've seen this music and light show. It's. It's awesome. There's an older American couple next to us, and he. We got to talking and he said, you're. I wish I had have done this 20 years earlier. He said, that mountain over there, I can't even climb it now. I've got a bad hip, bad knee. I can't do this stuff. I wish I had have gotten out and traveled earlier. So we were lucky enough to take that plunge or to get inspired and then take those steps to actually make it happen earlier. So there's no need to wait. So we dig into what's the lifestyle you really want, and it might surprise you that some of that you could actually do right now. Part of it's identifying it, part of it's giving yourself permission, part of it's testing. Sometimes you might think, hey, I really want to do this thing when I retire. When I sell my business and retire painting, for example, go take a painting class. You might hate it. You might be thinking, I'll do this. Then these are the things we actually go through. And this is fun. This is. My wife and I can walk you through exactly what we do and how we think we think very differently. So you guys, if you're business partners or husband and wife owners, you'll probably think differently too. But this is fun. This is probably my. My most favorite piece of the workshop.

Yeah, I really like that about you too, because Leanne's real fact finder, you're a real quick start, but you complement each other really well. And where you're 100% compatible, it appears it's just like your choice of lifestyle and making that a number one priority. And speaking for myself.

I'm older than you, um, and we've worked hard, we've saved a lot and I know. And we, and our choice had more to do with providing what we thought was stability for our child. Truth of the matter is we could have been on the road and spent, you know, these 19, 20 years doing that. I don't know if I have any regrets, but what you've done is built a considerable Rolodex of connections and relationships to enable that. And I think that's part of the value we haven't even talked about that you bring is like giving someone a lot of ideas for what lifestyle might mean. So, all right, so that's lifestyle optimization.

Where are we in the process at this point when we go through these steps?

So that's how we end day one. And it's, it's not all just lifestyle. There's one other piece I'd really like to mention here. It's how to start investing earlier. So as my friend I mentioned hadn't actually got that track record of an experience investing, so he didn't really know what his number was. Personally, I actually, for some reason, I don't know where this came from. I thought I needed a million dollars in the bank before I even started investing, which is crazy to me. So once I started investing, I thought, wow, I've waited too long. I probably missed some opportunities. So similar to yourself with travel, it's also personal finances, etc. All of these things. It's a very holistic approach. It's fun to think about. And these exercises and also our experience and our network can help you with this. So that's how we end day one. We think all about lifestyle, making sure that what we're about to do is the right thing for you and the best possible thing to focus on next.

Okay, so day one, knowing your freedom number, diagnosing, finding the hidden money, gaining leverage, the what's missing, profit boosters. So you're going to be worth more and then focus on lifestyle. And I like that sandwich. It makes sense. So what happens in day two?

So if, if it is that we are going to acquire, to grow, if that's a fit for you and your business doesn't have to be, but if it is, we'll look at who to buy and if it isn't, we'll actually look at who you need. As you mentioned before, our friend Dan Sullivan has a big a great saying. It's who, not how. It's an awesome book as well, by the way. Yeah. So that's what we start focusing on, is who. Who do you Need. Who could you acquire? Who could you bring onto the team? Who could help you get to that thing you want faster? Because as entrepreneurs, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur, solo founder, or even husband and wife team, you get stuck in this rut of grinding. Right. Especially if you've bootstrapped your business, you get stuck in that mentality of don't take on capital, don't take on partners, do it all yourself.

Yeah. Don't take on any debt.

Right, Exactly. And some, in some cases, that's good advice, but in some cases, what took you, what you did to get where you are isn't the thing you need to do to get where you really want to go. So that's what we focus on, is the who. Yep.

And I know from personal experience and a lot of entrepreneurial friends what we don't always translate into, especially when we've had the pain of loss, the pain of being beholden to something, having a bad investor. You know, there's a whole bunch of oars here.

Where the value of taking on debt, the leverage, the multiples you get in the relationship with the buyer. So having all that laid out for you and knowing, no, no, if you take this debt on and, and you grow and you buy someone's revenue and the value multiples that you get from a buyer, which can happen really quickly in your case, you know, you put this deal together and you know, in three to four months, which these guys could get huge money right now if they decided to slow down the first example, but. Or to sell, rather.

And that, that is not organic. It's not normal to most business owners and entrepreneurs. So, okay, so what happens after the who to buy?

So next we go into structure. And structure is closely related to negotiating. This is my second favorite after lifestyle is structuring, because this is where all the leverage comes from is how do we structure the deal that we need to happen? And it's a, it's a constantly evolving topic. But. But we did dive deep into what structure you need to get where you want to go. So if that's raising capital, if that's finding businesses, reverse engineering what you need to do as far as structure to get where you need to go. Okay.

And I also think that's important because you get to at least try on what would partnerships debt feel like. And that's a great way to test out or ask those questions that may feel painful and realize it's not going to be painful at all. Okay, so structures next, then what?

Then we start crafting your first Exit.

And define what first exit means here. So that makes sense.

Yeah. So, as you mentioned, at the top of the show, we've actually uncovered ways for founders to get multiple exits. Most people think it's binary. Do we sell the business or do we grow the business? That's it. There's actually way more opportunity than you may, you might think, in figuring out how to participate in exits multiple times. So the first client we talked about today, they've had one exit already, but they actually still own the vast majority of the company. They're growing via acquisition. So they took money off the table, have that set aside. They've got that nice little cushion there, but they're still growing the business. So at future points in time, they could release some equity, they could get equity investors on, take more chips off the table, they could sell the whole thing, they could go public and any number of things. So in each of those steps, there's a liquidation opportunity. And that's, I guess, one of the biggest realizations for me was you don't need to just sell a business once. Oftentimes you think that's your only option, but you have so many more options if you just think about it and have someone to help guide you. That's been there, negotiated, understands these opportunities. You're leaving so much money on the table if you don't at least consider this. Yeah.

And I think de risking it and having people who are genuinely in your court, because I know I've been involved in some projects where there have been either parasitic or hostile investors.

You know, you've done a great job of picking people who are decent human beings that you actually like as partners. Both, you know, the money side, the partner side. And that is the part of the nuanced art that I think is really important here. And we'll, you know, that's something that we talk about in the bonus that we're going to give everyone as well, which are the mindsets. But let's keep going. So first exit. What else happens on day two?

So we really craft your story to sell, and this is whether you're going. You plan to sell the whole business, which might be the right fit. It might be, how do we go raise capital? We need a story, a compelling story to sell to investors or to buyers of your eventual business. We need to really craft who you are, get the whole story out there, because there's a lot of businesses for sale, there's a lot of investment opportunities at any one time. We really need to stand out. And everyone's Unique. Even if it's simply you as the founder having a unique story, this is what we'll use to attract investors, attract buyers, and ultimately ensure a higher multiple and the best terms, basically, when you go to sell or raise capital.

Okay, so where are we in terms of the days? So we've been in day two, which is who to buy, the structure, the first exit, the story to sell, then what?

So the story to sell is a big piece. So that will take most of day two. Okay, good. So we'll need a break after that one. Yep.

And again, I think I want to just reflect back. It's your core brand pitch, which will help you sell more stuff that's like becoming more profitable, selling better, marketing better, and how to attract the who's, which could be either a buyer or someone you want to acquire as well as money.

Correct. Okay, great.

All right, so that's the end of day two. Let's talk about day three.

So day three starts with acquiring companies, actually money and buyers. So acquiring companies, whether they are simply buyers that could buy your business or investors, we actually have conversations with real buyers and real investors that potentially could invest or are interested in your company. Now, what I've found by doing this is even if it's too early to have those conversations, the feedback from those buyers and investors is invaluable. And often buyers and investors think long term. The good ones anyway, they're thinking long term, so they love to meet you earlier, and they can actually help push you in the right direction, question some of your assumptions or be a great partner. We've actually had some investors pass on deals before, but actually open other doors. And in the investment groups that we're involved in on the investor side, we do this too for the companies that we're investing in. So meeting the right investors, getting that feedback, or actual acquirers that could potentially buy a business, there's no better feedback. And to get that in a safe environment where we've done all the prep work, you know what your numbers are, you may even get an offer close to on the spot that might actually hit your number or be higher than your number, like some of the clients we talked about earlier. But at least you'll know what that actually means for you before going into those conversations. So it's invaluable. It's a very key part of the process.

Yeah, I think, especially given the fact that doing that on the third day, to be able to take someone through a process. And I know from past experience that I've talked to private Equity firms and how they buy and what they're buying. And also some of the metrics change. And you've seen that in the world of consolidation, for example, that you've spent plenty of time on and in. So are there any other nuances to those conversations that are important to cover before we move on to the next one?

Yeah, absolutely. So in the case of consolidation, so we've come from the Amazon e commerce world and you may have read about this in the news, there's been a lot of money raised specifically for buying these type of businesses.

Big roll ups.

Exactly, exactly. Billions of dollars. It looks amazing what oftentimes these buyers are reaching out directly to client, to potential business owners to acquire. The main reason they do this is not to get you the best deal, it's to snag the deal before anyone knows it's available to get a better deal. So you know, you've got to be careful when there's a lot of activity and consolidation, there's pros and cons. Definitely you really need to be aware of what's happening. And in the case of investors, if you're taking on investors, the first case study we talked about was really critical to negotiate, to know which pieces of the deal to negotiate to make sure we were getting the right deal. Part of that is getting context by getting multiple offers, multiple partners to take, talk to and then knowing which piece they're going to try and screw you with. Because at some point, yeah, they're serious, they're seasoned investors, they're seasoned buyers, they're going to want to take advantage. And if they find opportunities in your business that are in your favor, you won't hear about it. If it's in their favor, they'll definitely let you know, hey, this isn't right. This is why we need to change the deal. But they'll rarely cut you, they will never cut you a bigger check because they find an upside for you. Right.

So what that means, you know, the reading between the lines here is by having multiple conversations with multiple businesses that maybe you'll buy or multiple that might buy you or multiple investors means you get an MBA in a couple of days because you'll learn how to ask questions and listen and create an overlaid.

Set of information that's valuable now and a roadmap for what you need to be doing beyond what you've prepared. So that's awesome.

Okay, so can I just add one more thing?

Yeah, yeah.

So that, that reminded me of something again of my friend that sold too early or for not enough. It, it reminds me that as founders, when you, when you create something from nothing, you get almost. And we're all guilty of this. We, we get an overwhelming sense that we rule the world and we can control every scenario. So if you built a business in an industry, awesome. I congratulate you. Very hard to do when it comes to deal making, raising capital, or investing if you've not done it before. Investing outside of your business. I'm talking about here. These are all very different skill sets. And take a moment to really take a deep breath and say, okay, I'm not the master of this universe. I might need some help. And if you don't do that, it'll be at your own risk because chances are the professionals on the other side of the table, they're not going to have your best interest in heart. So take a moment to be humble like I've had to do. You and I have both had to do this the hard way. Don't follow our lead. Get some help where you need help. Right?

Right. Yeah. No, I think that's the nicest way of. Don't get cocky. I've heard in a long time. It took more words, but you did a great job. Okay, so what's the last big step here? That happens on day three.

So that's really the connections piece. We actually open up our Rolodex. We figure out we've gone through who you need and what you need to grow. So that may be investors. Maybe we've already talked to them, maybe we can set up more connections. But it doesn't stop there. We've actually over the last nine years, through traveling multiple countries, multiple businesses, talk to a lot of business owners and service providers. We have a deep Rolodex of people that can help. So the who's that you need will be able to find or will know someone who'll know someone. So this is really where the rubber hits the road on what we need to do next, including what those investors or buyers may have just told us about. So we go through everything that we can help with. The real aim here is to shorten due diligence. Make sure that your business can pass that step. When we're selling a business, we often say that we tell at the beginning and once you're in due diligence, it's time to show. You can't just tell anymore. You have to show. And this is something that you need to be prepared for. There's multiple minefields here that can cost you millions. So. So we make sure that you're completely set up and have the right team in place. That's another thing that a lot of people don't realize. When it does come time to sell your business or part of your business, take that first exit. You want to build a deal team and this is what we can help you put together. You don't want just one person and you definitely don't want to do it alone. But the right people you need at the right time, that's where we can help.

Okay, so I think this is a good transition point which are, number one, who's a right fit to work with you? How does someone get hold of you to have that conversation? And then we put together a really, really awesome video, which it's the mindset video. So maybe start from the back first. What's the cool bonus? How do you get it? How do you start a conversation with you? And then let's talk about who the right fit is.

So go to billiondollarexits.com we have the billion dollar exit mindset video where we take you through the ten mindsets of billion dollar exits. So this is where we've actually deconstructed what it takes to have multiple billion dollar exits that you can use in your own business. Even if you're not aiming for a billion dollar exit, you can use these levers yourself, these mindsets, these tools to understand what it takes and what you really need to do. And so if you, you can also email giftillion dollarexit.com and we'll shoot that across to you.

Okay, so, and I think that's a really important distinction which really does lead into who's a right fit for you. Because the truth of the matter is billion dollar exits, you want to walk into it with that mindset, imagining yourself getting there. But you work with a spectrum of business owners and, and they're not all giant nine figure and ten figure deals. So who's a right fit for you? Who isn't a right fit?

Sure. So I guess the number one thing is to really get, get real with yourself and see if you really do want to grow. Do you want to have the best exit possible? And I need that mindset to work with and you need to be coachable. You need to be saying, okay, I really want to do this thing, but I know I need help. That's really the first thing that we need. The second thing we need is size. Unfortunately, size does matter. And to really get where you need to go, especially using some of these strategies, we need volume. So realistically from an EBITDA perspective or profit perspective, you need to be in minimum $2 million. Really 2 to 5 plus. So 2 to 25 million is ideal. North of 25 million is fine too. But that's really where we've found the biggest lever because usually at that point you've got the infrastructure, you've got the team, which is another thing we need. We need you to have a team. If you're a solopreneur, that's okay, but you need to be willing to put that team together. Ideally, you've got it in place, especially if you're wanting to grow via, as you said, acquiring EBITDA at a discount with other people's money. You really need to prove that you can take that and run with it. Businesses don't run themselves, so that's another thing that we need.

Yeah. So no solo coaches, consultants, advisors, but someone with a real business is what I like to say.

Yes.

So again, we'll call it the 2 to 5 on the low end. And that would really come down to the type of business to 25. And once you go beyond 25.

What happens there? So just so we have a framing for someone of like, how does the world get more complicated once you get past that level?

Sure. So a few things change depending on the business. We've seen founder run businesses above that level, but sometimes there's a board involved, maybe it's multi generational, there's a lot of family members on the board or other institutions, institutions and that really, that's fine. But it's harder to deal with. So we like nimble companies led by a founder that can take control, make decisions quickly and move in the right direction and build that team. The extra layer of team as we go. But that core operation team is in place. Okay, great.

So that's a nice way again of saying coachable. Quick starts with real businesses are the ideal who understand that there may be multiple ways to grow and to listen to some advice and be willing to take it.

So.

Excellent. All right, so let's wrap this up. I think the key thing I'll say to you right now is first of all, you can get the cool video. It really is awesome. Corin's got a really subtle, nuanced mind. You're really going to appreciate that you can get that by sending an email to gift@billiondollarexits.com or just head over to billiondollar exits.com. any other asks or ideas that you have for the audience before I let you go?

No, I think that's pretty much it. This was great. Okay.

Yeah. Ton of fun. It's been a blast spending time with you. So let's say goodbye. So thanks for watching. Make sure you reach out to Corin. And this is another episode of Capability Amplifier. Thanks for watching. And share it with some friends you might know might be in a position where they can take advantage of Corn's skills and talents. All right, that's it. Thanks again.