Vision Pros Live Podcast
Original podcast
Where to listenCopy share link
Planning and preparing for exit with Marty Fahnke and Jackson Calame.
9,893 words · 3 speakers
Um mergers and acquisitions, uh, business. There, there's a lot of people getting into the game right now, Marty, because the baby boomers are retiring. There's this massive economic opportunity to take over businesses and, um, you know, there's those who have no idea what they're doing, promoting themselves as though they do. Then there's those who know what they're doing, but it's still dangerous to get into a relationship with somebody. If you don't know how to qualify or quantify, how are they going to do it? It's not enough to get to them to result. Right. There's a, right. There's a process that matters there. And I see the depth of your team and intrigues me a lot. I'm like, man, this guy talks about his story in a way where you have every right to be pretentious and condescending.
Yet you don't, you know, you, you show up with, with a, a good, strong sense of humility. Um, so what, what do you see happening right now in the market of planning and preparing for business exit strategies? There's those who aren't even preparing for that at all. And then there's a whole market trying to, to create all sorts of, of hoopla around this subject, but you've been in this profession for a while. Do you mind telling me a little bit about your background from your perspective? And what do you see happening in the market right now?
Yeah. So, uh, which one do you like me to address first? My background or the market?
Either one. I like your humility though.
Trying to start rambling. So I guess they should talk about my background a little bit, just so that people know, you know, kind of where I come from. Um, so I, uh, built and sold my first business, uh, over almost 25 years ago. Was not an intentional situation. We built a business and it was a completely grassroots business and, um, it was quite successful fairly quickly. And, um, only 18 months after we started the business, somebody came along and offered to buy it from us for a million and a half dollars. And I thought, wow, this is easy. You just build a business. You grow up for a year and a half and people give you a million dollars. Turns out it's not that easy, but that was my, that was my start.
From there, I went on and founded a couple of other companies and bought, started a couple of other businesses that I sold, wound up acquiring a business. One of the earliest e-commerce businesses, which was a very interesting situation because, you know, we were doing about a million dollars a year in, in revenue. And then I had a competitor, very fierce direct competitor that was doing about a million and a half dollars a year in revenue. And so we decided to acquire them and it was interesting because you'd think mathematically. My little one million dollar business and their little one and a half million dollar business, when you put the two together. We know what might happen to that. And what happened is we did thirty million dollars by the second year because the synergies of our team.
Were so strong and the lack of our competition by working together instead of competing was just exponential growth.
That's one plus one equals eleven.
What? Thank you. Thank you.
Then you add another one, you go from eleven to a hundred and eleven. Like, we need to understand this.
Completely. And that's when I started to understand kind of the, the power of.
Mergers and venturing and things like that. And I've always tried to live my life, growing businesses through organic means and through, through relationships and things like that. So that's, that's kind of where we, where, what led me to what I do today, which is full-time acquisitions. I, I purchase and sell occasionally, sell businesses, but I mostly buy businesses my own. I have a very extensive portfolio and a wide range of topics and partners in a number of my different businesses. And through all of that, I would look at a business and say, oh, that's a nice business, but I, I'm not interested in acquiring it. Thank you. And the, and the owner would say, well, if you don't want to buy it, do you know somebody who does? And I'd, I'd say, well, yeah, I actually kind of, I think I do. So let me connect you. And I started becoming a connector in the acquisitions world.
And that's led to a whole other thing. And you just showed my website up there, which is my acquisitions business, Westbound Road. And I have a team of people who work with me, a business partner on that. And so we help advise. Buyers and sellers to have successful acquisitions transactions. And what does that mean? That means everything that it takes for a business owner to plan, prepare, and execute a sell of their business over a period of time. So our, we recommend our clients contact us a minimum of three years before they are actually ready to sell their business. So
whereas people might call a business broker when they're ready to sell their business, we're very different in that we're very, very much advisory, coaching, process oriented, and our goal is to help business owners to have the most successful exit financially, intellectually, emotionally, which can't be discounted, and, and to take care of all of their needs when they, they do have an exit. The biggest message I want to give out to the audience is many business owners, whether you have a business that does a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, or a couple hundred million dollars a year, it's shocking how many business owners do not think about what does an exit for my business look like?
And yet, one hundred percent of every business owner will exit their business. The question is, will they exit on their terms? Or on terms completely out of their control? And our goal is to help them exit on their terms and their timing versus waiting until it's too late.
I love that. And those of you listening in, if you've, you know, if you've consulted with ChatGPT or any other AI about how to sell your business the right way, and you think the plan was rock solid, you need to be talking to people like Marty. Because ChatGPT is not that advanced yet. It can give you some insights and ideas. I highly recommend challenging it to help you understand these things. Then there's Eric Gafstrom of Exit Strategy. Phenomenal resource. He's got awesome things. I highly recommend exploring these things in the beginning of your visions, if possible. Because to be able to end, to be able to, what do they say? Start with the, with the end in mind. Begin with the end in mind.
You know, I always say begin with the vision in mind too. And know that your vision usually leads you to a hilltop where you then have new options, right, right in front of you. So there's, those are two different realities. And my hope is to help you have people like Marty, people like Eric, people like John Whaley based out of Texas, I highly recommend him as well as somebody to counsel with on these subjects. The more wise and centered and solid advisors you can have around you, the more likely you're going to end up in a profitable and a great position. And I think I speak for Marty and I both, right? That's what we want. We want people to be educated and know what they're doing, know where you're going and
go gravitate towards who you want to work with. So Marty, you, you spent a lifetime trying to learn stuff that even business owners, most business owners, I think, I mean, I could be projecting, but I think we don't want to think about the end. You know, basketball players, a lot of them don't think about the career afterwards. We got LeBron James who already prepared his entire career for afterwards. Like when he was 18, 19, he was doing it right. People are following him in that space because he did it right. But a lot of them get into the sport, get out of the sport and have no idea what to do and what their value is and what their identity is. So I, I love the way you put that. You've, you've spent your career learning the ins and outs of all of this.
And I, I'm, I'm not making an assumption, visionaries, I'm very careful with that. But what Marty has on his website and how they go about their, their, the building of their team and the breakdown of being on both sides of the transaction. He either had to model somebody who knows what they're doing, or Marty's created something based on a whole lot of experience. And I believe the latter is true based on the way he presents himself. So all that discovery in years previous, if you could only give three resources for visionary leaders to focus in on, what three resources do you recommend for visionary leaders out there?
With regard to this topic or, or just in general?
Don't let me limit you, my friend. The box of life is wide open.
All right, that sounds good. So interestingly, I have been about, well, oh my goodness, we are in, at the time of this recording, we are in December of 2024. So exactly two years ago, probably this week, I would imagine, or maybe the week after. I was binge watching some series on TV. I don't know what it was and the series finished and you know how like Netflix, you finish it and it says, well, you know, congratulations, you're done. Now we recommend this and it pulls up and starts and I, I remember vividly going.
I need to stop wasting my life sitting in front of the TV and I and I said, I want to get back to reading again. And so I shut the TV off and I I barely have turned it on again in the two years since and I and I focused myself on reading.
Both classics and and new classics, but so but resource number one that I wanted that I want to give you is to shut off the TV. If people calculate how much time they're spending and and the TV that may include watching videos on your phone or, you know, Instagrams or TikToks. You know, watching, you know, Netflix and things like that, any of that kind of
non educational screen time, if you add up how many hours you're giving to that and how much of your brain cell and your energy you're giving to that. It's not good. And so resource number one is something to eliminate, not necessarily add to you, which is which is get rid of that that brain numbing screen time.
Love it.
Number two, in the time that I've spent, I've I've I've now read and I I've actually calculated it up. I'm just going to pull up my my my spreadsheet. I have everything I've done on a spreadsheet with all of my reading and my resources, materials and everything else, but it's been it's been a really fascinating process. I have about 450 hours now into into reading. Which doesn't sound like a ton, but if you add it up, that's about six weeks straight of 24 hour days in the last two years. And again, that was all time I replaced watching television. I'm a I'm a a great big fan of a couple of old classics.
How to Win Friends and Influence People, you know, it is a a saying that people use as a joke. It's an old book. It's almost 100 years old. But, ah, look at you.
Don't you love that? Look at this OG lead magnet.
Yeah.
Um, that the information in that is timeless and it will help any leader to be more successful and have a bigger impact on people and to understand how to, how to work with people and understand how to have a better life. Oh, that's so awesome, Jackson, that you've. I, I.
It's that good. It sits on my desk like.
I have now.
There's a lot of things I can put on my desk, but that was awesome.
I have now read that book probably 10 to 12 times over 25 years or so, every, you know, every couple of years. Um, highly recommend you get, you get back to it. Um, so that's a, a resource that obviously both of us can, can very much, uh, recommend. Um, and then from there, um, I, I'm a big fan of the Bible. There is every lesson in the Bible. There is drama and, and history and how to lead right and how to lead wrong. I mean, you want to read, you want to talk about a leadership screw up. Let's talk about King David. That guy was a jackass. And yeah, I mean, you know, he like slept with this, this girl and sent her husband off to get killed. And the, I mean, the guy was, you know, he was a terrible guy.
Domino effect.
But yeah, and the, and the, and but the redemption of, of his life and becoming a great leader. And so there are so many great stories in the Bible. If you, if you want to look at, if you want to look at the Bible purely as a leadership manual, there's some incredible lessons in there and I highly recommend that resource. So.
Oh, I love that. You hit hard on these. This is great. There's a song that I love. I think it's by the All American Rejects. If we're adding to the noise, if we're adding to the noise, turn off this song. That song as a teenager actually inspired me to do just that. Um, it was kind of my shut off the TV. Uh, one of my moments on that. And so, yes, I can, I can definitely see how, whatever it is, whether it's music, whether it's TV, whether, I don't know, you're, you've got an imbalance and addictive attachment to something or something that is causing you to unstimulate. Um, right. And, and lose sight of priorities or your vision. Maybe, maybe put it in check and see is this something that is holding me back?
Or is it contributing to and helping me move forward in my best self? So I love these Marty, that was super great. And reading, we'll add that as a fourth bonus because it was brought up as ultimately a resource. So, thank you for the addition by subtraction with the shut off. That includes this podcast, my friends. If this is not contributing to moving your life forward, then please, by all means, go do what will contribute. We'll be right back after the break. We're going to dive into Marty's vision and talk more about preparing for exit and making sure that if your vision is related to entrepreneurship and making the most of, of the transaction of what can occur when you've created a successful business. Stick around and hear what we have to say. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in.
All right, welcome into Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
All right, welcome to autopilot. I mean, Vision Pros Live, so here I am. Just messed up on that transition, went right to our ending screen. And for those of you who are in the podcast realm or looking to build something awesome in terms of attracting audiences and hosting guests and stuff, you can point to me and say, well, that guy messes it up. He just airballed his free throws. And I'll be like, you know what? I do that all the time. So thanks for joining us, visionaries. Get after it. You don't have to be perfect. Progress is the way to go. Super big shout out to Samantha Skelly, actually. She's a, she helps people with binge eating disorders and she's got a shirt line that she created that said imperfect, but it had an apostrophe. It says, I'm perfect. I was like, yeah, go Samantha.
She's got this super great leader. And in regards to leaders, we're going to talk about some sponsors real quick. One of them is Oportunidades de Trabajo para Latinos. That's opportunities for work for Latinos. That's our homegrown program and we're looking for more Latino leaders to come on that podcast and show. To inspire those who are really building this out with and for, and that is our digital ambassadors. These are individuals who have never heard of LinkedIn, they've never heard of Upwork, they've never heard of Canva, they've never read Rich Dad Poor Dad and other materials like that. We're helping these individuals become what the world knows as virtual assistants, but we're also putting an end to the VA pandemic. What is that? Virtual abuse. I'm tired of seeing it.
I used to contribute to it myself and think I could get somebody hired to just do everything for me and never pay attention to their life. My hope is that you will join us on this quest to uplift others while bridging the economic gap to North America, South America, rest of world. We've launched as well, Opportunities for India. We've also launched Opportunities for Filipinos. And again, if you happen to be aligned with that message, that vision, reach out to your team, find out how you can get involved and help out and you know, we'll explore it from there. That's their podcast, by the way, Opportunities Latinas Podcast. They've hosted guests with far more followers that dwarf the size of most of my leaders within their first couple of episodes because of how cool it is what they're building.
So again, go see, even if you don't speak Spanish or Hindi or Tagalog, you can still get involved. So there's that. Last plug for that. Learnandgrowrich.net, by the way, this is Zach Omen. We brought Zach Omen on as our Chief Financial Officer at First Class Business. This is how much we believe in his brand and love what he's doing at scale to help us help businesses move forward with more strategic plans, better forecasting, better understanding of their financial, their financial existence, their reality that they're in. Zach has very much shown an alignment with all things that we stand for, and he's building at scale, so you can work directly with him or you can come through us either way.
It doesn't matter for me if we're all winning and if the tides are rising, right? All ships rise. I love that quote. I never get it right, but it's a great one. Then there's the Water Project. The Water Project is not homegrown. It's not something that we're involved in. I just like to give back to it and I really like to talk about it because I took this for granted for so long. I didn't realize how many millions of people. People don't have access to even the most basic of resource such as water when it came across my life. I, I think I contributed to it because I like the transparency that existed. And so it was fun to just kind of like fund one little project, knowing what town was going to be helped. And then seeing them send social media updates and like picture proof of what happened, whether it's building these borehole wells or sand dams. And as I started to really pay more and more attention to this, I realized like, man,
what would it be like for my kids to have to walk three to four miles just to find any source of water to bring back to their school instead of focusing on their education? Or if I had to leave work to go get water for my family, like what type of economic hardships would that create? And then look at these kids, they celebrate water as much or more than our kids celebrate Christmas. Like this is super, super special. So I hope you take the opportunity. If you're in a financial position to contribute, everything matters and counts for these individuals. You can make a generational impact by contributing to it. And if you're not in a financial position to do that, my hope is that maybe you'll turn this into a dinner conversation with friends and family
and talk about it. If there's another cause that is more on your heart and mind right now, please drop that cause in the comments because I love to learn about new ways that I can give back. I know our audience does too. You might be the catalyst for us bringing that particular opportunity on the show and talking about it. We might contribute to it. We might make them one of these pseudo sponsors, if you will. Um, so without further ado, we have, uh, we have eight billion people to help. And I hope you join me on that. And right now it's our opportunity to help you with some information from Marty Fonkey. So Marty, thank you for joining me on Vision Pros Live.
Thanks for having me, Jackson. It's my pleasure.
Absolutely. So you, you got a pretty big mountain of, of gifts to give to visionaries and entrepreneurs in terms of helping them think through this, this exit strategy. That alone is something like just, it's just a seed worth planting for those who, who haven't gotten there yet, um, and haven't, haven't really considered that. But I want to dive into some more depth with it.
What, what do you see happening in the market right now? We didn't quite touch on that in the beginning. What's going on in the world of? Of preparing for exits. Have you seen any trends that are concerning? I will bring up some that I have seen that are concerning because there's, there's, I mean, this is a, this is a capitalistic venture. There's a lot of money to be made in this and because of that, there's a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing. And I'll say there's a lot of sheeps in shepherds clothing too. And that's almost worse in my opinion. So.
What do you have? Yeah, there's a lot happening in the, in the space. So, so we may or may not have heard the term silver tsunami. Um, that, that term is, is to describe the fact that, that, you know, there, there are tens of millions of businesses that are small businesses that are owned by the baby boomer generation and they need somewhere to hand those businesses off to when they are ready to retire. And we're seeing that to the tune of about 10,000 businesses a day are needing to change hands. And here's the unfortunate thing is, is that many of those business owners have not planned for that change. They thought their kids were going to take it over and then they find out the kids don't want it or they thought that, you know.
The 24 year old kid's like, I don't even know what you do.
Yeah, like, yeah, I, I just want to be an influencer and that's all I want to do. So, um, so, so on, on that side, on the business owner's side, uh, we're seeing, we're, we're seeing a very unprecedented time where transitions are needing to happen, but people aren't prepared for those transitions. And, um, they have businesses that are not prepared. The books aren't in order. There's so many things that need to be done. And then they go out and say, okay, well, should I sell this? And then they find out it's practically unsellable. And many times I, I gotta tell you, Jackson, I've had, I've had call after call. They think that, they think they're going to sell this business for millions of dollars because they have in their mind, because they read some article somewhere. And the reality is it's not worth it. And that was what they were partly, partly planning to use for their retirement.
And I've had horror stories and I'm trying to to help people avoid that. So we're seeing this opportunity where um all of these businesses coming up for sale or about to be committed for sale. And then over on the buyer's side, there's some interesting things happening and we haven't discussed what your concerning things are, but I'm going to show you what I see and we'll see if they match. But
Yep.
There is on the positive side, there is a movement afoot called the ETA movement that is entrepreneurship through acquisition. What that means is historically, for most of time in eternity, but certainly in the United States for for most of its uh of its uh yeah, it's successful uh history. When people wanted to be really successful, they'd say, I'm going to start a business. Oh, right. You're gonna start a business. Great. That's that's wonderful. Entrepreneurship is is is built the backbone of this of this country and the good part of the world. What people have started to understand in the last several years is that entrepreneurship, uh starting a business, one in nine,
uh excuse me, one out of ten businesses that are started will be successful, meaning nine out of ten are going to fail in the next five years or the first five years.
Correct.
However, if you have an existing business that is um uh a business that is already proven, you already it's been in it's been in business for five or 10 or eight, you know, 20 years. You have existing customers, cash flow, um you have positive reviews in your community, et cetera. If you buy that business instead of starting one, you can take over something that has a nine out of 10 uh a chance of being successful rather than failing. And you instantly have employees, processes, cash flow, you name it.
And all of those things lead to a much higher odds of success. So the positive thing I'm seeing is ETA and ETA is even being taught in universities now. There are some universities with ETA entrepreneurship through acquisition uh programs and courses, and that's a wonderful thing. Now, what we're seeing is something that's concerning in the world. And that is a rise of people talking about, uh, well, twenty, thirty, forty years ago, we used to see no money down real estate. Get your fortune doing no money down real estate. You can buy all these houses for no money down and and turn them into rentals or flip them and get rich, whatever. Guys showing up and with, you know, Ferraris in their driveways and and all this kind of stuff.
Today, we're seeing that same kind of trend in no money down business acquisitions being touted a lot of different places. And the the unfortunate thing is, is that that's a little bit of an unrealistic expectations. There's not a business owner in the world who has a successful, thriving business who, and that business is um, operating properly, has a great team in place and it's profitable. There's no business owner in the world that's just gonna hand you their business for no money down. That's completely unreasonable. But yet we're seeing a lot of that out there. And we're seeing that that movement kind of causing people to maybe start to want to acquire businesses, thinking thinking they can do it for nothing and thinking that there's no risk in doing that.
And that's something that is concerning to me because it it's it's putting a perception in the marketplace that owning a business is easy, buying a business with no money down is easy. And the reality is, it's tough. You know, entrepreneurship is is tough. Being being a visionary and having a successful, thriving business is tough, and it's not for everyone. Um, I think entrepreneurs in a lot of ways are uh, uh, born, not made. And if you're not born to, there's some people who are, they are just born to be employees. And there are some who are born not to be, and you need to know what's what's good for you. So those are some highs and lows I'm seeing out there in the world today. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you're seeing out there, Jackson, and any topics you want to cover.
For sure. I'll play devil's advocate and angel's advocate on this, on this reality. Also double down with what you said. No, entrepreneurship is not meant for everybody. Um, you know, there's, look, if if you're blind, you might learn how to read through Brell, but you're simply not gonna read a book until a technology comes out to fix that. Um, you know, if you're deaf and you can't hear the music, you can't hear the music. It it is what it is. And they learn to to celebrate and appreciate life. And we we all have um, certain adversities like that in life, but you know, I don't have the frame for a sumo wrestler, or I I don't I don't plan to. Um, so there's there's certain pursuits in life that, yeah, I mean, you can, you can be.
Stubborn and like go for it. Um, I could become a sumo wrestler probably. But that's not necessarily the best path for the gifts I've been given. And I hope those of you listening in realize that Marty and I were not trying to push you out of entrepreneurship and say you're not qualified as much as. Be self-aware um, you know, of what you are capable of or aren't capable of doing and know that there's extreme consequences. That come with the path of entrepreneurship. That that represent challenges that most of the world doesn't understand. Um, and people like Elon Musk said it, you have to be crazy like it's like eating glass. Um, you know, and Reid Hoffman. LinkedIn said it's like pushing an airplane off of a cliff and repairing it while it's going down.
Like you gotta be freaking nuts, um, you know, to to go after this stuff. Um, not drinking the the get rich quick Kool-Aid. Um, I mean, good luck if you do that. So the the devil's advocate a little bit, um, I got interested, you gotta tell me that. What ETA stands for again, because I looked up ETA movement. On Google and it ain't popping up, so you're ahead of the trend.
Through acquisition.
Through acquisition. There you go. So the good news is Marty, you're gonna become one of the top people. And relate to this if you keep talking about it because Google is unaware. Of what that stands for. It's pushing ETA SA manufacturer Swiss Switzerland stuff. Um, but it's it is a great thing to be ahead of the trend, ahead of the curves on. Realities like this. It is only a matter of time before those three words catch on with Google. As you mentioned, especially with the backbone of universities getting involved. Um, and seeing that as an opportunity. I'll play aim angels advocate on the side of. People giving you a business for for not for nothing down or similar to that. It reminds me of, um.
The micro loans, um, you know, that exist in, in Africa predominantly. Do you remember the name of the company that's a micro loans Kiva? Kiva, right?
Yeah, Kiva. Yeah, I, I, I made a few of those. Yeah. For yeah. Ask it.
It's.
Whatever. Yeah.
It's different. It's a different philosophy and idea, but the reason why I bring it up is that's actually one of the things first class business is kind of planning and doing and we do. Um, you know, and she's my executive assistant. She has kind of, she had an existing infrastructure. I was her first client ever as she spammed me for Facebook ads or something like that. And, and maybe helping assisting and because of her persistence and her diligence and her consistency and her reliability. And I decided to give her a shot like, hey, what, did you do this with AI or do this manually? She did manually and, and we got into a conversation, but we build her business for her for free. It expands our brand. Um, she's got her own podcast. Um, we work on her. She wanted to do a lot of it by herself.
Um, and, and we give everybody absolute freedom to do what they want. Six weeks later, I'm looking at it going, um, hey, uh, maybe thought about maybe incorporating the team to help you on these. So that it actually like moves forward. And then she's like, you know, yeah, I'm starting to see that now. I was like, plus it'll help you better relate with our clients because you'll know what they're going through. And they have the same desire as you to want to do everything. Um, so I, I don't think that it's kind of like the gun, right? You can use a gun for a lot of things, right? But did you pull the trigger with the intent to shoot somebody? Did you aim it at somebody and accidentally pull the trigger? It doesn't matter. Like if you, the resource, water can drown and water can save lives.
Fire can burn and fire creates this wonderful electricity somehow too. Um, so all you entrepreneurs out there, considering these paths and looking at it. My, my, if I were to give advice, it would be. Look for the who, look for who's doing things the way that that you want to do things, the values, the virtues they stand for. And if the why and the purpose exists, and then consider aligning with it. And I will definitely have my finger on the pulse of the CTA movement. I'm probably going to try to crack that algorithm. Um, now that you've mentioned it, as much as, as uh, we should both do that. So that people find the best possible resources as they consider these opportunities.
You said 10,000 a day, you also mentioned nine out of 10 chance of success. There's variables that are associated with that, right? Beyond the fact that the business arrived and I'm, I'm pretty infamous or famous depending who you ask for saying 96% of businesses lose within 10 years and 4% survive.
And you know why that is, right?
Well, I'm going to finish that thought. I hadn't finished the part that I'm infamous for. The 4% who survive as a young entrepreneur, I believe, well, they must have made it. They must be awesome. But when you become really, really good at consulting, you begin to realize they have higher levels of debt, they have higher risk tolerance, they've got more jaded families, their life freaking sucks a lot of time. And they have not figured out frameworks that have created balance for themselves. Very few have been able to repeat that success multiple times. And they live a hyped up life based on virality and based on this public image they have to maintain that doesn't align with the reality they actually have going on behind the scenes.
And so I am super curious and I'm again, why am I calling attention to this, my friends? Not because Marty's wrong, not because there isn't the outlier in those scenarios. It's actually doubling down on Marty's thoughts. It's the reality that if we can figure out those variables of what causes the nine out of the 10, 10 success, and we can capitalize on those for our own visions and for our own lives, we can actually produce those types of results with, with more vigor. But we're not going to do that by reading some stupid article, um, skimming some stupid article and trying to figure it out the lazy way. We've got to actually pay attention to the variables. So can you walk us through out of the, the ones that have the nine out of 10 chance for
success, what are the variables that were factored in to get to that conclusion?
So I kind of touched on those earlier. If you're, if you're doing, if you're, if you're acquiring a business, the, the, the infrastructure is already there. It has a strong foundation, right? You build your house upon sand. It's going to wash away. If you build your house upon a rock, it's going to have a firm foundation. So.
I love that you said infrastructure. It's not talked about enough. Uh, most of them do not have infrastructure even after 10 years. So what is a solid infrastructure look like to you?
So, um, I'm a big, big fan of, uh, of operating systems in businesses. And when I say operating systems, I don't necessarily mean software. I'm talking about, uh, a, a process procedures, um, operating system. So there's a couple out there.
We call it procedures, resources and templates.
There you go. Yeah. So there's EOS and there's Gazelles and Rockefeller habits. There's numbers, scalable. There's a number of operating systems out there that basically, um, so, so let's talk about franchises for a minute. I don't do much with franchises just because there adds a whole layer of complexity that I don't love. But, but franchises are successful for a reason. When you go to buy a franchise business, say you buy a McDonald's. Okay. First of all, they got to know, do you have the financial resources to support this while it's not making money until it does? Once you buy a McDonald's, they give you an operating system. They, they tell you this is the, what your building must look like, the colors you can use, the uniforms your people have to use, every training manual,
the temperatures you cook, the, have to cook the, the hamburgers to, they, they give you every single thing about the business is built into an operating system. And that's why franchises have been so successful over the years because somebody can come in, take over a business. The foundational operating system is there to help you be successful. And then you can put a little bit of your own secret sauce on top and then put your hard work into it and make it successful. So if your business isn't a franchise. If it's your own independent business that isn't a franchise, it should have a foundational structure, an operating system that's just as strong as if it was a fan, as if it was a franchise with all of those things that you just, you just mentioned, Jackson.
I love that. So the E-Myth is a book I read. I, that's the one book I regret not reading the moment it came across my desk. That, the team with Patrick Lencioni, those two paved an entirely new path for me. So that's, that's one aspect. And I would say it's a pretty big aspect. Like that's, that's a big portion of the foundation that, that we also build with. Are there other elements that, that help move the business owner towards that, that chance of success? Or if they're gonna buy, if somebody's gonna buy a business that's been in operation for more than 10 years, what else should they look at?
So the other thing we talk about is the, the stages of the owner exit. When people think about owner exits, they, they only have one thing to think about. Well, the owner sold the business and left. Well, there are a number of stages to the owner exit and where the ownership is in that stage can have a big impact on things. So stage one is exiting the frontline. So if you're a plumber and you have a plumbing business and you are out there every day draining or cleaning drains and fixing pipes, you are on the frontline. You have not exited any portion of your business. So you need to exit that frontline. The next that, that first exit is going from the frontline to management. So you need to be, as the owner,
you should be managing all the plumbers who are out there doing the, doing the, the work, but you should be managing, supervising, leading, coaching, et cetera. And you should have a, you know, you should have a, an appointment center and you should have a billing person and you should have, you know, and managing your assets of your business, your trucks and your tools and everything else. But, but you're still day to day involved, right? So that's the next exit you need to look for. How do you exit then the, the management? And so you gotta look at, how do I move up to the next? And that's when you start to be able to become more of that visionary, right? You start, you, you maybe you- Hire a general manager, a chief operating officer. And they're handling a lot of the day to day and not every single employee there reports to you.
And maybe you're providing um a more CEO type level role where you're maybe looking at doing acquisitions and growing your business more through acquisitions or new joint ventures and partnerships with with huge partners to bring you new business. Maybe the new developers coming to town and they're gonna, you know, they could build a 500 subdivision unit and you get the deal for all of that. So your company's doing all the plumbing for all of that, right? So you're doing some big deals. You're doing high level things. You're not day to day. So that's the next exit. And then the next exit from there is is truly that visionary status like you, your connection with the business is providing the vision to the team. And and the the the long term planning, the long term
growth strategy for everybody to come on board and kind of being the the cheerleader. And and that's kind of the ultimate. And then obviously the exit out of the business from a financial and ownership standpoint is the last. So there's multiple exits. To an ownership strategy and it's not always just selling the business and walking away. And where a current owner is in that in that level can substantially impact where a new owner might be able to step in and take over. So those are just something to consider.
Those are huge, fantastic things to consider. What I say next is gonna sound like um. I know more than Marty here or that my and I'm not sure about that. But I appreciate your your humility on it. But the I get to color commentate, my friends. So keep in mind, he gets to lay all the hard work foundation of how we talk through all of this. And we have different paradigms and perspectives that actually harmonize because we're we're trying to use analogies to pull this stuff together, right? Stages, steps, etc. I don't, I don't see the stages the same way, but I see it more like a triangular effect. And that's what the E-Myth really aims for is we all have within us a technician, a manager,
and a visionary. And they're not linear for usually the most successful people in the world. It's actually the opposite of what you talked about. You got Walt Disney, who was like pure visionary and kept screwing everything else up. And so I look at it kind of like spirituality, mental fitness, and our fit, like our fit, our physical fitness, right? Those three, they all exist simultaneously. They can all be dealt with. We end up developing different strengths depending on what we gravitate towards or what life provides us, but there, there's not necessarily an A to Z route on those that is a one size fits all for everybody. Again, I don't think Marty was saying that, but I do worry that some of you may have heard it that way.
Going towards the Rocket Fuel Book by Gino Wickman and U.S. like you talked about.
I, I like it. I won't say love. I, I love him as a human being. And they made some pretty nasty fallacies in that book in relation to the visionary integrator relationship that I would like to talk to Gino about at some point or, or his team, because they don't honor the integrator, integrator enough as they hard sell the business owners on why the visionaries need an integrator. Nonetheless, just a gratitude optimization opportunity there. But they, they talk exactly about what Marty's talked about, and they're super successful. And these are pathways that we can all learn from as visionaries that, look, you, you may not want to scale everything right now. You know, you may also want to scale to billions of dollars.
The principles of getting there are not too different than the principles of your typical exercise, right? Do 10,000 steps per day. Do 100 pushups. Do 100 situps, right? Control your eating habits. And most of us would be quite fit in life if we did. I don't do all of that every day. I try to now. But my, I could be in super fit shape if I just stuck to those basic principles. And that's what I love about what Marty's talking about. Every single one of the principles he's talking about are principles that we abide by with our brands and with ourself. And what I'm hoping that you'll, what is the difference that I'm alluding to? If you're a visionary, don't feel like you have to be a technician.
If you gravitate towards being a manager, don't feel like you have to be a technician. Um, and bring people in, team members in. And consultants like Marty, who can help you bridge those gaps as you go. Because you don't have to have that all figured out. And I've never met a solopreneur who's successful, just a bunch of people who pretend they are. Or they step on the heads and shoulders and faces of the people who've actually helped them build to where they're at. So that's one of their acts to bury real quick for, for those of you solopreneurs out there. Um, entrepreneurs, the, the next piece of this puzzle. Um, moving back towards exit then.
Let's talk to, uh, those people who maybe their vision's not at scratch, but maybe they've been in it for eight days or eight years. And they still feel pretty lost with evaluating. Is there an exit opportunity? Um, and I like where, how do I know my business is going to be valued at? Is the tool exit strategy, the go to holy grail of figuring that out? Um, you know, do you have a tool that you recommend? How, how can a business owner? Understand more or less what the value of selling their business would be? When they're ready to do so?
Yeah, that's actually the number one question people ask. I, I'm, I'm working on another project, on a book project. And we've done some extensive research on, you know, what are the, what are the top questions business owners have when they think about selling? Number one question is what's my business worth? Unfortunately, there's no easy answer for that. There is no tool you can just go plug it in, right?
That makes me happy.
Yeah, when, if you got a car, you can go put it in Edmonds or KBB and you can look at the value with a house. You can, you know, hire a real estate person, man, do some comps. Businesses are far different. They're very complex, organic beings and.
I gotta pause, I gotta pause right here, Marty. Huge pause, guys. This is what made me so excited about Marty coming on this show. The amount of faith that you just won in me, Marty, because you're not going after the, the simple market. The one that wants everything easy. There's so many people that want to oversimplify and make it sound like it's easy. And like, that literally gets me like pushed away and I'm like, yeah, no, I'm done with this guy. Um, you know, he's just, he's just trying to make it sound good because he can make a buck on this. So thank you, thank you for saying it's hard because it is hard. Uh, you can continue.
Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, and if people get frustrated with me, well, just give me, what's the multiple? Like that, there is no the multiple, right?
Five fingers for you.
Exactly. And so, um, um, you need, if you're really seriously considering exiting your business, you need three people on your team. You need an attorney who understands acquisitions, who's going to legally protect your process. You need a tax professional, again, who understands business and acquisitions to properly advise you on various tax strategies. Because how you do tax, tax strategies can impact the valuation of your business. And you need an acquisitions professional to help you with the valuation and negotiation of, of your deal. Those three people should be working together and they should give you the answer, what's my business worth?
I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a little plug in for you real quick.
I'm gonna make an assumption and it's okay if I'm wrong in this assumption. Because I don't want you to have to say it for yourself.
Do you conveniently already have an attorney, a tax professional and an acquisition professional baked into your team?
I, I have many of all of those. There's no one.
I share that on Marty's behalf, because it's just, like, if he had to say it for himself, guys, we just feel like, well, how convenient. It's not a matter of convenience. It's a matter of being smart enough as an entrepreneur, right? As, as a builder to know, well, dang, if I need somebody who's gonna constantly have to paint walls, I should probably hire a painter. So my devil's advocate side says, if I wanted to work with your company, but I wanted my own tax professional and I wanted my own attorney involved with the process, what would that look like?
Yeah, absolutely. And that's when that's what we would help you do is find find those if you don't have those resources, we would help you find them.
Right. But if I do, y'all could work with my friends.
Absolutely. Every transaction we we are involved because so we do the advising, right? We can help advise you on the right steps to to exiting your business. That's the part we do. I'm not here to sell anybody on my services or anything else. I'm truly here to inspire and motivate this, just kind of get the spark going in everybody's brains. But if you wanted to work with us, great. You want to work with somebody else. That's fantastic, too. But every transaction is at least those three people involved. And you want to make sure that they have experience and know what they're doing. Don't hire an attorney who, you know, also helped you fight your traffic ticket last week. That's not who you need. They need to have acquisitions experience. So but when just to kind of close out the value conversation.
So another example that I give to people that kind of helps that light bulb go off. If you if you own a very expensive piece of jewelry, let's say it's a hundred thousand dollar diamond, and you go and have it appraised for insurance purposes. An appraiser may look at that and say, yep, that's a hundred thousand dollar replacement value. You insure it for a hundred thousand. If it gets stolen, then that's how much the insurance company is going to give you. However, if you go to sell that diamond, you are not getting a hundred thousand dollars for that diamond. You might get fifty thousand if you're lucky. And that's kind of how it is with business, business evaluations to some degree.
It's so painful when it's your baby as a business.
It is. It is. It's probably worth less than you think it is. Because most people have an emotional value to their business that a buyer is not going to pay for. But but either way, your your obligation as the owner of the business is to understand what is the value of your business today. And then what does the business need to look like later on when you want to prepare for your exit? And you can't know what the later number is until you know what today is and build from there. So so seek seek professional counsel on that and get the answer from the people who can answer it.
Super, super sound advice. Appreciate that a lot. I've learned a lot today, but there's one big thing I really want to learn before we close out. Do you have a hard stop at the top of the hour? I want to make sure you respect your time.
I think I do.
As fast as we can. So if this was your last chance ever to speak, Marty, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Okay, well, nothing to do with acquisitions, but, but everything to do when I was, when I was, when I was in high school, I, my life was in a bad, going in a bad direction. And I was put into a diversion program and the diversion program was modeled on a curriculum created by Zig Ziglar, and it was called the C with the top program. I learned a phrase in that program that I have tried to use as the guidance for my life ever since, and it has served me quite well in low these many years. As you see the gray in my beard, it's been a while since I was in high school. But the phrase I learned as a seventeen year old malcontent was, you can have anything
in life you want, if you help enough other people get what they want. And I don't think it gets any more visionary than that, which is just help others and the world will take care
of you.
That is phenomenal. And thank you, Zig Ziglar. Help enough other people to get what they want. And I hope that just rings loud and clear for people. I don't make these pauses on these shows on accident, my friends. I want you to internalize that. I want you to think through the value of that. I also want to put on here Zig Ziglar and Marty Fonkey, because it doesn't necessarily matter who said it first. What matters is a legacy carries on and on that we continue to value information like that. It's one of those quotes that I've heard enough
times to remember when somebody says it. But to remember the source reminds me of other things I've learned from Zig Ziglar, which reminds me of other opportunities to double down and triple down and secure these principles in my own life. And I hope visionaries, you take the opportunity to do the same thing with the things that truly matter to you. Marty, this has been an absolute honor and privilege. I want to respect your time. We'll wrap this up fast. And below this podcast, you'll see the action steps that you can take to get involved with Marty's brand. Personally, I'm Be taking that step myself. I'm looking at what does it look like to work with Excuse me, westboundroad.com. I've already checked out the website part, but I'm excited to
to explore what y'all are doing for the sake of all the clients that we work with. Because we're always looking for who can be that one plus one equals 11 moment that helps all of us gain that much more stability, that much better infrastructure, that much better of a plan so that everybody ends up winning. Below that, you'll see the resources, my friends, as well, the things that we talked about today. Zig Ziglar makes that list now as well. Of course, he's a legend in the space of inspirational growth. If you don't know who that is, it's kind of one of those Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan moments. So without further ado, last, last big call to action, top right corner. If you're a visionary, even if it's the first time you're sharing the vision or stepping into that, there's a big old button that says be our guest.
We'd love to meet you. We'd love to hear about how you're helping in the world. If you've got the heart of a servant and want to help individuals improve their lives, there's likely a massive amount of purpose driven behind you. And we'd love to explore that with you. And we look forward to seeing all of you on next episode of Vision Pros Live. Marty, this is amazing, man. Thanks for joining me today.
Jackson, thanks for having me. It was my pleasure and honor, and I hope I was able to provide good value to your audience.
I trust you did. That was easy. I learned a lot myself. So I know everybody else, if you didn't, go back, listen with a pen. Because there's, there's no way that you couldn't have found a ton of value out of this, all of you. We'll see you soon.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
