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A strategic content plan is more than a bunch of blog articles. In the opening segment of this podcast, EAG chief marketing officer Jeff Randolph has some smart statistics and observations on how successful businesses leverage content to be found for what they do well.
In our main event, you’ll meet two lively gentlemen from Apex Business Advisors, an EAG client. Doug Hubler, company president, and Andy Cavanaugh, senior advisor, talk about their 23-year-old firm that makes a market for selling and buying businesses. Selling your company is nothing like selling your house. It takes two to five years of confidential, focused planning to prepare and maintain the continuity of a company before it can be sold.
Transcript:
Jeff Randolph:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising & Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing. We’re here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing advice that business owners can use to keep moving forward, plus a featured interview you’re not going to want to miss. Today, we are talking to our friends from Apex Business Advisors. Do you need to sell your business at some point? You should be talking to a business advisor. Your exit matters, and you want to have lots of time before that exit happens to work with a business broker to make sure you get the best valuation you could possibly get. Let’s listen in, shall we?
For today’s marketing tip, I wanted to talk about content marketing. There are a lot of companies out there, and it doesn’t matter what you are, if you’re a business-to-consumer company, if you’re a business-to-business company, if you’re a nonprofit, there’s a good chance that the kind of thing that you’re putting on your website, putting on your blog, throwing out on social media, is part of a bigger content strategy. You know what you want to write and produce content about and then how you distribute it, where are the channels? All of that is a general strategy that a lot of marketing companies will do. Each organization has their own strategy, but according to the Content Marketing Institute, only 37% of content marketers have a documented strategy. That’s one of those sad statistics that we don’t like to see very much, that if you’re doing content, you need to have a purpose for it.
In contrast to that, 62% of the most successful content marketing organizations have a documented strategy. We know we’re building content for thought leadership, especially if we’re in a B2B situation. We know we’re building it for search engine optimization, and that is a combination of, yes, branded terms that include our brand name in the search, but we also want to be found for things we do, not just the company name, because there are a lot of people who won’t know what company to talk to. They don’t have any idea that your company does this kind of thing, so we have to be found for the thing we do online as much as for the company name that we have. You may also be building content for outreach, sales support. Do I have a material that I can put in front of my customers where the salesperson can deliver this content electronically, either through a LinkedIn message or through a direct email to that person?
All of that means that we need to have some kind of documented content strategy that tells us what topics do we cover? At the same time, what topics do we not cover? What do we not want to mention? What do we not want to talk about? And then what are the keywords that we’re doing? What keyword strategy do we have where I’m continually putting content out that works those keywords in so that I can improve my search engine optimization? All of that builds up into a content marketing strategy, and we definitely want to have one. 62% of the most successful content marketing organizations have that documented strategy That’s according to the Content Marketing Institute. That’s the tip for today. Document that, come up with a plan. You can definitely do this.
We are joined on this segment of the podcast by Apex Business Advisors. I’ve got Andy Cavanaugh, who is a senior advisor, and Doug Hubler, who’s president. Andy and Doug, welcome to the podcast.
Doug Hubler:
Thank you.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah, thanks Jeff. You did forget to mention that we’re award-dinner podcast hosts, but if you want to start over.
Jeff Randolph:
You are also award-winning podcast host. The Apex Business Advisors podcast is a delightful one. I’m sure we will cover this at some point.
Doug Hubler:
It’ll come up multiple times, I’m sure.
Jeff Randolph:
You were kind enough to have me on your podcast and I appreciate that. Tremendously highest
Andy Cavanaugh:
Highest rated show we’ve had.
Jeff Randolph:
I did get comments on it. People listen to your podcast.
Doug Hubler:
Yeah. They do.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s a solid show.
Doug Hubler:
Yep, thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
I can’t guarantee that anyone listens to this podcast other than we do see some stats.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Oh, we’ll just let it fly then.
Jeff Randolph:
Help us earn that explicit rating.
Andy Cavanaugh:
It’s just us girls talking. We’re good. We’re good.
Jeff Randolph:
We’re all set. We’re all set.
Doug Hubler:
For the next 45 minutes.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, could somebody give me an overview of Apex Business Advisors? What is it you’d say you do here?
Doug Hubler:
Okay, I’ll take this one.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Sounds like a president should answer this one.
Doug Hubler:
Yeah, it does. Apex Business Advisor’s been around for 23 years approximately, and what we do, easiest thing to say is we’re business brokers. We make the market for people who want to sell businesses and buy businesses. We bring those folks together and get that business owner the retirement they’ve been looking for or their next deal, or maybe a business owner’s looking to expand their business and want to buy another business.
Jeff Randolph:
When is the right time for somebody to talk to a business broker? Is that today? If I need to sell on Monday, is Friday okay for me to talk to you?
Andy Cavanaugh:
Well, if you listen to our podcast, you know that we have a contractual obligation of equal time, so I’m going to go ahead and take this one.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s good. That’s good.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah. Do not call us on Friday wanting to sell on Monday. That’s a little too aggressive. We could probably get ‘er done by Tuesday, but definitely not Monday.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s true.
Andy Cavanaugh:
We like to talk to people two to five years in advance of them actually selling the business. That’s where we’re going to be able to help them get a business that’s ready for sale. Selling a business is different than selling any other asset that you would ever sell. You can spruce up a house, you can get a house sale ready pretty quickly, throw a little fresh paint of coat there on it-
Jeff Randolph:
Gray, right?
Andy Cavanaugh:
… fix the gutters, get the landscaping, throw some new mulch down. You’re good to go. With a business, it takes a long time to do that. The story I like to tell people is that we had a mechanic that came in, and he was working about 60 hours a week, admirable, noble, turning wrenches, and he told us that he needed a million dollars for his business, and you don’t get a million dollars for a business where you’re the business, you’re the guy turning the wrenches. And it took him four years to stop turning wrenches, be a service writer, oversee the service writer, and basically run the business. In that four years, he went from working 50, 60 hours a week, trying to beat flag time, to working 15, 20 hours a week being in the business. And so he stopped working in the business, started working on the business, but it took him four years to grow his valuation to the point where he could sell for the amount of money that he needed.
Jeff Randolph:
And so if you’re a sophisticated business, you’re running this for a long time, you’ve been working on the business for some time now, as we look back at the financials, because you’re basing valuation on how the business is performing, is there a number of years of good data that a buyer is looking for? If I’m ending my books this year, is it too late for me to pay attention to this year or do I need to, if I intend to sell in 2026, do I care about my 2023 numbers for this? What’s my timing look like there?
Andy Cavanaugh:
Well, as my freshman counselor told me, your grades in freshman year count-
Jeff Randolph:
That is important.
Andy Cavanaugh:
… so it does. A lot of times, people think that, well, this is how much the business is worth. And we’re talking Main Street type businesses here, so we’re not talking massive, publicly-traded companies. We’re talking about the Main Street business, your HVAC, your roofing, gutters, those type of businesses. It’s typically three years. Your last three years is the valuation period. And so if, in 2023, you’ve got what we would refer to as dirty books, and you need to spend some time cleaning them up, 2023 matters if you’re wanting to sell. Especially 2026, at the earliest, you can argue don’t worry about 2023, it’s so far in the past, but if you’re looking at selling in ’24, ’25, ’23 becomes a very important year. The last three years are the most important three years of a business, and that’s what your valuation is going to be based off of in these types of businesses.
Jeff Randolph:
And I know that business owners get into the day-to-day of things, and 2026 doesn’t exist for me yet. I’m not thinking that far ahead, so understanding the difference and understanding that you need to look at that now, kind of important. I can imagine that people are sometimes thinking, “Hey, I don’t want to talk to you guys yet, because what if my employees find out, what if my customers find out? I don’t want to give that up.” What safeguards do you have in place to keep that from happening?
Doug Hubler:
Well, it’s a very important thing for us too. We like to protect our data. We like to protect our clients. And I don’t even tell my wife who I’m talking to. It’s just secretive, and I keep her out of it. It keeps stress low at home anyway.
Jeff Randolph:
It probably does.
Doug Hubler:
Let’s just keep it to ourselves, and we’ll sign confidentiality agreements if we need to. But I always tell business owners that it’s probably best to meet off-site, meet at our office if we can. If we’re going to meet at their office, it needs to be in a location where there’s not going to be prying eyes or we don’t have to whisper around, or we find a place where we can meet and it’s confidential, because confidentiality is critical in our world. If an employee finds out at some point, asks the owner, they can have a couple of different answers. They can be honest about it and say, “Well, geez, I’m in my late sixties. Yeah, I’m thinking about it. It’s in the future, I have to be thinking about it,” or they can say, “Everybody’s always asking me about my business, if I want to sell,” and just take it and not freak out about the question, because it can come up and the worst thing you can do is say, “Oh, my God, you found out? How did you find out?”
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, no.
Doug Hubler:
“What am I going to do?” It should just be a natural, “Yeah, of course. Everything’s for sale.” That’s a pretty common answer.
Jeff Randolph:
There’s a life cycle to it, I assume.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah. And the confidentiality, as Tony told Carmela, “Please don’t make me make you an accomplice after the fact.” There’s a lot of damage. Going back to our real estate example, when you put your house up for sale, you want everybody to know about it. You post it on Facebook, it’s on the MLS, your realtor’s posting it. You ask your friends, “Hey, go help advertise this and get this out there for me.” When the business is for sale, you don’t want anybody to know. You don’t want want your customers to know. You don’t want your employees to know. You don’t want your suppliers to know. Perhaps you don’t want your landlord to know. There’s a lot of damage that can be done to a business reputationally.
Going back to the how long we should talk to somebody, on average, it takes about nine to 12 months to sell one of these. There’s a significant amount of damage that can be done if revenues dip while the business is for sale. If the revenues dip, if the cashflow dips, if the business metrics start going down, the valuation of that business will reduce while it’s being marketed.
Doug Hubler:
[inaudible 00:11:53] market.Andy Cavanaugh:
It’s one of those things where people just don’t need to know until they absolutely need to know. And there’s so many deals that actually fall apart, and typically, they’ll fall apart in what’s called due diligence, but they fall apart, and they fall apart relatively late in the game. If you’ve been out telling your employees, “Yeah, hey, here’s the new owner,” and you’re letting that person work in the business and stuff like that, and then that person falls out, now the employees and your customers and whoever else, they’re telling the story of, “Oh, this place is going down. Oh, we’re all getting fired. We’re all getting let go.” You got to keep it close to the vest
Jeff Randolph:
And nine months to 12 months to sell the business as a process, that does reinforce the, “Don’t talk to me on Friday and try to sell your business on Monday.” That’s not going to work for any of us.
What do I need to do to be ready to sell my business? You mentioned my books are dirty or whatever. Tell us more about what that means, what it takes. What are we looking at to help get a business ready to go on the market?
Doug Hubler:
Well, first of all, there are a lot of variables. One of the things we talked about, Andy said clean books, but we also need to know about there’s customer concentration issues. How do I turn a 75% customer into a 25% customer? That can take quite a while to get that ready. Am I leading the company or am I turning wrenches? Do I have support staff? Do I have other leadership? Can I hand over the keys to somebody? Can I go on vacation for two weeks and know the business is in good hands?
There are a lot of things that somebody needs to do to be prepared, but all those variables, it’s hard to say, “Oh, here are five things that you need to do,” and it really takes having a discussion with a group like ours to say, “Here are all the things you need to think about,” but we need to interview them too, understand their business, understand their industry, and do some comparisons, understand the value, how they see retirement. I’m not going to say, “Here are the three things.” There are so many things that we need to look at.
Andy Cavanaugh:
We spend a significant amount of time learning and understanding their business. I’ve talked to business brokers that have said, “Oh, I could go in and run this business.” I don’t get to that level, but we get to a level to where we know the ins and outs of the business and we know how the business operates and we know the selling points and the points that need to be cleaned up. And a lot of times, we have to build that trust, not a lot of times, every time, we have to build that trust with the seller to tell them that, “Listen, it’s okay that you don’t have a website. That’s actually a selling point.”
Doug Hubler:
There’s an opportunity.
Andy Cavanaugh:
There’s an opportunity. The buyer wants to know, “How can I grow the business?” They want to know that there’s process and people and perhaps some technology in place, but they also want to know that this thing hasn’t peaked,
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, that there’s room to grow.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah. The misnomer really is that people think that they want to sell their business … I think a lot of business owners think that, “Well, I’m not going to sell my business because things are going good,” and so me thinking, “You you want to sell it when it’s going bad? Who would want to buy it when it’s going bad?” “Oh, this industry’s tanking. Revenue’s been down. Boy, I think it’s time to get out.” Well, you really want to sell it right before the thing has peaked. You want to sell it when it’s maybe 80% at where it could be because it’s very attractive at that point. There’s still room for growth, you still have a strong industry, you still have good people in place, and somebody can take it from where it’s at now and grow it
Jeff Randolph:
And keep growing, yeah.
Andy Cavanaugh:
If you sell it where it’s peaked, that buyer’s just going to look at it and go, “This thing’s peaked.”
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, “I can’t do anything more with this. We can’t squeeze anything else out of this if I buy it.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
“This is it. I can’t make this any better,” and that is also not attractive.
Jeff Randolph:
It sure sounds like, when a business owner starts talking to you and starts having those conversations about it’s time, or it will be time soon that you work with them individually and give them that coaching to get them from, “I want to sell, I know the goal is to sell, but I don’t know what it takes to get there.” How do they get to a point where they understand what that business is worth?
Andy Cavanaugh:
Originally, when they come in, the valuation, the number’s, very rarely what they want it to be. I could probably count on one hand where we’ve given what we call a broker’s opinion of value. We’re not certified business appraisal people. We can give you a pretty good idea. We’ve seen enough of these deals done that we know, “Look, this is probably where you’re going to list and sell.” Very few people come in and they go, “Wow, that much?”
Jeff Randolph:
“That’s amazing.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
“I didn’t think it was worth that much.”
Jeff Randolph:
“So much higher than I thought.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
Generally, what we get is the person that’s got … we use the term seller’s discretionary earnings, what’s the owner’s economic benefit, and that number might be 20 grand, and I think the business is worth $2 million. “Well, I thought it was worth three times my revenue.” Well, that’s still not how that math works, but we’re going to set that aside. It’s not that. And so I think there’s a lot of misconceptions on is your multiple off revenue? Is it off of profit? Is it off of What’s it off of? And the businesses we sell, it’s off of seller’s discretionary earnings, the owner’s economic benefit of the business times a multiple. And, most people, that number is not what they think it is, or they’ve gone to somebody that doesn’t list and sell these businesses every day like we do, and they’re told, “Well, sir, your restaurant’s worth $800,000,” and we get it and we’re like, “Anything over four, you’d be lucky.” Well, who are you going to listen to?
Doug Hubler:
Yeah. We run into a lot of advisors, accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, who say, “Your business is worth X,” but they may be feeding off what they know the seller wants. They’re giving them some information that’s really not accurate in the marketplace. We’ve got to come in and give them a dose reality, and they can be a little upset sometimes, but I think we just go through the math with them and get them to understand, “Listen, somebody’s got to buy it, pay debt, pay themselves, and actually have some money left over to operate the business,” and that equation, we go through quite a bit with somebody and they’ll get it, usually, and if they don’t, if they’re still upset, then we probably can’t help them.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah. The example of the mechanic that I gave, that guy, by the fourth year, he was coming in with his cashflow sheet already filled out for us-
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, wow.
Andy Cavanaugh:
… with it ticked and tied to his P&L, his tax return. He had gone through it enough, and he was managing his business to that seller’s discretionary earnings sheet because he had his end goal in mind as to, “Okay, I know that this number’s got to get to here for me to get what I want,” and he did everything that he could to manage his business to getting it there, and he ran a very efficient business. By that fourth year, when he sold it, his business was tight.
Doug Hubler:
I would say that, when we say it’s nine months to a year to sell a business, that’s typical, but if we’re working with somebody ahead of time and we’ve got them prepped to go to market, it can be a matter of weeks when it’s on the market and sold. It really makes a huge difference. That nine months to a year is just that typical business owner that comes to us unprepared, unannounced, and says, “Okay, I’m ready to go to market.” Now we may have been talking to them for two or three years, or we’re following up with them, and they’re like, “No, I’m not ready. No, I’m not ready. No, I’m not ready,” and then they’re like, “Okay, now I’m ready. Weekend was great. I was on vacation. Last Friday, somebody quit on me, so I want to sell now.” Those don’t work very well, and that’s going to take some time.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. It sounds like the same advisors who are giving all kinds of advice to a business owner, you need to be right there alongside of them and saying, “Hey, we know that you’re going to exit at some point. If we’re close, let’s start talking today. We don’t have to put it on the market now. Let’s just get you ready to get the most money for it.”
Doug Hubler:
That’s better for everybody.
Jeff Randolph:
I can see the wisdom of this. Okay. Now I assume that, as part of the process, whether you’re telling a business owner that, “Oh, yeah, your business isn’t worth that. That’s not what you could expect to receive for it,” there are some fights that happen. If there are areas where fights happen, is that on valuation? Is that on the negotiation part? Where do fights happen?
Doug Hubler:
Everywhere.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Typically, don’t they happen in the big break room? Are you talking about the broker fights?
Jeff Randolph:
I think the broker fight, that’s the ones you can make the most money on when you’re betting on someone. You’re like, “Andy’s going to be good, but if the fight goes to the ground, I’m not sure he can hang with this.”
Doug Hubler:
Jeff’s got a long reach.
Jeff Randolph:
Got to keep them standing, got to keep them standing.
Doug Hubler:
I don’t know. The fights in the deals, it can happen anywhere along the way. It’d be nice to be able to, say, put a Gantt chart together, this is how they work all the time, and it doesn’t happen that way. It can be in the valuation. It can be in the financing of the deal, the due diligence phase, the arguments over what is the seller discretionary earnings. It can be over, oh, somebody needs an environmental study done on the property. It can be tons of emotion. And then you get attorneys and bankers and accountants involved, and you’ve got all these personalities coming in, all these advisors on both sides, and so we’re in the middle, “Okay, if you want to sell and you want to buy, let’s figure out how to make this work,” and there are going to be obstacles along the way. We just kind of need to manage those and manage the expectations.
Andy Cavanaugh:
I think we know when it falls apart in due diligence more. If you’re saying you want 500 for it, and I’m saying, “I’ll pay you 250, we don’t get very far.”
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, yeah, that conversation ends.
Doug Hubler:
That’s not even a fight.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Yeah, it goes away pretty fast. It’s really where it really hits our radar is after we’ve got an accepted offer before closing, and oftentimes that period’s called due diligence, and that’s where the deal is really put together and formalized and finalized, and that’s where we see the vast majority of what we would say, okay, this is really where the magic of us comes in, is keeping this thing on track during due diligence. We can’t keep them all on. At some point, somebody may find out something that just … it’s a deal breaker.
Speaker 1:
That’s the deal breaker for them, yeah.
Andy Cavanaugh:
And it may have been disclosed, and we try to find those things as early as we can. Hey, if we’re going to fail, let’s fail fast. Let’s not get eight weeks down the road, and all of a sudden, we’re like, “Oh, this deal fell apart,” because then we’re starting over. We’re back out looking for a buyer. We’re back out trying to negotiate. We want to know that stuff as quick as we can.
Doug Hubler:
We have tons of examples, and I’ll give one that just happened today, where I’ve got a buyer and seller who want to get the deal done. They’ve agreed to the deal. They know they want to close as soon as possible. They’ve been talking for a number of months. It’s the two attorneys on the deal that are fighting over language. Buyer and seller are together. They agree. At this point, “Fire your attorneys, agree to the language, you both know what you want, and move on.” And I don’t say that lightly because we need attorneys in deals, but sometimes they get a little bit territorial. They want language exactly the way they want it, and they don’t give in, and so there’s some frustration there. And time kills deals, we know that, so this is the point where we say, “Okay, you guys want to do this deal. Let’s just make it happen.”
Jeff Randolph:
It sounds like you guys are as much advisor as you are diplomat. You’re helping move the process along and doing it in a way where you’re helping people keep focused on the end goal, and you’re saying, “Guys, I’m here to negotiate things.”
Doug Hubler:
We’re therapists a lot of times to keep people even keeled, try to take the emotion out of it, “I know you’re upset about this, but let’s look at the end game here. Yeah, it took us an extra week, whatever, but let’s just focus on what we can solve.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
I started counting my communications with sellers, and on average, I communicate with a seller over 750 times.
Jeff Randolph:
Wow.
Andy Cavanaugh:
When somebody’s like, “Well, what are you going to do for me?” It’s like, “I don’t know. I’m going to talk to you 750 times, and that’s going to be-”
Jeff Randolph:
“I’m going to be your best friend.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
“There’s going to be 750 reasons for us to talk, and I can’t tell you what those 750 are going to be, but you’re going to need me.”
Jeff Randolph:
“I’ll cut down on the thanks email as many times as I can, but we’re still going to talk.”
You own a business, you’ve both owned businesses in the past. If we think about you as business owner, what is the best advice you could give to a business owner
Speaker 3:
You want to go?
Jeff Randolph:
Or best advice you’ve received as a business owner, something that was meaningful to you?
Andy Cavanaugh:
I think, as a business owner, you can get really caught up in counting pennies. You can walk over hundreds of dollars to pick up pennies and dimes. And so I think it’s really you’ve got to have that discipline and focus to know what the hourly rate is of the work that you’re doing. And something that I personally got caught up, in a business owner role, is I let go of a $13-an-hour employee because I didn’t feel like they were doing a very good job, and I stepped into that role, because I can do that role and my other role, and so I started giving up 50, 7500, $500 an hour type work to do $15-an-hour work. And so I think knowing the value of each role and having the discipline to do the 100, 500,000, $5,000-an-hour work is where the owner needs to spend their time.
Jeff Randolph:
Stay elevated, yeah.
Doug Hubler:
I think what I’ve learned out of this whole process, and probably some advice I’ve gotten along the way, is use advisors and don’t do it all yourself. Hire a fantastic marketing company.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, that’s very nice. What great advice.
Doug Hubler:
But, really, there are so many things that I don’t have the skill set to do, and I decided, years ago to say, “I need to hire professionals to do this for me to get ahead.” Otherwise, there would be no way I could accomplish everything that we’ve done so far by me trying to do it all.
Jeff Randolph:
I had to get through my master’s level accounting class and said, “I know enough that I need to hire an accountant. I will never do that myself-”
Doug Hubler:
Right, right. That’s smart.
Jeff Randolph:
“… ever for any reason.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
Well, and I think, to Doug’s point, this is what you guys do every day. This is what we do every day. And so it’s just the fact that, we’ve talked, that even our most inexperienced brokers have sold five more businesses than most of the people coming through our door-
Doug Hubler:
True. True.
Andy Cavanaugh:
… our most inexperienced. It is one of those things where, sure, you could do it on your own, but do you really want to deal with … a liquor store, for example, gets probably 150 inquiries on it. If you’re a liquor store owner, do you want to take those 150 calls? Do you want to screen those 150 buyers?
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. Yeah. This is what you do every day.
Andy Cavanaugh:
This is what we do every day.
Jeff Randolph:
Trust the professionals. Trust your advisors.
Doug Hubler:
Well, and we could say, without a doubt, that if somebody’s trying to sell their own business, unless they’re really lying to somebody, they’re not getting what they could have gotten if they’d hired a professional.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s all the reason I need.
Let’s kick this into the lightning round, shall we?
Doug Hubler:
Ready. [inaudible 00:28:31]. He’s just kidding.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Hold on. All right. Okay. Here we go. Here we go.
Jeff Randolph:
Andy’s limbering up. This is short answer, soundbite. We can dive in more if we need to, but our first question goes to Andy. What’s the secret to a good smoothie?
Andy Cavanaugh:
Sonic ice.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, Hoshizaki ice. Oh, pellet ice. Yeah.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Bullet ice. Pellet ice.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, pellet ice. That’s a good example.
Andy Cavanaugh:
As my girls might call it, rabbit poop ice.
Jeff Randolph:
Rabbit poop ice. No one will ever say, that’s a bad ice.
Doug Hubler:
Not going to that shop.
Jeff Randolph:
Exactly. Doug-
Andy Cavanaugh:
It’s not real rabbit poop, Doug. It’s pellets.
Doug Hubler:
I got it. I got it.
Andy Cavanaugh:
I’m going to bring some in.
Jeff Randolph:
You owned a franchise at one point. You know these things. You can trust this information. Pellet ice, that’s the key. Doug, for seasoned cyclists, what’s your favorite recommendation for an amazing ride? Where should they go? What is the coolest place to ride?
Doug Hubler:
Crested Butte.
Jeff Randolph:
Crested Butte.
Doug Hubler:
Mountain biking, stay off the roads, mountain biking, single-track trails, Crested Butte.
Jeff Randolph:
That seems like it would be absolutely lovely. I’m also thinking about elevation at that point and-
Doug Hubler:
It’ll get to you. It’ll get to you for sure-
Jeff Randolph:
If you’re not ready.
Doug Hubler:
… but it’s beautiful.
Jeff Randolph:
Let’s turn this one into an all-play.
Doug Hubler:
An all-play.
Jeff Randolph:
This is a sports ball question, because I know you guys like to have at least one sports ball question on your own podcast.
Doug Hubler:
This is Andy.
Jeff Randolph:
Is Taylor Swift’s presence at a Chiefs’ game an overall positive or an overall negative?
Doug Hubler:
I’d say it’s a positive. I’m going to say it’s a positive.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Absolutely. I absolutely love it.
Jeff Randolph:
Love it?
Andy Cavanaugh:
I like fun. It’s fun. Taylor at the game is fun. Now have the TV networks gone a little overboard? I think they lost my wife when they popped the stat up of what Travis’s yards per game were with Taylor in attendance and not, and she didn’t really have a problem with that, but she had a problem with the heading being You Belong with TE. After Ian Eagles, Kelce found a blank space, we were good. That was clever when it was first coming out and now they’re forcing it.
Jeff Randolph:
Yes. It’s a shtick at this point. Yeah.
Andy Cavanaugh:
It’s just becoming [inaudible 00:30:57].
Doug Hubler:
It’s a little much, it’s a little much, but it has brought some excitement.
Andy Cavanaugh:
I like him. I like her. I think they make a lovely couple. I hope they go the distance, and if they don’t, I can’t wait for the song that comes out of it.
Jeff Randolph:
It’s going to be so amazing. You have a podcast. First, let me plug your award-winning podcast.
Doug Hubler:
Thank you.
Jeff Randolph:
Great podcast. Good podcast.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Excellent guests.
Jeff Randolph:
You guys are doing a great job. What’s your favorite thing about doing that podcast?
Andy Cavanaugh:
We started the podcast when I was a relatively new business broker, and honestly, and we can cut this part, but I get to pick Doug’s brain, or I get to pick Doug’s brain on a weekly basis and just absorb, be a sponge to the knowledge that he brings to the industry. And again, you can cut all of this, but to me, that is really the benefit for me is that I get to be listener number one. This guy’s forgotten more about this industry and business brokering than I’ll ever know.
Jeff Randolph:
It won’t, especially that attitude.
Doug Hubler:
No, I do have memory issues. That’s what Andy’s talking about.
Andy Cavanaugh:
See, hat we’re trying to do is for Doug’s memory issues, get everything down on Memorex so we can go back and play it for him, I guess.
Doug Hubler:
I can listen to it.
Jeff Randolph:
Man, I was smart once. I really knew what I was doing.
Doug Hubler:
I think we have a lot of fun doing it. There were tons of stories. Every week, we could come up with a story. And it’s one of the things about our business, it’s so interesting meeting all these new personalities, the business owners, the types of businesses we come across. We’re learning from each other, from all the brokers and, shoot, we have a lot of horror stories to tell and success stories, but the horror stories tend to be a little bit more fun.
Jeff Randolph:
Entertaining to listen to, yeah, for sure.
Andy Cavanaugh:
I think, when we first started out, we were wondering how many of these things could we do? Do we really have content to do a podcast? Because we had that conversation. Okay.
Doug Hubler:
Can we do 20 of these?
Andy Cavanaugh:
After we get through 10 and we tell people this, this, and this, nobody’s … and every week, every week, the show almost writes itself, just listen to what’s going on around the office, and you’re like, “Oh, really? What’s going on over there? Okay, I’ll do a podcast on that.”
Doug Hubler:
And I think having the actual stories going on that day, and we can say, “Here’s what’s happening. You may have heard something similar three months ago, but here’s what’s happening today,” just a little twist.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Well, it’s also documenting, too, that I think, and I’m guilty of this myself, is I’ll get to closing, the deal will close, everything is done, everybody got paid, and then I’m like, “It wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t that bad.”
Jeff Randolph:
You immediately have that goldfish memory of, “I don’t remember all the bad stuff.”
Andy Cavanaugh:
Everything’s great. Look, I just bought myself a new pair of Jordans. Everything’s fine.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s good.
Doug Hubler:
And my response is, “That’s great. What’s next?”
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah. See, and that’s something you can learn from right there. That’s good advice. What’s next? Yeah, we did it. Let’s go. What’s next?
Andy Cavanaugh:
We actually have had this conversation. When I cashed my first big check, I came in the next day, and I was like, “Okay, cashed that check. Now what’s next?” This is a business where, based on how we’re compensated, that you have to be very self-disciplined, and you have to be very self-starter, or whatever the case is, because, if I may use another Sopranos reference-
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, please do.
Andy Cavanaugh:
… you’re only as good as your last envelope. You’re constantly out looking for what’s next, and you’re constantly out getting the next listing and making sure that that listing gets to closing, because the other thing is it’s not just about the compensation, it’s also about we’re submitting the legacy of somebody’s life work, and oftentimes, we’re sending people to retirement, and we get to live vicariously through those people as they go into retirement. It is important because, for them, this is it, they’re going to sell this one time, so we’ve got to be on our game every day to make sure that that gets there.
Jeff Randolph:
There’s not one thing better I could possibly end on than that statement. That is a great pull quote.
Doug Hubler:
That was good. That was good.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s solid. There’s a reason you do this for a living. That’s really well done. Let me wrap it up.
Doug Hubler:
Okay. That’s why I’m just the guest.
Jeff Randolph:
That’s why you’re the guest on the podcast? Right.
Doug Hubler:
He’s been a guest for 95 [inaudible 00:35:39].
Jeff Randolph:
95 episodes, oh, man. 100 episodes as, a guest that’s better than any Saturday Night Live cast member has ever done. Where can people find you? How do they learn about you and get in touch.
Doug Hubler:
I’m going to let Andy take this.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Jeff, really the only place people got to go, kcapex.com. That’s going to be your source for all things business buying and selling. Okay, we got blogs out there. We got our podcasts out there. We got our active listings. You want to get in touch with any member of our team, there’s bios, there’s email address, there’s phone numbers, there’s LinkedIn contacts. We’ve got it all out there. It’s a great website, a lot of good metrics, tons of graphs that I just saw that I have no idea what they meant, but we have a lot of graphs about what happens on our website, so much content out there, kcapex.com. And, if you’re looking at buying or selling a business, we got you, fam.
Doug Hubler:
Isn’t that lovely?
Jeff Randolph:
That is amazing.
Doug Hubler:
I love to hear that.
Jeff Randolph:
He really crushes it. Andy Cavanaugh and Doug Hubler from Apex Business Advisors, thanks for being on the show.
Andy Cavanaugh:
Appreciate you, Jeff.
Doug Hubler:
Thanks for having us.
Jeff Randolph:
And that is our show. Thank you to Doug and to Andy for being with us today from Apex Business Advisors, and thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five-star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com if you have some thoughts. Until then, we’re out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.