Can Michael Loftus's 3 Acquisitions CHANGE the Landscaping Industry?

 Summary

In this conversation, Michael Loftus shares his journey from starting his own landscaping company to making multiple acquisitions in the industry. He discusses the challenges of employee shortages, the intricacies of the acquisition process, and the importance of maintaining trust with employees during transitions. Michael emphasizes the significance of community and networking in business, as well as the financial considerations that come with acquisitions. He also reflects on the impact of economic conditions on his business and his future plans for growth.

Takeaways

Michael started his landscaping company from scratch before moving to acquisitions.
Employee shortages in the landscaping industry create a competitive hiring environment.
Acquisitions can be a strategic way to grow a business quickly.
Maintaining employee trust is crucial during transitions after acquisitions.
Networking on platforms like Twitter can lead to business opportunities.
Understanding the financial landscape is key to successful acquisitions.
Transitioning employees from acquired companies requires careful management.
Economic conditions can impact business decisions and growth strategies.
Michael prefers to keep his business operations lean and efficient.
He values the importance of community and mentorship in entrepreneurship.

 Watch the Interview:

Transcript:

Jon Stoddard (00:00.46)
Welcome to the top &A entrepreneurs today. My guest is Michael Loftus. Michael runs a company called Connor Landscaping. He's made three acquisitions to date and I don't think he's slowing down. So welcome Michael. Hey, thanks for having me on man. Yeah. So tell us how this all started. mean, where, where, what were you doing before you decided I want to do, I want to acquire a company. So I started mine from scratch actually. So it's kind of contrary to a lot of these guys that

start by buying. Not intentionally. That's just the path I chose is just go start it. And I kind of hit a wall with kind of growing where I what I had. And being in California, there's kind of some some issues with growing organically that maybe weren't here 20 years ago, in the landscaping space, as far as you know, really a lack of good employees.

you know, and the space really getting smaller because there's a lot of big money coming into it. Yeah. Cause they like that reoccurring revenue. It's huge. And I mean, there's the good and bad in that, know, there's a lot of competition, but also, you know, if you put together pretty decent sized company, the multiples are pretty damn good. What are they saying that I want to, it depends. mean, I've seen, I think once you get to obviously that million,

A big number. That's always a big one. But I knew a guy that sold his company who was doing over a million with the right overhead. That's the other caveat I've seen. Like we're like, we make a million bucks. I'm like, well, you don't have the right office staff. You're not paying a general manager 150 K. There's a lot of like, you gotta have your pieces in a row, but he had those and I think he got over 5 million. He got five and a half. Five X multiple on a landscaping company. That's amazing.

But he was big, you know, he was, he was doing like, I don't know, like, very big for my space, like 10 million, making one, but a real one, or like he literally was working 10 hours a week, not, you know, I'm working 70 and I want to act like I make a million, but reality, you haven't hired the right people yet, you know? Yeah. So I want to go back to the employee shortage. Are, so you having difficulty finding people to do the jobs?

Jon Stoddard (02:26.413)
that you can trust and do hard work? There's definitely a shortage. I'm lucky I've retained a lot of employees that I had, especially the good ones. But yeah, there's just a huge, it's kind of like a invisible bidding war for people. Some of these companies, they need people, they're gonna like, well, what are you gonna pay? I'm getting 17 bucks, I'll give you 18. And there's a lot of guys that will jump for that dollar.

Yeah. Some of them will come to you and like give you a, basically an opportunity to keep them like, Hey, like this other guy literally could be at the gas station. Like they don't care. Like they, they know what they're working for. and sometimes you can match it and keep them. Sometimes you're like, I can't pencil it. You know, I understand if you got to go, you know, it's not a personal thing. think some of these guys take it personal. but in reality, these guys are on the knife's edge living in California, making that much money. mean, it's you're, you're right at the knife's edge. Yeah.

So when you started, you launched your own landscaping company, just organically. And then what did you do? You said, hey, I'm not growing fast enough. I'm going to go start acquiring a couple others. Yeah. So I think I did organic for the first three to four years and learned a ton, learned a lot about the industry. I mean, I didn't know much about it before I got in and did plenty of learning. And then I was like, you know what?

I had no idea Biz by Cell even existed. So I was like, I had a random thought. I'm like, I'm gonna just Google like landscape business for sale. And of course Biz by Cell is like one of the top ones that comes up. And I must've spent like three full days just looking at Biz by Cell like, and not even just at landscaping, know, like how much the Jiffy Lube sells for, you know, just these random, like this roofing company, like, man, that's huge. Like, holy shit.

And then how much they want for these companies. just thought it was fascinating. And I don't obviously don't have &A experience, but I kind of was like, OK, well, what's the next step? And I saw a few little ones. I saw one that was around the corner for me. So just did the fill out the NDA, talk to the broker, go meet the seller, all that kind of stuff. how big? Tell me about the deal size. was like? How big? The first one.

Jon Stoddard (04:50.935)
They were doing like half a million bucks and making a hundred ish. Yeah. and knowing what you know, because you're in the industry, do you know that that was in the range? Yeah, that, that was what I was looking for. I also didn't really want to go grab a bunch of debt before I really know what I was doing. That's the way I looked at it. Yeah. I'm not debt averse, but I'm also kind of careful. and.

So I was like, hey, I'm look at something that I can actually swing by myself and not, you know, take on a ton of debt before I'm really ready for it. Yeah, let me get a sense of where were your size of your company at that point? Did you hit a million in top line? Yeah, I was like a million, three million, four. And I did that all organic. And then, so this guy would have taken me to like 2 million bucks.

Yeah. And I think he had like six, seven guys or something like that. And then the other two were a little bit bigger than that one. I think they're doing like seven, 800 with some more people. So yeah, I kind of still stayed in that ballpark, but definitely stayed under the the group of guys that are getting those big multiples. Just that's that's still what

one, two, three multiples. Yeah. So yeah, we're, we're in the nothing more than three. Yeah. Nothing more than three. Okay. At this size. I think once you get past, once you get to, I think 400, 500 grand, you're going to start getting to the fours, fives. So I think it's kind of a weird sweet spot. The big guys don't want to mess with these. Doesn't mean they're not good. And I think there's a lot of talk.

I've seen on Twitter at least about, you know, don't buy small companies, don't buy small companies. I'm like, I agree. But if you're already in that industry, they're, they're great as bolt-ons, but I wouldn't buy it individually. makes sense. Yeah, you're buying a job. mean, Michael, I, the conversation I had with Michael Gurdley, who you've already met, I mean, he bought a whole bunch of hyper niche, small $1 million top line companies. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (07:18.157)
Mine were small, but they had amazing employees, just phenomenal people who still work for me. think I kept, the three companies I bought, I kept 90 % of the recurring revenue accounts and 90 % of the employees. Yeah. So you, all those three companies you looked at on Biz by Cell, you bought? So two of them were Biz by Cell. The third one was Biz by Cell, but the broker reached out to me. So what I did,

This is before I think they cracked down on this was probably three, four, three years ago. Yeah. Something like that. I actually put out a, I paid to have a spot on this myself. And what I did, I was like, this is like a wanted like, Hey, I'm looking for a commercial landscape business, you know, even da between, you know, I figured I put like 80 grand to, you know, a few hundred grand classified. Yeah.

Yeah, but I kind of like I put it in the for sale section. I kind of like backdoored in. Okay. And I don't know, I was like, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna try it like they have nothing to lose. It costs like 25 bucks to put in there. See what happens. Sure enough, a guy who was selling his business in LA, the broker was selling a big property management company for a family and one of the sons also had a landscape business who he is selling as well. But this was kind of like a like

a small thing that he had to sell for them. He normally sells this bigger stuff, right? And he's just like, all right, like we're going to find like, he's like, finds me. He's like, let's come meet. Let's see, see if it's a good match. And he was just like a noble, noble shit, no nonsense. Like, Hey, this is a price. you know, does it work for you? I'm like, yeah, I think I beat him up like 50 grand or something and made offer. And he's like, that's great. He's like, we're not going to hassle you on it. Let's just get it done.

Okay, so yeah, so that was just like they were trying to unload some assets for, for some bigger portfolio that where this just is like an add on or something. This was a small piece of it of a family's kind of deal that they were kind of selling off. They weren't selling the real estate, but they're selling their businesses. And he was kind of in charge of selling the big one, but this was just kind of a afterthought. And I kind of fit the bill, I already had the licensing already had all this stuff, I kind of was on industry already.

Jon Stoddard (09:39.297)
which made it easier. Yeah. How many clients came with that business?

think like 50. 50 and 90 % stayed with you? Did you raise prices, keep the prices the same when you... That's a good question. I, every year on all of my recurring revenue properties, which I have like 200 or so, we do do a cost of living increase every year. It's normally like four or 5%. Which you got to do because if you don't, it's just like human nature. if you... inflation is 8%. That too.

And also fuel is through the roof and I have like 24 trucks. So that adds up. The fuel, my fuel bill went up like, I think $6,000 a month. Yeah, not doing anything different. Like we're running the same amount of trucks, same distances, everything. Right. So when you go take your truck to a quick trip or something, now it's a hundred dollars to fill up. To least, and it's all these trucks and you know,

It's just another thing. It's like being a business, like they don't, you know, they don't tell you what to do, right? I'm like picturing this in my head. So there's a bidding war for good workers, 18, 19, 20 bucks. There's prices of gas and expenses just going up. How are you keeping up like charging more? And is there elasticity when you say, customer, know we, I know we charge you this month, but inflation just went up 8 % and

May, June, That is a good question. I kind of, all my contracts are 30 day contracts, technically, but they're really sticky. one gives rid of you. It's kind of like, you know, a Netflix subscription. You can get rid of it anytime you want, but how many people really do? Not many people. It's kind of the same mentality. It's yours to lose kind of thing. If you screw up, make mistakes, dent a car. You got to like not show up. mean, that's like,

Jon Stoddard (11:45.815)
high, you lose them. But I, when gas went, and so I'm in Orange County, California, and gas went from four bucks, which I was like, this is like not cheap. When it went up, started going up to that five, 56 buck range. I was like, you know what, my gas bill has gone up $6,000. I'm not going to take a six grand bath on that. So what I ended up doing was, I mean, I just made this up. I took

the Delta and I divided it up through my properties and actually sent a little surcharge. So if let's say my monthly billing rate is a thousand dollars for a property, I went and said, hey, gas fuel surcharge as a line item underneath, you know, 45 bucks. But I did that across all my accounts. I think I did like either 25 bucks or 50 bucks, you know, something like that. And I ended up making up that difference.

and even my girl who runs my office, who's great. She's like, Mike, are you sure? Like, you know, it's going to make these people mad and you know, it's kind of stuff. And I'm like, listen, I'd rather deal with four, 10 of the 200 people that we do work for calling me and crying or maybe one leaves or what I'd rather deal with that. Then take a six grand bath and continue to like that's every month. That's not like a one-time deal. Yeah. No kidding. so we did that and I had.

only one person even say anything to us. And he was like, Hey, is this temporary? I'm like, yeah, until gas goes back to a normal rate, which should, I don't know, four bucks. Yeah. For at least another three years. So, you know, I, you know, it ended up being that I think we ended up billing like $6,500 more just on these little fuel charge deals, but they're spread out. So, you know, the client's like, yeah, 50 bucks. get it. Gas is crazy. No, not a big deal. Like no problem. But

you know, if you don't do it, like you're just gonna lose money, like you're just not gonna make it. So that's how I've kind of kept up with it. And we, we just did our cost of living increase. We did like four and a half percent. It's, you know, you're battling a lot of different fronts, you know what mean? But I think that's any business. don't think that's unique to what I'm doing. So how did that, that was your first acquisition to bolt on to your, did you?

Jon Stoddard (14:08.225)
Do anything with the, whoever was running the legal or accounting, did those stay come or come with the business? So they had, you know, they had an account that they've been using forever, who just was nice, but just really slow, which I actually found a woman that does all my accounting stuff now, who's really quick, really good, has a good team with her.

that kind of like I fold these into mine. So basically like everyone it's a asset sale. Everyone gets fired on Friday. They're hired by me on Monday. And they're basically employees of my LLC now. So I don't really take on their LLC when I buy the company. You just buy the assets. Exactly. And you know, rehire all the people even though they the guys don't feel like they got fired because I mean, it's just a legality like the change of a year on my payroll now. Yeah.

So I've had a really good woman doing the accounting for me the last few years. And attorney wise, have, my dad's had a business attorney for 25 years who's really good and pretty Who's your dad? My dad. Yeah, is it Ed Loftus? Ed Loftus is my Yeah, because I noticed the connection in there. You know, I was just going to make a point that a lot of people go in wanting to buy these businesses and thinking these attorneys,

and legal team are excited about selling it, they're not because they're actually losing a client. So they may drag their feet or not want to. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've seen attorneys screw these people left and right on different deals. mean, I had one at the literally the five yard line, about six months ago. great tuck in right down the street from me, everything that go me and the seller had good connection. you know, the numbers wind up.

You know, my business is like eight times as big as his. So, you know, the seller note wasn't a big deal. but you know, he brought this attorney on who didn't like the collateral and that was enough for him to not do the whole deal. even though I even let him speak to the three other sellers that I had completely paid back, which I didn't want to do, but if that's what it was going to take to get the deal done, like here, here's the guy's names and numbers, give them a call, you know, and that ended up not being enough.

Jon Stoddard (16:31.757)
Yeah. So this first deal that you did added, what are like 400,000 top line, something like that. 500. Yeah. 500,000 top line. you're now right around. Two million close. $2 million. And then EBITDA was proportional the same. Yep. Cause I, I still didn't have office staff at that point. So I was still doing everything by myself. Yeah. All right. Well, that's cool. And it,

Was there kind of a bump in the road where it was kind of crazy for a couple of months, three, four? yeah. I was shitting bricks, man. I wired all the money I'd ever saved to be quite honest with you, to have as the down. you made your money back. yeah. And that's just my personality. I just go all in. just, I'm going to go for it. And you know, I was like, you know, I'm not going to

how this not worked for a lack of effort. That's never been my issue. So I just went in there and I'm like, told the guys, I'm like, hey, the guys are working there. I'm like, hey, just give me a chance. I know you don't know me, you know, but give me a shot. And I think you guys are going to be surprised. So, and they did and it all worked out and everybody stayed and I've kept, you know, most of the business and most of the guys. And did you reach out to all the clients and say, Hey, there's a new owner. And yeah, we sent out a letter.

kind of informing them, hey, we've acquired the business, blah, blah, blah. We retained all the employees and we always make sure we put that in there. If you'd like to do an onsite visit, meet and talk, like, please reach out, blah, blah, And other three, I mean, I had 10 % of all the clients actually care enough to want to meet me. It's just, you don't want to think just because that's what you do that it's like really.

people care about it. I'm kind of an invisible service. Like someone owns like a $5 million commercial building. We come and we mow the lawns, we keep everything clean. You're kind of an invisible service that they just kind of pay. That's like electricity or You don't notice it until somebody's not doing it. Exactly. And you want to be invisible, to be honest. I mean, some other clients are more high touch, like they want to talk to you. They want to walk the property and all this stuff. most of my clients aren't that way.

Jon Stoddard (18:50.975)
Also when they call us, we're all over it and handle it. So I also don't, don't want to like force myself to meet with him if they don't care enough to meet, you know? Yeah. They're just like, Hey man, as long as you keep up the service, that's it. Right. And that's mostly what we get from people like, Hey, you know, that sounds good, man. Like, you know, we need, know, your W nine and we need, forget, there's enough few other pieces of paper. We also need, you know, to be additionally insured through your Paul insurance policies and.

little paperwork stuff, but not like, you know, my gosh, you're the new owner. this is so different. The dramatic change. This is gonna. Most of them don't care. And I really overestimated that I was like, what if they leave and all this stuff? After the first time I realized I'm like, people don't care that much. I'm the one that actually cares because I just wired all the money that I have. yeah, they most people just don't really care. Did you offer them anything else like seller financing or some other thing and they just didn't want to take it?

So no, no, no, I, did, I had seller finance and all my deals. Okay. So what was that split? What did that look like? So first one. Yeah. It was like 25 % seller finance. Okay. And it's been about that or yeah, around that for all of them. So, the rest cash. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So how did that second deal go? Where'd you find that? The second one was the one that I

that the guy found me on Biz by Self when he had to like offload everything. That was the second one. Which was in LA, which is a little bit north of us. And then the third one was from Biz by Self. Which was, mean, they're all were good deals for like different reasons. And they all had a different problem too that I had to solve once you got in that you didn't find that you there's no way you could have known in the due diligence.

Yeah. So that is, I had a mentor tell me it's like, there's a puzzle in front of you. You just got to figure out what the puzzle and solve where the pieces go. Yeah. Every business has, like you just said, its own problem. just have to solve that. Yeah. And I think when you solve it also is important. think people don't talk about that enough. Like let's say the last business I bought, the guy was great. Everything was fine. got in the middle of it. and the.

Jon Stoddard (21:13.901)
squirrel that was in there was he was paying these guys on Saturdays and he was paying them cash to work on Saturday. And that wasn't in the books. That wasn't talked about in any meeting, anything, but we're already in this thing I'm already in. So it's kind of a figured out thing. and knowing how these kinds of employees are coming in and decided I'm going to change everything right now, or I'm going to change something to do with your check or your money.

You could easily lose all your employees in a day, in a week, like all your key people, like they could leave. So of course the next day you'd love to like stop paying cash, make sure it was on payroll, just like everything else. But you kind of have to have more strategy. So what I was like, I was like, in in the course of a year, by the year from today, I want to try to be off this cash deal. I want to make up. So I got to get to know the guys. That's the most important thing.

You, you, you inherited the problem. You saw it, you knew it was a problem, but you didn't do anything about it so that they built trust in you that you're going to fix it. Immediately. didn't do it immediately just because it's already a change for these guys to have a new owner to have, you know, office stuff that they never met. to they're just kind of old, but skittish. but, so I kind of was like, first things first, like these guys need to know who, know who I am, know that I'm approachable.

that I'm not, you know, the scary white boss. I'm like, I'm just another guy. I'm just having to be your boss. And I've been, yeah, enough. My landscape Spanish is really good. Kitchen Spanish, good. Talking shit Spanish, like level 10. But so I realized there was a problem and I was like, you know what, over the course of the year, I want to transition out of that.

I'll find a way I'll, and sometimes you almost have to just blame other reasons. Like even though in the reality is it's like, Hey, we need to not be using cash. Like everything needs to be above board. I don't play games like that. I, know, we're to do everything on payroll. If you worked extra hours, it's going to be overtime. It's going to be time and a half. I have to workers comp on every dollar of that payroll. I just don't mess around with that because I've worked. You can be getting a more trouble, especially if they got hurt on a Saturday.

Jon Stoddard (23:40.927)
all that stuff. So I've way too hard and put too much money in to like have to not do it the right way. That's what I Really? The previous owner was actually screwing them, paying in cash. Like, okay, you're making cash on the short term, but if you got wounded, hurt, Hey, have no, I have no knowledge of that. Right. He could back up. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's, yeah, there's a plethora of problems with that. so what I ended up doing was I forget at a certain point I was like, Hey guys, like, you know, the accountants, know, they're

They're not letting me do the cash thing anymore. We have to put it on payroll. I'm sorry, man, I would love to do it, but I blame the accountants. The accountants will do whatever I tell them to do. I'm just making me not be the bad guy on this one, make the invisible person that they don't know. And they came around to it, but they trusted me. They knew who I was. They knew I wasn't trying to screw them. Did you ask for their input to help solve it or you waited?

So I waited and then I thought about how to approach it. And then I approached the guy who was basically the account manager, kind of like the ringleader guy of that group. And I told him about it. I'm like, Hey, this accountant is really breathing down my neck. We really have to get out of the cash thing because they're really on me about it. So, you know, I just want to let you guys know in the next few weeks, we're going to have to transition that over. And he was like, you know, I get it. Nope, no problem. You know, yeah.

Did you lose anybody? No. did that, the, how was that coming out? Was that kind of that cash coming out of the business account?

but where was it going? I like traced it doing an audit. Hey, we're paying employees. Okay. So how was he doing it? Yeah. Well, I see it was how he's doing it. It was just getting taken cash out of the bank account and paying him a hand, but somebody's got to write an invoice for that cash going out. Like where's the expense going? Because he could have been just putting in his pocket. Yeah. I think what

Jon Stoddard (25:49.489)
he was taking it out of money that he had paid himself, which is stupid. It's like, you're definitely, you're pulling out cash after tax, you know, it's just, it's stupid. I was lucky. So I have part of my business that I'll renovate homes sometimes for landscaping. I love it cause it's, there's no counts for And you know, sometimes those clients will pay you in cash.

which does help with that stuff, but it was just a pain. I don't like dealing with it at all. I'd much rather have a check for everything, let everything be on the books. just, having two sets of books, it's just a mess. I don't like doing it. So every business I bought has a different problem, but also it was great for a different reason. So that's my experience. So where are you at now, the top line? We're about like four, four and a half, 4.3 or something like that. Yeah. And then what about?

500, 600 in that range. We'll see how the end of the year plays out. Do you have plans to entertain private equity offers if you get to the 1 million? What do you want to do? I don't think so. I really enjoy it. I'm not in a hurry to get big and have an EMA. So, know, have an exit is as exciting as that sounds. I have an exit.

I don't know. I really do next. mean, that's a great question. That's actually a bigger question. It's not, it was most people like, well, what about the money? I'm like, well, that's interesting, but what's a better thing I can do with my money, my after tax money. And also I'm running my lifestyle for my business, you know, so a lot of things that I'm paying for our pre-tax. Yeah. So I'll tell you if there's an interview with a tiger 21 guy that runs that that's one of the biggest masterminds he said,

usually in entrepreneurs make way much more money staying in their business that they grew because once they sell and try to become an investor, they usually lose their money. And he, the people in his group are a hundred worth a hundred million or more billion. They are better entrepreneurs than they are investors. Absolutely. And I'm, I can only see for myself, like I know my niche. know what I'm doing. That doesn't mean I know.

Jon Stoddard (28:14.743)
how to do a bunch of other stuff or know which crypto to buy or which real estate to buy or all this stuff. I know my thing, my weird small niche and staying in my lane has worked. So I'm not really gonna change that. I think it'd have to be like a huge number for me to think about getting out. And even then it's like,

If you're making, let's say 2 million bucks, you would die and they are going to give you, let's say 10 million bucks, you know, okay. So you get your 10, you pay at least three in tax, maybe four in California. Yeah. You pay 54. Yeah. Yeah. So let's say you're a genius and you walk away with 6 million bucks. you know, what am I going to put that into? That's going to give me the same returns that I have. It's just not.

And mine is like, okay, I could have run my business for three more years or four and I have my money back. So it's kind of, I don't know. So you're kind of battling that I think back and forth, but I'm a long ways from that. So from even making that decision, but I have had a few people ask me to buy me out, which was, was kind of cool, but I won't do it. so now that you've bought three business, you started one organically and you bought three businesses.

you've got a reputation for doing acquisitions. Are people coming to you now with, hey, I got this landscaping company, it's doing 1 million, top line 2 million. Are you interested? So I have, it's kind of cool. I've gone on Twitter recently into the small business Twitter world, which is really neat. It's really cool to see other people doing stuff and just being kind of transparent about how that's going.

being an entrepreneur and also, know, acquisition guy or searcher, as people are saying, it's not, there's not a lot of community, right? It's kind of like you're on your own. it's like, you're out here. Yeah. Michael Gurdley said like, you're alone. I mean, until you figure out you're hanging around with other business owners, you're alone. You really are. know, it's, it's just a different path. You know, it's very different from most people's, how they do things or how they look at things. But yeah, I've had,

Jon Stoddard (30:37.611)
you know, some really cool connections on Twitter, different brokers and, you know, it was pretty, I think I've had like at least a few deals got DM to me before they got listed to like take a look at, which was really cool. I mean, I was like, well, I think that's worth having a Twitter like just because it's like three messages, right? So this is happening because you post on Twitter.

I guess, I I just posted about like how I've done acquisitions. I've done some of these podcasts and talk about a little bit and people kind of like tag me and stuff like, Hey, you got to get connected to this guy or, you know, it's really cool. Cause it is kind of its own weird slice of Twitter. It's like this just. Yeah. I guess I got to get more used to it. have an account and I post there automatically from all my posts, but I'm not getting that kind of traction.

I don't know, I laughed about it. had a friend who was like, man, like another business owner. He's like, hey, you gotta get on Twitter, man. You love it, all this stuff. I'm like, dude, I don't care what, know, Kanye West is saying on a Twitter or whatever, you know, I just don't, I don't care about it. don't care to see the news. don't need that. So he's like, no, no, it's all, you know, there's a bunch of business guys and they talk about different ideas and this kind of stuff. I'm like, okay, I'll try it. What's the name of the thread?

So it's not really a thread. It's really kind of like this big, I'd say like probably a few thousand people that are, it's basically SMB Twitter. SMB Twitter? Yeah, and if you go like, there's a few guys that you can go find that are kind of like, that are connected to almost everybody. Gurdly is definitely one of them. Yeah, Gurdly. Gurdly, it's funny, I talked to him and he's not using LinkedIn. go, LinkedIn is like the B2B social media platform here.

There's 58 million businesses list on B2B and he's in the acquisition business. I think you'd be surprised how many deals happen on Twitter. It's like unbelievable. Like you would be like, were you kidding me? Deals are happening on Twitter all the time. I guess I got to jump into it. Like, I even have another guy that I talk to frequently, who was at a big law firm who ended up leaving his law firm and now started his own law firm doing

Jon Stoddard (33:03.947)
just based around small acquisition stuff, small to middle market. And I think, I haven't spoken with them yet, but they're so packed, they don't even know what to do. And they're not marketing, like they're literally, it's almost all Twitter people. Which is nuts. He's acquiring law firms or just acquiring anything? No, no, no. He started a law firm that they cater to guys doing acquisitions. okay. So they want to find like a searcher who's like, hey, like I want to...

by this plumbing company in Des Moines, like, you know, can you help me out? And they will basically help them with all the paperwork and kind of walk through the process. Yeah, yeah. No, no, it's interesting. So there's a lot of opportunity on Twitter, I think, and a lot of like business happening, which you wouldn't guess, but so stuff happening. Let's say that, you know, you idolized the Warren Buffett where, you know, comes a tap dances into work.

loves what he does, reads for four hours, takes a few phone calls and goes, have a, a bunch of cokes and goes home. Where are you at with kind of structuring that where you have a bunch of general managers and you're working, you know, the time you want to work. So I, I'm at a really good spot right now. So I have my office staff, my girls are very good. They're paid well, but they're loyal and they kick ass.

so my office stuff, phone calls, meet all that stuff is all, all the paperwork is done by them. which takes a ton off my plate. And then I have basically clearly like area managers for like the three main areas that we do work in. and I'd say I'm working like 15 hours a week. You're working 15 hours a week. Okay. So, and that goes back to your EBITDA number, right?

Yeah. There's some people who are the same top line as me, but they try to say, well I make 800 K or I make like seven 50. I'm like, well, that's interesting, but you're literally working 60 hours a week and you don't have the right people. haven't hired the right people to be in the right spots. And it's not just about like, want to work less. It's more about, I got a lot of runway. So I, you know, growing to that 10 million will be a lot easier if I have the time to actually do it. Right. Like

Jon Stoddard (35:25.323)
I'm meeting with a seller on Tuesday. It's not gonna happen if you're driving around to locations checking on people. Exactly. So I'm lucky I'm in this like weird middle ground where I have a lot of runway and I know that there's gonna be an acquisition easy. In the next year, I'm gonna buy something. I don't know what it's gonna be. Maybe a bigger one with an SBA loan. I don't know, but I'm gonna be ready for it and have the bandwidth to do it. Cause if you don't have the bandwidth like

You can't do acquisition. you literally, if you're, you know, the water is up to here, how are you going to grow? you don't have the energy or the time. So who do you go to? I know your dad, he's in, is he in private equity or what's he do? So he owns his own businesses. And he has probably been in his three or four. Do you go to him for advice, inspiration and

Yeah, me and him are very close. He lives 10 minutes down the road. Also my brother, younger brother, really freaking smart, who hasn't done his first acquisition yet, but he's not far off. Yeah. What does he want to do at In-In? He wants to get into something reoccurring, like that reoccurring revenue, of like how I have the maintenance, commercial maintenance. What about pool supply stuff? Pools are tough.

pulls like the margin isn't very good. There's not a lot of add on stuff like pool construction. There is money in it. It's just, don't know that I pay a multiple for a construction business that you have to keep bidding and winning. And especially construction business when, know, technically we are going into a recession. So I've already heard like 10 people this morning say, technically we are in a recession. I mean, what is it? Two months with the

you know, negative GDP. yeah. what does that mean for you? I mean, do they, people, when they start cutting back in a recession, where are you in the process of like, okay, we got to, we're going to cut our gym memberships. We're going to cut landscaping. We're going to cut our ice cream Friday, social Fridays. Right. So I'm one of the last things I'll be honest with you, because if you own a $5 million commercial building, you know, you might not re slurry the parking lot.

Jon Stoddard (37:47.659)
this year, right? You're like, that's good enough, but you're still going to mow the lawn and keep the weeds out and keep it clean. Right? I mean, it's a $5 million building. Like how do you not pay the guy a thousand bucks to keep it clean? Right. So I think that I'm one of the last people to get cut, with the maintenance stuff, which makes it so attractive. And that's why I think so much private equity money is chasing it because it's

It's just really diverse and it's really recession proof, super recession proof. So I feel pretty good about it. mean, I know a lot of people are freaking out about the recession or maybe farther than that, but I mean, this is why I got into this business is to be ready for these. you know, lot of people COVID, you know, crushed them and all stuff. And I literally didn't change anything. We did the same stuff. Just kept going. Yeah. Kept going. Do you, you.

When you go have your people do the job, how do they know like the property manager is checking to do their job? Do you send them pictures? Do they visit once a month or how do you know that that happens and you feel comfortable like, hey, you know, here's your schedule to clean the bathroom. You know, are you on schedule?

So luckily we don't clean bathrooms. Well, I was just kind of making that would be a whole different. I always walk in a light. If you walk in a restaurant and they have a schedule of their, you gotta go. Yeah. So normally property managers are, stretched too thin to be checking properties, that they don't have issues with. That's my experience. so if, if there's a squeaky wheel, they're going to go. And my goal is to have our guys do a good job where

Well, there isn't any squeaking wheels and they just pay the bills. So, it's pretty infrequent that I have a project manager say, Hey, I'm at the property and it doesn't look very good. I mean, I get one of those emails once a year, maybe there it's very infrequent, but also I, I pay my guys well. I, I try to retain the best people I can. And, you know, I just don't cut corners on stuff. I don't like, Hey, like this property really needs two guys for the whole day to work on it.

Jon Stoddard (40:03.819)
I'm not like, well, just send one so I can like make more money. In reality, I'm making more problems for myself because the property is going to start looking like shit. yeah. And then it'll you. Exactly. It's just short-term thinking. I'm a long-term player. don't. Are you in any masterminds? No. Not in any. Eventually I want to get in YPO. I really want to go in YPO. have a few friends that are older that have been in it that are really big on it.

Yeah. But, I'm not in Vistage. have you heard of the Vistage? I've heard of Vistage and then, what's the other one? it's another one that's like for smaller than YPO. I have the name written down. know you're Vistage is definitely one of them. I've heard about, I've thought about it. You know, I, I don't know. I don't have an opinion on it one way the other. just, knew YPA YPO is a really good one.

that I've heard from personal people that I know that they really talk highly of it. yeah, I mean, well, man, I got to tell you, this is like, seems like it's swimming along. You're working on your fourth acquisition from your original platform company and some good advice, man, in real world. So I really appreciate the time you spent with me. Yeah, man. It's it's journey. And, you know, it's a it keeps me on my toes and I have fun with it. So I think it's longer fun and making money.

You know, keep doing it. Yeah. So you want to plug anything? I like, I happen to like, you want to plug your Connor landscaping and yeah. So, just my Twitter, Twitter is signed the fronts. It's a, it's kind of an homage to my dad. My dad always come home and say, you know, Hey, you know, sign a lot of the fronts of the checks today, you know, cause it means he's paying people and not getting paid. So I'm sorry. You know, I'm just signing the fronts, Mike.

So I kind of was like, that's actually kind of a funny little one. So that's what I made my Twitter handle is Sign the Fronts. Sign the Fronts, add Sign the Fronts. Nice. Michael, thank you so much for the time. Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on. All right. Take care. All right. See ya. Bye.