What Devin Craig Knows About Direct Mailing That You Don't

Summary

In this episode, Jon Stoddard interviews Devin Craig, a serial acquirer who shares his journey from the corporate world to acquiring multiple businesses. Devin discusses the motivations behind his shift, the challenges he faced during his first acquisition, and how he managed the transition of the business. He emphasizes the importance of reinvesting in the business for growth and operational efficiency, as well as balancing family life with his entrepreneurial pursuits. Devin also shares insights on his future plans for further acquisitions and the strategies he employs to ensure success. In this conversation, Jon Stoddard discusses his journey in business acquisitions, focusing on the commercial printing industry. He shares insights on expanding his business, the importance of networking, and the freedom that comes with being a business owner. Jon reflects on his past acquisitions, emphasizing the lessons learned and the potential for strategic growth. He highlights the significance of preserving legacy and team dynamics during acquisitions, as well as the need for operational improvements and niche marketing. The conversation also touches on real estate considerations, negotiating valuations, and financing strategies for strategic buyers, ultimately showcasing Jon's ambition to integrate technology into his business model.

Takeaways

Devin transitioned from corporate life to entrepreneurship after being inspired by his wife's business success.
He realized the potential of acquiring businesses instead of growing one organically.
Devin faced initial challenges in proving financial capability to brokers and sellers.
His first acquisition was a commercial mailing house, which he understood from previous work experience.
Devin learned the importance of having a good management team in place after his first acquisition.
He reinvests profits back into the business for infrastructure and operational improvements.
Devin emphasizes the need for transparency with his team regarding financials and business goals.
He aims to balance his business ambitions with family time, working only 20 hours a week.
Devin is exploring further acquisitions to diversify his business portfolio.
He believes in the value of owning the entire value stream in his industry. Expanding business through strategic acquisitions can lead to growth.
Networking is crucial for finding off-market deals.
Business ownership provides freedom and flexibility compared to corporate jobs.
Learning from past acquisitions helps in making better future decisions.
Strategic growth can significantly increase revenue.
Preserving legacy and team dynamics is essential during acquisitions.
Identifying operational improvements can enhance business performance.
Niche marketing can differentiate a business in a competitive landscape.
Real estate considerations can impact acquisition strategies.
Understanding seller motivations is key to successful negotiations.

 Watch the Interview:

Transcript:

Jon Stoddard (00:00.076)
Welcome to the top &A entrepreneurs podcast. This episode is brought to you by the Deal Flow System. If you're looking to acquire a business and more Deal Flow, go to dealflowsystem.net. And if you like this episode, subscribe to me on the YouTube. Today, I have Devin Craig, who's already acquired two businesses and is working on his third. He is a serial acquirer. Welcome, Devin. Thanks, John. Good to be here, man.

All right, so let's talk about this. How did you start? What were you doing before? And what got you to buy in a company? Man, I was doing the corporate grind forever. Worked for lots of Fortune 500 companies, mostly in operations, mid-level management, senior management for a couple. And yeah, just always had that bug. I want to go off and do my own thing and try to do some coaching consulting on the side. It was awesome. I still do that. but it never, never could pay off.

all the bills necessarily. So my wife started her own business and I kind of watched her journey from billing organically. She's a marriage and family therapist and just really proud of her, but also kind of sparked me to say, okay, my turn, honey, you've got your thing going. My turn to go do something. And so I tried to push more on the consulting stuff and it's just hard to grow something organically. I, I can't the specific moment, but I can remember

just being on LinkedIn, actually just trying to grow my consulting type business and through just doing more research about business and learning more about business, this idea plopped into my head of like, why would you try to grow something organically if you could buy it, right? And just buy the revenue and overnight you've got something that's already established and whatnot. really, message resonated with me. I think it was from a guy named Mike Johnson, was where I got the initial like concept. He's on LinkedIn a lot, but he talks more, he doesn't talk about &A. He talks about just like,

freedom, buying back time and essentially his ultimate way to do that is buy an asset that produces income. I think he invests in trailer park type stuff and just real estate that also has a business on it basically. so follow his stuff and that kind of led me down a rabbit hole of following and listening to the Dan Penyas and all that kind of stuff. Did you do the Dan Penyas? Did you pay him and go over to Scotland and get you out of No.

Jon Stoddard (02:21.166)
No, I like the message, but the style is like it's either take it or leave it. If you've ever been in the military and he goes, that's not for me anymore. Exactly. Yeah, I was and I get it, but not for me anymore. But that led me to just doing more research and trying to learn more plugged into Carl Allen stuff. So I did go through his stuff, his course and all that stuff.

Roland Frazier and all the ones who kind of talk about it, just research more and more. So finally put myself out there. So I'm still got my day job. We just adopted our two boys and I'm, we've got a lot of stuff going on, but I still really want to do this thing of going and buying a business. So started shopping around super nervous at first to just do all that whole like, you know, do the online research of a company, sign the NDA and research what the hell that was. You know, I had to Google what is this and

what could happen to me if I say anything. So everything was brand new for me, literally just a couple of years ago. But here I'm as a corporate employee, just trying to get out of that, that grinds. so each step I'm taking, I'm like nervous as hell, but I'm learning something new, gaining some more confidence and grounds and just keep inquiring, start talking to sellers. That was the next like nerve wracking thing, talking to brokers, talking to sellers. The first time I'm getting asked, you know, like,

Hey, give me your, you know, know, find out personal financial sheet too, before we can talk to you, show me proof of funds and being freaked out how to deal with those situations. Yeah. But eventually kind of feel comfortable doing that. Did you have something ready to go? Hey, we're worth X amount. We have the cash flow. Where were you like, well, I, you know, I don't have a lot of money to buy these. Yeah, exactly. No, I didn't have Harley squat.

But as I was researching, I learned you didn't necessarily have to have a ton. But of course, some of these brokers, depending on if they just listed it or if it's a little bit bigger business, they want to know that power play. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, no, I was totally in their rack because I'm like, I don't I don't have a pile of cash in the money or pile of money in the bank to be able to show proof of funds or whatever. So either I balked at those or eventually I learned tactics of how to get around those things eventually. You know, so.

Jon Stoddard (04:33.966)
Yeah, but yeah, one of the answers is no, I have investors that, we're, coming in to buy it. Yeah. That's all I say now. And they're like, okay. Sometimes I don't even say that sometimes like I got too many deals that worry about, like, can't, I don't got time for that. And then they just move on past it too. So I've tried both. I've tried to like, I got too much going on too many deals, like I'm shopping around. So either show me your dog. Sometimes that works if they, if they push back a little bit, then I go the investor route type thing. But yeah, more often than not, I'm able to get around it.

But yeah, put an offer on a few different businesses, got beaten out for them actually. But then eventually came around to found the existing business. We have a commercial mailing house near where I live. Will, were your criteria? Did you want something local to you? Because why would you pick a commercial mailing house? Is that something you have experience with or industry? little bit. So in one of my banking jobs, I also managed all the mail and shipping type operations as part of like a corporate team.

that was also doing part of the job was like accepting mail for large commercial clients in the Pacific Northwest for this bank. And we were there kind of outsourced accounts receivable department essentially for a lot of these big organizations or clients of the banks. And so I had to learn a lot about the mail flow system because whenever there's some kind of hitching the system or whatever, like people don't get paid and they get pretty pissed really quick, right? So I had to learn how to partner with and understand how that system works. So when I saw this commercial mail house, I'm like, I get

their part in the process, even though I didn't know a ton about, you know, that industry necessarily, I just understood kind of what it was. But other than that, no, didn't have a lot of background. All of my background was just management, which the SBA took that answer, you know, even though I told them like, I've not done this for years. They, their baseline answer is like, do you know how to run something? Basically you'd have anything quasi relevant. Do you have any kind of experience that you could apply to this thing? And I told them basically management and then talked about the banking thing and how that relates.

And they took that answer. Actually, I used the bank that I worked for to help me buy this one. What bank was it? Name of the bank? Key Bank. Bank. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They did a great job for me. They helped me buy both the first two. SBA, right? SBA. Yeah. Yeah. So I just went SBA route. Just probably very typical and traditional. Let me ask you about your first deal and the broker listed it for a price. Did you accept that price or you kind of offer and just say, that's great. I'm going for that.

Jon Stoddard (07:01.766)
I accepted that price. Yeah. I was such a newbie that I'm like, I'm just excited. like, I can do this thing, whatever. Thankfully the price, was priced well already because it'd been sitting for a little bit and seller was motivated. So I got lucky. I got very lucky in terms of like where he was at in his head space and how ready he was to go and he priced it accordingly. And I kind of figured that based on the multiple that I was learning about. How long was it listed?

I was enlisted at least 18 months, probably closer to yeah, there you go. That's a distressed seller that wants out. He was ready to go. So I could have probably talked him down more. Now, knowing what I know now, I really wish I would have, or negotiated some other things in like, leave some cash in the business, please, or whatever. But I didn't. They went straight, small business, typical 10 in from each of us, bank takes care of the rest. And they also overfund it so that they give me some cash leftover and all that kind of stuff. So at least I had something.

What is a multiple on a commercial printing house? look for, he only asked for 1.75 of his earnings. So his like total SDE, not the EBITDA. So yeah. so if it was EBITDA, it'd probably be in the typical small business range, you know, two to four to five, maybe tops. How big was it? What are you talking about? Like a couple million dollars or 5 million or something? 1.5, 1.5. Okay. Yep.

And so why, why was he selling? Did he tell you why? Just old and done. He has been running it himself for 25 years. He's just worn down. It was seventies just ready to be done. And, so that's where I saw the opportunity because he can clearly tell he loved his and it was the same typical thing. All of these, you big voices and and a say about motivation of seller and what's important to them, legacy and team and customers and

So he was in it every day for 25 years, built it himself. It was his baby. And so he just wanted all that stuff to be respected in this transaction, right. and a fair price and all that stuff and all that ended up being true. He had like seven, including himself. So it was a pretty small team. Yeah. Small team, including himself. So I had to replace him. I saw that as a, as a, I knew that was going to be transitioned. That was going to take some time and work to do that. But now we're to that point.

Jon Stoddard (09:22.242)
where he has gotten replaced. got all that info in his head, you know, sucked out and put on paper finally. And so now that other people can replicate what he was doing, but that was, that was a transition for sure. Yeah. Did you spend doing that? Like taking over his role? We hired a manager right out the gate. He did actually. So I told him, I'm like, I'm not going to be here every day. We got to, we got to replace you. That was part of the deal. And so he went out and found that GM and started training them.

The only thing is, is because he'd never done that before because he was so used to being in charge of everything. He made the wrong first choice on GM. So that person ended up kind of flaming out, didn't do a great job and took some basically burned also some of the other employees. So he ended up turning to some of the other employees too, where he had some experience. So there was a little bit of an implosion that I had to kind of deal with. there was, there's been ebbs and flows of time where I've had to go invest more on my own personal time. Not a bad thing. It was never more than a few days a week that I would go out there, but

either just trying to systematize things or, you know, smooth out employee issues or whatever, right? Smooth out customer issues and just trying to fix some of that stuff. And I enjoy that stuff. So that wasn't a problem for me. I enjoy it, but that wasn't the end goal of buying the business. The end goal of the buying the business was that I can do that when I want versus when I have to. And it gives me some time freedom back type thing. So now I'm eventually to that point, but yeah, it was a few days a week for several months, finally found a good replacement leader.

like accidentally a little bit, just employee referral into a different job at the end of being amazing leader. And I've promoted up in that them into that role and they're doing fantastic now. So now I'm, I'm hardly out there at all. I only go out there when I want to, to be part of the planning or the strategy or just coaching up the team and just giving them high fives and. You know, grilling, grilling hamburgers for the team and that kind of thing. So business has grown top line and bottom line, cause we're able to upgrade a lot of stuff to just streamline some operations.

You he wasn't a technologist. He wasn't none of that. It was all old school, everything. Right. So a lot of upgrading that was to be done, which is another part of what I have loved about this process. Right. Like we come, we can, we can put new stuff into it, make it bigger, make it better, make it different. And so that's been a fun journey as part of this process. go back to the deal on it. So it was, it was 1.7 times SDE. That's what he took home with his salary and any profits that he took out.

Jon Stoddard (11:45.442)
whatever is in his bank. is that the bank you said, okay, we're going to land 90 % of the value of this business, right? you got to come up with 10%. Did you have that cash come up or did you find other investors? did. Yeah. I was able to take a little bit of pieces from a little bit of everything, a little bit of cash, had some other investments. Those weren't going to sell. Yeah. So just a little, little bit of chunks from all over the place, basically within my

Yeah. everything about this process. She was nervous as nervous as hell to start with. Right. We're signing all this paperwork and she's got to sign on the line too because I her what happens like. Yeah. I thought that far ahead. don't know. Hopefully that never happens. But yeah. No. So she was definitely nerve wracked. But it took.

As I was learning going through the process, she could see me be fired up about it. And I was learning more and explaining more to her. And she has her own business too. So she gets that component of that freedom that can come with that. And you kind of make it what you put into it. entrepreneurial. Then there are risks associated with being an entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So no, she's definitely been on board ever since. So it's definitely been a roller coaster. It's not been all rainbows and butterflies. That's for sure.

Yeah, how does how does it change your life as far as like cash floating off of the business? Like Warren Buffett says, you know, any profits above free cash flow, you know, come to come to me to Berkshire Hathaway. How do you do? Yeah, so I do take some because now this is my job. Right. So I do take some for our family. But I've reinvested a lot back into to infrastructure. I don't take a salary. I'm just literally taking a portion of the profits.

And then also a good chunk of the profits I'm reinvesting back into the business for, you know, all the stuff he didn't do, you know, upgrading infrastructure or, you know, upgrading the team or something like that. then kind of what's left infrastructure when you, know the printing bigger commercial printing machines are pretty expensive. What do you, what are you doing there? mean, are you buying these $200,000 machines? we've started to, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (14:00.183)
But it was also, so this company also does, like, I don't know if I mentioned, but it's like also like an outsourced mail and logistics operation for a lot of local businesses, hospitals and school districts and stuff like that. So we've got vehicles, we're going out and grabbing stuff from people and we're bringing it back and we're processing at our facility. So we've got vehicles, we've got metering machines and pre-sorting machines and all these different kinds of machines. Most of them I've not had to upgrade, but we did have to buy a couple of vehicles.

But I also mean infrastructure too, not just pure equipment, but maybe technology as well. Right. So we invested in this one company that makes us a little more competitive. gives us both a software and a hardware solution that makes us more competitive with package shipping type companies, FedEx and UPSs and helps us with our already existing, you know, driving, you know, routing network we already have set up. Plus we're already working with USPS and they can be pretty competitive actually on pricing with FedEx and UPS for smaller packages or stuff that doesn't go that far or whatever.

And so we're pitching that to customers like, you're already using us for all things mail. Why not also use this for all things packages, for example. So things like that. It's like, we've already have this stuff in place, build on top of it and add some technology to it, add some other tools to it that can actually help us use what we already have. just as it's one degree off from what we're currently doing, but now we can offer a new service to people and people have been grabbing onto that. That's one example, but

Also the books and stuff like that, like, you it was just so archaic and so much paperwork everywhere. We're still pitching paperwork that's 25 years old. So stuff like that too, just like streamlining and digitizing things, making our books more up to speed. Now we've actually got that same vendor who we work with, they're called My Shipping Post. The guy who owned that or run that or starting that up also owns a CPA firm. Now he's our accountant and he helped us actually streamline.

and connect in all that, that machinery that has digital capability of tracking all of our stuff. mean, they were like hand writing down client usage items on pieces of paper and like hand typing that in Excel. Now we run those things through these machines that collect that data, plug it straight in through a QuickBooks for us. There's no manual data entry of any kind, whatever. My CPA, who's also, like I said, our vendor helped us to put all that together and do all the backend on it. So.

Jon Stoddard (16:13.613)
Yeah, just anything where I saw that there could be some process improvements, whether it was like manually doing this or manually doing that, we shorted that up. long have you owned it? 18 months. 18 months. And how have you've increased sales? said how much? Yeah, think we're up 20 % both top line bottom line. Yeah. And you feel good. Like you're not worried every night about what's happening there. You feel.

Yeah, no, I, there were times where I was just biting my nails and losing sleep over stuff, you know, cause now it's all yours. It's your money. It's your everything. Right. And so, you know, stuff is on you. Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's a heavy burden, right? But so I've gone through those periods of time was like, damn it, cash is tight. I'm like a payroll payroll this next week or whatever, but no, now we've gotten into a really good groove. Cause a lot of those investments are paying off. like I said, I got a really good team there in place right now. Who's just on fire and they're really charged up.

but also too, that's the reason I wanted to go buy more businesses. Cause I'm like, I can't have all my eggs in one basket. Yeah. Yeah. That's the same thing. Let me, let me, before you go to the next acquisition, let me ask you about, what did you do to tell the business development or salesperson to go after new business? Like we got a whole bunch of new opportunities here. Like start going after it. Were they doing it themselves or do you have to hire somebody or what was the scenario? Yeah. So, no, he did none of that.

So he was all word of mouth referral for 25 years. Most of his clients just kind of most came and stayed. he's most of his average tenure clients is like 10 to 20 years or something crazy like that. So he, none of them changed. None of them are kind of gone. So a lot of the growth came in just simple things to start. Like the growth in profits, for example, came from some time efficiencies and labor efficiencies. So I pay the team more, but I'm paying less for layer for payroll because just simply we streamlined more things. Right.

And also some people left who only were glued to doing that old way of things and brought in new people were totally up on board with doing new ways and even contributing to new ways of doing things and had ideas to share and things like that. So that's like the culture thing. You bring in a culture and it's growth and it's operational X, you know, efficiencies. And he's got this like I've been doing this for 10 plus years and changes stuff for some people. Big time. And he.

Jon Stoddard (18:32.557)
And that was the culture of the organization because it was his, that's who he surround himself with. And so it just kind of stuck that way. so, yeah, there was not much in the way of growth. Did you have to fire people? I didn't fire anybody. Actually, everyone left for their own accord. Yeah. Just because I made it, because I was so communicative and clear about this is where we're going. This is what we're doing. And just asked and invited people to be on board. And some people just opted out. You know, that's what I find is the most effective way, you know, dealing with people, teams, organizations,

Just tell them, just be honest with them. know, I mean, I make everything transparent on my businesses. Like they know the financials, they know everything exactly where everybody in your organization has a look at the, right. Right. don't know. whiteboard. Yeah. Big whiteboard sales revenue, you know, debts, anything. Here's how much is in the credit card. This is how much is in the bank account. They know absolutely everything so they can see too. And they, and it provides a lot of ownership on their part, even though they're not taking part in that cash, they are in from the sense of a

You don't have a credit card to take for lunch. Yeah. And they're not going to end up taking the profits at the end of the day, they still feel like they're part of that ownership. They still feel they have a sense of ownership because now they know and they're in the loop. They understand what's happening. So financials, but also everything else that we plan to do. I talk about it. Have ever thought about profit share where now they have transparency into your business. It's like, hey, man, if you bring some business to us, profit share. Right.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's the next step for me is absolutely having to be proper sharing in that with me. And I've done in smaller ways to start, like, as I said, I didn't know what this was going to look like for 12 months. And my family's relying on this income still to this day. And so, you know, I felt a little scared to do that initially, but now we're already on second acquisition, working on third. Like, now I feel like a little more freedom. can do that. when did you when did you decide what was the reason for you to decide to go for the next acquisition?

two things, I guess I did have to, I did start having a little more time, but actually, no, it was kind of also opportunistic. Like, so now that I've been, doing this now for a couple, two, three years of build relationship with brokers, met a lot of sellers. The next acquisition just came via way of a broker calling me and saying, like, do you want to buy this thing? It just happened to be a one.

Jon Stoddard (20:56.513)
Yeah. It just happened to be in a similar space. You know, it was a, it was an offshoot. was like a retail offshoot of this company. It's in the, it's like a package of type location that does mail and shipping and stuff like that. a UPS, et cetera, kind of thing, whatever those are. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But still in that mailing type logistics type industry. so, not a clear tie in or clear tuck in, but still relevant, you know, related. so broker called me and Hey, do want this thing? It's just down the street from relive. And I'm like,

Sure. I'll take a look at it and start going down that road and, same, same story, basically. Like seller has been there forever. Wants to get the heck out. You know, this thing's been around 20 years. you know, it's, making him pretty decent money. Well, what's the money for those offices? mean, we can all, everybody can go to biz by cell and look at what a UPS shipping, you know, the average is around half a million that they do between four or 500,000. I think is the average for those things. And that's what he was doing. Yeah.

No, no, just so that's part of what was appealing about it. Cause no franchise fees, none of that. So you get a lot more freedom and what you do with it, what app services you add, all that kind of stuff. Right. And I've had franchise experiences in the past where I was like a managing partner in a group of Jimmy John's stores, like a multi-unit, Jimmy John's franchise. And, yeah, they did a great job, but the franchise thing wasn't for me. I felt like being a corporate again, because you've got these like stringent bureaucratic rules.

You got to follow, you got to the line. It's helpful for making sure standards say hi. But on the other hand, it's like, you don't really go to go outside the box much. Right. So I got, I got a story on a side story. I just did an interview with a guy that's got 30 Midas stores and he said the 10 % they take off the top is worth all the benefits I get. Yeah. Because what he does is, you know, he does a lot of, celebrity podcasting inside.

and at the Midas trade shows and people come to him now because he's a trusted buyer. yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I could see how you could do well for yourself if you just found that niche and just ran with it. like every store it's like 1 million top line to 1.5 and it's 10 to 15 % EBITDA and that's pretty standard and how he finances the deal. That's awesome. Anyway, this one, yeah, for sure.

Jon Stoddard (23:20.973)
Yeah, I'm open to it now that I have this one. This one was a little more challenging because he was in the business all the similar story where he was in the business all the time. So it made less money. The other one obviously at one point five is half a million. And where most of that came from is from his salary, essentially. Right. So that was made me less money right now, but I kind of wanted to see, OK, could I figure out a way to grow something like this? Because there are a lot of them out there, know, franchise and non-franchised. And so could I find a way, you know, make this the

Single unit economics work. So I'm kind of playing with this one. See where it goes team. There's awesome and they do a fantastic job, but now we're adding services like crazy, you know, just became a U haul dealer, just added like a advanced printing capacity, print banners and business. I mean, is, big enough to store the little trailers out front or. Okay. Yeah. So we're adding stuff like that and just see how it kind of goes. I'm probably got more services to add there too, but

Yeah, we'll be, I'll I'll be curious to see how we can, we can turn this into. And then actually I saw in trying to, I found another one for sale too, just not too far from us. Just to kind of letter writing campaign type thing. And, so yeah, that does work. FYI, which letter writing he, he called me, I didn't even call him. I, I, he had the letter sitting on his desk for a month and he, just got busy and didn't follow up even. And he called me and so I started chasing that down. let's see where that one goes. That's not the acquisition I'm working on currently. That's a whole separate one.

the one I'm working on is the one, so he was in bottom of the business. That was his big salary. What did you do with him leaving? Who did you hire somebody? Did he help hire somebody or what? number two, I learned my lesson the last time I said, I'm going to pick the next one. And so, yeah, I picked the GM and, they're still there running it eight, nine months later. So they're doing a fantastic job. but yeah, no, I wanted them. I did have him have a say in it.

But I made the final choice, not the other way around was like he found them, sourced them, hired them. And I just had little to no say in that basically. This is the opposite. This time I asked for his opinion and I had them go into the shop and spend time with him and the team so that they could give their their opinion on this candidate and all the candidates that we interviewed. And this is the one they picked. And I agree. So how did you buy that? How did you finance it? SBA or.

Jon Stoddard (25:44.013)
And you have plenty of room what you are allowed to buy SBA because you only, mean, total maximum of the SBA is 5 million. So you didn't spend, you know, that much in the first one. So you got plenty of room for the second one. Yeah. Yeah. And now even this third one, I'm looking at going down the SBA road for this third one too, cause I still got plenty of room. So yeah, if this is working, I might as well just go that route and try to max that out or do more on the seller finance side or whatever. But I've got the room right now and it's works and

Whatever. So that's kind of the road I've been going down. Yeah. So how are you designing this? What are your tenants to be a serial acquirer, but making sure you don't get tied up into the small business in the business? What are you doing to put guardrails up? mean, having your wife say, yeah, know. No, you're not driving over there. No, get off the phone. You know, Hey kids are it's time to eat. Yeah. No, actually. So that was been of my.

because I don't want to do that. So my boys are both pretty young still. They're only in part-time kind of preschool daycare type thing. So of my initiative, I want to be there with them. I'm only working like both on the businesses and new acquisitions. And I'm still doing my coaching consulting on the side. I've got to speak in event next week. I'm doing all those things, but I'm basically working like 20 hours a week right now doing all this stuff. All this stuff. the 20 hours a week. Yeah. And the rest of it, I'm hanging out with my boys. Like yesterday, my work day.

consisted of fishing with grandpa and my oldest on a little lake near where we live. And then the afternoon we were at the Wild Waves Water Park all afternoon, just run around riding rides and playing in the water. So that's been my like every other day of the week, basically right now, because that's my priority. My oldest is going into kindergarten, so he'll be in full time school, you know, outside of the summer. And so I just want to live that time up as much as humanly possible. So I spent a ton of time with them and owning businesses helped me to do that.

because I wouldn't have been able to do that before. So yeah, I want to acquire more businesses, but I'm going to kind of go at my pace. I want to be there for my kids. I want to be able to pick them up every day, all that kind of stuff. So I want to go for it, but I'm not going so hard that I'm just spending 70 hours a week doing this, you know, like quite, so that means I go slower. am 100 % fine with that. But yes, I would like to own more businesses and just have a bigger thing that I have. either multiple units or we can do some consolidation. like what the, the, next company is a printing company.

Jon Stoddard (28:10.477)
Because right now the commercial mail house doesn't produce much in the way it's actually right now just getting it from feeders from other print companies locally that are sending to this commercial mail shop. And then the commercial mail shop is the one packaging and mailing it and putting it all together kind of thing, right? Just putting all the pieces together. And so if we can also own that front end of that value stream and now we can print and mail it, then that's what a lot of big guys do. But we're just small local one.

But same thing with this other company that I'm looking to buy. It's, it does a little tiny bit of mailing, but this would expand its mailing. It would expand us geographically because it's actually closer down towards Portland in a couple of hours from us. And, then we can now offer at the commercial mills, house to produce all the pieces now. So now we can do the full meal deal and, that's going to grow that business, you know, naturally on both sides, both businesses. So things like that where it makes sense. I want to.

Part of my next goal is to try to find more off market deals too. So I can just go direct to seller, but I'm still also shopping on market too. If I can see it, you know, whatever, but I'm just trying different things. I'm not going super hard and heavy, hot and heavy in any single one. What's worked best for me up to now is just the networking piece and just continue to talk to brokers, you know, meeting sellers. Now I'm in this space. So now I'm just reaching out to other neighboring owners and saying, Hey, I own this shop. I just bought it a year and a half ago. Just want to meet you. I've gone and seen.

lots of different operations now just via that because now there's that credibility of, yeah, you're another local guy, whatever. And I've already had one conversation with one of the businesses that's actually feeding us a lot of our work at the commercial mail shop. I've actually been to straight up asks one of them, they're probably the one that uses us the most. Hey, you guys eventually want to sell one day. And they're like, yeah, maybe sooner rather than later. Great. Okay, let's talk about that. That'll happen. That's right. Yeah.

And so starting to go down that road with some of these other business. I gotta go back to the, some of the basics, like how was the, the free cashflow changed your life? The commercial printing business in this new, what do you call it? The shipping, a shipping store? Yeah. How has that changed your life and your bank account, you know, before you were just doing consulting? How's like, it's a,

Jon Stoddard (30:22.295)
It's still comparable, I would say. It's comparable to my corporate job. So it's not, that's part of the reason I want to continue going to like to grow that cashflow. But the fact that I'm working part-time making the same amount, that's a, that's a pretty big deal. There's more freedom, right? Yeah. Hell a more freedom. That's where I've gotten more than maybe, maybe money, but also just the, the freedom and flexibility you get with when you are a business owner, you know, and then the tax implications of that. And you just, there's a lot of things you can do, you know, that's part of the other reason I want to keep buying stuff because

Every time I go buy something, can depreciate all the stuff in that business. And that affects my taxes tremendously. Right. And so just being able to write off a lot of these things that I'm doing, you know, we take a family trip to Portland, but I'm also including some, business in that that's a right off the bull expense, like that kind of stuff. I'm loving taking advantage of that stuff. so even, those two kids are tax deductions too. Exactly. Right. Now everything we're doing in life is a tax deduction. So I think stuff like that. So I'm saving more money than I did before, because

You know, the taxes is just W2 tax. That's right. Right. You're in a higher tax. My top line salary used to be more than I'm making right now. But my takeaway, my take home is actually comparable because now we're having all of these other breaks and incentives and stuff like that being a business owner. yeah, so it's, it's, I mean, really the commodity is the time part is that that's what I wanted more hours a week and you're spending it with your family. Yep.

I mean, I'm still able to pursue acquisitions and just checking on my teams and my businesses. And yeah, that's what I wanted more. So right now I could have gone hogger heavier and put them in a full-time daycare and all that kind of stuff and gone faster with all this stuff than could do more right now. But I don't, I don't value that in this moment. I want to do that. I am very ambitious. I like to move forward, but also want to be an awesome dad. And so I'd rather be there for them right now. They're going to be in full-time school both of them soon enough. have plenty of time left. I'm not even 40 yet, so I'm not.

super stressing about it. Like I got to do this tomorrow kind of thing. Yeah. Have you considered going into a bigger business with more revenue versus, you know, under a million dollars and go, Hey, it's the same amount of work, same process. It's just the payoffs are bigger. That's what I wish I would have done with the first acquisition. So I was scared with my first acquisition. so I just said a billion dollars, a million, whatever it was looked big back then. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (32:44.813)
Exactly. Now I'm looking back at it and saying like, wow, if, if I'd have gone for something bigger, there'd been more team or infrastructure. It would have taken the same amount of effort. had a little bit more money because I was able to do two acquisitions together within the first nine months. That chunk of money that I did on both of them, could have put on a bigger one, you know, right out the gate. So I'm kind of kicking myself. It is what it is. I'm kicking it out. It learning experience. mean, it's just, But this next deal will triple my combined revenue.

this next deal if we can pull it off. It's under LOI. We're working on it. We're trying to finagle some of the price and terms a little bit here, but it's already under Tripling the revenue of what you're currently doing or just the commercial and the... Both combines. Yeah. Both those two businesses have combined, plus my consulting. This will triple that revenue. So this is a much bigger deal I'm looking at right now. Four plus million deal right now. yeah, so I definitely want to do that. That's what I'm pursuing is like, why not go bigger?

you know, why continue to try to, that's just a stop line revenue. And this is the one that reached out to you, right? This, this, no, the one that reached out to me was that package ship location. This one I actually found through a broker sites, you know, just listed business, whatever, something like that. Cause I still get all those emails from all the big ones are emailing me constant, always looking and yeah, we got a guy buying printing companies where their average listing is 18 months. You're a hot buyer, man.

Exactly. Yeah. Like these are these boring businesses. These, these guys, kids don't want and, but they don't want to just shut them down or whatever. Right. It's their legacy is their teams. That was the first two things that these guys' mouse two brothers known this thing, third generation 45 years in business. my. Yeah. And they're like, we don't want to just set the sucker down, you know, they've got 2 million worth of equipment sitting in this building. They're like, we don't want to just set this thing down. We love our team. Their team, average team 10 years, like 10, 15 years.

they've done a good job. You know, they have upgraded involved the business over time. There's still more to be done, but it's got an excellent reputation and where it does business in this trade area. And it's got a lot of capacity, you know? so they're like, we just don't want to shut this thing down. We want someone to respect the legacy and the, our team. And I told them, that's exactly what I need. That's what I'm trying to buy. You know, it was revenue, a team and, extra capacity. And so, and so we, yeah, we hit it off. We built some great rapport and,

Jon Stoddard (35:06.943)
In this case, the broker's really good, I also think he'll probably also, he's also shooting for a big price tag, as big as he can get it kind of thing. So I think that's kind of muddling it up a little bit, but I think they're motivational. How did you get around the broker, talking to him to get to the owners? That's always my second question. His first question is like, can I see the financials and when can I talk to the sellers? I don't even feel far around with the broker as long as I can. So he was fine with that. I think because it's been listed for so long, I don't know exactly how long this one list was listed.

but I think it's probably going to spend about 18 months, something around there. So they're ready to go. They're ready to be done. Man, you can do a roll up there. You find a bunch more of these all around the country if you want to. Yeah, they are. So and I could even just start, you know, regionally even there's plenty of opportunity in my backyard where I can physically go and talk to these sellers face to face with not much expense to me. So that's I plan to continue to do. I want to make this one happen.

And then like I said, there's the one who's a feeder for my other business. They said they're open to it already. I'm going to go revisit that conversation. And there's at least two or three others just right in my backyard. I've only started to talk to that. I think at least, you know, one, if not multiple of them are going to be willing to sell as well. So where are you at? Like if I was like, if I watch this Gordon Ramsey, he's really good at restaurants and hotels and he could tell you exactly what to fix. Can you now see what to fix and coming into a commercial?

printing company and go, Hey, we need to work, focus on these. This is what makes the bells ring. This is what we need to fix. Are you totally truthful? Not yet. No. I see more now I'm more experienced now, but I'm still not a printer. couldn't run with these damn machines to save my life. You know, so I'm personally still not like one of these guys who've done this for 50 years and they can tell you every bell and whistle on these machines, right? Type things. So I'm not a machine operator, but I do see where the opportunity lies. cause all of those

you know, these boomers have been running these businesses, they're operators, you know, they, they love these machines, they love the intricacies, they think the way to grow their businesses by the new biggest, better machine type thing, they're not necessarily marketers, they're not necessarily like organizationally minded, like how can you make this work? They're not technology minded. So there's all this other stuff that could be put on top of this and just using their existing capacity versus buying the next latest and greatest machine and going from there. So I wouldn't say I am

Jon Stoddard (37:30.517)
like them in that sense of the machines and all that kind of stuff. there's typically because of what they've been focused on, typically have teams were excellent doing that already anyways. And I'm more so bringing in like, okay, how can we improve operational capacity, organizational capacity, other tools or infrastructure we need to bring in, know, sales and marketing, which is also not necessarily my specialty, but I see if they're neglecting that, okay, let's go hotter and heavier on that. Let's cross sell to our existing customers. Like let's, let's, you know, pump it up a little bit more. So

All the rest of it that goes around how the operation works, not necessarily the intricacies of every machine and, you know, can we, you know, make, take it up to this many per hour, that many per hour. Like, yeah, no, I can't do that yet necessarily, but I see, I kind of see where the bigger system and ecosystem opportunities are, right? Cause all these guys have all these machines, they're super expensive to take care of. If you can, you know, shore up and centralize some of that capacity.

then even if you're saying general trade area, but then you combine two of these and sell some equipment you don't need and upgrade what you do need and then just market it like hell locally or, you know, make sure they're, they're niched into something specific that that printer can produce versus others in that same trade area. And then you've got something there that's like even bigger and better than it was before. Right. Cause a lot of these guys also try to be everything to everyone and I can print and do anything you need, but really, you know, if they can niche down compared to some of these huge commercial printers who do

mass volumes of, you know, very specific things, the local regional players can actually be more, know, Taylor. Today you can, like, if I need a commercial printing business, I'm an attorney locally and I want to do some mailings. can go anywhere. Right. VistaPrint.com. Yeah. But if you're looking for something special to you, like one example, when I was touring this business, they were producing these like,

honeybee signs for like new and up and coming beekeepers, right? So this is very weird little niche metal sign looking thing that they could produce. And so basically what they're doing is for this guy who's selling online e-commerce business to beekeepers or people who want to become beekeepers. Cause that's a big thing right now. Right? Save the on Amazon. how to be beekeeper. Yeah. Yeah. Well this particular e-comm guys is using this printer to produce the products and they're passing off to him and all he's doing is

Jon Stoddard (39:54.381)
boxing and shipping it to beekeepers nationally. So they're producing the super unique thing. This guy couldn't go on visit print and do, and they're producing it for him and he's local to him, but then he's shipping nationally. So it could be something like that. They could produce really high specialty things, you know, at a reasonable price and turnaround speed. And so you could tailor it to someone like that. People who make signage or whatever, and they sell that stuff all over the place or t-shirts or whatever, you could become really highly specialty at something like that.

and be a regional player for something specific like that or whatever, right? Compared to, again, Vistaprint, it's like, I want some cheap shitty business cards. Sure. Yeah. Go to Vistaprint. But if you need something very specific. 30 times through your checkout. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it depends on what you want. It depends on what you need. You know? That's very cool. So this third acquisition, I mean, that's a much bigger bite, but you still have room in SBA. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, enough room in this baby even consider buying the real estate with the business. And what's the upside down side of doing that? Yeah. Well, I mean, so then I'm you know, now that rent that's spitting off from that business is now income to right. So that's that would be kind of nice. Income from the commercial company or are there sub letters also in that property? It's just them.

So yeah, just from the commercial company, basically. And you have control over that, obviously. And then, you if you decide to move out and consolidate, then you still own a piece of real estate, you know, in a still pretty, you know, solid market like Portland. So, yeah. But on the other hand, though, is like if I want to keep buying other, you know, printers or whatever, or other kind of companies similar, then I'm going to probably close to basically max out that SBA line. So now I got to, that's not an option got to go for traditional loan.

For the next one. Traditional loan, private investors, non-bank lenders, whatever. which I have some relationships there too, but that that's, that's part of what's going on in my head is like, I necessarily do that? And also the kind of overpriced the real estate. So I'm like, I want to overpay for it? So I'm kind of going back and forth. might I'm leaning more towards just buying only the business right now with maybe an option to buy in the real estate later or something along those lines. I don't know, but they're open. don't, they truly don't care at this point. They just kind of want to be move on to that space. Deal. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (42:20.173)
Yeah, out of it. If the seller accepts your price, did you negotiate with the price down on it or did they accept the price? They have this first kind of like overpriced price point that the broker helped them through. Right. Because again, that broker is motivated to get the highest ticket possible, not necessarily to sell it from my perspective. I mean, this is my opinion. But so I dropped down a maybe 20%, 25 % below that.

price point. It was even more than that. Anyway, somewhere around there between 20, 30 % lower price point for both real estate. Where did you get that valuation? Did you start becoming an expert on commercial printing kind of company valuations, multiples? Or just following the basic norms? Because I mean, a lot many, many, many small businesses trade for between two and five of EVDA. Right. So

I kind of would use that general, but then also, yes, now I know since about one I'm looking at more, I know that it can be a little more on the low end of that because they're not super high in the air. So boring business has been on the market for 18 months. Exactly. So that's what I did is I dropped it down even more. What made me less confident was the real estate piece because I have no experience in that at all. So that's where I was a little more like, don't freaking know. But I actually also partnered up with

That same vendor I mentioned who was the My Shipping Post thing that gave us some technology solution to do more package shipping was also a CPA firm and helped us do that, tie in all our books together and make that a lot more efficient. Well, he's also got a banking and finance background I found just through building a relationship with him and has done some &A stuff in his background. I just circled back to him and said, hey, can you look at this business with me? Because it could mean and hopefully means that all my business are growing and you might end up being the CPA for this one too, most likely.

So can you help me take a look at this since I know you've got some background in this. So he took a second look at it and came to a similar conclusion to me around the business valuation side of things. And then even after I had the LOI signed, because we kind of came in the middle of the two price points and I said, I just want to get going on this process. I know the LOI is not the final say here. So let's just get some kind of something going. So we landed in the middle, signed that LOI and now, you moving on. That was a few weeks ago, moving on past that because that's also what the bank wanted.

Jon Stoddard (44:41.623)
Cause the primary lending source I'm looking at is an SBA bank live Oak. And, so started chatting with them about it. And since I had an LLY in hand, cause that's what they needed to kind of see that it was a serious deal. And they started going down their road of their due diligence and asking us for me and the broker for a lot of information or whatever. and in that meantime, I also asked another, mentor of mine, name, Aaron Mueller. He actually.

is a business broker here in Washington, done that for about 25 years, but also owns 10 different small businesses, all in the one to three million range. And he wrote this awesome book, highly recommend called Lifestyle Business Owner. He doesn't really talk about &A as much as even though he's bought a lot of businesses. He just bought another one in Vegas and commercial really stayed in Vegas where he's, you know, consolidating some operations and buying new stuff. But he is more so a guy who talks about like, buy small businesses and then

you know, build a structure around it where you don't have to be involved every day kind of thing. So he talks about how to like, be essentially buying businesses a lifestyle, and then running it in so much a way where you don't have to be involved all the time. more along the lines of what I was looking for in terms of time freedom, that's exactly what he preaches and teaches and is awesome at. He did also though grow and build a big econ business he sold for a bunch of money. So now he's got a bunch of money in his pocket. But he's one of those guys were so funny. He was telling me this he's like,

Yeah. And I sat around maybe drinking for about a month and I'm like, this is like, it's not cause I gotta go do something else and ran off and bought another business in Vegas. And cause you can't stop when you, know, you're this is in your blood. And, so now he's doing that, but I asked him, but he says, this is brokerage as well. And so I talked to him and he's got a financial genius, kind of part of his kind of ecosystem too, who took a look at it with us and they compare it to, and other business they've sold, also the industry multiples. And they gave me another third opinion on this basically.

Where was that? Same three times SDE. Three times SDE three times. Yeah. So yeah, it was still less than what I put on the LOI essentially. And they were talking about the real estate too. But now I'm at the point with Live Oak where they, and they were a little nervous about the cashflow being able to Who were you dealing with over there? it Live Oak? Yeah. Anderson or Fleeza Forest. Okay.

Jon Stoddard (47:00.523)
Yeah, don't know if he's geographically like mostly kind of Portland and Sherry, think something. Yeah. Yeah. So he's been great to work with so far, though. But yeah, he we after I got that another opinion, called him up and said, Aaron, kind of nervous about the debt servicing. He's like, yeah, me too. He's like broker, I think is kind of talking up a little too much. So he recommended I agree doing a business. Yeah, because what do they look for? One point to live. Yeah. Yeah.

That leaves it. tight is it? It doing a 10 years, less than eight and a quarter. Yeah. It was going to be a 25. So the, the first initial road we were going down was the real estate business together. And when you do that, you get to amortize the whole thing at 25. 25. Yeah. But even with that, it still wasn't going to work because both are overpriced. So that's why we're kind of going back and forth. So we're going to get a business and a real estate valuation.

you know, from third party experts or whatever, have them come back to us and tell us what they're actually worth. And we're pretty confident that the business valuation to come back what we think it is, you know, 1.5 probably, and that the real estate valuation, we have no idea, but even if it comes back comparable, similar, and the numbers still don't work, I'll just leave that part out because I also don't want to max out my, my SBA cap either, because I want to buy more this way, you know, through that SBA process and LiveOak's willing to be pretty creative and

Add some extra financing in there. So realistically with this deal, because I'm a strategic buyer, I'll have to put zero money into the deal if I don't choose, if I don't want to basically. So if I put any money in, it's going to be more so for working capital or infrastructure. are you going to do that? Cause they're going to look for a 10 % down from the buyer. They don't, they're not going to expect it as long as the numbers all work. So I, and I asked him, is it, is it because the real estate's included? And he said, no.

So legitimately they're going to 100 % finance because again, I'm a strategic buyer. becomes commercial printing companies. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that's who they're willing to do it for. I I didn't let the cat out of the bag on me. I don't think he's doing anything special for me, but he literally said like, it's be able to do this and then live Oak will take care of the rest. Specifically for strategic buyers, strategic buyers classified yourself as a strategic buyer. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I had not heard that. That's no, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (49:23.413)
Yeah. So it truly is a thing. You know, no money out of pocket deals is really a thing and actually for the bank financing, a hundred percent buying financing. Yeah. Yeah. I know because you're a strategic buyer. That's it. You're basically, yeah. Yep. Cause I am buying up a competitor or complimentary business or a tuck in or whatever that is

It's connected and relevant and going to help grow. it a person that there's a personal guarantee on this or is a, is there collateralized with the other business? It will be, if we can get the price negotiated effectively, then it will also be a hundred percent collateralized too, because of the equipment and the real estate. Yeah. Do you, did you go back to the seller and like, look, I've pitched this deal to a number of banks and it's too high evaluation.

to service the went back to the broker. I went back to the broker and I told them this even before we started crunching numbers, like right before the LOI, I told them like, all that matters to me is this thing, you know, can pay for itself essentially. that we can A business buys a business. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, okay, we get that. That's reasonable. Right. And the sellers, they've never done this before. So they don't know exactly. Every time I talk to them as a group, like with the broker, the sellers are like anything related to valuation or the process, like,

Ask Bill, right? Anytime I ask them about their broker, ask the broker. Anytime I talk to them about their operation or their team or their legacy or their story or their history, like boom, boom, boom, boom, they love talking that. But this is just not their wheelhouse. So they're really deferring to the broker on everything else as it relates to this transaction, price, process, terms, everything. So even when I've called them individually, separately, and Chad would have said, that's their answer because they just don't know.

And I think they don't, they're not specifically passionate one way or the other. They are mostly passionate about the legacy of the team being protected and respected. That's it. So they're willing to stay in the business for 12 months free. Where do you think money falls in? And the reason I bring this up is I was talking to another student today about them buying something. I said, well, the seller took out $1.5 million out of this $6 million business. So

Jon Stoddard (51:39.339)
He has grown accustomed to that lifestyle. Now, if you buy the business and you're going to get, it's going for 4 million bucks, he's going to get maybe 3.6 and 40 % after taxes. Can he live on that for the rest of his life compared to that 1.5 million he's taking out right now? So I asked them straight up, what do you plan to do with this money?

just so I can get a feel for that. One of the younger brothers said, I still want to work. I just want to get the hell out of this industry. I don't want to get into something totally different. So I said, I'll take that money. And if it helps me to either start or buy into something new, then great. I'll use it towards that basically. So in other words, like I don't need it, but it's going to help me make a break from this and move into something altogether. Right. And he still plans to work. So he's still got an income producing years in front of him. So he's not super worried about this. Right. The other brother, he just wants to elope.

He just got divorced. He wants to move to his new girlfriend in Eastern Washington and buy a little ranch and just live on that sucker. Basically, it's going to sell his house like so he's not going to necessarily have a huge need for income either. I'm assuming they've got some tucked away. They've been making, you know, between a half million, a million a year and cash flow like they've got some money aside. They're not looking for big lavish lifestyles after this. So it doesn't sound like that's where most of their concern lies. I think they want a fair price.

They want to be able take some money out of it. They're willing to sell our finance, like all that stuff. They're like, whatever. We just want something fair and we want our team and legacy respected. And we are willing to help with the transition, but then we want to move on after that. So I think that's where their brains are at based on every time that they're interacting with them. know, it's not good. think that's like how much money they're taking out of the business and what kind of lifestyle they have. Because if you buy the business and that

new lifestyle doesn't match up, you it doesn't pay for that. What you've created, you it's probably not going to be a deal because they're going to back out of it at some point when they realize that. Yeah. I'm going to ask you a question. So you and I talk, we've known each other for a while and I just introduced you to a software company. It could be a tuck in and we're going to animise this. We're not going to mention any names, but it's basically an online service where people could just upload their order and then you print it.

Jon Stoddard (54:04.213)
How could this business fit within what you're doing? Like talking. it's exactly what we're doing. Yeah. It would more so be kind of like a whole new technology platform for what we're already currently doing. Did you hire multiple? That exactly. That's actually the, the seller I was just talking to is talking about that. Exactly. He's like, these little businesses go for two to five times EBITDA. Technology companies go for a multiple of revenue. Right. So he said this is a big spread.

So yeah, if it could somehow find a way to make that all work, like, that's going to be a big deal down the Does he want to sell? he say? He said he's open to it. He he's open to that. He's still, he's still passionate about some of the stuff they're doing, the projects or whatever, but he's like, I'm not married to anything. said, I'm open to whatever. So yeah, he's open. You know, he's a professor at a university and he, he took some money for it from VCs 15 years ago and

It's kind of up and down cycles and it's having a resurgence right now, I guess. Yeah, apparently in terms of revenue, meaning that like there's a need for that thing. And I don't think he's even pushing it that hard. think it's always been this little thing he's done on the side or whatever is come and gone. And he was looking for, think probably that exit a while ago, you know, it's, think he would have done it. I I, yeah, we talked, I talked to him a couple of years ago and I, just, I couldn't find anybody interested in it.

because it was such boring, but it was so much risk. If I talk to my software buddy, goes, no, this is not software, John. is just a software phase to a printing company. Basically. Yeah. But that's okay for you. Exactly. That's perfect for me. Yeah. Cause we just don't have that currently. So I'm just going to buy the technology versus pay a hell of a more money to build it or something. Basically. know, so.

Devin, man, an hour passed like flew by and I wanna thank you so much for your time being on top &A Entrepreneurs. And everybody, if they like this show with Devin, please subscribe. Devin, thanks. Thanks, John.

Jon Stoddard (56:14.564)
Thanks for watching this video. Make sure you're a subscriber by clicking on this button right here down below. And if you want to watch more serial acquirer interviews, click on this button right here. If you're ready to buy your first business, get my course at dealflowsystem.net right here. Take care. Cheers, John.