Shane ursum thank you for joining me today on acquiring minds thank you for having me uh really happy to be here listen to a lot of the Year episodes and I think you're doing a great thing for the space appreciate that sir Shane you were serious in your search you were organized and committed and and full time and you found a business to buy a good business to buy in six months time so a great acquisition in six months it's really what Searchers set out to do but few accomplish it so we are going to hear how you did so start us off Shane with your background Stardust wherever you think is relevant to this this story okay yeah uh happy to do so yeah I would say I bought a great business but I'm certainly partial um but uh yeah I grew up in an entrepreneurial family my father owns uh still owns uh after 26 years a successful Home Care franchise where I grew up in the southwest and uh he's actually kind of entering into that stage where uh a lot of Searchers are looking for is these are planning on retiring in the near future and kind of trying to set up his his uh exit process but nonetheless grew up uh with my dad as a father figure and as a you know real uh Mentor um real hero of mine and a lot of that was more about how much he prioritized my sister and I our family the flexibility that came with him being a business owner and that really kind of gave me inspiration that this is the lifestyle that I want to have at some point um my my father is uh very humble in what his desires and material goals were I would say I'm a little bit more money motivated than he ever was uh but I I saw that the success that he had with the franchise and most importantly the flexibility they gave him was really what inspired me so going into uh College I I studied entrepreneurial Management in marketing I knew you know exactly what I wanted to do at some point in my life I never um had a great startup idea I never really thought that a startup um was kind of in my direction I guess having seen my father have success with the franchise model I kind of always just assumed that that was probably neither Direction I would go um but after college I knew I had to get you know get out in the Working World uh cut my chops and uh you know learn the skills um and Leadership necessary to hopefully one day on my business and so that's what I did and um I was attracted to jobs that you know provided me to be in management at a young age ultimately ended up with a company was there for 11 years um in ascending leadership roles and um managed team as large as 750 people p l over 120 million really had a lot of success with that that company um it was a great career But ultimately um towards the end there um was really pretty unhappy and really started to think about you know I'm already into my mid-30s I I if I don't make this business ownership thing happen um when is that going to happen and of course you know the longer you work at a company the higher you go the harder it is to leave you know the quote-unquote golden handcuffs were very much real uh but it was always in the back of my head and so fast forward to uh September of 21. um like I said I was already kind of thinking about moving on but they made that choice for me and I was ultimately laid off due to a restructuring and um you know that ultimately ended up being the best decision that ever happened and the best thing that ever happened to me during these years as a W-2 young manager and growing in this company were you talking with your father about your entrepreneurial aspirations is this an ongoing conversation that you guys have or is it more just like you watching him and kind of quietly seeking to emulate him at some point yeah that's a good question um you know at first it was just I was very focused on just doing as well in that position as I could and especially right after school the first probably four or five years um and I was very motivated to to get promoted you know the accolades the promotions the the additional compensation those were all what kind of kept me driving forward and um but I remember very specifically when uh my father and I went on vacation together with my sister we had a lot of long conversations about uh you know is this truly what I want to be doing is this am I happy doing what I'm doing and and when you when you're forced to really be that introspective and and really kind of think about what the heart wants I realized it wasn't um but again I was I was doing well it was hard to leave we were comfortable um and so you know I would say that it was always gnawing at the back of me uh back of my head but um it wasn't something that I spent a lot of time thinking about because I think the more I thought about it the more I realized I was unhappy in what I was doing or not truly fulfilled I should say um but you know all of the pressures of the world of you know mortgage and the lifestyle and everything else just made it you know hard to to think about taking that leap sure and so you have a family your own family I'm married no kids hopefully God blesses us with children in the near future um but uh I am married okay okay so you said you were laid off uh from the from the business where you'd worked for over a decade in 2021 what month was that did you say September September 1st of 21. okay September 1st 2021 um so just about a year ago and so it's the best thing that ever happens to you because it has now set you on this path how did you um I mean tell us about the the actual decision to not re-enter the workforce or not go get another W-2 and and in fact become an entrepreneur yeah so uh my dad had actually sent me the Harvard Business book uh buying a small business which I'm sure your listeners are very familiar with back in 2018 and I had actually started to read that and it was really you know kind of Blown Away by some of the success stories that are you know shown in that book really thought this this seems like a better path um ironically uh the same vacation that I was reading the book on I ended up getting a call um that promoted me it brought me from the East Coast back to Texas which is where I ultimately wanted to be and so I just stopped reading the book um right at that point because I was had gotten this promotion that had long been sought after was getting relocated back to the area that I wanted to live in um so I was happy and I was focused on on that next role so once I uh was ultimately laid off you know after a week or so of letting the sting cut out uh you know come off I started to think about what is it that I want to do and you know I polished up my resume you know just the natural things that you would do and you've just been laid off and uh and so you know but I had I had that book and I was like you know what I'm just going to open this thing back up I will reread it from the beginning and uh that propelled me to spend more time on search funder um and was just you know every day getting on search funder watching interviews watching uh seekingo speakers reading different um resources that that website makes available uh and then I started a network with different searches as well and that was what really kind of the more I read about it the more I saw the more I was like this is this is the right path for me so uh what a month or two later you decide that you're going to do this thing well so kind of at the same time I'm researching the world of search I'm also talking to a number of different franchise Brokers you know that had always kind of been what I thought the direction that that business ownership would or what it would look like for me so um so I spoke to probably 12 different franchise networks um you know a lot of really good ones but ultimately they all wanted me to start a territory from scratch you know with x amount of dollars as an investment and um you know no real confirmed got you know time frame as to when I'm going to be able to start paying myself a paycheck and no matter how great the upside was for some of these new territories and new franchise opportunities I just kept coming back to the idea that why do that when I can buy a business that already has cash flow if I buy the right business I can pay myself salary hopefully close to what I was making prior um or at least something and I've already got all the infrastructure built in I've already got all the employees I got product Market fit that just made too much sense to me and so I kind of stopped my conversations with the franchisees and I would say you know if you have a resale I'm open to that but here's the size of business that I'm looking for and uh those types of franchise resells are few and far between and so they'd all kind of say well that's it's not really realistic and he said well I know I know they're out there they might be sealing far between but this is what I'm looking for and I'm not going to settle for something small more and that's when I really kind of pushed aside the franchise opportunity unless they came back to me with an attractive resell and I decided that the search was the way I was going to go and why is it unrealistic why did they set your expectations low that a resale opportunity might come along just due to the size and financials that I was looking for um you know initially I I kind of defined my search criteria um as in earnings range between 400 and 750 000 and there are certainly a lot of franchisees especially franchisees that have you know multiple territories um in different franchise networks that that do that um but those are not typically what what resales come up within the network is my understanding you know there a lot of them are sub 100 000 sub 200 000 opportunities and um I just knew that wasn't what I was okay so you consider doing a franchise which is what your father had done and by the way a point on your on him um it wasn't I guess just that one conversation when you were on vacation you and him and your sister he had also been kind of planting seeds for years if he gave you the Harvard Business Review Book back in 2018. yeah he he did and you know certainly there was many many times we talked about what does succession of his business look like and do my sister and I fit into that um where do we fit into that and um we have both toyed quite a lot with just kind of naturally rolling the business over to my sister and I and it'll be a great business uh to run and to have but for a number of different reasons it just didn't seem to be the right sit at the time and um it of course you know people might ask well why didn't you offer to buy your your father's business and ultimately I was very happy we live in Dallas we my wife and I like where we live um was not interested in moving home uh and ultimately just thought that um that my dad could have more success kind of getting the exit that he's looking for um by by pursuing that path and uh his franchise also happens to be kind of at a Crossroads where the franchisor has been acquired by a VC backed company and so there's some uncertainty there as far as exactly what the new model is going to look like and how do some of these Legacy franchisees fit into that um so that just that get kind of gave me pause okay well having explored a number of different options you arrive at buying an independent small business as the path forward so now we're in late 2021 and what is your first step yeah so um just taking advantage of the free resources uh online search funder got uh the buy the build book read that it just you know was listening to podcasts uh reading articles and uh was given advice to network with Searchers and um and try to talk to at least 20 or as many as I could to really determine it am I committed to this path is this what I want to do and I thought that was great advice so begin reaching out to uh texas-based Searchers and on Search Finder and was given the advice by one of the Searchers that I talked to that the best thing that they had done for their search was to join the acquisition which I know is one of your sponsors um and so I'm not paid to say any of the things I say about acquisition lab but I can 100 confirm um what that Searcher had said that was the best thing that happened for my search and was really what helped kind of propel me from learning about search to actually conducting a search and so I joined the acquisition lab in November of 21 was part of cohort 15 and um you know again I'm full-time searching most of the folks in the lab are not full-time at the time that they joined the lab uh but I was you know I was like hey I gotta get I know that my my Severance is going to run out at some point and I gotta get income you know I gotta I gotta Propel this search forward as fast as I can and so I was very hungry to learn as much as I could to um to really soak up the information and education that's provided through the acquisition lab and um as fast as I could and to get to that point where I was ready to launch my search so the four weeks uh intensive as they call it um really helped you know helped me kind of finalize what the education you know get me a lot more educated about how to properly conduct a search and um would have been ready to to launch right at the end of November beginning in December but with the holidays we had a Christmas Vacation plan with family I I didn't quite do a full-blow launch I really kind of did the the last few steps of finishing up my website uh clarifying my target statement and I began you know where a lot of people began it's just cruising best business myself and ultimately found a couple opportunities during the month of December that were interesting and had a number of my first seller conversations um but didn't officially launched a meeting of a full full-blown broker Outreach until uh January 1. yeah and and elaborate a little bit on what you mean by launch you just said full full blown broker Outreach um but but elaborate a little bit more on like what you know pieces you had in place and then what that first step or two looked like when you launched yeah so number one I chose that I wanted to focus on broker Outreach and I had determined that I wanted to do it a very Geographic search as I mentioned we live in Dallas and I was confident that if I searched within the Dallas Fort Worth the north Texas area that there would be enough opportunity that I could find find a business that would that would match what I was looking for I don't think that's probably the case in most metropolitan areas other than a handful across the country and certainly a lot of Searchers would tell you that you got to widen your your geographic area to have more success um we love where we live we love our house just didn't want to move my wife has a great job she likes uh loves what she does too and so for us it was let's find something where we don't have to relocate um but again with focusing on broker Outreach and so when I say I officially launched Hyatt builds um basically an automated email campaign um to about 400 plus Brokers um and officially sent that out beginning of January and that was you know really the beginning of um my my Grover Outreach um what officially I I say Kyle launched the the Outreach search part and that that list of 400 did you get that from the ibba website or somewhere yeah I I looked on ibba in erexo uh Biz by cell I I just tried to gather as many broker emails texas-based Brokers as I could um not just Dallas Fort Worth because I you know very much thought that even if somebody's based at Houston San Antonio Austin East Texas somewhere else they may have access to or know of other business owners and or Texas um and that was kind of what I found throughout my search was that well I was not specifically trying to network with texas-based Brokers there are a lot of brokerages across the country that work you know they they cover the entire us and so I would find listings um on either Biz by cell or other brokerage websites um but were listed by some brokerage out of New York or Kansas City or California um and they just happen to be listening this dallas-based business and so anytime I would do that I would just kind of add that name to my list add that name to my my contact uh list and ensure that I was following up with them but initially it was just Texas based brokers well that's a great point to make sure that when people are when you're building your your broker Outreach list that um yeah you may want to include people in there brokers in there who are not based in Texas but who for whatever reason had a Texas listing and might might in the future have more that's great Shane circling I just before we get too far away from it I want to Circle back to something you said a couple minutes ago um and I've heard this many times before but I've never asked the follow-up you heard the advice to reach out to a lot of Searchers to to make sure that this was in fact the path you wanted to go down what um what do you think that piece of advice is about is it about like the realities of operating a small business and how it's not maybe not as glamorous as somebody from the outside thinks it is I mean what what I mean yeah what did you need or I guess maybe just answer it for yourself what did you learn from these from networking researchers from all these these conversations you had that um what concerns did you have about what the search might be and and what what allayed those concerns after those conversations that great question so I think the point is to try to network with folks that um that have success and try to gleam from them what led to that success but also try to find folks that didn't have success or are still in the process of searching you had recently had a guest on that you know has been searching for over a year and it's not yeah where they want to be in their search trying to network and understand from those folks because it is a long long tough Journey um for a lot of folks you know I think the average uh time is between 18 and 24 months and you have to be prepared to be doing a lot of work on your own uh without income most likely to survive those 18 to 24 months before you successfully uh acquire you know thank God for me it happened much faster than that and I think that some of the things that I did were part of the reason that it did happen faster and I was confident going into my search that I could beat those odds of over 18 to 24 months but in speaking with other Searchers you really want to know for both successful and people who have maybe abandoned a search or have maybe even acquired but had a unsuccessful outcome was that within their acquisition because there's a lot of risk involved there's a lot of time and energy and money that go into adopting and executing a search and it's a lowly tough path and so you know this person who gave me advice wanted to make sure I was mentally prepared for that and committed to it because you can't have commit to a search or if you do if you have commit to it you're not going to be as successful or certainly as successful as quick as you probably want to be and and certainly I think what you're talking about there is is psychological emotional commitment but also time commitment so it's it's a theme that's come up in recent episodes and and Jordan Carter's all kind of the angle of his episode was devoted to the fact of um full-time versus part-time uh and and the dramatic difference that that makes and it's not just you know twice as if twice as effective going from say 20 hours a week to 40 hours a week it's it's much more than that because the because there's an accelerant that occurs when you're when you're putting all your time in and can take every call whenever any broker wants to talk and um you just iterate so much faster more than twice as fast so absolutely you didn't have to learn that the hard way you decided from the outset that you would go in full time so you've you've done your broker Outreach or you've started your broker Outreach you've quote unquote launched the search and um so tell us what what starts happening in those first few weeks yeah uh so listen there's a lot of Searchers out there with some very uh very excellent Tech stacks and different um you know CRM programs and automated email campaigns that you could build I have not uh very technically Savvy when it comes to that but I was able to use mixbacks to build a two just a two email campaign uh probably could over should have done done more than that but um what I did was I sent out two emails uh to a list of over 400 plus Brokers I also used uh somebody on upwork to build a list of kind of intermediaries CPAs lawyers folks that would have clients that are business owners to try to do kind of a a third-party proprietary Outreach and so I kind of set them the same two email campaign as well thinking you know if I just get one opportunity that's off Market from this this Outreach then it's it's worth it um sure that ultimately didn't end up proving to be true I didn't make a handful of great contacts with financial planners CPAs things like that but ultimately you know what where I got the most success and most engagement was in the broker side so uh you know obviously any Brokers that uh would respond to the email or time with me you know uh would call them would um email respond to their emails with time to to speak with them and kind of just explain who I was what I was looking for really just trying to get across the fact that I was a motivated and qualified buyer um and and give them the confidence that I'm not somebody who's kicking tires if I find the right business I have the ability to close I'm motivated to close then I and I will close um and so again just you know was engaging every day with people via email but as soon as my email campaign finished I I loaded every one of my contacts into HubSpot and I just created um you know basically a follow-up campaign for myself and began cold calling anyone who hadn't responded to my email um just again trying to let them know who I was what I was looking for obviously there was a lot of dead conversations that happened but there was a lot of successful ones as well and having you know the two-pronged attack of email and some call I think definitely led to more engagement because many uh Brokers that I spoke with would say oh I think I saw an email from you but they had they never responded or they never booked up but again that persistence that follow-up um you know this is I think what led to building better um relationships a better engagement with some of the Brokers so um you know because of the fact that I was cold calling the broker that ended up listing the business that I bought um without somebody who responded to my email but he was somebody that was able to get on the phone and that's when I first learned about this business wow okay well we're gonna we're gonna get there um but on this broker Outreach you know the other so few people pick up the phone now um I imagine at least Searchers so you probably even if you hadn't sent those two emails prior to doing the cold calling you probably would have really differentiate differentiated Yourself by calling I I suspect I I don't know that for sure um but who picks up the phone anymore other than you know SAS sales people trying to sell you technology right well well one of the takeaways that I found was that when you're looking to an ibba or one of these you know kind of uh websites with a number of different Brokers is that there are a lot of uh broker teams similar to real estate teams where yeah you know there's the managing partner or kind of the president director and they may have a team of two three four maybe ten Brokers on their team but they're the name that's listed on that ibba website and so when I would email that person and called and cold call that person I wasn't going to get through to them or if I did they'd say you know I I'm not really uh I'm leading a team here I'm burning a business I'm not necessarily out networking with sellers other than maybe a handful of very large clients but let me get you to somebody on my team and so that's you know where I was able to go beyond the email list and find out all right well Will Smith is you know has his own brokerage and he's not maybe not the person that I should be networking with but he's got a broker on his team that is the person I should be talking with and so making those connections being able to kind of keep track of those notes and understand all right well I have this person here but it's really a team of people underneath that person that I should be speaking with also helped kind of just educate me through that process yeah yeah sure I mean it it is a sales it is a sales effort I mean that's what that's what sales people do when they're kind of trying to triangulate to see who the right person to talk to is to you know in their case sell them something your case was it was different motivation but same mechanics uh and just give us a sense so you have this list of 400 give us a sense of how many cold calls you were doing a day what do you what can you do 10 or 20 at least 20 sometimes 30 just depending on the conversations depending on you know the fight where you book tied with uh with another broker with a seller um but I would say on average probably 20 to 30 and if I didn't get a hold of them um I would you know make a a note to follow up with them in two weeks if I did get a hold of them depending on the the conversation you know either a two-week follow-up or a month-long follow-up um the other thing that I would do uh that I think was important is before calling them I would go to that broker's website and or their listings on this by sell and I would try to see what active listings that they they had and I would try to find a listing that they had that might be somewhat interesting to me because brokers in my experience are much more willing to talk to you if you're speaking to them directly about a listing that they have they're just trying to say hey I'm Shane and I want to buy business um and so if I could at least you know get them talking about that listing to try to learn more information even if I knew there was about a 95 chance that it wasn't the right listing for me um there are some Diamonds in the Rough that aren't listed you know with all of their best attributes up front um and so you know I was always trying to kind of uh stretch myself to say don't think this is a business that I want to buy but let me at least learn about it because it'll help me build a relationship with the broker and it also just give me a wider experience of looking at a number of different businesses that all have different attributes to them so because I was looking you know I was industry agnostic I kind of settled on B2B service businesses which I know a lot of Searchers do that was what my background was in Corporate America so it made sense for me to to look into that but I was really open to pretty much all Industries other than I knew I didn't want to buy a food or restaurant business I know I didn't really want to do an online business um it just wasn't my expertise or my what I felt comfortable uh really almost anything in between I I was at least going to be willing to look at it this is great Shane um you had said that you you were basically always trying to communicate to the Brokers via email and then when you got them on when and if you got them on the phone that you were somebody they should take seriously that you weren't a tire kicker that you had the the the the in the real intention and capability to close how did you communicate that um yeah I I would you know I had a uh an SBA pre-qualification letter that I would send as part of my email campaign um I would you know they would ask sometimes uh deeper questions about where the funding was going to come from I would give them direct answers um if it required it you know where where the money was coming from and what where I had that money tied up whether it was in my 401k or all the Investments um or savings um I'd also explained that depending on the size of the business that I felt confident that I could get additional investors um but that was my goal was to acquire something with 100 Equity um and um I would I would reiterate the fact that I was full-time searching that this is this is a full-time job to me and that I was very motivated to replace my income and so I wanted to close quickly and I uh was not just going to be doing a bunch of different Financial models and learning about these businesses I wanted to if I liked the business I wanted to get in front of the seller quickly and I wanted as much documentation financials or other information that they would provide as quickly as I could so that I could give them very quick feedback as to whether I wanted to move forward or not excellent and did you find how did you what did you call yourself did you call yourself a Searcher or did you call yourself something else I'm sure I probably use the word Searcher I I would sometimes get questions whether I was a search fund and the answer that was very easily you know no I'm not I'm not by paying for this search myself uh I'm not bringing outside investors unless needed and unless the the business that I find requires it uh that I am an independent person looking to buy a business and this is the direction that I want to go and I've always wanted to be a business owner and why start a business when you can buy one great okay so you're you're a flurry of activity but but very systematic and you're developing all these making contact developing relationships with all these Brokers and um you were just about to tell us so the the business that you have acquired which we're going to learn all about how did that from all of this activity how did that um make its way to you yeah so uh again one of the Brokers that I had sent an email to was on my list uh follow-ups and I don't remember specifically if I got them on the phone the first time or if I left a message and one of my follow-ups was able to get him on the phone uh but nonetheless ultimately ended up with them on the phone and just explained who I was and what I was looking for they asked a few clarified questions and um he ultimately said hey I just got this listing it's a trailer dealership um is it something that interests you I said well tell me more and so you see he basically said you know our Sim is not up to date and I'll get into the reasons why but I have 2021 fighting angels He gave me kind of a rough overview and I said you know that sounds great I just think it's too big for me I don't think that that business is gonna be able to something that I can afford uh and he reiterated well um due to some uh specifics about the business we have realistic expectations um and the owners motivated and he's flexible so are you interested and of course I said well yes I felt as long as I was being uh up front and communicating directly that listen I I don't want to waste your time I don't want to waste the owner's time this this may not be within my wheelhouse a little my I may not have the ability to afford this business as long as they were still willing to talk to me and work with me I thought why not I'll just keep taking uh moving the ball forward keep learning more about it so absolutely absolutely and Shane I think you said your your range had been 400 to 750 in cash flow and sde it it started at that I uh by the time I officially started talking to Brokers uh I moved that up to 600 000 to a million um I had been pre-qualified um by uh a uh an SBA lender that the acquisition lab uses um at two and a half million with my with my own funds uh with plenty of close closing liquidity um and um so I kind of use that as my Baseline as that's what I thought my kind of top end size was going to be um and I thought that yeah it would have to be you know a pretty favorable multiple but I could find a business between 600 000 and a million up to that size so between 600 and a million let's call that 800 in the middle there and then 800 times a 3X multiple gets you right to your two and a half million number for the pre-approval and um the so so you so you your range before had just kind of been what felt like you you wanted and then you basically used what the pre-approval turned out to be which was maybe bigger than you in bit bigger than you expected to say okay that's my budget is that it now is that actually how most Searchers do it where they basically talk to the the bank or a lender and A lender tells them what they can afford maybe maybe not um yeah what it was for me was that before I really kind of knew what sde and ebitda really met and really learned how the kind of debt coverage that was going to be required or the amount of you know if I was going to be have a leverage buyout with say a 90 or 80 SBA loan how much that eats into the equivalent earnings of the business it's not true cash flow to me the owner when you're seeing what's represented at ebidar earnings there's obviously a lot of other costs that go into that uh most particularly paying down your SBA loan so initially I thought hey 400 000 that's a really good living that that's a lot of money yeah kind of not realizing that you know that's not after all is said and done and paid for that only leaves a little bit a little bit left for me assuming the business stays the same what if the business dips and so um I really just you know wanted to give myself more of a cushion so that I could pay myself at least something um and still have you know wiggle room to comfortably pay down my debt um and constantly put necessary investments into the business to help grow it mm-hmm and can you tell us what salary you were trying to replace uh yeah uh I would say 200 000 was what I was looking to pay myself great great okay so this business is uh sounds interesting it seems too big but you communicate that transparently to the broker um and he said he encourages you to to keep going you know seller sellers motivated sellers you know open to negotiation presumably what was that first number or set of numbers that you saw that made you say this is too big was it I mean what was the yeah how big a business are we talking yeah so um the business benefited from tremendous Tailwinds due to the supply chain issues that occurred as a result of covet um and it was kind of a Confluence of a multitude of different factors with all the stimulus money they got put into the the economy as we saw with a lot of different consumer goods demand went through the roof at the same time supply chain was choked off and all the um you know Parts became much harder to get the raw materials became much harder to get so therefore inventory became very hard to get uh in our manufacturers went from a say four to six week lead time to a four monthly time and so um you had this you know just basic economic pressure of Demands going through the roof supplies really uh struggled and so this business was able to raise their margins um the overall cost uh of a trailer went up significantly so just naturally the revenue went up um because obviously it you know as it is a truly dealership we're passing those the costs onto our consumers as is every other competitor of ours but also just to be able to keep inventory on a lot the previous owners were able to raise margins um pretty significantly and so the business ended up doing more than double about 125 percent of Prior years earnings in 2021 so the business was averaging around uh 900 000 or so in Nevada 18 through 20 and did um more than 1.7 in 2021. wow and so the number that they were looking for I mean did they did that was there a sale price for the business or did they just give you that ebitda number and you were like that's probably too rich for me no matter what your number is well so uh as I'm sorry a lot of I'm sure a lot of searches have encountered really depends on the brokerage whether there's a listed price so I broke to me I think it was about 50 50. um and so this broker did not have a listed price and so you know anytime there's not a listed price it's open for negotiation right and every broker that I've spoken to handles that very differently some of them will be extremely opaque and say best offer wins you figure it out some of them will give you a little bit more insight as to what helps get a deal done and maybe what the seller is looking for and this broker was was more on that side and so he would never come right out say it uh give me a specific number to offer but he kind of gave me a range of what the the owners go looking for and you know reiterated that there was motivation and there was they were willing to be flexible and so those two things along with my uh transparency that I would need them to be flexible in order to put together the right deal package um allowed them to continue to work with me but yeah seeing that that sde number I was like no I mean by really almost ending that multiple uh that's quickly going to get outside of my range right of course you could make the argument which I'm sure you did that that was an aberration 2021 is everybody you know that just the world was topsy-turvy a lot of businesses just did so much better than they'd done historically that year or so much worse in your case better um and so you know I I've seen a lot of people talk about value valuing businesses from 2020 2019 and 2018 and leaving out 2021 all together because it's so it's such an exception um so and so even if you left out 2021 you still got a great business I mean you're still doing nine hundred thousand dollars historically in ebitda which is the top of your range you said you were looking from 600 to a million so right up there at the top of your range just just beautiful Shane so um okay so I I don't want to take too long we haven't even got you in the seat yet but um kind of tell us how the actual acquisition and negotiation unfolded well to touch on that a little bit further you know yeah the the sellers and the owners uh were very and I would I do have a lot of credit to the broker uh for properly educating the seller in that you can't just take 20 and 21's number add 5x to it and expect that that's what you're what you're going to solve for there was too much uncertainty because of all of those covetail wins that seller myself the broker really we didn't have any idea how many how long any of those Tailwinds were going to last and how much that was going to impact 2022 let alone 23 and 24 and so on and so the broker the probably almost never see this with any of brokerage but the seller was out of it that when we do a projection for 2022 we're actually going to show between five and ten percent Revenue shrinkage um because we were pretty confident that some of these Tailwinds were not going to last all the way through 2022. um and so you know I think that was very honorable and brave of the the seller the the broker to do that and to be upfront about that um because again most businesses that have been around for that you know this business started in 2007 you know just where the double your earnings in one year without a whole lot of external influences right um for in very rare circumstances and so you know luckily we were negotiating on the same that 2021 was excellent but we really don't know how whether that can be counted on or whether we're going to come back a little bit or how far we're going to come back and kind of revert back to the mean of 18 to 20. so um so my negotiation so I've met with the seller you know one of the things I would really encourage any this is basic knowledge I think but one of the things that I think really helped was when I met the sellers of person you know ask a lot of great questions about their visits ask about the origin story be complimentary flatter them if to to an extent that people want to talk about their baby they want to talk about their business and especially if it's doing as well as this business was and so I think just coming in very humbly um building a good rapport very quickly um you know we we met at the office and we went had a beer afterwards and just being able to cut a break bread away from the business and build it a little bit more of a personal relationship pretty quickly uh very much helped with you know getting the deal but also throughout the negotiation throughout the transition we I have the utmost respect for the sellers we built a great relationship there's still an ongoing relationship they still own the property so still paying rent to the sellers um and you know there that will be an ongoing relationship uh for a while as well as some seller notes so um kind of getting into my negotiation you know the seller for the seller's broker was very um he was very much a part of that he brought in two different lenders that he had a lot of confidence in even though I had already networked and met with a couple of different lenders on my own um and he wanted me to speak to them because he really wanted them to do a hard look at my finances and put together a deal structure that they knew confidently was going to get SBA approved he did not want to sign an Oly with me yes the bankers could not provide reasonable confidence for her to say very high level of confidence that they could actually close this business with their deal structure so I put together an Li um they ultimately did not accept the first lli came back to me with a number of different red lines he had some different um points on Deal structure and we actually went to lunch me in the sales broker and one of the bankers and probably sat there for two hours talking about different deal structures that would that the bank would be happy with that the seller would be happy with and that we thought we did close with and so we ultimately landed on a change from an asset purchase to a stock purchase because of the tax benefits to the seller that was something that was the seller was motivated by I was willing at that point to take the risk take on the risk that comes with the stock purchase because I thought the upside of this business was um was worth it and uh and that also helped create a structure that was more accessible to me or that we could make work for both parties Shane the so you've you meet you you meet with the seller twice you do the first kind of getting to know you and then going to the office and it turns out to be a beer uh when did you meet for that first meeting we actually had a conference call at the end of January and then the next week met person but where was that in the in the process of getting the listing talking to the broker uh so I spoke first spoke with the broker at the end of January uh that week set up a conference call you know so I've officially launched January 1st within the first month I'm speaking to the the broker and ultimately I have my first call at the owner uh within the month of January uh again a week later we meet in person less than a week later I have my Loi in their hands and for the next three weeks was when we kind of went through that Loi negotiation phase so from the the broker you have a conference call with a seller and then the seller that conference call goes well and he says why don't you come out let's meet in person come see the business yep interesting okay great okay and then the second meeting after you've submitted your Loi that they've redlined um and you all get together to hammer out a deal that must have been uh a high anxiety moment for you I mean that was a a fateful couple of hours in your life it was you know I had already been given some strong indications that the sellers liked me that they wanted it to make a deal work with me um that the broker was confident enough in me but he needed to hear it from the from the lenders he really needed that that uh that assurity from the lenders that we would actually be able to close because meanwhile so at the end of January this this deal is not on the market the reason being is that the sellers that originally worked with different brokerage that didn't handle the the listing very well they ended up kicking it to this other affiliate brokerage which is where the broker that I spoke with ends up taking the ball and running with it basically as soon as he gets the the listing is I think within the same week is when we had our conversation so it just happened at the you know I don't want to say luck but the right timing that I was speaking to him because he had just gotten this listing it's fresh they hadn't updated their sem the Sim was two years old it hadn't put it on this by itself quite yet but Memo from the time that you know we have our first conversation at the time we ultimately are under Roi the listing goes up on this by cell there's getting multiple a lot of interested buyers um there was even some other Lois that were submitted and so you know luckily the again made the right Impressions on the seller that they were motivated to to work with me so that we could go through that longer process of actually getting the LOI green tip and yeah so you're sitting around the table with these folks negotiating with your seller and you know his broker and a lender you said it was the four of you that not the seller just the seller's broker but the lender the sellers ah okay okay knowing also that you know you're yes you're you're you were ahead of the curve on this business but that in fact you know the broker is doing his job he's going to put it back on Biz by cell other Lois are going to come in you know being a a Searcher who's done your homework that nine hundred thousand dollars looking back now you know putting aside 2021 but a business that's regularly generating nine hundred thousand dollars in cash flow is going to be very desirable to a lot of people so um you don't want this one to slip through your fingers um and just just a little bit more color on what you had said uh this kind of History you said um Shane it had been there was a two-year-old Sim so they had tried to sell the business two years prior what a little bit more color there yeah so uh they had uh I'm not gonna name The Brokerage uh but they had gone uh gone through a very well known large growth rich and um ultimately I you know decided that they were ready to to start trying to sell the business uh I think at that point they they didn't really expect the process to happen very quickly but they at least wanted to get it out to Market see what kind of offers you know at that time they could have got um from what I was told from the sellers the broker just didn't do their job they just didn't work very hard they didn't really Market it and it kind of just sat there this was I think in 2019 so keep in mind now you know March of 2020 is when covet officially hits um and a lot of things are up in the air for the business you know they ended up shutting down for six weeks completely still paid our employees through that time so there was a lot of uncertainty around what was going to happen and certainly I don't think anyone could have predicted that um the business ultimately would have done significantly better as a result of the pandemic you know in those first early months and So that obviously took their uh their time and attention was to navigate the business to the through the pandemic mm-hmm so they were frustrated presumably by the this brokerage that really didn't do much for them on the other hand it was a blessing in disguise because they got they got to enjoy all of the the additional profits that that came in in 20 through 2021. um Shane we haven't even said what the business does I should have asked you that about 40 minutes ago uh tell us what the I mean we've touched on a trailer dealership but but but give us give us more yeah so it's it's north Texas trailers where a trailer dealership uh the polita pet a trailer dealership in the Dallas Fort Worth area we have three locations in uh Fort Worth Louisville and McKinney uh which are what was obviously a large part of the Metroplex Lewisville and McKinney are on the Northern suburbs of the uh the Dallas Fort Worth area um we sell new trailers we do service and with prayer work on trailers and we sell trailer parts so basically anything um that a traditional car dealership does we do but exclusively for trailers and specifically cargo um and utility trailers or kind of our red butter we also do flatbeds equipment haulers car haulers dump trailers uh basically anything you can tow with a pickup but even though it's just to pick up you're mostly selling to other business people not yet consumers yes for the for the most part and you know it's uh like when you buy a new car or you you all of a sudden have a new job you start to notice things that are in your surroundings that you never noticed before I've been on Dallas highways for uh for a number of years and had no idea that there were that many trailers on the road now it's all I see and uh Dallas Fort Worth is the number one area in the country for trailers um and there's a lot of very large manufacturers within uh within the area within the two hour drive of Dallas Fort Worth uh particularly out Waco and in East Texas so it is a hotbed uh for the the trailer business and and so is that a competitive Advantage I mean is that part of the reason why your business has been successful because it happens to be in the Mecca well there's also a lot of competition uh probably more competitors in Dallas Fort Worth than there are in probably any right anywhere else and you know uh in the country um but you know we get a lot of the economic type kind of Tailwinds and one of the things that really helped make me comfortable with this business was that I was going to school at the time but I lived in Dallas Fort Worth during the recession of 2008 2009 and Dallas Fort Worth was certainly had like all areas of the country was impacted but had a lot more isolation than I think other parts of the country and so uh you know if you look at our I don't know but off the top of my head but if you just look at our our residential populace and how much it's grown over the last 20 years and kind of what the future projections are more and more people are going to continue to move to Texas they're going to continue to move to North Texas the Metroplex is going to continue to expand outwards and while we're not directly related to the construction business we support a lot of kind of customers that are around the construction business and so I felt very confident that this is an area that will continue to have those economic Tailwinds uh supported in the end you know the future is bright so even though there's it's a hotbed of competition there's still a lot of positive trends that will help Propel our business and when you say dealership so I you know I don't know that I've ever seen a trailer dealership but like you said I probably have and didn't notice and now I'll look for them and see them everywhere but um does a trailer dealership I mean do you have a lot with trailers out on the lot for for Shoppers to come look at I mean does it look like a car dealership except you know presumably a smaller footprint and trailers instead of cars out front it does uh I would say that it's definitely not as uh professional as you know not class laws and you know fancy cars in the showroom um but uh but yeah it's very much like that you know one of the things that also made me very confident about this business is that there's a handful of very large National dealer Brands they text most notably um is the the biggest one in the industry there's a number of others and so I looked at all of our competition in the Dallas Fort Worth area at least just kind of Googling and you know I there's a handful of like I said a very large National manufacturers that they they come with all of the size and infrastructure that you would assume that some a company of that size does but when you get a little bit below our size of business you start to get into that used car lot basically but except the trailer line it's a guy with a shed and a little tiny lot and he's got a handful of trailers and there's no website there's a phone number they're not doing service they're not doing Parts they don't have rentals like we do so they're just there's a lot of competitors out there that are just your mom and pop trailer yards um that I don't really feel like we compete with um and so that gave me a lot of confidence that we were well positioned within the market we're not one of the big national players but we are you know with three locations with the side the number of trailers that we're moving and um having service parts and uh rentals and we're offering a lot more to our consumers than um and kind of your lower end uh trailer yards he will sure and and so what is the what's the size of the business in terms of people and employees there are 19 employees including myself um we run pretty lean at me so I'm looking to kind of add to it expand our head count and oh take a little bit of a non-selling activities off of my sales uh sales folks plates um and just better support them so we can be a little bit more strategic about how we engage with our consumers and building out our sales pipeline uh and so is sales a lot of kind of what what the business does I mean you you service of course you've got people doing the service of trailers so for that that service Revenue but is actually selling trailers like the kind of the core offering of the business it is our it's the largest part of our Revenue it's about two-thirds of our Revenue um and uh but it's only uh it's not it's just like a car dealership it's not the most profitable part of the business and so the way I kind of look at it is we sell new trailers so that when those those trailer those customers uh when something breaks on their trailer they bring it back to us to service it uh because really service at Parts is uh you know the more profitable part of the business and um an area that I think we can continue to to expand on and do you know to get better at but yeah sales is is the the number one Revenue driver for sure and the how much does your average or median trailer cost uh just I know it's there's I'm sure there's a wide variety but give us just a ballpark here yes a trailer costs on average have gone up about 40 since the pandemic so what used to cost three thousand dollars is now five thousand dollars and um so that that new median price is much higher than it would have been three years ago uh but I would say on average average is going to be eight to nine thousand we sell trailers as little as 2500 and as much as fifty thousand wow okay but eight or nine thousand and the in 2022 so how is it shaping up compared to your projections and compared to 2021 that whole conversation we're almost at the end of the year here what what what happened yeah so uh I'm very pleased to say that the business is doing great uh we are essentially exactly flat year-to-date on sales uh so we have not grow but we did not have the the five to ten percent um reduction that that we thought we might um our service Revenue has grown 15 and our sales revenues dropped about six percent so um overall Services making up for the drop in sales I think as we close out the year um we're at this new Crossroads economically where all of our manufacturers have caught up there's the supply chains have been opened up uh but at the same time Dominion is starting to come down and so we're kind of the inverse of where we were two years ago where we have more inventory and our manufacturers have more information with a little less demand so um I foresee um you know some challenges and a funky road ahead on the new sales side but that's where our service Revenue growth really gives me encouragement and you know we'll continue to help prop up the business until we can get back to maybe more a little bit of a globalized sales pipeline mm-hmm excellent Shane and and just going back to when you evaluated this business I was so focused on that big 900 000 or 1.7 million dollar in 2021 um that earnings number um but what else about the business did you like and and what value did you envision adding what was your vision for your ownership of this business right I'm sure you've had a lot of guests say this um but number one I had a lot of trust with the sellers I felt very confident it was just they built uh what everything that they showed me that they told me has uh beared out to be true there was no uh Stakes under rocks that that I had to uncover uh and so I felt very confident that uh in the business that they had built in the priorities that they had built it upon I really like that we are Diversified we have three locations so it's we're not just dependent on one location and the traffic one area we're covering three important parts of the the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex uh we have a lot of employee uh royalty uh our average employees been here probably eight years um and so that has that gives me a ton of confidence knowing that we have a strong team culture we have a lot of loyalty with our team members and they do I I it's so impressed uh with all of them through this transition it um really has been about as good of a transition as I I could have hoped for it let's not say that there weren't issues and that you know employees don't come with their own challenges from time to time but um so those were a lot of the things that that gave me confidence and maybe attracted this business so it sounds like you were attracted to it because it felt like a very high quality business in a market that had nice Tailwinds but you're not you didn't have some hugely aggressive growth strategy yet I mean with a solid business with in an industry with Tailwinds presumably there will be growth opportunities but you weren't like I'm going to go through acquisition or I'm going to do X Y and Z right when I get in there or I'm going to you know redo the website or all of that it was more like you're going taking taking control of a great business and you'll and that was kind of like check that box and the rest you'll see yeah so two two other things uh there's literally very little customer concentration if any um 2021 the largest customer represented one percent of Revenue so we are very well Diversified with a large customer base um that was very very attractive which obviously you know that's that can be a concern with a lot of small businesses um and uh one other thing that I kind of failed to to mention was that the owner had built out an e-commerce storefront um prior to um prior 2021 it works through the through the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 to get this e-commerce storefront up and running where we sell parts uh online and obviously with the growth of e-commerce I saw that as a natural uh huge growth opportunity yeah um you know four months into owning this business um I I still feel as though that is a great growth opportunity I haven't dedicated to time or energy or money yet to really making it what it needs to be to be successful uh just because there's a lot of other foundational work that I want to establish Within the parts of our business that are already Revenue generating before I really kind of pour the the money and time and energy and the e-commerce that uh that I know needs to be put into it in order for it to be successful mm-hmm wow yeah but um what an enticing Prospect to just have there waiting for you when when you can turn the your attention resources to it that'll be great Shane I want to I still have a bunch of questions for you um so I want to move here I want to go back to your just acquisition um for a sec you had said something that I glossed over but I wanted to give it a little attention the stock sale versus asset sale um you you elaborate on that a little bit more what you what the risks are traditionally and why so many uh so many acquisition entrepreneurs prefer and do asset sales uh and why sellers often prefer a stock sale and in this case the seller really pushed you on that and you were willing to do that unlike so many acquisition entrepreneurs so please have added on on the question of stock versus asset sale um yeah absolutely well I'm not a a tax Authority but as I understand it and I don't know what the specifics are but there are significant tax advantages for a seller um by executing a stock purchase because the majority of the purchase is taxed as Catholics which obviously comes at a lower tax rate versus the way that the asset allocation works when you execute an asset purchase um and so that was obviously very attractive to the seller um traditionally in an asset versus stock sale because the seller is gaining um the tax advantages traditionally you can have a little bit of a lower purchase price and the net to the seller is going to be um the same or similar um and the risk and the reason that they're so so very you know not very oftenly done is that you inherit all of the previous liabilities of the business for the entire time that's been around um when you got to get a stock purchase you're buying membership interest into that that entity that that that company we're we're at LLC and so I bought 100 of the membership interest in north Texas trailers uh but with that anything that happened prior to closing I'm now responsible for any type of liability now we have as every as every purchase agreement has there's a duplication and there's you know limits and things like that uh that that help guide that but you do expose yourself to that now obviously in an asset purchase of something catastrophic happens prior to closing well it can affect your brand name legally because you created a new entity you bought the assets of that entity and brought it into your new one legally you're not on the hook for prior liabilities with the stock purchase you are so that's the number one downside um and it's a very real downside I'll share that uh a day before we close all the business there was a loss and served um I I'm confident that we're in the right arm it's you know kind of the basic slip trip and fall um and that's what we have insurance for and you know like we I believe did a lot of the things right but this occurred in 2020. you know June 2nd of 2022 when was when the law set lawsuit was served and we closed on June 3rd so I'm not responsible for that I wasn't working here in 2020. um that's such a perfect example of why this this is dicey I mean literally a day before close and now you've inherited this lawsuit but go ahead but but again uh going back to that initial Loi negotiation um I wanted to avoid a stock purchase because it was what I was taught was uh for all these you know additional liability reasons but once the seller they kind of made up their mind that that this is what they wanted again I thought it was too good of a business not to not to buy uh just for the sake of executing an asset purchase versus thought purchase great okay and can you tell us what the acquisition price ended up being and and kind of the structure of the deal it was four million dollars of 80 SBA loan 10 seller note an additional five percent seller note on full standby and five percent buyer's equity um the five percent full standby note allows the SBA to view that money as part of the buyer's Equity injection to get to that minimum 10 or 10 buyer Equity injection CSV requires um and so yeah that was our our structure and explain to folks what full standby means exactly it means that the sellers agreeing that that seller note will not be paid at all until the SBA loan is paid in full um and so that's that's what we'd agree to in writing uh what we've agreed to Via handshake may be something different but what we've agreed to in writing and as far as the bank is concerned is that the seller will not be touched or paid until uh the SVA loan is paid at full okay and the so you did not have to go to for uh to go with outside investors I I did not uh well I did in the end uh my father helped me out with uh with some money that uh we agreed with payback within 18 months and I'm happy to share feed it back within four months um but um the the reason for that was that I was looking at doing a Rob's um transaction which um I was equipped to do had the finances in order to do it to fill this this the structure um but after a lot of advice from uh Financial individual CPAs and lawyers ultimately avoided the Rob structure uh my basically kind of the overarching guidance I was given is that if it's the only way you could purchase a business then it's then it's worth it but if you can avoid it uh do so because there's just a lot of rigidity that comes with that structure a lot less flexibility to have down the road uh you have you know you have to be a C Corp there's just a lot of other things that come along with with executing Rob's transaction and so um I was prepared to liquidate my 401k and paid the taxes and penalties to do so but ultimately uh was able to get get some help from my father to to make that happen without having to how to pay it you know uh taxes and penalties penalties yeah it's not really worth it great thank you for sharing that Shane that's that's phenomenal fast forwarding back now to you being um in the seat so just give us a little bit on day one um you said the transition has been as really as smooth as you could have hoped for uh but uh you know paint a picture for us when you when you come in and the announcement is made yeah so uh interesting first day we we did a uh we had all the employees which doesn't vary doesn't have a very rarely um very often because we have three locations and they're all about 30 minutes apart we had all the locations come to one central location on a Saturday morning and uh the owners uh this was the first time any of the employees knew that the business was for sale and uh here I walk in and they're like hey this is Shane and he's bought the business uh a little bit more of a intro and background into me but it gave me an opportunity to address all of the employees um and kind of just talked about who I was what the goals were and sure you know really reiterate that the thing no big changes were going to happen and kind of what I uh worked with was that I'm you can expect change in the future there's not going to be any major changes for 90 days I'm going to work with all of you and really try to observe um all of you in your work habits as much as I can to understand what their needs are what roadblocks you have what are some things that I can help uh make make it easier within this business um but I'm not you know I'm not missing any major changes for the first 90 days and then uh we had to do a physical count of all of our parts inventory and all of our trailer inventory and actually do a full blow hand count which we have over about 200 000 worth of uh trailer parts inventory some things as little as five cent bolts and some things as much as you know a couple thousand dollar axles well we had hand count every single one of them to provide a true up of um of our working capital what was what was estimated that was going to be transferred at the time of sale versus what was actually transferred at the time of sale and so that was a pretty tedious task to do on day one with all of the employees and we actually closed to close to the public to make that happen but it was necessary as part of our transition so Shane you mentioned that you were at some point in your previous job managing 750 people or had 750 people under you so that's um that's a lot of management experience presumably how do you find do you find that that has helped inform being the CEO of a small business or are they such different animals that not so much to talk talk to me about kind of your experience as a manager and and talk to people out there who might not have the same experience that you did of 750 people under you uh and and what they can expect as manager of a small business as CEO of a small business yeah good question so uh you know the company I worked at had over 250 000 employees so it was a very very large organization with that comes uh a lot of nuanced corporate structure which we obviously do not have in a 19 person um organization so the environment and the structure in which I lead and manage is very different um but absolutely the experience is 100 health I think any time that you have leadership and management experience where you 've dealt with conflict you've dealt with unhappy employers maybe unhappy customers you dealt with uh had to make decisions Stand By and live with those decisions uh in a corporate environment unfortunately you know we made decisions as a company that oftentimes I didn't agree with but that I had to execute a font and deliver you know when it was terminating or laying off employees or um making some sort of other changes within the business but you learn how to talk through that and learn how to to relate that as best you can to avoids um and so you know they're there there will continue to be you know employees that have conflict with each other maybe have conflict with me have conflict with the customer a lot of those types of situations I've seen before um and you know I've obviously made up mistakes in managing those situations in the past and I'm hoping to you know learn from those decisions and make better ones with this all work um but the big difference in what I'm doing today versus what I did in the past is really more about making bigger decisions that affect all parts of the business and also being responsible for all parts of the business you know I was an operations leader and we did a lot hand in hand with sales we did a lot in it and with finance and HR uh but now all of that falls on me all umbrellas uh fallen on me and my team and so just having the flexibility to work with it all all different you know parts of the business and understanding that I might be making a sales related decision at 10 A.M and then I'm having to make an HR related decision at 10 30 and a finance related decision uh within the next uh few minutes and it all just kind of combines into the one role as as the uh the leader of the business and is it what you expected being the leader of the business do you like this new feel I love it uh I I don't know how I didn't do this sooner um but you know that being said everything happens for a reason um I was able to do my search because of the the situation that I was in and um so I I absolutely love it um you know like I said it doesn't mean that there's not hardships and struggles that come with it and navigating difficult situations of having the stress related to um being the the ultimate decision maker and being responsible for these other employees livelihoods um but it is it's a great feeling um it comes with a lot of flexibility um I have a great team around me and I think that's really key to any successful business no matter the size is having a great team around you um but yeah I'm I'm loving it so far that's great Shane last question for you the so you you found a business that does between 900 and 1.6 900 000 and 1.7 million dollars in earnings in cat and sde uh a year um really a bigger business in than most Searchers uh are able to acquire or or can even find much as they'd love to and you did it in six months uh you got into a lot of detail on your process your broker Outreach thank you for that that was really educational would you would you say that it was thanks to that broker Outreach that you were so successful in your search and it happened so quickly or it was luck or it was it's just a classic story of like increase you know increase your chances to to be lucky and and and then more luck will come your way sort of thing um I'm just trying to trying to understand if there's a lesson to be extracted from your very positive search experience I I think number one for me it was the fact that I was full-time that I felt the responsibility to make up our income that was going to be lost with with me having lost my job um and so that just that that you can't fake that motivation um you can't probably have that motivation if you're still earning an income and you're still you know tied to your job doesn't mean I don't think you could be successful as a Searcher I think there's a lot of people that find the ways to do that and manage their time successfully uh but I don't know that you could take that that I don't want some desperation but that motivation and that uh willingness to put in the work um to make it happen um I think you burn the boats it was a classic burn the boat situation a hundred percent um and I you know I like I said I got the seller or this seller's broker on the phone because I was cold calling that worked for me so I guarantee it's gonna work for everyone but I certainly don't think it can hurt um I think you know you had uh Doug Jones on recently he talked about by the fifth sixth seventh time he's spoken to these Brokers he's now finally built a rapport that doesn't happen without that persistence or you know he finally was able to kind of get knocked down the door and other Searchers the same thing you have to make multiple contacts with these buyers they're not just for the sellers on these Brokers or or business owners they're not just going to take you seriously right from the get-go for one or two emails and you've got to continue to follow up and so uh you know I attributed a lot of that to the the success and um right place the right time you know or um it just kind of worked the way it did yeah yeah that's great well you're as I said your process uh was great to hear your process I think it's uh there's a lot of value in in um in it clearly Shane how can people reach you what's the best way if they if they want to get in touch yeah you can reach me on LinkedIn unfortunately uh there's a lot of uh people trying to sell me stuff on LinkedIn and reach out via that way but you can reach me at uh Shana or some EHR Sam you also reach me via email at Shane at ntxtrailers.com and ntxtrailers.com obviously is also the URL everyone should check out to see North Texas trailers yes absolutely and if I can we'll just one last flow for the acquisition lab uh it really helps build My Success not only that once I was through with my cohort just having advisors having other cohorts the other members of the lab to reach out to at all hours through our slack and do our different advisor hours there were so many different points from negotiating that Loi to day before closing getting it getting a lawsuit served that I was able to reach out to um both our advisors and the people within the lab and gain advice indeed guidance and uh it really helped Propel me along my search so and and just to to be clear everyone yes the acquisition lab is a sponsor of acquiring minds but Shane and I found each other separately I I I think I saw Shane's announcement on search funder and and that's how we why we're talking not because uh not because the sponsor put them in the seat here but absolutely dovetails beautifully um I too went through the acquisition lab and found it enormously valuable so I'm happy to have you say all that thank you very much for coming on Shane thank you very much for being so transparent particularly about the numbers and um look forward to having you back and hearing that how things have gone with North North Texas trailers excellent thanks for having me will appreciate it