will G welcome to acquiring minds will thanks for having me will I want to congratulate you on buying a business this was a long-term plan of yours really the realization of a goal 10 years in the making you did it and we're excited to hear the story start us off will with some background on you please sure uh okay so first off I'm sitting in Chicago originally from New Jersey I got turned on to Eta through business school program 10 years ago at Chicago Booth I started my career before going to business school in finance and I you know quickly realized after three years of that that it wasn't the career path for me and uh I wanted to change direction so I went to business school and and found what I was passionate about and so 10 years ago 2014 ta entrepreneurship through acquisition wouldn't have been as mature then what was your exposure to it at business school sure so I think I missed the uh formal Booth programming by about a year I was in the booth entrepreneurship through acquisition club we had you know 20 members that would meet irregularly informally couple speakers here and there but terms of you know having a fully built out program it wasn't there despite that it was still incred compelling to hear about what did you tell us what you liked so much about it it's probably what we turns us all on but I always like to hear the guest put it in their own words why why did it grab you well it was one of these Love at First sites or first hearing things where you know you you go to you know you go to college or university and you you know you come out and you you're looking for jobs and you know all about the big companies and you know it feels almost like you you get on the conveyor belt a little bit you get siloed and in a small business you wear so many hats you can take such a you know High leadership role at a you know relatively earlier stage in your career you can have a lot more autonomy especially if you're the owner and I just for whatever reason hadn't you know really thought about it or been exposed to it until then and when I learned about I said wow this is you know exactly what I'm getting an MBA for you know this wide range business skill set and this seems like the perfect way to apply it and the perfect way to build the life that I'd want to build for me and my family fantastic now you didn't graduate from business school and immediately go do it so despite your how compelled you were by it what did you choose to do in the interim or instead yeah so I was trying to be realistic saying okay I've got you know a handful of years of financial services experience I am you know drawn more towards you know acquiring something in the space that's not you know Financial Services related what do I know about operating a business and how would I um you know with a straight face go lead an organization with a bunch of people who rely on me maybe take capital from people who are counting on me to return on their investment without experience so I looked for a job where I could get that experience specifically in the fields that I was looking to acquire in which would be manufacturing or distribution so the the plan is starting to take shape you're going to buy business at some point and you know even which which Industries turn you on manufacturing and distribution and so you target your job search in those where do you land yeah so I landed at an amazing company called Cargill it's the largest family-owned Company by Revenue I think in the world definitely in the United States and what turned me on about that was just the wide range of businesses that they owned and that I could operate in uh in addition to starting out in their strategy and Business Development Group where I could get m&a experience and also know strategic thinking experience uh so it it's basically you know what I considered an extension of you know the the MBA learning type program that I was already in at Booth but I could get paid to do it and work with amazing people on Amazing problems and for those who don't know Cargill what give us an example of what it does produces sure so uh Cargill revenue is around $150 billion and almost you know depending on your diet you're probably you probably ate something already today that Cario touch in some form or fashion so uh some of the bigger businesses are the grain business so they're one of the the main grain houses they're also one of the largest meat processors one of the largest food ingredient makers so they don't have um Brands per se in the US but they're um you know making ingredients that go into pretty much anything that you're eating that is processed so they're not a cpg company they're a B2B company providing customers are cpg companies like Nestle and Unilever and you know name name the cpg company that that would be the biggest customers of cargo great and by the way why did you like manufacturing Andor distribution as where you were going to spend your career bu a business yeah so I I think you know figuring out what you like is a function of figuring out what you don't like and I I had a great job in finance um but you know a lot of responsibility to a young age at a really great firm but I I couldn't grab on to you know in my my brain maybe the you know the lack of tangibility of of what I was doing all day so you know moving fixed income products around and and you know buying and selling and and helping people buy and sell those didn't seem as tangible to me as you know something physical that I could see touch feel eat you know in the case of a food business you're in Cargill does it give you the education that you want are do you end up learning the things that you want give us give us a minute on your experience there and how long you were there sure so I ended up staying at Cargill for close to 10 years and uh in terms of the education experience yes that and more I mean I was initially thinking okay this will be a handful of years you know roll out and and look for a business and uh it turned into more than that because the people I was working with were great the the businesses were incredibly interesting so I get to work on things from you know dry bulk shipping so those massive you know five 50,000 ton ships move you know trading those around the world to Cocoa Bean processing to um you know metal uh forming and cutting businesses to you know Seafood prod to you name it so there you know it's a massive company with a lot of things for people to do and a lot of experiences to gather so I I felt like I was you know continuing to learn things I I would have if I if I stayed today um just because of the breadth of the portfolio of their businesses and so what was it that finally prompted you to start to seriously consider kicking off your search yeah so it felt like I had you know personally gotten enough you know experience built up my skill set to be dangerous uh so that was one thing um I I felt that probably you know around five five to seven years in but then I I say okay well one of the reasons I want to buy a business is because I want it to work for the the life that I'm trying to build for my family it's not just you know the financial return or whatnot it's you know where do we want to live what type of you know business does it need to be to you know be around my kids and and spend more time with my wife um and so until I knew where we wanted to live uh it was hard for me to do a geographically focused search with Cargill I was based in Minneapolis uh we had a lot of ties back in Chicago where I moved after college and met my wife and really what pushed us to you know me to really go you know hard on the search was covid figuring out hey we've got a lot more family in you know nearby Chicago uh let's move back there um given what's going on in the world during covid so we made that decision in you know 2020 and I'd been poking around you talking to Brokers and whatnot in Minneapolis but when we decided okay we're going to uh build our life for the long term in in Chicago cardio was gracious enough to let me move and be a remote employee uh but that's when I decided okay now let's get really into the broker Network in Chicago let let's see um how we can make it work on a more accelerated timeline and so tell us what what shape your search took sure so it you know a lot of self-education over the years listening to the podcasts listening to you know by then or reading by then build and you know all all the usual search material I um you know I I felt like reading search funer and whatnot you know there's there's good learnings from other people so you know standing on other people's shoulders what works what doesn't work uh I started out thinking okay well I've got a full-time job I'm not trying to leave my job to do this full-time because I'm the only income earner in our house right now and we've got you know at that time time two children uh so how do I do this in a way that's most efficient so what does that mean um well look looking for already activated sellers specifically through Brokers so trying to ingratiate myself with the Chicago network of Brokers of which there are you know well over a hundred and so it was a broker Outreach while staying at Cargill so a part-time search effectively it was a part-time search I mean search is I felt like I was doing full two full-time jobs right because it's you know doing that Network and Outreach um and following up on you know publicly posted listings or things that I would you know get sent based on you know my the relationship I had with the broker trying to fit all that in while doing my my usual call it 8 to five job in you know hours after work or or whenever it's a lot yeah and did you find what I hear so many guests say when they do a kind of broker Outreach to their local market that it very quickly 8020 that while 100 is a lot of brokers in fact it's a small handful even in a big city like Chicago that are really doing a lot of business oh for sure I mean the you learn pretty quickly what types of businesses certain Brokers specialize in and what fits what you're looking for you learn that there's 's a lot of you know onesie TWY brokers who can make a great living selling one or two businesses a year and that you know yeah the just the number game having a relationship with those type of Brokers and hoping that their next business or two fits what you're looking for is you know pretty low odds so um what I found was there's you know a handful of more Regional broker groups that would have pretty solid compelling listings and that's who gravitated more towards tell us more about the search and how it progressed sure so um 2020 is you know ticking down you know had seller meetings and whatnot sent out some um indications of Interest sent out an Loi didn't progress 2021 rolls around and similar I I feel like my you know deal isn't uh so Stellar that I know I'm going to land something soon so fall of 2021 I say to myself okay well how can I turbocharge this in a way that it's not going to take me 10 years to to find a business so at that point I engaged a buy side firm to do a proprietary Semi-Pro priet search on my behalf in addition to the broker Outreach I contined to do tell tell us more about this what did the agreement look like what were they doing for you what did it cost fairly standard monthly retainer for the search because you know these buy side firms want to get paid on you know successful outcomes is is where they make their money but that's not guaranteed so they need to charge a a monthly retainer to you know do their outre work and pay their people to do that so I paid a a monthly retainer I um front set the criteria of what we were looking for so I set it to say you know I'm looking in these ZIP codes in these industries with this Revenue range and that initial list you know return 10,000 different potential companies because I mean in Chicago you know a pretty big metro area uh a lot of companies but when we got into it we found okay well these,000 companies there's way fewer that are actually businesses that I'd want to buy and own um as a you know someone who wants to buy and scale and operate a business a lot of these manufacturing business specifically were things like you know what I call Job shops so um they get custom orders from from companies to to bend metal or cut metal in a certain way or or weld it um that was you know thousands of businesses so uh you look at the list of 10,000 and and what's actionable it's you know 1 to 2,000 maybe and then you know who's an activated seller like that's way way lower than that so um the numbers game even in a massive Metro like Chicago is really tough and and stacked against you so you your question was how is my agreement structured so I I paid a retainer for the months that they did outre on my behalf and then there was a success fee at the end I um you know I did a flat success fee because I didn't want the you know if if real estate was rolled in or you know some other consideration I didn't want the success fee that I had to pay to you know have any impact on the deal that I was going to do so I knew upfront what I was going to pay if I successfully acquired a business that the buy side broker brought me and can you share what the retainer was or what the overall what the end result was price I mean on price I I'd rather not considering it's it's you can look up publicly what I um who I used I can say you know my success fee was in the six figures right so it's not cheap um and then my retainer was in the thousands of dollars also so this is not a you know a free service by any means but you know I would say in my case considering I was successful at the end of the day completely worth it right now in the thousands per month so more than a thousand less than 10,000 probably a month but cons but considerable yes so Allin this buy side broker though also it was six figures um yes one of my guests from probably two years ago now Jason Andrews used a buy side broker in Kansas City to buy business and similarly said that it was quite expensive um and that he'd do it all day long uh he'd do it over again all day long because ultimately he wanted a good business for a good price and and they brought him a good business for a good price it worked out great for him and it was it was very worth it as much as your six-figure ultimate fee to these folks was do you kind of have the same takeaway yeah I think so I I think you know when when we get into my actual trajectory of you know how long it took to to land a business and there was some um some times in there where I thought you know maybe this you know paying all that retainer money wasn't worth it um because it took two years after I was initially introduced to the firm that I bought to close and it wasn't a guaranteed thing that it was going to happen um you know looking back would I have bought this business without engaging the buy side firm no so was it worth it definitely um but yeah there's also an element of luck still there's it's there's no certainty in any of this right just because I engag The Firm to to search on my behalf doesn't mean they guarantee that they're going to bring me something that is worth buying or that I can buy right and just putting ourselves in their shoes you've already said this but to to put a fine point on it this of course is why they're expensive and there's a flat fee or a monthly fee because because they are going to be doing a lot of work for you and you know actually consummating a deal uh stars have to align and so I'm sure they recognize that I'm sure they have a lot of C clients where they who don't ultimately buy something and so they will give in hours to those clients um and can't just be expecting to get paid a success before we get in more into the search well um these job shops that you disqualified you had said that a certain size of Business by Revenue was one of your filters so presumably these 8,000 call it you said the universe of companies that came back on your list your initial list was 10,000 but then you sliced off eight or nine thousand of those um presumably they were big enough they were they were legit businesses they weren't you know a guy in his shop because you had this Revenue floor um so why did you not like job shops because I've had some guests on who who bought them and um now I'm I'm talking to folks who have been successful with the job shops they acquired so obviously there are counter examples but but why did you why was it such a a no for you yeah no I think you know to the point can they be great businesses for people to loan yes um Can people roll them up I know people who are doing that uh to you know scale them in in other ways but for me I was looking for companies with products that could scale um and not you know more of you know project custom jobs so I think it's you know type of Revenue I was looking for was different and I I you know it goes back to what interests me too it's not just the business model and the type of Revenue it's you know I like saying okay there's my product in the market um that you know I had a a hand in and and it wouldn't have happened if me or my company wasn't making it thank you okay so you your broker Outreach you've Engage The buy side broker you're paying them a hefty monthly fee but time continues to march on and you're and and what tell us tell us as these months tick by and this that that fee is starting to weigh heavy what's the search looking like sure so I engaged the buy side firm in November or we started in November of 21 uh the agreement and then s months later I sit down with my you know broker rep and he's basically like I think you should stop you know searching we've we've gone through the list and you know if things come come back around and you know our drip campaigns are you know successful in a few months we'll you know pick it back up but right now you know we pick things over so um yeah save your money so at this point I'm like this is getting into the early part of Summer of 22 and I'm just feeling a little dejected depressed um how long is this going to take yeah it was it was incredibly discouraging and um I had a few conversations with you know people who were interested in search at the time and I I just knew how negative I was coming across as but I was I was in the Wasteland of you know okay 10,000 companies in Chicago that you know fit my criteria if it was 2 to 20 million in Revenue uh in distribution manufacturing and there isn't one that you know I'm you know moving forward with like what the heck like how is this going to work so um yeah those were tough tough months there uh you know and B basically almost a tough year after that I continued my my own broker Outreach and you know going after listed deals and I would say one of the things that was helpful about engaging the buy side firm even after my engagement ended was you know I was at the top of their list for for new you know businesses that they were bringing to Market and they had they have a great um stable of of businesses that they've got in the pipeline so that was helpful because I had been paying them for all those Mon and you I got even more preferential treatments you know beyond just building a relationship so um because they knew I was an activated buyer and felt very comfortable putting me in front of of sellers early yeah Y and You' pay them a lot of money but it sounds like they really did they did right by you I mean it for a a service provider to go to their client and say stop paying us you know it we can't in good conscience let you to keep let you keep paying us because the service we're providing for you we've done what we can you know it's it's a standup seems like a standup thing to do they're Best in Class you know I'll say you PL their name here will yeah cder Capital based in Grand Rapids Michigan um they you know they've built a great service on both the buy side and the sell side and you know it's it's a flywheel right the more buy side engagements they get the bigger their Rolodex is of businesses so you know thinking about Do you want to build a uh proprietary Outreach engine from scratch by yourself or do you want to pay up and you know already get a huge Head Start because they've built it already and they've got all the you know the contacts and they've got the marketing campaigns going and whatnot so yeah it's interesting consideration even if you aren't thinking along the same lines as me which is hey I've got a full-time job I need someone to help me with this I wonder why more people that more of my guests don't use buy side uh buy side Brokers buy side firms I mean well the answer is because they're expensive and it costs a lot of money up front Searchers are generally um want to put every dollar toward their actual deal there's going to be deal costs that are also Hefty as we all know there's going to be broken deal costs you're going to spend money on a deal that goes nowhere that dies so you got to really be um preserve your Capital so I answered my own question in there um but they seem they do seem like you had a good experience as I said Jason Andrews had a really good experience so yeah it's different also well when you're you know still working full-time job you your you know your Runway is kind of infinite when yes you know it it if you're you know burn the bridges and and it's you know you're all in on your search hiring a buy side firm just shorten your Runway exactly no great great point and both you and Jason were gainfully employed so you know you had you had a longer Runway and you had money coming in okay will so what happens next when when do we get to hear about this business that you ended up buying sure so I I first was introduced to this business um by Calder in March of 2022 the name of the business is bear Stewart It's a bakery ingredient manufacturer base in Chicago and I again just like when I'd heard about ETA or when I met my wife I was like this is it um I immediately wrote an Loi which I thought was at a compelling value and sent it over within three days of being introduced to this company and it was a more like okay hold hold up here on on their side um you know they had been for sale a number of years before in 2017 and um they they pulled back from the market uh and um and they were thinking about you know re-engaging the market so still had a banker investment banker engaged and they sent me the SIM from 2017 and some updated financials for me to you know make my offer based on um but at the time there was some turmoil with with their customer base specifically their their largest customer that they were heavily concentrated on so they you know didn't really want to be engaging at that moment in a sale process back in 2017 back in 2022 when I first met them in 2017 you know it they uh I think there was there was couple partners that own the business together I think there was some differing opinions about um should they sell or shouldn't they sell gotcha okay sorry and then in 2022 when you first engaged with them they needed to pump the brakes because there was a an issue with one of their largest customers and we're going to return to that I just want to one thing I want uh before we leave your search here will to have you share with the audience is your approach to Lois so you as I recall from our previous conversations are of the Mind are on one end of the spectrum with respect to Lis Spectrum being send out lots of Lois kind of a see what sticks approach versus other end of the spectrum where you sit which is take the LOI seriously um submit them only on businesses that you actually would I mean most people aren't going to submit an Loi um on a business they're totally not interested in but really be kind of further down your own funnel in terms of being interested in a business before you submit an Loi and put a lot of thought and detail into the LOI so I'm sorry taking words out of your mouth you should be telling us this go ahead you're way smoother than I am so you keep talking uh the yeah you nailed it so I I figured it was more like a marriage proposal uh than you know a you know let's go me coffee type thing you're you're putting you know in the letter I will pay you millions of dollars to buy your business I think that's a you know a pretty big big deal so over my four years of searching I I I didn't send out more than 10 Lois and they were on businesses that I was serious about acquiring and I thought my seriousness you know reflected in the the willingness of the seller to engage with me um so you know these were not like I was sending out an Loi and then never you know going on a site visit or meeting the person or whatever this was you know I've I've already gotten comfortable with you know wanting to own a business like this and with the you know what I see in the Sim and what I know about the seller and I wanted to put my best foot forward to stand out in that way because if these you know attractive businesses are getting you know half a dozen a dozen 20 Lois then how do you stand out if you're not an Earnest you know sincere person and you you've just articulated the one of the big maybe the biggest argument for approaching Lois the way that you did with each one quite seriously versus the spray and prey I I don't think anyone goes that far where they just spray out Lois but um the more higher volume the high volume approach to Lois and that is when the seller or the seller's broker receives Lois they can really tell how serious the offer is or how much thought has been put into the LOI and in a competitive market like we increasingly find ourselves in um and particularly for an attractive business obviously the more serious the LOI the more you're going to stand out as a as a potential buyer and and more the broker the seller are going to smile upon your offer so that's a that's a really good reason to spend time on on on an Loi the flip side I guess the counterargument to that is you know kind of the numbers game argument you know it's you just got to finally finding a business that you can buy it's just it's just going to take a lot of at bats and so you got to increase your number of at bats and therefore more Lois um and you know we can go back and forth on that debate ultimately it probably also comes down to personal style I think of of Searcher and you're a considered guy will so I'm not surprised that you um ended up on the end of the spectrum where you where you did yeah I think you know different Strokes for different folks right it's um it's not I'm not saying my Approach was the best it took you know how how long did it take me to to buy a business right so um there's there's different approaches that work better for people and and in different situations too so um it it all you know there's so many different factors that go into it I will say if you're more considered on the front end and you haven't accepted Loi then you're way more willing to spend the money in a lot quicker fashion to diligence the business yeah well and that is something I definitely notice about your search or you and as a person will don't misunderstand your Will's like taking his time with things as a fear to act because when you find something you move quickly and decisively so as you just explained with this this business I mean it was love at first sight and you were all over it even though it took five years to find it so in some ways you're you know that kind of me of Warren Buffett the the ability to be patient the willingness to be patient and wait for the fat pitch and when you see that fat pitch you swing like crazy um been waiting for 37 years for someone to compare me to Warren Buffett so thank you well there there you go oh man well I would say there are downsides for my deliberate approach right so know after all these years of engaging the same Brokers you know you people were like okay is this guy actually serious about buying a business yes and uh you know I I was um you know how do you prove it after you know you've talked to the same guy about his you know third deal over the last few years where you know it doesn't move forward or he's shown you a bunch of things and you say it looks interesting okay tell me a bit more ah okay that that doesn't fit um so yeah there's some Brokers where yeah and they can have edges too and i' I had a couple situations where you know it was a little less than friendly say more there's a couple specific times I think the most uh you know the best story to tell is around a a broker who you know I engaged early on in the process and then he was a little wary about continuing to engage me over over the years and he showed me a business you know before he put it on the market and I There's Something Fishy going on with the financials where the um the seller was Savvy and uh really deflated their earnings in you know call it four to five years ago to pump them up in the last three years knowing that the banks would only look at the last three years they did that through uh manipulating inventory value is what it appeared to me looking at the financials and I you know I mentioned this to the broker and he didn't not take it well um and he you know basically said I bet you $10,000 that I'll sell this business before you ever buy one so ouch it was yeah I was like well I I don't know if they ever sold the business I maybe I should have taken the bet well well when when these Brokers are being edgy nasty in basically telling you to your face that you're a tire kicker and indeed you're spending money on a buy side broker and your search is ticking on does it does do you feel self-doubt at any time huh maybe I am a tire kicker maybe I'm not going to do this thing I I knew I was going to do it I I I I knew in know you know certain things about yourself I knew I was going to get it done but what gave me the doubt was you know how long is it going to take and you know my my wife would you know be like stop telling me about these I don't want to hear about any more new businesses that you've come across like tell me when it happens um and there it's you know I I've I've uh you know glorified a little bit doing the you know working full-time when when looking for a business but it was hard because it's hard to do something really well when you're not fully committed so I if I knew eventually that I'm going to be buying a business you know how you know how does that you know how does that translate to how I'm doing in in my day-to-day job that people are paying me to do and trusting me to do well so there is some self-doubt around you know how how am I juggling all these things and how can I keep everybody happy and still get you know the the end result that I'm looking for um so and you know you're in a corporate and one of the goals in working at a corporation is to you know continue to get new great experiences and move up the corporate ladder and if if you're not put putting all your time and energy in that then you're kind of you know you're kind of you know Treading Water a little bit and not that I wasn't you know getting new great opportunities but what if I was you know Allin I'm not buying a business I'm going to be you know work at this company for the rest of my career what would have been different frustrating um but I'm sure many listeners can can relate I was in search search Purgatory for a couple years and it wasn't fun yeah but you did coin a good phrase uh for for for that experience will let's get back to the business you said ba baking ingredients um give us the bullet points on the business again and pick us back up in the story that it that it came back on your radar on the market sure so I mentioned that um the business was represented by a banker and I'd stayed in touch with the banker from that kind of March 20122 date onward checking every few months and he'd check in with me saying you know they're going to come to Market next quarter and that was you know you know a year and a half of that so they didn't um for a while so I was assuming it wasn't going to happen uh but anyway the the business highlights to take the first part of your question is um the company's been around in name since 1899 the majority owner had bought the business in the 60s they manufacture we manufacture um Sweet bakery ingredients so we make uh mixes like um cake mix we make batters like muffin batters and brownie batters we make frozen pre-formed cookies we make fillings and icings and glazes that um grocery stores will use in the the back of the house and put out on the shelf or wholesale bakers will incorporate into their products or restaurants will use in their desserts or Muffin breakfast or or whatnot well it it sounds very similar to how you described car Guild if if you know 1,000th the size but basically a B2B business where you're not selling these food products to the end consumer but to they ingredients that go into products that the end consumer buys but your customer is making a food product with them so it's a B2B business correct yeah it it's a pretty good analog to the businesses that I was operating in Carill so I felt very comfortable with it and that's kind of you know the love at first sight was this is perfect I get to buy you know raw agricultural Commodities flour sugar cocoa and make value added products I know how to do this can you give us a sense of the size numbers around a business yeah um I'll hopefully give enough to give people an idea without you know giving away Trade Secrets um so in terms of Revenue it's you know the very low end of eight figures in terms of IA margin it's call it in the the tween so um it was uh in terms of the size range I was looking for you know pretty perfect to on like the slightly higher end of what I wanted and so you what you submit your Loi in three days it's a willgo special carefully crafted demonstrating how serious you are as a buyer and and and what they they say yes no no uh so I I wrote an Loi but I also wrote a a personal letter to the the majority owner saying hey this is why I want to buy your business and explained a lot of the things we just talked about um and explained how I would be as an owner um and you put a lot lot of love and care into that um and this was spring of 22 and they say okay well there's you know why why don't we meet up and you can see the the plants and and all that but there's some stuff going on with the customer base so probably need to put you know any sale discussion on hold and by the way when we do sell we're going to do a process so you know go out and you know a couple months later meet for breakfast uh one day with the the majority owner who's by the way in his mid 80s um and then a few weeks after that do a site visit and and get a feel for for their locations that was summer of 22 you know I I stay in touch with with the banker like I mentioned and you know late 22 they say okay well you know the dust is settled I think we're going to go to Market in the first quarter of 23 we'll send you financials um don't get financials until like April of 2023 uh for for full year 22 and they say Okay um well we're going to you know look for IIs in I think maybe May or June submit an II you know move on okay we're going to get Lois end of August of 23 okay in Loi they tell me I'm one of the two two final Lois they're considering uh and then negotiate on that for a few weeks and and signed the LOI on October 8th 2023 and then I closed the business um January 31st of 24 so we're talking almost two years from my first engagement with the company wow okay some follow-ups there is the buy side adviser called are they helping you with this process I mean deal sourcing is kind of the the big thing we think about them helping with but once you're in in the process and competing and submitting IIs and Lois are they also are they also helping you with that piece yeah it was more like a phona friend type relationship with my broker so uh Shane my my my man over there who's excellent um it wasn't like hey can you help me you know can you help me do this valuation or whatnot it was you know here's the problem that I'm running into what do you think and always had some Sage advice for me so what I negotiated upfront with them was more of a you know the prospecting knowing that I had already done m&a work myself to be able to get through the the deal process and just for the for the listener do you think that they would offer uh actual deal navigation as a service as well if if somebody needed that yeah okay yeah definitely no I I I you know just was looking for the most economical way to do it for what I needed so I said you know I don't need the full full White Glove service after we Source a deal um but I think I got it from there um but you know that's what they wanted to provide upfront because that's what they know how to do yeah and what's Shane's last name just plug him if you thought he did a great job yeah Shane kissack Shane kissack okay and one of the things will from the from our earlier conversations to that you said was and this is really key maybe all of the like so much of the value in in working with them was here they legitimized you and got you into this process and as a lone Searcher you probably wouldn't have been let in because they were because the seller this business is large enough that they're working with a banker and they're not you know entertaining just you know acquisition entrepreneurs uh as part of the process say more about that yeah so this is crucial I you know coming as will gno you know trying to do my first deal buyer to a legit Banker you know why would they deal with me they don't know anything about you know the SBA 7A program they deal with mostly private Equity Funds and then some strategics that they can bring into the process so I don't know for sure but I would venture to Guess that I was the only individual buyer in the process that they eventually ran to um to sell bear Stewart I don't think I would have gotten meetings with the seller in the first place because you know you know it is a it's a real legit business and you know real customer base and you know they they felt okay we should be attracting you know big deep pocketed buyers to this deal like I said with the um the customer retention issue the financial profile of the business changed so the interest from Financial buyers like private Equity Funds also changed during the the years so it it you know I got into the process and then I was well positioned and you know very interested compared to um you know private Equity Funds who would have said okay well this doesn't look great the you know the revenue is declining you know the now the financial footprint of the business is maybe too small for us but I'm I'm sitting there as you know maybe the only individual buyer in the process saying you know this is great Bring it on I I can see the the diamond and the rough in the the revenue profile that you know actually it's if you take away this one you know super concentrated customer it's pretty stable business well I I'm going to want to hear more about that here in a second that kind of that interesting strategic development of this opportunity how losing a customer a big customer was actually a positive for you in a few ways first though so do you think will that you won the business because these other parties were basically not interested or they were or not as interested and therefore submitting obviously probably obviously less less appealing offers I guess rephrase why did you win how did you win do you think I think I was willing to offer a fair price but also I came to the table as you know someone that's way more flexible than maybe a strategic buyer who would just look for the customer list and then not need the employees or a financial buyer who is you know maybe doing a roll up or something else that you know would have affected the way the business operated so I could give the buyer more of the intangibles that they were seeking you know they 100% wanted everybody to stay employed at the business that was you know non-negotiable and that's not I I needed everybody to stay employed right so um I think just the type of buyer I was and uh how that fit with what the seller wanted helped compared to you know maybe some of the other people in the process and then financially it you know I think it just weeded out some some prior interested parties when the businesses foot Financial footprint was larger and we we'll get into that but um I think there was probably less competition over time given that and given I had already you know spent two years getting to know the seller know so they could feel comfortable having an individual buyer in the process and you were just such professionally you were just such a good fit I mean you know 10 years at Cargill kind of doing a lot of the same work that you'd be you'd be doing as owner of this business right or am I am I overstating that the how that experience would map into your leadership of this business I don't think that I'm God's gift to food manufacturing but I did learn enough in 10 years to be dangerous and to know what Leverage to pull I I didn't come in with an incredibly steep learning curve in food manufacturing though I still have a ton to learn especially about the Sweet bakery space where you know I was involved as a supplier but not necessarily as a manufacturer like like I am now so I could come in with a game plan on on what to do and who in the industry to call and and whatnot but um I didn't come in with okay here are 10 new customers that are going to you know double our Revenue tomorrow that didn't happen but I don't know how many buyers could have come in with that well now well tell us more about this loss of a key customer the the uh the business goes to Market loses a key customer the financial footprint as you said gets smaller which is a bit of a euphemism for eitu collapses yeah um and all of the implications of that some of which are actually quite positive from your perspective so give us the whole kind of the way you thought through that strategically yeah so if you look at the long-term Revenue history of the business in you know call it around 2010 or so it really started picking up and peaked in about the 2017 time um but all of that major increase was from one big customer or you know indirectly supplying this one customer the one big customer went through some corporate reorganization a handful of years ago and relooked at their supplier base and drastically Chang the amount of product they're buying from bear Stewart uh and when this customer was representing you know a a level of concentration that um was so meaningful compared to everybody else it was really painful for for the business so there was a number of good years and the you know the 2010s um but then by the time I came to see the business it was at the tail end of that there's still you know decent business with this customer but whereas we were you know in quite a few different regions we're now just out of one Distribution Center so um still some business but it changed you drastically changed the affordability for me I would not have been able to buy the business a handful of years ago when it was so concentrated I I don't even if I could you know it's hard to hard to have wanted to with that level of customer concentration unless you know that it's sticky well and I think that that is one of the really interesting points here is that by losing the giant customer before you buy the business it sure doesn't look good to buy a business whose eata has just dropped dramatically but you're Buy buying the business with the customer concentration problem now solved you no longer have to worry about that so in some ways the FRA the fragility of the business has been has been shaken out before you it's before it's your problem um and as you said the business is as a consequence of having less eida now becomes much more within your reach uh so so it's almost like it becomes it's it's a stronger from your perspective it's a stronger acquisition yeah it's a stronger acquisition for me for the the people I'm competing against to buy the business it you know it doesn't look the same as it looks to me because if you're a private Equity Fund and you say oh these guys have a great relationship with XYZ it would look great in our portfolio where you know our other you know sister companies don't have that relationship and we can cross sell right um so then that goes away you know the business is earning less money but still profitable um but it's you know maybe not worth the time of some of these um private Equity Funds and then from a strategic perspective well maybe also not worth the time but then is it a fit to sell to a strategic when you know the owner has very strong feelings about keeping the business intact for its employee base and this XYZ this customer you haven't named yet so I assume you cannot name if and if can't name but it's a it's a uh household name it's a brand we all know it's a brand yeah it's a national grocery store chain grocery store chain great and then the other thing just the the one final kind of bow on this nice package is you buy a business where there's capacity there's still all of that capacity at the business so say more about that yeah so from a a volume standpoint I could I know that I could at least double what I'm doing today because the business has shown in the past so when Bankers say are you going to need a lot of capital investment in the future to grow no right it's already been invested and it's there so that's yeah that's another kicker and so but the loss of this big customer and now this excess capacity does that mean that people were let go I assume the the infrastructure and the and Machinery or what have you uh was kept the capex was kept but did people have to be let go some but not as many as as you would have thought because they were running a lot of overtime a lot of you know working on Saturdays that kind of stuff um to keep up before so yes there you know I've got 30 employees there were maybe 40 employees before I don't know exactly off the top of my head but it was wasn't like you know it decimated you know a ton of jobs yes there were jobs lost because there wasn't as much work but what I think was more impactful was the people that are still there they have you know their hourly employees getting fewer hours so you know one of my goals is to make sure that these guys are getting as many hours as they want and can handle um because you know that's how they earn a living well as I said will it it sure feels like a a fat pitch for uh a guy who been been working hard to to find one but also being patient how does it how did it feel getting into the business in in February of this year you closed on January 31st this was a as I said at the top this was a uh goal 10 years in the making wh what's the emotional content uh of of finally getting there look like well it was you know I um I told Cargill in November I I want to give him a nice heads up because they were so good to me for so many years it wasn't sure it wasn't a sure thing that I was going to close right this is only a few weeks after I signed the LOI um and I I gave him you know I'm I think I'm going to close by the end of December so um Can my last day be kind of early mid December so I left my job in in December and I I can't even tell you how much more work it was to get it closed than what I was expecting it to be and it wasn't for the you know the reasons that you think like you go on you can go on any internet resource and there's plenty of people who have said okay here are all the things you need to close an SBA 7A loan okay got that I had my life insurance all you know set up in front of time you know I'm I'm prepared what I didn't expect was I did an asset deal all the crazy Hoops I had to jump through with the city of Chicago and you know it's not as much the state of Illinois but trying to get all my licenses and whatnot to actually be able to operate the business on day one so I'm going running around like crazy in the month of January because we didn't close at the end of December we're you know targeting closing to January 31st and the way this company generates financials and the look back period the SBA needs if we didn't close January 31st then we were going to be in trouble for a little while maybe not close for another couple months so I needed to get my city of Chicago food manufacturing license took me six trips to City Hall to get um a handful of other things FDA license USDA license those were significantly easier to get than City of Chicago um environmental air permit like it was you know depending on what jurisdiction you're your operating in it can be you know significantly harder or easier to to get the licensing done MH so you ask I think your question was more like did I you know you know bake a cake and celebrate like I was sprinting and it wasn't even clear the day before we closed whether we were going to close on the 31st given these licensing issues is there any takeaway there will I mean it sounds like you were really trying to be all over your checklists and yet still you got bitten um or is it just one of these where estimate how long it'll take and then multiply it times three just in case sort of thing yeah it's just whenever you have to deal with you know things that are outside your control um don't take make any assumptions or take anything for granted I think I you know I was like okay I'm submitting this online form to get my business license six weeks ahead of when I need to close that should be enough time two weeks later when I hadn't heard anything they're like oh yeah it takes six weeks for it to go to zoning and then another six weeks for it to go to the business review and like I'm like what like it doesn't say anything about that on this the we City of Chicago website um so yeah knowing what I know now about some of these things I would have been I was proactive in the places I knew about and but I was also so busy you know doing the working with the the lawyers and the qov and all that so um there's just a lot of balls to keep in in the air uh what would I be more successful in my second acquisition knowing what I know now definitely well I want to also just ask what it feels like to be owner and owner after a guy who was in corporate for 10 years I want to tie in something that your grandfather told you that when he reflected back on his career that was a successful career but he had a regret do you recall and can you tie that into where I'm going yeah I I well just answer your first question I am you know I went through those years of search Purgatory and I am just so grateful and thankful that it ended up the way that it did you know there's no nothing written in stone right you you said this is a fat pitch for me but I still have to hit it um so there's you know there's nothing guaranteed here and it's you know there's challenges every day but I just feel like it's way more in my control um and in my wheelhouse to know how to react compared to you know trying to get lucky finding finding the right business so I am so happy and thankful to be an owner and on this side and every day I am excited to wake up nice and early and and drive down to the plants and and get to work and and every day compound the the the you know improvements that we're making uh getting to the second part of your question so my grandfather who both my grand grandfathers were were big Role Models my grandfather on my My Father's Side he passed away um in December and which is you know pretty interesting timing given yeah um given where my search when my search was wrapping up but he had you know besides the booth experience you know getting exposed to Eta he was all you know the other big push so he spent his career in the steel industry he you know for himself to go to college working on the steel line in in Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania um and he spent the rest of his career you know 50 years or so working in steel most you know the last job working for a family held steel manufacturing business where he was the president and his you know regret if you call it was man I you know helped make these people so much money I I would have loved to do that for our family uh instead of their family I got compensated well and had a good experience but it's just there's no replicating being an owner well that um sounds like it was pretty impactful uh for you to hear it's really um kind of an influence on the path you've chosen no definitely definitely and and you know it was you know until he past he was a you know an awesome person to bounce things off of and talk about the to search with and talk about different businesses and um you know even as you know in the months before he passed you know call him on my way down to meetings with the seller so we were negotiating things and it was I miss him now and um the one thing that I have from as EST estate is his desk so I I brought that to Chicago from Pennsylvania and uh and I'm sitting at that in my office now which is you know pretty special for me oh that's awesome what a what a great um piece of family history to to to carry with you where in Chicago is bear Stewart yeah for Chicago and bear Stewart is you know in a couple neighborhoods you'd want to live in so our main factor is in Wicker Park uh which is bit Northwest of downtown and then yeah uh our our smaller location is in Bucktown which is about a mile north of our Wier Park location those are great neighborhoods those are kind of the short on the short list of the of the cool Chicago neighborhoods yeah there's a lot of good restaurants to eat at uh that's for sure um in terms of pulling up 18 wheelers in front of your plant uh while people are riding their their bikes down the street and walking their dogs you know I don't I don't know if the neighbors love us I get you know I got an email last week from a neighbor saying you know our are cooling you and it on top of the building is making way too much noise while they're trying to sleep what can we do about it so there's there's uh positives and negatives for being in such a great neighborhood yeah well well before I let you go I want to ask you one more question about manufacturing as an industry to buy into um I've had a handful of guests who have bought manufacturing businesses many of them though more fabrication businesses than taking raw materials like I think you said you are at be Stewart and processing them into some then second order product um you've given me the impression that there's you know I mean you've got 10 years of specialization here um and you said modestly that you know you're it's not like you're God's gift to um baked ingredient Manu ingredients manufacturing so that you still feel like there's a lot to learn so is this a business that any Searcher could have acquired or does it is this specialized enough that it really you feel like something like this would really need somebody who already has experience or at least quite close adjacent experience to be successful with yeah I I think it would be I think there's a learning curve for acquiring any business um I think you set yourself up for more success if you have some basis in what's going on before you get there uh it's been invaluable for me to have industry relationships invaluable for me to know um what's important in the business and and what really drives profitability uh I remember someone asked me I don't know a couple years ago in the middle of my search you know tell me something about the food industry that I wouldn't know you know as you know a potential acquirer in the in the industry and my answer was you know just how important food safety is and yeah having an idea for how to run a plant in a food Safe Way um it's obvious right you need to make safe food and there's laws around it but you know there's a whole lot under the surface on on what you need to be doing and a lot of different um programs you need to be running so yeah that's just one example of where it helps to have exposure and experience so would could someone could I have been successful 10 years ago before my Cargill experience buying this business and running it ah I don't know it I would have been way more stressed than I am right now and I'm already you know pretty stressed trying to run this thing so it's like um you know what do you want to get yourself into and uh it just increases your your risk profile if if you're coming in fresh okay wio well thank you for sharing this story story with us a neat business but I dare say a a neater story um 10 years as we keep saying 10 years in the making in fact I found you because you posted an enthusiastic um announcement if you will or just encouraging message on search funer uh on the day I believe the day that you were driving to your new business for the first time encouraging everyone hey you know this has been some years that I've been at this uh but I got here and I'm driving to to work at my new business um as we speak so so uh don't be discouraged and and push through as I have so I it was such a an uplifting message and one that people in search need to hear because it can be so disillusioning at times and and um take such a long time and be expensive and all the rest of it so how can people contact you will if they have questions or need encouragement because they're seven years into their search yeah I think the the best way is to connect with me over LinkedIn and then we can we can take the conversation from there and yeah just to Echo what what you said what I had said you know it is tough and if it was easy everybody would be doing it because it you know the fruits at the end of it are you know so worthwhile so if if your heart's in it stick with it um and there's no shame in it taking a while or being more frustrated rating than than what you expected it to be you have to expect it to be frustrating at the at the outset or else you probably won't survive it wi goo thank you very much for coming on it's been a pleasure well thanks always great talking to you thanks for the time I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we are now publishing twice a week so tons of new interviews and stories to come stories that will help you along your 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