Adam Duggins welcome to acquiring minds great to be here will I'm excited to be here Adam I was connected to you by Jacob Lee a previous guest Jacob was a student at Darden uva's business school and was first exposed to buying businesses by a guest lecturer in one of his Darden classes that guest lecturer was none other than you and it really made an impression on him he after school he went off to work in Consulting but you had planted a seed in his mind about buying a business that he would later return to so today you'll be talking to an audience a bit bigger than a classroom and not just about buying a business but about building a hold coat you're about 10 years into building your hold Co new page capital which is a hold code regionally focused in North Carolina's Triad so let's get into it Adam start us off with a little background on you please um well first thanks for having me well this is uh always fun to to share our story and share what we've we've been able to do um so I'm a I'm a North Carolina native uh Greensboro uh North Carolina which you know for most folks might be the occasional home of the ACC tournament um it was a it was a great place to grow up a great place to be raised uh but wasn't something that uh is a place that I necessarily sought to come back to uh I played basketball you can't tell this on uh on the camera but I'm 6 10. so I played basketball at uh at William and Mary uh up in Virginia uh and uh so had the height and got to use it and got a free education out of it which wasn't uh wasn't a bad deal and then um and then after William and Mary went to uh went to what was at the time called MCI WorldCom uh which was a a pretty prominent Telecom company in the early 2000s uh that declared bankrupt say a week after I got my job offer um you know was a fascinating time worked there for three years in corporate finance there was a lot of fraud that had happened prior to me being there I was not part of the fraud I was part of uh part of the team that was kind of tasked with uncovering it um and so was there for three years great experience and then went back to UVA uh to uh to Darden to to the business school um didn't really know what I wanted to do uh which is why Consulting was a perfect kind of segue for me because if you don't know what you want to do Consulting is a is a great fit and uh and so chose the Consulting route out of uh out of Darden um but a lot of seeds were planted there in terms of you know ultimately what what I ended up doing and even seeds I don't think I actually realized were being planted um went to Bain and Company down in Atlanta Works predominantly I worked as Consulting but worked predominantly in the private Equity Group so uh for that can be a little bit uh convoluted but um so you know our clients were all the private Equity firms uh that uh that you hear about and you know it's been a lot of my weeks in the Northeast and in Northern California uh advising you know private Equity clients on different deals um you know it was an incredible experience um and very demanding uh demanding experience but for me I started uh when I started at being we had our my wife and I we had our oldest son and then had twins 15 months later um and so having more control over over my life and kind of what I was going to do was starting to become more prominent of where we wanted to live and um and what we wanted to do and so got an opportunity to go take a kind of a uh what like a VP of operations role at a healthcare services business up in the Triangle not to be confused with the Triad uh just north of Durham uh and did that for about a year and then uh and then start a new page and so that's that's my that's my kind of quick story of how I ultimately got to uh to start a new pitch and then I wanted to ask there was also about how you ended up in Greensboro specifically yeah there was a conversation with your with your wife where it was it still wasn't quite on your radar as a place to settle down tell us about that yeah it's interesting when we got engaged we you know we have all those big life decisions and live conversations how many kids do you want to have um you know you know how do you where do you want to live and one of the agreements that we made was we would never live in each other's hometown and um not because of not because we didn't have great upbringings and didn't love our families just wanted to to a balance of power thanks that's right that's right and so I remember thinking we would probably end up in Raleigh or Richmond which was kind of you know kind of a middle point between where our families were in areas that we we knew pretty well and we were visiting Greensboro uh one time and uh and my wife kind of said to me you know like Greensboro would be a pretty good place to raise a family and I was like it wasn't even on my radar you know we had we had kind of said we weren't gonna we're gonna end up being here um and also what had happened was as we as I started to think about doing a search you know I talked to people who were doing this in Richmond and talked to people who were doing it in Raleigh and there were there were a good amount you know there were probably five to ten individuals in each of those uh metros doing it so it was going to be competitive and um but I couldn't fund anyone in the Triad um now that's for some good reason some not some good reason that the reason why is is this area has had a bit of a talent drain to the two larger metropolitan areas in in Raleigh and Charlotte um so a lot of the young Talent is drawn towards those those Metro areas but there's still a lot of good Legacy businesses here and and so for for the search I started to think well maybe Well everybody's going in this direction maybe I'll go in a different direction um and then when my wife Laura said hey I think it would be great to raise our family in Greensboro that was you know seemed like the stars of the wand and we decided to decided to quit my job and and move here and I don't know kind of on the whim wow well at least she she um broke the agreement in your favor that's right that's right if it had been the opposite it might have been a little a little trickier yeah now what year is this this is uh this will be uh 2013. so I just got a call out so if 2013 so a long time ago in search years um as we often a theme that you know it's gotten more competitive in a hot thing in the last kind of five seven years 2013 10 years ago even before that um and you already you felt like five to ten other Searchers in Richmond and Raleigh medium-sized cities was a lot you know I suspect there's that much more today so you're probably scaring a little scaring people a little bit or in medium-sized markets because there's probably 20 or 25 in in those cities today yeah I think that's right I mean it was um Richmond would get the benefit of DC you'd get people who lived in DC who wanted to come down um and then you know Riley's obviously got tremendous uh universities around it uh you know and I say Searchers it was a little different back then you know like searching might be might constitute searching while I still have a job uh and and I thought that was I feel like that was a little more common um back then it was interesting I don't know I don't remember what I called what I was doing early on um but like a search fund it you know because we didn't we didn't have a fund so but like searching was kind of what we the terminology we used but it was ultimately I was like I just wanted to find a business to buy yeah um you know coming out of a school like UVA and Darden I could only find you know a handful of grads who had done anything remotely close to this um and that has changed dramatically the last 10 years um the most people we knew I knew of doing this were from some of the you know more you know kind of what I call prominent schools of a Harvard or Stanford and some guys who I'd known at Bain you know one or two had gone down this path but it was not very well defined uh at all at that point so how did it occur to you I I know from our pre-call that your exposure to private Equity is part of that answer yeah it is so when I was in Atlanta um I would I would be on these cases up in in the Northeast and on there were three things that stood out um one private Equity firms would only look at uh opportunities with an ebitda above a certain Threshold at that time it was like five million uh even the smaller funds maybe they'd creep down to three or four million in ebitda but I kept thinking gosh what about a business that does a million in ebitda like that's a that's a good solid business and there there just wasn't a lot of attention being paid um the other thing was I can't tell you this probably happened I did this happen more than a handful of times we'd be working hard on a case and then some partner would go well how are we going to replace that 65 year old owner founder who started the business and no one would have a good answer and so this idea of secession planning really started to just kind of I mean I saw I saw small deals and big deals get really derailed because they didn't have a good plan uh for the for the secession planning and then you know I I distinctly remember being in New York with with the private Equity client uh the the biz Dev guy the guy who's out looking for the deals was talking to me and he said hey I'm I'm going down to North Carolina and I kind of perked up and I'm like I'm from there where are you going he's like I'm flying in the Raleigh and uh looking at some deals there and then I'm driving over to Charlotte and I'm like man you're driving through my hometown are you looking at anything in the Triad and he said you know kind of really quickly he's like yeah he's like oh we don't we don't really think there's a lot there and it's kind of hard to get to and I mean we we have six or seven flights to LaGuardia every day but the perception is that it's a little bit outside of like primary Market and uh and it kind of just it it happened and at the time I was like that's weird why would he why would he think that but I think like oftentimes deals do get kind of swayed by you know if they're in a certain Market or in a certain and I get it right you want to be able to attract him Talent you want any company you buy to to be in a in a hot area um but you know there's there's you know one and a half million people that live in the Triad this it's not a small place um and so for me it kind of settled of like well I'm not sure maybe they're not looking there and um that happened probably 18 months before I ultimately made the jump but it it planted that seed of no one's looking no one's looking here and um and and that's that's kind of how that all transpired from those private Equity guys and going back to your point about the succession planning and how you saw deals die because they didn't have a good answer for who would operate it was your thought that your answer to finding such an opportunity would be that you'd be the operator or that you'd be able to hire an operator better than they were able to at that point it was that I would be the operator so I was you know we're talking I was probably 30 31 32 at this point um and and it struck me that a lot of the deals you know would would get derailed because of that and so the idea was well what you know could I step in and be that person uh to be that successor for the the the the prior owner um because you know it you can't ever replace an original founder owner you can't you know and I think I think it's a Fool's you know Falls Aaron to try to replace that person um but I do think you can you can uh you can backfill that person in a way that maybe is different and uh and so that was the original idea the original idea was definitely that I would be the one stepping in as I was starting to think about what and I didn't even it wasn't called new pages and it was just an idea of like could I buy a business could I be that person who takes over a business um and uh and go from there and you had the confidence that you you could be the answer even though you didn't have operational experience yes you had corporate experience and Consulting experience but a lot of people in you know SMB operator land which you now probably know uh kind of looked derisively at the consultants and you know it's like these these folks they're you know their knowledge of business is very abstract you know dealing with The Hungover you know employees or whatever you know all the the Myriad headaches that that small business really means is not something they're necessarily equipped to do but you felt confident that you could I was incredibly naive um and you know the one thing that Bane taught me was we would have these short duration cases of three to four weeks and you know the client would come or the partner would come to our team and say hey I need us to solve this problem or size this Market and you would sometimes get these problems and you're like this is impossible to do in three weeks like I can there's no way we can do this and time and time again you've figured it out and and so I think that gave me great confidence in that I could through hard work and and through just kind of persistence I could figure things out now I will tell you leaving Bain I was not ready working in that VP of Ops role for that year really grounded me in a in a meaningful way and I'm very thankful I did that for a year before I started uh started doing this because um because it is different right you're you're going from managing very very motivated individuals who um in some ways you have to almost reign in some of the hard work because they're they're they're willing to do whatever work whatever hours to uh to I I'm not going to say less motivated differently motivated people um because you know a a bain consultant versus an hourly um sheet metal mechanic um they're both very motivated they're just differently motivated and I think for me as a manager as a leader I had to learn the different levers that I wanted to pull and the type of leader I wanted to be um with all types and and so that year of kind of post being before I started this was kind of instrumental in in me kind of testing that out a little bit and figuring out what that was going to feel like and and remind me what that business was and how how many employees did it have yeah it so it was a business called care services still still still exists uh it's a pharmacy benefit management company a long-term Pharmacy benefit management company so PBM uh had what we we were essentially doing a merger integration of three different companies and kind of pulling them together uh so the total company had about 100 employees mostly hourly um a lot of uh you know call center Administration type work so you know not Pure Blue Collar not using your hands more at a computer and whatnot but still um you know still definitely and at an hourly Workforce um and uh and you know I think that that was you know like like I said just a great experience to make sure that it was grounding right because I when I say I was in the Triangle I was actually in a small town called Oxford North Carolina Lana which is about 40 minutes north of Durham and and you just experience different things than being in you know Buckhead in Atlanta and the and the shiniest office and then you go to this place um and and I think for me uh it made me realize I really liked the the the quote unquote hourly worker the more blue-collar worker I actually enjoyed working with them more um really because yeah because to me it was they had better perspective um on life in general and and you know it's interesting before this before I got on with you today I was down at our steel plant and I I love nothing more than walking out into the plant and just talking to the guys and hearing what's going on with them hearing their concerns hearing what they're what's happening because um you know it it it the the the perspective they have is I'm putting in the hard work I'm doing this and that but they have you know you know strains in their life as well and and for me that's always very grounding to make sure that I've got the right perspective of why am I doing this why are we doing this um who are we taking care of um who are we giving opportunities to and uh and you know I love I love kind of going down there I mean that that's my happy place uh when I when I get out there on the plant four that's that's so interesting and um kind of hopeful when you say that kind of blue color folks have a little bit better perspective than shiny people uh is it just they're just Shiny People I'll just go with that phrase shiny people can be um just over focused on their on work essentially is it kind of distilled to that or is it to elaborate please yeah yeah I think that I love the shiny people that's a good way to put it I think the shiny people sometimes get so engulfed in their own ambition of what their career is what promotion they're gonna get um they get very self-focused um and I I've just been Amazed by the folks in our Workforce they're they're focused on themselves and their families but they're also worried about other families too and and it's more familial it's more Community um and and I think that to me is is just the perspective that I I love and um and it's not to say that there's not good shiny people there are um yeah and and and and they are but I think sometimes when you're sitting in a really fancy office in a financial district you know when you're working in New York or Boston or San Francisco it's hard to have perspective on what 97 of this country is actually like which is um you know there's still I know more people live in cities than than than uh than not in in this uh country but there's still a lot of people who live in rural areas and um and they're real people and they're and they're good people and and so uh I I've just I've really kind of found myself throwing drawn more towards uh more towards those individuals well that's um that's really this is a really great conversation uh I probably am going to want to Circle back um particularly on how how you learn to motivate people who are who are differently motivated than than the shiny types but let's let's uh come back to it so we haven't even gotten into so you're in you and your wife decide that in fact you will go you will settle in your hometown you've kind of had this Insight uh working close to private Equity that maybe you know there's all these there's all these opportunities that private equities are looking at or isn't executing on for one reason or another and you feel like you could what then what yeah so you know I have a conversation with my wife and I say hey I want to search for business and we had already kind of landed on we wanted to be in the Triad but we're still kind of trying to figure out what it is and I said hey I'm gonna I'm gonna quit my job and I'm just gonna look full-time and you know this is one of those moments even now I get I get kind of chills thinking about this moment because it was a scary moment for me I was really putting it on the line and and uh my wife's a processor and so she kind of sat there and thought about it for all of about 10 seconds and then she said Hey how do you make money looking for a business full-time and I said you don't um but we've saved we've saved we had saved and I said we've got some savings we'll live off of that you know for a certain amount of time and she kind of kind of paused and thought about it and then she's like all right I'm in and it was one of those moments for me where you know I think about my gosh I chose the right partner in life and and I chose someone who has total trust in me um and what a what an Incredible Gift that is so um so we were kind of you know we made that decision probably in May I think I announced my resignation a couple months later sort of delay the groundwork you know I remember the little things that people were telling me I needed to do like you need to have a website you need to have a business cards you know which was in it see you need to have an email address right and it's like these little things that in my life someone had always done those things for me so it was it was kind of a whole fun learning process of like okay I gotta I gotta build a website you know I gotta who do I get business cards from you know what do I get an email address I got to get it you know all this all these things that you don't think about and so we move on Labor Day of 13. and I just started looking and and I was probably pretty unstructured at first um and realized I needed to kind of you know kind of really frame what I was doing now now our our kind of thesis or my thesis at that time was instead of because I was so geographically specific I couldn't I couldn't narrow what I wanted and what I didn't want I need to look at anything and um and and so you know the idea was I wasn't out there raising money so people were willing to talk to me you know when you're raising money people are always a little bit more hesitant but I wasn't and and and all I was trying to do was trying to find businesses and uh started to network and I and I kind of felt like within an area that's you know call it a a million million have people in the Triad there were probably 1500 to 2 000 people that really mattered for my search um and those were you know attorneys accountants insurance agents uh any sort of business aggregators of relationships uh and I started just networking uh you know pretty and I I was fortunate I had a couple people who helped me kind of get there a lot of people thought oh you're from here it'll be easy for you to Network in but I hadn't lived in Greensboro in 15 years I had no Professional Network at all yeah and uh and so it helped a little bit uh sometimes I'm not sure it helped you know sometimes it was like oh you're from here did something happen is something wrong like you know why are you why are you doing this and so um you know and it's interesting when you just when I described what I was doing some people got it some people didn't and I don't think cared to and some people just thought I was crazy um you know including probably my parents um I'm not sure they knew they really could understand what it was I was trying to do um you know I remember uh distinctly a recruiter who I had worked with in a prior role about three or four years after I I started new page he kind of pulled me aside he said hey man I need to admit something to you um when you left your job and started doing this search thing I thought you had lost your mind and I thought you were gonna fail miserably and I I almost said something to you but I didn't know what to say and uh and he said but now I get what you were trying to do and I was like I was like and I really appreciated him saying that it took a lot for him to say that he he was he was wrong not that he was wrong but he was just you know he was confused and so that first couple months was was a lot about me getting my pitch down a lot about figuring out how do I tell my story in 30 seconds how do I tell my story in five minutes and 10 minutes and 15 minutes and buying a lot of lunches and uh I mean one of uh one of my investors told me early on they said buy lunch every single time and uh you know and that was kind of painful you know I mean I was I was I had no income and so I'm like oh gosh this launch I guess I'll pick it up I'll pick it up and people will always let you buy their lunch you know most of the time you go to grab the bill they're like okay fine free lunch um but I think it was a really effective way to get someone to uh Buy in a little more you know it's little things like that um and and I remember I was the one asking them for something so I should buy the lunch and so that's that's like a small tidbit that probably costs I don't know I probably spent 15 grand in lunches that first year and that was the best money I probably ever could spend because I got you know for for my standpoint I got a lot of folks um you know who wanted to help um 15 grand I bet I mean let's say let's let's just be super conservative and say each lunch was a hundred dollars it was even less right so so so wait what's my math 10 times 15 150 lunches but probably more like 200 250. oh yeah I had a lot I mean if everything so I met with I tracked this I met with 650 people the first year wow and so I was I was I mean in my because my ask in every meeting was connect me to three to five people who you know who I who I might be able to connect with and I would take meetings that it was interesting is sometimes you would take a meeting that you would think I'm not going to get anything from it and those were Sometimes the best connections and then other times you would take a meaning of a really well-connected individual who was known in the community and nothing would come from it because oftentimes they don't have the time to help you you know I found the perfect mix a person was uh someone who was maybe a little less known in the community a little less demands on their time who really wanted to help um but yeah I mean and I say you know it was it was it was breakfast it was it was coffee um and I would try to have you know I would try to hit 60 meetings a month it was was my goal and every month I would try to have 60 meetings in person each and in person in person yeah wow and that is impressive well and I think I think that also speaks to this area um I think if I had been doing it in Atlanta I I don't think you can do that many in person one just because Atlanta is more spread out but also I think people are maybe a little in a in a bigger city a little busier they're going to be a little less willing to grab a lunch with someone but in a smaller Community uh like Greensboro or like Winston-Salem or High Point um people are open to that um and so uh yeah it was I mean I think the most I think I had seven in one day and I remember thinking like that was too much like I was like I I'm kind of bleary in terms of what I was saying um but it was interesting it was also the first time um my my eventual business partner told me this at the time he said I said I don't have any sales experience and he goes what do you think you've been doing for the little you know the entire search and it was it was invigorating it was scary um you know uh there were all sorts of bumps along the way but but yeah it was a lot of meetings that first year I was everywhere well you must have had you know Baristas and waitresses Who Knew You by name and knew exactly you know how you liked your coffee I mean well it's funny I don't drink coffee so so I I so I don't I don't drink coffee you know and it's like just something I've never done but you you kind of sometimes you're like okay I gotta figure out what I'm gonna drink I can't just have this person get a coffee and me sitting here you know drinking a water um there's a Panera near near uh near where we live and I I would live there I mean I would just every meeting because I didn't have an office or anything like that and so uh that was uh that was a lot of fun a lot of fun to hear well and and when you you're there so often coupled with your height I mean you know the the staff was all there's the tallest guy again yeah it's like oh he's he's still here you know he's still still here drinking his one drink you know I probably got a lot like an iced tea or something and I drank an iced tea all day or something like that well um so on on this theme of how things have changed a lot in these last 10 years of course what you were doing we we call proprietary search today um not using you know the websites or brokered um brokered listings and typically people are going to be doing blanket emails email blasts uh that would be the 2013 version of what you did um do you have any um contrasting the two do you have any thoughts on that like do would you like if you if you were to do today what you did if you were confronted with doing today arriving in Greensboro and and um drumming up a deal flow would you do it the same way again or would you use the technology tools I would not use the technology tools and I'll tell you why um I'm now on the other end of this where I get those hits from the technology tools and I get hit a lot and and that was often I mean I the hit rate on those is always low right but my hit rate of being able to like if I found a business for the most part I could figure out one or two ways like one or two connections it's kind of like you know the the I'm gonna date myself a little bit here but Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon you know you can always connect to Kevin Bacon and and it's a little bit like that in a community like this where I was always probably too at the most three connections away from any given business and a warm lead-in from an introduction to me is infinitely better than an email um yeah and we tried the email I did a little bit of that and and occasionally was successful in getting in and talking to the business but there was a lack of trust there initially and it was just always hard to overcome as opposed to so-and-so's accountant you know introduces me into the business that person trusts trust that accountant and trusts that I'm you know they're not wasting I'm not wasting their time and so I think I would do it similarly I think a geographically when you do a geographic search like like we did like I did that first year um even today I think you can still Network kind of the old-fashioned way of networking your way ahead um to to you know most businesses I mean I talked to a lot of folks who are doing this now and even in larger markets still think that's an it's a more effective way um because you know you have to think about who you're targeting you're targeting 55 to 7 year old 780 year olds um where and this is less so now but it's still true where email is not their kind of primary form of communication they still like to shake hands they still like to get together they want to put a face to a name um and ultimately that's the most important uh person you're targeting is that eventual business owner that you're trying to convince to to uh sell their business to so so yeah that they will sell their business to you the 650 I mean you you didn't know it at the time as we said at the top like you didn't set out to build a hold code but those 650 meetings also had the added benefit that it just sets you up very nicely to what would what we now know what comes over these intervening 10 years what is absolutely wild is all four businesses that we've eventually bought I uncovered in that first year all four and some even very early on like uh the most recent acquisition we did was one of the first steals we had heard of um and you're right it built this network now unfortunately for us we've been distracted by buying businesses so that I you know I don't always cultivate that Network as well as I should but yeah it planted a lot of seeds and some of those seats you know beared fruit in the first year some took 10 years or you know to bear fruit but eventually they did I want to I still want to dwell on this for a second the 650 were you you had said you were at least initially meeting with the people who would give you access to the owners the the attorneys and the and the the accountants and so on uh of those 650 how many were actually were actually with business owners uh so we looked at in that first year probably a hundred and fifty 160 different deals I may not have met with all those owners but I probably got introduced or or spoke with them and I think the the the learning I had early on also was um my time was not that valuable yeah from the standpoint you didn't say I'm sure you didn't say that to your wife at the time I didn't say that's my wife but clock is ticking waiting that's right that's right let's go um but um my time wasn't so valuable I would meet with anyone anyone and and you know it was anybody in the business Community I'm just going to meet with them because if I've learned anything it's like you just never know what connection is gonna get you to that to that spot right and you know it and actually it was something that um my wife and I talked about because she was new to this community she was meeting people too she didn't you know it was it was a little awkward for her to say what her husband was doing because you know it was it was like wait your husband is on is he unemployed no well he's not really unemployed he's he's look he's searching for so he's getting paid no he's not really getting paid so he's unemployed yeah you know and um and she got very good at knowing how to convey that story too um two two others and and and you know because there's people she would meet that she you know that they might be connected to someone um or they might be someone uh that we would want to talk to so uh it was uh yeah you know and I I reflect back on that year um this is a wild kind of wild part of it people often ask like what was I incredibly stressed about money was I incredibly stressed about you know finding something it's actually the least I work I've probably worried about money in my entire adult life and the reason being is I just stopped looking at what was happening to our savings because it was so it was kind of depressing so I just stopped looking and I was like I know it's going down I don't need to look at it and I and I'm one of these people I look at that stuff and I just stopped looking and I was like you know what I'm putting my head down I'm gonna find something and this is going to be fun and and I think that I talk about having a being a little bit delusional and and what you have to do you have to have a little bit of that and and I did I had and probably still do a little bit but um just being delusional of hey I I know like there's people who say this isn't going to work I know this is gonna work I'm gonna make this work um because I you know because I have to because I you know I had a young family my wife got pregnant during that first year which made so with our fourth so the numbers were not getting any easier for us to manage um and so it was it was uh it was a challenging uh challenging time but but gosh you know I look back on it now and I look back on it with a smile it was an incredible incredible time and um and I think I had fun with it and and I think that's hard I was gonna say you're you're smiling and you're clearly yeah you reflect back on it with some Nostalgia but in the moment where you you I guess I guess you kind of just answered that you when you were watching your your savings ticked down that stressed you out you stopped doing that were you I mean what were you did you have anxiety uh let me show you some but I mean like what was your what was your mood during these this year uh for the I think for you know 90 of the time it was very hopeful it was it was very uh it was very things are going to be okay it was optimistic um about every 10 meetings I would have a bad meeting actually you know one where and what do I Define as a bad meaning I Define a bad meaning as someone who's not only are they not going to help you but they're gonna they're gonna tell you how you're gonna fail um and uh I remember a couple of this where someone almost went out of their way to to kind of really want to um point out that you're gonna fail and part of that came from I met a lot of individuals who were 10 to 15 years older than me that said oh yeah I was gonna do that or I'm gonna do that and they would claim that they had been looking you know while having a full-time job but then they would they would they would want to kind of Knock You Down and there were a couple of those calls that were pretty tough to take you know a couple of meetings where you got out and you're like oh my gosh is is that is that person right like did I make a horrible choice and for me I would I would let that feeling sink in for about 30 seconds and I would say you know I'd kind of get down a little bit and then I would say you know what F that like no like that guy's not gonna tell me I can't make this work I'm gonna make it work and in some ways that motivated me even more like those meetings were actually it's funny my uh uh my business partner would laugh after I would have him because he would see I would get more fired up um after those to uh to to make this work and so um yeah you had a little chip song I love a good ship on the shoulder and that that goes back to my playing days I I just I love someone telling me I can't do something yeah because it's gonna it's a good motivator and do you really think that these haters were people who were behaving that way to validate their own lack of executing on this plan I think it was a little bit of that and I think it was also a hint of maybe a hint of jealousy yeah of gosh I wish I had I wish I had yeah tried to do this but also also I think there were some people who genuinely were like no you're going to fail like I I think there were a couple who were who were trying to be like hey you've made a mistake like don't do this yeah um and and trying to be genuinely helpful but um but for me it was you know it was uh it was I had to I had to keep going I had to I had to keep going I didn't have a choice at that point well you probably had failed to tell those people that you were meeting having two and you know three me in seven meetings a day and then they were in the presence of somebody who was going to go on to have 650 meetings in a single year so yeah uh that that makes it kind of A Cut Above well we are 45 minutes in and we haven't even gotten to acquisition number one so we are not going obviously we're not going to have time to spend on all the Acquisitions um but we we definitely um should get the whole the whole span of the entire story so maybe let's do this Adam well you just mentioned your partner we need to hear that yep so let's talk about your partner uh ship and then let's kind of quickly go through the last 10 years and then we'll get into some more themes your partner great yeah I'm running in my neighborhood that we were we were renting this little house in our neighborhood and I'm running in it and I look over and I see a familiar face who is a year ahead of me at Dart I hadn't talked to him in five six years and it was a guy named Rick Ramsey and I you know hey Rick why are you in Greensboro you know and he was working for a Dana her health company at that point he he said what are you doing and I started telling him and he was like that's really interesting I would love to hear more and we went through and that was about six weeks into the search and I had realized pretty quickly I I need social I need someone in the boat with me and I wasn't sure what that was going to look like but it was you know whatever you know higher power whatever put Rick in that spot I was like oh my gosh like this is and I think he felt the same way you know Rick always jokes that Rick's a little bit the yin Yama Yang and that if he uh had never met me he he probably never makes the jump and if I had met him I probably would be bankrupt because I would have done tried to do too many deals and so we we kind of offset each other in a really really cool way he's a very different uh we we have similar backgrounds from the standpoint we both went to UVA but he's an investment he was a former investment banker uh worked in operations um so I had a pretty different background than I did from that standpoint and uh and it's just he you know he and I will go to a meeting and we'll write down 10 questions you know coming out of that meeting and there'll be 10 different they'll all be different um and so um you know and and that was one of the things that was hard was early on it was like okay well how are we going to uh be partners how are you gonna divide it and I had taken the chance he hadn't and and we worked out a way in the DLC in the initial deal that I got a greater proportion but you know he was pretty adamant and I'm thankful he was that once we did the deal everything was 50 50. and and I mean everything we do is 50 50. and I think that has really simplified our partnership uh in in creating just pure alignment of you know you know no one ever has a little bit more than the other and um and I think for us that was that was a really smart thing we did early on that has has built a really strong Foundation to to our partnership I know but I think I missed it you had a little bit more of the first deal and then 50 50 after like say it again please yeah yeah yeah so so we we had to somehow account for the fact that I was searching I had to get paid for you know I like once we had a deal fee I had to get some benefit for that so I did so I got now was it commensurate to what I would have made you know for a full year salary absolutely no I wasn't close but I got a bigger chunk of that but then we made the agreement once the Deal started once he quit his job we were 50 50 on everything moving forward um and that so you got like a flat fee kind of one-time compensation cat cash amount for the labor your labor and time finding the deal but going forward in ownership 50 50 Equity split yep that's exactly right and and essentially the way we did it was we did it so I didn't really need to put any money in the first deal right so my DLC kind of rolled in and uh and he did and so that was that was what we did and um you know Partnerships are like marriages they're very similar uh uh you know you know we it's something you have to work on it's something you have to spend time on um but you know for us a lot of I think the secret sauce for our partnership is built around honesty being very direct with each other um you know stating when we you know want something but most importantly I think being very deferential to the other person um we have a a term that I think we've stolen I think Amazon uses this called disagree and proceed um and and we will we disagree uh more often than not actually on on how to approach certain things but once we proceed we never question it um we've done some side Investments and done some stuff I mean there's been even deals one of the four deals we did uh where he was really pushing for it I wasn't as excited about it but we did it and there were times in the first couple years we were like you know in my mind it starts to creep in gosh we shouldn't have maybe done this but I would never dare it's like no no no I agreed to do this I agree to do this and it's disagree and proceed so you just proceed and and we're very careful about doing that with our leadership and with our employees and making sure that they always see a very united front from the two of us kind of like you know kind of like a you know appearance you know you want to have a good united front with your kids yeah yeah and when you I I don't the framework is familiar to me but I don't know it um super well when you disagree how what is the tie breaker to then yeah how do you decide it's it's I don't I'm not sure we have a good process for it it's ultimately who is more who is more who cares cares more and we've never you know that when I say disagree I mean we've never had big disagreements there are always small disagreements about maybe how who to hire or um how to proceed with a sales strategy or something like this and and it's never been big um but it's very important we have that process to flush out our differences so that when we are then sharing it with our organizations uh we come across as uh you know in front and we are you know like I don't I don't I don't ever that ever come across as disingenuous it's not like once I once I agree to something that maybe I didn't agree with at first I'm all in um and uh and Rick's definitely been the same way I uh in a previous partnership had this form of communicating with my partner where we would say if we're disagreeing we learn too quickly in the disagreement say one to the other are you strong how strong are you in this are you strong because what we found is like you could argue about something and then realize that you're just arguing because you're having this kind of intellectual debate and then realize that actually one person doesn't actually care that much about the outcome to begin with yeah so it was sort of an accelerant it's like wait wait are you strong on this because I'm not I think you're wrong but I'm not that strong on it so if you want it you can have it if you're really strong on it and the other partner says yeah I'm strong on this you say fine you know and but but you use it sparrowly like you don't you know you know neither person neither party abuses you know everything can't be strong all the time of course um so it's but it worked it was it was well we we use it we use a term we say we violently agree with each other sometimes you know like like we're violently agree like we're arguing and then it's like wait I think we're I think we're actually agreeing with each other and we you know you know that's always how it kind of kind of spawns out cool so you guys agree to a partnership um and uh and I and and so I guess it was he'll quit his job when you find the deal and that yep that's right so uh we literally the the we we had the meeting that morning with the new business he leaves he goes and gives this two-week notice um as we you know as we uh uh on the day we closed essentially and how close were you when you jogged past his house and found him and started talking partnership how close were you to finding a deal uh at that point not close at all because it was only we were only I'd only been searching for six six seven weeks at that point oh wow so a year ahead of you yeah so it was a year it was a year of search ahead of us um and and I think we officially agreed to partner probably three months after that initial meeting uh it's kind of a you know weird almost pseudo like dating process because you're kind of like wait do I really got to get to know this person and and vice versa uh before we agree to do something together and and and while you were searching and having these countless meetings um you would you'd already realized that you wanted somebody else in the boat with you um he was a sounding board and and you'd come home or talk on the weekend you had regular meetings I assume where you're debriefing them on all these meetings and stuff and he's just kind of being a sounding board and providing advice where he can but he's not really putting in any man hours as it were or any yeah he's he's probably he's probably putting in you know five to ten hours a week on kind of just talking through things and he would occasionally come to a meeting if it was we deemed it was really important for him to be there um but we didn't feel like you know we see sometimes I see sometimes where we have Searchers where there's two partners and they're both searching um but we felt like for a geographically constrained search that didn't make sense we we only needed needed one of us to to you know be searching full-time okay okay Adam well let's uh let's hear about your first deal maybe a little bit more detail on that one and then let's but let's hear about all four of them uh abbreviated version yeah yeah um the worst day of of the entire search for me was uh uh it was on my 33rd birthday and a deal that we were looking at had fallen apart uh we had spent so much time on it this was uh I've been looking at this point for eight or nine months and coming out of that the person who had connected us to that deal introduced us to our our first deal um and so you know from from the rubble of what I deemed to be the kind of worst moment of of that year um and it was a structural steel business and we originally looked at it um I didn't it I I didn't necessarily like instantly go oh this is it um uh you know there was there was something to like about it it's pretty Capital intensive um in in construction which is very cyclical and and remember in 1314 08 and 09 was still very very much on people's minds um you know that was still a lot of owners would talk about it a lot um and uh but Rick actually called a friend of his who ran a similar type business in a different region and that call kind of got us to commit so okay let's take a hard look at it um so two two Founders both in their late 50s so this was they were younger than most of the owners we talked to um who uh who were ready to move on and uh and so structural steel fabricator at that point we were um yeah they were probably 28 you know 27 28 employees uh Top Line maybe you know call it 12 million um but uh but a great little business um and uh and a great jumping off point four so uh closed it uh in November 14th so it was November 1st of 2014 and uh have have been there ever since and it's been a it it's it's truly been a great ride with that one there was 12 million when you bought it what does revenue look like today uh we'll probably do uh I think we'll do 35 this year great and what would you say to people Adam who um are scared off by this construction businesses for precisely the reasons you just gave cyclical non-recurring project-based capex they're not wrong um those factors are there so um I I think I think the the factors are the cyclicality and and the capex nature of it is tough that being said I think there's ways that in construction you can differentiate yourself from from other uh other trades uh through you know building strong relationships um eat it you know through to me one of the reasons I'm I've frankly I'm drawn in some ways towards construction is because it's because of the blue collar nature of it because you're building Banks it it it's pretty neat I mean like like going to a job site where we've got a bunch of Steel going up and you see that kind of exoskeleton of the building that's neat yeah you know it's just it's neat to be able to go look at yeah um that's cool and and I will tell you this you know 2008 9 and 10 was really bad for that industry because you know something like 30 of the workforce left and then they never came back so as you think about searching that has created a void if you think about the people who were 25 to 40 you know 15 years ago who are now kind of in the more senior positions there's a there's a real dearth of talent there and and so I really feel like that's a place where you can lean in and differentiate yourself uh if you you know at a level of kind of professionalism uh and level of customer service that that uh that is there and you know you know listen no one you know there's not many kids who who grew up wanting to be in steel fabrication um but it's a really cool business because you get to mix it's it's it's Lego blocks it's making the right size Lego blocks and then putting them together um I did that as a kid that's pretty cool and uh and so for me it's a it's it's a pretty nice vet that's well put I mean that that is that does sound really cool when you talk about the kind of the um labor void the reverse bulge from people who who left the industry 15 years ago and 08 you know I maybe like prior to coven and prior to this labor shortage I would have said yeah that sounds great but now I'm just so I just the challenges with hiring people are so acute across so many Industries particularly blue collar that it does not appeal to me to hear about an industry where you know there's there's this kind of systemic underemployed like under um lacking labor pool yeah because yeah if I'm going to be the manager I'm like okay yeah great I can differentiate myself because there's not going to be a lot of me but then you grow the business and you're gonna need gonna need to have managers you're gonna need to have talent who run the business under you or as you go by your other acquisition and it's just then you're stuck with the same problem all over again how are you going to find those people yeah um I think I think where and I totally think what you're saying is is valid I think where we've been able to differentiate is is one how we treat people um you know we we are we truly care I mean you know I can say it and and it can come across as a lot every business owner says that um but I think our actions over the last nine years have spoken to the fact that we we truly try to take take care of our folks um and you know I I you know I'd say well there's there's other managers and those other companies that maybe aren't quite as professionalized as you are they're not you know to me that's what you're competing against you the blue collar Workforce you can figure out that puzzle if you're applying kind of good principles to it and if you I think are truly genuine with your current employee base and so for us we've been able to have particularly coming out of Cove at a very high level of retention with our employees and pot listen part of it is you pay right pay matters um you provide good benefits and and that's where the you know kind of having the bigger entity has helped us some um and uh and and you try to attract younger Talent um and I think that's the part I mean we live in an area Central North Carolina from a construction standpoint and from uh is exploding we had a hundred thousand people moved to North Carolina last year so we've got a lot of people coming in there's a lot of opportunity too um but I I just I don't think as a manager you can I don't think there's any space that's um not struggling with labor right now and so I think if it you know as a Searcher if you're afraid of Labor then you probably shouldn't buy a small business because Labor's going to be there everywhere the labor problems are going to be there I mean I talked to you know law firms accounting firms they're having horrible issues with labor um so I don't think it's it's necessarily unique to construction okay so that was November 14 you buy the first business steel fabricator what's the business called uh engineered steel products engineered steel products okay take us to your next uh your next acquisition the day we submitted the ioi for ESP uh engineered steel we submitted a second ioi for a business called American Industrial and they that process was just slower and so we ended up with ESP AIC ended up coming back to us and saying hey we're interested and we said we're not ready can we reproach and so about a year later we started the conversation and then uh ended up buying a business called American industrial which is in uh HVAC uh industrial Commercial contractor here in Greensboro um you know similar you call it uh at that point they were probably at 10 12 million dollar business 60 employees um kind of similar size to ESP but but most importantly similar customers and you know as we look at the if we list off the risk of when you buy a business number one is always customer defection and customer relationships well we had the steel business where we had these relationships with customers that we could translate over to this HVAC business we did not intend to be into uh to you know construction trades that wasn't what we set out to do but when we looked at the deal risk and we looked at the kind of deal profile it just made sense uh for us and and and so we bought that in January query of 2017. just to be clear so the customer base here is developers your your general General Contractors general contractors who would have been hired by the developer and so GCS and so the GCS hire you to provide and put up the steel um yeah and then they would they would also be the decision maker on the HVAC system that's going to go into this new building okay and so obviously same decision maker if you can sell them twice for your two different companies now I I like to always ask this when I hear a guest talk about a perceived Synergy um none of us you know that that old cliche word a lot of ways to put it but um you have to do it like this yeah yeah um because I just feel like sometimes those can you know sound good on paper but they just for whatever reason they just don't uh they just don't work like the GCS already have their HVAC relationships and just because they work with you on steel doesn't mean they're going to dump all their current HVAC relationships for you sort of as as just one hypothetical so yeah but did it work is it working it's a great point we thought it was we thought it was going to be so symbiotic and like work so well symbiotic there's another one yeah um not really it like it was it was it was the same decision maker was making the Steele decision versus the HVAC decision but an HVAC decision is very very different than a steal it's just a different decision now did it help that Rick and I developed relationships with owners of the GCS and we could talk to them about both yes um it's funny we're six years in on this and we're still kind of trying to figure out how to make it work um it works sometimes um I tell you when it did work it worked during covid um when we had we would have one business that would be really slow and we would to be able to retain as many people as we could we moved people over to the other business because some of the skill sets were somewhat transferable not perfectly transferable but they would help um but it didn't work as well as we thought you know I think on paper we were like oh we we have these customers and we'll just go to them and sell them HVAC oh to your point well they had an HVAC guy they don't they don't want that from us they don't want that from their steel provider um through time we've been able to do that and I think in another few years that'll even be even better but that does it takes takes a lot of time and so uh you know it's it's interesting and we're just now really exploring the idea of the shared services within between particularly those two businesses because they are both in construction but it takes time and uh and we were kind of getting there and then you know covet happened and we had to hit everything on pause for a couple years but uh but you know I asked me in another you know five years and I'll maybe have a maybe I'll maybe it'll be a better answer and I'll say oh yeah it worked great it just took a decade of getting it to work so you you might agree with me that maybe synergies is somebody considering a second acquisition maybe you don't over uh state to yourself what you know what the what the potential is there it'd be super conservative on its own take whatever potential you think is then divided by like you know ten I mean like it's it's it I think the thing is it can be there just don't underestimate the amount of time it's going to take to truly be able to get the value from it yeah it was a 10 to 12 million dollar business and today what does Top Line look like uh we'll probably do 15 to 17 this year somewhere in that neighborhood Okay so we've had some growth not nothing crazy uh Adam I'm still very aware of time but I just wanted to Circle back I didn't ask you how you were financing what what did your financing look like on your first deal and then subsequently yeah so we had uh we had three minority investors who invested uh and they did um and then Rick and I you know obviously invested and then we uh got traditional senior lender just a traditional senior note um we were Rick and I were Unlimited guarantors on that debt and then our investors and this is unique our investors were Pro rata guarantors on that debt as well um as a as someone who's since invested in uh search deals I recognize like I would never have done that uh fortunately they were real big Believers in ours which which we're very grateful to them um but we just had traditional senior debt uh got very comfortable with uh signing personal guarantees um but at that point you know particularly in 13 you know signing or 14 signing a personal guarantee I was like great like I don't have a lot so you can have it uh it didn't I'm not sure it meant a lot um but um but that's how that's how we have Finance uh virtually every deal in some kind of way of flavor we also I should be it should be clear um uh the first two deals uh each had seller notes on them um so and we had earn outs on them on the first two as well um and so that was you know that earn out is just such a great way to bridge the gap every time we would talk to an owner they would say yeah yeah I know what I've done but this year it's gonna go like this you know and we would just say fine we'll give you all that upside um but we can't you know we'll give it to you through some sort of uh version of an earn out and so so we really thought about it in four traunches earn out seller note banknote equity and those were kind of the four traunches we would use and why didn't you do an SBA loan at least initial in that first deal uh not flux SBA just has to be earned out it won't let you do an internet exactly exactly and so we started going down that path and and we quickly realized that we we felt like the urnout was a really great tool to bridge gaps between valuation expectations and with SBA you know the very I think you might be able to in some cases but for the most part you can't you can't do it or no yeah one of the things people like about Spa loans is how much leverage you can you can use yeah so did you have less generous leverage situation in your first deal no we were pretty levered um partly because a lot of the deals we're doing we're not we're not buying deals at at six to eight times even uh um or buying deals that um are you know are lower it costs value-based buyers of three to four times ebitda and so when you're at those lower numbers you can get as a percentage of the deal you can get a lot more leverage on them because the banks are going to get way more comfortable with that you know as opposed to having to come up with you know a five six seven eight times even a business you're gonna have to have Equity a lot more equity in this I just great uh your next acquisition jet hot a guy a guy who used to work for Rick in Investment Banking called us about it we had actually heard about jet hot for years knew it was there they originally wanted to sell the building with the business we didn't want the building so we weren't interested and then we reapproached we thought Jed hot was a great way to not be uh in construction uh and and kind of diversify a little bit jet hot is um we code automotive parts for uh anywhere where there's heat or corrosion in an engine we coat that part um and it's really got two sides one's the commercial side so we do that for kind of commercial engines and then uh you know if you're a tinker or have a hot rod or something like that and you want to do any sort of coding on on any sort of uh Parts on your uh on your you know your your car uh you'll send it in to us and we and we do that as well so is it kind of a oh so you guys actually do the the treatment of the of the engines correct so we have think imagine we have a bunch of uh ovens and we have the engine parts not the engines but the engine parts kind of rolling through a line um and and you know heating on that essentially that uh uh that that coating that you're putting on the different parts and the coating is also your proprietary product or correct yeah that's right that's right that's right and is it kind of a single single skew new business where you have the coding in the process and that's it no there's there's several different Coatings uh particularly on the on the consumer side you know there's different colors uh people like doing different colors for you know uh they're different types of Parts um so there's a fair amount of different Coatings but primarily we do uh there's primarily two two types of Coatings that we do that that make up the predominant amount of our business um you know it's it's a nice little business it it it it it you know it can be very it is very dependent on the automotive supply chain so as you can imagine 20 20 and 21 were very rough on that business just from the standpoint of we just couldn't get parts yeah um but um but for the most part that's been that's been a really good deal for us we've we've really enjoyed both the people there customers there and uh and you know it's uh uh it's it's been it's performed well which has been which has been nice and and in the world of hot riding is this like a brand that everybody knows yeah which is super fun because you know when I say to you engineered steel or American industrial you know no one knows that other than a few folks locally but when you say jet hot you say jet hot to the right person and they go oh Jen hot yes you know and what was really fun is we had employees from our first two businesses who when they heard about that were so excited I mean we had guys who had jet hot uh bumper stickers on their cars because they really bought into this and uh and so they were so excited about that and so it is it is a brand that is known among certain circles certainly yeah yeah that's fun that's super fun how big was it then and how big is it today Top Line the top line six million it's still 6 million uh you know we kind of started to have a little growth and covid chopped that pretty hard and now we've kind of gotten back to to pre to to previous uh previous levels so uh relatively small Top Line but but actually I mean we have probably 40 45 employees that business is a little different in that we don't take on inventory so uh there's you're really gonna it's really a service based business um and so you know even though you're yeah revenue is a little lower um you know it's it's uh it's from an employee standpoint you know someone a little bit smaller than the other two businesses but still has has a good amount of folks and what year was that did you say that you acquired that was uh that was the beginning of 2019. okay so at this point 2019 with this jet hot acquisition are you are you seeing yourself as a hold code yet yeah I I I think in late 19 that started to really start the form and and like Jed out at the time had a had a full-time I.T uh person but it was a you know small business and so it's like they didn't need a full-time I.T person so we elevated him to be over all our businesses and he was kind of the first person that I was like oh this shared service model could really be pretty powerful um and so in early 20 we really started to outline what we were gonna do um and then March of 2020 it and all that got put on pause for really about 18 months um as we just had to kind of hold on and and hunker down for for what was a a very bumpy ride uh across all three in in very different ways so and then covid calms down and yes you you I I guess you reintroduce that conversation amongst yourselves yeah so it's interesting just to call out Adam it sounds like the shared services um Insight was really what led you to start thinking oh we're a holds Co or oh we should think about ourselves as a whole scope yeah it we had benefit from that that um that one employee that I mentioned the other thing that happened was Rick and I started recognizing that if we were going to do more than three we had to elevate up because you know a lot of this like I was I was wearing a lot of different hats and so was he and we we in in through covid we had to kind of really hone in on those and and but as we got out of that we were like wait a second and we made a we made a pretty bold higher uh about uh in the middle of 21. it was actually the city manager for uh the city of Greensboro so city of Greensboro has 3 200 employees and he had been a friend he's you know around our age and he was a city manager and so I'm sitting there going and we were talking and I said I said hey David if you ever think about leaving I knew he wanted to stay locally we should talk and and we brought on it was a very outside the box hire um it has transformed our organization because he has been able to be the primary operator and now two businesses while Rick and I can Elevate up and look for more deals and you know I think it we've always been a big believer in hiring athletes not always hiring experts because most of these businesses have experts they have great experts in them but I love someone who's just a good athlete who can kind of do a bunch of different things and that's what David was David's the best he's the best people manager I've ever seen and um and so it's it's it's pretty humbling when you see someone take a business that you've been trying to run and then running a lot better than you did and I'm like great this is awesome you know this is this is this is fun and it's fun for me personally because I'm I'm close with him and and to see him kind of have a lot of fun with this and so through that hire then you know then we realized we needed a safety officer you know and and each of these businesses couldn't afford a full-time safety person but combined they could um and uh and now we've promoted someone from within to be a finance uh uh officer or a Director of Finance for new page and we're really now at this moment where all of a sudden we're creating this new page team that's that's helping these businesses and um and it's been fun it's been fun not so much not you know not just from the standpoint of Rick and I being able to wear a different hat or kind of pull up a little bit but also it's been really really fulfilling to see those individuals uh step up and step up in a really meaningful way and uh and and have fun with it I mean I think you know if you have truly ambitious people in a 50 60 employee business part of the issue is their growth is can be limited because of the size of the business but when I talk about our 220 person business you know there's more options for us to kind of move folks around and we've really started to explore that in a meaningful way it you know it's it's I'm kind of making this same point a second time that you arrived at becoming a holds Co kind of out of pragmatism I mean you just you needed these things and and you know the old Coast structure started making more and more sense for all the reasons you've just said and it's just striking because on SMB Twitter and and among my audience having a hold Co is kind of a fantasy it's a hot Trend but I think it's more just because it seems cool and fun you know to kind of to own a bunch of different businesses um and uh and you know Warren Buffett is widely admired and he's kind of like the whole code King so everyone talks about having the mini Berkshire Hathaway um but you you arrived at it quite accidentally you kind of evolved into it yeah um so just want to call that out um okay Adam let's hear your most recent acquisition and then we still have a few more themes I I really want to make sure we get to yeah most recent acquisition was a business called WC Rouse this was actually uh is a boiler sales and service business that we we acquired that in September of 2022. um I had actually heard about this business 10 years ago before I even started searching um and it was actually sold to a private Equity Firm out of Chicago then they had held it their you know their uh life of their fund you know it has a certain amount of time so then they had to sell it I had stayed in touch with them and they called me in April or May of last year and said hey would you still have interest in in Rouse and I said I would and so um we were able to buy that there's some benefit related to the HVAC business too uh some of which were exploring some of which were trying to figure out but um but you know that business allowed us to justify the safety officer and and that's what's been fun is each time we add a business it allows us to kind of build more uh around it and um and so that's been you know we're six seven months in now on that one and it's been uh very good so far and can you give us a sense of size of that one yeah so that one's uh kind of 10 to 12 million as well uh maybe 12 or 14. as you keep playing and evolving and growing your shared services model you know at some point Adam you're also going to be confronted with the classic hold code debate of centralization versus decentralization and you and you guys are clearly moving toward centralized shared services um but um you know just raise your hand a little bit you'll hear plenty of people telling you that you know you should be decentralized all the way um so have fun with that debate it it's it's a fun it's a fun debate we we've gone it's interesting because I've seen companies go centralized for you know spend five years going that way and then spend five years on doing it I imagine we'll probably have some sort of semblance of that but I do think it it's it's something we talk about a lot I think that's where our location helps though because if we centralize we're still here and and we can still be present I think sometimes when centralized models don't work it's when uh you're pulling something to another state or to another region um for us we'll always have a presence I still always have a presence uh you know of visiting each business each week and and I think that's important well one question on that uh Adam now reflect for reflecting back on your decision to kind of geographically search and be in a relatively small geography um you know your 650 conversations 10 years ago you've now acquired four businesses in the community I assume people know you I assume people now are trying to get your time rather than the other way around um is the pool of potential opportunities for for Greensboro really bottomless like I just would imagine at some point you're gonna you're gonna tap out this is this is a conversation we're in the midst of right now um because I do think at a certain point like if you look at the Triad we think that we thought when we started there were probably six or seven hundred businesses that would fit somewhat in our parameters I haven't we haven't looked at all of them we've looked at a lot of them and and so we are starting to our poll starting to get a little more limited but that being said there were businesses that I talked to seven years ago where the owner was 54. and it was like oh this is not interesting but now that owner's 61. maybe it is and and so we do see some potential you know because that's the trickiest part about this is the timing has to be right you know and I think the timing is the hardest part because you have to catch that owner at the point when they're ready to to pull the trigger yeah um and uh and so it's not a bottomless pit but um but I do think there's still there's still some opportunities there and I think for us uh those opportunities could look like bolting onto our existing businesses right um and and buying something that is related to something that that we currently own yeah well um I don't know what your Big Life plan is but you're about my age about 40 years old so you still have a couple decades in you I would imagine yeah so so at some point maybe maybe not in the next year or two at some point you're probably going to step outside this geography and maybe maybe you'll just cross that bridge when you get to it but I can't imagine at the rate you're going that Greensboro is going to gonna be provide the big enough pool for the next 20 30 years yeah it's it's it's something that's tricky for us because we've been tempted uh We've looked at deals already looked at several deals yeah we definitely definitely particularly we particularly been tempted in uh businesses that we are already in and buying a competitor in a different region um but you know I think I think we'll hesitate because it covid taught us the power of us being able to drive to the business every single day and so every day I would I would do the loop and it's you know just go to each business and I would show up and I would be present and I think that matters um I think it matters for ownership to be present and and to to know the employees um but you're right I mean the Temptation is growing um in terms of us going on this market and we've got listen we've got two massive uh we have two of the of the 10 fastest growing cities in the country in Raleigh and Charlotte that are an hour and an hour and a half down the road there's a lot of opportunities there and so at some point I imagine we'll get pulled into doing something like that yeah one of the things that we talked about in our pre-call was that you're more focused on stability than on Top Line growth and you know it's funny as I as I reviewed my notes and prepared for this call because I realized that Searchers generally want both so so in other words they you know they want stability but also opportunity for growth it's kind of like yeah you know not high risk High reward they want low risk High reward and capitalism right usually reward network no so you're at least honest about it as opposed to the rest of us delusional Searchers uh low risk High reward anyway um so you're more focused on stability than grow grow grow um elaborate on that please yeah we we just felt like for us to be the type of operators that we wanted to be we were never going to be these folks that were going to shake things up make big bold changes um because I I think for us you know being an employee of a business that's bought is really scary it is scary and and there's no better there's no other word for it um and particularly when someone's coming in who you know 10 you know eight nine years ago I'm 33 30 you know 33 years old and they're like who is this kid does he doesn't know anything about steel you know I'm putting my trust in him I'm putting my family's livelihood in this person's hands and um and I think for us we best we just felt like the right way to do this was to do it slowly and steady and it helped that we were both in our early 30s and we felt like listen we've got a 30-year Horizon um which is crazy to think that you know to think about that kind of time timeline but it is and and we weren't we also didn't have a fund and I think that really helped us be patient um with these businesses because we've made Investments That in the short term or even the median term have made no sense for these businesses but long term we we believe will um and I just I'm not gonna say it's an easier way to it's an easier path it's certainly less dangerous because I have seen other folks come in and make all these changes and immediate and shake shake the kind of foundation of the business and all of a sudden you've got two or three two or three key people walking out the door um and so I think when you think about that relationship you have with those key employees um I mean it's so cliche but but you need them more than they need you um and and you just can't forget that um and so I think I think sometimes I remember the first month we own the steel business and I was so wanting to make changes like I just wanted to improve it I wanted to make it better and I made some missteps early on um just just doing stuff that just wasn't this is a really simple one I wanted to clean the office up yeah okay that sounds that sounds like oh well of course that I mean why would that be controversial but we had all these drawings and I wanted to just get rid of them I was like guys we have all these electronically we don't need these I wanted to get rid of them I want to throw them out and I started doing it and it made people really upset because they were like what if we need those because I didn't do a good job explaining you know my kind of my process and it was just visually it was tough tough for people to see and it's it yeah I was talking to an employee who was there this morning who was reflecting on that and he was like y'all just wanted to you know kind of say you were the guys in charge and I was like yeah I was like we're a lot better at it now than we were like for instance the most recent acquisition we've we've done we've we've done virtually nothing six months in we've just been hey just keep it stable and then I think after about a year you've earned that ability to start making real improvements um but you know the worst thing you can do in the first to me month two months three months as a Searcher has come in and try to just make changes even if they seem as simple as throw is cleaning up the office because it it it it can rattle the employees in a way that's not very healthy when they're already emotionally vulnerable oh oh and particularly they don't know about it and and most of the time they don't and so you walk in I mean I've done it four times now you walk in on day one and you see the looks on their faces and it is a fear I mean without a doubt many of them have had a friend a family member who was part of a buyout who lost their job after the bio I mean that that's always going to be the story you hear and so uh for us it's it's hey I'm gonna sit down with you will and I'm gonna find out about you and I'm just gonna listen and I'm not gonna say much um and that's that's a lot of what we do we do a lot of listening in the first three to six months of of the acquisition well that change how much to change when to change what to change it's a it's a theme that we talk about uh constantly on this podcast yeah um and it's just so delicate you can't talk about it enough Adam another thing you told me on the pre-call was about and on this theme of I think I think of stability as opposed to to growth is just how you you touched on it already you come to have you've come to really think about yours as a people business and really taking care of the people and you already said I'll also say every business says that every CEO has to say that um but I uh felt it from you genuinely when we talked so can you can you can you elaborate yeah I I think for me you know financial success is of course part of the goal of this right um but I I actually it really changed early on that was that was the focus the focus was on control meaning controlling where I lived meaning controlling my schedule meaning controlling my own outcome um and meaning controlling my financial destiny um but I think as I've gotten further and further along I've come to realize that like the thing that keeps me up at night is not it's not hey am I going to be able to retire comfortably hey am I going to be able to put food on the table for my kids am I going to be able to help my kids pay for college it's hey are my employees going to be able to do a lot of that and that for me is is just it has become I'm not going to become say becoming the sole driver but it's become a huge driver of um of you know what we're doing and and so from from that standpoint um it's gonna come across as like oh gosh that's so great he cares about his employees it's a little selfish because it's just what I worry about so that's what I care about you know I'd love to sit here and tell you that like you know oh yeah I'm just so like gosh I isn't it great that I care so much about these people well it's it's what keeps me up at night it's what I worry about and so that's what I spend time on that's probably a little selfish you know um but it it's also to me it's when I start to think about what what people or people who work for us ultimately save us they're not all going to like you everyone who works for me doesn't like me that that's that's okay um but I hope they respect the decisions we make and and they understand the decisions we make and they uh and they want to work there um and that's what we just wanna you spend you spend all your adult life working with these people you know you you know if you're an employee and you say why am I working why am I spending all my time with these these individuals and and the hope is that maybe you know you can you can do something in a way that is Meaningful that people look back on they say gosh I'm so uh grateful for the opportunities that that we got at a new page company I think that that segues into something I I definitely wanted to return to when you talked all the way back um at the intermediate year you spent learning how to be an operator before you start a new page or before you did your search and how motivating people who are differently motivated than shiny people um and they're not just motivated by money or traditional um kind of uh professional accolades maybe um they're motivated by a different just differently motivated as you put it which I really liked and so how are such people motivated what what are some of the the levers yeah uh I mean it's you know the the shiny people don't they don't truly worry about hey are my kids gonna have right meal on the table right or the you know hey are my kids going to graduate from high school you know like are my kids going to have a chance to even go to college um that's what that's what our folks that's what our folks are are thinking about right um am I gonna have a job you know you know and that was so much of what we've worked on the last three years was conveying transparency and conveying um you know conveying to these individuals yes you're gonna be okay we're gonna take care of you um and so they're motivated by that and they're and they're motivated certainly motivated by money but more than that they're motivated by trust in a employer who is going to take care of them over the duration of their working career if they if they choose and you know we've got a one individual in particular and I won't say what company it is because it might give away who he is but he he started at the lowest level of this company he's been with us for 32 years so uh been with a company a very very long time uh and and this is a kind of working trade he'll gr he'll probably retire when he's 63. he'll retire a millionaire and that's amazing and it's it's a total Testament to him it's a testament to the prior ownership that invested in his 401k and gave him you know a 401k match and gave him good benefit and it's a testament to him that he wants to you know he and he's he's so excited about it you know this was one of those things I was looking at or you know I'm the 401K administrator for all the different plans and I was looking at it and I kind of went to him I was like man you've done a great job saving and he was he's so proud of what he's been able to do using his hands to become wealthy and and so um it's awesome you know I think I think for that and I think the other thing I'd say that's a motivator for me is you know when you manage uh a band consultant um you're you're you're you're you're almost kind of guiding the intensity guiding the motivation but when you're managing some of these folks you're also helping them manage the the the broader World in some ways as well um around Health Care around Financial stability um so we do a lot of programs to try to help our employees with those those things um you know Financial stability Financial Wellness what does that look like how much should you be saving how are you thinking about retirement um or Health Care hey are you taking care of yourself like you're going to run into health issues if you you know don't take care of your your body and and you know in a rough and tumble Blue Collar environment when we first did it uh it was scoffed at uh it was scoffed at his mumbo jumbo but we've created a culture now where I think individuals they may not always be receptive to it but at the very least they understand it comes from a good place of genuinely wanting to help and uh and what is the it it's a program where you kind of Outreach to everybody and and say hey have you so we do we do like lunch and learns where it's like hey here's Financial you know personal finance 101. because it if you're a welder and you came out when you're 18 from high school and you just started welding no one's taught you the kind of fundamentals of what's 401K how am I supposed to think about that yeah how much should I set aside for that no one's taught you of hey how much can I afford in rent how much can I afford can I afford to buy a house because that's actually one thing that like you know home ownership is such a great uh way to create wealth if it's done appropriately and a lot of our folks think well I can't afford to buy a house but oh no no no actually you can you can afford that they just you know it opens their eyes to it and so we try to do a lot of lunch programs uh you know like a lunch and learn essentially with our folks uh buy them lunch you know it's funny when you buy you give someone a free lunch they're always going to come up right goes back to them first lesson that first lesson right so we buy them lunch and then we we try to get them uh you know get them to understand some of these things and and and listen again it comes in crosses oh gosh that's so nice you do that for your employees no that that's so good for us because that makes them feel more connected to us as well it shows that we're investing in them it's a good business decision I I'm I'm doing it it makes me personally feel good but it's also the best business decision because I'm investing in those people yeah yeah the kind of double bottom line kind of kind of that's right concept that's right um Adam to close out so give us uh just going back to to the numbers after after talking about some of the more qualitative stuff um so you you don't your your own personal focus is less on sort of thing um and you're willing because you are investing in these businesses for the long term by the way we should we should make that explicit so you said 30-year Horizon so you're buying and holding you know the phrase permanent Equity you we we hear a lot now um you would put yourself in that category yes definitely definitely you know for us we felt Engineers still has been nine years now so uh it'll be nine years this year so yeah we we first see the the uh duration of our careers uh owning these businesses and so you know squeezing a percent or two or three or five even uh Avi but each of these businesses means is less important when you're not trying to compute some multiple today and go sell it you can you can take that money and invest in your people that's great um but what tell us what the aggregate Top Line number is of the portfolio today so we have a sense of scale we I've been kind of counting as I go but yeah I trust your number more than mine we'll do we'll do we'll probably be around 75 million Top Line this year uh about 200 and we probably have 220 employees uh as of right now it's great and I I think it's fair to say in 2013 you were not your Ambitions were were not that lofty and yeah and yeah here you are only 40. yeah they no they definitely were you know it's when I when I would go through it and everyone would ask well how many businesses do you want to buy and when I had none I would say I just want to buy one you just want one and then when we had one and I started looking again well how many wait how many are you doing and I was like I just want two and I think for us we have just methodically just you know and listen I'm starting to look again I'm starting to search again um and so how many you want I was like I just I'm just worried about getting number five I'm not worried about the bigger picture and I think that's that's been good for us because I think it it you know you keep your head down you keep doing the hard work you look up and all of a sudden it's like wow this is this is pretty cool what we've been able to uh to achieve yeah it sure is Adam what is your preferred way uh that people would reach out to you do you like email do you like LinkedIn do you I would say email um and I I'm happy to share that right now or I don't know that you give it to me and I'll just put it in the show notes or you can say or you can say it go ahead I'll say it it's a Duggins at newpagecapital.com so uh and I email's great and I I will never not I will never say no to a conversation you know I mean that be careful Adam you've got a lot of people are really gonna admire you no no no no well to me to me it's it's I had so many people help me so many and so uh I I get I get more I get more from those conversations than anyone he's like calling me and say Hey you know how do how do I do this how do I do that I get off those calls and I'm energized because um because it's fun to help it's fun to help other folks kind of achieve in what they want to achieve great beautiful point to end on Adam Duggan's congratulations on what you've built can't wait to keep watching you uh and thank you very much for giving me so much your time well this was awesome I really appreciate it appreciate what you're doing and uh appreciate uh you having me on 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 own path to acquiring a business