Philip blackett welcome to acquiring minds thank you so much happy to be here philli you bought a business just before covid and two months ago so just two months ago you officially closed it down after a long struggle with it and we're going to hear that story today but before I go any further I I want to thank you for being willing to come on and share the story what is I'm sure an uncomfortable painful even experience to recount for us but these difficult stories as you probably know are the most educational of all so people looking to buy a business benefit a ton from hearing them so thank you before we get into the story itself though philli why don't you share with us how you're feeling this is really pretty fresh just two months ago yeah I I definitely appreciate it well I mean honestly like tomorrow is like literally like the like I guess it's weird to say like the two-month anniversary of shutting your business down like it's not really something you really commemorate or like Hey we're going to have a celebration like you're not looking for Hallmark cards for like hey anniversary shutting down your business for you should grab this for yourself um and and not to mention the fact that yesterday was my birthday right I turned 39 and I think at this point when you get to a certain age and I think I've started to reach it birthdays are less about like birthday parties and like celebrations at the bar and stuff like that and more like Reflections is like okay how did this past year go and some Reflections are better than others and this one was a lot more sobering compared to like 38 or 37 so but overall I feel I feel I feel good you feel good well what can you give us a an example or two of Reflections from yesterday so I think what comes off top in my for me was you know about four or five years ago I was really looking to buy a business and I looked at that as pretty much the Gateway for me for a better life um at that point four or five years ago you know I finished grad school was looking to do something I had a family um they were two years old at the time my twin daughters and um my wife and you were kind of looking for something like that stability Factor from your end and you know for me like it wasn't so much as far as like finding the right corporate job and consulting or Investment Banking or private Equity as a lot of people who I graduated with would tend to go with but it was one of was just like this whole essence of finding a business that you felt like you can grow and it would help you grow as well and I really thought that that was like my ticket like to like retirement it's like my forever meal ticket uh take care of my kids uh hopefully like bring my M my wife back home from work and that's s like a lot of these things that many people in my position or at least what they were aspiring to do was looking to and you know just in reflection just seeing how that didn't turn out the way I was hoping to um I mean that first month October last month was really tough for me like a lot of days at the house just kind of like thinking what's next you're trying to pick up the pieces you're seeing other people do things you thought you be a little bit further along like a lot of this comparison anxiety like worry some sort of stuff um and then just concern as far as like you know am I going to be able to take care of my family the way I was anticipating now as I'm trying to figure out the next chapter which I didn't anticipate before um but I think now like two months removed now as it will be officially tomorrow but thinking about it in the birthday was more so the thought of more so what have I learned through this experience of four years um and we can get into it but just the thought of like you know when you buy your first business going into a pandemic that you did not anticipate beforehand um it's quite a roller coaster ride and I think for me it was just one to say okay what did I learn from that experience which honestly well like a lot of people it used to kind of tick me off when people said that when he like oh I had I lost the election but I learned a lot or I got fired from a job but I learned a lot and almost seemed like it was like a common catchall like like dare I say Cop Out phrase but I think when it was my turn to think about saying that it was more like no seriously like you ran a business for four years and it was successful and you navigated a pandemic and its post effects for four years um it did not go the way you wanted to but I think it was probably one of the most valuable work experiences I can ever draw on and it clearly open up a whole new way of looking at you know like I said I'm at 39 you know like retirement age to 65 that's another 26 years from now God willing so when you're thinking about that sort of experience you already have under your belt and you're saying to yourself okay what do I want to do next and you still want to get into business ownership you still want to buy another business you still want to you know get back on the saddle and start riding again when most people would just clam up say look that's it I had it I'll just go on one of these job searches you know and just retire from that sort of Entrepreneurship dream um yeah some people could think that's crazy but I think this was also more clarifying for me about where like my heart really is at and where I could see myself really adding a lot of value not just for myself and my family but you know for a lot of people going forward and so wed to share those lessons and not keep that to myself that was a huge thing that really prompted me to want to talk to you today great that was great Philip thank you for for sharing the reflections and as you said you did learn a ton and there is um value to that personally to you but certainly to all of us so we're going to get into some of those concrete learnings or or they'll probably just surface as we go on their own uh but so let's turn to actually what happened here philli so you had said about four or five years ago you really wanted to buy business um so take us back to that time or even before how did you get the notion to go on that crazy adventure yeah so it actually started you know it's 2023 right now at the time we're recording it it actually started seven years ago so I I finished business school I graduated um the day after graduation I got married so now I'm in a sense like okay you're now into Family Life what do you want to do and so at that point I had signed on to um work with a with a group of investors that would helped me along with some other um Searchers of mine um and my cohort to look for a business to buy uh and run a CEO and so I was working out of Boston for that matter and looking at a number of different businesses across the country I was pretty vast I was pretty industry agnostic uh was just trying to find the right fit that would complement the past experiences and education I had um a a Telltale sign for me that really was a driving point for me going forward in that search was um I mentioned that I got married the day after I graduated from business school well what also happened was that first year of marriage we got pregnant and we didn't just get pregnant with one kid we got pregnant with two twins um and so the thought that came out of my mind and and bear in mind my wife was more surprised than I was because the truth was I actually prayed for twins but she didn't know that until she found out and then she was upset at me for good reason afterwards but anyways that's a whole another story but essentially what happened will was um we were having a meal at one of our favorite places Shake Shack at the time and we had an agreement that as I was searching for a business to buy we were on the same page like wherever that business is we would relocate from Boston to wherever it's going to be at and we would just set up shop there you know just us two and maybe a kid too you know she would move on from her job and do something different you know we're putting all our eggs in in this one basket as far as this business to buy um when we had twins though when when two two girls are are basically cooking and Mommy oven right now at the time um that conversation went a lot different because at that point it was just like okay think about double the diapers double the formula double the clothes um all that like two kids for one mother to take on and and a new father too let alone as opposed to one that changed the story where we basically say hey do we really want to go down this route and go where ever this new business takes us or doesn't make sense for us to say hey we're going to be new parents we've never done this before would it make sense for us to stay local and find a business that's within 30 minutes 45 minutes of where we lived in Boston area that would allow my wife to keep her job and so she would be like that rock of stability and that sort where that stable good paying job with benefits and that sort of thing um and I go about this dream of trying to conquer the world with this business to buy and so that's where we went we decided to make that that compromise which clearly cut my prospects of businesses to buy from huge to like very very small yeah um but long story short when we did that I came across a company that was definitely atypical from what you would typically look for and businesses to buy this was wasn't your typical window washing or septic tank cleaning um type of company or Landscaping that sort of thing it was like a company that like operated and managed cemeteries cemeteries right like just the thought of it is like okay there's a business that focuses on operating managing cemeteries like 20 plus cemeteries yeah wow right uh in the New England the region it was definitely something that was novel and on top of that it was within that 30 minute to 45 minute radius of where we lived so basically at that time I learned more about the company learned more about the owner thought this was a good fit um the investors and I at the time didn't see eye to eye the business was a little bit small um relative to what they were looking for at that point we had came to a standstill when it came to negotiations at that point and I basically ran out of time um I I went through all my prospects the investors didn't think it was a good deal they didn't want to move forward with it I didn't have any other deals to present them at that time because I went through all my area local businesses very quickly um and Philip let me let me ask the so you were working with an accelerator with search fund accelerator SFA which is one of the well-known and original ones and I believe based in Boston at this time or absolutely okay so you were working with search fund accelerator known as SFA in Boston and the way that accelerator and many like it work is that it's essentially like a traditional search fund the economics are similar to a traditional search fund and the kind of investors that are part of that are the kind of people who work for buy own the accelerator are your investors and you're bringing them the deals and they need to give the deals thumbs up or thumbs down and also similar to a traditional search fund is this this you your search has been funded but there's a Runway to it and if you reach the end of that Runway without having bought a business that's the end of your search and you go off and do something else and so that's where you you were and again with a traditional search fund as with SFA you're going to want to buy a bigger business the expectation is that you're going to buy a business of a certain size and your investors are not going to look favorably on a business that isn't of that size sounds like this one was not and you are at the end of the runway is that all accurate context yeah I I think you hit it on the nail will it's just you know I I love the guys over search fun accelerated they're they're doing great things now um expanding they're doing multiple cohorts and and taking on multiple businesses have good relationships with many of the team members there um so I definitely respect where they were coming from you know I definitely you know signed on wanting to accomplish a certain type of business um it was just that when our circum ances changed LifeWise as far as like my wife and I we had to make a tough decision because we knew that there were consequences either way as far as what that would mean for the search what that would mean for us as far as a family um and so it it really was about you know I just had to make a decision that ultimately I need to put my family first on this one Beyond you know my dream of having this Mega business that's like like eight figures you know in s like everywhere in that sort um so yeah like you know my time r ran out we didn't move forward with that business I had to find something else to do because March 2017 my twins were born Sophia and Elizabeth um and so I had done a couple jobs um afterwards I basically hadn't really found like the right thing that was really like my bread and butter like this is it right and I think like I've been involved with like education I've been involved with like finance and that sort afterwards um and just it what was going on just didn't hit was like okay this is like the longterm this is where I'm going to plant my flag I'm going to build something substantial go ride the distance until retirement that sort of thing so at that time when I was in finance um there was this huge gas explosion that happened in you know the Greater Boston area and I thought about this business this Cemetery business I thought about the owner CU we had been friends during the time and so I reached out to him checked on him his family his business his office and said hey I heard about this gas explosion happening in your neighborhood are you okay he responded yeah we're we're fine Phil thanks for thinking of me when all this kind of settles down why don't you and I get together for breakfast or something like that and just catch up so I didn't think much of it outside of just catching up with an old friend at the time I was in like sales within Finance maybe with this entrepreneur this small business owner Maybe maybe I could pitch some investment products for his portfolio I don't know so we met up and we had breakfast and we talked and I thought I was going to like learn more about him maybe pitch him on what I was offering he later pitched me on working with him in the business on the inside so at that point for me I I like the finance job I was in but not as much as far as sticking with it compared to working inside this novel unique business that manages cemeteries so I basically said okay I'll take I'll take this on um I'll come in and work as your business manager and that story um and the idea was that you would also then be kind of being primed to buy it absolutely because we were friends at the time we we had Tri Tred to work this deal beforehand um and the thought was you know I gotten the accelerator blessing to to pursue this again like years later um and I was like okay well let's see if we can make this work so while I was operating from the inside as a business manager I was seeing a lot of the ins and outs like I I definitely see what's under the hood of this car much more so than a Searcher from the outside yeah that's going off of just like financial statements you know sanitized meetings and that sort over the phone and that sort like I'm really getting a good sense of what's going on yeah um and I still wanted to buy it um I was that interested so he obviously hadn't found another buyer who was interested in in the time since you talked to him the first round right and and I think the other part of it too well was just there was a huge emphasis on relationship you know I think with any business owner and I Echo this now after having been a small business owner before uh and hope to be one again in the near future um the thought is is that when you're thinking about something that you put your Blood Sweat and Tears in over many many years to support not just your family cuz you're not just looking at just for yourself but for the livelihood of your employees and team members and providing great service for your customers and also providing you know livelihood and continued business ongoing continuity for your vendors and suppliers like you're part of this huge ecosystem um you don't want to just walk away from that with just anybody running it like there's a huge trust factor that has to come into play um you can't just just necessarily unless you just didn't care you can't just necessarily just leave that Legacy to somebody that you didn't feel like would do their best to do right by you and so I felt like that was a huge factor and me wanted to honor him and do right by him and so in September that year when we bought it we were both on the same page like we were anticipating that we're going to grow this business significantly whenin the first 12 months we had a good sense of where we were going to grow from here um and then 2020 happened and this little world event called Co happened and um that's where a lot of things change from there well let me let's before we jump into your owner operator uh phase so you you what was it like working for these six months in the business you were you were learning the business you you were liking what you were seeing because ultimately you did buy the business um talk to us more about what that was like uh you know I think it it it obviously really Dr risks the acquisition for you because as you said you get to really see under the hood you get to know the business intimately the staff gets to know you I mean it's such a great way to drisk and acquisition I mean you really I mean so much of the risk of buying a business is not really knowing what you're going to get people will say like you know the business I bought is not actually the business I thought I bought it's so different once you actually get in here and you get a you get a preview and then there there's not even a there's not even an obligation that you buy so if you if you don't like what you see you can walk away so anyway talk to us more about that this is such an interesting wrinkle to your story yeah I think you hit on the right Point well it's it's about as close as risk-free as you can get because I think at that same time it's like extended due diligence meaning like that's a good way to put it you know every day you're coming to work you're helping that business further its goals as far as growth and continuing operation ations you're interacting with the team they're getting to know you on a firstname basis you're getting to know them and what they're going through and what they're doing you're getting to see what it's like from a business manager standpoint like I'm seeing like what the revenue truly is looking like I'm seeing where the customers are coming from I'm seeing where the expenses have to get taken care of and that sort of thing I'm interacting with the current owner on where he wants us to go and where it's gone up to this point so you have a really good sense of where thiss business is and where it's trying to go while at the same time just further layering on trust with that owner so that he can see okay is Philip the right person and I'm starting to see on my end is this business the right business for me because like you said before well like if it if things didn't work out the owner could have said you know what Philip I don't think this is the right fit um I appreciate you taking the time to be with me I know that means a lot especially you leaving your previous job to do it um I'm gonna go ahead and let you go yeah and I would just I mean look I was employed by him so like I can't really push that when I had to go move elsewhere or vice versa because we were thinking about this as far as doing a deal together if things that came out where you know from what I was seeing from the inside was really concerning to me that didn't feel like this really made sense then I would have a similar conversation with the owner and said you know what I really like you and I appreciate the opportunity for me to get to know you from the inside as along along with this business however at this point I don't see like this is the right business for me and so I don't want to take on any further um part of your time let alone stand on your payroll at that point too U if this doesn't work I will walk away and then allow you to continue going on with your business and that sort so I think that was an a good amount of trust building as well as far as that relationship and and quite honestly when I look at you know the next business I want to acquire I may not necessarily want to be on someone's payroll to determine if this business the right fit or not but I would look for a ways to be able to engender myself like connect with the owner um in a much better way than just your typical like Fly by Night the random email spam and that sort of thing from some person you never met and that sort of like recognizing the relationship but also if I was in a position that I could help that business maybe even at if not an employee maybe as a contractor maybe as a consultant but having a further like having your foot in the door to get a better gauge of what's Happening participate helping that business which would then mean like look I'm helping the owner get more what he or she wants there may be a time later on that they say hey Phil like compared to everyone else as far as the other male attention I'm getting I feel more connected working with you would you be open to taking over my business um or being part owner of this business because I trust you that's that that's one of those like takeaways I got from these past four years that I think a lot of other people may not have if they didn't have that type sort of experience but yeah I think it was definitely a much helpful period leading up to the acquisition well the the question is Philip like how you is there a way that a Searcher out there a Searcher listening can make this happen you know so this opportunity came to you in this very kind of roundabout way kind of kind of unexpected way uh and there was years of History you you'd first met this owner whatever it was a year a couple years prior so so you know the Stars aligned and so I wonder though if you're a Searcher listening to this and and you're like yeah I'd love to work in a business for six months and only then decide if I'm going to buy it first you got to find a I mean it's hard enough to even find a business you like uh you found the cemetery business that you really liked you just didn't buy it because the SFA guys didn't want you to SFA folks didn't want you to um and then you got to say to the owner well owner don't sell it to anybody else let me work in the business for 6 months to see if I'm the right person to buy it and then let's negotiate you know what I mean it's like it's great how it worked out for you but it it seems like it it would be hard to architect it from the you know you know from some from a standstill from somebody just like who's out there searching right now sort of thing yeah I I totally agree with you well I think it's definitely a novel more unique sort of experience um yeah the other thing I'm thinking of too just putting you know same sort of hat you have on on this one um you're thinking about it from a Searcher standpoint like the key word for you is volume right you know you got to get a number of outreaches out there you got to get a number of emails or or LinkedIn invites or letters or whatever the medium you are using to contact these owners you're not going off of just one person because more than likely the odds are that person's going to say buzz off no get away from me I've heard like from 10 other of you I'm not selling I'm not interested so you got to put the volume to get that sort of you know Outreach out there on a day-to-day basis what I would say on top of that would be yeah like as you're doing that volume you know the quantity you may look at someone or some business that has that sort of quality about them that as you're starting to get to know him or her as you're starting to better understand that business maybe there's some things that you can do to further understand that business Beyond just requesting the financial statements right Beyond just looking at somebody's website and just doing like a interview over like video conferencing Zoom or Microsoft teams or anything that sort of that it could be something where it's like if I have experience in that industry or maybe I have education that can complement what they're doing I think a good question may come off to the owners like look you know what are the things you're you're currently struggling with in this year and what is your plan to navigate through that and how could you bring on help to help you with that how could I be of help to you there might be the case it might not be the case for every business you reach out to I doubt it but there might be one or two or a few that there's something about it that you can connect with with the owner and be able to add some value outside of just saying hey I'm another person looking to buy your business because that's going to help help you stand out more from your own relative competition and it's going to also make that owner feel like okay this person really cares about me in this business and going well well even if this doesn't end up as a deal for us I've now benefited from this interaction and I'm more likely to think of this person later on which have been the case with me where things didn't work out the first time around but hopefully we left we left things in a good place that later on the owner did think about me later on that say hey maybe we could try this again yeah yeah great well let's hear about the business uh philli so before pre-transaction you're in the business what what do you learn about it tell us tell us about it it's actually called Cemetery services or yep so the name of the it provides Cemetery Services the name of the business is Cemetery Services what else can you tell about us tell us about it what does it do exactly headcount numbers Etc please yeah so I I think you know it's based in the Boston area or it was and um you know at that point its main focus was the manent management the operation of cemeteries over 20 cemeteries at the time um were it's doing everything from actually doing burials um as far as like putting people in the ground right like preparing for it and then after the body's in the ground you back fill it cover it and that sort of thing um Landscaping um cutting the grass um we whacking trimming um fall cleanup with leaves spring cleanup with leaves and that sort so you're taking care of that sort of thing uh Records management so that's a lot of records of people that have deceased and necks of kin that you're trying to keep keep track of um really what came about this as far as the business model will was a lot of cemeteries were one-offs meaning you know each Cemetery would maintain all the people to to maintain it to operate it to keep the records they will have their own team to do that over time though it got to a point where it wasn't as um the laab better we profitable to try to do it all inhouse yourself right um as costs were going up you know labor equipment all that sort of thing and you could only charge so much for a burial without seeming obnoxious right for lack of better word um it became increasingly more difficult to do it all on your own and so the business model here was we would have the people to do the bearing the Landscaping the records management will travel to your Cemetery as needed so instead of just having people on the clock inhouse whether there's a burial or not eating up on your payroll right um your benefits and that sort of thing now it's like you can streamline that we could take that on so when you do have a barrel we'll send our people to your Cemetery to do it when you need to get your grass cut we'll send our people there and so at the same time now it's like if you don't have any activity that day we're probably going to be at another Cemetery working you know and if you have 20 plus cemeteries then that means every day you're bound to have something to do somebody's grass to cut somebody's loved one to bury someone's manage uh Records to manage an update and that sort so basically by doing that you're helping each Cemetery especially if they were like you know controlled by church or that sort better manage themselves financially so they can sustain themselves not necessarily be profitable but in this case it's a it's a bless just a break even you know and if we can help do that and then they take care of us as far as like compensating for our services um that was a business model that I saw like a lot of potential that could go beyond just New England but maybe something that could be franchise and that was part of the thinking I had was like okay maybe this is something that could grow across the country maybe Beyond just regionally and so is is that to say that it's not a model that exists it's not like every Market has Cemetery Services management Outsource Cemetery Services management this was kind of a novelty in Boston to some degree I think when I did my initial research there was something about the New England region that there's a couple of big players that are into cemeteries and funeral homes down south that have a broad reach across the country but they couldn't necessarily have that same reach New England more so due to like laws and regulations um and so what happened was is like okay you have these big companies down south they actually would own like buy the funeral homes own the cemeteries we didn't own them we just serviced them we were a contractor and that's a huge difference between you know us working on the land and somebody owning the land and what all that means from a financial standpoint stewardship and all and so I think that's what did make it different and at the same time the thought was okay that probably means you don't have a lot of Market to acquire outside of New England but you could find some yeah you know yeah and well so obviously there's a lot of appeal to the business model it is recurring Revenue business to business super Niche um it is I guess it's it's kind of essential I mean certainly it's recession resist consistent people are passing away regardless of what the economy is doing and the services that you're providing to these cemeteries I assume are essential for them like they they because if you're not going to provide your services to them they need to scramble to figure out how to do because you provide a portfolio of services to them so they they're going to have to plug in if if they let you go they're going to have to plug in a landscape or plug in people to do the bar the digging and the the burial plug in Rec management so so maybe if they become desperate which actually may be what happen we're going to get there they'll let you go but but generally it seems like it's pretty essential you're pretty essential to your customer to your client um it's going to be hard it's going to be hard for them to it's pretty sticky yeah and not to mention the fact too well like this is kind of an example one of those rare almost rare hybrids of a labor intensive business and a capital intensive business what I mean by that is I talked to you about the people but the people aren't necessarily digging the graves with shovels right they're digging with like heavy duty equipment like back hose like excavators like things you have to like get licenses on how to actually operate um you know we didn't just like take the bus to go to these cemeteries you got to get trucks trucks to take this L and trailers to take this these excavators these back hoses these loaders these you know mowers these you know these people these trimers all this sort of stuff you got to transport all that to different places around this radius um and all that costs money and so if if there was an in-house Cemetery they wanted to do with themselves yes you had to take you had to bring in people but you also got to bring in the tools yeah you know last last time I checked you can't just get a cheap excavator like they're like five or six figures to to to buy that's not necessarily something that every Cemetery could just wake up one day brush off their budget and say yep let's go ahead and get another caterpillar yep let's go ahead and get one of these loaders you just can't do it so yeah it would put a lot of pressure for somebody to say or be tempted to say nah I'll just take this inhouse okay but recognize there's a a flip side a tradeoff to that that you may be able to find in a four maybe or maybe not yeah well uh really really seems like a really strong model Philip and and can you give us a sense of headcount and revenue margins Etc age of the business as well yeah so age of the business um at that time was probably about over 10 years 10 to 12 years uh he count probably over 20 25 MH um Revenue low seven figures M um and um what else did you ask margins margins margins probably about 20 to 40% okay Phillip and then so you work for six months in the business you decide you it's as good as it looks and that you want to buy it and and and quickly on the transaction an SBA loan how is that structured yep SBA loan um some seller financing involved and we had to kick in some Equity um ourselves great so kind of a standard 70 to 80% SBA 10ish percent note 10ish percent equity right okay and so you close in when did you say was it September 2019 y okay so you're six months out from covid little do you know there's a a ticking Time Bomb here that says six months on it from when you buy the business how do those first six yeah go ahead everything was good for the first three to six months so what let get let's have just a minute on that you got in there and by the way while you were there as the quote unquote general manager I don't mean to put that in quotes like it wasn't true you were the acting general manager but did the other folks know that you were also the prospective buyer of the business you're team that okay not at that point because the thought is like if it didn't work out you know it's kind of like you know introducing your kids to like a potential stepfather or stepmother like you know you don't want to do that early on you you want to do that when you're pretty sure you're going to make that commitment to marriage so okay potential stepfather so you buy the business you become the actual stepfather uh what how just give us a minute on the transition and what those first three to six moment uh months in the business look like prior to co hitting they were relatively the most stressfree months of my whole experience um everything was going very smooth um I had no I almost came in there like excited to pay bills you know like oh yeah we can take care of that payroll no problem let's do that the lights like everything um you could see where you know Revenue was coming in everything was just kind of coming in on Clockwork and you were basically following up on these on this growth plan you had to essentially double the business in 12 months right and so everything was essentially going to plan you were following up on customers and Prospects um getting to know the team um I was all smiles um during that period for sure and give us more on this plan you had touched on it earlier so get put some uh make a concrete for us doubling in 12 months so at that point we were in talks um with a few few prospects that could add on a number of cemeteries um that would be significant um in revenue on a monthly basis monthly recurring basis um there also was a a Big Kahuna Prospect we'll say um that was going to be very sizable um that was looking at that time looking for someone to basically take on all the cemetery management work and maintenance work and and these so this was pipeline basically of new business had you built this pipeline or had the owner seller been working on this prior even to you becoming GM right so was more so credit to the owner um he had great relationships with people that he had a good sense of that the timing was coming right to basically outsourc that work to us and uh it basically was like you know hey like you know this is what essentially will be coming into and all the more reason for this to be a good opportunity for you Phillip yeah okay and so doubling in 12 months this was basically the the plan here was here's the pipeline here's the potential value of each of the the closing each of these opportunities you know with some percentage there of of actual close rate probably not going to close 100% of all that stuff but whatever percentage you guys were projecting would get you to doubling the business in in in your first year in it and so that was kind of the plan and the Hope okay then so like Co happened um up here in in in New England in in Massachusetts in particular Co happened to the point where there was a question as far as whether people could even come to business to work right the closures the shutdowns um it was more of a question as far as whether or not our business was a quote essential business right and if it wasn't a cenal business then your people do not come to work work and if your people do not come to work well how are you going to relay these services to your customers um and that puts you in a really tough spot that unfortunately or fortunately for us but unfortunately for others if you didn't have that happening that could very well shoot your business dead right and so there's a lot of retooling fighting to make sure that you know we made sure that our business was deemed an essential business so our people can come to work um we were trying to address the whole sense as far as like you know how contagious is co because this is a new thing this isn't the flu right you know flu season's happening every year you know you should probably get your shot if not you take on your chances this is something completely new so you had to basically help relieve the anxiety and the stress from your employees that are dealing with dead bodies um and and meeting with people in public that may or may not have the virus that making sure you have enough mask making sure you have enough you know hand sanitizer all these safety precautions that now of a sudden I had that was on my plate it was on my desk to really take charge of um because for me I was holding on a number of different hats I wasn't just focus on just growth strategy here it wasn't just focus on building the bottom line or the Top Line it's like I was taking on a number of things um and so what happened that really put us spinning our Wheels was for that pipeline mentioned to you before will for us to land those customers we had to make sure we were prepared on our end meaning if they said we're starting next month then we needed to make sure we had the Manpower the equipment the vehicles all that ready to go by that point we couldn't just like start all of a sudden we had to be prepared so I had to make investments ahead of time to make sure we had the trucks we had the excavators we had all the equipment we had the people and so what happened was when Co happened for a number of those cemeteries that weren't getting a much barial volume will say as before when that changed because of Co we had a number of those same customers we were anticipating taken on as customers ourselves no longer prospects now saying uh Philip I I think we're actually good I think we actually have enough we we'll just go ahead and take care of this we weren't anticipating this but we got a big busy um season ahead of us if we want to say that um so let's pause on the Outsourcing part we'll take it from here so okay so let me make sure I follow So Co so as as kind of grotesque and insensitive as this sounds Co is probably going to be good for business for cemeteries and they're going to get busy and you would think that that would also therefore mean that you're going to get busy in a good way but in fact these prospective clients who had in the pipeline did get busy but because they were going to get they foresaw getting so busy with covid they didn't want your services anymore why was that they were going to continue doing it all inous why was that well it's just like if thing if things weren't if the volume wasn't picking up on your end where you're taking on all this payroll and expenses whether or not a barrial was happening so if Will Cemetery was a aing for example two barrels a week and you have a team an in-house team that digs the graves people that answer the phones people to interact with the people visiting regardless of your volume and that all costs x amount every month and you're like basically struggling because you have all that extra overhead and expenses that's where you might have yourself saying is it possible we can Outsource to Phillip take away some of that overhead still get those one or two barrels done each week but we now are more Clos to break even than at a loss yeah come Co now you're one or two barrels a week that triples yeah now you have more Revenue triple the revenue coming in that can help you better close the gap between that loss you were you were suffering and hemorrhaging to now being close to break even or slight profit and so now you're thinking to yourself maybe I could just write this out maybe this is the new normal yep maybe I don't need somebody else to do this maybe we could just keep the people here because yeah like if you're letting go of overhead that means you're letting go of jobs so maybe oh no I was just saying like maybe the S like the people that you have working for you you can keep their jobs yeah and you might be more apt to do that than pointing to the business case of we are losing losing money we got to do something or we're not going to be around sorry to say but I I got to let you go versus quote unquote business is better we actually can keep you if we decide not to work with Philip yeah yeah but that's just one side of the coin that happened what else happened the second side of the coin is just like I talk to you about how your volume basically tripled because of Co the arrangement we had with a number of our customers was a monthly allinclusive fee meaning for x amount of dollars will we will do your burials we will cut your grass we will take care of your leaves we will winterize your W your water system we will take care of your records all this for one be regardless of volume as far as how many people um are buried in a a particular time what happens if your cemetery is used to bearing one to three people a week and that now becomes three to nine people a week do you pay me extra money to compensate for me coming out to your Cemetery three times more than I had before no yeah do you pay any triip any more money to compensate for the Triple in gas I'm now paying which at the time gas prices were going up right so gas has gone up triple for me as far as usage and and and and prices going up are you paying for the extra people I have to put on payroll to take care of these at your Cemetery no yep what about the materials no what about the equipment no what about the vehicles no mind you I had already made an investment in these vehicles and equipment and and people for these customers that later tell me thanks but no thanks but now I'm footing the bill because I had to finance those equipment in vehicles but I have no Revenue to offset that so that's that's problem number one problem number two is now with my existing customer base the volume as far as what we're doing has now double or tripled because of Co but they're still paying the same amount each month and you go ahead no so I was like so basically now who's getting closer and closer to in the red what was once profitable customers now is dwindling very very quickly and now we got to make some tough decisions yeah I mean this is really a double whammy either of those sides of the coin sounds like they it could have been catastrophic and and you're hear you're getting it twice at once absolutely not not to to mention the kind of swirling anxiety of just covid I mean everybody's you know there's the there's the kind of undercurrent of like what's going on in the world everybody's just everybody's carrying around new stress like not only that will but it's like all this is happening your first year of running a business yeah this isn't like Philip's been doing this for 10 years okay didn't anticipate this but we can navigate this from our past experience it's like now like this is your Guinea pck moment of I bought a business I'm running it you're thinking things are going to go a certain way Co happens a whole lot of uncertainty comes into the equation and now this is your testing by fire on how to navigate both sides of that coin I just Illustrated to you in addition to the huge unknown of covid and what happens all in your first full year yeah a business you bought yeah Philip V the a lot of the learnings that you've taken away from this experience are kind of more kind of at a higher level um but just tactically when you reflect back on this uh what do you think tactically you could have done should have done differently I mean obviously maybe not have overin or you know gotten somehow gotten more assurance that this new business was really going to sign on the dotted line before making those Investments but how do you do that how would you now with the the benefit of 20 of hindsight how would you have done this differently and both of your two issues yeah I mean I mean I think you hit on one of them clearly it's like you know one of the things I don't want to jump ahead of of those lessons I talk to you about will go over soon but one of them was you know yeah I I have faith in God but not faith in in people in what they say I need to be very conservative and show me the money first before I make that investment right let the let the ink dry on the contract and everything's ironed out we have contingencies in place of what happens if xfy then I'll make the investment then I'll go to the bank and ask if I can get a loan for for these vehicles or this excavator or or this equipment and that sort so that's one um two on the flip side of it I basically retrofitted this solution once it happened but it may have been the occasion where it would have been a good thing for me to say hey coming into this business hey we want to renegotiate if we can all of our contracts to make sure that each one of them has a limit to the number of burials you do in a year meaning we're not going to not service any burials if it exceeds that number but if it does exceed that number the cemetery will be paying to compensate for that additional barrial going forward every additional barrial beyond that number we're going to invoice you and Philip why had the had the contracts or the pricing structure of the business that you inherited why had it been structured in such a way that it was flat basically flat fee as opposed to some sort of you know proportional to to proportional to work unit that you all were delivering so I I think the big thing that comes off is um one just how the contracts were done with with the previous owner and and the customer um it was one with was probably like okay you have to you know come up with the right value for the customer to sign on and you don't want to come off like your nickel and Diamond which we definitely weren't yeah so you're trying to say like okay we're going to package this all together yeah and the end result is what you're paying every month is still going to save you compared to what you're doing currently yeah right um and so to get the business and that sort you want to make it attractive that sort it was just more so you can keep that package I just we just should have had that contingency to say hey okay once you pass this range of barrels pass this range of of cuts and trims that's I haven't even talked about that yet either well we talked about burials right once you get past a certain number okay that's fine you know what else gave us a hard time during Co Mother Nature the weather because we were also having in that inclusive fee I talk to you about each month we'll cut your grass we'll trim your grass certain number of times and that's s but that was like the range based off past experience just like the barrels what happens which happen in 2020 when you have a influx of rainfall during the summertime that causes the grass to grow like weeds and instead of having to cut once every two weeks you now have to cut every Cemetery 20 plus cemeteries not every once every two weeks but every week just that alone is a sharp influx in your cost with people fuel cuz you need gas to power your mowers and your trimmers along with your trucks equipment maintenance and repair is another one things break down not everyone who's servicing a weat whacker is going to take good care with it as you're working so something might happen you got to repair it but the more time you're playing with the law of large numbers at that point well it's like the more times you cut the more times you trim the more likely something bad is going to happen that's going to require repair and what you weren't expecting is you get that bill for $2,000 that you didn't have the budget for that now you have to figure out how to do it because you still got to go there that next week and cut and trim ah so give us a sense of kind of the timeline here how is how are all of these happening you know in June 2023 months after Co starts I mean or have you just recounted kind of something that unfolded gradually over 3 years like yeah give us a sense of how the how quickly all this is happening or not yeah I think 2020 was just it was a make or break year for us by October I realized we were in trouble right so remember it was all good just a few just a week ago you know six months first six months right March 2020 Co okay 7 months later I don't know if we're going to make it well payroll is high gas is high we're going across these cemeteries to cut and trim more often than we budgeted we got more barrels than we budgeted there's no you know compensat you know fees being paid off for all these extra barrels we're doing out of pocket now they're they're literally all this stuff is coming out of our pocket like I don't think we're going to make it so that was where it just started from October 2020 to this for lack of better word the next three years of just adjustments on steroids like you know they talk about like a a smooth SE doesn't make a good sailor we had some turbulent se's well and they lasted for three years like just to to be short with it we had to get additional financing from non uh traditional sources I'll say um I had multiple times had to take myself off a payroll um for months on in I paid everyone else on my team but me multiple times um I had to put myself out on the field to save money and cut the grass myself trim around the headstones or bury the people myself I wasn't operating an excavator but I was definitely the person helping dig you know I'm the CEO you know I'm not supposed to do that I'm supposed to be behind the desk no I wasn't not dur that time um later on 2022 which was the toughest year for us as far as adjustment um I had to get a second job I had to work at this business during the day and then leave four or five hours into it to travel across town to manage a Chick-fil-A and clothes that night so I'm like working from like 7 in the morning till like 11 at night and then you get home smelling like waffle fries and and chicken only to do the exact same thing the next day um I remember actually when I was in the Drive-Thru line one time working as a manager Chick-fil-A and I got a call from one of my team members saying uh Phillip I don't know how else to tell you this but one of your dump trucks blew up what exactly I was like what what are you talking about excuse me excuse me sir like you know hey can you take his order let I got this phone call hold okay tell me again what happened yes your dump truck blew up and is in flames right now we're down one truck now and I have to come up with some solution for the meantime and then get back into the drive-through line with the thought of what is going on in the other side of town while taking somebody's order for a number one with fries and a strawberry shake right so safe to say it well those those next three years was up since downs and would make anybody throw up it was that type of roller coaster ride there were definitely nights where I quite honestly like cried myself to sleep ask God why um mornings where I was behind the steering wheel in the car and just saying is this worth it just in general now not even just the business is everything that's going on is it worth it right now is what I'm about to do like is it worth it um it was probably like I said these were the most testing four years of my professional life for sure um but the goal was will it's like look I wanted to do right by the former owner I had payroll to take care I had people's livelihoods I had rents to pay I had food to put on these employees tables I had school education cost to take care of by making sure that our employees were taken care of um and then the businesses that we supported in our ecosystem they had what they needed and so if that meant me being out on the field half the day um going out in the city um literally cleaning up human feces across a abandoned church because we took on extra Project work because we needed the money and picking up used syringes from a homeless alleyway when other people quit the job and I had to go do it as a CEO and owner myself because somebody quit and they didn't want to put themselves in that situation I had to do because we needed the money to take care of pero that Friday these were the type of things that I had to do because I wanted to make sure that I did the best I could to do right by the previous owner by our team and give us the best chance of success because what I didn't want was to get to a point where we couldn't keep going where we couldn't take care of payroll and we basically did the best we could up until a few months ago Philip how long were you working two jobs almost a year and I'm just so struck that you were able to make it last as long as you did I mean three years is a long time I mean it's a long time for the psychic pain that you were experiencing and and the slog of working what is that you know 16 hour 17 hour days um but also just just robbing pot robbing Paul to pay Peter or however you were making it work you know I'm I'm just surprised you you could you could keep juggling so many dishes in the air plates in the air for three long years but I I guess the answer is what you just you kind of just described it for us you were just any any thing you could do to keep your finger in the Dyke I keep using all these metaphors of impending disaster to keep your finger in the Dyke or just to keep to keep it all together you were doing and you that and so that's the answer that's how you got through three years yeah I mean the thought was like that was my family right like if if my own immediate family went through hard times if that meant that I had to make sacrifices and I had to bag groceries or I had to do something that other people might think was beneath them you do what you got to do you know hopefully it doesn't last forever which more than likely won't but in the time being you just got to do what you got to do and that was the same case with my family at work it was like we were doing what we could in the midst of all these circumstances that were not going to our favor whether it's truck trucks blowing up uh you know high gas prices um or even people trying to compete with us all of a sudden and and poaching our employees they saw blood in the water and they were trying to literally take our employees and and push us in some sort of like um for lack of better word um rise in wages like a race to the top in wages um that could have easily priced us out yeah because we had a a much more funded emerging competitor that we we did not anticipate all of a sudden that say hey we want to get in this game too and we'll offer X more than what you're offering yeah and you're thinking to yourself I can't compete in that I'm I'm losing employees right and left and we still got barrels to take care of okay well I guess I'm going to have to cut the grass and drive over the chick Playa afterwards you know you just it was like I said like I this was stuff we didn't anticipate well at the same time I also realize as much as I didn't like being in that situation this was something that I needed to do my very best to do right by because I had people dependent on me um this is my family and this was something that I said to myself okay one way or the other if we can just make it another day then there's hope that you know we can make this work and how do you feel that your family guess namely your wife and your uh um seller your owner and your employees reacted to this do you think that they saw that you were trying your damnest and respected the struggle or were you getting were you getting a lot of heat from all sides as well and and you know how alone did you well I'm sure you felt very alone but how supported did you feel listen if it wasn't for my wife and the free and the previous owner like we would not have made it as long as we did clearly um I need that that was my support system those two people the former owner and my wife like if either one of them was not present or was not trying to help or not trying to be understanding um we would have had a much shorter Runway honestly and it would have taken a much bigger toll on me personally psychologically U mentally spiritually emotionally all that sort of thing um employees for the most part understand but at the same time as well they got to do what's right for their family too yeah and if they're seeing that things are not as stable at work as it once was it's kind of like what people often say it's like when you go through bad times you you find out who your real friends are you find out people that are willing to stick it out and I appreciate those who stuck it out with us to the very end um because that wasn't the case for everybody um and I understood that that's just that's just business it's not necessarily personal um but yeah I had to get through that too cuz there were a lot of hurtful moments that people that I didn't expect to to leave us um they did and that hurt not just me but it hurt the former owner too well philli it was three long uh painful years and I'm sure you probably have more stories about things exploding we don't have time to go through all of them get us up to the end where you decide that it's finally time to to wind things down how did you find fin come to that conclusion and what was that process like so 2022 we had a point where if I didn't in the midst of everything else I was doing right the plates I was juggling I also had another hat that was business development in terms of we had to find more customers we lost a few customers some major customers in light of this that further put the pressure on us as far as whether or not we're going to survive or not and it got to a point where I had to find another customer to match one you know as close to one one as possible within a matter of time otherwise us shutting down in 2023 would have actually meant shutting down in 2022 right um and so we had a customer that we were working on a one-year trial contract and I was doing everything for them as we possibly could um this time it was more like I quit my job with Chick-fil-A and instead of working there and in the office full-time at the cemetery company um two days a week I was traveling about an hour and a half to two hours back and forth to this customer um to do administrative work as part of our contract I was the one that did it so for those two days I couldn't take care of anything else except that one customer in particular um doing everything we can to service that customer in the best way we can um towards getting a long term contract out of them um after that first year trial August 2023 comes around we start asking if we can do an extension of that at least for another year um they said honestly we rather go a different way and at that point you now lost a significant customer that I knew for sure was responsible for helping cover at least a week's worth of payroll for us so that mean that that month which August 2023 was a month I remember particularly because it was a five-week payroll month I don't like five-week payroll months well not because I don't like paying my people but because if you have a set amount of revenue for that month right the monthly fees right um all inclusive yeah you have an additional week of payroll on this month that you didn't have the month before yeah and with the high payroll we had at that point because of the high head count we had in the midst of the summer cutting the grass more than twice more than once every two weeks is now every week um our expenses were really high labor was high gas was high equipment repairs was high debt was high the last thing I needed was another week of payroll to figure out how am I going to David Copperfield make out of appear out of thin air just to make sure our people were paid not me I wasn't clearly I wasn't on the payroll that one that not that week but for everyone else making sure that they were taken care of and so when that customer disappeared was gone I recognized that we were about like a week or two from finding out if we were going to find a replacement or I have to deliver the bad news I never wanted to do in the first place and I always like well part of the reason that why I worked so hard in the midst of all that I that we went through the past three years was to avoid having that moment of telling my employees that we don't have enough cash for payroll and unfortunately that month in August I couldn't avoid that any further despite how much I tried and so once I share that news to my team on an early Friday morning I knew that was it I saw the responses from my team um what were the responses disappointment went disappointment was an understatement quite honestly well it was to the point where the former owner as a friend told me Phillip I know this is hard I honestly my hats off to you in respect as far as how best you've managed this whole thing and we've tried our best to avoid getting to this point as a friend my advice for you is to come in early Friday morning tell the team what happened be honest with them answer any questions they have of you if any and then afterwards get back in your car and go home I never thought that I would have that sort of experience but that's exactly what happened that day um and that's when I knew it was over and once that took place it was happened in August I knew that we had to transition the business um and basically worked on that for that next month and then shut down operations officially um September 30th 2023 and do you feel like your people um UND understood might not be the right word but you know recognized that there was no other way and had seen all of your efforts for three years how did yeah now obviously probably they're not going to spend a lot of time on thinking about you they're probably just going to be scrambling to figure out what they're going to do for their own for their own next chck check their own next employment check um but I'm just curious what that looks like what do you think yeah what the mood is like or what the response is like from them directly to you it was very because it's like for the most part most of them were hearing is for the first time some people just didn't realized that things were as dire as they were they knew what was going on like that we were in worse times than before like if they see philli like cutting grass the best way he could but still lagging be the rest of the team um just just to hold it on they're thinking themselves okay there has to be a reason why Philip's out here yeah okay he he he wouldn't cut the job either way you know um either way um outside of that but it was like people got her sense like they knew I was leaving work early to work another job you can connect the dots there you don't have to graduate from Harvard to recognize like something's up you know it why does he have to do that um why does he have to travel an hour and a half to two hours out of Boston um just to keep a contract going when he didn't have to do that earlier something's up yeah so I think it was more so like you're hoping that that day didn't come cuz you're trying to figure out what does it mean to you afterwards and how do you like you said scramble to make things work um but yeah it's like the suddenness of the moment when you realize that's it and so your head goes in a tail spin of what goes on next and I think the former owner was very instrumental to helping um calm the storm from getting any worse and just allowing us to figure out this next month of transition um just to make sure that the employees were taken care of and that the customers were taken care of so we had that continuity um even though this was essentially the death of the business Philip you talked earlier you said earlier that one of the many your many kind of stop Gap measures was to take on uh more debt to get financing from an unconventional Source can you say anything say say any more about what that means yeah merchant cash advances um uh working Capital Loans and that sort like those type of financings that you see like advertised to you um once people know that you're a business owner in that sort you you try to stay away as much as you can because the interest rates a lot higher um the terms may not be the type that you're looking for or you're basically favoring compared to more conventional but I was at a point that it's like look if I didn't do it we would have missed payroll back in 2020 yeah period That's 2020 not 2023 I'm talking about October 2020 when we realized something was up that was when I had to figure out additional financing at that point and figure out how do we make this all work because if we didn't that would have been an open and shut case within one year and when you decide to shut down and you have these debtors the um High interest debtors and then you have an SBA loan what does that look like well I think I'll leave it up to to your imagination what can happen when you have certain loans that are personally guaranteed yeah um and you know try to figure out how to make things work from there so a process that you're going through now or I mean you're basically involved in now and will be involved in for a while sort of thing I would I would say so yeah yeah okay well this is an excruciating uh story philli but you you do seem to have kept your wits about you I mean this might have D driven other people crazy or or to depr depression maybe you maybe you are maybe you were depressed at times uh but you seem for a guy who's just suffered suffered an absolute SB nightmare I have to say you seem you seem um as mentally healthy as as could possibly be asked for is that accurate yeah I mean like I said without a support system as far as my wife and the former owner you know at the time um without God like I would not be here yeah clearly like something something would have went aai in my head that would have caused me to do something that I probably would have regretted for the rest of my life or not even live to see like that regret um because things were just so dire and so dark at that point um and so yeah it's just just believing that you know if I just didn't give up and I just kept doing good that I would see a harvest at some point in the near future just that was like the Bible verse I was like claiming on to Galatians 69 for sure every day and just you know my wife praying for me each morning before I left the house to go to work and just telling me three words every time God will provide one way or the other God will provide we don't know how but he will like it's those certain things day by day Moment by moment um the former owner saying to me look Phillip we were friends before this deal we were friends during this deal and even if the wheels fall off on this deal we'll still be friends it's stuff like that those three things to me is what kept me through it through it all um and kept me at a place now where it's just like yeah it's still hard it's it's not easy but it's given me reason to have hope the next day and just to keep persevering just keep moving forward Philip what was the Bible verse Galatians 6:9 and can you cite it by memory or the gist yeah the gist essentially is you know if you don't tire from doing good if you just keep going you'll reap a harvest in due time if you don't give up great just a paraphrase yeah yeah yeah well is there anything from this crucible that I haven't asked you or that you wanted to say that you haven't had a chance to yet one of the things that kept me in the race to do this again after this Crucible moment um was just being exposed to Great teachers and mentors have been into similar situations that have acquired businesses grown them and then sold them successfully um and two mentors of mine uh Jay Abraham and Roland Frasier they came out with a book called business wealth without risk um the par phrase the subtitle was how to uh create a lifetime of income every 3 to 5 years um that was a book that I read in its entirety in one weekend I recommended it to all the search funders I get nothing out of the deal it's just more so I told them it's the best 99 cent investment they can make into their business buying Endeavors as far as buying the Kindle version of it and so that's probably one thing I would say like if the question was if there was one particular book that you would recommend to listeners that can help them on their Journey both acquiring a business and then growing it to sell it at some point um business wealth without risk from Jay Abraham Roland Frasier that' be the one I recommend and Phillip if uh people want to get in touch with you directly what's the best way to do that yeah uh two options for sure um I'm on LinkedIn just look up look up philli blacket and so you'll definitely find me there and then my website uh dream busm makeover.com that's where I focus on helping other entrepreneurs and small business owners uh grow their businesses um you know focusing on my core four of dream business growth there so dream busm makeover.com give us a little bit more Philip on what on what the services you're now providing to small business owners yeah yeah the thought is is just from my own experience Crucible Wise It's just like listen I I've been through a lot I got the scars I got the T-shirt to show it um if there's a way I can be able to help other people navigate their own business growing exper expence without some of the obstacles and learning curves I've had to learn um I definitely think it's worthwhile and that my struggle wasn't in vain um and so for me I I work on working alongside entrepreneurs and small business owners um really focusing on their core for dream business growth how do they grow their business exponentially through um the core four which is basically how to grow sales grow profits grow via m&a and grow their exit value and I basically do that working alongside them in consultations um and then at the same time if it merits us working more closely together we can do that as well just helping them you know achieve the business they always dreamed of before life happened philli thank you very much again for coming on and Sharon sharing uh the story what what a ride um people are really going to appreciate that you put yourself out there like that and really respect you for uh having survived those four years so thanks a lot absolutely happy to help and and share this story hope it's helpful for listeners on here thank you so much for the opportunity I hope you enjoy 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