Business Lunch

How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with an insanely successful entrepreneur who shared their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Well, now you can! Grab your seat at the table as successful entrepreneurs reveal their step-by-step strategies, fascinating stories, travel hacks and other delicious tidbits each week with serial entrepreneur/business strategist, Roland Frasier.

10 Ways to Improve Your Top Line Revenue 03/29/2022

Dealing with Business Breakups and Failed Partnerships 03/25/2022

10 Ways You Can Pivot Your Business 03/21/2022

4 Steps to Acquiring Businesses with Zero Cash Out of Pocket 03/17/2022

Dealing with Negative Criticism and Haters 03/14/2022

Marcus Lemonis on Capitalism, Community, and Camping 03/11/2022

Why You Need to Stop Trading Time for Money 03/09/2022

The Different Ways to Value Your Company | Mergers and Acquisitions Advice 03/07/2022

The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch 03/04/2022

The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch The Ultimate Marketing Engine with John Jantsch Tactics and strategies are not the same thing, and only one of them is an effective long-term plan for getting your customer to where they want to go. In this episode, host Roland Frasier sits down with John Jantsch, Founder of and the author of the book by the same name. Duct Tape Marketing is one of those books Roland believes everybody should read. It’s in his all-time Top 5 and “fantastic.” John recently released a new book called The Ultimate Marketing Engine, and it’s filled with actual strategies (not tactics) for helping your customers along the Customer Success Track. “The ultimate marketing engine is a successful customer,” he says, “and I think that’s the point of view that we often lose.” Listen in to hear how John and his team take their customers through five stages on their way to lasting transformation. The Key Difference Between Strategies and Tactics John’s first book has met with fantastic success, and as he’s traveled the globe talking to businesses and entrepreneurs, he’s gotten a lot of feedback from larger organizations. “We want higher-level strategies,” they told him, and John delivered in his new book. He believes a lot of people are confused when it comes to the difference between tactics and strategies. Not that he blames them. Google “marketing strategies” and it’s a bunch of blog posts with 15 tactics. People are often looking for the latest marketing hack, but the essence of strategy is a plan. Where do you want to go? Who can you bring value to? Who can you bring even more value to? “Our job really, if we want to simplify it,” John says, “is to take somebody who has a need from where they are to where they want to go.” A lot of marketers have a tendency to say, “I have this thing to sell. Here’s someone who said they’d buy it.” And that’s their marketing. But John and his team work hard to develop a Customer Success Track. They figure out where their customer is today—their characteristics, their struggles—and then plan out the tasks or milestones they need to achieve to get the result they want. It’s not about the next thing John can sell his customers, but what’s the next level of maturity for them? The Five Stages on the Customer Success Track In John’s marketing business, they have five stages they take their customers through. It’s like a value ladder, a roadmap. By building these stages and understanding what a business has to do to pass through each stage, John says they can “promise the rainbow.” They can promise, “Here’s where we’re going,” instead of just, “Here’s how we’re going to solve today’s problem.” Of course they still solve today’s problem, but it’s part of something bigger. When we solve x, we can do y. And so on and so on, stage after stage. Here are the 5 stages in order: Foundation (basic marketing stuff—leads, customers, etc.) Level Up (pour money into lead generation because you have a foundation now) Organize (consistently convert those leads profitably) Monthly recurring revenue (this should always be a goal, no matter your industry) Build a team (so you can ultimately scale) Of the five stages, team-building might be the biggest challenge for people. If you’re an entrepreneur who hates leading people, John says you either need to get someone who does want to lead people, or you need to go to work on yourself. You need to develop some self-awareness to realize you’re the problem. Know where your blindspots are and what your superpowers are. Then find and surround yourself with people who have what you lack. Taking a Customer-Centric Approach John says a lot of companies talk about being customer-centric, but not many of them truly are. His team is always thinking up practical ways to truly implement a customer-centric approach. We all know it’s easier to sell more stuff to people who already know and trust us than it is to go out there and find another universe of people who have to go through all the hoops of getting to know and trust you. Existing customers are 9 times more valuable than the prospective customer you don’t yet have. He suggests narrowing your focus to the top 20% of your customers. A customer-centric approach is all about figuring out who your best customers are and creating a roadmap for them. He says some of these customers are standing around thinking, “How can I give you 10x more money because of the value you’re already giving me?” You’ve got to capitalize on that. In his business, this means actually adding services and approaches to offer to that business they want to help mature. John has helped a lot of authors go to the next level by building courses for their program after they write a book. You write a book, then create a course, then some of those people in the course will want group time or one-on-one time, so you develop the $10k course. Some of those people will excel and only want to hang out with the cream of the crop, so you create an exclusive mastermind for $100k. This is all great for info people, but what about someone who is selling tools? Roland says that brick and mortar companies often have trouble with the value ladder. How does John help them? John shares a story of a client of his who is a dentist. Generally speaking, people will only drive so far to get their teeth cleaned. But this client added something very valuable to her repertoire. One of the things she was passionate about—and it’s a nascent part of the dental industry—is breathing. She’s done extensive studies on people’s incorrect bite or being tongue-tied and how that impacts your breathing. She started writing about it, speaking about it, teaching people about it, and John’s team helped her develop courses and training as another form of income. As an added bonus, those courses have also gotten her more clients. People drive farther now to be seen by her. A couple clients even fly in. It’s no longer just about $129 to get their teeth cleaned. She’s now a dental consultant who will help your entire family’s holistic health. It has changed her practice by giving her more revenue streams and enhancing her existing revenue. If you’d like to learn more about how to go next-level with John and his company, check out the links to his websites below, listen to his podcast (he’s been doing it for 16 years!), and pick up a copy of The Ultimate Marketing Engine today. LINKS AND RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get a Free Audit from Growrev Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22334819

Consulting for Equity: How to Double Your Consulting Fee 03/02/2022

Consulting for Equity: How to Double Your Consulting Fee Would you like to get paid your normal rates but also an additional amount in equity? Today’s episode is a little bit different, because it’s taken from a coaching call Roland Frasier did with a Consulting for Equity Mastermind. The Mastermind is a group he started to help consultants get equity in the companies they’re working with while also getting paid their normal rate. Listen in as he walks someone through how they can get their normal consulting fee of $75k but also get an additional $125k in equity. Getting What You’re Worth He’s talking to someone who gets a $75k fee for six months of consulting. Time-wise, it’s less than a day a week for 6 months. 25 days of his time. That’s $3000/day on average. Roland thinks he should charge more for his consult. If it was in the neighborhood of $10k to $30k, that’s his discovery day. He suggests starting with $20k for a consult day. It’s probably not that big a deal in that world. For that $20k, can you deliver $200k of value in the plan you give them to execute? That’s the math Roland wants to take us through. What are the 10x benefits they can get from your consult? Possible benefits: to quantify the increase in customer retention to quantify the number of new customers to quantify how that impacts profits Give them transformative information that will say: on average, my clients have achieved these benefits they’ve aggregated $400M the average client sees a benefit of $1M or more. If he can do this, it’s very likely they’ll need him to come help them make those things happen. The more he shows them what the plan looks like and what the results will be, the more they’ll want him to be the one to do it for them. That’s the benefit of a discovery day. Getting Creative with Your Offers So, if the average benefit is $1M in profit, and it’s a $20M profit company, then arguing for 5% would be to take the full benefit, so you might argue for less than that, so there’s a benefit for them as well. If you’re offering a $1M benefit, you could charge $200k. Or, what if, instead of charging that, you offer a hybrid deal: your consulting for $75k and an additional $125 in stock in the company. So, $75k in cash and $125 in stock. This might give you ideas for ways to expand what you’re doing. Not everyone you meet as a client will need everything you’re able to do for them. The more leads we can turn into clients, the more profitable we’ll be in a DPL kind of performance in our efforts to generate customers. Be thinking about: what other types of consulting can I offer? You may have a business where you help companies improve retention and reduce churn, but they don’t all engage you initially for the $200k consulting. Maybe they love what you’re saying but can’t afford you right now. You don’t want to wait, so you can offer a less-intensive advisory capacity. Or Roland will put his money where his mouth is. What if he comes in on performance, and each time he gets them another $100k in performance, they give him 10%? Say: “I can get you $1M for free, and when I get you there, you give me $200k.” They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. There’s also transactional consulting. Are there things that are finite in their delivery that are a one-time occurrence and specific? On that transaction, you’ll get compensation that’s a percentage of what you get for them. The more services you have to offer in more situations, the more money you’re going to make. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22286129

A Type of Entity We Use in Every Deal and How to Use SPVs to Your Advantage 02/28/2022

A Type of Entity We Use in Every Deal and How to Use SPVs to Your Advantage SPVs are really good things, yet nobody’s talking about them. Why not? In today’s bite-size episode, host Roland Frasier makes the case for SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles). A year or so ago, Roland was interviewing (Gary Vaynerchuk) and asked him, “What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first got started?” And Gary gave one of the best answers Roland has ever gotten. He said he could have saved himself tens of millions of dollars if he had known about SPVs when he was younger. Listen in to find out how you can use SPVs to your advantage in every business deal. Why You Should Use an SPV An SPV is a subsidiary company that is formed to undertake a specific business activity. For whatever reason, not a lot of people are talking about SPVs. They sometimes talk about forming companies to protect you from liabilities. We all know it’s good not to have a sole proprietorship or partnership where the owners have unlimited personal liability. But a lot of people don’t know about SPVs. In fact, if you go down to the place that forms companies, like the Secretary of State, and you say, “I need you to form an SPV for me,” they’ll look at you like you’re nuts. There is no SPV that you can form. SPV is the use to which you put the entity that you form. Roland is a big proponent of limited liability entities. With an SPV, you’re using a limited liability entity for the specific purpose of what you’re doing. You’re acquiring a company, doing a consulting deal, or going into a new territory. That can be a good time to use an SPV. It just protects you, your personal assets, and your business assets from any liability that comes out of the deal. Some Examples of When to Use an SPV When Roland is looking to do any kind of deal, he does a limited liability entity for that deal. The fact that he’s using it for this special occasion, this transaction, that makes it an SPV. It’s really just a fancy set of words attorneys use to say “this company, this corporation, this LLC is going to be used to do this one thing.” That one thing might be broad or very specific. Let’s say you’re acquiring a company. You form an SPV to acquire the assets of the company. As long as you’re paying the fair market value, then generally you’re not liable for the debts of the company you’re buying them from. This is assuming there’s not a direct lien against the asset. Then you won’t have successor liability. Another situation would be that you’re using an SPV to acquire something, and it’s going to have seller financing or some kind of debt. Instead of you personally taking on the debt, the SPV will take on the debt. You won’t lose your house or have them garnish your wages or lose your investments or other assets to satisfy a claim. As far as when you should do this, it makes sense whenever you’re doing anything that potentially creates business or personal liability exposure for you. It’s really just a good habit every time you do a deal. You might have a holding company that owns several SPVs, but you really want to separate one for each new deal or partnership. How much does it cost? Just the cost to form an entity—maybe $1k to $2k. There’s a company called Prime Corporate Services that does it here in the U.S. Take it from Roland and GaryVee and get an SPV formed whenever you’re doing a deal. LINKS AND RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22246550

Dealmaking for the Next Decade and Creating a New Asset Class with Tom Shipley 02/24/2022

Dealmaking for the Next Decade and Creating a New Asset Class with Tom Shipley There’s a new version of entrepreneurship out there that’s gaining steam and is going to change the way we do business over the next few years. In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier chats with Tom Shipley, President and Co-Founder of Foundry. Much like Roland, Tom is a serial entrepreneur who prefers to stay off the org charts. In the past, Tom has always been the entrepreneurial operator, building a number of 8-figure businesses and developing brands that have become household names. But, over the past couple years, Roland has helped open his mind to the concept of being an entrepreneurial investor, and that has changed everything. Listen in as these two brilliant minds discuss all things entrepreneurship, aggregation, and asset classes. Different Types of Entrepreneurship Obviously, entrepreneurship isn’t one-size-fits-all. But there are common/traditional ways of being an entrepreneur, and then there are people like Roland who are pioneering new entrepreneurial territory. Traditionally, you get into one business where you follow that and try to create a liquidity event or dynastic wealth. Then there’s serial entrepreneurship, where you’re doing this over and over again. Then there’s this new version of entrepreneurship which Roland is an evangelist for—the entrepreneurial investor. An entrepreneurial investor doesn’t have to control, operate, and manage everything on their own. They just make their money and move on. That’s the beauty of it—and the opportunity to create exponential wealth. Tom sees Roland playing both of these roles—entrepreneurial operator and investor—in tandem and doing it remarkably well. (Roland jokingly suggests the term “acqui-preneur. We’ll see if it gains traction.) As Tom has moved into the entrepreneurial investor space, it’s been an incredible transition for him. He sees the way Roland has been able to impact thousands of entrepreneurs’ lives and change the game. And he wants that for himself. The Deal that (Thankfully) Never Happened Once upon a time, Roland and Tom had an equity deal that didn’t work out, and it didn’t work out in the very best way. Tom and his partner were working toward selling their business. Roland happened to be offering his EPIC challenge around that same time. Tom watched the challenge and started changing how he did things. He started focusing on what impact the sale of the business could have. And he asked the big question: what’s next? As they were trying to identify a big opportunity, he looked into aggregating platforms, something he loves to do. There’s acquisition, but he really loves aggregating platforms. They decided to do a small aggregation play in e-commerce, then flipped to Amazon. There were only five players in the space back then, so it was difficult to get funding to acquire an Amazon business. It was considered risky, because you don’t control the marketplace, but brilliant because it was so cutting-edge. Tom knew institutional funding would eventually become available, so they decided to pivot. Tom spent a day with Roland talking through ideas. What will this look like? What needs to happen? How can we scale this? He made seven calls to private equity firms and talked about the idea. Without a Power Point or a business plan, he got six offers out of seven meetings. They’d go out and buy Amazon businesses, build them to a 2-6 multiple, and pull them together as an aggregator. When you do that, you can have a multiple of up to 20, and that’s really the play. They fleshed out a business model and assembled a team. The private equity traditional structure tries to pigeonhole you, but Tom and his partners didn’t follow that. They created their own unique structure. Then they picked one firm, got all the way up to the last minute of the deal, but then it didn’t work out. When that fell through, the firm introduced them to another fund, and that’s how the deal finally happened. Tom’s Transition to Entrepreneurial Investor As they did some pivots in the deal structure, Tom transitioned to being an entrepreneurial investor. He brought in the right CEO, and his job was done a few months later. And he immediately started looking for the next transformational opportunities. He knew right away that he was cut out for this. Roland asks Tom if he’s willing to share what’s on the horizon or if he’d rather keep it under wraps. Tom is happy to share. “It’s not that tight of a niche from that perspective,” he says. “If you want your business to succeed, it’s really about the talent of the team around you and the core fundamentals of the business. I’m really not that worried. It’s a massive universe. In my view of the world, I choose to collaborate with people, even competitors, rather than view them as competition.” From here on out, Tom wants to spend two-thirds of his time on one business and the other one-third on partnerships with people like Roland who have so many brilliant ideas and unique ways of looking at the world. Tom believes the next decade is about aggregations, pulling businesses together to accelerate growth and create big platforms. In entrepreneurship, he says, it’s less about resources, more about your resourcefulness. Put Tom in a situation and give him a couple of creative minds, and he’ll find a way around any problem. There are so many beautiful niches out there and so many opportunities, he says. He sees a great opportunity to aggregate marketing agencies. He’s also looking at the NFT space. Big picture, he’s looking for 2-3 opportunities to scale businesses, create liquidity events, and make it its own asset class. And he’d like to give back to the world while he’s at it. LINKS AND RESOURCES: Email Tom: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22241357

Buying a Business: The Difference Between Acquiring Assets and Acquiring Equity 02/21/2022

Buying a Business: The Difference Between Acquiring Assets and Acquiring Equity When you’re doing a merger or acquisition, should you acquire equity or assets? And what’s the difference exactly? In today’s snackable episode, host Roland Frasier breaks down the key differences between acquiring assets and acquiring equity, as well as the advantages and disadvantages to both. If you’ve ever been confused about how you should buy a company, you’re not alone. Listen in as Roland quickly and succinctly shares everything you need to know about equity vs. assets. You Have Options Many people don’t realize they have options when they’re looking to acquire a business. They think it’s like the stock market, where you buy shares of ownership—equity—in companies. But when you’re talking about buying private companies—or doing mergers and acquisitions—you can acquire assets instead. When you’re buying assets, you’re buying the physical components (equipment, computers, office chairs) and intangible components (URLs, logos, digital assets, software code, copyrights/patents) that allow the company to be in business. You could buy the whole company that owns all these things or just buy these things directly. With Equity Comes Liability Let’s say you’re going to acquire a controlling interest in a company (51% or more of the voting stock). You may want to think about avoiding potential liability. The equity carries with it whatever liabilities already exist in the company. You get all the assets the company owns, but if there are claims against the company, or debt, that will come with ownership of the equity. Even if the claim/debt is contingent. Maybe there’s a lawsuit against the company that hasn’t been resolved. Maybe there’s a worker’s comp claim. Or a copyright infringement. Or a sexual harassment case. Or a disability claim. All of these things could be out there lurking. And we just don’t know about them. How can you acquire a company and feel safe that you’re not also acquiring all these liabilities? Lawyers and business people have come up with a way: purchasing the assets instead of the equity. Equity represents ownership evidence in a company and all of its underlying assets. Assets are just the physical/intangible things the company owns. When you acquire equity, all the claims come with it. That’s kind of a downside. Other Things to Consider There are also some tax consequences to think about. When you’re acquiring assets, you’re generally allowed to depreciate those assets, for tax purposes, over time. With equity, you’re not allowed to do that. If you’re a seller, selling the assets might create two tax events for you, or it might prevent you from receiving certain beneficial tax treatment that you would have gotten from the sale of stock. Roland recommends hiring a business attorney to handle all of this. At the very least, someone who is a tax professional. Have them look over the deal for you. What types of assets should you buy? Just buy the ones you need. A good strategy for reducing the purchase price of the company you’re acquiring is to ask: are there assets owned by the company that we don’t need? This is called a carve-out. When you want to acquire a company, but you don’t need/want all their assets, carve out what you don’t want. It will save you money. Those are the primary advantages/disadvantages of assets vs. equity. Most of the merger/acquisition deals you’ll do will be asset deals, not equity deals. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22186601

7 Levels of Scale: Hitting Your Entrepreneurial Number 02/17/2022

7 Levels of Scale: Hitting Your Entrepreneurial Number When you’ve taken your business through all 7 Levels of Scale, it’s time to live your very best Level 7 life. In previous episodes, co-hosts Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss walked us through the first 6 levels of their proven and powerful framework, . In today’s episode, they’re discussing Level 7, Hit Your Number. This concept is near and dear to their hearts, so much so that they created a whole company, a whole book, a whole movement around these 7 Levels of Scale. And Level 7? Is the absolute most fun of all. First make sure you’re all caught up on Levels 1-6: Level #1: Sell and serve 10 customers. Level #2: Build a growth flywheel. Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Level #4: Double your take-home pay. Level #5: Build your advisory board. Level #6: Complete an acquisition for expansion. Level #7: Hit your number. Then listen in to hear all about the fun, freedom, and opportunities that await you in Level 7. What Is Your Number? When Roland and Ryan are talking to new clients about the 7 Levels of Scale, one of the pre-steps is to have them answer this question: What is your number? There are actually two numbers at play here. First, you’ve got your personal number. What number do I need to hit to feel like I’ve “made it?” Then there’s the number for your business. Your personal number for your desired ultimate wealth is completely different from what you’re likely to get this business to do. It’s important to have an understanding of both. For the context of the 7 levels, what’s that number for your business where you’ve maxed it out to its optimal level? Breaking Your Business Number Into 3 Numbers Roland and Ryan have their clients think in terms of three-year planning cycles. Three years is a sweet spot—long enough to do something truly meaningful, but short enough to be somewhat predictable and tangible. Over the next three years, what do you want your numbers to be in each of these three key areas? Top line sales Bottom line profit Enterprise value All of those numbers are very figure-out-able, and Roland and Ryan expertly walk clients through each one. Obviously, that third number is a function of the other two. They call it going top to bottom. If you can take today’s top line revenue, and in three years from now, that’s actually your profit, then your company’s value can go through the roof. 3 Levels of Impact After you figure out what you want your top line sales, bottom line profit, and enterprise value to be after three years, the next area you’ll look at is impact. What impact do you want your business to have on your personal life? On the lives of your family and inner circle? And on the world at large? You can divide it into 3 spheres of impact: me us them As you think through each sphere, get really specific about what you want. Do you want to send your kids to college debt-free? Do you want to buy a house for a parent? Do you want an annual European vacation with your partner? Do you want to write a check to a charity for a million dollars? As far as your impact on the world at large, this idea is front and center in the world right now. Companies are being asked to take a stand socially for what’s right. There’s a whole movement called ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) that you need to be aware of, no matter what industry you're in. How will you make environmentally-conscious business decisions? What causes will you support? How will you make sure you do no evil? Across those 3 spheres, what’s the me/us/them impact you want to make, and will you be able to make it happen with these numbers? They need to align. Everybody wants to make an impact, and that’s great, but you’ve got to get through those six levels first. It’s not that you can’t give generously during those first six steps, but the big impact happens when you hit level 7. You Hit Your Number. What’s Next? Once you hit your number, you’ve got some decisions to make. Do I want to sell everything and start over again with another company? Do I want to intentionally move the goalposts and reset for another 3 years? At level 7, you get to choose. Your customers aren’t dictating it. Your team, your investors, the government isn’t dictating it. You get to live your level 7 life however you want. This is when you ascend from the entrepreneurial operator category (in the trenches) to the entrepreneurial investor category. Or as Roland describes it: “situations that have a complex set of rules where you apply facts to them dynamically to get the outcome you desire.” You’re no longer in the weeds of your business; you’re above it. You don’t have a portfolio of products and services to manage; you have a portfolio of businesses to manage. This is your opportunity to gain incremental wealth. You can continue to acquire businesses that serve the businesses you have or you can get into new businesses. You can help yourself and your family, contribute to causes you care about, and build generational wealth. Ryan doesn’t think there’s a giving formula, but he does believe everyone needs to give. If you’ve built wealth at Level 7 and you’re holding onto it with a closed hand, he sees that as immoral. Roland adds that giving of your time can be incrementally more valuable than even giving money. So what percentage will you allocate to giving? Then what percentage will you blow off and not feel any guilt whatsoever? How will you celebrate this big win? Because that’s important too. Ryan believes that having your giving and your celebration money aligned is a great way to do it. Then, where can you invest the biggest chunk? You can invest in some purely passive things. You can invest in some stupid ideas you just want to play with. But, as entrepreneurial investors, your most serious investment should be in other businesses. For three reasons: It’s a way to give back It’s a way to stay in the game It’s how you continue to live out the skills you’ve acquired The bottom line? It’s totally and completely up to you. That’s the beauty of the Level 7 life. Freedom to do whatever you want. Get there, then go out and live your best Level 7 life. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22102367

Buying a Business: The Easiest Way to Find Businesses You Want to Acquire 02/14/2022

Buying a Business: The Easiest Way to Find Businesses You Want to Acquire When you’ve found a business you want to acquire, how do you get in touch with the owner to get the ball rolling? In this week’s snackable episode, host Roland Frasier shares 10 simple ways to contact the owner of a business you’re interested in buying. Whether you want to acquire it outright or cut a deal for consulting for equity or do a strategic alliance or a joint venture, you have to get to the decision maker. You need to talk to the owner. And to talk to them, you need to find them. Good news: the odds are in your favor. If one or two of these tips don’t work out, you’ve got eight more options. Be sure to check out all the links at the end. Listen in for some quick and brilliant solutions to getting access to the owner of a company you want to buy. #1: Look up the number of the company and call. This is the most obvious and easiest way. If you have a company already identified, then just look up the phone number, call them, and say to the person who answers the phone. “Who is the owner of this company? May I speak to her or him?” No research necessary. #2: Go to . This website is basically a collection of the U.S. Secretaries of State for each of the 50 states. That’s the government office where you file to form a corporation. Click on the Secretary of State site for your state. Type in the name of the company you’re trying to find out the information for. This is updated every year, and the filing also includes the address. That’s a really good way to get the home address of a director. Sending an actual physical letter can be really effective. #3: In the UK, you can go to . There are similar agencies in the Canadian provinces and Australia as well. You’re basically just going to where the company is formed and looking up the official government filings in respect to it. #4: Check out . Zoom Info has a lot of information on companies all over the world. #5: Just go to the company’s website. Most business websites have information about the owners on the About Us page. If you can’t find it there, try the Contact Us page. Or the Meet Our Team page. #6: Do a “. If you’re having a really hard time, you can go do a “Who Is?” lookup or a reverse “Who Is?” lookup to see who is registered as the owner of the URL of the website of the company you’re looking at. That information is public. #7: Look up the Terms of Service. If you go to the bottom of the website, there’s a Terms of Service page. Click on that, and it will very often list the person or company that owns the site. The owner’s email might even be there. You can look at the privacy terms as well. #8: Go to or . This is a paid service where you can look up companies as well. D&B Hoovers is actually one company, but they each have slightly different databases. #9: Google the business license. You can Google the city/state, “business license,” and the name of the company. These searches will typically give you the names of owners. Sometimes it’s an attorney. If it is, that person should know how to get in touch with the owner. #10: Google the occupancy permit. Google the city/state, “occupancy permit,” and the name of the company. This is just one more way to figure out who the owner is. This will also tell you if there’s more than one owner. If you run into a brick wall with the first owner, don’t be afraid to try the other one. Remember: you always want to talk to a decision maker. Just like you always want to talk to the manager when you have a problem at a store, you always want to talk to the owner when you want to do a deal. LINKS AND RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with Text Retention to 208 269 9111 to keep more of your customers. /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22102328

The 7 Levels of Scale: Acquiring Businesses for Growth 02/10/2022

The 7 Levels of Scale: Acquiring Businesses for Growth When it comes to growing and scaling your business, the 7 Levels of Scale give you everything you need to know and do—and in the exact order you need to do it. In previous episodes, co-hosts Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss have walked through levels 1-5 of their proven and powerful framework, . In today’s episode, they’re discussing Level 6, Complete an Acquisition for Expansion. This level is one of Roland’s favorites. He’s acquired over 1000 businesses over the course of his career and has been in the trenches of acquisition more than anyone else Ryan has ever met. Before you listen, make sure you’re all caught up on Levels 1-5. Here are all 7 in their very important, non-negotiable order: Level #1: Sell and serve 10 customers. Level #2: Build a growth flywheel. Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Level #4: Double your take-home pay. Level #5: Build your advisory board. Level #6: Complete an acquisition for expansion. Level #7: Hit your number. Once you’re caught up, listen in for everything you need to know about Completing an Acquisition for Expansion. The Data Supports Acquisition for Growth If this idea of acquiring businesses and assets is something that interests you, Roland has done multiple podcast episodes on the topic. He’s up to 220 ways to acquire a business. There’s no limit, and he’s constantly adding to the list. Every other month, he runs helping people acquire businesses. Clients often ask Roland and Ryan: I could see acquiring a business to get into business, but why is it a level in this 7 levels of scale? Why is acquisition of another business a critical step to scaling a business you already have? Roland is quick to tell them that it’s not just his belief. The data supports it. Mergers and acquisitions have been proven to be one of the fastest ways to grow a company consistently. They absolutely need to be a part of your growth strategy. It makes sense. If you want to double the size of your business literally overnight, the simplest thing to do is acquire another business of the same size. Practical Reasons to Acquire a Business Why do people want to grow their business? Some might say: I want to grow to achieve my goals. Okay, what can help you make that happen? Most of us know about a horizontal acquisition, acquiring our competitors. If you acquire a competitor, you’ve decreased your competition and increased your market share. It could be a replacement product or substitute or the same product but to a different audience. Maybe you want to acquire to solve a challenge you face, which is currently constraining your growth. A common one is: I need more customers, so I need more leads. You could buy the customers directly by buying the competitor, or you could acquire the media that already exists, where somebody has already aggregated the eyeballs of your ideal client. Ryan asks a great question: Why would we, who own DigitalMarketer, need to acquire media? Because everyone needs more leads, and it’s only smart to get them for the best deal possible. DM looks everywhere for leads—across channels and platforms, organic vs. paid. One of the richest veins of customers is finding someone who’s already gathered your avatar. You can often acquire that media for less money than it would take to get all of those people individually through advertising. That’s a great deal. Let’s say it costs $10 to acquire a customer. If you want 1000 customers, that’s $10k. What if you found a group with 50k or 200k members and acquired it for less money? DigitalMarketer once acquired a group of 250k members for $1500. That’s an amazing deal. More Ways to Acquire Media With all the privacy changes that are happening with Facebook and Apple, advertising options are going away. Apple is literally saying they’ll put a fake email in there for you so people can’t capture your data. As all the rules get tighter, if you can get a bunch of customers by acquiring media—a Facebook group, a YouTube channel, a podcast—then that’s a really smart thing to do. They’ve already aggregated your perfect customers. One of Roland’s companies sells products to dog owners, and they’ve bought 12 Facebook groups for various dog breed owners/lovers. One of those groups is generating about 100 sales a day. Plus they’re building rapport and relationships with these people, and they can offer these groups access to other people they do business with. Roland’s real estate business acquired the second largest real estate agent group online. That added 50k real estate agents to their network. They’ve since grown the group to close to 100k. That’s a fantastic way to get leads. They do this very regularly. It’s always better to own the media yourself. You’ll be better connected and see a higher conversion rate than just advertising on another channel. You’re acquiring media in a world where it’s getting more difficult and expensive to advertise. Business Lunch is in the process of reducing advertising slots. They built this themselves and they want a better experience for their listeners with less ad clutter. More and more creators are determining that they should have some sort of ownership in what they’re promoting. The more media you own directly, the better. Historically speaking, if you wanted attention, you had to buy it or earn it. You had to buy advertising or do some kind of PR to earn it. All of those channels are getting more expensive, more complicated, and more crowded. A faster, more economical, play, in a lot of cases, is to acquire that media. Roland and Ryan have been saying this for years, and people are finally paying attention. Other Reasons to Acquire Businesses There are so many reasons to pursue acquisition. You can look to acquire to increase market share. You can look to acquire to increase media exposure/awareness to get more leads/sales. You can look to acquire for infrastructure. Maybe you’ve got a business that’s growing, but you can’t find the teams/talent fast enough to support it. That’s a great and scary problem to have. You don’t want the wheels to fall off your business. There’s a whole concept called acqui-hiring where you go out and acquire assets or divisions or entire companies simply to acquire their talent. As we go through the Great Resignation, it’s going to be harder and harder for us to retain the great talent we want. If we can find teams already established, that’s better. You could do this with a software development team, a sales team, a marketing team. What Kind of Investment Is Required? Traditionally, acquiring a business would require you to come up with 20% to 40% down. If it’s a million dollar business, you’ll need $200k to $400k down, then financing with personal guarantees. But there are a lot of creative deals you can do instead. At , Roland teaches people how to acquire businesses with no money out of pocket. It’s about identifying categories of businesses you want to acquire, identifying specific candidates, reaching out and contacting the owners, and having a conversation with them about the possibility of an investment. “No money out of pocket” can sound like a scammy thing, but it’s not. You could be bringing your talents, your intellectual property, or so many other options. It’s about being creative. There’s a difference between no money down and no money out of pocket. Most sellers want some cash at closing. No money down deals are usually small and lower quality. No money out of pocket means there will be cash to the seller at closing, but it’s not coming from you. Take Time to Set Acquisition Criteria Don’t rush into acquisition just to do it without taking time to set acquisition criteria. Don’t just close any deal that comes along. You want to think carefully about what it is you’re looking for. You’re looking to solve a lead problem or a team problem or an innovation problem. Different types of acquisitions can satisfy each of those problems. What’s the strategic value of this acquisition beyond that? You also want to think about what happens post-closing. We call this integration, bringing these assets into the mothership. Will the systems be compliant with ours? Do these teams share our core values? These are important to consider as well. What is the level of sales and profitability and growth velocity this business or asset needs to have to move the needle for us? It’s never too early to build out your acquisition criteria. If you’re past Level 5, and you’ve built a Board of Advisors, they can help you see what kind of company would be good to acquire. Choose people for your board that can give you great advice here, then engage those mentors. We’re talking about some big numbers here with lots of zeros. You want to make wise decisions. And that’s it for Level 6. Next up: Level 7. They’ve saved the best for last. You’re hitting your number. You’re living your Level 7 life. You are at maximum peak. You can exit or not exit, do the work you love doing. But you need to know what it looks like. How do you set those goals, then what do you do once you hit it so you can stay motivated and inspired? Stay tuned! OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22056212

3 More Businesses You Can Acquire to Improve Your Bottom Line 02/07/2022

3 More Businesses You Can Acquire to Improve Your Bottom Line When you’re looking to acquire businesses, you can go vertical or horizontal, or you can even acquire intellectual property. Everything’s for sale if you know where to look. In this week’s snackable episode, host Roland Frasier talks about the differences between vertical and horizontal integrations and how both of those can be the ticket to higher profit margins. You can also acquire intellectual property in creative ways to help breathe new life into your company. Once you start making these unconventional acquisitions, the whole world is going to open up to you. Listen in as he shares some acquisition ideas that have worked well for him. Vertical and Horizontal Integration How can I get a higher profit margin? How can I make more profit off the customer relationship that I’ve got right now? These are great questions. The easiest way to do that is what business schools call vertical integration. A horizontal integration is for when you’re interested in acquiring more market share. You sell microphones, and you go out and acquire a company, a competitor, that also sells microphones. If they sell the same amount as you, you’ve just doubled your sales overnight. A vertical integration is going up your supply chain to acquire whoever is supplying you with a product or service you’re offering. You manufacture microphones by acquiring several components from other manufacturers that you assemble into microphones. So you do an acquisition of those parts manufacturers. During this pandemic, it’s been really difficult to get supplies. There are over 100 container ships backed up in the LA/Long Beach port area. Millions of dollars’ worth of supplies are stuck. Maybe you could diversify the risk of your supply chain by acquiring some domestic manufacturers or suppliers of the products you want. That’s up the supply chain. You can also go down the distribution chain. If you’re not selling directly to the consumer, then any company between you and your consumer is one you could acquire. What if you acquired a website that’s selling your microphones? Or you acquired a music store that’s selling your microphones? Owning your distribution chain will increase your profits. What About Services? What if you don’t have a physical product? What if you sell an intellectual product like a course? It gets more complicated when you think of a service. Maybe you have affiliates or you’re paying affiliate or referral fees. You can acquire your affiliates. Let’s say you have a digital marketing agency. There’s a decent chance that you are outsourcing some of the services you provide. Most of the time, there’s either outsourced SEO or content or media buying. Maybe you buy the ads agency that’s doing your Facebook or YouTube ads. How to Smooth Out Erratic Income Maybe you sell ice cream, and winter is slow. Or you sell pool toys or sleds or skis or some other product people use seasonally. If you want to smooth out the peaks and valleys in your revenue, how could you acquire something people are paying for on a recurring basis? This can be either MRR (monthly recurring revenue) or ARR (annual recurring revenue). What can you sell that people need to replace on a recurring basis? What about a flower subscription? Or a beauty product someone uses regularly and will run out of? How can you recurrify the things you offer right now? Or what other consumable products or services could you acquire that people want on a monthly basis? Acquiring Intellectual Property Intellectual property is one of the easiest types of businesses to buy. Maybe you have products or services that are a little long in the tooth. Competitors are coming along and doing things a little differently, and people are starting to take notice, and it’s eating away at your business. One of the things you can do is acquire that intellectual property. Intellectual property can be copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade dress, logos, brand names, URLs, trade secrets, recipes, an algorithm, or software. These are all things you can bring in to reduce your competition and breathe new life into your business. It can get people excited and help you retain customers longer, because you have this amazing innovation to talk about. You’re fresh, the hot thing on the block, and they already know, like, and trust you. You have a reputation of always looking forward, always evolving, improving. One of the easiest ways to find intellectual properties is going to trade shows or keeping an eye on new start-ups in your industry, looking at angel lists. You can also listen to presenters, read blogs, look for ads, and stay plugged into new and innovative things. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/22039523

The 7 Levels of Scale: Building Your Advisory Board 02/03/2022

The 7 Levels of Scale: Building Your Advisory Board When it comes to growing and scaling your business, the 7 Levels of Scale give you everything you need to know and do—and in the exact order you need to do it. In previous episodes, co-hosts Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss have walked through levels 1-4 of their proven and powerful framework, . In today’s episode, they’re unpacking Level 5, Build Your Board. This board of advisors is a carefully curated group of people who will help guide you in the direction you want to go with your business. The sequence of these levels is crucial here. The framework only works in this order: Level #1: Sell and serve 10 customers. Level #2: Build a growth flywheel. Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Level #4: Double your take-home pay. Level #5: Build your advisory board. Level #6: Complete an acquisition for expansion. Level #7: Hit your number. So catch up on episodes if you need to, then listen in for everything you need to know about Building Your Board. Two Kinds of Boards When you have a corporation, legally, there are different levels of people who have a role in the company. The first level is the owners, the shareholders. They elect the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is responsible for creating the strategic vision of the company. Then, to execute the vision, they elect officers like CEO and President. Roland and Ryan are talking about a different kind of board: a Board of Advisors. This board of people will give you guidance toward moving in a direction you want to go. The biggest distinction between the Board of Directors and the Board of Advisors is this: The Board of Directors is really there to advocate for the shareholder, to make sure everything at the company is happening like it should. That may or may not include you. The Board of Advisors, on the other hand, is primarily there to support you. The nice thing about a Board of Advisors is that you can have as many as you want, helping in all the areas you need help in, and they don’t get to control anything. They’re truly just giving you advice. Who Should Be on This Board? Broadly speaking, your Board of Advisors should be made up of two types of people: mentors and peers. Mentors are the people who have been where you want to go. Obviously, they’re a critical aspect. They’ll help you with your endgame and close skills gaps, broaden your network, and hold you accountable. You also need peers. A mistake a lot of people make is filling their Board with only mentors. You need peers who are also in the trenches, but maybe in slightly different areas. These peers will help you through some bottlenecks, call you on your shiny object syndrome, commiserate on losses, and also help you celebrate some wins. After mentors and peers, there are two more categories you might consider. The first is strategics, people you aspire to do business with, people who are a connection to a business you want to get, people with a big network you want to tap into. Can you get someone on the board that’s part of a business you want as a strategic business partner? It doesn’t hurt to get to know those people upfront, sooner rather than later. These could be people with a financial or legal background, or a traditional retail background. Basically, anyone who knows things that will be valuable to you. Roland likes to add an optional category: celebrity. Celebrities can bring huge credibility, a huge following, and access to audiences and markets you don’t already have. This person might just be a celebrity in your particular industry. Being in business with celebrities opens a lot of doors with customers, potential partners, and vendors. Who would you ideally like to have on your board? Roland likes to start with his Dream List of people in each of the four categories and go from there. What’s the Ideal Board Size? Roland was recently in a meeting with a Board of Advisors that had 13 people on it. That meeting takes a long time because each person has something to say. They’re all smart and have valuable insights, but it lasts forever to get through all 13. In the interest of expediency, he recommends 7 as a high number, 5 as a minimum. Between 5-7, you can get someone from each of the 4 categories and a couple more important people as well. If you can build an Advisory Board that’s 10-15 people, not all of them will commit to a quarterly meeting. You should definitely have regular meetings, but there could be folks on the board that you don’t ask to attend. By saying, “this person is on my board,” you’ll be able to attract more people. You’re looking for someone who, if you text or call them, they’ll answer. They don’t have to come to the monthly/quarterly meetings. That’s too much to ask. In general, if your board is made up of 10-15 names, the number who gather will be 5-7. You’ll also have people who will come on and off. It doesn’t need to be a perpetual commitment. You want at least a minimum one-year commitment, but then they can choose to renew or not renew at the end of the year. Two years is better. But it’s not a lifetime commitment. It’s not the Supreme Court. How Do You Work with Your Board? There are two ways to work with your Board of Advisors. You’re going to ask them to show up regularly to a meeting, either offline or online, typically online. You’re going to ask them to take an hour or two out of their day for you to throw out your issues and questions. You’re sharing financials and high-level business metrics and asking for feedback. You’re giving the big-picture perspective of how you are doing right now: highlights, lowlights, areas where you need help. Remember, some folks will show up and some won’t. This second category is just available when you need them. They’re like advisors on tap. Roland likes to be this kind of person on his friends’ boards. He doesn’t want to go to boring meetings. He suggests getting creative and making the meeting cool, something that’s fun for everybody. A nice place to eat. A retreat. Go have fun, meet with your friends, and business is just part of it. The reason you picked these advisors was to build relationships. You want to be able to give them an experiential bonding time, and you want them to be able to connect to each other. Maybe do this and hold one meeting a year. It’s a hybrid model that makes things more interesting and personal and fun. It’s a lot easier to get people to gather quarterly if it’s made up of peers and maybe one mentor who knows how to facilitate meetings. How Do You Compensate Your Board? What methods of compensation work best? First of all, pure cash. If you can afford it, pay them cash. No matter what, you cover their expenses. If you’re asking them to come somewhere, you fly them however they usually fly, whether that’s first class or whatever. Roland likes a quarterly cash payment. If you do much less than $5k/quarter, you would be not valuing them in a way that means anything to them. Hopefully these are people who are already very successful. Tell them that, once you know how the company is going to do, maybe you’ll do equity. Equity, actual ownership of your company, is very precious and the most expensive thing you could ever give away. If they take actual equity, they’ll have to pay taxes on it without even getting the money yet. Also, keep in mind that people with equity have rights. This can get in the way of operating your business. You want to have some right to buy them out. In general, don’t go the equity route. It won’t motivate most people. Peers will be motivated by the reciprocity of this relationship. The motivation is access to what’s going on in your world, and you want them to help you out with yours. Mentors might want access to emerging entrepreneurs because they want to give back or stay in the game. Maybe it’s access to deal flow. Maybe they’re companies you want to acquire. You might significantly discount what you’d do it for if you saw it as a way to get a foot in the door. It might be worth investing what it costs to get one high level person in the room, because that’s what will draw other people in at low/no investment. Stay tuned for Level 6: complete your first acquisition for expansion. In the meantime, head on over to to take the assessment to see where you’re at right now and where to go next. RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21998348

Mergers and Acquisitions: The 3 Best Businesses to Buy When Getting Started 01/31/2022

Mergers and Acquisitions: The 3 Best Businesses to Buy When Getting Started When you’re looking to acquire, you don’t always have to buy a whole business. Sometimes you can just buy the part of the business you actually need. In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier walks us through some unconventional mergers and acquisitions, different ways to buy parts of companies instead of the whole thing. Maybe you just want to buy someone’s media, their list of consumers. Maybe you buy a podcast or Facebook group. Maybe you buy a company’s sales team or a certain product they sell that you’d like to add to your offerings. The possibilities are virtually endless. Listen in as Roland shares a whole list of great acquisition ideas based on his own extensive experience. Buy Media to Instantly Get More Ideal Customers If you’re looking for more leads, there’s no better way to get them than to acquire media from a business that has already aggregated the attention and eyeballs of your ideal customer. To identify this business, ask: Who’s already got the customers I want? Who’s already gone through the trouble and effort to get a bunch of them together? This could be a whole business, but it’s more likely to be something like a podcast. Maybe it’s an ecommerce podcast, and your ideal customer is an ecommerce customer. If you acquire it, you’ve got media access to a pool of customers you’d like to send to your other business. Roland buys a lot of Facebook groups. For his dog business, he buys specific types of breed owner groups, like a dachshund owner group or a German Shepherd owner group. For his real estate business, he’ll buy a Facebook group that already has a whole bunch of real estate agents in it. He’s looking for the exact aggregated lists of our ideal customers. In addition to podcasts and Facebook groups, you could acquire a YouTube channel, an existing business, a trade show, or websites that already rank in the Google search you’re interested in. It’s really easy to find media, and it’s really cool once you get it. Because now, especially with the death of the 3rd party cookie, the iOS 14 updates, and privacy rules and changes, it’s harder to get your word out to the exact targeted audience you want. If you already own the media (aka, the first party data or your list), you’re expanding your list by acquiring groups of your ideal customer that you can now market your message to. That’s a big benefit. Acquire a Team So You Don’t Have to Hire One Did you know you can buy a company’s marketing team or sales team or whatever kind of team you need for your own business? It’s hard to start something from scratch. Let’s say you want to start an inside sales team, but you don’t have a salesforce. You’ve never been a salesperson, and you know nothing about how to find them, recruit them, vet them, qualify them, compensate them, but someone else has already done it. You can just acquire their team. When Roland was looking to launch software development, none of his people had ever done software development management. They hadn’t found employees or qualified them. They didn’t know how to monitor their work, speed, or effectiveness. Rather than start a software dev team from scratch, Roland found a company he was already paying for their software product and acquired their software dev team. This is often called an acqui-hire. Whatever you need, that team has already been formed somewhere and you might be able to go out, identify, and hire them. Does someone already in your network—that you’re already working with—have a team you could acquire? This is really a great strategy. You might also want to be thinking about resources. Roland’s business runs big events, and they’ve got thousands of SOPs (standard operating procedures) for running these events. When they sold one of their events to a bigger company, that company got all the SOPs, which they can use not only for the event they just acquired, but for the other 300+ events they own. Acquire Products and Services to Increase Your Order Value Your AOV (average order value) is how much customers are buying when they do each transaction with you. One of the easiest things you can do to get a larger AOV is to say something like McDonald’s does. When you order a cheeseburger, they ask: “Would you like fries with that?” This is called an upsell. Then after that, “How about a Coke?” The things they added have a ridiculously high profit margin and increase their AOV. To get a higher AOV, ask: “What are the products and services that already exist that my current customers are already buying?” That’s why it’s easy. If they’re already buying it, you don’t have to do any work. Maybe it’s an upsell (something nicer, more expensive), a downsell (something cheaper), or a cross-sell (a different kind of product). What products/services are my customers buying before they buy my product? What are they buying while they buy my product? And once they have my product, what products are they buying in addition to it? Either because they have a specific need or because the product or service I sell creates a need for another product or service. There are all kinds of upsells, cross-sells, and downsells. Ask your customers if you don’t know. Take a poll. What other products/services did you buy before my product, at the same time, and 30-90 days after? If people respond, that will give you new categories of products/services you can acquire and add on to the ones you already have, which will increase your AOV, sales, and profit. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21954239

Consulting for Equity: The Simple Way to Stop Trading Your Time for Money 01/27/2022

Consulting for Equity: The Simple Way to Stop Trading Your Time for Money One of the absolute best ways to create massive amounts of wealth in a short period of time is utilizing your knowledge and expertise to gain equity in companies. In today’s episode, we switch things up a little bit. Host Roland Frasier becomes the interviewee, while Ed O’Keefe sits in the interviewer’s chair. Ed is an absolute legend in the internet marketing space and has helped transform countless businesses and industries. One of Roland’s favorite topics, consulting for equity, has quickly become one of Ed’s as well. The two sit down to explore Roland’s journey through creating this path to wealth and lay out a vision for others who want to go down that path too. Listen in to see if consulting for equity is something you might be qualified to do. The 5 Levels of Compensation As Roland sees it, there are a lot of ways you can be compensated for something. He explains them in levels that build on each other. Level #1: Give free advice. People ask us questions, want our expertise, and because we’re good humans and want to help people, we share. Yes, you should share, but where do you draw the line so you’re not spending all of your time giving things away for free? There has to be a point at which you say, I’m willing to share, but in the context of a short exchange. Level #2: Turn that knowledge into an actual, compensable skill. Roland did that for years as an attorney. But even if you can bill, say, $1000/hour and bill 2000 hours a year, you’re only making $2 million. That’s where you're capped out. Roland calls this the Dancing Bear. As long as you dance, people throw money, but the minute you stop, no money. That’s the dollars-for hours-trap. Level #3: Charge a flat fee. Maybe you could charge $1000 for something that doesn’t take you long to do. You’re making more than you would with an hourly rate, but you’re still really limited. Level #4: Revenue share. Someone has a project you’re going to consult on. You’ll talk about it together, and you’ll make it happen for them. They know you’ll create a continuing value for them through that thing. Anything that comes through that effort you’ve made to create that intellectual property asset you own, you’re effectively licensing it to them and receiving some of the revenue from it. Level #5: Consulting for equity. Over the years, Roland has helped people build a brand, then watched them sell their businesses over and over for multiples of what he received. Any time you’re a consultant, the rev share goes away at some point or doesn’t pan out like you thought. Or maybe it’s a campaign that only lasts for a year. How can you get compensated on a continuing basis for things you did? You become a part of the whole company. You get a piece of equity/ownership in the company in exchange for your knowledge and expertise. He started saying: “I’ll help you with this problem or challenge, but if I do, I want some ownership in the company.” And now he does that to scale. Filtering Out People Who Aren’t Ready to Invest When you help people for free, free has no value. People don’t have skin in the game, so they’re less likely to take action on the things you help them with. Roland had a friend who he had given free advice to over the years and nothing had changed. The friend called again recently and asked what he should do, and Roland said, “You need to hire me. If you don’t, you won’t take action.” With love, the best thing he can do is have them invest in themselves. This friend paid $25k for four hours on Roland’s couch. Sometimes you offer free advice in the hopes that it will lead to a business partnership down the road. When someone asks, “Will you help me out?” you say, “What do you need help with?” Let them talk about the challenge they’ve got, then you can say it back to them and ask, “Why do you think that is?” Then this is the conversation you’ll have when you get retained. “I could think of 3-4 things that could help, but that’s going to take some deep discussion, 3-4 hours, and this is how I do that.” Everyone wants to feel heard and understood. So that helps. The paid consult gives you something for your time, and it’s a filter for people who aren’t ready/willing to invest in themselves. You’re not building a dancing bear business. You’re getting paid to vet a client, understand their business, develop the relationship, and prove the value you can bring. You can’t solve all the problems in 4 hours. But you can present a strategy. 80% of the time, people who’ve invested in themselves will say, “How can I get you involved in my company?” They literally invite you into ownership. That’s an invention to equity. Roland isn’t using that $25k upfront fee to make a living; he’s using it as a filter. So he can afford to be picky. He won’t take a client who isn’t interested in exiting their company at some point, or a client that doesn’t want to give him equity in their company. It needs to be a big enough business that he can have a transformational impact on the business. He’s usually looking for 10% to 50% equity in a company. The numbers need to make sense for him. He wants a business that has forward momentum and is ready to exponentially grow. What Makes Consulting for Equity So Attractive When you consult for equity, you’re leveraging your accumulated experience, knowledge, and contacts in a way that allows you to invest in exchange for ownership in other businesses. You have an unlimited checkbook in what you’re able to invest. You’re not constrained by dollars. Your equity is experience. That’s pretty magical right there. People get in this “cash for equity” trap and think it’s the only way to do it. Businesses are looking for capital. It could be cash, but it could also be your brain, your connections, your intellectual property. Capital means “of value.” Cash isn’t the only asset of value in your pocket. You can leapfrog and time collapse things like sweat equity, because you’re not spending your relationship capital when you share it. You still have it. It’s not a liquidating resource. Roland doesn’t know of any way to build wealth faster than to sell companies because the way we earn money is from the profit of the businesses we have. But businesses sell for multiples of those profits. The average private equity fund is paying 15x. The day the business sells, he gets paid in 1 day what he’d get in profits over 10 years. Take that money, reinvest half of it in a new business, sell that business three years from now, and it just keeps exponentially increasing. Roland is selling a business every quarter right now. Who Should be Consulting for Equity? If you have expertise, intellectual property, if you’re providing help to businesses and they’re paying you for a service or connections, you can consult for equity. A lot of people don’t realize that they already have lead flow and a pipeline. Are people asking to pick your brain? Each of them is a potential client. If you listed out 12 simple things to organically take your existing database or friend network and go one tier out of that, let people know what you’re doing, that could be enough to have a thriving consulting business. There are a lot of misconceptions out there. People don’t think it’s possible. They think cash is the only way to get equity. The truth is that equity is available to anyone any time in any structure. Just show you have the value. People think it has to be super complicated. Roland has the benefit of being a recovering attorney. He says it’s not complicated; it’s simple. If you have something the company values enough, it’s just stating your case. In the simplests of terms: Get clients Get paid Get paid ongoing Get equity It’s truly life-changing when you have the breakthrough. You’re so excited at the possibility. A whole new curtain has been opened, and behind it is an unlimited opportunity. Do the first deal, the haze gets clear, and you realize you could do this again and again. Whatever you’ve ever wanted for you and your family, you can make it happen. LINKS AND RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21905882

Web 3.0, Coopetition, DeFi and Other Business Trends for 2022 (Part 2) 01/24/2022

Web 3.0, Coopetition, DeFi and Other Business Trends for 2022 (Part 2) There are a number of trend-based marketing opportunities you can leverage to achieve profit breakthroughs in 2022. In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier shares 5 more business trends you’ll want to know about, and stay on top of, in the coming year. In Part 1, he talked about: ESG DEI The Great Resignation Supply reallocation AI Listen in for trends #6 through #10 as well as practical, actionable steps to help you take advantage of them starting today. Trend #6: Web 3.0 This one is huge. Roland believes it’s the most important, most long-lasting, and will have the biggest impact because it will replace a lot of giant incumbent tech companies. You need to have an awareness of Web 3.0, what it is, how you’ll be affected by it, and how to take advantage of it. In simplest terms, Web 3.0 is basically block chain technology. Here’s the cool thing. What it really is going to do (and is doing) is democratize the ability of any creator to own their audience. The challenge in the past has been that, if you’re on Facebook and create a giant group, and Facebook decides they don’t like you, you lose it all. There’s no due process. It’s not fair. Imagine instead that all of your audiences are completely portable. You aren’t relying on a social media platform. You get exposed to an audience on a platform, get booted, and get to bring your audience with you. Web 3.0 says, that when you work hard to build an audience, you get to keep the loyalty of that audience and take it wherever you want. This will be game-changing. Opportunities will pop up that will become alternatives to social media platforms. Hopefully it will force incumbents to be better. Take any chance you get to participate and invest in Web 3.0 companies. Get your content out there in some of these places too. Help other people understand NFTs and Web 3.0. Also, just generally across the block chain, look for opportunities to get involved with businesses and products coming out of it. Trend #7: Authenticity This is an opportunity to help companies understand that their audiences want to know the truth. They don’t want fake photoshopped things. They want real people telling them how things really are. The heavy-produced photo shoots don’t convert as well as simple iPhone videos. People are looking for ways to recapture “real.” What are the opportunities there? First, become someone who’s authentic and real. Test authenticity against whatever you had out there before. How can we be more real, more connected and communicative with our audience? How can you help other companies do that? How can you facilitate migration to authenticity? How can you coach those companies and create services and opportunities? Social purpose goes hand in hand with this. Be authentic in supporting some social good out in the world. Trend #8: Coopetition, Integration, and Strategic Partnerships This is where companies are competing with each other and also cooperating in their competition. Coopetition is a big buzzword right now, but it’s hard for direct competitors to cooperate with each other, so Roland isn’t sure how successful it’s going to be. Facilitating coopetition could be an opportunity for you, a way to make a name for yourself in a blue ocean field. We’ll definitely see more integrations, brands partnering with each other to release new products. Brands are able to create brand awareness with other brands’ audiences, helping their audience connect with a whole new brand with your endorsement. Ask: Who are the brands I would like to have access to the audience of, and how can I approach them? This will reduce your customer acquisition costs if we’re sharing in this way. Strategic partnerships are similar to a product integration, just less thorough, but with a lot of opportunities as well. Trend #9: The Democratization of Funding We’re seeing a lot of this right now. Funding from all kinds of sources. Companies like Robin Hood and SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies), even private equity funds which allow small investors who would normally be cut out of access to big deals to participate in finance activities. You might want to consider investing in some of these, but remember that they’re risky. Trend #10: First Party Data We need new ways for marketers to find people. We used to be able to target people very specifically, but through privacy laws, iOS 14 updates, and a whole bunch of other initiatives, that’s a thing of the past. Businesses that were very narrowly targeting people are having trouble making money. Their customer acquisition costs have gone up so much. Your ability to go out to a platform and harvest an audience is decreasing. Do we go back to TV? No. But it’s going to be more and more important to create our own media and own our own media. You need to have first party data, a list. You don’t want to have to rely on third party cookies. You don’t want to be dependent on these platforms. How do you make money off this trend? Help companies who used to spend millions of dollars on targeted advertising put that money somewhere else and build an audience. Can you acquire companies that already have first party audiences? There are a lot of opportunities here. No matter where you are, who you are, how much experience you have, how much money you have, you can turn these trends into monetizable opportunities for yourself. If you’re not taking advantage of them in 2022, you definitely risk getting left behind. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21831974

Creative Ways to Acquire Businesses and How to Invest with No Money Down with Joey Gilkey 01/20/2022

Creative Ways to Acquire Businesses and How to Invest with No Money Down with Joey Gilkey When it comes to acquiring businesses, the best (and most fun) way to do it is to think outside the box. On today’s episode, host Roland Frasier sits down with Joey Gilkey, Founder and CEO of , a company that builds sales operations specifically for digital marketing agencies. Historically, marketing agencies are creative strategists, Joey says, not sales people. They’ve never built a sales operation or hired salespeople successfully. The agency space is unique in that they don’t have the same kind of margins as other companies and need to operate differently. They need the kind of help Joey has to offer. There’s more to Joey than what he’s doing now. He says he picked this niche because he has a grander plan than just helping agencies with sales. His big plan involves acquiring businesses in some pretty creative ways. Listen in and be inspired. The Bigger Plan Joey has been in the agency space for a decade. He knows agencies super well. He even has a mastermind for 7- and 8-figure agencies. He knows how to grow revenue. He can add 7 figures to an agency by building out a sales operation, but there are areas where he can’t help—operations and fulfillment, for example. That’s his next problem to solve. He personally doesn’t have that background, but he can buy a company that does. His bigger picture is to become a super company for agencies. He wants to do it all—sales operations, fulfillment, sourcing fractional accounting that serves agencies, etc. He’s acquiring for growth. Someone else has put in the hard work of building an audience and trust, and they don’t know how to use/monetize it. Joey has plenty of offers. He would love to cut a deal and work something out, where they either drive their people to his offer or he just takes it over completely. The Offer In the Works He’s done a lot of creative deal structuring. For example, he once bought a Facebook group from someone. Talk about an innovative way to acquire someone’s work and audience. How did he structure the deal? He offered them 10% of everything he makes from people in the group. He’s under contract right now with a company that does fulfillment and operations. They serve the same clients he does, but they have a bigger list. They’ve been working together so well that he thought to himself: instead of making a referral fee, why not own the company I refer people to? He threw out a simple offer to get the ball rolling ($3.9 million), and they came back with $4.2 million. He said it wasn’t worth that and got creative. He offered a 10-year seller finance, 10% down payment, 5-year balloon, 4% interest, at a $4.5 million valuation with a 6-month deferred down payment. They said it was too complex, and they went back to his original offer but kept some commissions. They made a few other compromises and had a deal. Moral of the story? Get creative and get it done. RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21831950

ESG, DEI, and 8 Other Business Trends for 2022 (Part 1) 01/17/2022

ESG, DEI, and 8 Other Business Trends for 2022 (Part 1) There are a number of trend-based marketing strategies you can implement to achieve profit breakthroughs in 2022. In today’s episode, host Roland Frasier gives us the inside scoop on a lot of cool things going on right now in the business world. He walks us through the first five today and will share the rest in an upcoming episode. Listen in if you want to stay on top of both what’s happening now and what’s coming down the pike. Trend #1: ESG This is one you hear a lot about in the investment banking world. ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. There’s a tremendous focus right now on sustainability and corporate responsibility to keep the environment healthy (E), doing social good (S), and building in protections against the companies doing bad things (G). There are a lot of funds right now set up to do ESG investing. The more focused we are on being sustainable, environmentally-conscious, and socially responsible, the more we’ll get business from these bigger companies focused on it. Consumers are demanding this too, so you’re winning on both sides. Ask yourself: what could I do in my business, or what business could I acquire to become more sustainable? Things like rethinking your supply chain, reducing your carbon footprint, and giving back environmentally. From a social perspective, what can I do to contribute? Give back to your local community or the world at large, or specific organizations like Black Lives Matter. Trend #2: DEI Yes, there are a lot of acronyms to keep track of. DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. From a diversity (D) standpoint, when it comes to the people working with us—at all levels of the business—we should be diverse both racially and socio-economically. How can we get people of different genders, however they might identify, to get involved in the company so we can get different perspectives? How can we be friendly to the LGBTQ+ community? Not just people we’re selling to, but people in management, in executive positions, on the board. Studies have shown that diverse companies are more profitable, come up with more ideas, and are more innovative. The equity (E) part is how do we give people ownership and have stakeholders that are diverse? Stakeholders who will profit and be uplifted by their involvement and the things they contribute to the company. Inclusion (I) is very broad. How are we going to be aware of all these different interests out there, and how can we serve them? What opportunities do we have in the company to bring these diverse viewpoints in and how can we facilitate this? There’s a lot of money flowing to companies that are DEI-aware. This is a huge trend and theme in 2022, and will probably go for the rest of this decade. Trend #3: The Great Resignation There’s a whole flow of people, mostly young people, leaving their jobs saying, “I’m not happy with where I am. I’m not happy with the progress I’m making, with the prospects I have of getting to do something profitable and fulfilling and socially responsible.” People want to contribute to the world, feel good, and take care of themselves. The Great Resignation is creating real problems for businesses. The opportunity here to think about is: how do we serve all the people who are leaving the workforce and starting businesses for the first time? People want to be entrepreneurs and go into business for themselves. Starting a business is really hard, so you’re going to see people wanting to reenter the workforce, but in better jobs. We’ll need career counselors, headhunters, people to help those who failed in businesses and have challenges, business coaches, career training, etc. Anything that will serve the significant portion of people who are working remotely. Trend #4: Reallocating the Supply Chain For the past two years, there’s been a big challenge in getting goods. We’re seeing huge inflation rates. A lot of it has to do with a catch-up period after production was reduced or completely stopped when the pandemic hit. There are 96 cargo ships in the LA/Long Beach port right now backed up. This will be worked out, but will probably take a couple years. Big opportunity: how can I reallocate the supply chain? A lot of companies that were acquiring supplies from overseas don’t want to get blindsided again and will move some/all of their manufacturing to North America (Mexico or the U.S.). If you can look and find markets where labor and location is inexpensive, this will be profitable. Trend #5: AI A lot of humans are being replaced with AI (Artificial Intelligence) right now and this is only the beginning. There’s a huge need for companies with the ability to integrate AI with humans. We have AI agencies where AI is writing campaign ads and copy, and it’s coming out better than what the humans were writing. The AI is winning. We’re hitting the point where computer intelligence is exceeding human beings. Where’s the profit here? Get involved in AI verticalizations. Be part of the companies that are providing AI solutions, AI integrations, helping companies integrate AI, training people to service and work the AI as an AI technician, displacement training to help the people being displaced by AI. These are five of the biggest trends Roland believes will provide some very profitable opportunities in 2022 and beyond. Stay tuned for Part 2! OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21790100

Using Data to Grow Your Business with Phillip Stutts, CEO of Win Big Media 01/13/2022

Using Data to Grow Your Business with Phillip Stutts, CEO of Win Big Media What if you could use the same five-step formula that helps candidates win elections to win big at digital marketing? On today’s episode, host Roland Frasier sits down with Phillip Stutts, CEO of to talk about using data to grow your business. Phillip worked in political campaigns for years, using a systematic formula to elect candidates (1433 victories!). When he turned 40, his answer to the stereotypical midlife crisis was to start a business in a new-to-him industry. Five years ago, a business owner, a large landowner, came to him. He had hired a marketing agency and spent $50k on a marketing campaign and got one lead, not even a sale. After working with Phillip’s team, and spending just $5k, they got him over 700 leads, and he converted a bunch of them. Phillip realized that the same formula used in successful political campaigns could be used in companies’ marketing campaigns as well. They just needed to take 5 simple, important steps. Step 1: Know Your Customer’s Data (What They Care About) Phillip can’t count how many times a business owner has come to him and told me they spent so much money on marketing and produced no results and fired a marketer. It’s like a broken record. He always asks them: what did you know about your customer data before you built your brand? In politics, before he spends any of his candidate’s money, he has to make sure they know what the voter cares about. The voter doesn’t care about a 25-issue platform. You can do a survey, get some data in the field, and figure out the two main issues they care about, that would get them to vote for you. Phillip is obsessed with Step 1 and formed a partnership with a data and analytics company. Before you spend any money, he can tell you everything you need to know about your customer. The data is the most important thing. He won’t work with any client who isn’t willing to do a deep dive understanding of their customers. It’s just not worth it to him. His team started working with a title company that wanted to be #1. Their customer is the real estate agent, not the house buyer. Phillip’s team found that 61% of the realtors in their target market owned dogs. They started running campaign ads with dogs, and now they’re #1 in their region and #3 in the state. Realtors come into the title company to close on a house and say, “I saw your dog ads and loved them.” It’s all about making meaningful connections, because you know what they want. Step 2: Put Together a Strategic Plan Phillip says that Step 2 is where everybody screws up. Almost everyone is running a marketing campaign based on tactics. You have to put a strategic plan together that aligns the vision of the company with what the customer wants. You have to align your budget with where your customer actually is. Step 3: Build the Brand Building the brand is not Step 1 like a lot of people think. It’s a waste of time to build your brand haphazardly without first studying the data to figure out what your customer wants and putting together a strategic plan. Step 4: A/B Testing You’ve got to run test ads before you launch your campaign. You’ve got to compare at least two versions of something to see which one performs better. Successful political candidates run all kinds of test ads in all different versions. It’s the best way to get it right. Step 5: Launch Your Marketing Campaign Now that you’ve eliminated your risk in Steps 1-4, you can launch your actual marketing campaign. Phillip says that any company of any size can use data. He was criticized when he first started his agency, because people told him he needed to go niche—all SEO, all Facebook, all YouTube, whatever. He had a problem with that, because he believes in following where the data tells him to go. He has no dog in the hunt on any certain platform. They’re going to do what’s best for each client based on the data. They use data in messaging, marketing, and targeting. And they’ve already found ways to get around pesky issues like iOS updates and other privacy concerns. RESOURCES: (get a free data assessment) OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21715394

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 3) 01/10/2022

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 3) The final steps to acquiring a company are very important. Do them well, and you’ll be the proud new owner of a business. This is the third and final episode of an invaluable series where Roland Frasier has been walking us through some important questions to ask when buying a business. All three episodes are important, but this one in particular will help you finish strong. Listen in, take notes, then go connect with Roland on social media (, , ). He’d love to hear what you took away from these episodes and what you’d like to hear next on the podcast. Target Questions to Get the Data You Need In the previous episode, you were finding common touchpoints and building rapport with the owner of the business you want to acquire. You showed interest, asked questions, got them talking, so you could take notes to help you craft an offer. Once you’ve had that conversation, the next set of questions is more specific. Roland has a target data information sheet he fills out. You don’t need a financial statement to get these questions answered. Here are some of them: What is the top level sales? What is the profitability of the company? What are the assets and liabilities of the company? What kind of cash is in the company? What are the accounts receivable/payable? What is the long-term debt of the company? Does it own any real estate? What other assets does it have? Does it have inventory? How many employees do they have? What is the owner’s reason for selling? What will they do going forward? The reason you ask that last question is because you want them to get excited about life after business. Then you’ve built a common goal. How Do You Start the Research and Outreach Process? A lot of people believe businesses to acquire can be found through online and offline brokers of businesses. The truth is, those are really the worst deals. Here’s why. Think about when you list a house. You’re emotionally invested in it, so you typically think it’s worth more than it really is. When someone goes to a broker to sell their house or business, the broker will say, “What do you want for it?” They’ll either say, “I don’t know” or “I want x.” The broker has to think of how to keep the seller’s expectations reasonable and get the deal. There’s a compulsion to let someone list something for sale at a higher price than they can actually get for it. You’re fighting against a seller’s expectation. Plus they need to get enough to pay the broker. If you have someone who has received multiple offers they’ve turned down, that will be helpful for you, but you’re still going to pay the highest price the broker can get. Wouldn’t it be better if you could get off-market deals that aren’t listed? Or deals that were listed but the listing expired? They’ve gone through the “expectation curve” process and are much more reasonable in what they’ll accept. Keep in mind that 80% of businesses listed do not sell. Roland recommends finding businesses organically. You’re probably not going to find businesses by running an ad. Most of this happens through word of mouth and networking. The more you meet people and tell them what you’re doing and what you’re looking for, the more likely it is that you’ll meet someone who knows someone who can refer you to someone who has that business you’re looking for. Some places to ask about businesses for sale: Friends and family Email signatures Social media contacts Networking groups Meetup groups Angel groups Contractors, employees, consultants Join masterminds Investment bankers, accountants, attorneys Trade shows/trade associations. The more you plug yourself into the industry you want to acquire a business in, the more likely that you’ll get referrals. Referrals are the best, because you’re getting introduced to the person with someone’s arm wrapped around you saying, “This is a good person to do business with.” Letting your whole world know is the best way to start. If you’re doing cold outreach, there are several things you can do. The easiest in the U.S. is to go to . This site lists all 50 Secretaries of State where filings of business entities are done and registered. You can also find businesses on or . Names, phone numbers, and addresses are often available. Call the company, ask who the owner is, and say you have to send them some information. Or go to the website and look at the About Us page or Team or Contact Us. You can also Google information about business licenses. Then send them information like Roland talked about in the previous episodes. LINKS AND RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21684674

The 7 Levels of Scale: Doubling Your Take-Home Pay 01/06/2022

The 7 Levels of Scale: Doubling Your Take-Home Pay Over the next few podcast episodes, we’ll walk through the —everything you need to know to grow and scale your business. Today is about MONEY—doubling your take-home pay. Co-hosts Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss have developed a powerful and proven framework for scaling your business. It’s been a long labor of love. They had all the pieces, but they needed to tie it together in a simplified way that was transferable and repeatable. And they made it happen. Here are the 7 Levels of Scale: Level #1: Sell and serve 10 customers. Level #2: Build a growth flywheel. Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Level #4: Double your take-home pay. Level #5: Build your board. Level #6: Complete an acquisition for expansion. Level #7: Hit your number. They covered Levels 1 and 2 in Part 1 and Level 3 in part 2. Today is all about Level 4. Listen in for some actionable strategies to double your take-home pay (AFTER you’ve hit levels 1-3). Scared Money Doesn’t Scale People hear “double your take-home pay” and think, “If I do that, I’ll go broke and not have enough money to grow. Shouldn’t I be putting that money back into my company?” Ryan says there are two things at play here. One is nerd finance stuff (which Roland loves and Ryan is learning to like). There’s a big mindset shift that needs to happen for many people at this point. It’s time for you to be feeling more abundant, feeling some of the gains of owning a business. Ryan’s first mentor back in the day once told him, “You’re doing well, but you’re not taking enough money. You need to pay yourself well, because scared money doesn’t scale.” This step is so important. Roland and Ryan want you to have a plan to personally bring twice as much money home. If you haven’t brought home anything up to this point, you need to do more than twice, more than enough to pay for your basic expenses. “But I could lose everything,” you think. “I need to make another sale or I could go out of business.” That fear is really good in the early days. The intensity of the lion chasing you is great for launching a business, but not great for scaling a business. That fear will hold you back, keep you stuck in short-term thinking. You need to make more money so you can start thinking longer-term. One of the obstacles you face in business is feeling guilty taking money out of the company. You do have a tight situation when you’re boot-strapping, so you’ve got to think about your people you need to take care of, and the growth you need to get, and the resources, media, inventory, people you need. You’re spinning plates, and the plate that gets ignored is you. You actually deserve this. You need to take care of yourself. If you don’t build in some profitability for yourself, any ding in the company could end it. Don’t Over-Parent Your Company; Let It Soar Your company won’t scale if you don’t let it grow up. You’ve got to let it go out on its own and live and survive and perform at a level it needs to perform at for you. At level 3, we separated the founder/entrepreneur from being the brain of the business. We upgraded from you being the operating system to having an actual operating system. You’re no longer the brain; now you have to stop being the beating heart of the company as well. There’s always another expense. If you don’t pause and say, “I’ve got to pay me,” you’ll never do it. Roland taught Ryan this lesson. Back in the day, he told Ryan to just double his salary, and Ryan freaked out. “I can’t,” he said. He set his first salary at $10k/month and thought to himself, “This is all I could ever need or want.” He has since changed his mind. Four kids and all the other stuff later, that money goes pretty quick. He doubled his salary, and wouldn’t you know it, there was enough money. That felt good, so he doubled it again. The business didn’t miss it. The business grew. Because the person running the company was no longer terrified about paying his bills. He could think out into the future more strategically, less scarcity-minded. If you don’t set that money aside, then the business is a gaping void that will suck up any extra money you’ve got. Your salary has to be like rent. The business can’t go on if it can’t afford to pay you to be there. You’ve got to take care of yourself. It’s not optional. Seriously. Take the Money. People always fight this. The guilt can be strong. “I need to put the money back in the company.” Ryan says that, when people are struggling, he asks them why they started their business. “To make money,” they say. “To make a difference. I’m passionate about this. I wanted freedom and to be my own boss.” All of that is great, and it requires money. “We can’t afford it,” they argue. You need to structure the business in such a way that you can afford it. Look at your finances. Look at your expense ratios. Where is your money going? What changes can you make? Do you want to scale or not? You can’t go to level 5 until you’ve doubled your salary. Also, go back and look at levels 2 and 3. What does your growth engine look like? Is it the right growth engine? Did you follow it correctly? Should you tweak it? Is your OS operating correctly? That’s the cool thing about the 7 levels. Each level supports the rest, so you can always go back to do simple tweaks and add in some things. You really can have a lot of fun at Level 4. Roland and Ryan say that helping their clients solve the “problem” of doubling take home pay is a blast. If you’re early in this journey, you want to sprint to Level 4. It’s not just where you start to get paid more. It’s where your company starts to professionalize and become more profitable and grow. It’s where we can share the good stuff, because you’re scalable. When you make the decision to double your take-home pay, you become a better leader, and your company becomes better. RESOURCES: Take a brief assessment to see where you’re at and what’s next. (sign up to work with Roland and Ryan) (book by George S. Clason) (book by Michael Michalowicz) OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21684650

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 2) 01/03/2022

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 2) Acquiring and selling businesses is one way to live a rich and happy life, but how do you convince someone to sell you their company? In today’s episode, Roland Frasier walks us through some important questions to ask when buying a business. This is Part 2 in a series (be sure to check out Part 1!) where he’ll be sharing some of his extensive knowledge and acquisition experience as well as tactical strategies you can go out and implement right away. Acquiring businesses is Roland’s specialty. He’s actually written on it. Listen in as he talks about the two questions he asks the target company’s owner as he’s starting the conversion about acquiring the company. Question #1 to Ask the Owner Roland says a lot of people create more friction than is necessary at the beginning. They jump in and say, “Hey, do you want to sell your company?” When you’re ready to talk to the owner of the company you want to acquire, hopefully you’ve determined your acquisition criteria and the profitability level you want. But “Hey, do you want to sell your company?” is a walls-up question. If you’re going in cold, you might get this common angry response: “Who told you our company was for sale?” The question Roland likes to ask instead is more investment-related. “Hey, I’m an investor. I’m looking for a company in [specific area] that sells [specific industry] and makes [x level of sales]. Would you be interested in having a conversation about the possibility of investment or working together?” Coming in as an investor is very non-threatening, because almost all businesses need investors and capital. You want to be coming from a place of authenticity, so get clear on what an investment means to you. An investment doesn’t have to mean you have a pool of cash available. You can have other resources and assets to bring to the table. If they say yes, another mistake people make is asking for a financial statement or tax returns. Don’t ask for that upfront. You don’t want them talking to their accountant or attorney and getting their walls up again, before you even know if you want to buy the company. Instead, just say, “That’s fantastic. I have a few questions to see if we’d work well together. I’d love to know some basic numbers. Could we meet now, or do you need a few days to gather that information?” Question #2 to Ask the Owner This brings us to the next question: “Can you tell me the story of the company?” This one helps build rapport. You’ll get the long-form narrative response about the history of the company and how it has evolved. Take notes here, because they’re giving you priceless information. And it’s so much less threatening to them. While they’re telling you this history, find places you can build rapport with them because you have commonalities of experience. Find common touchpoints that will build trust. Bring them up when they’re done talking. Then say: “That’s great. So interesting. I love learning more about the company. I’d also love to know more about you and your entrepreneurial journey.” People love to talk about themselves. Find more commonalities. Ask more questions. Build more trust. And you’ll be well on your way to acquiring this company. Stay tuned for Part 3! OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21652406

The 7 Levels of Scale: Dialing In Your Operating System 12/30/2021

The 7 Levels of Scale: Dialing In Your Operating System Over the next few podcast episodes, we’ll walk through the 7 Levels of Scale—everything you need to know to grow and scale your business. Everyone always asks Roland Frasier and Ryan Deiss “Where do I start?” when it comes to scaling their business. Their new framework they call answers that question. In the previous episode, they covered Levels 1 and 2. In today’s episode, they unpack Level 3, but here are all seven: Level #1: Sell and serve 10 customers. Level #2: Build a growth flywheel. Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Level #4: Double your take-home pay. Level #5: Build your board. Level #6: Complete an acquisition for expansion. Level #7: Hit your number. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, go do that now. This framework doesn’t work out of order. Sequence matters in a big way. Then listen in for everything you need to know about Level #3: Build an upgraded scalable operating system. Two Big Errors Entrepreneurs Make The first error entrepreneurs make is setting up an operating system without going through the first two levels. You don’t need an operating system if nothing is happening in your business. The second error they make is just go go going without putting an operating system in place. If you build your growth flywheel, then fail to build and implement an operating system, you’ll grow your business into non-existence. It will implode from system overload. You can’t serve the people coming in, because it’s all happening too fast, and you don’t have a system in place to handle it. This will wreck you, wreck your family, and wreck your business. This happened to Ryan. He almost lost his marriage over it. To build something that’s actually working—but have it almost destroy you—is one of the worst things that can happen. What Is an Operating System Exactly? No one can actually agree on a definition, but Google says this: “An operating system is a set of algorithms and a common language that enables different components to communicate with one another in the support of the desired outputs of a machine.” It’s like a computer where the mouse, the CPU, the printer, and everything else has to communicate with each other in order for it to work. What do we mean by a set of algorithms? Standard operating procedures. What is a common language? Communications and meeting rhythms. What are desired outputs? Your goals and objectives.That forms the foundational framework of what it means to have an operating system. The business owner generally knows what the desired outputs are, but they haven’t really been fully flushed out. You need goals and objectives and a way to communicate them throughout the company. You need standard operating procedures (SOPs) where one person knows how to do something, and documents it so others can learn and repeat it. Roland and Ryan built a tool for their company internally and now it’s available to people in their Scalable OS Accelerator. Document Your Set of Algorithms Visualize how your company creates value. What is your growth engine? Once you’ve acquired a customer, how do you serve them? That’s the fulfillment engine. In the entire process, you might have half a dozen value engines. There might be 3-4 stages that are really important. These are the ones that need to be documented. Start with the customer and work backward. Go all the way back to Level 1: sell and serve 10. How do you do this well? Document the entire process value flow Identify the power stages and build step-by-step checklists/playbooks around those Assign accountability. Then use that to build company scorecards and establish the meeting rhythm. When will you meet as teams, leadership, all hands? Figure out your meeting schedule once you know about the scorecards. The meeting and scorecards are your common language. Map Out Your Weeks, Months, and Quarters Roland and Ryan do 90-day quarterly sprint plans. They look at their scorecards and ask: how are we progressing toward our goals? What’s working and what isn’t? What do we need to optimize? That determines the activities you need to do in the next 90 days. If you don’t have all these systems in place, then what do you do? Everybody just has their own ideas, their own pet projects, then no one can agree on what to do next. You have to have the OS in place. One you’ve got your growth flywheel spinning, you’ll need to spend 8-12 weeks building your operating system. While you build, you’re also tracking and measuring. That’s all through the scorecards. Then, the way you install the OS is to host your first quarterly sprint plan. Day 1 is a clarity day. Day 2 is your first quarterly sprint plan. You’re looking forward but also back. Every three years: clarity day Quarterly: sprint plan Monthly: business review Weekly: team meeting reviewing scorecards Roland and Ryan aren’t big believers in annual planning. They plan in 3-year cycles and execute in 90-day sprints. The 6 Primary Tools that Go Into a Scalable Operating System Value engine (visual representation like a whiteboard with post-it notes) Playbooks (step-by-step checklists that drill down into power stages) HOT canvas (High Output Team, assigning responsibilities) Scorecards (metrics and tracking weekly, reviewed monthly) Meeting rhythm (how often each team is getting together) Clarity compass (visually demonstrating desired outputs) Roland and Ryan want to create more Level 7 entrepreneurs. They want to help more entrepreneurs scale themselves so they can scale their companies. They’re sick and tired of entrepreneurs burning out and quitting on themselves. They want them to stay at the helm of their companies for as long as they want to. It’s better for the world. When you pass Level 3, you pass the scalable line. That’s when your company is officially scalable. Next up: making more money. Stay tuned for Part 3! RESOURCES: - Take a brief assessment to see where you’re at and what’s next. OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21630122

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 1) 12/27/2021

What to Consider When Buying a Company (Part 1) Acquiring and selling businesses is one way to live a rich and happy life, but how do you know which companies to buy? In today’s episode, Roland Frasier walks us through some important things to know when buying a business. This is part one in a series where he’ll be sharing some of his extensive knowledge and acquisition experience. Listen in as he talks about the first two questions you need to answer before you buy. How Am I Going to Define My Acquisition Criteria? That’s question #1. If you don’t know what kind of business you want to buy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You’re like a kid in a candy store. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches by establishing criteria first. Roland uses a matrix for this. It can be as simple as a whiteboard or a piece of paper with four quadrants: What you enjoy What you have experience in What skills you have What connections you have Quadrant #1: Make a list of things you actually like to do. Being an entrepreneur is hard. It’s more motivating to go forward and deal with problems if you’re actually passionate about it. Take an inventory of your interests. Quadrant #2: What do you have experience in? Brainstorm all your prior experience and things you’ve actually done in the past. Write down all of it, even if it doesn’t seem relevant. You might see connections later. Quadrant #3: What do you have knowledge, training, skills in? This is similar to #2, but this time you’re writing down specific skills you have. Quadrant #4: What are your connections? What networking resources do you have access to? What things are you a member of? What business contacts do you have? List all of them; don’t leave anyone out. These four things will help you determine what kind of business you want to buy. You’re looking for common threads among things you’re passionate about, have experience in, are skilled at, and have connections for. What kind of business makes the most sense when taking all four of those things into consideration? How Do I Select a Target Type? This is the second big question to ask yourself. How do I select a target type of business? The type of company you’re looking to acquire can fall into several categories: A company that no longer exists A company that exists but isn’t profitable A company that’s breaking even/profitable Roland recommends focusing on that last category, unless you have specific skills in turnaround. Not everyone is cut out to acquire failing businesses and turn them around. It’s hard. There are plenty of profitable companies to acquire. In the break even/profitable category, if he doesn’t see things that could make it profitable in 30 days, he’ll pass. How do you decide how profitable a company needs to be before you acquire it? Roland doesn’t care about sales. He cares about profits. There are two types of profit. The first is SDE (seller discretionary earnings). That’s how profitable an owner-operated company is. Then there’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for a company that’s professionally-managed. You might want a company with an SDE or EBITDA of a certain amount. What do you want that amount to be? First, ask: how much do I want to pay myself for doing this deal on a monthly business? Let’s say $10k/month. That’s his new target type—a company that’s profitable and making at least $10k/month. In addition to that, ask: what am I going to do with this company? Let it go as is, or do you actually see growth potential and there will be a little bit of investment to help it grow, either to sell or to make more money to pay yourself more? And finally, ask: how much money do I want to budget to spend on increasing growth? Let’s say you want to spend $10k/month on growth. So you need a profit of $20k/month total. You need to find a company with an SDE or EBITDA of $240k/year. That’s how Roland selects the kind of company he wants to go after. He asks which businesses fit his four criteria and have a profitability of $240k/year or more. Stay tuned for Part 2! OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21602258

Kendra Scott on Fashion, Family, and Philanthropy 12/23/2021

Kendra Scott on Fashion, Family, and Philanthropy Kendra Scott started her iconic brand with $500, a spare bedroom, and a newborn—and now her company is valued at over a billion dollars. The 1st Annual took place in Austin, TX in early November of this year, and Kendra Scott was one of the big-name guests. She sat down with Roland Frasier to talk about how she started her business, how it became so wildly successful, and why she’s so passionate about giving back. Listen in for some inspiration and brilliance from this woman on fire. How It All Started Kendra’s first son was born on 11/11/01, just two months after 9/11. She vividly remembers what it felt like to be given this tiny human being in such an uncertain time. No one knew what the world was going to be like going forward, but there was an incredible opportunity for hope and connection. Kendra knew she wanted to be the best mom she could be, but she’d also loved fashion and design since she was a little girl. “If I could do what I loved,” she says, “that would be the greatest thing in the world.” Her first business failed, then her stepfather died, leaving her with this thought: “We have one life, and it is short and it is fast. While we’re here, we need to use the gifts we’ve been given to do good.” She started her business very quietly, because she didn’t want people to see her fail. She was terrified that people would laugh at her. How She Worked Through That Fear Fear is real, Kendra says, and it is okay to be scared. “I wake up every morning, leading a business that is bigger than it was the day before. I’m walking in uncharted territory every time I get out of bed.” It helps knowing she doesn’t have to do it alone. She’s not afraid to ask for help. Mentors are huge for her. And she has built “the most awesome team ever.” She has 3000 employees, and 96% of them are women. The brand is the DNA of all the people who work with her at her company. It’s her name, but they’re truly a team. She was alone in it for a long time. Now, when she has a problem, everyone puts their heads together and rolls up their sleeves, excited to help solve the problem. Choosing entrepreneurship means not choosing the easy route. It is so fun when it’s fun and so scary when it’s scary. Entrepreneurship is peaks and valleys, just like life. When you’re in the valleys, you think this is it. I’m going to lose my business. When you start realizing you can get out of the valley, and you have a team doing it with you, it’s so cool. You overcame something together, and your bond is so amazing. The Kendra Scott company is on a mission to do good. Their core values are family, fashion, and philanthropy, and their customers share those values. They’re caring, optimistic, and fun, and have a heart that beats for their community. “You can put your team and your community first and still have a fiscally successful company,” Kendra says. “And now I’m teaching others how to do it.” What 2020 Was Like For Her Business In a retail business where you have 120 brick and mortar stores, “a pandemic isn’t great,” Kendra says. She remembers all the news channels with their doomsday pronouncements of “brick and mortars have seen their last day.” She didn’t sleep for a couple days in March 2020. She and her team went back to the white board and started completely over. They changed everything overnight. The only thing that didn’t change was their core values. How do we stay true to our core values? was the only question that mattered. They did all their Kendra Gives Back events virtually. They created new connections with their customers—sending them letters, calling people and checking on them, making masks, delivering things to people’s homes. They fought the urge to over-strategize. “We have to paint this train while it’s moving,” Kendra told her team. They couldn’t stop the train. They knew they might make mistakes, but they were determined just to learn from them. You can’t be inflexible and unwilling to change your plans. You’ve got to be agile. You’ve got to pivot. Or you won’t survive. How She Managed Growth While Maintaining Control When Kendra first started her company, no one would invest in her. She had two small sons, went through a divorce, had no investors, and was doing everything on lines of credit. She signed everything she owned up for collateral. Her sister, who had a good job, moved in with her to help with rent. She couldn’t pay for her tiny team and couldn’t afford to lose anyone. She sold her car to pay a vendor for stones and jewelry. Looking back, she says she’s not really sure how she did it. But she would look at her sons’ little faces and think, “Failure is not an option. We are going to figure this out.” She didn’t get any investment capital until 10 years after she started her business. After 10 years, she wanted the cadence of going to a board on a quarterly basis and getting feedback. So she set up an advisory board with three people and gave them an earned-in, very small equity position over a four-year period. One of them became her first investor. He gave her a very generous $20 million evaluation and bought 5% of the company. Building a Team and Stepping Away from CEO Bringing on a COO changed everything for her. She read a book by Marcus Buckingham called Now Discover Your Strengths that talks about writing down everything you love and loathe. She loved the customers, engaging, design, marketing, and creation of the experience. She loathed dealing with vendors and negotiating marketing contracts. She knew she needed a team that loved the things she loathed. She hired a COO and everything elevated, because she was no longer doing the things that sucked the life out of her. She knew she wanted someone with a personality that fit with hers, a winner, someone with passion and drive, who gets excited about this age and stage of a business. He got an offer from Whole Foods at the same time that Kendra couldn’t match, but he saw something in the Kendra Scott company that he believed in. His equity position turned into $40 million. Kendra recently stepped away from CEO into a chairwoman position. After 20 years, her strengths have changed. “The biggest impact I can have is to be out there and focus on our core pillars,” she says. “I’m out in stores, I’m on calls. I want to learn so I can make this brand better every day. The philanthropy pillar is huge for me. My mission is to get more women entrepreneurs funded and help them be successful in their businesses.” She sees the Kendra Scott brand as a pre-teen. Ralph Lauren did men’s ties for 25 years before he branched into other things. This doesn’t happen overnight. She knows there are opportunities to expand beyond jewelry, but she doesn’t want to do just anything. She wants to do it thoughtfully. She wants to see where the white space is, where the gaps are. Where are things her customers need and desire that they can’t find? It’s got to be something disruptive, and that excites her. We all have the opportunity to change the world, she says. Lead with your heart. Let your team fly. Give them the tools to soar. When they become leaders like you, that’s how you’ll know you’ve become a true success. RESOURCES: OUR PARTNERS: Get a free proposal from Get 3% cash back on your ad spend with /episode/index/show/businesslunch/id/21575711

Business Lunch

TOPICS