Wall Street To Y'all Street

[00:00:00] And he goes, my name is Joe and I'm from the IRS. Oh. Well, you know the bankrupt company that you bought it from has close to, it was $750,000 in IRS obligations. Were you aware of this when you did due diligence? Hell no. So I go, how is that possible? It's bankrupt. Well, it was payroll. Payroll, taxes
I sat down and. Said, okay, Joe, I hear you. Let me call my attorney who I've paid close to a million dollars to. And I called him and I said, how's your DNO insurance?

Today's guest knows what it looks like to experience both massive success and massive setbacks in business and how to fight your way back. Deb Perin is a two-time winner who built companies with a hundred million dollar plus exits. She worked as a senior banking executive helping owner manage businesses navigate growth and capital, and now she teaches entrepreneurs how to master their numbers as a faculty member, both in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 [00:01:00] Small business program, as well as through her consulting business.
Business owners MBA. But Deb's story isn't just about wins after one acquisition, Deb found herself facing enormous financial pressures at one point, more than $80 million in the hole, and she had to rebuild from the ground up.
In this conversation, we're talking about how to deal with setbacks , what it takes to come back from being tens of millions of dollars under water, and how business owners can unlock real growth by focusing on the right financial metrics and operational processes. And if you're new here, I'm Joseph j Rader, a former Wall Street lawyer with more than 20 years experience across a hundred billion dollars in transactions.
I'm also a former entrepreneur having launched two businesses. One I built from scratch and had a seven figure exit in less than three years. I rolled that into a national retail chain, lost it all during COVID, but I've rebuilt back. I've generated tens of millions of dollars in B2B and B2C sales. I've hit highs, had lows, and rebuilt from scratch.
My law firm rates for PLLC focuses on mergers and [00:02:00] acquisitions to buy and sell companies and assets as well as securities laws to raise capital. I'm licensed in both New York and Texas. My podcast, wall Street to Wall Street is where I bring you real business lessons from seasoned operators, founders and executives who've actually lived and breathed business' ups and downs, not giving legal advice here.
Always consult with your attorney regarding your situation. Enjoy the show.
I am here in Dallas with Deb Vin. Deb, thank you for being here. I usually don't read an introduction, but your bio over the past three plus decades is very extensive. I want to make sure I get it right.
In short, you are a founder, a banker, an educator, and an operator. you're a two time founder who scaled companies, passed the $100 million mark, and successfully exited, not without hills and valleys. So that'll be interesting to hear the wins and the losses and how you overcame them.
again, a former banker, being a senior VP and Dallas market manager at major banks, including Citibank. So you have a lot of experience with businesses from that perspective. You're an [00:03:00] educator in that you are a faculty for Goldman Sachses 10,000 small businesses program,
Currently combining your educator and founder hats, your founder of business owners MBA? Based here in Dallas. Bonea is an accelerator that helps business owners between 500,000 and $5 million in revenue. Master their numbers, scale, profitability, and escape.
What you call the messy middle? I do. Okay. And several of your clients of BBA have landed in the Inc 5,000 list? I think a couple of them uhhuh the top a hundred. Yep. many have doubled both the top and bottom lines, and if that wasn't enough, you're also an accomplished sports woman being a former member of the US ski team.
Yep. Wow. And you currently live on your sailboat half of the year, correct? Yep. Oh my goodness. Oh wow. So you bring over 30 years of financial experience. You're on a mission to help business owners, not just scale, but actually love their business again.
So I want to get into Baba and I want to get into your $200 million [00:04:00] plus exits and the work you're doing with Goldman Sachs and teaching. But before we do that, maybe talk a little bit about your background, your upbringing, and how it impacted you as a founder and operator.
, I was named to the US ski team at 13, so I left home, and I was one of the youngest ones on the team. And so I raised myself. I watched what everyone was doing. So I was a very much an observer of human behavior.
I found people incredibly interesting. And, we were traveling the world. So it was really an interesting, growing up experience. And my parents, We didn't have any of these, electronic tracking devices, ways to keep track or even talk to anyone.
So for example, we were in France training in the fall for the World Cup series that was gonna start. And I had to go take my SATs because I wanted to go to college. My coach put me on an on a train and said, go [00:05:00] that way. And I had to, I was registered in Munich. There's a big army base in Munich. Did you speak the language or Hell no.
He put me on the train and I had to change train. And I changed trains, but I went the wrong way. So as the train came into Yugoslavia, they had to see our passports and the right to enter.
And I was like, oh, I'm going the wrong way. So I threw my backpack out the window and I jumped out the window because I didn't know how to confront this problem that I'm on the wrong train and I've got a deadline. I have to be there on Saturday morning and this is Friday. So I get back and I'm sitting at the way station and I got on the train that came going the other way
And I did end up in Munich, I get the signals, but so I get on my plane, I get home, they pick me up at the airport. I get into the hotel where the ski team was staying, and I have a telegram from my family telling me I was accepted early decision to Dartmouth.
Which meant I didn't need that entire adventure. Wow, okay. Why couldn't you have sent this on Thursday? [00:06:00] So the jumping outta the window and getting it done, no matter what. That's a common trait in people who are in sports because no matter how you're feeling or what the condition is, you get it done.
Or goal oriented, very much oriented. This is where I have to be and this is when I have to be there. What do you think Elite sports taught you about business discipline? Oh, important, critical. when I was in banking and hiring people, I always look for someone an athlete, because you learn discipline, you learn goal setting, you learn disappointments.
You learn that you have to keep working on it. you don't do it once or twice. You have to do it, 10,000 times or something stupid like that. It's just a focus on accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. And it's not even, my dad always told me, just worry about the next race.
don't worry about if you win this, it's just the next race. how do you perform your best? And I think that's just a key ingredient in, [00:07:00] being successful. It almost comes down to not only discipline and getting to the next goal, but also being focused and not being
Distracted by the next shiny thing, right? Yes, exactly. And so how do you advise companies who come to you? Because that's a tough thing to do, right? to tell someone, Hey, focus, Now, when I'm working with companies, most of the time I'm working with them, whether it's the accelerator or my one-on-one clients, we meet regularly.
And that's the accountability part. they know that this is what they owe me in two weeks. Preference would be that they work on it over the two week period so that it becomes something that they're doing on a regular basis, not just, oh God, I have to meet with my coach.
But, the goal for me is to get them to understand these are the steps that you have to take in order to be successful in your business, to be more profitable, to be able to scale. And so these are things that you're gonna learn and I'm going to coach you on, but then you're going to indoctrinate [00:08:00] into your business the way you're gonna go forward and run your business.
Yeah, there are a lot of shiny objects. I know I'm not immune to shiny objects, but by working with a coach, not just me, any coach. It does make you focus and it does give you that, Accountability, which as a founder is hard 'cause you really don't have people holding you accountable.
There has to be times when a shiny object is worth pursuing. And how do you know when that's the case?
that's a really good question. You don't, that's one of the things about being a founder and being an entrepreneur, right? You think you can do the same thing that everybody else is doing differently and better. So by definition, that's the shiny object, It's something that's beyond what's going on now.
So What makes the value of my coaching so much more than the value of someone else's? And by definition, that's something new. That's something different. It's something, maybe it's not all that different, but you're [00:09:00] communicating it differently. So it's a lot of experimentation and you have to be willing to step out of that comfort zone and try it.
and then, we set parameters. So if you're gonna hire someone or you're going to chase that shiny object, what is the goal? What is the timeframe? What's success? And what's failure? Okay? So that we have some parameters, because when you get in there, then you have at least some idea of what that is gonna look like.
If we hit this goal, we'll keep going. If we don't hit this goal, we call it the end. Now, we may hit that number and go, let's give it a little more time because we see success, but. A lot of people just jump in and they give up too soon, or they never give up. So I think it's really important.
I tell everyone, I give the same advice in hiring someone, what do you want them to do and where's the value that they're bringing to your company, and how long are you gonna put up with [00:10:00] supporting them until they hit that goal and, oh, I'm gonna hire an operations manager, right?
And that operations manager is gonna free up 10 hours of my time every week. So what are you gonna do with that? Are you gonna go play soccer with your kids? Fine, all 10 hours, maybe three hours, seven hours, you need to spend doing something that moves the business forward. And so that's a perfectly good goal.
But if you're gonna just, be micromanaging the operating team, then that's not worth your time because you're not paying them for anything that's value add. And this is all based on, obviously you've exited $200 million plus companies, how many. Clients that come to you or companies that come to you are scaling when they really should be back building that backend operation?
So the smaller companies define smaller. half a million to 2 million. Those companies are usually it. It's more a definition around the number of people that work for them because the founder grows the company by telling the people that work for [00:11:00] her what to do, and then they hit a point where they are stuck because they don't have time to move forward because they're still teaching everyone what to do.
That is a time I see a lot of companies because now they have to build the foundation to be able to grow again, and it's usually not the people that they've been telling how to do their jobs. Like me and my daughter does my marketing, she's good at what she does for me, but she's not out there in the marketing world looking at other things. so you have to go, okay, who is actually doing their job without your supervision and can stand alone? And who do you need to replace with someone with professional knowledge?
Okay. And so that's a really tough transition. And the founder has to decide, do I want to be the electrician, doctor? Lawyer, right? Accountant? Do I want to be the professional performing the service? Or do I want to run a group of people doing [00:12:00] that? So 500,000 to $2 million is where things break or get stuck.
Yeah. Is there also like an head count? Some industries have higher revenue streams. with less people. is there a headcount number? Usually somewhere between seven and 12. Okay. Yeah, because the HR quotes are, you can manage 10 people.
I've never been able, the most I could manage was seven, so that's where things start to break and they don't really break. It's just your revenue doesn't increase and you start finding that your margins are getting squeezed. So you're like, I've been a million dollars for the last three years, and instead of making $400,000, I'm making $200,000.
What's the most expensive mistake you've ever made as a founder and how did you fix it? I made so many expensive mistakes, decisions I've made. the most expensive was when I owed $82 million on eight shopping centers that I had built.
And all the banks in Texas went under in the [00:13:00] late eighties. And when the banks go under, they call your loans. And when they call your loans, there's no place to refinance 'cause all the banks have gone under. So you're like this sort of is bad news. I don't know what to do. And because it was such a monumental disruption, to everything that was going on in Texas, both real estate and oil and gas.
the banks went under, they had no capital because the properties were not valued at what they had initially been lent on. And so the Fed stepped in and they brought other big banks into Texas and said, you have to buy these portfolios or you have to take over these banks. And so I had real estate.
A lot of lenders are like, I don't like retail. I was mostly retail. so my portfolio was spread around banks and savings and loans. the banks were doing the construction loans, the savings and loans were doing the longer term. And so I was very fortunate that all of my properties rolled up into one bank.
And so I sat down with the banker and I said, look, [00:14:00] I have eight retail properties. Six of 'em are cash flowing or break even. One is under construction and one's in lease up, and I am going to pay you off. But you've gotta support me during the next couple of years. Because what was happening is people were buying these real estate properties for nothing, 10 cents on a dollar.
And the bank's going and get rid of 'em. We got the, we've got the RTC supporting us, they'll pay us money. We don't need to worry about the economic value of these properties. And so I was like, I do, 'cause I need to wait until it's worth more than my loan. And so they were like, if you're gonna stick with it, we'll stick with it.
I was the only developer they had in their entire portfolio. Pay them back. That's amazing. And it's astounding 'cause you hear stories like this and, when clients come to me with not that large of a situation. That's a black swan event, right? It is. Oh, it's terrible. Yeah.
Which you've lived through several Black Swan events and it seems like the past two decades alone have [00:15:00] had several. But, the SNL crisis was definitely. Top among them, but clients who come to me and they're like, what do I do? , Have you called them? Yeah. Have you called your lenders?
Because it's the ones who work it out. and communicate, You can't run from this problem. No, because they're just gonna call collateral. They're gonna foreclose, they're gonna do what they need to do. 'cause they have to protect their shareholders. So working out problems like that is key.
But having that hindsight, was there anything you could have done? What kind of cushion could you have done to minimize your exposure? Yeah. I don't know that anyone had hindsight to that coming. we knew it was happening. We knew that they were inflating the value, the land values, and we could see the disruption to the marketplace.
same thing with the next crisis, the next housing bubble that happened in the two thousands. You could see it coming, but You just couldn't see what was gonna blow up. How long is this bubble gonna last?
And I thought I've put equity in my [00:16:00] properties, their cash flowing. it's worse than what I just said though, because you realize if the bank forgives your debt, that's income. And now the IRS comes to get you debt's, forgiveness, income. Yeah. It's a surprise. There's a letter from the IS Oh yeah.
It's just the whole thing was just a series of dominoes that I don't know how you could prepare for. For me, I was prepared because I was a lender before, so I knew what lender parameters looked like, and I made the mistake of investing when I sold one or two properties to get into bigger opportunities.
I made the mistake. Of reinvesting all my equity. So I was very heavily, I wasn't asking the banks for big loans, 90%. I was, 70, 75 maybe. And I had anchor tenants lined up. So I had a really great package to give my lender. So I thought I've got all this equity in there, how bad can it get?
So I thought I had protected myself. And I tell people, when I sold all the pieces of property, [00:17:00] the goal was to have a nice portfolio of retail and to live on that. And that's my legacy. And then we can go off doing something else because we've got this great income stream. And obviously that wasn't gonna be the long-term plan anymore.
So we sold off properties and paid back the bank. I tell people I made money, I went sailing, I'm not sure I made back all my equity. But I survived, so I got a nice, I don't know, seven or eight year lesson in real estate economics and cash flow and, negotiation.
then I fled. You're like, bye, we'll see you later. Finishing that out though, do you feel like what you should have kept, instead of putting more equity into it, 'cause you could have achieved the loan or obtained the loans without putting that much equity, you should have put like profit first.
You take some money out, you put it in the bank, your leverage a bit. Maybe you put down 10% or 15%, but then the remainder is saved away. Do you think that would've helped [00:18:00] cushion you through that storm? I coach that now. Okay. That's absolutely, I tell people, build your wealth at the same time you build your business.
do I think that would've helped me in that situation? No. I think that if I had put some dollars on the side, the bank would've said, you're not broke yet. We want it all. we moved onto a sailboat and so I told my attorney, I said, here's the affidavit. If anyone comes after me.
Now I was down to one lender, so I wasn't too worried about it, but there might have been a note. It was such a free for all. There might have been something somewhere I've forgotten about some line of credit that I used to hold a piece of property. wow.
I live in 400 square feet. I do not have electricity. I do not have a phone. I do not have running water. So you tell them that I have given them everything. I own, there is nothing left except for waiting till we get through this period of time and I can sell the property. my attorney's are you sure I can tell them that?
And I said, absolutely. Just [00:19:00] don't tell 'em it's a sailboat. Sounds better. That never crossed anybody's mind okay. So it was a good ploy. So you weathered the storm on a sailboat? Literally.
And waited for the storm to pass. And, I went back to work. Okay. I was monitoring my real estate and I was working for banks. In lending and still, until all of it could be unwound. Yeah. So do you think that debt is dangerous? No. or is it just that some founders at that point where they find themselves in a upside down, maybe they were financially illiterate or a situation happens like what you went through?
what do you think about debt? Leverage? debt is critical to scaling because you're taking, you could borrow, in theory, you could borrow three times your equity or three times your ebitda. Whether it's balance sheet or cashflow lending. But here's the thing, they borrow, but they don't pay attention to paying it back.
So back to the sports analogy, [00:20:00] you have to be disciplined. You have to understand if I'm getting a $5 million working capital line of credit, a line of credit is for working capital. So when you complete a job that took 60 days and you paid all your labor and you paid all your vendors, and then you take 60 days to collect right on your invoice.
That's, you are now funding that customer 120 days. So when that customer pays you, you need to think about repaying that line of credit. I use this amount of money to make that possible. Now that's a very linear way of thinking about it, but what happens is you get to that point, you have more cash, now you go, I'll just.
go out and do something with it. Oh look, I got this big payment. And so people don't pay attention to being disciplined and that gets 'em in trouble. And you have to understand how to use debt properly. Now remember I just told you I was in default on $82 million.
You may [00:21:00] go, maybe she doesn't really know what she's talking about. No, I don't think anyone would say that. Especially how you navigated it and got out of it. So debt is essentially a strategic tool. Absolutely. You lose it to unlock more revenue. Absolutely. But it's what you do with that revenue that dictates whether you can get more debt in the future.
So I tell people, you should never use debt for operating losses. Okay. Okay. And that's what I had at my resort. I was in big time trouble at my resort because I was, That's the second business because I was using the, so my banker. That I paid back, had said, if you ever wanna borrow again, come talk to me.
And I said, if I ever come talk to you, just shoot me. I don't wanna do that again. And so when I had the opportunity to buy this resort out at bankruptcy in Vermont, it seemed like a culmination of all the things I'd done, it was a ski resort, it was an operating entity with the ski and the golf course.
It was real estate. We get to build, townhouses and hotels, and [00:22:00] it had 2000 permits. Because they were grandfathered permits and before we bought it, we had a long discussion with the permitting authority about, they're like 18 different requirements.
And they said you are grandfathered for all the ones that are external to the property, like traffic and environmental, but then you have to get permitted for site specific, which made sense, right? So we were like, yeah, we got 2000 units. I knew we'd never get permits for 2000 units, but I figured even 1000 units would be in a gigantic development in Vermont.
And it's a beautiful ski area and golf course and designed by a well-known golf designer. And, it was too good to pass up. So my banker said, go to Boston and talk to the loan production officer that I have there. So I walk in and I swear to God, the guy there was 12.
And he's I don't wanna know who you are or what you did. But I don't ever wanna get a call from the Vice [00:23:00] Chairman now. I don't wanna ever get a call from the Vice Chairman telling me to give you anything you asked for. And I'm like, stop it. I paid him back $82 million.
I deserve it. I said, so what's his loan limit? He goes, a hundred million. I go, that's perfect. That's just what I needed. So what a coincidence, how it works. How did that happen? But literally we're talking about operating losses. So we buy the resort and I, it has a little, office building that was a converted home at the base.
And we're literally the first day in the office. My kids have their own offices 'cause I homeschooled them. And my husband was running the construction crew. And the first guy who walks, whose name also was Joe. Very imprinted in my brain. I go, our first guest, I'm so excited. Welcome. Come on in. I'm all excited, right?
And he goes, my name is Joe, and I'm from the IRS. I was like, what? You know the bankrupt company that you bought it from has [00:24:00] $750,000 in IRS obligations. Were you aware of this when you did due diligence? Hell no. Okay. So I go, how is that possible? It's bankrupt. It was payroll.
Payroll, taxes are not. And so after he left, after I sat down and said, okay, Joe, I hear you. Let me call my attorney, who I paid close to a million dollars to. And I called him and I said, how's your DNO insurance? oh my goodness. He covered half of it. I don't know what negotiation he had, but they covered half of it and I covered the other half over a period of time.
And I am absolutely convinced, the number was really like less than a hundred grand, but because it had been six years or it was ridiculous, I'm like, can't we negotiate? I am absolutely certain Joe put most of that in his pocket. Wow. No doubt in my mind. Don't let the IRS hear me say that. I don't want him coming after me.
It's just, it was like, really? That was the first bombshell. There were others, but so that was something [00:25:00] that, now I had to cover with my cash, with my loan because I hadn't anticipated it. And that's where you get in trouble because I was obviously borrowing to build. To renovate the golf course and the ski area, but I wasn't borrowing for something that I couldn't repay with the assets.
Did you have revenue coming in at this time or was it shut down and you were done? Yeah. So everything's going out Yeah. For a long time. Yeah. A lot of people don't realize, they think they buy something out of bankruptcy and everything's discharged. But there's non dischargeable obligations, one of which is
sales tax, obviously employment taxes, all kinds of governmental fees and federal and state and yeah. And then the penalties and interest really gone on. Yeah. And I, looking back, I just think how lucky I was, it wasn't more a million dollars in a hundred million dollar loan or a, who knows how to value the asset at that point.
I certainly didn't pay that much for it. Yeah. You know what? Six figures is? Six figures. So just finishing out the revenue discussion, because you talked [00:26:00] a lot about debt and strategic debt and leverage, what is the biggest lie entrepreneurs tell themselves about revenue? That's a good question.
so I have two answers. when I work with my clients and we talk about projections, when I want business owners to have a budget for the next year, and they're always like 5%, 10% growth. And I'm like, no, that's not good enough. You have got to grow faster. And then I say, Hey, you're a million dollar business.
What do you wanna be in five years? I would be $10 million. And you're like, okay, then you can't grow. 200 grand a year. so let's work backwards. So you have to do, let's grow 50% this year. How are you gonna do that? And all of that. All your financials and all of your numbers are lagging indicators.
What the hardest thing to do is to get business owners to think about leading indicators. How do you get there, right? How do you go from a million to $2 million in a [00:27:00] year? where did you get new revenue? There are three ways to grow your business, new revenue, increase the prices, and upsell your clients.
And so how are you gonna do that? I suggest you do all three of those, right? And so there's a lot of friction on increasing prices. Oh, I can't do that. And it's like, why not? 20% of your clients provide 80% of your revenues? 60% of your clients are breakeven. That means you're just practicing.
You are not making any money treading water essentially. And 20% are below the line. They are unprofitable. So the first thing you need to do is get all of your clients profitable. And the nice thing about the breakevens, forget the unprofitable ones. Those either get lost or you double whatever you're charging them and they pay it, which happens 'cause they usually know they're way below market.
But the ones in the middle, those break even ones. All you have to do is increase your price a little [00:28:00] bit and if falls to the bottom line. So you don't have to do anything different to have a bottom line profit. And once you have a bottom line profit, now you have the resources to go out and prospect and to get some additional revenue, additional clients.
It feeds itself and it sounds so simple, but it is. I've seen so many business owners be, trepidatious, like I can't raise prices. Yeah. And it's you haven't raised prices in five years. Why can't you raise prices? Yeah. and not to mention you are below market. That is absolutely.
when you say raise prices, everyone goes, you think on everybody. Look at what's happening now with pricing. your airline ticket, your seat right there is a whole different price than mine. There's so much more you can do now with your pricing structure.
start with the guy you don't like, raise his prices, and you have to raise them until someone says, I can't do that. That's too much. And then you back down and say, oh, you're a good client.
I'm just warning you. I'm gonna have to raise them again in a year or two. Okay, now you've backed down, but now you've found the [00:29:00] ceiling. And then you have to do the same thing. And so it doesn't need to be across the board. If you just say, every month I'm gonna raise somebody's prices. You could start seeing where in the market you belong, because most businesses, they price on cost.
It costs this and I'm gonna double it, or it costs this and I'm going to increase by 50%. They don't cost on value. They don't price on value. And finding value is really hard. I have a great story that I tell in my presentation tomorrow. so the first set of townhouses I built, in my little resort, they cost me about $200,000.
And my bank wanted a release price of two 50. So the bank says, we'll lend you this for this project, obviously I had tranches in my bank loan. And so this was for this project, it was 72 units and the first 12 I built were on the 10th hole and it overlooked the clubhouse in the mountain.
The ski [00:30:00] mountain was in the background, and I bought the first one. And so I said, okay nothing in my valley. We're talking about a beautiful valley full of bed and breakfast and a big lake
and so it's really Quintin Vermont. Okay. Nothing in my area had sold for. $250,000. Wow. And I'm like, okay but we're new. No one had built anything new that was for sale. People had built nice homes there for a lot more, but I thought we're just gonna sell it for 300 grand. Okay. And we sold all 12 of them in a month.
They disappeared. And I was like that was good. And then the next year I built 24 because we built them in groups of four and they were rows up the mountain. And, my broker comes into me and goes, she goes I've good news and bad news. And I go, okay, spit it out. I go, I want the bad news first.
And she goes of the 12 you sold. 10 of [00:31:00] them have resold. And I'm like, that sucks. I'm trying to create this beautiful family community where families can come and spend time. We're talking about New Yorkers and people from New Jersey and Connecticut and Massachusetts, where their weekend to spend with their kids is valuable time and I wanna create that market for them, right?
And they sold it. I had these great families buying my units and they sold. And she goes so that's the good news. And I go, okay, what's that? She says they sold for $400,000. Oh wow. And I'm like, wow. I left a million dollars On the table. Wow. But here's, that's the value part.
I'm thinking local. So two mistakes. One, they weren't thinking about buying my house, they were comparing it to Killington. Where else can we take the kids to have this resort? Killington was selling their stuff for six, $700,000. I was a bargain and I was an hour closer to where they lived.
Okay. So I [00:32:00] missed my market entirely, number one. And number two, I should have sold them in groups of four. The first three, sell, raise the price. You moron. Yeah. You learned that lesson early on, and I'm sure you raised prices following that, right? 400, 4 50, yes. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. Interesting. So it's just, it's again, you don't know, and we've created something new, but it's not new, killington was there you just have to really be willing to experiment on that value proposition. Yeah. It's almost mark to market on a regular basis. You're constantly testing and seeing where you are,
myopic because like you said, you were just looking at the local market and didn't appreciate there's this broader population. I mean it's the northeast people drive. No one stays in the city. I know. but hindsights 2020 my husband. So I was like, yeah, that's that Harvard Dartmouth education.
They do study this one. Yeah. They didn't teach you common sense. Oh my gosh. [00:33:00] I'm like, where were you when I was fretting over 300,000. But the great thing about what happened is that because I had as I said, I had a bunch of operating losses. When I went to 400,000, the bank didn't know. And so I was now making a million and half, which was covering my operating losses from my release provision.
'cause I'm selling 'em for four. I have to pay the bank two 50. So now I have some real money that I can start repaying some debt that I shouldn't have had. So I wanna go now to Bomba and not Bonea specifically, but what you call the messy middle.
And you focus on helping coach founders and executives who are in the 500,000 to $5 million range. And you could be counseling Fortune 500 companies, you could be for, a hundred million dollar company. Why do you focus on that range? because we lose 82% of our small businesses, they fail [00:34:00] because they don't understand cash flow.
And that's a horrible number. The small business is the backbone Of our country. And there's no place to learn financials, nothing. It's a huge problem. You have a lot of people working on startups. There are all kinds of startup communities, and there are a ton of people who teach, they teach how to run corporations.
a standard MBA is all about, oh, you wanna know something about human res, you're going to it. It's called human resources, not how, this is how you hire, this is how you fire, this is how you hold people accountable. so there's this huge mass of people that have risked, the home equity, their 401k, they risk everything to go into business and they're successful up to a point.
And that's the point we were talking about before where. They don't know how to get outta their own way. And they've been successful because they have, whether they're professional or a service [00:35:00] company or a manufacturing, they've found something in the market that proves there's a market for what they're doing.
Okay. So I don't wanna be in the shiny objects startups, because those don't really count. Those are hard, but when they've proven, when they've been around for three or four years that's where they get stuck and they get frustrated because they've exhausted all of their own ideas and they have people who are not really bringing them new ideas.
They have people who are following their direction that work for them. And so that's where they're stuck. And with just a few ideas like the ones we're talking about and learning their numbers so they can make those decision. Based on facts rather than based on gut. they just take off because now they have the equations, like, how do I hire someone?
What are you gonna hire them to do? What's the value to your company? What's the trade off and what makes them work? Now they have a framework and they get a [00:36:00] loan so they can afford it.
I had a client who, she was pretty wealthy and she had a promotional company. they put your names on things and she did a lot in the retail industry. Hilton wants a bunch of bags with their name on it, or they want their name put on their water bottle.
And so she would do RFPs for those and, get huge orders, Christmas bags. everybody in the proportional business calls, the same vendors usually in China, and they get prices. This client would call 'em and the guy would always price it at five or 10% less because she would always pay him cash upfront.
Now she had cash front 'cause she was very wealthy, but that didn't show up on her financial statement. So I told her, I said, we're going to stop doing that because when you go to RFPs, the first thing that the person issuing the RFP does is they look to see if you have a line of credit.
And if you don't [00:37:00] have a line of credit, you get rejected. Because they wanna know that you can carry this obligation to fulfillment. You have the money available to pay. They don't ask you, are you personally wealthy? You have a big bank account. And so I told her, I said, I'm gonna give you a million dollar loan and I'm not gonna have you pay for it.
You don't have to pay me the upfront fee. But when you use it, I'm going to charge you instead Prime plus one, I'm gonna charge you Prime plus three and I make you pay two points when you use it. I said, just put a million dollars down there. And so of course she was always complaining I never get million dollar orders and I, that's, you don't have a line of credit.
And so she got two, $2 million orders. Wow. So she comes in literally 90 days later, she comes in and goes, okay. I need, eyes are open. Yeah. I not only need to pay you, but I need an increase. Yeah. And so that's the power of having those resources available to you. And so that messy [00:38:00] middle, they're afraid. And they're afraid because they don't understand their cash flow.
And they're afraid because they don't understand the power of having additional resources available to them. And it's frustrating because they've created something that gives it to them. It's right here. You're sitting on it and you can't see it. So that's a big aha for most of my clients. And they get to a certain point and they can't unlock more.
And using strategic debt, as we were talking about earlier, can do that. Do you think going from 500,000 to 5 million, that revenue growth becomes what they focus on and it hides profit problems or other issues, or? No. I, they have to be profitable in order to do that.
And once they understand the components that go into making them profitable it's pretty straightforward. my goal in the accelerator, which is six months, is to give them the tools they need.
They could go from where they are to hundreds of millions of dollars. [00:39:00] Wow. because it's, those are the essential tools that you need. There it is not that hard once you understand them, but, and have discipline to apply the rules. Yes. Yeah. That's the discipline part. Now we go back to some, back to sports.
It's all full circle here. Some founders have this ethos that you should just grow fast and fix the numbers later. I think I know what your answer would be. so the folks that I work with are not, I do have it people that I work with, but they are not, they're not the leading edge guys.
Okay. They're not the guys coming up. Now they might be, I do have an AI app guy but they're more Main Street people. Okay. They're providing a service with people, they're your plumbers or your electricians or your doctors. or they're manufacturing a product that's, goes into a car or goes into your eyeglasses.
so the place where they can do that is when you're creating some kind of platform that you can't do without millions of dollars. [00:40:00] Okay, so I have a new program for AI that will answer all your emails and sort through them. so number one, they have to prove it works.
So they have to have enough in their budget to build it. And then they have to have enough to prove that it works by having other companies use it. And then they get dollars from the investment community to scale. Okay. That's a whole different kind of business practice, and there are millions of people who enjoy that gamble.
It is a gamble. So something like SaaS, it makes sense to just quickly grow, worry about the numbers and all the other KPIs later. That's the rule. So all of that, that, that's the rule of 40. Do you know the rule of 40? Okay.
I've always said my client should be 2020. And it turns out that was brilliant because then I learned there's a rule of 40, and what 40 says is the 40 is two components, the percentage [00:41:00] growth and the EBITDA margin. So when I said 2020, I want you growing 20% a year and I want you to have a 20% profit margin.
In the investment community, that rule of 40 is if you are growing 60%, you can lose 20%. Oh, Okay. So there's an equation that helps with the growth and the profitability because once you grow over 20%.
You cannot be you unless you have additional resources. You're not usually profitable because most companies don't make 20%. And so you don't have the resources to fuel the growth. And so that's the tipping point. That's where I like to move my clients to. Not all, some of them are better than that.
My consulting clients do better, but, that's a pretty good rule of thumb. And that's where, you see the investment community being willing to do these crazy things with money. And it's like, how can they do that? Uber's lost money the entire time it's been alive, and it's but they're getting there.
[00:42:00] Almost we Amazon for a decade lost money and then Yep yep. Now they've the world's look what we're doing. Yeah. Interesting. So this messy middle 500,000 to 5 million in revenue, do you think it would be true to say that they're one quarter away from disaster? or is it not that bad?
disaster happens slowly. And so they don't know it till it's too late. because what happens is they don't understand. so profitability keeps getting skinnier. And they can see that, 'cause they usually understand their financial statements enough to look at their p and l, their income statement, and they see they're making less money.
So what happens is they go I won't pay myself this year. But what they haven't identified is the fact that there's not the cash flow. They're having trouble making payroll. So not making payroll is the first red flag, not paying themselves as the second red flag. and so it's slow because, they exhaust all of their [00:43:00] resources and then they're like, what happens now it's over.
That's why it's the 82% and it's a slow burn. And they just don't really know it. It's the frog in the hot pot. They don't see the signs. They don't even know what they're going through. By the time they realize it, they're cooked. It's late, it's too late. So it just breaks my heart.
It just, it kills me. And so my Bomba alumni, we have hundreds of them. We've never lost one. Because once they learn it, and I don't wanna sound like these aren't brilliant people. 'cause they are, they have a profession where they see it, and they've been saying to their boss, we should do this, we should do this.
And the boss is he doesn't wanna take any risks. So he's not gonna go, Hey, yeah let's try something new. So they leave that business and they start their business and they love that. And they're doing the things they said they're gonna do and it's really exciting.
And, but they've never learned how to run a. that's not what they did. And so they go to their accountant. Okay their accountant doesn't understand finance. Their accountant is taking [00:44:00] historical numbers and putting it into their accounting system. Your accounting system does not help you when you listen to a New York Stock Exchange company, you look at their financials and then they have their quarterly call.
Their quarterly call, if you listen to that, it doesn't look like anything like their financials, because they have taken their accounting financials and they've turned them into management financials where they're watching the important numbers. And small businesses don't know how to do that because over here they have their operating system.
Like I have a couple of spas and places, and they have a great operating system for spas and over here's their QuickBooks with their numbers. When you get to be 50 million or a hundred million or 20 million depending on your industry, those two talk to each other.
And the average guy who walks in my door pays me $127, and that costs me 62. Okay. I know what my gross margin is, but they don't know. They don't know how to do that. QuickBooks won't do it because there's a bazillion industries. and [00:45:00] so that's what we do sooner. And by having them understand all of those, what's your customer profitability?
What's your lifetime value? What's your churn? Once you understand some of those, now with laws, large numbers, you can start seeing, oh, I can make this decision. And so it's really not complicated, but it's not something you can sit down and learn in a day because you have to see the iterations. You have to go, oh, connect the dots.
Because accounting is brilliant in some ways, and complicated in others because you have balance sheet, you have a cash flow statement, you have. Income statement and they all intersect in different ways. And understanding where and how that is, is not self-evidence. So it's looking at the numbers from an accounting perspective, but putting them in context.
It's almost storytelling to fully understand what's going on in the industry, what's going on in the company, applying [00:46:00] historical and then external factors. And then just having the entirety of it, rather than just looking at, here's our, EBITDA and whatnot, right? Yeah. Yep. Okay. You look at it and you're like, there's my profit.
And it's but that's not really your profit because you didn't collect all your revenue. 'cause it's in ar and oh, by the way, you have a term note and principle's, not part of income statements. So now you go to your balance sheet. Your balance sheet is actually your cash flow and people go, what?
Would you say scaling from 2 million to 10 million is sometimes harder than just starting from zero. if you've made the transition at 2 million, if you've figured out how it all works, then no. Going from 2 million to 10 million is easy. If you haven't figured it out. If you're someone who has a lot of salespeople out there and you're 10 people, six of 'em are sales and three of 'em are operations, then you're gonna hit that messy middle at some other point.
one of the clients I worked with, this was a one-on-one client. she was at 6 million and she went to 22 in a year. And I was like, okay. She's I dunno what to do. [00:47:00] She worked with her husband and she was an accountant, but she's this is crazy. And so I said, okay, let's put things in order.
she ended up, I said, you are gonna have to hire a lot of people to get to this number. And, they'd done really great. They had a really great business and they were pursuing some larger clients, but they had landed any of them. And the larger clients watched them for a year or two and said, we love how you're working and we're gonna give you a big job.
Three of them all at the same time. And they're like, we expected one and then maybe two, and then maybe three, And so all of a sudden it hit and they're like this is what we've been working toward. We're gonna do this. So they had to grow very fast. they hired a headhunter.
They got people in, and then the next year they went from 22 to 26 and they replaced some of those people you're a warm body that knows how to do this. We'll hire you. But then it's okay, we're gonna get rid of these two guys and put someone in who's a professional. So when you have that kind of growth, you [00:48:00] slow down and then they went to 50 something the next year.
So there are all kinds of spurts with how growth happens. but I do think once you've got. Four things, positioning how you're in the market and what you price at profits. You have to understand your financials and how things work. processes, which is everything from the first time you talk to a prospect till you lose them in churn and they sell the business and go somewhere else.
So that processes is the entire process of providing your service or your product and people who do the processes. So that's it. Once you get those four things figured out, you're good to go. That sounds easy, but it's not. It sounds so easy. It does. Would you say, you have a very high success rate in a space where there's a high failure rate.
Would you say there's a self-selection nature in that the clients who [00:49:00] come to you realize. I can't do this on my own, I need help. Yeah. Absolutely. I have learners, people who wanna keep learning. I have people who go, I don't know the next step.
I don't know what my next step is. I have people who say they're stuck. I'm losing money. I can't make payroll. And so those are the red flags where I'm like, you're not gone yet. we can save you here. So yes, there's a self-selection process, but the reason I'm talking to you, I want more people to understand that this is possible.
You don't have to go down the tubes all by yourself. And, having faced it yourself and figured it out a couple of times. And the thing that's so sad is that with all of my expertise, my education, my banking, and the whole real estate experience. When I got to managing the golf course in the ski area and the hotel and the sewer, water plant, all those things, those operations, I started to learn things that I hadn't understood as a banker.
I didn't understand where all those cashflow [00:50:00] connections were. And I'm like, wow, if I haven't done it with all that experience, how would you expect someone who's really good at a professional position or really good at, whatever it is they do to step into a business founder's role and know how to do it.
Interesting. So you've been on the commercial banker side from a lending perspective, you've also been a debtor with tens of millions of dollars on the line. Switching gears, what do banks look for? That's a good question. most of my smaller clients, I recommend smaller banks. Because I want them to build a relationship with their banker. And the banker wants to know that you understand what you're doing. And so presenting the numbers, even if the numbers are going in the wrong direction, saying, Hey, look, I need some help. Your bankers are your advocate to the bank. So they need to understand your information and they're there to help you.
what do bankers need? They [00:51:00] need solid numbers from two or three years. They need you to understand the numbers and they need you to have a forward plan. Why do you need this money?
What's it for? What are you doing? I'm growing. I need working capital to grow because I need to hire some people. 'cause I have more jobs. I have more work than I can afford to do with my existing staff. or I need to buy this kind of machinery. So I can do this faster and produce more.
So they need to have a mission, and then when I was training bankers, the baby bankers were always like, I hate asking questions to my client. 'cause it sounds like, I don't know. And I'm like, it's the exact opposite. Back to questions, right? We back all the way back to questions.
they want you to ask as many questions as possible because the more you understand the business, the more you're gonna be able to look at their numbers with your financial hat on and tell them, it looks like you're gonna run outta cash. It looks like you might be over levered. It looks like you might want to [00:52:00] turn this into a term loan instead of a line of credit.
'cause you used your term loan improperly for this piece of equipment. You didn't know that, that should have been termed out. so they should be your advocate for you and the more they understand your business. the better they're gonna be able to serve you and the faster you're gonna be able to grow to find that right fit.
Are there top reasons, and you may have already touched on this, but are there top reasons that founders are un lendable? Yes, because they get bad advice. Accountants. Their job is to make sure that you're telling the story to the IRS correctly. Okay. And so they like when you don't have to pay taxes.
So lots of accountants will say, go out and buy that fleet of trucks. Okay? And so you have $400,000 and you go out and spend it. Now you don't have the cash flow you need to run your business and you've got loans from Ford, but you are outta working capital. [00:53:00] Okay, so that's number one.
You spend all the money. The other thing that happens is you have founders, I have no money. I'm not, I don't have anything to leverage. The other side is I leave all my money in the company. Okay, now that would be lendable, but now you're like, but that's my money and I don't want to commingle with funded money.
Okay, so I've made, I've got $2 million in equity. I've wanna borrow a million dollars because then is it mine or theirs? And it's no. That's not how it works. That's not how to think about it. It's on the balance sheet. It's a liability, equity liability. And so you have to pay that part back.
It's not commingled funds, but in their minds it's all in their operating account. And I'm like, number one, take it out of your company and put it into something else so you can build your wealth at the same time you build your company. And number two, [00:54:00] borrow it rather than using your money. So those are the two places where I see companies being un lendable.
And then if they're not profitable, there are a number of resources available to them that they don't know about. And so that's very frustrating because there's factoring, which is great for a number of businesses. There's all kinds of CDFIs, community development, finance institutions that lend to restaurants and startups and companies that are not yet bankable.
So there are all kinds of resources, but I think that's one of the great things that we do at Goldman Sachs is we really give them a whole avenue of resources available to them that Most business owners don't know about. So it's almost like you stair step up. Use the tools at the stage of your business.
What's, and you may have touched on this again, but is there like one red flag where lenders are like, we're not touching this bankruptcy. . and there are some industries that begs don't like, [00:55:00] fashion. Because you are planning for the spring and the winter and it's so off market restaurants because they fail even more than small businesses.
there are some industries that are really hard to get banked at a commercial bank,
what is the one financial metric that 90% or the majority of business owners ignore? That they absolutely should not? Accounts receivable days. That lag, how long? Yeah. You say you have 30 days. But they're actually collecting them in 60 and they're getting crunched and they don't know it.
And it's, no one likes collecting accounts receivable. It's not fun. You're calling your clients and telling them they're deadbeats. Yeah. that's not great news'. Probably number two to raising prices is you also don't want to call your clients and say, Hey buddy, where's my money?
Yeah. So is that one of the things you focus on fixing? One of the key things that you look at? It's with new clients, it, I, it's not where I start. Okay. Where I start is trying to have them understand what's profitable Okay. [00:56:00] And what's not. because that's the engine. And when they're profitable, they're creating accounts receivable, and now they have to collect them.
So Bomba, obviously business owners, MBA, you're doing a great service to those people in the messy middle. Why do you think there are people out there who, perhaps they're in the position where they're in the messy middle and Deb has this wonderful company, but they don't make that step to ask for help or to be educated?
Yeah, it frustrates me. Yeah. I was on a, I did that seminar with Tony Robbins on ai. Okay. Because I'm learning ai, it's really interesting. And they had a big pitch that there were six elements you needed to run your business. Okay. And, just what you would expect. So I told them, I said, I don't understand how.
The person who's telling you how to successfully [00:57:00] run a business, right? I put him as one of the great gurus. Do you agree? Absolutely. But numbers are not part of it. He has nothing in any of his teachings about financials.
Nothing about financials. If you buy a EOS facilitator and you go through their two year program, each quarter, you meet with them and they say, what's your goal? What's your revenue goal for this quarter? And you can tell 'em any damn thing you want. I had a guy who made 2 million, had a revenue of $2 million a year, and with his ZOS guy, he told him, I'm gonna make a million dollars this quarter, or I'm gonna revenue a million dollars.
And then they worked all their numbers out from there, First of all, you've never made a million dollars every two quarters and you've never had a profit in the eight years you've run your business. So you are working on the wrong things.
And it's very frustrating to me that all of these big programs that are out there do [00:58:00] not teach numbers. They teach things that will help you have better numbers. But if you started with the numbers, 'cause there's nothing you do in business that doesn't have to do with numbers. And EOS well tell us what your revenue goal is for the next quarter.
And I'm like, pick a number. I mean take, throw a dart. Why is that not a relevant thing to teach them how to do that and look at their numbers and look at the trends and ask, how are you gonna do that frustrates me. Very frustrating. Interesting. Going on that same vein, why do you think so many smart entrepreneurs avoid their financial statements?
Because it all boils down to that you can't tell a story and grow, You want my theory? Yes. My theory is they're smart and they're embarrassed because they can't say they don't know something. Okay. So basic. Yes. I really truly believe that. So this is what I'm telling you all my stories. it's funny 'cause it's Olympic time, right?
Okay. So the se 1972 Olympics were in Sapporo and Barbara Ann Cochran won the slalom. [00:59:00] She won the gold and then her son was racing and won the silver this year and at Cortina. And someone broke their leg. I wasn't named to the team to go to this Olympics, but someone broke their leg. And so the US ski team sent me a ticket.
And I land in Japan and I collect my bag of skis with six pairs of skis. Oh, wow. And my suitcases and all my US ski team stuff. And I'm dressed in all my US ski team stuff and I'm in Japan now.
Back in the dark ages, we didn't have translators everywhere. We didn't have the signage that they do now. And we didn't have Olympic villages. The Olympics were held during the two weeks of the World Cup. So these two weeks during the World Cup is when we had Olympic races and we got the gold medal, but it wasn't the same bruhaha it is now.
So I get to the airport and there's nothing there go to Olympics that way. Where's the ski area? Who knows? So I'm like, okay, I can't read anything. That's how I think these [01:00:00] business owners are. They don't understand it and they don't know how to ask. I didn't know how to ask. I did what any 15-year-old would do.
I piled everything in the middle of the most busy part of the airport with all my US ski team showing. And I sat on it and I cried People came over and They helped me. They're like, can we help you? And I'm like, do you speak English? Yes. I'm supposed to be on that mountain skiing in the Olympics and I don't know how to get there.
And I have a hundred dollars bill. Okay. How useful is that? And so I got, there were like three or four of 'em, helped me get my stuff to a bus and they explained to the bus driver what I needed. And everyone on that bus let that bus driver drive me to the mountain. Oh wow. So if you extend that analogy, you're saying the business owners who are asking for help are the ones crying.
Yeah, they, but they shouldn't, they don't know that's a account for help it. And they don't know. It's okay not to know. Yeah. Because they know everything else. But when you think about marking or managing, [01:01:00] those kinds of things are, you can do trial and error, but the financials, how they put together is complex.
Once you get it, you go, this is easy. And it's not complex math, but it's, unless you know the secrets, it doesn't make any sense. And they look at their financial statement and it, their p and l 'cause I don't like losses. I call it an income statement. They look at their income statement and they see they've made money and they're like, I made money.
And it's no you didn't. Because you didn't collect the money it was going on your earlier point. A lot of these founders came from companies and they focused on the business side or the actual servicing side, if you would, but not on the business components. And they don't even realize what they don't know.
They don't know what they don't know exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's an even better way to put it. Interesting. This has all been insightful and I want to finish on something that I rarely see in the founders and CEOs. They're typically 365 days a year into it. Not that you aren't, [01:02:00] but you for years now, I understand, have had the fortitude or the smartness to break away for half of the year and be on a sailboat.
How do you do that and at what point did you do that? How long have you been doing this? That was always the plan. When I retired from banking, I wanted to go back on my sailboat, and so I had been, so I built the curriculum. the Bomba curriculum actually teaching people in Vermont how to run their businesses.
so that was a silver lining from other disasters. And so I taught, when I came back here and went back into work at the bank, I taught the curriculum, so it was a year long program and I took 10 business owners and we met every month and I went through a curriculum and it's a workbook.
And, in 2019 I decided I was gonna retire or that was my retirement date from the bank. And so I thought I'm gonna put this all online. So I could teach it from the [01:03:00] boat. I didn't have a boat anymore. we'd given away the other one. And so I had a new boat I wanted to buy when I retired.
And so I put it all online and in 2019 it was all online and I got my 10 people together and they're like, oh no, we don't wanna do it online? We wanna get together and meet. And so we went back to meeting in person and then COVID happened,
Like you saw it before anyone else, but you were set up for it. I was. and so since then, love it. What I learned is that one year is too long for small business owners. So I've doubled down on a six month program, which has been much more successful. And I have coaches that work with me.
And we're ready to scale, we're ready to do a little more. I do about, I probably have about a hundred clients a year, go through the program. we're ready to do more than that, but, yeah. I was just trying to understand the whole balance, because everyone talked about worklife balance.
Oh, on the sailboats? Yeah. So in theory, you're still working? I am still working, yes. Yes. But in theory, I work, I talk to clients and I [01:04:00] have my classes and I have my one-on-ones with them Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Okay. And that's bled into Monday afternoon and right as it does Friday mornings.
But, that's the goal. you're doing this now six months outta the year on the boat? Yeah, I do it on the boat. I grab my little remarkable everything's online. and I have people across the country. So it's fun because I do a lot of speaking and I can, I'm in Virginia and I'm in Texas and I'm in California, so it doesn't matter.
Interesting. Do you feel like, last question on that, do you feel like that makes you better positioned in to scale? I'm not just talking from a tech basis, but I'm talking about a. Take a step back, change your environment and kind of cleanse. Yes. And as one of the, they call 'em scholars in our Goldman Sachs program in the 10 KSB.
I've been on the sailboat through the summer and getting off the sailboat. up and down the companion way to pack the car and get things off and get the boat ready for winter. 'cause in the winter you're not [01:05:00] on the boat. It's cold in Virginia.
and the deadline was, I had to be back to teach. we drove. So I get up in the class and I tell them, I said, I am really sorry, but I want you to know that I am really like my legs hurt, my butt hurts. It was really hard packing up the boat and getting here.
So I'm really stiff. So I'm gonna be sitting rather than walking around a lot. And the whole group of them just looks at me and goes, oh, you had trouble getting over you phone for you. They're like, we want to be you. Okay. And so no sympathy, but there's something about that because I am personifying the fact that when you scale your business correctly,
You have the time to do those things that are important to, you can buy the freedom essentially. and so that's, it's a great metaphor or a great example of what you get once you get to that point. I love that. And they get to that point a lot faster than they [01:06:00] think they will. I love that.
Last question, I want to focus, on business owners, MBA, what can you say to the founder, to the executive who's out there on the fence, afraid to ask for help? What can you say to them to get them to come on board and get some advice, whether it's from your program or others, you're industry agnostic.
we build business owners profitably. We teach them to be profitable and to scale. And it takes six months. Sometimes we have a tail if you wanna stay for the year, we still, we have a little tail to keep. As I said earlier, it's iterative and so you may not see the whole picture in the beginning, but then as you start to pick up the secrets where money's stashed or where money's leaking you, you'll, within a year, you'll be able to do it yourself.
And then once you can do it yourself, now you can hire someone. A lot of companies will hire a, [01:07:00] fractional CFO, but that fractional CFO is running your. Whether you know it or not, because they're telling you what they know how to do, but they're not signing paychecks. and so you different lens have to understand it before you can get the right person.
Interesting. Deb, thank you for this. The proof is in the pudding. You've, four in the top, 100 and several in the top four. Yeah. 5,000 was probably more than I don't know now. Numbers don't lie. So you definitely, yeah, it's fun. Done it. And thank you for your time.
No, thank you. This was great fun. This was a great conversation. Thank you.