Ep 501 Mastering the Deal: Andres Lares on Avoiding the Rookie Mistakes That Kill M&A Outcomes
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Hi there, and welcome back to another edition of Built to Sell Radio, the podcast designed to help you punch above your weight in a negotiation to sell your company. This week's episode of Built to Sell Radio is part of our Mastering the Deal series, designed to help you sharpen your negotiation skills for what's likely to be the most important deal of your life. And today's guest is Andreas Laras, Managing Director of the Shapira Negotiation Institute and author of Persuade, The Four-Step Process to Influence People and Decisions. Now,

Now, Andreas has coached complex deals for companies like Boeing, PwC, amongst others, and sports contracts for teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Browns. And in today's episode, you're going to learn how to spot when a negotiation really begins. Avoid giving up leverage too early, manage the emotional swings of selling, and use structure and preparation to stay in control without killing your deal.

This is part of our series of interviews with top negotiation experts like Chris Foss and William Uri, amongst many others, which we'll link to in the show notes over at BuiltToSell.com. Without further ado, here's John Morlow and Andreas Lares. Enjoy. Andreas, welcome to BuiltToSell Radio. Thanks, John. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, we were talking before we hit record about this audience. So our audience is business owners who are preparing themselves to go through an exit. Most have never gone through it and they want to avoid some of the unforced errors, the mistakes that business owners sometimes make when they go to sell their company.

Most will have an M&A professional representing them, but there are some key things, obviously, that they're going to need to do and prepare along the way. And we were talking beforehand about like, what's the best way to handle the conversation? And I think we talked about and agreed we'd kind of go through the typical process of a sale and sort of point out some things that

business owners may need to think about as they go through the months of a sale. So I'm excited to dig in. Same. So am I. And I'll be curious when we start. I mean, part of that may be when the selection of that person is going to represent you.

Yeah, I think that's a good place to start. Although even before that, I think there's a stage where business owners are starting to get the inkling that, you know what, maybe in three, five years and they're starting to kind of get a little more involved.

leaning in. So oftentimes they'll start to go to industry trade show a little bit more, you know, religiously, or they'll kind of network with people they might not have sort of cared to network with competitors that, you know, they may not have always thought they should have a relationship. Now they're sort of starting to kind of lean into their role in the industry. And I think, you know, that oftentimes will trigger somebody, a buyer, right?

to sort of say, hey, let's talk about, you know, how we might work together more, you know, closely or what sorts of things could we do strategically? And they sort of find themselves in a conversation and oftentimes, you know,

say things they kind of wish they hadn't at this very early stage. Have you ever seen that? And maybe what might you recommend at that early kind of fishing stage? So I think two things there that come to mind, and I guess I'm working backwards, is absolutely, I think the way I would describe it is something that happens in this particular space at this point in time, but also in a lot of other places, is that essentially you're beginning the negotiation and the negotiation has begun before you thought it did.

is the way I would describe it, right? We see this with salespeople, we see this with procurement people, we see this with executives that, you know, John and I are starting to have these conversations and John's negotiating and I'm not even aware we were negotiating. So obviously it's a big advantage to John and not that every single conversation you ever have is a negotiation, but the information that you share kind of creates that framing and context. And so,

If you think about, when you start talking about the value of the company, that's not when the value of the company is created, right? For example, if I were to say, John, I'm really looking to get out of here as soon as possible. Or if I were to say,

you know, three to five years of thinking about it. If I mentioned the two or three other alternatives that I had, or if I didn't, and I said I didn't have any. And those might come out kind of just accidental or in the way of conversation. And if you're any good at asking questions, you might be able to flush those out a little easier. And so those are the ways I think it comes out where all of a sudden you're surprised where, you know, the multiple in your businesses might be,

four to eight and you're on the four side, not on the eight side. And so you're wondering, hey, what happened there? Well, John might have picked up a few cues along the way over the six months you were chatting and kind of felt like he or she might be able to get that at, you know, the lower multiple, if you will, because of the urgency you had or the lack of alternatives or whatever it may be. So that immediately comes to mind and that's seen across industries and certainly in this place or in this space. And the one other thing I would mention, if we could almost roll back a little further, is I think

For those that are thinking about selling, there's also, you know, some are kind of the whole process, but there are certainly some organizations we've seen work with clients or friends that are kind of preparing you in the sense of building the value of the company. And those are things you want to do well before. So it's not the person that will help you negotiate, but the person that will come in and basically say, look, I'm going to pretend like I'm private equity, looking at your business and telling you how it evaluated. And so then I can tell you, these are three or four strikes that I'm seeing now. So you've got three years to figure it out. Right.

rather than, you know, and that can give you quite an increase in your multiplier, right? That can give you, you know, 5X rather than 3X. And I can increase your revenues by 30%. And I can clean up your, you know, your, you know, your ownership cap table. Like these are all things that make a big difference. And so you don't want to leave those until I'm looking to sell now to start. Hey, it's John. Look, if you're building to sell,

I want to let you know about a resource you may find helpful. It's called the Value Builder Score, and it will evaluate your company in the same way that acquirers will look at your business.

It'll give you a score on the eight factors that drive the value of your company. You'll also get an estimate of value and things you could do to improve that value over time, whether you want to sell now or in a decade from now. Knowing how the movie ends, I think, puts you in the catbird seat, gives you all kinds of negotiating leverage. So,

It's available exclusively through a Value Builder advisor. So talk to your advisor. If you don't have one yet, you can go to valuebuilder.com slash score. Let us know what industry you're in and we will connect you with an advisor who specializes in companies like yours. Just go to valuebuilder.com slash score.

Yeah, no, it's exactly what we do at Value Builder, in fact, is we'll put a value on the company and say, hey, you know, you change these three things and you could get a much better value. So that's you're singing from the same hymn book for sure on that stage. So let's assume they've done that and they're now into the kind of like they're flirting with these acquirers and they're starting to have these conversations. One of the things I've talked a lot about before is this notion of framing the industry you're in.

because different industries attract different multiples, right? So you might have, I'll just use two wildly, you know, professional services. It might be kind of, you know, it's all assets go up and down the elevator every night. It's not very scalable. You know, you might get whatever, a low multiple, three, four, five times CPI, depending on the size of the business, obviously huge variance there versus software. You might get a multiple of revenue because people believe it's scalable and et cetera.

And so a company that is a software company that also provides services, as an example, could present at their industry trade show and say, yeah, we're a software company. And we have to do a little bit of services to implement the product. Or they could say, we're a solution or a services company. We also have a software platform. That could completely change the frame of reference that an acquirer would have for your company before you even know you're in a negotiation.

And I think that's, you know, that's effective framing and storytelling too, right? And so that goes in line with like why did you start the business and what do you see for the business and your desire to stick around after you're purchased, right? That some will, you know, do you want to be here for a year or two? Do they want you to be there? I'm going to go sideways for a second though because I think all of this also fits into one of the best pieces of advice I've seen given and has really helped folks in kind of my ecosystem when they've sold their business and bought businesses is that

You never know who's going to buy the business. And it often is the most unlikely candidate. So I've got, for example, we've advised on a company that thought for sure they were always going to sell to banks. Actually, a Canadian company. We're both Canadians. We were chatting about it earlier. And they were going to sell to Canadian banks. And they were sure of it. So everything they were setting up was that way. And in the end, they actually bought by an insurance company. And that's not totally different. But the parts of their business they were focusing on were much more...

you know, towards the appetite of what the banks would want when actually the insurance company saw value there. And so once they started having a few conversations with insurance companies, they started thinking, oh, wait, we've kind of seen this the wrong way. And that's number one. And so you've got to kind of be thinking about it all the time in the sense that you've got to leave your options open. And number two is I've always

always seen this that a company that sells in kind of a strategic purchase rather than you know just the kind of i don't say just but private equity is thinking that i can scale this thing on my own rather than this is a key piece we're missing at x and y company you're always going to get a bigger multiple when you're kind of unlocking all this additional value for the purchaser and so that's another piece too that if you're you know you open up who you could sell to and that's part of preparation i mean we were talking a little bit earlier about kind of the models we talked about today and

In negotiation, I mean, it's the word that nobody wants to hear because it takes time and it's hard to do, but there's absolutely no way to avoid negotiation. And the way we describe it very simply, it's the only aspect of a negotiation over which you have control. And that's simple, right? So you can't control the economy. You can't control tariffs right now. You can't control global situations happening. You can't control how you prepare for a negotiation. So we just simply cannot stress it enough.

So, obviously, you have to get all of your books in order and all the things that people are going to want to know and ask you about. What are some of the kind of hidden things or surprising things or maybe counterintuitive things that owners should prepare before they engage an M&A professional?

Well, I think two things come to mind. One is to create a list of all the companies in the ecosystem that would have value purchasing you. So it could be a competitor to scale up. It could be a company that's already large doing this. It could be a company that wants to get into your space. It could be private equity. It could be whatever, venture capital. It could be like just create a huge. And the reason I think that's a good idea is not only was it to open up your mind to all the potential buyers, but it almost gives you this frame of a little bit more leverage than you think.

And so when you're negotiating, you don't want to be limping in thinking, I've really only had two serious conversations and John's by far the most serious, because then my conversations with John are going to come off as, and actually probably really feel like I really need this to get done.

So what you want to do is, I mean, you're not trying to in the preparation phase to fool yourself. So I want to be very careful about that. But you are trying to create as many alternatives as possible so that not only do you have more alternatives because alternatives are leverage, but also the mindset you come in when you've got this feel of opportunity rather than this feel of I'm kind of handcuffed here. I've only got one or two potential suitors.

And so that will completely change the way you approach it, I think. I love that. I love the idea of kind of pumping your own tires and having the confidence to see, you know what, there are quite a few companies that could benefit from owning our business. So there are a few, you know, like when you see the breadth, that's a really interesting idea. It prompts to mind for me, one of the biggest mistakes I see, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this, business owners making when it comes to selling their company is

And that is getting duped into or lured into a proprietary deal. Prop deals, for my listeners who may have never heard that term before, is effectively oftentimes a private equity group. It could be a corporate buyer. We'll sort of romance you into signing a letter of intent, right?

that includes a no shop clause before you've had a chance to shop your business, to create competitive tension that Andre's talking about. And so it's a recipe for disaster because it often leads to retrading and lower negotiation. You've got literally no negotiation when you sign a no shop clause.

So the way this happens is, in my experience, fairly innocuous. Like it's at a trade show. Hey, we should do something together. You know, now that we're sort of into these intimate conversations, let's do an NDA. Let's sign a nondisclosure agreement just so we're clear. And then it's sort of like, you know, like maybe we should put some stuff in writing and like I'll give you a sense of what you think we think, you know, your company might be worth. And it's an LOI. And it's all sounds very...

You know, what's the word? Innocuous. But once you sign that LOI, you've given up negotiating leverage. So just first of all, have you seen that? And what advice would you have for an entrepreneur who feels like, wait a minute, maybe I'm giving away a little bit too much here too early?

I haven't seen as much of that just happens, I think, in the deal flow that we've seen or advised in. But I think it certainly happens, and I know it does happen. And I think a part of that is you always want to be thinking about what's in it for them. At the absolute core, and you see the book behind me, The Power of Nice, and the book is really about having empathy and emotional intelligence when you negotiate. Now, that absolutely does not mean you need to be a pushover. And so we were founded by a gentleman named Ron Shapiro, who negotiated

uh for i'm not sure if it still stands but more hall of fame contracts or in baseball than any other agent in history so he had plenty of really big time deals but he did it by really understanding what the team wanted and what they were trying to accomplish so it kind of fit in the in a collaborative approach and so of course yeah sometimes he had to be aggressive and tough so i bring it back to this you know that's that is

If you're thinking about the other side, what's in it for them? Then you start to think about, you should have that. What is the advantage to me signing an NDA? It'll be mutual, surely. What's in the mutual NDA? What's the advantage for me and for them to do this letter of intent? You can't quite figure out what's the value for them because they're probably telling you, which is very common. Private equity is looking at lots of companies. We're looking at lots of companies, but just because you think, well, if you're looking at lots of companies, why would I need to sign this?

and so and that's that's the way you want to think about it and the way we would recommend because you know we talked about preparation we have a three-piece process to negotiation the first is preparation we've talked a lot about it the second is probing and this would be a perfect time to get into that which is that's what you want to be asking those questions where like well john you've mentioned a few times you've got lots of companies obviously your pe company you are buying and reviewing lots of companies

What's in it for you? What's in it for me to sign this letter of intent? And be very open about that. And what you'll find is typically your spidey sense will pick up on, this isn't my best interest or not. So there's lots of other ways too. And with legal counsel, if you've already brought an advisor. And honestly, as much as I'm the first person to say you should not do anything without reviewing it carefully based on AI,

But this is a perfect example of if you're not a lawyer and you're afraid, stick the agreement into AI and say, what are the downsides for me? And it'll probably do pretty well. Again, you must do more checking and you must have someone else review it. But those are the types of things I'd be doing. Because again, we generally have pretty good instinct. You've built a business that's successful for a reason. And this may be an area where you're a little weaker in, but your instinct is pretty good. And so it's asking those questions. You'll get a good response. And it also goes back to now you're negotiating again.

Because I think you're going to catch them off guard a little bit when you're asking these questions where then you're going to figure out really kind of peel back the onion and find out how much do they really want this business, right? How hard do they push and those types of things.

One of the other things that they do at this stage is they stay intentionally vague. And some private equity groups, I hate to say it, are notorious or infamous for this. So they'll give a very superficial letter of intent that has quite a few escape valves for them. It's non-binding, but they will sign and enforce a no-shop clause. And so-

you know, if you, you know, if the entrepreneur probes for more clarity and says, well, how would, you know, what would my earn out be? And the response might be, oh, we'll figure that out in due diligence. Like once we get into diligence, we'll get a sense of your books and we'll figure out what the best way to structure your employment agreement, your, you know, your earn out, your equity rule. Like, oh yeah, we'll get into that during due diligence.

And of course, what they're trying to do is get you to give up negotiating leverage, sign the LOI with the no-shop clause, and then they've got all, they can do anything they want at that point, right? Including retraining. And so, you know, but they'll, and I'd be curious to know your advice here, but they'll use the...

hey, we're going to put a lot of work into due diligence. Like we're going to hire like an accounting firm. And before we do that, we kind of need to know you're serious. So let's just sign this LOI, right? And that'll, you know, but we're not prepared to kind of do all the work, you know, before we know you're serious. So it sounds, yeah, it sounds reasonable. And it sounds reasonable. And so, you know, I think I find,

People have a hard time pushing back, and we talked about this a little bit before we started, and even in the beginning of the conversation, which is generally, you're selling the business for your first time or second time, third time at the most, let's say, likelihood. They're buying their 75th business or 200th business or 20th business, right? So there's a difference in experience, and there's a difference in kind of understanding the marketplace, right? And so...

that is just kind of a reality of being aware of it. But the flip side is, so I think it makes it easier for people when there's other metaphors you can think about or metaphors you can use that'll help you feel more comfortable. So for example, you know, if someone was asking me that and I was a first time seller, I'd say, John,

I totally get it. I know it's an investment, but, you know, this is an even more important purchase or sale than my house. And when I go buy, sell a house, I've never bought or sold a house just looking at the first one and then bought that one. Have you, John? No. So I just wouldn't feel comfortable. Maybe it's just me. I just wouldn't feel comfortable buying or selling a home without seeing others. Are you looking at other companies to buy, too?

You are. Okay. So I just wouldn't feel comfortable not looking at anyone else and buying here. Now, I'm intrigued by everything you said, John. I definitely want to continue down this path. But just like buying a home or just like my salary that I'd go on salary.com and Glassdoor and look at the comparables, I wouldn't feel comfortable not having any of that. So it's not that I don't think this will work out. I think it would. So it's that type of thing where it makes it a little easier because I think most people don't feel comfortable saying, John, I don't

I listen to a good podcast and I've read a little bit of stuff online. And I think this is a typical thing that PE does. And I'm just not going to give you, you know, what you're looking for, which is for me not to be able to negotiate with other people because they'll never move any leverage and you're going to buy it for cheaper than you should. I'm just not going to do that. Now, if you felt very confident and wanted to, that signals to John, you're not screwing around and you're ready to go.

That's great. And I think one other thing that I think fits in this category, because now we're talking about having some real conversations. And so now we're probably at a point where you've hired someone, someone's either representing you or you're having those conversations about that help is, and I would say this, and we talked briefly about this before there's,

There's certainly a role for an agent in every industry. If you think about an agent when you're buying a home, a sports agent when you're an athlete, they know the markets, what they do every single day. And so the percentage that you give them, they're all called differently, but let's just for simplicity say the percentage you give them, if they're any good, they will pay for themselves multiple times over. That's my belief. And we chatted earlier, it's your belief too. So they will, you know, if you've picked a good one, they're worth themselves times many X. However, nobody cares about the result as much as you.

and that is for the athlete that's getting the 200 million dollar deal the nba that's for selling your house for whatever you sell your house for that's definitely for selling your business where it could change your livelihood it will change your livelihood and potentially that of your family and so the reason i say that is if there's one takeaway here is you know getting help is potentially part one but part two is

Even if they're very, very good, is that you need to be on top of it and you need to be involved in negotiation. You need to be a part of all these conversations that we're talking about of what the offer should be and not sign the LOIs and how many conversations you're having and how you're framing this. You cannot fully leave it to whoever because they're doing this for 20 other companies. So you're a part of what they do. This is your entire livelihood. So I just feel like there's a good time to share that because I think that cannot be stressed enough.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up because I don't, you know, I'm a bit cautious when we do these episodes around negotiation that people will interpret that we are advocating that you negotiate.

negotiate the sale of your company on your own. And I want to stress that is not our intent and we would never make that recommendation. Like you, Andres, we feel like this is the most important negotiation of your life. You need a professional representing you. So hire the best M&A professional you can afford.

And I also agree that you still have to be involved and you still have to be, because it is your business and it is your livelihood. So I'm glad you brought it up. And I do want to stress it again, that hire an M&A professional to represent you in this incredibly important transaction. One of the things I think happens also is that business owners wait too long to hire the M&A professional. So they'll kind of, you know, they'll get an offer, you know,

They'll have signed a nondisclosure agreement with a buyer. They'll have given a bunch of data, like they'll give it access to QuickBooks and they'll say, oh, maybe I should get a broker involved here or an M&A professional. But at that time, it's like, wow, you've really undermined your negotiating leverage by waiting that long. This is very close to my heart because this actually happens with us. So

Most of our business, and so Shabari Negotiations is a negotiating, training, consulting company. So most of our business, I'd say, is on the training side. So we train Fortune 5000s. Usually there's some smaller companies, but they tend to be larger, global.

The consulting side usually stems from we train an organization and then they've got some complex deals that are coming up. So we could be helping lots of salespeople sell or procure by or leaders that are dealing with M&A transactions, things like that. Right. And so what happens is that is by far the most problematic piece that occurs to us, which is, hey, guys, we really need your help. We started negotiating. We're in a bit of a pickle. And so the first thing we say is the reality is like, you know, I'm

I believe that we can make, and we have lots of evidence to indicate we can have a significant impact on negotiation, but we cannot create absolute miracles, right? And so,

The problem is, and it goes back to the beginning, you should start those early conversations. I think when you're really serious about selling and you start to go down that path, you should at the very least have serious conversations with M&A professionals or brokers. When you hire them, they can be a little bit of a decision-maker, but certainly you should be having those conversations. You're probably going to get perspectives on when they think they should be hired also.

And of course, if they were on retainer, they'd say, you should hire me earlier. And if they're a percentage of the sale in combination, which is common, you know, those conversations can be had. But to some extent, who you hire is a bit of a negotiation too, right? You want to have somebody you have confidence in, you've got rapport with, you trust, you know, he's responsive. These are all things you want to do. And so just like you want a buyer, all those things from a buyer, you're going to want that for the person representing you. And so I think that's the first piece. And the second to all this is you certainly convey a

an increased level of seriousness, as you said earlier, when you have one of those. And so that's another piece you're kind of taking the the

the bullet out of the gun like, "Yo, John, it's LOI because we just want to make sure you're serious." Well, I'm glad you bring that up on this because I've already got an M&A professional, so I think you can tell I'm serious now. Let's get beyond that and let's figure out what you think this thing's worth to see if we should continue conversations or not. It's a lot easier when you get pointed like, "Here's my proof that I'm serious. Now I need your proof you're serious. What are we talking about here for my business?"

That's great. Yeah, that's great. There's nothing that sort of stiffens the spine of an acquirer to see like a very established, well-known M&A professional at a negotiating table because that obviously signals to the buyer that they're not going to be able to sort of dupe them into a prop deal or sort of lure them in that way.

I guess I'm curious to know, you've done a lot of work with sports teams, San Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Browns, if I'm not mistaken. I wrote it down before. There's lots of sports, NBA the biggest, but yeah, lots of sports. Got it. Okay. And I think there's an interesting parallel between an athlete

negotiating a contract with a sports team and a business owner negotiating the sale of their company in that they typically are doing that with an agent, right? In the case of a business owner, it's an M&A professional. In the case of an athlete, it's obviously an agent, sports agent. I'd be curious to know, like from your perspective,

having been on either side of these negotiating, you know, negotiating table, what, what mistakes do you see athletes making and what things do you see them doing well that it parlays their position of strength? Like, are there any lessons from the world of sports that we can take away? So I think one of the lessons that comes out of there is you're seeing, I wouldn't say necessarily more. I don't think it happened 50 years ago, but the last 10 years, there's a few tricklers that will negotiate their own deals.

right and some have made lots of news like lamar jackson here in baltimore um and so they and there's nothing necessarily wrong right or wrong about that decision right and depends on your experience it depends on what you want to get out of it depends where your choices were for ages there's lots of reasons you make that choice but there's one thing that's absolutely objective and clear which is or two things one that changes the way the negotiation takes place

And number two is that's more emotional and those are kind of connected. So what do I mean by that? So if you've got, you're selling your business and I'm selling direct without having someone represent me, the two things will be impossible to change is that you are able to say things to do an intermediary.

that softened things up and it can be who's the bad, you know, that I want to sell the business, but my advisor doesn't want to, or vice versa, or I think it's worth this, or I normally would do this. So there's a way you can soften it up and still get those messages across. You basically can't do that when you're negotiating yourself, which is one of the roles that they have. So not only do they bring expertise and experience, and again, if they're any good, but the second is that ability to kind of separate it. And then that also connects with the emotion

And so I can say probably the biggest mistake that I see when there isn't someone in between, unless someone's very, very skilled and capable in this area is to manage their own emotions. So what will happen in any negotiation of this size and magnitude, whether you've got three employees or you've got 100 employees,

It's important to you. And so there's going to be ups and downs. This is not going to be a two week process. So first of all, negotiation is a process and not an event. And we say this all the time, especially in these times, this will take longer than you think.

is very likely the case. And so there's going to be ups and downs where your first valuation is higher or lower than you thought and you go sheeting and there's some hiccups when you do due diligence and then they find something and they may be finding something only because they want to further negotiate or they actually did. And so what's going to happen is if you've got someone there who's been through it before, they will prepare you for that. And all along the way, they will help you kind of stay a little bit as even as you can. And again, in sports,

The equivalent is on both sides. We see the player dues. We see the GM who's really excited to get a player. And then in free agency, he pays way more than he should because he was so excited to get the player. That's emotions getting the best of him. And so you need someone to be able to kind of hold you even keel the ups and downs, not so high in the highs, not so low in the lows. And so I think those are two things that come to mind is you got to prepare for that and you got to constantly remind yourself. And there's some things you can do. Like we teach people, for example, to write down your high school and walk away.

Well, your highest, your highest goal and your walk away. So if you're in a negotiation and think, look, you know, a couple of a couple of people have told me my business worth approximately 15 million dollars. My highest goal is to get 20. I would not sell this thing for less than 10.

And if those are your numbers and I'm making this up, but the idea is having that in writing that you can always refer to it. And all of a sudden you're having conversations. They're like, well, we think this is about 9 million. That doesn't mean you say, screw you, John, I'm done with you. But that means you go back and you say, look, I wrote down this 10 million. Why did I do that? Because I really thought that's what the business is worth. That's what I needed. That's two or three other comparables. And so then it forces you to then have to be able to justify, okay, is this actually worth less than I thought?

Or then you can say, well, you know, so why would I continue talking to John if he thinks it's only worth nine million? Let me just continue the process. It doesn't mean I have to say no, but I mean, it's not yet. You know what, John, I'm not ready to sell. I want to continue. You know, let's kind of pick this up in six months or a year. And so those are things that little tricks that make you a little bit more objective and a little less emotional, because if you don't have that written down anywhere, you just thought one day I want to sell the business. And you thought, oh, I hope to make 20 million bucks. They offer you nine.

You're thinking, oh, my God. And all of a sudden you start getting into, oh, no, AI is coming and it could knock my business out of the end. I should just sell as soon as I can. And next thing you know, you sold your business for nine million dollars. And you look back and say, why did I do that?

And so those are kind of guardrails you can refer back to. So in writing, it allows you to refer back to it, be more objective and take a little bit of the emotion out. And it also elongates the whole process where like you look at your numbers and you get back to you, think about it. So you're less likely to do kind of rash, hasty decisions.

And to be clear, you're not suggesting you share those numbers with anyone other than yourself. No, those are for yourself. Those are your own, the high school. Because look, if you want to get $15 million for your high school has to be 20, right? Because you got to leave yourself room to negotiate to that. And you got to have a walkaway number where you're thinking, do I even really want to do this? Or at that point, is it a deal just for the sake of doing a deal? And you've got what's called deal fever.

I've already spent a year trying to sell my business. I'm so far into this. I might as well sell the thing. And so, you know, then you start getting caught into those. So, yeah, it is only for you. But there are these barometers to help kind of remind you why you're doing it in the first place and for how much. Yeah. And from a negotiation perspective, if you do get that, let's just use your example, you know,

Dream number's 20, minimum threshold's 10, I'd like to get 15, and you get an offer for nine. What would you recommend an owner do at that stage with that $9 million offer? This is a great question. There's a few ways to go about it. My favorite by far, and it's something that I try to use every time we're deal coaching, is you have a decision tree based on

what the first offer will be, the first kind of real offer to guide this. And so if, for example, you want to make 20, 10 to the middle, and nine's below what you'd even accept, and well below what you think is worth 15, I'd have kind of, okay. And hypothetically, if it's less than 10 million, I'm going to do X, which will be, John, that's significantly less than I thought it's worth.

Doesn't mean that we, you know, I know that this is not the end, but this is the end for now. Let's just kind of table this for now. We'll see where things go maybe in the next six months to a year.

It's very clear, like it's nowhere near where you want to be. If it was 10 to 12 and a half, you'd say like, you know, it's lower than I thought. That's probably not going to move the needle. Let me think about it and get back to you. If it's 12 and a half to 16, you'd say like, oh, that's interesting. You know, I think when I first reached out to you, I wasn't sure I was going to sell, but you're not totally there. But as you start getting closer to what I think my number might be, I think there's something to talk about.

And then, you know, 17 and above, you've almost got to remind yourself that like, holy smokes, you shouldn't say like jump across and shake their hand and say, God bless you, John. Thank you very much. I'll take it. You know, it's like, you know, that's, that's great. It's a good indication to know what you think it's worth. I've got a few other interested parties. I want to talk to them, but I think you're certainly in the wheelhouse where it makes sense to continue the conversation. Now, I haven't thought about all those perfectly, but I would say those are probably within what I'd recommend. And what you've got there is, um,

That first reaction also is a big signal to the other side. So you do not want to do the 17 plus and then come back and say you're nowhere near because you kind of let them sit for two or three days and they think like, oh, we actually could be in the strike zone here. But $9 million is not within the strike zone because why would you take a first offer of $9 when $10s are minimum and $15s we want to get? And it's a heck of a jump to go from $9 to $15 without doing something pretty significant. And so you've got to kind of walk away. So

Again, I use very broad brush responses and numbers, but if you have those ready, it's a huge difference because there's absolutely no way you're going to be able to deliver the same type of response with conviction if you haven't thought to do in advance. So you've got kind of that decision tree. It's easy. Boom, you hear nine. You let them finish their thought and you can now say with conviction, like, John, I appreciate it. $9 million is a lot of money and you spent some time looking at it, but because you're nowhere near where I think it's worth,

We can always table it. It's very difficult to say that with conviction if you haven't thought through it a bit. So that's kind of what we recommend and the way to go about preparing for that. That's a great point. And the other kind of side of that that triggers for me is this idea that if you are so bombastic and so cocky, you can overplay your hand. So in the case, your dream number is 20, you get the 17 offer and

And you slam your fist on the table and say, I would never accept this offer. Get out of my office. Like, I mean, I'm just figuratively speaking, right? Because you think, oh, if they're willing to offer 17, maybe they'll go to 30. But there is a point I'm assuming, tell me if I'm wrong, that you can really turn off a buyer if you're just, your reactions are just so unwieldy. Yeah. I think the first response, if it's like totally out of line, uh,

And this depends on if it's a strategic acquisition with a larger company and they really need a business, there's not that many others, they may have to suck it up and just continue to play. But if your first reaction is way out of line, which is like, for example, the nine even, my response was not to sell a thing that's ridiculous, I would never consider it. It was like, I appreciate it. I mean, nine million bucks is a serious amount of money.

It's just nowhere near where I want to be. And so it's not over yet. You know, we keep talking. So even that's at the worst, that's very clear that you're nowhere near it and you're basically tabled conversations. And even at the 17th, so that first reaction is important. And then the second piece is you're

It is kind of playing both sides, but this will always take longer than you think. And so you've got to be aware of that where like, it's going to be multiple iterations and due diligence, and there will be surprises along the way. It's like a house reno. You know, you knock down the wall and all of a sudden, boom, asbestos shows up. And if you have never done one before, you think it's just all by the numbers you came up with in an Excel sheet and having done multiple house renovations,

I can tell you that never happens. Then hopefully you get lucky to minimize them where you got people that are good, you know where to make holes and look for stuff, which is what a professional broker would do. But there will always be surprises in my, at least in my experience. And so that's one, it'll take longer than you think. But the flip side is you can't be the party that holds the thing up all the way through. So two places where negotiations can fall out based on you being greedy is number one, nine million. I wouldn't take a penny less than 30, even though your highest goal is 20.

And then number two is like, you know, you've gone back and forth with four or five, you're getting close to the end and all of a sudden you start adding three more because you have buyer's remorse or your friend sold for more or you found out some new piece of information. And so not to say that you shouldn't come back, but what happens is you get so far that at some point you're like, you know what?

We've got four other acquisitions going on, and we just can't spend another six months on this. So yeah, you're on this. John's too unpredictable for us to continue dealing with him. So those are the two places where we see that you want to be careful with negotiation. It doesn't mean you shouldn't push for yourself, but you want to be reasonable with your first response. And sometimes that means not even including a dollar figure, just so you're not totally blowing them out of the water. And it's okay to counter and go back and forth a lot, but you want to be thoughtful about like,

Do I really want to counter now for an extra $13,000 and a $14 million sale? Or do I really want to ask for that parking pass to be permanent? You know, it's like, and seriously, I've seen that, you know, deals be killed. And frankly, this is going on a side feed, but I think it's because, you know, the owners are having that, it's their baby and they're,

It's hard to sell it. And so when it's hard to sell, that's how it's manifesting itself. And again, that's where a professional or being thoughtful in advance will save you because I have seen deals fall apart literally because of these minutiae. That's just a representation of them not being ready to sell. Yeah. Another great reason to have an M&A professional as your sort of spokesperson because you're

the emotion of it all can get down to, you've really seen someone in a parking pass. But let me literally for, you know, half a percent of a deal in value. And so then,

If they really didn't want to sell, that's fine. But they did want to sell. They were having just a seller's remorse and so just needed a little more time. And a professional would say, John, let's just pause for a couple of days. Just think about it. Go on a trip or just take some time off from this for a second, come back and see if you really want to sell it. And there's almost like an internal negotiation going. And so back to your sports analogy, very much the same here. There's an internal negotiation, right? There's a kind of a buffer. It's that person, that broker, that agent is helping you

It's you're having the conversation with them and then they're relaying it to someone who has a filter where like, that's kind of crazy. I don't know that I'd say that or I don't think that makes sense or really like, is that that important to you? And so it's almost filtered before it gets to the other side. And that's the other kind of value that that intermediary has in this.

Yeah, love that. I love also that you brought up pacing and kind of timing and how it's going to take longer than you think. One of the things that we have seen, and I'd be curious to get your comments on it, is sort of...

M&A, the acquirer, whether it's private equity group or a corporate buyer, will use strategic pacing. And so they'll intentionally not get back to you for a few days to soften you up. So what happens is you get a...

some sort of indication of interest or some sort of email from the buyer saying, okay, we want the answers to these three questions. Great. And you spend all night working on a perfect answer and you buff it up and polish it up and you send it off.

And then crickets and there's no response and it can be days. And you're like, oh shit, did I say something wrong? Did I, did I, did I write the email? Did they get it? Then you're like, well, should I send it? It's like you go on the first date and you're like, how many days do I need to wait before I call again? I don't want to look too desperate. Do you like, first of all, are you, are you nodding? Do you see this in deals? If so, how do you, you coach people?

you know, people on, on dealing with it. We see this in deals across the board. Definitely. I mean, that's why I was nodding and lots. I mean, we do, we advise sports sponsorships. We see it there. We, I mean, everything we see it there. And so I think, yeah,

Because this is in a way this cannot be solved. And I'm going to way oversimplify. But there's there's a way that you can certainly help yourself out very early on, which is to essentially lay out a timeline that you collaborate on together for what this looks like. And it can be done in a nice way because it's like, John, you've done a lot of these and you have a sense of, you know, how you go about doing these.

I want to, I want to go a sense as you, as you know, I'm talking to other companies as well, which I think you should mention. You shouldn't be afraid to because you know, on leverage. And so I want to get a sense of the timeline with you all. So something like this, realistically, when do you think, you know, if, if things went smoothly or on average, how long do you think this would take with you all? Nine months. Okay, great. Nine months. Okay. Just so I have a sense, you know, what kind of response time are you expecting from your folks? And then what kind of response time can I expect from you?

And so what happens is you have these conversations at the beginning. And

And so then what, and you're negotiating essentially how you're going to negotiate is what's happening here, right? What are the kind of the rules of engagement? And so then when you get to it and, you know, you spend a bunch of time on it, well, first of all, you recall, he said, you know, like, as long as you're not taking more than a week, that's kind of what I expect. Well, then that means you're probably first of all going to cool yourself down and realize when they ask you for these things, you're going to take a week to respond. No, you're not purposely taking a week, but it means like you're going to do your regular business and you're going to get back to them in a week. You're not staying up all night to get back to the next day.

But it also means that you're expecting it's going to take a week and they probably will respond for a week. And what happens is in the first or second time it happens where you're not hearing back, you let them go as long as they go when they respond and they ask for something else. So, John, I want to kind of reconnect. At the beginning of this thing, you kind of laid out, you know, nine months and obviously it's plus minus. And that, you know, you expected me within a week and you within a week, I've noticed it's taking you a little longer.

So what I'm checking in now, and I love these types of questions where it's like, I want to make sure you're still as serious as you were. And I'm not reading into it because I do have a couple other potential interested parties. And I want to know how I spend my time.

And so what happens is there, and typically the first moment you ask that, when it's just unprompted and you kind of catch them off guard, you get a real response. Now, you're not going to get, yikes, you caught me there and I've just been playing you on purpose. Of course not. But you're going to see again, especially if it's at least on video, if you're in person, you say that. That question will give you some sense. Right?

Right. And what it'll then determine, like, hey, I mean, I don't mind extending it to two weeks, but I just don't want you to expect me to be responding within three days and I'm not hearing you for two weeks. And, you know, that's that's number one. And

when you're halfway through the thing and you've got another potential buyer that's interested, and now it's like, hey, John, I want to come back. We're going to have to pick up the pace a little bit here. You're starting to fall behind someone else we're talking to. So if you're serious, I just wanted to let you know. It doesn't mean that I need 24-hour response time for everything, but we are going to have to pick up the pace to keep pace with the other parties that are involved. So those are kind of two ways. I think that setting of the initial timeline makes it so easy to say, hey, we can adjust the timeline now, but

Do we need to be like what's going on here type of thing and it makes it easier to do that. If you were advising the other side, I want you to go into enemy territory here for a second and say you're advising a private equity group.

How would you tell them to use strategic pacing? Well, I can't say it's enemy territory because we probably work more on the buy side than the sell side. But the – You're the prick. Negotiate that. Power is nice. I can continue to point – Power is nice. Keep referencing that. I'm going to keep referencing that. So –

You know, I'm not a huge fan of gimmicks and we don't recommend gimmicks. I'm not a believer. So I think there's something to be said that, you know, you may take a day or two to think about it and just not kind of come off as desperate. And I think it's real. But I'm not a big fan of like over the course of this nine month process to purposely pace things and slow it down all the way through. I think there's times where you need to do that because you need to talk to internal stakeholders, because you need to.

really think through, you need to do more diligence, you have more questions to ask, you want to think about it. And so it's definitely that happens a few times and it's genuine or even once or twice in the pace of it where you don't want to come off as desperate. But I'm not a big fan. I think those all fall in like the tactics, like exploding deadlines. And I just think a savvy other side negotiator knows that and they call you out on it just like I recommended. And so that starts their road trust.

And a good negotiation result is based on trust. I mean, the reality is that, look, I mean, some private equity companies are known for this and some are the opposite. They're known for, like you said, you know, it's like they're trying to minimize your leverage and trying to screw you. And especially they're particularly interested in parties who represent themselves. And it's almost predatory. And

And so I'm not a fan of that at all. And then the flip side is somewhere, you know, they want to squeeze out every single dollar they can, rightfully so. They're for a profit company, but they're, they're honest and transparent and they're not disingenuous. And so, and that's just primarily, it's all buyers and sellers. And so, but I think,

You want to be careful. Exploding deadlines. We don't like them. We never use them. Don't say you got to let me know on Tuesday because if Tuesday, I mean, number one, it's disingenuous. And number two, if Tuesday passes and it's not, then you've got to make up another story and it's all based on lies and it's kind of a house of cards. Don't make a threat you're unwilling to follow through on. Exactly. And then even more is like, why even in the first place? People start to think about, well, how else am I going to create, and this is very real practical things we're talking about, how else am I going to create urgency? I'm not hearing back from John.

Well, the answer isn't just like,

you don't win any good not win but you don't improve the performance in negotiation ever really with like one thing you do or say the best negotiators don't have this one quip that they say that opens up everything it's not like uh you know the tv shows were like where were you in the night of the 14th and that's like the question that unravels the whole thing it's rather the body of work all the way through it so if you start thinking like that you realize it's not like you gotta let me know by tuesday otherwise i'm going with another party even if there if you were doing that you

You could say, hey, I really need to know. And you want to give the best chance possible to respond by that. Right. It's...

So you want to be thoughtful about that because what you want to think is, number one, what would I expect them to say and actually say if they really did that? If you really had other options, you typically wouldn't say like Tuesday or nothing. You'd say, John, I'm really interested in this, but I do want you to know I've got other parties. So I want to give you the best chance to get the best offer to give you the highest likelihood. It's better for both of us. You want to buy this business and I want more potential suitors.

So like, you don't have to be an asshole, right? And so those are the kind of things you have to realize when someone has an exploding deadline or they purposely pace it for two weeks. Yes, it may catch some people that are less experienced, but generally it's just their road trust. Like, John, why did it take you two weeks to answer a yes, no, that was easy. You're not fooling anybody. And so now I'm going to start purposely pacing and now we're going to take 12 months rather than nine. And this thing's probably going to stall.

It goes to this sort of notion of building trust. And I love your sort of idea. Ultimately, all negotiation is based on trust. One of the trickiest questions that owners get, and I'd love your just candid advice for them, is that for a lot of owners, I've used this analogy before, they're like limping their business.

blood and sweat soaked body across a marathon finish line to sell their company. Like they've been doing it for 20, 30 years. They've given up their friends, their divorce, their, you know, their personal life is in shattered, tethered, or, you know, it's a disaster and they're just trying to get to the finish line. Right. So they're exhausted and they get the question from the acquirer. Hey, John, why do you want to sell the company? Yep.

And every, the truthful answer is I'm freaking exhausted. Yep. Right? I'm tired, I'm done with this. I'm so done with this. I'm so done with the customers. I'm done with my employees. I'm done with the industry. I think AI is going to destroy our industry.

I'm out is what they want to say. That's the truth. Yeah. Right. But I think you and I both know that if they say that the negotiations going to come to a grinding halt. Yeah. How do they answer the age old question, the arm around the shoulder? Hey, buddy, why do you want to sell this business? So, you know, it's a great question. And I think there's a.

You need to have kind of the same as an elevator pitch. You know, you're coming out of your graduate from college and you're trying to break into a competitive industry. You want to be in investment banking or you want to be in sports or whatever you want to do. You want to be, you know, get into med school. And so, yeah,

You practice that a little bit, right? Career and guidance counselors are kind of trying to impose a little bit more of that in the sense of being able to clearly communicate briefly who you are and what you want to do or what you want to accomplish or what drives you or whatever it may be. So if you kind of bring that to this, and that's kind of the line that you, and politicians do this better than anyone, that it's like there's a line that you say and it becomes almost like a reflex. And that's really what we're advising here. It's like it's got to become a reflex, right? So like you think about it, you take your time and you say, okay,

what I want to sell. I want to sell because maybe you're framing it as I'm looking to sell in the next three to five years. And so this is kind of the beginning where I'd be willing and open to selling it now, but I want to sell in three or five years because my two daughters are graduating high school then, or because I'm da-da-da-da, fill in the blank. And you find a couple of things. And so you've got this 45-second

story, frame. And so that you just kind of live and breathe that. And so what happens every time someone asks you a question, that's like the automatic default. And that just becomes a grade. And so even when you're like, you're having the worst day ever and you've had, you're in a manufacturing company that you run, you've had issues with, and you may have to buy an entirely new piece of machinery. It's a huge capital cost. You didn't expect. And you're like, you know,

you know, I just want to pawn this off to the buyer and just get rid of this thing. When they ask you, they put your arm around the shoulder. And if they're any good, they're asking that a few times throughout because they want to see if you're consistent, right?

any good negotiator will kind of make sure they ask similar questions, not the same, but similar questions to see if there's consistent responses. And so they'll probably ask a couple of times. Exactly. And so the first time I'll ask you why you're looking to sell John, the next time like, Hey, check it in. Do you still have kind of the same objectives and time that you had before? And then they'll check in the third time, three months later, like John, how are you feeling about this whole situation? And what they do is they want to see, because if they start to notice that you're getting a little antsy, which is,

very natural, right? Like after six months, I've been talking to people selling my business. That means that I'm kind of starting to get mentally checked out and I'm kind of ready to sell. And that's why all of the things we've talked about today becomes so important. You've prepared, you've

You've got leverage from looking at alternatives. You've hired potentially maybe a broker or professional at least advising you. You're talking to four or five different companies at a time. You've prepared a 12-month process rather than kind of getting this done soon. You started really early. You didn't start half of the sales process to bring somebody in. And you've got this clear framing that no matter anyone asks, it just becomes a frame you tell anybody and everyone, right? Whether it's

The neighbor who asks you why you're selling or the, and so when you put all of these things together, you're just a lot less likely to be like, oh my God, I just got to let it out. John, I'm done with this. Honestly, I would be willing to take 20% off if you close this thing within the next, you know, three weeks type of thing. And that's natural. And that's natural, not because there's problems in your business. Those problems probably have happened for the 20 years you've been running it.

It's just natural because now you're thinking about selling and you started that path. Every problem looks a lot worse, right? Like I could just not be dealing with this if I sold this faster. It's just a natural kind of framing within your mind. How do you stick handle earnouts? So the

The context is a lot of our listeners are service company, own service companies. Not all, but many have service or have a service component to them. And so a buyer, in an effort to kind of retain the key talent, oftentimes the owner will want to use an earn out where they'll put a bogey or goal two, three years out in the room.

in the future and put oftentimes a significant portion of the value at risk in an earn out. I mean, I've seen, we've done interviews with people who are 90%, nine, 0% of the proceeds were at risk in an earn out. Now, usually it's not that egregious, but you know, 30, 50, 20, 30, 40% of the deal at risk is not uncommon in our space.

And, and most of the founders that we talked to are kind of allergic to earnouts, right? They're independent, free spirits. They started a business. They're kind of lone wolf guys and gals. And the idea of like reporting to someone to some, you know, department head who's controlling a budget is like an athema to what they are all about as, as people. And so how would you advise people?

an owner who is looking at a letter of intent that's got 40% of his or her proceeds at risk in an earn out and they don't want to do a day of it. So, I mean, a few things come to mind. Number one, the short answer is if you want zero earn out, you're going to lower the value of your business. I mean, that's just the reality and no one wants to hear that, but you know, you got to face the blunt truth, but you're removing a

a piece of value from the buyer. If you go back to the power of nice and empathy and emotional intelligence, if you're thinking about it from them, would you buy a business with someone, you know, and then they leave and, you know, that corporate knowledge is gone immediately. So that's the first thing. Now you may be okay with that. It may be enough valuation that you're okay with that. But then I'd also think about it more holistically. Earners are about how long

How much time? What percentage of the total comp are you getting? There's these multiple variables. So for example, look, I don't want to have a boss anymore and I don't want to work here for two years. Okay, but could you be advising? And we want 10 hours from you a week.

And that's kind of what we need. We don't, you know, you don't need to be in day and day and operationally, but we do need to advise it. Or we want you to spend two months training, you know, two months full time and then move to this advisory role or whatever. Right. So I think it's being creative with that. But I do think the first blunt, you know, bad piece of news is if you don't want to be involved, you're going to lower the value of your business because it's just more of a risk for the buyers. I think most of our listeners are reasonable, uh,

And they get that, you know, a proportion might have to be at risk in order to earn out. But their goal is to get it from, say, 40, you know, to 10 or 20. And the response they get, I think, and another technique private equity companies will often use is like asking them to roll equity. In other words, you know, to become a minority shareholder, but they're still sort of very much vested, as it were. I think the response they get from an acquirer

Is, well, hold on a second. Like you've just given me projections that has you tripling your business in the next five years. Like, which is true here. Do you not believe the projections you've just given me? Like if those projections are true, then you should be willing to sign up for the earn out. If they're not true, then you've been lying to me.

Yeah. And a little bit of that's true in the sense that like, you know, it's like in the interview, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully no one's lying, but you're making it seem as, you know, the truth is sounds as flowery as it can. And so I think part of that is that goes both ways, right? Because the response to that is like, John, you're spending five, 10, $25 million to buy us. Obviously you see value here.

And then again, this goes to all the probing. You should be asking a lot of questions around why are you buying us? Why are you interested in us? Why are you interested in us versus our competitors? And that's where all this comes in, right? So John, I get it and I do understand that and I have no problem with some of it being there, right? But the reality is,

If you didn't believe in this, you wouldn't be buying the business in the first place. So you've got to believe also. And you must have believed the three to one because that's what you use in order to justify this in the multiple. So it's not that I don't want to be involved, but if I'm intricately involved for the next two years, why would I sell the business? Then I might as well just keep it. Think about this. You're buying it right now for $15 million. Well, if I hit the three X projections over the next, then you're going to be buying for $35 million in three years.

So if you want me involved the next two years, then I'll see you in another year and a half and you can pay another two and a half X for this. Right. So I think it's part of it. Like the reason I'm selling it is the plan is set, but I want someone else to execute it. I don't mind being involved for X period of time the next way. But the reason you're buying it for only X amount of money is because you're we're both betting on this to occur. And obviously we will believe it to some extent.

If you bought it in two or three years, you're paying a heck of a lot more. It's up to you whether you want that risk and reward.

You know, I think that's kind of the response. And that's true. That's not like a negotiated employee. You know, it's like, because if you're going to hold on for two more years, you're probably, if they're buying, you probably get a pretty healthy EBITDA and you're making a bunch of money. Well, then you might as well just keep running the business for another year or two. And one other thing to throw out, like leverage and alternatives too, we hadn't talked about it, so it's kind of funky, but a couple of people we know have done this, so I thought I should raise it. We've talked to people that are selling their business, like I only have one potential buyer, got no leverage, I want no alternatives. These are real things, it's possible.

Number one, I think that seems unlikely if you've got a broker or doing a disciplined process, but it's possible. But then I like the people who have considered like they've gone out and find really good operators and just like, okay, well then just pay someone to run the business for you for a couple of years. Take a step back. You're very, you're a lot less involved. And it's now kind of increased the timeline to sell. You can sell in the next two years.

And potentially the really good operator skill that you brought in has skilled other companies and they can kind of help you actually grow the thing. So you're paying them a significant amount of money, but they're helping you grow. So like you've got a software company, you've got a whatever, right? Manufacturing company. Well, someone else is running it. You're not working day to day. And so then it's like, and even if you don't want to do that, and there's lots of examples we teach this in our training.

Yeah, you're creating another alternative to create leverage because if you're only talking to one person, again, it goes to your psychology. The likelihood of the deal is very successful is low. And so that's just one other like unlikely out of the box theory. But I have seen people do it. It's actually worked out pretty well for them. Yeah, I love this idea because, you know, you do have a second option.

buyer at the table always. And that's you. Like the founder, you are effectively every day you go to work, you're

making that trade, right? You're saying, no, I want to own this company. And so I'm willing to put all that equity at risk today. And tomorrow you make the same decision when you show up at work in the third. And so you do have a competing offer that offers from you. And if you think what you're being offered is not enough, then just take the second bid, which is your bid that you've had on the table for a while. I love that framing. And it's

It's great. I have a feeling you're really good at what you do. In fact, I know you're really good at what you do. And it just proved it from our conversation today. For folks who want to learn about your training, the programs that you offer, the company is Shapiro Negotiations Institute or short form S&I. Where can people learn about the training and more about you? Yeah. So one of the easiest places, the website is ShapiroNegotiations.com. Yeah.

And I think we've been kind of more disciplined with creating content, whether it's blogs and on LinkedIn. So those are probably the two most common places to find us. And yeah, I mean, I think it's been a pleasure having this conversation because I think it's kind of we end where we started, which is,

Negotiations already can be emotional. It can be a little bit anxiety producing. In this case, the stakes are high, but I think there's lots of things you can do to help you achieve a better result. We talked a lot about preparing, managing your emotions, seeking help if you need it and all these things. Understanding it's a process, not an event, asking lots of questions and

And so, you know, hopefully, and these are all the things that, you know, really we're teaching folks. And so, yeah, but if you want to find out more, shepardnegotiation.com and our LinkedIn is probably the best place to be. Awesome. And we will put all of that, your website, your LinkedIn profile in the show notes at builttosell.com. Andreas, thanks for doing this. Thanks, John.

And there you have it for today's interview between John and Andreas. If you enjoyed today's podcast, be sure to hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to today's show. And for show notes, including links to everything referenced in today's podcast, you can visit the episode page over at BuiltToSell.com. As a quick reminder, you can watch this full video interview over at our YouTube channel at BuiltToSell.

Special thanks to Dennis Lampetaglia for handling today's audio engineering. And thank you to our community of certified value builders who help us bring our message to you. Our advisors are experts in helping you build the value of your company. To get in touch with one or learn how to become an advisor yourself, head over to valuebuilder.com. I'm Colin Morgan, and I look forward to talking to you again next week.