How To Increase a Company’s Value for M&A Transactions

Intro (00:09):
Welcome to Innovations and Breakthroughs with your host Rich Goldstein, talking about the evolutionary, the revolutionary, the inspiration and the perspiration, and those aha moments that change everything. And now here’s your host, Rich Goldstein.

Rich (00:33):
Rich Goldstein here, a host of the Innovations and Breakthroughs podcast, where I feature top leaders in the path they took to create change. Past guests include Ryan Deice, Roland Frazier, Joe Polish, and Jason Flatland. This episode is brought to you by my company, Goldstein Patent Law, where we help you to protect your ideas and products. We’ve advised and obtained patents for thousands of companies over the past 29 years. So if you’re a company that has software or product or design you want protected, go to goldsteinpatentlaw.com where there are amazing free resources for learning about the patent process. And you can schedule a call with my team@speaktolarry.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You could also check out the book I wrote for the American Bar Association that explains in plain English how patents work. It’s called the aba, a Consumer Guide to Obtaining a Patent I have with me here today, Adam Lyons. Adam has advised more than 500 brands and experts across the US and Canada, and in doing so, he’s gone and recognition from major media outlets such as CNN, NBC, and Forbes. Uh, Adam also created the Smart Blueprint, which has been instrumental in driving revenue growth for over 1900 small businesses since 2020. He’s worked with PepsiCo, Nike, discovery Digital Networks and more. He currently resides on a Texas Ranch with his wife and five children, and I’m very happy to welcome my friend Adam Lyons to the podcast. Welcome, Adam.

Adam (02:00):
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Rich (02:02):
Yeah, my pleasure. Um, and you know, let’s talk a bit about your entrepreneurial journey and how you, um, how you got into entrepreneurialism and move towards consulting.

Adam (02:12):
Yeah, it was, um, it was definitely a wild journey. Um, it started in Africa, believe it or not. Um, when I was younger, I used to, I started working for a company that made movie props and, um, they wanted more sales. So I started volunteering to do selling on the weekend, but I rapidly realized you’d make more money selling to stores that sold movie memorabilia than selling props to movies. There’s more money in, in retail and duplicating things. So I ended up making so many sales that we needed a bigger factory, and so we had to move from our English factory into an African factory, um, which I ended up taking ownership or part ownership of. And, uh, this is all before I’m like 22. So we built this, this huge company. And then at 23 I kind of felt myself in this weird spot where I had a business, but I didn’t know anything.

Adam (03:01):
I was like figuring out as I was going along. So I wanted like a real job. And I ended up, um, working for Elizabeth Murdoch cuz Rupert Murdoch’s daughter and helping her build a company called Shrine Productions. Uh, so Shine Productions, uh, shine became Shine Endemol in a merger and I helped a lot of the, the publicity of the TV shows around that building into it. Um, off the back of that, as that deal was going through, I ended up working, um, as a sort of like a public relations manager and specialist for a lot of large corporations in the UK. Uh, PepsiCo, Nike, et cetera, et cetera. And then, uh, found myself launching my own business again. Uh, about 2006, uh, I ran a lot of the nightclub scene in London. Uh, it was kind of for a young guy in his twenties, that’s kind of a fun thing to do.

Adam (03:45):
Made made good money doing that. And, uh, wound my way. Uh, I found my way, um, with needing some guidance and mentorship. I ended up hiring a man by the name of Roland Frazier, who I think’s been on the show a few times, um, just cause I wanted to learn business. And I didn’t realize I’d actually signed up to learn about mergers and acquisitions, which as an entrepreneur, I had no idea what that was. It was like m and a was something that people in suits do for banks, you know. And, uh, and I got really good at it. And so I started acquiring companies part ownership, full ownership, and, uh, and generating residual income from from those companies. And, uh, now, you know, looking at, at the age of 42, I own about either full or part, uh, interest in 16 brands right now. Uh, each one of ’em generates an amount of money that that comes in every single month. And, um, I’ve consulted for over 220, uh, sorry, 2,200, 2000, 2,200 different, um, uh, m and a deals over the last three or four years. And, uh, and so I spend my time either consulting on deals or doing them myself.

Rich (04:47):
Nice. Yeah, I mean, I guess my 1900 number is a little outta date.

Adam (04:51):
Ha. That’s ok. That’s ok. Yeah, it’s, uh, I mean, it

Rich (04:54):
Just shows how, how like the volume that you’re doing and like how active you are that, um, you know, can keep up with it with how, how much impact you’re actually having.

Adam (05:03):
Thanks. Yeah. And it’s, it’s cool. It’s fun cuz a lot of the brands are small brands, like most of the companies, most of ’em are doing less than 12 million. Um, I’m doing a deal with, uh, Berkshire Hathaway, Nebraska right now, which is over 400 million, so that’s like a bigger deal. Um, I’ve got some transportation companies in Chicago that I work with that do like 70 million, um, and, uh, a construction firm in Austin, um, that’s doing a similar kind of number. So there are some bigger ones, but most of ’em are small companies. I like working at like the 10 million level, that kind of thing. It’s, it’s fun because there’s still a lot of heart in the company. People really care. Uh, but they, there’s still a lot you can add. You know, there’s, there’s still a lot of pieces that are broken that you can fix.

Rich (05:39):
Yeah. Well, I mean, what are the things that you notice? What are some recurring themes in terms of, of, of things that you can add, uh, to make the company more valuable when you’re consulting?

Adam (05:49):
Yeah, great question. Um, the, the very first thing I do often is I try and meet with all the low level staff members, janitors, uh, you know, male workers, the, the, the real low level workers. And I, I like taking ’em to coffee and asking them what’s wrong with the company. And the answers you get are usually the most honest. Like you find out who’s who because the way a higher level staff member treats the cleaner will let you know how they treat people in general. And this was actually a lesson I got when I worked with Elizabeth Murdoch.

Rich (06:24):
Oh, I thought you were gonna say it’s something you got from Undercover Boss.

Adam (06:27):
Yeah, no, this was Elizabeth Murdoch taught me this many years ago. Right, right. We had, um, we had these interns coming in and, uh, in film you get a lot of interns. And, um, one day I was working with one of the interns and I, you know, I was younger, I wasn’t particularly nice, and she sort of said to me, Hey, just so you know, you never know who you’re talking to today. They’re an intern tomorrow, they’re your boss. And so I really took it to heart. And so I started treating all the interns like they were amazing. I, you know, really went out my way. It was a good lesson. Elizabeth Murdoch’s very successful, but what I didn’t know was about six months later, one of the interns was her niece, but she didn’t tell anyone. It was just a generic intern. Well, at the end of um, sort of like that project, um, the niece apparently is the one that put me forward to work with Elizabeth in the future. And so it kinda like, with this lovely roundabout lesson, if I didn’t listen to Liz’s advice, I would never have been nice to the niece. And if I wasn’t nice to the niece, I wouldn’t have ended up working with PepsiCo Nike, which was all on a referral from the niece that was like, Adam’s really good at what he does, by the way. Yeah. So, uh, so yeah. Good lessons.

Rich (07:27):
That’s great. But have you ever seen the show on the Cover Boss?

Adam (07:31):
I actually haven’t. True story. Okay. Um, so yeah, I don’t watch

Rich (07:34):
TV. What happens in it, it’s interesting is just, cuz it kind of dovetails to what you’re saying is you’ll get a CEO from, um, a rather successful company, let’s say something that has a hundred locations and warehouses and things like that. And then he’ll, uh, or she will get into disguise, um, be totally unrecognizable and they’ll like start as a trainee forklift operator or like working at one of the fast food restaurants as a trainee. And like, they’ll gather all kinds of information about what’s broken in the company, uh, from, from kind of the lower level employees. So yeah,

Adam (08:12):
They, they know the most because they’re the ones that have to fix it. Uh, it, it’s funny, I was talking about this today. We did a, we did some content for my, my Instagram and um, I was explaining there was a situation with Airbnb recently where an influencer booked an Airbnb that got canceled. And so they’re in Italy and they have nowhere to stay. And instantly the person they spoke to at Airbnb recognized this was an opportunity. So they didn’t just fix it, but they comped her her stay. And what I love about that story is it just shows that when a low level employee, the person that dealt with the customer service issue is on the ball, it turns into a massive, this influencer had 2 million followers, it turned into a huge win for their brand. And um, you know, as somebody said to me, once you judge a five star hotel by the cleaner, being happy and greeting you when you walk in, not by anything else, the other stuff, it’s assumed the room’s gonna be clean, it’s gonna be tidy. This is standard. What is not standard is one of the low level workers loving their job and making you feel welcome. And that’s the five star experience.

Rich (09:19):
That’s really true. Uh, I mean, um, I’ve noticed that in some of the best hotels I’ve stayed in is that, that you walk down the hallway, they’re busy doing their job, but they’ll stop and they’ll greet you and with a smile. And, uh, so I think that lesson has probably, um, um, you know, um, been carried forth and like, uh, and but, but it is also a good litmus test. But when you, when you’re working with a company that has their culture, um, well, right,

Adam (09:46):
I’ll, uh, I’ll give you an example of of how it was destroyed for me, cuz this is a fun one. When I first came to America, cause I, I live in America now. When I first came here, um, I went to Disneyland. I was very excited. I was in, uh, in Anaheim, uh, in California. I was very excited to go to to the, the Disneyland over there. And, um, I was super excited. Like as a kid we don’t have Disneyland and I was in America in England, so I was super excited and I pull up at the parking, uh, attendant, I’m like gonna get parking. And I, I’m, all my friends are in the car and I’m like, Hey, is it true that this is the happiest place on earth and the parking attendant goes unless you work here. And it killed it. Like it killed it.

Adam (10:23):
Wow. The minute that happened, and obviously I didn’t hold it against Disney, I could tell that it was just a very upset parking attendant who probably got quit or probably quit that week. But it’s so important. So when I go into a company, I always start with those guys and then I make a list of the people that I think probably need removing. Cuz nine times outta 10, if you’re ca if you’re calling me, you’ve got staff that have to go. And most of the time I’m being hired to find out what’s wrong. And what’s wrong is there is a bottleneck in the company. Somebody is stopping things moving and I’ll make a list. I won’t tell the owner who they are and then I’ll do a report of all the staff members. So really analyze everybody. Then I usually sit down with the owner and I say like, I got some names of people I think you have to remove.

Adam (11:07):
I was like, I’m not gonna say we get rid of them yet, but I’d like to stress test them and see what happens. Right. Um, are you comfortable with this? And not everybody is, but the ones that are them, the stress test is really simple. I just for a week ask for accountability from those staff members. I’m just like, I just wanna see what you’re doing. Can you please report to me? And um, you know, very very rarely do I find somebody passes that stress test. You, you typically find that the bottlenecks to the company, the low level workers know who they are and they’re not, they’re not doing a job. Uh, I think my favorite one was, I, I fired this one guy who’d been at the company for eight years because he was underperforming. And I gave him, I mean I gave him three months to turn it around.

Adam (11:45):
There were plenty of warnings. This wasn’t just like a firing. Um, but it was, it was very obvious by the end that this guy didn’t work. And on the way out he said, you know what Adam? He’s like, I want you to think about something when I’m gone, who’s gonna buy the donuts? And I said, Hey John, before you leave, if the only comeback you’ve got to getting fired is that you are the only guy that buys the donuts, I think we’re gonna be fine. Uber Eats is gonna handle it. And and that was it. He had nothing cuz cuz he literally didn’t do anything. But

Rich (12:14):
He learned, I would tell you, you’re right. I am gonna think about that. That’s and that’s going to really justify that I did the right thing. To

Adam (12:21):
This day, that’s my, he was on 80 grand a year to buy donuts. But it was, it was really important cuz he was manipulating the, the staff by buying donuts every day. So everyone loved him. He was the donut guy. Right. And he basically just wandered around, Hey, you’re doing your job, you’re doing a good job. Hey, you’re doing a good to everybody

Rich (12:36):
Improbably where he’s buying donuts now.

Adam (12:38):
Right. Exactly. He’s probably selling them. Um, but the, the, the beauty about that is once you remove those staff members, there’s usually a couple of staff members under them that need, uh, picking up and, and getting that have been overlooked for pay bumps and, and that want to do the work. And so, you know, we have a process called the Smart Blueprint and the s is staff. It’s where we always start. So we do a full staff analysis mm-hmm. <affirmative>, once we tidy up, uh, staff, we, we basically fix a lot of the problems and things start increasing naturally. And then we go into m which is marketing, and then we’re gonna think, okay, how do we get new leads? Uh, what new products can we create or services can we offer? Where is new money gonna come from? And I always tell people, there are only really two ways to make more money. You sell something new to someone you’ve never sold to. Oh, sorry. So something new to somebody you’ve sold to in the past or sell something old to someone you’ve never sold to before. And the second one of those is harder, it’s harder to take a product you already have and go and find new customers. Right. It’s a lot easier to take existing customers, assess their needs and create something new for them.

Rich (13:46):
Right. Well there is a third too Yes. Is to sell, um, to sell more frequently. Get your customers to buy more frequently.

Adam (13:54):
Yes, yes, for sure. Yeah, you could, you can sell that. And which is funny cuz to

Rich (13:58):
Me that’s kind of part of part one anyway. Exactly.

Adam (14:00):
Yeah. That’s kind of it. But, but it’s still, it’s, it’s good. But the key is if you sell something new to an old customer, um, you open up a new amount of revenue without cost essentially, you know, you’re gonna have like the hard fixed cost, but you don’t have an acquisition cost. Right. Which is sometimes the most expensive part of whatever you’re doing. Um, there was a really cool study that was done, uh, by, uh, by sumo.com, which I dunno if you know Sumo the

Rich (14:25):
<inaudible> stuff. Yep. App Sumo.

Adam (14:27):
Okay. Yep. You got it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So of the companies that offer upsells, I another product, 70% of gross revenue comes from upsells, but only 8% of companies have an effective upsell. So I love this stat because 92% of companies are missing out on 70% of their revenue. And what’s really important here is it’s not 70% of what you make, your gross is only 30% of your potential. So you’ve got an extra 2.3 x revenue available. Right. If you develop an upsell that is applicable to 92% of companies in America, this is insane amounts of money available. Right. And people don’t tap it. So for m that’s what we do. We go and tap in that and we bring in

Rich (15:23):
Money. Right. Got it. So the lesson there is that, um, is is to focus on, um, how you could get increased revenue from your existing customers. Cuz that’s much cheaper than acquiring new ones.

Adam (15:36):
Yeah, absolutely. Like, I like thinking this, like obviously you know, you you do law, but like, um, do do you guys do entertainment law by any chance?

Rich (15:43):
Um, not, not typically.

Adam (15:45):
I, so I love entertainment lawyers. I I love, I love lawyers. I, I studied law at school. I didn’t

Rich (15:50):
Know they’re like wheeler and dealers. They’re, they’re deal makers entertainment. Yes. Yes,

Adam (15:53):
Exactly. Y your entertainment lawyers always have something else to sell. Like they’re buying and selling movie scripts and they’re doing everything else on the side. And I love it because they’ve found ways to generate extra revenue from their customers.

Rich (16:06):
Yeah. They’re working their network, you know, they’re looking at ways to connect people to be in the middle of a deal to make some money.

Adam (16:12):
Yeah. I have a, I had a buddy of mine that wanted to get into film writing and I told him the easiest way is to hire an entertainment lawyer for your movie. Uh, and he’s like, I don’t even have a movie. I don’t have any. I was like, no, just start with a lawyer. And sure enough, he starts with a lawyer and the lawyer is like one of these big lawyers that works with everyone. And he’s like, oh yeah, I’ll make sure everyone sees your script. And and that was it. He was made, it was over just cuz he picked the right lawyer who had the contact, uh, contact. And I think that’s something that is, it’s so amazing that, that these lawyers do that. But it’s like the king of upselling, right? Like, what else can I sell? How else can I make money from this person?

Rich (16:47):
Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Um, and so, um, we’re up to m and I’m really curious about a <laugh>. So,

Adam (16:57):
Uh, a is audience uhhuh <affirmative>, you gotta, if if you have a voice but you don’t have an audience to listen, it doesn’t matter how good you are, no one’s gonna care. So once we’ve found revenue from what you’ve got, we then start increasing your reach. So now we’re gonna find those new customers, who else can we talk to? And where else can we get that audience? And for some people we are podcast, for some people it’ll be social media, sometimes it’ll be buying mailing lists. Sometimes it’ll be advertising. But we’re gonna do something to build the audience. And it just depends what industry you’re in and what’s gonna be the most effective to that. So for example, in the trucking industry, we went with public relations, um, with one of my other companies, we focus on advertising. It, it’s really just based on different industries have different preferences.

Rich (17:40):
Right. It’s like how do you, um, you know, once you decide where the the audience potential is, how do you reach them?

Adam (17:47):
Correct. Yeah. And so, we’ll, we’ll typically get somebody to build an engine to get new customers, which is great because now with the upsells, you’ve got a higher lifetime value on those customers. So it makes more sense to do it. Yep. Then, then we dial in r which is revenue. This is all sales processes. Here’s where we’re gonna start looking at, okay, what is your conversion rate? Like, how many customers are you talking to before you buy it? What is the lifetime value of a customer? Can we improve this? Um, and this is where we start really dialing in, like tidying up all the numbers in the company now because we’ve dealt with the, the initial emergencies. If you try and do this before solving the soft problem, then you know they’re gonna block it and nothing’s gonna happen. Now we’ve got a team that are pushing in the right direction now.

Adam (18:24):
It’s cool to, to tidy up that revenue and get those numbers and the reporting and everything you want. Improve sales process, bring in salespeople, really start pushing it. Uh, which brings us to t which is actually, uh, probably the most important of all of them, which is testimonials. The importance of having happy customers is so key. And no one ever talks about it. No one has a focus. Like, um, it’s funny, I have a, a document or I have a folder in my phone and uh, a photo album and it’s, it’s funny, I’ll open it up right now cuz uh, I’m really proud of it. It’s every time I get a testimonial, I screenshot it and save it to my phone in an album called Testimonials. I’m just gonna open up and see what the current number is. Um, so this is just for my core company, not for the other 16 that I, uh, that I have. And I have 555. What great number 555. Uh, yeah. So I have 555 testimonials as of today. And that’s 555 people that without prompting have said, I love what you do, you transform my life. Thank you very much. And um, you know, you can look at that as amazing or you can look at it as out of 2,200 companies I helped 1500. Didn’t wanna gimme a testimonial. So I need to do something about No, I’m joking, but

Adam (19:33):
I I love that cuz you know, it’s very rare that a quarter of your customers are gonna wanna come back and say thank you, you helped, that was great. And that’s what I have. I have a quarter of my customers. Me, I did an amazing job.

Rich (19:42):
Right. And the other 1500 is upside. It’s like, uh, that’s the potential I could get another 1500 more.

Adam (19:49):
Yep, exactly. So, and it’s cool because the, when we focus on testimonials, we actually, we don’t force people to do it. Like the the goal is to do a, a job that’s so good. They want to give you their testimonials. So.

Rich (19:59):
Awesome. And so in growing companies for, um, for acquisition, like what’s the role that IP plays uh, in in doing that?

Adam (20:09):
Yeah, so it’s, it’s huge. So for us, the smart blueprint, um, there’s two ways. One is people bring me into their company and the other way is they, they join our mastermind and we guide them through doing it themselves. And it’s really just a question of budget. If you want to pay me 25 grand a day, great. I’ll be there. If you’d rather pay, uh, 50 for the year, excellent. But then, you know, it’s more we guide you through and I, I, you know, I was talking to you beforehand, we actually have, uh, a, a staff IP lawyer, an actual IP lawyer who once a week does an hour call with all of the businesses to make sure they understand their trademarks. And actually, um, we have a, a staff member for us. This is really fun cause this just happened today and she is a DJ on the weekends and, uh, she’s, she’s awesome.

Adam (20:49):
Uh, it’s actually who was communicating, it’s my assistant who was communicating with you guys to, to schedule me. And, um, so every weekend she performs in Vegas. She’s an awesome DJ and she just learned that there are two other DJs that started copying her name and um, when she first came to you, she was really upset about this and was like, I dunno what to do, you know. And I said, well, why don’t you talk to our patent lawyer and you get involved. And so I feel, I feel bad for these other two DJs that have made the mistake of crossing my employee <laugh>. Cause she actually just hired today a patent lawyer, uh, dropped, you know, X amount of thousands of dollars to protect her ip, which is worth it to her because she’s a really good dj and she, she, you know, she’s resident in Vegas so she gets really good gigs and um, and it’s great because, you know, she’s, it’s like a side thing that she does, you know, cuz she works for us full-time as well.

Adam (21:36):
But, um, but protecting that is really huge. And now the lawyers are going after these other DJs who sadly are just up and coming new people that probably didn’t do the research to find out that she exists. Right. And that they’re gonna get lovely cease and desist mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it’s really important for the strategy because obviously I care about my employees, so we help ’em with their business projects as well. But part of our strategy, um, is for her name, turning it into a line of plush children’s dolls because she has a really cute, kind of like persona as a dj. And, um, a lot of her followers, they’re not children, but they kind of like idolize that kinda like cute cuddly culture that’s like very popular amongst her, you knows sort of like late teens, early twenties. So rather than just selling t-shirts and and cups, she’s actually gonna create a line of dolls that will be, uh, a much better sell.

Adam (22:27):
And again, that follows the smart blueprint, but none of that would be possible if she couldn’t protect the IP around her name because the name, you know, and we’re already talking a China and discussing buying these things in bulk. And imagine if you do that and then suddenly a whole bunch of other DJs are trying to lock it in and saying, well we also do that. And it, it would be a nightmare. And instead of us being, you know, uh, only X amount of thousands out of pocket to protect ourselves and now everything’s upside, we could lose tens of thousands of dollars in orders and, and building out. So, you know, it is one of the, the cool things about this, I don’t think people realize when it comes to ip, they’re motivated after a problem to get it fixed when it is so expensive and you’ve lost all the opportunity cost and there’s nori no cha uh, no guarantee you’ll win. If you do it before, you can course correct early, you are guaranteed to win because it’s yours and you’ve locked it in providing you get the right, uh, the right lawyer. So yeah, we’re, I, I loved it. Cause at the beginning I was like, yeah, we’re, we’re so huge fans of this that we have a guy on staff for our clients to use.

Rich (23:35):
Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, you’re just singing my song right there. I mean, it’s like so much more expensive after there’s so much more that you have to lose. Like once you’ve invested quite a bit into, um, into building your brand, uh, if you have to rebrand, it’s gonna cost you tremendously mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, and it’s very inexpensive to do beforehand and much more expensive after there are other people competing for using that name. And, and possibly if someone else filed their trademark application before, um, before you get to it could be, you know, it could be a, a big problem. So one, one

Adam (24:13):
Of the things that I love about it is we, uh, we just did, uh, we have an event called the Working Vacation where we take business owners on a cruise ship for a week and we teach how to get more done in one week than they normally would. And we force them to relax every day for half the day. And it’s really cool when you see people work really hard for a few hours and then sit by the pool drinking my ties, and we’re like, I feel like I should be working. We’re like, Nope. But you realize you can be a lot more efficient. And that’s the whole point of the, of the training. But we also dive deep and we sort of like analyze their businesses and, and help them grow it. And um, one of the

Rich (24:45):
Things comes down to it, that’s what we do anyway. We put in a few good hours a day and then kind of waste time, uh, a lot of the rest of the day.

Adam (24:53):
I, I think real business owners who are really good at it, that’s what they do. Right. And so what we do is we get ’em to make sure that downtime is actually very relaxing and they’re making sure they’re doing a good job. And so what we did on the cruise, uh, you know, we’ve got like 30 or 40 business owners that come with us. We do it twice a year. Um, and when we were there and, and of course we dive into their business and do consulting as well, it’s another cheaper way for somebody to work with me if they want. And, um, we did a survey, how expensive do you believe it is to pay to get your intellectual property? And they all unanimously guessed 10 x what it actually costs. And in fact, um, the, the, the staff member of mine that’s the dj, she was shocked that the cost to get it done was the same as one gig of her performing as a DJ one night of performing. Yeah. Covered the cost of her IP protection.

Rich (25:47):
That’s pretty much it. I mean, filing a trademark application, um, is less than $2,000. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s not very expensive to file a trademark application. Um, being the second in line if someone files before you, um, even if you were using it first is like a $50,000 problem. Yeah. So, uh, so yeah, it, uh, I mean I I am shocked, well I don’t know if I’m shocked because like I see it all the time, but to me, uh, it just never made sense to me how you have multi-million dollar businesses that have never filed a trademark application.

Adam (26:23):
Yeah. It’s, um, it’s definitely crazy that people don’t do this considering how cheap it is. And also your valuation goes through the roof. Yes. Like there, there are a lot of companies, especially at the sub 10 million level where you have an owner that if he left the company wouldn’t actually be worth much cuz he does a lot of the work, right? Or she does a lot of the work. But if they had their IP it would be less of a problem because even though it’s still reliant on them, there are processes, systems and intellectual property in place that the business owns. So when the owner does leave those things stay with the next person. Um, so yeah, I think it’s super important.

Rich (27:04):
Yeah, it says one, one aspect of intellectual capital, the structural capital. Uh, and it’s, it’s really, I mean I think most people don’t realize that, that a big part of the valuation of their business is how transfer, how transferable it is. It’s like a, a tremendous factor. Um, you’ve got the profitability, you’ve got the ebitda, but whether you’re gonna get the low range of mul multiples or possibly even like liquidation value or you’re gonna get the best in class level of multiple is going to depend on whether you’ve built out that intellectual capital, whether you have that structural capital, the systems, you’ve got the team, um, you’ve got the, you, you know, you’ve got the, the ip. When you have that stuff in place, you’re making the business that much more transferable and therefore more valuable.

Adam (27:49):
Absolutely.

Rich (27:51):
So, um, hey, um, um, one more question. So it’s, it’s kind of like when you, um, there’s, there’s a phrase in coaching that you’ve probably heard before, that you’re always coaching yourself <laugh>. Yeah. And you know, the, the basis of it is that, um, there are, when you, when you begin coaching someone, there’s a infinite number of things you could focus on. You could focus on their team, you could focus on, um, their marketing. Like there’s so many different directions you could focus. Um, but the phrase you’re always coaching yourself is kind of like the things you’ve been through as a business owner are the things that you take notice of in other people. The things that you notice when you are working with a client, it’s like the challenges you’ve had. Like you kind of, like, we will, we’ll we’ll notice if those things are, are present in a, in a, in a client. So with that frame of you’re always coaching yourself, like what are the things that you learned from your pi past business experience that there’s kind of like your go-tos, like you’re looking, you, you’ll, you’ll notice those issues. Like whether it’s like, oh wait, there’s no NDAs with, um, um, with your team members because you’ve seen that problem before or what have you. Like what are those um, kind of hot button. I

Adam (29:03):
Got a, I got a big one Yeah. That I’ve seen come up too often, um, that people need to be aware of and it’s a sketchy partner. And as someone that has multiple deals with partners, I’m very aware of when one business partner isn’t behaving correctly. And I’ll tell you the lesson that I learned. Cause this happened to me. I had a business partner and no matter what we did, revenue never seemed to increase. And this was a huge issue for me mentally cuz I’d touch other companies and they’re making millions extra. But this one company that I own, 50% of, no matter what I did, nothing happened. And one day I get a call from a guy I know complaining about the service that we offer and I look at the sales records and this guy’s never bought, like ever. And I’m like, dude, I don’t know what to tell you.

Adam (29:53):
You’re complaining about service you don’t pay for. And he’s like, what do you mean? I’ve been a client for six months? But it turns out that my business partner created a second company that was a clone of the first company with the exception of a single letter difference, a letter s So it made it plural and his company was where he processed all the sales to keep a hundred percent of the revenue through the books, but the bills were paid for through the company that we both shared. And he’d been doing this for 18 months, telling me this sob story that we can’t make sales and that all of my efforts are failing. When I confront him about it, he says, that’s just business. We don’t have a non-compete. There’s nothing you can do Now that’s not true. I spoke to my lawyer, obviously there are moves cuz he’s not acting in the best interest of the company.

Adam (30:48):
But what it came down to is I decided that I wanted the cost of the lesson more than I wanted to win the argument. The the amount of money was not huge, it was probably just shy of a million. So it wasn’t a, I mean it’s a lot, but it, it, it, I decided it wasn’t enough that I wanted to go and fight for it and instead I would learn the lesson instead. And now I am very wary of business partners in the companies I consult for and I’m always looking at all the business partners and I’m like, who might not be playing ball right now? And uh, and that’s something I’m pretty aware of. In fact, to the point that when a company hires me, I ask the person who’s contacting me, it’s usually one and I’m like, is the company hiring me or you?

Adam (31:30):
And I, I’m very specific. I’m like, if the company’s hiring me, I’m gonna need all the business partners on this call. If it’s you, I need this to not be in a company expense. It needs to come out of your pocket unless you get approval from the partners. The company money can be used for you to hire me specifically for you. But I do wanna be clear, am I working for you or am I working for the company? Because if I’m working for you, I’m gonna analyze your business partners as well. If I’m working for the company, I’m gonna just turn a blind eye to what’s going on at the partnership level. And it’s shocking how often I found very, very nasty things going on up there.

Rich (32:05):
Wow. Uh, and um, yeah, so it’s like, I guess you, you took that million dollar lesson and it’s helped you to help your clients.

Adam (32:16):
Yeah. Big time. And, and it, it’s one that I’ve not heard anyone else talk about. Um, and I know it happens

Rich (32:21):
A lot. It’s, I’ve actually, I’ve seen it before.

Adam (32:23):
Yeah. Right. I I love that you’ve seen it cuz people don’t talk about it, but it’s crazily more common than you’d think where the business partners are not being above board with each other.

Rich (32:34):
I’ve actually seen it with salespeople where the salespeople say, bring me cash. Um, and um, they, they never run it through the business and then they never give on the number for corporate, like for servicing. They’re just like, yeah, you contact me and I’ll let you know how things are going. And then they just BS them all along.

Adam (32:54):
Yeah. I go, I could go on, I, I’ve got more along that one. I had a, a salesperson, uh, for one of my companies. Uh, so I own a a Dungeons and Dragons shop. I’m a nerd and my kids, we love it. And um, one of the salespeople was putting through my own purchases as their sales for commission and charging commission on my sales, which I get a cost cuz I own the company. Um, but I also am one of the highest spenders technically in the store. So there was this hidden percentage going on to all my purchases. Uh, we, we had to squash that. Uh, but he made, he made an argument for it. He’s like, I have to sell him to, I’ve gotta process the sale. I should get paid for that. And I was like, I don’t, no, there’s no processing here. Uh, so

Rich (33:34):
Right. Well ultimately every perpetrator plays the victim.

Adam (33:38):
So true.

Rich (33:39):
You know, so I had to do it. I I I didn’t have a choice. I had to. So, um, um, but yeah. That’s fascinating. And then also, like I I imagine the d n D store, it’s like it’s not gonna get scrutinized by the IRS as a hobby business. Right? Like, we don’t need to worry about that, but you know, it’s making money, right? So,

Adam (33:59):
So yeah, no, actually it’s, uh, it’s really funny sort of like how that works. Um, so one of the, one of the first, if

Rich (34:04):
You’re making money then it gets scrutinized. Really?

Adam (34:06):
Yeah, no, it’s, uh, it kind of breaks even to be completely honest. But what’s, um, what’s cool about it is, um, one of the first things we did in our company was hire a CFO to make sure that everything we were doing was done correctly. And actually to go back to your point of like, what do I see as the biggest mistake? We didn’t used to have a CFO and the first, and actually it’s where the working vacation comes from. The first, um, time I did over seven figures. We celebrated me and my, my now wife is, we took a three week cruise around Asia and on the day we were about to leave the IRS bill came in and our accountant told us we were gonna have to pay 50 grand, which we had to put aside, well we are about to get on the, in the car to go to the airport to fly to Hong Kong to go around Asia.

Adam (34:54):
And my wife says, I wanna open the bill. And I’m like, don’t open it. Not before we go. She goes, no, I insist we open it. It’s 500,000, not 50,000. So I phoned my account and I’m like, what happened? He goes, I’m so sorry, I forgot to put the decimal point in the right place when I gave you the prediction. And I’m like, yo, there is, we’re not ready for this. Like, not, I don’t have half a million put aside. And um, it was, it was just ridiculous. So we, we, we are thinking about canceling the trip, right? Stay in work. And I said, look, we have five children. I’m like, do you believe we’re gonna get more work done at home with our kids or on a boat where no one can interrupt us? And so we had this moment for like 20 minutes.

Adam (35:39):
We’re like, do we get in the car and go? And we went. And so on that first trip, we actually made back almost all the money on that trip by, by focusing on our company and working every day. It was, it was a really cool opportunity, which is why, uh, we do that for other people. But, but I’ve learned, I now we don’t do retroactive financing, we do proactive. So my accountant, uh, answers to my CFO who predicts out 12 months. So it’s actually funny you say that about the spending, I have a budget that comes from my salary that explains how I, there’s like all this art to how much I can spend. Yeah. And it’s, it’s crazy organized. Uh, but I love that you called it out because it was a thing cuz I was spending so much money in the game store and my, my accountant, well my CFO was like, Hey dude, this has to be done a certain way. Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty cool.

Rich (36:26):
Absolutely. Um, I, yeah, it’s, uh, I prefer accounting mistakes that, uh, end up that like you actually owe less. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I had an accountant who, um, when I sold my house, didn’t submit the right paperwork, um, for the sale. So meanwhile there was the, the sale price and then I had a mortgage and you know, you, you what what the capital gain is what’s in in, in between the two basically. Well that’s where the profit was more or less. Yeah. But, um, it’s like the i r s had it down as if like the full sale price was, uh, income. So I got this huge, um, six figure tax bill. Um, but we were able to make it go away by submitting the right paperwork. So, you know, the, I prefer when the accountant makes a mistake that then it’s like, it’s better than it looks <laugh>.

Adam (37:17):
Yeah. Do double check the other way. I think the CFO has been sort of like really instrumental in our company. It’s one of the first hires we recommend under the staff component, the smart blueprint. Just having somebody that predicts where your numbers are gonna be makes things so much easier. Yeah. For, um, you know, helping you understand like sales targets and, and all these wonderful things. Um, and to make sure, you know, you don’t do it wrong. Um, it, it’s actually pretty funny. Uh, I have a, a tax lawyer that we use as well and my tax lawyer’s got the best phrase ever. This, this is like a pro lawyer podcast. Hope you don’t mind. So I’m saying all my favorite things about lawyers

Rich (37:51):
<laugh>. Okay. But he, I’m usually bashing lawyers, so it’s, it’s refreshing.

Adam (37:55):
<laugh>. Yeah, no, I, I, like I said, I I was gonna be a lawyer, so I’m a huge fan. Okay. Um, I just, uh, never, we never went through it. But anyway, um, so he says when the, when your accountant goes to bed at night, he checks the closet and under the bed for the secret IRS agent looking into everything he’s doing. He’s like, but when an IRS agent goes to bed at night, they look in the closet and under the bed for the tax lawyer <laugh>. It’s like I love that, that analogy of just Right,

Rich (38:20):
Right, right. It’s like actually they’re afraid of someone too. Yeah.

Adam (38:25):
And it’s cool because my, my buddy, um, he told me there was this one situation where the IRS contacted him and said, Hey, just so you know, um, you know, we’re considering blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, I’ll put you in touch with my tax lawyer. And the iris agent went, nevermind

Rich (38:37):
<laugh>

Adam (38:38):
Just instantly nevermind. Don’t worry about it. Cause they’ve got justify their actions and if there’s a lawyer involved, it’s gonna be long and messy. Well,

Rich (38:44):
Yeah. They don’t want the extra work. It’s kinda like at the patent office, the thing that happens is a lot of times, um, you tell an examiner that you’re going to appeal and they reconsider because it’s a lot more work for them to then defend the appeal, uh, than just examining another patent case.

Adam (39:01):
That’s really cool. That’s really cool. Yeah, I, I love that kind of stuff. Like when you are, when you are armed with the right person, uh, it makes a big difference. Like, it’s funny in, in the company when I go in and I, I do the revenue model and we’re helping ’em build out their sales teams. Um, a lot of the, uh, the, the companies I work with, the owner of the company loves it when I go into the sales team. Cause I’m brutal in my analysis and uh, they often know before the meeting starts if I’m gonna fire people. So I don’t even have to see the report. You just see the faces of the salespeople and the way they turn up, the ones that have crushed it, there’s no fit. They come in and they’re like, dude, I’m so excited to see you.

Adam (39:37):
They’re like really happy. And the ones that come in and, you know, their car broke down that day and it’s a bad day. I just look at the owner of the company’s like, ah, these guys are gone. And I’m like, yeah, if, if you’ve got excuses before we’ve even discussed the subject, like you’re just, you’re giving it out. I was like, it’s gonna be done. But uh, but yeah, it’s funny. And actually, uh, fun fact, totally random point. I keep mentioning education. Um, it’s it’s forefront of my mind cuz I just completed my MBA today, so

Rich (40:01):
Oh wow. Congratulations. Thanks.

Adam (40:03):
Yeah.

Rich (40:03):
That’s amazing. Yeah.

Adam (40:05):
MBA in business. So I’m, uh, that’s, that’s

Rich (40:08):
To get those achievements right?

Adam (40:09):
Yeah. I don’t have the grading yet. I just, I submit, I finished it like, so it’s all in now. I have to to wait, so

Rich (40:15):
Yeah, you’re gonna, you’ll be fine.

Adam (40:17):
I think I’ll pass. But you know, you never know. But it, it’s kind of cool to just be like,

Rich (40:20):
But, but if it’s not, but if not, then it’s like you, you’re in great company, like the guy who founded FedEx and he made a business paper about the idea of FedEx and he got a C or a D on it,

Adam (40:32):
You know? That’s really funny. I didn’t know that. I love that. That’s really cool. So yeah, I mean it’s one of those things I didn’t really care about education. Like I never, it took me 10 years to get my degree. I didn’t really care about it. And then, um, when I started consulting for companies, they would start asking like, what’s your educational background? And I was like, oh, this is kind of annoying. Like I don’t, you know, I’ve worked with lots of companies, wasn’t that good as a discussion. So I was like, you know what, I think I’m just gonna do this and, and get educated. And so I did my degree and then when I finished my degree, um, my tutor was like, you know, it’s not that much harder to get the mba. And so I was like, well I’ll do that. And I just today signed up for the doctorate program, which is weird. You can sign up for a doctorate before you get your certification, but you can apply. And so they’re gonna let me. So basically I’ll wait till my certificate comes in before I can start it, but I’m allowed to apply today as if I have it, which is kind of weird, I thought. But

Rich (41:21):
Yeah, that is kind of weird.

Adam (41:23):
Yeah, but why can’t start, it’s like if you fail then you can’t start it right? They they take you back. Oh, no, no, no, you can’t now you have to wait. So, um,

Rich (41:32):
But I know the feeling of like having, hitting a milestone like that. I did, um, um, I did a, a program to become a certified exit planning advisor, um, just recently. And, uh, so it was intensive. Why did you do that? It’s a exit planning institute.

Adam (41:47):
Okay. I’ll

Rich (41:48):
Give you the info and I’ll, I’ll I’ll tell you all about it. But it’s really interesting. It’s, it’s all like professionals like, um, uh, business consultants and, and financial advisors that are certified, um, in a process to kind of show people where their present business value is and what it could be worth if it was best in class and like where you’re leaving money on the table. So I, I did this program and I, I took the test, you know, and it was like, I haven’t taken a test in 29 years since the bar exam <laugh>. And uh, you know, it was, it was kind of crazy, you know, it was like a proctored test and uh, like, uh, it was interesting to study for the test and for the first time in all those years. No, it’s, it’s really cool to do it in pass.

Adam (42:33):
Yeah, I, I came up to my staff today, they’re like, when do you do this? I’m like, in the mornings before you guys come to work normally. Right. Um, but it’s cool cause I just found an m and a course in Chicago that I think I’m gonna take in November, which is a similar kind of thing. It’s like a one-off certification on mergers and acquisition. And again, I’ve done over, you know, I’ve consulted for 2200 deals and I’ve, I’ve done god knows how many of my own, but, um, I, I again get the certificate just to have it, you know, it’s just something else to, to add on there, which is weird cuz when I was younger I didn’t care about education. Now I’m older, I care about it. But yeah, so I’ll, I’ll start my doctorate as well, which takes three to five years. So, um, before I’m 50, hopefully I’ll be a, a doctor of business there in

Rich (43:11):
Paging Dr. Lyons, paging Dr. Adam Lyons.

Adam (43:15):
Rich, you know what, I’m waiting for the moment. There’s a moment I want, I mean, I’m hoping it doesn’t ever happen, but I keep telling everyone this is what I want. Where like you’re on a plane and they’re like, there’s a medical emergency, this guy’s collapsed. Is there a doctor? And I’m like, I’m a doctor. And I walk over there and they go, what do you think? What’s your diagnosis? I was like, this is gonna be expensive <laugh>. And they’re like, what do you mean? What kind of a doctor are you? I’m like, I’m a doctor of business. Medical prices are crazy. Um, but obviously hopefully it doesn’t happen. But, uh

Rich (43:40):
Right. Or like, um hmm. Like what’s your team like? Is your team keeping an eye out for you? Are they, are they, um, is your personal assistant watching out for your diet? And uh, who are the, who are the people on your team that aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do such that you passed out here today?

Adam (43:56):
<laugh>, actually, it’s so funny you say that. Uh, the, uh, the, the, my DJ assistant, uh, my dj, my assistant <laugh>, um, she just took control of my diet and my medicine because I skipped too often. And, uh, my doctor was like, you can’t do that. And uh, so I know it’s funny you mention that, but my assistant now forces me to take my food and my diet and medicine. We were on the, the trip together on the cruise and she was adjusting my plate. I was like putting food on my plate and she goes, you can’t eat that. You have to eat this. And she was like adding stuff around. But I actually think it’s probably one of the best things any, any business owner can do is have your assistant take control of your, your gym and food.

Rich (44:33):
Well, question is, has she taken control of your music playlist?

Adam (44:37):
Yes. Annoyingly. Oh no, I’m joking. No, but it’s, uh, it’s, it’s pretty cool cuz she’s definitely like, you know, she’ll be like, look at this, listen to this new track I just released.

Rich (44:44):
Well that’s good. Yeah. I need an assistant like that.

Adam (44:47):
Well, yeah, I I actually, it’s funny you say it, it’s one of my biggest recommendations to, cause I find especially at like the sub 50 million level, the business owner doesn’t tend to have a good personal assistant. They have a good like an office manager or a coo, but they don’t have their own assistant. And it’s weird cuz at 50 million or or 40 million you can afford one. You, you can, but the personal assistant, the one that handles your dry cleaning laundry, um, you know, make sure your personal life happens is actually the biggest release of your time and there’s no better value for you as a business owner than that time bag. So we had somebody on the cruise recently that were doing like, you know, X amount of millions a year but don’t have a nanny. And so when they came home from work, they ha couldn’t go on dates cuz they didn’t have anyone to look after except the babysit like once a month.

Adam (45:38):
And during the workday they had to finish early, go and pick up the kids from school. And I was like, why do you have a nanny do that? And then, uh, and their argument was that they wanted to spend more time with their kids. And this is my pushback on this, spending more time with your kids, there isn’t quality time isn’t actually good as someone who has five kids. I’m telling you we have two nannies and my nannies are pretty much there the whole time. But it means that when we are home, the nanny’s cooking, the nannie’s clean, the nanny’s saying, Hey, tidy up your room. We play video games, um, read books. I actually, it’s funny as I’m recording this, my oldest son is sitting just off camera Uhhuh and he’s currently reading, uh, he’s Come here, come here, come here. Doesn’t prove you’re a real human.

Adam (46:27):
Uh, this is my oldest boy and uh, so he’s listening to everything. But that’s a good book. What are you reading? Uh, Plato’s Complete Works. Good boy. There we go. So yeah, so he’s reading the complete works of Plato. Wow. And to me this is parenting. So like, you know, the nannie’s looking after the, the, some of the younger kids and cooking for them. My older child is listening to this, which is education. I think he should be getting and reading the works of Plato. And he doesn’t just read it, we discuss. And so, um, you know, we were just having a recent discussion yesterday about the importance of understanding the argument that you’re listening to cuz he was blanking out and being like, I dunno, these two guys are arguing about what’s in a name. And so we got him to really dig deep and recognize it was really an argument about, uh, conceptually can one thing be many things, can they be the same?

Adam (47:14):
And the approach to that argument and what I love about that is in a world where AI exists philosophy, the way we think, how we approach information, how we apply it is worth so much more. And if I came home from busy day of work and then I had to cook a meal, tidy the house, tell my kids off for tidying up, where would the time be to discuss, you know, the complete works of Plato and Socrates, uh, Socratic thinking, to me, that’s the better, the better lesson. So anyway, that’s my, my unique thought on parenthood.

Rich (47:44):
No, I I like it. Um, and, and it makes a lot of sense and I think it, it ties back to the, the working vacation, uh, notion of just of, of finding the efficiency of what you, what you ought to be working on. And, uh, there are other things that can be delegated. They’re, you know, what I was saying before is like, that’s the way most people operate anyway, in the sense that they spend three hours a day doing the important stuff, but then they spend five hours a day doing stuff that they don’t really need to be doing. Um, so might as well optimize and then spend that time enjoying yourself.

Adam (48:20):
Yeah, and, and it’s actually funny you say that, like, because optimizing time is something I’m, I’m, it’s, it’s what we focus on on the working vacation, and I’m huge about it. We help people design their own calendars and, and really ti it up. But we just, in our company, off the back of this working vacation, moved all of our work to a single week a month. So there is one week a month where we have to physically be in the office, we have to physically be doing things, and we made our calendar. So from Tuesday to Saturday, once a month, one week, uh, which is the second week of the month to show you how dialed in this is, all of the work that must be done in the office is done. That means for three weeks we can be anywhere else and get things done.

Adam (49:07):
And the power behind that means that our money is generated in a single week, and the other three weeks are for growth and for other projects and what else we want to do. And so we took it as, rather than just consolidating a single week, like what if we move a whole month into one week? And I suspect we’ll look at, well, can we do that with a year? Can we take a year and condense it into a month or six weeks? Um, because if we can pull off something like that, you really get to experience freedom, like true freedom where you can do the things you want to be doing. And I’m, I’m always asking myself that question, like, you know, what is the 80 20 and the 80 20 of the 80 20?

Rich (49:45):
Awesome. I love it. Um, I mean, so much interesting stuff, um, to talk about. So much great stuff we’ve been talking about. And, uh, um, we’ve gone for quite a while here, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna wrap it up as much as I hate to. Um, but if people want to learn more about you or get in touch with you, how do they go about doing? So?

Adam (50:04):
Yeah, so, um, there’s a few things. Number one, go to the smarts blueprints.com, scroll down to step one. It’s completely free, and it is my entire process of applying the Smart Blueprint. You don’t have to pay me 25 grand, you just go there, get it free. You don’t even have to opt in, just go there and read it right now. And that, I guarantee you, if you do that, you will find that there are business processes you’re missing, that you should be applying. Um, we had the guy that edited that, uh, it’s a, a giant blog post. The guy that edited it halfway through tested it in his own business and made $70,000 in sales more than we paid him to edit it. It was blown away by it. Um, if you want to connect with me, best place is Instagram and it’s at the Adam Lyons adm, l y o n s. And, uh, you can go to working vacation.com if you’re interested in jumping on a cruise ship and hanging out for a week.

Rich (50:53):
Nice. A and by the way, you’re, you’re doing a challenge with the Smart Blueprint and, and I think the link for that is the Smart blueprint.com/challenge.

Adam (51:03):
Yeah, this is, uh, this is super fun. It’s a a one day challenge where we want to prove that we can help you make more money in a single day in your business. Um, and rather than asking for money for it, which a lot of these kind of challenges do, we’re doing it for free. We just wanna help you find revenue that is in your business. And it, its through upsells, just cuz we know this is such a huge opportunity. So I just wanna show people, look, here’s how we’ve add some revenue to your company, um, you know, and do it in a single day,

Rich (51:26):
Right? So it’s like you, you provide the value and uh, it’s like as they see the value, if they, they want to get deeper into their upsells that are appropriate for that.

Adam (51:35):
Bingo, you

Rich (51:35):
Got it. That’s, that’s a great way to operate. I love that. Thank you. Uh, and um, cool. Well look Adam, um, really, um, su such a great, uh, conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to be, um, on the show. And, uh, hopefully I’ll get to see you soon at Summer event.

Adam (51:51):
I would love that. Rich, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for, uh, for having me. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Thanks

Outro (52:00):
For listening to Innovations and Breakthroughs with your host Rich Goldstein. Be sure to click subscribe, check us out on the web at innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.