Investing in Online Businesses From an Investment Banker’s Point of View

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, host of the innovations and breakthroughs podcast, where I feature top leaders and the path they took to create change past guests include Joe Polish, Roland Frasier, and Joe de Sena. 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 27 years. So if you’re a company that has software product or design, you want protected go to Goldstein patent law.com, where there are amazing free resources for learning about the patent process. You can also email my team@welcomeatgoldsteinpc.com to explore if it’s a match to work together. You can 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 consumer guide to obtaining a pad I have with me here today, Chris [inaudible], most of Chris’s career was spent as a sales and marketing executive and consumer products.

Rich (01:26):
Uh, and for the past seven years, Chris has focused on high level consulting for multichannel, um, multimillion dollar Omni channel brands, digital native, and Amazon based private label and reseller brands. And today Chris is a head of business development for global wired advisors. Uh, in this capacity, Chris finds client companies that are poised for sale. He guides them through the initial steps and then he prepares them to make the best possible first impression. So I’m very pleased to welcome here today. Chris shuffling welcome Chris. Hey, rich. Good to be on man. Absolutely great to have you here. And, um, so yeah, I mean, let’s just talk a little bit about your background first of kind of, uh, you know, kind of what led you to what you’re doing now. So, so you worked in the trenches, um, on consumer products. So tell me a little bit about that experience.

Chris (02:17):
I did. It was fun. Yeah. Coming right out of college, I started with a company called combi. It was a Japanese, uh, based business, Tokyo based business, publicly traded on the Nikkei. So, uh, that was, that was fun. Lots of, uh, lots of auditing every year that we went through. Um, but, uh, started as really just a salesman, just, uh, a sales rep for the company. Um, got my car and drove around selling specialty stores within the Southeast, um, on the product line, we sold strollers and car seats and play cards and high chairs and, uh, feeding accessories, et cetera. And, uh, it was great, you know, even early on, I learned that sales really boils down to two things if you’ve got work ethic, but it’s also the ability to build relationships. And within that ability to build relationships, you don’t burn bridges, right.

Chris (03:07):
You always stay nice and even keel. And so, um, also helping your customer find value in what you’re bringing to the table and your client. Um, so if, for instance, I built really good relationships with all of these different stores, but then, I mean, there were times where I would grab a broom and just start sweeping the, uh, you know, the, the, the, the storeroom forum, you know, but, you know, just go out to the warehouse and help them ship boxes. If I needed to really understanding kind of where is my client right now? Where does he need the most help, maybe a strategic, maybe it’s tactical, um, and really learning how to work with them. That was on a very small scale from there. I, uh, in seven years, 2010, I left combi as a, as a really running their sales and marketing. Um, I, uh, I left for a myriad of reasons.

Chris (03:55):
We built the business up to a, roughly $22 million, uh, as part of a larger management team. And, uh, I went off and got recruited by a middle market consumer products company called Evenflo. Uh, they were about close to a half, a billion dollars and, uh, they were owned by Western Presidio at the time. And I was part of a team, uh, that came in to, uh, uh, to help with real, uh, uh, true turnaround, you know, the company wasn’t, the company was distressed, um, and it needed a lot of just injection of both, not just capital, but actually human capital, like really, really, really good industry level type of people. Um, so I was part of that team worked with some brilliant folks, brilliant minds, lots of PNG guys that I worked around, uh, just because it was in Dayton, Ohio, and Cincinnati, it was easier to recruit from, um, you know, the CEO, the CEOs I worked under and I’d say at plural, I was only there for three years.

Chris (04:49):
There were three different ones. Uh, CEOs that I worked under were just brilliant men, uh, and they really were able to teach me, um, a lot, both through osmosis and directly on how to really see big picture on an enterprise level business, uh, and all of the, in all the details and complexities that go into that. Um, you know, from there, I started working for company. I left in 2013, started working for a business out of Barcelona is a family owned business while I was there. That’s when I had the epiphany that I needed to just stop trusting the subjective opinion of a buyer spend a lot of time up in your area, man, it’s going to see buy, buy baby and toys R us babies R us over in New Jersey. But, um, you know, I, I realized that, uh, the epiphany was I have to stop trusting the opinion of, of the buyer and I need to go have that direct consumer handshake with mom and dad time.

Rich (05:45):
Right. And the buyer that we’re talking about here in particular is the retail buyer. That’s right. It’s a retail buyer, as opposed to, as in contrast to the consumer, the person who’s actually buying the product that’s right. The buyer you’re talking about is the one who’s assuming that they understand what the consumer wants and they are representing a retail chain, um, and helping them to, to decide what products to buy, right. That buyer is, is, is, you know, just clarifying for the audience, which one we, uh, yeah,

Chris (06:16):
Exactly. That’s exactly what it is. And, and, and, you know, they are loaded with good data and they’re, they’re seeing all the different data that we were reading going into, um, you know, into any type of line reviews or any type of, uh, buyer meetings that we would have. Um, but I realized that where the economy was going in terms of consumer behavior, it was all shifting online.

Chris (06:40):
And this was even back, you know, obviously it was coming on fast and furious through the early two thousands leading up to kind of a true paradigm shift, I’d say around 15 or 16, you really started to see it ratchet up. Um, so that’s when I drove in, I had a half a million dollars of inventory sitting in a warehouse and I had to get rid of it. And, uh, I wanted to go find out how to have that direct handshake with the consumer. So where, where were the Buffalo having drinking water? Right. That’s always the question. And one massive reservoir is this just small thing called amazon.com. And so over the years I worked with vendor central. I was very familiar with Amazon, but then I really buckled down to understand seller central very, very well. And then also understanding digital marketing, you know, how do I go and take a widget, a product, um, make it shine and put it in front of, uh, millions of potential buyers and potential consumers.

Chris (07:36):
And then how do you take, how do you take what you’re doing and extrapolate good feedback from that particular market, um, was all very intriguing. So put my head down, learned all of that, uh, ended up leaving and starting my own consulting firm, where, uh, I helped enterprise clients and even small and medium sized businesses. I really helped them start to think and formulate around a digital strategy. I still stayed in my industry. I worked with a lot of juvenile product companies and a lot of toy companies. Um, but then that’s, that’s where I started my consultancy. Um, I met my partners, uh, pretty much about a year and a half, two years after starting my consultancy. I might be getting some of my dates wrong, but in early 2018, um, had, uh, had, uh, met my partners, had a cup of coffee, uh, with, uh, Jason in particular, my one partner.

Chris (08:29):
And, uh, it was very evident that there was something, something for us to do there. They had a, they had a small, uh, small business. We call it, they call us, you know, investment banking for small to medium-sized businesses, um, or what, or what financial markets called the lower middle market. And so they were really working with a lot of traditional businesses. Um, they also had a private equity effort where they were buying companies and in process, they discovered that when they were going to look at, at e-commerce or online assets at the time, this was 2017. Uh, they were speaking with business brokers in the space to potentially purchase, you know, a business. And they realized coming from their backgrounds, they came from the institutional investment banks. So they worked all the bolts brackets, don’t just city, uh, uh, Wells bank of America, the Hartford, et cetera.

Chris (09:24):
They realized that there is a lot of opportunity in this space to deploy a true sophisticated process on going through a sell side engagement, um, to an up to a digitally focused company, you know, what we would call digital consumer product, right? And so I met them. They had the, that, that experience we came together and said, this is a really good idea. It’s an underserved market. And there is no one deploying, uh, this investment banking style, uh, process and really strong, you know, it comes down to people and process. So you don’t have really strong skill sets with people in this space. This was at the time, and you don’t have a strong process driving and extrapolating as much really value out of the process as possible. So here we are, global wide advisors was then born. Uh, and so myself and my three partners, uh, started global, uh, back in, uh, early 2018, really got it off the ground, um, by mid 2018.

Rich (10:28):
And we started to see almost immediate positive feedback from our business. It was a thesis like any good business, you have a thesis, right. And you know, you, uh, it wasn’t an investment thesis. I mean, it was because we actually put money into the company, but it was really a true thesis of, okay, we believe this market’s underserved. And we believe if they were given the option to go through something more sophisticated, um, with people that have really strong backgrounds and not just the guy who sold his business, therefore he’s not qualified to sell your business. Right. It’s a real, like we didn’t just wake up and say, we’re an investment bank as acute marketing ploy. Right. We, my partners were investment bankers since the day they got out of college. And so really being able to deploy decades of experience, we said, will it make a difference?

Chris (11:19):
And the thesis was proven to be a raise. It’s a resounding yes, it’s very true. So absolutely. So, so really the thesis was around a business model and a niche. So it’s like, can we go into this niche, um, and, um, and provide value. We think there’s an opportunity here for value. And then you had a, uh, a notion of a business model where you could, you could make a business out of bringing it to this niche, bringing that type of expertise there. Absolutely. And that’s paid off. Just one thing I want to remark on is just the range of that. You’ve had, it’s really interesting. I mean, a lot of, a lot of people that are in this field have had experience with the, um, you know, um, two to $10 million, um, brands, or maybe even like the up to $50 million Amazon, um, sales businesses, but you worked in companies like even flow where it was like a half a half a billion dollar business.

Rich (12:17):
You, um, you, you worked in digital strategy, digital marketing, also in sales, like selling products on, you know, essentially door to door, how, how products are sold [inaudible] buyer. Right. So, so it was just a, quite a range of experience. And so, I mean, from, from that, I mean, um, what do you think that, that, um, current sellers, current, um, business owners of, of online businesses, what do they need to know about selling their business?

Chris (12:51):
Yeah. I mean, look, I think number one, you know, there’s what I’ve noticed about the space. And I think, I think it, I think everybody who’s listening will say, yeah, that’s, that’s exactly what it’s like, but there’s a lot of water cooler discussion. There’s a lot of hearsay. Um, and that typically happens when you lack a good reservoir of data and research, right. And this, I think this space, it lacks it.

Chris (13:15):
Right. And so you’re relying on a lot of, you know, friends, circle of friends, masterminds, et cetera, to really tell you information that frankly speaking is all privatized. You have no idea what’s true. And it, isn’t true. And, you know, we’ve heard a lot of tall tales, a lot of what I call fish tales, um, around the, around the campfire. That just simply, aren’t true. And so as a seller, you know, where should you be? Where should you go and get the best advice, um, how should you be viewing what’s currently going on in this market? Um, number one, you’re getting hit with an email once a day from either there’s no more new aggregators that’s that stopped, you know, the there’s been a very, very much a dry spell and we knew that was, that was going to happen. Uh, we knew it was going to happen because a, we speculated that it was going to happen.

Chris (14:09):
You reach a point of mass concentration, um, and then just really, there’s no room for anybody else to squeeze in. Uh, and two, we were actually told that by a really good resource. So, you know, you’ve got roughly a hundred of these roll-up companies looking for Amazon based assets. And, uh, you get a new email a day, you get a new drip campaign a day as a seller, and you’re going, you know, what’s real and what isn’t real. And I think what you need to do is take a step back and go, where can I find the most professional professional service? Uh, if you’re looking, if you’re looking for an exit or you’re looking for, if you’re looking for IP help in consultation, take a step back and go, well, where can I find a real professional service to help guide me in terms of what’s really happening?

Chris (14:55):
And, um, I know that, uh, I’m biased so I can speak for ourselves when it comes to the exit process. One of the things that we really enjoy doing is just making sure that our potential client or clients are fully educated on the market. So what is really happening? You got a lot of venture debt. That’s flowing into this space and it’s all looking for deals. It’s all looking for deal flow and sellers. You’re the deal, you’re the deal flow. And so you’ve got to just sit back and ask, ask yourself, do I want to go direct to this roll-up company? Or do I want to go through a process when it comes to when it comes to my, my ultimate exit? And when you’re thinking about it, the lens should be, this is my largest asset. Please take this seriously, like take this whole thing very, very seriously.

Chris (15:48):
The minute that you decide to go direct to an aggregator, the minute you hire a represent a representative that is suboptimal and does not have the respect from the buying community or the acquirers, you signal to everybody, you’re not taking it seriously. So take a step back and go, how can I signal to the market that I’m very serious about selling my business? And I brought to the table the most, the best representation that I could possibly bring it plays into your world. Rich, honestly, you know, there’s a lot there’s, I don’t know if there’s a lot, but I mean, let’s just say there’s a law for the sake of saying it there’s a lot of, of, of folks you might be able to choose just like with intermediaries to sell your business when it comes to IP and trademark, but there are, there’s the, the world isn’t flat, there’s real terrain.

Chris (16:37):
There’s re there’s there, there are, there are firms that are really good at what they do, and we’ll make sure that they’re thinking and anticipating what could happen down the road. And then there’s firms that you compete with that are highly transactional and volume driven, and they’re sloppy, they’re suboptimal, and they don’t, they’re not detailed. They’re not thorough, it’s the same over in the intermediary space. So, so yeah, I mean, as a seller, you just have to sit back and go what’s happening in this space and where is it headed? You got to start asking some of those questions because otherwise you get caught up in that and also to drink some humility, a juice and go, how does my business layer into what’s happening right now? Hmm.

Rich (17:19):
Yeah. And it’s interesting, like, um, you know, you mentioned how it could be assigned to the market when you pick one of the wrong types of people.

Rich (17:29):
And, um, and I think it, um, it ties in to more of what you’re saying in that, um, it’s kind of like a sign of weakness. It’s like a, it’s kind of like, oh, you’re working with them. You can say like, well, you might not be very smart. This is one way to look at it. But it also, like, you might not be very strategic. Like you mentioned the IP side of things. Like if, you know, like those types of things are a sign of like, okay, if you haven’t dotted the I’s and cross the T’s here, then you’re probably not dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s and other areas of your business. And if you’re not, um, if you’re not strategically thinking through some of these things, such as like who you work with and what path you take towards getting your business sold, then you probably haven’t thought through some other parts of, uh, of how you operate and how you’ve structured your business.

Rich (18:20):
Um, you know, and, and, and that leads to a sign of weakness in the sense that like, just the negotiating is like, it’s like if someone views you as being strong, having it together, uh, having dotted the I’s and cross the T’s, they’re more likely going to take what you say during negotiation. Seriously, they’re going to take your position more seriously. Then if they see weaknesses in the way you’ve done other things, like how you do anything is how you do everything. That’s right.

Chris (18:48):
You know, it’s interesting. I mean, even for us we’re business owners and, you know, we, we had to engage with, um, uh, we had to engage with a, uh, with a law firm and we had to make a decision when we engaged with a law firm. Uh, it was over a specific issue and we’ll leave it there. And so we had to make the decision, do we call Saul?

Chris (19:10):
Right. You know, do we, or do we find a marquee law firm to let everyone understand that we’re very serious about this issue? And we’re going to get it resolved as fast as possible because we care about it. And we care enough to, to make sure that we signal to the other party that we’re very serious about everything. Right. And so, yeah, it’s, it’s, it, it dovetails, uh, dovetails into, into exactly what you just said, you know, signaling that you’re, you’re coming from a position of strength, not weakness. We just, I, you know, I spoke to somebody just as of last week who told me they worked with a business broker in this space, someone that if I said the name, everybody would know, and they were walking me through the, what I would consider the deal from hell. They said that, you know, in a lot of folks, a lot of sellers go, well, I can find the aggregator.

Chris (19:59):
So what’s the value of, of you. And th the reality is, and I’m only laughing because it’s getting a deal closed. That’s the reality, like finding the buyer, finding the buyer set, if you’ve got a real strategic business. Yeah, sure. If, if you just, if you believe that you just think you should sell to an aggregator by all means, go at it. But if you believe you’ve got something larger and bigger staying power brand, you know, something of size, something of scale, you know, there’s more to life than the aggregators. And that’s really what we’re good at is really bridging the gap and finding the private equity funds, the traditional funded sponsors, uh, the corporate strategics, et cetera. But this guy in particular, he’s walking me through the, the broker who, um, you know, the broker process and when they got to LOI, which by the way, even getting down a lie, the client, the seller had to do all of the work, even getting there and the, oh, do you want to just define LOI for some in the audience?

Chris (20:56):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a letter of intent. So it’s basically a, um, Hey, here’s what, how, here’s, how we think here’s how we value your company and the different components of the valuation. Kind of like a term sheet in a sense it’s like, okay. Yes, that’s right. It’s a term, it’s a term sheet. And so they go down a path and the broker is nowhere to be found in closing. And so this guy tells me that he had to do all of the work. He spent 75 days an unbelievable amount of manpower, his business suffered. And then by the time they got to three days before closing this particular aggregator completely, Retraded them a hundred percent. That’s terrible representation. That’s massive amounts of weakness. And you know why he got retreated because they know it. These guys aren’t, they’re not 5 0 1 C they’re not in charity.

Chris (21:46):
And they come from places like Bain and Moelis and Dearborn and Goldman they’re, they’re not, they’re, they’re nice guys. Sure. But in business, they’re cutthroat because that’s how they’ve been classically trained, not to think for you, but the thing for their fund, that’s it, period. Game over. And so it’s transactional. It’s not a relationship it’s transactional. And so it’s like, they’d flip it, like any other commodity that correct. Yeah. And the more they can get you into that commoditized mode and away from you thinking and believing, because you put together incredible marketing materials and you’ve been able to position the company as something more strategic, the more they can believe you’re commoditized way better for them, way, way better for that. Right. And so that’s one example of going, yeah, you chose poor representation and that was the output of choosing that type of representation.

Rich (22:36):
Got it.

Rich (22:37):
Okay. And, um, you know, I, I know you are not here to pitch, but I’m curious, like just what’s the model. How do you guys work? Like, what’s your, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris (22:47):
So, I mean, for us, it’s, it’s genuinely, like I said earlier, it’s about people and process, you know, we’re building out a, a true lower middle market investment bank where, you know, the types of people that we hire, uh, inside of our bank to desert associates and analysts, vice presidents, managing directors, uh, research heads, um, and even in some ways, business development, um, we’re not hiring, hiring from folks who have never worked in investment banking. It’s all investment bankers inside of our, inside of our investment bank. It sounds like, wow, that’s really duck, Chris, how are you? Why are you describing it that way? I do it for a reason, because even in this space, there are folks who call themselves investment bankers, but they’re not filling any, any type of roles with true classically trained investment bankers.

Chris (23:34):
And so there’s a big difference. So it’s really about people and then it’s about process. And so the people, the people in our investment bank, you have a lot as a seller, you can have a lot of confidence that we’re looking through. Every single we’re very thorough, we’re classically trained in all the financial and large capital markets. You know, the guys that we hire come out of Piper, Sandler traded capital wealth, securities, city, group, Wolf research, I mean, some real beat, uh, BMO, big, big, big wall street names. So you’ve got a team that’s like backing you that not only understands financial and capital markets, but part of what we do is we make sure that they fully unders everybody who works in our investment bank knows Amazon. And they know digital consumer very, very well day one. They may not know, but after one month of a very rigorous training, these are very smart people, too.

Chris (24:21):
They pick up on things very quickly. They know digital consumer it’s extremely important because we are focused on consumer products. Um, so it’s about process too. You know, our process is, is wildly different than anything else that you’ll find in this space. Um, you know, we, we do deploy more of an investment banking, uh, institutional level process, but we even do that differently than the, than the middle market and institutional institutional banks, um, you know, really trying to, uh, optimize, uh, and, and become more efficient than what’s currently out there in the institutional world. But what does a process like this really look like, and what does it mean for a seller? It means that we’re going to take our time to do full due diligence upfront. Uh, we’re going to make sure that we’re anticipating any type of buyer questions, any type of problems, and we’re going to solution them before you go to the market.

Chris (25:12):
Um, we’re going to dive in and put together marketing materials that are, you know, 40, 50, 60 pages in some cases, you know, kind of, depending on your size and scale. Um, and, and it’s more than just that you’ve gotta be able to then have very smart people rich as you well know, you see a lot of docs and paperwork. Anybody can read it, but to articulate it interpret it is a whole other, I mean, that’s what makes a good lawyer, right? I mean, it’s, it’s the people who are extremely highly intelligent who can interpret, uh, information, data docs, and, and, and then see the big picture and see like the context that the whole thing sits inside of. That’s exactly right. So it’s the same with our process. It’s more than just putting together a pretty book. The pretty book is nothing more than just a tool for us to help articulate the, the, the both past, actually three past present.

Chris (26:05):
And then what is a buyer buying? They’re not buying our historicals. They want you to believe that because that makes you commoditize their buying the future. And so you got to really got to re really pin that down and you have to do a highly intelligent, uh, job. I’d say lots and lots and lots of good work to put together how you articulate the go-forward opportunity for this particular business. So once we’re in market, so we create, we create a market. And what I mean by that is we don’t have a buyer list that we just hit send on. Yeah, sure. We’ve been able to build a segmented buyer list based on, you know, what traditional funded sponsors or private equity funds are interested in or what they aren’t. You know, we build out, we’ll build out a list of corporate strategics, funded sponsors, family offices, and also roll up companies.

Chris (26:50):
And we’ll put them all into one that’s customized for a particular deal. We have a fitness deal that just went to market highly customized. We had a toy deal, just went to market highly customized. It’s not the same buyer list. That’s really important because you’re now, you’re now reaching potential acquires from a strategic standpoint, not from a, well, I just need to hit a send button. Let’s see what happens. It’s like throwing spaghetti on the wall and let’s see what noodles stick, right? And so we’re doing all the work when we’re in market, you’re running your business. And then once we start to get to real indications of interest, we run an auction style, uh, process where we really drive people towards a date to submit their, their indication of interest or iOS. We look through what, uh, you know, which iOS are best, uh, for the particular client, we do lots of advisement.

Chris (27:39):
And then we move to, what’s called management calls from management calls. We pick the lead kind of the lead dog in the race and, or the lead horse. And then we move into closing and we’re doing everything work for where we are the quarterback, and we’re doing everything really from start to finish and where the client gets involved is in the beginning where they’re feeding us all the information and at the end, because they have to be involved in closing, but we are running the process from start to finish. That’s wildly different in stark contrast to almost every other process that’s currently running in this space. Awesome. Awesome. Um, and, uh, yeah, I’m looking forward to learning more about that. We’re actually going to be at an event. So I, you know, this episode could be downloaded by people will be downloaded by many people as, as, as we move into next year and the year after that.

Rich (28:29):
So at the risk of dating this just the next minute of, so of discussion though, is we’re going to be at an event, uh, in Las Vegas called prosper. Uh, if you’re an Amazon and you don’t know prosper, you need to know about prosper, um, biggest Amazon selling event. Uh, really all the players in the field are going to be there. Um, so Chris, you and I are going to do an event. Um, we’re going to do a couple of events, actually sponsoring, um, uh, breakfast with, um, with, uh, Kevin King. Um, it’s going to, um, Kevin King does billion dollar sell summit, which is going to be happening, uh, September. Um, it’s going to be, I think the fourth edition coming up of it, but in any case, um, we’re doing a billion dollar breakfast and getting together a lot of that community and, and, uh, Chris, you and I are sponsoring that.

Rich (29:19):
Um, and then we’re also going to be doing an event with, um, with empowering the e-commerce collective. And basically I’m throwing on the Thursday evening of the conference, I guess that’s, um, uh, July 15th with throwing an event up at MGM, um, which is going to be a welcome party for the, um, women in e-com event that empower or conference that empower is putting on later that same week. So, so we’re going to be sponsoring some events for the community, and we’re going to get to hang out too.

Chris (29:55):
I know, man, I’m super excited. It’s going to be fun. It’s our, uh, it’s actually global Wired’s first prosper. We were going to go last year, we debated going on 2019, but we were in just massive growth and startup mode. So it was kind of all hands on deck at the time. Then we were going to go in 20, 20 March of last year, and then I don’t know this weird thing called the pandemic hit.

Rich (30:14):
So kind of pushed us off now is our first prosper. We’re really excited to attend and a really, really excited to join up with you rich and, uh, and sponsor that breakfast is going to be fun. Uh, but, uh, the empower and also the empowering meetup, that’s going to be a lot of funnels, the soiree and the sky.

Rich (30:34):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, I was, I had a booth in 2019 and when it was really, it was really great. Um, and, uh, I was supposed to be back in 2020 with not only booth, but also speaking at the event, but then that event was canceled. Um, so, uh, there was a virtual event later in 2020 that I spoke at, but obviously I didn’t have a booth there, so I’m going to have a booth at this event. So, uh, you know, I’ll be there, uh, to, to meet, um, to meet people just to hang out.

Rich (31:06):
And I’m sure Chris you’ll be there hanging out a bit as well.

Chris (31:09):
Yeah, we’re going to be, um, we’re going to be kind of going, obviously going to prosper during the day. Uh, probably, you know, late in the morning, all the way until four, four or five o’clock, but yeah, we want to, you know, for us, it’s about meeting other exhibitors meeting, you know, for formulating good strategic partnerships. Um, and you know, obviously if we run into sellers who would love to have conversations about going to market or selling their business either, you know, short-term, long-term, we’re, we’re clearly there to help that, uh, you know, facilitate that conversation. But for us, you know, we’re really excited just to meet. There are a lot of people like yourself that I’ve only met on zoom. I’m really excited to meet people face to face. I’m excited to shake hands again, and people are comfortable with that, you know, but I’m just, I’m excited to actually have some human interaction within this entire space where we’ve been living in this virtual zoom world for the past year and a half.

Rich (32:08):
So yeah, absolutely. Well, it is a very relationship driven field, uh, this, uh, you know, um, the Amazon selling world is very much built on relationships, so it’s, uh, I’m looking forward to like, yeah, like I said, I have a booth, really my main purpose is to, uh, provide a place where I can get to, to sit and hang out with, with people I already know and meet some new people. Um, and, um, of course that booth is on the, my name, Goldstein law, if anyone would like to come, come by and see me. And, uh, and Chris, you know, you’re welcome to come hang out anytime that you want as well. And, uh, uh, maybe folks will get to see you as well. Um, you know, over in, uh, kinda my Hangouts, but yeah, that’d be awesome. Great. I’m looking forward to it. Awesome.

Rich (33:00):
Well, um, if people want to learn more about you or get in touch with you, how do they go about doing so?

Chris (33:04):
Yeah, it’s pretty simple, you know, go to go to Google, uh, for the 5% or maybe 3% still using Bing or Yahoo, just type in global wired advisers. And we will be the first to come up. You can click there, go right to our website, or just direct global wired advisors.com. Um, we’ve got a couple of different ways, you know, one, my email is on there. Um, so you can just contact me directly. Uh, secondly, we’ve got a consultation form. If you’d like to have a complimentary consultation where we learn about your business, we learn more about, uh, your goals and kind of your long-term your longterm goals around exit planning and exit strategy. We’re just happy to, to really give strong advisement, uh, on that call, uh, to see, you know, Hey, where are you today?

Chris (33:52):
It’s really the intersection. What we call it? Where are you today? What are your goals? What will the market think about that? Um, you know, so that intersection may not be today. It may actually be six months from now. It might be a year from now, but we’re happy to give that advisement. We do have evaluation tool X 90,000 feet. You know, we input a lot of data into it, but it’s really just a way for you to input. It’s got a lot of data components to it. So it’s not something totally simple, but it’s not overly complex. So you input a bunch of data and it really spits out, um, what we would consider more or less kind of the fully optimized view of your company, uh, and that, that very high level valuation range, but devil’s in the details rich, you know, that way too well, devil’s always in the details.

Chris (34:38):
So, you know, we always encourage, if you want to, you know, kind of use the evaluation tool, we always say, Hey, have a follow-up call with us. And we can always spend a walk you through, you know, how your business would layer into the market.

Rich (34:49):
Absolutely that sounds great. And Chris, I appreciate you coming here and providing lots of value, giving lots of insight to, um, how you run a business and how you work towards selling, um, to, towards selling your business in this space. So really appreciate that. Um, thanks so much. And, um, I guess also, I’ll see you soon. You’ll see me soon. Yeah. Thanks for letting me be casual today. I’m hanging out at the beach this week, you know, so, uh, so yeah, it was very thankful that, uh, that, uh, you, you, uh, said I could wear a hat. Yeah, absolutely.

Rich (35:22):
Well, I mean, you represent the lifestyle businesses, um, represent the lifestyle entrepreneur, um, that people aspire to, um, and, uh, uh, you know, and, and a lot of what, you know, like of your P your processes are really aimed towards helping people kind of fulfill that dream and get to that point. Yeah. You’ve made it and everyone else can do so. Thanks again, Chris. I really appreciate you taking the time from your beach vacation. Thank you.

Outro (36:02):
Thanks for listening to innovations and breakthroughs with your host, rich Goldstein. Be sure to click, subscribe, check us out on the web@innovationsandbreakthroughs.com and we’ll see you next time.