Today's guest, Evan Poling, is the Founder of BizRetire.com that's looking to fix the business buying and selling industry which has failed owners for over 250 years. Evan's background in bank compliance where he has trained 100s of employees and investigated the accounts of 100s of businesses, in some of largest and fastest growing firms in the world, has given him the experience to understand businesses in a unique and powerful way. His next mission is to change the staggering statistics of "80% of businesses, that go to market, will Never sell.

More About Evan:

1. bizretire.com
2. https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanpoling/

Chapters:

1. 00:00 - Searching for the Missing Wallet
2. 06:58 - Navigating Business Ownership in a Changing Landscape
3. 11:30 - Navigating Ultimatums in Pursuing Dreams
4. 22:51 - Starting a Business: Understanding the Foundations
5. 28:34 - Navigating Business Competition
6. 37:44 - Setting Up a Business for Sale
7. 50:47 - The Importance of Reading in Business Growth
8. 55:03 - The Importance of Intentions in Entrepreneurship
9. 59:10 - Understanding Wealth and Its Impact

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Check more episodes and blog posts: https://aboutthatwallet.com

Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or tax advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for advice tailored to your individual circumstances.

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Episode 322

The wallet's missing from the floor it's got my secrets, nothing more I checked the drawers I checked the spikes Left me hanging in my ns Last night we tore up the town now my wallet's not around.

Call the cops or.

Play it smooth Pay my debts and start anew hey, hey.

Where'd it go?

My cash, my car is my flow don't you know what's gone?

Now I'm broke from dusk till dawn Dancing lights and screaming bass Drinks were flowing in that place Left a tip but lost my grip now my wallet's gonna slip.

In a world where financial advice is as blurry as a wild night of cheap jello shots, clear your head and your monetary halitosis with the about that Wallet show, hosted by Anthony Weaver.

Leave those jello shots for the amateurs and learn to indulge in the top shelf bottles, baby.

Now here's your host, Anthony Weaver.

Hey, hey, hey.

Welcome back, everybody, to another exciting show, the about that Water podcast, where we help the Sam's generation build strong financial habits so that they can talk about money, spend money, and enjoy their money with confidence.

Today I have somebody who is not new to the business, but actually here to help you build a strong foundation with your business so that you can actually set it up to sell your business or even if you're looking to purchase a business.

Welcome to the show.

Evan, how you doing today?

I'm doing great, Anthony.

Thank you so much for having me on.

I'm.

I'm about to have a great time.

I love that intro, man.

That got me hyped, and I hope everyone else is hyped to be here with us, too.

So it'll be a good time.

Oh, yeah, you know, because you've been like, as a former, like, army National Guard, you know, you've been dealing with some of this stuff from time to time, well over a decade, just analyzing, you know, different financial workings and to getting into business as a whole.

Why now is a good time for people to start looking into buying a business instead of starting their own?

Yeah, I mean, the statistics, man, are really grim, you know, with someone that started a business.

Five years into that journey, only 4% of those people remain.

And so.

But the statistics are actually reversed.

If you buy a business, you probably have a roughly a 95, 96% success rate when you buy an established business that's up and running.

And so that coupled with a large amount of baby boomers who are planning to retire over the next ten years or so.

I heard statistics like one third of every Business in the United States is going to go up to sale or exchange hands or going to close their doors in the next 10 years.

And so the supply is hot.

It's time to buy.

Geez.

Okay, so if all of these people are going out, like, how do we even reach them to kind of say like, you know what, this is the business that I want.

Is it same thing like real estate?

Location, location, location, or versus like, you know, areas of my personal expertise that I want to get into?

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of variables that go into.

It's a very deep question.

It's a great question to be asking.

You know, you can be in a business that you don't necessarily know like, or love if there's established procedures in the business where you can kind of go in, you have a playbook, you jump in, the owner gives you some, you know, foundational information, you have some key employees within the business that can keep things running as you kind of get a foothold.

So you could do that, but also you can leverage your own personal strength and assets and find a business and something that you're familiar with.

And so there really is a lot of options.

And you know, it is a lot like a real estate action transaction.

Right.

In a lot of ways there's generally a middleman, like a business broker, which is kind of like a real estate agent.

My platform kind of gets that out of that equation.

But yeah, you, you go in, you look at the business, you look at the financials, you kind of, you see is, is the walls painted or are they dented or you know, in a metaphorical sense.

Right.

As you're, if you were selling a house.

But yeah, you definitely check out the business, see the cash flow, you understand the business, and then you make an investment decision whether or not you want to buy.

Yeah, because the rise of AI is really harping down on the amount of physical work that people are doing.

So a lot of people doing a lot of layoffs.

And I mean, just recently I think Amazon fired about 10,000 people right before the holidays.

So do you, like, how do you even evaluate a business considering the impact of AI?

Yeah, that's an excellent question.

One of the things that I think that most people would agree on is AI has probably a long way to go before it's actually physically there doing like plumbing, electricity, some of these blue collar jobs.

And in even AI implementations within businesses, there's hallucinations within AI that are not providing or pulling proper data.

The data sets are not fine Tuned or logical.

Right.

There's.

They're still trying to figure out things with AI.

So there, there is some issues with AI making it like taking away some of that, that job market for the, the businesses.

But in a lot of ways, AI will actually complement businesses.

It's kind of like if you think about back in the day before we had computers and people are like, well, I'm a file cabinet manager.

You know, I'm.

We're all going to not have jobs, like, what are we going to do?

And then, you know, with computers, we've actually, we have more jobs.

Right.

And so it's created more industries.

I think there will be an adjustment.

We're seeing that, like you said, with the layoffs and things are changing, but AI will also create new opportunities.

And even within industries that are old and established, I think maybe owning a business or buying a business now and figuring out how AI ties into that, it could be a great opportunity.

Wow, that's a great question.

I wasn't prepared for this one.

So.

Honestly, I think it's something that you're good at.

I know it sounds kind of silly, but if you worked a corporate job where you're analyzing data and, or you were a manager or, you know, whatever it is, you take your skill sets and how can you translate those into a job within a business as either an operator or an, or a marketer or whatever it is that you did well.

Right.

And then you can even think further.

It's like, well, if, let's say, Anthony, you're a great marketer and I'm a great operator, maybe we combine forces and we buy a business together.

You do the thing that you do well and you accelerate the revenue.

I do the thing that I do well.

I systematize the processes.

And we could take pretty much any business as long as we have a foundational understanding of what it is and make it great.

And so, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question.

It makes it, it makes it tough.

But I like gardening.

I, I want to do stuff with agriculture.

Not a lot of businesses for sale out there, probably because they do well.

But if I could buy a business, it would probably be something planting flowers or something really peaceful like that.

Okay, so you, you like to be out in, in the grass, hands and hands of feet in the nature and just really get out there.

That's pretty cool.

That's a personal preference.

Doesn't necessarily mean it's the best business to buy.

Because it's, I guess goes back to that old saying, all money is not good money.

And you could be like, the business could be doing really well, be nice and cheap to purchase, but you will just be feel like you're not having fun.

It's not fun any hour.

So how important is having fun when it comes to a business from a long term perspective versus the short term?

Well, I'm gonna pop your bubble here and maybe a lot of of your listeners here.

I think we all, all have experienced this when we open up our presents on Christmas day and we're really excited about that thing and then 10 years down the road we find it in a closet, we forgot that it even existed.

Right.

I think no matter what we do in life, there's always going to be the wow factor, the thing that we're passionate about.

Very rarely do we continue to maintain that same level of excitement and passion for anything if it's not a new experience.

And it says more about us as people rather than it does about the work itself.

And so one of the things I would say about business is do something that you can go to sleep at night with a clear conscience, that you're proud of what you're doing, the impact that you're making, put people first.

And no matter what you do, whether it becomes a job that you love getting up for every day, or you're like, why the heck did I do this?

You can make things happen and it ends up providing for you and your family.

Because you mentioned family, you know, how was this starting this business, you know, with your family diving in all in?

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's very tough.

So my wife's working right now.

She's carrying a lot of financial burden while I'm here chasing my dreams.

And so it is a tough dilemma.

I've been at this for a little over two years and you know, you know, I look at things like, I'm not going to say that my company will be like Amazon one day, but you know, Amazon didn't make a profit for 14 years.

And so kind of puts into perspective the long term mindset you have to have towards these type of things if you're to be successful.

I'm sure, you know, as a podcast host, it's the same thing.

You've been at this for a long time and You've been consistent, you're building an audience.

And the more you do it, the more reps you put in, the better the podcast becomes.

Like I said, awesome intro, loved it.

But you didn't, you probably didn't have that on day one.

Maybe you did, but that, that was a result of hard work and figuring things out.

And now you're live casting guest.

And so I think with any business there is, there is a sacrifice, there is hard work, and your family does pay the price.

What the goal is, hopefully one day that it is all worth it for everybody.

What's the ultimatum, I gotta ask?

Because they don't just gonna be like.

You and my wife been talking to each other.

I think, yeah, there are some ultimatums.

Yeah, she wants to see some, some money.

I mean, because, I mean, from a perspective, it's like, dude, you've been at this for a few years, gotta see some results.

And, and that's totally understandable, but we, we worked out a deal where I can make money and still pursue my dreams.

So whether this goes from a full time gig to a part time gig, the, the beautiful thing is the platform's designed, it's functional, it's not beautiful, not yet, but we'll, I'm, we'll be working on that.

But it can run, it can run after hours on when I'm, when I'm working too.

So the foundation is definitely there.

That's a beautiful thing because, you know, coming up with that conversation, being in that, in those shoes at the same time.

When I started my podcast, it was mostly not so much the financial currency, but more so the spending time currency, the time currency of, with my wife at the time, it's like, what, what am I sacrificing and why?

And that was one of the hardest conversations that I had trying to do this thing.

But I was like, this is something that I'm passionate about.

This is something that I want to do.

Are you going to support me?

In a sense, it's paraphrasing here with that, but it's just kind of like that's the way how it just kind of came about.

So how was that conversation with you and your wife, like, kind of like, you know, did you just roll over?

Like, hey, you know what that idea I was thinking about, I just want to dive in or just quit my job and just do it.

What was that conversation like?

Yeah, the initial conversation, I'll take you back a little bit.

I was actually, I was working a job where I was managing, I believe, nine people in A company, really good, cushy corporate salary, you know, everything was going good.

And through the process of kind of cross training some employees, moving one employee full time in another team, and then and being able to like, kind of surrender a few employees full time on other teams within the bank I was working in and then my team lead, an awesome team lead, she was working hard, she was pretty much doing everything that I needed to be done.

And it came down to where it was like I wasn't really working.

So I essentially helped create some efficiencies to where I didn't need to work.

And then it was just like, hey, we don't need you anymore.

We're going to use that money to hire other people.

So I kind of stepped into this having had success, but working myself out of a job essentially and walking into this and, you know, I had worked parts or remote for about three or four years up to that point.

And during that time I was actually watching a lot of materials about buying and selling businesses.

There's, there's this big wave on the Internet talking about seller financing essentially, where, you know, the business owner is the bank and they're going to finance their, they're giving you the business, you're going to run and operate it.

And they're like the bank doing the loan and you're paying them money, these monthly payments or whatever the agreement is on the contract.

And so I kind of got intrigued and started learning a little bit about that.

And so, you know, I talked to my wife and we were like, okay, let's, let's give it a shot.

And, and that's, that's kind of how the journey started.

My wife was very supportive indeed.

So that's, that was helpful.

I think, you know, anybody listening audience, the person that you marry is your number one business partner.

There we go.

Because, yes, it is true, basically, if, if you don't work it out with that business partner, you're going to lose half of whatever you build.

Right.

We're just gonna, if we're being blunt about it, and not that you should be cordial and work well with your spouse because, because of that, but just because you love them and you're trying to build and build something together.

And so I think that's so important to just honor and to, you know, really get that feedback and work with, work with that person.

Yeah, no, this is good stuff because a lot of people are afraid to even take that jump or take that leap.

And sometimes the partner is not on that same page.

It's like, you Gonna do that.

And I'm out because I just don't deal with people trying to start their own.

And I'm not gonna financially bankroll everything, especially from a male, to step back and have the, the female kind of step up.

It's been tough from what I hear, and even vice versa.

Sometimes we just don't feel like it.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is tough.

Yeah.

So how about your, your parents, Are they supportive?

Like, what do they, what are their thoughts about starting business?

Did they even start a business when they were younger?

Yeah.

So my parents are divorced specifically, and I think my dad was a business owner.

I think that might have been where I got the bug.

I saw him start up a bunch of businesses.

They would do well and he would kind of hit this floor, the ceiling, I guess you could say, where he would do only as good up to that ceiling would allow him.

He didn't really have the skills or the ability to scale or make the business larger.

It was always a one man operation.

And I saw really kind of how he struggled.

He did, he did well, he had a lot of success, but he also had a lot of failure and just kind of seeing them try new things and not really sticking with something for a long period of time.

There was, there was one business he stuck with for quite a while, but yeah, it kind of gave, gave me a soft spot and an insight into how hard it was to be the guy that did everything, you know, he was doing, creating the ads, you know, he was using radio back then.

He was cleaning the shop.

You know, he was, you know, doing the, the logos and decals and, you know, designing the floor plan and, you know, paying the bills and so all the, all the tasks that was required.

And so I, I got to kind of see him do these things, you know, ordering inventory and, you know, being the salesperson and which is a lot like how I feel right now running this business.

You do, I'm sure you're similar to you, you do everything.

Um, and you know, to be honest with you, I'm, I'm not great at any of those things.

I'm just, you know, trying my best to do them.

And yeah, I would love to be able to hire someone to come in and take over those roles that are experts at those things.

But that comes, that comes in time.

Right?

But yeah, just having a heart for business owners and seeing the struggle and then eventually learning 80% of businesses never sell.

These are businesses that go on the market to sell and they never sell, regardless if you sell it by yourself or you sell it with, like, the real estate agent or a.k.a.

the business broker.

And like, when I heard that, that kind of startled me, and I was like, why is that?

And I. I had to start digging into the reason.

And that's why I created this platform to try to help those business owners actually get to the place where they can sell their business.

Yeah.

So what business industry that your dad, like, actually lasted that long before you let it go?

Before he decided to let it go?

Yeah, he.

So he learned.

He was in the military, man, and he learned to do tattoo art.

So he would learn.

He would go, like, different ports and go get tattoos and learn.

And.

And so then he started practicing on himself and the tattoo.

Tattoo parlor.

And he probably did that, gosh, 20, 30 years.

But then he would always kind of sprinkle on these extra things like, he would do.

He had like, a tattoo parlor and then a gun shop.

So, like, selling guns and then doing tattoos and.

Oh, the guns, right.

And then he's like, he liked the guns because he was a gun collector.

And then he would like, okay, let's do a gun show.

So he, like, ran out the fairgrounds and then had a bunch of vendors come in.

So.

And then, like, my stepmother, she could cook, so it's like, okay, let's have a concession stand within the.

The gun show so people could eat.

And so then they were selling.

So just like, whatever, a little extra income.

And, you know, he would just.

Or people couldn't pay for the tattoos, so they bring in, like, PlayStations back then or like the Sega Genesis.

And so he would, like, upcharge and then he would, like, have, like, you know, the Sega Genesis and the PlayStations on the shelves for people to come by, you know, just to whatever he could to get a little bit of extra income to try to push that bar a little higher.

I wonder if that was.

Is that like, the drive from seeing your dad do that?

Like, just like.

You know what?

I miss that.

That high energy of the unknown that kept you going, like, into the business now.

I think it made me more comfortable with unknown, you know, as a kid.

You know, I remember going to shows, like, so he would actually, like, ran out of table against show, and he wouldn't.

Like, we wouldn't know if we'd have enough money to get back home.

What?

So like, like, like we're.

Or it's in Ohio, it's freezing.

It's winter, you know, and we're driving, the heat's not on, so we're all bundled up freezing because turn the heat on that.

There's not enough gas in the car.

So we're going.

It's like, we ain't got no other options.

We're selling, we're selling.

We're gonna.

We're gonna buy, sell, trade.

And so, you know, I'm like, seven, eight, nine.

And so I just like.

So when you're kind of, like, thrust into those situations, you kind of learn to be comfortable with the unknown.

And in a way, it kind of creates an adventure.

Like, you can ask my wife.

I'm always creating another business in my head.

Like, every five minutes I'm like, oh, we could do this or this.

And she's like, no, this to stop.

So I take it she's more like the rock.

And you like the balloon.

Like, hey, this looks good.

Like, just bouncing around.

Yeah.

God knew what he was doing when he brought us together.

I'm the risk taker.

She's kind of the risk avoider.

And we.

We definitely help each other grow in both.

Both ways.

So that's definitely, definitely a good match.

That is cool.

So you built your resiliency, built the excitement in business that got you to where you are today.

What is it?

I will say, what are the three things that somebody should be looking into?

Because let's think about it.

I mean, to start the business is one thing, to buy it is another.

What it.

What should somebody have when they building their business?

Because obviously we talk about, like a business plan and whatever.

Should they even have a product first?

Oh, matter of fact, this is a better question.

That's the reason why I like post editing, because I edit all that out.

Is the better question is, should they have a product to sell first before they start the business?

Or should they start the business, get the LLC and everything like that before they even produce their first product?

This is a complicated question, but I.

What I would recommend is llc.

All that other stuff is a day of work.

Maybe at most it can take you a couple hours.

So if you're serious about starting a business, you should just create an llc.

It doesn't really matter what it is called because you can.

DBA is doing business as you can change the name, you know, so get your llc, get your ein number, go apply for a credit card, a bank, if you're fiscally responsible, right?

You always pay off your credit card, you know, every month, start building that credit.

But I would say with your business, you want to have an idea.

The question is, is who are you?

Who are you reaching?

Or what are you?

And what value are you Adding to them.

And why would they buy what you're selling or what you're doing for them?

And this is really important because, I mean, I started.

I actually started my business and I had a rough idea of all those things.

But.

And it's okay not to have all that iron out and perfected perfectionism will keep you from inaction, but having a rough idea and then working towards it, and as you learn more, you're either going to, A, you're going to quit.

Did you realize that your idea was wrong?

Or.

Or you're unable to execute on that idea.

B, you're going to learn that the market doesn't want that you thought that they did.

And so then you're going to have to change your idea.

You're going to have to modify what it is that you offer and what you did, which is what happened to me, like three times.

I had a tweak kind of my business model several times.

And then I think that I said there was three, but I don't remember what the third one is.

But some of the most successful people, when they build businesses, if you read books and listen to some of the stories of these entrepreneurs, they'll actually create a test pilot or they'll do surveys.

They'll survey their target audience and ask them questions and maybe some market research.

And so sometimes that'll be paid, sometimes they won't pay for that.

But if you can go to your people, the people who your audience will be, and get them to answer questions and figure out what they're struggling with, what their pain points are, and understand the problem completely and then create a solution to the problem that everybody's universally having.

You've got a business.

So, like, for me, one of the things I noticed, this is a telltale sign.

And I didn't actually sent out surveys, but I went on Facebook and there are buying and selling groups with 80,000, a hundred thousand, 150,000 people in these groups.

And so if you look at that, it's very obvious that there's a problem out there that's not being solved anywhere else.

And these people are active.

And so what does that tell me that there, there needs to be a company that can provide this service in a way that both parties would.

Would benefit, right?

And so that was kind of my test.

Like, hey, this, this is a problem.

People are interested in this.

People want something similar to this.

And there's obviously a whole plethora of reasons why you shouldn't buy or sell a business on Facebook.

You know, security risk, being the main concern there, but spoke to the fact that there was something that needed to be fixed.

And I think whenever we start a business, we got to ask ourselves, is it even a problem, or are we just trying to get rich?

Right.

Business is about service.

How are we serving somebody and fixing something for somebody if we look at it, how much money we can make?

Well, money will come if you're providing a good service.

And if you only care about money, you might end up in jail because you're committing fraud.

Because all you care about is money.

Right.

And so, yeah, that's.

That's why I would say when you're building a business, do the LLC, you know, pay the 80 bucks, whatever it is to file.

You know, don't worry about all these, like, structures and tax entities and all that garbage.

You can do that later.

You know, get the bank account, get everything set up and just get rolling.

But find.

Find your market, figuring out what problem you're going to solve and then set out to solve it.

Yeah, because that's one of the things that came to me later for my podcast.

One of the things is that I just wanted to do a podcast.

And what I did was I was like, hey, my podcast is for everybody.

And I was just talking about my personal finances, and as I was learning different things in finances, I'll just talk about it.

And it wasn't until I started focusing on the Samus generation, I would say almost two years now, I'm focused on the sandwich generation, just to kind of make sure, like, hey, what are their pain points?

What do they like to buy?

What do they like to eat?

Where do they hang out at or don't hang out at?

Mostly his home.

What are their plans for that money?

They might have an extra $10,000 sitting around.

What are they going to do with that?

And so that kind of helped me cater my podcast guests and also steer me to different directions.

So back to what you were saying is just do the work, get it started, and really serve the people.

You might not know everything about them yet, but like you said, the surveys really do help out.

Can't stress that out enough.

Yeah, 100%.

So what about.

Because we also know about every business has competition.

What is your competition?

Yeah, I have.

I have a lot of competition, actually.

I joined one of those Facebook groups, and they sent out this Excel spreadsheet, and apparently there's like, 900 other platforms that do very similar things to what I do.

And when I look at that, it's like, okay, it's kind of demoralizing.

It's like, well, do I want to even continue working?

And.

And, you know, competing in this space?

But.

But for context, you know, if there's, I think there was like 11 million baby boomers, and there's going to be about a million or so businesses, maybe or so.

I mean, there's plenty.

There's plenty for everybody to go around.

And I started dissecting the models of all these other businesses.

And so I learned that my model is completely different than the majority, if not all, of these other businesses.

I'm the only place that connects buyer and seller directly without any middleman.

So there's no broker.

And one of the beauties to that is the seller doesn't have to pay 5, 10, 20% on the seller business.

And that doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider you got to pay, like, lawyer fees, you got accountant fees, you got to pay taxes on the sale of your business, and then you're paying another 5, 10, 20% on top of that, I mean, the business owner might walk away with less than half of their business after the sale of their business.

And so I didn't think that was fair.

And then a lot of times my competitors will monetize on the seller side.

And so the seller's paying the platform percentage or they're paying a listing fee, which kind of makes sense intuitively.

It's kind of like how we do real estate now, where the house owner will pay the real estate fee because they get the larger sum of money.

But the thing is, is, like, the ratio of, like, businesses to buyers is much greater than house sellers to house buyers.

Right?

So for every business, you might have 10,000 buyers.

And so I don't know if that's.

I'm just kind of throwing a number out.

But it's a wide gap on my platform.

It's about a 40 to 1 ratio.

So for every seller, I have about 40 or 50 buyers on the platform.

And so the supply constraint is not on the buyer side.

There's plenty of buyers.

The supply constraint is on having the businesses on your platform.

And so why am I charging the thing that's going to bring in the money?

And so I actually charge the buyers.

And one of the reasons I do that is because what I'm doing is I'm bringing them businesses that are ready to be sold, that are looking for serious buyers.

A lot of times buyers are like, hey, Mr. Or Mrs. Business Owner, I want to see your financials.

I want to dig through your company and learn more about it.

And they end up wasting the time of the owner.

They're working 60, 78 hour weeks.

They want serious buyers.

That's why they hire a business broker in the first place.

And so what I do is I charge the buyers and then if they're serious enough about buying a business, they know the value of not spending 100 hours on my competitor's website or 100 hours cold calling, you know, if they're, if they're worth minimum wage is $15 an hour.

Right.

And so if you're a CEO or an operator level, business owner type Persona person, your time should be worth more than that.

50, 100, 200 an hour.

So that even amplifies the amount of money you're spending to try to find good business.

And so what I'm doing is trying to pull in all the good businesses, all the businesses that are ready to sell.

The buyers don't have to do any work, man.

And I'm matching the two together and cutting out the broker.

The buyers win, they don't have to do as much work.

The sellers win.

They don't got to pay a commission.

And then I get paid from the buyers.

So everyone, everyone really wins that exchange.

And so it goes back to addressing the market, finding something that's valuable.

That answers the question for everybody.

And so I'm not just screwing out the buy the sellers and trying to take their money.

I'm not just screwing over the buyers.

Everyone's a winner.

And kind of going back to like, what do we do in creative business?

It's how do we make everybody a winner in a scenario?

Okay, I like that.

And because I'm actually thinking of if I were to buy another business, I'll try to get something that's already in tune with the podcast.

So say if I saw like another podcast network that's saying like, hey, they just don't want to run it anymore and they willing to give that up, would I like, hey, like I know a person that's ready to do that.

Do I have them funneled through you or is it best for me to kind of work with the them one on one?

What is the difference between working with them one on one versus going through like a company such as yours?

Yeah.

So you want to look at my company kind of like an executive recruiter or like a head fi.

Like a headhunter.

Right.

I'm, I'm going out there doing the hard work, trying to find the business on behalf of the buyers.

And that's what they're paying me for is to make that connection.

But if you already have that connection outside my platform, definitely nurture that relationship, have those open conversations with that person.

You definitely don't have to use my platform to do that.

Right.

You, you and that person could have those conversations directly.

Okay, that makes sense.

I mean, I'm always curious about like other ways that people make these deals because it's a lot of handshake deals.

Even I'm not sure if you watch the History Channel.

I do sometimes like to eat snacks all the time.

So I watched the series that they have, the Foods that Make America.

And a lot of the deals that were done back in the day, especially with the chocolate industry, they were all just shaking hands with each other of like, hey, you, you can sell your products on the east Coast, I'll sell my products on the west coast.

Let's kind of shake hands so we can share market space together.

So it doesn't have to be like a full on takeover that could be later on, maybe later down the line, but at least kind of have that conversation.

Do you also help broker those partnerships or is it just usually a full takeover?

Yeah, it's a, that's an excellent question.

So our platform, we like to connect the two together and have both parties kind of work outside of our platform.

We really encourage people to so the money that would be saved on the seller side, that gives them more leeway to hire experts to help with those things.

Things.

I would say if it's someone you know personally, like a good friend, you might be able to get away.

But there, there are a lot of horror stories where things kind of go bad, where people don't really live up to their word.

And I, you know, I hate to say this, but I think our culture and our society doesn't honor the value of our word as much as they used to.

Now, from a legal, and I'm not a lawyer, it's not legal advice, it's all entertainment.

But I'm gonna say this, is that if you're, if you're agreeing, making an agreement, and there's something called consideration, meaning both parties are either giving or taking or gaining something.

Right?

You know, hey, I won't poach your customers, you won't poach mine.

You operate over there, operate over here, you both shake on it.

There's, there's something that's happening there, something that's a legally binding agreement.

But the problem is, is how do you, how do you argue that in court?

Right.

If you need to take it to court.

And whenever you're buying a business and even working with other people, having those legal agreements in place protects you.

And let's say, let's say, Anthony, one day you want to sell your podcast to somebody, and let's say, yeah, you want to sell your pod.

So let's say you have a sponsorship, someone's maybe paying you money to advertise one day.

You know, it's a really good deal.

You're making a lot of money, and it's just a handshake deal.

Let's say I come back, come along like, hey, I want to buy your podcast.

You know, yeah, I've got all this money coming in, and so my business is worth this.

I'm like, okay, let me see the legal agreement.

You're like, well, we just have the handshake deal.

Now, as a buyer, I'm not going to feel really comfortable that.

So essentially, we're evaluating.

We're giving you a valuation of your company based upon this money that's supposed to come in, but that money is contingent on this verbal agreement that you have with another person.

Now, that agreement wasn't with me, and I have no way to actually enforce that in court when I buy your business.

So that makes your business a lot less attractive to me as the buyer, because it's not as locked in agreement.

Right.

And so whenever you're trying to buy or sell a business, and I mean, this is with, like, employees, this is like suppliers.

This is like, you know, deals.

The more that you have documented and solidified when you go to sell your business, the more safety and comfort the buyer is going to feel.

And the more that they feel safe, the more willing they are to pay your price or maybe even pay you more.

And so that would be my.

My advice or perspective on it.

Okay, so this brings up really the question I was leading this towards, which is setting up a business to be sold, because I can use mine for an example.

I went on and got the trademark for, like, merch and everything like that.

Went on and got the llc, got the articles operation, got the web domain.

I got the.

My email list set up.

So if you guys are actually watching this on YouTube, you can go on the show notes to check out how I got my email list set up.

And once I got everything set up, it should be like, almost like a value number for each one, each line item that I can itemize to kind of say, like, hey, person or buyer, this is what I have for my business.

If you're interested in purchasing that's my limitation of what I know now.

So is there anything that I'm missing that will kind of help solidify my business from that perspective?

Yeah.

So for podcasting, it's a little different because there is a certain element of like, branding and how your customers will associate with your brand.

You know, the contact list is important, especially if you have engaged, you know, purchasers or, you know, audience like that.

The.

Let me, let me put it in this perspective.

So I, I, I, I, I actually talked to a business owner today.

So there's a business owner, he owns a gutter company.

He had gotten a valuation of his business around 125, 150, 000.

I don't know if that's accurate, but we'll just say that maybe it is for this.

So he's a solopreneur, just, just him by himself.

And so I think he has the machinery to build, to bend the metal, to do custom gutters for houses.

And he lives in an area where it rains.

So it's an, it's a, you know, it's a lucrative business.

Let's just say he makes a hundred thousand a year.

I don't know what he makes, but he makes, say he makes 100 grand a year or maybe 80.

Let's say he makes 80 grand a year.

His business is worth 150.

Let me ask you a question.

Are you going to take out $150,000 a year loan to work an $80,000 a year job?

No.

Probably not.

Right?

Because, because the asset isn't really the machinery, the guttering machine.

The asset is the business owner and all of his knowledge and his expertise.

Right?

And so now if that, now let's say the same business owner had two or three employees that knew how to go out to houses and do that work on their own.

And that, that business owner had a marketing person that brought in consistent business flow.

The business owner then had procedures that they could train new operators to go out in the field and new hiring procedures.

And he had all this documented so anybody could read it and do step by step instructions to replicate what he's doing and how he's doing it.

And so the business owner doesn't necessarily need to be there for the business to run and operate.

Well, that is, that's a different story.

That's kind of like a, that's like a living, breathing entity, right?

That is printing money.

And so a lot of businesses, they're called, we call them like jobs like, I don't want to pay money to buy A job, right?

Yeah.

But every owner.

What I would say is, how do you get from being the sole person to.

To having an operation that's running on its own?

Right.

And so that's the scaling issue and challenge.

I was watching on LinkedIn, there's this lady named Mel Robbins or something, she's like, they were celebrating and she's got a team of 50 people.

50.

Jeez.

Her podcast has 50 people is what she said.

I got my team of 50.

I didn't know you could even employ 50 people for a podcast, but apparently you can.

Yeah, I could name them.

Yeah.

So that, that's kind of what I'm getting at is like, it comes down to.

That's the difference between like a mom and pop restaurant and a McDonald's is the scalability and the repeatability of success.

Right.

Like, if you know that if you follow with it and the guidelines of a McDonald's franchise, you put it where it's supposed to be.

You do what they tell you to do it.

And you know, 97% of them succeed.

Well, you know you're going to be successful.

And I think it comes down to the buyer.

You look at it from the investor perspective.

Would you buy your podcast?

What if, what if the audience only loved you as the person loved your personality?

And then I stepped in, I was like, who's this, who's this white guy that is an idiot?

And you know, why is he, you know, you know, whatever.

Right, right here we want Anthony back.

He's, he's the, he's the guy, you know, he's our guy.

Right.

And, and so I, I joke that you are, you are the podcast in a way.

And so how do you make the podcast its own thing that people like?

And so maybe, maybe five years down the road, you start rotating new guest host in or you bring in a panel of people and then you get different voices and different questions and maybe do some in person stuff.

You know, maybe you expand that brand so where it can live and stand on its own without you in the middle of it, where then you could.

Then it becomes an asset rather than a liability.

Because it's one of the reasons why I don't have my name on the show.

Because, you know, like most of them, you have like.

Oh, like Mo Robbins, she has her name plastered across.

Yeah, it's There is no show without Mel Robbins similar to Dave Ramsey.

Even though he has this Dave Ramsey Personas, people that actually part of his brand actually start hosting his show, but they still follow his methods and everything like that.

So I can see that happening.

It just said, how can I. I think that's my next step in my business that I need to set up.

Like, I have the sops down because sometimes I don't feel like doing it.

I need to fall back to the systems that I created so that I could still put out a show even if I'm up until like one o' clock in the morning getting these shows out.

And again, thank you for doing a live show because I don't have to do any editing.

Yeah, live is great.

So with your business coming in and you helping, well, do you even help other people to get ready and prepare to sell their businesses too?

No, I. I don't do that because there are.

There are tons of different individual advisors, I like to call them, that do that.

And they've been doing it longer than I have knowledge of this industry, and they've been doing only that.

And so I tend to want to connect people to those experts because they're going to get a lot of more value.

I could give you a general idea how to do things, but I would be learning with an individual.

And so I'd rather just kind of step out.

But I can.

For the purpose of the show, educational purposes only.

I can.

We can go through some.

Yeah, let's go through.

There's a whole reason why I love this show.

Everything is educational purposes.

You can't see me, bro.

But before we get into that, I do want to say shout out to the people that are here.

So that's why I'm keep looking to my left is mostly because I got Instagram up.

So saying hi to the Instagram family.

Thank y' all for chiming in.

What's going on?

Let's see.

We got Charlene in there.

We got Claire.

She's in there.

And a couple other people that are listening on Instagram.

And then for YouTube, we got Lisa J.

Stocks.

I know you said that.

You're driving as always.

Thank you for supporting the show.

Nia, from money perspective, doing amazing work out there.

If y' all who are actually looking in the stocks, definitely check out Lisa J.

Stocks.

If you're looking into real estate and really learning more about your business, not your business, but more so from your money, different perspectives about money, definitely check out Nia's show and who else we got up there and woke by accident.

Definitely.

Good to see you, Jen.

Great podcast, her great guests, and she's actually doing an awesome job out there on whatnot, you know, thank you all for supporting the shoulders for today and saying something in the chat, because I can't tell if you're like, if you're watching and you don't say anything, I don't know who you are, so I can't give you a shout out.

So.

But if y' all have any questions.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah, they can ask questions.

I'd love to answer anything that they've got.

Or you keep asking questions in the meanwhile.

Oh, I got plenty.

So one of the things is that, you know, as you go along and want to start talking about the features now, because we talked about preparing your business for selling top level, which you said by Core, you need an sop.

Do you have a book in mind?

I have one in mind that kind of talks about this, but I'm sure you know about the book, so I don't want to steal your thunder if you know it.

Do you have a book that you recommend that for people who are looking to grow their business or even get ready to sell their business?

Yeah, you know, there's.

There's a lot of authors, I think Alex Armazi, he does a lot of free courses and stuff.

And, you know, he's got some books out there that are pretty good.

I mean, he.

He takes it from a perspective of a very large entrepreneur or someone trying to scale.

But he does have a scaling model.

Check him out.

And, yeah, I would say definitely read as much as you can.

I think.

I think, though, too, is just studying people who are doing what it is that you want to do and reading what they write and what they.

What they put out there.

And so if it's.

If it's in the restaurant industry, you know, maybe Gordon Ramsay is your guy or, I don't know, maybe he's got a book or so just figure out what it is, who's doing what it is that you're doing, and read.

Read their stuff and learn.

Learn what they know and what they do.

And so, yeah, and there was a.

Because you mentioned gardening and one book that actually got me into understanding, like, gardening a little bit more, I think it was called Silent Spring, and it was about a lady who was a.

Is she.

She called herself.

She's like a botanist.

And what was happening is that during her research, not even about it, she was a scientist studying, like, growth of bacteria.

And what happened is that she was just Wrote a book about the studies of impacts of.

I think it's like the, the mustard gas, is it like not ddt and the impacts of how it actually seeps into the ground and actually will rotten out, you know, pretty much the vegetation in that area.

And what was happening is I like trying to figure out how to get into the streams now what is it doing to the people and animals and just imagining a time where there are no birds, there are any insects.

And the reason why a lot of the farms don't survive is because they only grow in homogenous plants in that particular field.

It's just that the reason why the ecosystem works is because you need everything to kind of help support each other.

And she got a lot of heat from a lot of scientists out there because of that book that she published.

So it gets you to think of like, yes, you're getting into this industry, but what is the history of why this, this business works?

Why doesn't it work in certain areas?

And because you grow too fast.

So I, I do read a lot of books.

Well, I try to anyway, but it's, it's interesting to see what, what people are reading nowadays, so.

To kind of help themselves out.

Yeah, yeah, reading is important.

The way I look at reading is someone's taking sometimes decades of experience they're having to put it in an articulate, concise form that's consumable, that someone who knows nothing about the topic can understand.

And when you, when you think about that, that is leaps and bounds better than, than most social media.

It's probably leaps and bounds better than courses that are online in some cases, maybe not all.

And so books are so insanely cheap, but they're so, so valuable and the amount of wealth of knowledge and understanding that they can provide you.

And so, you know, instead of if someone's listening out there and you're a doom scroller, you know, buy some books.

You know, instead of sitting in front of the TV at night, read, read an hour or two of your most famous or your favorite business novel because it will, it will actually give you a dis.

Unfair advantage over your competition if you understand things that they don't.

Definitely.

Now the, because we talked about books.

Do you have any children?

No, not yet, but we're, we're working on it.

All right, so are you.

Because the reason why I'm asking that is because a lot of entrepreneurs always say, well, I did this for my child or I'm doing this for my family, but the family never asked them to do that.

And then a lot of times parents tend to do things for the child without asking the child.

And sometimes they just say the child don't know any better.

So what would be your take on parents.

I'm sorry to freezing my question here.

Live.

No, it's okay.

What would be your take on people who are starting a business because they say it's for the family.

Thing?

That's my question.

Yeah, I think.

I think the intention of your heart is important to understand why you're doing what you're doing.

I think a lot of times, I know, myself included, I'll say some things for a reason and then because it sounds noble or just, but the true intention of doing that thing is actually for myself and kind of an ironic statement like, hey, I'm doing this for the family.

Like, I'm providing wealth or freedom.

I'm pursuing this.

At the same time I've been neglecting and not spending time with the family.

Right.

And so.

So, you know, I think.

I think being honest with yourself, what it is that you're pursuing and why you're pursuing it is important because I think a can help you realize is, is.

Is this actually going to be enough to pull me through the hard times, through the times where I'm questioning things?

Is this.

Is this a foundation I want to build this adventure on?

Is this a foundation that I want to, you know, preach to everybody that I'm doing this?

Because then.

Then you start standing on a foundation mold.

This is for you.

I'm doing this for you.

And like you said, well, we never asked you to do this.

We'd rather you just go work a job and just spend time with us.

And so I've heard that one before.

And so I've had.

I've had to evaluate.

I've had to evaluate these things.

Right?

And, you know, if we're just being honest here, a lot of it is for me, like, I feel for my man personally.

This is something that I want to do.

I feel like I'm suited for it.

I enjoy it.

I want to.

I'm hoping that, you know, it takes off.

But I'm also doing it because I have a love and passion for business owners.

I've seen my father struggle, and there's a lot of, like, he's never sold any of his business.

He would just close them down.

He never got paid for anything he built.

And so I don't.

I don't want that pattern to continue to repeat.

And so although there are some selfish intentions there, there's also some intentions that I do believe that are really underpinning everything that I'm doing.

And so, yeah, at the end of the day, if it's for yourself, it probably will all fall apart.

And I think it goes back to.

There's a reason why I asked about your parents is because for me, I mostly did my show and focus on this.

It's because my mom, like, she asked, she knows about a lot of things, but don't take action on it.

And I didn't realize that until I asked her the question about, hey, do you know about authorized users?

And why didn't you add me as an authorized user to a credit card when we were growing up?

And she was like, I just didn't want to mess up your credit.

And I was like, perfect.

So now I understand that aspect.

So let me educate and open up, shed some light on it.

Because everybody say, like, the boogeyman is behind the closed doors or the thing that we don't understand is the most scariest.

So let's break it down, let's get familiar with it, let's know it, understand it, so we can have those confidence and those conversations to take action on the things that we feel as though it's pretty scary.

Yeah.

And Nia brought up a good question.

She said, and what if the child don't want it, don't want the business?

I think that's going back to, you know, why do we do what we do?

Yeah.

Do you want to take that one?

Yeah.

I think she might be asking what happens if you build a business and you're looking to move on or sell your business, but your, your goal was, hey, I'm building this for my kid, to pass it on to my kids and continue the legacy.

And your kids, like, hey, dude, I don't want to be a farmer.

I don't want to be a podcaster.

I don't want to be, you know, a business marketplace guy.

That's, that's, that's a, that's a very tough place to be in because a lot of times the person who built a business can sees the value in that business, the life that it's created for that family.

They.

They can picture that kid taking over that business and running it.

And they think about providing wealth for their kids and their grandkids and their great grandkids, and hopefully something that passes on.

They realize the heart, the hard work and grit that goes into it.

But unfortunately, I think it's something like 80% of businesses don't get transferred to the second generation.

Like, the the generation under them, the third, I think the third generation is like 92% don't get transferred and then like fourth is even smaller.

So the reality is, is most businesses don't get transferred, and that's why a lot of businesses will go to the market and that's.

And then a lot of times the businesses don't even sell.

And so what I would say is if you're building a business to pass it on to your family there, you know, maybe there's some psychology there, you know, how, how much is it being forced upon them?

How much do they enjoy working with you?

Or is it all about the business?

Or are you also including creating a place where the family wants to be, that they're, they're, they're enjoying that experience, that time together?

You know, if you do decades of that, eventually maybe your kids will enjoy it.

But even if they don't, you want to create your business plan and you want to build the business with intentions of selling it, and you want to look at it from the perspective of a buyer.

What would a buyer see as valuable?

So to my earlier point, solo entrepreneur, gutter guy, you're going to take out $150,000 loan to work an 80k job?

No, but if the gutter business has employees and sops and money coming in, it's kind of a well oiled machine.

That's an investment.

Buyers are going to definitely jump on that and buy that, and so definitely build with the end in mind.

And as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is today.

So the sooner you start planning for those things, the better.

Love it.

Is there anything you want to leave the audience with before we dive into the final four questions?

Like to sneak these in there?

No, nothing.

Nothing on top of my head.

Thanks for the question.

That was good.

Oh, no problem.

So the final four questions is pretty much just a quick snapshot of what you feel and know and, you know, just kind of get to learn a little bit more about you from a financial take.

So cool.

All right, you ready?

Yeah, let's do it.

All right, Number one, what does wealth mean to you?

I look at my funeral, at the end of the day, nothing I've built or accumulated will matter.

What will matter is impact I've made on actual people's lives.

And so money is a tool that can be used to help others.

And, you know, I'm supposed to steward it.

Well.

I like it.

Number two, what was your worst money mistake?

Oh, gosh, Worst money mistake.

Probably going to college, if I'm going to be honest.

Really?

Yeah.

Probably going to college.

Yeah.

I could do a whole episode on that.

But.

All right, what's the 11 take about that?

Like.

You know, you, you think about it, you go into college to learn a skill or, or something, and then you're surprised when your whole entire graduate waiting class knows the same thing you do and you can't find a job.

It's because you, you have no diversified or exceptional experience above and beyond your peers.

And so you really, it's not really differentiating you in any way.

I like that.

Never thought about it that way.

Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to have you come back on and talk about that experience.

Talk about buying real estate.

I got all kinds of stuff.

We'll, we'll definitely do another.

Sounds cool.

Number three, is there a book that inspired your journey or change your perspective?

Oh, man, I'm gonna get the tomatoes thrown at me.

But it's the, it's the Bible.

To be able to understand a cultural nuance back then and understand that people back then were very similar to people back today, but be able to translate the meaning.

You know, anthropology, you're looking at like dates and times.

It's very historical document.

It takes a lot of intellect and ability to do that.

But once you dig in, you understand it from just from a studying perspective.

But then you add the spirituality, the good living.

It's just such a, such a wealth of information.

It's a very complex, yet simple text.

And the stories are great too, when you read them as you go throughout life.

And that's one of the things I always go back to, is the stories because they impact you a little differently the more experience you have in life, which is pretty cool.

That's so true.

This is the very last, well, not the very last question, but number four is Lisa J.

Stock's worst question.

She don't like this one, but it's my favorite question, which is what is your favorite dish to make?

Oh, favorite dish to make.

Okay.

So I went vegan, and then that was too hard.

We went vegetarian.

Now we kind of, we do a little bit.

We like vegetarian when we, we feel like it, but we're like 80 vegetarian.

But we would make sweet potato mushroom enchiladas, and so we would bake them.

We put up the sweet potato.

You put the mushrooms, you flavor the mushrooms with like, flavoring like meat so it tastes like me.

You.

You bake the, you pre bake the sweet potatoes, make them soft.

And you put them enchiladas, you put some green sauce in there, some cheese.

Oh, dude.

There you got the kind of.

The sweetness coming out from the.

From the sweet potatoes and the hardiness from the mushrooms and the.

The tangy, zingy sauce.

Oh, it's.

It's.

It's amazing.

I highly recommend.

Yeah, you might, you know, share a picture of that next time or something.

Send it to me on the side and I'll post it.

Be like, hey, check this.

If I make it, I'll do that.

I'll do that.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So this is the very last question of the show, which is where could people find out more about you?

Yeah, so I'm.

I'm pretty active on LinkedIn under Evan poling1L check me out there.

Connect with me.

We can start up a conversation.

And then I have bizretire on LinkedIn X Facebook threads, but I'm most active on LinkedIn, so definitely reach out there.

You can contact me.

And bizretire.com is.

Is where we do business, so that's another great place as well.

Sounds awesome, man.

Evan, this was amazing.

Thank you so much for coming through, sharing your knowledge about businesses, buying, selling, setting up our businesses.

And if you learned anything from this episode or fell as though there's a question that was burning inside you that you just wish I would have asked or we didn't get around to, especially for you.

Those of you who are watching on a replay, please put them in the comments.

We'll definitely like to have Evan back on to kind of talk about that, especially about his worth money mistake about college, so we can make sure we add to those in between.

All right, everybody, y' all be safe.

We out.

Peace.

I mean, you can stay on for a little bit once you get this.

And add my outro video.

There we go.