Corporate mergers and acquisitions are a complex process that many entrepreneurs think they can power through without guidance.

Holli Moeini knows that's far from the truth. Her decades of accounting, auditing, and mergers and acquisitions have sharpened her skills to be among the best at helping CEOs achieve consistently higher returns on the sale of their company.

Holli listens to the story of the business while examining the financial statements, helps the CEO implement systematic and repeatable approaches to accelerate growth and maximize profit, and serves as an ally to sell a company for the highest multiple possible.

I’m Damon Davis and this is my discover diary with fractional CFO and M&A master Holli Moeini

https://hollimoeini.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollimoeini/

009 - Holli Moeini, Mergers & Acquisitions Fractional CFO

[00:00:00]

[00:00:06] Damon: Corporate mergers and acquisitions are a complex process that many entrepreneurs think they can power through without guidance. Holli Moeini knows that's far from the truth and her decades of accounting, auditing, and M and a work have sharpened her skills to be among the best at helping CEOs to achieve consistently higher returns on the sale of their company. Holli listens to the story of the business while examining the financial statements Helps the CEO implement systematic and repeatable approaches to accelerate growth and maximize profit. And serves as an ally to sell the company for the highest, multiple possible. I'm Damon Davis. And this is my discovery diary with fractional CFO and MNA master Holli Moeini.

[00:00:54] Damon: Well, Holli, thank you so much for being here with me.

[00:00:56] Damon: I really appreciate you making time. This is awesome.

[00:00:59] Holli: Thank [00:01:00] you, Damon. I'm so honored to be on your podcast. Looking forward to our conversation today.

[00:01:04] Damon: Indeed. So, we met in Nashville. We had a great chat. We were at a, what I call a wealth building event. We were with Adam Coffey and JT Foxx. Dennis Masarycki and Michael Burton.

[00:01:15] Damon: And one of the things that I think we hit it off on was this discussion around, your work in terms of being a new entrepreneur, building your own space as a fractional CFO, if I recall correctly, but

[00:01:27] Damon: for anybody who doesn't know you just do me a favor, take us back for a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your professional experience before you started this current business.

[00:01:36] Damon: , how did you get to be? An independent fractional CFO.

[00:01:40] Holli: So I started a long time ago, over 30 years, and I was an auditor and a CPA, and I did that because. I thought that I would really understand business and I thought I'd make a lot of money. I mean, honestly, that was the impetus behind it.

[00:01:56] Holli: And then I soon found out like, wealth building is beyond, [00:02:00] the it's not even nine to five. It's probably Five in the morning till 12 at night, even at a corporate job. Right. So, and you're working for somebody else. So I worked and it was an auditor and spent some time doing everything fun.

[00:02:12] Holli: All audits, I would walk into every different kind of industry and I'd learned very quickly and figure out what's happening in the company. And then I also did some fraud auditing, which I think is really helpful. for me even today. So the tools were starting to be gathered at that point in time. And then I went into what I call private practice in actual corporations, helping build.

[00:02:36] Holli: So one of my first companies I was recruited for, we were going to build and, and go IPO, but we ended up selling it became international. We took it from 25 million to over 200 million. And, and then we, we sold to Australian public company and we became public. And at that point in time, I was like, okay, it's time to move on.

[00:02:56] Holli: Our product was a commodity at the time and [00:03:00] tougher and tougher to make money. And I'd been there. In that space a long time, and then I went to corporate career and I started doing a lot of M and a work mergers and acquisitions, and I would do what I would call end to end. And so I think of me and the CEO as Batman and Robin, and we always went together in the car, And for the adventure.

[00:03:23] Holli: And so as the conversation started to actual closing and integration planning, I was a part of that, which I was really blessed to be fortunate enough to be in every, have my fingers in every aspect. And then, one of the things I found as a practice was to debrief on. What went well, what didn't and then, I call myself demon.

[00:03:43] Holli: I call myself the haphazard entrepreneur, which I would never, ever, ever think that anybody should follow my path. So don't be the haphazard. So one day I was just like, I'm not growing. I'm not learning. I always think in terms of, [00:04:00] What legacy am I going to leave and everywhere I go, and even with people, it's like, what legacy do I want to leave?

[00:04:09] Holli: And I had been on that path in this company and I was like, I've already left the legacy. It's time to give the baton. And so I just, I just. Automatically said, I'm, I'm going. And it took about a year to transition out which was wonderful. And then I'm like, okay, what do I do? And so today then I take all those tools.

[00:04:32] Holli: And what I found Damon is that there's a space of companies and their, their startups to, 50 million somewhere around there, maybe even a hundred million Where entrepreneurs get stuck and I've been through that. I've seen it. And so I wanted to be that partner and that Batman and Robin for many, many people so I can leave a legacy for our [00:05:00] smaller businesses that struggle making it.

[00:05:02] Damon: Yeah, I love that.

[00:05:04] Damon: I've heard a lot about this entrepreneurship. Endeavor. And when you reach a certain point of success, you stagnate, right? And it's often said, , the things that got you here will not get you there, right? Whatever you would skills you had coming into this, be it a haphazard entrepreneur or not, you're going to need some additional skills.

[00:05:25] Damon: You don't know what you don't know about the next level. And it sounds like you got a lot of that stuff, honestly, but sort of by being thrown into the fire. I mean, you, you talked about audit experience. But then you talked about mergers and acquisitions and they're not the same thing. So how did you cut your teeth in this mergers and acquisition space?

[00:05:42] Damon: Because it doesn't sound like it was a skill that you even had going in.

[00:05:45] Holli: No. And, and the, the slice of the skill is really in the due diligence. So I can look at financials and sniff out where the problems are immediately. and also I'm really good at detecting if there's fraud or if there's anything going on, [00:06:00] like There's a faction of people when they know they're selling, they strip equity.

[00:06:03] Holli: There's all kinds of things that you do to devalue and hope nobody sees it. I don't, I don't know. Okay. But, but that little slice of of auditing actually really did help me. And then the other thing that I think, and people don't talk about this, but. In M and a, and I think even our seminar, nobody talked about this, but I will

[00:06:24] Holli: when somebody is selling their business, it's personal.

[00:06:27] Holli: It's emotional. It's seven stages of grief. And I was one of those people that I wanted to hire you and bring you on. And I wanted to hug you and sing Kumbaya and I didn't want you to leave. So I wasn't one of those, what's called the lights off buyer. I was a lights on, let's continue the path together and do it together.

[00:06:49] Holli: And so it's really important for us to consider. That through the whole process of acquisition. So no, I didn't end up [00:07:00] getting that from my auditing, but while I was complacent at my corporate job, I went and got a coaching career. I went out and did a podcast. I did all these things to help me understand the human.

[00:07:11] Holli: Emotions and conditions. And I've always been empathetic, but like, how do I help and guide that seller I'm a buyer. So you think I have a conflict of interest, but I never wanted to take advantage of anybody. Our company wasn't like that. So I could gain your trust and I could help you through the process.

[00:07:27] Holli: And when you start horse trading at the last minute, when I would get mad and go, Oh, we've, been there. We've done that. You have to step back and say, Okay, this is fear. Let's let's sit down and talk about what that fear is. And so that's the thing that people don't talk about.

[00:07:45] Holli: Yes. I mean, I've gained that along the way, just from a personal standpoint to always. Personally improve and then we can show up like that for everybody else in everything we do.

[00:07:55] Damon: Yeah, that's really amazing. And I think a lot of people who are not [00:08:00] directly in a business of their own, think of business as being very cutthroat.

[00:08:04] Damon: I have to win and you have to lose. And what I'm hearing you say is that there's space for both people to win. Because what I also think I heard you say was, if I was a, Entrepreneur who built a business to 50 million. That's my baby. I grew that from nothing and now it is not only graduated college, but it's going off to live out in the world without me.

[00:08:28] Damon: And that is, I can imagine a very emotional thing for someone else to come along and say, Your baby is now coming with me and I'm going to nurture it further. I could see how that would be very challenging. And I appreciate you bringing out that emotional component of that business sale and purchase process.

[00:08:47] Damon: Cause they are, it's a lot to go into all of that, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about this digging into the books. I want you to give some practical things. If I was coming to you and I'm [00:09:00] selling a business and I knew I was selling a business And I've done some of those things that you said I shouldn't do.

[00:09:06] Damon: What kinds of things are you pointing out and what do you look for in the books when someone says I'm ready to sell and you're looking for the flags that they've stripped equity and other stuff.

[00:09:15] Holli: I love this. This is a, this is a great question. Thank you. So I'm going to start at the point where you wouldn't think, but I'm going to start with the initial conversation.

[00:09:23] Holli: So I think it's really important to listen. What are people saying about their business, about their profit, about their customer base and their market? What is their story Damon? And then you get the books And you look three years back and you always get. A balance sheet with an income statement. Those two things.

[00:09:45] Holli: Have a love story. They never leave one another, or you can say they have an adventure like Batman and Robin. But I like to say a love story because they meet at the business gala on the exact same day every year. So if it's a 1231 date, you always get an [00:10:00] income statement and a balance sheet. So you take this story that you heard from the CEO not only are they telling you about the financials, but they're telling you cultural things too, that you want to log.

[00:10:09] Holli: Cause we're trying to figure out if it's a cultural fit. So when I look at the books, let's go straight to the books. Now, when I look at the books, What I'm looking at is a couple of things. I start on the balance sheet. every auditor starts on the balance sheet. Dennis, who you talked about, who's a business broker, who's amazing at his job.

[00:10:27] Holli: He starts with the balance sheet. And so we look and say, okay, what's happening on the balance sheet? Cause oftentimes there's a lot of hocus pocus happening there. And that is a very technical term for things not being right. But here's the kicker. This is what, and most CEOs don't even look at their balance sheet.

[00:10:47] Holli: Most problems get on the balance sheet because bookkeepers don't know where to put it. And if you

[00:10:54] Speaker: Miscategorization.

[00:10:55] Holli: Yes, and but the problem with that miscategorization, Damon, is that if you, [00:11:00] If it lands on the balance sheet, it most likely is an expense. So it reduces your net income. So I'm looking at EBITDA earnings before interest taxes, depreciation, and amortization, which is not exactly income, but it reduces that.

[00:11:16] Holli: So you your PNL is wrong. If your balance sheet is wrong.

[00:11:20] Holli: And then

[00:11:21] Holli: the other thing that I always do is I, and nobody, Nobody thinks of this, but those people in that financial space, and I'll tell you, you must make sure that your accountant or somebody reconciles. Why is that? So equity is something that really just takes your net income and says, okay, I earned this much more money.

[00:11:41] Holli: Well, if it's declining, people are taking draws out and they're taking, stripping money out of the business or they, they're putting expenses there, Damon, that should be. against your EBITDA. That's, and, and

[00:11:58] Damon: so you're reducing the value of [00:12:00] the company. To you comes in and they see all of these little dribs and drabs drips going out.

[00:12:06] Damon: Basically

[00:12:07] Damon: they're siphoning off from the bucket. The bucket doesn't look as full to someone who's looking to buy the bucket. Right. That's a full bucket for, that's worth a hundred million dollars. But all of these little miscategorizations have got you down to 65 million. I'm going to devalue your organization and you're going to wonder why I'm offering you this crazy number.

[00:12:29] Holli: A hundred percent. And 75 percent of the businesses are just valued on your EBITDA. Times a multiple and

[00:12:36] Holli: that multiple scales up, the bigger you get, the rarer you get and it gets bigger. But so you're exactly right. That multiple multiple goes down and you're thinking, well, this isn't, I'm not happy now.

[00:12:48] Holli: Now there are ways to negotiate. Most things are not nefarious. It's just either bad bookkeeping or whatever it is. It's not nefarious. So you can figure out how to negotiate a [00:13:00] bridge between what they want. And what you're willing to give. And I'm one of those people and, and I. If you're, if you hired me, I wouldn't necessarily, I would be on your side, but as a company that I wanted to hire you and bring you in, if I found one time non reoccurring charges, for example, if you hired me just to come in and help you, that doesn't go against your EBITDA.

[00:13:24] Holli: Because it's a one time charge. So when I buy your business, you're not going to buy it with Holli, the business with Holli. And so, so I would strip that out and help your EBITDA. I would boost it by saying that these things are really what we call seller discretionary expenses. And I would add that back.

[00:13:45] Holli: Sometimes people put personal items in there and if they're, reasonable, we would add them back. And say, okay, your EBITDA is really higher now. So those are the kinds of things that I look at on the, those are the red flags on the books and then did the [00:14:00] story, was the story, right? So there are many times that I hear the story, then I look at the books and they're completely wrong.

[00:14:06] Holli: So it's then you think, well, does this leader know what they're talking about? So here's the other thing about that. The less. The less ready you are, the less money you're going to get, they are directly correlated.

[00:14:19] Damon: I was just about to ask you that very question.

[00:14:21] Damon: I'm so glad you led me to that because what I'm hearing you say is people who come to you too late are going to be under prepared and then undervalued. So it sounds like basically the morning you wake up and think to yourself, I should really sell the company. That's the time to come and chat with you.

[00:14:42] Damon: Because it's going

[00:14:42] Damon: to take a while to get to that sale point and you can help to create some efficiencies, get the books to be correct, make the story of the balance sheet and the P& L and all of those other documents align. Is that what I'm hearing?

[00:14:58] Holli: 100%. So the more [00:15:00] that all aligns, , the more it reduces the risk to the buyer.

[00:15:04] Holli: I gain

[00:15:04] Holli: more confidence in you. I'm going to take your books and I'm going to forecast them and say, what cash flows are you going to be able to give me when I buy you? And that gives me confidence in those cash flows.

[00:15:15] Holli: If I lack confidence in my mind, I'm discounting it in my mind. I'm like, okay. And your leadership, that's the other thing. Listen, I wanted you to stay on. That's an issue. And so, yes, it's a hundred percent true. So probably Damon, if you thought about it today, you shouldn't. You should have done it probably five years ago, but if you thought about it today before private equity starts knocking, there's a lot of our trades, they're knocking on so many doors now and saying, do you want to sell your company?

[00:15:46] Holli: The worst thing to do is to say yes and go forward because you will lose money.

[00:15:52] Holli: You will, they

[00:15:53] Holli: will not be gracious like I was as a, as a buyer and you will be taken advantage of. And there's no question about [00:16:00] that. And there's so many Story after story after story of that. And I had one client and they didn't.

[00:16:06] Holli: They didn't hire me for this particular thing, but they came to get my advice later. And they were a big company and they were going to sell for 120 million. And this is a lot of money, but they were probably leaving 20 million on the table and their decision making process. Well, somebody came knocking at the door and then they said, yeah, I'm tired.

[00:16:28] Holli: That's what you do. You give up. Haven't thought about it. We're, we're, we're at our peak. Maybe we should do it now. But what they hadn't thought about is they had just changed systems. They didn't have good financial data. They didn't have the right butts in the right seats from a financial standpoint, didn't have a data room.

[00:16:43] Holli: Things didn't tie. I mean, because so there are risks. So their price went down. And so they backed away, which I was like, that's a great advice. And now they're Of course you get deal fatigue both sides and they were going through deal fatigue because they'll [00:17:00] say give me your this and it takes a million years to get this and then there's questions back and forth and listen, Adam Coffey says that I mean, I hate to say this, but Adam Coffey says due diligence is like a proctology exam.

[00:17:12] Holli: Now I'm not, I, I, I'm not going to say what that is, but it's bad, whatever it is from his perspective is bad. I can tell you the more ready you are, it's not that bad. Okay. So. Well,

[00:17:24] Speaker: the converse of that though, is it may feel bad, but it is necessary, right? This is medical prevention. So it might suck, but if you don't do it, who knows what happens on the other end, right?

[00:17:35] Speaker: Well,

[00:17:35] Holli: one of the thing about that, just sorry to interrupt, but one of the thing about that, I just want to close the loop is, is that preparation also is about boosting. Your EBITDA in a right way, in a proper way. And what I find, what I'm finding in my clients is that there are accounting opportunities that haven't been taken advantage of.

[00:17:57] Holli: And so when I look at the books, I'm like, Ooh, well, let's get [00:18:00] things in the right category, meaning cost of goods sold and SG& A back office expenses. Let's have everything, everything categorized. Right. But what I'm seeing is there are accounting opportunities that boost legitimately, I'm not talking about doing shady stuff, like legitimately and things that you should do before you buy.

[00:18:18] Holli: So we can plan for that and go back and go back and get all your one time charges and go back and get that all in alignment. So you have the highest EBITDA possible, and we can tell the story of the future cash flows.

[00:18:30] Damon: Yeah, I love that. I couldn't help thinking, I often think of analogies when I'm speaking with folks and in the.

[00:18:37] Damon: Inability for a buyer to trust what they're seeing in the books feels like when you go into a house, you, you said deal fatigue. And I was thinking of people who are shopping for a home. You're going from house to house to house. You get tired. And the lack of trust that you would have in a home where if you walk up to the front door and it feels a little jiggly on the door handle.

[00:18:57] Damon: And you go in the bathroom and the, and the [00:19:00] faucet handles a little jiggly. You start to question like, what else isn't in good maintenance around here. And that's what I'm hearing in terms of engaging with the books is the more stuff that you start to see and you question, you're going to think to yourself, this isn't as solid and stable as I would hope that it would be as a, as a buyer,

[00:19:17] Holli: a hundred percent, a hundred percent,

[00:19:20] Damon: I would love for you.

[00:19:20] Damon: You let in with a little bit about SG and a describe SG and a, for anybody who's not truly familiar with it. And then talk a little bit about how it is that you can. manage SG and a to be more efficient so that the books look better. The business is more healthy and you're starting to show profitability to in a, in a larger way.

[00:19:41] Holli: I love that question. Thank you. So I'm going to go back to Adam Coffey's empire builder. He has it in all three of his books, but empire builder where one of the things he does as a CEO and I apply the same theory is cost of goods sold. So, gross margins should be greater than 30%. So that's the first stopping point.

[00:19:58] Holli: And then sg and [00:20:00] a should be less than 20%. Now I always try to get it closer to 10, but depending on the industry, depending on the industry you, you can or cannot do that. So, so what I find is that let me define it first. Okay? So sg and A is back office. So it's your insurance, it's your accounting, it's your advertising and marketing, the cost of getting customers.

[00:20:24] Holli: It's your your management hr, all that stuff is the behind the scenes sg and a when you're scaling a business. That has little peaks and then it levels out so you should not have to and if you have if your sgna has like a trend line and I'm showing a trend line right now with my arm. Going up.

[00:20:44] Holli: That is a problem. That means you're not deploying efficiencies and technology to reduce your SG& A. You're throwing bodies or that you're throwing other solutions at it. You're not renegotiating your insurance. Like one of my clients was like, dude, we [00:21:00] need to re renegotiate this and put out to bed. This doesn't look right.

[00:21:03] Damon: Or that what I heard you say in, in throwing bodies at it, I immediately thought of, increasing that middle management layer. You're throwing more and more managers.

[00:21:11] Holli: Yes. Yeah. And thinking about it this way, this is how I think about SGA, particularly with bodies. It's if I, if I hire this body, what is the return I'm going to get from that?

[00:21:22] Holli: And so, and is it high value work or low value work? Sometimes we have some low value work. And so, so I'm going to make sure that I'm not hiring bodies for low value work, low value work should be automated. And now we have AI. And so AI can be deployed in many creative ways to reduce that. That low value work.

[00:21:41] Holli: So I'd never hire people to do low value work. And so oftentimes some of my clients, I'm like, you should just hire bookkeeping if we can get you a great bookkeeper, hire a bookkeeper. And that's going to save you money. And then let's automate all these, these other things. And you don't need to hire what I'm going to save a person for low value work.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Holli: So

[00:22:00] Holli: I think that that has to be continually looked at annually and SG& A and, and your cost of goods sold. But we're talking about SG& A, you look at it annually, you look at the percent of revenue. So it's take the total. Combined by the percent of revenue, all of these 30, 20, and then 10 percent should be your net income.

[00:22:21] Holli: If your net income as a percent of revenue isn't over than over 10%, then you need work. And then you need to find what category to go, do we go to work in? And what I see is Most people have too many things in sg a and they haven't properly put it into cost of good sold. So they'll be like, oh, my sg a is 25%.

[00:22:42] Holli: And I'm like, well, is it really? Let's look. Mm-Hmm and recategorize it. And then really it's a cost of good sold problem. Then we have to dig in. That's when the sleeves really roll up.

[00:22:50] Damon: Uhhuh, . Oh, I can imagine. Mm-Hmm. And speaking, as you mentioned, cost of goods sold. I can't help thinking there's gotta be some inefficiencies on the other side, which is you've made the [00:23:00] sale, but have you collected.

[00:23:01] Damon: On the outstanding balance, right? Your accounts receivable. Tell me a little bit about that other side where folks are just leaving, days and days and days of not accumulating their, their sales.

[00:23:14] Holli: A hundred percent. I love that you brought this up because this is it, this is an issue and people don't even know what day of sales outstanding is.

[00:23:21] Holli: And by the way, it's a, it's a metric that everybody should look and trend. Trend it. And it's really just really what, how many days in revenue do you have divided by your, your AR balance? And that will tell you. And so, so, Cash is respect. Cash is health. The more cash you come in, the more you can deploy it for profit.

[00:23:43] Holli: And so I think for a healthy business, it's the very first thing I start with. Is. That has to be respected. The problem is, is that everybody thinks collections is negative. So if you think about collections, it's [00:24:00] negative. I rebranded it as customer service

[00:24:04] Holli: because

[00:24:04] Holli: what I'm doing is I'm removing the obstacle that you and I have my inherent belief is everybody wants to pay me. And that I need to remove that obstacle so that I allow you to pay me. Cause it is not good for you to have that age down on your payables. It's not healthy for your company either for our collective health. I'm going to help you get over that. And oftentimes it's communication.

[00:24:32] Speaker: Yes.

[00:24:33] Holli: If, if it's the way we invoice, let me help you. I will change my invoice. I will customize on, make that and change that to your liking to make it easy. And so it's a collaboration and it's a service. It is not collections. And I've done in my past, I redesigned it over a hundred days to to actually the top of our industry by doing that.

[00:24:56] Holli: And it takes everybody. It's not the person in the corner dialing and [00:25:00] asking. It takes everybody talking about it because it is about respect. And I think everybody inherently wants to pay and wants to respect one another.

[00:25:09] Damon: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you said that. And I'm glad you said the piece about the person in the corner, because I'm thinking to myself, you are a fractional CFO.

[00:25:19] Damon: You're not there part of the team day to day. How do you Get the buy in of the rest of the organization to follow the recommendations that you're bringing in as a potential outsider.

[00:25:31] Holli: Yeah, no, I love that. I never think of myself as an outsider, by the way, I

[00:25:35] Holli: know

[00:25:37] Holli: you're right about that. Okay. So, so I get the CEO buy in and, and we work together.

[00:25:43] Holli: So for example, I, I had a situation with AR just the other day. And my CEO he's not my CEO is my, I'm his fractional CFO. He said. I think our AR is good. I'm saying, I don't think so, but tell me why explain to me why you think it's good. And we looked at [00:26:00] it together and kid made a mistake in the calculation.

[00:26:03] Holli: And I originally had made the same mistake by the way. And I looked at it, I thought, Ooh, that's wrong. Okay. And when I was looking at it and I thought, Ooh, it's wrong. And so. I told him, I go, I made that same mistake. I go, here's the real thing. He goes, Oh, you're right. And then he set a goal. And then I said, well, why don't we set that goal a little lower?

[00:26:21] Holli: And I go, let's talk about the process. And we talked about the process for collecting. And by the way, the, the people that were on commission that were getting paid when the AR was collecting. The job was done. They got the money, the ones that weren't on commission, we're getting the money. And that was what was aging.

[00:26:40] Holli: And I was like, Oh, we just have to change our process. And so I I'll push the goal. And at the end of the day, Damon, he can do what they can do. He or she can do whatever they want to. I'm here to assist and help and guide based on their goals. But when I see something that's not healthy it's my professional duty.

[00:26:58] Holli: To point that out [00:27:00] and push a little bit you that you are not hiring me to be a yes, man. You're hiring me to for my expertise.

[00:27:05] Damon: Yeah. I love the integrity with which you come to all of these different situations, right? Both from the purchasing of the company, as well as the assistance to the CEO to get them ready for sale.

[00:27:16] Damon: It's, it's clear that you are interested in open, honest communication, getting the numbers to be right so that the person on the other side of the table can feel really confident. That what you are presenting is factually accurately, correct. And they can move forward with their own due diligence, not expecting to find really any gotchas, no pitfalls.

[00:27:38] Damon: And that's, that's pretty awesome.

[00:27:40] Damon: That's so Holli,

[00:27:40] Damon: you've been doing this for a while. I'd love to just hear from you as we close out, tell me a little bit about. What you've seen in the past and sort of the future, the current and future trends in M and a, and if it has to do with technology implementation, that is helping businesses to be more efficient.

[00:27:57] Damon: Just talk a little bit about what some future [00:28:00] trends are for you.

[00:28:01] Holli: Well, I mean, for me, I'll just talk in general and then I'll talk about what I'm seeing is in general, private equity is a big player and, and they're going to continue. They're the ones who have the money out there and that has really changed over the course of my career.

[00:28:16] Holli: And I I was always going to the table and saying, Private equity is the big bad people. You want me to buy you. Okay. Because you can, you're still going to be an entrepreneur here. I mean, I would get them on, on board that way. And sometimes I lost, but they were only around 50 percent of the time. Now they're around all the time.

[00:28:37] Holli: 100%. And so if you want to sell, most likely you want to work with private equity. And so the first selling point to private equity is about 4 million. So you need to have 4 million in EBITDA or net income. Net income isn't the same thing as EBITDA. So we need to just, our entrepreneurs who are thinking about their net income, we need to back that train up to EBITDA.

[00:28:59] Holli: 4 [00:29:00] million is the first exit point. And if you have the if you have the goals to get with private equity and execute like Adam Coffey did in, and he has three books, I say, read them all, private equity playbook and, and empire builder and what was the other one? Okay. Anyway, so it doesn't matter.

[00:29:18] Holli: There's three of them and they're all good. If you have that discipline to grow it, that it's wealth building right there. And so, so what, and the other trend I'm seeing, and this is what I'm really trying to help is that there are a lot of people that have never done this before. In fact, I got a text from somebody saying, give me a checklist on how to buy a company.

[00:29:40] Holli: And I said, I'm going to. Okay. Like pretend I said, I mean, this was awful. Okay. But I said, pretend you're a brain, pretend you're a brain surgeon and I'm going to do brain surgery and you're going to give me a checklist for brain surgery. I mean, and I go, maybe that's a little extreme depending on the business.

[00:29:58] Damon: It's a good point though.

[00:29:59] Holli: [00:30:00] How can I give a check? I don't even feel confident to give a checklist, and so what I'm seeing is that because there's money here and there's a lot of people that are influencers that are talking about it, then you have people like Adam who really have done it that are talking about it and you have a lot of people trying to get in this space.

[00:30:18] Holli: I've never done it before. Do not go it alone. That is there are so many pitfalls and risks associated with that. And so those businesses are, are really destined to not do well or be a very big headache for you for a long time. and be a trap. So don't go it alone. So those and they want to do it because this is the thing to do.

[00:30:43] Holli: And so those are the trends I'm seeing. Hopefully I get a knock on my door. I don't do a quality of earnings, but like a quality of earnings which is part of the process. We didn't always do it in my company because We, we knew the business and it was like, I could already, [00:31:00] I already knew there was no need to do it bigger transactions.

[00:31:03] Holli: We would do it, but I can manage that process and navigate it. And I basically do the, do the whole thing, but I don't, I don't, I don't hold myself out as doing that. And as I'm not signing any reports related to that, but that's a part of it. So. And knowing when to do, to execute money, knowing when to go to quality of earnings, people think they read Adam's book and they think, okay, well, I find you.

[00:31:26] Holli: I like you. We've broken bread together

[00:31:29] Holli: and

[00:31:29] Holli: now I'm going to go get a quality of earnings. I'm like, cheapest quality of earnings is maybe 5, 000, but it's usually 10 to 35, 000. Even in our

[00:31:40] Holli: state.

[00:31:41] Holli: And so don't use that money. You better have somebody like myself or get an accountant or your wife is a CPA or your husband and have them take a peek at it because you can see a lot of things just in the very beginning.

[00:31:53] Holli: So I just would like people to not get down that road and it would be hard for them. So

[00:31:58] Damon: yeah, sound like you're, [00:32:00] they're standing at the edge of the diving board at the deep end and not quite ready to swim. Right. It's, Yeah, I hear you on that caution. That's really awesome. Holli, this has been amazing.

[00:32:10] Damon: I learned so much and there's so much more to learn. I want to ask you for the checklist on brain surgery, but I know that every surgery is different. So there's no real way to do that. So I have to rely on you for anybody who wants to turn to you and get your advice or services. Where can people find you and how do they get in touch?

[00:32:27] Holli: Thank you so much, Damon, for having me on your podcast. I love your questions. I loved our chat. I hope it provided some real value for your audience. I, I'm excited about it. And anytime you want to have me back, I'm coming. And anybody can find me at Hollimoeny. com. I'm going to spell that it's H O L L I M O E I N I.

[00:32:51] Holli: com. There's a lot of vowels there.

[00:32:53] Damon: A lot of vowels, a lot of vowels for a lot of knowledge. Holli, you've been amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you.

[00:32:59] Holli: I appreciate you. [00:33:00] Thank you.

[00:33:00] Speaker: Take care.