Transcript of Why Buying an Existing Business Beats Starting One From Scratch

And we're on another episode of the Vault Unlocked. And today we have our guest, Doug Thorpe, who is responsible for over $24 million in business acquisitions. Today, we're going to unlock the number one thing that Doug looks at when acquiring a business.

Doug, how are we doing I'm doing great, K. Good to see you, man, and happy to be here.

Yeah, happy to have you as well. I mean, let's just first jump into, for those who are listening, who's Doug Thorpe? What is Doug and what does he represent?

Yeah, I'm in a quick nutshell, a former army officer turned banker, turned consultant and business advisor. Excuse me, I have, as you alluded to over the last three years, I've helped. I've had a hand in 24 successful acquisitions, helping new entrepreneurs buy already cash flowing businesses and move in and take advantage of the great market that's out there for that very opportunity.

This is awesome because I started seeing this maybe four years ago. I won't mention the name, but there's been this big celebrity person who's going around I'm telling everybody about business acquisitions and the fact that it's a new business model, and you can buy business. I'm not sure if you do this model or not. I'm just asking to buy no money down, and all of a sudden you can have a business. I never really understood it. I didn't really go into it that much, but it sounds like as an expert here who is acquired over... You said, I think, how many businesses you said again? 24?

About 2024.

24 different acquisitions. I'm sure we've learned a lot. I think before we get just jump right in there, tell us a little bit how you found yourself here. How did you get to this point?

I think a lot of it has to do with my former banking career. Being a banker for 25 years, I had a hand in a lot of things, and the bank I started with was more of a commercial bank than what is known as a retail bank. For those who don't understand that, retail is individual checking accounts, savings accounts, car loans, boat loans, home loans, things like that. That's what we call retail. But commercial is business-based. It's helping business owners with their financial needs. In my banking days, I had a chance to work with companies of all sizes, everything from the private Mom and Pop all the way up to publicly traded companies that were needing working capital and special project financing and that thing. But I've always had a bent for the entrepreneurial side of things. I grew up the child of an entrepreneur, and it was in my DNA to be part of that entrepreneurial community. I really admire and respect people that are doing that. And what we're talking about here is this phenomenon. There's a once in a generation move of the baby boomers who want to exit the businesses they've built, but they don't necessarily have second generation players who want to step up and take over.

Sadly, I probably shouldn't even editorialize, but sometimes the kids of these entrepreneurs say, I've watched you run this business my whole life. I don't want anything to do with it.

I was going to ask that question. It's interesting because I have three, probably four really close friends of mine who have small, I call them the Mom and Pop shops, 3 to $5 million They do very well in their small little towns. They have kids, and all the kids want nothing, absolutely nothing to do with it. And they're sitting there at the retirement level and wondering, What do I do with this? It's interesting you said that, and I would understand, why do you think the kids want nothing to do with it? I mean, being able to walk right into a proven business, to me, is a gift.

Yeah, I think the big pivot or where the big tipping point is the fact that that mom or dad that started that business, it was likely their skill or passion that drove that business. And whatever that skill or passion was, is not the kid's passion. It's not what they connect with. And so no judgment on either party, one way or the other. It's just a personal choice. It's like, well, I'll give you my very specific example. I said I grew up in a house with an entrepreneur. It was my mom, and she was a single mom, and she had a great skill for interior design, and it was her passion. And a lot of that rubbed off on me, but I'll be the first guy to tell you, I don't have anywhere near the talent that she had in that space. I could not have taken over her business. It just wouldn't have worked, certainly not at the same level that she had it operating. You get into those really nichey businesses, and that's usually the challenge. But if you look at some of the more, I call them core businesses, like home services, for instance, plumbing electrical, HVAC, roofing, siding, painting, all of those things, those are high demand businesses.

The companies that do them well usually have a community following, and You hire the talent to do that work. There's a lot of opportunity for people who aren't really familiar with that business to step in. The only real roadblock in some of those areas is that depending on the city, county, or state you live in, there might be some licensing requirements you can't get passed. But other than that, there's a lot of those businesses that are being handed off by the owner founder who does want to retire and sail away or do whatever they're going to do. To your point, a three to five million annual recurring revenue generally spends off a pretty healthy lifestyle for the owner.

Definitely dependent on the city they live in, too. I mean, you're looking about, or I'm going to do my math on that. If it's a good business with profit, you're looking at $800 to a million dollars a year. That's right. $800 million a year. I mean, that's more than you'll ever get paid as an employee. It's a pretty good living. So I want to dive in because as you're speaking, my brain goes to, okay, there's two moving parts Here are two major moving parts. Moving part number one is the business owner themselves. Where are they? How do we find them? How do you get to them? How do we know when they're ready? And then the second moving major part is, okay, who's the seller? They saw the buyer. Who's coming in to actually buy these people? What types of people are these? I have so many answers and so many questions, but I want to deep dive into this because I find this fascinating because I know that this is a huge, absolute opportunity in the marketplace right now. Most people don't even know that this opportunity really exists. There is this baby boomer, we would just call that, community community of baby boomers, small business owners that are in this specific situation.

They want to retire, they want out, they have no one to give it to. They themselves have no idea that there are sellers that are willing to come in and buy. I'm sure there becomes a lot of, I wouldn't call it red tape, but barriers now because you're dealing with someone who's letting go of their baby, and they probably think their baby's worth more than what it is. They don't want to let go control. I can only assume, I've had my employees for 20 years. I can't just give this to anybody. I have to take... All those things are coming up. So let's talk more on that side first, is how do we deal with that? How do we find these baby boomers? What are the challenges that these Boomer as baby boomers are having? How do you solve those challenges?

Yeah. Well, first, let me say you're spot on. There's the seller side and the buyer side, and both situations have a lot of concerns and considerations to talk about, starting with the seller. So the boomer founder that built this business up, you're exactly right. One of the first hurdles is just a very emotional one. It is like giving up a baby for adoption. It's like they've had their personal sweat equity in it, building it up to whatever it is. And usually, you are very correct. There's a statement about loyalty to the employees they've got, the the sense of, this is my second family. These guys have been with me. They've helped me through the tough times, and we've weathered these storms, and we've built the business up, so there's a loyalty there. But there's also one that a lot of people don't talk about. It's the owner's sense of loyalty to his customers, the customers that have been faithful to him, to the repeat customers that have them on the speed dial when there's a need for for some service or thing. There's a very definite relational situation there. I think about the guy I use for my home extermination needs.

I mean, he's done in my house for 25 years, and We've got a loyalty and a friendship. I'm sure if he ever thought about selling, which he doesn't seem like he's ever going to do, but he's going to wrestle with that, and he's got a high affinity for that. So that's one of the hurdles there. The other thing on the seller side is just the positioning. Like you said, a lot of people... The story I always go to is the owner that's out there with his golf buddies, and they're out on a Saturday, whacking the golf ball around. And he says to them, I think I'm going to sell my business. You guys got an idea of what it's worth? And they'll do a little chit chat, maybe have a couple of beers in the 19th hole. And then they'll be sitting there going, Oh, it's worth 10 million bucks, man. That's what you ought to be asking for. Well, no, it's not. It's not worth 10.

What's the golden rule that we know in business? What it's worth? What someone's willing to?

Well, yeah, what someone's willing to pay for it. But there are more, I'll call them technical ways to get to a fair market value. And similar to selling houses, selling these businesses has a lot of similarities. You got certain... When you sell a house, you got certain amenities. You got four bedrooms, three baths, big patio, big modernized kitchen. Those are all high market value elements. What your businesses have that same thing. There are pieces of the business that can be evaluated against the market to say, well, it's a high-end property or it's not. Just like in real estate, you can put a house up for sale, but it's going to need a lot of work. So it becomes somebody's fix and flip, maybe, something like that. And same is true in some of these businesses. They might be earning good money, positive cash flowing, But the the original owner has never really optimized or maximized the value that could be there with a few upgrades, a few enhancements in strengthening the team or buying a new piece of equipment or something like that that could enhance the value.

How does someone determine that? Because I just think about the businesses that I know that are in these situations, and some of these business, they just been riding it out. They haven't They haven't innovated. They haven't brought in new staff. Staff is getting old. They're almost near retirement. They're definitely not working hard anymore. They got this comfortable job. How do you determine when someone's looking at these business? I I got so many questions because first of all, where are these businesses? How does anyone, everyday people, find these types of... Is there a place they go? Is it just what I've been told, pick up the phone, just start calling? You know what I mean?

The true reality is, you and I probably buy more of them in a one day's drive across town than we ever think about or imagine. Pretty much every sign that's on the road that you might pass by, a garage, a shop, some facility, is somebody's business. If it's something that appeals to you, I have one client I worked with, the way he found his, he literally was out driving around one day and ran by this place, saw the sign and was intrigued, and he got home. He did his lookup online, found the owner, and then looked that person up, found a home address, Drove over to the guy's house and walked up, knocked on the door and said, Hi, Mr. So-and-so, I'm a private investor. I saw your business. I'm interested. Is there any chance you're considering selling it? And the guy said, holy crap, yes, I am. I just started thinking about it. It's amazing you came by here. And the guy said, Well, I know I'm unscheduled and unannounced, so maybe we can set a time. And the guy said, No, if you got time, come on in right now. You want a beer?

Let's sit down and talk. Yeah, for sure.

Because they're tired. He's tired. If someone's doing that. They're done. You do 30, 40 years of building a business, come on, you're done.

If you want to be the buyer and position yourself well, one of the first words a seller likes to hear is that idea, I'm a private investor. I don't have private equity money attached. I don't represent a firm. I'm me. I'm going to be the guy. Those seller owners love to hear that as a starting point because the first thing they're worried about, whatever, again, I go back to the golf buddies scenario, what they've heard from their golf buddies is, Oh, don't let the private equity guys come in. They'll chop everything up. There's all these horror stories. And by the way, that's not fair. It does happen, but it doesn't happen all the time.

Again, I would say doing your due diligence as the seller as well as who you selling to, if you care enough, if you care about your people, you're going to do that due diligence. But again, it doesn't matter how much due diligence you can do. I mean, once again, as soon as you hand the keys over, it's not your business anymore. It's not your problem anymore. We were finding these businesses that you're saying they're every day. It's so easy almost in the sense to think about where they are because we're driving by them. They're everywhere. There's an abundance of them. I know there's some number. I'm not going to say a number, but I know there's some number in the United States alone of ex-Baby Boomers looking at... It's massive. People don't realize that number is the last thing.

The only consistent number I've heard is a dollar value on the wealth that's accumulated there. And some people are saying it's seven trillion of wealth that's tied up in these businesses.

Seven trillion tied up.

If you If you want to back that out, you can't divide that by the annual revenue, but you can divide by the intrinsic worth of the business. And most of these businesses will sell for two and a half to upwards of four X of what their cash flow is. So you can do some numbers to get to that number of opportunities.

So when we're looking at these businesses, what are some red flags, green flags, things that are like, I call them leavers that you can look at and go, all right, if I pulled a little bit of those, pulled those, I can add an extra million to the bottom line, because I'm going to assume, which you never do, If you're buying this business, you're not buying it for status quo, you're buying it because you can see potential in making more money. Absolutely.

And that's probably step one in the due diligence is to determine if there is an upside that's untapped and not yet taken advantage of. I have in my own due diligence process that I provide to my clients, there is a checklist, and there's categories of due diligence. You want to look at the people, you want to look at systems and process, you want to look at equipment they've got, you do want to look at the current client list, you want to differentiate between one-time revenue and recurring revenue? Because if the whole business is based on one-time revenue, for instance, in HVAC, one-time revenue is buying a new unit. Now, those are good tickets. I mean, most of those are 8,000 to 20,000 tickets, depending on the size of the property. But that's not.

You got to keep acquiring customers and acquiring customers.

But you You have to really, really work that to make that be sustainable. So if you can find an HVAC company that's got a blend of one-time installs, that's maybe 25 to 30% of the business, but the other 75 % is recurring revenue, like with quarterly maintenance calls. I've actually seen companies that have member programs they've done. Homeowners can pay for a membership, and your HVAC guy is going to show up once every quarter and run the system through a full checkup and do some preventative maintenance on it to keep it from breaking down when you really need it. And that thing. And if you can build a subscriber base in those membership plans, now you've got recurring revenue that you can rely on.

Now, with the people that are buying these business that you've seen, just in your own experience, I'm not even caring about what the market's doing, but the type of people you deal with, are these people that are buying these businesses coming in and saying, okay, we're going to put a manager in place and they're going to run it from the side of their desk? Or are these guys going and realizing that they're going to probably have to be there 20 seven, again, all over again to get this thing going? Because I think that's the biggest misconception, is you don't just get to buy business and not show up.

Right. Now, what I tend to do with my clients, when people approach me and want to be buyers of these businesses, I prep them to say, number one, you need to decide in your mind, are you really going into this with the investor mindset or the operator mindset? And either one of them is okay, but it's important to probably try to lock in on that. And if you tell me you want to be the investor mind going in, I will tell you, you're still going to need to be boots on the ground, probably the first 18 months, minimum.

Minimum, yeah.

Minimum. You will be the operator those first 18 months. Now, you might be in parallel trying to identify a general manager that you want to bring in and have alongside for the long haul, but even that is a long play if the business doesn't already have one properly set up. Yeah. And that's part of the due diligence. And truthfully, in my method, when we analyze these businesses, if you can determine that the business does already have a full-time general manager in addition to the owner-founder operating, then that's actually worth a premium. It boosts the value of the business.

Yeah, but my question is this, that operator that's working that business, why wouldn't they be the ones buying the business? Why would they not be the ones that inherited it? If they've been there, I'm thinking- Well, and that's a great question.

A lot of times, those guys will tell you, I don't want the headache.

Yeah, they're just happy. They don't like the headache.

I like what I'm doing. I'll stick with you forever, but I want to be able to clock out and go home for real at the end of the day.

They don't even want that. They want to in and out. It's funny because there's so many ways we can talk about this. I just want to make sure we get clear so we're not losing people here is, I'm just going to say it again, there's an abundant amount of opportunity today, right now, for the right... I'm going to say the right person. I'm going to do a little talking here because I know one or two things about business. When I say for the right person, meaning you're willing to put in the hard work, you know leadership, because you're going to have to have the highest level of leadership. You're coming into an established business, establish employees, establish clientels, and your leadership must be to the next level, or you're going to lose all of that in your first 30, 60, 90 days. But for that right person who understands that there's an abundance of opportunity of these small businesses that are doing three, five, eight, even $10 million all over, where you can actually step in and actually start taking over. Now, the great thing about this, most of these business, I'm going to use the word stale.

Not saying they are stale, but they've gone stale in the sense of they haven't really pushed marketing, they really haven't pushed innovation, they haven't looked at what are new avenues of that I can bring in. They've been happy with status quo. And a lot of these businesses that are doing 8, 10, 3, 4 are sitting on untapped potential to bring a $3 million business to a $10 million business, bring a $10 million business to maybe a $20 or $15 million business. And their owners, I want to make sure we're clear, are willing to sell because they have no one to sell to.

Right.

So then it just comes down to due diligence, making sure both sides are happy and making sure that you're not buying a lemon. But there's people like you that can help you with that.

Correct. That's exactly right.

So when it comes to the one, because it's all right, I'm always like, what's the one, the key, the deciding factor? If we're looking at a business, let's just call it a three to four million, because I think that's probably the average size from what I'm gathering. And we're looking at a three to four million dollar business. What is the number one? I know there's multiple, but what's that key one that determines we're moving forward, we're not moving forward?

The number one thing I would say on the buyer side is the willingness to go into this with a respect and a genuine respect for the legacy the seller has built. And that needs to be communicated. And that's bigger and deeper than doing a great spreadsheet on the numbers, doing all your financial analysis. There's a lot more to it than having those numbers is in the hand. It's about being able to sit down with that seller and give them a chance to express all of their concerns about giving it up. What's going to happen if this, if that, yada, yada. That buyer needs to steer that conversation. Don't just leave it to chance. But the more proactively the buyer can give the seller that chance to express their concerns and to have a good answer for, and again, it needs to be genuine and real, not fake, for how they will respond to that concern, the much greater is the probability of success on getting the deal to the closing table.

Okay. So yeah, I hear that. As you were saying that something came out to me and I was thinking, could this be true? I want to say it might be true, but I could be wrong. I think it would be true in Canada, where I'm from, maybe not in the United the States. The seller would rather sell their business as someone who is going to stay in integrity as the best they can with what the business they built. And again, making sure their people are good, making sure that they're not changing it, totally turning it upside down, and would actually take less on the sell than getting more, but selling to corporate who they know that's going to come in and rip it apart and whatnot. I'm I'm not sure what that answer is. I'm asking you.

In general principles, yes, I think that's true. But part of, I think, of the journey is being able to establish what feels like a fair purchase offer for the business as it stands. Yeah. And again, part of the tools and checklist that I give buyers to that we work with does have a good methodology for actually being able to craft that story back to the seller and say, well, you might want $5 million for this business. I can't pay you that because, and you list it out. And if the seller sees and understands that, well, I've had situations where we have a similar discussion like that. And the buyer says, you're asking $4 million for your business. I just cannot rationalize that price. I can rationalize three, and here's my reasons. And I see these as opportunities to be adjusted, fixed, and I'm willing to take on that challenge, and it might then be worth for. So how I'll agree in long term to pay you that money, but the million difference we're talking about, we're going to make that a seller note. You're going to have to carry that note. And it may or may not get paid.

If I don't If I don't have this success getting those things done.

We were going to get there. I was going to ask all the different types of deal structures because I think there's multiple. Before I did, I wanted to ask one thing, timelines in the sense of how long do you see these on average to acquire a three, $4 million, say, a business from the moment of having that first conversation, let's call it, the first real conversation, till it's actually structured deal, lawyers, all that? How long an average timeline to get these?

Realistically, it's 6-12 months.

That's what I was going to say. Yeah.

I mean, being very realistic, 6 is really pushing it, especially if you are going to Try to need to go out and get some bank financing, which, by the way, is a really lucrative opportunity with the programs that the SBA has to offer here in the US. But it adds some time to the process to get the bank involved. But you opened up by alluding to some of these programs that are kicking around out there. I always cringe when I hear some of them. They'll say, no money down in In three days, you can have this business. And I'm like, no way.

They are unfortunate. I just know how bullshit it is. It's so unfortunate. It's just not true. Maybe they did it once by luck, and I'm sure it wasn't even that great of a deal. So here we are. I want to just make sure we're on it truly. Someone's listening. I want to make sure we're all on the same page and everybody can understand what's happening here. We got the sellers. We got a huge opportunity opportunity of abundance of people needing to sell their businesses. We know it's going to take 6 to 12 months to actually make it happen. You can use your own money. There's a huge, I'm sure, opportunity in the United States with the banks and all the different loans that you can do to use other people's money, OPM. But then we get into these deal structures. Some. There's multiple deal structures, but I can buy a cash, I can loan against it. I don't know what the correct term is, but I know two people are in these deal structures right now where you actually basically, I don't have all the cash up front to pay you, Mr. Business owner. So your retirement isn't a lump sum.

It's I'm going to pay you monthly for the next 20 years, and you're going to be able to live off basically as an employee where you don't even step foot in the business anymore. Have you heard of those structures? Well- Like a buyback or something like that, maybe?

It's a buy-out. Yeah, there are those, but the more conventional way to do it is that notion of what we call a seller note. Just like any bank loan would be, you set up terms and conditions. You say, I'm going to pay you that, what you had hoped would have been a lump sum, but I'm going to pay you that over time, and I will pay some interest for that privilege to do that. So you'll get a little bit of a bump there for carrying it. The one advantage to that for the seller is that often in those arrangements, if the business starts to rattle and crumble, the seller just takes it back, and it's still theirs. Now, you might have a partially wrecked business at that point, but depending on what you work out in terms and conditions, you can monitor that in a healthy way. And have the triggers for that be invoked sooner rather than later.

What would you say the characteristic traits are of the... Now, this is for the buyers. The buyers who actually buy these businesses and run them to success. What are the characteristic traits between those and the ones who highlight the idea of buying the business but don't understand what they're actually getting into, and thus the business starts to fail?

You've hit on one of my pet peeves, my hot topic. I have had people come to me who have been in corporate. They built a nest egg. They've done some savings for investment purposes, and they've decided, Hey, I'm sitting on a half million bucks. I can put in play, let's go buy one of these businesses. And if it's if it's cash flowing 500 to a million a year, I get my money back in the first year. I'm good with that. Let's go do it. Well, Not so fast. My question to them is, all right, let's talk about your risk tolerance. How do you perceive life's risks? What are some of the ones you've thought about and dealt with in time? I have had people that were very accomplished corporate leaders who, when they realized they're going to be standing on an island by themselves, there is no safety net. You're flying on the big trapeze with net. And how do you feel about that? Is that going to drive you crazy and make you stay up all night? If so, this is not your game. Yeah. And that's really the number one differentiator, I think, for most people who raise their hand and say, I think I want to do this.

Is that the resilience, the hard work, the full understanding of what they're actually getting into and not thinking it's an investment play, it's more of workplay, like the entrepreneur mindset. I go, what does that really actually mean?

Yeah, well, to me, it's a couple of things. Number one, it starts with risk tolerance, because you're taking all the risk when you're the owner. The risk that you're not going to make payroll because your last big check didn't land and you got to pay your team on Friday. How are you going to do that? You have a cash reserve plan in there somewhere. It's those things. But then you also need to... The way I like to differentiate, I'll have a discussion with people in the early stages. I'll say, So tell me this, hey, K, do you Really want to buy a business or do you need to buy a business? And sometimes people look at me and they go, That's the same thing. And I'm going, No, it's not. It's really not. And, want to buy a business is, it sounds good. You've been reading the internet. You maybe even paid for some of the schools, and you think you're big and bad enough to go out and do that, so you want to do it. But the game changes when you say you need to do it. One of the best examples, when I did have a guy show up one day and he was introducing himself and we were talking and I asked him that question, he says, Oh, I need to buy the business.

I said, Why? He said, I've already quit my day job.

Yeah.

I I'm all in.

He's all in.

I'm all in. I've got to do this, and I don't want to burn my nest egg for long. I have enough runway to make this happen correctly, but I got to get it done. I need to be on it, and it is my full-time job to go through the buying process right now.

It's so funny because as soon as so many people make it sound so easy. The concept's easy, but the hard work, the day to day, the risk is not. And I think that's the nuance, because I was going to mention when you said, hey, and I totally get, corporate C-suite guy who's been making half a million, 600,000 for the last 10 years, wants to retire, done playing for the man. I want to go buy a business. Oh, this thing does a million dollars a year. No problem. I'll just take a half a million, pay general manager, and I'll just get my other half on the first year. And then every other year after that, I'm just profitable. And it's like, yeah, if only it was that easy.

Right. Right.

Right. How many people do you think come in thinking like that? Because I know for me, if I were to ever buy one of these businesses, it would be on that... I'm not going in that. I'm not going into retail nine five. Hell, no, I'm not doing that. So I would need to make sure I have my operator that I know, like and trust that's willing to do that. And then there is profits, and then there is a spread there that I can weather the storm and whatnot. Or what are you doing? I honestly think you're just trading your job for another job.

Right. Yeah. No, you have to go in with that plan, that master plan of what you're doing. If you're going to buy this thing and just maintain the status quo of whatever the seller has established, you are just trading job for job. I always advise people, when they're doing their due diligence, to look for those golden opportunities that might be there. And you alluded to it. A lot of times, these original owner-founder, they're just tired. They don't want to do anything new. Go wireless with my dispatch? No, I don't want to do that. I don't know what that is. I don't want to I'm not going to learn anything new. I'm tired. And that's okay. But again, that's a golden nugget opportunity. And one of the things that I tell my buyer clients to consider, the very The first thing I encourage them to do when they move in is to start having meetings with their teams and open up the discussion about what these individuals know about the business. And you might find some amazing ideas right in the early, early days. The first week, you may get a whole slate of great ideas that could go straight to the bottom line in no time.

If you just allow them to happen. And, yeah, you got to do some analysis and decision making to see if that's consistent or if it requires extra investment or whatever. But I know one guy that bought a plumbing company, and he quickly learned about this process called jetting, which is cleaning out sewer lines. The company did not have a jetter, the machine that did it. It's like a super power washer. So he got busy He did his research. The unit costs $80,000.

To get one, yeah.

So that sounds high, but he called his Amex people. They financed it for him, put it on play, and he sent two guys to a two-day training class They went to an apartment complex, did a jetting. They got 15,000 for a half day's work on that job. And the owners said, Holy crap, this is great. I know a guy that owns a bigger property. Why don't you go talk to him? They went down the street, talked to this guy, and they signed up an annual contract that was going to have an annual value of $500,000.

Yeah, there we go.

Paid for on the spot, straight to the bottom line.

See, and then the risk tolerance you said on that is they were willing to take their risk, the original owner not willing to take that risk.

Yeah.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I love it. So if someone's sitting here, I think both sides, right? A seller, if someone's sitting here, as a seller or someone sitting here as a potential buyer, what's one last piece of advice you would give them or a statement you'd leave them with? And then how can they find you?

Yeah, I think the advice is this is a mountain climb. So just like you would never think about climbing the Mount Everest without a guide, find a guide to help you on the journey. And there are plenty of people that are out there that do good work in this space. And And as for me, you can reach me at my website, which is dougthorp. Com. T-h-o-r-p-e, on the end. Com.

Doug, I love it. I think what you're doing is you're helping everyday people get into a business, you're helping business owners who've, I don't want to say slave, but worked their butts off for 20, 30 years, retire with something. There's two people you're helping change lives. So I think it's amazing work you're doing. And I know that we're just getting into this baby boom rush. Like you said, we're talking about trillions of dollars sitting out there. When do you want to go after that? So I'll just leave it at that. Again, thanks so much for being here. And that's another episode of the Vault Unlocked.