Joe Valley is a serial entrepreneur, EXITpreneur, M&A Advisor, Podcaster, and Partner at Quiet Light Brokerage, one of the world’s leading online company brokerage and advising organizations. Joe has also founded, bought, or sold over a half-dozen businesses, and he’s now mentoring thousands on how to achieve their own ultimate exit.
Entrepreneurship has always been in Joe Valley’s life, so much so that his first business dates back to his childhood when he was selling worms to fishermen. Joe took the big leap at the age of 29. At the time, he was working for a company he had started in 1994, which rapidly grew and produced over $100 million in revenue. He could have been content with what he had, but that’s not what you do when you are a real entrepreneur. That’s why Joe Valley resigned and started his own media buying agency in 1997, which started his journey as a serial entrepreneur.
Helping Online Entrepreneurs Sell Their Businesses
Joe’s business grew rapidly, and he eventually sold it via Quiet Light Brokerage, a company that helps entrepreneurs sell their online businesses. Joe Valley saw great potential in such business and decided to join the team. Back in 2012, the company was composed of only four people, and it rapidly evolved to the point where they have 17 advisors, a revenue well over eight figures, and a quarter of a billion in total transactions in 2021. What makes Quiet Light unique is that they hire only entrepreneurs who have bought, sold, and started significant online businesses. This makes it possible for them to have all the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to truly advise their clients and make them close the best deal. Since Joe joined the company, he has closed almost $100 million in transactions and touched nearly a half-billion in online exits through the team of advisors.
Building companies and selling them is part of Joe Valley’s DNA, and that’s why in 2021 he has founded EXITpreneur, LLC, with the mission to positively impact one million online entrepreneurs over the next 10 years. The first step of such mission has been the publishing of his book, The EXITpreneur’s Playbook – How to Sell your Online Business for Top Dollar, which quickly hit the #1 best-seller list in 7 different categories on Amazon. In the book, Joe offers real-life examples of successful and unsuccessful exits, ultimately teaching online entrepreneurs to understand the value of their business and how to reverse engineer a successful exit.
And now here’s Joe Valley.
Show Notes
[3:28] How’d it happen for Joe Valley?
[10:17] Communicate with the people in your company
[13:59] Set your goals—the smart way
[17:35] Share goals with people who can help you achieve them
[20:59] Understand how to reverse engineer your path to your goals
[27:44] The mindset shift
[29:15] Personality profiles
[32:11] Joe’s worm-preneur days
[37:21] Did he have an idea what he wanted to do after high school?
[39:34] On doing what you’re passionate about for money vs. offering help
[45:58] More on his business: QuietLight
[51:16] The EXITpreneur’s Playbook
[61:36] Where to find more of Joe
[62:35] Today’s takeaway
[63:42] Outro
Full transcript below
Video on How to Become a Successful Exitpreneur
Visit ExitPreneur.io to Learn How to Sell Your Online Business
Book an Evaluation with Joe Valley to Discover How Much Your Website is Worth
Get Joe Valley’s Book, The EXITPreneur’s Playbook: How to Sell Your Online Business for Top Dollar by Reverse Engineering Your Pathway to Success
Visit QuietLight.com to Learn How to Sell Your Website
Listen to The Quiet Light Podcast
Connect with Joe Valley on LinkedIn
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Podcast with Joe Valley. How to Become a Successful Exitpreneur.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, entrepreneur, people, goal, sell, work, joe, exit, book, happy, money, company, talking, written, year, growing, revenue, months, aggregators, hit
SPEAKERS
Joe Valley, Mike Malatesta
Mike Malatesta 00:09
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the How’d It Happen Podcast. I am Mike, your host, of course. And I’m so happy to have you here as I am with every episode. And before I get started with today’s amazing guests, I just want to let you know that my book “OwnerShift – How Getting Selfish Got Me Unstuck” is available now on Amazon or on my website at mikemalatesta.com. If you feel like giving it a read or you want to test drive it, there is a free chapter on the website on the book tab. And I’d love to hear what you think if you like the book, tell me what you like about it. And if you don’t like the book, tell me what you don’t like about it. And I’ll see if I can do better next time. So again, that book is available now on Amazon or on my website. So now, as I do with every episode, I have an amazing success story to share with you. I’ve got Joe Valley on the show. Joe, welcome to the podcast.
Joe Valley 01:10
Thank you, Mike. Good to be here.
Mike Malatesta 01:11
Yeah, I’m looking forward to this one. And I’ll tell you why you should be looking forward to it as well. Joe Valley is a best selling author, entrepreneur, investor, guest speaker and much more after building buying or selling a half dozen of his own companies, which is amazing Joe by the way, Joe helped build one of the leading online focused m&a advisory firms in the world. Now after facilitating nearly a half a billion dollars in exits. That’s dollars. Joe has written the best selling book the exit printers playbook. To help online business owners get the maximum value and best deal structure when they seek their own incredible exit. Over the past nine years, Joe has mentored 1000s of online entrepreneurs whose goal is to achieve their own eventual exit. He is a certified mergers and acquisitions professional, and a frequent guest expert in mastermind groups on podcasts, and events for entrepreneurs worldwide. Joe’s book, the exit printers playbook, how to sell your online business for top dollar shares real life stories of successful and failed exits, and teaches readers how to reverse engineer a pathway to their own eventual exit. Joe is also the podcast creator and host of the quiet life podcast, which can be found wherever you get your podcasts. And you can buy Joe’s book on Amazon, you can connect with him on LinkedIn. And you can learn more about him at WWW dot exit printer. PR e n e u r.io. And at WWW dot quiet light li GH t.com. So Joe, let’s get going here I start every show with the same simple question. How did it happen for you?
Joe Valley 03:06
Great question. Very simple question yet complicated as well. Thank you for that nice intro, by the way, and everybody buy his book, it’s great. You’ve got to pick it up, you’ve got to read it. The best thing you could do is learn from others and their mistakes and successes. I love the fact that there’s some failures in there as well. I think that’s key to good reading. So for me, man, I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, even as a little kid, I was I had a worm farm out in front of my house, I used to go out with a flashlight at night and get the night crawlers and then put them in a dirt box in the basement and sell under fishermen. I lived on central street that was very location specific and beneficial for me where I grew up. But the big moment I remember when I decided to jump ship and really truly becoming entrepreneurs and adult. I was 29 years old. I guess still a kid in many ways. But I was working for a company I started in 1994, a company where I was employee number 34. And that year, we did 17 million in revenue. And you’d by the end of 97 I think we did 102 million in revenue. So it was incredible rapid growth and a lot of entrepreneurship within the company, for myself and for everybody around me. And I used to love being the first in and the last leaf in terms of the non sales people on the call center floor. And it was amazing. And I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. But at one point it just got to a point where I felt like a worker bee a worker ant and it was just people lining up to get into work and eventually leaving on time instead of passionately staying until the very last moment the lights went out. So I jumped ship, to be honest with you, Mike I, I resigned before I got would have gotten fired, to be honest with you, you know, I’m on the on the personality scale, I’m red, which means opinionated driven, get to the point come on get to the point get to the point get to the point kind of guy. And not a fan of seeing people get promoted to their level of incompetence, which happened at the company I was at. So I bailed started my own media buying agency in the fall of 1997. My goal was to make $50,000 in 1998, and I made a half a million dollars. So entrepreneurship was good to me, and has continued to be good to me. Even though there have been many years, where I’ve been excited for the carry for a tax loss that I’ve had. And that’s part of entrepreneurship as well, those those great successes and at times where there’s been some epic failures as well. My current position was quiet light as a partner here. Mark doused is the original founder, I was employee number four, I sold my company through quiet light, then I joined the team, there were four of us at that time, I simply made myself invaluable to the point where I was generating in some years 70% of the revenue for the company. And not too long after joining Mark and I decided to become partners, we now have 17 advisors, doing well over eight figures in revenue will close a quarter of a billion in total transactions this year. And it just continues to grow the challenge now Mike is to control the beast, make sure we’re not growing to our own level of incompetence, and growing slow and smart versus just you know, hiring like crazy. We don’t want to make that mistake that I saw I made so many years ago.
Mike Malatesta 06:49
Sure. And that level of incompetence thing, Joe, in that first company, what was their? I guess? I guess what I want to know a couple things. One, was it over the period of time different leadership came along? And you know, they weren’t sort of aligned with the way you think? Or was it were, you know, the people that you originally signed up with, you know, one of 34, just the business just outgrew their competency, and you thought you could do it better, I guess what?
07:25
The people that were there originally, and maybe they were of the 34, there were, let’s say seven or eight, that rose up through the ranks, including myself. And a couple of them really, were truly I think promoted beyond their level of income of competence. They were very good at many, many things. They were smart, intelligent, driven, successful people. But then, you know, given the wheel of the ship, and started steering it in directions, that just didn’t make sense. I had to bail. And And honestly, I was I was young, I was cocky. I was vocal, and not always in the best political way and made it known that that one one person in particular, didn’t didn’t should not be in the role that they’re in and that that person was the second employee of the company. And was there long after I left to put it out?
Mike Malatesta 08:30
And was there in you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. But was there some feeling inside of you where you were like, I should have that role as opposed to this person? And that sort of contributed to? How Yeah, yeah, in
08:45
many ways, there was a time where we had a company event and it wasn’t this particular person that somebody else that I work with, it was chosen to be up on stage and talk to the entire company. And I all I did was sit in the audience, thank god dammit, I should be there talking. I should be talking to that crew. Which, you know, it wasn’t right for me at the time, which is fine. And that particular individual, again, very successful driven entrepreneur as well. Most people that were of that 789 10 People eventually jumped ship and went and started their own company very successful entrepreneurs in their own right. But it was always in me to, to to be the leader of my own company to steer my own ship. And when I’ve not been in that role, it’s been unfulfilling, I guess, I can say.
Mike Malatesta 09:41
I like how you connected where you are with quiet light to that experience, too. Because I mean, at least in my experience, the real world is something like this as companies grow, particularly if they grow a lot. You run into a lot of Is this person or these people, the right person or team to lead the organization, and there’s always a lot of thoughts about that throughout the organization, you know, you’ve got, everyone’s got their opinion sort of thing. But there’s also this reflective thing that that the leadership team is going through where they’re kind of like, I wonder if I am, you know, there’s like this introspection thing. And then having people like you who can be, you know, vocal, as you said, and opinionated about things, it’s, it’s, the, the leaders either got to be really confident that we’re, you know, that we’re going in this direction and as good direction, or it can completely throw them off, Joe, where are they? Like, Joe doesn’t think, you know, I’m doing a good job. I wonder if I am doing a good job.
10:45
Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about communication. And, interestingly enough, what I’ve learned lately how to communicate with different types of personalities. And that’s through a profile, a personality profile that myself, my partner and the executive team have taken. And actually, my wife, and I did it as well, I’ve learned how to communicate better with my wife and her with me because of understanding her personality through a personality test that was done. Really interesting. But in regards to, you know, people being promoted, or promoting themselves, in many cases, as entrepreneurs, like we are to their own level of incompetence. Yet, we have to realize that as much ourselves as about our executives that are supporting our company and our growth, and that’s, do you know, am I am I the right fit to take this company from a million to 10, or 10 to 20, or 20? To 100? million? Right, I think I think there’s completely different people that should be in those seats. You know, I can take my business partner, and I can take our company from, you know, the million in revenue that we were doing back in 2012, to, you know, 20 million and rather 2530. Are we the right people to take it to 100 million, I not sure to be honest with you. So we’ve got to, we’ve got to be honest with ourselves about that. And that’s what I would encourage every entrepreneur don’t have the vision that you are the next Zuckerberg, right? Be okay with what you’re really good at. And what makes you happy, just because someone else is doing 50 million in revenue, doesn’t mean you should be dissatisfied with five, because you’ve got a different life than they do. And, and you might be happier than they are. It’s talking to a friend of mine this morning that has been on my podcast, I sold a business for him, sold him many businesses, I think I’ve sold two or three of his, his goal was to be a unicorn hitting the billion dollar valuation. Not too much later, he changed that to 100 million. Not too much later, we’re having a conversation about how he really doesn’t enjoy the CEO role. And reporting to investors and dealing with meeting all day meetings don’t like that. And for a couple of days, he stepped out of that, and really focused on what he loves, which is marketing, and I was going you know what I’m going to sell, I’m going to I’m going to be gone long before that 100 million dollar exit, I need to just start focusing on things that I love, and be happy, and not worry about just hitting a number for the sake of being able to say I hit a number, because that’s really what’s most important is being happy.
Mike Malatesta 13:26
And total, I completely agree with you. Now, earlier in my career, I would have argued against that, because I would have said, well, you know, the, I’ll be happy when the goals met, you know, or is it sort of like one of those feels like I’ll sleep when I’m dead, you know, kind of happy when the goals met. The problem is the goal keeps getting pushed down the line. And as or, as the Time ticks by, and the goal is not achieved and not even being close to being achieve, you start to feel really bad about yourself, and you think there’s no way I’ll ever be happy because I can’t even get this one. You know, simple goal achieved and
14:07
you are so on the mark there, you know, and that’s and that’s a personality thing for many entrepreneurs is, you know, setting this really hard to attain goal and then never being happy because you haven’t achieved that yet. You’re marching towards it, maybe but not at the pace you wanted to. And you’re a great success just by being an entrepreneur most fail. If you’ve got a business that supports you and your family, you’re already winning, you should not be miserable because you haven’t achieved this, you know, lofty goal, you should be happy. I know exactly what you’re talking about, because that’s something I’ve dealt with recently with, you know, my book launch. We talked about that with your book. You know, I set some goals and you know, it was there. Some of them were lofty, and when I didn’t hit them right away. I was so disappointed with myself. I was kind of bummed out which is ridiculous. list because I’ve got to a best seller that hit the bestseller list seven different in seven different categories have sold more books than most entrepreneurs ever sell in a lifetime. Shouldn’t I be happy? Right? Yeah, I should be. So you got to set goals that not are unachievable, but I think set. First of all, set some goals. Most most entrepreneurs, unfortunately, don’t write down their goals. First, don’t set some goals, be very specific with you know, dollars in revenue that you want achieve, or an exit goal and dollars that you want achieve a date that you’re going to achieve these things by, and then you know, how you want to feel when you achieve them. Because we’re driven by emotions. And we all have really hard days, weeks, months, and sometimes years as entrepreneurs without a clear, written down goal. It’s hard to get over those, those tough days, weeks, months and years, and you’re more likely to succeed at least 50%. More likely, I think, have the stats, if you actually have written goals and revisit them on a regular basis.
Mike Malatesta 15:58
Yeah, and I would add, so a couple of things. One, I believe in that for sure. To that how you feel at the end, that’s not something I do. So I’m going to incorporate that because that is I feel like that’s a missing missing component.
16:13
I got it, I got it from my business coach, okay, good wood, from focus dot CEO, and he’s always pushing the feeling part of it. It’s and what I’ve, you know, what I have is, is dollars, date and feeling I’m always combining those three different things when it’s coming to my business goals. And when I’m working with clients, who are entrepreneurs that want to exit their business and have their own incredible exit, or eventual incredible exit, you know, I want them to write down dollars date and feeling I will sell my business for $5 million in q1 of 2023. And when I do, I will feel unburdened because I’m out of debt my kids college is paid for, and I get to spend more time with my family, it’s that feeling part of it, I think that is so so critically important to sort of sum it all up.
Mike Malatesta 17:01
And I think I, I’m I wrote that down, because I definitely am going to add that that is a keeper. And then one other thing that I think is worked for me and it may not be applicable and you know, in an exit scenario, but sharing my goals with other people who can help me achieve them. I know, like for a long time, I had goals, but nobody knew them. I was the only one who knew them. And, and they were specific and all that. But what they what I missed, like completely missed was that I can’t accomplish the goal on my own. So if nobody else knows that it’s a goal. One night, one they can’t help me and to, to get back to like, what an entrepreneur can do to him or herself is, I could just push it down the road as far as I wanted, I didn’t didn’t accomplish it, push it down the road, nobody knew, right, but when somebody knows. Because even if I had specific dates and stuff, I could push those down the road, but if someone else knows my specific dates, and knows that you know what the outcome is going to be and, and and I love that knows the feeling to, they’re going to help me, they are going to help me achieve that I feel
18:06
and hold you accountable and ask you about it. You know, it’s sometimes it’s a very private goal, you know, if if I have a goal to exit my business, I’m not going to share the dollars with friends. So some of those some of those things are hard to share. But talking about it, when you’re going to do it, and and then and I encourage everyone to do this, and especially in terms of my world, and eventually exiting their business, because they learn so much. And they get training along the way to how to build a more valuable business. And by setting that goal and building more valuable business, they actually start to enjoy it a little bit more than they might have in the past. And when they’re when they’ve hit that goal in terms of the ability to exit for 510 $15 million, add or subtract zeros to fit your own goals. They can then move it down, move that goalposts you know down a little bit and put it off for another year if they’re really happy and enjoying it. But they wouldn’t be happy and enjoying if they hadn’t written that goal down in the first place. In my view.
Mike Malatesta 19:13
I am totally in agreement on that. And I guess the one thing I as you just said that last thing, Joe, I thought to myself, Okay, but don’t fool yourself, if you’re going to take the gold down, because you’re going to you’re going to say I’m going to I’m happier not having achieved it. Make sure that’s the truth. Because otherwise you could be giving yourself a pass. Like I’m going to pretend that I’m happy or not, you know, not breaking through to this level that I that I probably am capable of. So I just want to I’d say be sure. And that’s totally fine. But B A P Sure.
19:50
Yeah, and I’m not talking about not achieving, I’m talking about achieving it but or you’ve got the ability to say alright, I’m good. I’m going to sell I’m going to exit my business is worth it. million. But you know what, I actually want seven and a half. So based upon what I know now, and the growth rate that I have, and how this whole thing about selling works, I’m going to wait another nine months, because my growth is that big and that crazy, I’m gonna hold off nine months, and then I’m going to sell. So that’s what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about you set a goal to exit for $5 million. And your, you know, value is only at 3 million. And you say you’re happy and you say happy. And the key, the key to to that is understanding how to reverse engineer a pathway to a goal, right? I was on a podcast not too long ago, where the host said, you know, her goal is to be a unicorn as well, she wanted to sell her business, or have a billion dollar valuation. But we didn’t get into on the podcast we got after we stopped recording, it was well, okay, what’s it gonna take to get there? Right, let’s reverse engineer a path to that, you know, how much revenue do you need to be doing? How much recurring revenue? Do you need to have? How much subscription revenue? How big do you want to be? Or have to be in order to get that kind of valuation? And then you’ve got to figure out, is that the life you really want? Right? I don’t want that. Right. I don’t want a billion dollar company and all the responsibility that comes with it, unless I’m just on the board of directors that have lots of sway. That’s about all I want to do. Right? So you’ve got to, I think, if you’re gonna set that goal, one of the key things to it is then reverse engineer path to it. For instance, if you want to sell for $5 million, what, what are things selling for now? What What’s the multiple of sellers, discretionary earnings that things are selling for what is sellers discretionary earnings, so you know, how close or how far you are on that goal. So if you’re in even if it’s just to hit a certain amount of revenue, and you know where you are today, you can look at your historic growth rate and say, Okay, well, I’m growing 25%, year over year, I should hit that in 2.7 years. My goal is to hit that in two years, how much more growth do I have to have in order to achieve that goal? How am I going to achieve that growth, and really have a plan around that, you can’t just write it down and then do the same thing. That’s kind of just a wish and a prayer, you’ve got to really get in details on the goals and how to get the reverse engineer path to it. In other words,
Mike Malatesta 22:21
I think that’s really smart. Because this people get, you know, that’s a bit this unicorn thing. People get enamored with this idea, right? Because you read about these unicorn things, whether it’s soccer, burger, Instagram, or, you know, you read about, you read about the ones that supposedly happened that way, but here’s what you don’t read about hope. Even if it’s fantastic outcome, you don’t read about what did I give up in order to get that? Right, because you typically don’t get that just growing your business and on your own, right, you bring in investors, and they have demands, you know, they have requirements, and it changes, you really have to know what you want out of if you really want that. I love your your reverse engineering thing, because that’s going to show somebody that, you know, it’s not just going to be hard work and you know, happy customers that are going to get you to a billion dollar valuation, you have to have some significant story of growth, and you have to have money in order to prove that that growth story works. And to get the money. You give up something.
23:26
Yeah. And you know, the funny thing about goals is they’re written down and you write them down. And sometimes you’re in a bad mood one day in a better mood, the other sometimes you love what you’re doing, sometimes you’re just totally burnt out. And so if you’ve got a goal written down, and as you’re working through all of these different days, weeks and months, where you’re trying to figure out your own eventual exit or your own eventual role within your company, you can shift that still, I’ve done it, right, I’ve got my goals written down, Mike, but I, I think I’m changing now. Not because I’m not able to achieve those goals. I’m marching towards being able to achieve those goals. But what I’m thinking now is, you know, my goals are written down, I’ll be as specific as I can. My goals are written down to exit my business, within, you know, for a certain dollar amount at a certain time, that’s my guess, as specific as I can. And I’ve even got the deal structure in terms written down in terms of my exit, and I’m not the majority owner mark on 6040. So it might just be me if he wants to stick around. That’s fine, too. But this is my own personal goal. I’ve, I’ve grown since I’ve wrote that goal down. I can achieve those goals based upon the timeline and the growth that I have within my organization. But I’ve learned a lot since then, because I’ve been talking about goals with other eight figure entrepreneurs. And now I’m thinking, Hmm, maybe, maybe I’ll actually without exiting, and maybe I’ll just replace myself Mark Mark and I will elevate ourselves to the board of directors. And we’ll have a C suite executive team that will do the work. And then we’ll have the amazing team of advisors that we have, which are the brokers. But I’ll you know, I’ll exit without exiting, I’ll continue to run the company from the board level status, but not on a day to day basis. And I can shift that goal what I’ve written down, because I’ve grown as well. And I’ve learned, and I’ve talked with other entrepreneurs like yourself that have thrown out other possibilities and other ideas. And it comes from writing the goal down and it comes from holding my having others hold me accountable, because I’ve talked to others about it. Right? Right. So it’s not, you write it down, you tell others and you if you if you if you choose not to exit, if you don’t hit that goal, that you’re a total failure, you can you can shift and maneuver it. Of course, if you set the goal for 5 million, and you’re only a 3 million, you say, oh, no, I’ve changed my mind only want to execute 3 million, that’s not achieving your goal, something that’s making a life decision to be happy, and just get the hell out. You know, which sometimes we just have to do as entrepreneurs, I don’t know if you’ve ever done it, I’ve done it
Mike Malatesta 26:20
how do you want to feel and you didn’t tell us that part? Yeah.
26:25
I do want to feel unburden burden of the responsibility and the role that I have within my organization. I want to be completely at peace financially, in you know, it’s a few money, if you will. And I just need I just need to sleep. That is part of the entrepreneurial life, many of us anyway, that, you know, you go to sleep, you wake up in the middle of night, your mind is immediately racing. So I just, you know, when I’m on vacation, when I’m away on vacation, I sleep like a baby, I turn my phone off, I ignore all emails, nothing happens. That makes me think in the middle of the night. And that’s, that’s a big part of how I want to feel is that maybe that’s just a boring life. But I’m ready for an extended break or a shift, if you will.
Mike Malatesta 27:14
I love the word shift. It’s actually in the title of my book, because I I feel like shifts are so important for entrepreneurs than they, whether the shift is one that you voluntarily take, or whether it’s one that you know, other people look and say, hey, you know, Joe, you got to, you know, move this way or this way. It’s really important because you know, what, Gottschee? You know, which, what do they say What Got You Here Won’t Get You There? Sometimes, and and we get so stuck in what got us here, that you think Well, I’m just gonna do more of that. And that’ll get me you know, where I want to be. And when it doesn’t happen, you say, I’m going to do more change, and it’s theirs. But yeah,
27:52
yeah, totally agree totally. And I love the word shift as well, in the title of your book, and, you know, constantly talking to people, entrepreneurs about shifting their mindset from entrepreneur to exit per Yeah, because the vast majority of the money that most entrepreneurs make comes to the day that they sell their business. And once they learn that and experience it, the next time they start a business, they’re already thinking about that eventual exit. And so it’s a it’s a simple shift, you know, not that you’re going to be in the grind every day. That’s what most of us when we started as entrepreneurs, we’re just grinding it out every day with no end in sight. And for me early on, Mike, a couple of my businesses just sort of faded away, because I got tired of them and I moved on to something else instead of selling them. And so that mind shift that you’ve got that entrepreneurial mind shift from exit printer entrepreneur to x printer, I think is critically important as well.
Mike Malatesta 28:46
So I have two questions before I want to dig in deep on your on your book, and your work. The first is you mentioned the personality profiles and wondering which one you use or which is your favorite and why
28:59
it was in this in this case, it was DISC profile. It’s our consultant that we have as a company that has subscription to it. And we talked with him about a new CEO, COO and who we need, had some thoughts and and then myself and three other executives took it. And now we understand how to communicate with each other better. And my personality is exactly what I thought. And then the other is a book if people want to pick it up, and that is surrounded by idiots. Great title. But it’s much the same. It talks about the four different personality types in colors, as does the results of DISC profile. It’s red, blue, green and yellow. And now my wife will say he’s a read. It’s okay. He’s a read. And I know that when she’s asking me questions, she’s a blue. She needs all the details. She’s not questioning my ability. She’s just asking me questions. To get detail because that’s her personality. Whereas I’m like, I don’t need the detail. I just had this idea, let’s go. Totally different personalities, my see mo needs some praise, according to the results of the profile, I need to be, you know, direct with him, but at the same time, lavish some praise on him. And appreciation and in some ways, sometimes do it publicly making sure the whole team knows what this individual did. Because that’s what he kind of, that’s what kind of drives him. So those, those are the two different ones that I Okay, I like,
Mike Malatesta 30:34
well, thanks for sharing that. Because so important to have a common language or common understanding with your colleagues. It’s if you want to build a good culture and a business understand each other first, because if you’re, if you don’t understand each other, the message that makes perfect sense to you like sort of what you were talking about in your first you know, job first position, you know, what makes perfect sense to you? Will alien could very well alienate someone else, the way you say it, the way you put it, the way you expect them to react to it, all of those things, and just that little thing, but knowing and then, you know, being able to communicate in a way that that resonates with everybody, you just tweak stuff, and then all of a sudden things work better than when you were jamming it down thinking why don’t they get it? You know, why not think the same way that I do? They don’t?
31:24
Yeah, yeah. The is surrounded by idiots is the easiest one pick up. My 20 year old is read it. My wife has read it. I’ve read it. Trying to get my 18 year old read it. He skimmed it.
Mike Malatesta 31:36
Okay, fair enough. Well, at least you exposed him to it. Absolutely. may open it further. And then I wanted to go back a little bit to your worm, worm printer days. What else was happening in your life? Where as you were, as you were coming up, Joe, how did how what was life like for you, because I want to get a sense of how you developed into the person you’ve already described yourself to be?
32:02
Well, I grew up in Maine. And that worm farm that I created was, I think it was nine or 10 years old when I did it. My dad was kind enough to let me put a sign out on the tree out in front that everybody driving by it would say worms for sale Nightcrawler for sale, and have a worm farm in the basement of our house. Thank you Dad, appreciate that. But I was also mowing lawns, I was paper boy, I was doing all sorts of things. I dug ditches on the weekends for $3 an hour, like for one individual that had worked for me every weekend. And trying to think about you know, when I got to college, I had a job. I remember having a job and that, you know, being instructed on how to put paper in the trash can, you know, not crumpled up, just put it in flat on wrinkles. So it will take up less space versus just crumpling it up. And that level of detail and instruction nauseated the hell out of me. I just couldn’t handle it. And as with every passing job with every passing entrepreneur, adventure that I had, I learned more of what I didn’t want to do than what I really wanted to do. And that’s important. I went to college at Northeastern University with a have a Co Op program, you go to school for three months out to work for six, three months or six months. And you know, I worked at scatter funds mutual fund company got my series six and 63 in Massachusetts, used to you know, wear a suit to work with an empty briefcase you know, in my hand and thought it was important for about two months and then realized how much I hated it. I went to work for a fast food fried chicken and Biscuit Company called Cajun Joe’s fried chicken and biscuits in Brighton, Massachusetts, when I was in college, as an assistant manager as part of my entrepreneur program, part of the Co Op program. And when I was working there this guy Michael hackle walk down I didn’t know his name at the time, but he had jeans, blue collared shirt on beat up Leather Jacket beat up briefcase, and he was offering restaurant delivery services. This was back in I want to say 87 and his country club dining. And they used to deliver food for restaurants. They had drivers, you know in tuxedos delivering food. So why he came into Cajun Joe’s is beyond me. But I was so so in love with the idea that when he left I went out back and said to the owner, I said this guy Mike just came in this is this concept. It’s pretty cool. He goes yeah, it is cool. I said I want to do it. And immediate I didn’t have a plan. Like I said I want to do it. And this guy’s name is Jack and he said, How often do you Let’s go just like that. That’s the entrepreneurial venture. You don’t have to know exactly what you’re going to do. You just gotta like I’ve never had a business plan. I went to school for business, but I’ve never had a business if you ever had a business plan.
Mike Malatesta 34:56
I did have a business plan when I went to the bank
35:00
You had to get some money. So you had to do like get some money. Yeah. So you did it for them, not necessarily for you. I’ve never had lending or funding from anybody. So I never had a business plan. If I if I had put it together, that’d be the hardest exercise that I’ve probably done in, you know, 23 years of entrepreneur entrepreneurship. But but we did it, he gave me some money, cleaned out the basement of the restaurant and started a company called the wrong number. My market was a little different than dining ins. They were high end restaurants mine was to college students. And I did that for a good six to eight months working, you know, 60 hours a week while a full time student before shutting it down, because it was just too crazy. But I ended up going to work for for dining in and I tell my kids today that I was an original door Dasher, because my oldest one is a door Dasher. Because dining in sold to Grubhub eventually.
Mike Malatesta 35:49
Well, they did. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I was gonna I was wondering if they would have gone out of business before GrubHub came along,
35:56
sold out, sold the Grub Hub, they went from Boston, Chicago, New York, and then eventually sold.
Mike Malatesta 36:01
So just imagine where you could have been if you stuck with it, happy
36:04
where I am, right? Because Because if I’d stuck with it, I would have promoted myself to my own level of incompetence, bringing it back full circle. That’s a lot of tech, a lot of people a lot of stuff that wasn’t most of my strength at the time Michael offered me, you know, Africa, after I graduated from college, he wanted me to come in and run the Boston location. And I knew it wasn’t right for me, because he was a hard guy to work for good guy, but hard guy. And so I told him my number, hoping he would say no. And he said, I can afford that. But how can I ever incentivize you after that? So? He said, No, I said no, by giving you a silly number. And he said no to, but it’s worked out. Okay, for
Mike Malatesta 36:51
and when you were when you were going into college, Joe, coming out of high school? Did you have an idea of I don’t know what your parents did. But did you have an idea of what you wanted to do? Did you know you wanted to continue to be an entrepreneur is that why would Northeastern was the program you selected? What was going on? Yeah, there weren’t
37:09
really any entrepreneur pro entrepreneurship programs back then, in terms of colleges, it wasn’t something you could study. So no, I just went to school for business. Both of my folks were employees for the state of Maine, a nice steady jobs with unions and things of that nature. My goal was just to leave the state. Alright, I grew up in Maine loved it great place to visit great place to live stuff, friends there. But at that time, I wanted to get the hell out, went to Boston, went to college there for business and just needed to try a lot of different things. Just like in the entrepreneur world, you got to try a lot of different things until you hit the right thing. In in my career growing up, I tried a lot of different things. I didn’t have that first real job, Mike until I was 29. I tried so many different things between college and you know, hitting that, that that roll at talk America, that company that had raised employee number 34. And interestingly enough, that first year when they did 17 million, the owner made $5 million. When we did 102 million a year I left he lost $3 million. So you know, sizes and you know, size, big, large sizes, and bigger is not always better. And learn that early on as well.
Mike Malatesta 38:28
Yeah, the equation is, you know, profit equals revenue minus expense, not revenue minus expenses equals profit. So decide what the profit is going to be, then figure out the scale. That is
38:39
somebody who studied Profit First, right there.
Mike Malatesta 38:41
Yeah. So as you were going through that, I was thinking to myself, Okay, so many people now are telling young people and even older people, you know, find your passion and just, if you find your passion, you know, you’ll never work a day in your life for whatever comes after that job. And it sounded like to me, as you were going through all of those machinations of what you tried, I wondered, well, it doesn’t sound like to me, I wondered, as you were doing that. What is your feeling about that advice?
39:11
Yeah, it’s interesting, because when I was a kid, or maybe not a kid, I don’t I don’t know when the book came out, do what you love, and the money will follow. The book is do what you love in the money follow. And I think about my own kids at this point, and I just want them to be happy first. Right? And then, you know, I want them to obviously be able to support themselves being financially satisfied, I guess, will will lead to some happiness. You don’t want to, you know, be delivering pizza and be happy because you won’t be able to pay rent support a family eventually. But if you’re going to that path in terms of doing what you love it it’s not easy for somebody you know, that concept is You love cutting hair you love being a hairstylist you love owning a small retail store in a small town. So you get to know everybody you love politics, you love insurance, right? Those are the I think that’s too narrow. I think it needs to be broadened to, you know, do you love helping people write that and finding a niche that you can, where you can help as many people as possible. And I and I bring that up, because for me early on, it was all about making money as a young entrepreneur, just wanted to make money, right that 1998 That year, when I made a half a million dollars. And my goal was 50. I was I used to write down how much I made every every week on my hand. Yeah, look at and it was so mind boggling to him. Because in five weeks, I made what he made in a year, and he just didn’t understand what the hell I was doing, you know, sort of selling drugs. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, then it was all about making money. Now, it’s how many people can I reach? How many people can I help? Can I, you know, share a message with them, that’s gonna have a positive impact on their business, their life, their family. And the more I do that as an entrepreneur, because that’s what I love. Strangely enough, Mike, the more my business grows. So I now am in the perfect business, where the more people I can truly help with no agenda. And that’s the weird thing about quiet like the m&a firm that I run this specific to online entrepreneur, most people think I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to deal with a broker, I don’t wanna talk to a broker, I’m not ready to talk to a broker. And I had that experience back in 2010, when I was selling my last E commerce business, I talked to three different brokerage firms than what many back then now there’s more, the three that were specific to online space, to we’re just trying to reach through their hooks through reach to the phone to get their hooks into me for a commission. The third was Mark at quiet light, who had my best interest in mind with two conversations. The second one was an analysis of by p&l. And he said, Look, Joe, said, You’re, you’re coming back strong after the Great Recession, if you wait another six months, you’re gonna make X amount more. And it was, you know, over six figures more, and I was like, This guy’s telling me to go away. This is brilliant, I love this guy. And I did, I waited and came back. And then that approach is different. And it’s focused on helping as many people as possible through conversations, which can be tiring, there’s a lot of conversations, as I told you, before, we started hitting record here. And I’ll tell you why in a minute, folks. But I think when you shift your mindset as an entrepreneur to, from making as much money as possible to helping as much as possible, whether that’s, you know, helping people look great, because you’re hairstylist, or helping people get fit, because you’re a personal trainer, helping people build a better business, because you’re a coach, the more you can help, the more it’s going to come back to you in terms of building your own business brand and reputation. And the reason I talked about those one on one conversations, you know, can be exhausting is that you end up repeating the same thing over and over again. And that’s why I think maybe you’ve written a book, that’s why I’ve written a book, because we want to help as many people as possible. I didn’t write the book to inflate my ego, I didn’t write the book, because I have a course to sell or anything like that. And, and we talked before we hit record move, that’s I didn’t have a plan. I wrote it because I’ve said the same thing over and over 1000 times to individuals, one on one. And now I can reach a lot more people with a lot more detail. Something that they can refer back to. And it’s, it’s, it’s that continuing to help and be a good human. Versus I just want to make more money, I have a financial goal, I just need to make more money, I just need to make more money. It’s a it’s it’s an important mind shift, I think, from for an entrepreneur from just trying to make dough to you know, trying to help as many people as possible. And the end result is you end up making more money.
Mike Malatesta 44:14
I agree. And I, I would say I would say as well, Joe, let me let me know how you feel about this. But I feel like clients and customers and employees and everyone else knows they can sniff out when you’re in it for the money versus when you’re in it for the help. When you help people first, when that’s your mindset is to help people first at least in my experience, you’re going to make more way more money than the person whose mindset is how much can I get from you right now? Because people will fall for that once they’ll fall for it twice, but they won’t fall for it forever. They get tired of it. And then that then, you know,
44:52
and you’re not come back anyone they come back around to you because you offered help and guidance
Mike Malatesta 44:56
Correct. Yeah, I like what you said about your book too, because like you described The way your kids, you consume that other book. That’s the nice thing about having your book out there with all the information if you’re ready for it today, read the book today, if you’re not ready for it today, it’s there. If you want to skim it now and think about it, and then, you know, dig in when someone, you know, when you’re when you’re ready to take that next step towards selling or whatever, then dig in there, but it’s there all the time. There, you know, it’s just a fabulous way to get information out to the world. Great. So let’s, you know, your firm quiet light is, you know, focuses all exclusively on online business owners, right or E commerce type business,
45:39
which online businesses, SAS content, ecommerce, FBA, whatever it might be agencies, yeah,
Mike Malatesta 45:44
fascinating niche. Although it’s a pretty big niche, but fascinating niche, because I haven’t come across an m&a firm that has that focus before. So it’s really it wasn’t
45:55
real big back in 2012. Funny enough, you know, but it’s,
Mike Malatesta 46:00
I suppose it’s becoming more Yeah,
46:02
we’ve grown up that very steady consistent growth. Lastly, and this year, it’s it’s a huge leap over last year, just because of the you familiar with the aggregators in the FBA businesses, what they’re doing.
Mike Malatesta 46:16
So like, I know what agri so no, I’m going to say why don’t you explain?
46:21
Well, an aggregator they’ve raised money, they’re very smart, well educated likable, people who have raised a lot of money. And with that money, what they do is they buy up in this case, FBA Fulfilled by Amazon businesses and put it inside their own portfolio. And so the bigger they get, the higher the multiple comes to buy it at three times. And because of the size of their portfolio, it immediately becomes worth 10, or in some cases 15. And they’ve just done in, let’s say, three years, what we acquire Lytx have been trying to do, since the firm was founded in 2007, which is, you know, get it through people’s heads as entrepreneurs that you have a sellable business, and that you can sell it someday. The there’s been so much publication around FBA aggregators that everybody that runs an online business, whether it’s FBA, straight up ecommerce, SAS content service agencies, they’re all realizing, oh, wait a minute, I actually have a sellable asset here. I think I think I need to talk to quiet light or whoever they might want to talk to, it’s, it’s been, it’s been interesting, it’s been good. I still feel like, like, we’re at the tip of the iceberg. I think that, you know, what we do is so critical, it’s not for everybody, some people are going to go off and do it on their own, and the book will help them with that. And that’s okay, right here to help. But, you know, the online space is just going to continue to grow. And that means, you know, unless we totally screw up, we’re gonna continue to grow. The challenge is growing at our pace, making sure that we’re happy with what we’re doing in our lives and serving, you know, our clients and helping and protecting our team as well. It’s good, good challenges, good problems to focus on.
Mike Malatesta 48:12
And while you’re got, you got, yeah, it’s a very wide opportunity in front of you to I would say, for for sure. And for the people that are that are that are starting these businesses. I mean, like you, I can’t I, it makes me gives me like shivers when I hear somebody say they’re going to wind down their business job. What do you mean, you’re going to wind down your business? Well, I’m gonna retire, I’m gonna wind down a business. Yeah, I did it, you know? Yeah, I
48:39
didn’t, I didn’t know. You know, I won that first media buying agency that I started made half a million in the first year, I wound it down. Because it was me it was my brand and reputation, but not really, I had a staff, I just wound it down. So I had one, and then eventually just had that one buying media for my own products. And then when I sold those businesses, those products, you know, gave her a huge bonus. And we parted ways. Shouldn’t have done that. They were people that, you know, we’re doing the same thing I did that eventually sold.
Mike Malatesta 49:11
So yeah, it’s not about what you’re extracting from the business every paycheck or every year or whatever, it’s what’s the value you’re building inside of the business. That’s the big payoff.
49:20
That’s where the value especially with, with the world that I’m in the online world where it’s, you know, growing like crazy and doubly a special with especially with physical products, ecommerce businesses, because it takes so much working capital to keep up with inventory demands, you know, and so, your cash flow is an awful lot lower than what your net profit or discretionary earning shows because you have so much money tied up in inventory. And so I’ve seen people you know, that have grown a business from, you know, zero to, you know, a million and a half in 24 months, but they didn’t really get to take any money out of the business, because they kept Finding inventory, and then they sold for a million dollars. And that’s when they got paid for the business. There’s mathematically statistically you make at least 50% of the money that you ever make in these types of businesses the day that you sell. Once once, once the entrepreneur understands that, they’ll make that mind shift that owner shift that exit printers shift, and start to think like a, you know, an exit printer where they’re eventually going to sell their business, they’ll set those goals reverse engineer path to them, and, and work through those harder days with that end goal in mind.
Mike Malatesta 50:39
So I did forget to mention that exit printer is a fantastic name for a book, Joe. So congratulations on that as well. While your firm focuses on, you know, online m&a, the book, I’m assuming is is applicable to all type almost always. Okay, so almost all I misunderstand what who the who’s the target audience for this, but
51:04
it’s really the online entrepreneur being blunt, right? Because I’m not going to tell you, I know exactly how to do evaluation for brick and mortar store. For a business that’s heavy with assets. Like I’ve got a friend of mine that owns a construction company. I don’t know how to put a value on all of his, you know, forklifts and trucks and backhoes and all those things. That’s not my area of expertise. So if somebody is running that type of business, they’ll still learn from the exit printers playbook. Because it talks about, if you if you’re looking for a valuation of your business, you’re not going to get that in this book. But if you’re looking for what buyers want the four pillars, if you’re looking for, you know how to do an add back schedule. I mean, the most important thing, when you’re trying to understand the value of your own business is understanding what an add back is, you know, because most people think, well, you know, I mean, my net income is only 200,000. You know, I, I’ve got businesses worth what, 600,000, but I pay myself 300,000. So why would I sell it for six? Because your $300,000 salaries and add back? Right? Those little details are so critically important to all types of businesses, that I think it’s useful. But I’ve wrote it for the online entrepreneur. And it’s interesting, what I’m seeing, you know, with feedback and reviews and trends and conversations is that buyers of online businesses are reading it. So they understand the other team’s sort of playbook, if you will, right there. They’re buying a cup. Ah, okay, well, this guy didn’t do it. He didn’t, as you said, price his business properly, because he sold it on his own, or he’s listing it on his own. And he didn’t do a proper add back schedule. I buy this business today for the multiple that he wants. And I’m actually getting, you know, an extra point in instant equity, because it really is worth four times when he’s selling for three because he didn’t do proper add back. But let me change that. So if he didn’t do an add back for his cash back, right, had a conversation with a very successful eight figure entrepreneur a few weeks ago, it was a fireside chat, I was in an event and 30 people, and we’re literally by the fireplace by the fire. And he’s talking about, you know, an offer. He’s gotten first business and started talking about details and add backs. And I said, Did you do an add back for cashback? And he’s like, What do you mean, I get like $50,000 in cash back every month. But what do you mean? I’m like, Well, you, you get that money because it’s, you know, advertising spend and purchases that you make through the business, it’s a discount on all of that. And it’s an owner benefit, even though you’re the business is providing it to you as an owner, it’s just not hitting your p&l, apparently, you need to create an add back for that. So an extra $50,000 A month that’s $600,000 a year what multiple you what’s the offering 10 times, okay, that’s $6 million added to the value of your business. He bought the beer from me that night, by the way should please buy me many beers, but simple things like that, and understanding those little nuances. You know, again, add or subtract zeros for whatever suits your business. But, you know, I’ve got an entire section or chapter on that, where there’s three different levels of ad backs, six different levels below each that will apply to every entrepreneur, whether they’re brick and mortar, service agency, ecommerce, entrepreneur, SAS owner, whatever it might be, and especially for buyers, you know, the best buyers that I’ve sold to over and over again, keep coming back because they, they win. When there’s multiple offers there. They they win, even if it’s not the highest price, they just they’re likable and sellers want to sell to them because they trust them. But they also are not totally fixated on the multiple because they understand what the growth of the business is and then it’s the next three months that the multiple is going to come right down and that the They know what they can bring to the table and to grow the business. And they do that. And they do it very well. And so they’re not totally fixated just on the multiple. Yeah, you kind of have to do that, I think in today’s marketplace.
Mike Malatesta 55:10
Well, I agree. And that’s where a company like yours comes in really handy. Because, too, if I’m a buyer, you know, we can talk multiples all day long. But all what I’m really concerned about is not what multiply by that I’m concerned about what what is going to mean to me what it’s going to mean to me, like how it’s going to increase my EBIT da, or how it’s going to increase my whatever. And I have all kinds of things that you you will never know, you know, that I’m thinking about. But as an advisor, you can sort of help get to that and get the price up for you know, the person that that’s selling the business because the buyer has, the buyer has has more value than just the multiple, perhaps
55:50
so much more economies of scale, if they’ve got the ability to, you know, cut costs, because if you’ve got staff can do that, or a warehouse that they own that they don’t have to outsource to there’s all kinds of stuff, so many things that they’ve got to take into account. And, and you have to in today’s marketplace, we’ve gotten year to date. Look, we’re talking at the end of November, early December. Your today 2021, we’ve got 4.5 offers on every single listing Mike and 60% of them have sold at or over asking price, right? And yeah, that’s, it could be, you know, say, Well, you’re not pricing them high enough, or we’re pricing them right, and getting a lot of eyeballs on them and interested parties negotiating the price up. You start too high, people come in really low, if you start just right, they come in just right or higher. We’ve we’ve seen that time and time again. So it’s a tough marketplace for buyers, for buyers. So the more you understand the the sellers playbook, if you will, the better off you’re going to be as buyer, I think
Mike Malatesta 56:56
so. I was on a an m&a panel for the in Chicago recently. And these were, you know, we were talking about big deals of asset heavy companies like waist, waist related companies, you know, yeah, nine figure deals, and I will and I will tell you that a lot of the stuff that you were just talking about is the same type of advice that we were giving to people. So these weren’t online things but you know, understanding your numbers, understanding add backs, understanding, selling the future growth, like perform a growth, understanding all those things, it’s just makes such a big difference. And of course, having the right firm working with like your like your firm, for example. Game changer, like you can’t do it on your own and outsmart you know, the people who kind of have all this knowledge coming in. You’re, you’re not going to, well, this
57:49
you know, that’s the pitch of the aggregators, the FBA aggregators, it’s you know, they’ll hit you up with an email and we’ll buy your business pay all cash close in 30 days, avoid the broker fee. Yep, what they’re really doing is they’re making a ton of instant equity. Because if you’re selling on your own, and you don’t understand proper add backs, or even how to do it just a three month pro forma on a p&l, we won’t go beyond three months, by the way, like, okay,
Mike Malatesta 58:14
because we don’t different that’s specific to what it is,
58:18
it’s specific to what we do. And, you know, year to date statistics, again, it’s been 89, it’s 89 days from listing going public to it actually closing. So from listing to money changing at night is, so we’ll do in many cases, if a business is growing rapidly, we’ll do a three months pro forma p&l, so the buyer is paying a multiple on closing, you know, and that’s really important for the seller, because, you know, they’re if they’re gaining an extra $20,000 A year and discretion a month, I’m sorry and discretionary earnings over the previous year, because the growth is crazy, that’s 60,000 bucks times a three time multiple is $180,000. You know, that pays for college tuition, all sorts of things that you can apply those things to, what’s the fee and the fee we we had you stop me if I go on too many tangents here. But we had a situation this year, right? Where it a an entrepreneur, a female entrepreneur bought a business with an SBA loan a few years ago, before the pandemic actually just before and all she the only change she did was she had more capital, so she made sure she didn’t run out of inventory. So the business just exploded with growth. And because she’s in the FBA space, the aggregators, we’re hitting her up with emails and snail mails and phone calls and all this stuff. And she got an offer for 2.2 million plus inventory 2.6 all together. And the final offer that came to that level was from a very well known aggregator who said, Listen, this is what we do. This is the absolute best offer you’re going to get for your business. This is what we do. Here’s the reason why. You’re you know, you’ve got a Heroes skew it’s doing 70% of your revenue, this and the other thing. And she just was savvy enough and stingy enough to say, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m going to talk to Chuck over at twilight and she connected with Chuck. We ended up selling it for $5.5 million. an aggregator bought it, we had seven offers an aggregator botnet. So generally speaking, they’re, again, they’re, they’re very good people. They’re likable, they’re intelligent, they’re well educated. And that’s why bankers give them lots of money. And you’re going to like them, too. That’s, you know, their charm is part of how they got where they are. But that’s what makes them dangerous, as well
Mike Malatesta 1:00:40
as then they’re so like, and they’re acting in their best interest. Okay. Don’t forget, don’t forget that right? Yeah. Well, that’s a great story to end with. That’s fantastic. 2.6 to 5.5. In, in a short period of time, nothing changed about the business. It’s all about the advice that you got, and how you positioned it and how you actually looked for the right buyers, not just the buyer that came and knocked on your door. That’s right, essentially, you know, Joe, this has been fantastic. How do people I mean, I gave your stuff out at the beginning. But how do you want people to connect with you? What do you want them to do? Where do you want them to go?
1:01:15
I would like everyone to follow me on Twitter. I’m just starting my Twitter account. Mike, I need to be better at social media told you that before we hit record.
Mike Malatesta 1:01:22
Alright, where’s What’s that? The Joe Valley?
1:01:25
I guess that’s a zoom at the valley. Look, Joe Valley was taking people it’s not that I’m the Joe Val. And I’m that important. It’s just that Joe Valley
Mike Malatesta 1:01:33
was taken. I’m just surprised that the other Joe Valley didn’t take V. Joe Valley.
1:01:37
He’s an artist. Yeah, he was he was not as egotistical as US entrepreneurial. He’s an entrepreneur too. So either either Twitter, they can reach out to me on, you know, on LinkedIn, or hit me up at Joe at quiet light, talk calm as well. All right.
Mike Malatesta 1:01:53
Well, Joe, thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your wisdom and experience in your life, and your goals and how you feel when you accomplish your goals. That was so cool. Like ton of great stuff there. The one takeaway I would say is, no matter what business you’re in, you are in that business to build value. And the value that you build needs to be maximized when you decide to get out of that business. So if you’re an online business, go see Joe, connect with Joe, if you’re any other type of business, connect with whomever it is, that’s, that’s best suited to take you through that process of make sure you get what you should get out of your life’s work.
1:02:32
And if you’re not ready to have a conversation, pick up the zeners playbook or pick up on a mind shift right owner shift
Mike Malatesta 1:02:40
ownership down or shaky? Thank you taking me back in there.
1:02:44
I mean, these are these are easy things to do. Let me look at what Mike has done. Look what you’ve done. I mean 24 companies and your life right? You bought,
Mike Malatesta 1:02:53
bought or sold 22 Yeah, that’s crazy.
1:02:56
Who does that? That’s that’s a hell of a lot of experience and some incredible successes. And I’ve imagined a few epic failures in there so you can learn from others. And I think everybody should be buying your book and doing that.
Mike Malatesta 1:03:08
Thank you so much. Same to you. Thank you so much for being on the show. My pleasure,
1:03:11
man. Thanks for having me.
