Interview with Sam Leslie of Dealmakers Institute
In Episode 9 of the Mad Profit Podcast, Sam Leslie from Dealmakers Institute walks us through his journey of starting a couple of service businesses to then investing in online assets to now his new focus of brick and mortar.
Sam explains what he looks for when acquiring a business and how he creates immediate value by putting assets together and gaining a larger multiple.
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Transcript
| Intro: Welcome to The Mad Profit Podcast, where we interview active investors, entrepreneurs and experts, who left corporate jobs to buy or start successful ventures and live life on their own terms. Listen to their stories, learn from their experiences and heed their advice, so you too can create mad profits and the life you’ve always wanted. And now here’s your Host, Laurent Truc. Laurent: Welcome back everybody, to the mad prophet podcast, I’m excited today we’ve got a guest, a special guest, His name is Sam, and he is a self-proclaimed business acquisition investor. I love that title resonates really well with me, So Sam welcome to the show. Sam: Thanks, man really great to be here. Laurent: Thanks for taking the time. I’ve been looking forward to this interview. Oh! you know that I’ve been hounding you all together, obviously we’re in the same space and we just share a lot of common thoughts and views, on investing in business investing. So, looking forward to spending some time, understand you a little bit better and sharing some of your wisdom with the listeners today. Sam: Great! Laurent: okay so maybe we can start with you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here? Sam: So, let’s go all the way back, twelve years old, running a landscaping lawn maintenance company, knew I always wanted to own businesses, just that, I don’t know why I just knew I wanted to own multiple businesses, and of course wealth came along with that, but I knew I wanted to own multiple businesses. So, my dad liked to sit down and kind of help me plan that out, and I said well I want to sell my landscaping company for a million bucks. Well, about 15 years later, I was still running it, and didn’t sell it for a million bucks, but did sell it; and bounced around for a little while just trying to find something else, and I ended up taking a job with a pest control company, and I got sick all the time, because of the pest control products. I would shake and I was nauseated, and it was… I started looking it up online and I was like I think this might be, I might be getting a little bit of the poison on me or in my system. And so, I had three kids at that time and was coming home with that stuff on me and realized that there had to be a change. So, I took about two grand and started a company called organic pest solutions which still runs in Greenville South Carolina. It has been about nine years now and we used natural and naturally derived chemicals. So, this is in my blood man, it’s in my blood. So, fast-forward to 2015 my dad runs organic pest solutions and then I invest in other businesses. So 2015 I found a Chapman we’re both friends with him, partners with him or have been partners with him and many deals and fantastic guy, and I found him in 2015 and joined his course and learned how to buy businesses, because I knew, I knew that I had to have somebody teach me. It was… there’s just really not much out there on how do you buy online companies? How do you buy offline companies? I had sold my business and looking back on it now, like it was a very creative deal and I didn’t really realize that and it worked out really well, but each kind of took me down the path and so within six months, six to eight months, I was in for deals and the rest is history and now I’m partners with ace in deal makers Institute, which is our coaching mentoring business buying platform. So, very excited, and now my focus is really focused on or switched to offline businesses, so both online and offline I’m cool with both, just looking for value, and where I can increase value and hold on for cash flow. Laurent: So, very cool very cool, got so many questions just off the top there. So, that’s amazing that at the age of 12 he started a business, and you hang on to it for 15 years, I mean most people, my son is 12 now and I’m just trying to convince him to go and grab that shovel to make some extra money and it’s a task. So, kudos on the tenacity just for holding on to that business for so long. It’s amazing! Sam: I mean it provided for me and my family, uh provided for me through college and provided for my family until a little way after college. So, business can, I mean business can provide for you better than a job can, and it’s a lot more flexible too, so I mean when I was running that company I’d worked three or four days a week whatever I wanted to do, one of the works six days a week. I just spread it out if I wanted to work 14 hours a day, I’d do it and take a three-day weekend, so business is amazing! it’s fantastic… Laurent: So, very cool so you started off with that service business Venessa side, was also a service business, at what point did you want to get into online business because aces program was really focused on online primarily. Sam: Yes, at that time it was because the multiples were so low and the you know offline companies were still a higher multiple, higher price, for the cash flow versus the online businesses. So, you could buy an online business for a two multiple all day long in 2015 versus a three month or for multiple for an offline business and now it’s inverted. So, what got me into it was, I knew like in probably 1998-2000. I was about 18 years old and knew that the future was online, I just didn’t know how to get into it, like I grew up deep in the south, in a very non-technical area and just didn’t know how to get into things, and I was focused on service businesses. So kind of missed the boat as far as kind of the dot-com boom, which might have been a good thing or a bad thing, but I kind of missed the boat on that, but I knew that the future was online and it still is you know, but the opportunity for value is flipping now. Laurent: So yeah very good. So um talk a little bit about some of the first deals that you got into, were you always looking for value from day one? I mean there’s the whole story line out there. Find your passion, it’ll make it easier to focus on the time that you need to grow that business, then there’s the other train of thought of its about value. Forget you know find the deal that makes the most sense for return on investment, have an exit strategy. Where did you come into this space? like what kind of head-space were you in? Sam: I was in the model agnostic head-space. So, didn’t care what model it was just as long as it made money consistently, and ended up buying a SAS software as a service company, and honestly jumped in and got over my head as far as the maintenance goes of a SAS company coding and all that. I was very, I was inept at that and was basically trying to do it myself, which we don’t teach that, you know we outsource to professionals and got a little bit of Burnt initially and until I kind of learned my lesson, but so I jumped into SAS company which you know really turned out to be a great decision, because I bought it at a three point one multiple and now SAS businesses are selling for routinely four and fives. You know just saw a drop shipping, just saw a drop shipping company selling for a three and then I saw an affiliate site, an affiliate site selling for a 4.8. So, like the multiples are just going up and brokers aren’t returning calls. Like we talked about it’s a seller’s market, buyers are out there they are you know the government here in the U.S is incentivizing, you know buying businesses through Small Business Association, 7 alpha loans and so they’re only requiring 10% down, so there’s a lot of people out there you can buy a million dollar business, because it got a hundred grand in the bank. So, they’re getting pre-qualified and then jumping on these deals whether they’re deals or not. Laurent: Yeah, it’s funny how quickly that’s changed. A year and a half ago there were no financing in the space, it was so hard to find any money and I live in Canada and the government here does not provide any funding for this stuff, which is crazy. We’re such at a disadvantage compared to you guys and even you though, it’s the SBA, but there’s not a lot of banks that are jumping on board. I think stripe now is coming up with a program where you can borrow some money for some of these purchases, but it’s taken a long time to get there, it’s pretty crazy. Sam: Yeah, I think that the banks are really realizing that these are as liquid and asset as you can get, compared to stock, because you can buy and sell them. I mean it’s…with websites you’re able to… say if you price them appropriately and if you have good books or fair books, they’ll sell. So, it’s… it’s kind of crazy right now, but I don’t want to get this off top. okay I feel like rambling. Laurent: No no no please please! Tell me a little bit about your view. So, now you’re talking and I know ace and are both a big proponent of this, about buying businesses. You started off by building them, so your theory as to why build… why buy versus built? Sam: Value! I mean 100% Man I mean you can buy something that cash flows immediately from a day one. They’re just way too many opportunities out there right now. 20% of listed businesses sell. So you know we’re talking about website selling, yeah they sell quick, they’re selling like crazy, but offline companies 20% of them listed on the sell. So, like the why would you start a business when a business over here that’s been in business for twenty to thirty years with an established clientele, reputation, marketing has been done for twenty or thirty years. The whole base is built. Why would you start a business in that space, when you can go buy one? So, I’m getting less model agnostic, because I see opportunity in certain models service businesses primarily, but you know in a space where the multiples are getting so high that you can’t justify financing, then I could see starting a business in that space and trying to take some market share, but right now it just doesn’t make any sense. You just look at the number. So, I’m kind of a numbers guy, if it doesn’t make sense numbers wise, I’m not going to do it. And starting a business just doesn’t make any sense when you can buy one that cash flows right away. Laurent: Hmm very good, very good. So, you you’ve migrated from online. Are you fully offline or it’s like you said the agnostic depends what comes your way? Sam: I’m pretty much deal agnostic right now. I’m interested… So, if it’s gonna be an online company, I’m not gonna run it. I mean they’re gonna buy it and put a CEO in place or buy one with a team or I’m going to just be a minority investor or provide some debt financing or something for somebody who’s gonna buy it, because I don’t want to operate it. My heart is kind of in-service businesses, offline businesses, because that’s where I came from. So, it’s like, it’s like putting on a well… well-oiled baseball glove or something you need, you slide right in, you know how to use it and it just, it’s really easy. So, go where you know magnify your strengths and I mean I did it for 15 years straight, so I know how the business works. To just blow it out of the water. So, I’m not purely offline, but that’s where I see the opportunity. So, I’m moving there, but deels come along, I will definitely invest. I mean we’ve my wife invested in a Canadian crypto currency trading platform called coin smart and so she’s an investor as well. So, we invest in online stuff, but that’s her investment it’s not mine. Laurent: Hehe Got it Do you come in with an exit strategy when you make an investment or do you see how it goes? So, cash flow is king man, exits provide a surplus of cash flow which can put you into disadvantage tax wise in the United States, depending on how you have it structured. So holding on to your investments is a really good idea and just growing them to the amount of cash flow that you want, so but you always have risk when you reinvest in a business, because businesses can be risky and that’s why we buy businesses that have been around for a long time, right! They’ve already passed that five years, hopefully maybe even 10 years of you know the higher chances of failing. So, um I do come in with an exit strategy, usually it will be for the service businesses where I’m heading right now, is buying in the Same vertical, in a geographic location and basically dominating the space. So, come in with business one, business two, business three, maybe plumbing businesses, HVAC something like that, electrical. Adding on services to those businesses, because you’re already in people’s houses. So, you just add on different services and then you synchronize the software and you synchronize the training, you synchronize even like you can even synchronize, like the type of trucks or cars or vehicles you’re using, the uniforms you’re using. keeping those businesses with their own brands, but you’ve basically vertically you… you’ve integrated them into one business, because you can look at one software and track all things. You’re going to the Same supplier for vehicle, as you can on the Same supplier for uniforms and then you turn around and you take those three businesses, five businesses whatever you bought in that Same period, you turn to a private equity fund and you say, hey this is essentially one business and you can go from a three multiple, to now a four or five to seven or four to seven multiple and you’ve created an incredible amount of value just by keeping the income static. So anyway, I hope that makes sense. Laurent: Absolutely, absolutely. So, um you talked about a couple things there that you look for in deals right, so if it’s a service deal, you’re looking for add-on services that you can put together, age of a business. The older the business, the more stability typically comes with it. Anything else, any other tips that are critical for you when you’re doing your review of a company? SAM: Yeah absolutely, so their number one would probably be their online reputation. So, a lot of these companies have been, you know they’ve been around for 30 or 40 years and they don’t even know they have an online reputation. Once I get a prospectus for a business, if I’m going through a broker or if I’m going back to the seller or if I found it all fall market, then I instantly look them up online look at their Yelp reviews, their Google reviews, any kind of forum stuff about them, their Better Business Bureau rating, things like that. And I mean sometimes you’ll run across a company with like five reviews and 30 years and they’ve all been bad reviews, but they’ve been in one little space from 2012 to 2013 and they got five bad reviews, now they’ve got a one-star on Google. Does it make sense that that’s a horrible company? No, they may have just had a bad manager, a bad service person during that time and that’s just a question you’re going to ask the seller. So, it doesn’t necessarily turn you off, but first their online reputation, second, I’m going to look at their customer base. Do they… what kind of data do they have on their customers? Do they just have phone numbers? Do they have addresses? Do they have emails that actually work? Do they invoice people through email? That’s the case then you know that people are opening their emails from this company. So, you got an opportunity to really add on a lot of services and get people to respond to emails. I also look at their marketing, if they’re already marketing, I asked them what their cost of acquisition is, a customer acquisition and then their lifetime value. So, the lifetime value of my pest control business is probably… I’d say it’s about a thousand to eleven hundred dollars. So, I can spend a good bit to acquire a customer right, because they stay with us. So, if you know your cost of customer acquisition, plus your marketing costs and then see if they have scaled it ever and if it’s stayed consistent, then you know that you can just pour money in the marketing and just grow the business like crazy. So, if there’s any contend consistencies there, then you just ask questions of the seller. So, first the online reputation, second customer base, third want to take a look at their employees. How many employees they have, how much revenue is being generated by each employee? So, basically take the revenue you know subtracted by them or divided by the employee, and you know how much value each one is. You need to look at, see if there’s too many admin. Do you need to cut your admin? can you cut your admin salaries? can you hire VIAs? can you… So, you’re looking for value, when you’re doing this due diligence. Yep online reputation, customer base, employees and the equipment. Does the equipment need to be replaced? If the equipment needs to be replaced then you’re looking at a big, a big outlay of capital and that actually becomes a deal point which you can leverage for better terms. Laurent: That’s incredibly different from the online world, in terms of what to look at and just employees and its tough physical stuff. Sam: I actually only look for businesses that have management teams in place, because I don’t want to run the business. I want to be strategic, so I want to step in as the CEO owner and then replace myself and then go on to the next one and do that do that you know the vertical integration. Laurent: So, is there a size of business for that? like management teams won’t exist on a business that’s $100,000 in revenue, like when you typically shoot for? Sam: So I’ll look at because business values fluctuate up, because gross revenues fluctuate greatly between service businesses and profit margins, I really look at EBIT uh not EBI TDA, because I don’t like to value businesses based on depreciation add backs and if anybody has got questions about that I don’t want to get too deep into that, but depreciation on equipment can be pretty high depending on what class of equipment it is and sometimes the brokers will add that back as a cost that you won’t incur and I’m like not I don’t…just cash in my pocket that I value, value it as and so I’m looking at businesses between 300,000 and a million dollars in EBITA and depending on how much equipment they have, how long they’ve been in business management team, all that kind of stuff. Their valuations can fluctuate greatly, but we’re looking at probably between valuations of about 750,000 on up to 1.5 million, but maybe even two million, but that’s like where you’re looking at the EBITA, I like to call it like the cusp, the break point, there is a break point and you look at this with online companies and you look at with offline companies. There’s a break point in the EBITA with valuation goes up significantly. So, once you start pulling in 750,000, a million in EBITA a year, your valuation can go from three times to four to seven times. You know so a lot of times you can buy a business that’s on the cusp of that, there’s a lot more meat on the bun. All you have to do is get them just above that cusp and all of a sudden what you bought at a three multiple is now worth a four or a five or a six. So, you instantly create value just by growing the business a small percentage. Laurent: Mm-hmm That’s very interesting, it’s very interesting. Again, very different than online, because online right now, I mean what are some of the financing options that you have for offline? is there significantly more right? Sam: Absolutely so you know, you have to even get really creative with your deal structures. So, a lot of these companies come with real estate or they want to sell their real estate separately. They come with actual assets, you know like your talk about computers and printers and office equipment and you know the real estate and then the equipment to actually run the business. So, there’s a lot of things that you can actually get bank financing on that’s not goodwill. So, it’s actual assets that you can finance, the bank’s love that, because they can actually repossess something. Whether they’re gonna get value out of it or not, they love it. So, you can bring in an appraiser and you can appraise, get that stuff appraised and then finance. There’s, some really good terms for that, the SBA likes those deals. What I like to do is, if they want to sell their real estate with the company. I will offer to buy the real estate and the asset and then they will sell and finance that goodwill. So whatever, you know whatever their asking price is – with the real estate and the equipment is worth that’s what I ask them to sell or finance, so I’m able to get really good terms on assets, hard assets and then we’ll just finance the rest and whatever. Laurent: Do the banks consider how much seller financing you’re getting when they give you a loan or they purely do it based on the business? Sam: They will like those at hard assets, they’re going to just finance those. I don’t think they can really even take into consideration the goodwill in those loans. Now If I can get a loan for the whole purchase price in the business or 75 percent or 90 percent of the purchase price in the business, they’re going to take into account either gonna require… some banks require that a seller will hold a certain percentage note, so it really depends on the bank, they’re not very creative. So what I try to do is you can actually do a side, I mean this is just Sam so this is not Bank leaking, but you can you can do an agreement with a seller to purchase the business for what the bank will finance and then you do a consulting deal or you can do a side deal with enforcing, you know it gets created as you want. Laurent: Very good. So, where do you find your deals? is it offline, online? How do you find them? Sam: So right now, the options are so good, I’m actually finding them on larger business broker sites. I do target ones that are listed by owner. So if you look down, you know if you’re looking at like this by Cellcom or something like that you’re going through these listings, if you can find something that looks a little weird. So maybe they listed gross income cash flow and then their EBITA is weird, it’s not, it doesn’t correspond with the cash flow, like at all, just reading through the listing you’re like a broker didn’t write this and you look over at the contact box and it’s just somebody’s name and not a brokerage firm or a phone number or anything like that, you know you might have a live one. so right now I am talking with an owner of a plumbing company in Texas and so I found that deal. I was at the water park with my kids and of course I’m looking at deals right. Hehe we all do it. I’m one-and-a-half-year-old in my arm and I’m scrolling through my phone and I see just a name and a phone number. I’m like oh man let’s jump on this, so I call it boom it’s his cell phone, talking to the owner, I’m talking to the owner man that’s like heaven for a business buyer. So, when you start talking to the owner and they’ve kind of messed up the listing, and they kind of don’t know their numbers, you’re like uh terms I think terms. So that’s… I found them off market too – I have you know online contact, so contact me. Be like hey man I got a deal, what do you think and then my online deals, a lot of my source through ace… Laurent: okay recommendations for someone who’s thinking about getting into this space. Now so a lot of the people that I catered to in terms of conversations in this podcast or individuals that are working in a full time job, now looking to either get a side hustle, completely leave their job and start their own thing or like us looking to create larger portfolios and manage a group of businesses. So how does somebody begin? Where do you recommend? Sam: Don’t quit your job, because if you think you’re gonna be able to buy a business like that, it’s not gonna happen. Unless you are a minority investor in a business that’s about to close, it’s going to take a long time. So, it took me six months to find my first deal, I was actually interested in. So, I’ve been talking with this guy out of Texas for four months and we haven’t even, like there’s no LOI, I don’t even have a letter of intent , I don’t have an offer, like I am still giving information from him. One of the best deals I ever did was I brokered a business and it took 10 months to broaden that business and it was ten months from the time that I found the buyer. So don’t quit your job, you can learn this on your lunch break, you can learn this after dinner, after you put the kids to bed. Just don’t watch Netflix, go online and watch how the five businesses you know from people like ace Chapman and myself, and you know this you’re building a podcast. Call Me! Absolutely um you call either of us, whatever will get me in touch with each other. I’m looking forward to doing deals together and so call Mad Profit you know. So, you can listen on your way to work. I always try to take advantage of the time that I have by leveraging the time to learn, but don’t hesitate. So, you need to take action because there are so many businesses and so much opportunity out there, you can get stuck in learn mode. So, you definitely need somebody like us or some you know somebody else to help you move along in the process or push you know, cuz it’s a little scary sometimes. Laurent: So, it is and there’s a lot to learn and a great point, I mean, I learned this space through aces podcast. I was commuting an hour and a half each way and I sucked in three years’ worth of podcast, a matter of a couple of months and it was just like… Sam: You’re so right, I mean and the crazy thing is that like we really give away most of our best, uh like it’s really what you’re lacking is the action. That’s right! Um so you get the knowledge the head knowledge and you can’t, don’t get hung up. You know here you are taking action Mad Profit; you’re building a brand and you want to help people buy businesses. You want to buy businesses exactly and it’s almost like I’m an evangelist don’t go start businesses, don’t hustle in crime, this is not, this is… you don’t need to do that, if you’re gonna grind on something that’s gonna pay you immediately. So, grind on looking at deals, grind on doing seller calls, grind on getting financing and building your investor funnel, that’s what you need to grind on. Don’t grind on oh maybe I should you know do I need to put up a website? Do I need to… how do I get my marketing started? How do I…? that’s already been done. Laurent: Yeah it’s a great point the hard work especially starting something from scratch it’s just not worth it, especially at the failure rate of small businesses, like why would you ever do that and when you do buy a business don’t do the work, outsource it to people that are much smarter, much better, much well. We’ve got the equipment and ready to go. So I’ve got a personal question for you and I just have challenges with, as you accumulate more deals to just keep an eye on everything right and try to put reports together, just to make sure that I’ve got signals that are coming to me, to let me know when things aren’t going great, but I find there’s always a deal that needs a lot more attention than I think it does. You’ve got a number of sites now, a number of businesses that you’re running. How do you manage it all? what’s the trick? Sam: It’s a struggle yeah so I don’t know that I’ve figured it out honestly. So you know I take kind of a note out of Asus playbook, which is I’m looking at hiring some V.As virtual assistants to assist me in managing those businesses and doing customer service and things like that, because doing it yourself it just gets overwhelming and really if you look at the return on investment on your time, like if I’m returning a client email or a customer service email when a VA could be doing it, I could be taking that time and putting it toward buying another deal or doing another deal which is what I’m good at. I’m not the greatest at operating these businesses. I’m really good at doing creative deals, so I don’t know that I’ve figured it out yet honestly and it’s going to require some management of people unfortunately and I think some of the special sauces is finding the right people like VAs that can help you. So, I’m sorry I don’t have any… like I was looking for the Silver Bullet… yeah that’s why I like to buy businesses that have management teams in place. They’re used to putting together reports, they’re used to reporting to the governor or the CEO what’s going on and so you don’t have to train them to do that. It’s just a natural thing. They just need your vision and then they go forward, so if it’s anything I would, because it’s all about, like when you start listening to people like Gary Keller who bought… who built the Keller Williams. Realty he talks about your wealth is in your people, so you know it may be a partner, it may be a CEO or an operational person that you hire, but you need to find somebody to help you run those businesses. Laurent: Yeah there’s too much at stake not to do it right. Make sense! Resources that you use, you talked about ace in this podcast, people that are trying to learn any other resources that you would suggest books that have influenced the way you think something like that. Sam: Yeah it’s more like a personal development book and it’s called Interrupt You by Jay Samit, who’s an amazing joint venture guy, he really no longer invests in businesses. If he comes on to be an advisor, he takes 8 percent of the company, well that’s what he’s like. Hey if I’m gonna come on and be your advisor and be a partner, I’m taking 8%. So, I mean he’s responsible for a ton of different stuff. So, interrupt you is a great book by Jay Samit. I do follow a lot of really down-to-earth marketers, so people like Tim bird Brd from Facebook, let’s see his site is ad leaks on Vito Glasers. He does PR, so these businesses… I like to look for businesses that I can leverage my friends and my acquaintances skills so I can offer them equity in the company to come in and help me blow it up, you know just grow it. I don’t need to own a hundred percent of the company. I just want my money, So, I want to, I want to make money and I want to care for the clients and those two things go together. So, let me see is there anything else? I read a lot of Charlie Munger and Buffett uhm there’s oh yes, oh my goodness there’s a great book and it may be inspirational for your listeners and that’s the magic of mergers, which was rebranded into like I think it was four hundred million dollars in ten seconds or something like that, you can look it up his name is Meshulm Riklis okay and it’s about how he grew his businesses through mergers and was just he’s still alive. He’s a Billionaire. So anyway, magic mergers and interrupt you. Laurent: Okay excellent, I’ll put those in the show notes. Excellent! Do you want to tell people a little bit about dealmakers Institute? Sam: Sure! So basically dealmakers Institute is a online course that teaches people how to buy businesses, but also how to change their mindset into a deal makers mindset and what do I mean by that, I mean being able to creatively think and structure deals, So that everybody from the person across the table from you, to you, to your financer, to your suppliers are happy. So, there are so many deals out there where somebody leaves the table just defeated and crushed, that’s not what we’re about. Deal making is about making everybody happy, so and the number one question is how do I give the person across the table, the seller what they want? And sometimes what they want is not money, sometimes what they want is a legacy, sometimes what they want is security, sometimes you know Ace talked about it last night. He noticed he owned a tanning salon and the lady next door to him at the tanning salon owned a retail clothing business. He was good friends with… there was a mutually beneficial. If your tanning bed wasn’t ready, they’ll go over and shop and they were shopping, they might come over to the tanning salon. I don’t know if anybody’s hands anymore. Yeah, it was a good business model back then, but he had bought several other more tanning salons and he hadn’t been to that tanning salon about 30 to 60 days. pulls up this tanning salon and in the window, it says going out of business and in the place is virtually empty. Goes in a tanning salon, says what’s up with next door? And they said while the lady is retiring, so he goes over. He says; you know what are you doing? She said yeah I just… I’ve had this store for twenty years and it was time to retire. He said how was the store doing? She was like we were doing great, no low six figures um selling clothes and accessories and he said why didn’t you sell it? And she said who’d want to buy my business? mm-hmm and you know it’s he was like well I would have, but really what he could have done was, he could have walked over there and given her money for inventory. She wouldn’t have had to do this whole going out of business sale all the tests up, just giving her what she wanted which was to be done. Yeah, she didn’t want to cash out huge, she just wanted to sell off all her stuff and be done. All he needed to do, was to give her a cheque for the inventory and then they’d sign over the lease and boom he’s got a business doing low six figures, so sometimes what the people on the other side of the table want is not money, they just want to be done. So that’s what the deal makers mindset we teach that, we teach how to source deals off line, off market, how to build your investor funnel, which is what you are doing right now, you’re building an investor funnel through these podcast, everybody is listening, make sure that you put your money in to do… you have the funds yet, do you have fund yet? Laurent: No! I’m changing the fund up a little bit and we’re going to focus on Canada first versus U.S. Great! Do it step by step. Sam: Anybody in Canada who has some money and want to use it in buying businesses, get in touch with mad profit and figure out how to get into that fund, because Laurent is gonna be doing some amazing stuff? This is how to build your investor funnel man; this is what we teach. Laurent: So, I feel like I need to cut you a cheque right now. Sam: Hehe… just cut me in on the deals man, I’m all about it. So anybody giving to Laurent he’ll invest it in companies and just so you know if you’re listening to this podcast right now, you’re interested in buying businesses, you’re interesting and you’re interested in mad profit. Businesses generally kickoff between twenty and thirty percent every year, twenty to thirty percent like you’re lucky, if you’re getting one percent a month or a half a percent a month consistently. So, folks look into buying businesses, look into buying businesses with Laurent and you know I don’t know what his return is, but if you’re getting anything above 8% you’re doing great. Laurent: So anyway… Very cool, nice plug in, on the flip side. So, deal makers Institute I’ve worked with ace for a long time. I’ve known Sam for a long time, they have a hell of a program. I mean ace has been doing this for decades right, So, he knows good. Yeah it’s unbelievable and he started, I don’t know he was four, it’s absolutely incredible the methodology he’s put in place and I like what you said, it’s not just about learning how to strike deals, learning to find the next deal, but it’s the mental aspect of being ready and taking action which a lot of people don’t do and I agree with you. The number one thing is to just take action and I started while having a full-time job on the side, two and a half three years ago and I had to hustle. It wasn’t easy especially if some of the deals that you get into there’s a lot more workload than others, but the amount of learning that you get by putting yourself in there is incredible. So, I think you guys have done that very well and the right way. So, kudos to you and look forward to continue to see Dealmakers Institute grow and be part of the calls and yeah future’s bright, looks great. Any last comments for entrepreneurs, anybody like that, actually even how do they reach you? what’s the best way of them getting in contact? Sam: So, email me at Sam@dealmakersinstitute.com. Sam@dealmakersinstitute.com, that’s the best way to get through to me right now and you know just if you can imagine it, you can do it, in this world of business buying you can be creative. There’s so much opportunity out there, do not limit yourself to just how you buy a house. I’m gonna make an offer, I’m gonna plop some money down, I’m gonna buy the house. That’s not how businesses work, so just don’t limit yourself. The sky’s the limit here and learn from people like Laurent and how to be creative. And it’s fun as hell. perfectly psyched Laurent: Excellent! Sam thank you so much for your time, appreciate it. Love the advice, love the direction. I’ll put all this stuff in the show notes and look forward to kicking this off. Sam: Thank you so much. Yeah man have a great one, take care. 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