Mark:Today on Power Tips Unscripted, we talked to John Warlow, bestselling author and founder of the Value Builder System. Remodelers spend a lifetime building their company and you have one shot at getting your exit right. But beware. Waiting to pounce is a legion of financial mercenaries, private equity predators, and corporate giants who prey on your lack of experience in mergers and acquisitions.
 
Mark:John is here to give us the scoop on these sleazy tactics, and some tips that make sure you get what you deserve. And we’ll hear all about it in just a minute.
 
Victoria:I am Victoria Downing and welcome to Power Tips Unscripted, where we talk about tips, tactics and techniques to help you build a strong, profitable remodeling company. And I’m here with my co-host, Mark Ferrari.
 
Mark:Hey, ho!
 
Victoria:How are you doing?
 
Mark:Really good.
 
Victoria:You know, today’s topic is going to be so on point for our members.
 
Mark:So many are having issues these days. Yeah. Yeah.
 
Victoria:You know, and there’s so much interest in building companies that they can sell.
 
Mark:Yeah. Especially it’s it’s a challenge for Remodelers in particular because so many of them are so hands on doing everything themselves, which definitely isn’t the best sales position to be in, I think.
 
Victoria:Right? Yeah. You know, since I’ve been in this industry for so long, a lot of the people that I’ve been working with over the years are now at that point. So the more information they can have on how to do it right, is, you know, the better. And preparing those younger people for it already is good, too.
 
Mark:Well, if there’s one person that I know that can give us all the answers, it’s this guy.
 
Victoria:All right, let’s jump in.
 
Mark:Absolutely.
 
Victoria:John Warlow is the bestselling author of Built to Sell and the founder of the Value Builder system, which is a step by step process to maximizing the value of your business. And I’m super excited to say that we have two people on our staff now that are value builder system certified consultants. That’s very exciting. John was a speaker at a summit a couple of years ago and did a bang up job, and we’re thrilled to have him back.
 
Victoria:As a matter of fact, I believe John was our very first podcast guest.
 
Mark:Yes.
 
Victoria:He was. Yeah. So it’s really nice to have you back after three years. Welcome, John.
 
John:I didn’t kill your podcast. Then.
 
Victoria:No. You launched it strong. Yes, yes. It’s great. Yeah. So nice to have you back. Yeah.
 
John:Yeah. Let’s be back with you guys.
 
Victoria:So, John, I understand that you have a new book coming out. Tell us about it.
 
John:Yeah, it’s called the Art of Selling Your Business, and it really is the culmination of the trilogy that I started with, Built to Sell, added the automatic customers. Right. To bring revenue. But, you know, it’s funny, a lot of business owners and I’m sure a lot of remodelers are in this space where they want to harvest some of the value they’ve created.
 
John:And, and there really there are some things in Mark you reference these that are kind of some hacks and some things to be mindful of, some mistakes to avoid, to really ensure that you can come out on top when you when you go to exit. So that’s really the idea behind the book.
 
Victoria:And what was the name of it again, the title.
 
John:It’s called the Art of Selling Your Business winning strategies and secret hacks racing on top.
 
Victoria:So yeah. All right. Great. So tell us about I mean, what are some of those mistakes that you talked about the, the mercenary people that are out there. What are some things that these remodeling company owners who are thinking they’re ready to sell? What should they watch out for?
 
John:Well, you know, it starts, I think, with getting clear on on some pull factors. Most remodelers are going to be frustrated. I would imagine, with what we call push factors. But the most successful eggs, it’s the one where the owners are happiest afterward are all pull and no push. What do I mean by push and pull? I’m talking about the things that push factors are the things that frustrate you about your remodeling company, right?
 
John:Maybe it’s employees hourly rate changes to the, you know, minimum wage, all that stuff that is a frustration are all push factors. And and that’s okay. That’s pretty common for a lot of companies to have those. What we want to do though is get clear on the pull factors, the things that we’re excited to go do. So, you know, do you want to get in great shape and run a marathon?
 
John:Do you want to write a book? Do you want to start another company? All these things are pull factors, and the happiest entrepreneurs after selling your company are the ones that are that have more pull factors than they do push factors. So that’s not anything to do with sort of yeah, some negotiation hack. It’s sort of more of a life philosophy that I think is important to get get right, even before you start to proactively start to market your company for sale.
 
Victoria:So, you know, I want to really start back in some of the basics. So I’ve been talking to a lot of our members, our roundtable members lately about, the fact that they want to look at how to sell their company. And probably three this week alone. Could you just give us a quick I know we covered this in that first webinar or, podcast, but could you give me just a quick, you know, overview of what are the primary factors that builds value to sell a company?
 
John:Sure. So look, the kind of primary idea is will your company be able to to thrive without you personally in the driver’s seat. So everything that we do at Value Builder is in some way, shape or form goes back to that premise that for your company to be valuable to anybody else, to be effectively sellable, it has to be able to run without you.
 
John:And so there’s a few things that you can do to ensure that is possible. So for example, selling less things and so you can get some of your employees to actually do some of the work creating some recurring revenue, which I know for Remodelers is really tough, but there’s some ways to do that. We talked about that at the conference, and, and so forth.
 
John:Making sure the business doesn’t do to dependent on a single customer or single employee supplier. So these are all sort of some of the drivers that make your business more attractive to an acquirer. So that’s the the kind of first step of getting the business ready to, to sell.
 
Victoria:So what are you seeing? What are some of the selling trends do you foresee with business owners who are hard hit during Covid? And what do you see post-Covid?
 
John:Yeah, you know, I’d be curious to know, Victoria, in your case, like remodeling. I’m in Toronto and the remodeling is one industry that has been able to work through Covid. What’s been your experience?
 
Victoria:I tell you, our most of our members, I’d say 95% are having an incredible year because so many people are stuck in their homes. They’re not spending money on anything else and they’re remodeling.
 
John:So nesting and they want to make their home this beautiful sanctuary oasis that they can enjoy inside. I’m thrilled to hear that, because it has not been that way for a lot of small business owners. As you know. So it just on a macro level, we’re seeing a lot of small business owners, expecting lower sales next year, expecting to sell and wanting to sell as a result of that.
 
John:However, what I would encourage a remodeler to think about is you never know what the next Black Swan is going to be. So here we are for a lot of service based companies. It was no fault of their own right in in many cases they were devastated by the pandemic. But we never know what’s going to come up around the bend.
 
John:And so what we talk a lot about is this thing called the freedom point. And it really refers to the idea that you at some point, your business will become value well enough that it that by selling it after the transaction cost after you pay tax and so forth, you’ve created a pot of money that’s large enough to basically allow you to live for the rest of your life.
 
John:And when you reach that point, when your business reaches that point, that liquefying it or selling it would create that amount of wealth, the question becomes that we all have to ask is, are we prepared to take the incremental risk, continue to take the incremental risk because it’s like, imagine the poker player at the table in Las Vegas.
 
John:They’re putting all of their chips onto that, onto the table to play that hand. And when you reach the freedom point where selling your company would allow you to create that amount of wealth, you’re effectively risking that freedom in return for something that you may actually not find terribly valuable. Some people, and I’m sure you’ve seen this with your own members, Victoria, they have this aspiration to create the next great business, and they are motivated for other reasons, intrinsic reasons, to build a great business.
 
John:And that’s fantastic. I would just encourage you to ask the question when you reached the freedom point, are you willing to continue to place that bet, basically betting freedom in return for the aspiration that you have? And some people will arrive at that is, yes, I am. In which case they get after it. Others will say, no, I freedom is too important to me.
 
John:And that’s when when selling me makes some sense.
 
Victoria:So what do you see are some of the biggest mistakes that owners make when they are well, it’s time to sell. They’ve got they’ve got themselves out of being the most important thing of the business. What are some of the mistakes that happen?
 
John:I mean, the single biggest mistake you can make as an owner is get suckered into a proprietary deal. And it’s also referred to as a prop deal. That’s the the way private equity companies refer to these deals, where, they are essentially you are essentially negotiating with one buyer. And the problem with that is that you lose negotiating leverage and deals are either reduced in value, typically after you sign a letter of intent or diligence is protracted and the deal terms you end up getting are much less favorable than they would if you created what, again, M&A professionals refer to as deal tension or competitive tension, where you’ve got more than one buyer, and
 
John:that’s when you can start to negotiate more from a position of strength when you’ve got more than one buyer. And so you’re, you know, you’re probably looking at the landscape of buyers and saying, like, where can I find the of the right buyer? And I think Remodelers have, broadly speaking, two categories of buyers. You’ve got external buyers and internal buyers.
 
John:And I know a lot of Remodelers will do an internal transition where they sell their company to either their employees or to a key management manager or management team, and that’s referred to as an internal sale with an external sale. When you’re selling to a third party, you’ve really got three choices. You’ve got a private equity group, an individual investor or a strategic investor.
 
John:And that’s the landscape of folks that you really want to stimulate multiple offers from.
 
Victoria:So describe the difference between the individual investor and the strategic investor.
 
John:Yeah. Cool. So an individual investor is typically wanting a job. So they might want to move to town. Let’s say you live in Laguna Beach and somebody in Cincinnati says man, I would love to live in California. Fantastic. I know I’m pretty handy. I know how to do kitchen cabinetry. I’m going to I’m going to buy this company.
 
John:And so effectively they’re buying a job. And that’s an individual investor. They typically borrow money oftentimes financed by the SBA to buy your business. And oftentimes you have to finance part of it as well. Meaning you don’t get all your money up front. The new owner pays you back over time, right? So that’s an individual investor. And you’re putting some risk on the table.
 
John:Yeah. Right. Because you’re typically sitting on that capital structure below the primary bank who lends the money. Right. So if things go south and they doesn’t work out, you’re, you’re, you’re you’re sitting behind the bank. The bank’s going to get paid first. So that’s why oftentimes an individual investors not as attractive as a strategic investor and a strategic investor is someone where they have a set of assets, that, you know, that they have, they bring to bear.
 
John:I’m reminded of, the other business that’s sort of not a remodeler, but is in some way, shape or form related. I’m reminded of of Jay Steinfeld, who built blinds.com. If you ever had Jay on the On the Know or on the podcast, he’s a fantastic guy. So he around the same time Jeff Bezos has started to sell books online, Jay Steinfeld started to sell blinds, window coverings online, of course window coverings.
 
John:Most of us buy them for a retail store, right? Because you got to fit them. You got to pick the color and you got to, you know, like Jay’s like, if Bezos can sell books, I can sell blinds. So as you can imagine, it takes a long time to figure it out because a very complicated. Right. Yeah. You can measure you got to pick your color, etc. and then you got to figure out how to install them, etc..
 
John:And so it takes him literally 30 years. But in by the time 2016 rolled around, he built a $100 million company selling blinds online. I just called blinds.com and Home Depot takes notice. And Home Depot says we want to be number one or number two in every category, which we sell, every skew, every product in our stores. And lo and behold, they were not in the blind space.
 
John:And the second problem that Home Depot has is selling complicated products through their website. Most people want to go into the store, touch it, feel it, etc. but they know if they can get people to buy more stuff online, they’re going to make a truckload more money. And so they acquired blinds.com for two reasons. One, they wanted to be number one in the blinds category.
 
John:But more importantly and this is how it’s strategic. They were a $90 billion company. Whatever they were when they acquired it, they were like, if we can get 1% better, if we’ve got $90 billion of revenue, if we can get 1% better at getting the people to buy online, that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars to us. Right.
 
John:And that’s where a strategic investor typically will pay more than an individual investor, because they’ve got assets that they can basically make your business in their hands worth more than it is in yours.
 
Victoria:All right. Awesome. Okay. So we’ve got we’ve got some really good information here for people who are thinking about selling and preparing their company to sell.
 
Mark:Yeah, but I got one big question. Okay. I’m really eager to hear the sleazy, dirty, nasty tricks that these horrible, horrible mercenary conspiracy theories.
 
John:Yeah.
 
Mark:Oh, man. I’ve been sitting here waiting so excitedly.
 
John:For the sleazy stuff. Yeah, and there’s so many, look.
 
Mark:Hey, we got plenty of time.
 
John:Yeah, I don’t mean to be disparaging about, private equity groups in particular, because they’re probably the worst offenders. But, look, they are they are doing a job, right? So their job is to buy your business for as little money as they can, typically roll it together with other businesses in similar industry and then sell it. And so the way they do that, is they use it well, basically they try to buy you as low as possible and they then use a lot of debt.
 
John:And one of the tricks that they’ll use is they’ll get you to carry more of your equity into a new entity. So I just got a I just did a podcast this week, actually, with a business owner who sold his business to a private equity group. They bought 60% of the business and asked him to carry 40% of the business into a new entity.
 
John:Now, that’d be sound theoretically good. And they they make the pitch of the second bite of the apple. They say, oh, you know, the you’re 40% is going to be worth more down the road because we’re going to sell the company. It’s going to be great. And we want you to stay on and help build the business. And so it sounds really good until you realize how they make all this financial engineering magic happen.
 
John:And that is through debt. So debt needs to be repaid. And so your company is on the hook for repaying the debt they borrow to grow your business. And so in this case, the 40% of the business that he had to hold in this new entity became worthless because the company declared bankruptcy, because they could not finance and pay down the debt that the private equity group had basically applied on the business.
 
John:So it’s it’s a it’s a cautionary tale, but it it doesn’t have to be because what private equity groups tend to be is followers. They tend to basically articulate the same investment criteria as the other 500 private equity groups to care about remodelers. And so if if a private equity group starts rolling up businesses in the remodeling space, you can bet there’s another 50 private equity groups doing exactly the same thing.
 
John:So mark, the trick to basically ensuring that you get favorable deal terms is get multiple bids from private equity groups, because they all have the same investment criteria. If you get one bid, chances are there’s a bunch of others that would that would be equally happy to buy your company. And when you’ve got 10 or 15 of them bidding over you, you can say, you know what?
 
John:I’m not willing to carry 40% of the equity. You know, maybe 30 or 20 is is is more is more what I’m into. So that’s one of the many tricks.
 
Victoria:So just just before you get into more of the tricks, what’s the difference between that? I mean, a carrying, you know, carrying that into a new entity versus an earn out.
 
John:Yeah, it’s a great point. So in the case of carrying equity into a new entity, you are an equity shareholder. That is you, you you own a portion of that of that business. In the case of an earnout, an earnout is a set of goals that an acquire will put in front of you to achieve. And if you achieve those goals, then you would be in, in line for a future payment.
 
John:But you’re not an equity holder at that point. You are simply, effectively an employee in a as a division head of a larger company. Gotcha. The problem with earn outs and and strategic investors, Mark, you’ll be happy to hear this. This is another sleazy trick that strategic investors use. And that is the whole book is full history.
 
John:Least.
 
Mark:Yeah.
 
John:Easy sleazy tips and tricks. Anyway, the biggest one that the the strategic will use. Well, they’ll say, okay, you know, we want to buy this business, but the owner’s being totally unreasonable and he or she wants some outlandish amount of money we’re not willing to pay. So what we’ll do is we’ll, we’ll we’ll give them the illusion that we’re going to pay their, their number.
 
John:But in reality, we’re only going to give it to them if they hit these crazy future goals that are almost impossible to get. And what they do is they will stagger your, your, your earn out so that you have to hit certain gates along the way in order to continue to get the money and the the the authority to continue to achieve your goal.
 
John:But in many cases, they will make it impossible for you to achieve those goals because they’ll put, for example, if your goal is earnings, profit, they will, as a division of their company, basically graphed on some of their expenses onto your profit or loss statement and say, well, now that you’re a division of ABC company, you know, all of our divisions have a $200,000 a year administration fee that they basically pay back head office.
 
John:All of a sudden your profitability drops by 200 grand and you can’t hit your earnout at oh oh, surprise, surprise, you can’t at your own. So now you’re just like a general manager in a company, right? Your you don’t want to work for, and you have no prospect that hitting you’re. Now what do you do? What you leave.
 
John:Right. That’s what they’re banking on. They know you’re going to leave. And so they buy your company for what they were originally willing to pay. And the earnout is just an illusion.
 
Victoria:That is sleazy.
 
John:That’s it’s totally.
 
Mark:So.
 
John:Sleazy, disgusting.
 
Mark:It’s like it’s like something you would watch on Bravo.
 
Victoria:Yeah.
 
John:Yeah.
 
Victoria:And the others.
 
John:I mean, we could spend all day.
 
Mark:Yeah, we could spend all day. I’m sure he’s. He wrote a whole book on it.
 
John:Yeah, it’s with corporate buyers and strategic investors. I mean. What they’re trying to do is, is buy your business for. I mean, it’s in their job description, right? They they have shareholders and they have to spend their shareholders money. Why is it so it’s in their job description to offer to buy your business for the lowest possible price that they can.
 
John:And so they use an earnout to try to do that. It’s it’s one of the ways they do that. And again for, for you we we did this. And you guys have got the two certified value builders that are, that are part of the Remodelers advantage, community, have access to this thing called Corps. Yes. It basically evaluates the personal readiness of the owner, the psychological readiness of the owner.
 
John:And we’ve looked at like, why owners end up regretting their decision to sell. And one of the biggest drivers is they sit on their rocking chair sipping a glass of lemonade a year or five years after the sale of their company, and it dawns on them they wonder, did I get taken? Did I get a fair price for my company?
 
John:Did I kind of leave money on the table? It’s one of the biggest reasons that owners and a regretting their decision to sell and the, the, the, the, the kind of antidote to that or the way to make sure that you don’t end up regretting is to get multiple bids so that you can you can sleep well at night knowing that, you know, I got three offers and I took the best one.
 
John:That was the one for me. And but I looked at the other two. I know what the numbers were. Right. Happy with the one I chose.
 
Victoria:Yes. Okay, that makes total sense.
 
Mark:I get all that.
 
Victoria:After, you.
 
Mark:Know. Please.
 
Victoria:No, after.
 
Mark:You know, really?
 
Victoria:So if you were going to get.
 
John:An old married guy.
 
Victoria:I know we’ve been doing this a little too long. Okay, so, if you were going to give our listeners advice on the first two steps that they should take if they’re thinking about preparing the company to sell or selling their company, what would they be?
 
John:You know what? I’m going to take your question in slightly different direction, Victoria, and with your permission and say the one step, the first and most important step, they do not do.
 
Victoria:Good.
 
John:Okay, is in many cases it’s, it’s it’s the inverse of what to do. And that is to put a number on your company. You know, oftentimes we, are asked by acquirers, well, what do you want for your business? And it’s actually not your job to price your company. Your job is to create a competitive marketplace for your business and let the market decide what your company’s worth.
 
John:And I start the book off with this kind of goofy story. But it’s a story of a modernist art, like an artist who created a piece of art. Guy’s name is Reimann. It piece of art is called bridge, and it’s sold for $20 million at a Christie’s auction, more than $20 million at Christie’s auction. And guys, when you look at this, I’m using air quotes, art.
 
John:All you would see is a white square on a white canvas. It is literally the most obnoxious, pretentious piece of art I’ve ever seen. It’s a piece of it looks like a high school cafeteria ceiling tile. It’s just.
 
Victoria:It’s.
 
John:Just obnoxious to call it art, but it’s sold for 20 something million dollars. And it goes on to show you that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and value is in the eyes of the acquirer. In other words, these two companies will see your business and arrive at wildly different valuations. And so it’s not your job to put a ceiling on the value of your company.
 
John:You’re going to create a marketplace for your business and let the bidders come to the table with what they would like to pay for your company. And that’s one of the biggest mistakes we see business owners make in the beginning is to say, you know, I want whatever a million bucks for my company and all they’re doing by by saying, staying at it, declaring that is putting a ceiling on which they will never sell their business for a penny.
 
John:More than that, and most professional buyers will make it their mission in life to sell it, to buy it for much less than that number. So just let the market play out the way it wants to play out and view your company in the way it wants to be your.
 
Victoria:Company now before you get to any other ones. So does that mean that there’s no reason to do a professional valuation before you take your business out to market? Should people bother making that investment?
 
John:Look, I think if a valuation is is generally a good guidance for you personally, it helps you with financial planning, with any sort of estate planning and so forth. But it is, in my view, a science which is, is, is presented as as much to precise meaning. Meaning people will, will, will put you to a formal valuation for your business.
 
John:And basically owners will take that to the bank and say, my business is worth X. It’s a valuation consultant’s best estimate at, broadly speaking, what it might be worth in the marketplace. But in no way, shape or form does it replace letting the market determine what the value of your company is, because in many cases, it’s wildly different than what a valuation professional valuation states.
 
Mark:You know, not to not to dumb it down or oversimplify what you just said. It instantly brought me to the Antiques Roadshow. You know that show I’m talking about?
 
John:Yeah.
 
Mark:You see, you see all these people bringing their junk in, and every once in a while there’s somebody who says, oh, this one’s worth, you know, on, on a mark on the market. You should get, you know, $4,500. But there’s still not money. It’s just some guy’s opinion on what you could get when you go out to market and you got nobody buying.
 
Mark:That’s right. You got nothing. Yeah, but that just crazy elephant head.
 
John:I love that analogy. I mean I don’t want to throw certified like certified valuation consultants totally under the, under the bus because they definitely have a lot of expertise. But you’re absolutely right. It is effectively their estimate. Right. And what the market will actually determine the value of your company.
 
Victoria:So let me ask you a quick question about the value builder system. So yeah, the system is to build value in a company to help it sell for as much as possible. But how do you do that if you don’t know where the starting point is. I mean how do you know that you’re adding value with what you’re certified value builder consultants.
 
Victoria:And you and your organization recommend.
 
John:Yeah. So when any Remodeler vantage customer or member wants to get their value builder score, they’re going to go to you guys to get their score. And as part of that, they’re going to get an estimate of value. And that estimate of value is, as the name suggests, an estimate of value. And yeah, what we really want to ensure you do is improve your value builder score and your corresponding estimate of value over time.
 
John:And what we’re really keen on is on a percentage basis, what that improvement is. So whether we missed by 10% plus or minus in the initial estimate of value is somewhat immaterial. As long as we can improve the value of your company. Then we’ve done our job and you by extension at remodels events have done your job.
 
John:So we’re we’re really looking for improvement as opposed to sort of putting some sort of precise number on the table.
 
Victoria:Right. All right.
 
Mark:Great man. I just I love having you on John. It’s I hate that it’s only a half hour show. Yeah. You’re a great.
 
Victoria:Guest.
 
Mark:I could talk to you all day.
 
John:Oh, man. Well, you’re very generous, guys. It’s great to be with you. And it’s great to be partners and in crime together. Yes. Well, have you guys have certified value others for.
 
Mark:Fortunately, this is, the fun part where we get to look inside your brain and ask you the lightning round questions. Are you ready for that?
 
John:I am, I can’t promise I’ll, I’ll be interesting, but I’ll. I’ll do my best. And now here’s the remodelers advantage. Lightning round. It’s a dry.
 
Mark:Sense. Okay, here we go. We’re going to put 60s on the clock. Other than your own, what’s your favorite business book and why?
 
John:Small giant’s book. Burlingham it takes the pressure off and allows you to just, love what you’re doing as opposed to building the next Tesla.
 
Mark:If you weren’t helping owners build valuable companies, what do you think you’d be doing?
 
John:60 minutes. Correspondent I love Mike Wallace. When he would go to the used car dealership and just totally undress the media.
 
Mark:So what are you not very good at?
 
John:Oh, God. Anything to do with my hands? Which is ironic. Talking to remodel. I’m not your light bulb guy.
 
Mark:Your room, your desk or your car. Which would you clean first?
 
John:Car.
 
Victoria:This is.
 
Mark:A describe your high school self in one word.
 
John:That.
 
John:Much to.
 
Victoria:What?
 
John:It’s about. The three words you’re.
 
Victoria:Not now.
 
Mark:If there were a movie about your life, who would play you and.
 
John:Oh, you know what? I got you Doogie Howser. You said, oh, you look like Doogie Howser in an elevator. I almost died.
 
Victoria:So you saw the.
 
John:Guy’s name is Neil Patrick Harris? Me? Yeah.
 
Mark:Yeah, yeah.
 
Victoria:Technically, you do look sort of like him. I like it like Victoria.
 
John:Perfect.
 
Victoria:This is awesome. John. I really loved having you. I know, appreciate you. I know our listeners are going to get tons out of this, but before we let you go, I want you to share with our listening audience your five words of wisdom and why they resonate with you.
 
John:Oh man, I love that saying in the arena, I’m not going to be able to riff it in five words. But you know that quote in the arena? It’s worth googling, but basically the spirit is it’s one thing to criticize from the bench, but don’t criticize unless you’re actually in the arena doing the work and all your members are doing the work.
 
John:And so I know it’s hard to build a transferable company, in particular the remodeling space where so much depends on you personally. So I hope I haven’t committed the ultimate sin of criticizing from the bench. But, I’m a big believer in that saying and celebrating the people actually doing the work.
 
Victoria:That’s awesome.
 
Mark:Was great. And, John, I had to, officially thank you once again for writing the foreword to my book. That was awesome. I really appreciate that.
 
John:Well, it’s a great book, so I was blessed. I was pleased to do it. Thank you, thank you.
 
Mark:Hey, when does your book come out?
 
John:January 12th.
 
Mark:Awesome.
 
Victoria:So we’ll have to be sure to send us some info so we can do some blasts. I would about that when it gets available.
 
Mark:Yeah we’re going to poster that everywhere. I’m definitely getting a copy.
 
Victoria:And I think that we should put the is a pre score assessment principle. Let’s put the pre score on this on the show notes. So people can take advantage of that too. And let’s see what their score is okay John that’s been awesome. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here and congratulations on your new book and we’re excited to be part of Value Builders.
 
Mark:Thanks, John.
 
Victoria:Man I like that.
 
Mark:I love having John on the show. Yeah he’s such an he’s. Have you ever listen he’s got a great podcast. If anybody isn’t listening to his, I the name of it escapes me right now. I’m sure it has something to do with selling it to sell, right? Right. The Built to Sell podcast. But he could probably just Google John Wall out and and find it.
 
Mark:But it’s a it’s an offer. I put it link to it in the show notes. But he’s got a great podcast. He’s constantly having guests that have sold their businesses and some really, really interesting stories. And they’re.
 
Victoria:Good. Good. So he’s got his new book coming out.
 
Mark:Yeah. I can’t wait to get, I’m going to be first in line on that. He did mention I think he just doesn’t want to, which is very, very respectful. I think it’s awesome. He didn’t want to be pitching right on the show. He just wanted to add value to the episode. But I’m going to do it for him.
 
Mark:He’s you can you can get I think I don’t know if it’s a preorder situation, but he had shown me the link. It was, built to sell e-commerce. Selling. Yes. And they’re giving, like, free gifts along with the book. Oh, nice people on there. So nice. Yeah, I think he was just trying not to be all pitchy and salesy on our episode.
 
Victoria:But didn’t he also mention to you that it’s not like it’s something that’s available necessary to. I mean, to the world? It’s. I mean, it’s a little bit.
 
Mark:Yeah. Obviously you got to know the link, but, but so we got the link, right?
 
Victoria:Yeah. You know, he’d be a great person to have come back again to one of our events when we could start having events again.
 
Mark:Yes, hopefully sooner rather than later.
 
Victoria:Yes. Yes, indeed. Well, anyway, great episode.
 
Mark:It was awesome. And if you want to read his forward, you can buy my book.
 
Victoria:Yes. Lobster on, lobster on cheese plate. What’s the subhead? I can remember?
 
Mark:What’s up with the what’s the, shameless plug?
 
Victoria:Yeah, there’s just shameless plug. All right, so tell the name of your book, though, because he did write a really nice forward.
 
Mark:Lobster on the cheese plate.
 
Victoria:Well, I know that, but what’s the subhead?
 
Mark:How to stand out attract the best clients. And when every sale that comes your way.
 
Victoria:Perfect. Yeah, that was more John were in that along with more Mark Harari.
 
Mark:Yeah, but, definitely check out John’s book that’s coming. Built to sell ecommerce selling, I believe. He said, I’ll put a link in the show notes and, yeah, it’s great episode. He’s fun. And he told if you haven’t seen John again, it’s double R and double L John Wall out Google. He does look like Doogie Howser.
 
Victoria:He does. And we’re going to put the pre pre score assessment on the show notes too. So jump on there and take it okay.
 
Mark:All right. Cool. All right. Well pleasure having John on. We want to thank him for taking the time out of his busy Canadian day to join us us down here in the good old USA. And we want to thank you for listening week in and week out I am Mark Harari.
 
Victoria:And I’m Victoria Downing. See you next week. This has been another episode of Power Tips Unscripted the Remodelers Guide to Business. Visit w w w dot Remodelers advantage.com to learn more about roundtable, our world Peer Advisory Program. There you can also find information about our business consulting services, upcoming live events, and much more. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show and comment on iTunes.