How David Girault Helps Business Owners to Scale and Thrive in Competitive Markets

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale Business Podcast. My name is Hector Sania Steon, and today we are here with David Alt and he is someone who is, uh, is gonna talk to us about acquisitions, and we're gonna talk about how to either get into entrepreneurship by acquiring a business or how you might be able to scale, your business by acquiring it as well.

[00:00:19] Hector: So David, welcome to the show. Thanks for spending some time with us today.

[00:00:22] David: Oh, thanks so much, Hector. I appreciate the invite. looking forward to chatting.

[00:00:26] Hector: Before we hit the record button, you mentioned that you had kind of seen all facets of entrepreneurship, solopreneur, building a small team, having an organization going back to the beginning had multiple lives it seems, as an entrepreneur.

[00:00:38] Hector: So catch us up little bit on kind of what that's been like and then how and why maybe you see, acquisitions as this new landscape that you're, becoming passionate and spending more time with.

[00:00:49] David: Yeah. So, I'm much older than I look. I've entrepreneurial

[00:00:58] David: business law stuff and, and then Have been in the entrepreneurial world for gosh. so in that, we've, built a business to hundred million in revenue, as an international import export, company, commodities brokerage, and, exited that, went into franchising for a while.

[00:01:14] David: Started that from scratch. built a team, built an organization, built that to about seven times. From, from a standing start, in a few years. and then doing kinda consulting stuff as a solopreneur as well. So yeah, scope,

[00:01:30] David: few years back at Trinity University on, for, for Trinity entrepreneurship, and, in teaching. Budding entrepreneurs how to start businesses from scratch. I realized how many of them were just really kinda their head against a wall over and over and over again. and about the same time got turned onto this idea acquisition entrepreneurship was becoming interesting.

[00:01:54] David: Back at that five years named Carl started program, started following Carl. Credit to something that Carl said, really? That is, you, you can go through all of this struggle starting business scratch, and you can find a business in the field of your innovation, and that's cash flowing and that's paying all the bills. And you can buy that business, and you can have operations startup's.

[00:02:38] Hector: I love the idea of, acquisition entrepreneurship such a, a cool term, frankly. Sounds, sounds awesome. Um, but I remember when I heard it, I thought, why didn't we? Think of this first. Why, was the, all of the advice to go out and start your own thing it just, it makes so much sense.

[00:02:56] Hector: And, the other side of it, I thought, well, maybe it is just a natural progression of. you mentioned five years ago, people trying to figure it out and then realizing that there is an easier way. So I'm curious for you how does someone decide or is there a, decision making process, that someone can go through to decide, do I start my own thing or do I, something else that's already been started?

[00:03:17] David: I think it's a bit of an individual choice. and I dunno that one or the other is, right or wrong, as, much as there's two sides of the same coin. mean, for me, Because I'm not a sales and marketing guy, operations guy

[00:03:34] David: going out. Is, a fate worse than death. rather be to by a duck than, have to go make a call. Right? so, for folks that are really oriented, comfortable going out there aggressively the pavement, finding those opportunities, then maybe starting from scratch.

[00:03:54] David: Isn't that daunting? they can out generate revenue.

[00:04:01] David: for, that's, so something that. form or fashion and, acquire it. And then, redirect it, move it into what I'd like it to be, and use that existing organization and use that to build team. so yeah,I think it's, it's two sides of the same coin.

[00:04:19] David: It's you like the, cool state emblems on the back of the, or you like George.

[00:04:26] Hector: . Yeah, it's such a cool topic because perhaps the biggest thing for me was that I had no idea. I didn't even know that you could do something like that. Or, I didn't even know. Things like that were possible.

[00:04:37] Hector: Are there any cool stories like that or,any ways that you feel are easy to kind of. Help someone to see the opportunity, because there's so many different ways that you can do it. There's so many different, you'll call 'em tricks or strategies or whatever, but there's so many different avenues to do it.

[00:04:53] Hector: is there something that you look back on or that you're fond of or, think of that that kind of helps to open people's eyes in this regard?

[00:04:59] David: yeah,

[00:05:00] David: there's tons of stuff out there. I, I think the other piece that maybe we haven't touched, so interesting versus starting from scratch is, it's really hard to fund a startup,unless you're just, scraping quarters outta the couch cushions and asking your aunts and uncles and cousins to throw in a few dollars that first, and family piece of, launching a business or burning through your own savings,to do it is, just so, I'm sure it's so risky.

[00:05:28] David: I would say, to really, take those, relationships you've been spending your whole life building and then. Add the of a business venture into

[00:05:40] David: fund

[00:05:42] David: contrast

[00:05:48] David: assets. banks loan money against assets and cashflow streams all day long. And so to be able to use that as the tool. and to be able to get financing from traditional lenders, from, investors that are not friends and family. Cause they can look at a business and say, yeah, I see the history of this business and, I see what you're gonna do.

[00:06:11] David: And, and I'm willing to, uh,

[00:06:18] Hector: Yeah, it always seems like a shorter, path, so let's kind of demystify this because I think that there is, it also soundslike a black box or like a, oh, that's not for me, kind of thing. Or, I don't have, I think that like right away people start making up all the excuses of why they can't do it. Is that something that you run into with some of the clients that you work with, the people that you work with?

[00:06:42] David: Yeah, and, I think totally, I mean, the part that I was just talking about, right? Finance piece, and maybe I come from background in

[00:06:57] David: debt financing for. Small and middle market businesses, so going

[00:07:04] David: over scare.

[00:07:12] David: the numbers frighten them. being able to sit down and look at a business and analyze it and figure out, what is the monster in the, in this business may jump out and scare, definitely be intimidating. but, there's help for that.

[00:07:25] David: I mean, that's our. firm that we've launched is actually focused on doing that. Just that we're here to help and support businesses, folks that wanna do acquisitions that aren't really sure what due diligence means or how to do it or find funding, or even, a lot of folks that get into acquisition entrepreneurship.

[00:07:42] David: Maybe they've been in a sales organization, in the corporate world, or they've been in operations in the corporate world, but they've not. Been exposed to the whole piece of running the business. to be a business owner, the corporate world, and even the university world to some degree in training managers and training folks, in business school, is really focused on making you a specialist.

[00:08:03] David: and when you become the business owner, you've gotta throw off that specialist, man. You've gotta be a generalist. you've gotta know enough about HR to have a conversation with the HR manager and manage that person. You've gotta know enough about sales and marketing to manage your VP of sales and marketing call BS on stuff, give direction strategy.

[00:08:21] David: You've gotta be able to numbers the numbers and understand the KPIs that your CFO is putting front. You've understand the operations.

[00:08:34] David: On the, what does that mean? Or whatever. So you've gotta flip that, narrative from being specialist, being a generalist. And that's tough. but that's another piece of what we've got. with our coaching programs, we, we can help business as folks that transition from, a specialist in a business the generalist business owner to really coach them through that and, help them see the blind spots.

[00:08:55] Hector: I tried it David, this first half of the conversation I really wanted to frame as a. As a way to, convince is, seems like the wrong word, but open people's eyes to this, and when we get back from break, I would love to talk about if someone has. Said, okay, This is a good idea, but now what, how do I get started? Or what, what do I need to prepare? Or, what are the steps to kind of be thinking about? I'd love to talk about that for the second half of the conversation. And so we're gonna get into that, right after this quick break.

[00:09:23] Hector: Hey y'all, thanks for tuning in today. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media and we are a content and podcast production company, but we like to think of ourselves as genius makers. So if you have a passion, a purpose, a, a mess mission, a message, something that you wanna get out to the world but don't have the time, the tech skills or the team to be able to do it, we might be able to help.

[00:09:41] Hector: Go to amplify media.com. That's a P L A F Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's get back to today's episode.

[00:09:52] Hector: Okay, David, so you mentioned that you, this is kind of what you do. You guys have coaching and training programs, you actually, help people to go through these steps.

[00:09:59] Hector: I'd love for you to kind of provide, whether it's a framework or a recipe or some, steps, at least for, we can't cover everything in the next, 10, 15 minutes, but at least so some people could, take from today and, at least get started. Is there, something that they can do in that regard?

[00:10:14] David: yeah. I mean, go back to,actually a,program I was involved in a few years back. the Action Coach program, a guy named Brad and Brad, teaches about having a kind of a process, what he calls his formula for success. The formula goes dreams, times, goals, times learning.

[00:10:35] David: Plan times action. set some goals for themselves. wanna, whatever, have a, create a plan by the third quarter of this year. I wanna buy a business by the end of the year, wanna buy business by the end of the quarter, whatever number. then the key piece that Brad talks about is middle piece, the l the learning.

[00:10:54] David: go set the goal.If you set a goal of something you already know how to do, then that's really not a goal. That's just a to item, right? So if you're setting a goal of I wanna know how to buy business, then go and learn all you can. There's tons of books out there, has a great book build.

[00:11:09] David: It's called Harvard Business Review, has a book on acquisition entrepreneurship. just go Google, or go Amazon.

[00:11:29] David: And again, there's a ton of great ones out there. and I've been through one, I've looked at several other ones. and, does really matter, honestly, I don't, which do, find,

[00:11:41] David: learn. Then at the end of the day, , that very last multiplier, is action. take action. go do it. screwing it up is very seldom fatal. so the most important thing, and probably the thing I see the most in people as, I watch these programs go, is there's a ton of people who go sign up for the program and they're all into the learning.

[00:12:01] David: They're all, the motivation and the excitement of learning how to do a new. and, and they can talk a great game, but they're not actually going piece action.

[00:12:16] Hector: Yeah, it's so refreshing to hear that because someone hears. acquiring a business and perhaps it is complicated. but perhaps it doesn't have to be either, right? I mean, at least from what, I'm hearing is that there is a way to simplify it.

[00:12:30] Hector: There is a way to kind of, baby, or at least, take the appropriate necessary steps when you're supposed to take those steps.

[00:12:37] David: Yeah. There's, all kinds of, resources out. There. I mean this is, buying and selling businesses is not new. this is not an innovation. Somebody didn't, come wake up last week and decide, oh my God, we can buy and sell businesses on the planet.

[00:12:51] David: business is being bought and sold for hundreds if not thousands of years. and, all the way from. the Wall Street level and multi-billion dollar transactions, all the way down to, the local mom and taco restaurant down the street someone just niece and they're

[00:13:12] David: fabulous. Simon, I think, you and I were talking before we started the, recording about kinda why now. think a big piece of why now is, the baby boomers. Everybody is looking at retirement of the baby boomers.

[00:13:32] David: more baby boomer businesses have to transition in the next 15 years than have ever happened in a 15 year period, in history of business. And so there's, massive opportunities out there. Cause number one, the Gen Xers mean, and my folks, we're, a small group.

[00:13:46] David: we can't do all it. the millennials are a large group. The Gen Zers coming up, entrepreneurial. Or at least very non-traditional job, I'll say. They don't necessarily know that means they're entrepreneurial sometimes, but theyre, they do have a selfsufficiency mindset that's very consistent entrepreneurship.

[00:14:06] David: Everybody's, and there was a survey done by, an organization called B2B CFO a number of years ago. They surveyed the. winners for several years in a row and something like less than

[00:14:21] David: transition.

[00:14:28] David: 70% of the businesses had no transition plan, or no one in the organization or in the family that they felt could step up and take over the businesses. All those businesses have to be sold I've had clients for years and some of them were, they're boomers and, and their, you on in their business and, had a guy one time say, well, I don't, don't my.

[00:14:49] David: you can take that attitude, but everybody leaves their business. Some people leave standing up and some people leave feet first, but they all leave.

[00:14:57] David: there's an exit, there's a transition and it's gonna happen whether you're for it or not. So, on the seller side, you need to be prepared On the buyer side, we need to have buyers out, ready and.

[00:15:12] Hector: Hmm. so valuable. David, if people want to go and, and learn more about you or get deeper in your world, where's the best place to do that?

[00:15:18] David: Yeah, well, they can always find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn slash slash.

[00:15:30] David: and our advisory venture that we just stood up, that's really focused on supporting people in the due diligence process of buying businesses, supporting them, and funding for those businesses, and then supporting their transition into business ownership. with business coaching, is called Buy and Build Advisors.

[00:15:48] David: That's.

[00:16:04] Hector: I love it and we'll link all that up in the show notes as well, so we'll get checked that out. I wanna thank you listeners for sticking with us and being with us here today and being part of the how to scale of Business Tribe. We appreciate as always, we'll see you on the next one later y'all.