Empire Builder, Investor, And Coach Adam Coffey Reveals How You Can Build Your Business Empire (#414)

414 Adam Coffee
===

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Visionary empire builder, CEO coach, top 1 percent speaker, and four time number one best selling author, Adam Coffey builds high performance cultures that drive transformative exponential growth. Coffey is a founding partner of CEO Advisory Guru, providing consulting services to PE portfolio companies, founders, family offices, and elite executives.

A CEO for more than two decades, he led three national private equity backed service companies for nine PE sponsors, realizing billions of dollars and averaging a 5X multiple on invested capital at exit. Coffee has served as an official member of the Forbes Business Council since 2021. Specialties include growth strategy, M& A development, and exits. A pilot and proud U. S. Army veteran, he and his family call Texas home. 

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Bill, a graduate, who [00:01:00] says, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program has transformed the KPIs we're using to accelerate growth and profits.

Or how about Emry, who says, and I love this, and I quote, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program helped me create the right mindset for both growing my business and later my future exit. I now know what questions to ask, what to do and what not to do, which is priceless. The team and I have found dangerous skeletons and gaps that we're now addressing due to the Deep Wealth program. Today, our actions have a massive ROI. 

Absolutely love that. 

And now, speaking of growth and adding value, check out what Bruce says, and I quote, As a business owner, I'm always looking for new programs, systems, CEO peer groups, and strategies to improve my business. Hands down, the Deep Wealth Mastery program is the absolute best. I'm both growing my business and preparing for a future exit at the same time. It doesn't get any better. 

And I gotta tell you, as I hear these testimonials, this is exactly [00:02:00] why I do what I do. My mission, the team's mission here at Deep Wealth, is to literally change the social fabric of society, one business owner at a time and one liquidity event at a time.

The Deep Wealth Mastery program, it's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created a system that we now call Deep Wealth Mastery and that's exactly what helped myself and my business partners welcome from a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure deal.

So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, Whether that's three years away or 33 years away, and if you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. 

Please email success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S at deepwealth. com. 

We'll send you all the information about the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, otherwise known as the Scale for Ultimate Sales System. Better yet, why not hop on a complimentary strategy [00:03:00] call? We'll see where you are at your business and what's standing between you and your financial independence and your dreams.

So that's where you want to be. You want to be with other successful business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders, just like you, who are looking to create market disruptions, whether you're a startup, whether you've been in business for three or four decades, whether you're manufacturing, whether you're a high tech, SaaS, low tech, whatever the case may be.

Come on in and network with other business owners, with other businesses, just like you, because they all want to lock in their financial freedom and enjoy both success and fulfillment. Again, the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it has your name on it. All you need to do is take the next step. Please send an email to success at deepwealth. com. 

Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. We have not just any entrepreneur, we have an entrepreneur extraordinaire in the house of Deep Wealth today. You heard it in the official introduction, from private equity to M& A, to growing businesses, to growing your profits. I know you want to be there and you have [00:04:00] questions.

Well, put a hold on all that. You're going to come out of this episode a whole lot better. So Adam, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us. And Adam, there is always a story behind the story. So what's your story? What got you from where you were? to where you are today.

Adam Coffey: Well, Jeffrey, thank you for having me on. Hello to all your listeners out there. it's good to be here. think, you know, all entrepreneurs our stories, our lives, they're an assembling of our experiences and, I'm no different, and experiences I had earlier in my life just came back to give me so much later in life, coming out of high school, I served in the U.

S. military served in the army, military taught the young version of me something about teamwork, discipline. Leadership. I then went on to a career in engineering. Engineering made me a meticulous planner. I'm a pilot. Pilots don't take off unless we know where we're going, and then we deconstruct the trip, and as an entrepreneur running companies for private equity who have, typical five year hold periods, Knowing where you're going and [00:05:00] starting with an end point in mind and then deconstructing the journey for the whole period, very useful skill.

I then went to GE and spent ten years during what I call the Camelot Era of GE. Jack Welsh is at the helm. Tech doesn't exist. GE's number one on the Fortune 500 list. Jack is the world's most admired CEO. And the world's largest company is growing so fast, it's doubling in size every 2. 8 years. And that was a great place for me as a young up and coming executive to learn how to run businesses.

And then I spent 21 years as a CEO, running three large companies for nine different private equity firms, buy and build guy. I bought 58 companies, two and a half billion dollars in successful exits as a CEO. And then I got bored. I got bored just running and building one company at a time.

And so after decades, I needed a different kind of challenge. I had been blessed. I had spent 15 years also teaching in the executive MBA [00:06:00] program at a couple well known universities. so started writing my books and enjoyed teaching and giving back. I just recently turned 60. And I said, okay, it's no longer about money.

I'm going to spend the last 10 years of my career and ultimately decided I'm going to help as many entrepreneurs succeed as I can and help them beat the odds. And so. You know, if I think about my why today, you why am I here? What am I doing? It's about helping your listeners succeed. It's about helping them overcome odds.

If you think about 34 million small companies just here in the United States, But only 7 percent have a million dollars in revenue. If you think about the companies you and I have built and the exits that we have had, only 4 percent of the 7 percent that got to a million in revenue ever get to 10 million in revenue.

And so. why is it so hard to find success? Only 40 percent [00:07:00] of those 34 million small companies are profitable. And so I decided, hey, wouldn't it be fun to spend the last 10 years of my career helping people succeed? And so that's what I'm about today. And I'm having a blast. I still work with private equity firms, but I'm also working with 71 founders, founder led companies, helping them learn how to scale, how to use mergers and acquisitions as a tool to accelerate growth, and then helping them position for exits, most likely to a private equity buyer, or a private equity backed strategic.

With 7 trillion in assets under management, it's an asset class that's now buying 50 percent of all companies sold on the planet. That's my long version of a short question. Sorry about that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, there is so much there. Before we start going into some of that, it would be really good for Deep Wealth Nation to really get a sense of you, the person behind the story, because let's face it, Adam, each one of your different areas, your journeys, that's not an episode. That [00:08:00] can be an entire series of episodes, one after the other, But let me ask you this, when you look back over all that you've done, and by the way, we're talking offline, I want to take a moment to publicly recognize and thank you for your service, really appreciate the dedication, the sacrifice that you made to do what you did so we can do what we do.

Thank you very much for that. Whether it was in the services or afterwards, as you're going through your career, When you look back, is there one defining moment in your life that you feel really set you on the path to becoming the leader, the entrepreneur, the success story that you are today?

Adam Coffey: don't know necessarily that it's one point. There's a few points. got out, I think as a kid growing up, I just knew that I was going to go in the service. I grew up during the, call it the late 1960s to early 1970s, and, I lived in a neighborhood where everybody on my block, every dad served in World War II, served in Korea, these were, this was Apple Pie, Chevrolet, Americana, type [00:09:00] streets in an era in history, so I would tell you it was kind of preordained from an early age.

I knew I'd go in the service. I knew that would be a part of it, but when I went in, I started at the bottom. And, I literally, I mean, I was a private E1, I looked up and I saw bubblegum on the bottom of somebody else's shoe. I started at the lowest rung in life, and I clawed my way up the ladder.

And, as a CEO, ultimately, I can tell you, I held every job a person could hold on an organizational chart. And I think universally, I remembered on that journey that I was a good person, when I was army private or an army sergeant or a young engineer, or a young manager, climbing the corporate ladder for the first time.

And so really valued people. learned to value, the contributions that every employee in a company made, and while I was blessed to climb a corporate [00:10:00] ladder, I remember that Adam, the guy who used to be in a truck, was a pretty smart guy back then, and if people would have just, Talk to me, listen to me.

They could have learned a lot about business. And so I try to keep that with me forever, but there was one defining moment. So a manager within GE, manager, climbing the corporate ladder, pretty well. And my phone rings, and it's a recruiter. This is back when we answered phones.

, we didn't have cell phones, by the way, at that time and so I answered the phone. It's a recruiter. I was getting those calls all the time, but, ultimately, I got talked into interviewing for my first job as a CEO, and I remember talking to my corporate mentor, at the time.

He was an ex Cleveland Browns professional football player. Very motivating guy. And he gave me some sage words of advice. He said, Adam, once a president, always a president. you'll never be seen as anything other than a president again, but because of the way you kind of climb the ranks at GE you, you, no one's gonna see [00:11:00] you as a president until you leave GE and you actually go be one.

And so, sage words of advice, stay in the comfort of Fortune 500, Up and coming, rising star, middle level, guy. Or, take a shot, take a stab, jump out, go be a president and CEO of a smaller middle market company. Owned by this thing called private equity, of which I knew nothing about at the time, I was chasing money and title.

So I would say that one key moment, I could say stay in the service, get out of the service, leave engineering, go into management, but probably the most defining key moment. I think the pivot was, stay in the Fortune 500 world and be comfortable, very nice salary, six figure salary back in those days, or go leave and go take a shot.

Go take a stab, go be a president. And best decision I ever made, my mentor was right, never looked back, was never anything other than a president, CEO, ever again, and the wealth, [00:12:00] that I generated in the last, 25 years. Can't imagine, how that would compare to me having stayed, as a mid level manager in the Fortune 500 world.

Who knows what would have happened there? But that was probably the one biggest defining moment of my career was taking a chance, leaving the comfort,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, that back in the day, I mean, that's huge. You're going from something is tried and true, established to really the unknown. It may not work out. And then You're looking around, what did I do? But you still took that risk. And speaking of risk, let me flip it for you, because in the age of social media, and don't get me on my soapbox of social media today, where we see one snapshot out of a gazillion snapshots, and it happens to be that the happiest one, we tend to lose sight.

Success and achievement and all the good things that come along with that, it's usually not a straight path. And there's usually failures, setbacks that come along the way. And again, as you look back, is there any particular failure or setback, Adam, along the way that [00:13:00] perhaps at the time felt insurmountable, but ultimately you turned it into a stepping zone for growth and really launched you into the later success that was always there just waiting for you to get ready for it?

Adam Coffey: would say there's probably a few points in my life I could look at. One of them is personal and that's, the failure of my first marriage, my divorce, and You know what? I was so focused on climbing the corporate ladder and, becoming something, somebody, that, you know, I took my eye off on the ball on what's the most important thing in life, which is really our families.

If you think about it, roll tape forward a hundred years. and I are dead and gone. Why were we here? What was purpose? Well, the only purpose we were ever here was our children. Won't matter what our title was, how much money we had in the bank, and and what kind of wealth we created while we were here.

And I think for me, that was an important lesson to, in the future, keep balance and recognize that climbing the corporate ladder, chasing money, chasing title is not the most [00:14:00] important thing, in life. And so I'd say that was a very profound moment in my life an individual.

And if I think about professional career, one of my failures would have been, I ran a company for 13 years and four months and built it. And I had 1. 6 billion in exits while building that company, multiple owners. And the third owner, essentially fired me, I guess it's a polite way to say, terminated without cause, because the company wasn't growing at the way, at the pace that the investor had hoped. And, look back at that moment and think, well, what lesson did that teach me? Well, I immediately took another job and in 27 months, I got that private equity firm, a Forex multiple of invested capital.

And then I look back and it's up yours, it wasn't me, multiple CEOs later, you're still there and I'm not, and so think there are times in life where we get in a rut, or we get, I don't want to call it complacent, but we need to [00:15:00] change the scenery.

I mean, there's just 13 years, three sets of shareholders, 1. 6 billion in exits later. And it's My gas tank is empty on this company, and there's just no more there, and it's time for me to kind of make a pivot and take on a new kind of challenge, and I'd say, call it a failure.

I'm not sure whose failure, but, ultimately, CEO buck stops with me, so I pivot out, go to a new adventure, they hire new people, and at the end of the day, I go right back and I hit another home run, and so it's lesson learned. Sometimes in our careers, we need to reinvigorate ourselves.

We need to get out of one rut, get into a different set of circumstances in order to thrive, and or achieve new highs.

Jeffrey Feldberg: terrific story and Deep Wealth Nation, I want you to go to the show notes. In the show notes, there's going to be a link. Adam has four books out, but the one in particular, Pick Up Empire Builder, The Road to a Billion. And Adam, I love how in that book, you just put it out there, very nonchalant. [00:16:00] Here it is.

Here's what you have to do. Here's where you start layering the foundation, basic empire building tools, advanced empire building tools, and then monetizing your asset. And Deep Wealth Nation, there is a method to my madness because it's going to seem like I'm all over the map with the questions I'm about to ask, but it's really going behind Empire Builder of what we can do to get our own empire out there and build that.

Because Adam, you're in a very unique position. You've been on both sides of the table. Today, you're helping founders really scale and build their companies, but you've been buying companies, selling companies, everything else in between, five axes in terms of the Return. You're all over the map in terms of doing that.

So you're seeing some scenery that most people never see. It's usually from one side of the table. So let me start with this from where you sit today and what you've been going through and where you're at. Let's start dispelling some myths that are out there where we tend to drink the collective Kool Aid and it's absolutely wrong.

So when it comes to scaling a company, or even in the worlds of mergers and acquisitions, Is there one [00:17:00] strategy or one belief that you really hold, you believe in, that goes against so called conventional wisdom and why?

Adam Coffey: Wow, what a great question because I could go a thousand different directions with this. I'm gonna start by going a little bit further and just say Most entrepreneurs out there see exits as the end of the road. They see it as the culmination of a career. I've spent 20 years, I've built this business, and now it's time to monetize it.

I'm going to exit. One and done. And I tell entrepreneurs, don't look at an exit as the end. An exit is just a rest stop. on the wealth creation highway. And so many more opportunities for you to continue to ride, this thing that you've built, only now riding it as a minority shareholder.

And oh my god, Adam, minority shareholder, are you crazy? Who could do that? I'm the shot caller. I own this place. Well, I always bring up the name [00:18:00] Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. And I think the two richest guys on the planet. Own less than 13 percent of their respective companies. You can be a minority shareholder and keep going.

You can be a minority shareholder and be the richest guy on the planet, and you can do it multiple times. And so I think one, that's one myth. One myth is that I need to have control to be successful and that an exit is the end of the road. So that's two. Going back to your original question, mergers and acquisitions.

about that? Well, that's an advanced set of tools. And a lot of people think, well, can't work in my world. small company or smaller company. And, that's what the big boys do. Well, let me just tell you that the vast majority of all returns in private equity are generated through this thing called buy in bill, which is I start with a platform company.

I buy your company. You saw it as the end of the road, but I buy it, and I keep going. And then I buy 20 or 30 more companies, and I add them all [00:19:00] together. I'm buying small companies that individually trade for small multiples. Because there's so many small companies, there's not enough buyers.

Small companies trade for small multiples. So I told you earlier, there's 34 million small companies, just in the U. S. there's not enough buyers to buy all those, but there's only 3, 000 companies on the entire planet that have a billion dollars in revenue. as a company gets bigger, it becomes really rare, and bigger buyers, bigger PE firms, bigger funds can't buy small companies, they don't have enough time to put all their capital to work.

Big firms with big funds buy big companies. Small firms with small funds buy small companies. And we can create a lot of activity and arbitrage, which is the difference in the price I pay for a small company. I, my last empire, I bought 23 HVAC companies, 23 HVAC companies. On average, I paid five times.

23 small [00:20:00] companies, five times each. That was the going rate. And when I put them together, I then sold it for 14 times. 14 times is what the bigger company sold for. And so for every dollar of earnings, I paid $5 to get, I then turned around and sold it for 14, made $9 profit. And so a common myth in m and A is that I need to get a good deal and I, it's okay to look at fixer uppers and buy a distressed asset that, Hey, I can fix this.

And I tell people. Only by good companies. That runs counter to most people's thinking. Pay fair market value for a good company run by a good person who's got great reputation in the marketplace. Pay fair market value because the profit that we're going to make and the value to us is naturally occurring, this arbitrage.

for multiple expansion is naturally occurring. We don't have to spend all our time fixing something. We can just collect really good [00:21:00] companies, add them to our really good company, and we are going to get rewarded with multiple expansion and arbitrage. And so all of that is naturally occurring. Why would we want to make life more difficult by trying to fix someone else's problem?

I remember one time I bought a company, It was less than 5 percent of my collective corporate revenue, but it was a bad company I shouldn't have bought. And it created 80 percent of my headaches for the next three years for less than 5 percent of my revenue. And so if you think of baseball, the great Ty Cobb, best baseball average ever, had a few years batted in the 400s, but his career average was in the mid 3s.

And he made six and a half outs for every 10 at bats. But if you're playing M& A, you need to bat about 990, because we can't afford more than about one bad acquisition in 20, it will derail us. there's a handful of myths in there. One and done is not the way [00:22:00] to think about an exit. You can roll over a portion of your proceeds, become a minority shareholder next to an institutional shareholder like a private equity firm.

Start playing with house money, put your chips, diversified chips off the table and start investing them elsewhere. And you can now accelerate the pace of growth, you can be aggressive, and you can make wonderful things happen when you have an unlimited checkbook as a partner. And so you can build things that are really big, really quick, and then cash them out again and get a second payday, and a third payday, my personal record, five paydays in the same company in 13 years.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's absolutely amazing, Adam. I know for myself exactly what you're saying when I had my exit. I could have taken the company, perhaps I could have grown it, but I said, I'm not the guy. I'm not really the corporate type. Let me bring in the professional management, and it happened to be private equity.

And I did roll some in with what they're doing, and I was the benefactor of that when a little while later, they sold the company, and Deep Wealth Nation, okay, Adam, you're down in the [00:23:00] books. Five, that's the most that I've spoken to someone that's had five. Rollovers with the same company. We've had other people in the Deep Wealth community where it's been three rollovers.

And actually, I was just speaking to a member and he said, Jeffrey, this third time, it's bigger than one and two combined. So you're absolutely right with that. So Adam, let's continue to dispel some myths out there. Because again, to build our empire, we've got to do it right. We need to have the right things in our company to get the right multiples, the right values.

And I could ask this question as glass half full, glass half empty, but let me put it to you this way, because as entrepreneurs, it's typically glass is always half full and we can at times be the emperor with no clothes, that we're not really hearing what's going on out there or we choose not to see it, but it's going on.

And so, putting yourself in the shoes now as a buyer. You're looking at some companies, what has your run run for the door as fast as you can in the other direction? Because, hey, I'm not gonna put my name to that deal. I don't like it because [00:24:00] of this or that. What would be some attributes? What should be some actions or strategies or telltale signs, red flags of, hey, if I'm seeing that in my company, I really.

I have to change that.

Adam Coffey: To toxic culture, I'm going to start with culture. And as a person who started at the bottom and worked my way up, I've come to the realization that if I want to build an empire, I'm going to need people, lots and lots of people. And in today's world, it's hard enough to get people to even want to work anymore.

Everybody wants to be a TikTok star and make a zillion dollars being a social media influencer. and so the reality is. you can no longer have a toxic culture and be successful. You will not be able to attract talent, you will not be able to retain talent. And so if I encounter a toxic culture, I'll call it a cowboy entrepreneur that person who's so much larger than life and as you're learning about the company learning about.

the culture, when you sense a toxic culture, one to run from. When I see companies that [00:25:00] have low earnings, call companies that earn less than a dime on a dollar a dog with fleas. Just keep on going, don't even bother digging in and wasting your time.

Don't try to figure out how you're going to fix it. call it shiny penny syndrome. Sometimes we get into deal mode where it's like we're trying so hard, To find something to buy that we overlook every obvious flaw that a company has and as a result of that we get shiny penny syndrome and we buy it anyway.

And so here's another t shirt logo, I would rather not buy a company I should have than buy one I shouldn't have. like, as I'm doing diligence, if I'm detecting financial anomalies, if the books aren't clean, if the culture is toxic, if it's smelling like a fixer upper, the earnings are low, entrepreneur is talking to me about, with my leadership and my checkbook.

The thing will magically produce, profits like it's never done before, they're slinging the Kool Aid, I'd say those are some of my [00:26:00] key attributes. I only buy good companies run by good people, that have a good, strong culture because, think of it this way. I talked about that company that I built, you buy 23 companies.

Well, 21, I think, of those 23 entrepreneurs are still there, and they're still running their companies. I'm not. A couple people are retired but at the end of the day, think about how hard it is when you buy 23 companies, and you make 23 people rich, and you give them all a wheelbarrow full of gold, and then you ask them to stay, and they've never had a boss before, and now they're rich.

Think about how hard it is just to get 23 of them singing kumbaya around the fire, let alone, investing in a company that has a cowboy entrepreneur that you can't put a saddle on, or a company that has a toxic culture that when you meld it together with the other companies that you're collecting, It sticks out like a sore thumb, it's like these are some of those things that are just, to use some Star Wars speak, move along, these aren't the droids you're looking for, buy good companies, [00:27:00] run by good people, pay fair market value, good culture, good reputation, you can't get in trouble.

by buying good companies.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, there's so much in there and it's interesting that you focus on culture and no coincidence in our nine step roadmap. Step two, X Factors that insanely increase the value of your business. Culture is a foundational X Factor. So when it comes to culture, let me ask you this, Adam, how do you navigate?

Because there's always a tension. Okay, we're going to grow aggressively. We're going to be out there. We're going to be setting records, perhaps creating a market disruption. And at the same time, maintaining a healthy company culture.

Adam Coffey: So I don't think those are mutually exclusive. think you can do several things. I think you can have a really great culture that takes care of people, that gives them lots of opportunities for personal growth and promotion, and make shareholders money. Yeah, I think you can do all of these things. And CEO for the first time, it probably wasn't as [00:28:00] popular.

to have that belief system as it is today. And so I, I think you can accomplish all of these. When I say have a great culture, that doesn't mean coddle people and don't hold them accountable. So at the same time that I'm taking care of people, I'm not I'm also asking a lot of those people.

And interestingly enough, when I'm doing, engagement, surveys and things of that nature, it's very typical for me to find that recently acquired employees are actually happier than legacy employees who've been in an organization for 20 years. And the reason for that is the people who've been around for 20 years Lose touch with the reality of how great your culture is compared, potentially, to some others.

And newer companies that were smaller, when those entrepreneurs come over, and all of a sudden they have growth opportunities that weren't there before, they worked in a small company, their last name wasn't the same as the founder, there's only one management position, and it's the founder's [00:29:00] son or daughter, and so it's like you have no hope.

of promotional opportunities, you better be very comfortable doing whatever it is that you do, and all of a sudden you walk into a company that's got a thousand employees, and there's job openings for managers, and you can move around the country and get promotions, and there's great benefits and so opportunity, is the result sometimes for employees when you are doing one of these buy and builds.

But I always tell my employees that when I'm building an empire, it is not neat and orderly. Need an orderly is for a dying company that's stagnant. Growth is chaotic at times, and we're going to learn how to navigate problems and navigate issues together, and I kind of try to decentralize decision making, and I try to get decisions being made in the field at the lowest level possible where they can be made by managers.

And I empower them. I empower them to own, to act like an owner, not just employee, and to make sound decisions [00:30:00] based on their best judgment call, because they're closest to the problem. And so having a culture that takes care of people, all of my companies, every time I built them, always had best in class benefits for their industry.

It's not that we Paid exorbitantly higher rates, but we paid market rates, we didn't try to save a dime or a dollar, we paid people what they were worth, we had great benefits we had a great transparent culture, people would bring their friends, people would bring family members, and I remember one company, in a plant, if I'd walked in there and said, If you're related to one of three families, please raise your hand, and probably 90 percent of the plant's arms would go up in the air, and these people would bring their children and their cousins and their nieces and nephews, had as many as three generations of a family working side by side, and so we, took care of people we valued people at all levels, not based on their title, Or the job that they were doing, we based our belief system in, in [00:31:00] what they were contributing as human beings, to the greater, greater good that we were, we're trying to accomplish.

Having a great culture doesn't mean coddle people, doesn't mean don't hold people accountable, doesn't mean pay them five times market rate for salary. What it does mean is take care of the people who are taking care of you, but hold them accountable, demand a high level of excellence.

And so, you know, I can tell you with some confidence level that every time, I built a company, after I'd been there for a little while, people love being there. People loved working there, and they really excelled, and that strong culture propelled growth. I was building service companies, in a service company, in companies in general, if you cannot put your product on a shelf, I've got news for you, ladies and gentlemen, your product is actually people.

I ran service companies. You can't box service and put it on a shelf. And then when your HVAC system or your washer and dryer breaks, your cat scanner, you pick, take a box of service off the shelf and sprinkle it. So if you cannot box your product and [00:32:00] store it on a shelf, your product is people.

My product was the technicians who were out there in their vehicles driving to hospitals or driving to laundromats or driving grocery stores to fix refrigeration and HVAC. It's like my product was people. And so I take care of my people, which is taking care of my product, and then I hold them accountable and that product takes care of me.

And so I can't measure, or manage revenue down as a CEO. I start with strong culture. I get engaged workforce. Engaged workforce takes care of customers. Customers give us more stuff to do. Revenue rains from the sky. Revenue it's an output. It's a byproduct of strong culture in a services environment.

That was a wandering, rambling, answer. Sorry about that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, no, I, so much that's in the Deep Wealth Nation, I really hope you're paying attention. So Adam, I'm hearing a culture that has accountability, it has transparency, it has trust. If we go one layer below that, and there's this old [00:33:00] saying, and maybe you'll agree or disagree. I agree. Hire on personality, train on skills.

And so when you're building these companies, and one thing that you said, but you didn't say, so many business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs, they make the fatal mistake that the company doesn't run without them. Even if there's a management team, the major decisions have to go through them or they're involved even in the minor decisions with what you've been sharing.

You're really striving. You said it, people in the field, they can make the decisions. They have that autonomy. And it all goes back to finding the right kind of person. So any telltale signs of, yeah, you know what, this

Adam Coffey: I'm that guy, Jeffrey. I mean, really am. If you think about my career, when I was getting out of the service I remember that my first job I interviewed and it was an army captain, and I remember when I was in the service getting ready to get out, I was preparing my resume, and I actually remember the military offered transition assistance and people were helping you with your resume, it's oh, Adam, nobody cares about this, take it off your resume.

What [00:34:00] was the this? I was Soldier of the Year in 1984 and I put it back on, I'm like, no, that's important, that was a big accolade, in my career and on the receiving side of that resume was an Army Captain, a retired Army Captain, and he was running engineering and he looked at that and he's like, Adam, you have none of the skills, for which I'm hiring, but I know what the hell it means to be Soldier of the Year.

And so, come work for me. I need you on my team. And he put me in a, not the job that I was applying for, but another job that I was, qualified for. And within six months, I held the job I originally applied for, but wasn't qualified to have. And it was because the Army Captain recognized.

that, I was a good person. He could teach me what I lacked from a skill set perspective, but he couldn't create the [00:35:00] person or the DNA that I was, and so that actually is how my career Came to be was by someone recognizing the talented individual and overlooking the lack of skill set. So I was also always well known for that.

I like to develop talent when I would see a rising star. As a CEO, I would make, significant investments in people. Things like I'd sponsor an up and coming executive to get their MBA. It didn't mean that I paid for it. But I would give them the time off of work to go to their weekends in their Executive MBA program.

I would give them 1, 000 a month as a stipend while they were in the program to help offset some of their expenses. I'd give them a raise when they brought me their diploma, and that would help them pay the student loans. And then I'd put them on a fast track for promotion. And some people would say, Adam but you're investing time and effort and money in these people.

What if they leave? Well, [00:36:00] what if I don't and they stay? And so I'm preparing people and that builds loyalty and some people left, but, at the end of the day, if you take care of people, if you recognize talent, if you invest in that talent, I'm confident in my culture, we'll keep going.

Key people there. And a growing company creates the opportunities that they ultimately get to fill through promotional opportunities. I think that, yeah, although I didn't say it, I'll call it an implied, especially since that's how my career started.

Jeffrey Feldberg: well, it's also interesting about that in the story where you're told, hey, take the soldier of the year award off. No one needs to see that. But you stuck to your guns, as the saying goes, and you just knew someone out there is going to see it. I don't know when or who or how, but it feels right. I'm going to just listen to myself.

I'm not going to listen to, again, conventional wisdom. Oftentimes, it's not so wise and it's not so conventional. And that's a whole other lesson in and of itself, which is really believing in yourself. No, it's staying on there. That's just how it's going to be.

Adam Coffey: Yeah. They were trying to take, I was at [00:37:00] Fort Hood here in Texas, Texas where I live right now. And it's like 35, 000 soldiers. They were trying to make us all look the same. And they're trying to make all our resumes look the same, and I'm like, no, I want to stand out, that's my red umbrella in a sea of black umbrellas, is the soldier of the year, and so I left it in you're, you're right, sometimes we have to stick to our own beliefs and our own convictions, even when it flies against the advice of others,

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so talk to us about the Chairman Group. What do you want us to know of what you're doing with the Chairman Group? It's quite remarkable, actually, with the breadth of what you're doing and the people and companies, founders, CEOs that you're helping, but what would you want us to know very high level about the Chairman Group?

Adam Coffey: Again, I'm 60, I've been blessed and, for the next 10 years, I'm giving back, I'm teaching others, do I charge? Of course I charge, we all generate cash flow. But my goal is, I could have been a CEO, people call me almost daily, at least weekly, Adam, you ready for a fourth run?

No, thank you, I'm retired, I'm not going to be a [00:38:00] CEO anymore. I shouldn't say retired, that's a dirty word. I work more hours today than I did when I was a CEO which I didn't think was possible. tell you that, at the Chairman Group. Again, I'm working with founders. We have a peer to peer group, so I've got 38 entrepreneurs, business owners, various industries, various sizes, and I have them as a cohort.

It's kind of like a Vistage chapter. It's my own white label thing, and then I've got others that I work with. On a one on one basis and they're either doing two a month or four a month sessions with me and my goal and objective is to help them succeed and what I love about this, one of the things I think I was just bored with in, in being a CEO and building one company at a time was I was starting to get bored with tactical execution after 35 years of being an operations, leader and tactical execution.

I love the strategic part. wasn't enjoying the tactical part. And so what's been great for me is, at the Chairman Group my skill sets are transferable to any industry. Every [00:39:00] company I built, was a new industry at the time I walked in as CEO for me and I had no experience and so I had to develop a set of tools that are kind of generic that helped me immerse in any industry in any kind of company.

And now, working with 71 different entrepreneurs it's their expertise on the industry coupled with my generic expertise in how to scale, do M& A, prepare for exit, maximize exit potential, and it's now a collective set of skills, that we're putting together and then focusing on all these different companies.

Yeah, I can give you an example. My first client, when I left the CEO seat and started working with them, at the time, their EBITDA was under 2 million. And now, three short years later, they're at 15 million. And we've hired a bank, and we're in the market, and he'll sell for 250 million.

And so his net, the value of that company, the enterprise value at the time I started working with him was about 14 million. Now it's 250 million, and we did that in three years [00:40:00] together. His expertise on the industry his amazing character and culture that he built in his company, plus my skill set in how to scale and achieve massive growth in a short period of time, that's the kind of outcome that I'm, looking for.

Because I work with private equity still, about 15 different firms, Doing operating partner work and I'm working with 71 founders. I've also become a matchmaker. I'm like a dating service and I've helped about 500 million in entrepreneurial exits over the last couple of years and more in the market, more coming.

And so it's like, it's fun for me. To see an entrepreneur scale their business and then ultimately monetize it, and so some people call me now an exit Sherpa, I help them on that journey, and so when I think about coaches and consultants, not to knock anyone, but there's those who teach theory, And those who teach from a practical experience, [00:41:00] mindset.

I've built multiple companies, I've had billion dollar exits, collectively I've had about two and a half billion in exits, and so I've walked that road, and I know what it looks like. I write about it in my books, they're cheap, I donate my royalties to charity it helps drive my philanthropic work, but my real goal is help people succeed.

What a great way to spend the last 10 years of your career. Helping people succeed. Yeah I'm raising my jet fuel, along the way, but the end of the day, it's about seeing people succeed.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Paying it forward, it doesn't get any better. Now, when it comes to private equity, because again, you're right, for most entrepreneurs, founders, they are likely, if they're going to be going into an exit or they're raising capital, is likely going to be a private equity group. So when you look back now, what would be the one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you much earlier on when you're doing your acquisitions or you're selling to PE that really made a difference for you?

I mean, you figured it out. You But likely you did it on your own.

Adam Coffey: I would say not all PE firms are [00:42:00] created equal. When PE buys a company, they do an inordinate amount of diligence. It'll be the longest four to six months of your life. I think you've probably lived that yourself, but at the end of the day, Most entrepreneurs do very little to no diligence whatsoever on the PE firm they're about to partner with, and so would tell you that if you're going to be a rollover investor, and alongside a PE firm, you should know about that firm. You should know about the types of investments it makes, the kind of returns it's generated, who their investors are, who these people are that you're going to be interacting with who are called partners and principals and associates and you need to do diligence.

I'm working with an entrepreneur right now and he is selling his company. And the valuation that's put on it is is a couple hundred million dollars. And he's getting paid about 80 million cash at close, and he's rolling over this significant amount. It's into a much larger strategic, and I'm like, for that kind of rollover [00:43:00] investment, we need to do as much diligence on them as they do on us, and I'm talking auditors, and lawyers, and everything under the sun you can think of.

And so entrepreneurs tend to not do enough diligence. And so, you know, would say entrepreneurs selling to PE is not the evil thing that you hear about on TV. Sure, I'm guessing there's some firms out there, but you hear a lot about distressed asset firms that buy something, they have one foot in the grave and they try to make a noble, attempt at fixing it.

Or if not, then a distressed asset player will sell off pieces. But what you don't hear about. our firms like my last owner, Aries Management, the world's largest non bank lender, one of the world's largest PE firms, and during COVID, they started a foundation inside every portfolio company that they had, and they seeded it with a six figure sum of money so that CEOs could take care of their employees who were [00:44:00] impacted in a negative way by COVID.

Well, you didn't hear that story. On MSNBC or, on the news, and so would tell you that, even firms that have fired me, or let me go, or we had differences of opinion. The PE world that I work with does care about employees. They do care about culture. They care about shareholder returns.

There's no doubt about that, but they want to have balance. They want the management team to be successful alongside them. They want their employees, to have good, strong culture. I think that's not the PE we hear about, but I'll tell you there's thousands of PE

firms out there. So just because your phone rings, entrepreneurs, doesn't mean it's the right buyer. Doesn't mean that you're getting the right value. Value and it doesn't mean that they're going to be a good partner. So we need to do diligence and make sure that we are checking out firms as much as they are checking out us to make sure that they're a firm we want to do business with.

Jeffrey Feldberg: beware. Seller beware. I love what you're saying. We talk a lot about that in our master program [00:45:00] of, hey, you have to do as much, even more diligence as they're doing on you. I couldn't agree more. Adam, before we go into wrap up mode, I know there are so many questions I didn't ask, but is there one question in particular I didn't ask, or is there a topic that we didn't cover, or even a message that you'd like to share with the Deep Wealth Nation?

A

Adam Coffey: Well, I think just message, message wise In life, there are dreamers and doers. I'm blessed to have a lot of friends out there who are very wealthy, including a number of billionaires, and, I sit in their houses, I talk to them, and I look at them, and I look at their life, and I think, huh, and What makes them special?

And I'd say, you know what, instead of dreaming about things that might happen, get up off your duff and become a doer. And why not you? Why can't you be successful? What's the roadblock? why do we read about other successful people in the news? Why can't it be you?

It can be you. You need to get off your rear end, you need to get in the game, And you need to engage, and work hard. And you know [00:46:00] what, growing up through the corporate world the way I did I didn't come out of, the womb as a Harvard MBA with a gold spoon in my mouth. I clawed my way up and I said, you know what, as I crossed over into management and I'm competing with these highly educated people, remember Army Private, turned engineer, coming up through the ranks, thought, you know what.

No one can beat me when it comes to work ethic. I'll get up earlier. I'll work harder. I'll go to bed later, and I won't lose. Losing is not an option. Failure is not an option. Success is the only option. when you get knocked down, get back up. Don't be a dreamer, be a doer.

And believe in yourself because success starts when you look in the mirror and you see yourself standing there and you say, why not me? It's time. It's my time to shine. So that's the message.

Jeffrey Feldberg: terrific message out there, and actually, it's a perfect segue as we wrap things up now, and Adam, it's really my privilege, my honor on the Deep Wealth Podcast where every guest, I ask the same question. It's a really fun question. Let me set this up [00:47:00] for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time.

So imagine now, this is the fun part, Adam, is tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, Not only do you see the DeLorean car curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do. You can now go back to any point in your life. Adam, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom?

Or, hey, Adam, do this, but don't do that. What would it sound like?

Adam Coffey: get asked questions similar to this, frequently, and tell you that I've been successful. I wouldn't rewrite any chapter because every lesson I learned in life, whether it was good or bad, certainly collectively created the me and I like who I am today. But I do say this, if I had that opportunity, what would I have done differently?

I think I would have hung up my CEO cleats 10 years earlier, to be honest. why, because in the three years, since I've not been a CEO, when you're a [00:48:00] CEO, you look through life, through blinders. It's like you have to focus on your company, ignore the world around you, man, the opportunities that just keep falling out of the sky and into my lap and, so I'm a wealthy guy, but I think I would have been infinitely wealthier had I left the CEO seat earlier, pivoted, and got involved in my entrepreneurial, more entrepreneurial pursuits than what I was doing, because I was always a minority shareholder. in a building a large company rather than a majority shareholder building a smaller company and then getting to keep, the larger portion, call it of the exits.

And so I had the skill backed by institutional shareholders with unlimited checkbooks and I was making a ton of money, but I think I would have left the CEO seat sooner. and been an entrepreneur earlier. Recently when my taxes were filed, I had 52k1s. that was a new personal record for me.

I think I file taxes in every state. Well, Deloitte files taxes in every state, in the country as a result of that. And so, I'm, I've got my fingers in a lot more [00:49:00] places than I did. I probably would have left the CEO seat earlier. DeLorean, I'm jumping in. We're going back about 10 years ago, and I'm going to just walk in and quit and go do my own thing right then.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. Enjoy the journey. Follow your dreams. Love it. It's a terrific message. And Adam, for a listener, they have some questions. They want to reach out. They want to have a conversation with you. They even want to become part of your group or figure out how you guys can collaborate. Where would be the best place online for someone to reach you?

Adam Coffey: LinkedIn is the platform where I engage, with everyone that reaches out. I'll tell you, there's a fake Adam on Instagram that's got 8, 000 followers who's trying to monetize people. I've had my lawyers reach out to Metta. I've been trying to shut that kind of activity off. But the world's filled with scammers.

on LinkedIn, and I don't have a social media manager who's in there. You reach out to me on LinkedIn, you get me. I get up every morning at 4 o'clock, usually somewhere between 4. 30 and 5. 00. I'm engaging with 100 people that have reached out in the last [00:50:00] 24 hours. And so, that's the platform to reach out.

And obviously my books and there's podcasts out there like this one but LinkedIn is where you'll find me. That's where I'm most active. Or you can go to chairmangroup. us and find me there.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And Deep Wealth Nation, it's point and click. It doesn't get any easier. Just go to the show notes. It's all there for you. Well, Adam, it's official. Congratulations. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Adam Coffey: Thank you for having me on. Good luck to all your listeners out there. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, [00:51:00] please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

And every time you subscribe and a fellow entrepreneur subscribe, it's a testament to how together, Yes, we are. We are changing the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time. So don't let the momentum stop here. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast channel.

You'll never miss an episode. You'll be the first to hear from the top industry leaders, the innovators, the disruptors that are really changing and shaping the business world, and maybe you're commuting, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're taking a well deserved break that we spoke all about on this episode.[00:52:00] 

The Deep Wealth Podcast, it's your reliable source for the next big idea that could literally revolutionize your business. So once again, please hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. And again, your next big breakthrough moment, it might just be one episode away. Maybe it was even this episode.

So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.