Investment Banker Jacob Koenig Shares Proven Strategies To Catapult Your Enterprise Value (#258)

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

When it comes to your business deep wealth, your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life. 

But unfortunately, up to 90% of liquidity events fail. Think about all that time and your hard earned money wasted. 

Of the quote unquote "successful" liquidity events, most business owners leave 50% to over 100% of the deal value in the buyer's pocket and don't even know it. 

I should know. I said "no" to a seven-figure offer. And "yes" to mastering the art and the science of a liquidity event. [00:01:00] Two years later, I said "yes" to a different buyer with a nine figure deal. 

Are you thinking about an exit or liquidity event? 

Don't become a statistic and make the fatal mistake of believing the skills that built your business are the same ones to sell it. 

After all, how can you master something you've never done before? 

Let the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience and the 9-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the best deal instead of any deal. 

At the end of this episode, take a moment and hear from business owners like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience. 

Jacob Koenig is responsible for managing the sales process from bid through closing and serves as a trusted advisor for Woodbridge's clients. Prior to joining Woodbridge Jacob spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs in Asia. Most recently as Executive Director heading Execution Services in Taiwan. His team covered more than 500 institutional clients globally. He [00:02:00] moved to Taiwan from Goldman Sachs in Tokyo, where he spent nine years in execution in the Japanese market. 

Jacob holds a master's degree in Asian Studies and International Finance from the Johns Hopkins university. Paul H Nitze school of advanced international studies. As well as a bachelor's in Asian studies and economics from the Johns Hopkins university, Jacob is fluent in Japanese and speaks basic Mandarin. 

 Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, and for all you listeners out there today. Hang onto your hats, get buckled down into your seats. We have one of those other mythical creatures out there otherwise no one as an investment banker here with us in the person and we're really here to bring you into a world that you wanna know about ahead of time. And as with Deep Wealth, we're all about preparation. And our guest has a whirlwind of experience. You heard it in the introduction. You'll hear more of it live and in the person. I'm gonna stop it right there.

So Jacob, welcome to the default podcast. An [00:03:00] absolute pleasure to have you with us. And Jacob, there's always a story behind the story. So I'm curious, what's your story? What got you to where you are today?

Jacob Koenig: Sure. So, I started at Goldman Sachs right out of my graduate school program. And I was directly into the Tokyo office. I worked in the sales trading world there for 10 years before I moved out to Taipei to run the sales trading team out in Taiwan. Trading Taiwanese stocks for the last three and a half years.

And then I came out to Woodbridge International started in May of last year. My father started the business. So, you know, in 1993 I grew up learning about it, hearing about it, and you know, the growth of the company. Really the past few years in particular was meteoric and it was now or never.

And I took the opportunity to come out and now am a partner here at Woodbridge hitting our stride.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wonderful. And I gotta ask you this, firstly, welcome back, stateside coming from Asia. Generally speaking back to [00:04:00] the states business wise, M&A wise, are there any differences or is business, what are you seeing?

Jacob Koenig: Business is business. I would say culturally, the biggest thing that was surprising maybe to me was the amount of I would say em emotional showing in Asia people are more reticent. They don't wanna show their emotions as much. I feel like Americans are very expressive and reverse culture shock.

Coming back to that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So, some terrific to hear, and I guess culture as we'll talk about, I'm sure is really everything, both for the business role, but also in the M&A as well. So Jacob, why don't we just dive right into the trenches. I know our listeners always get excited when we have someone like yourself who can come and really share some of the secrets that other investment bankers, other M&A advisors don't want us to know.

And I know offline you and I were chatting and I was throwing some of my favorite stats around up to 90% of liquidity events fail. And from a business owner side of. I mean, You can just imagine you've seen it, you've been there that time, that effort, that money. And I say [00:05:00] half joking, half serious.

It's really sad. You're better off going to your favorite casino. At least you'll have fun while you lose your money. You'll lose it a little bit quicker. And so Jacob, you know, we're gonna check our eagles at the door. What are we doing wrong? As business owners, why are we having such a high failure rate when it comes to selling the business and a liquidity?

Jacob Koenig: It's a great question, Jeff. I think there's two aspects to it that that I'd like to address. The first is preparation. when we take on clients, we find very frequently that there's just, the data isn't ready. Sort of emotional readiness isn't quite there. And those are really the stumbling blocks that we find most frequently.

And actually I was just on a panel with some of the people on the buy side out in Denver for the association for corporate growth. And it was interesting actually the buyers themselves brought up this point that when they see that a seller is prepared, ready to go, Really, you know, a prepared seller, they are actually willing to bid higher because the process is gonna be easier, it's gonna be [00:06:00] faster, it's gonna be cheaper.

So, preparations number one. Number two, what Woodbridge does differently than other investment banks. And the sort of the traditional approach of going to your network, going to the people that you know, it's limiting. And so to cast that wide net, go to as many people as possible, that's gonna put you in a position to find the buyers who have a differentiated view who are willing to pay that premium for your business and really get that right fit.

So to not limit yourself to the people who you already know or otherwise.

Jeffrey Feldberg: love what I'm hearing, Jacob. And for our listeners, you can't see me, Jacob Kenna. I am literally grinning ear to ear because sometimes, let's face it, you're never a prophet in your hometown. And I know our listeners, they'll hear me say repeatedly, Hey, What's the secret to success, both for growing your business and a liquidity event?

Jacob is the first thing that you said. Preparation. When you prepare well in advance, as we like to say, you find those skeletons in the closet, you remove them, or if you can't remove them, at least you know about them, that you can tell that in advance of the [00:07:00] buyers, and at the same time you're growing the business.

You're having a more successful and profitable business. Now, for our listeners, Jacob, you said something also, lemme take that again. For our listeners, Jacob, you said something interesting because you are dispelling a myth. I can't tell you how many business owners I speak to somewhere. Somehow they believe in the heart and soul.

It's up to them, the business owner, to find their future buyer. And at Deep Wealth, we're saying two things. Number one, no, it. You'll have a very talented individual like Jacob and his team. Really, that's what they're doing. That's why you're bringing them on board to cast that wide net. But the other thing I would love for you to go into as an investment banker at Deep Wealth, you are what we call an advocate.

You're a generalist. You don't have the buyer on speed dial. You're loyal to the business owner who's the seller. And if you're burn a bridge with a a buyer, that's okay. You'll probably never deal with that buyer. So for the benefit of our listeners, they've heard me say it. I would [00:08:00] love them to hear it from you being that advocate.

You're casting that wide net. What are the advantages to them? Why would they wanna work with someone like you as opposed to, I'm sure they get these emails and these phone calls. Hey, Jeffrey. , I know your business. I did the last 10 deals. I know the buyers. I can get you in and outta market quickly. I know exactly what to do.

I know all the industry stats and yeah, if you go to a guy like Jacob, he doesn't know your business. He doesn't know your industry, it's gonna take him longer. He's not gonna know what to do. I've got all the moves down. So for the benefit of our listeners, why is that narrative I just shared all wrong?

Jacob Koenig: Yeah. again, I think that when you're going to a limited group you're limiting yourself, right? And so having the ability to choose between many options a puts you in the driver's seat, gives you that ability to get into the nuance, what's going to be different, how is it going to look host close in the transition but also, reveals the market price, right?

If you just are going to one or two buyers, especially if you [00:09:00] are dealing with a network where those buyers expect some kind of pricing upfront, you're going to limit yourself again. And so by going out to as many people as possible, casting that wide net and letting the market show you where the pricing is, that's the way that you're gonna maximize value. And not only value, but also again, after that transition, finding someone who's willing to work with your own individual style of compensation for your employees or whatever else it is that that's important to you. That's something that we can discover.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And let me ask you something, because sometimes we can all use the same words and it means different things. You're using the word preparation. I'm using the word preparation. You know, Jacob here For our listeners, I'm magically giving Jacob my magic wand. So here you go. I just passed it to you, Jacob.

You can wave your magic wand for the next business owner that comes up to you and says, Jacob, take me to market. What do you wanna see in a business that's really [00:10:00] prepared that they've done their homework, that it allows you to spend the limited time that you have to make the most of it and get the highest enterprise value?

What does that preparation mean and look like?

Jacob Koenig: The biggest thing we always say is time kills deals.

What takes time is when you have to put your numbers together on the fly. When you don't have the documents ready to go when you're searching around for your s election receipts. These things all add time and that means additional uncertainty, the additional possibility that nuclear bombs go off in Ukraine you don't know what's around the corner.

It doesn't have to necessarily be anything to do with your. , we've seen all types of things derail deals before. And so being prepared means having your ducks in a row, having those documents ready, having your numbers prepared in a way that even if it's not gap, is sort of easily equivocable to gap.

But also to be emotionally prepared where. Not fighting a buyer about the way that, maybe you've operated things in the [00:11:00] past, that the ability to let go and see beyond the transition. Especially if you're a business owner who's trying to step away from the business over, you know, a year or, or less that's going to be very important to have that succession plan at least lined up.

If not, then the readiness to allow it to.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. So really what I'm hearing you say, you gave some specifics, you gave some big picture kinds of things, but the more you're prepared that if someone can show up to you and say, you know what, Jacob, here's my data room. Take it over, put it into your own data room. But everything's all done. We've done our internal audit, we're all set to go.

Succession plan, tax plan, all of that stuff. And for our listeners, you should see Jacob, he's smiling ear to ear that sounds like it's music to your ear. So let's flip it now to the buyer side, because what we find, Jacob, And I'm gonna put myself under the microscope. When I got that first seven figure offer, I ultimately said no to it, but it was seven figures, [00:12:00] not entirely because of the buyer.

There were some things that myself and my business partners did that also put us in that category. And you know, I was a typical business owner. I was. Being selfish, thinking only of myself, is the check going to clear? You know, I wasn't thinking about the buyer and what the buyer's problems are and how I can help and solve that.

And we've built that into our nine step roadmap now of how to think and act like a buyer. But Jacob, let's lean on Pareto's Law. That 80% of the failures of liquidity events are probably coming from 20% of the same root causes or reasons. So why are buyers walking away from the deal table? What are you seeing?

What would be some of the more popular reasons?

Jacob Koenig: the number one biggest reason is the decline in the business 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mm-hmm.

Jacob Koenig: and this is what we always say is there's no such thing as the OR proposition. This is a, an end proposition. When you're selling your business, you're working on the deal and you're running your company.

If you take your eye off the ball running the company, then that's where problems often arise. . Beyond that, there are [00:13:00] obviously macro factors that come into play, but those we often will deal with ahead of time because we're finding buyers weeding out the ones who are not well funded.

And what we've seen, especially in the latest period here post silicone Valley Bank and Credit Suisse is that Equity firms, private equity firms are sitting on piles of cash. And so those who are less dependent upon bank financing are simply going to be able to get the deal done quicker.

But I'd say it always goes back to the same thing, which is time and surprises kill deals. So making sure that we don't have surprises, making sure that we're efficient through the process. That we're pushing as hard as we can on whatever levers that we have available to us to make sure that we're hitting the deadlines, we're getting our timeline in place early on.

When we sign the loi, we immediately have our kickoff call. We get all the third parties involved after we've made the business decision with the buyer and the seller.

This is when we're gonna have the [00:14:00] purchase agreement done. This is when we're going to have the QV done. This is when we're going to have the closing checklist started those specific dates and the specific closing deadline.

Having all of those right up front, that keeps us honest, that keeps us diligent, that keeps everything on track. And that avoids most of the pitfalls that we find cause deals to go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And you bring up two interesting points, and firstly, it goes back to prepar. When the business owner is prepared, due diligence is that much quicker, and you can go into the loi, you can go into the closing so much faster. And you're right, speed always wins. But you brought up another point that a lot of business owners tend to overlook because oftentimes as business owners we see these lois and there's a lot of zeros.

and we stop thinking and we just get blinded by those zeros. But to your point, how's the buyer going to pay for this deal? Do they have cash in the bank? Are they depending on outside financing? Are they gonna get some kind of [00:15:00] instrument, some kind of debt? What does that mean? What's the risk? Can you speak to our listeners about the different kinds of instruments used to pay for the deal and the risks associated?

Jacob Koenig: absolutely. Yeah. And frankly, this is becoming more and more common what we call structure of the deal. We'd love to see all of our deals just be pure cash at close, a hundred percent equity from the buyer. But the reality is, especially in markets where we're in a rising interest rate environment, we are seeing less debt being used.

And so where is that debt financing being replaced by? Part of it is seller's notes. The debt is essentially being held by the seller. This can be advantageous. Some of these seller notes we've seen are upwards of eight to 10% quarterly payments. So if you can get a little bit of an income stream there, that's pretty appealing.

Where we've seen it also obviously, is earn out. Earn out is one of the things that we frequently see, especially where business owners are looking more at the forward than necessarily the trailing 12 month period, which is. Usual valuations are based on in the.[00:16:00]

So, Being able to hit those earn out targets, the thing to look at there that we advise our clients is always to make it as simple to understand as possible.

What you don't wanna be is hitting those targets essentially, but not being paid on it because of the nuance of the legal ease. So, if you can get a revenue target that's better than maybe a net income target, which is better than an ebitda. Again, the less wiggle room that you can give around the way that the accounting is impacting those numbers the better position you'll be to receive those payments.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh yes. The infamous E word. We banish that at Deep Wealth, no such thing as an earn out. We really work towards not having that on the table. It just makes things so much simpler and easier, particularly for the seller.

Jacob Koenig: But we do see a lot of equity roles 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mm-hmm. . 

Jacob Koenig: So being able to hold onto a percentage, a chunk of the equity in the company, especially if it's a strategic acquirer, someone who's going to roll it into a larger platform there's a pretty [00:17:00] clear path to improving the value of that equity.

In those instances, and we've seen clients actually who have turned down higher cash at close to work with a company that they believe, really will see their legacy grow and grow and, as well take on a larger chunk of that rollover equity so that they can share in that upside.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And for the expectations and mindset of our listeners when they're going through their own liquidity event. I know from my own liquidity event, Jacob, just about all the buyers that we spoke with had an expectation. That as myself as a business owner and my business partners, that we would leave some equity in the business and it would not be a full 100% buyout.

And to your point, we had no issues doing that because there are great companies and you get a second kick at the can and that can take you to some wonderful places. So for our listeners, is that something that they should expect where regardless it's a strategic or financial or family office or some kind of hybrid, that there's an expectation that there's gonna.

[00:18:00] a minimal amount, possibly even a larger amount of equity from the business owner kept in the company.

Jacob Koenig: Certainly when the management team is expected to stay on. , this is a common way that buyers will incentivize future performance. So, there are those instances. We see it more frequently. We've looked at the data recently and it's not actually as high a percentage of deals that have an equity rollover component as you might expect.

Maybe it's just our segment of the market. But in the lower middle market deal sizes of five to $75 million. Roughly 20% of our deals have had equity rollover in the past five years or so. So it's not that common, but it's, very common among the deals where the management team is staying on, especially if they're staying on for sort of an unlimited period.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, let me ask you about that. I know we have our own ways of dealing with that, with our nine step roadmap at Deep Wealth, but from what you're seeing, there are some business owners who are Yes, I wanna stay on, I don't [00:19:00] mind being with the company for three years, five years, or beyond that. At the same time, there's other business owners, Hey, you know what?

I wanna close this chapter. I want to get onto the next chapter. And if I had it my way, the day of closing is the day I'm moving on to a new chapter for me. I'm not involved in the business. So for business owners that don't wanna stay on for a prolonged period of time, any strategies or insights of how they can orchestrate that?

Jacob Koenig: Yeah. Certainly if you have a strong management team in place around you, bringing those people into the fold, having them meet the buyers early on, that's going to really make that whole process a lot easier. It just, it puts the buyer in a position where they know that they can have confidence in the future of the business.

So don't overemphasize your own role. There's a sort of an ego driven desire to show, look how great this company is, look how much I've done. But you really need to minimize your own personal perspective and say, look at how much the company does. Look at how much the infrastructure continues, [00:20:00] even when I'm not.

Jeffrey Feldberg: absolutely. Talking about one of our X-Factors and what we call a Rembrandt. The business runs without you. You have a very capable, talented, strong management team to run the business. And so, Jacob, let me ask you this because as we're recording this podcast, Artificial intelligence, AI continues. Every day you see a new headline.

I suspect by the time this episode gets published, there'll be even more advances. So it's a really a big picture kind of question, but how are you seeing AI impact deal flow and enterprise value today? And where do you expect to see an impact in, let's say, the next one to three years?

Jacob Koenig: it's a great question, Jeff. I think that we are seeing it sort. At the beginning stages, our industry, the m and i a advisory space is one that is less likely to be impacted, I would say because it is a people business. Our primary function is giving [00:21:00] business owners the confidence, giving them the guidance, making them feel comfortable.

And I think a computer's not going to be able to easily fill that role anytime soon. Where there. Room for AI to help is going to be around the targeting of our leads. Again, because we go to a very large number of potential buyers, making sure that the right buyers are seeing it, we do that already, but certainly AI would enhance our ability to do that.

Finding new clients, again, big data, dealing with all of those numbers, all of the potential. Clients to find out where we should direct our own personal energy. That's going to be another place I think that AI will help in the M&A world. And probably on the legal diligence side, project management side, we'll see different systems grow and help in those aspects as well.

Jeffrey Feldberg: and from a business owner side, Jacob from someone who's building that business to one day sell it. And I know it's still early days where I feel [00:22:00] heading into the golden era of AI as it really puts its footprint on society and life as we know It is very early days right now. that said, though, what do you think business owners should be thinking about?

Because I'm thinking of a buyer coming onto the scene doing their diligence, and AI really hasn't been part of diligence right now, but I really see that changing where buyers are gonna be asking, okay, how is AI a threat? How is it going to be a strength or an advantage for me? So where do you see AI playing a role in that?

Jacob Koenig: Yeah it's an interesting one because when I was at Goldman one of the things that I was working on actually was our own internal AI project which was helping us to form block deals. So we were working in the equity brokerage world. We have a buyer of a stock, we wanna find who's gonna sell it and vice versa.

So tracking all of our conversations and just putting those information in there into the system and then being able to utilize that in its best way. What it always comes back to and the general principle that I sort of always go and think about is [00:23:00] eventually anything that a computer can do better than a person the computer is going to be doing is inevitable.

It will get there. So, Human to human interaction is where a person really has value. We're seeing from generative AI that computers can actually have a form of creativity that is sometimes superior. So just creativity by itself isn't enough. It's creativity and context and and being able to describe and explain and, leverage the, emotional inte.

Side of things, that's going to be the place where people can add the most value, I think sort of regardless and perpetually into the future.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Makes a lot of sense. And really, if you look over the past, however many decades, whatever new technology or tool has come out, the ones who really succeed are the ones who have figured out, okay, how do I leverage this in a way that. The tool does what it does best, and we as a company or a team can do what we do best.

And that really speaks [00:24:00] strongly to, to what you're saying. And I'm wondering, Jacob, with what you've been saying, there's some interesting times out there. There's always ebbs and flows in the economy. But as of late in regards to buyers, we were talking about them earlier. Let's revisit them for just a.

Are you seeing buyers mainly stateside? Are you seeing a pickup in international as an advocate out there, as a generalist out there? You're casting as wide a net as possible. Have things changed lately in terms of where the buyers are coming from?

Jacob Koenig: You know, It really hasn't. And it's frankly surprising. I, again, was at this conference just the other week. It was the day after Credit Suisse was rescued and no one was talking about it. It was like, it was not a subject of conversation at all. It was almost as if people were willfully ignoring.

That being said, we've had our most successful campaigns in our history the past six months. We've had three of the four largest in [00:25:00] terms of number of bids. And we had just recently ongoing actually the number one, most number of books out of NDAs signed. We have more than 400 NDAs signed on one 

campaign.

So there. A lot of buyers out there. There's a lot of interest. Don't forget the private equity world has raised a record amount of cash that they're still sitting on, and it's dry powder. It needs to be deployed. And so while things are still feeling good and the debt markets are still functioning, I think the buyers themselves are really looking.

Four quality businesses out there. The most common complaint that we hear is the lack of supply. And so that's the positioning that you really wanna be in when you're selling your company. And in terms of international versus domestic we haven't really seen too much of a shift there.

We definitely have been getting a few. Multinational conglomerates in where we wouldn't have seen that maybe a couple years ago. Brazilian, Latin American even actually one from [00:26:00] Spain recently came in on a deal that we've we had. But I wouldn't say it's substantially more than we've seen before.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's interesting and as you're talking about this wine campaign that you have over 400 NDA sign first. Congratulations. That's wonderful. So for the benefit of our listeners, Jacob, they're asking, okay, Jacob sounds like a terrific individual and his firm is sounding really good. I'm liking what I'm hearing in your books, Jacob, having seen what you've seen, what would you recommend to listeners as they're speaking to different investment banker?

What should they be looking for and what would be some red flags to not only run, but run as fast as you can in the opposite direction?

Jacob Koenig: Yeah. Something that we've seen pop up more lately are these guarantees. We're gonna guarantee that you're gonna sell your business. There's no guarantees in life. that would be one red flag. I think right off the bat that seems like it's just one lawsuit away from going away.

But we always aim to find buyers to match up the best [00:27:00] possibilities out. I'd say when you're speaking to advisors, you want to hear what's the process. It's not just about who you know, but what you do and how you aim to not only introduce buyers, but what do you do to get the deal closed?

Because this is, I think, the most common refrain that we see when we pick up clients who were formerly at a competitor.

If they had me, you know, reach out to some buyers and then they kind of walked

We are with you every step of the way. We have our closing department that I oversee, where we make sure that we're hitting the timeline a hundred percent, that we're making all of those dates matter.

That the closing date is not just a hopeful date, but it is a wedding date. You know, You don't cancel your wedding date because you're having trouble locating some kind of legal document. You find it, you know, you work on the nights and the weekends to make sure that it happens, that you. Have your wedding on your wedding date.

So, that's what I would say is what are you going to do [00:28:00] beyond just introducing me to buyers, beyond just introducing me to your network? How can you go out, find the best fit, and then get the deal closed?

Jeffrey Feldberg: . That's really the most important thing. And guarantees are guarantees, but it's a guarantee to close a deal. What I think what's missing from there is it's the guarantee to get the absolute best deal. We don't want any deal. This is the largest financial transaction of our life.

We want the best deal. And let me ask you this. Let's flip it because at Deep Wealth what we share with our community and people who go through the 90 day Deep, Wealth, Experience, we teach them how to be the world's best client for all of their advisors, investment bankers included. And we give the thought experiment.

Imagine you've left a message for Jacob. Jacob comes out of a meeting. He has a limited amount of time. He can only make one phone. And it's gonna be you because you're the world's best client. So Jacob, what does that mean for you? What would make someone the world's best client for you and your firm?

Jacob Koenig: I would say [00:29:00] responsiveness and flexibility. Those are the two big things to be able to a, respond to a request, turn it around and answer it and get those questions answered when they are reasonable, but also the flexibility to not get your heart set. On a particular buyer if something comes up.

And we've seen this recently where the buyers just aren't coming through with what they've promised, where they keep delaying and delaying to know at a certain point you have to cut your losses. And what we, I think at Woodbridge do better than anyone else is getting back to market, re doing a new campaign.

We find actually 90% of the buyers that come in on the second third campaigns are new. Buyers we hadn't spoken to before, buyers we hadn't seen before. And so having that ability to get back out there, try again. That's going to be the secret sauce. We had a client once it took eight campaigns before we actually found the best buyer.

But this buyer came in and I think. [00:30:00] 70% above what the client's original expectation was 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. What a success story. 

That's 

Jacob Koenig: just, you never know when you're gonna find them and where they are. It's timing. Timing is everything.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And for our listeners, did you hear that Jacob is saying eight different times, so seven times saying, no. You know what? This is not the best buyer. We can do better. Let's walk away from the table. And that's where the preparation comes into place. And the wonderful thing, Jacob, about a competitive process, you're a fan of that.

Obviously we're a huge fan of that. At Deep Wealth, when you have a competitive process, you have leverage because you're not locked into just one buyer. You can move on and do other things with other buyers if need be. And that brings up the question. So Jacob, what a lot of business owners don't realize is in a liquidity.

Their leverage is at the highest point right up until they sign the letter of intent, the loi, and then you're locked in for a period of time to one buyer. You're either gonna make the deal happen or [00:31:00] not make the deal happen. So in finding out who's the best buyer, who's the buyer with the best cultural fit, we have our own step three dedicated all towards that future buyer.

How you do that, we have our own system with that. But I'd love to hear how are you doing that with your clients, Jacob, to actually make sure that, hey, the cream rises at the top. They do it, they say, they say what they do. This is where you want to be.

Jacob Koenig: Yeah, I think it really comes through in the management meetings, in those initial conversations in those conversations about the future. What is it going to look like in a year or two? What's the grander plan? How many transactions in this space have you done?

 Is it being funded through equity or from debt? Where is that debt coming from? These are the types of questions that we always make sure to ask. , and ask early. Because again, you don't wanna be in a situation where you're locked in, where you don't have other choices.

, to always be flexible around. Going out to market to find these buyers and flexible on the points that are in the loi, that it's important [00:32:00] also to look at. Of course the dollars, you know, are going to be the most important thing. That's what we've found time and time again.

Generally speaking, the highest bid does win, but if the highest bid is coming from a search fund that doesn't have any real. Connections in the industry can't show us any kind of proof of funds. That's not the price that you're actually going to end up with. You're gonna end up with a very long, difficult, drawn out process.

If it gets done at all, it'll probably get done at a lower price point anyway. And so, we rank all of our buyers in a, a to D kind of ranking. And we try to get deals done with the a plus buyers. Those are the ones who are gonna be able to. Both quickly, efficiently, and to the best of everyone's expectations,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, absolutely. And Jacob, we're on the same page with you. You get a five deals, they could all have the same number for the enterprise value, but it's not just the numbers, it's the conditions and. Like you're saying, the financing and the quality of their management team, all that plays in such a big role that you really have one [00:33:00] chance to get it right.

You wanna make sure you're not going back a ninth time because you didn't pick the right buy, you didn't do your due diligence the first time around with that. So, hear you loud, unclear. Jacob, let me ask you this. I mean, You and I, we can go down all these different rabbit holes. You've been absolutely terrific with your wisdom and your insights.

That said, though, we're in the wrap up mode of our episode, and I'm gonna ask you my favorite question. I have the privilege and the honor to ask every guest this question. Let me set it up for you. It's a fun question. So think of the movie back to the. . And in the movie you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you back to any point in your life.

So imagine now it's tomorrow morning, and Jacob, you look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car sitting there, but the door is open waiting for you to hop on in. So you hop in and you can now go to any point in your life, Jacob, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that would.

what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom or, Hey Jacob, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Jacob Koenig: I've lived in many different [00:34:00] places and had, you asked me five years ago while living in Tokyo, are you gonna be living in Connecticut again in five years? I probably would've said no. But, you know, to stay open to what's best to take each day as an experience and live and learn and take the most out of each day. I think that's really what it comes back to. That there's a certain adventure in uncertainty. But there's also a lot of good from setting up a routine and having those nice quiet moments to enjoy as.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific advice. Live in the moment, make the most of each day, rituals and routines, our freedom. It's a lot for our listeners to, walk away with and some terrific advice there. Thank you so much for that. And Jacob for our listeners, if they wanna learn more, they want to reach you, or they have some questions, where's the best place online that they can find you?

Jacob Koenig: Sure. So our website, woodbridge g rrp.com going to be the best starting point. And I've got my LinkedIn profile. You can find me Jacob Conig if you search at Woodbridge International. I think [00:35:00] that should be a great couple of resources.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And for our listeners, we'll have all the in the show notes, it can't be any easier. It. Point and click. Jacob, it's a wrap. Thank you so much for today's episode, for your wisdom, your insights, and as we'd like to say here at Deep Wealth, we want you to thrive and prosper while you're keeping healthy and safe.

Thank you so much.

Jacob Koenig: Great. Thank you. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to [00:36:00] fix. 

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Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, [00:37:00] I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

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Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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