300 Jeffrey Episode

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast and can you believe it? This is episode 300, the big 300, and a heartfelt thank you to you, the listeners in the Deep Wealth community for helping us to get there. And in thinking about the 300th episode, what I want to do is answer a really interesting question I was asked very recently.

And the question was from an entrepreneur who said, Jeffrey, I obviously know about the Embanet story, but how did you go from seven figures for the offer that you said no to, to welcoming a nine figure offer? Is truth stranger than fiction? Was there some kind of magic bullet or magic pill that you took?

What was involved because it doesn't make sense on paper. And you know what? The answer is you're right. It doesn't make sense on paper. Welcome to the art side of business. And in this episode, I want to walk you through step by step why as most business owners, we are leaving so much money on the table for the future buyer that we've created, we've earned, but we don't know, pun intended, how to extract our own deep wealth.

So let me take you back to the beginning. [00:01:00] In the beginning, Embanet was not a cakewalk. The first few years, it was myself, it was Waleuska, and then Steve Wells, and we were trying to figure things out. We didn't get things right. Truth be told, if I had a dollar for every failure that we had, that would have been enough for our exit.

But from those failures, we learned, whatever wasn't working, however painful it was, we stopped doing that. We did more of what was working, and eventually, we found a formula. Now, the formula kept on changing over time. Don't forget, we were bootstrapping as we went along, so all that money that we're getting from the customers, and there wasn't a lot in the beginning, believe me when I tell you that, the money that was coming in that we were bootstrapping, we put back into the company, reinvested to figure out different ways from doing things.

Now, in the past, I've done other episodes on resilience, and as I love to say, resilience trumps resources. So in other words, if Embanet would have had all this capital, if we would have had private equity or venture capital in the very beginning of Embanet, we likely would not have succeeded the way that we did.

It's because we didn't have the [00:02:00] capital. And if you're bootstrapping, I want you to listen to this really carefully. When you're bootstrapping, welcome that resilience. Yes, I know it's not easy. You're forced to make tough decisions. It takes longer to get there. But when you bootstrap, you're building a rich, a thriving culture.

You're actually figuring things out that's never been done before that benefits your business. And that was a large part of what we're doing. So when the company finally became successful. Literally, our blood, sweat, and tears, as the saying goes, we had that knock at the door and it was a seven figure offer.

And it's at this point in our journey that most people say, well, Jeffrey, why didn't you take the seven figure offer? Did you sit down and you ran some spreadsheets and some complicated formulas that you said, you know what, it doesn't make sense. Why did you say no? Because you could have walked away.

Relatively shortly into the tenure of Embanet, and you would have done it very well for yourself. And for all of you people who love the logic and the complicated formulas, I'm going to frustrate you with what I say next. When I looked at the seven figure offer, me, Waleska, Steve, we looked at it, and we said, [00:03:00] we can do better than this.

Yes, the seven figure offer, it's okay, But we have a hunch, we have a gut feeling, whatever you want to call it, the universe, God, we have this sense that the company is worth a whole lot more. It's just not showing up in this offer. And I have to share with you that that seven figure offer, as frustrating as it was to say no, and as frustrating as it was to go through that process, it was the best thing that ever could have happened to us.

Because it had me, as an entrepreneur, my entire life, really sit down and begin to ask questions I never asked. Why did the buyer Only present seven figures. Why not more? What went into that? And why did the buyer who listed all the things that they didn't like about the company, why was that the case? I didn't know about some of those things.

I didn't see some of those things before. And it was really a heartfelt conversation. Myself, Waleuska, Steve Wells, we're going through all these different questions that we're asking. And it was like a eureka moment. We began to look at the company in a different way. Now, two things I want you to know at this point, I'm going to pause the narrative right here.

So the buyer was [00:04:00] a typical buyer. I like to call the buyer a wolf in sheep's clothing. And there's no judgment when I say that the buyer did what buyers do. The buyer played his role. He came out and he tried to buy a company for the absolute best value, lower than market value. And why not? Don't we all try and do that?

Don't we all try and get the best value when we're buying something? Of course we do. But at the same time, I need to take some accountability in this as well. When I was dealing with a buyer, when we're going through due diligence, when we're asking the questions, when those dangerous skeletons in the closet were found, it did not put Embanet 1n the best light.

Said in another way, because I wasn't prepared, because the company wasn't prepared, we gave the buyer reasons and ammunition. to lower that value. And why not? Who wants to take on more risk? A buyer, just like you, just like me, a buyer wants to minimize the risk and maximize the return on investment. So although the buyer could have come back with a better offer, in many ways, the lack of preparation, [00:05:00] that's what led to the lower offer.

I was as much a culprit as the buyer was. So we're going to both take some responsibility on that one. And so for all of you business owners, I don't care if you've been in business for decades, or if you're just starting up a business now, we can be so smart at times and other times we can be so, what can I say, dumb or stupid.

Let's not believe the myth. When I'm ready to exit the business, when I'm ready to raise capital, when I'm ready to bring in a partner or take some risk off the table, that's when I'm going to prepare for my liquidity event. If you're thinking that you've already lost before it's begun, it's too late.

You've got to absolutely prepare. Before that happens, because while you're preparing, that's when you're growing the company, you're growing your profits. You're showing up with a company that's worth more. Why? Because you have less skeletons in the closet. You found your X Factors, you found your Rembrandts.

We're going to talk about that, but you're showing up with a terrific narrative, a compelling narrative that has people look at your company differently. Why would they look at it any differently if you're not helping them [00:06:00] to do that? So saying no to the seven figure offer, what that allowed us to do in many ways.

It uncloaked, if you will, the hidden skeletons, the hidden negatives of Embanet, because let's face it, as business owners, entrepreneurs, I'm guilty as charged. My blinders were on. I couldn't take an objective look at the company.

To see what the outside world saw, or in this case, what the buyer saw. And so the very beginning of the 9-step Roadmap, what we now call the scale for ultimate sales system or Deep Wealth Mastery, that 90 day program, the beginning of that, the genesis of that was looking at the company in really a non emotional way from the outside, looking in and seeing all the hiccups, all the wards, all the speed bumps, all the things that we didn't see before, and very slowly.

step by step, we began to identify those skeletons and remove them. Or if we couldn't remove them, they were on the radar and at least we could have a narrative as to why they were there and what we were doing with that. But we didn't stop there because we also found the areas that we were world class in and we [00:07:00] took some of those for granted.

Some we didn't even know that we had. And that's where we began to put those out for public display. So from saying no to the seven figure offer, the next thing that we did, and I encourage you to do this, start looking for strategic shifts for your growth. So we said no to the offer. We began to focus on the business and we looked at the business in different ways.

Why would customers say no? Why would customers say yes? What's compelling about the business? What can we do to make the business a better business? And if you go to step one of the 9-step Roadmap, step one, big picture there, we're looking at inflection points or blind spots. And I've got to tell you, Embanet had many blind spots that we didn't see. We began to see those blind spots and we asked a really powerful question. I'm going to share this question with you right now. 

What could we do to put ourselves out of business today that we can put ourselves into a bigger, more powerful business tomorrow? What problem can we solve that no one has solved yet?

It's a problem that's keeping our customers up at night, [00:08:00] that they're starting to tell us that, hey, this is what's going on. Can you help me with that? And that's exactly what happened. As you know, you know, the Embanet story. Embanet 1, we were keeping the students in the seat. We were hosting them on our servers.

We were doing 24 7 technical support. We were creating the courses. Embanet 2, which put Embanet 1 out of business so we can go into a bigger business. This is where we're doing what Embanet 1 was doing, but we also added the ability to fill the seats with world class students. We got into marketing and student services, all the things that were keeping the schools up at night.

And that was an inflection point. If we would have waited to act on that, and we came at it a few years later, We would have missed that. We created a market disruption and that market disruption was a game changer.

And step one, big picture. That's why you're always asking, okay, what's around the corner that can put me out of business? What am I not seeing? What are my customers talking to me about that are impacting them that eventually it's going to impact me? As an example, if you're looking around today.

Artificial intelligence. That is a huge game changer. [00:09:00] That is an inflection point for everybody, if there ever was an inflection point. It's like 1992 all over again. There's this thing called the internet and it's starting to come on the scene. Well, we all know where that went with e commerce and the web and all the companies that jumped onto that one really early.

They're now the titans of business today. AI is your next inflection point. What are you going to do with that? How are you going to leverage that? And again, that could be a whole other episode, a whole other podcast, a series for a podcast, but let me get back on track here. So we began to look at ways that we can grow the company, remove the skeletons, accelerate the profits, get more customers quicker.

And slowly from step one, this was the big picture, we went to step two. X Factors. And the X Factors and the skeletons, where are those skeletons? Hidden in the closet that we don't see. They're holding back our growth. They're holding back our profits. They can put us out of business. Case in point, Embanet 1.

If we didn't see what was going on with that skeleton, the skeleton was, we weren't doing marketing at the time. We weren't helping the schools fill the seats. [00:10:00] We got that from the step one big picture. That was a skeleton. If we would not have addressed that skeleton, Embanet either would have broke even, lost money, or gone out of business.

Neither of those scenarios are great ones. I don't want any one of those. And it's from step two, X Factors, this is where we began to see, okay, where are we world class in? Well, Embanet, as an example, and I'm going to share this with you to give you some examples so that you can do this for yourself. As an example, Embanet was the golden child In the industry, people trusted us.

They trusted our reputation. They trusted our recommendation. So we came along with this new and crazy thing of how we're going to fill the seats for you and how it's not going to be done inside the university. Now it's going to be done by a third party outside the university. Yes, it was controversial to say the least.

But it was our reputation, which was an X Factor that we relied on. Another one of our X Factors, it was our culture to try different things. Remember earlier, I said, resilience always trumps resources. Well, we didn't know what we were doing. It took us a while to figure this out, but it was our culture that had us coming back for [00:11:00] more.

Okay. This didn't work. It's a new day, the 24 hour rule, new day, cry all you wanted yesterday. It's a new day today. Let's begin to move forward to see what's going on. We went through the company, we found the X Factors, we created narratives around those X Factors, why we're world class, why we're not like anybody else in the marketplace today, why we're so unique that you absolutely have to work with us, or you absolutely have to invest or buy us.

And those narratives were incredibly powerful because that led to step three, future buyer. Now, full disclosure, when I say future buyer, It could be future investor, wherever you are in your journey, investor or buyer. I'm going to call it buyer, but you can use those two interchangeably because they're one in the same.

In step three, future buyer, what we realize people do not make decisions based on logic, based on spreadsheets. They make decisions based on emotions and they justify it with logic later. Yes, the science is there. All these. I'm gonna talk about the studies that have been done, the peer reviewed studies.

And I'm thinking of Paul Zak, who's a world renowned scientist [00:12:00] and psychologist. And he's done a study. And in this study, what he did was he looked at why do we make decisions? Well, we make decisions, particularly good decisions, and we can have people go in a direction that we want them to go into in a good way, not in a negative way.

When we feel happy, because when we feel happy, oxytocin is released in the brain. And so what Paul Zak and many others have done, they took two groups, one was a placebo group, for this group they had water and the other group, had actual oxytocin, and then everyone watched the same commercial. The commercial was for a charity, and what they found, the people that had the oxytocin, they donated 50 percent more than the people that didn't.

The study has been replicated many times now, may have been a little bit higher than 50%, but I'm not far off the mark with that. 

So what Zach and his experiment established. When we're feeling happy, when we have oxytocin released in the brain, we're more likely to make big picture decisions, decisions that are good. We're feeling good. Yes, we're going to be generous. We're going to try something different. The fear factor gets minimized or eliminated.

Now, what other studies have found [00:13:00] is when you have a really compelling narrative and a terrific storyteller, when you combine the two of those, the human brain, it's an amazing thing because what we do is people We can relate to what that person's feeling. Case in point. Have you ever watched a movie where you laughed or you cried or it was a scary one, you screamed, or you're watching a sporty event and your heart rate is going because your team, they're winning.

 Well, what's going on in the brain, the neurons in the brain are feeling what you're seeing or who you're seeing on the screen, in the field, wherever's in front of you, you're feeling and seeing what they're feeling and seeing.

And you're really in sync with them. You're mirroring what they're doing. It's incredibly powerful. When you combine mirroring, you're feeling what the other person is feeling. When you combine the oxytocin, this is incredibly powerful. On this podcast, you've heard me say this before. I'm going to say it again right now at the risk of repetition.

I've had valuators come on the podcast and they all say, Jeffrey. 80 percent of the value of a company, it starts and it [00:14:00] stops with the narrative. I'll look at the narrative, then I'll look at the facts and the data afterwards. Now, let me go back to the seven figure offer. So I'm going to stop here at step three, future buyer.

In that seven figure offer, I did not have the narrative. I didn't even have the preparation for the narrative. I didn't even know what narratives were. When you asked me about the company, I told a fairly bland narrative what the company was. It wasn't spectacular. It wasn't anything exciting. The buyer wasn't feeling all ramped up about what the future is. The buyer saw a very nervous Jeffrey, Steve and Waleuska talking about the company, and when we were being grilled about all the shortcomings of the company, the buyer saw a not so great Jeffrey. Oh, I'll leave Steve and Waleuska out of this.

They saw a not so great Jeffrey. Nervous and trying to talk his way through all these skeletons because the preparation wasn't there. I didn't have the confidence. I didn't have the clarity. I didn't have the peace of mind and I didn't have the narratives. So in step three, future buyer, a lot of what we talk about, it all comes from the trenches.

By the way, Deep Wealth Mastery, the Scale For Ultimate Sales system. It's the [00:15:00] only system by business owners for business owners. It comes from the trenches. When I was out there and I was speaking to M& A advisors, investment bankers, M& A lawyers, I talked to business owners that really hit it out of the park and business owners that really dropped the ball.

The one thing that came through loud and clear, the more powerful the narrative, the more compelling the narrative. And yes, of course, you have to back it up with facts and data. I get that. But when you have a powerful narrative that creates excitement, this is where Buyers, investors, they want to become part of that winning team, not only become part of the winning team, they want to put a value on the business to ensure that they win.

Because I got to tell you this, when you have multiple buyers coming to the table and in step three, future buyer, that's by the way, one of the strategies that we learned. You want to have more than one buyer. You want to have multiple buyers because when you have multiple buyers, you keep all the buyers on the best behavior.

It creates a competitive situation. Nobody likes to lose. Losing feels horrible. And in that scenario, likely there's going to be a buyer who said, you know what? I lost out on that last deal. It turned out to be a [00:16:00] really good one. I'm not going to make the same mistake on this one. I'm going to overbid. 

So knowing all of this, for the Step 3 Future Buyer, we created these narratives. They were compelling. They were exciting. People felt the emotion. It was the hope for a better tomorrow, a prosperous tomorrow of all the opportunities that were there that we weren't able to do, but what the future buyers could do, what that would look like for them, how we're changing the social fabric of society.

Yes, everyone wanted to be on that winning team. And that's where it became a feeding frenzy. And the buyers are saying, I'm not going to lose this one. I'm going to make sure I outbid the competition. And in Step 3 Future Buyer, we talk all about how to set up a process with the right investment banker.

There's all different kinds of investment bankers. We'll get there in a short while, but this is really what you want to do. Where you're having a compelling narrative. Yes, of course, you're backing it up with facts, with data. It all makes sense. It has people feel happy about the opportunity, how they're going to change the world, how they're going to change their business by acquiring or investing in your business.

And that was a huge game changer. Now, looking back since then, what we've added to Step 3 Future Buyer. [00:17:00] How do you know who your best buyer is? Because sometimes you have offers up or down, there's not much of a difference dollar wise between them, but there can be a huge difference of who the buyers are, what the culture is, what that represents.

And we built into Step 3 Future Buyer, how do you identify the buyer with the best cultural fit? So going back to the story, With the Embanet 2, Embanet 1, and how we got to that nine figure deal. One of the reasons when we showed up for our second kick at the can with the liquidity event, we had done step four due diligence.

Now this is really unique. Most people do due diligence. When they go to the investment banker, they say, I'm ready. Take me out, let's go. And I'm going to go back to something I said earlier, somewhat controversial. No judgment here. I'm not pointing the finger at you. I'm pointing to really us as entrepreneurs, as a group.

And when I put myself in this group, Jeffrey and team, when we showed up with that first buyer, we were smart, but we were really stupid. We did not prepare in advance for that liquidity event and the buyer knew it. It shone through really clearly. All our [00:18:00] skeletons were coming up and out there and in step forward due diligence, we don't want that to happen.

So we're doing an internal audit years before we have a liquidity event. Now in my case, when we went through the second kick at the can with our second liquidity event, it was two years later. So you don't need to have years and years to do this. You can do step forward due diligence, your internal audit in as quick as nine months.

Some people want to take their time. It could be two years. You choose nine months, two years, something in between. But when you go through your internal audit, what you're doing, you're finding those skeletons, you're removing them. You're finding those beautiful X Factors, those Rembrandts hidden in the attic.

You're putting them out for public display. You're making more narratives around that. You're sharing that with all your stakeholders, with your clients, who are going to be renewing with you, with your prospects, who are going to become clients, with investors, with buyers. It gets them excited. They want to be a part of this winning team.

And that's what you're doing in the internal audit. You're creating your own data room. You're going through with an M& A lawyer, all the things that you need to do to get that out of the way. So when you start [00:19:00] your liquidity event, because congratulations, you now have a second full time job. You've done this well in advance.

Now, I would like to say that all business owners are doing this. Sadly, this is not the case. I can't count the number of times I hear business owners say, Jeffrey, I'm too busy. I can't do due diligence in advance. I can't prepare in advance. I'll get there when I get there, I'll get there tomorrow. And I've said it before, at the risk of repetition, I'm going to say it again.

Every time I look at my calendar, I don't see a tomorrow. If you see tomorrow on your calendar, let me know. That'll be a first. There is never a tomorrow. Life happens, business happens. You move forward, you get busier, you don't do it. And by the time you show up for your liquidity event, it's too late.

Again, as entrepreneurs, we can be so smart, but we're so stupid. The smart way to go about this is, hey, prepare in advance. Take the time out, you, your team, do the internal audit, do it the right way. We talk about how to do it in the right way. We have a 300 point checklist in Step 4 Due Diligence.

There's a specific way of doing that. And when you come through doing this on your own time, you save your health, you save [00:20:00] your money, you save your time. You get peace of mind. You get clarity, all the money in the world cannot buy peace of mind. When you do step four, your own internal audit, you're ready for your liquidity event, but at the same time, you don't realize this, you have a better company.

You have better narratives. You have better processes. Embanet from the seven figures to the nine figures as a company, we weren't that different. We didn't acquire all these other companies. We didn't acquire any company. And our growth, yeah, sure we grew in those few years, but it wasn't crazy over the top growth.

What we did show up with was the clarity, the confidence, the peace of mind, the narratives, we're moving the skeletons, knowing what our Rembrandts are. Now you may be saying, wait a minute, Jeffrey, you're halfway through the 9-step Roadmap here. But you haven't mentioned one complicated formula, one spreadsheet.

What's going on here? How, again, how did you increase the value? Well, welcome to the art side of business. Welcome to the art side of liquidity event. That's where the magic happens, and it's a perfect segue [00:21:00] into step five winning mindset, because what I realized heading into the second liquidity event, myself, Steve, Waleuska, We were all on the same page in terms of our mindset.

We had a winning mindset, but what I learned when I spoke to the business owners that lost in liquidity events and the ones who won in a liquidity event, when I spoke to investment bankers what I realized was. Often our mindset is very different than our employees and our advisors. Don't shoot the messengers on this, but the narrative is a terrible narrative. Your employees and your advisors, they're looking at you and saying, look at this, the owner, you, the.

Founder, the business owner, they're going to ride off into the sunset very wealthy after they sell the company. But what about me? I was here from the beginning or I helped build this company. Why aren't I having a winning outcome, just like the owner of the founder, the entrepreneur? This kind of feels bad.

Actually, it doesn't feel right. I'll use the F word. It doesn't feel fair. It doesn't feel fair. You don't want that. Now you may be saying, well, wait a minute, Jeffrey, I'm paying my advisors a lot of money in their fees and in success fees, and then pay my employees a very fair [00:22:00] salary and bonuses and all other kinds of things along the way.

With the benefits, how in the world would they think that? Again, I didn't make the rules. It's just a human condition. So it was step five, winning mindset. What we learned was how we can tune into the world's favorite radio station, WII. FM. You've heard me talk about this before. What's in it for me? And in the world's favorite radio station, we figure out for the employees, for the advisors, What they need to have the same winning mindset as me, as you, as the founders, the entrepreneurs, the business owners, where they want the liquidity event to go through as much as you want it to go through.

Again, welcome to the art side of business, of a liquidity event. This does not show up in a complicated formula and step five, winning mindset. We go into a lot of detail of how do you do this? The questions you should ask, how you should be going about this, and it leads nicely into step six, advisory team.

Now that wolf in sheep's clothing for that seven figure offer, that's exactly what it was because that buyer came along and said, Jeffrey, you don't need any representation. You don't need an investment banker. Let me just deal directly [00:23:00] with you. If you bring in any advisors, well, you know what?

It's going to cost me more money. I'm not going to be able to offer you as much. And you're going to hear this a lot. Maybe you're even getting emails, phone calls from prospective investors and buyers. I want to deal directly with you. Let me give you an unsolicited offer. There's a reason why investors and buyers love those unsolicited offers because it's for their benefit, not your benefit.

I want you to think about something. You've heard me talk about this before in other episodes. I'll quickly go over this. It's worth repeating. Imagine you're buying a house. You're going through the open house. You're the only one there. Now imagine it's the same house. You're going through the open house and it is packed with all kinds of people.

You hear them talking about how they could put an offer on that house, how they really want that house, same house, two different scenarios. When you're the only buyer on the scene. You're probably going to give an offer. It's going to have conditions. It's not going to be a high as a price as it would be if you weren't the only buyer.

There's going to be multiple buyers here. You're giving a offer probably with very few, if any conditions, and it's the highest possible price that you can pay.[00:24:00]

So it's the same thing. If you look at that seven figure offer, that's why the buyer didn't want us to have representation in investment banker because they knew there would likely be other buyers on the scene. 

They knew they're the only buyer in town, they would wear us down. It's called deal fatigue. There are some buyers whose only goal in life is to wear you down, get you into deal fatigue. So you'll agree to do things that you otherwise wouldn't do. When you have the right advisors, you protect yourself from this.

So step six, advisory team. Believe it or not, the investment banker is actually one of the last advisors that we bring on board.

Most business owners, when you speak with them, when they have a liquidity event, they go to an investment banker first, then they move out from there. Don't shoot the messenger as business owners, founders, entrepreneurs, we can be so smart and we can be so stupid.

The investment banker is the last advisor that you want to bring on. There's a very specific order of advisors that you want to bring on as early as possible, even years in advance. And then when you're ready, only then do you bring on the investment banker. And once you do that, the right investment banker will help you create a competitive process where you [00:25:00] have multiple buyers on the scene, and this is where some of the magic happens. Now, a word of warning, there's two types of investment bankers.

One is your friend, one is not. Obviously you want to find the one that's your friend. The one that's not on the surface appears to be the best choice, but it's actually the worst choice. So you really have to know which type of investment banker you're dealing with. And you want to go with one who's an advocate, whose loyalty is to you, not the buyer.

Easier said than done, because again, on the surface, the transactional investment bankers, the ones that are best friends with the buyers, you wouldn't necessarily know it when you're speaking with them. 

So with all that said, let me put a pause on things. Let's do a quick recap here. So in step one, big picture in step two, X Factors, we're doing some really important things. We're finding new problems to solve. We're creating narratives around how we're going to solve those problems.

We're creating narratives around our beautiful X Factors and Rembrandts. We're sharing that with all the stakeholders. We're sharing this with our existing clients so that they come back and they renew with us. We're sharing this with prospects. So they become clients. We're sharing this with our future buyer, our future [00:26:00] investor.

We're getting them all excited with that. We're finding our skeletons and we're removing them. We're finding our X Factors and our Rembrandts that we didn't know about, and we're putting them out for public display. We're going through all of these wonderful things. We're changing the mindset.

We're surrounding ourselves with the right advisors at the right time. Now I have a confession, step seven, timing and execution. I did not have this in my liquidity event. In fact, this is one of the areas that I failed in. Looking back, I would have done things differently of. Who I spoke to, when I spoke to them, what did I say?

What did that look like? How that would have gone through the different communication channels, all those things. That's now to your benefit. We reverse engineer this. Step seven, timing execution. What do you say? When do you say it? To whom do you say it? How do you say it? Because timing is everything. As a good friend of mine often reminds me, Jeffrey, timeliness is next to godliness.

So what we're looking for in timing and execution is the Goldilocks scenario.

Not too early, not too late, just right. And now what we've done, each of these steps, we put a workbook [00:27:00] together and that workbook becomes an archive for your strategies to review for the weeks, months, years ahead, we have all the frequently asked questions that you're likely going to be asked. You take those, you make them your own.

And again, you're showing up with peace of mind, with clarity, you're knowing what to do and when to do it. And when you look at all the seven steps up to this point, they're really doing three things they're doing, removing the skeletons. Finding the Rembrandts and creating launch plans. So skeletons and Rembrandts, that's step number eight.

And this is where, again, removing all the skeletons, you're putting narratives around that you're showing and telling the investors and the buyers why that's done, how that was done. You're ensuring that you're accelerating your profits and your growth for the business. And you're doing that through these very specific launch plans.

Now, when we were preparing for our liquidity event, we began to create these different initiatives and it was hard for us to create these initiatives. We didn't know what to do, but there's a saying, if you want to change your life, change the questions that you ask. We changed the questions. We put together these plans, some of the plans, I'll use the term half baked.

They weren't quite [00:28:00] done when we show up to the liquidity event. Some of them were, but we put everything on the table. We had these beautiful narratives. We had these beautiful launch plans. Some of them were done, some were in progress. Some were still up on the virtual board waiting to happen. But again, the right launch plans created excitement.

What we've done since then, we've gone to the Ivy League schools, to the thought leaders, to the cast of characters in M& A, to entrepreneurs who have won big and lost big in their liquidity events. And we put together 26 different launch plans that help you grow the business, increase your profits, increase your enterprise value.

And help you prepare and optimize for your post exit life. And that's really effectively what you're doing. So that's a 9-step Roadmap. It came from the trenches. Again, I didn't have all of these steps. Some of them I failed in the reverse engineer. A lot of them we had to figure out as we went along.

I did not have that peace of mind, did not have that clarity, spent countless time and money to get to it, but looking back now from the seven figures to the nine figures. It came from every one of the steps that I went through. Each one of the steps is a [00:29:00] strategy and those strategies in their own way, doesn't add up to one plus one equals two or four is one plus one equals 10 or a hundred because cumulatively it made all the difference in the world.

And what the buyers saw in the second round for the liquidity event for the nine figures. It was a very different Embanet, the same Embanet 1n terms of the service, the same Embanet 1n terms of the people, the clients, but it was a very different Embanet 1n terms of how the team responded to the questions, how we responded to the questions, the narratives that we had around our initiatives about what happened in the past, what was going to be happening tomorrow, the future and beyond.

And believe it or not, and you better believe it. That's what made all the difference.

So now that you have the foundation, you've heard about the creation of what we now call the 9-step Roadmap. Again, I didn't have all those steps. You heard some of the very specific insights of why we said no to the seven figure offer, what we did to get us to the nine figure offer, even though it was the same company, let's talk about a few takeaways for you.

When working with our investment bankers, the advisor team, and also with the future buyers, [00:30:00] I'm going to go back to step three, future buyer. When it came time for the negotiations, we did things a lot differently than what most other entrepreneurs did. One of the things that we did was we always asked the WII. FM question, the what's in it for me question for our buyers. It wasn't an us versus them. It wasn't they win, we lose, or we win, they lose. How can we create a win win win? Now, yes, there were times when working with the buyers, we would agree to disagree.

But for Embanet, myself, the team, it was an attitude of service. How can we make your life easier? How can we make sure that you have your own clarity, that you have your own peace of mind? Based on what we're sharing with you, we were vulnerable. We were open. We told what worked, what didn't work. We made mistakes in the liquidity event.

We made lots of mistakes, but we owned up to it, shared why it happened, gained the trust and shared why it wouldn't happen again. A lot of business owners don't do this when it comes to the future buyer, the future investor, all they care about, hey, is that check going to clear the bank when they give it to me?

Wrong attitude. Really, you want to look at how do we show the [00:31:00] buyer that we can minimize the risk, maximize the return, and create a win win win for everyone.

And at the same time, speaking of win win win, we also worked very closely with our advisors. We spent a lot of time with the advisors. We became the world's best client as far as our advisors were concerned. They were our priority. They asked, jump. We said, how high? With whatever they asked, we had a quick turnaround time.

We're very quick to pay the bills and the invoices. We ensured that they were happy. The combination of the right advisors who were singing our praise, they had all the trust in the world.

They were excited. They wanted to be on this winning team with buyers who were excited about this narrative of what this company was doing, about a market disruption that was being created. That's what made all the difference. And so another key takeaway, it's not just about you, it's not just about your team.

In fact, in the pecking order, you've got to put yourself last. Yes, you have your deal points of what you absolutely want to have in the deal. You have your no fly zones of what must absolutely not be in the deal. You know what those are. You're not going to cross the line. But you're putting [00:32:00] everyone else in front of you to make sure that you can solve their problem, whether it's growing the business, whether it's in the liquidity event, and that's, what's going to make the difference.

Think about it as entrepreneurs, after all, when we help enough people solve their problems and they get what they want, eventually we get what we want and in that order, not the other way around. And so one of your takeaways.

Always have that servant attitude, whether it's working with a client, a prospective client, an advisor, or a future buyer you're there to serve them, earn their trust, be vulnerable. 

 All kinds of studies show when you're vulnerable, when you share why you've made a mistake, why it happened, why it won't happen again, and what you're doing to correct that, that's where you earn trust.

And the currency in business, in M& A, it's not money, it's trust. The more people trust you, the more they're likely to move along in the same direction as you.

So now let me circle back to how I started this episode. How did Embanet go from seven figures to nine figures? Why? How is it possible? What was the magic that made that happen?

And again, welcome to the art [00:33:00] side, your takeaway, your insight, the strategy from all of this. It was really a few very powerful strategies, a combination of factors that when combined made all the difference. For starters, we created very powerful narratives about the exciting and prosperous tomorrow for the future buyer or the investor.

We took a look at the big picture. We found new problems that we were going to solve, hadn't solved them yet, but we shared that in the narrative of what was there. We realized what we're world class and we refined the narratives around that. We looked at the X Factors that we didn't know that what we had, and we put that on the table.

We put that out for public display. Those narratives made a huge difference. We were prepared. We did our internal audit before the liquidity event. We showed up prepared. We knew what we needed to do. We had peace of mind. We had clarity. Our team was involved in that process. Everyone knew what they had to do, when they had to do it, what that's going to be looking like.

And that made a huge difference. And then the other thing, again, it was that servant attitude. We call it the winning mindset. How do I create a win [00:34:00] win win for all parties involved? It's not us versus them. It's simply us. And it was those factors, big picture wise, those factors, that's what made the difference.

And in many ways, doing all of those things, what that allowed us to do by removing the skeletons. Putting those Rembrandts out for public display, having those powerful narratives, having those powerful launch plans. It was like taking the blinders off the buyers that they could see this magnificent company of what it's done, but what's even bigger, what's even better, what's ahead in the future, what they could be doing when they're the successful owner of the company and how they're going to be doing that.

 That's what made the difference. Now, if you compare that scenario to the first offer, the seven figure offer, the narrators weren't there. The Rembrandts, the X Factors weren't there.

There were more skeletons that were there than what there should have been. There wasn't the confidence that the buyer had. In fact, the buyer was really feeling the risk of taking the company as is. So it's amazing What you can do through narratives, through initiatives, through launch plans.

And let me go [00:35:00] back to that house example, because it's not that different. I could show you a house that's had better days. It needs a paint job. It needs to be updated. The outside needs to have some landscaping. It needs to be manicured. The list goes on and on. And if you were to look at that house, you're going to walk away feeling fairly negative.

It's really not worth a lot. Not a great house. Look at all this work I have to put into it. Now, what if that work was done? What if the front was all cleaned up and it was manicured perfectly? You walked inside, there was a fresh coat of paint. The house was staged with beautiful furniture and it was renovated in certain areas, nothing too crazy, but just enough, and you walked into the backyard, that beautiful backyard, wonderful landscaping, same house, same everything, you're going to have a very positive feeling on that house.

You're going to want that house. You'll even pay more for the house. And in many ways. That's your business. That's what we're talking about here. That's the metaphor for your business. So again, as entrepreneurs, we're smart. Let's not be stupid. Let's not buy into that myth. I'll prepare for my liquidity event when I'm ready for it.

It's too late. Now's the best time to prepare for the liquidity event. [00:36:00] It's like that old saying, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today. Start that preparation today. 

This is really your biggest takeaway. When you start going through that Deep Wealth 9-step Roadmap, that preparation, that's where you're increasing your growth, your profits, your enterprise value, and you're optimizing your post exit life.

Now there's really a 10th step to the 9-step Roadmap. I didn't really talk about it. I'm going to quickly talk about it now. It's the post exit life. Wow. This is the one area I really dropped the ball. This was my biggest failure. What we held you in the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, we actually start with your post exit life first.

And I know what you may be saying, Jeffrey, my post exit life, it's 30 years away. I have no interest in looking at that. I have no interest in retiring. I've got a lot of runway ahead of me. No problem. Whether your post exit life is three months away or 30 years away, you can still do some preparation for today.

So by the time you get there, you're ready, you're prepared. And in fact, when you look at the statistics, you find startling statistics. People who [00:37:00] retire, they often have the final exit. This is when they pass away. This is not a good thing shortly after retirement. Why? They're not happy.

They're bored. I can tell you in my post exit life, in the early years, I was bored out of my mind. I was in my pajamas at home, wanted to go out and play with my friends, but they were working as they should have been. They had their own lives. I had no idea what to do. I had imposter syndrome. As successful as it was at imposter syndrome, didn't know what to do.

I had a huge ego, and it was all because I didn't prepare for my post exit life. I was trying to justify myself to myself, to society, to my friends, to my family. Not a great thing. If I would have done the preparation in advance, I would have had fulfilling activities and it would have had the best of both worlds, success and fulfillment.

That's what you want. Success without fulfillment. Well, that's failure. We never want to be there. And so now having learned those lessons from the trenches, I've done the heavy lifting. That's why in really the welcome module, this is where you're creating an optimal post exit life for you. And that's where we begin.

And then we walk you through all the [00:38:00] preparation that you need to do. So you can be smart in your business. You can be smart in your liquidity event. You can capture the best deal. Capture that financial freedom, have the peace of mind and clarity along the way.

So there you have it. That's how the same company, the same people, the same service went from saying no to a seven figure offer and saying yes to a nine figure deal through these very specific strategies that you now know that you can now begin to apply for yourself.

So speaking of applying for yourself, because you know, every episode, we like to have one actionable takeaway that you can be doing. And there's a lot of actionable takeaways that you can be doing, but what's going to be the one for you?

Well, let me help out. Let me give you a few, what you can think about. I want to go to step one, big picture. Right now, you, your team, ask yourself the question, what's around the corner over the bend that if it were to happen, it can put us out of business. Now you may be saying, Jeffrey, wait a minute.

If I don't know about it. How can I tell you about it? Well, exactly. Do your homework, speak to your customers. What's keeping them up at night? What are some new problems on the scene? [00:39:00] Get curious, get creative, figure out what that's going to be. A second strategy that you can think about of what you can do.

Why not set some very specific, some measurable goals, some people call them key performance indicators for your business. What's that going to look like? How can you accelerate growth? How can you accelerate the enterprise value? Well, maybe you're going to find it in some skeletons that you didn't realize were there.

You have certain processes or you don't have certain processes. They're holding you back. You're really slow at doing things Or it's costing you more money than what it should. What gets measured is what gets done. Find those skeletons, remove them, and accelerate the growth.

Or one other thing that you can think about, how can you tune into the world's favorite radio station, WII.FM, for all your stakeholders, for your employees, for your vendors, for your clients, for your team, for your advisors, that you tune into WII.FM, that you get them on the same page as you. You have a winning mindset.

You're looking at the world from their perspective, not your perspective. So a few things for you to think about.

So as we begin to wrap this up, I have a question for you. Are you saying to yourself, are you asking yourself, okay, Jeffrey? [00:40:00] Yes, I heard you. It sounds good, but there's a lot there. How do I take my business to the next level? What does that look like? And again, you'd expect me to say this, but I'm going to say it anyways.

Look to the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program, what we also call the Scale For Ultimate Sale Program. 

Imagine, just imagine a program that's meticulously designed to skyrocket your business value, increase your profits, and prepare you for a life changing liquidity event. And this, my friend, this is what Deep Wealth Mastery is all about. It's the only program by business owners, for business owners, and I want you to listen to what Leon G, this is a graduate of the program, this is what he had to say, and I quote, I've had transaction experience coming into the Deep Wealth Mastery program.

What I've learned and the strategic insights I've gained have forever changed how I run my business. The workbooks are world class and helped connect the dots that change for the better the trajectory of my business. 

So all you need to do is send an email to success, you know, success, success[at]deepwealth[dot]com. 

So again, all you need to do, send an email to success[at]deepwealth[dot]com to learn more and discover how the Deep Wealth [00:41:00] Mastery Program can empower you with the tools, the knowledge, the strategies, not to just grow, but exponentially increase your business value. So don't wait, again, reach out to success[at]deepwealth[dot]com today. It's an opportunity to unlock the full potential of your business and secure the future you've always dreamed of.

And I have one last question for you. One last ask, if you found this episode helpful, if you found the other episodes helpful, empowering, a game changer for your entrepreneurial journey, I have a small but meaningful way that you can actually help us keep these episodes coming to you. Are you ready for it?

Subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast. You may be asking why, why Jeffrey, why are you asking me to subscribe? Well, it's simple. I know you're busy. I know you're successful. Every second of your day counts. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, they come to you automatically. We meticulously craft every one of our episodes for impactful strategies.

Stories, expert insights, all designed to help you grow your profits, increase your enterprise value, and [00:42:00] yes, even optimize your post exit life. But there's more. When you subscribe, you're joining a community of forward thinkers, just like you, who are rewriting the rules of success and transforming their dreams into reality.

And in fact, here at Deep Wealth, we'd love to say, together, we're changing the social fabric of society. 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 shaping the business world.

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Hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. Again, your next breakthrough moment might just be an episode away. So 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 create.

Let's continue this journey together, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you so [00:43:00] 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, and God bless.