Intentional Growth

Do you want to be armed with the best negotiation practices and strategies before bringing your company to market? Today we’re going to be talking to Chris Voss, FBI veteran, CEO of the Black Swan Group, and author of Never Split the Difference, which was named one of the seven best books on negotiation. You’re going to learn how to get the best deal for yourself from one of the best negotiators on the planet. We’re going to talk about practical tactics you can use to level-up the playing field and put yourself in control throughout the exit process.

Today we’re talking about emotional intelligence as it pertains to word choice at the negotiation table. Seems simple, right? Well, if you think you have it mastered, you’re dead wrong. Without even meaning to, we can incite emotions by our poor word choice (after all, what was your first reaction when I told you that you were flat-out wrong? I’m guessing you didn’t smile and agree with me). Knowing that, what can we do about it?

Enter Chris Voss, ex-FBI kidnapping and hostage negotiator who now uses his skills in the business field. He gives the rundown on some crucial preparations you can make before entering the ring with your potential buyer (or seller!) so you can avoid these costly mistakes.

We calibrate everything. We set our thermostats, GPS and music levels ‘just so’. So why are we less careful with our words? To top it off, we are told our whole lives that what we say matters — perhaps you’ve been told that your words hurt after a particularly strong-worded argument. Despite this excellent advice, we still try to dominate negotiations as if having the biggest vocabulary or the best numbers are enough to secure the deal.

Chris Voss says no. In fact, you run the risk of doing the opposite if you’re not careful. Let’s say you’ve got a buyer sitting across from you who says that they can’t do something because of X, Y or Z reason and you say the innocuous words, “I understand” in an attempt to bring the conversation around and work through this barrier. You’ve just shot yourself in the foot, effectively, because now your adversary is on alert because you’ve just reinforced their negative feelings rather than simply acknowledged them and let them pass.

This leads us to the next point…

An Entrepreneur’s Journey to a Sale

Have you ever wondered what the entrepreneurship journey looks like? There are a lot of components! Today we’re going to be talking to Kelly Caldwell. Kelly is a successful entrepreneur who started with a wildlife science degree and working in a zoo and ended up growing her business to $25 million in revenue and then sold it to a public company. She’s got a great story, and you won’t want to miss it!

The entrepreneurial process is different for each of us, this is true. However, there are some core similarities all entrepreneurs share: we start with a passion to do or fix something, discover a niche for it and then exploit that opportunity in the best way possible.

Meet Kelly Caldwell, co-founder of AK Environmental, who saw the opportunity to delve into the niche market of environmental assessments (predominantly for the energy industry), and who managed to have a successful exit from her company 12 years later. So how did she do it?

As with all great entrepreneurs, Kelly recognized her limitations. She entered into a partnership with her friend Amy who had strengths in the areas Kelly did not — Amy did sales and client retention, all the business-building stuff, and Kelly tackled the financial side. Each was incredibly happy with this setup since it played to their natural talents and interests and kept them working together.

To top that off, they had excellent communication. Throughout their entire business relationship, they kept the communication lines open for everything from run-of-the-mill business issues to more complex conversations about future development and exit planning. Amy, for example, was ready for retirement after the ten year mark; Kelly was ready to exit the company, but unsure if she would continue working after or not. The two of them had open and honest conversations about the situation and came to the mutual decision of selling their company — provided they could find the right buyer.<

Have you ever heard about the statistics surrounding transferring a family business? There’s the daunting 30-13-3 rule, which means that 30 percent of companies successfully pass to the second generation of a family, 10 percent to the third, and 3 percent to the fourth. Today we’re going to talk about how family businesses have better longevity than other types of businesses

Our guests today are Carrie Hall, who leads the Ernst & Young Family Business Center, and James Bly, who had a family business consulting firm (Family Enterprise Business Services) that he sold to Ernst & Young. They have some insight to share on how you can raise your chances of success as you transfer your family business to the next generation

Your business was hand-crafted and designed by you. You put your heart and soul (maybe even your blood, sweat and tears!) into building your empire — and now you’re starting to think about passing your business onto the next generation. Or are you? Well, according to our two podcast guests today — Carrie Hall and James Bly — who are well-versed in the area of family business and succession planning, you need to be doing this as early as possible if you want your business to survive the transition and become a multi-generational business.

The ‘survival rate’ of a business transition is roughly 30% from the first generation to the second, 13% from the second to the third, and 3% from the third to the fourth. While this might seem dismal, and you’ve probably had it explained to you in a negative way, this is actually pretty striking. Multigenerational businesses are strong and have a higher survival rate than non-family businesses. Who knew?

To put this into perspective, the average lifespan of a company today is 15 years compared with 50 years in 1920. So if you have a family business that has transitioned from your parents to yourself, you have already blown this statistic out of the water. If you want to challenge the Japanese (who have 20,000 businesses that are more than 100 years old!), you need to get started on your succession planning. In the US, the biggest piece of the upper middle-market corporate pie (80% of it, actually) is going to multigenerational businesses. So why don’t more busi

Have you ever wondered how you can avoid paying taxes when you sell your business? Today we are going to be talking to Brian Forcier, whose years of experience at Titanium Partners and also as a real estate investor have taught him how to defer taxes and make selling your business possible. He does a great job explaining the 1031 exchange. Will it fit into your exit plan? Find out by listening!

You know you’re going to pay some taxes when you leave your business. But do you realize how much you might be on the line for? Brian Forcier discusses tax strategy on how to avoid paying taxes that could keep you from achieving your post-sale financial goals.

You buy a thing, it depreciates over time. We know. But now that you’ve depreciated out, you’re going to pay tax on the full amount—unless you know how to defer your taxes. Financial advisors will likely suggest you massage your EBITDA or perform another fantastically clever workaround. But sometimes the philosophy of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) is best.

Let’s avoid those capital gains and consider another form of deferment: purchasing a like-kind property which you can operate as a business, if you wish, or which runs itself.

What is a 1031 exchange? As defined under Section 1031 of the United States Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 1031), a taxpayer may defer recognition of capital gains and related Federal income tax liability on the exchange of certain types of property.

While your financial advisor might not like the idea of you settling into another piece of property when you sell your business, it might be the perfect revenue and tax deferment solution for you. Doing a 1031 exchange is an underrated tax solution for your exit—whether you’re heading into retirement, or you want something ‘for now’ to offset the taxes you would otherwise pay.

As Brian says, a 1031 exchange is kind of like playing Monopoly where you trade four houses for the hotel, but the beauty is you don’t have to give two of your houses back to the IRS when you buy the hotel.

Have you ever wondered if you’d regret selling your company once the deal is done? Bobby Martin, who sold his company for 26 million dollars, shares with us his exit journey and what he wishes he’d have done differently. Today, he’s an angel investor at eight companies, a business owner, and an author. If you want a peek at what it’s like to be on the other side of an acquisition and merger, you won’t want to miss today’s episode.

Being an entrepreneur is a highly emotional process. Not only does it require an emotional investment when you first come up with your business concept, but you also need to maintain your passion to drive the value of the business. So what happens when you eventually sell? This podcast with Bobby Martin covers the question of ‘what happens next’ and what you can do to build a valuable business (to someone other than yourself).

Bobby worked as a calling officer for a bank and discovered very quickly just how inefficient their processes were. He recognized that if marketers and sales people, particularly, had access to better quality (and more targeted) information, they could do their jobs more effectively. However, this discovery and his offer to do the market research to provide this information were rejected by the bank.

While that wasn’t ideal, it also pushed him to start his own business. Entrepreneurs often start their businesses due to an unfulfilled need—if they can’t get it from the market, they build a business from which they can. So Bobby started a company called First Research which followed his passion for knowledge and satisfied the market niche he had uncovered.

Finding markets can mean creating your own. Bobby now had a business with which he could do research on other companies and industries and sell to those