What does a banker actually look for before saying yes to your deal? Ben Smith, Market President at Red River Bank in Lafayette, Louisiana, pulls back the curtain on how banks evaluate business acquisitions, equipment financing, and commercial lending — and what business owners can do right now to set themselves up for growth.

Ben brings nearly 25 years of banking experience, starting in credit review and commercial lending before becoming the market president responsible for growing Red River Bank's presence across Acadiana. He breaks down the five Cs of credit, how banks think about risk mitigation, and why the most rewarding deals are often the hardest ones to get across the finish line.

Whether you're a business owner thinking about your next acquisition, an entrepreneur looking to finance equipment, or a dealmaker who wants to understand how lenders see your transaction — this conversation gives you a genuine look inside the bank.

Topics covered:

• How banks evaluate business acquisitions using the 5 Cs of credit
• The difference between bankable deals and deals that need a PE or alternative route
• Short-term vs. long-term financing — structuring debt the right way
• Equipment financing: why it's the "easiest deal" and how it actually works
• What a market president does (it's not just playing golf)
• How Red River Bank approaches risk mitigation and flexible deal structuring
• Why smaller vs. larger banks differ in lending flexibility
• The mindset of a great banker: composure, neutrality, and the duck analogy
• Real estate market outlook for Acadiana
• Growing up in the oil and gas corridor of South Louisiana

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Bubba Page watched a $50K investment grow to $200K on paper — then passed on the chance to cash out. A year later, that company went bankrupt. His position went to zero.

That one decision — and the hard-won wisdom that followed — reshaped how he approaches every deal today. He calls it the cookie jar rule: when someone passes the jar, you take a cookie.

Bubba Page is a 5x INC5000 serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and founder of Influence.vc — a venture capital syndicate on AngelList built around consumer tech and consumer product companies with high influencer growth potential. After going through Techstars, raising venture capital across multiple companies, and exiting a business in 2020 (the same week COVID shutdowns began), Bubba now reviews nearly 200 deals a month and has built a portfolio that includes four unicorn-stage companies across 25 angel investments and six funds. In this episode, he gets brutally honest about when to sell, how ego-driven angel investors quietly destroy their own wealth, why pattern recognition is the only real edge in early-stage investing, and what it actually takes to get a check from someone who sees 200 deals every month. He also shares the story behind Josh's Pickles — an investment that proves betting on the founder is always the real bet, no matter how unexpected the category.

This week, Bubba returned capital to his investors with a 46% net return in just two and a half years — and explains exactly why he took that base hit instead of waiting for the home run. His answer is more strategic — and more honest — than most VCs will ever say out loud.

🎯 What We Cover:

• Why most angel investors lose money — and the minimum deal volume required to build pattern recognition
• How a venture capital syndicate (SPV) works vs. a traditional fund — fees, carry, and structure explained
• The cookie jar rule: what happens when you don't take liquidity when it's offered
• The 1-in-20 vs. 2-in-20 fee model — what syndicates cost vs. what funds cost over a 10-year window
• How to get to the top of an active investor's deal list: warm introductions, traction, and "lines not dots"
• Why Influence.vc follows lead investors and never leads a round
• Secondary market basics: buying out early investors at a discount and when it makes sense to act
• AI's disruption of the SaaS-dominated VC world — and what smart investors are repositioning toward
• From tech exits to pickle investments: why the founder always matters more than the product
• Bubba's Father Operating System: applying entrepreneurial systems and one-on-ones to family leadership

🤝 Connect with Bubba Page: 🌐 https://influence.vc 🌐 https://thebusinessbootcamp.com 🌐 https://fatherhoodmovement.com 💼 Search "Bubba Page" on LinkedIn

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Most first-time buyers skip the QoE. Elliott Holland has spent 15 years watching that mistake blow up deals — and families. In this episode, he breaks down exactly when you need one, what it finds, and why the EBITDA number you're looking at may not be real.

Elliott Holland is the founder and CEO of Guardian Due Diligence, a Harvard MBA, former private equity professional, independent sponsor, and one of the earliest self-funded searchers in the country. Known as the "King of QoE" on social media, Elliott has reviewed 75+ deals per year across a deal range from $500K to over $100 million, specializing in quality of earnings for self-funded searchers, first-time buyers, and the private equity firms and family offices who want a deal-oriented thought partner — not just an accountant. He built Guardian after a failed self-funded search left him driving Lyft and sleeping on his mom's couch. Today he's the straight-talking due diligence authority that buyers rely on when everything is on the line.

🎯 What We Cover:

• What a quality of earnings (QoE) actually is — and why Elliott calls himself a professional BS caller
• The difference between funded search and self-funded search, and why self-funded has the highest growth potential
• Why first-time buyers are uniquely vulnerable — and personally guaranteeing everything
• The exact deal size where a QoE stops being optional ($500K–$1M)
• What QuickBooks won't show you — and how sellers manipulate EBITDA before going to market
• How bank statements, tax returns, and operating systems tell three different stories
• Sell-side QoE: why smart sellers pay Elliott before going to market
• How Elliott works as a fractional deal thought partner for PE firms and family offices
• Why Elliott chose digital marketing over hand-to-hand combat to build his business
• From Harvard MBA to Lyft driver to King of QoE — the failure that built Guardian

🤝 Connect with Elliott Holland: 🌐 https://www.guardianduediligence.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: Search "Elliott Holland" ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@GuardianDueDiligence

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

What does an investigative journalist notice that most deal makers miss? Adam Daigle of the Acadiana Advocate has spent 15 years covering business, M&A, and economic development across Louisiana — and his pattern recognition for spotting winners and losers might be sharper than most investors in the room.

In this episode of The Deal Podcast, Joshua Wilson and Jude David sit down with Adam Daigle, business journalist for the Acadiana Advocate, to explore what investigative reporting and deal making have in common. Adam shares the craft behind asking tough questions, reading people, and spotting business red flags before anyone else — skills that translate directly into the boardroom and the deal room.

From why restaurants make terrible investments to how he identified business trends others missed, Adam brings a unique outsider-insider perspective on what makes businesses — and the people behind them — succeed or fail.

Topics covered in this episode:

• What investigative journalism actually looks like in practice
• How to ask hard questions without creating adversaries
• Why "no comment" is never a safe answer
• The patterns Adam sees in businesses that fail vs. those that thrive
• Why restaurants are one of the worst investments for deal-focused buyers
• The real problem with restaurant franchise models and royalty structures
• How technology is simultaneously improving and threatening journalism
• Why the Acadiana Advocate is expanding while most papers are shrinking
• The challenge of combating misinformation and social media noise
• Why local, trusted journalism matters for business communities

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

From tennis courts in São Paulo to building one of Lafayette, Louisiana's most ambitious mixed-use hotel developments — Gus Rezende's story is one of grit, community, and hard-earned entrepreneurial wisdom.

Gus Rezende is the co-founder and managing partner of Social Entertainment, a Lafayette-based holding company with 300+ employees, 12 Tropical Smoothie Cafe locations, restaurant concepts including Central Pizza, real estate investments, and the highly anticipated Hotel Lafayette — a groundbreaking downtown development pairing an 82-room boutique hotel with the region's first downtown craft brewery, Bayou Teche Brewing.

In this episode, Gus opens up about the full arc: arriving from Brazil with no English, bootstrapping a janitorial company, surviving early failures in food and beverage, buying distressed businesses, building a portfolio that grew faster than their systems could handle — and the hard but necessary maturity of deciding to divest even the things that are working when they no longer fit the vision.

Topics covered:

• Growing up in São Paulo and earning a tennis scholarship to the U.S.
• How tennis created a career-defining network in Louisiana
• Starting his first business (a janitorial company) out of necessity
• Early failures: Tropical Smoothie and bar ownership as learning laboratories
• Building Social Entertainment as a holding company over 18 years
• Managing 300 employees and multiple business lines simultaneously
• The discipline of divesting — even good investments that don't fit the vision
• How a COVID-era phone call sparked the Hotel Lafayette deal
• Structuring a patient capital project with community-driven investors
• Why incremental wins are the only path to transformational downtown development

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

90% of family wealth is gone by the third generation — and it's not bad investments doing the damage. It's governance failures, the hard conversations nobody has, and the failure to pass down the values and stories that created the wealth in the first place. In this episode, Tim Brown breaks down what actually separates multi-generational family offices from those that quietly fade back to shirt sleeves.

In this episode of The Deal Podcast, Joshua Wilson sits down with Tim Brown — family office advisor, co-founder of Somos 22 and Fortaleza Network, and consultant to the Anschutz Corporation and Anschutz Investment Company out of Colorado — to explore the full lifecycle of a single family office. Tim maps the three stages every family office moves through: the founder's stage, where the "why" is still being defined and stakeholders identified; the midpoint stage, where governance emerges and the office begins deploying across the capital stack; and the multi-generational stage, where a full institutional team — CIO, chief legal officer, chief of staff, and trust company partner — runs an endowment-style operation built to outlast its founders.

But portfolio construction isn't where family offices fail. The hard part, Tim argues, is that third leg of the stool: governance. Who sits on the family council? How do you make in-laws feel like in-laws and not outlaws? How do you build a family bank that gives the next generation the chance to feel like first-generation wealth creators? And how do you pass down not just capital, but the values, stories, and hard-won wisdom that built it? Tim also dives into Somos 22, a global community that hosted over 1,000 unique family offices from 29 US states and 14 countries last year, and Fortaleza — an invite-only, YPO-style network built for deeper connection capital between serious family office professionals.

Read Tim's LinkedIn post referenced in this episode — a vulnerable reflection on navigating a difficult 2024, reframing fear through curiosity, and building resilience: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tim-brown-65315811_i-wrote-a-post-the-other-day-about-how-success-activity-7434942942739378176-P84u

📌 Topics Covered:

• The 3 stages of a single family office and what shifts at each level
• Why 90% of family wealth is gone by the third generation
• "Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves" — the real reasons it happens
• Core capital vs. surplus capital and how families think about allocation
• Why governance — not investing — is the hardest part of a family office
• Turning in-laws into allies: how great family governance actually works
• Why splitting a corpus among heirs quietly destroys generational wealth
• Family councils, professional management, and values transmission across generations
• Somos 22 and Fortaleza: what they are, who they're for, and how to get connected
• Adjacent leadership — Tim's philosophy on vulnerability and storytelling
• Why next-gen members silently struggle to live up to the wealth creator
• 82% of the world is employed by private families — what this means for the future

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Most business owners are leaving money on the table — not because they're running a bad business, but because they can't prove how good it is. In this episode, we break down exactly what buyers look for and how to build a business that commands top dollar.

Joshua Wilson sits down with Mark Sims, a former Chief Information Officer and Head of Strategy & M&A at Scott's Miracle-Gro ($4B company), who now helps businesses transact, transition, and transform through his consulting firm Consult MSG. Mark brings a rare generalist perspective — spanning Fortune 1000 consulting, corporate M&A, and private equity due diligence — to help middle market business owners understand how buyers really evaluate their businesses.

Mark introduces his Five C's of Value Creation framework and breaks down the most common gaps he sees in businesses preparing for a sale. From clean financials to vendor contracts to AI implementation, this episode is a practical roadmap for founders who want to maximize exit value — whether they're 18 months out or just starting to think about it.

Topics covered:

• How buyers calculate EBITDA multiples and what moves the needle from 6x to 8x
• The Five C's: Competitive Positioning, Cash Conversion Cycle, Clean Financials, Concentration Proof, and Capabilities
• Why most small businesses struggle most with clean and trusted financials
• How to identify which divisions, geographies, or products are actually profitable
• The difference between "run the business" and "manage the business" technology
• Why disorganized data elongates deals and erodes buyer interest
• How SOPs and vendor contracts expand your buyer pool
• Practical AI use cases for small and mid-size businesses
• The "parking lot report" AI technique for high-impact client prep
• Why being a generalist consultant is a competitive advantage

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

What does it look like when faith and dealmaking become the same story? Brandon Robinson — a practicing CRNA turned multi-unit Planet Fitness franchisee — shares one of the most remarkable entrepreneurial journeys you'll hear on this show.

Brandon built a portfolio of Planet Fitness locations in Louisiana from a standing start, backed by nothing but a $777,000 landlord contribution, a business partner who said yes without hesitation, and an unwavering conviction that God was guiding every step. He navigated a high-stakes franchise acquisition, a failed $1.36M coffee shop, and a make-or-break dinner in Jackson Hole, Wyoming — where a conversation about funeral wishes moved a dealmaker to tears and unlocked a life-changing exit.

This episode is part spiritual testimony, part M&A case study, and part masterclass in entrepreneurial grit. Brandon shares why he left the security of a medical career, how he found the right attorney, the right business partner, and the right buyer — and why the journey, not the closing check, is what he remembers most.

Topics covered:

• Going from CRNA to Planet Fitness franchisee with no franchise experience
• How a random parking lot encounter launched an entire business
• Getting into a billion-dollar REIT's space when you have no balance sheet
• The $777,000 Weingarten tenant improvement deal and what it meant
• Why he chose his exit partner before hearing the offer price
• The Jackson Hole dinner story — and the Paul Meyer connection
• How anesthesia trained him to lead when everything falls apart
• What it means to leave the comfort of a professional career for entrepreneurship
• Losing $1.36M in a coffee shop and what he learned
• Building a legacy, not just a net worth

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

What if most private equity firms are using AI completely wrong — and leaving massive IRR on the table because of it? Mohamad Chahine has sat in nearly every seat in the deal ecosystem: corporate engineer at Schlumberger, MBA consultant, PE deal team member, operating partner, and now PE tech founder. In this episode, he shares a rare practitioner's perspective on value creation, the trust curve, and why the PE library desperately needs more voices from people who've actually done the deals.

Mohamad is the author of Private Equity Next and is currently building Meit Trium, a platform developing what he calls "AI Value Readiness Operating Systems" — tools designed not to save analyst hours, but to maximize IRR in ways human effort alone cannot.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Mohamad's full-circle journey: engineer → consultant → PE deal teams → operating partner → PE tech founder
• Why an engineering mindset is actually an asset in private equity
• How PE firms really view consultants — and when they add vs. destroy value
• The concept of Total Value Creation and its five buckets
• EBITDA as a flywheel metric and how to trace value creation to its source
• What founders need to understand before pursuing PE capital
• The trust curve: why operating partners should be engaged before acquisition
• Why most PE tech startups are solving the wrong problem
• AI as a multiplication tool vs. an efficiency tool — and why it matters to LPs
• Mohamad's upcoming trilogy: The PE Quarterback, The PE Coach, and The PE Game Plan

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

From sugar cane fields in New Iberia, Louisiana to investing in the next frontier of space technology — Theo Williams' path to venture capital is unlike anything you've heard. If you want to understand how early-stage VC actually works, this episode is required listening.

Theo Williams is a Partner at Creations VC, a venture capital firm focused on dual-use space technology across data infrastructure, advanced energy, metals and manufacturing, and defense. Before Creations, Theo led portfolio development at Salesforce Ventures — one of the world's most prolific B2B SaaS investors with a $6B portfolio and 500+ companies including Wiz and Anthropic. He also spent time at TIAA/Nuveen managing farmland, timber, and agribusiness investments across a trillion-dollar platform. In this conversation, Theo breaks down the full arc of venture capital — from fundraising and valuation to due diligence and exit — with rare candor and hard-won perspective.

Topics covered:

• How a Louisiana upbringing shaped Theo's edge as an investor
• The VC business model explained simply — how funds raise and deploy capital
• Why early-stage valuations are art, not science
• The role of academic researchers and PhDs in VC due diligence
• How gut instinct can actually be measured and tracked over time
• What Salesforce Ventures taught Theo about spotting breakout companies
• The mindset shift required to become a GP and manage other people's capital
• Why "trust but verify" is the most important lesson from small-town to big-deal
• How VCs prepare founders for acquisition and work toward a strategic exit
• What Creations VC is investing in today: space tech, energy, defense, and more

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.