Bill D’Alessandro (@BillDA) is joined by Reg Zeller (@RegZeller) to discuss his journey from the corporate world into entrepreneurship, where he shares early experiences as a SMB owner, how a seller bailed out on him after a week on the job for the Bahamas, early wins & losses, his take on SMB ownership, and more.

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Show Notes:

(0:49) Intro
(2:58) Previous deals
(3:18) What kind of funding do you used?
(5:04) Story nr. 1: Second generation SMB Foundry
(7:27) Seller wanted to close early, cash wasn't there yet
(9:45) Seller bailed out to the Bahamas, 1 week into the job
(10:44) Communicating to the customers the ownership change
(13:07) No experience, 4 days of training... Early wins & losses?
(14:37) How to freak your customers out
(15:10) 38,000 reasons to do proper maintenance
(16:39) King of the hill CEO status requires hard work
(19:55) Cloudbookkeeping.com
(21:03) Due diligence has to be done on assets as well
(22:18) Story nr. 2: Getting burned by a deshonest deal
(24:55) Pre LOI trust everything, Post LOI and due dilligence trust nothing
(26:01) Don't buy against your gut!
(28:10) Learn from screw ups
(30:48) Handling customer concentration
(33:28) The importance of customer relationship management
(34:46) 10xing the profits takes an obscene amount of work and industry know-how
(39:09) HR side stories
(45:28) Reg's credentials, check the description to find him on Twitter!
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Links:

* Twitter @regzeller / canekast.com

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• Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
• Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!
• Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.

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