What Transfers - TMG's Pod

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Ask a leadership team whether trust is earned or granted, and almost everyone says earned. Ask how long that takes, and the answer is 12 to 18 months. Jude Olinger argues no growing business can afford to wait that long.

Alex McFarland talks with Jude, a Bloom Growth coach who works with owners through Entrepreneurs' Organization, about a word most companies use loosely. Jude's definition is simple: accountability is doing what you say you are going to do, by when you said you would do it, and it starts with the person at the top. Used as a hammer, it turns into blame. Used well, it is the thing that speeds a business up.

Alex brings a result from TMG's own Transferable Value Index: high durability, low owner independence. Jude walks through how he runs a 90-minute weekly leadership meeting. Each quarterly priority is declared on track, off track or done. Most of the hour goes to obstacles and opportunities. To-dos are sized to seven days, and good teams finish 90 percent or more of them every week. He also owns up to his own busywork: a bag of returned Christmas cards he had been carrying around since last year.

Connor Lacy joins for the second half, on being honest about capacity and shipping work that is professional good enough instead of polishing it in private. Jude closes on why weekly meetings beat biweekly ones, why accountability is learned rather than inborn, and a line from a sign in his coffee shop: ready is a myth. Start messy, start scared, start anyway.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Meet Jude Olinger

01:13 What accountability actually means

04:25 Our own TVI score: owner-dependent

06:59 Trust comes before accountability

09:43 The weekly meeting, section by section

13:36 Getting a team from to-do to done

15:50 Busy, or making progress?

18:49 What you call it changes how you act

21:17 Sixty-six pounds, one weigh-in a week

22:36 Connor joins: ship it, then improve it

25:42 Why most meetings fail

26:33 Be honest about your capacity

29:37 Ready is a myth

30:11 When fear looks like complexity

33:56 Priority is singular

36:11 Accountability starts with you

39:11 What makes a business transferable

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX

Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today,

and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.

Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com/

THE MCFARLAND GROUP

We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions.

Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that

keep key leaders in place.

themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

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#Accountability #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #ExitPlanning

A 70-year-old founder wants six times earnings for his distribution business. The buyer is offering four. Sixty percent of the revenue comes from two customers, on a handshake, with no contracts.

John Bruckner opens with the problem sitting underneath that gap. A company doing a few million to ten million of EBITDA is too small for the large investment banks and often too complex for a broker to underwrite properly, which quietly shrinks the pool of buyers who will look at it at all.

From there it gets practical. John lays out the hierarchy of capital a seller should care about: cash, rollover equity, carry back note, earnout, and why they sit in that order. He explains a carry back note in plain terms, the owner playing the bank and standing second in line behind it. He works rollover equity through with real numbers.

Byron McFarland connects it to the TVI. High owner reliance shows up in the deal structure as an obligation to stay on, which he calls prove it. And John lands on something most owners never price in. The handshake relationship that recurs year after year is the best thing you have while you run the business, and the most expensive thing you own when you sell it.

They close on timing. Byron's answer is to call when you start thinking about what comes next, well before you are ready to sell.

CHAPTERS

00:00 The gap between a broker and an investment bank

02:30 What being underserved costs you at valuation

04:07 Two things that let you defend a premium

06:31 A founder wants 6x. The buyer offers 4x

08:59 The hierarchy of capital in a seller's deal

12:10 What a carry back note actually is

13:38 Rolling equity, with the math

15:07 What your TVI score does to your deal terms

16:51 The handshake that costs you money

18:39 What due diligence unpacks

21:14 Low score, high integration risk, worse terms

22:58 Why the relationship starts five to seven years out

24:44 When should I call you

25:30 Picking an advisor who fits, not just one who is capable

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX

Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.

Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com/

THE MCFARLAND GROUP

We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions.

Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.

themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX

A business owner offered his key employees ten percent of the company. He priced it at four times earnings. The market later said eight to ten.

Byron McFarland walks through what that mistake actually costs, and why it usually starts with an owner who has never been told what his business would sell for under different conditions. Connor Lacy picks it up from the team side: what happens to key people when an owner has no answer for them and keeps kicking the can.

The back half gets specific about money. An outdated buy-sell agreement with a valuation nobody has checked. A missed 1031 exchange. A building worth two and a half million dollars sitting on a tax basis of three hundred and fifty thousand, and the six hundred thousand in tax that came with it.

Before that, the firm has news. Byron is handing the managing partner role to John Bruckner, and explains why he wanted out of the day to day. John could not make the recording, which the other three treat as an opening rather than a problem.

CHAPTERS

00:00 John is not here, so we can say nice things

01:12 Byron on stepping out of the managing partner role

02:37 What John brings to the vision

03:56 2012, and a conversation at a Creighton game

06:06 Prepared, organized, and never entrenched

08:30 Why a welcoming partner matters when you hire

09:43 A lodge on the Snake River Canyon

11:44 The welcome kit, and why it is not a bobber

13:30 A summer on the water

16:33 Can a transferable value report pay for itself

17:43 The owner who offered ten percent of the wrong number

21:02 Pathways, and keeping key people from leaving

23:23 The buy-sell agreement nobody has read

25:06 Estate plans, and a building with a $350,000 basis

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX

Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.

Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com/

THE MCFARLAND GROUP

We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions.

Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that

keep key leaders in place.

themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX

Owners often come to us wanting to reward their key people. Most of them have no written plan for their own exit, and that makes the reward plan harder to design than it needs to be.

Byron is out fishing, so Alex, John and Connor work through four questions that keep coming up in client conversations.

Why an incentive plan built without an exit plan behind it stays one dimensional, and what changes once a change of control is written into it. What an owner should look for in the firm that sells their business, and why industry experience matters less than most owners assume. Where a performance coach fits, and why a track record of hitting projections you published years earlier is worth more in a sale than any single number. And what a Transferable Value Index score looks like tracked across several years rather than taken once.

Connor lands the through-line near the middle. The math is the math. What a buyer is pricing is the people who produce those numbers, and whether they will still be there afterwards.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Byron is out fishing, so it is the three of us
00:42 Owners who want a reward plan before they have an exit plan
03:26 Why a plan with no exit behind it stays one dimensional
05:19 The story an owner can actually tell the team
06:41 What to look for in the firm that sells your business
08:46 Does industry experience matter as much as owners think
10:19 The math is the math, and the human side of M&A
12:52 Bringing coaches and advisors onto the team
15:07 Why we love hearing that an owner works with a coach
18:31 Tracking a TVI score year over year
20:06 Owner independence, durability and the multiple

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX
Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.
Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com/

THE MCFARLAND GROUP
We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions. Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.
themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

#BusinessSuccession #ExitPlanning #MergersAndAcquisitions

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Two companies engaged The McFarland Group around the same time. One has just closed a third party sale at roughly twelve times earnings, on terms it named itself. The other is still trying to agree on what it is worth.

Byron and John spend this episode on the work that separates those two outcomes, told through clients they have known for as long as twenty years.

It opens with a phone call. Joe McGill Sr. read the first edition of the TMG newsletter and rang Byron out of the blue. What he wanted to thank him for was keeping him and his son friendly through the handoff. Both strong willed, both aware it could have gone another way.

John tells the one about calling a client's CPA every Friday at nine in the morning for six months during an audit. That habit turned into an introduction, which turned into a valuation, which turned into an eleven year relationship with a business now worth more than fifty million dollars and a private foundation the owner intends to run in perpetuity.

Then the counterweight. A general contractor growing thirty to fifty percent a year for five years, with the right people finally in the right seats, stuck because its owners cannot agree on how to value the business or reward themselves. Everyone below them waits.

Byron also explains the power sweep, a term he coined about fifteen years ago and still uses. What happens to the business, its liabilities and its key people if an owner dies or becomes disabled. The whole point is settling it early, while nothing is close to triggering it.

CHAPTERS

00:00 A call after the first newsletter went out

00:23 Thank you for keeping Joey and I friendly

04:18 What changes between a father and son after a handoff

07:13 Scott Heine, and a twenty year relationship

11:29 Calling the CPA every Friday for six months

13:15 The introduction that became a fifty million dollar client

15:19 Byron at the whiteboard, and John waving him off

17:40 A private foundation meant to run in perpetuity

19:13 A dinner conversation, and a referral

24:45 The daughter, the finance tutor and the color coded book

26:56 Where John starts on transferable value

29:21 The company that cannot agree on what it is worth

33:13 The power sweep

35:05 Twelve times earnings, and naming your terms

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX

Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.

Take the assessment: https://transferablevalueindex.com/

THE MCFARLAND GROUP

We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions. Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.

https://themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.

Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX

John asks every owner the same question early on. Is this about price, is it about fit, or is it about both?

The answer changes the work. If it is only price, the buyer pool opens wider. If fit matters, the pool narrows and the underwriting changes with it.

This episode covers how that question gets answered in practice. John walks through why the firm moved into M&A advisory after years of doing the preparation work and watching someone else close the transaction. Connor explains what goes into an underwrite, and why the team behind it needs valuation, legal and tax perspectives in the same room.

There is a deal from earlier this year that started at 50/50 on price and fit and ended closer to 70/30 once a bidding war started. Fit is not a fixed position. It moves.

The episode ends with the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, and the question a community asks when its employers start changing hands.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Why we moved into M&A advisory
01:45 Doing the work, then watching someone else close
03:21 Getting independent, and getting paid for value created
05:34 What separates an advisor from a broker
06:41 The qualitative side, and the business owner whisperer
08:18 What underwriting actually involves
12:42 Price, fit, or both
15:58 Why we work with owners who value their people
17:35 A bidding war that moved the ratio
18:40 A business is not a piece of real estate
20:17 Keeping businesses, and jobs, in Omaha

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX
Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.
Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com

THE MCFARLAND GROUP
We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions. Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.
themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX

We took our own assessment and found the firm was too concentrated in how new business arrives. This episode is what happened next.

Byron, John and Connor talk through six months of building the awareness side of the business, and the uncomfortable part nobody warns you about: work at the top of the funnel is a long investment, and for a while it shows up on the P&L without showing up in revenue.

Byron's realization is the most useful thing here, and it cost nothing. The highest-impact, lowest-cost move available was calling people who already know you and have not heard from you in a while. He made two calls that morning. Both turned into conversations.

Later, a prospect who did not want to take the TVI, took it anyway, and scored within three points of their partner. The two of them are twelve years apart in age, which means two different exit timelines, which was a conversation they had never had.

Byron also explains why he became an AI convert, having never kept a clean operating system in his life.

CHAPTERS
00:00 A task assigned without touching a keyboard
01:41 Design Your Exit at the SIMA leadership forum
03:17 Three funnels, and six months of building one
04:24 Why awareness work feels unsatisfying at first
07:47 The cheapest high-impact move in the business
10:36 Going from a two to a three, not straight to a five
13:25 Onboarding clients the way you onboard employees
15:39 Pairing the value report with equity compensation design
17:51 The prospect who did not want to take the TVI
18:59 Twelve years apart, and a conversation they never had
22:58 What a weekly leadership meeting is for
25:50 We fall to our habits
26:58 Byron on becoming an AI evangelist

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX
Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.
Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex.com

THE MCFARLAND GROUP
We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions. Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.
themcfarlandgroup.com

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX

Two partners run the same consulting firm. One scored it 50 out of 100 on the Transferable Value Index. The other never took the assessment.

That gap is the subject of this episode. Byron, John and Connor work through what it means when the people who own a business together do not see it the same way, and why you cannot read one owner's score in isolation.

Byron opens with what he brought back from the Wilson 360 leadership summit, where landscape firms moving from project work to maintenance work watched their valuations climb. The case study that stayed with him is about the operations leader who would not make the change, left, and took ten technicians with him.

Two of the firm's own transactions come up later. A 90/10 split where each owner would have answered the same questions differently. And a father and son who both believed the business depended on the son.

The episode closes streamside, on the Snake River, with what fly fishing teaches about reading water you cannot see into.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to the first episode
00:40 What Byron brought back from the Wilson 360 summit
01:45 Change nobody buys into
04:32 Our own move from project work to maintenance
05:37 The hundred dollar deposit
07:18 A real TVI result, read out loud
08:25 Why two partners score the same business differently
12:23 What the gap between scores reveals
16:49 A 90/10 split, and two different chairs
18:27 When ownership is retention rather than succession
22:52 The pessimist, the optimist, and the same set of facts
23:57 Streamside: reading water you cannot see into
27:14 Teamwork and intent

THE TRANSFERABLE VALUE INDEX
Twelve questions, about four minutes. It shows you where your business sits today, and what would have to change before it could transfer to someone else.
Take the assessment: transferablevalueindex dot com

THE MCFARLAND GROUP
We help closely held business owners think clearly about ownership transitions. Selling to management, selling to an outside buyer, and designing equity plans that keep key leaders in place.

Go Boldly.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
Code: GVE2DRUBVIICGJQX