So, Monty Fonky, tell me about your vision.
Well, my vision has come about in the last couple of years and that is to help business
owners, especially small to medium sized business owners, understand that their business needs
to be a certain way and look a certain way in order for that business to ever sell if
they ever want to sell it for retirement or for some other purpose.
And the reason that became my vision is because I've got over 20 years of experience in buying
and selling businesses, but something, there's an alarming statistic and that is that 80
to 85% of businesses will never sell.
They will literally have to just turn out their lights and walk away.
And the problem is, is there's an almost inverse number of business owners who think they're
going to be able to sell their business when they need to, whether it's due to a health
problem or retirement or something else.
And they find out when they go to sell it that it actually has little to no value.
And I have had, in the last several years, I've had to have way too many conversations
and way too many bad news conversations with way too many business owners.
And so I'm on a mission to kind of share how to prepare your business properly to sell
it, even if you never plan to sell it, why you should do that, how you should do it,
and make sure that these business owners are protected when the time comes.
Marty for the people in this business strategy space, this statement is very clear.
But for our audience, what do you mean about what blind spots business owners usually have
and see how they fail to see when it comes to selling their businesses?
Let me give you an example of a call I just recently had in the last few weeks.
A woman called me and said, my husband has had a very successful plumbing business for
20 years.
He recently passed away.
And he's always told me that if something happens, I can sell the business and I'll
have plenty of money.
And we've read somewhere that a business is worth three times its revenues.
And she said, my husband's business was doing about a half a million to three quarters of
a million dollars a year.
And so I think it must be worth a million and a half to $2 million.
And I asked some questions about the business.
And it turns out the business was really just her husband in a truck going around and doing
a lot of plumbing.
He had an apprentice, but it really wasn't a business.
It was a trade, which is wonderful.
But a trade has no value because a business like that, once the owner is gone, then there's
nobody to service the business.
And so this man had worked for many years under the assumption that this business, when
he passed on or something happened, would have all this value that was going to take
care of his wife and his family.
And the reality is it had almost no value.
And that was devastating news to hear.
And so that's a very exact specific example of what I'm talking about.
Where a business owner may have a nice business that's providing a nice income and taking
care of their family.
But if they ever think that that business is going to provide for their retirement or
provide for financial needs when there is something bad happens, they need to understand
the realities of what will and won't work there.
Yeah, I want to add on to that.
Most business owners are not aware of this.
And it's a sad, sad, sad reality.
About 80, I want to see you write 80% of businesses are unsellable.
No one wants to buy your job.
And investors looking at buying a business, they're looking at processes and procedures
in place where they can replace you very easily.
Exactly.
Unreplaceable in your own business.
No one wants to buy your job and then pay you to run that business.
That's exactly right.
That doesn't make sense from an investor perspective.
That's exactly right.
Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for sharing that, Marty.
My next question for you, Marty, is what is your why?
Why do you get out of bed and then you're on this podcast now trying to get this awareness
out for people?
Yeah, so as I mentioned, I've always been an entrepreneur.
I've had businesses of my own from tiny little businesses when I was a kid, the quintessential
lawn mowing and things like that, all the way through to ventures that have done really,
really well.
But I've always also had a passion for helping other entrepreneurs.
So almost three decades ago, I started a consulting business to help entrepreneurs be successful,
through marketing strategies, et cetera.
And as I mentioned, quite some time ago, I had a business that we built up, did really
well with, and then it was acquired.
And I started to understand buying and selling of businesses.
And so when I started focusing more on acquisitions and buying and selling businesses outside
of just traditional marketing, that's when I really saw a real need.
And so my why has not changed.
In 30 years, my why has not changed.
And that is help entrepreneurs be successful in their business, whether that's they want
to keep their business and grow it.
Acquisitions can be a wonderful way to grow a business.
I often talk about a way to double your business without having to sell twice as much stuff.
And then acquisitions can also be a wonderful way to enjoy the fruits of your labors when
you sell the business.
So my why has really remained constant for almost 30 years, and that is help entrepreneurs
be successful with their business.
Marty, something you said, it's about acquisition per se.
It's a very, very sad reality when it comes to giving away part of your company to someone,
to trusting them to grow it.
A lot of, I would say most entrepreneurs can't let go.
I don't know why or what it is, or maybe it's the scarcity mindset or lack of pundits mindset.
And very few realize it in due time that, hey, I can do this by myself.
The best way for me to support my business is to give part of it to someone who can,
because I can't afford them anyway.
And the only way they'll work with me for me and help me with my vision and my business
would be me giving part of my business so it does not fail.
Or you can be the 96% according to E-Myth who failed within the first 10 years.
Or you can keep working for the rest of your life with our systems and processes and try
hard, hard, hard and get yourself a glorified job.
So I think that's a very hard point that you just mentioned.
Selling away, you need to be humble enough to recognize that in most people and entrepreneurs
which they're not.
And that's something sad to see.
It's going to be more interesting to see when the boomers are selling their businesses more
and more and see what's going to happen in that case.
So thank you for sharing.
Well, yeah.
And there's something coming called the Silver Tsunami, which is that over 10 million boomer
businesses that are owned by the boomer generation are all starting to hit the market and that
generation is really starting to retire in waves.
And it's going to be a very interesting time because a lot of boomers are wanting to retire
and sell their businesses.
And if it's not in good shape and ready to sell, there's going to be a lot of competition
for much fewer buyers.
And so they've got to make sure they're doing things right.
I'm actually working on a book that very much addresses that topic that will be released
here shortly.
It's called Boomer Sells the Business, a Step-by-Step Guide to Cashing Out and Living Large.
And I'm writing that book with a co-author.
And again, it's one purpose and that is to help business owners.
Now, in that particular case, it's targeted primarily towards baby boomers in that generation,
but any business owner will get benefit from the book that I'm about to release.
Wow.
I'm excited.
The topic and the title of the book is very catchy.
Well, thank you.
That is awesome.
Amazing.
So, Marty, my next question for you is, it's a, let's see what tricky one I can find or
something good I can find.
I think this is about something you'd love to answer.
This has two parts to it.
One of them is, why do you think leaders hide from funding their vision?
And the second part to this question is, how do leaders lean into funding their vision?
So let me know when you answer the second one so I can put up on the banner.
So why do you think, Marty, leaders hide from funding their vision?
That's a really interesting question.
I, you know, I've done over 50 podcasts and I've never had anybody ask this question.
So well done on a unique question.
From funding their vision is interesting.
So I have a very easy answer for that and that is lack of knowledge.
Most leaders and business owners don't know that there are ways to fund their vision that
can make big things happen with very, very small investments.
So let me give you an example.
Let's say that you are a, you have a business, let's say it's an auto repair shop and that
auto repair shop is doing a million dollars a year in revenue.
And you say, well, based on a million dollars a year in revenue and the profit, like I need
to grow that in order to increase my profit margins so that I can support, you know, lifestyle.
Maybe the kids are going to college, whatever.
So the normal way a business owner looks at that and says, well, okay, now I got to figure
out how to do twice as much revenue.
What does that mean?
I got to hire twice as many people.
I got to do more advertising and promotion to get more people to bring their vehicles
in.
I'm going to have to buy all this extra equipment.
I'm going to have to probably expand the building.
I mean, huge amounts of costs, right?
So to double your business, it's a massive investment.
However, if you acquire another shop and acquire another business just like yours, then you
can find one that is already in business for five, seven, 10 years.
It has consistent clientele, consistent revenue.
The risks are mitigated from it.
You can acquire that business and there are ways to do that for as little as 10% of the
investment or even 0% of the investment.
If you're in the United States, there's a great program that allows you to do an expansion
acquisition loan and you can go and buy that other million dollar shop across the street
from you, acquire that into yours, not one penny out of your own pocket.
And now you've doubled your business and you've doubled your profit and you've not put out
any of your own funds.
There are other programs outside of that that you can do that for about 10%.
So if you can have, let's say that business was going to sell for a million dollars, if
you can get a hundred thousand dollars together, you can acquire that business for a million
dollars.
And now all of a sudden you've doubled your revenues and you've doubled your profits.
Most business owners have no idea this is even possible.
They think, well, okay, I'm doing a million dollars now.
If I was going to buy a million dollar business, I'd have to have a million dollars to do that.
And that is simply not the case.
So I don't think that they hide from funding their vision as much as they're just unaware
that this is even possible.
Now there are some that hide from it and the ones that hide from it are do it from fear.
Their fear of risk.
But the reality is when you try and grow or expand a business, it's actually generally
more risky than acquiring a business because what happens when you have a business and
you try and grow it?
You got to spend more money on advertising.
Well, guess what?
Not all advertising works.
There's an old saying that half my advertising dollars are wasted.
The problem is I don't know which half.
You might take more risks to do that.
Again, you've got to hire more people.
You might have to hire more salespeople.
You're going to have to invest a lot into things that may or may not work to try and
grow your business, but they think that's less risky.
Whereas taking a risk of acquiring a business that already has all those in place, it's
actually less risky, but people are risk averse, right?
So they hide from that risk.
But the problem is, again, back to the first answer, lack of knowledge.
They're hiding from that lack of knowledge because they go with the conventional wisdom,
which isn't always right.
Well, that goes to the next part of it, Marty.
Then how do leaders lean into funding their vision?
Well, they need to explore all their options.
So if you want your business to be strong and stable and grow and become a tangible
asset that has large value when you're ready to sell it, then you need to be open-minded
about what are my options?
How can I make my business stronger?
How can I make it more profitable?
And don't be myopic about like, well, this is the way I've always done it, right?
If I had five cents for every time in the last 30 years, I've heard, well, this is the
way we've always done it.
I'd be wealthy beyond.
I'd be Bill Gates.
You have to look at other ways of doing things.
You have to think outside the box a little bit and be open to ideas that maybe you hadn't
thought about.
And again, don't be risk averse to trying new things that could be a game changer for
you.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.