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EBITDA, the podcast. Are we famous yet, James?
I think we actually crossed a big threshold,
Mike. 15 listeners? Yeah. If you take that and
make it like 650, pretty close. Wow. Moving up
in the world. Really moving. So what's going
on in your world? Busy week? Man, let me tell
you. We've had quite a few deals moving quite
quickly. We just had a team got a call on Thursday.
Did a diligence on Saturday. Report due this
Wednesday. So it's moving out there. So exciting
start to 25. Excellent. Excellent. So today we're
talking about how private equity creates value
in the first 100 days. So building on your prior
comment there about speed. Speed, obviously,
in the private equity business, very important.
Today, we're going to spend some time talking
about just how fast -paced it is, but really
just focusing on the first 100 days. What's a
private equity firm trying to do in the first
100 days of owning or investing in a new business
for their portfolio? I'm going to try and tailor
it to our audience. We're going to try and make
it so that private equity laypeople can understand
this. We're not going to tell private equity
investors how to spend their first 100 days.
We're going to hopefully shed some light for
maybe some management teams that are newly backed
or newly owned by a private equity fund or some
management team members who are looking at the
private equity industry from afar, trying to
think about how they get into that business or
that industry, which is a very exciting space
these days. Fun fact, 60 % or more of private
equity -backed businesses are going to undergo
a transformational change in their first 12 months
of ownership. We're going to spend a lot of time
talking about that today. Yeah, I think we see
it a lot, Mike, whether it's someone who's been
a cash managed group, moving to accrual base,
or just some of the folks don't make it through
the transition. It could be financial shakeups
or management shakeups, and it seemed to happen
in that first 100 days. That's an interesting
statistic. So we're really going to cover three
things today, assessing the business, and obviously,
Most private equity firms, all private equity
firms, I would hope, are going to do extensive
diligence on a business before they invest in
it. But there's still a lot to learn after the
fact, right? So when we say assess the business,
this is kind of in addition to doing due diligence,
which would have been before the investment.
So we're going to talk about assessing the business,
fixing any challenges, inefficiencies, or problems
that were identified during diligence. And then
last but not least, aligning leadership, right?
Private equity fund who invested in the business
is likely going to have some improvements or
opportunities that they've thought about independently
from management. Management may have some things
that they want to work on now that they have
a new owner. And getting everybody aligned on
the same page is obviously of critical importance
early in the deal cycle so that everybody can
be rowing the boat in the same direction as things
progress. I like the T up there. Let's just get
right into it. Does that make sense to go through
some of it? Maybe you can ask some questions
because I'm coming off of one of these pretty
recently. Maybe we'll kick it to you to ask me
some questions and then maybe I can hit it back
to you for some of the follow -ups, but let's
just jump in. Yeah, let's do it. We're going
to talk about assessing the business and setting
priorities. What does the first step look like
after the deal closes? What do those first 100
days look like, James? interesting. And we get
a chance to see this because Trivista isn't a
financial group that's doing quality of earnings,
or we don't have an accounting team that comes
in. And so really, we get to participate from
the sidelines. And I'll talk about a little bit
how it's intertwined. But really, they start
to dig in on those financials. And maybe this
is something that after I finish my section,
you could let folks know a little bit more about
how the deal goes, because I have covenants I
need to make. I have additional reporting and
visibility that's required. So I'm really going
to make sure those components are there. And
then even more being private equity backed. And
I think in a previous episode, we talked about
how deals are structured with a mix of debt versus
the equity. That cash flow component is pretty
important. In those first 100 days, the PE firm
or the sponsor is going to want to come in, work
with your business and understand what the cash
flow is, what the information. A lot of that
should be known through the diligence process.
We all know there's kind of those unique things
that are found out afterwards. And if folks don't
ask the right question, maybe you're not letting
them know all the information. I think identifying
those financial risk is important, but really
you need to start driving value. So yes, you
need to have a pulse, you need to have visibility,
but that operational side. really comes into
play. So a lot of times, if an organization or
a sponsor has engaged an outside firm, such as
Trivista, doing operational due diligence, you
essentially have a cheat sheet to say, hey, there's
the five things that I need to do after I buy
this company. I should probably start on these
components and pieces, but I just need to kind
of wait till the deal's done to start driving
that change. So on that first day, even before
the 100th day, you know, going in that management
team, some of the conversations you want to have.
Now, after a transaction, you want to be respectful,
not step on toes, give some time, build those
relationships of trust. But you have that in
your back pocket. So those could be understanding
inefficiencies in process. It could be supply
chain issues, or it could be outdated systems
that need to be worked on. But you have in mind
what those look like. And you're going to start
to talk about those gaps in that 100 -day. You
may not start to remediate, but you start to
put the plan in place, start having that steady
drumbeat with your management team, and start
planning the ideas of here's the things that
we want to change. And the last one that I think
is around the leadership and culture side, you
buy the business because it's a good business.
You don't want to buy the business and implode
the business. You like what it is. So you want
to follow some of the things, whether it's that
leadership team that's in place that you believe
in. or that culture that you think really aligns
for what your use case for that is. So you want
to start to evaluate those management team strengths
even more than you did in diligence. And you'll
see that whether it's in board meetings, in your
one -on -one calls, or as you start to have operating
partners, which are folks from the PE firm that
come in to help you run your business potentially,
or outside consultants such as us, you'll really
get to know that management team more through
their efforts and through their work. I think
one of the things that is super important, and
this is a bit to our PE friends, I know this
episode is targeted at the acquired company,
but to our PE friends, having a very specific,
succinct list of goals that you communicate to
that management team, very important in the first
100 days. Management team, very important to
ask or understand those goals and start to align
yourself to those because not only do you have
a business to run, now you have that sponsor
that you need to be able to communicate and have
that connection with. And then the last part
is... Maybe you have an influx of cash. Maybe
you have a little more time on your hands because
you got some help and some things. But what are
those gaps in people you need to fill? Quickly
escalate those because you know you've got the
financial changes to make. You know you have
operational changes you need to make. Get those
people in place. Communicate that early with
your sponsor to say, hey, I know I need someone
on FP &A. I don't have an FP &A individual. To
get a lot of the stuff done, you need, I probably
need that FP &A and start that recruiting and
get that rolling that first 100 days. But going
back to the first one around the financial side,
Mike, I mean, you sit on a lot of boards and
see this. What are some of the financial things
that you see in the first 100 days that would
make our listeners successful? Yeah, I think.
I think the first 100 days can look very different
depending on the type of business or maturity
of the business, right? A lot of private equity
firms buy what have historically been family
-owned businesses. So maybe you're talking about
a situation where a founder has owned a business
for 30, 40, 50 years, some cases longer, and
got the business to where they could take it,
and now it's ready for a next generation of ownership,
so to speak. In those situations, this could
be the very first time, that diligence process
that would have taken up the prior two to six
months before closing the deal, a lot of things
could have come up in discussion amongst the
management team members, amongst the investors
that were looking at the business, the investors
that ultimately ended up investing in the business.
And it could be, in some cases, it's the very
first time in the history of the business that
the entire business, the entire organization
went under the microscope. And it may be the
first time that some outside perspectives are
coming in, right? Whether those are the investors
themselves or consultants that they've hired.
So there just may be some rocks that have been
looked under, not necessarily that skeletons
were found in the closet, but they're just going
to have a lot of really smart people looking
at a deal pre -closed and coming up with ideas
and opportunities for improvement. And likewise,
a management team of a founder -backed business
for the very first time, is thinking about what
does the future look like without the constraints
of the prior owner? Not necessarily a bad thing,
but many family -owned businesses are managed
to produce cash flow for the shareholders. Private
equity businesses are similar, but they have
a little bit more patience to them. They're okay
not making as much cash maybe this year and reinvesting
more back into the business such that the business
can grow faster in subsequent years. You could
have that situation. You could have the opposite
of that, where you could have a very mature business
with a very strong leadership team, maybe that's
already been owned by a private equity firm.
And those two experiences are going to look a
little bit different. But generally speaking,
one thing that is constant across all those examples
is, as it relates to the financials that you
mentioned, James, is just making sure that all
the parties understand what the expectations
are for financial reporting, right? The new owners
and the new board are expecting to receive updated
financials, the format that they're expecting
to receive them in so that they can crunch their
numbers on their end and do all the fun things
that they're going to do with that information.
And obviously, the financial statements are a
reflection of the heartbeat of the organization,
right? It tells the investor group whether or
not the business is healthy, if it's performing
at or below or above expectations. And that's
where a lot of the future subsequent conversations
are going to start from. On the operational side,
you're right. A lot of folks are going to do
some type of diligence, operational diligence
on the business. They're going to have a sense
as to where they think some opportunities for
improvement exist, or maybe where some risks
are that don't necessarily have to mean material
risks, but just some risks that they would like
to mitigate. Maybe it's improving cybersecurity.
Maybe it's filling a leadership team gap that
exists. It could be any number of different things.
Beyond the financial reporting, though, one of
the things that I think is most important is
the relationships that the investors have established
with management and vice versa up until that
point can be a little bit tenuous, right? Hey,
these are new owners. If I'm the management team,
these are new owners. I don't really know who
these folks are. They kind of seem smart. I didn't
really get that much access to them, so I don't
really know if I have an opinion of them. It
could be anything like that. Likewise, the investors
are looking at the management team like, geez,
I hope this team's as good as I thought. right,
during diligence. I hope we're going to be able
to achieve what we're all setting out to do,
which is why we bought the business in the first
place. So I think sitting down and breaking bread
together is always a really good idea. I think
some of the best firms, private equity firms
that I've seen and some of the best management
teams that I've seen out there, they make it
a point in the first five to 10 days after closing,
even though everybody's kind of typically tired
from doing the deal, they make it a point to
sit down in person, break bread. get to know
each other, ask some personal questions beyond
the business. Because like it or not, you're
now kind of married to these folks for the next
five -ish years, maybe longer. So I think a lot
of the folks that do it well really appreciate
and understand the power of that relationship.
They get that financial reporting in place. And
quite frankly, CEOs, if they're not really focused
on this, or maybe they haven't had a board historically,
that first board meeting can be critical. How
you show up, how prepared you are. how thoughtful
you are, the team members maybe that you're bringing
alongside you to showcase them to your new board
of directors and kind of share with them some
highlights that the business has to share at
that particular point in time. That can go a
long way too. So I think just generally kind
of getting everybody aligned in terms of what
are the priorities for the business, aligning
the relationship so that there's the foundation
for kind of success in the future, right? This
whole thing is going to hinge on Different humans
with different personalities in different geographies,
maybe even in different languages, all kind of
cohesively working together and drumming to the
same beat to take the business forward. That's
super important. So I think assessing that, getting
those building blocks in place, and then starting
to tackle some of the opportunities that lay
before the business in a collaborative way. I
actually got to attend one of those meetings
that you talk about, kind of meeting and hanging
out and going to dinner after the sponsor. And
we went and met with the management team post
-close. We had talked about some of the different
elements of the business, but really hadn't dug
into all the elements. And we're on this year
P selection. And in our conversation, it's like,
hey, you know, we really want to kind of drive
down those closing times because we think we
need them faster than the covenant. This is the
PE firm telling the management team. And so afterwards,
I pull aside our people and I say like, hey,
what is the average closing time for getting
the books closed for this business? And his answer
was 75 days. I thought to myself, good gravy.
No wonder they have us in here doing an ERP selection
for that visibility. You're right. So that was
not only a breaking bread, but starting to preempt
some of these major rocks that they wanted to
move. Okay, let's move on to the next topic.
What you got for me? Topic number two, operational
efficiencies. You've got the team starting to
break bread together. As I alluded to a second
ago, now it's time to get down to brass tacks,
right? What are we going to do to grow the business,
make it more profitable, de -risk it? a whole
host of operational efficiencies and improvement
opportunities. So once we've assessed the business,
right, how do we prioritize what we're going
to work on next that's going to drive immediate
impact, midterm impact, long -term impact? How
do you think about prioritization? Yeah, I think
one of the things that visually comes to mind,
and we do this a lot in our diligence decks and
we're helping companies out on their journeys,
I think of the X and Y axis. And one of those
being... The value and the other one being the
effort. And so when you start to think about
how do you kind of prioritize and put these things
together, I would tell you just simply grab a
whiteboard or a sheet of paper, draw a plus sign
on an X, Y axis and put value on the bottom and
effort on the top and start to plot in and just
a conversation to understand where they are.
Because the things that are the easiest are high
value things that are low effort. So those could
be very simple things like, for example, process
automation. Today, we have our AP group, our
accounts payable team, manually creating these
envelopes, putting them in one by one and shipping
them out. Let's outsource that as a very simple
win. It's a couple bucks to do it and we get
back employee number five's time because they're
not stuffing envelopes and sending them out.
That process optimization is an easy one when
you think about that. Also, there's a lot of
repetitive tasks in a business, especially in
the mid -market with a lot of our... family owned
and family run businesses. You might have folks
that are in legacy roles that have been doing
that for a while. That's just kind of working.
And this new ownership group is a chance to take
a step back and say, how can I drive out repetitive
tasks and really get the most value out of my
team? And then another one I also see in that
kind of process size is streamlining those workflows.
So we see kind of this ping pong effect where
I have to go to one person, they come back to
me, then I go over to this person. And it's just
this kind of spaghetti chart of like confusion.
It's a chance to look at those processes and
say, hey, let's just get things moving. Let's
just move along. Let's not have a bunch of red
tape. What are those processes that we can clean
up? Sometimes you need an outside group to come
in and help you on that because folks are really
happy with what they're doing today, and other
times you don't. A big one, and we've talked
about this a couple times, is that cost control
and savings. How do I start to find ways to reduce
waste? and drive out some of that waste today.
Now, we'll find some of that naturally as you
go through and look at those processes. But as
you start that financial review that you mentioned
earlier, you're talking about kind of having
that visibility to the team and talking about
how you're going to manage, you'll see some of
those things that could be wasteful. So a big
one that we see often is I've got three groups
that have kind of come together under a sponsor.
And they're all buying their raw materials separately
instead of coming together and buying it through
one kind of group purchasing power. And so we
see those a lot of times as you start to go through
that plan, those 100 days to say, are anybody
else in the group of portfolios from X PE firm
buying these same materials? And how do we partner
them to get the best price and drive that down?
That goes back to the renegotiating of contracts
as well as part of that process. Because you
may think, I know for my world, I'm buying this
software for Microsoft at $35. This other company
is buying at $32. Let's go have a conversation
with Microsoft and we'll buy it together and
save some money there. And then I think this
is an interesting follow -up conversation we
should have, Mike, and bring a guest to, which
is around the procurement side. So how do I put
in programs in place to allow procurement? So
no longer do I just go buy from this group because
I've always bought from Grainger. I'm going to
continue to buy from Grainger. How do I put together
an RFP pack, go out and really kind of bid this
out and put those processes in place in the 100
days? You may not need to use it because you're
not going to go change a vendor in the first
100 days potentially, but you at least have that
conversation teed up and built. And I think to
build on something you said earlier, pulling
some of those conversations forward to set expectations
and putting together those building blocks. for
that time is pretty important. And then the last
one, near and dear to heart, technology and systems.
If you've done a diligence with us, we'll have
pointed out a lot of these, and I'm sure most
folks who do diligences look at the same things.
What are those ERPs they have in place? Are they
outdated? Are they not compliant? One of the
things I think that the Trivista team, we really
take a lot of pride on because we are tied back
to operations, is that business enablement. So
coming out of that diligence, am I enabling or
disabling my business based on that system? So
is it not only bits and bytes outdated? It may
have been the business outgrown the functionality
of the system. It's still a valid system that
would run, but not really helping me with what
I need. Again, going back to another thing you
said, data visibility. What are those reports
I'm looking for? What do I need? If I don't have
a common data repository, how do I get that stood
up and talk about it in 100 days? And then how
do I start to integrate and pull my tools together?
Most of the time, and I think this will be interesting
to hear from you, most of the time our clients
are buying a company to scale it. They're not
buying it to keep it where it is and sit on it.
They're buying it for something they want to
scale. So when we go in and do a diligence, we
always have this question every time we talk
about a system. Does it break at 2x, 5x, or 10x?
And that's a question of scale. How far can this
system take me in my process? Can it handle more
transactions? Can it handle more manufacturing?
Can it handle a larger organization? And so a
lot of times we have those conversations around
scale. I know, again, those are kind of my points
around process, cost, and technology. What do
you kind of think in that space of operational
cryptocurrencies? Like you mentioned, the systems
are oftentimes a big deal. If the business doesn't
have the right system in place to take it to
the next level of maturity or the next level
of growth, changing out a system could take 18
months at the short end, 36 months at the long
end. private equity firm who wants to own that
business for five years, if that is something
that they want to tackle or that management needs
to tackle, wants to tackle, that's got to be,
you got to kick that off very early in the ownership
cycle. So, you know, first 100 days, that's a
great fit there. You know, I love the classic
benefit effort analysis. You can't be a consultant
if you don't have a conversation where you introduce
that tool set. But as simple as it is, it's a
really effective tool, right? So I think what
you're going to find is that Most private equity
investors pre -closed are developing their investment
thesis and hypothesis about how that thesis is
going to come together. It's going to hinge on
things like process optimization, cost control,
cost savings opportunities, what ERP system is
going to get us where we want to get to, and
very quickly post -close, like we talked about
earlier, aligning with that management team,
sitting down with the right folks, getting the
right plan together. talking about benefit effort
and sequencing and prioritizing what's going
to move the needle. Also recognizing that not
every business is going to be perfect when a
private equity fund invests in it, and certainly
no business is ever going to be perfect when
they exit it on the back end, but trying to optimize
it as best they can is really the goal. Hey,
so Mike, maybe that leads us to our third topic
that you mentioned earlier, the alignment of
the... kind of that leadership team in the strategy
side. And maybe this is one that you could answer.
So obviously having your leadership buy -in because
you said you bought that organization to grow
it because you believe in it. You probably believe
in at least some or most of the leadership. How
do you ensure that management team is aligned
to everything we just said and ready to kick
butt, take names and execute? Like how do you
tie all this and pull it together and get it
to that management team in a thoughtful way?
Well, I think you'd be surprised that it's very...
And seldomly the private equity fund has a strategy
that they're giving to the management team and
getting the management team aligned around that
strategy, right? That's really not how it works.
Kind of a common misconception though. Most private
equity funds are buying businesses with management
teams that are in place with no intent of changing
those management teams that much. Maybe a little
bit on the margin, right? Maybe the business
has never had a proper CFO before, so they're
going to bring in a new CFO, but that's going
to be to compliment. the management team, not
to supplement the management team. Again, go
back to what I've said a couple of times on this
episode and others. Most private equity funds
are trying to invest in businesses and own them
for about four, five, six years. If you're only
going to own it for a relatively short period
of time, you can't change out the whole management
team. That'd be a lot of disruption. It would
take a long time to recruit the right people,
then to get them to work together cohesively.
That takes a little while. It's a big cultural
shift there. So most private equity funds are
backing management teams that know how to grow
these businesses and maybe just giving them more
resources or giving them more permission or giving
them more capacity to go and grow them. And I
think, you know, back to what I said earlier,
sitting down, the investors sitting down with
the management team and vice versa, very early
in the ownership cycle. And oftentimes this actually
starts happening in diligence, right? As they're
getting to know each other, the PE firms are
asking a thousand questions about them. the business.
The management team's got a thousand questions
about the private equity investors. So it's not
like this is the first time they've ever met.
But sitting down early in the ownership cycle
and validating that everybody's on the same page
when it comes to the growth strategy for the
company and the underlying investment thesis
that the investors bought the business or invested
in the business using. And then driving accountability
post -close, or I'm sorry, driving accountability
on a go -forward basis, right? Which typically
is the responsibility, quite frankly, of the
CEO, right? And that kind of goes both ways.
The CEO is in every board discussion. The CEO
is kind of tasked with understanding the thesis
of the investors and mapping that to the growth
strategy of the business, and then turning around
to his leadership team and getting them motivated
and incented and aligned around achieving those
goals. So there's just a lot of work around alignment
of stakeholders and shareholders. And then it's
about just driving accountability, which quite
frankly, you know, I've seen it done a thousand
different ways. For those folks who are familiar
with things like the Danaher business system
or the ITT leadership system, GE had one of theirs.
There are very tried and true tool sets, whether
it's X -Matrix, strategy deployment, goal deployment,
Hoshin -Conry, plan, do, check, act, OGSM. Like
there's 5 ,000 management consultant tools out
there. At the end of the day, it comes down to,
do we have the right people on the boat in the
right seats? Do they know which direction that
they're trying to point the boat? And then how
do we get them all rowing? And it can be very
simple. A simple Gantt chart with due dates and
milestones and who owns which action, that goes
a long way. So I think clearly communicating
the vision in the first 100 days is critically
important. If you are going to do some leadership
adjustments, like add a new CFO or something
like that. let's get that kicked off soon, right?
Don't wait three years to go and do that when
you're going to get ready to sell the business.
Let's do that pretty quickly so that we can have
the, yes, you're going to get the cost early,
but you're also likely going to get the benefit
and the impact early in the cycle. You're going
to gain more visibility. If it's a proper CFO
into the financials, they're going to help you
make smarter decisions faster. They're going
to close the books more quickly. Your financial
reporting is going to improve. And that's just
the example of the CFO. And then last and certainly
not least, like I said, tracking it, measuring
it. and holding people accountable to doing what
they said they were going to do. Yeah, Mike,
I think those are some great points. A couple
highlights on that. And a lot of times we hear
from consultants, about consultants, you come
in and just tell us what we already knew and
you put it in a document. And it's true. And
I love the point you made is writing it down,
documenting it, having that information there
is so critical for folks to understand what it
is and be able to be on the same page. But my
favorite point of everything that you said was...
Really, it's that management team is the one
that's accountable. Just because you have a new
sponsor, some additional cash or some folks that
are working with you and maybe additional help.
At the end of the day, ultimately, the accountability
sits with that team to continue to drive value,
drive the business, grow the business and make
those changes. So it's not a hands up, put it
in autopilot, enjoy. It's maybe a little bit
of guidance and help. So I think that's a great
point for our listeners as they listen to this.
We're not saying this is a disempowering thing.
We're saying you're empowered more and you have
more responsibility, but the ability to grow
it even faster and stronger is there because
you have that financial backing. So that's an
excellent point. Well, James, because this is
an episode about the first hundred days, right?
Not the first hundred years. Yeah. This one's
going to be a shorter episode for us because
I don't think we need to belabor it. I think
we've given people the highlights, get the people,
get the right people on the team, get them aligned
and get things moving to the extent that they're.
opportunities that you want to take advantage
of. So to wrap things up here, a little trivia,
right? Your favorite. I love it. What percent
of private equity deals involve operational improvements
as part of their value creation plan? So I love
these because we, as you've heard in other episodes,
folks, we're not the best at guessing these.
So I think we're like 0 and 20. But I'm going
to say based on my win rates. Didn't we get one
wrong twice? I think we're like. Negative one
out of 20. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. That's
a good stat. We'll have to go to producer Matt
to have that checked out. One of the things I
think is, because we do the post -close work
and we do the diligence work. So I'm going to
go on my win rate. I'm going to go 75 % because
75 % of the time we get called back to do some
sort of work. So 75 % of the time. So I'm going
to give you the answer by telling a story. I
think people in the private equity industry are
going to be very familiar with. Those less familiar,
less familiar with, right? The private equity
kind of buyout world dates back to the 80s, right?
One of the most famous ones, the RJR Nabisco
deal with KKR. A few deals in the 80s, a lot
of deals in the 90s, thousands of deals in the
2000s. 2010s, it became tens of thousands of
deals as the industry has grown. In the 80s and
90s, the answer to that question probably would
have been less than 5%, right? Private equity
investors were buying businesses with strong
cash flows. with durable business models, hoping
they could just pay down some debt and they'd
make a bunch of money when they sold it on a
few years later. We call that the financial engineering
era. As we got more into the 2000s, we started
to enter the operational improvement era. This
really kicked off 2010 to 2020 and still to this
day. These days, the vast majority of private
equity deals are going to have a very thorough
operational value creation plan. In fact, The
stats that I was able to find suggest that 85
plus percent of the time, there's going to be
a plan in place. But I would stress, James, for
the listeners who are a little bit newer to kind
of how this works, very rare do we see a private
equity fund present their plan to the management
team and just expect them to go and execute it.
That's just really not how it works. And in fact,
I've seen a lot of managers kind of disappointed
or let down is the wrong word, but maybe surprised
that... Somebody wasn't handing them a, hey,
you should go and do these 10 things. It really
is a collaborative conversation where the investors
have probably made some interesting observations,
third party, outside perspective observations
about the business. They want to conjoin that
with management's in -place strategy, maybe tweak
it on the margin and let the management team
get back to running the business and keep growing
it, which is what they're hopefully best in the
world at doing. So vast, vast majority of the
time these days, you're going to see one of these
plants. Sounds like I need to get out there and
hustle a bit more. I'm missing 10 % of the addressable
market, but that's a good tip. And I think that
taking the plan, just a final story before we
close, is I had this mentor and I was asking
for some advice on something and we were talking
about a subject. And I was like, hey, what's
something that I should do in this situation?
And the comment back was, just so you know, at
some point... The people that you're going to
get the advice from is no longer there. It's
you that's going to be giving the advice to others.
And so I think that growth opportunity and having
that plan and to that point of you can't just
always knock on that door. Sometimes you're the
one that's going to have to have the answer was
a great conversation from a mentor. Great comment
by you. And I think that's the note I'd leave
out for the management team is take these things
and look as a way to empower yourself and be
prepared for those conversations. Yep, absolutely.
All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening.
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