Ep 364: Which Buyers Lose Deals & Which Win M&A Deals & Why with Ryan Condie

As an entrepreneur, your day looks very different than yesterday or today. And your afternoon is gonna look very different than your morning. And you have to get really good at managing that.

I have a really close friend of mine who had this amazing opportunity. They got let go, and they had this huge severance. And I'm like, dude, this is perfect. You've got this incredible skillset. Why don't you create this agency? I think if you hit it hard for three months in this agency, I'm telling them, I'm like, you will make more money doing this than you can for a job. And I still believe that, I truly believe that.

And what I found is that over the first two weeks, he didn't have the ability to manage himself. He didn't know what to do when he woke up. He didn't know what the next step was. He was too scared to maybe pick up the phone or reach out or send that email or whatever cold call to cold email to get that first client.

And he just never quite learned how to manage himself. And he fell back in and got a job, and he's got a great job as a great career, but I think he could work half as much and make two to three times more if he did it as an agency and did it on his own.

Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause, host of the Buying Online Businesses podcast. Today, I'm speaking with one of my favorite guests on the podcast episode, Ryan Condy. He's a serial entrepreneur, M&A advisor, and founder behind Let's Buy a Business. He's built, bought, and sold multiple digital businesses, including Rent Lingo. And he now helps founders, master deals, due diligence, and exits, working with Quiet Light Brokerage as an M&A advisor.

He guides buyers and sellers through evaluations, negotiations, and growth opportunities that can maximize exit value for his clients. He has so much experience in the space and so many amazing real-world experiences. Amazing guy, super fun, active guy has an amazing family, and just great strategies and insights when it comes to being an entrepreneur and a deal maker.

And in this pod, we talk about why so many people lose deals and why it's like, what's the difference between the ones that win deals, we go through multiple different examples that he has found of what buyers do to win deals and they're very creative and very smart and easy things to do that might not cost you too much more money when bidding on a deal.

And it's very, very valuable to know these things. We also talk about entrepreneurialism. We talk about the difference between working a lot and having a business for a long period of time. We talk about working in sprints. We talk about how to build the right lifestyle for yourself, which is what most of you guys are after anyway.

We talk about the ROI of experiences based on the book Die with Zero, which is something that I share, and just a great conversation. I didn't even need talking points on a gender talk with Ryan. He's just a wealth of knowledge and just comes up with great advice. You guys are going to love this as much as I did. Enjoy.

Ryan, welcome back to the show. You've been on like three or four times. I'll link to those as well in the pod. Your first one was like, it was like how and why to buy a business. It was probably four years ago or something like that.

And it was a hit, guys. So go and check it out. It's really, reallya good show. It's one of our best shows. So thank you to you, Ryan. It's really good. I knew I just didn't want to have an agenda on this call with you because we're going to end up talking about acquisitions and all that sort of stuff.

Thanks for having me, Jaryd.

Naturally, you'll have more questions around your possible acquisition that you might be doing this year, and why you want to do that. But we have just been chatting as we do, and we're talking about kids, entrepreneurialism, and how you share things with your nieces and nephews around.

You don't have to get a job. If you want to ski on a Wednesday, you could be an entrepreneur, and they're going back to their parents with all these ideas in there. Your brothers and sisters and in-laws are probably thinking this Brian guy.

Yeah, infiltrating my children's minds with entrepreneurialism. But it's so valuable. Like you, I was just on your pod, and we're talking about, like, do I like want to become a billionaire? And it's like, no, like, I love this life.

I want to be able to continue surfing, you want to be able to continue skiing for as long as you can, and while you can at your age, you can. And I asked you, have you heard of Diver Zero, which you said somebody had mentioned to you a week ago or something?

Weeks ago, someone brought that up, and I haven't read it yet, but that's like the second dark recommendation in a couple of weeks. It means it's got to be next on my list. So.

Yeah, it could be. And I think it's relevant to share why I think it's good, the book, because everybody listening here is like wanting to buy a lifestyle business. And the book, Die with Zero, talks about the ROI of your money spent when you are younger years.

So, for example, because we want to live our life to the fullest whilst we can and we're healthy and able. In the book, has this great example of skiing. Like, if you're say 21 years old and you've saved a bunch of money from working, just a regular, fun job, say at McDonald's or something like that.

And you've got like $3,000 to go on a ski trip, or you just keep saving that money. When the ROI on that dollar spent on the ski trip through experience is so much higher than what you would get if you spent it when you are 60. Because when you're 21, right, and let's just do the comparison of saving your money from that age all the way to 60 and retirement.

We're talking about the ROI of experiences in life. And to me, the most valuable things in life are experiences, but not just experiences; they're experiences with the people that you love.

And when you have the experience of going on a ski trip when you're 21, you could probably do like 30 to 40 runs a day when you're 60 for three grand. And then when you're 60, that same three grand plus like whatever inflation you get through, like the regular bank interest, you go and do that ski holiday for a week. And then per day, you could probably do what?

10 runs before your body, 15 runs before your body breaks down. The ROI on your dollar spent in terms of experiences is so much higher when you're younger. And that's why I think we need more younger entrepreneurs building these lifestyle businesses, they're just going to be happier and better humans when they have fun experiences and a lot more time on their hands, right?

Yeah, exactly, Jaryd. I would say, you know, there are these windows where you can do really fun things in certain stages, right? Like, there's the window where you can go backpacking in Europe, and it's okay to sleep in hostels, and you don't really care, and you're like living off bread and cheese, right? Well, when you get to your 30s, you don't really want to do that.

That just sucks. Like, sure, you can, but you don't want to, you know? So you have these windows where you can do these really fun things. And I just, that's what I did, but I backpacked Europe for weeks, and I had no money, and I basically ate bread and cheese when I was there when I was 21.

And I was jumping off waterfalls in Switzerland and doing all the crazy stuff. And it's like, yeah, I don't really want to be doing that when I'm 60. I'm hungry to be staying at the four or five-star hotels, you know, just kind of chill it and taking my time. Then I'll go check out the museums.

But for now, it's like, no, no, no, take those experiences now. And I do feel like those experiences can shape you and change your mindset in your life. And you see a lot of people, Jaryd, you're helping a lot of people get into entrepreneurship, change that lifestyle. I've done the same with my show and everything, but ultimately, a lot of it comes down to, they start looking around, being like, I think I want something different.

And what does that look like? And not every entrepreneur is successful. Not every acquisition is successful, but you see, you start looking around and getting a taste of, there's some freedom and flexibility, and you don't need billions of dollars to do some of those really fun things.

And I've done long, you know, six weeks in countries all over the world with my kids. And I have four kids. That's a lot of kids. I was laughing at you before about how many kids you have.

But you don't actually need crazy amounts of money to do a lot of those things, right? I have a friend who spent seven weeks in Europe with three kids, and it was not that much more expensive than spending 10 days in Europe. All your flights and stuff are already covered because you've already done it once.

I think there are all sorts of cool opportunities. And when you start to back your way into it, think the first person to do this was Tim Ferriss, right? With the four-hour work week, you figure out your ideal lifestyle and work your way backwards into that.

And you realize, wow, I don't need this massive chunk of change that I thought I needed to do some cool stuff, and start when you're young. Your knees are generally good when you're young. So live it up.

Absolutely. Like if you're a parent and youhavet kids, it's so important to be able to have the time. That's what I'm biggest about, like, you know, get yourself in a position. You can spend more time with your kids while you can before they get to like 16 and like, nah, dad, like I'm going to hang out at my mate's house, you know?

So that was my 10-year-old, and it's like, he was just born last weekend, and now he's like 10. I'm like, Oh, it was there.

Yeah, you're exactly right.

Well, I have another example as well is like, I think it might've been a year or two ago, I went back to Oz hanging out with a bunch of friends and one of my friends was like, man, I bought this property and it's just going to be a holiday property and he's got two kids and I've got the motorbikes and we're just, were talking about, you know, your son's having motorbikes and they're just going to burn around the property on the motorbikes.

And he's like, you know what? He said, I don't think the land is big enough for them. So what I need to do is work more. So they've got more space. And I said to him, how do you know? Have you ever asked them what they want? And he said, nah. said, well, why don't you ask them what they want?

Because then you will probably know. And I sense that they probably don't care about a bigger property. They probably care about you not working more. They probably care about the opposite of you being there when they're burning around the property on the motorbikes, which is less work and more time. I mean, once you get, I mean, he's done well, he's got a holiday block of land. Like most people don't have that, you know.

He's got a second place. Okay. Whatever you have, whatever the, the, number, your retirement number, that number that you need is always two X, whatever you have. Right. Well, when you get there, that's just two X's from there, right? It just constantly doubles.

So just being aware of that, thinking is critical. Cause when you think about acquisitions or just in this world of entrepreneurship, generally you can get there with some hustle and some hard work. And generally, you can get to the light.

Absolutely.

Good lifestyle compared to most people, but it's identifying what that lifestyle looks like for you. There's no right or wrong. It's what's right for you, Jaryd, right? And that might be different for someone else, of course.

Typically is, and if it's not, it probably should be different because there are so many people who go and try to build these lifestyles that like other people have that look good, and you're like, they're not happy. It's like working out.

This is my biggest thing that I've been working on for the last few years with a mentor of mine, he is like, what actually lights me up? What fulfills me? Is it these things that other people have, or is it, is it like me just learning for myself what I like and what lights me up? We could talk about this forever. And if people want, want us to, we just let them know.

I think you've been doing this for five years now.

But in the last few years, you just focused on the one thing, which is really cool. And now you're opening up and thinking, maybe it's time to buy a business. What's the motivation for that?

Yeah. So I've built, bought, and sold lots of businesses. bought eight businesses over 10 years. Um, and then I sold my first round of businesses in 2019, early 2020. And I've had some great businesses. I've had some terrible businesses, right? Nobody talks about their losses, but not all businesses are going to be successful.

Got a whole closet full of products that were like a lot of failures and a few winners in there. Right. You know, all you need is a winner or two, a few winners. And then I actually joined a quiet light. Do you, many of you, have heard of our brokerage?

We're brokers to sell internet-based companies. think e-commerce, SaaS, content. And I've been with them for about five years, which is the longest I've ever done anything. And I realized just like you, I love doing deals. I love helping buyers.

I love helping sellers. And then I had a few other random projects and stuff that I had acquired over the years, content sites and newsletter businesses. And I ended up selling those in 2014.` I guess it's been almost two years now. About a year and a half ago, I sold those mainly because I thought, you know what? I've got too many projects that are out there, Jaryd.

too many shiny objects. Let me just focus on brokering for a little bit. I'm really enjoying it. It's a lot of fun. And then look out and see what that one business is. And so, you know, as I was telling you earlier, I see hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses a year.

So sometimes you run the risk that the quality that you think is a good business is so high now, the downside of seeing a lot of businesses, but you miss out. love brokering, but it's almost like you're stacking projects on each other, almost like a consulting project. And then, you know, once that one ends and sells, you move on to the next thing.

Whereas sometimes you miss out on the building blocks of a business. So I've gotten pretty close over the last 18 months. I've looked at a few different SaaS businesses. I also have a background in sales and marketing for SaaS businesses.

So I've looked at a few SaaS things, but a lot of it is just tied to, you know, I want it to enhance my lifestyle at this point, but I do miss the actual building. It is really fun building a company, building the brick stack by stack, and you're building this house.

And sometimes you don't get to do that as much as a broker, but I love doing advising. Love brokering, and I love doing deals. I'll probably never stop doing that, but it would be nice to have something from a creative channel to focus on. That's why I like it. And I think too, the other thing we've talked about, seasons of life, my youngest is almost two and a half, right?

When I'm in the thick of it, like say a newborn, my wife's exhausted. I'm exhausted. The last thing I want to do is have a startup or just acquire a company and go through that. So I think there are also these different stages, and I've been, as I've gotten older, I've been better at recognizing what stage I am in.

And you know, right when you have a newborn, you're sort of in maintenance mode of like five, six hours of sleep. I just showed you my Red tower. Yeah, just got to survive.

What a joke.

I think I'm getting out of that stage, and that's why it's like, okay, maybe 2026 is the year. Let's, let's make another acquisition, hopefully in the SaaS space, and we'll see what that looks like.

Yeah, I'm so with you on different seasons of life. For somebody like ourselves, Ryan, is that we, like I'm quite ambitious and at times I can just do nothing and just enjoy doing nothing and having fun and experiences.

And then there are other times where I'm just like, I want a challenge, and I want to run at something and just achieve something. And I have that in me, and it's building, building, building. And I'm getting to a point where I'm like, I just need to go away and do something like big and wild.

I've been doing this for a long time as well, but yeah, it's different seasons. Those, when you build up the capacity to have that, when you go into that phase of doing that thing, it's a sprint, and you just do it for that period of time, and you get a result, and it helps, and it can help you chunk up, right?

It doesn't need to be like, sometimes people might have this perception that if you're an entrepreneur, you need to be hustling for the next 20, 30, 40 years. You can have, like in those 30 years, you could work, you could work 10 years in two-year chunks that are sprints, and then have breaks in between. And that's what gives you more wisdom as well, I would say.

Well, I think too, there's a fallacy that you're going to do the same business forever. And you're like, well, no, like a lot of times you'll do a business for a few years. Maybe you put it, you get to a point where it's got the right systems and team in place. You sell that business, whatever.

You move on to the next thing. There are different stages within your career, too, right? I think about it early on, I had, you know, before Shopify and Amazon were a thing, I was selling e-commerce, and it was like custom coded site. And then Amazon had its heyday and kind of took off from there.

And then I was, you know, I was building Amazon, FBA businesses, and then I started doing some content, and I've tried every business model out there, Jaryd, and maybe it's because, you know, the best business models, whichever one you're not doing, you know, the grass is greener on the other side. So, I think that it shows you that, like, you know, anybody listen to this, you can learn anything you want, any business model you want, and you're not going to be doing the same business forever.

And I hadn't thought about like, you have these different sprints of two or three years, and then you take some time off between two or three years' sprints.

And you're constantly changing that, and that's okay. I think if you have it as an entrepreneur, you go into this and say, Hey, I'm just going to be a constant learner. Like, think about where AI was a couple of years ago, and it was like non-existent. Now, all of a sudden, content sites have been hit because of the search and how that works, and all those other things.

So, you know, the people who were hit hardest never really adapted. But then I've seen some other content site owners where, you know, over the prior 10 years, they're doing millions of page views a month. They build out a massive email list. Right. Now.

They have other products that they might be selling in the way that it'd be digital or physical way. they, they shifted from like, Hey, I'm just a media vine ads business on content sites. And then they've shifted over. So I think if you go about this journey as a constant, I'm going to keep learning.

I'm going to keep growing. You're going to have to, because where AI is now versus where it's going to be in two years and different bottles, business models where they were two years ago are different now. You're constantly adapting and moving forward with that.

And that's not just for online businesses, that's for your main street offline businesses too. You just have to continually learn, and you just have to go in with that mindset. You know, we think about the next generation and my kids and Jaryd, one day maybe you have kids, the jobs that they'll be doing aren't even invented yet, right?

They will be like, I don't know what my kids will be doing even in 10 years, when my 10-year-old is 20, who knows what he'll be doing. So, constant learning is really important.

You're spot on. The constant learning gets even more important every year as well because the rate of change is speeding up. When you think about, like, how the world was from like the 2000s, like how fast the world moved and progress in the world moved from like 70 to 2000, then the internet hit in 2000.

And then from 2000 to where we're at now, 2026, which is close to the 30-year range, which is similar to like, die without the internet. People would not like it. And if you're not learning and adapting just in the world, let alone in business, you're cooked. Like how do you, how do you survive? So yeah.

I want to shift to deals, acquisitions, and exits. You've done so many of your own, and you've also been a part of so many exits, too, with your work. What would you say is the biggest thing you've learned through your exits, through your businesses, that you would share with either a buyer or seller about what to be prepared for?

So I think first off, as an entrepreneur, you have to be comfortable with unknowns. And I think that's actually stopping a lot of people, a lot of times. When you work a normal job, you have unknowns, but there's a lot of stability, and your unknowns are very isolated, or you don't even know about the unknowns that could exist within that business.

You're sort of hidden from that. As an entrepreneur, there is so much change all the time, and you don't have all the information all the time. So you're making decisions with 50 % of the information you need, 30 % of the information. I mean, you're like, you have to get good at making decisions without all the information, and the rate at which you make decisions has to be so fast. Right.

And I think most decisions as an entrepreneur are two-way doors. And what I mean by that, Jaryd, is you make a decision, you don't have all the information, you walk through that door, you get there, you're like, Hey, this is actually the wrong decision. I'm going to run back out this door and try the next one.

Your rate of change is very important, and you're treating these decisions as as two way doors. Obviously, there are one-way doors, and those are ones you have to really like prepare for, but most decisions we're making as entrepreneurs, try it, move on, doesn't work, go to the next one, move on, go to the next one.

The people that I see who are successful have developed that skillset and muscle to adapt at that rate of change. And they're changing so fast with their decisions. And, you know, obviously, they're giving it time to see if it'll work, but they're treating most decisions as two-way doors, and they are. And that would probably be the first thing that I see.

The other thing that I see is that, most commonly, across the board, is that as an entrepreneur, your day looks very different than yesterday or today. And your afternoon is going to look very different than your morning. And you have to get really good at managing that.

I have a really close friend of mine who had this amazing opportunity. They got let go. They have this huge severance. And I'm like, dude, this is perfect. You've got this incredible skillset. Why don't you create this agency? I think if you hit it hard for three months in this agency, I'm telling them, I'm like, you will make more money doing this than you can for a job.

And I truly believe that. And what I found is that over the first two weeks, he didn't have the ability to manage himself. He didn't know what to do when he woke up. He didn't know what the next step was. He, he was too scared to maybe pick up the phone or reach out or send that email or whatever cold call to cold email to get that first client.

And he just never quite learned how to manage himself. And he fell back in and got a, got a job, and he's got a great job as a great career, but I think he could work half as much and make two to three times more if he did it as an agency and did it on his own.

So those are probably the two main things: understanding the two-way door system because you don't have all the information. So you've got to make fast, fast decisions, and then understand how to manage yourself. And that's not a muscle that a lot of people exercise, and it's very hard to do over time, and you've got to get comfortable with that unknown.

It's, you have to, that's so good, Ryan. It's like, you kind of have to reinvent yourself and sort of change, would say even change your identity, because you're like, from employee to entrepreneur, to be able to go like this. If I'm an entrepreneur, how would an entrepreneur operate in this situation? What are the tasks that, know, what are the tasks that I would need to do? Yeah, that's great.

Well, and to kind of speak a little bit to you about that further, some things move the needle in your business,s and usually they're uncomfortable. They're sales, they're marketing, they're doing hard things, launching a new product. You know what, though, as an entrepreneur, nobody is telling you what the most important thing to do is. You've got to figure that out. And so if you don't have those true conversations, you can have an entire list of stuff that's like, you feel like you're working, but you know you're not working.

And there's no one there to tell you that. And so you might work really hard at the end of the day, end of the weekend of the month. And you're like, wow, I actually don't have any new clients. And then you're going to go out of business.

So I think that understanding that the needles that move the revenue are hard and nobody wants to do that. So you have to get yourself to manage those and do those first things. Because if you don't, guess what? You're going to be out of business. And that's uncomfortable for a lot of people. And I don't blame them. If it were easy, everybody would do it.

Absolutely. It's a massive challenge. I really trust that the people who like some of the best business, some of the best, I would say a lot of the best business owners, they're just great people because they've evolved so much in their life, and they've just changed and learned so much about themselves, about their business.

And they've just, they just cannot evolve and adapt. And it's like, that's really refreshing to be around those types of people and learn from them because they've been through so many iterations in their life, and then they're not rigid, stuck in one place. To that, Jaryd, too, because I mentioned two things.

It's like managing yourself and understanding how to make decisions really fast with two-way doors. One tactical thing I see over and over again is that I've spent the majority of my time over the last five years as a business advisor, business broker, whatever you want to call it. So I help people sell their online business. And in having done that, I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of buyers, hundreds of sellers.

I've done a lot of deals in that timeline. What is so interesting is that in looking at all these businesses, there are always some levers that can either grow this business or levers that are not working anymore. It doesn't matter whether the business is declining or going up or anything, right?

There are always levers within this business. And the idea is, you know, is it a good acquisition? You, Jaryd, as the buyer, need to understand where those levers are and which ones you fit into, right? And so the best buyers are the ones that can identify the levers within a business and say, the things that they are identifying as trash over here. I see that as gold because I know how to fix those.

So the best buyers are buying a business because they make it grow up, grow, like not waiting for something else to happen. But, you know, if I'm looking at a business and I'm like, wow, one of the, you know, bad parts of this business or the growth opportunities in this business is X, which is sales and marketing.

But if I spent years doing sales and marketing, why not learn how to do that? You know, I think one of the things to think about as a buyer is truly identifying what you do in a business that's going to move the needle. And then you have to go out there and find a business that has the opposite foundation of what you bring.

And then you are bringing to the table the stuff that's going to make it really interesting. You, Jaryd, you mentioned on one of your deals, we just did an episode for my show, and you were talking about some buyers that bought this business for about 800 grand.

And then they implemented some great systems, a great team, and automated all these things. My hunch and my gut tell me, Jaryd, that the business had a really good marketing behind it, but terrible systems and operations. So now you take a good foundation on a marketing level, pair it up with a good operations person.

And then they tripled that business in a year and a half, Jaryd, two years, like insane. That's crazy. And so I think it's identifying what you're bringing to the table. It will make your search better, right?

Cause if you're a good marketer, and you've got a business that's already got good marketing, well, what are you bringing to the table versus let me go find the business that's got pretty good systems, but sucks at marketing because that's what I'm going to bring to it, and vice versa. So, for buyers out there, it's identifying what you do to move the needle. And that's critical within your search.

Yeah, absolutely. And then that business was bought by another set of clients, right? That they built the systems of the team, and they handed off the baton to my other set of clients. I bought a business that was very highly successful on Amazon.

It's a scaler, right? And they're bringing their leverage point as well. So obviously two great buyers and also a smart exit from them at the right time as well. Thanks for that explanation. That's really good, Ryan. I want to move into where buyers and sellers fail.

Maybe first, let's talk about, like, seeing so many buyers bidding on these businesses that you're selling. What separates them? The good ones from the bad ones? What's the most common thing that a buyer will do to fail at getting an acquisition done or even be considered for the acquisition?

Good question. Maybe there are a few buckets. It's like failing in your search because you're, you know, this is sort of a fun thing to do, and you never actually pull the trigger on anything. You know who you are if that's it, right?

Hire Jaryd if that's who you are. You need some help. The next would be the people who fail at winning an offer. And I think that's probably your question where you're getting at. Let's say you've got a business that's got, you know, I like that actually. That's really attractive. Attracted businesses are going to have multiple buyers and multiple offers. That's just what happens.

Let me walk through a couple of examples. Like I had a business that had the 12, 13, I can't remember more than 10 offers on this business. It's a great business, believable. Some were SBA buyers. We've talked a little bit about that before, but like somewhere all cashed, right? And when you have four or five buyers that are all cash, it's like all of a sudden the seller has got a little bit more power, interest, and leverage, and that sort of thing.

One thing that I thought was really interesting is that all the deals look the same. All the offers look the same. But there was one guy who said, who texts me, and I had worked on another deal with him. So I sort of knew him, and he goes, Hey, I'm actually going to be flying through the seller's city. Do you think he's available for dinner? And I could take him to dinner for two hours.

I was like, well, let me send him a text. So I sent the seller a text, and I was like, obviously, I'm not going to be there. Right. So the buyer and the seller connect at a crappy restaurant right next to the airport, the seller or the buyer gets off his flight, runs over, they have a two-hour dinner, and hit it off.

They don't even talk about the business; they become friends. That buyer jumps on a flight and flies back home. And the buyer went about the right channels and did the right things there. And he won the offer, and he bought that business. And afterwards I asked him, it was like, hey man, you weren't really flying through that city.

And he goes, no, of course not. I wasn't flying through that city. I flew there specifically to meet him because I knew there were 10 offers on that business, and I knew I could differentiate myself from that. And so, I think when you are in a competitive stage, and he wasn't paying more for the business than a couple of other offers, they were all about the same, but you have to start thinking outside the box, and it might be getting on a flight and shaking someone's hand and talking about their grandkids.

It might be something like that. And there was another business that we had multiple offers on. This one also had 10 plus offers, and the buyers that ultimately won this deal listened so intently with the seller in what that seller wanted post-closed that they gave an offer that was above everybody else. They also had some skill sets that were just absolutely going to crush this business, and they're killing it now.

They're doing so well. And so that was also like, they could afford to pay more than others. So, like what you value the business at isn't the same as Jaryd or isn't the same as me, because you and I are, we're all bringing different skillsets. So we're going to value the business differently. But what was interesting with that is they, they heard what that seller wanted.

And they actually carved out in part of the deal as a, even a rollover of equity, but here you actually get a little bit of equity in the new company, and you don't have to do anything. And that was really important to the seller and all the other buyers, like, I don't want to do that. I want to do that.

Well, the seller didn't want to work in the new company until the seller, he got a little bit of equity in that new company. And then all of a sudden, he's like, well, I actually kind of want to help them. You know, I actually want to be involved. And that was exactly what the buyers wanted.

So I think you have to start thinking outside the box when you get to a competitive offer. And it's not just going to be about price. Just gave you two examples where I guess the equity in the new co was a little bit about price, but it doesn't necessarily need to be, but you've got to do something different on those competitive deals to do, you know, stand out. I don't know if that's helpful. I tried to give two concrete examples.

There are three, really, well, two examples, but three big lessons in that is like one, the relationship. The better, like I always say, and I just was on your pod just before, was just like, look, the relationships are what make the deal. And the better your relationships are, sometimes it can be more valuable than the deal.

And you think about this person who has carved out a bit of equity rollover for them. They didn't have to pay for it; it was no skin off their nose. And they do that, which builds the relationship even better. And that relationship ends up being even more valuable because they want to help them just generally because you've given, and then they kind of probably feel inclined to give back, and they didn't have to, but so yeah, there's the relationship, there's creativity, and then you don't need to compete on price.

And also like going above just being doing a little bit extra than what other offers are doing, like going and flying to the city is like, what it's costing maybe a couple hundred bucks, couple hours of your time blocks at a $50 dinner or whatever it They would do a crappy restaurant next to the airport, like just based on time.

And they were both cool with that. Anyway, yeah, you're exactly right. $350, 400 won him a really amazing business. The difference was $400 between him winning and building the rapport and him losing that deal.

Yeah, and aside from the money, it's more like if you just take the money out, and the seller might be like, yeah, well, it was 500 bucks, 400 bucks. It's more like, okay, this person is going to go to the effort to get this business. Imagine what they're going to do when they own.

Oh, that's true. I hadn't thought about that. Like, even when you say that, I'm like, oh, wow, like that probably was really impactful for the seller knowing that they're like sellers do care where their business is going, for when they see someone who's like willing to go way out of their way and take them out to dinner and like get to know them better. They know that business is going to be putting good hands. I hadn't thought about it.

That's cool. I'm so glad we're having this conversation as well because this is like a lot of content out there on acquisitions now and buying businesses for like hardly any money, and you know, trying to get the best deal possible, guys.

Like this is what I have to train my buyers that I'm like, look, you can come in and think you're going to buy this, the best business ever,r for like hardly any money and the shitty terms for sellers. Like, don't want to work with you. Like, I don't want, like, it's just, you're going to be frustrated. The seller's going to be frustrated. I'm just wasting my time.

Like you need to meet the market and you need to be professional and pay what something is actually worth based on what the market says it's worth, and be the person to grow from there for anybody watching on YouTube, so one of my friends is the top business broker in America. He closes more deals than anybody in America.

And he actually had this post I wanted to highlight. I'll send this to you. But sometimes what he says is that the picture is actually of tennis balls in their package. And when you try to fit too much into a deal, you actually have to just chop up all the tennis balls, and you can actually fit like 10 tennis balls if you cut them in half and fold them so they flip ball into each other. But that doesn't actually mean you get more out of the deal.

Just means you can't use the tennis balls. And I thought that was actually really interesting. You can fit three in if they're just normal tennis balls that you can use and then air in them, or if you cut them in half and you try to fit everything into a deal, you're going to get screwed, and you're screwing someone else over. And then the business is going to suffer.

And it just doesn't work, literally. just don't. Tennis balls don't work.

You're just, something is going to fall apart either before, which is probably better for you. Or if it falls apart after that's even worse, right? So you don't want it to happen. So there are some things you just, you can't fit everything into a deal. And when you try to do that, it's just not going to work.

You know, you try to take everything, all the value off the table. It doesn't; it's not a good way to do deals. And you hear, it makes for a good Hollywood story, great movies, but that's not how real life works.

Absolutely. Have you got any other examples of buyers you were like, actually, that was a pretty creative way that you won the deal where no, you've given us the dinner example, you've given us the equity rollover example, is there any others that or and it doesn't need to be another super creative one, it may be something that is like just average where you're like, these these average offers don't get accepted. And here's why they don't get.

Yeah, let me give you, I just pulled up some deals, just to give some example, or just give me my mind thinking, one of the deals I closed last year, the seller went with a buyer who was 10 % lower than the highest offer.

Okay, so it's getting good, right? Why would they do that? The buyer had a lot of experience in M&A, had bought a lot of businesses, and had experience in that business model niche. The buyer was very clearly head and shoulders, just a very buttoned-up, this already.

Person and buttoned up to do like they were very serious, and you could tell that they were going to do this acquisition. And the seller said, I've done this before. This is not my first sale. I don't want to pick someone who's going to not go through with this sale in one to three months.

I just want to pick the guy that I know is going to be able to do the due diligence in three weeks and close. And I said, that is an experienced seller. And so we went with the buyer who was literally 10%. That could be a really big number. And guess what?

They closed in three weeks, just like he said, closed in three weeks. So I think, was that an Icelandic?

On a four-million-dollar deal, that's okay, less in the pocket.

Huge amount, right? But the certainty to close, and if you can demonstrate your ability as a buyer, that the certainty to close with you is 100 % or very high. Obviously, bearing due diligence and if something happens or breaks, that was worth a lot of money to the seller to be done in three weeks versus three months and having that unknown of it not going through.

So that was one that I thought was pretty interesting. Yeah, that was a creative one. thought, let me just look through and see if anything else pops out at me.

That's a, whilst you have a look, I'm just to share, you've got people that are coming out with like trying to put a minimal amount of money in the deal using SBA finance. Like, it's just, and I share this on the backend behind closed doors with my clients that want to buy with SBA.

It's like, we can do this, but there's going to be challenges because there's a lot of other people who want to buy with SBA and can get SBA. And so we need to be able to pay a little bit more or meet the market and make sure that we are going to pay a little bit more like we talked about before, what are the levers that we can pull to be able to make sure we make that money back with ease to make it worth paying a little bit more and outbid and be more.

I've seen so many deals, distressed, growing, fast grow, whatever you want to call it. The ability to find either the right fit for you at the right price is so much more important than getting a random business at a great price. Because a random business, it could be a terrible business for you, and I don't care if you paid very little for it.

You might lose a lot of time and effort in life, and even lose more money on that deal. So I would say what's more important is when you find that right business, your ability to go after that is second to none, and close that deal.

I'll give you an example. Like I remember this deal. Seven years ago, I looked at this business. I was still buying companies. It was 2.1 million, and it was one of the best businesses I saw that whole year. It was incredible. It was awesome. I wasn't brokering at the time. I hit up the broker, you know, and I was like, wow. There are like eight offers on this business. I just moved on.

I moved on, Jaryd. was like, how don't you want to deal with that? Right. And actually, afterwards, I like hit up the broker is like two months later, I hit up the broker, and I was like, Hey, whatever happened with that business. And he goes, we had eight offers or 10 offers, whatever huge amount of offers.

And I was like, well, who won it? And he was like, well, all the offers came in asking price, and one guy bid a hundred thousand dollars more. He's like, I'll pay you an extra hundred thousand. And that's a lot of money. I'm not saying it's not right. A hundred thousand dollars, a lot of money.

But for a $2.1 million business, those are generally kicking off 600, 700 grand a year, right? So you start doing 700 grand a year. can't do math very well. So let me do it real quick. It's $58,000 a month. So yeah.

Two months of earnings won him that deal. And that business was, I don't even know where it is today. He's probably crushed it. He's done really well. Sometimes it is worth paying more for the deal. And you think about it, two months of earnings on him, the deal.

Right. And you can't always have that mindset, but when that one comes around, I still think about that. This was, I guess, it's eight years ago. This was, yeah. Eight years now, 2017. So I know nine, I can't even do math. This is nine years ago. And I still remember that deal, Jaryd, that got away. And I thought to myself, wow, it got away for two mmonths'earnings.

Yeah, that's correct. So when you find that right business, don't be shy about it. Like that's when you lean into it and go all in and say, no, this is the right business. And you don't know if that's it until you've done a lot of reps and you've seen a lot of businesses. Every business, right?

When you start, it looks amazing. And then you realize, okay, these all have holes in them. You know, there's hair in every single deal, but after, you know, 50 deals, 70 deals, a hundred deals, you start to get into patterns. And when you find that one, you've got to move, you've got to move on it, and don't let a month or two of earnings get in the way.

Yeah, you just got to lean, especially when you, it's such a good example because there are so many more reasons in this deal why to put a little bit more in. And another one is that say you've been looking for a year, say you've been looking for a business for two years.

Do you want to go back to what you found, a really good one? Do you want to go back to the search phase again for possibly another six months, a year, maybe more? Like, why not? because that's opportunity costs there.

Yeah, exactly. You're nailing it. Your opportunity cost is that I lost out on that perfect business. I thought it was unbelievable. And then, you know, I'm like, oh, like the next day I'm back at it. I'm back on the marketplace.

It's talking to brokers, and I'm like, whoa, like think about that. That's an opportunity cost, and you might be at it for another six to 12 months or 24 months.

Yeah. Money you have sitting in your account could be devalued based on inflation versus having invested. We could go down so many routes on why, when you find something that is valuable to you, pay for it.

Yeah. And you'll know, it'll hit you, and you'll know very quickly. You're like, okay, this is the right business for me. Once you put in the reps and you've seen those, but you've got to do the work upfront to know if this is the right deal for you. If you don't do the reps upfront, then you just don't know. And so the best deal on the planet could actually hit you in the face,e and you wouldn't know.

Sure. For sure. Yeah, you've got to know, and you've got to have an advisor who can sort of identify that as well. Like, don't be doing this to yourself, guys, not to promote my stuff, but you can go use somebody else, but as long as you have somebody helping you and holding your hand along the way.

Yeah, I just saw a friend of mine. He's more of a friend now. He wasn't really at the time, but he bought a business about a year ago. And he actually came to me for some marketing help. And he bought this business.

It's been struggling. He structured the inventory in the poorest way I've ever seen inventory structured in my entire life. And I just feel bad because I'm like, there's no way you should have done that. And I would have told you in the first three seconds, you can't do that. You're going to set yourself up for failure.

That alone would have saved him seven figures, just like two minute call. And so there is a level of you can get yourself depending upon the size, you can get yourself into trouble really quickly. He's been very successful. He's done well. So I don't think this is like, you know, like going to sink him or anything, but in a two-minute call, you would have told him the same thing I would have.

And anybody who had any deal experience would have told him the same thing, and it would have saved him, you know, per your per hour on five of five minute call, you would have, you know, but whatever that is, but it's a lot, right? You're talking 12.

10 times five, you know, a million dollars in savings. Like you're talking about, like a $10 million savings per hour, you know? So, I like it's crazy to see some of these things that you see.

Yeah, Brian. Thanks so much for coming on, really appreciate you as always. We'll have you on again. Let's not make it as long as last time, but where can we send people to find out more about you?

Awesome. I'm at ryancondy.com. Let's buy a business.com. can find my show, me up if you have any questions. Always happy to be a sounding board,d and thank you, Jaryd, for having me on. Love what you do.

Yeah, likewise. Thanks, Ryan.