Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And I'm joined today by a great guest. We're going to have an awesome conversation. Heather Valeri, how are you? Hi, how are you, George? I'm good. I'm super excited to have this conversation because it's a topic that's actually been pretty mainstream here recently. So for people that don't know what your background is. I'm just going to give you a little intro and then we'll get into your story. But Heather's the founder and CEO of Meridian Business Advisors and an award-winning business broker, LEIT Certifications, held by less than 10% of the brokers worldwide. In fact, it's an industry where less than 10% are female. So in this industry, she's really been a trailblazer and she's really developed some great strategies. She helps entrepreneurs not only to get started to launch, but maybe grow, scale, and build their business, but also specializes in these exits. So her mission is really to empower all business leaders. And she's also driven by this idea of transforming a million lives through business ownership. So I'm really glad to have you here. And I would love for you to maybe give us a little bit about your background and journey to even get into this space, because you definitely have some experience in this area. So tell us a little bit about yourself? Yes. So I have 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship I had in my corporate days. And as an entrepreneur, I had advised Fortune 500 firms, worked with global enterprises like Lowe's Home Improvement Company, Novant, a whole bunch I could name. And but, you know, I've really enjoyed launching hundreds of startups and helping thousands of business owners unlock value and scale their businesses to prepare for high return exits. I just really have business in my DNA and I come from a long line of business owners. Yeah, we talked about that beforehand. You really do have business in your DNA. I mean, pretty much family and forget your business itself, your business startups, your family and everything was pretty entrepreneurial and business oriented, right? Yes. My great grandfather owned one of the first Cadillac dealerships in the 1920s. And I just think about how bold and brazen he had to be because people had horses and automobiles were not a common thing, you know, for somebody to own and for him to put a stake in the ground, you know, just to do that, just, it's kind of inspiring. Yeah. It's actually, that's literally the ground for grassroots. And when you say in your DNA and family, that's literally what that means. And so it's funny. Did you, so did growing up, did you feel like you were always going to be in business or was there a point where you kind of, you just all of a sudden had something happening and you saw that fire you had for business? No, I always had that fire. I loved Maddie from Moonlighting and I'm probably aging myself a little bit and started a business when I was 12. I was delivering newsletters for a property management company. And I did, I had a few other hustles, but I've always been entrepreneurial. So, and you picked maybe not one of the easiest businesses to get into or industries, I would say, because a female broker in this kind of industry, you know, it's like, how do you navigate that space? And what made you decide to go into that? Because as you said, you've had several kinds of businesses, but why business broker and growing businesses in particular? Was there a reason for that? Well, I had worked in mergers and acquisitions and also in my own consulting firm. And I had this chance serendipitous meeting with somebody and we became fast friends, but we never talked business, which looking back was kind of weird for me because I'm kind of obsessed with business 24 seven. And a year and a half later, he's like, what do you do for a profession? You seem like a very sharp business person. And this was somebody I met through Scout. So it was kind of weird. and so we went out for coffee and we talked and then he spent a year and a half trying to recruit me to come work with him at the global largest business brokerage company and eventually I was ready for a shift it was around 2012 the economy was changing I was bored yeah I was ready for something new and I was already doing corporate mergers and acquisitions and I liked this idea of doing small business brokerage because I was already doing startups. And I just was like, I felt like I was getting back to my family roots and big corporate results to the small business owner. And that just re-energized me, gave me the passion back I needed. I think that's what I find with a lot of business owners and especially individuals like yourself that have background and experience and consulting and growing businesses is it can get a little mundane. And especially if you're really good at what you do, It becomes a little kind of secondhand. You can take an organization and size it up and know what to do and pull the trigger and pull the levers. But when you get back to sort of entrepreneurial, you know, dealing with founders and owners and the challenge of even exits and brokerage, it sounds like, and I can understand where you're coming from, it sounds like that's what kind of re-energized you. And would you say, I'm curious because I have this conversation with businesses, do you thrive in solving problems or do you thrive more in the growth and opportunity side? And it might be both, but I just, I was curious about that. Say definitely solving problems and transforming businesses. I'm just a creative thinker and obviously an analyst, but I just love that. So when you work with businesses, because you've got a background in corporate mergers and acquisitions and marketing, you do a lot of marketing with your clients. What do you do with a typical business? Well, first of all, tell me what type of businesses do you feel really benefit from having a strategist or a consultant come in? Because there's just so many consultants and people that all sound like rock stars out there nowadays. it's really hard to know until you get down the road and you're like, this person has no experience at all. So you do things I know a little bit different, but where do you start with a business when they're coming and what businesses do you generally work with? Yes. So I love working with aspiring entrepreneurs. I work with veterans, people that have been laid off or have kind of aged out of the corporate world, or maybe it's a stay-at-home mom that wants to get back into the profession and wants to own our own business. Because think about with your health, you don't just grow up, never see a doctor, and then you're 50. I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go see a doctor for the first time. Or coach, you need somebody, a business strategist to check in at every point of your journey. I love when people reach out to me when they're starting, because I can save them time and money. I had somebody that reached out to me, he wanted to start his own studio. He's an Air Force vet. And I said, okay, I'll find you a space, but be patient. I'll work on these three things. And every now and then, oh, I want to get my studio, blah, blah, blah I like hold on When I knew the right space opened up I called him I said now it time I got them three months rent free I got them a free build out and helped them with marketing And, you know, that was the space to do it. You know, it's interesting because business owners, well, let's call them founders or businesses at all levels, by the way. But a lot of times you don't know what you don't know. And so you start in what I found. Most people start in the wrong spot, the wrong place. So they're going out and trying to do, you know, their website or get a location and they don't even have a strategy yet. They don't even have a business yet. So it's, it's, it's really the big bit, what you said, you know, save time and money. It's one of the reasons why, you know, in other veins, we talk about mentoring and coaching and having a mentor, whatever it is, but strategist, that's, that's a, that's a really good, it's probably a better term for what you do knowing what I know, because, you know, a coach is one thing, but, you know, a strategist is someone who's been there and kind of done it. So where do you find your biggest obstacles are, whether it's startups or with businesses in general? Because you said you're a problem solver, and I agree. I think that's, by the way, the best place to be. What do most businesses struggle with? Is it the systems? Is it their leadership? Is it a combination of all those? What do you think? Mindset. Yeah. People have to have the right mindset. I always say there's two type of people in the world. There's doers and there's dreamers. And I love dreamers, but I can tell within 30 minutes of somebody that calls me if they're a doer or dreamer. And I'll give you a quick example. I had a firefighter who had saved his money. He didn't have a lot of money, but he had just enough money to start a business and buy something. and then I had a woman a CFO with a very high net worth this great professional track record they both wanted to buy a business guess who bought the business the firefighter mindset yeah the mind yeah firefighter knew he knew how to take chances and he could believe in himself because of the way he thought I even tried changing her mind ship her mind yeah but um I just was like, when you're ready, call me, I'll be here. You know what's ironic is you're right. I think that's one of the reasons why so many young people today are doing so well is they don't have all this baggage and this I know it all and they just go do it like they don't even know better. But I think it's funny because when I talk to people about business, they always want to talk strategy and marketing and those things are all very important and the more experience you have, the better. But they don't seem to realize that it's your inner game that creates your outer results. and the challenge, and I'm curious your thoughts on this. Most people want to build something that's bigger than they've ever had. And it's a life that they want to create that it's outside their current sphere of skill. And so they don't know what they're doing and they really struggle with it because they don't technically have the mindset to be that business yet. How do you get them from where they're at to where they need to be because a mindset is so important? Right. I will do an assessment with them because I want to see who they are at their core. Are they action takers? How strong is their motivation to take action? Are they coachable? And the do or die mentality, because people that have a do or die mentality will work hard and do whatever it takes. And those are the people I want to work with. I had a multimillionaire that wanted to come work with me. And he was shocked. I turned him down and he was smooth. He was charming, handsome, bright, you know, MBA, everything else. But he came across his money the easy way. And he really just did not have respect or get the grit that a business owner takes to build a business from the ground up. And those, the type of people I want are the people that can understand the sweat, the blood and the tears, the sacrifice. Because how can I say my firm is one of the best if we can't relate to the business owner on the other side of the table? Yeah, there's so many lessons in that. I want to point this out to our listeners. Number one, you can't be afraid to turn down or even fire clients. They have to align with what you're trying to accomplish. And I think it's so important that you said that. I'm bringing it up because a lot of times people don't listen and they don't hear the meaning behind the words. You have to be able to do this. This speaks to Heather, to your mindset of being like focused on what you want. But the other thing you said, which I thought was subtle and a lot of people, my job is to point it out is that you start with an assessment. And I think so many people today, because they claim to be experts and they got all these strategies and these cool ideas they heard on TikTok, whatever it is, they start with strategies and they don't, they get down the road or they're out there trying to implement things and they don't realize there's a reason it's not working. And I don't want to go too long on this, but I want to give you an example of this. So we're doing events in Asia with Harv Ecker in personal development and with the thousands and thousands of people. And I asked him a question backstage. I said, how are all these people learning all the same strategies and yet very few of them get the results? And he said, it's because it's always the inner game that creates it, not the strategy. So when you said assessment, it speaks to your knowledge and expertise to say, look, I know if I'm going to make a difference with a business, I have to start by figuring out where they are, right? Where they're at. If you don't assess that, it's not going to, not just because you want to have the right clientele, but because it'll make a difference. How important do you think the inherent skills are? Like I'm motivated inherently versus what you can help them to build if they don't have it. Like, is, are those things like that you can help them to grow into or is it kind of an innate thing? You can teach skills, but you can't teach core beliefs, right? I can take somebody lacking confidence and help build that up. And I've done that. But you can't really teach values. You can try to explain something, why someone should believe one way. But if it's not genuine, they're going to crash and burn at some point. They can only fake it for so long. Yeah. I love that you said that. I hope you guys caught that. She said, you can teach skills. And then she said, like, I can teach confidence. People think confidence is just something you have or don't. It's not. It is a skill you can build. And guess what? When you have someone helping you that has knowledge and experience, your confidence kind of boosts automatically. So no, I agree with that a hundred percent. What do you do with, um, cause you, I know you work with, um, startups and businesses that want to scale. Let's talk about somebody that's, um, maybe they want to exit their business. Maybe they want to get a buyer for the business. And I don't know if the first step in that is actually getting in and helping their business get organized and systematized and grow and then get a buyer. And I'm just curious, from your standpoint, where do you start with someone going, I want to sell my business? And I don't mean somebody that's like, I'm going to start a business so I can sell it. Like somebody has a business that wants to grow it and sell it. Where do you go with that? I start with the assessment first George because I need to know why do they want to sell their business Are there some red flags are there legal issues is it financially motivated is it personally motivated um 30 of the clients i end up getting are either having a health struggle or they're taking care of a elderly parent or in-law that's sick um so they're those motivations and their timeline is going to be different i like that you said that yeah agile person that's i like i have engineering company he he'll slowly transition he doesn't care if it's six months a year two years down the road he's easy going you know i like that you said that because we were talking before and you made a comment i wanted to ask you about i think a lot of people get in life and in business and they think very transactional they very think like oh i want to sell my business and they don't ever stop to think okay why and what's your reason What's your point? And you take a pretty holistic approach. And I'm using your words because I want you to kind of help me to understand what that means. Because I think people think, I want to sell my business. That's a transaction. But yet they might be doing it because they're trying to create something in their life or not. Or maybe that's not even really what they want, but they say that is. So when you say you take a holistic approach to growing and businesses, even the business brokerage side, what do you mean by that? Yeah. So when I'm going to, somebody calls me up says I want to sell my business, I will meet with them and do an assessment and say, here's your checklist to prepare your business for sale. Right? Because obviously, I want to know why they want to sell, but I need to see, are they truly ready? Are they mentally ready? Is their business ready? So there's the business readiness, and then there's a personal readiness. Because sometimes people can have shock after they sell business, not necessarily with me, but, you know, I sold a logistics company and the guy was, he did it for 25 years and logistics people work around the clock, right? It's a high stress industry. Oh, I don't have a problem signing a non-compete a week before closing. Oh, I can't sign the non-compete. Mike, you've been, you've known for weeks. Yeah. Is it because he just didn't ever want to stop working? He wanted to go get into it again. He was like, I don't know what I'm going to do afterwards. I'm like, you have so many skills that are transferable to other industries. So I had to work with the lawyer and with the buyer to give him a little wiggle room if he wanted to go to corporate world and work in logistics as long as he was in a sales role. But that almost was the deal breaker. But this goes back to your assessment, right? Like, you know that a lot of people start down a road of doing whatever they want to do, and then you don't want to get to the end and find out that's not really what they wanted. They just thought it was, and now everything kind of blows up. So is that what you've learned It is the assessment part of whatever the goal is helps you to best craft the business identity and structure and goal. Yes, it helps me with deal structure. It also helps me determine what's the best buyer for this business because there's eight different options when you exit a business. I focus mostly on private sale transactions, but I will work with partner buyouts. I will also do, you know, family that want it or a business that wants to sell to an employee or even some private equity transactions. Everyone thinks, oh, I'm going to sell my business to a private equity. I'm going to become a multimillionaire. But they don't realize how grueling it is. And most of the time, their legacy is going to be lost a year and a half, two years after that transaction is done. You just said that. I'm curious why you brought that in. And so your legacy is going to be lost because I completely agree with you, by the way. What do you mean by that? Well, the stats say from different organizations that private equity groups, they're in the business to buy something and hold it a short term and then turn it over. So they're going to make their buying because, oh, I love your brand. I love your customer retention rate, all this stuff, your high profit margins. They want to commercialize it. how can we build this and make it bigger, then they're going to turn around and sell it to somebody else. And they do leverage debt. A lot of times they will leverage 50% debt to do that. Yeah. Their goal is all transactional. They're all monetary based. It's not about maintaining. Right. So one thing I didn't mention, but I probably hinted at, culture is very important when you're selling a business and the person cares about their legacy. It's not just about who will write me a check for that business, but who's going to be a culture fit. I have on a few times, I said to the seller, hey, I don't think this is a good culture fit. Some things have come to light that I'm concerned about your employees, since that was something that was one of their priorities. I said, I think we need to put a pause on this and reevaluate. You know, is this still a serious concern of yours? Let's discuss this. Maybe we need to talk to some of the other buyers. And we have done that. And actually one of them is a private equity group we walked away from and I got them another buyer in 30 days. It's funny because it does, you know, it does help to have somebody that's looking out for the best interests of all the parties, but also to help you really, I think sometimes business owners, individuals, high achievers, whatever it is, don't really know what they want. They need clarity in helping them to figure out. And if they think they know what they want, the path they think to get there isn't always the best one either. So I like that you said legacy. And it made me remember a question I was going to ask you because you're, you know, with Meridian Business Advisors, you're doing well. You've got a lot of experience. You're well connected. But you're looking to get into the podcast space as well. You're going to be launching a new podcast, Legacy Builders. What made you decide to want to do that? And I'm curious about that. well part of it was my own family I have a lot of business owners in my family but they did not do a good job protecting their legacy so I kind of had to start over because of that lack of planning which which is fine with me because it's who I made it I am because I had to work for everything I've had I had to work to put myself through college but I really just really want to see families have a legacy so they can spend more time with each other. Parents can spend more time with their children and be in charge of their destiny and be financially independent, right? Because people make bad choices or fall into addiction when they're under financial stress. Yeah. Business is not as, you know, freedom as you think it's going to be when you become a business owner, unless you structure it right. So this helps me to understand more about your mission, right? transforming a million lives through business ownership, meaning most people think of business ownership as the gateway to freedom, but it becomes a full-time job. But if done the right way, it will create, do you agree, the freedom and the family and legacy? Exactly. And that's another series I have that I haven't announced. So I just need to go away for a month and I have all these books that are going to come out. But yes, so I do have a blog post coming out called the success trap addresses that because people do get into entrepreneurship thinking that they going to have freedom right They do I delegate and I would say 50 of the owners I deal with don know how to delegate And then so I trying to coach some of them because their businesses could be more profitable if they could delegate. I had one lady who owned an ice cream business that was paying someone just to come and clean the Froyo machines. I'm like, you have staff. Yeah. Well, they forget the reason they started the business, right? You get in the business, you go down the rabbit hole and you think, okay, now I got to get sales. I got to get revenue. I want to have wins. I want to have success. And you forget the whole reason you did it is to create a life and legacy. That's why I loved your podcast name. So where do you see the industry going? Where do you see the industry going in business brokerage and things like that, or anything you want to maybe comment on related to the marketplace right now? Right. I would say it's still a great time to do business investment and acquisition. There's a lot of movement right now in the automotive and service industries, specifically in luxury services. I will always encourage someone to buy a business over starting a business. The pathway to cash flow is much quicker. And businesses are realizing that if you could own one business and say, oh, geez, I'm having a shortage of employees. I need to expand my geography. Well, call me up and I'll work them through how to acquire another business so they can double their footprint and gain employees. So there are a lot of companies that are doing that. They're looking for acquisition opportunities so they can grow. I love the acquisition to growth idea. I think a lot of people don't understand that's even a thing. They just think they have to literally grow. But acquisition to growth is really a very big deal right now, especially with the marketplace. There's a lot more opportunity in buying and acquiring businesses, and especially with baby boomers and things like that. this. Would you say, maybe you can comment to this, there are also even more than ever creative ways to acquire businesses. In other words, a lot of people might just say, it's never crossed my mind because I don't have the money to buy million dollar businesses and things like this. What would you say to them? Right. It depends on their personality profile, but franchise resales are a great opportunity to get into business ownership at a low cost of entry. Because if you look at a franchise business model versus a startup business franchise business is will still be in existence 10 years later 96 of them wow where a small business 50 of them will fail within five years from startup yeah for sure i've had people call me about restaurants and i say go buy a failing restaurant and then you'll save significantly on the build out which i hate to say but you know especially during COVID, there were people that were in so much trouble that needed to get out. 60% of businesses, of restaurants failed during COVID. Wow. Yeah. Well, and it's, it's, it's like we said early on, you know, you don't know what you don't know. And when it comes to business and scaling business and mergers, mergers and acquisitions or business brokerage, it's, it's just something that you, you really don't, an individual doesn't need to know because there are people like you that, that specialize in that. So I really love that. Well, I love the idea of connecting people with you. I think we're going to be real anxious to see what happens with your podcast and whatnot. But before we kind of get going, is there anything else? Like what other tip or strategy or anything would you like to leave the audience with specific to your business or not that would be some parting thoughts from you? Just encourage people that if they're failing or selling their business, I have five questions for them? Oh, I love it. Do I want to grow organically or through acquisition? Is my business dependent on me or could it operate without me? Have I diversified my revenue streams or am I still riding one wave? Is my financial documentation clean, clear, and different? And what would make a buyer excited to invest in my business? I like those a lot. So I'm going to ask you to go through them one more time with you. So listen, I want you guys to listen to me because you might have been on the treadmill, you might've been driving, whatever. But if you are looking to buy or sell your business, these are five core questions that you need to ask yourself. So if you have to write these down, write them down. But let's go back through those five again one more time, Heather. Do I want to grow organically or could I scale through acquisition? Is my business dependent on me or could it operate without me? That's the every business owner needs to know. Yes. um have i diversified my revenue streams or am i still riding on one wave meaning businesses that have multiple revenue streams will always sell for a higher value because you never want one customer concentration to be over 50 percent yeah um is my financial documentation clean clear indefensible. A buyer will run away if your books are not in order. And what would make a buyer excited to invest in my business? I always encourage sellers or people thinking about selling is what would a buyer think if they looked at your business? Yeah. You know, what's interesting is I was thinking through the lens on those five questions. That is literally the best questions you could have for, you know, acquisition or sale. But it's also a great foundation if you are launching a business, because if you begin with the end in mind and you're trying to find out where's my value proposition, where am I going? Is it going to be completely bent on me, which means I'm creating a full time job? Is it something where people are going to be excited to work with me and I have diversified revenue? Those are great questions for both founders and startups, launches, growing your business or exit. Wouldn't you agree? Yes. And that's why I presented them because I wanted to value to your audience. I love it. No, that's super good. Well, listen, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe the best place for people to connect with you is we'll put your website on there and links to all your socials so they can connect with you. Is there any other or what's the best way for people to connect with you? I would say on LinkedIn or my website, Meridian Business Brokers. If they reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'm happy to share a guide, five tips to selling your business. great oh that's perfect we can do that and um heather is someone that we featured in valiant ceo magazine so you can go check out that article as well she's uh very well known and we wanted to make sure that we had that so i'll put that reference link as well in the show notes but listen guys we appreciate you joining us today and i hope you've gotten some thoughts insights inspiration towards potential ideas you can do to grow your business actually your business or even maybe just take your business to the next level so if you do me a favor and share the show I would appreciate it. And like I always said, you know, I say this almost every episode, it's never too late to create the life and the business that you were meant to live. And you've got to take some action. Make sure you surround yourself with the right people. We appreciate you being here today. Hit me up on the Daily Mastermind. Let me know what you're working on and I'll talk with you soon. Have a great day. Thank you.
