How to sell your company for $20 Million

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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hello, this is Robert Smigel coming to today with Canada's podcast where we
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: talk to the entrepreneurs who are making it happen here in British Columbia.
[00:14] SPEAKER_00: Our guest today is Scott Duke.
[00:16] SPEAKER_00: Having started 11 companies to date, Scott is a lifetime entrepreneur.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: Most recently, Scott founded Open Road, an M&A advisory firm based out of
[00:29] SPEAKER_00: the business owners across North America to sell or purchase companies within
[00:35] SPEAKER_00: a two million revenue range.
[00:39] SPEAKER_00: Well, Scott, welcome to Canada's podcast and thank for taking the time today to be here for all our listeners.
[00:45] SPEAKER_01: Robert, I'm really happy to be here and I'm happy I was invited.
[00:48] SPEAKER_01: It's nice to have this chat.
[00:51] SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
[00:52] SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get started here.
[00:54] SPEAKER_00: Okay, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
[00:56] SPEAKER_00: If you started 11 companies, that's pretty good considering you look so young.
[01:00] SPEAKER_00: Give us the details on your current business.
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: Yes.
[01:03] SPEAKER_01: Well, do you want me to give you a time in a background?
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to build up the current business.
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: You should be like 70 years old or something like that.
[01:11] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: I mean, the current business is all here because the previous ones, right?
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you see, I have 11 companies, which is true, but there are a lot of
[01:24] Speaker UNKNOWN: things that are not going to be available.
[01:24] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm this massive entrepreneur that's done these huge things.
[01:27] SPEAKER_01: It's not totally the case.
[01:29] SPEAKER_01: Like some of the companies I've had and I think it puts things in context or people that are listening.
[01:33] SPEAKER_01: I've had a hot dog cart.
[01:35] SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm the kind of guy that had a painting company when you use it.
[01:38] Speaker UNKNOWN: 
[01:38] SPEAKER_01: Right?
[01:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[01:39] SPEAKER_01: So these nice small enterprises, which by the way, represents 95% of the businesses that are in Canada.
[01:44] SPEAKER_01: So that's the vast majority of companies that are small.
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: And so I've run a fair few of those.
[01:49] SPEAKER_01: And then I did run bigger stuff, right?
[01:52] SPEAKER_01: Then we did build a property management company and build that to scale and sell it to a private equity firm,
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: which kind of was how I got into this space a little bit was through the property management real estate side of things.
[02:04] SPEAKER_01: And that's what I do now is help people when they're on the cusp of, you know, they have businesses that are doing around a million, maybe $2 million in revenue.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: And they're looking to exit out of that company.
[02:14] SPEAKER_01: We guide them down that path and show them what they need to do to sell to a strategic partner.
[02:18] SPEAKER_00: It must be a lot of psychological work to be done.
[02:23] SPEAKER_00: And someone starts the company, they built it and it's time to say goodbye.
[02:27] SPEAKER_00: Is there a lot of, gee, I don't know if I want to do this?
[02:31] SPEAKER_01: Well, it's at the stats are actually pretty poor in that regard, like talking to the psychological side because three to four owners that sell end up regretting it after selling.
[02:41] SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason is that, and I mean, your audience knows as entrepreneurs, like these are our partners.
[02:47] SPEAKER_01: And they're our babies and it's our identity.
[02:49] SPEAKER_01: One of the companies that I had for a while, we grew into the largest Wakeburn facility in North America.
[02:54] SPEAKER_01: And it was at the time that was through my 20s and my early 30s.
[02:57] SPEAKER_01: And it, it was me, it's who I was.
[03:00] SPEAKER_01: Like I was the brand. I was everything in that company.
[03:02] SPEAKER_01: You know, people thought of that company was called base camp when they thought of it.
[03:05] SPEAKER_01: They thought of me.
[03:06] SPEAKER_01: And that is very much the kings with a lot of entrepreneurs in their business.
[03:09] SPEAKER_01: Like they are the pillar in the company.
[03:11] SPEAKER_01: And it becomes your identity.
[03:13] SPEAKER_01: And when you trade that identity for cash, one day you wake up and you're like, oh, I kind of kind of want my identity back.
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: You know, so that's that's sometimes why people regret the sale of their business.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: But it is the psychological psychological thing.
[03:27] SPEAKER_01: And then with our businesses that's also our community, like our staffs are family and you know, our suppliers are our friends and the conferences we go to are all intertwined with the business that we run.
[03:37] SPEAKER_01: So when you when you sell, it's a it's a big change, right?
[03:41] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Now open road. Can you need financing to start that up?
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: No, no, I haven't actually used financing for anything that I've done it.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of the stuff I do is just gritty.
[03:53] SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it takes longer.
[03:55] SPEAKER_01: I'm actually involved in the startup right now where we've used financing outside of open road.
[03:59] SPEAKER_01: And it's a whole different beast, right?
[04:02] SPEAKER_01: You have to you got to move faster and you know, there's there's different parties that you have to adhere.
[04:07] SPEAKER_01: You have to be beholden to because you need to hit your numbers and all the rest of that.
[04:11] SPEAKER_01: So I prefer the method of slow and steady and it doesn't mean it's that slow.
[04:16] SPEAKER_01: It just means that instead of doing it in two years, you do it in five.
[04:19] SPEAKER_00: Right. Okay.
[04:22] SPEAKER_00: I want you to give me a key piece of knowledge or information about your industries.
[04:27] SPEAKER_00: That are your industry that our listeners can learn from is there anything that what you do or say someone is thinking about selling or buying a company or what's that look like for the common person?
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: Which that process look like and kind of walk me through that.
[04:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[04:42] SPEAKER_01: Okay.
[04:43] SPEAKER_01: I'll walk you through the process.
[04:44] SPEAKER_01: I'll give you the key knowledge that people don't necessarily have that the one piece that I try and get across on these podcasts that I do is that it not every asset sellable.
[04:55] SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing.
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: It's like when we're entrepreneurs, if they go, yeah, sell this business, not the case.
[04:59] SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of the companies that I've owned ended up being unsellable, even though they had great grav and use like the wakeboard camp that I talked about.
[05:07] SPEAKER_01: It was a good company.
[05:09] SPEAKER_01: We had 25 staff with four locations, you know, it was coming away.
[05:12] SPEAKER_01: But there was a lot of problems behind the scenes to make that it made it not sellable owner dependence being the primary one, right.
[05:19] SPEAKER_01: So I just want people to know that just because you have a profitable company, it doesn't mean that someone's going to buy it.
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: And it isn't not today doesn't mean that you can't make it sellable in the future, right.
[05:29] SPEAKER_01: John Warlow actually opened that door for me.
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: And I use sometimes often ask people about books that they've read.
[05:35] SPEAKER_01: And that was the first that's what opened the door to me to understand companies being built to sell.
[05:40] SPEAKER_01: So the difference between companies that are built for revenue and profit versus versus companies that can be built with transfer ability into it.
[05:47] SPEAKER_01: So that's probably one of the things that I would mention to entrepreneurs that are listening is kind of know and get John's book.
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: Or get other books about selling companies or connect with me and at the end of this I'll give you everyone some resources for that.
[06:00] SPEAKER_01: But you want to know what you need to do in your company while you're building it just to make sure that it's sellable.
[06:06] SPEAKER_01: As far as the process goes that if you have a sellable asset, if you don't have a sellable asset, by the way, you're with go to biz buy sales, the largest business sale marketplace in the world.
[06:16] SPEAKER_01: And then you have to go to the biz buy sell.com and 80% of these just sit there and stagnate and never sell that's the true true number.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: So let's assume that the people who are talking to you right now have you done their homework, done the work to make their company sellable then the pro the 20% that actually crossed the finish line.
[06:31] SPEAKER_01: That process looks like a building your company so sellable first, then taking it to market there's different ways that you take it to market.
[06:39] SPEAKER_01: If you're using a broker using somebody like myself, usually that's a confidential process because a lot of people don't want to sell their people to know their companies for sale.
[06:47] SPEAKER_01: There's a multitude of reasons for that. But if you're an entrepreneur sitting and listening, it's like you don't want your staff to know you don't want your suppliers, you don't want your customers. There's no need for that right.
[06:55] SPEAKER_01: So you build some confidential marketing around that business and you put it out to the world.
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: And that looks like there's a couple of different ways of doing that and people like us, we have networks of buyers that are out there buying businesses and we just kind of knock on doors.
[07:09] SPEAKER_01: But there's lots of sites that by the way, if you're listeners open road like our sites open road.io and open road.io slash resources has everything that I'm talking about right now.
[07:21] SPEAKER_01: So if they're thinking about listening to their business, it has like 15, 25, I think different sites and BC that you can list your business.
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: So either way, so you get to the, you put your marketing materials together, you do the listing stage, you get interest from your buyers.
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: And after that, you're some negotiation that goes on obviously and then you get to the stage, which is called the letter of intent. So it's the L.O.I.
[07:50] SPEAKER_01: So the transaction. So what people are going to pay when they're going to acquire it, how long diligence is going to be like this kind of stuff.
[07:57] SPEAKER_01: So once the L.O.I.s agreed upon, then you go into the stage of diligence.
[08:02] SPEAKER_01: And we've actually got a couple of companies right now in diligence.
[08:04] SPEAKER_01: Adiligence could be bumpy.
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: And it's nice and it's wise.
[08:09] SPEAKER_01: And I would advise people that you want to do a pre diligence audit on your company before you actually ever get into diligence.
[08:16] SPEAKER_01: Because when we sit down and we watch dragons down online or we watch Shark Tank and Adil is done, that actually a lot of those deals don't really truly make it to the finish line.
[08:25] SPEAKER_01: When they do the deal on TV, that's essentially the L.O.I. stage.
[08:29] SPEAKER_01: They've done this theatrical experience for us to watch and be entertained by them by the way I love those shows.
[08:35] SPEAKER_01: But that is them signing a virtual L.O.I. in front of an audience, right? Then they move into diligence.
[08:40] SPEAKER_01: Both 50% of businesses make it through that diligence spot because things come up that you'd hang them up and businesses don't sell because usually it's financial stuff to be honest with you gets things hung up.
[08:52] SPEAKER_01: But that's why a pre diligence is really nice.
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: You do that work beforehand.
[08:55] SPEAKER_01: You catch all the skeletons, kind of shake them out.
[08:58] SPEAKER_01: And then when you go do a real diligence after signing an L.O.I., you can you have a higher probability of making it through.
[09:03] SPEAKER_01: So after you make it through diligence, then you go into what's called closing activities.
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: So closing activities are where you're drafting share purchase agreements, drafting or an asset purchase agreement depending on how the company sales structured.
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: And you're going through all the necessary details that are going to transfer the one the business to the new buyer.
[09:22] SPEAKER_01: And that gives you brings you to your finish line, which is your closing date, your closing date, closing date, the cash actually trans acts.
[09:29] SPEAKER_01: And there's an infinite number of ways that you can structure a deal as far as business sale goes.
[09:35] SPEAKER_01: But primarily that's when the vast majority of the cash transfers on the closing day.
[09:39] SPEAKER_01: And then you move into training and transition and small businesses training transition can be you know, short as a month.
[09:45] SPEAKER_01: Larger companies where they're looking for the buyer, the seller to stay on and with the company that can be out last three to five years.
[09:52] SPEAKER_01: But you know, then you're under a contracted agreement and you're working for the buyer.
[09:56] SPEAKER_01: So that's it in that shell kind of the big block. Yeah. Yeah.
[10:01] SPEAKER_00: Cool. So let's talk a little bit about doing starting a business in British Columbia.
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: And I think this is real interesting because you're up in Revelstoke, obviously you're away from Vancouver or any major city.
[10:13] SPEAKER_00: And obviously where you get clients and things like that.
[10:16] SPEAKER_00: So what are the biggest benefits for you and being an entrepreneur in British Columbia?
[10:21] SPEAKER_00: Give us some of the good points about starting a company and even some of the tough things are challenges you've had for listeners so they can keep an eye for them.
[10:27] SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about Revelstoke, obviously could be in this question, but particularly BC.
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll be some of the challenges and the good things.
[10:39] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you can speak to that having run a run business is an Ontario and everyone business in BC.
[10:45] SPEAKER_01: You've done a little bit of an Albert, but primarily British Columbia Ontario.
[10:49] SPEAKER_01: Ontario is an entrepreneur starting stuff there. I found was simpler. It's like there's less rules, there's less regulations.
[10:55] SPEAKER_01: You can kind of do it. It makes it a little bit. It was a simpler process, I would say.
[11:00] SPEAKER_01: It just getting started, you know, but that I would never trade that for the quality of life in British Columbia.
[11:06] SPEAKER_01: Like it's the it's the best here. You can't you can't beat it, right?
[11:11] SPEAKER_01: Being an entrepreneur, I guess in a small town is an interesting thing too, because I've done I grew up outside of Toronto.
[11:18] SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in Mississippi and we so I've run companies there also.
[11:21] SPEAKER_01: And so the big city has some benefits to it in that you have lots of clientele that are at your doorstep.
[11:26] SPEAKER_01: You have lots of resources there right there. If you, you know, need to pull on somebody who would be a mentor.
[11:30] SPEAKER_01: It's like you have a ton of knowledge base that are in cities and just more clients in general.
[11:36] SPEAKER_01: So if you want to scale more quickly, you can do that. The nice thing about small communities I find, especially when you're starting for something from scratch, is that they are a little bit more.
[11:47] SPEAKER_01: There's a little bit more forgiveness in a small community when you're starting a business because you have less competition.
[11:53] SPEAKER_01: So for instance, like moving into Rebels, though, but when I came here and I've been here now for almost 12 years, but when I came here was quick and easy to identify the pieces that were missing.
[12:02] SPEAKER_01: It didn't have a really good radio station. It didn't have any after bar food and it was a newly a resort community.
[12:09] SPEAKER_01: And it didn't have anyone running a vacation rental management company.
[12:13] SPEAKER_01: So these are things like when you move into small communities that things just don't exist and you can create that.
[12:18] SPEAKER_01: And I've seen lots of entrepreneurs be created in small communities because of that because they look around like go, I came from X place that had, you know, a really fantastic coffee shop or a really fan tat like Rebels,
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: but it's also been great for that because I've just seen so many cool businesses start up here that existed in large communities that didn't exist here.
[12:37] SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a blue ocean, right?
[12:40] SPEAKER_01: Anyway, yeah. So that's what I did when I came here. We started a radio station. We started the proper management company and then and I had for a while.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I had a hot dog cart that did after bar food because it was just the easiest thing to do when I moved here.
[12:50] SPEAKER_01: So that's the thing.
[12:51] SPEAKER_01: I, the another challenge of small communities though and like I know this isn't directly the DC.
[12:57] SPEAKER_01: It's any small community in general is that if you want experience working for a larger company and just to kind of cut your teeth before you move out on your own big entrepreneur, it doesn't exist.
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: It's like the small communities, for instance, like we sell business of the due to $20 million in revenue.
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: A lot of them aren't here. They aren't in Rebels, though, because the community isn't large enough to support businesses of that size.
[13:20] SPEAKER_01: Like you can't scale to that size because there's just not enough of a customer base.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: So that's, I mean, I hope that helps answer the question.
[13:28] SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's talk a little bit about your morning routine entrepreneurs like to our pretty religious about the morning routines and working early and getting up early and exercising things like that.
[13:37] SPEAKER_00: What does your first hour look like for you when you wake up in the morning?
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: Do you have a specific routine or ritual that helps you get more to start your day and you stick to it and do you stick to it?
[13:47] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the stick to it's the problem, right?
[13:49] SPEAKER_01: So I, I'm going to speak to Scott two years ago and then I'll speak to Scott today because Scott today has a,
[13:56] SPEAKER_01: that's weird to talk to you.
[13:57] SPEAKER_01: Some of the full person, but I like right now I today have a four, a four week old baby.
[14:02] SPEAKER_01: So this is like completely, completely derails your life, right?
[14:07] SPEAKER_01: As far as like ritual because you aren't sleeping at night and, but that, that changes pretty quick because also a two year old.
[14:12] SPEAKER_01: So after, after that age, they sleep the night and then you can kind of go back to your regular schedule.
[14:18] SPEAKER_01: But historically what my morning looks like getting up early, usually I like to be up.
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: I've tried, I actually have my little like sheet here.
[14:26] SPEAKER_01: I'm insane enough to like check off each day that I like succeed with it.
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: But I like to be up before our six and when I was really humming before our kids, I'd be up even earlier than that.
[14:35] SPEAKER_01: Be that kind of five thirty because those early morning hours are really where I found that I could do good planning,
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: plan out the day and also be completely uninterrupted because once the day hits and whether it's your Eastern Standard time,
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: or if you're at the BC, you're only working with business in the BC.
[14:51] SPEAKER_01: Once the day hits, it's chaos, right?
[14:53] SPEAKER_01: We all know that.
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: So you're just dealing with fires and all the rest of that stuff with your team and whatnot.
[14:57] SPEAKER_01: So I like those morning hours to get things done.
[15:01] SPEAKER_01: I'm really religious about writing my day out exactly what I'm doing during the day.
[15:06] SPEAKER_01: And I also break it down to three categories.
[15:08] SPEAKER_01: It's like what are revenue generating activities, tasks that I'm doing today,
[15:11] SPEAKER_01: what are activities that are just they need to be, they need to be done by the art and necessarily revenue generating.
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: And then most importantly, what activities am I doing that are going to benefit my company or myself in ten years?
[15:23] SPEAKER_01: So five to ten years.
[15:25] SPEAKER_01: It's like those are the things that fall off the list most often because they aren't urgent and they aren't necessarily today.
[15:31] SPEAKER_01: But they don't, and if you don't, but if you don't do them, you don't grow, right?
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: So those are educational things that those are all company building things.
[15:39] SPEAKER_01: And for those people that then listen to your podcast and I'm sure they're well aware of the business.
[15:44] SPEAKER_01: What's the, why am I forgetting space in the name of it right now?
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: But like where you work on your business instead in your business.
[15:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: That, that book I probably read 15, if not 20 years ago now, but it's, it was really good at establishing okay.
[16:00] SPEAKER_01: Every single day that column of working on your business needs to be done.
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you know, you just don't grow.
[16:07] SPEAKER_01: So those are that that's what I do in the morning.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: I just kind of check off and I do like to exercise in the morning because I find if I don't do in the morning, it is don't do it.
[16:14] SPEAKER_01: It's like the day gets to you.
[16:16] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: Okay, you've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs so your career.
[16:21] SPEAKER_00: Do you think that you have to be to be entrepreneur?
[16:23] SPEAKER_00: It have to be weird or unique in a positive way or are wired differently?
[16:28] SPEAKER_00: Do you see that with some of the entrepreneurs that you work with?
[16:31] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[16:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. This is a really good.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: Like I put a lot of noodling into this one and I had an experience last year,
[16:40] SPEAKER_01: when they were getting into the parties that it was with, but where I, where we were up later at night and you kind of were in that environment,
[16:46] SPEAKER_01: where everyone was being free flowing conversation and it was all entrepreneurs.
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: And I asked the question of like why people are doing what they're doing and like what was their core driver.
[16:56] SPEAKER_01: And you had to kind of ask that why a couple times to people before it like really drilled down.
[17:00] SPEAKER_01: And what I found is when you drilled down, it wasn't necessarily about you're born an entrepreneur.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: But I did find that of the, and these, these people that I was with were quite successful.
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: So they, you know, they've chosen the entrepreneurial path pretty early in their life, like somewhere in their 20s.
[17:15] SPEAKER_01: And gone through the battles because as you listen to know the battles can be fierce, right?
[17:20] SPEAKER_01: So, and they succeeded.
[17:21] SPEAKER_01: So it's like, okay, so they made it, let's say it, right?
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: And all of us kind of dug down.
[17:27] SPEAKER_01: There was moments in our life, in our youth and around that,
[17:31] SPEAKER_01: the, the, the influential age, somewhere between like kind of 13, 14 to 18,
[17:37] SPEAKER_01: that there was a moment in time that triggered them.
[17:41] SPEAKER_01: And it was an external influence that triggered them.
[17:44] SPEAKER_01: It was either a parent or a step parent or someone they really looked up to that they,
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: they saw them as, you know, something that they wanted to follow and something that they wanted to be.
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: Whether it was because they had, you know, wealth or they had the, you know, a better life for whatever reason.
[18:02] SPEAKER_01: And, and that was what lit their fire to be like, I want that.
[18:07] SPEAKER_01: And I, and then they just went for it.
[18:09] SPEAKER_01: So I don't, that's what I ended up digging down to and found that somewhere along the way,
[18:15] SPEAKER_01: there's like a serious emotional trigger that, like trips a wire.
[18:19] SPEAKER_01: And then you decide, you know, I'm willing to put up with the pain of building something on my own
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: to get the freedom on the other side or status or whatever it might be that they want.
[18:29] SPEAKER_00: Right. Okay. We did mention books. Let's just go through some books real quickly.
[18:33] SPEAKER_00: I know that you're added reader.
[18:34] SPEAKER_00: What are some of the books that have helped you on your journey?
[18:38] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. No, I, I love reading.
[18:43] SPEAKER_01: I just recently got a e-reader, which is pretty great too for those people that haven't done that yet.
[18:48] SPEAKER_01: I've only had it for five days. So I'm really new to it.
[18:51] SPEAKER_01: And the electronic e-reader and has the light at night. So it's much easier to read at night and bed.
[18:55] SPEAKER_01: But no, I think that, I mean, if any of you success that I've had, I'd probably attribute at least 50% of it to reading.
[19:02] SPEAKER_01: So I think it kind of breaks down into for the entrepreneurs out there.
[19:06] SPEAKER_01: If you're, and I put a couple of books here that I can just hold up because,
[19:09] SPEAKER_01: like this guy, this guy we found recently, which is traction.
[19:13] SPEAKER_01: This is the guy that runs the start EOS, Geno Wickman.
[19:17] SPEAKER_01: And this, this book I only came across in, he spoke in a conference I was at maybe four months ago now, maybe five months ago.
[19:26] SPEAKER_01: And it's, it basically shows entrepreneurs an operating system that they can run their business off of.
[19:32] SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey, this is an OS. It's not like it's an OS on your computer.
[19:35] SPEAKER_01: It's like an OS that you would use to set the polls, to set the rhythm, to how you work with your team, to achieve the goals you're trying to achieve.
[19:42] SPEAKER_01: And I've done a lot of systems with that.
[19:45] SPEAKER_01: We've used the burn harnesses and Rockefeller habits and scaling up.
[19:49] SPEAKER_01: And I really like this. So I would suggest this to somebody who's kind of looking for,
[19:53] SPEAKER_01: how do I set my business up from a system perspective?
[19:56] SPEAKER_01: So that my team operates most efficiently.
[19:58] SPEAKER_01: I think Geno Wickman's kind of nailed it.
[20:00] SPEAKER_01: And it works for companies that are kind of in our range that we work with, like that five to 20 million, it really works well for that.
[20:06] SPEAKER_01: So that's one. And then if you're just getting started and you're trying to figure out,
[20:10] SPEAKER_01: okay, what do I do? Where do I go?
[20:12] SPEAKER_01: I like this book by Russell Brunson. Like he's really good at follow him for a while, this expert secrets.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, he's kind of the internet guru guy.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: Like there is some hackiness to it. But to be honest with you, like if you just,
[20:23] SPEAKER_01: if you look through the lines when you're reading it, it's a really easy read.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: You can probably read it and I don't know what week.
[20:30] SPEAKER_01: It shows you how to get started.
[20:31] SPEAKER_01: And I really like that because getting started, it's like almost the hardest part, right?
[20:35] SPEAKER_01: So that's good.
[20:36] SPEAKER_01: And then I think that as far as just general, generally day to day operation,
[20:40] SPEAKER_01: what really makes the successful people successful versus the ones that aren't is just higher quality decision making.
[20:47] SPEAKER_01: And you can, you can read that and you can learn that, which is crazy.
[20:51] SPEAKER_01: It's like you either learn through the mistakes that you make in your life to make better decisions,
[20:55] SPEAKER_01: or you can learn to the mistakes that others have made.
[20:58] SPEAKER_01: Like there's a book called a mistakes were made, but not by me.
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: And I forget the author, but that's kind of the premise, right?
[21:03] SPEAKER_01: It's like, how can I make better decisions by learning from people that make great decisions?
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: So Warren Buffett's business partner, Charlie Munger, he has a book.
[21:10] SPEAKER_01: It's called the Charlie Munger is all an all man act.
[21:13] SPEAKER_01: And it's probably about $103 book, but it's a really easy read.
[21:17] SPEAKER_01: And it's like pictures and it's like the size of a textbook, but you know,
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: really nice pictures throughout.
[21:21] SPEAKER_01: And it's just, it's, I think it might be called Witten Wisdom, might be part of the title too.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: That book's incredible for improving your decision making, what he calls improving your lattice work.
[21:31] SPEAKER_01: That's good.
[21:32] SPEAKER_01: And then also Ray Dallio, Bridgewater, who actually just stepped down, I think yesterday, a day before,
[21:36] SPEAKER_01: from being the, you know, chief investment officer for Bridgewater, which is the, they're the largest hedge fund in the world.
[21:42] SPEAKER_01: He's really good about putting information out of the world.
[21:44] SPEAKER_01: And so his book, principles, I found is really good as well.
[21:49] SPEAKER_01: So from the business side, that's what I suggest.
[21:51] SPEAKER_01: And then just for our general reading, I would suggest the book Sapiens, which is probably the,
[21:57] SPEAKER_01: if you just want to have a really nice book to read, and that's Naval Hari,
[22:03] SPEAKER_01: he, his, his books, that books incredible.
[22:05] SPEAKER_01: So those are some books suggestions.
[22:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've read Ray Dallio.
[22:08] SPEAKER_00: I really liked that book on principles.
[22:10] SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that stood out for me in that book was that question he always asked himself is,
[22:15] SPEAKER_00: what don't I know about this business or this situation?
[22:18] SPEAKER_00: That was I thought, and it kind of a real iconic way to see, even though he's smart, brilliant guy,
[22:24] SPEAKER_00: he still asks us questions.
[22:25] SPEAKER_00: What, what don't I know and what could I learn from this, which is really just think?
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, easy.
[22:30] SPEAKER_00: I thought it.
[22:31] SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead.
[22:33] SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just want to stuck just partly into, you know, going into this business that you're in,
[22:38] SPEAKER_00: you see a lot of guys obviously, ex-it women and so other companies that,
[22:42] SPEAKER_00: but I want to ask you particularly, if you weren't doing what you do now,
[22:46] SPEAKER_00: what would you like to do for profession?
[22:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[22:50] SPEAKER_00: I think, I think, what would you do if you sold your company for 20 million and next day you had nothing?
[22:56] SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's hard to say, right?
[22:59] SPEAKER_01: Like this is the thing.
[23:00] SPEAKER_01: I've thought a little bit about this too, because most of my clients that I work with are in their 60s,
[23:07] SPEAKER_01: because that is the natural progression.
[23:09] SPEAKER_01: If you're going to have a company that's doing five, six million,
[23:12] SPEAKER_01: it's taken a while to get it there probably.
[23:14] SPEAKER_01: And if you're thinking about exiting, oftentimes the triggering event is retirement, right?
[23:18] SPEAKER_01: So we've, like I have a client right now who's 73 and so that's a lot of my clients with a little bit older.
[23:24] SPEAKER_01: So I get to see, I'm fortunate and then I get to see what life looks like when you're at that stage.
[23:30] SPEAKER_01: And I always thought that because I've been a grinder and like just worked hard and kind of like doing that,
[23:36] SPEAKER_01: I thought that I'd be the kind of person that would die at the desk, right?
[23:39] SPEAKER_01: But I've since changed that in the last little bit, especially when you have kids,
[23:44] SPEAKER_01: that's a big trigger event in your life.
[23:45] SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, you know, because work can very easily be the most motivating thing in your life.
[23:50] SPEAKER_01: And it can be the biggest pillar in your life and gripping the most purpose.
[23:54] SPEAKER_01: But when you have kids that starts to shift a little bit, right?
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm building this, of course, like anyone who's built a company and sold it when they build their next one,
[24:02] SPEAKER_01: they're building it designed to sell it because the liquidity event at the end can be quite nice, right?
[24:07] SPEAKER_01: And it can change the movement, you know, a fair bit in the goals of your life.
[24:12] SPEAKER_01: So we're certainly building this to sell.
[24:15] SPEAKER_01: But, and I'm playing to sell it for a long time, because I'm actually really enjoying it.
[24:19] SPEAKER_01: So to answer your question a little more directly,
[24:21] SPEAKER_01: what if I just had money, like what would I go and do?
[24:25] SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I just, I would spend time with family and I would, you know,
[24:29] SPEAKER_01: I'd probably spend more time waiting because that's what I like to do, right?
[24:32] SPEAKER_01: And ski, revel starts going to good skiing, right?
[24:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I'm a big, I'm a big outdoors enthusiast and my body's still in good shape,
[24:39] SPEAKER_01: that I can, you know, go out there and get a, get adrenaline punches,
[24:42] SPEAKER_01: whether it's on the dirt bike or surfing or, you know, a healthy ski or that kind of stuff, right?
[24:47] SPEAKER_01: So I would, I would do more of that, but I think that you also get to your point in your career.
[24:51] SPEAKER_01: I'm not there yet, but looking forward 10 years, for sure.
[24:55] SPEAKER_01: Like I would, you just want to give back, you know, and help out more entrepreneurs and just be more involved on board levels and that kind of stuff.
[25:03] SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that I'll do that.
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: I was a city councilor here for a while and Rebels Stoke and, you know,
[25:07] SPEAKER_01: I know that had its merits and sups and downs, but I did, I did like the giving back part of it and I did like kind of being on a board and that kind of thing.
[25:15] SPEAKER_01: So it's certainly I would do that as far as like what other business I would run,
[25:19] SPEAKER_01: I've never had more fun in my life than running my wakeboard camp ever.
[25:23] SPEAKER_01: Like it was just, yeah, it didn't get any money to do this job.
[25:29] SPEAKER_01: It was so, it was so it would be like, you know, for people that don't know a wakeboarding,
[25:32] SPEAKER_01: it would be like running a surf camp really. That's what it was.
[25:36] SPEAKER_01: And the crew that I worked with there, like we had so much fun, well, you can't like rewind and go back in history.
[25:42] SPEAKER_01: You could, I could certainly help other people out doing stuff like that and be involved with it.
[25:47] SPEAKER_01: And I knew that's why I buy people by sports teams and that kind of stuff, right?
[25:50] SPEAKER_01: And I'm certainly not at the level where I'm buying a sports team, but I'm definitely at the point where I could help someone else start a wakeboard camp,
[25:56] SPEAKER_01: a surf camp or something like that and then be involved in that level.
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think you just probably choose what you want it, what you're most passionate about.
[26:04] SPEAKER_01: And then you'll put some more energies there.
[26:06] SPEAKER_00: Okay. In business, what is your favorite word quote or sentence that you like to use?
[26:11] SPEAKER_00: So there's something that you find your story.
[26:14] SPEAKER_00: He says, he says this all the time or the client says, oh, you said that more than once.
[26:20] SPEAKER_00: Anything that stands up for you.
[26:21] SPEAKER_01: I think that there is lots of stands out to you.
[26:25] SPEAKER_01: The first one that jumps into my mind with that is when I have my property management company, we basically had, you know, people call their the Bible that you live by or you have your operating manual or whatever.
[26:35] SPEAKER_01: But like our mission, envision and values, one of them was this, this line I use called bad news, fast is good news.
[26:41] SPEAKER_01: Because I was really trying to get my team to give me the bad news as fast as humanly possible.
[26:47] SPEAKER_01: Because in the property management, we managed all sorts of stuff, right?
[26:50] SPEAKER_01: But the property management, it can go bad really quickly.
[26:54] SPEAKER_01: Like people like burst pipes flooding like all the rest of this stuff, right?
[26:57] SPEAKER_01: So you want to know it about it as quickly as possible.
[27:00] SPEAKER_01: And you know, really bad news. Sometimes people want to shelter you from it.
[27:04] SPEAKER_01: Because it's hard for people to don't like conflict, right? And confrontation.
[27:08] SPEAKER_01: I started really trying to like train my team that bad news fast is good news, which I truly believe it's like if I, bad news is always me bad news.
[27:15] SPEAKER_01: Like there's nothing you can do about it. It's just bad. You know, like you blew a tire, you crashed a car like whatever, it's bad.
[27:20] SPEAKER_01: Sunk of boat. That was one that we went through a couple times, right?
[27:23] SPEAKER_01: But if you find out about it quicker, then you can deal with it faster, right?
[27:27] SPEAKER_01: So it's like, yeah, this is good news. So that would say that's probably like this slogan that my staff me like, oh, yeah, that's like that's Scott.
[27:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. If you had to pick one or two words and describe yourself, what would it be and why?
[27:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I call myself the happy deal maker. That's kind of my handle on on YouTube and Twitter and all the rest of that because yeah, I'm happy guy like I, whatever, I think they have to do that.
[27:53] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Yeah.
[27:54] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. It's your appearance. You're born with like 50% of that and the rest you kind of have use malleable a bit, but I've always bring a happy camper.
[28:01] SPEAKER_01: So my wake for camp that is slogan was funds priority number one. So I would say that, you know, I'm, I've already tried myself, we just be driven and happy.
[28:11] SPEAKER_00: Okay. Good. Do you have any advice that you may have received from someone else that you can pass on to entrepreneur or Canada?
[28:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. I think that I mean, I've said so much stuff along the way, but it's just you never know what's going to pop up when you're on one of these things as far as what, you know, what that question is lit up with my brain.
[28:31] SPEAKER_01: But I did, I don't I never went to a Tony Robbins event. I've never been to one live in person. I've watched a fair few of his things online.
[28:40] SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I was watching like through Russell Brunson because I did Russell Brunson runs this program called the two comma club X two two comma club.
[28:51] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Anyway, I was part of it for about a year to bit.
[28:53] SPEAKER_01: We wanted to the videos that I watched from Tony Robbins. He said, you'll be underwhelmed what you can achieve in one year, but you'll be surprised at what you can achieve in 10.
[29:03] SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's that I don't know why what you said, it thought maybe think of that right now, but for entrepreneurs out there, it's one year's not enough.
[29:11] SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when I look at everything that I've developed and built like whatever company it was, it's such a struggle and a grind.
[29:18] SPEAKER_01: It's like year one year two and year three. Just honestly, it sucks. Like you can you get through it through passion, right?
[29:24] SPEAKER_01: And that's the only way that you kind of get through it. But it really is that there. And I always say sucks because it's fun. The whole time is learning. But those are the years where you're not profitable or you're like really trying to figure out what is going to be a product market mix.
[29:37] SPEAKER_01: And you know what your customers are going to pay and how much they're going to pay for it and all the rest of the stuff building your team. It's hard.
[29:43] SPEAKER_01: But then it starts to get a little bit easier, right? And then you start to see kind of in year three, four or five, it really starts to accelerate and get a lot better.
[29:51] SPEAKER_01: You get better as a person you learn more.
[29:54] SPEAKER_01: So that I think that one would be the advice that I gave it's like don't don't give up on the in the early years because it really does take a it takes longer than anyone's going to anyone thinks to reach that kind of critical mass with the
[30:07] SPEAKER_01: balls rolling enough on its own. That would be my feedback into that question.
[30:11] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. Love it. Okay. Scott, we're going to wrap things up. How can our listeners get hold of you? And is there anything you'd like to add before you just today?
[30:20] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
[30:21] SPEAKER_01: So the getting a hold is easy. Like if you go to Google and you type in Scott Duke, my first name Scott, my last name is Duke, then I populate, which is convenient because there's not that many Scott do. I guess.
[30:32] SPEAKER_01: Okay. Our company is open road, but it's spelled OPN road dot IO. So that's the that's the website only because the open road dot com was taken with the full words and like everyone's
[30:45] SPEAKER_01: not my shirt here anyway. Yeah. So that's people can go to the website. They want anything to do anything any knowledge base about selling a company.
[30:53] SPEAKER_01: I have more free stuff on our website and the resources section than I think anybody does.
[30:58] SPEAKER_01: Including all our competitors. We I'm building right now as we speak by the time the podcast goes live, it'll be there because every time I talk to people, they ask me like, can you give me a list of exactly what I need to do in my business to ensure that it's
[31:13] SPEAKER_01: not available. That's a question that I frequently get and I've not I haven't built it a resource for it yet, although it's like on my other screen right now, and it's about 75% done.
[31:21] SPEAKER_01: So it should be on our website in the next two days. So by the time this.
[31:25] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's super valuable for people. Yeah, so that's it. That's the easiest way to get in touch. If you want to watch the YouTube channels at the happy deal maker, I value a business on a skateboard, which is kind of entertaining.
[31:37] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then just general advice for entrepreneurs out there that it, you know, it's worth it. That's it. I think that's it.
[31:46] SPEAKER_01: It's like the freedom you get from it is totally worth it.
[31:50] SPEAKER_00: See by the windows in your background, I can see freedom just oozing out there are the windows on your.
[31:56] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's good. Like there's a tram.
[31:59] SPEAKER_01: You ride a dirt bike from the house and like it's all good. The only thing that's gotten anything that I have is just coming up with an idea and then making it happen and putting the right people around it to make it a go and getting other people excited.
[32:13] SPEAKER_01: And that's fun too, right? Like it's all it's all fun, but it's not easy.
[32:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's for sure. Okay, Scott, thanks for coming on the show. I've learned a lot about you and I'm sure listeners have as well.