Ep 178 - "Wisdom from a Run of Acquisitions, with Jeff Moore"

0:00 brother, you know what just happened? I'm going to call myself out. I was waiting for the little counter to go off and I looked away just apparently right as the one showed up and disappeared. And so that long pregnant pause that may not be here because Joel will probably edit it out was because I lost track of the counter. How do you like that? Well, you know, As you get older, those things start to happen, Brandon. Between you and Kate Wade, I have several people in my life that are really good at reminding me that I'm not going backwards in time. Yeah. So that's good. Well, so here we are. That's right. So speaking of time and things not going backwards, we have an interesting show today. We're bringing out Jeff Moore.

0:40 And you know what we tried to do here? And I know that sometimes this can be difficult, right? Because he's a well-known guy. He's all over the industry. Obviously, people care about his opinion because it does have weight. Between the team and his family and the leaders that they've pulled into the ATI organization, they have a lot of street cred. Yeah. They've seen a lot, they've earned a lot of scars in the process. But anyways, we tried to kind of dig in on what has changed and a bit transpired, if you will, as ATI has become more prolific at their M&A strategy. And so, and it was, you know what, I kind of got blown away by the fact that it's really only been five years. I didn't, for some reason.

1:20 Yeah, I didn't register with, yeah, I was surprised by that myself. Yeah, yeah. For some reason, I thought this whole M&A path started in the teens, 15 or 17 or something. So yeah, it was much more recent than I thought. And I guess it's also that much more fascinating how much ground they've covered in just five years. Yeah, lessons learned. I think at some point near the end, we literally ask him point blank, what do people misunderstand about ATI? But I think broadly, just throughout the conversation, although we stay pretty targeted on the whole M&A strategy and concept is, I think it's just easy to box people in that are part of some of these larger organizations or organizations that have maybe found success in certain paths.

2:06 It's just very easy to sometimes put those people in a box or categorize them a certain way. And it's like, over the years, man, one of the things that I just kind of keep learning and somehow forgetting is that you really do yourself a disservice when you go into a relationship or an opportunity to interact with somebody and you're just absolutely preloaded. Yeah, when you have some kind of preconceived notion based on what you've heard, what you think you've seen. I think in the show, people will get a little bit different angle on Jeff. He's a really smart dude. And it's really interesting in this conversation how he unpacks some of those experiences.

2:48 I think people are going to have fun with it. It's a little bit different side of Jeff than most of us get to see in his RIA role or even in some of the pure M&A talks that maybe you've seen him online on LinkedIn videos and stuff like that. Because he's pretty transparent here about some of the foibles they've had and where he's picked up that knowledge. He's picked it up the hard way. you know, like frankly, all of our listeners can relate to. It's like, but he talks about a million dollar mistake, which both you and I were like, whoa. Like that's painful. Yeah, so tune in for that, right? It's always nice to hear about other people's big dollar mistakes. We talk about this a lot with Head, Heart & Boots. Like we want to help people feel less alone.

3:28 Well, you're going to feel a whole lot less alone when he tells you that story. That's right. All right, guys, let's jump in. Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. All right. Well, welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. Today, we are with Jeff Moore.

4:08 And I'm not sure that he needs, although we will have an intro at the front end that all of you just heard. But everybody knows Jeff. Anybody who's anybody knows who Jeff Moore is. So here we are. We've had Jeff on the podcast and it's always fun. But today, we're going to kind of do like a ghost of Christmas past kind of conversation and walk with Jeff through his deal flow over the last several years. You know, ATI, led by Jeff, started their acquisition strategy back in 2020. And no doubt has had some huge wins and some huge other experiences. And so we're going to talk about that. And I think the opportunity here is anybody who's active in the industry right now, at least is thinking at some point about exit.

4:51 And I think the really smart ones among us are looking at how others are exiting and building their playbook around that. Like, how do I set my business up for maximum value when I exit? And inevitably, we'll end up talking directly or indirectly about some of those best practices as we go through. But I think it's just going to be fun to get in the weeds and talk shop. Yeah. So Jeff, like take us back, man, early days. You mentioned on a recent live cast with Nick Moore, one of your M&A partners, about your very first acquisition. And his question was, well, would you do it again? All things equal, would you go back and do that same deal again? And you said no, and you had some stuff, but let's maybe dive into there. Like what was different then?

5:32 And tell us about that first deal and what that was like entering into the M&A spree. Yeah. I think anytime anyone does something for the first time, you're just, you don't have your bandwidth. You don't know what you're supposed to do. You're not sure what to look out for. But, you know, Mark 1, I would definitely do it again. I remember we had a couple other deals to look at. It was an interesting business and, you know, high level it was... Call it 20-ish million dollars in revenue. The interesting thing was when we bought it, it only had three offices. 12 months prior, it had five offices. So the owner had actually closed two of the offices because sometimes us as owners like to open up offices and that doesn't actually mean you're making more money. So he was doing, before we bought it, I think he got it up to like 30 million or so.

6:12 I think we bought it at 20 million. And he was actually making more money at $20 million than he was at $30 million. He made more money with three offices than five offices. And so his advisors, I think he was represented by Gokul at that point with RBA. And so they had shuttered two offices. But yeah, with every deal, man, you learn something new. And the amount of diligence we do now versus what we did with Mark 1 is exponential. Because with each one, you learn something new about their people themselves. their process, their inventories. Like, I mean, I can go into so many examples, like inventories that comes to mind. It's like, you know, one of the owners had 800 pieces of equipment to find out. You know, we looked at it, we validated it. We didn't think we needed to turn it in or to turn it on, but to find out that only like 150 people 150 pieces actually worked.

6:59 We found out that there was equipment that we bought that hadn't been serviced in forever, and most of it wasn't worth much of anything, and it had just been neglected. Before this started, I gave you an example of real estate. And so the diligence we do now is literally probably five times longer. When we first started doing this, because I had sold our business to private equity, not all of it, but certainly a large portion of it. So I learned a lot from that. And through that, there's a lot of things I didn't want to do to owners. I didn't want them to have to go through what I went through. And so we've been more and more stringent with every deal because we've made mistakes. And some of the mistakes have impacted the owners on how we've structured and set things up. And so with each deal, if we're not learning something, it's something we have to change to make sure those mistakes don't happen again.

7:43 And so If you start off with Mark 1, so that was in Jersey and Pennsylvania, trying to think of some of the biggest things. So one thing that was unique with them was they were not paying out. They didn't have like a bonus program. And so I just assumed, you know, ATI has always had one. And most people I knew had one, but I've learned along the way. Actually, some of the largest businesses I've bought don't have bonus programs. So little diligence like that, which is great because you think, OK, I'm going to buy business A. I'm going to put them on ATI's bonus program. Well, if that means my labor and payroll is going to cost me 30 or 40 percent more, I may not be able to afford to buy it at the price I prescribed and I said I would buy it. And then also just looking at people's salaries.

8:24 And so, yeah, Mark Wan, and I'd say the biggest mistake we made with Mark Wan, this was interesting. We normally don't ask people to sign non-competes. I don't believe in them, I think they're garbage. Hopefully the government gets rid of them one day, but we do make owners, so obviously I can't buy your business, give you a check for millions of dollars and then you go open up down the street. In this case, we wanted to give something to a couple of key employees. And so I remember, again, our HR department, we hadn't done this before, and so there was like four or five people, we were going to give them compensation to sign a non-compete because they were the key employees of the business that were gonna be with us long-term. And I remember HR called me and said, Jeff, We totally screwed up. I'm like, what do you mean? They said we sent that agreement to 107 employees, not the five that you told us to.

9:08 So what do you want us to do? Because if we honor it again, I hate non-competes. Literally guys in less than 24 hours, we had no warning. We didn't tell anyone other than the five people they'd get them. We got 105 of 107 employees had not only received them, they had returned them by the time I even found out the screw up that we did. And so now I'm like, all right, so I either have to really upset a bunch of people because now they're all being compensated or I've got to eat a million dollars. And I'm like, we got to eat a million dollars because that's that's our fuck up. Like, that's 100 percent on us. That can't happen again. And so like with each deal like that ended up being really good for the employees. But we paid an extra million dollars. It didn't go to the owner. It didn't go to us.

9:49 It went to the employees, which is a good thing. But I mean, literally, when I say everyone, I'm talking to every employee. I'm talking to the gal that's answering the phones to the technician that started literally the same week that we bought the business. is now getting this an additional compensation and they're forced to sign this non-compete that quite honestly, I think is garbage and I never would have asked them to, but am I gonna be the a-hole company that goes back and says, hey, I was gonna give you X, whether it's hundreds or thousands of dollars and yeah, by the way, HR screwed up and now we're not gonna do it. And this was literally within the first 24 hours of buying the business. And so that's one of thousands of examples I can dive into on learning from my side and also from the employees and the ownership side. million-dollar mistakes.

10:31 That's definitely one that gives you some pause to make that decision. It's kind of interesting. I know that so many of us try to maybe oversell our principles. Integrity is all I live in is integrity. Then you get faced with a decision like that where it's like, that's a couple commas that you're paying attention to and aligning with integrity. And so it says a lot for the weight of that decision. Yeah. You know, one thing I'm curious about sort of in light of these learning experiences that inevitably you had, earnouts. Early days, were deals structured with a pretty heavy earnout on the owners or were you guys basically paying out all the value up front? Because I feel like there's been a trend we've seen where earnouts are becoming more and more commonplace in the last several years.

11:14 But what was that like at the beginning for you guys? So how we structured our first few deals, and I don't know if it's the first four or six, was, and I'll use rough terms, not necessarily ATI, but I'd say all people that are buying for the most part, there are a few exceptions. But I would say the general average, let's say your business is worth $100, the owner is typically getting, earn out or not, typically getting $70-ish. Some people may pay as little as 50, some may pay as many as 80, but I would say the average, and this is ATI and my competitors, so they're getting 70% the value of the business when they close. They're getting check in hand. That is the only thing that's guaranteed to the owner. Anything above that, you either have to. earn or you have to wait out. So there's really two ways to structure a deal.

11:56 You do equity. So you now become an equity shareholder. So like an ATI, the first five deals, we made the decision. Again, we hadn't done this before, so I'm relying on our private equity group. And they said, most of these companies, I mean, they're big companies, but It's not like we're writing checks for $40, $50 million. These are five, 15, maybe $20 million deals. And so they didn't want us to set it up to where they then became part owners in ATI because was it worth the squeeze for, if someone was gonna roll over say a million or $2 million, did we wanna mess up the cap table? Did we wanna spend an extra $150,000 in legal documents? So we went the earn out route early on. And I'll tell you, earn out suck. Earnouts suck for the owner, earnouts suck for the buyer.

12:39 I never prescribe them. There are times where they make sense. And I would say, gosh, if I look at our first five deals, I would say most of them hit their earnouts. I definitely would not say all of them have hit their earnouts. Typically when you sell your business, you're selling it on the high. And so anytime, and an earnout just means again, depending on the company, that you're either going to hit the same financial target that you were at before or maybe a little bit more. And the reason you do that is if, especially if there was a big spike, say it's a $10 million business historically, and then it jumped to $13 million the year they sell. Well, is it really $10 million? Is it a $10 million business or $13 million? So if the owner wants to get paid off at $13, and I don't believe it's going to continue to be $13, maybe, Maybe there was a storm.

13:23 Maybe it was a large loss. That owner may want the opportunity to get paid out at 13, but I may think it's only 10 million. In that case, an earn out may make sense because there's additional value. Otherwise, I just may pay you off the $10 million. But earn outs inherently are tough. They're challenging. Are you giving them credit for everything? Are you not? These are things we didn't determine going into the Mark one deal. So as an example, ATI gets a job. We had an office in Philadelphia. They have an office in Philadelphia, New Jersey. So we both operate in the same area. So what happens when there's a $800,000 flood and we're gonna have them help collaborate with us? Are they getting part of the yarn out? What happens if we give them a $100,000 house fire?

14:04 Is it their money? Is it our money? Because we referred it. So, you know, all of those things were very non-definable in our purchase agreement and are much more clearly defined. The same token, you know, what if you're what if I bought a business in Miami and the largest hurricane to ever hit Miami happens? Is the owner deserving of an earn out if that's the only reason they hit it? They may have less daily claims like right now. The industry is really slow, but they get one hurricane. All of a sudden they hit their earn out in three months. But should they actually get the earn out because they got saved by a hurricane? I don't know. I think we could probably debate what they should and shouldn't get. But yes, earnouts, I would say they have a place for an owner. They have a place for a buyer.

14:45 But in my opinion, I would never tell a friend of mine to go into an earnout unless you can't. Promise the owner that you can repeat your performance from last year. And again, I'm a $10 million business and I did a $2.5 million job, even though the owner is going to say, oh, well, yes, I've never done a job over $500,000 in my life, but I promise you I'm going to hit an extra $2.5 million every year. Well, that's where an earn out makes sense because you are hoping... And hoping is not a strategy. And I'm assuming that's not going to repeat because most of my offices aren't getting a two and a half million dollar job every year. So they do make sense. But anytime if you're doing that on a regular basis, I would just caution anyone selling their business because it's it's challenging.

15:25 It's difficult. It creates rub. And, you know, we're looking to a partnership like you are now part of my business or a new company. Now we're fighting over who's getting credit or I think you're the big bag wolf. You bought me this. You bought my business. You maybe change a bunch of crap. I've got this turnout. My wife thinks I'm getting $2 million more at the end of the year. If I don't hit it, like I'm simply going to blame you and my wife's going to be upset with me. And that's not a good situation for either of us. So anytime you can avoid it, avoid it. But... If you've got unrealistic expectations and value, I do think they serve a purpose. But just I always be honest, if I'm going to do one and I've done in the last couple of deals, I told the owner. Actually, my last two deals, I did earn outs. I don't know how beneficial they were to the owner.

16:06 But I said, just so you know, we're doing this because you think the business is probably worth more or you had an abnormal year, but don't expect us to actually pay. you any more money. If you do, it's like cherry on the top, but don't go home and tell your wife that you're getting X million in a year or two years or three years, whatever the terms are, because they're just hard to hit. That's a different way I feel that I've heard it communicated before. What I'm hearing you say ultimately is that when there's the potential for some upsides, meaning that if they pull it off, great, everybody's happy, the team made a and then they have the potential to earn it. But that's less of a hedging your bet or mitigating your losses. It's just a slightly different way I've heard it communicated, I guess.

16:49 Kind of hanging in that same pocket in terms of some of that nuance that you guys have changed in terms of your negotiations and how you discuss some of these things. Help me understand the progression or the maturity and how proactive the conversations have become. Because inevitably, you don't know what you don't know, but then there's all this perception management, I'm assuming you've learned over the years, right? To just make sure you just lead this process well. What does that story arc look like? And I have one kind of caveat to it is, I'd love to hear from Jeff's brain's perspective in the sense of when something just kind of slapped you and you were like, oh man, that was an ego blow. And like, you know what I'm talking about?

17:30 Your mental way of progressing through that maturity, I guess is what I'm looking for. Yeah, so I'm going to give you a real-life example. So J&M Keystone, business is older than ATI. So we were in 89. I want to say they founded in like 1985. Fascinating story. One of the minority partners reaches out to my brother Ryan and says, hey, we think we want to sell the business. We'd love to sell it to ATI. What do you think? So I do a three-way call with my brother Ryan. Next thing you know, I'm on with the founder. And this shows you our level of involvement. His name's Jim Bronson. He's out of the business. He was basically already retired. Been a great deal for us. Calls me up on the phone. I said, hey, I'm in San Diego. I don't want your P&L. Like, what do you make a year?

18:11 And within 10 minutes, guys, we had an agreement on what I was going to buy his business for. And it's the only time I've ever done that. Like, he literally told me, he's like, I'm making about X. And I said, well, I think the business is worth about this multiple. I forget what we paid for the business, but literally had a handshake verbal deal. I don't even know if we had an NDA at this point, just to show you the level of involvement. And then I'll transform you to today. Michelle, who runs sales for me at ATI, had a conversation, actually another referral from, I think it was from someone in California. Referred us someone, they're not ready to sell now, they think they want to sell next year. And so... We teed up the intro for Michelle. I didn't jump on the call. And so we've got a list of questions that really, even before they get to me, Michelle's going through or sending them a spreadsheet.

18:56 And so yesterday I got this Excel spreadsheet, 100 questions, 100 answers about the business, P&L, financials, three-year look back, What programs are you on? Which ones aren't? What services do you do? Who's your insurance broker? Like, and this is all before you even get to Jeff Moore where JNM Keystone, which I think was this third deal that we did, like literally I asked for nothing until we had a verbal agreement. And all I said was, I'll paper it up. I'll have the attorney write it up. But it's just going to be contingent that obviously whatever you said has to pan through. And I'll tell you 90% of the time what an owner says. And this doesn't mean they're being fictitious or not being honest. Like it's not true.

19:37 I'll give you one extreme example. There was a business that we signed up. probably $15, $20 million in revenue. The deal ended up falling apart. The business owner was under the impression that they were doing about $5 million of EBITDA on $15 million, which is unheard of, totally unrealistic, but they swore by it. We signed them up, we got the numbers, and finally got on. But it took us like three or four months. In diligence, we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, I found out the way that they run their books is very different. They were booking revenue at time of signing. And so, Brandon, you've got a fire at your house today. It's a half a million dollar job. They're booking all $500,000.

20:20 They haven't even estimated the job and they've billed it a hundred percent in full today. Then they're going to incur the cost over, call it the next 10 to 15 months. So the way they were running their books, it was like, honestly, ended up being closer to like million dollar EBITDA business, but he thought the business was a $5 million EBITDA business. And even his account, we had to have two different accounting firms, like top five accounting firms explain it to his account who still didn't get it at the end. She still swore it was a $5 million EBITDA business. I still talk to the owner. He hasn't sold the business. I think he's now in like that $2 million to $3 million range, which is a normal, healthy, for that size business. Actually, I'd say outperforming most people at $15 million.

21:02 But those are just some of the lessons. And those are the harder ones because that conversation I had, He was like freaking spot on. It was like a two and a half million dollar EBIT of business. It's exactly what he said it was. It's what it clocked out at. It checked out at. And so a lot of people, just the way they financially build their jobs versus the correct way to do it. Everyone does it differently and it has to be done the correct way. It has to be recognized in the right year. And yeah, there's there's a lot of nuances to that. They can really falter a deal or financial expectations. I'm so curious, I'm thinking kind of the emotional roller coaster, right? That the buyer, or excuse me, the seller, I mean, probably everybody, but the seller's on where they start to kind of ramp up in their brain on Saturday morning, the past conversation, multiple ideas, and then what does that turn into?

21:51 And they start buying the boats and the things. How do you guys talk about that now? As you guys have matured and you're doing more deals, are you guys proactively addressing some of that mental game that the seller is going to ultimately go through? And if you are, what does that look like? I can be brutally honest to a fault. And so I tell everyone, when you go into a deal, it's like doing a colonoscopy every day for the next three to four months. It's never going to be done. The money's coming in the bank today at four o'clock. Until four o'clock, it's not. not done. Run your business as if this is going to break apart. We're going to get divorced. We're not going to want to get married. And by the way, we're going to say that we want to get divorced five or six times during the process because one of my attorneys is an a-hole or my accountants are up your financials.

22:39 You don't even know what they're finding. They will find stuff that you didn't even know existed on your jobs and in your business. And then to have to defend and answer questions that you didn't even know realized in your business, like, oh my God, I wish I would have known this before I sold my business because we're spending three, $400,000 to evaluate your business. Like you're doing your taxes at the end of the year and writing a check for five or 10 grand. No one's like doing a deep dive audit into every single job and when you're billing it, how I just tell everyone there's a roller coaster. And I think one of my favorite ones was Lawrence Nelson at Lange in Atlanta. He's not with us anymore. He passed away not too long ago. But, you know, one of the great things with Lawrence, and I tell all owners, at some point, like, you're not dealing with me.

23:22 You're dealing with attorneys. You're dealing with accountants. But always come back to me. And Lawrence's deal was dragging out probably 30, 45 days longer. And I called Lawrence. I'm like, dude, there's like 19 things that your attorney and my attorney can't settle. Like, what do we need to do? I said, can I fly to Atlanta and just solve this? Like, let's literally bring the 19 things on the table. We've met at Cheesecake Factory inside a mall. Yeah. And guys, I kid you not, there was like three that were really important to me. And I just told him, I said, these are non-negotiable, not going to happen. Like I will walk away from this deal over lunch, over these three things. The other 16 things I said, I don't give two craps about. I'm willing to give to you. And he had like two or three that mattered to him. But we found out like 13 of them were just the attorneys puffing their chests.

24:03 neither one of us really gave two shits about where we met on those other, like, which was like 80% of them. But at that point he was only having his attorney. And so anytime an attorney's involved, I'm not involved negotiating versus if it's just him and I, and we literally walked away and we could have closed the deal probably 45 days sooner had we had this lunch sooner. But thank God we did meet, we were able to solve it. But if we were to let the attorneys, I mean, they would have been happy with us breaking apart. They still get paid no matter what. And so- Yeah. You know, just being transparent with everyone, you're going to have ups and downs. You're going to think like, we don't like you or we don't like your business. That's not true. I can't control how outside consultants talk to you. I try and limit it, but I'm going to have someone on my team, someone in HR, and an outside legal and outside accountant explain what your business is.

24:50 And they're going to have no idea anything about your business, even though we've given them multiple documents, they've got the purchase agreement, and you're going to get some attorney who hasn't been on any of the calls who's going to show up and literally start from score one. And you're going to be saying, like, does ATI really have their crap together? But it's a bunch of different people and organizations that aren't always talking to each other or reading information. And it's just a super frustrating process for everyone. But I always say the deal's never done until it's done. So like people will call me and say, hey, Jeff, I need a new F-150 pickup truck. Like we had one blow out. What do I do? I said, what are you going to do as if I don't buy your business? And that's the answer. Like, I'm not going to tell you what to do or not do. Don't hold off running your business because...

25:31 A lot of deals don't end up getting through, to be honest with you. And I'd say there's like our first 10 deals, we had a high closing ratio. I'd say like 95% of our deals. But again, as we got more, we became smarter, more intelligence about deals. We are more open to walking away from a deal because I don't want some of these things to happen or impede us later down the road. And I'm totally fine walking away from a deal where initially like I was so sensitive on reputational harm. Right. I also have to look at reputational harm to the two or three thousand employees that I'm representing that if I buy the wrong business, even if I have to upset the owner, if I know it's not going to work out long term because it's something I found, I just need to call it as soon as I can and get out of the deal.

26:14 And that's not that was not my philosophy early on in my career when I got into M&A. When you first kind of launched into this endeavor, was there really any kind of apprehension at all on your part? Or like right from the beginning, you're like full tilt, I'll do this, it's going to be a blast. Like what did that look like? So I think it happened, so obviously I wasn't in an M&A role before, but So I was previously on the board for RAA. I actually knew a lot of restorers. And I'll give you one example. Sam Bergman, he's a president level-ish at first on site. So he was a friend of mine. Him and I went to RAA educational training together. We knew each other. I'd been to his house. We were just, we're buddies.

26:54 We're friends. We did a lot of training together. He had a business called Roland, and it was basically East Coast, primarily healthcare. And I got this call, and this was as we're trying to sell ATI. So we're literally doing investment pitches in January of 2020, I think he calls me the first week of January. So this is before we meet with anyone, but the family thinks that we're going to sell the business. And Sam calls me, he says, Jeff, you're one of three guys that said to call me if and when I ever decide to sell my business. And so these are the relationships that I have had along the way. And of course I'm like, this is what I've asked for 15 years, but am I going to, first of all, I don't have PE money behind me. It's just the family. And it was bigger than a $50 million business.

27:35 I think smaller than a hundred. This is a big, be a big first deal. And I knew there's no way we were going to do it. Obviously, the other call was to Stacy Mazur, which was interstate at that time now first on site. But a lot of our deals, like Mark one was a relationship. The second deal I did in Orlando, it was a guy who knew the guy that ran Florida for us and the state of Florida. He only contacted us. He didn't have a banker. He didn't want to sell to anyone. The third deal I did was a referral from a former employee that I had one conversation with the owner. They were signed up within a week. The one in San Diego, I gave you the story literally from the first call until it was signed was five days.

28:16 So like the first five of six deals were just straight up referrals. And again, that's changed over time. But yeah, it's just really interesting to see the evolution for sure. So it was just kind of passion right out of the gate. I think it was passion. Yeah, I think relationships are a really big part of it. Like, can you apply yourself? Can you put yourself in someone's shoes? Do you know? I think my advantage was I had traveled the country. I knew other restorers. And I think that's what made it natural for me. I had opened up many of our offices. Again, either one of my brothers doing this role, they wouldn't have been as successful. I don't think they traveled as much as I had in their career as I had at this point.

28:56 They didn't know competitors like I do. And so I think there's a lot of things that just made me ideal that wouldn't have made others in the organization. That's kind of, I'm curious actually about that piece right there. So, you know, I think Chris and I have talked about this quite a bit just in our interactions with you. You are a very relevant and common face on the front of kind of the public inside our industry for certain. As part of that, though, I know that there's a level of professionalism that you have to bring. There's some perception management that you have to bring to the table when you're in that public environment. But I'm just really curious. Over the years, I'm trying to frame this question right with enough context. So we see you now and it's like, vet, you've done a ton of deals.

29:40 You've kind of been eating and sleeping this world for so long. But in the early phases, just tell me more about that relationship component. Like, how were you bringing that to the table? What's changed, if anything? Because maybe it's only perception, right? But what's changed over the last five years as you've continued to develop this competency? I think it's just learning from the deals and being able to relate and apply what I've learned. So again, I didn't go to school for this. I wasn't a finance major. I think I would have flunked out of college if I got a finance degree. I got a general business degree and barely got through finance classes. I think the reason I've been successful is the relationships and coming out of the operating piece of it.

30:20 You know, having opened up like 10 of our locations and run a region for the company, I've started offices from scratch. I knew what owners were going through personally, having started an office. Like I live in Phoenix now, guys, but when I moved to Phoenix, I had just had literally... Chris Lake at RPS called me up and said, hey Jeff, I've got someone in Phoenix. Harbo didn't hire him, which is now Blue Sky. And they hired someone else. It was their second top candidate. What do you think? I'm like, sounds great. I talked to him on the phone. A week later, we have an office in Phoenix. I mean, this is the strategy that ATI had back in the days. I had no intention of moving to Phoenix, but my wife and I were pregnant. I literally had a kid right before we opened the office and the 90 days I had relocated to Phoenix, which is now home.

31:04 That was not part of the plan. I hired a guy who was terrible at his job and it was my responsibility. So I know what it's like to move to a whole different place. different state, start a, again, it was a known entity, but no one in Arizona, there was no correlation. We were only in California. We weren't ATI like we are today. No one, the adjusters in Phoenix didn't know who we were. The subcontractors didn't know who we were. Like we were, it's like starting a brand new business. And so I know what owners have gone through, even though I didn't start ATI. I had started enough offices and gone into states and traveled and sacrificed family. And I think that's what made me unique and qualified for this job, even though I never realized my career was leading up to this.

31:45 It just kind of naturally happened. But I think my operational job. My ability and sales background makes me a better candidate than someone coming out of finance or private equity or investment banking. Because I'll be honest, I've hired some of those people that work on my team. They're not approachable. They're not relatable. They don't understand restoration. Even though you may have been with ATI for a year or five years, You haven't been there and done that and you're not as relatable. You went to college to be a banker and the end of the day, you're always going to be a banker. And I deal with them with private equity. They are not operators. They know the restoration space and they could go. They could be on a podcast with you guys and you would have no idea.

32:27 They've only been doing this for four years. But if you get into the weeds of operations, they are not going to be totally relatable. Yeah. It's like the what's in your gut kind of thing. Yes. Jeff, I want to, I had an experience. I was, I was talking to a client. This is actually a potential client, a prospect here a couple of weeks ago. And this just stands out in my head. We were rapping about their business, just talking shop and asking normal discovery questions. And it occurred to me as they're rattling off some figures in terms of their top line, their employee headcount, their mark, and all this kind of stuff where they're, Brandon and I have been doing this long enough and we've had enough sort of mass exposure to a lot of different businesses that I realized. I'm like, how my intuition has changed over the last four years in terms of I hear a data point about a business and it means this, this, and this to me.

33:16 And I kind of know how that affects other parts of their business. And I'm curious for you as you've been doing this M&A thing and just all the years of being in the industry. Yeah. What are some of the shorthand things that you've kind of just exist in your mind now when you're in a conversation, say, with a potential target, a friend in the industry, an owner, where you hear certain things and you're like, I know exactly what this means. And you know what I'm saying? Look, what's some of that shorthand that's developed for you learning about companies? So the first one that comes out as you're explaining it, and hopefully my answer answers your question, but there's a gentleman, I'm not going to say who he is or where he's at, but a gentleman responds to, I don't know if it was an email, I don't know if he called me or LinkedIn, but anyways, it was a reach out from them.

34:04 Hey, I think I want to sell my business. Again, typical size business we're buying, $10 to $20 million. The big thing I've learned is how people talk about themselves and how they talk about their businesses is fascinating, especially when someone is reaching out to you. They want to sell. Normally when I've got a relationship, the hardest part, it can take me two years before someone's ready to sell. And so now I've got someone who's doing the outreach, who's on the hunt or on the aggressive. My radar's going up. First thing, why are you reaching out so aggressively to me? Why ATI and tell me about your business? So it was like a 20 minute conversation. And ultimately what he told me was the industry's at its peak.

34:44 I'm gonna get the most money possible, I think if I sell it this year. I bought the business four or five years ago. All I care about is getting maximum value for the business. And I don't care if I stay in this industry and I don't know if I will continue to operate it once I sell it to you. I want the biggest, fattest check possible. And like my radar is going up like this is not a good fit. It's not a good company. The guy bought it for whatever reason he bought it for. But in 20 minutes, he never was concerned about his employees. He wasn't concerned about his customers. He wasn't concerned about his staff. He happened to be in an office. where we actually compete with them already. So he was already familiar with the brand. And to me, the people component, again, the financials, I don't have to be the best finance.

35:26 There's tons of people that can do that. But those radars for people, because at the end of the day, you're buying, yes, you're buying a business and a company and everyone's going to sit there and say, we have a brand and a reputation. But the reality is if you're going to someone down the street that lives a mile down the street from you that doesn't know who you are, if you have a brand and a reputation, do they know who you are and what you do? Like if they have a flood, are they going to be able to find you? Are you going to pop up number one on Google? Do you have a thousand reviews? The likelihood is probably not because I'll be honest, a mile down the street from Jeff and Phoenix, we're not getting that job. I'm sorry. We're not number one on Google. I don't have the most reviews. We're not paying to play online.

36:07 There's probably no chance you find us unless you know someone at the company, the insurance company refers you, or a friend of theirs has experienced our service. But the chances of them finding us are slim and none. So most people don't have a brand and reputation, maybe in the industry, maybe with their customers, but not in the general consumer sense. So I think it's really important to see how people care about their staff because at the end of the day, I would say most owners, and we have plenty of owners that still work for us, they're checking out. at some point. Some are going to check out day one, and that's the plan. They're already retired. Like J&M Keystone in San Diego, there were six owners, four of them hadn't worked in the business in years. That's totally normal. But even someone who's 40 years old who says, I want to do this for the rest of my life.

36:50 My radar is not going up. I don't care how old you are. You've now got a Do you really want to wake up? Because they're not making millions of dollars. They're working for ATI. You're not making a million dollars a year. You're getting paid like anyone else who's running an office. So again, you're making more than $100,000. You're making less than $250,000, depending on how big the office is. So if I just got a check for $12 million, how excited am I? Even if I'm the highest paid person in the company making $200,000, $250,000 a year, maybe before I was running stuff through my company, I was doing remodels. So on paper, I was maybe only making $250,000, but I had another million, million and a half in perks.

37:32 That person is just intrinsically not as motivated as before. Some are. Some are. It's not about the money. I got the money that I deserve, and I want to have a job and a purpose and benefits. But as a buyer now, I just assume they're going to quit at some point. It's going to be today, next month, next year, regardless of what they say. And they can be honest when they say, I think I'm going to retire here. I'm 40 years old. I'm going to work for ATI for 25 more years. Back of my head, totally full of shit. He doesn't even really know what he wants to do. And I'll tell my team, if he makes it two years, great. If he makes it till 65, that's great. At the end of the day, we are buying people. And so I think back to my scenario, my radar went off. I never asked a guy for financials. I never got an NDA.

38:13 It was a non-negotiable. He didn't give two shits about his employees. He didn't care about his business. He didn't care about the company. All he wanted was a paycheck. And that is not a good long-term fit for anyone who's looking to maximum value anything. Again, selling your house is different, but your business were... Your business is only worth your employees. And the fact that you just don't give two shits about them is really concerning to me. Yeah, I think that's huge. Are you a business that's under $5 million in sales? And you're just now getting ready to try and scale your company up and hit some of those targets you've always wanted to hit. But now you've got to build a sales team? Or maybe you just hired your first sales rep, but you don't really know how to manage them. Like, how do you manage, lead, train, develop a sales rep?

38:56 Floodlight has a solution for you now. So we can actually assign your sales rep a turnkey VP of sales that will help them create a sales blueprint, their own personal sales plan for your market. They'll have weekly one-on-ones with that sales rep to coach, mentor them, hold them accountable to the plan. And they'll also have a monthly owner's meeting where they'll meet with you or your general manager and review the progress of that sales rep, their plan to actual results. what kind of performance improvement they're working on with them. Also let them know, hey, you might, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're gonna have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well. How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep and it's only 2,500 bucks a month?

39:40 If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out, let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over 250 million in revenue. Supported by, advised by, an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you. So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment, and let's unlock the next chapter of your success story. I think one of the things that we've seen a lot, and I always want to be careful about this because I think sometimes on the outside looking in, it's really easy for us to determine how things should have been and could have been better. But it just seems like commonplace for a large PE team, company, whatever, come in, start gobbling up these smaller entities and there's just this crazy cultural phenomenon.

40:28 fallout, like in market after market where a business that was really great, solid at minimum, and that just within 18 to 20 months, the thing ultimately just kind of implodes. What is happening in those scenarios? Is it that similar space where somebody is coming in with just a total lack of regard to relationship? Is it miscommunication? From your perspective, what's happening? Oh, so it's all of the above. I bought one of those businesses, Venturi, which had gone basically bankrupt once or twice ahead of time. Some of my competitors are, without saying who, are struggling exponentially. It comes down to who you're putting in charge. So if I'm a PE-backed, if I'm Floodlight and I'm a restoration company, I want to go buy, as long as you two are the ones controlling it.

41:14 But if Floodlight is a restoration company and gets acquired, who's going to be? Who are they putting in charge? So Floodlight's not gonna go by 10 companies. Well, if the two of you are in charge, you probably have a good shot, but that's not always the case. Sometimes they wanna bring in outside leadership. They wanna bring someone in from another service business or roofing business, landscape business. You can come up with the service provider And now you've got someone who's financially backed, studied finance in school, has probably done this two or three other times. But restoration is freaking complicated, guys. You understand it. I understand it. There is so much like, are you doing TPA work? Are you going direct to the customer? Are you going direct to the commercial entity?

41:55 There's agents, there's brokers, there's adjusters, there's TPAs, like there's literally like potentially 10 or 15 customers on a single project. It's so much more difficult than anything else out there. And I'll tell you, all of my executives I've hired, it's so much more complicated than our PE group thought. It's so much more complicated than all of our outsiders think. And those that you put in charge are going to make decisions. on who's going to run the business. And there are competitors out there that are still primarily run by restorers. And there are some that are run by non-restorers. And I think to the extent you can keep owners involved, you've got a chance of having a really good business regardless of who's running it at the top.

42:37 But the second they think you're running it in the ground, again, I'll use the analogy of running an office for $100,000 to $250,000 as an owner who got a big paycheck. Again, Some of these guys have rolled equity, so that 30% on that business is worth $100. $30, they are now invested into the major business. And if they think the business is going down, guess what? I'm not happy working for $200,000 because I gave you, again, whether it's $1 million or $5 million invested that I think right now is not worth equity. anything. Like I am so demotivated. I am not working for $200,000. You literally just lost me $5 million and I'm going to get the hell out of here. Once I think my investment's not worth anything, I'm not doing it for the salary.

43:20 At some point I've, I've lapsed where I owe it to the employees and my staff. If I've given it two or three years and I can't, save a sinking ship because others above me are making decisions. So we, ATI at one point was obviously all run by restorers. And then I think at some point we brought in a bunch of outside leaders and we're probably 70% non-restorers. And I would say we're very focused on being balanced. We should not be a hundred percent run by restorers at the top. I think that's a recipe for disaster. And I don't think you should be 100% the other way. I think if you can be 50-50 balance or even 60-40 restoration to outside experts, I think that's a good balance.

44:01 But people are just making wrong decisions and they're based, them on their experience. And if you're coming from a roofing industry, it's not the same, even though they're doing residential and commercial, they may be doing TPA work. Just the whole concept is different. So I think it really comes down to people. How are you valuing people? Are you keeping owners engaged? Some of my competitors fire the owner like they won. Like that is their strategy. And I just think that's harder. And so it's not that it doesn't work, but I think it really comes down to people. Your culture will change no matter what. I don't care what company you're selling to. The culture is inevitably going to change. But as long as you have the right leaders locally, that's more important. But you have to have the right leaders on the top to keep the local leaders from leaving too.

44:43 Because inevitably, if you sell your business to ATI or anyone else, Your team, your management team that have been there forever, they are going to get a multitude of offers and opportunities from people because rumors will spread whether they're true or not. Hey, you sold the ATI, you sold the Blue Sky, you sold the first on site. All of a sudden, you've got a bunch of people that want you because, hey, I heard from so-and-so that shit's hitting the fan. It's not the same anymore. It's not the company it once was. And you got to keep those people engaged and make sure they still have a voice because when you sell your business, your voice is never going to be as loud as it was because you were the first. voice. And now you're one of many voices. Yeah, it's interesting. I think people will really kind of create their own stories in their mind before anything even happens, right?

45:28 And there's like kind of the approach that I see, and this is not out of judgment, is, you know, you can only talk about this thing so much in the early phases, because it's just not anything yet. It's not materialized, like you said, it's not over until the ink dries kind of thing. Yeah. But it does seem like there's this common approach of ignoring the staff, the people inside the org, and them not being part of the courting process, if you will. Like all this energy is going to the owner, obviously. But then it's like, man, they might have 50, 70 personalities behind them that it seems like courting them in some way, shape, or form is important too. How do you guys kind of manage that or approach that balance?

46:09 That's super tough. We should be doing a better job with the employees. You've got to remember, someone sold me the business. Typically, I'm going to meet five employees before we close. The five most important employees. Obviously, the owner knows this left and right, knows all the team. That is our primary point of contact. We may know four or five people, but... To build relationships with 50 to 80 people, that just takes time. And the only way I could do that is if I want to stick someone in their business. And that's also going to send the wrong message because now it's not ATI is buying my business. Now ATI is trying to manage my business. And do I trust the guy or the gal in the office who's ATI, who's introducing everyone versus relying on the owner and the five key employees?

46:53 So there's that balancing act of building. being a team and being a business versus being a dictator and steamrolling the business and telling them how to do everything. Because I bought you because you knew how to do your business. Like, yes, I need to change your financial system. You need to input jobs and notes like ATI does. But I don't need to tell you what equipment to go buy. I don't need to tell you how to organize. I don't You should know how to organize your warehouse, schedule your jobs, hire your people. But to the extent that if you're getting all the way down in the org, like we're now in your business. And that can also be a major turnoff. Like when we sold our business to PE, we now, five years later, I think we've got someone like halftime. that quasi comes into an office, but they're not there all the time.

47:34 Like that's a whole different relationship when you've got someone in the office. It's like having the owner's son. Like, do you really trust the owner's son if they're working in the business? Most of the time I would say from the employee perspective, no, you never trust the owner's son, even if he's working for you and you're his boss. What's it going to go back and tell dad or mom? And it's that person in the office. So it's that balance of, yes, ideally, I would put someone in the office. Everyone would feel really included. But there's going to be others like those five key employees and the owner who's going to be probably really turned off. Like, does Jeff not trust me? Does ATI not trust me to tell my people what we're doing? I don't know what the right answer there is other than I would love to get to the root of all of the employees, but I think that would come at a cost.

48:18 And that cost, I can't afford to lose those five or six employees, and they may feel suffocated if we do that. So I hear the technician that just started that doesn't know anything about ATI, and I've been owned by him for two years. We're relying on local management just like you did before. to tell you everything that you need to know because we're giving that to the team and it's up to them to really put the message down. Share and translate that. Yeah, it's super interesting. Okay, I'm just thinking big picture now. So ATI obviously does not have a small footprint any longer. You're certainly in the top handful of companies in terms of size and scope. What does the general public maybe get wrong about its understanding or interpretation of ATI?

49:01 Yeah. Right. The bigger you've gotten, the more spread out, the more arms that you have out in the business. There's all sorts of stories that people begin to tell themselves and attach to you guys. What's kind of commonly misunderstood maybe about your guys's approach, culture, kind of your long term mission? What are we missing? So a couple things. So maybe I'll start with, you know, who we actually are. We are full service and we do residential and commercial and we love them both. And depending on who you're talking to, I've heard because I am a supporter and I do like TPAs and I do think they serve a purpose. I think we, because that's my perspective, I like it probably more than most of my employees. All we do is TPA work, which is total BS.

49:42 Like it's like crazy. 15 to 24, 25% of our business. Very small percentage of our business, obviously a lot of claims. And then I've got other customers who think we only do, even friends, we only do these big, sexy hurricanes, wildfires, large loss commercial. Yes, we do that. We've got a team that does that. But ATI's average job size in our history has never been over $15,000, has never been less than $9,000. So regardless of what major event comes in, we're doing a lot of jobs. And so I think there's a lot of misunderstanding. We are still family owned and operated. We don't own 100% of the company. We are backed by private equity. We are corporately run.

50:23 We are a large corporation. And we are of size and scale that It just takes a long time to get change in an organization. And so things that five years ago I could have just said, Ryan and I, hey, we're doing X because we know we need to. Well, now I can't necessarily do that because I've got it run up by divisional presidents. Things corporate America just takes longer. And so anytime you're going into a larger organization, things are slower. Hopefully we're still quick to adapt locally and help you out, but Anything we're rolling out company-wide at our size and scale, it's tough. It's challenging. There's things we know we need to do, and I can give you dozens of projects. We started three years ago.

51:03 We still haven't executed it correctly because there's so many people you need to have buy-in, and we can't just tell people to do stuff. They're not going to do it. That's not how people are motivated. And so it just takes a long time to do things, trying to think of any other misconceptions. We don't know everything. I don't know why anyone, like, we're still learning every day, guys, like, whether it's an M&A, it's how to operate a job, how to squeeze more margin out of construction. I mean, I bet you I spent four hours this morning figuring out ways to get more margin on construction jobs and roll it out across the country. Like, just because you're selling to a bigger company, hopefully they've got more answers than you do. They should. They've got size and scale, but I'm never going to know your market. I'm never going to be able to come in.

51:48 works but i don't know cleveland i'm never going to know cleveland so we are still relying locally on those people and so a lot of things will change but a lot of things are going to stay the way they were before when you buy the business as long as you can keep your leaders in your team and i'd say the other thing is not all big companies us and blue sky and first on site and belfort again we may be of similar size and scale and there's others bms and others but we're all very different and so as you're looking to sell your business there's depending on what your makeup and your DNA is and what's important to you. Again, if you don't want to work in the business anymore, without saying names, there's one of those five you should probably sell your business to. That's their playbook. That's what they want to do. And if you want to exit immediately, that's great.

52:29 If you don't and you want to be there for your employees, that's probably not the best place to go knowing that you're going to be fired the first day or the first week on the job. And so knowing we're all similar in size and scale, but some of them do a lot of commercial work They're doing a lot of fire chasing. They're doing cat work and they're not building up day to day business. Some of us are looking to grow. Some are looking to cut heads by 30% once they buy you because they're going to take the back of the back of the staff and get rid of them. And so I think you just need to ask your your besides the money part. I think that's obviously the first story you get over. But structurally, how is this going to be different for me? How's it going to be different for my team? What's going to be better for me?

53:09 What's going to be better for my team? And what's going to suck for them? And what are going to be the pain points they have over the next couple years? Because there's going to be pain points no matter who you sell your business to. All right, I got one last thing. And this is really just because I want people to have a connection to where and how you're continuing to influence the industry, even beyond the M&A side. I mean, many people have heard your name. They know of you and what team you're a part of, but they may not necessarily know what all you do. obviously major contributor to RIA and your relationship to that group. Give us the current status of that and what you're doing with that particular group and then make sure that people have a way to find you and get connected with RIA as well.

53:51 So RA is incredible. I am, I mean, I've come a long ways in five years when I decided to join, obviously as president now, but I'll be honest, I spend 60 plus percent of my time. Some weeks it's 80 percent. And this is RA led, not ATI led, guys. Obviously, the industry is slow M&A-wise, so it's probably good timing. But it's giving back to everyone listening to this podcast and anywhere else. Whether you're an RA member or not, I am out there fighting the fight in the association. I am trying to make things better. We're spending a lot of time with carrier relations. And this is not a paid job. So the president doesn't get paid a penny. If anything, I'm actually paying money.

54:32 There's a lot of things I do that they won't pay for that I'm doing on behalf of you as a restorer that ATI is paying for. They don't pay for me to go to convention. I don't get comped anything like it probably costs me 20 to $30,000 a year to be the president. excluding my time and all of the resources I'm using within ATI to volunteer for the industry. But I'm having relationships with the heads of Cotality, the heads of Verisk, ITEL. I mean, you name it. I'm talking to the CEOs of all of the biggest competitors out there trying to unify us and figure out things that we need to tackle, things that we need to solve to improve the industry. So I think right now the biggest thing is like carrier relations.

55:13 Like... We all, I love the restoration rebels for many things and then some things they just drive me crazy. But the reality is I got flack from someone saying that we're part of the property restoration ecosystem or claim system. The reality is, and I'm not gonna speak for everyone cause I wouldn't say a hundred percent of our stores. I would say 99% of restorers are in the claims industry at some point. Again, whether you build the insurance company, whether your business is to give them the middle finger and I'll never take a call or submit an estimate to them, whether you're getting reimbursed by them. There is some sort of reimbursement going on, even if you won't deal with the insurance company. So to the extent that your customer is paying you in full and they're getting reimbursed by their insurance company, you are part of this industry.

56:00 And without this insurance product, most of us wouldn't do anything when we have a toilet overflow. Or again, we have a fire. We're going to have to do something. But most of the claims are water related and most of the people are going to go to Home Depot and get a fire. a fan or a dehu or do the cheapest thing possible or do nothing because yes, it was water. I sucked up the water. I'm not going to replace drywall or baseboard. We don't exist without insurance. Most people, unless they have loads of money and know what they're doing, would do nothing if it wasn't for insurance. And so we have to build better relationships with carriers and carriers, they're tough to deal with. Like, They are no different than us. There are cowboys and Indians. There are good actors and there's bad actors out there. And some of them are just a-holes to deal with.

56:41 And I'm talking about an individual adjuster, not necessarily the company, but we also have a-holes on our side on the contracting side that represent us incorrectly. And these carriers think that we're all out there to screw each other. And I'll give you an example. Like I'm a restoration company and just did a $10,000 job. regardless whether I use Cotality or Verisk, or I created my own price list, and I billed them 10 grand, and adjuster calls me up, I end up settling for 2,400 bucks. How does that look for us as an industry? Because I billed 10 grand and I settled at $2,400. The adjuster's interpretation is, you are out there screwing me over, hoping I was just gonna cut you a check, but at 2,400 bucks, you probably made a lot of money and you would have raked me over at $10,000.

57:28 And so if that's their perception of restoration contractors, next job it's ATI or ServPro or a reputable local regional national player. Well, gosh, ATI, you've got a $10,000 job. I'm only going to pay 2,400 bucks because that's what I did on the last job. So we are also creating this animosity that's in the industry and, Some of this is self-induced. Some of it's just adjusters trying to do their job, which is pay as little as possible. But I don't think that's what most of the industry is doing. I think they've got these real-world examples of where contractors have tried to screw me over and I was able to prove them wrong. And I think you're all like that and you're all trying to screw me in every job. And so we've got this communication issue that we have to solve at the top at RAA.

58:13 We need to solve with carriers because, again, whether you want to give carriers a middle finger or you do all of your work with them, we want to improve that relationship and figure out a way to separate. ethical, reputable contractors. And that's one of the initiatives that Mark Springer's doing within our carrier task force, trying to create some differentiator with REA members. But we're tackling all kinds of things. I mean, we've got monthly meetings with Ferris and Cotality on getting prices increased. I mean, those are things that whether you know what REA is doing or not, a member or not, I promise you, we have impacted your business exponentially in your local market, I think there's like five different things that Verisk is now doing that helps all restores in their language and their ULA and different things.

59:01 And we talked about doing a press release. So expect something over the next 30 to 45 days. But dealing with their PR team and their chief marketing officer, like, Those are the things we're doing behind the scenes that most people don't know about. And unless you're in the know, you probably wouldn't know about them. But we are making a difference. We're trying to make it easier. But I think as we move forward, the carriers is really the big thing that we need to tackle. And honestly, it's not going to happen in a year. It may take us a decade. Some people are never going to be happy no matter how much progress we get. But we can't keep everyone happy, unfortunately. Yeah, I think just the unified front is the most powerful approach. I think that RIA has really stepped up in terms of creating that opportunity for a real unified approach.

59:42 And now I think just as restorers, it's our part to become part of the membership and contribute to that in a meaningful way. and give it some fuel. And of course, adding people like, and adding, kind of loose use of the term, Mark Springer. I mean, clearly between him and Uncle Ed, we certainly have some guys moving and shaking in favor of the Restorer. So that's really rad. Well, thanks, man. It's fun getting to hang with you and chat some more and kind of see some more dimensions of Jeff Moore. Before we cut it off, I wanted to share the funny story and I'll do a shortened version of what we talked about before we started. So... Oh, that property one?

1:00:22 Yeah, we bought a business San Antonio, Texas, McKinsey, been around for like 30, 40 years. And I'll just go into the real estate portion. Again, something I didn't expect or know to do diligence on, but they had a lease. They were able to extend it on a month to month basis. We didn't think that would be an issue. We didn't diligence the real estate, but literally within 60 days of buying the business, we're kicked out of the building. We're looking at buying a building and leasing a building and literally like there's nothing out there. I've never seen it. I invest in some commercial estate on the side. Like, And when I say there was nothing, like we would look at 10 buildings, half of them would be gone by the time we put an offer in the next day. And the other half just they weren't suitable. And so the owner was really religious, active member of the church.

1:01:04 We ended up occupying his church for not a month or two months. It ended up being two freaking years. Well, we got a lease. We had to do improvements. We bought this property. business, the premise of getting back on TPA work, we couldn't because we're operating in a church, we have new warehouse, there's no way we could tell customers that's where we're operating. But just all of those little tidbits you learn along the way. And if I can operate a business out of a church, we can operate a restoration business. Obviously, people do it out of their house or any building. So some of us get spoiled in the facilities that we want and we think we need. But if I can do it out of a church, I can do it out of pretty much anywhere. I can do it out of the back of a truck, honestly, probably just as effectively as I could have a church. But That was a funny, no diligence story that I never first saw happening.

1:01:47 And clearly we do a lot more diligence on real estate now than we ever did before. Now you know if you're going to lose your building immediately upon closing. Yes. All right, my friend. Well, thanks, man. We enjoy your time and your perspective on the industry. So thanks again for hanging out with us. Thanks, everyone. Have a great summer. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots. And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.