Podcast appearances and mentions of mike silverman

Brandon Karpf sits down with Mike Silverman, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at FS-ISAC, to discuss the white paper Building Cryptographic Agility in the Financial Sector. Authored by experts from FS-ISAC's Post-Quantum Cryptography Working Group, the paper addresses the vulnerabilities posed by quantum computing to current cryptographic algorithms. It provides financial institutions with strategies to safeguard sensitive data and maintain trust as these emerging threats evolve. Discover the challenges and actionable steps to build cryptographic agility in this insightful conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

ChatGPT and Meta face widespread outages. Trump advisors explore splitting NSA and CyberCom leadership roles. A critical vulnerability in Apache Struts 2 has been disclosed. “AuthQuake” allowed attackers to bypass Microsoft MFA protections. Researchers identify Nova, a sophisticated variant of the Snake Keylogger malware. Adobe addresses critical vulnerabilities across their product line. Chinese law enforcement has been using spyware to collect data from Android devices since 2017. A new report highlights the gaps in hardware and firmware security management. A Krispy Kreme cyberattack creates a sticky situation. N2K's Executive Editor Brandon Karpf speaks with guest Mike Silverman, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the FS-ISAC discussing cryptographic agility. Do Not Track bids a fond farewell.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Today, N2K's Executive Editor Brandon Karpf speaks with guest Mike Silverman, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at the FS-ISAC discussing cryptographic agility. You can learn more in their new white paper "Building Cryptographic Agility in the Financial Sector." We will share the extended version of this conversation over our winter break. Stay tuned.  Selected Reading ChatGPT Down Globally, Services Restored After Hours Of Outage (Cyber Security News) Facebook, Instagram and other Meta apps go down due to 'technical issue' (CNBC) Unfinished business for Trump: Ending the Cyber Command and NSA 'dual hat' (The Record) Apache issues patches for critical Struts 2 RCE bug (The Register) Microsoft MFA Bypassed via AuthQuake Attack (SecurityWeek) Nova Keylogger – A Snake Malware Steal Credentials and Capture Screenshorts From Windows (Cyber Security News) Adobe releases December 2024 patches for flaws in multiple products, including critical (Beyond Machines) Mobile Surveillance Tool EagleMsgSpy Used by Chinese Law Enforcement (SecurityWeek) Three-Quarters of Security Leaders Admit Gaps in Hardware Knowledge (Infosecurity Magazine) Krispy Kreme cyberattack impacts online orders and operations (Bleeping Computer) Firefox, one of the first “Do Not Track” supporters, no longer offers it (Ars Technica)  Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for an in-depth conversation with Mike Silverman, a highly respected strength and conditioning coach, and master kettlebell instructor. In this episode, Mike & Jordan share their expertise on General Physical Preparedness (GPP), offering insights into building a solid foundation of fitness that supports all aspects of athletic performance and daily life. We discuss the importance of consistency in training, the nuances of balancing strength and conditioning, and how to tailor programs to meet individual needs. He also shares advanced techniques for progressing in GPP, integrating complex movements, and overcoming mental barriers in training. Throughout the episode, Mike provides practical tips and real-world examples from his coaching experience, making this conversation invaluable for anyone looking to elevate their fitness game. Whether you're a seasoned athlete or new to fitness, this episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiration to help you achieve your goals.

Today on the IC-DISC show, join us for an insightful discussion with Laurie Barkman, a renowned CEO and author of The Business Transition Handbook. As the acclaimed Business Transition Sherpa, Laurie sheds light on the reality that all business owners will exit someday. We explore the challenges of selling a business, like why most small businesses don't sell successfully and the potential pitfalls of an exit. We also discuss relying on experienced advisors and how understanding taxes and markets can aid planning. Laurie shares invaluable advice on navigating this critical phase successfully. This episode is a must-listen for any business owner planning to navigate their business transition.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Laurie and I discuss her journey as a CEO and author of The Business Transition Handbook, providing insights into the realities of business transition. She highlights the hard truth of selling a business and how eight out of ten small businesses fail to do so successfully. We talk about the common pitfalls of business transition, the five "D's" that can disrupt a business, and the value of creating a satisfied client base. Laurie explains the unique challenges law firms face during business transition and offers her strategies for a smooth transition. We delve into the importance of a clear exit plan and the different options business owners have when transitioning their business. Laurie advises focusing on three primary goals during business transition: business, personal, and financial. We discuss the analogy of business transition planning to having a sherpa guide you through a treacherous terrain, making the process seem less daunting. Laurie emphasizes the significance of accountability in business and the benefits of having industry expert conversations during transition. We explore the upcoming online course based on Laurie's book that she plans to launch in the first quarter of 2024, aiming to reach a wider audience of entrepreneurs. We discuss the importance of having an experienced network of professionals to help businesses reach their goals and create a successful transition plan. LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About The Business Transition Sherpa About The Endgame Entrepreneurship Course GUEST Laurie BarkmanAbout Laurie TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) David: Hi, this is David Spray. Welcome to another episode of the IC Disc Show. My guest today is Laurie Barkman from Pittsburgh. Laurie is a really fun and interesting guest. She just released her first book entitled the Business Transition Handbook, and she is called in many circles the business transition, the idea being that a Sherpa guides somebody on a journey over a period of time rather than just a one-point event in time. Laurie has an impressive background as a former CEO of a large privately held company. She has a bachelor's and an MBA, and we talked about mistakes business owners make when they're transitioning their business. We talked about the sober reality that 100% every last business owner is going to exit their business and the question is will it be on their terms or someone else's? So there is some great advice and information for any company, any business owner who is looking to exit their business at some point, and I think you'll get a lot of value from this. Good morning, laurie. How are you today? Laurie: David, hey, great to see you, I'm awesome. David: That is great. Now, where are you located today? Laurie: I'm in the great city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. David: Yes, now are you a native of Pittsburgh. Laurie: I am not. I am not. I'm an adopted daughter of the city. I'm originally from Albany, New York. David: Okay, so Ithaca wasn't too far to go for you. Laurie: That's right, it was not. It was only about three hours away. David: Okay, and then what brought you to Pittsburgh? Laurie: After graduating from college, my husband and I moved around Pennsylvania with different corporations. I was with Aigner Sol Rand Company and I was with a division in Shippensburg and after four years decided to get my masters, get my MBA, and decided to move to Pittsburgh. My husband had gotten a nice job with McKinsey and company and here we are. Okay 25 years later. David: You got your MBA in Pittsburgh, right at Carnegie. Laurie: Mellon. I did at Carnegie Mellon okay. David: Well, let's dig into this. So the business transition Sherpa. Where did this nickname come from? Did you come up with this yourself, or did somebody else give you that title? Laurie: You know, it's kind of an amalgamation of things. I remember talking to my husband about a trip that he and I had taken in 1997. We did a trek, we did a hike, and this idea of somebody guiding you and stuck with me. And as I was thinking about what I'm doing, working with business owners, it's not just one moment in time, it's over a period of time, and I really feel like my role is to be a guide. I don't have all the answers. I have a path, I have tools and, just like a Sherpa and the great work that they do, it's that same idea is we're on a journey together. Entrepreneurs build their business, sometimes on their own, but most likely not. Entrepreneurs are building their companies with other people, and so when they get to this other side of the mountain, so to speak, and thinking about their next chapter, why would they go about that by themselves? And I want to be the person that helps guide them. David: Yeah, I love the description of what you do because it picks up the fact that it's a journey, it's not a point in time and it's tough to do by yourself. In my experience I've just closely held small to medium sized business owners. Only sell a business once right, that's right. Laurie: We can regret things in our experience. We can regret what we do and wish we did something differently, or we do not take an action and we regret not taking that action. And my book the whole reason I wrote the book the business transition handbook was to help people proactively so that they don't have regrets. It's a very big, lofty goal to not have regrets in life, but if we can be proactive and we can understand what it takes to build a more valuable, transferable business and then understand what resources we might want to have on our side. I like to say, David, you can't do exit planning when you're exiting. It's just too late. So if you give yourself a time and space to work on having a more valuable, transferable business, the good news is that it's going to be a lot more fun to run your company. It's going to have an economic benefit to you and then in the future you'll have more options. You'll have more valuable options too. David: Yeah, I really enjoyed reading your book. In fact, behind you there, I believe, there's a blown up cover. Yes, it is. Laurie: That's right. Yeah, it was really interesting to write the book. I guess I could say it's my first book. I don't know that I'll have a second, but this, no matter what, is my first book and it was challenging, but at the same time, it was fun. It was like a giant puzzle. Once I mapped out what I believe the big pitfalls are right. So the subtitle of the book is how to avoid succession pitfalls. Each chapter in the book and I don't know if you picked up on this as you were reading it but each chapter is a pitfall. What do you want to avoid? And so what I tried to do was put myself in the reader's seat, the entrepreneur's seat, and how I developed that perspective was from my own experiences, client experiences and then integrating case studies and other learnings from my podcast. I have a show called Succession Stories that you will be a part of soon, and there are so many valuable things to learn from other people's wins and losses and challenges, and that's what I have always sought out to do with my show. The show is about three years old at this point and when I was writing the book, I had, I think, about 120 recordings, so that's a lot of knowledge and content. And what was so fun for me, david, was I was going back into the archives of a discussion. Every show I have has a transcript and of course I don't remember everything. But when I would write a chapter and I would need a case study, I had space for a case study in that particular spot, for a particular topic I would think, okay, which shows, should I go back to dive into those transcripts and then find these golden nuggets and I it was just so interesting to have the recall in writing of oh yeah, you know, she said that was an amazing conversation, and you, my memories are not long, right, we have so many, only so much storage in our brains, exactly. So it was really cool to go back to that body of knowledge that I had created, and I began to appreciate that body of knowledge even more. I think this case studies bring the book to life. I'd like to hear what you think about that, but that's that's what I hear from my readers is they love the, the learning and the concepts, the business concepts in the book, and they think that it's like me having a conversation with them by sharing these case studies and stories along the way. David: Yeah, I agree there were a number of. I mean, there was a lot of great stuff in there, but some of the particular ones I kind of wanted to dive in with you on is so this is a little bit of a quiz to see how much of your book you remember Do. When somebody, when people, decide to sell their business, do they just automatically sell it or do some portion of them? Are they unable to sell the business? Laurie: There's a mix, as you can imagine. Yeah, what percentage are you? David: able to actually sell it in the small business space. Laurie: It's a surprisingly low number. You know the statistics out. There is that every two out of 10 companies in the lower middle market actually sell. So that leaves eight out of 10 not selling. And you could ask, well, why is that? And there's a lot of reasons why. Sometimes along the way we have the five D's kind of pop up, or always also known as the 60s. These D's are taboo things, sometimes we don't want to talk about them, but they're real and we do need to talk about them. It could be the debt of an owner. It could be divorce disaster like COVID you know we put it in that category or disaster like fires and the business or the market has experienced is something traumatic it could be. Did I say divorce already? Divorce is another D. So these D's are something we can plan for. We don't want them to happen but we do need to be prepared. So if we're not prepared for the 60s, they can really wreak havoc on a business. Particularly death. The death of an owner can throw a business into a tailspin and I did cover that at some you know level in the book with a couple of episodes, snippets of people who had experienced that. The other reason why businesses don't sell, david, is because they're just not transferable. If they are so owner dependent and owner centric, that can be a really big reason why it won't sell and it's hard for owners to see that. You know, sometimes owners think that they are the secret sauce. I have a business assessment that one time I'm marketing. The owner of a marketing firm took this assessment and she said oh my God, she goes. I didn't realize I was standing in the way. She thought she, you know, she's a photographer, she's the creative, she's got the client relationships and she realized at that moment oh my goodness, I am making my company less valuable. So there's a pivot in our brains when we recognize some of the elements that help create a more transferable business and companies that have an owner who don't necessarily see the business as an asset, they see it as a job or they see it as a piggy bank. Those are different things, because if you see your business as an asset, you're going to want to create value in that asset over time. You're also going to want to protect that asset. If it's a job, right, I just accepted what is. And it's not growing, it's staying the same. Maybe you're not reinvesting in the business. You're not reinvesting in yourself or your people. And let's just jump to an example. I have a client who, in his favor, had very loyal people Once he got to his sixties, as did his key employees, and everybody's looking to retire. Buyers looking at that business said oh my goodness, how transferable is this business when all the key people are going to retire at the same time? So he had saved money, so to speak, by not bringing in new people, kind of underneath and over a period of training. So he recognizes that now, but it's too late. David: Sure, yeah, I was having this conversation yesterday with a group of CEOs and we were talking about enterprise value, increasing it, owner dependency, and there's a guy that owns a small boutique intellectual property law firm and they were asking him how sellable law firms are in general and he said not very and from his perspective that he said there's things he could do to make the business run without him better. But his model that he really likes to work with his clients directly, he doesn't like an associate between them and so that in his and a couple of his clients are actually in the room and they're like, and he's like, yeah, if I had like some associates that could potentially lower the fees to a client, you know, because there's more leverage in the client. So like no, we'd rather pay more and have you. So I've noticed in professional services there's this tradeoff between what. If you really want to have delighted clients, sometimes that's at odds with making your business the most valuable. And I know my business is like that. I mean I've got huge owner dependency issues because I am the key relationship, but I've gotten peace with the fact that it's just not very sellable and I like being a craftsman and just like it hit. Laurie: Yeah, and that isn't that the important thing. If you recognize it and are accepting of it, hey, you know what? That's okay. Not every business is going to be an asset to sell to another buyer and that's totally okay with the law firm. Just to circle back, because I do have some professional experience with law firms, one of the catch 22 things about law in particular is the code of ethics that they have to abide by. David: The non-competence, the non-compete. Laurie: Yeah. So if a lawyer leaves a law firm, they you know there's certain restrictions on when they can inform their clients and taking their clients with them, and I know there's lots of gray areas. I'm not going to talk about all of the nuances there. My point is that with law firms also there could be other types of professional services that run into this, but in law in particular what clients will say is that they hire lawyers, not law firms. Yeah, and so when you're tied let's just like you're talking about with that particular partner that the clients are willing to pay more because they want to work with that particular partner it could be highly likely that client would jump and go with them, no matter where they are. That can be particularly concerning for an acquiring firm, knowing that they may have some stickiness to certain clients and then they may not have other stickiness. So it really is dependent If there's a firm that's acquisitive and looking at buying other professional services, whether it's law or any other profession. I work with engineering firms quite a bit and in engineering firms there might be contracts but those contracts are not assignable and it might influence not only the type of transaction that we would do, whether an asset sale or entity sale, but it also would influence potentially on the transition for the sellers and how long they might want to stay, or the buyers might want them to stay under either an employment agreement or consulting agreement. It could also influence whether or not there's an earn out. You could structure an earn out, for example, if the buyer wants to structure an earn out to ensure a certain percent of those contracts are assigned over whatever time period or year and a half. So it could influence it in a big way. David: Talk to me about, and thank you for that. Talk to me about what you enjoy most, about being a business transition or not. I shouldn't say A, but the business transition, Sure. What are some of the aspects of that in working with those companies that you just find particularly satisfying or rewarding? Laurie: One of the things that I experienced as a CEO of a privately held company was the loneliness and being in my own head and having big questions and not really knowing where to go. I find that I bring kind of this EQ, if you will, of smarts and know-how and experiences and questions, and then I bring excuse me, the IQ around that, then the EQ, which is more of the emotional side. I've always been a kind of person that people confide in. Obviously, this is a highly confidential type of scenario but, I talk with my clients about the business. for sure, that's the practical side of everything, but we also talk about the personal side. We have to talk about them because remember earlier in our conversation I talked about regrets and there's some alarming statistics out there about experiencing regrets at least one year after the sale. I'm kind of on this mission to help business owners find clarity, and find clarity in a way that makes sense for them, for their family, for their stakeholders, which includes employees and other shareholders and their communities that they serve. A lot of people feel after a transaction that they let so-and-so down. Maybe they let their employees down, maybe they let their communities down. I had a guy in my show whose family business fourth generation chlorine cleaning product was sold in grocery stores and he could not walk down the aisle anymore. He couldn't bear to see that product under another name or by another. He said, yeah, there was a pride. We used to the small town and we had our name on the baseball team and people knew who I was. The identity that this particular person had his family name was on the company. Identity is a really big part of it, david. People go through almost like a withdrawal If they're not excited about what's next, this pull factor, what's pulling you forward to your next thing? If we're not excited about it, it can be really. You can imagine worst case scenarios. Those things do happen. But the in-between space is not that great either, for what makes me feel that I'm helping entrepreneurs? I've always orbited entrepreneurs with a great respect for the risk that they take. I've come to know family businesses as a category. Also. There's the founder-led, family-led, privately held company. I've worked in venture backed, so no offense to venture backed folks, but they're not really a focus for me. I'm really focused on call it the bootstrapped or family-led companies where they're the everyday entrepreneur making it happen. The sense of clarity clarity on three core types of goals is where we focus business, personal and financial. There's a lot of work to be done there. I think that's what makes me motivated, makes me feel appreciated by my clients. They are awesome people. I work with some amazing people that are doing really wonderful things for their community, for their family. They have excellent intentions. They just don't know how to put it all together. I don't either. I don't have all the answers, as I said earlier, but what I do have is I have an awesome Rolodex and I have an awesome way to bring professionals together and collaborate and help my client assemble a business owner transition team advisory team to help them make big decisions along the way. Again, this clarity is the number one thing that I think my clients benefit from. David: Yeah, no, that's really important because, as you talk about in the book, unfortunately 100% of the business owners are going to exit the business, just like 100% of us are going to exit this earth. I was thinking when you were talking about that fourth generation gentleman who couldn't walk down the grocery aisle, but it's one of those things, but it wasn't like he really had. He must not have had a great way to avoid that, because he wasn't going to run the business forever. So you come into what are the options? Basically, if somebody's not immortal, what are the options to exit a business? Because there's several paths, right? Laurie: Yeah, absolutely. Just to finish the statement with 100% of business owners are going to leave one day, there's a big however, you know. However, very few are planning for that day To leave on their terms, and when we have a plan, we're more likely to achieve it. That's just how it works, right. That's why we do strategic planning for businesses. So why don't we do strategic planning for our exit or our transition? And that's really the main advocacy I have in the book is let's have a process, let's have an understanding of what it takes. So to your question I think I address it quite a bit in one of my favorite chapters, which I think is chapter six, which is who should own your business after you, and it shines a spotlight on the different kinds of buyers. When I do workshops, david, I do webinars and I do in-person workshops, and I put up this slide and I have essentially three columns and I go through some examples of each bucket three buckets and people's eyes light up, they take out their camera, they start taking photos of this one particular slide and it is enlightening because we hear about certain kinds of buyers and we don't know that there might be other options out there and maybe not every option is a fit. So what I advocate for is let's understand what are some exit options for your company and which ones might be a better fit than others, and why let's prioritize those and let's come up with option A, b, c and if option A doesn't work out, then we know we've got an option B. It's just like in any negotiation If you have the power to walk away, then you know you're going to get the right deal for you. It's when you don't feel that you have any other options that you feel pinched. So that's why back to the conversation about the five or sixties if an owner passes away and the company is going in a tailspin, with employees leaving and the spouse doesn't know what to do, and they've inherited this company. They've never worked in it, it's a mess and the buyers come out like sharks and there's chum in the water. We want to avoid that. We want to avoid that. So, yeah, I mean we could talk about what. Who are the different kinds of buyers, if you want. David: Sure, yeah, because I mean, I, just off the top of my head, we've got passing it on to the next generation selling it to the employees. A third party buyer? What are some of the other options? Laurie: Yeah, let me just frame it out and that way, visually, I'm kind of working left to right as I talked about these three columns and I put it in that order for a reason. So the first column is strategic buyers, the middle is financial buyers and the one on the right is related buyers. So the examples you mentioned, family and managers would be in the related buyers category. Typically speaking, that is going to be more of a fair market value type of approach to valuing the business, of what price you might expect for your business, and if you kind of go left on that chart then the price expectation should go up right. David: Strategic generally not always generally speaking, will pay the most. Laurie: And why is that? Well, and also, what's a strategic? So a strategic is an entity, it's a company, it could be a competitor, it could be a marketplace vendor, it could be a customer, it could be an adjacent industry to yours where they want to make moves, either geography wise, or into your industry, if they're not part of it yet. So those are strategic and, typically speaking and this was my experience going through a pretty big M&A transaction with a third generation company that we were acquired by a Fortune 50. And, believe me, they had an M&A playbook and when they're that big and they've done that many transactions, so for us it was understanding what's the fit, what will this look like? And for them, I'm sure, in their financial models, it was about leverage what assets do they keep, what employee teams might they cut and how do they gain some cost leverage? And so that's typical where these pieces of the business might be kind of bolted into something else. Maybe it's standalone, maybe it's bolted in, but that's typically why strategic can pay more, because on the back end, as they're modeling out their financials, they know what costs they're going to take out. We don't necessarily know that, but that's what they're looking at. Financial buyer most often we think of private equity firms, and private equity groups will invest on a time horizon roughly five to seven years could be longer and they'll want to buy low, sell high, and so in between, they're investing in that business to improve it, they're putting in management teams and they will take a larger entity, maybe keep it as a standalone and that would be a platform deal. And a platform deal may eventually have other firms acquired to tuck underneath it. Those acquisitions we call tuck ins or add ons. And because they are taking assets and putting them into something larger, you could say, oh well, that kind of sounds like the strategic. And the answer is, yeah, kind of does. So that's why, in a private equity deal, the hybrid, as we might also call it, could, from a multiple standpoint, look more like a strategic offer. So that's just a little financial nuance there. But typically speaking, private equity groups are going to be the biggest, you know, the biggest buyers out there. There's still a lot of dry powder and another big category that I like to spotlight. Well, there's two others I would put under this financial bucket. One is family offices might be investing in privately held companies in different asset classes. So, for example, I had a family office. Second generation was on my show and he talked about what he and his father's investment thesis is. And they're focused on warehousing, like storage, you know, storage unit for consumer storage so you can rent one for a year or whatever and put your stuff in it. So he liked they like that asset class because it has a recurring revenue model to it. And that's just one example. And what's really interesting, if you compare the time horizons for these investments, well, a family office is looking for a buy and hold, more likely than buying, selling a short period of time. So, as I said earlier about fit, this is where it's really important. If the seller doesn't want to be in a situation where it could be sold to the one fish and gobbled up by another. They want to be held for like a longer period of time and perpetuity. Then maybe they should look to you know, talking with family offices who are doing acquisitions in their space. So that's a category that is kind of under the radar and I just put a spotlight on in the book. And then the third one are ESOPs, which is a you know, think of it like an almost like a 401k program for your people. When they retire from your company, they're incentivized to stay, and when they retire they will get a distribution check, and so an ESOP is an interesting option for some other companies Again, not a fit for everyone, but it might be a fit for companies of a larger size with enough employee base, where, again, you're going to have a liability at some point to pay these people, so you have to be able to fund that. But what happens in that transaction is that the company becomes a tax-free entity, and so that's a real incentive, you know for companies to reinvest and acquire others, and it can be very positive for the culture too, yeah. David: I know quite a bit about ESOPs because you were kind enough to introduce me to Mike Silverman and in fact he and his partner, Matt were, I guess, in my podcast a few episodes ago and it's really interesting on some of the ESOP opportunities. And I'm glad you brought up the family office because, right, people don't think of that. Laurie: But when? David: I think about the. What I think of philosophically is the super family office. I think about Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition targets. But the problem is I think now they're up to where. When I started reading Warren's annual letters, they were looking for businesses with enterprise value, I think of like 25 million and up, and I think the last I checked it's half a billion or a billion and up. Just because $25 million companies don't move the needle for them. But yeah and it's kind of like their sales pitch is similar to the family office sales pitch. So I guess one way to think of it is, if you like being an aquire of Berkshire Hathaway but you're smaller than a half a billion dollars, then maybe a family office might make sense. But even then when you think about Berk acquisition requirements. They want a business that runs independently of them. They do not want to manage the business. So you're right back to. A business that can run without the owner is more valuable for everybody. Laurie: Yeah, they have the portfolio largely independent of each other. They've kept the brands, I think, pretty separate because they appreciate the brand and the competitive moat, as they like to call it, around that business. I think they look for companies that have a competitive market differentiation, so it makes sense that they don't muddle the water. David: Yeah. Laurie: Yeah. David: Have there been any positive surprises from writing the book that you didn't anticipate when you wrote? Laurie: it Surprises. Let me think about that. I think just the reviews have been so delightful and meaningful to me and I guess I just didn't think about it. I don't know that it's a surprise, it was just. Maybe I could say a surprise and delight just to see how this book is helping people or how they've shared told me that it's helping people. I think that has been a really lovely outcome. As an author, you put good in the world and you hope goodness comes back, or you hope that it's helping, but you don't really know unless people tell you, and so that's been really great, I would say. The other is with my clients. I have my clients and meet with them on a regular basis and I have clients that are reading the book and then when I meet with them they're like, yeah, I just read chapter five, let's talk about it. So this combination of I'm not going to quite do this myself, I'm going to read the book, I'm going to get knowledge, but I still want to work with someone to help me along the way, was really reinforcing that what I expected. I expected that, frankly, and I think it's important. I do think people can go through this book on their own and at some point in this call give, I'll give the listeners an option to how to make the most of it, but you can do it on your own. You can. What I think is human nature is we want someone to hold us accountable, and that's, I think, not again not necessarily a surprise, but very reinforcing. That is true and that's why just a kind of a pre announcement here I'm going to be creating an online course from the book so that it can help more people in a different way, and hopefully they'll watch the videos and they'll read the book, and I, what I'm aiming to do is reach a wider audience of entrepreneurs, not just the people who are, you know, three to five years out. This is really a book, I think. If you are beyond startup phase but you're growing your business, why not read this book and understand what it's going to take to create a more valuable exit when you're ready? So it's exciting. I'm planning to launch it in the first quarter of 2024. David: Oh, that is exciting. If somebody is interested in learning more about that is do you have any place for them to go yet, or are we too soon? Laurie: We are too soon, but that's a great idea. I should put up like a waiting list or something on my website, but the businesstransitionhandbookcom is the website page for the blog BusinessTransitionHandbookcom. Yeah, the businesstransitionhandbookcom is a page on my site, so they'll see all other pages too, but this is the landing page for the book, so what I might do is put up I'll put up a blurb at some point about awaiting this for the class. And yeah, no, I'm excited about it. Like I said, I aim to reach more people and help more people with it. David: Yeah, and you know that accountability is interesting, because one of the things I see with our clients is that one of the things that's interesting about our clients is that 90% of them have revenues between 10 and 100 million probably somewhere in the light of your clients and the vast majority of them do not borrow money. They've been financially successful enough. They've been able to, you know, internally find growth and because of in that, in addition to other reasons, and most of these also, it's a single shareholder, they don't have a board, and so these clients have zero accountability, like their only accountability is like to their family, to make sure that you know the monthly income is what they're hoping it would be. But you know, they don't have a bank to be accountable to, they don't have a board, they don't have other shareholders, so I can see where that accountability is something that they could be really helpful for them, that they don't really have anywhere else. Now, of course, they may have done that on purpose. Maybe they didn't really like being accountable. You know they were an accountable employee and then they borrowed money from the bank to start a business, so maybe they don't really like me. What do you think? Laurie: I have a client that's about 120 million revenue business in the call it food production space and he's very purposeful, has very good intentions for transition with his daughter over time and really wants to see her be successful in the company and grow with the company. And his partner, to his credit, said hey, not real name. You know, joe, you're going to want we should do a new operating agreement. You know your daughter's in the business now. She's doing a great job. We need a new operating agreement. And this operating agreement was sitting on my client's desk coffee stains. You know he literally had it in the corner of his desk. He told me he was there for nine months and then I met him in a workshop and then that was it. He said oh, that's it, I have to do something. I can't just keep looking at that document. And of course in the transition it's more than just the operating agreement. But it was so many other things too and he just the accountability was really good for him. He needed that. He really did because he had the intention to do it. It just was, you know, backburner and it was never the thing to do when all these other important things are common. Adam. David: Now that makes sense, and I just want to be clear businesstransitionbookcom or businesstransitionhandbookcom. Laurie: I just want to make sure I had it. Yeah, that's okay. It's the title of the book. Yeah, oh it's the. David: Okay yeah, I'm looking at the book. Okay, yeah, that is easy note to remember. What do you enjoy the most about your podcast? Trying to switch gears a little bit. Laurie: I love talking with people on my show about what's worked for them, what they've learned and what they would do differently and if I have an entrepreneur. I have two kinds of entrepreneurs that come on the show. One type is looking in the rearview mirror and that's where they'll get the lessons learned right. We really learn a lot from others where it just didn't quite go the way they would have liked and when they have successes, of course we learn a lot from that too. So that's one type of entrepreneur. The other type of entrepreneur is looking forward and I've started to have more conversations with entrepreneurs and I'm asking them questions about their legacy and how their intentions are for their transition and legacy, if they're open to sharing it. I've had a gentleman came on my show. He's in the HVAC space and he had let his company, his partner, know his intentions to retire in three years and it was almost like this huge weight was lifted off his shoulders and now that it's out there, they can create plans, they can work on things and it's a little bit freeing to do something like that. Other people who aren't quite ready to say what it is they want to do. We talk a little more generally about what's important to them as they think about transition and leaving a meaningful legacy for their stakeholders or family or employees, and I'm really enjoying those conversations. I also talk with people who are experts in the industry on some particular topic, like tax advisors, financial advisors, legal advisors, and those conversations are wonderful because then, as I build my Rolodex of professionals that are able to be the best fit for my clients, it's a wonderful way to do business development and people who listen to the show have. You know, not every listener becomes a client, but I have had listeners reach out. They've listened to succession stories for a year, two years, whatever it is, and they reach out and they said Lori, a longtime fan would love to talk with you. And the resources that are available from the show are on my website, like business assessments and different articles and knowledge articles give plenty of videos and ask to help people learn about different topics. So I feel like this body of knowledge. You know this thought leadership type of approach where if people listen, they learn about me, they learn about what would they do, and then maybe they want to follow up. You know is pretty exciting. So I really like that. I like when I hear from my audience. They tell me what's an interesting topic to them or questions they might have, and I think the learning is really the main thing. I'm a continuous learner I always have been and I find that with every show I'm learning something. You know, I'm learning something every time and I just love that. David: Yeah, and I've probably listened to half of your episodes. I suppose and you know that episode you have with Mike Silverman was really memorable that you know have had to introduce several clients to Mike, and so I think having the advisors on is also a great idea and that's kind of how you fit short of on my show, right? We're not talking about the ICDisc program at all, but you're somebody who my clients outside the ICDisc may find value to this conversation and yeah and I'm like you I love to hear, to hear, people's stories on the Colby. I'm an 8643, which I don't know. If you know the Colby, I do know the Colby. So I'm. That's what's called high fact finding. Okay, so I lead with the fact finding. So for me, I'm always more comfortable, you know, asking questions than answering them. Maybe that's from childhood trauma, where I was forced to answer too many uncomfortable questions by my parents. I don't know. Well, I can't believe how the time has flown by. By the way, what's your website? Laurie: My website is thebusinesstransitionsherpacom. David: Oh, okay, I like it. Laurie: Thank you, you know. I just wanted to mention David, because if your listeners are finding this topic helpful, that's good, you know, and then they probably might be wondering well, what's the next step? Or you know how do I sort of take small nibbles as opposed to biting off a whole arm, and I would recommend that. You know, I don't want people to feel overwhelmed, I want them to feel reassured that we have a process and we'll work with them to meet them where they are and I guess the you know. The next thing would be to reach out and whether they are in a mode of transition and planning, which is what I'll call pre-M&A right, not that they have to sell, but just conceptually. And then, for folks who are anticipating selling to a third party or a family member, you know that transaction somehow some way. So I'm a certified Mergers and Acquisitions Advisor and can help steer them on that path, from the practical side as well as the emotional side, to get a deal done that makes them happy. Okay, I like it. David: If people want to reach out to you, is LinkedIn probably the best way. Laurie: Yeah, linkedin's a great way. Let me know that you heard me on the show. That would be awesome, and I think, david, you'd probably love to know that too. And they could reach me on my website. As you said, the business transition Sherpa, there's a spot to book directly with me. We can connect via Calendly. David: Okay, and then what's the website for the podcast? Laurie: Successionstoriescom is the name of the show and again, you can find it directly on my website in the podcast section. All the catalog of the shows are there, but it's in every type of platform, so if you're Apple or Spotify or whatever you like, you'll find it. David: That's great. So here's the surprise question I promised you. Laurie: So I have two questions left. David: And so here comes the surprise one. So if you could go back in time and give advice to your 25 year old self, what advice might you give? Laurie: I think I should have bought a business. David: Okay, so you would have encouraged yourself to buy a business. Laurie: Yes, when I was 25 and I was graduating from my master's program. It was all about the next great tech startup, yeah, and creating that from scratch. And that wasn't me, yeah. But I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I just didn't feel like that was me in that mold. And I think now I'm more attuned to entrepreneurs through acquisition, you know as a category, and I didn't mention them, but they also would fall under the financial buyer category and there are many of them out there, not just in the US but around the world, who are interested in being part of that succession plan for a founder next generation leader. David: If you do you ever listen to the my First Million podcast. Laurie: I'd spent a while, but I'm familiar with it. You like that. David: They had a guest on recently. That is probably certainly my top five favorite podcast interviews ever and it's about a woman Sarah I forget her last name, but she was getting her MBA and decided she was going to buy a business with and she had zero money. She was going to buy a business you like these real estate advertisements? Buying real estate with no money down. She was going to buy a business with no money down and it's just a fascinating story of the process she went through through in just an astonishingly wonderful interview that I couldn't recommend highly enough. So apparently she was able to somehow go back in time and give her a 25 year old self that advice because she managed to pull that off. That's very cool. Is there anything we didn't cover that you wish we had? Laurie: Well, I think just to reiterate for people that when time is on your side, you can make an impact on your future and give yourself the space to work on your business and not just in your business. That would probably be my main advocacy and surround yourself with people that can help hold you accountable to the process and meet you where you are. So if they are just thinking about it, trying to figure it out, trying to understand what's their business worth today, yeah, that's a great place to start to. You know, try to figure out and model. Where are you now, where do you want to be and what's the gap and how are you going to get there? David: That's awesome, Laurie. I really appreciate your time on the show and I appreciate you taking the time to be on here. Laurie: Well, David, thank you for having me. I know this is my second time around you and I talked on a different show. We did. David: Yeah, we did. Laurie: It's lovely to be back with you and reconnect, and I'm just so glad that you are sharing this content with your audience, and I appreciate you, thank you. David: Yeah, it is my pleasure. Well, I hope you have a great day. Laurie: You too. Special Guest: Laurie Barkman.

Today's episode welcomes Jennifer Han, Chief Product Supply Officer of Nutrition at Unilever. In the interview with host Mike Silverman, Jennifer shares her experience managing their supply network in China during COVID, her achievements including getting WEF Lighthouse certification for three factories, and her work applying AI technology and regenerative agriculture practices to Unilever's global nutrition business.

Looking for a truly global supply chain case study, we visited London and spoke with leaders in Manila, Durban and Mexico City, delving into the details of Unilever's transformation when it comes to Customer Operations. We interviewed Juan Carlos Parada (Global Head of Customer Operations), Simon Smith (VP of Customer Experience), Navdeep Singh (VP for Customer Operations in Southeast Asia), Peter Lamplough (Head of Customer Operations in Africa), and Regina Montes (Lead for Customer Experience in Mexico). This episode is hosted by Mike Silverman, Zero100 Research Director. For the full story visit: https://zero100.com/unilever-global-supply-chain-reboot/

Mike Silverman has a unique blend of a business and technology background, with 20 years of experience in strategic, technological, financial, and change management leadership across many industries, primarily in Financial Services and Software. He enables firms to innovate, scale, and transform through increasing productivity, reducing costs, and streamlining processes and operations. Mr. Silverman was previously the Global Head of Enterprise Technology Strategy at FIS, the world's largest Financial Technology Company. Prior to that, he was a management consultant focusing on Corporate & IT Strategy, CxO Advisory, Merger & Acquisition Integration, Business Process Re-engineering, and more, and has held other roles in innovation and development.Mike has an MBA with specializations in Strategy, Finance, and Leadership & Change Management; and a BSE in Computer Engineering, Cum Laude with Departmental Honors.In this interview, Mike shares with the audience highlights of the FS-ISAC (financial services information sharing and analysis centre) APAC Summit 2023 – in particular, on two themes: Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technology.Recorded 3rd August 2023, U.S. PST 6.am. SGT 9pm.

Today on the IC-DISC Podcast, I spoke with Mike Silverman and Matt Clark, two attorneys specializing in exit planning and succession planning for business owners. They explained that exit planning is all about planning when an owner wants to leave the company, while succession planning identifies future leaders within the business. Both are crucial since you need a strategy for expected and unexpected departures. Mike and Matt stressed meeting regularly so these plans stay on track and don't cause disruption. They also talked about having a whole team involved beyond just lawyers, with experts in different fields all working together towards long-term goals. The overall message I got from listening was planning early, working with professionals with experience like Matt and Mike, and sticking with the process to ensure that transitions go smoothly for everyone.   SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Many business owners tend to push exit and succession planning to the bottom of their to-do list, focusing instead on day-to-day operations. Sudden exits without a succession plan can leave the business leaderless and destroy its value. By recognizing the need for succession planning early on, you can protect and maximize the value of your business. Planning helps align goals and increase value for employees, family, and the owner. Clear vision and goals for all stakeholders are necessary for a successful succession plan. Without planning, a sudden exit can result in a dramatic reduction in the value of the business. Having the right people in place and a solid succession plan increases the value of the business to potential buyers. A turnkey business that can generate income without the owner's presence is of premium value. They emphasize the importance of working with a team of experts, including estate planning attorneys, CPAs, and wealth advisors. These professionals can provide valuable insights and ensure a comprehensive plan is in place. They also mention that M&A lawyers often push for third-party sales because it's what they know and are experienced in. Planning is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that requires regular meetings and adjustments. Embrace the process, and you'll be well on your way to a successful exit and a bright future for your business. The conversation touches on the indirect acquisition structure and ESOPs as potential strategies. LINKSShow Notes Be a Guest About IC-DISC Alliance About Dentons GUEST Mike SilvermanAbout Mike Matthew ClarkAbout Matthew TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) David Spray Hi, my name is David Spray, and welcome to another episode of The Icdisc Show. I have a really unique episode today because I have two guests on simultaneously. That's Matt Clark and Mike Silverman. They are both attorneys at the law firm of Denton's, and they're both in the Pittsburgh office. And they have a unique practice around exit planning and succession planning. But it has very much a planning focus rather than a traditional M, a practice that seems to have more of a transactional focus. We talk about all kinds of things around planning, the need for regular meetings to implement succession and exit planning. And we also talk about how ESOPs employee stock ownership plans are one of the best deals in the tax code. That's incredibly underutilized for exit planning. Mike talks in great detail about some of the benefits of ESOP. So this is a great episode for any business owner or key executive at a privately held company to consider. So I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Good morning, gentlemen. How are you all doing today? Good morning. David Spray Very well. David Spray Good morning. Mike Silverman Fantastic. How are you doing, David? David Spray I am doing great, thank you. Well, I've really been looking forward to this interview because you guys really have some great experience that I think will really benefit clients of mine, as well as just listeners to the podcast. So why don't we just kick off with a little background. Matt, why don't we start with you? Oh, by the way, you guys are calling from Pittsburgh today. Both of you, correct? That's correct. Okay, so, Matt, let's start off with you. Are you a Pittsburgh native? Matt Clark No, I'm actually a native outside of I grew up outside of Philadelphia and made my way to Pittsburgh 30 plus years ago. And I call Pittsburgh home now. I went to Duquesne University for undergrad and then law school. My practice is corporate practice. I work with entrepreneurs and business owners and various areas, but a big part of it is part of their exit planning, and succession planning is a big part of our practice. And so I get to work with fantastic colleagues like Mike, who is certified, but in exit planning and succession planning. And so we just have a fantastic team based in Pittsburgh. But I'm with Denton's. We're the largest law firm in the world, and so we have the ability to work with clients on a truly a global basis to make sure that we're meeting and fulfilling all of their legal needs. David Spray Great. That's great. Well, thank you for that quick background. Now. What about you, Mike? Are you a native Pittsburgh bergonian what's the term? Mike Silverman I think they call them Pittsburgh. David Spray Okay. Mike Silverman But yes, I'm born and bred, have always lived here in Pittsburgh. I grew up in the eastern suburbs. I went to college in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University. I got my law degree at University of Pittsburgh, and then I got a master's in tax law after law school at New York University Law School. And like Matt, I'm a business attorney and I represent middle market companies throughout the lifecycle of a business, and succession planning isn't a very significant part of my legal practice. David Spray Okay, that's great. And do you have an accounting undergrad graduate degree? Mike Silverman No, undergrad. Odly, enough. I was an engineering major undergrad. I thought I was going to become my patent lawyer, but I fell in love with my tax courses in law school, so I went a different route. David Spray Okay, well, sounds good. So one of the things that is I've gotten to know you guys that I've learned is I had a misconception that exit planning and succession planning were basically the same thing. But as I've learned more about this, there appears to really be a significant difference. Mike, why don't you share with the audience how you delineate between exit planning and succession planning? Mike Silverman Well, ever y new corporate client that I get, I ask them the rhetorical question of whether they've done their exit planning and succession planning, and the answer invariably is no. And they also have this misconception that you referred to that exit planning and succession planning are redundant with one another. And that is a misconception because they're totally discreet. Exit planning is the planning exercise we go through to identify the structure under which a business owner is going to exit from his or her business. And there's a lot involved with developing that structure. We'll talk about it during the course of the podcast, but we want to do a deep dive into your business to figure out what your goals are personal goals, financial goals, business goals, and then figure out what kind of exit structure facilitates those goals and enables you to achieve those goals. Succession planning is very different. Succession planning, what we're going to do there is to identify who are the key employees in the operation of a business. And then once we've identified those individuals, we have to identify who their successors are going to be. Are there people that are coming up through the ranks in the company, or do we have to go out and recruit people laterally so that we don't have a drop off if an employee leaves or gets hit by a bus, et cetera. But regardless of how business owner is going to exit from his or her business, we want to make sure we have very seamless and tax efficient structures in place for both the exit plan as well as the succession plan. David Spray Is succession planning a subset of exit planning, or is exit planning a subset of succession planning, or are they parallel tracks? Mike Silverman They're parallel tracks. They're totally distinct from one another, and they're not linked together at all. It's important you do both. You can't do one without the other, in my view. David Spray When you do come across folks who have done some planning, are they usually more focused on the exit planning than the succession planning they are because they. Mike Silverman Have their eye on the prize. And so they're most interested in finding out how could they can maximize the value they can attain on their exit. But it's every bit as important to a third party buyer and to you as a business owner that you have in place in the operation of your business a seamless succession plan, because we don't know when that succession plan is going to kick in and it could kick in well in advance of an exit. David Spray Okay, thank you for that. Delineation so the next question I think I'm going to direct Matt's Way, do your business owner clients, do they tend to be very proactive on their succession in exit planning or is it something that tends to fall to the bottom of the stack? Matt Clark Matt it tends to fall to the bottom of the stack. I mean, these are people who are very busy. They're trying to drive the business forward. And in many cases the last thing they're thinking about is exit planning or succession planning. They're thinking about kind of daily plans. And so you can think about that in our own lives, very few of us have a five year plan that we kind of put out there, much less 1020 kind of thinking, worst case scenario and best case scenario, but you don't know the date of your exit. And so it's really important to develop a plan, one to protect and maximize the value of the business. Everybody, every business owner is going to exit his or her business, whether it's voluntarily or know that great offer comes along and you weren't prepared or mike and I have had, unfortunately, the situation where a business owner had a sudden health issue and they were no longer there. And so now their family is left with the family members no longer there and the business is left without a leader and without a plan. And what that does is it really destroys the value of the business because there's no planning. The employees are left wondering what's going on and they haven't been included within it. So you need to eliminate or at least minimize the risks and liabilities associated with the business. You need to create a clear vision and goal for the owner, for the family, for those key employees that are part of the succession plan as to the direction of the business both before and after the owner's career has ended, whether again, if that's voluntarily or involuntarily. And you really need to make sure that this planning is creating an effective and efficient transition of the business upon the exit. So we'll tie on or tie into this later on. But one of the challenges for a business owner, particularly someone a founder, is they've invested or they view that business as an extension of themselves. And in many ways this actually harms the value of the Business. And that's where the really succession planning and saying, who can help you run this business if you're not here? And how do you move in that direction as part of your exit? It actually Helps once they Understand that and Realize that actually creates value in the business, it Aligns Their goals with the business Goals. And really, it helps increase everybody's value. Employees, the family, the owner. David Spray Yeah. So you raise a really good point that without planning, a sudden exit can result in a dramatic reduction in the value of the business. Matt Clark Mike and I had a client where we had been pushing to have a plan put in place. And the founder, owner, Healthy, was really driving the business. Hard didn't see a need for it and unfortunately had a heart attack and passed. And so the wife became the business owner, had no real interest in the business, had no experience with it, and there was no succession plan. And so we come in, and we're trying to help lead that through the process, whether it's identifying okay, now, after the fact, you're identifying who is the employee. Is there an employee that can lead this business at least through an exit where you haven't destroyed the value? So those are the sort of things with and we recognize and appreciate that the process itself can be time consuming in that you go through effectively. And we'll get into this due diligence on your own company, identifying where your weaknesses are, how you can approve those. Do you have somebody who can take over the business? If you don't? How do you bring that person in? Or what do you do to decouple yourself as the business owner from the operation of the business so that a buyer can look at it and say, there's real value here without this person being in the business? 24 7365 because That's Part of your exit Plan. You're Looking To actually move away from the day to day operation of The Business once You Sell? David Spray No, that makes sense. So I know my clients tend to try to bottom line things. So would It Be inappropriate to Say to somebody who hasn't done Planning to say to Them, well, hey, if you Don't Want to do planning, that's okay. But realize that your ultimate value of the business at the exit is probably going to be half what it could have been or substantially less than it could have been. Is that any? Matt Clark That's a fair mean. So mike and represent. We do a lot of exit and succession planning, but we also on acquisitions represent both buyers and sellers. And when a buyer is looking for a business, particularly if it's a financial buyer, they're saying, if I purchase this business, am I going to have to once the owner leaves, am I going to have to put in somebody who's the new CEO, president, whatever it might be? And that's an additional cost. And that person doesn't have the relationships, doesn't have the experience. And so you're now discounting the value because that all left with the owner. Even if there's a transition plan, what we recommend, and this is part of the succession and exit planning is making sure that you have the right people in place, that you can continue to have those relationships. And you can say to a buyer, hey, this is basically running on its own. This is so easy for you. I've set it up. Here's the plan, the succession, this person, when they leave or retire, I have three other people that I've been training and qualified. None of my relationships with my key vendors or customers are tied to one employee. They're not tied just to me. And so it really allows you to say, this is a turnkey business just waiting to generate income for you, just like it's done for me. And that's really of premium value. David Spray Okay. Mike Silverman The one thing, David, that I would augment, what Matt just said is that a lot of times we have an exit planning structure that we call an exit without an exit. And that means you have to have a perfect succession plan because once we get into the succession planning with a client, we explain to them this business has to run on automatic pilot whether you're there or not, because then a buyer has no issues with regard to your business. They know it can run whether you're on vacation for six months or not. So a lot of our clients, once they realize that when we've gone through a really well conceived succession plan with them and the owner has delegated all the control and the reins of the business to key employees and the owner can go away for six months. The owner says to himself or herself, wow. I can augment my purchase price by just hanging around for a while. So I'm not going to exit. I'm just going to collect coupons and distributions from my company, let these people run it. I'll bump up their salaries a little bit, but I'll just passively collect distributions and cash flow over the years that increase my purchase price when I eventually exit. So that just shows that how important the succession planning is and how important it is that we have a business that's transferable, that it's not dependent on the owner. The owner has delegated all those control elements of the business to key employees. David Spray Yeah, I have a general sense of this because I don't know if you know who John Warlow is, the built to sell guy, but I actually went through his program a couple of years to become a certified value builder and it was so eye opening. I mean, the other big takeaway is a business that can run without you is a more fun business to own. So, I mean, when you look at it, there's really no reason to not have a business to not have the goal of having a business that runs without you. It's more valuable, it's more fun. If you have some unexpected change, it's better. Mike, when should a business owner start exiting succession planning? I guess it depends on if you have a crystal ball, right? If you have a crystal ball and you know exactly what the future holds, then you can tell them exactly when to start their planning, I guess. Right. Mike Silverman I tell every client, and this is typically new clients because all my existing clients have done their exit and succession planning. That as Matt alluded to before. Every business owner exits from his or her business, either voluntarily or involuntarily. And as you said a minute ago, we don't have a crystal ball and we've had plenty as to whether an involuntary event like death or disability is going to occur. Involuntary events also include key employees leaving the business or key employee dying, et cetera. You can go into a free fall for things that might happen to the business owner or key employee. So I tell every new client, you can push back and delay doing the exit succession planning, but it's critical you do it today. You've spent a better part of your lifetime, significant part of your lifetime, building a very unique and valuable business, the value of which probably represents 80 or 90% of your net worth. And you need to protect that business and also ensure that whether we have an involuntary or voluntary exit, we're getting 100 cents on the dollar. We have a tax efficient exit, we have a succession plan that is seamless, that kicks in, and that all your planning is in place so that whether there's an involuntary event or a buyer comes knocking on the door tomorrow, we're ready for it. So I tell every client, we need to do this right now. David Spray Yeah, that makes so, Matt, if I'm hearing you guys correctly, that everybody needs some type of an estate plan, arguably, and those with substantial assets, it's even more critical. But what I think I'm hearing you saying is that a business owner, their exit and succession plan is just as critical as their estate plan. Matt Clark Well, I don't want to say it's more important, but they kind of all go together. And so when you're thinking about your estate plan, you have to think about the value of your assets that are part of your estate. And so if you're saying, well, my business, I think this is my exit plan, this is what I'm going to live on, this is kind of all part of the process. You're going to maximize that value by successful and well thought out exit planning and succession planning. And so again, we would say the estate plan is part of that. But before, when you value your estate, you'd say, okay, well, what is the value of my business? So there's also a group of people and advisors that we work with, whether it's your estates and trust lawyer, the accountant, the financial planner, again, the owner and their insurance, they're all tied together for really kind of a holistic approach of exit planning, succession planning and estate planning. And they are tied together. So again, they all have to be working in conjunction and the business owner has to be realistic about all of them, but thoughtful. David Spray Yeah. So I'm starting to get it that really, you could kind of say it falls under the umbrella of being financially successful in one's life. In a way, the price of that is the more financially successful one is, the more planning that's required to ensure the maximum capture of value that they've created both on the estate tax side and on the business side. And I guess the difference is somebody who's just a corporate executive, their state plan is really the heart of their issue. They don't really need the exit plan, the succession plan, because they're an employee. Okay, that makes sense. So let's talk a bit about the planning process itself. Let's get into some of the nuts and bolts, if we could, because it sounds like it's really a holistic approach. What are the different components of that planning, Matt, that comes into that? I mean, we've talked about the estate planning, the exit planning, the succession planning. Are those really the three legs of the stool or are there additional planning components beyond that that are subsets of that? Matt Clark Those are our key components. I'm going to throw this one over to Mike. I know this is his area on the tax planning and that is his specialty. Mike Silverman Yeah, I would say, David, that it's a very holistic effort that we go through a lot of steps. The initial step in the planning process is we want to hear from the business owner what his or her goals are. And those are personal goals, business goals and financial goals. Once we've identified that, then we can structure our planning around those goals to ensure that we achieve those goals through the succession plan and the exit plan. So our first step once we've identified those goals is as Matt alluded to earlier, we go through a due diligence process with the business. We want to make sure the business is airtight and squeaky clean. So we literally go through with the business owner. The due diligence checklist we use when we represent a company and buying another business, because we want to go through all facets of your business, not just legal issues, but every other issue. Insurance, benefit plans, et cetera. Just everything that you would go through if your business was being acquired. We want you to look at your business from the outside in and think about what areas of your business need protection, what the value drivers are in your business that make your business unique and give you barriers to competition. What things we need to protect through an employment agreement, for example, that has non compete, non solicitation and confidentiality to getting a trademark on your name and logo, et cetera. We want to make sure we've identified any issues that need to be cleaned up and get you to the point where your business is airtight and squeaky clean. So a buyer would have the shortest due diligence exercise with your business ever. Once we've gone through that, then we move on to financial planning because we want to accomplish your financial goals. So we want to get a back of the envelope number, first of all from your financial planner as to the liquid net worth that you need to have to retire under the circumstances and terms you want to retire. And so that gives us a reference point. So the second reference point, in light of the fact that a high percentage of your net worth is the value of your business, is we have your accountant do a back of the envelope net proceeds analysis of what you would get if you sold your business today after fees to professionals and investment bankers and after taxes, et cetera. And so once we know what you could net, what you could realize if you sold your business today, we compare that number to the liquid net worth number your financial planner has given us. There's usually a huge delta between those two numbers and it puts in the bright lights for the client how much they need to increase the value of their company. So that's the first element of planning, really. The second element of planning is really growth planning. We need to work in concert with your professional advisors to develop a growth plan where we can increase the revenues, the profits and the cash flow and the value of your business so that over time we can eliminate that delta that exists between that net proceeds number that you could get today and the liquid net worth number you need. After we've completed the growth planning. We also put in place a contingency plan because what could interrupt the time frame for completing your growth plan is if there's an intervening event, death or disability. So we typically go about securing an appropriate amount of life insurance and sometimes disability insurance to ensure that we've insured against that contingency. After we've gone through those planning exercises, we're ready to now design the structure of your exit plan. And typically in connection with designing that structure, we're going to go through a lot of different structures with you, but we're going to also make sure what Matt alluded to earlier, we don't have barriers. Things are going to be in the way to your achieving 100 cents on the dollar right off the bat on the sale of your business. And the biggest one is typically if a high percentage of your customers are coming of your revenue is coming from one customer or your business is dependent on the owner because the owner is responsible for 70% of the revenue with the client relationships. If there's a dependency, if there's a concentration issue, we want to eliminate that. And so the structure we're designing will work seamlessly. And so we go through the different structures for the exit plan and we figure out what's the most tax efficient structure from both an income tax standpoint and then a state and gift tax standpoint. And also simultaneously is achieving all the goals that you have set out for us. And then lastly, we're creating a succession plan. What we talked about earlier for. David Spray So thank you for that. But one thing I was thinking about is this concept. You've got the advisors, right, the estate planning attorney, the CPA, the wealth advisor, that who should be the quarterback on that. And I know a lot of wealth advisors end up taking that role because they find that they seem to have more frequent contact with the client. So they end up kind of taking that quarterback and proactive role. But as I listen to you, I wonder if you all should actually be in that quarterback role. And here's why I say that. Because if 80% of the client's net worth is in the business, then that's really what's driving everything, right? That's the biggest asset in the estate plan. That's the biggest asset from the financial planning. So I'm guessing that you don't just do this exit and succession planning, kind of wash your hands of it, give it to them and say, hey, if something changes, call me. Or if you're ready to sell your business, give me a call. Are you all more involved on an ongoing basis than what I might first have imagined? Matt, what are your thoughts there? I asked several questions at once. Matt Clark There no I think let me step back. I was going to say after Mike talked about the planning process and the Holistic approach, I think the answer is mean. These are clients that we work with on a regular basis and so we understand their needs and issues and risks. There is a regular check in. The only way these plans are successful is if you're checking in against them to make sure that the client is moving forward correctly or that you have to reevaluate if something comes up. That's all part of it. Maybe their goals have changed, their needs have changed. There has to be a discussion on that. We work and I wouldn't say while we take the lead on that, on the planning, we are working with each of these areas, whether it's these experts, whether it's the accountant, the financial planner, insurance. We want to have a collegial relationship where it's viewed as truly a team that we're all there on behalf of the owner to make sure that their plans and their needs are met. And so you're right. I think if 80% of the value of the company or excuse me, the owner's assets are driven by the company, and we're working with that company day in and day out, whether it's on their commercial agreements, their benefit plans, just general advice and guidance. We're there for our clients. We will help them dealing with their financial planner, the accountant insurance. It's across the board. But we're mindful that it does take a team approach so that the clients needs are met. Mike Silverman Okay, David, I would augment that by saying that one thing that falls through the cracks is that a typical business owner has excellent advisors, but excellent advisors. And getting a really well conceived exit plan and succession plan done are two different things, in my experience at least. I think that the advisors, number one, are not proactive with getting the exit and succession planning done. And secondarily, they don't coordinate with each other on this topic. And then lastly, they don't necessarily have the experience. I mean, you need to have done many dozens, if not over 100 exit plans so that you're really well versed in all the particulars of a client's fact situation and you can design the exactly right exit plan. So having a great team of advisors and getting a great exit plan done are two different concepts. So I think it's good to have as your quarterback somebody who's done a lot of exit plans and succession plans in their career. David Spray Now that makes sense. And I wasn't thinking about the ongoing commercial aspects of the business that they can reach out to you on contracts and other stuff. So help me understand what would be, from your perspective, a textbook client engagement where you all can really add maximum value. Let's say we have a business that's got a $20 million enterprise value, single shareholder gentleman in his 40s. What would kind of the ideal situation look like? Are you proactively meeting annually, quarterly? And then what other aspects of the commercial legal situation are you guys set up to handle? I'm guessing all the transactional contract type stuff that you all can be a resource, is that correct? Mike Silverman Yeah, I'd like Matt to weigh in on it as well. But from my vantage point, once we've designed the exit plan and the succession plan, it takes a long time to implement it. The growth plan takes quite a long time to implement. So we're in contact on a monthly basis, sometimes more frequently than that because we want to stay on the client because these things can drift if you're not in contact with the client, things don't get done necessarily. So we can build the engine, but then we got to fuel it. And so we're in contact with them on the implementation until it's done, and then we're working with them on all the things I talked about before with the due diligence effort, we want to make sure that you're building on once we've done that. So we want to keep you airtight and squeaky clean and help you. To grow. David Spray And Matt, what else might you add to that? Matt Clark Yeah, I think we become part of the generally, these clients, they don't have in house counsel, and so we become their general counsel for their business. We're there for daily advice and guidance, whatever they need. And it's really all aspects of their business we're able to assist them with and try to give them advice and guidance. Understand now that we have a clear understanding of kind of their vision, their plan, where they want to be, our goal is really to help them to get there in every aspect, whether that's, again, even on the hiring of employees, if they want our advice. I know that Mike and I have sat in on interviews when they're interviewing key employees for their business because that's part of our role, if that owner wants us to be involved in that. So we really become part of the management team and we're tied at the hip with the owner. Our goals are aligned with theirs. David Spray Yeah. And you're helping me kind of better understand this because of the due diligence you're doing on the front end, you have a better understanding of their business than if they just say, hey, I need to have a contract drafted, and they ask their golfing buddy, who should I call? They call up the attorney. Like, I need a contract. An attorney. In that isolated basis, it would be much more difficult for them to provide contextual advice right. Without understanding the whole situation. Yeah. Matt Clark You don't know if that client is going to be the key client or if it's just kind of a one off or what their risk tolerance is, where they are in the process. Kind of the lifespan of the company. Are they looking to have an exit in two years, five years, ten years? It's just kind of in the abstract. And so, again, we're happy we work with clients in that way, but what we really enjoy is helping them plan for their future success of the company and then helping them drive that success. David Spray Yeah, that makes sense. And it sounds like you guys frequently work as a team serving your clients. Could you help me understand the roles you all play in that teamwork? And I guess the other benefit is there's a lot of overlap too. Right. So from the client's perspective, they're also reducing their key attorney risk right. By having two of you that know their situation. So, Matt, when a client asks you, hey, why do I need two of you? Isn't it cheaper for me just to have one of you? How do you answer that question as far as how you guys work together and the expertise you bring? Matt Clark Well, first off, I'd say we complement each other. My practice is a corporate general practice and an M and a practice. I did work eleven years in house at a variety of companies, and I've worked with early stage companies all the way up to publicly traded companies. And so I think I have a really good vision of what it looks like for a company to grow the day in, day out needs of a company. I can be the client's in house counsel, but I'm their outside advisor as so, you know, the one thing I'd say is the client is never going to pay for Mike and I at the same time. We have this arrangement where we're both on a call with the client. One of us is not going to bill. They just don't experience that we understand the needs of the client and what I really call value based billing, they understand and have to feel like they're getting value for what we provide. And we think we really do provide value to our clients both short term and really with the planning long term. And that's our goal. We want clients that are going to be, that will be their counsel, not just for the review of one contract, but to help them grow their business and really look back and say, that was really great working with you. Let me give you the name of I'm going to tell one of my friends, my colleagues, somebody I know, they should work with Mike Silverman or Matt Clark. And so that's ultimately and with denton's. David Spray And so that's what we look, you know, I thought I've got a pretty good understanding know, the roles that all the advisors play, but you guys kind of just keep throwing me for a loop here, because when I think of an M A advisor, I think of a very transactionally focused advisor, where a substantial portion of the lifetime value of that client comes from that single transaction. And thus, by necessity, it seems like they need to really maximize the value of that client. But what I hear you guys saying is you take a different approach. You take a long term approach to the relationship, and because you're taking that long term approach, you don't have to bill for both of your time every time you're on a call. And so in the long run, if you think about it from like an hourly cost, the client's actually paying less in the long run because so it's like a two way street, right? If the client says, hey, I want you guys to be part of my long term team, in exchange for that kind of long term commitment, you're able to be able to take a long term perspective and not be hyper focused on how much revenue that client delivered this month. Does that sound right, Mike? Yeah. Mike Silverman Another example of that, too, is most clients think that a sale to a third party buyer, a strategic buyer, whatever, is nirvana. That's the best possible exit structure for them. And it's a great exit structure for a law firm and an accounting firm and an investment banker because it generates enormous fees for all of those professionals. I can tell you that only a small percentage of the exit plans that Matt and I do involve a third party buyer. Most of them are a different structure where the revenue that is paid to the professional advisors is a fraction of what they'd paid if they did a third party sale. So we do what's best for the client, and there's a parade of horribles that the client isn't aware of until you delineate it for them associated with a third party sale. And we can get you typically 100 cents on the dollar with a different structure, whereas with a third party sale, there's a lot of different results that might be obtained. David Spray Yeah, and I want to talk a bit more about that because when I heard you on Lori's podcast a year and a half ago, that really intrigued me. But back to the question as far as what roles you and Matt serve when working together as a team. So it sounds like like it sounds like he has more buy side experience from large Acquisitive companies. Is that accurate? And you've got more of a focus on the tax consequences or help me understand the delineation. Mike Silverman Matt is very strong as a corporate lawyer, and he's got a significant buy side and sell side practice on the M A front. I have no M A component to my practice. My practice is strictly general corporate tax and exit succession planning. And so but we complement each other, as Matt mentioned earlier. David Spray I see. No, thank you for that clarification. Now that makes even more sense to me. So what I would like to do is I'd like to kind of shift gears and talk about the whole concept of internal sales ESOPs. And again, from your interview with Lori, it just really resonated with me that of all of the benefits of an internal sale and quite frankly, I really rarely hear M A attorneys talking about. So just talk to me a bit more about why do you never hear about internal sales? It's like the thing you always hear is there's a financial buyer or there's a strategic buyer. You always want the strategic because they'll pay a premium. And that's kind of the end of the story. And due diligence is going to be horrible, and the buyer will retrade at the last minute and a lot of a significant portion of the deals never close after months of painful due diligence. But there's a third way. So why don't you talk to us, Mike, about some of the benefits of, I guess what I'd call the third way. Mike Silverman Okay, well, as a preface to describing the indirect acquisition or internal transaction, I think that the reason you hear about it so little is that M A lawyers, corporate lawyers, they're driven. I mean, it's almost automatic pilot for them to drive you to a third party sale because that's what they know that's where their experience lies. Their experience lies with working with an investment banker and getting the highest amount and as many cents on the dollar closing as they can and so forth. And unless you're a pretty experienced exit planner, you're not going to be at all familiar with an internal transaction. And so what I say to every client to dissuade them, to get them to look at an internal transaction is I said, here's the pros and cons of a sale to a third party buyer. If you sell to a third party buyer, the big pro to me is an investment banker is going to find you a strategic buyer that's going to pay you more than the fair market value of your business. So that's a big pro. The cons that I have with a third party sale and as I referred to them before, it's kind of the parade of horribles is number one, you're going to pay large professional fees to a law firm, an accounting firm, and a very big fee to an investment banker. I mean, you're talking high six figures, maybe seven figures in fees for those items. Number two, you're going to have a purchase agreement that has 25 representations and warranties about your business that you have liability for. And you're going to hit in that agreement an indemnification section that makes you liable for up to 100% of the purchase price. So when you close on the sale of your business, you're not sleeping all that well at night with those two factors at work. David Spray And the third one that bothers me a lot is you typically don't get 100 cents on the dollar. There's typically a promissory note or there's contingent purchase price, which we call an earn out that's dependent on the business achieving certain milestones down the road, and someone else is running your business relative to those milestones now. So I don't like any of those dynamics. I want to come up with a structure. I like to implement a structure that eliminates all those things, the fees, the earn out payments, the deferred purchase price, et cetera. So the structure that I use that I refer to as an indirect acquisition is a lot of my business owners are very loyal to their key employees. David Spray And what they tell me is, in a perfect world, I'd like to transition this business to the management team, to the key employees who have gotten me to where I am right now. And I want to incent them to facilitate my exit from this company. They don't have the wherewithal to take out a loan, guarantee a loan. They don't have the cash in their pockets to buy me out. So how can we do this? What my structure is, it's three simple steps. David Spray I have the business owner exchange his or her shares of stock in the company, which I call a recapitalization for shares, for a small number of voting shares and a large number of non voting shares. So after that step, the shareholder or the business owner might have three voting shares and 997 non voting shares. Step one. Step two is we identify in the succession plan who are the key employees of the business who drive it right now and who we want to incent to drive it in the future, drive the value and the cash flow in the future. David Spray And we're going to grant to them a small percentage of the non voting stock in the company, maybe 3-4-5 something like that. And we're going to tie to that a very long vesting schedule so that they won't vest in it for maybe a ten year period. And I tend to use a cliff vesting schedule. So unless and until you've given us ten years of sweat equity, you don't vest in this stock we've granted to you, you own it, but it's subject to forfeiture if you leave in the next ten years. David Spray Let me just be clear. So a cliff is opposed to like a pro rada where exactly? If it's a ten year schedule, say they earn 10% because of the cliff, that gives the employer more ultimate power, I guess, over that. Yeah. David Spray The two problems I have with the prorata vesting are number one, the key employee could walk out the door after four years and they're 40% vested and that doesn't sync up with the exit schedule for the owner. So that's not helpful to me. I want the timeline for that vesting schedule to sync up so the owner can be fully bought out by the time you're vested. So you're either all in with your sweat equity or you're not. And this is also a tremendous incentive tool with the key employees because the third step is we enter into a shareholder agreement between the business owner and the key employees who got that 3% of the stock. And that agreement says that the business owner has a right, a put right, meaning he or she has the right to require the company to buy a certain percentage of his shares over time. And so as those shares are purchased by the company through the cash flow that these key employees are generating, little by little, the owner's percentage is going down and the key employees are rising from three and 5% to 20% and ultimately to 100%. So the structure, if you think about it, creates a win win environment. It's a huge win for the business owner because that owner stays in control of the company with the voting shares till the bitter end, until all of his or her non voting shares have been purchased by the company. Number two, they don't have any of the cost downside risks associated with a third party sale. They're going to get 100 cents on the dollar and oftentimes the fair market. We have the purchase price equal to a floor value or the then current fair market value. So they may get in excess of 100 cents on the dollar. And the owner also gets to achieve his or her goal of transitioning the business to his management, his or her management team. On the flip side, it's a win for the key employees because they're not paying for the business. The cash flow of the business is buying out the business owner and they gradually, just by contributing their sweat equity, are going from 5% to owning the business in total over time. So the structure creates a huge win for both sides and we eliminate all the prey to horribles I talked about with a third party sale. David Spray Yeah. And this is usually what you're describing. Is it usually using an ESOP structure? David Spray Sometimes it's an ESOP, sometimes not. I'm a big fan of ESOPs, ESOPs as a tax lawyer, it's the last safe haven I have in the Internal Revenue Code, frankly. And so an ESOP I use in my exit planning quite a bit. My 1st 25 years of practice, I did very few ESOPs the last few years of my practice. I mean, we're working on three ESOPs right now. The acronym just stands for Employee Stock Ownership Plan. And that's a qualified retirement plan. And so we can set up a qualified retirement plan to buy some or all of the shares in a company from the business owner. And there's enormous benefits to doing that. The typical business owner owns a flow through entity for tax purposes, an S corporation or an LLC tax as a partnership. And so if we have an ESOP buying an ownership interest in a flow through entity, let's just say that the ESOP buys 50% of the stock in an S corporation from a business owner. Now, all of a sudden, 50% of the income of that entity is tax exempt. We don't have to pay taxes on. David Spray It anymore because the ESOP owns that 50%. David Spray Yeah, and the ESOP is a tax exempt qualified plan. And so the ESOP gives us a lot of benefits in the exit planning sphere because number one, the cash flow of the business is going to go up significantly because tax dollars are no longer being paid ever again to the state or federal governments. Number two, the owners of the beneficiaries of that ESOP are the employees of the company. So now, all of a sudden, you've created an incredible incentive compensation tool to retain your current employees and incent them to grow the value of the business as well as a recruitment tool, because you can tell every new employee that comes aboard. You're going to be a beneficiary of this ESOP, and you're going to be an indirect owner of the company. That's why Anderson Window Company, for example, says they're employee owned, they're owned by an ESOP. And so their employees are very proud and very happy to be owners of Anderson Window Company, which is a big valuable company that obviously was owned by a business owner one day, and it got sold to an ESOP. So ESOPs are a big part of our practice as well. David Spray Isn't there another benefit to an ESOP that's like, similar to a 1031 exchange? David Spray Yeah, there's another code, section 1042, that says if you sell stock in a C corporation to an ESOP, then you can take the proceeds and redeploy them in the stock market, and you don't have to pay tax on those proceeds. You can defer your gain recognition as long as you hold those publicly traded securities in which you've invested the sale proceeds. Once you ultimately sell those publicly traded securities, then you pay your gains, but you could hold those securities for a long time. You could hold them till death and get a basis, step up in them and never pay tax. So 1042 gives you an advantage. If you're a C corporation, you sell stock to an ESOP. David Spray So, ma'am, this has been so much fun, and I still have a bunch of questions. We may have to just have a round two, but I always love some success stories. And so help me understand kind of what kind of an ideal client looks like for you all. I'm guessing a half million dollar revenue solopreneur is probably not the right fit. Or maybe the other way to look at it is maybe each of you give an anonymous client sort of success story. And maybe through that we can kind of illustrate what the kind of typical clients like. Matt, why don't you go first? When people say, hey, what's the perfect company for you guys? What are the attributes that you think you can really add a lot of value to a company? Matt Clark So I have a client that I helped form the client and again, very early stage in a somewhat niche market and set up the company. Asked him what his kind of went through the exit and succession planning to make sure that as he grew his business and he literally started with four employees and within five years had 30 employees was in a really attractive market. But part of his goal was he wanted to truly exit the business and didn't want to be in it any longer. And he was looking to just truly maximize his value, understanding he might be willing to stay on for six months at the most. And so we went through, we helped him set up his benefit plans. We made sure that his IP was protected. It's really important, both trademark and here. He had some patents he was selling us and internationally. We made sure that he was complying on his export compliance. We made sure since he was selling both at his location in Pennsylvania, but he was also selling outside of Pennsylvania, that his tax regiment, that he wasn't going to be hit with sales and use tax and failure to pay that in all of the jurisdictions in which he was supposed to. And so we look at clients and say, we're going to help you grow your business from two or three employees to an exit that is upper seven figures. I mean, it was a great within a short time period. And then this is somebody who is, to be candid, young enough that once his non compete runs out, he will be back to us. We've set up his estate planning and so he's coming back to us already and saying, what if I want to invest in real estate? What if I want to invest? And so we're coordinating with his financial planner, with his accountant, with his insurance, and we continue to do that post exit. And so it's really a case of the plan worked and then are we continuing to help him plan moving forward, as he says? Although I left that business, we found that entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs and founders are founders and they might take some time off, but they're going to come back. And so, again, that's the long term where Mike and I work with these clients. And it's not just I'll call it transactional one transaction. It's really looking at kind of the long term and working. He has a family. We've set up the family trust for him. And so it's a relationship that I expect that will last for ten to 20 years. David Spray That's great. I love examples. Mike, do you have an example, a client success story example, that you could just tell us a bit about the company? Mike Silverman Yeah, I can give you, actually two very different ones that I can describe very quickly. Actually. One was an exit plan where I used that very internal transaction that I just spoke about. This was way back in 2007, where basically we put in place the structure I described and the husband and wife who owned the business, they cashed out way back in 2007, maybe at $6 million, by gradually having the company buy their shares. So the management team succeeded back then to the ownership of the company. And fast forward to today. The management team is going to sell the business for, I think, about 23 million. So the business has gone way up in value. That management team didn't pay a nickel. They just contributed their sweat equity all along and stuck with the plan. So it was a good exit for the husband and wife. They were very happy with getting 100 cents on the dollar way back when. And the management team is thrilled to be selling the business today. David Spray For four times what they paid for it. Mike Silverman Basically, yeah, four times. So they grew. I mean, the number of employees and the revenue and everything just skyrocketed. So that's part of the explanation for the soaring in value. A very different transaction was I got referred to a seller who owned a C corporation, and I represented him in selling his stock. This is back in 2014 to an ESOP, and ESOP was buying all the stock in the company. And I didn't represent the company or the ESOP, so I represented the seller. And the purchase price was not that large. It was only $4 million, I think. And the company took on debt of, I think, 3 million and used cash on the balance sheet to fund the other million. After the transaction was completed, the company came to me and said they'd like me to be their counsel. And so I immediately told them, we got to convert you from a C Corp. To an S Corporation. So you're a flow through entity, and all your income will flow into a tax exempt vehicle. That factor alone has caused the company to I mean, the company is still in place. It's owned by an ESOP, and all the employees are beneficiaries of that ESOP, and the employee ranks have grown quite a bit since 14. But the value of that company today, because the ESOP has to go through an annual valuation, it's like $21 million. So the company has grown fivefold since 2014, and the biggest factor in that is 40% of their cash flow is being retained. It's not going to the tax authorities anymore. So that, to me, is a real success story just by making an S election in that structure. David Spray Wow, this has been such a content rich show. Like I said, I may want to have you guys come back in a few months and go into some other things. But with that we're approaching an hour. Why don't I just let you guys kind of each give any parting advice you may have for business owners as it relates to exit and succession planning? And Matt, why don't we let you go first? And Mike, why don't we let you take us down the home stretch? Matt Clark I think exit and succession planning is I think there's a saying, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. And I think exit and succession planning is the same way. The best time was when you first started the business, but the next best time is today. And so to the extent you haven't started, now is the time. It's never going to get easier if you look forward and say, well, give me six months. Give me twelve months. And Mike and I have heard that, and we really encourage our clients today is that six months. You don't know what the future holds, but why don't we put some contingency planning around it and help you build the value of your business and be that kind of crutch for you that you can count on and rely on to execute on that? So we're here for our clients, and ultimately, we're here to make sure that they meet their goals. And the best time to do that is today. David Spray And how do they start that process? Just give you a call or send you an email. Matt Clark Yeah, it's just reaching out. And then we set up a series of meetings and kind of walk through. It's a time consuming the first item is the diligence. Well, I think, Michael, the first thing is understanding what their needs are, their goals are, and then understanding about the business, if it's an existing business going through and doing diligence on it to make sure that we understand where the issues are and then have a very candid conversation of what they think the issues and risks are to their business. Most business owners know. I mean, they really do understand what the weaknesses are and what they need to do. It's hard sometimes to kind of open up on that. David Spray How does that work in terms of the cost? Do you guys do a preliminary phone call at no cost just to kind of get to know one another? Matt Clark How do you all absolutely in the beginning for those the initial meeting and call, and there's no expense for that. We don't charge for that. Again, we look at things long term. It's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And so we're not looking to make our fees on those calls. The ultimate is we want to build a long term relationship with the business owner and the company and really build that relationship for 510, 20 years. Whether they sell that business and they look to enter into a new business or their future endeavors, we want to be there with them. David Spray Okay, now that sounds good. Mike, what's your parting advice? Mike Silverman Well, at the risk of bombarding you with trite expressions, I'm a big fan of the expression yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. And that's why it's called the present. So there's no time like the present for getting your exit and succession plan done. It's imperative because you don't know what the future holds. And the thing that I noticed about all the exit and succession plans that we do is the business owner starts out by saying, this is something I have to do, just like an estate plan. But as they do it, they really enjoy it. They learn a lot about their business. They're looking at their business from the outside in and they get enthralled and engrossed with it, and they enjoy the process. And when we get the process completed, they have a sense of comfort and they have a sense of accomplishment. So it's something that initially you say, it's something I got to do, but it's actually not a burden. It's something that you should embrace and then enjoy. It's an opportunity, it's not a burden. David Spray That's a really good point. Yeah, because you said it well, I don't really have anything more to add. Well, guys, this has really been fun. And this is only the second time I've had two guests at the same time. And the last time. Was a law firm as well. It was two attorneys who had substantial IC disc experience, so well, again, I really appreciate your time. I'll have your contact info in the show notes if anyone wants to reach out to you and any parting words from you guys before we wrap up. David Spray What was that, Matt? Matt Clark Thanks, David, for having us. David Spray Oh, sure. It was my pleasure. There's a lot of great stuff here, so let's go ahead and wrap it up. I'm not sure why my recording is not stopped. Let me just. Special Guests: Matthew Clark and Mike Silverman.

This weeks episode of the Living.Fit Show, Jordan and Mike are bag to talk about the plague of dogma in the fitness industry. So many things believed incorrect, but they go over these 6 topics.0:00 Intro (What We Drinkin)3:40 Introducing Dogma5:32 Only 1 Way To Snatch11:52

The Covid-19 pandemic shook global supply chains and woke up both the public and business world to their critical value. For our latest In Conversation episode, Mike Silverman interviews John Dickson just before retiring as Chief Procurement Officer at AstraZeneca. Dickson shares his perspective as he closes a chapter on 30+ years in procurement across pharma, consumer goods, and auto industries.

Jordan and Mike take the reigns for this weeks Living.Fit show to talk some fitness myths. They go over muscle confusion and if it works or pointless, do women only bulk if they lift, and do kettlebells build any strength? Have some other myths you want them to go over? Let us know!

Hungry for a supply chain AI case study, we visited global food delivery company Deliveroo in London to delve into their machine-learning-powered logistics technology and go behind the scenes at a Deliveroo HOP dark store to share insights back with our Zero100 Community. We interviewed senior leaders at Deliveroo: Devesh Mishra (Chief Product & Technology Officer), Charles Wren (VP of Delivery Product & Global Operations), Mahana Mansfield (VP of Science) and Suzy McClintock (VP of Grocery & Retail). This episode is hosted by Mike Silverman, Zero100 Research Director.For the full story visit: https://zero100.com/deliveroo-ai-powered-delivery-logistics/

Mike Silverman and Jordan Kunde-Wright take the reigns for this episode of the LivingFit Show to answer two of the most common questions they get asked as coaches:* What's the truth about Turkish get-ups? Are they essential or overrated?* WTF is kettlebell sport?They discuss the benefits and drawbacks of Turkish get-ups. They also explain what kettlebell sport is and how it differs from other types of kettlebell training.

Digital innovation and investment in social media and e-commerce has created an imbalance in the balance of power in supply and demand, while supply chain digitization lags significantly in comparison. This bullwhip effect, which is being amplified by social media, is getting louder and increasingly more complex as consumers demand more transparency from manufacturers. In today's episode, recorded live from Zero100's annual Forum conference, Matt chats about the impact of TikTok and Gen Z on sustainable supply chains with climate communicator, influencer and lecturer Nicole Loher and Zero100 research director Mike Silverman. SHOW NOTES: Nicole Loher Zero100 Forum #SupplyChain TikTok TikTok Supply Chain TikTok ban pushed blocked in Senate The Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chains The Prof G Pod: 2023 Predictions FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Sixth Assessment Report Consumers care about sustainability—and back it up with their wallets Demand Driven to Zero Carbon: The Infinite Loop Bloom over Doom | Move to Zero | Nike

In this episode, Anna, Janet and Juli take a realistic approach on analyzing when it makes sense to upgrade your whip.  Is it a NEED vs a WANT and what are some key things to think through and not to get caught up in the social pressures to have the latest and greatest and just run what ya brung and have fun!  We continue our new segment in our podcast about all the bike parts and today, break down the different parts of the fork.  Our shout out goes to the Vermont 50 Mountain Bike or Ultra Run Race-A fundraiser for Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports is being held on Sunday, September 24, 2023 at Ascutney Outdoors in West Windsor, Vermont.  In celebration of Women's History Month, the Vermont 50 Mountain Bike or Ultra Run would like to encourage more women to participate their mountain bike race and are holding RESERVED SPOTS for you to join.  Email the race director Mike Silverman (mike.j.silverman@gmail.com) to receive a code to register, the code expires on May 22 at 7 PM ET.  For all others interested in registering, visit https://vermont50.com on May 25 at 7 PM ET.Check out our website: GLOW MTBFollow us on Instagram: @glow_mtbJoin our Facebook Group: GLOW MTBSend us an Email: mtbglow@gmail.com Thank you for listening to the GLOW MTB Podcast! We are the Glorious Ladies on Wheels are here to share stories, tips and tricks all about mountain biking and keeping you informed of what is happening in our incredible community. GLOW is located in the Upper Valley of VT/NH and your hosts for the Podcast are Anna, Janet and Juli. Kickstands Up!

Ongoing pandemic woes, inflation and geopolitical turmoil have put supply chains at the top of headlines nonstop for the past three years, and 2022 was no exception. In today's episode, Kevin unpacks the biggest supply chain stories of the year with Marc Engel, the former CSCO at Unilever who currently sits on the boards of Zero100, Unilabs and Maersk, and Deborah Dull and Mike Silverman, two senior researchers at Zero100. Show notes: Marc Engel Updated Unilever statement on the war in Ukraine Green Mining Brazil COP27 Failure ESG should be boiled down to one simple measure: emissions The Word of the Year Goes Goblin Mode Netflix Security Tools: Chaos Monkey and Chaos Gorilla

EPM Executive Editor Mark Plaster chats with Mike Silverman, EPM board member and Director's Corner author, continue their discussion of navigating ER politics specifically the dangers of physicians losing their licenses over spreading disinformation. 

EPM Executive Editor Mark Plaster chats with Mike Silverman, EPM board member and Director's Corner author, about the need for exemplary communication as the director and the art of navigating ER politics.

It's almost time for your summertime staffing shortage.   Don't miss my conversation with Mike Silverman of Director's Corner fame on how to be ready for short staffing situations.

Today's episode is with a friend, Mike Silverman, who is in the franchise industry. We discuss what place franchising has in a Farming Asset portfolio.We discuss how to look into what information you should be aware of and think about during a due diligence process.Mike Silverman started in the business world during his junior year in college when he bought his first franchise, Complete Nutrition. From that moment, he fell in love with everything business-related. He's been very fortunate to be able to own multiple businesses over the years, both franchises and independent start-ups. At this phase in his life, he gets tremendous fulfillment from helping others find their passion for business ownership. Mike is involved with multiple mastermind groups, mentor new entrepreneurs, and through Franchise SideKick, help investors find franchises that fit their income and lifestyle goals. Mike's role at Franchise SideKick allows him to connect with other like-minded investors/business owners and lend some insider expertise to help them find the right franchise for them. With him buying, selling, and running franchises for 10+ years, he loves to help clients find opportunities but also avoid common pitfalls they might not be aware of.To learn more, visit:https://terrafirmaconsultantsllc.com/Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:https://missionmatters.com/author/robert-wolf/

Can two doctors from different sides of the political spectrum have a civil discussion?   Join Mike Silverman and Mark Plaster as they discuss, laugh, and cajole their way through an interesting exchange on a variety of topics important to emergency physicians.

How does exit planning differ from succession planning for business owners? Laurie Barkman and Mike Silverman, Shareholder of Dentons Cohen & Grigsby, discuss the strategic benefits of business transition planning to maximize enterprise value and exit options. Listen in to learn more about the differences between exit and succession planning and importance for your business. Be sure to learn more about the Business Advisory Group-- a collaborative approach to exit and succession planning for business owners-- and how they can help you get started.   Listen in to learn more about: The difference between an Exit Plan and a Succession Plan Why it's important to design and implement these plans as a business owner The strategic benefits of internal transactions The pros and cons of different exit options The financial implications of your succession and exit strategies   Show Links: Business Advisory Group    Contact Michael Silverman: msilverman@CohenLaw.com   Clearing Blurred Lines of Business Transition with Chris Chaney, Succession Stories E22    Maximizing Value: The Key to Your Business Exit - Webinar Replay Video     The Succession Stories podcast is hosted by Laurie Barkman, Business Transition and M&A Advisor/Founder of SmallDotBig, a strategic advisory firm for closely held businesses anticipating a leadership or ownership transition in the future. For more info, or to connect with Laurie visit https://smalldotbig.com or lbarkman@smalldotbig.com

In Season 1, Episode 4, Mike Silverman chats with fellow study group teammate Sebastien Delatour (FT '22). Sebastien has spent the first year of the MBA program working remotely in Haiti while serving as the Vice President for his family's company, Commercial Services Inc. Still, he plans to move back to DC in the late summer as we transition back to in-person. Please tune in to hear Sebastien tell stories about his upbringing in Haiti, a harrowing earthquake experience in 2010, and everything in between. Sebastien is a remarkable human being, and his story is about perseverance, resilience, leadership, and a strong family bond.

In Season 1, Episode 3, we continue the Roundtable series. Each Roundtable features host Mike Silverman and co-host Sam Speed, and today, they chat with two FT '22 students, Christine Kim and Andrew Mulia. Christine's focus is on strategy and issues pertaining to CSR. Before business school, Christine was an international correspondent for Reuters in South Korea and later worked in global communications for Samsung Electronics. After graduating, Christine sees herself remaining in the tech industry. Andrew Mulia, hailing all the way from Indonesia, was a corporate lawyer at Baker McKenzie Indonesia before coming to McDonough. Post-MBA, he seeks to specialize in data analytics and big data when consulting for companies and governments. Please tune in to learn about why they are the way they are and how they've taken action to amplify the AAPI experience here on campus and in the United States.

In Season 1, Episode 2, we continue our Women's Month celebration by introducing you to our Roundtable. Each Roundtable features host Mike Silverman and his co-host Sam Speed, and today, they chat with two FT '21 students, Eli Batina and Lianne Pinto. Eli served as a co-president of the Graduate Women in Business (GWIB) club, and Lianne was Mike's predecessor as VP of Careers on the Student Government (SGA) board. After graduating from MSB, both will be taking their leadership talents into the workforce -- Eli will be joining Citibank, and Lianne will be working in renewable energy-focused investment banking at Nomura Greentech. Please tune in to learn about why they are the way they are and which life experiences helped set them on a path of leadership.

Mike “That Guy” Silverman's (@thatguythetrainer) career began in 1989 as a firefighter/paramedic and NCAA Division 1 sideline Athletic Trainer at the University of Maryland. He has extensive experience gained as a kinesiologist, medical lecturer, emergency care provider, and Army officer. He has multiple credentials as an evidence based fitness coach and is a wealth of knowledge in many domains both in and out of the fitness realm. I enjoyed the conversation so much we talked for well over 2 hours and I had to split this conversation into 2 parts. In Part 2, we pickup after Mike's decision to leave the RKC and how he discovered the kettlebell sport community leading to him becoming a master trainer with Kettlebell Kings and how systems thinking allows the integration of principles across various training disciplines. If you enjoy the content please leave a 5 star rating & review, share on social media, and support my work by supporting my affiliates: Gaspari Nutrition, use code JWright20 at check out for 20% off your order Kettlebell Kings, use code TCKB to get 10% off Bearfoot Athletics, use code TWINCITIESKETTL to get 10% off Vivo Barefoot, barefoot training shoes --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/platformpodcast/support

Mike “That Guy” Silverman's (@thatguythetrainer) career began in 1989 as a firefighter/paramedic and NCAA Division 1 sideline Athletic Trainer at the University of Maryland. He has extensive experience gained as a kinesiologist, medical lecturer, emergency care provider, and Army officer. He has multiple credentials as an evidence based fitness coach and is a wealth of knowledge in many domains both in and out of the fitness realm. I enjoyed the conversation so much we talked for well over 2 hours and I had to split this conversation into 2 parts. In Part 1, we dive into how Mike's abrupt retirement led to his weight gain and how he ultimately reclaimed his health and found his passion for evidence based fitness coaching, his introduction to hardstyle training with the RKC, and why he eventually chose to leave the organization. If you enjoy the content please leave a 5 star rating & review, share on social media, and support my work by supporting my affiliates: Gaspari Nutrition, use code JWright20 at check out for 20% off your order Kettlebell Kings, use code TCKB to get 10% off Bearfoot Athletics, use code TWINCITIESKETTL to get 10% off Vivo Barefoot, barefoot training shoes --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/platformpodcast/support

In the 4th hour of the show Michael and Carlo look back on the Maple Leafs 3 game California trip which saw them earn 1 point, the team's struggles, the Raptors win over the Kings, the impact of coronavirus on the world of sports and more. Infectious disease expert Dr. Mike Silverman joins the show as well.

Matt Cauz begins today's edition of Game Day with his Opening Thought focused on the Coronavirus and how it's impacting the sports world. Matt explains how he wants to approach the story on our show, and we hear from Dr. Mike Silverman who had some interesting thoughts on the whole situation this morning on First Up.

Jon and Matt have a blast getting to know Mike Silverman (aka That 1 Guy). Mike is an accomplished, multi-talented musician who is the best player of The Magic Pipe on the planet. Simply because, he invented it! He has recorded albums with Buckethead, Tom Waits and numerous Bay Area legends. He's also a very nice and down to Earth gentleman, no matter how spectacularly weird the music gets. A MUST listen!! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/undetermined-podcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/undetermined-podcast/support

Most of us have worked for bad ED directors from time to time.  But I got to work for Mike Silverman when he was a relatively new director.  And from the start I knew that Mike Silverman was special.  And while leading a groups of emergency physicians can be like herding a bunch of ornery cats, it was clear that "he got leadership.” That’s why he has a permanent spot on the front page of Emergency Physicians Monthly.  Join me on EPM Talk to meet Mike and pick up a few pearls on leadership in the ED, whether you are an ED Director, active or aspiring.  Or whether you are a staff physician and you just need a solid answer to some of the ED’s thorniest questions. Listen in as I interview the author of Director’s Corner.

London Live with Mike Stubbs - 2019-1-28 [00:00:00] 1:07 pm - Stubbs - Intros show [00:05:26] 1:15 pm - Stubbs - Tony Farnell and Brian Salt [00:18:50] 1:34 pm - Stubbs - Captain Robbie Hindle [00:28:48] 1:47 pm - Stubbs - flying in a jet [00:36:34] 1:57 pm - Stubbs - Opioids and Holder tease [00:37:52] 2:06 pm - Stubbs - Dr. Mike Silverman [00:52:58] 2:23 pm - Stubbs - Ed Holder Scrum [00:59:26] 2:35 pm - Stubbs - NHL Allstar game [01:01:36] 2:39 pm - Stubbs - John Matisz, NHL all-star game [01:16:56] 2:57 pm - Stubbs - one final story

mike silverman is the director of sports for the city parks foundation.  he and his staff bring golf and other sports to the city's children. 

Pete Greenberg tells how bacteria can communicate based on cell density, a phenomenon he helped name quorum sensing. He talks about therapeutics based on quorum-sensing discoveries, and how studying bacterial interactions can be used to test ecological principles like cooperation and social cheating. Julie's biggest takeaways: Quorum sensing can be likened to an old-fashioned smoking room, where a few cigar smokers don’t affect the air quality, but as more smokers enter the room, it becomes beneficial to the group to open the window: a changed behavior that benefits the group environment. Differentiating waste molecules from signaling molecules is important to define specific quorum sensing. The experimental evidence that shows that molecules serve as quorum sensing signals that allow bacteria to respond at high density comes from social engineering experiments to identify ‘cheaters.’ Quorum sensing results in changes in gene expression that benefit the community but not necessarily individual cells. An example is antibiotics, which when made by a single cell aren’t at a high enough concentration to kill competitor microbes. As a group, all cells working together can produce a cloud of antibiotic that may be able to protect from competitors. The ability of microbes to receive or ‘eavesdrop’ on the signals produced may be cooperative, but is more likely competitive, giving the eavesdropper a competitive advantage by informing them about another species’ presence. If you knock out quorum sensing, you get abnormal biofilms, but it doesn’t ablate biofilms completely. Although a self-described disinterested high-school student, Greenberg signed up for a weekend field trip to get out of a test on a Friday. It was looking at animals in the intertidal bay of the Pacific Northwest that inspired him to be a biologist! Greenberg also credits his broad biology undergraduate training for preparing him to apply socioecology concepts to bacteria. Quorum sensing was originally called ‘auto induction.’ In the early 1990s, Greenberg was writing a minireview for the Journal of Bacteriology and wanted to think of a catchy title. As Greenberg remembers, coauthor Steve Winans explained the concept to his family, and his brother-in-law said “it’s like the bacteria need a quorum” - the birth of the term ‘quorum sensing.’ Featured Quotes (in order of appearance): “So-called ‘cheaters’ don’t respond to the signal, they’ve lost the ability to respond to the signal. The product that’s useful for the common good any more. They don’t pay the cost of cooperation but they can benefit by the cooperative activity of everyone else in the community...there’s a fitness advantage for cheaters in this environment.” “It’s a real case of convergent evolution. It’s important that the bacteria can do this, and these two really distinct types of [gram-positive and gram-negative] bacteria have evolved completely different mechanisms to perform quorum sensing.” “I think of bacteria as a way to study what is called ‘Darwin’s dilemma.’ If a cheater emerges among a population, it will have a fitness advantage over the population of cooperators. It should take over the population and ultimately cause the tragedy of the commons, where there are too many cheaters and not enough cooperators and the whole system collapses. Darwin’s dilemma is: how is cooperation stabilized? We know it exists and it seems like it shouldn’t - we can use bacteria to get at the rules.” “I got interested in [quorum sensing] because it was so cool!” “I had this idea, as we began to unravel quorum sensing in these marine luminescent bacteria, that any idea in biology that’s a good idea will occur more than once - but I didn’t have any evidence of that. For 15 years, my lab and essentially one other lab, Mike Silverman’s lab, were the only labs working on this. It was really the early 90s when our group and other groups started to realie that lots of bacteria do this. It’s one of those fantastic oddesies. It’s luck - luck and hard work, I guess. Hard work by the people in my lab as I sit around as watch!” “It’s funny how a term can catch on and sort of crystallize a field! But somehow, it seemed to do that. I’ve gotten really into trying to think of catchy terms since then, and the latest one is ‘sociomicrobiology,’ which I introduced with Matt Parsek about 12 years ago and there’s a burgeoning field called sociomicrobiology. I’m trying to think of another term now, before I retire!” Links for this episode   Pete Greenberg lab at the University of Washington Pete Greenberg 2004 PNAS bio Journal of Bacteriology minireview: Quorum Sensing in Bacteria HOM: Woody Hastings memoriam ASM Podcasts     Send your stories about our guests and/or your comments to jwolf@asmusa.org.

Chicago Cubs fan Mike Silverman tells us what the Cubs crazy run through and ultimately winning the World Series was like.

Michael Silverman is from Scottsdale, Arizona where he is the owner and publisher at Vintage Motorsport magazine, the journal of motor racing history. He’s been racing vintage cars for over 16 years and his publication is known as the go-to magazine and website in the vintage motorsports world. He’s been a journalist his entire life working having worked in the showbiz trade and other venues and then in 2002, following his passion for historic race cars, he joined Vintage Motorsports as the general manager. Then in 2012 he purchased the publication. I’m a long time fan and subscriber to Vintage Motorsport magazine and if you love old race cars, you’ll love it too.

Mike Silverman, Physical Therapist and Running Gait specialist analyzes Kari's gait through a multiple tests. During the test, Mike uncovers common runners weaknesses Kari demonstrates which has led to ITband issues in the past. Many exercises, word of advice and wisdom are shared to help all runners keep on running strong. Serena Marie, RD, discusses the correlation between gut health and depression. Cliff Ravenscraft, the King of Podcasting, is our Runner of the Week and he shares how he has gone to ignoring his health to becoming a runner and soon to be tri athlete. Our monthly visitor, Vinnie Tortorich comes on the show to discuss March's book of the month. A runner's meet up in NYC in February is discussed with Sarah Boschung.

Richard Coles and Suzy Klein with lawyer and founder of the Rosenblatt Opera Recitals Ian Rosenblatt, the Inheritance Tracks of comedian Jennifer Saunders, the story of Roger Mason who along with a friend and fellow veterinary surgeon, took much needed animals to the Falkland Islands after the 1982 War in an old converted fishing boat, the delights of Riga in Latvia with travel writer Adrian Mourby, one of Britain's leading forensic scientists, Mike Silverman, talking about a life in forensics, poems from Kate Fox and JP Devlin meets a Second World War meteorologist.Producer Chris Wilson.

What is the best sales tip or advice that you ever heard? Join us and share your sales tip with our listeners! Sales is the most important skill that you must have in your business! If you can't sell your idea, product or services, then you don't have a business! Somebody has to sell something to somebody! Become a sales expert! Call-in Guests include: Sherry Heyl www.empoweringconcepts.net Chuck Carey Compendian www.compendian.com Mike Silverman www.silverwebsolutions.com Bryan Stone www.recoaches.com Hugh Massie www.dnaBehavior.com Vaughn McIntyre www.vaughnmcintyre.com Alex Wood www.smbc.tv George Ishee www.ss2br.com Kenneth Brown (Chief Profitability Officer - Sales & Profit Evangelist) E3C www.BetterSalesandProfitsNow.com www.twitter.com/KenE3C www.my-business-community.com www.mybusinesscommunity.ning.com www.E3C.typepad.com Listen, Learn, Enjoy and Share with a Business Associate! Bumper Music by Bryan Hunley of New Whyne Music

The Passionate Entrepreneur interviews Mike Silverman of Silver Web Solutions in Atlanta. (www.silverwebsolutions.com) You are in business! You got a website! So, what! There are millions of entrepreneurs that have a business and a web site …..just like you! How do you differentiate yourself from the competition? What is the difference between having a web site or a web presence? What are the first steps to improving your website? How do you design a better website? What can you do to encourage people to come to your website? What is Search Engine Optimization? Listen, Learn, Enjoy and Share! E3C Links: www.BetterSalesandProfitsNow.com (company website) www.twitter.com/KenE3C (Twitter) www.my-business-community.com (community website) www.E3C.typepad.com (Blog) and www.E3C.podOmatic.com (podcast) www.E3CPassionateEntrepreneur.pbwiki.com (wiki) www.mybusinesscommunity.ning.com (business social network)