Michelle Seiler Tucker is the CEO and Founder of Seiler Tucker Incorporated. Michelle has sold over 500 enterprises and currently owns and operates a number of profitable companies. Michelle Seiler Tucker is a professional with the following distinctions and certifications: M&AMI (Master Intermediary in Mergers and Acquisitions), CSBA (Certified Senior Business Analyst), Best-Selling Author, and M&A Panelist.
Michelle is a foremost expert in buying, selling, fixing, and growing businesses, as well as boosting revenue streams. Michelle has sold hundreds of businesses and franchises over the last ten years. She continues to assist customers from all walks of life in achieving the American Dream, achieving financial independence, becoming their own boss, and improving their quality of life.
Her latest book, Exit Rich, is a must-have guide for business owners who are looking to sell their business now, and for those who are just starting to build their companies to sell for huge profits in the future.
In this episode, we talked about:
03:21 How Michelle got into buying, selling, fixing, and growing businesses
04:55 The biggest mistake that a lot of business owners make
07:19 What’s the GPS Exit Model
08:06 Why every business need an annual valuation
08:53 Events that can increase or decrease valuations
10:11 The 5 different types of buyers
11:33 How to reverse engineer your business to increase its value
13:26 The importance of having a powerful “why” in exiting a business.
17:01 The reason why some businesses go out of business after 10 years
19:01 Why businesses are not selling
24:02 Why business owners should stop designing processes around their own agendas
37:35 Michelle’s one piece of advice
38:10 Why business owners need to find a mentor
Exit Rich will be available on June 22nd
To get a copy of the book Exit Rich. go to exitrichbook.com
To get in touch with Michelle, go to seilertucker.com
Episode Transcript:
Brian Charlesworth 0:16
Welcome back to the Grit podcast. I'm Brian Charlesworth. I'm the founder of Sisu. Where real estate transacts online and your host of the show, and for those of you who don't know what Sisu is, you might think of us as the operating system for the real estate industry. So if you haven't heard of us, check us out. But today I have a special guest with me. I'm here with Michelle Seiler Tucker. Michelle is with Seiler Tucker, which is her business, they have the tagline of the business authorities. And if you look at her, I don't know for those of you who are watching today, she has this Exit Rich background behind her. So we're gonna talk a lot about today about how to exit rich, but Michelle has been featured on numerous TV shows, books, magazines, from entrepreneur to Forbes, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and many others. So she has a very strong background, she's written multiple books, and the book we're going to talk about today is actually Exit Rich. She also has her own podcast, which is called the exit rich podcast. So if any of you are building a business and thinking about exiting rich, which would be the way you'd want to exit, and you're gonna enjoy today's show, so Michelle, welcome to the show. What did I miss?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 1:50
I don't think you missed a lot. I'm mergers and acquisitions mastering mediary, senior business analyst in this industry a little over 20 years, personally sold over 500 companies my farm altogether, so a little over 1000. Pretty much in every single vertical, you can imagine
Brian Charlesworth 2:07
So you guys are an exit advisor. Does that mean you're like an investment bank? Or what exactly?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 2:13
I mean, similar, you know, we really specialize in buying, selling, fixing growing companies. Steve Forbes, you know, what Steve Forbes says is right, that 80% of businesses will not sell eight out of 10. companies don't sell for a multitude of reasons. So a long time ago, I started fixing businesses, growing businesses and putting them on the bill to sell model. I partner with business owners invest in my capital resources, core competencies, and fix their business, grow their business. And like I said, put them on a build-to-sell model. And then sometimes we buy businesses and flip them. So really specialize in buying, selling, fixing, growing, we merge businesses, we sell businesses, it just really depends upon, you know, what the objective is of the owner and how the business is going to sell for their desired sales price, and most of them won't, which is why we got to fix him and grow them.
Brian Charlesworth 3:05
Yep. And so that's a good point there you just talked about for their desired sales price. And, you know, a big question is the timing of selling a business, right? I mean, but before we talk about some of that stuff, I'd love to go back in time and just learn about like, how did you get into this business?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 3:23
Yep. So the way I got into it, I've always been an entrepreneur, or I've always owned different businesses. You know, I've owned graphics on a graphics company, but I've owned graphics company and publishing companies, healthcare companies, just in different verticals. I went into started a franchise development consulting and franchise sales company was an equity partner in different franchise doors, businesses, I had so many buyers ask me, gosh, do you have any existing businesses because I didn't want to buy a startup franchise? And I said you know what, why I should. So really, that's what led me to start my m&a firm, little over 20 years ago, because so many buyers that don't want to buy a franchise.
Brian Charlesworth 4:05
So prior to that you were actually in the franchising industry. Okay. I spent eight years buying companies in the franchise industry. So we,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 4:13
I'm surprised we never met before now
Brian Charlesworth 4:17
I did that for about eight years. And I guess I stopped doing that about six years ago. So anyway, when you decided to start a business is that the business you're currently running?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 4:28
Is Yes, I'm, well, I own multiple companies. I don't run the day-to-day operations and all my other companies because I would never get anything done in my m&a firm. So yes, I am full-time in my m&a firm, but I also write books. I've written three books, and I'm also an international speaker. So quite busy.
Brian Charlesworth 4:49
Yeah. Great. So let's talk I guess let's start out by really, maybe let's talk about the biggest mistake that business owners make because you've seen a lot of businesses And only 20% exit. And you know, if you're building a business, then I guess there are three reasons you would build a business one would be to exit. I mean, ultimately you're looking for an outcome two would be to take a public, or three would be, you're building a business that is a cash cow that you're just going to hold on to, and it's going to generate revenue for you for, you know, hopefully for the rest of your life, right?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 5:26
Yeah, but nothing lasts forever. So nothing lasts forever. So the biggest mistake that I see business under so many, but one of the biggest is business owners don't plan or exit, they don't even think about selling until a catastrophic event occurs, whether that's internal or external, internal being health issues, partners, just views divorce death, you know, Death of a partner, death of an owner death of a spouse. And then external is this pandemic that we're in right now. So that's really the worst time to sell your business is when you're facing a catastrophic event, the best time to sell your business is when your business is in its prime and doing well. And then many business owners have created a glorified job, that they go to work every day versus a business that actually works for them. And it's not sellable, because buyers don't want to buy your job, they want to buy a business, the business is way too dependent upon the owner to actually sell the business. Those are some of the biggest mistakes, but there's a lot more I could just write a book on the biggest mistakes owners make?
Brian Charlesworth 6:29
No, I think I think those are all great advice. on selling a business, if if you're thinking of selling a business, it's kind of like the stock market, right? The last time you don't want to sell your stock in 2008. When the market, you don't want to sell your stock in March of 2019. You know that that's when you want to buy. Right? So I think it's the same way with a business for sure. Definitely plan to if the next what is your plan, plan to do that when you're on the rise? Right?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 7:00
Yeah, you know, I always tell my business owners, my clients, to really plan that from the beginning, you know, and I know it sounds it's kind of like Steven Covey says, start with the end in mind. And really plan your exit from the beginning of buying or starting your business and most business owners like what are you talking about. But if you start with the end in mind, and really think about my business, you know, I call it the GPS exit model was the first thing you need to do when you want to drive somewhere, you pull out your phone, you go to Google Maps, you plug in your destination? Well, that's what business owners need to do. They need to figure out what their destination is. Because business owners don't plan to fail, they fail to plan. They drive around in circles, they drive up and down the financial hills to end up exiting poor. So first and foremost, they need to determine their destination, what's their desired sales price. And everybody gets hung up on this number, Brian, and you know, and I'm like, don't get hung up on the number, just pick a number. Let's say you want to sell for 20 million, boom, there's a number. Now, what does the GPS exit model needed? Now it needs to know where you're starting from? What is your current valuation? So many, you probably know this prime because you've, you know, bought and sold businesses, but so many business owners have never had an annual valuation. They never had a valuation period. I just met with a business owner the other day who has been in business 40 years, never had his business valuated they don't get the business evaluated, and tell them they want to sell. And then they're shocked by the numbers because they're like, oh, I want $10 million from my business. And or even as 100,000. I'm like, how did you come up with 10 million? Well, that's what I need to retire on. Oh, that's what I need to pay for five rolls, weddings, or you know, whatever the order might be. But they don't base upon the value, they base it upon their need. So you really need to know what your destination let's say you want to sell for 20 million, then you want to he got to know what is your business worth? And the reason I say you should have an annual valuation checkup is that there are events to increase valuation or events that decrease valuation.
Brian Charlesworth 8:53
What are some of those events that would increase and decrease valuation?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 8:56
COVID
Brian Charlesworth 9:01
It did for a few months, but there have definitely been some large exits essentially
Michelle Seiler Tucker 9:06
COVID has increased valuations dramatically for some industries and increased and decreased it for other industries. Right?
Brian Charlesworth 9:15
Yes.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 9:15
So perfect example the recession. Yep. Fire, tornadoes, hurricanes, I mean, right, you know,
Brian Charlesworth 9:25
and so catastrophes, right?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 9:28
Catastrophes, right.
Brian Charlesworth 9:29
Things that are out of your control can definitely do that.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 9:32
Embezzlement. Yeah. So you should know what your business is worth. You should get an annual business valuation checkup. And I don't recommend getting that from your CPA. I recommend getting that from the mergers acquisitions team that knows how to evaluate synergies because it's not just about the EBITDA, it's about the synergies. What
Brian Charlesworth 9:52
I'm guessing that's one of the things that you guys do at your firm.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 9:55
Of course, yeah, We evaluate the synergies of the business. So, back to that GPS is you want to sell for 20 million or 5 million. The next thing you need to know is the timeframe. Let's say you want to do it in 10 years, then you need to know well, who’re your buyers going to be? There are five different types of buyers.
Brian Charlesworth 10:13
Yep. So how do you determine like, Who are my buyers going to be? I mean, that's obviously something you need to start thinking about early on.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 10:21
Absolutely. And it really depends upon that sales price, because if you want to sell for $20 million, you're not selling to first-time buyers. 90% of buyers are first-time buyers, they don't buy $20 million businesses, they buy coffee shops, restaurants, ice cream stores, and then you got turnaround specialists, they don't buy $20 million companies, they buy distressed assets. So it really depends upon where your business is, what buyer is going to be right for you. But and then you got PEGs (private equity groups) they buy based on platforms and add ons. And then you have strategic such competitors, they typically pay the highest multiple because they're buying synergies to catapult their current business to the next level of buying contracts, patents, and trademarks, the talent of that business. Plus, I take advantage of economies of scale. And they look at you know what overhead they can cut decrease in a rich increase EBITDA, and then the last type of buyers are sophisticated entrepreneurs. They're industry agnostic, they chase EBITDA.
Brian Charlesworth 11:14
Okay, so now we know the amount we're looking for. And let's just go with 20 million for the purpose of this conversation. We've identified who our buyers are,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 11:24
we should use you as a real example. Actually.
Brian Charlesworth 11:29
Now that we've identified who our buyers are now how do we go further down that road?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 11:33
Well, now you need to reverse engineer.
Brian Charlesworth 11:36
Okay,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 11:37
Do you need to know what your numbers what were your numbers need to be? So if you want to sell for $20 million, where’re your gross revenues need to be? Where’re your COGS, your operating expenses? Most importantly, your EBITDA, (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, and Amortization). I always say EBITDA, and then people say Michelle, can you please tell us what that means. But in order to sell for 20 million, you need to have an EBITDA between 4 million to 5 million depending upon the industry. If it's a SAS business, SAS is a multiple of revenues. All the other industries are typically a multiple of EBITDA. Yeah. And so if you want to sell for 20 million, you're looking at three and a half to four, depending upon the synergies. Synergies drive value, so the more proprietary asset you have, the higher multiple you're going to get. Right? And then once you figure out where your numbers need to be, then you need to figure out well, what synergies will these buyers pay top dollar for? How do I build my business to meet their specific criteria? It's kind of like when you go into business, Brian, you go, Okay, here's my widget. Here's my ideal target market for my widget. Yep, I'm going to build to I'm going to build everything I'm building is for this ideal target market, the same thing we've done in a business to sell.
Brian Charlesworth 12:52
So reverse engineering, I think is a great thing. You know, no know where you're going to get, know your timeframe of when you want to get there. And then that reverse engineering, there's my philosophy on that is, if you want to get from here to here, from point A to point B, there are really 1000 ways to get there. But how are you going to get there, right? And so you've got to have the vision, without, you're not going to get there. Once you have the vision, the other stuff is going to flow as long as right as long as you are committed, and you have the why and the drive and all those things. But
Michelle Seiler Tucker 13:25
Well, the Why is my last step in my GPS exit model. It's the Why? Because if you have a powerful why you'll never make it you know, business is not free and business is not easy. And if it's easy to sell a business for $20 million, everybody will be doing it.
Brian Charlesworth 13:39
Yeah. So. So obviously, I think Simon Sinek is the one that got the why to really take off, right? The what the how the why, and everyone knows what they're doing. And they know how they're doing it, but they don't know why they're doing it. So now talk about the why a little bit more?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 13:55
Well, I think, you know, the Why's got to be, to me, you got to have a pretty significant why. I had a gentleman that came to me that wanted to sell his business in a $20 - $30 million range. And I'm like, Why? Why? Why? Because he had to build his business. Because it was worth nothing nowhere near that. And he goes, my wife was diagnosed with a debilitating skin disease. There is no cure. And her treatments are outside of what insurance will cover. Imagine that right? Yeah, and we really need the money. Plus, we want to come up with care. That's a pretty powerful, why to keep you motivated to keep you in the game to help you weather all the financial storms to get you to your end game to your destination to your desired sales price start using Sure, absolutely. So you know, if you just say I want to sell my business for $20 million, and that's it. Because you want to buy a plane or an island or more cars. You know, that's not really a significant why. You know, and I also think it's you know, important I mean in my business, we always tie, you know, nonprofits to our business, and making sure that we're giving back to the community. That's part of our why.
Brian Charlesworth 15:09
Okay, great. Thank you. So let's summarize really quick, just like, what, let's summarize the points in your book of Exit Rich.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 15:20
Oh, all the points in the book Exit Rich?
Brian Charlesworth 15:22
Well, I'm sure you have too many points, but just maybe, you know, just a high level because, and then talk about I know, you have talked about the dates that it's coming out. And if there are any special benefits for our listeners or anything like that,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 15:37
Sure. So Exit Rich, when I when I wrote my very first book called sell your business for more than it's worth in 2013. I did the research and learned what all of us knew, really is that 95% of all startups would fail. We turn that one to five years, you know, most businesses will go out of business. When I started doing research for Exit Rich in 2019 2020, really 2019 before the pandemic, I did the exact same research and learned that the business landscape has actually flipped flopped. It's only 30% of startups are going out of business now. But out of 27.6 million companies, those businesses have been in business for over 10 years. 70% of them are at risk of going out of business. 70% so it's actually flip-flopped. Now, you've heard you listen to the media, because I always talk about the public companies, Toys R Us in business. 75 years go out, okay, Morris timer. You know, GNC is closing down 900 locations, Godiva is closed down 1500 locations, Disney stores are closing, any assets retail, but there are lots of other public companies are all also going out of business. But they're not talking about the private businesses that are going out of business that are exiting poor that are saying for pennies on the dollar or closing our business, or even worse, following the bankruptcy. So Exit Rich is really about how to plan your exit. Well, let me back up one of the number one reasons for that, that these businesses are going out of business after 10 years because it used to be, Brian, that you could be in business 5, 7, 8, 9,10 years, and you're golden, right? You're golden.
Brian Charlesworth 17:11
That was before the days of technology.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 17:15
That's exactly right. So the number one reason business’s are going out of business is the lack of AIM. AIM is "Always Innovate and Market", these business owners stop innovating. Look at Blockbuster, that opportunity by Netflix, they sat back, did nothing and out of business, Toys R Us did nothing different in 75 years. So these businesses stop innovating and they stop marketing. So that's why so many of them are going out of business. So Exit Rich is really all about building that sustainable business, that scalable that you can sell because it's really pretty sad that these baby boomers have poured their heart or soul, their energy and built-in our business, you know, over decades, and are really exiting for pennies on the dollar. That's really sad. So Exit Rich is all about planning your exit, you know, going through the seller sanity check to figure out what's really important to you. What's the most important thing to you is not always the price, believe it or not. And then it also goes into the five different types of buyers that are negotiable, as are non-negotiables. It goes into the six Ps in great depth. Because always say you have to have a solid infrastructure to operate and sell your business. So it goes into the six Ps. You want me to highlight the six PS real quick or no?
Brian Charlesworth 18:27
Yes, sure. Let's do it.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 18:28
People. People's number one, you can't. You don't have a business. If you don't have people, you don't build a business you build people and people build the business. people is number one. So many business owners are working in their business, not on their business. So business owners really have to hire their strengths. I mean, I'm sorry, hire their weaknesses and focus on their strengths or government is not in it. So you got to put the right people in the right spot. And ask the "who"question, you know, who handles customer service marketing, legal, manufacturing logistics? The clue Brian is you should never be next to any "who" . And that's the number one reason that businesses are not selling is that the business is 1,000% dependent on the owner. We just had a dentist come to us been in business for 50 years. Three dental hygienists, no other dentist. I said, Look, I can sell your business but I can't maximize value because you don't have a business. You have a job. And I send in a purchase price will be contingent upon you staying. And his three dental hygienists are his daughters. And he said, Honey, I'm not staying. I said, well then honey you're not selling. Because when y'all leave, the patients leave.
Brian Charlesworth 19:33
Yeah, there's no value in that business.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 19:34
no value and as real estate, that's doctors, that's plumbers. That's I mean, that's all kinds of service businesses and even non-service businesses. I mean, we have a business that we're selling right now for $70 million to have 300 employees, but that business will not operate without that owner because he has the key relationships. And he has a lot of IP in his head. Yes over selling 80% of the company
Brian Charlesworth 19:59
buying and selling Companies that usually, no matter what business you're selling, it's likely going to be asked of you to stay for at least two years, possibly even longer, right? two to five years.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 20:10
Yeah. And a lot of times, so you know, just five ways to really exit well, six ways if you can't go in public. But a lot of buyers now are buying a percentage, especially, you know, in the larger businesses with over a million EBITDA, they're buying 70, 80, 90% and requiring the owner to retain equity. Yeah, not on the smaller ones.
And then product, you know, product is what we talked about, you know, you have to innovate, you got to ask is your product, or service, your industry, on the way up on the way out? You have an Amazon, or do you have a Blockbuster? And unfortunately, there are so many industries that are on the way out. So you really have to pivot. And then processes
Brian Charlesworth 21:00
Let's focus on that one for a minute. Because, okay, product, a lot of our listeners in the real estate space. And so you've been talking about constantly innovating. And I think it's so important, especially, I mean, in every industry, but
Michelle Seiler Tucker 21:15
it is the key to success, Brian, without it your dead.
Brian Charlesworth 21:18
Yes. And I mean, you gave a great example, Blockbuster, the right technology is increasing at the rate at which technology is increasing, increases every year, right. So we're now increasing and like the, what, what used to take 100 years to get from here to here, we're now doing in five years, that much growth, because it's just accelerating at such a rapid pace. So any industry you're in, including real estate, make sure that you are leveraging the technology to get you and your business to that, you know, to where it's automated to where you're working on the business to where you're doing all of the things that you've talked about here today. Right. So
Michelle Seiler Tucker 22:01
I was gonna say you said, including real estate, I was gonna say, especially real estate, because it's so competitive. Just so competitive, how many real estate agents are there?
Brian Charlesworth 22:14
2 million in the US, but my opinion
Michelle Seiler Tucker 22:16
How many?
Brian Charlesworth 22:17
2 million.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 22:18
I've heard there are more than that.
Brian Charlesworth 22:20
Yeah, 2 million. In my opinion, is that's going to be reduced significantly over the next two to three years.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 22:26
Well, it's imperative that real estate agents adapt and innovate. Because that's the only way they're going to stay competitive and, you know, be efficient. Yeah.
Brian Charlesworth 22:40
I mean, the thing about real estate, it's evolved so much. I see I grew up with a dad who was in real estate, and you know, he owned a brokerage with about 100 agents at one point. But that being said, there wasn't the opportunity for him to run a team that didn't exist back then run a team of agents that are, you know, doing 1000 transactions a year. Whereas now that's, that's not uncommon at all. So and it's just the technology has enabled people to do that. So, absolutely. And then the product, it was what
Michelle Seiler Tucker 23:20
Processes, yeah. And processes are huge, you know, processes are kind of like exit strategy. Business owners don't think about them until something bad happens like, Oh, we need a process for that. We were literally selling a manufacturing company. And an employee actually lost a limb on a manufacturing floor and my clients get sued and have to go into bankruptcy. And he said, Michelle, we need a health and safety process on the manufacturing floor. And I'm like, really? You don't have one? How do you not have that? You know, so processes. You know, I think most business owners get, I don't think I know, most business owners get this wrong. They design processes around their own agenda, you really need to design processes around the customer experience.
Brian Charlesworth 24:14
So I want to take a minute on this, again, just tying this into the real estate space. Because we at Sisu came out with us really a project management task management, Trello style board view of you know, all they're taking their transactions from contract to close or when an agent comes in their onboarding task lists. And if all of these are automated, and if all of these are processes, it doesn't matter if you lose an employee. It's easy to replace that person, right? Your Business continues running without you having to go in and completely retrain and spend a year retraining somebody because all of the processes are in place. So make sure you're doing that. Just everybody listening After processes what's after that?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 25:03
So after processes, this is really the highest value driver, this could take you from a five to eight to 10. Multiple. And that's proprietary assets. And our six pillars to proprietary that I talked about one is branding. You know, the more well-branded you are, the more I can sell your company. For the most valuable brand, it's like Blockbusters, anybody paying money for blockbuster? Of course not. The most valuable brand in the world is, do you know?
Brian Charlesworth 25:32
Yes, Apple and Amazon?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 25:34
Apple's right. Amazon's in the top 10. Apple's $359 billion. And that's just for the brand. That's not for EBITDA or assets of Apple.
Brian Charlesworth 25:46
I do have an Apple tattoo
Michelle Seiler Tucker 25:46
Do you really have an apple tattoo? I remember when they came out with the iPad. I'm like, that's the most stupid thing I've ever seen. Why would somebody buy an iPad instead of a laptop, and I have 12 of them in my business? So proprietary is huge. Like I said, branding, trademarks, a lot of business owners. It's so funny because a lot of business owners will come up with a name go to go daddy go, yes, I got the.com and then go to their state, get the trademark, but then they never checked the federal database to make sure it's available. Right. And I've seen businesses in business 5, 10, 15, 20 years, maybe not in the real estate industry, but they have they received a letter and they gotta stop and cease and desist letter, and they gotta stop. So it's really important. If you're trying to build a brand, build your podcast, you know, we got a business, we're selling in a $50 to $60 million range that has 12 different products. Each of them has a federal trademark, each product has exclusivity to one in a Walmart, one in a Target, one in a TJ Maxx. Strategists will pay a lot more money for that. Patents are huge. The other thing that's big is contracts, any type of manufacturing, you know, in the real estate industry, I guess you would you know, that's your listing and get agreements, right, your engagement agreements, right. One of the big things that we see with contracts is that business owners forget to put the two-sentence transferability clause. In fact, I've never met a business owner that does that. And so what happens is 98% of sales are typically asset sales, not stock sales. And so the buyer doesn't agree to a stock sale. And clients don't agree that concepts are transferred and your whole joke could fall apart. There was a brokerage firm that so years ago to private equity group, and the due diligence team didn't do their due diligence because they didn't look at the contracts. After the deal closed private equity groups like oh my gosh, these contracts are not transferable. Actually, threw this huge celebratory party, paid for everybody's expenses, none of the franchisees like the private equity group because I thought they were arrogant with no experience. And none of them one person transferred over. They filed for bankruptcy within 90 to 120 days. I don't remember but, sued their entire legal team. So databases are big, you know, Facebook pays $19 billion for WhatsApp. WhatsApp was hemorrhaging. But they had a synergy. That's what we're talking about right now is proprietary assets synergies. They have a billion users. So celebrity endorsements are huge. Any online presence, especially if you can get any of those top positions in your industry. Content, content is huge. You know, we're selling a digital business right now that has a tremendous amount of educational content. And search strategics will pay more money for that. So it's really all about identifying the synergies that buyers are willing to outbid everyone else and pay top dollar for
Brian Charlesworth 28:47
Yeah, that's great. Okay, thank you for sharing that. Let's jump into your book. When is that coming out?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 28:54
So the other two pieces patrons and profits,
Brian Charlesworth 28:57
okay, let's keep
Michelle Seiler Tucker 28:59
so, patrons as discussed, patrons is your customer base, most businesses and United States follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your business from 20% your clients so you want customer diversification, not customer concentration. And in the last P is profits. Lack of profits is never the problem. I have clients that come to me all the time and say, Michelle, I have a profit problem. I'm like, No, you have a people problem. Now you have a process problem. Lack of profits is never the problem.
Brian Charlesworth 29:28
It's the result.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 29:30
Yeah. So anyway, and so then the rest of it so that's the six P's and then the book also goes into evaluations and analyzing financials, offers you know packaging due diligence closing all that stuff is the second half. So it's all from start to finish but it's really not just about selling your business. It's all about building a sellable, sustainable, scalable business. And also Steve Forbes
Brian Charlesworth 29:53
Sounds like you're really teaching people. How do you build a business that's valuable, right? I mean, it's not just how do you sell your business
Michelle Seiler Tucker 29:59
you Because it's very sad that a business owner gets to the day that they have to sell and they're like, oh, I want I need $2 million to retire and as far as 100,000 you know, it's endorsed by Steve Forbes who says exit rich is a goldmine for entrepreneurs as they leave way too much money on the table when they sell their business plus my co-author you might know her Sharon Lechter, who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad with Robert Kiyosaki is a five times best, best-selling author. She is a CPA, financial literacy expert, and advisor to many different presidents. She writes to mentors corner after each one of my chapters, and then her husband is an intellectual property attorney. So he has content to the proprietary section. And then we have lots of glowing recommendations from Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, jack Canfield, Brad Sugars with action coach. So where can you get Extra Rich, it comes out on June 22. You can go to exitrichbook.com. They are $24.79, which is less than Amazon. We will email you to digital download immediately. And Brian, we've received so many different case studies, there's a pharmaceutical company that called us and said that he printed out the digital download and using it as a workbook and integrating it into his growth strategy, his exit strategy and hiring us to sell his business between 30 to 50 million.
Brian Charlesworth 31:21
So where do we go? Can you repeat that? Where do we go to
Michelle Seiler Tucker 31:24
so we go to exitrichbook.com. We will email you the digital download immediately. We'll send a hardcover to your doorstep for no additional shipping to anyone that lives inside the United States. We will give you a lifetime membership to the exit rich book club where there's video content and me doing training and these different techniques and strategies I've been utilizing over the last 20 years in the trenches plus documents, documents to operate your business documents to sell your business sample policy and procedure manuals, org charts, slb checklist, sample a lot of intense sample purchase agreements, sample due diligence checklist sample closing docs, all of these documents are there for your review and your download. It will cost you 1000s upon 1000s of dollars if you want an attorney to recreate you can use them you just have to remove the Soller-Tracker I had a lady email them to me yesterday. She's like can I use these templates? I'm like, you can if you remove my company name. And then we're given a 30-day free membership into club CEOs which is entrepreneur mastermind. Well, we ask those who do hot seat Q and A's and really help business owners to pivot so they can build that sustainable scalable and one already sellable business all for $24.79 to exitrichbook.com That's less than lunch. Uhm, Brian?
Brian Charlesworth 32:42
It is.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 32:45
Our last lesson Starbucks coffee.
You mentioned somebody's name there you said Brad Sugars. I actually got to know Brad sugars very well. Love Brad coming from spending time in the franchise industry. Right? Yeah. So tell me again what is Brad have to do with this?
Oh, Brad gave us an endorsement saying that Extra Rich is a must-read. And then we're getting support from Grant Cardone as well. He's already had as on some of his stages. He's had sure electron, and he's supporting AXA rich as well.
Brian Charlesworth 33:18
Yeah. Both great people. I love both of those guys. So good. Well, this sounds like a book that I will definitely go onto your website and get that ordered and download that digital download right away. I'm guessing everybody else listening will do that as well.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 33:36
Thank you.
Brian Charlesworth 33:37
Let's talk a little bit about your podcasts. You have an excellent rich podcast. How long have you been doing that?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 33:43
Oh my gosh. I don't remember I probably started it last year, sometime. Maybe 678 months? I did kind of take a hiatus because I've been literally on number 250 podcasts promoting Exit Rich. I've been doing about five podcasts today. Yeah, yeah. So the TV Radio Podcast. I've been like crazy busy. My last guest just interview is Dr. Neato. Cobain is president of High Point University. And he's on a board of Lazy Boy. Great Harvest Bread Company. But yeah. So we're gonna start it back up as soon as a book is launched on June 22.
Brian Charlesworth 34:23
Okay. Okay, great. Well, we'll watch for that as well. I'm excited to see that coming out.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 34:29
We have a lot of interviews we've already done if you want to go review them. Yeah.
Brian Charlesworth 34:34
Yeah. How many did you guys do? Like how many do we do? How many? Yeah. Did you do like, are you doing one a week when you were active?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 34:42
I was doing Yeah, I was doing one a week. I was doing one. Well, no. In the beginning, I was doing two a week. I was doing one where I would talk for about 1015 minutes to give content. And then I would do an interview a week.
Brian Charlesworth 34:53
Okay. So we have a fair number of shows in there already.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 34:57
Yeah. And we've interviewed Jeff Hoffman. You know, founder of Priceline. Oh my gosh, had I forget his name, the founder of Constant Contact Alec, Alec Stern. And Les Brown. Doctor Neato-Cobain. Nice. Yeah.
Brian Charlesworth 35:13
Go check that out as well.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 35:16
And then our main website is seilertucker.com.
Brian Charlesworth 35:19
Okay, so, yeah, tell us how do people get ahold of you? I do have a couple of personal questions I want to ask you, but just how do people get ahold of you? what's your website? We have the website for your book. But if somebody wants to follow up with you, maybe somebody wants you to sell their business, right, so
Michelle Seiler Tucker 35:36
yep, so seilertucker.com is my main website. My phone numbers are there, but you can also reach us at 504-525-1717.
Brian Charlesworth 35:46
Okay, awesome. Just as a quick wrap up, I'd love to love to hear from you just what your favorite book or your favorite source of learning his favorite book is actually rich preface with saying, you know, outside of one of the books you've written,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 36:02
I would say and I was a joke, I would say I like the one thing by Gary Keller. And I also like, obviously thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I like traction. I mean, those are all my favorite books.
Brian Charlesworth 36:20
Yeah. Great. Great. I love that. You pulled the Gary Keller out here with our real estate.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 36:25
I met Gary Keller. Yeah, I met Gary Keller and I got a sign out of our copy. But Yep, good book.
Brian Charlesworth 36:34
So what is your What's your favorite thing to do in your personal time? Sounds like your life is very full of business and sounds like that's probably your passion. But
Michelle Seiler Tucker 36:43
yeah, business is my passion. So sometimes that's a hard question to answer. But my, my other passion would be writing I love to write. I write songs. I write poetry. Obviously, I write books. And I'm spending time with my daughter who's 10 years old. and spending time with my family. Spend time with friends traveling.
Brian Charlesworth 37:01
Very nice. So traveling, where do you Where's your favorite place that you've been?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 37:06
out? My gosh, that's so hard to say your favorite place? I've been the answer. I've been to Ireland. I love Ireland actually renew my vows in Ireland. Oh, I've been all over Europe. I love Amsterdam. And Tahiti. I love I mean, it's just hard to say. My favorite place, huh?
Brian Charlesworth 37:28
You can have more than one favorite place. And just like you have more than one favorite book, right? Yep. Okay, so just to wrap up what is? What what's the one piece of advice you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Michelle Seiler Tucker 37:40
So, it a couple of things. I always say Obviously, I'm not giving you one thing on any answer, right? So you know, I always, always tell people, you know, your past doesn't define you. You're the director of your movie, you're the star in your movie, you determine your future, not your past. And entrepreneurship. You know, I have so many clients who are like, Oh my god, Michelle, it's so lonely. And I'm like, No, it's not entrepreneurship is not lonely. You know, there's so much your network equals your net worth. And there are so many entrepreneurs that love helping other entrepreneurs, you need to find a mentor, you need to find someone, and not just any mentor, like you, just mentioned earlier, that you've hired a mentor who's extremely successful because that's the path you want to go down, right?
Brian Charlesworth 38:30
Yes, I found that it's always easier to learn from other people's mistakes,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 38:35
You took the words right out of my mouth, learn from other people's mistakes, their path, their path will shorten your learning curve and your path dramatically. But don't just get any mentor really pick somebody in your industry. Now, if you're in real estate, pick the industry guru in real estate. You know, if you're in whatever industry you're in, just find a mentor who has been in that specific industry, and really learn from them. Learn from other people's mistakes. And like I said, there are entrepreneurs who love helping other entrepreneurs. I love giving advice I love partnering with entrepreneurs, business owners. And the more successful they are, the more time they have, the more successful they are, the more willing they are to help.
Brian Charlesworth 39:23
So to just add to what you just said, just working you know, we work closely with over 1000 teams now and brokerages in the industry. And all of the most successful people have a coach. So if you don't have one, go get one. And you know if you once you get to get one, you might want to switch that up every year or two. Because you're going to choose today what you want to grow to is not what you want to grow to tomorrow, right? If you were to set your goals today and then put them in a drawer and look at them in five years, they better change. Right? So so anyway Goes what got you here won't get you there? Yes, goes change, find it, find a new person who could once your check obtain this point. Now kind of person can help take you to the next point. So,
Michelle Seiler Tucker 40:12
a lot of times you need different mentors who always say that you will never grow the business beyond what you can grow the owner
Brian Charlesworth 40:18
never grow the business beyond what you can grow the owner. So you got to grow the owner’s mindset. So really the message there is, invest in yourself because if you're not growing, your business won't grow.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 40:29
Well, Marcus Lemonis the Prophet. Have you ever watched a prophet on CNBC? Yes, I have. Do they ever listen to him? Do they do the opposite of what he tells them to do? He's like, do this, this and this and this as he comes back. He's like, That's what I said. You will never grow the business beyond what you can grow the owner.
Brian Charlesworth 40:49
Yeah. Great, great advice. Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an honor to have you on the show loved. I took a lot of notes here. I'll follow up on these things. I'll dive into your you know, into your book and into your other systems that you have in place, and I look forward to getting to know you more as we move forward.
Michelle Seiler Tucker 41:07
Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much for having me on. I truly appreciate it.
Brian Charlesworth 41:11
Thank you.
