Want to Buy or Sell a Business?

0:00 Welcome to Something More with Chris Boyd. Chris Boyd is a certified financial planner, practitioner, and senior vice president and financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest registered investment advisors. We call it Something More because we'd like to talk not only about those important dollar and cents issues, but also the quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator, your partner in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and across the country. Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for being with us for an episode of Something More with Chris Boyd. I'm here with Jeff Perry and Russ Ball.

0:42 We are all of the AMR team at Wealth Enhancement Group and glad to have you joining us for the show. You can always find more about our episodes through our team page. You can find that by going to somethingmorewithchrisboyd .com or we'd love you to follow the show wherever you like to listen to your podcast so you get all of the good ones just like this one. We have a great guest lined up for our show today. Joining us is Doug Cabral. He is of Compass Business Intermediaries. And Jeff, where you guys are connected, friends, I assume it's friends for a long time, but who knows.

1:25 Tell us a little bit about Doug and give us our introduction. I met Doug when we lived on the Cape and Doug was a practicing attorney for many years. I won't dare to guess how many, Doug, and actually handled one of my real estate transactions as well. Got to know him through the community, very involved. Doug was very involved in the Cape Cod community and also ran to, I think we ran into each other at an airport as we were both heading down to our vacation homes in Florida once, didn't we, Doug? I believe we did, Jeff. So why don't you start off by telling us about your transition from the grind of running a law firm to helping businesses, business owners and business buyers.

2:08 Sure. Jeff, happy to. As you mentioned, I was an attorney, practicing attorney in Massachusetts. I did that for about 30 years and I enjoyed it. But after 30 years, you've been involved, you know what a grind it can be. I decided it was time for a change. So I looked at what I enjoyed. I did a lot of transactional work, a lot of real estate conveyancing work, also a bit of estate planning work. And I also worked with a lot of small businesses, helping them set up their businesses, you know, in corporation, start structuring LLCs. And as they grew, you know, helping them restructure them at times when they needed them.

2:51 And also when they reached the end or when they were looking to expand, helping them with purchasing and selling other businesses, you know, all from the legal aspect of things. And I really enjoyed working with the small business owners. They were very, you know, very focused on what they wanted to accomplish usually. And it was just, it was fun to be able to help people grow their dreams. So when it came time for me to find something else, I decided to move into the business brokering, small business mergers and acquisition. And I had, you know, I've got a mentor who is actually a family member.

3:33 He's my wife's uncle, great guy, a real interesting backstory on him. And he had been doing it for 20 years. And he said, this is what you really should be doing. You know, it's a lot of fun. You get to meet a lot of people and you get to help people. So that's kind of a little bit of my backstory of how I made the transition from practicing attorney to business broker. Did you happen to buy his business? I did not. He actually built a very successful brokerage and they have an offshoot, which is probably the primary business now that specializes actually in mergers and acquisitions of property and casualty insurance agencies.

4:19 He's actually left that now. He's finally retired. He's in his 70s and he is enjoying retirement. Excellent. So Doug, when you had this transition and thought about all the ways that you'd like to help, are you still practicing in Massachusetts? I know you're part-time or full-time in Florida. What's your geographical region that you're helping people in? Well, I am physically located in Florida. We've been here now full-time for a year and a half, but I still have a lot of my contacts and I actually have active clients in Massachusetts still. A couple of legal matters, but my goal is to wrap that up and completely move out of the practice of law and focus strictly on the business brokerage.

5:08 Got a couple of- Where is it that you do that activity? Is that primarily Massachusetts because that's where your contacts are or is it anywhere? It's pretty much anywhere. Some states have licensing requirements where I'll need to work with someone in that state, but primarily I've been focusing on Florida and Massachusetts. Do you find that people who are business buyers tend to be serial business buyers? Do you have a lot of repeat business as a consequence of people who tend to acquire more than one business? That does happen. There are people, like you've referred to the serial entrepreneur, that they buy a business, they love the challenge of it, they build it up, get it functioning to where they're ready to let go because now they're looking for a new challenge.

6:04 That does happen. You will also get repeat businesses from someone who you sold the business to. You sell them this business and they run it for several years or maybe longer. Then when it comes time for them to step out, they call you because they've dealt with you. That makes sense. Talk a little bit about- Jeff, you were talking about this earlier. Maybe you can phrase the question better, but the idea of buying a business versus buying a job or something along those lines. Buyers come in at all different levels, I'm sure. Doug, some with a lot of money, some with no money, some looking to build a family legacy and some just looking for a job that they can control because they don't like working for the man anymore.

6:53 Can you draw that distinction on how you help people focus on what they're a buyer in this case, what their goals are and how they should start? Certainly. When you're dealing with a buyer, first thing is to help them ascertain what it is they want. Usually, someone is going to come in with a certain skill set. They know what they know and they know what they like. Those are usually going to be good people who just maybe they've decided to step out of corporate life and they just want to start off with something that's going to keep them busy and make them a little bit of money.

7:38 Those are what we refer to as the people looking to buy a job. That's all well and good and that's great. Those are usually going to be your smaller businesses, personal things, whether it be something along the lines of a locksmith business or maybe even some type of small light manufacturing. Usually, they're going to be the businesses that are going to be on the smaller end of the revenue spectrum. Then you have other buyers who they're not so much looking for a particular type of business. They may have experience in a certain industry and they may want to stick with certain industries, but they are looking to buy a business not necessarily to physically work in the business, but rather they want to work on the business.

8:30 They want to manage that business or bring in a group of people to manage it who are going to basically turn this business from being a job into being a revenue generating machine. That's ideally what the investor is looking for. They're buying a business not because it's something that they want to do. They're buying it because they want the revenue or the cash stream that the business generates. Neither one is right or wrong. It's just what's the preference. Let's talk about that for a minute. I just think that's really intriguing, the idea that someone buys a business, but doesn't necessarily have to be immersed in the business, have to be an expert in all things of that business.

9:22 I think of people who are great business people in our region. I think of Bill Zamer as an example. He wasn't in the kitchen cooking as a chef. He was running a business that other people were doing the actual day-to-day operations of what's on the menu this week or whatever it is. How do people identify what's a business that they can operate from that kind of a step back as opposed to having to be the expert in all things?

10:08 Sure. A couple of key things that the investor really should be looking at. First and foremost, it doesn't hurt to educate yourself about the business to understand how it operates. That's important. People who come in cold and have no understanding of how a particular type of business operates put themselves in a position where they're a little bit at the mercy of the people running the business. It's always good to educate yourself. That being said, restaurants are a great example. You don't have to be the best cook. You don't have to be the one washing the dishes.

10:49 You don't have to be the one bringing the food to the table, being the server. If you understand how things operate and you know how to manage and hire good people, you can run a successful business. You can run a successful restaurant. There's every industry. The people who can actually be on the ground doing that stuff. Oh, yeah. Right now, and that's not limited to any particular industry. Right now, finding good people to work is not easy. When you do find them, you want to keep them, but you're constantly looking because people do move.

11:29 They move around from business to business. That's reality. A little bit of our current situation in our current society, but it can be done. When you find the good people and you work with them and you manage things well, you can run a successful business, even though you don't do every aspect of it. In fact, being that business where the owner is doing all the aspects and they've got their fingers in every part of it is not necessarily a good thing when it comes time to sell. If that business is you, what is there to sell? It's a lot more difficult to sell a business when you're doing everything.

12:13 Go ahead. Sorry, Chris. No, I said that's a great point. Yeah. Especially true in law firms or service firms, right? Because I go in and I want to see attorney Doug Cabral or financial services. I want to go and see Chris Boyd. If I go to the dentist, I want to see my dentist, John Smith, right? The relationship part. Yep. I go in and he's not there, she's not there. I'm like, oh no, they don't understand me. Right. Yeah. That personal relationship is always the challenge when you're dealing with working with a professional service firm, whatever it may be when you're doing a sale of that.

12:59 Before we go on into, I want to talk about the buyer just for a little bit longer, then let's talk about succession and the thought process there. But when I'm a buyer and someone comes to you, maybe just start by telling us a little bit about process, how you identify what they're looking for, what's the right fit, is it all about budget, that kind of thing. Then I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the question of franchise versus just an independent business, pros and cons and how that all works. Yeah. Also, do you vet the buyer at all? You don't want to spend a lot of time with someone who's really not capable of buying a business.

13:44 Yeah, exactly, Jeff. You do have to vet buyers. When you're representing a seller, you're doing a couple of things. You're that buffer between the seller and the buyer. That's an important role for a couple of reasons. One is so that you're not wasting the seller's time with someone who may be a wonderful person, but they don't have the financial ability or they don't have the ability to get necessary financing as a buffer in keeping the parties apart, because it's important to maintain confidentiality between the buyer and the seller. You don't want it known as a public knowledge that this business is for sale. I'm sure, yeah.

14:24 That's one of the things that people don't really think about is how important it is for them to maintain confidentiality when they're selling their business. I don't want to lose all of your audience because you're thinking about selling. Well, when you're looking at a sale and you're considering selling, one of the things, and I see it all the time when I go out to put a listing up on a website like BizBuySell or something like that, and you see all these businesses that are listed by the owner, and you can tell they're being listed by the owner because they've got the name of the business and the contact name for the owner and all of this, and they don't realize what they've done to themselves.

15:10 First of all, they've told all their employees they're looking to sell. The employees, they may be great people. They may be loyal to a fault, but this is their livelihood. This is how they put food on the table for their family, and they're going to get nervous. Exactly. Most of the time, a buyer's going to want to keep those employees because they're generating the income, but they don't know that, and they don't understand what's going on, and they get panicky, and they start looking for other places to go. You lose some key employees, and that's going to decimate the value of your business. You're also letting all of your customers know that you're for sale, possibly. Customers may love you, but you're providing them a service they need, and they're going to look for somebody else to provide that because they want the security of continuity of it.

15:58 Your competitors are probably going to help spread the word too, right? That's the last thing. The competitors are going to find out, and once the competitor finds out you're for sale, business can be a contact sport. They're going to look for an advantage in it. That's why confidentiality is important. That's why we vet a buyer when we're representing a seller, and we always use non -disclosure agreements. Anytime we're providing any information to a potential buyer, to add as much protection to that seller as possible. Once you get nervous about an NDA, that's part of the process when you're going through this. You want to keep that information confidential.

16:41 When a seller is going to reveal their details, they want to make sure that that's not public information. Absolutely, because when you're in the process, you have someone who has expressed interest, and they look like they're a viable buyer. You're going to be providing them a lot of information. You're going to be providing them an overview of financials at that stage, and the whole backstory on the business. It's usually put together in what's referred to as a confidential information memorandum. That's something that you circulate once they've executed the NDA, so that they have an idea in this business and if it's something that they are interested in pursuing.

17:24 Very good. Just real quick, you didn't touch on the franchise question. Do you care to, or do you want to move on? Sure, absolutely. Franchises are really good in a lot of ways. They have upsides and downsides. With a franchise, you're paying somebody for the rights to use their logos, their name, and their process. The good side to that is that you do get the process. That is what makes franchises more successful in survivability than regular startup businesses.

18:05 Franchises will succeed at a higher rate than most regular startup businesses. That's because part of what you're paying for is basically the roadmap. This franchise tells you, here's how you do the business. They bring you along and they do a lot of marketing. You're paying for that a lot with your franchise fees and your advertising fees, but what you're getting is the knowledge. You're very good.

18:45 Here's how you do it. There's a manual. It's proven. The franchise is interested in your success because if a franchise doesn't perform well, it looks bad on the whole organization. In that process, there's some clarity around the amount of cash flow, the reserves you got to come into it with, and so forth. They tell you everything that you need to know. You pay for it. If you're a really innovative entrepreneur, a franchise might not be right for you. It may not be.

19:26 If you're the type of person who likes to do things your own way, then maybe a franchise is not so good for you because it is going to be very structured. Let's talk about succession a little bit. There's a lot of people who own businesses. They start to think about, how do I extract value from my business at some point in time? When's the right time to do that? A lot of times, you talked about involvement with professional services. A lot of times, people think, well, I can keep doing this a long time and maybe I don't need to sell the business.

20:12 I'll just keep working, but there's maybe missed opportunity if they have some value in that business. Let's talk about the internal versus external succession planning. What's your role in that process? Do you help people when they're dealing with internal succession? Yeah, at times I do. Usually, that's going to be more of a consulting situation. When you're dealing with the internal type of succession, it's usually going to be one of two ways. It's usually going to either be continuation with the next generation of the family or it's going to be transferring ownership to a key person, someone who's been working with you for years and they've decided that they would like to take over the mantle and you're ready to let it go.

21:05 Both of them have their advantages. They both have potential downsides as well, though. Yeah. When you're dealing with family successions, it's like that business owner's dream. They built this business and now they want to pass it along to their children. When it works, it's great. The downside to that is that there's a lot of potential pitfalls there. I'll just touch on that. A lot of times, there's not a lot of cash flow in terms of the buyer doesn't really come into this. That's probably true with most internal succession. The buyer doesn't come into this with a big budget.

21:49 Yeah, they usually don't. That's the first question is, how is this going to get paid for? Are you going to be taking a significant discount because it's family? Can you afford to? Many people don't realize how large of a portion of their personal net worth their business owner's is. That's something they may need for their future retirement goals. How is it going to be structured? Is it going to be structured as a loan coming from an outside source? Or is it going to be, in essence, seller financed and all of the risks that go along with that?

22:30 Usually, the biggest issue I find dealing with some of these business owners whose plan is that it's going to be passed through the family, they haven't talked to their children. They haven't actually sat down with their children and asked them, is this what you want to do? They assume that, sure, my kids are going to want to do this. Many times, the children don't. They may not want to do this. They don't have the passion for that business that their parent did. That's a red flag. Sometimes, they just don't have the skill set. They may have been around this business, but they may not have actually physically been involved in it all that much.

23:12 They may not have the skill set to continue to manage and run this business successfully. The last thing that people don't really think about is, how is it going to impact the family dynamic? You may have one child and that's great. There's no sibling rivalry there. What happens when you have multiple children? Three kids, one's really involved, one's peripherally involved, and one's not involved at all. How do you deal with that in a way that's fair? In terms of ownership, the one who's really involved wants to be the owner. The one who's peripherally involved has a job, but hey, I'm still involved. Then the one who's not involved at all, what's their part in the estate?

23:56 How do you deal with this in a way that's equitable? Equal is not fair. Exactly. How do you balance this out? Equal is not necessarily fair. Do you give one of the siblings the business and other assets to the others? Business does really well. That can raise some issues. Or do you just decide that you're going to give it to all of them? Now you have a contest between the kids where one's running the show and only getting a third of the benefit or whatever. One's waiting at the mailbox at the beach. Exactly. The one who's maybe never been involved in the business, who doesn't understand it, thinks they know how it should be run.

24:39 You run into all of these issues. There certainly are things. One of the things I like to always warn my clients when I'm dealing with that type of situation, the family succession, is what is going to be best for your children? Is it best to leave them the business and make the transition to ownership to them? Or is selling the business and leaving the money ultimately to them, which is going to be best for them? That's a decision that owner's got to make, but as long as they've opened their eyes and they've looked at it rationally and reasonably and really thought about it and talked to the children, whatever they want to do is what's right for them.

25:24 Let's say for discussion's sake that internal succession, the longer the runway, the better because it takes a while to get that money out of the business, usually because it's not coming as quickly and better for a longer runway. Let's talk about the external transition, an external succession of finding a buyer. How long should one do some planning in preparation for that, ideally versus what do you see the most common? Is it something that suddenly people have or an unexpected illness or death? It could be a disability or a death, divorce, something like that.

26:07 Things of that sort that prompt it or is it something where, hey, most people plan sufficiently and here's what's the right amount of time for planning? Talk about that. Sure. Well, when we're dealing with your smaller businesses, five million in revenue and less, probably about two-thirds of them really don't engage in much, if any, planning. It's a scary issue because the owner isn't prepared. That's a lot of what we end up doing is working with them to prepare them for a sale.

26:47 I like to work with a business owner who says that, I'm thinking of this. I'm not there yet. Maybe I'm a couple of years out. That's a great time to start talking to them for a couple of reasons. One, you can help them prepare for it. You can help them get their books in order. You can help them get their processes in order. You help to prepare them emotionally because a lot of people, they don't realize that what's stepping away from this business that they've poured their heart and soul into for years is going to mean.

27:29 You hit on a couple of things there, that emotional transition, the books, but you talked about process. I'd like you to elaborate on the importance of that because most small businesses, I think, don't necessarily have as thorough a detailed documentation, at least, of their process. They might have a process, but it's not particularly you mentioned. I'll share with you just anecdotally. I have a client who you talked about professional services and insurance business. This guy is semi-retired, but he has an insurance business. And his wife said that everything's on note cards.

28:13 It's not really computerized and all the rest of it. It works for him, but that makes it harder to sell in that scenario. Talk about process a little bit. Sure. Every business and every industry has its methodology. They have their way of doing things. And you really want to have that, if not standardized, at least clearly set out for a couple of reasons. One, for operation purposes, it makes it easier when you're onboarding new people.

28:54 You're able to explain what the role is, what the tasks are, how they all interconnect. From the perspective of a sale, one of the things you have to realize is when you're looking to sell your business, what you're looking to sell is its ability to generate income. And it does that by doing certain things. And those processes are what that buyer is paying, or at least part of what that buyer is paying for. It's analogous to the franchise. When you buy a franchise, you're buying the process and the right to use all of the name and trademarks and all of that.

29:39 When you're buying an established business, you're doing much the same, just on a little bit smaller scale. You're not dealing with a national entity that tells you how to do everything, but you're dealing with an owner who's run this business for a number of years to get it to the point where it's mature. And now he's looking to sell this. And that's kind of important, especially when you consider survivability of startups, the rates that startup businesses fail. You know, I think the SBA puts out some statistics. I think like 80% of businesses, new startups may make it past the first year.

30:21 But by the time you get to the five year, only about half of them have survived. And to make it to 10 years, only about 20 to 25% of them make it to 10 years. So when you're buying an established business, you're buying that knowledge. That owner is the one who's already made the mistakes and they figured out, okay, this is how this business makes money. And that's the process, the how it's done. And that should be documented or it should be easily to explain. The more documented it is, the less transition period that seller is going to have to be involved in.

31:04 Doug, before we run out of time, I want to focus on maybe the most important question for a seller is how much is my business worth? Yep. That's usually a great starting point. Actually, when someone is thinking about, maybe I want to sell my business, that's where you should start. What is my business worth? And there's a lot of different ways to value a business. Accountants will tend to value a certain way, looking at the book value of the assets and looking at what's the revenue of this. What I do when a client comes to me and says, I want to start looking at this, what do you think my business is worth?

31:46 I take it from the perspective of if you were going to sell your business today in its current condition, what would it sell for? And to do that, we basically start off with their finances, go through ideally three, maybe five years worth of their finances, tax returns, P&Ls, looking for what we refer to as either seller's discretionary earnings or EBITDA. And that is basically a measure of profit. What does that owner actually get from the business? And we alluded a little bit to when we're talking in planning out this, what about these businesses who put a lot of expenses?

32:31 They run a lot of expenses through their business. Those are some of the things we're looking for. Because when you're the owner of the business, you may get, depending on how it's structured, you may get a salary or you may get a draw from this business, but you may also be running your personal vehicle through the business, or you may be running your cell phone through the business. I've got a friend who's got all those kids on the payroll. Exactly. And that's all part of what that business generates for the owner. So we're doing a recast of the financials, looking for all these items. And people who are serious about buying businesses, they understand that. And when you explain to them that, yes, this is actually a benefit to the owner, it's an expense, but this is actually something that's benefiting the owner directly, they get it, they understand it.

33:21 So we come down, we break that down to find out what that business is actually generating for that owner. Then we go to various databases looking for other businesses that are like this, similar size, similar revenue, and what have they sold for? And there are stats out there that will show, let's say you're running an accounting practice, because I've done this for a couple of accounting practices. An accounting practice that generates this much in EBITDA, or this much in seller's discretionary earnings, usually sells for a certain multiple.

34:02 Maybe it's one and a half times, or maybe it's two times those discretionary earnings. Those are stats that come from deals all across the country. And they're usually pretty accurate, and they're going to have a wide variety. So you do a little looking at it, you do a little bit of art form on it, and you come up with a number that, okay, this is what I think that is the proper multiple for this business. And this is what your discretionary earnings are. So I think you would sell for 1 .5 times discretionary earnings or whatever that may be. The other important thing to doing that is, each business also has a certain benchmarks.

34:50 Every industry is a little different. But usually for certain businesses, the payroll is going to be a certain percentage of revenue, or it should be. Your occupancy costs are going to be a certain percentage of revenue. And when we see something that's out of whack, that's an opportunity to advise this business to help them improve their numbers and improve their valuation. That's a little bit what we do and why I like working with people before. That owner comes in, I'm done. I need to get out. I want to sell now. Great. Happy to help you. But when they come in and say, I'm a couple of years out, I'm thinking of this, that gives us an opportunity to work with that owner, help them improve their business, help them improve their finances sometimes, and help them boost their valuation ultimately.

35:45 Doug, you mentioned the accounting practice. That's an intriguing one. Is that considered a one-time revenue or recurring revenue? Most people go back to their tax person year after year, but not all. But how is that treated when it comes to thinking about that? Maybe just to elaborate for our listeners, recurring revenue is generally preferable over one-time revenue when it comes to the business. Yep, absolutely. And it plays a role in those multiples. Businesses that have recurring revenue insurance agencies are great for that.

36:26 How often do people change their insurance agent? Not very often. It's all residual income, which is why a lot of the bigger investment companies and the bigger PE companies really got very interested in insurance agencies over the last 15 years or so. When you're dealing with a business that's got recurring revenue, it's usually going to be factored into that multiple that they're getting. A lot of people will say, oh, accounting firms, one-time revenue. That's not necessarily true, though, because just because something has a higher revenue doesn't mean it's a better business.

37:07 I like to tell people, which business would you pay for more? The business that's got a million dollars of revenue, but has got 900,000 of expenses, or the business that's only got 500 in revenue, but only has 200,000 in expenses. It's really the profit that drives the valuation. When you're looking at these businesses and the kind of practices in particular, the fact that they generally are recurring revenue certainly helps boost those values. The downside, however, when you're dealing with professional services firms, and you mentioned this earlier, Chris, is it's the personal relationships, which is why usually when you're dealing with a professional services firm, the transition period is going to be extremely important.

38:00 It may be a little longer than some of the business. It's not uncommon for a selling accountant to stick with that business for a year to help with that transition, make sure that those clients are introduced to the new firm and things are brought along slowly, so you don't get a sudden drop off. Also, there's usually going to be provisions in the purchase agreement to deal with what happens if clients drop off. Good point. Hey, Doug. One question I had. Let's say someone's thinking about selling their business.

38:44 Rather than creating that biz by sell account and just putting their business up there, what can they do to get organized and get everything in order before giving you a call and starting the whole process? Okay. If they want to start organizing themselves, first thing they want to do is they want to go through and make sure that all of their records are in order. If they're a corporation or LLC or all their annual reports filed, are they actually in existence? People sometimes don't file their annual reports and then find out a couple of years down the line that they were dissolved by the Secretary of State's office.

39:26 How are their financial books? Oh, I've seen a lot of it. What about their financial records? Are their financial records in good order? Are they not co-mixed with their personal records? Are they not co-mixed with their personal records? I've run into some businesses where you have a business owner who has one corporation, but he's running two businesses under it. That's always fun. A lot of times the accountant may not care because the corporation balances out and that's what they're reporting. But these two businesses may be co-mingling expenses and co-mingling income.

40:11 That makes for an interesting process and unraveling all that. And the other thing too, the most important thing too, is don't be afraid to call someone to help, whether it be a business broker or have a sit down with your financial advisor or your accountant and say, here's what I'm thinking. What should I be doing? Who should I be talking to? I believe in the team approach. I'm not an accountant. I may be an attorney, but I don't necessarily want to do both the broker work and the attorney work. I think that having that team approach is a good way to go because every situation is different.

40:57 Some businesses may have real estate, some don't. Do they want to sell the real estate as well, or do they want to hold onto that and maybe lease it back to the business for an additional cash stream? Each situation is different, so you really want to work with that owner and work with their team to find the right solution for them. Well, it's been a really interesting discussion. We probably went a little longer than planned, but there's so much to talk about and I'm sure we could probably plan to have you back in the future, Doug, because it's been- We'd be happy anytime, Chris. All right. Anything, Jeff, you wanted to add as we wind down?

41:40 I'd just like to give Doug an opportunity to share his contact information on how he would like, if someone's listening, a buyer or seller and might want to have that initial conversation, what's the best way to reach out to you, Doug? Sure. Best way to reach out to me, give you a couple of ways, email dougatcompassbusiness.net. Phone, I've got a mass number, 508-375 -7196 and a Florida number as well, that's 321-378-4038. If you have questions, if you're thinking about it, you're thinking of selling your business or you're thinking about buying a business or maybe you've got an existing business and you're looking to expand through acquisition.

42:32 Be happy to talk to you and see if I can help you. Thank you, Doug. Great job. Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it. Thank you. Conversation. All right. With that, everybody, thanks for being with us for another episode. If there's anything you need for help from us with your financial planning and portfolio management, don't hesitate to reach out. Until next time, keep striving for something more. Thank you for listening to Something More with Chris Boyd. Call us for help, whether it's for financial planning or portfolio management, insurance concerns, or those quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Whatever's on your mind, visit us at somethingmorewithchrisboyd .com or call us toll free at 866 -771-8901.

43:16 Or send us your questions to amr-info at wealthenhancement.com. You're listening to Something More with Chris Boyd Financial Talk Show, Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services, and Jay Christopher Boyd provide investment advice on an individual basis to clients only. Proper advice depends on a complete analysis of all facts and circumstances. The information given on this program is general financial comments and cannot be relied upon as pertaining to your specific situation. Wealth Enhancement Group cannot guarantee that using the information from this show will generate profits or ensure freedom from loss. Listeners should consult their own financial advisors or conduct their own due diligence before making any financial decisions.