Ep 355. Build It to Sell: What Private Equity Really Wants with Dennis Hering!

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Side Hustle Squad Ep 355

"Build It to Sell: What Private Equity Really Wants" with Dennis Herring

Date: July 28, 2026
Host: Mike Garvey
Guest: Dennis Herring, The Advisory Investment Bank
Location: Lawn and Landscape Tech Conference, Scottsdale, AZ

---

Episode Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into what it really means to build your lawn care or service business with the intention—or at least the option—of selling it to private equity. Dennis Herring, an advisor focused on helping essential service businesses structure themselves for high-value exits, shares crucial advice on recurring revenue, creating systems, and preparing early for exit events. The conversation centers on building businesses that attract buyers, even if your exit isn’t imminent, and practical steps owners can take to maximize future value and saleability.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who is Dennis Herring?

• Dennis and his firm, The Advisory Group, are investment bankers dealing specifically with private equity and essential services companies (HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, etc.).
• The firm helps business owners understand what their businesses are worth, preps them for market, and manages the process of presenting the business to multiple buyers.
  “We only have a success fee tied to a deal actually done. So all of our focus is let's make sure we get you the perfect deal, otherwise you have no obligation to us.” — Dennis (02:27)

2. The Value of Recurring Revenue

• Private equity loves recurring revenue: creates stable, predictable income streams.
• Even “one off” industries (like HVAC, roofing) can create recurring models (e.g., memberships, service plans).
• Recurring business = much higher valuation multiples.
  “If you can get creative and create recurring revenue, no matter what industry you’re in, that’ll shoot up your evaluation so much more.” — Dennis (04:55)

3. Who Should Think About Selling? Revenue Thresholds & Preparation

• Sweet spot: Businesses with $2M+ in annual revenue (approx. $500k EBITDA).
• Multiples and valuation increase significantly as your structure, margins, and documentation improve.
• Clean finances and strong, repeatable systems greatly influence offers.
  “You could have a company doing the same revenue but different EBITDA numbers. But then the finances…one could have super clean finances and the other on paper, Excel…everything plays a part.” — Dennis (02:50)

4. Building Systems that Scale

• Having multiple locations with unified systems is highly attractive.
  “It’s a gold mine. The faster companies can become mergeable and just become a duplicate of itself in different locations, the easier it becomes…” — Dennis (08:05)
• Technology adoption (CRMs, cloud-based systems, standardized processes) makes integration and scaling easier for buyers.

5. Working on Your Business (not in it)

• Buyers want companies that don’t depend on the owner’s daily presence.
• True value: Business operates independently; owner can “step back” without things falling apart.
• Delegation is crucial: hire people better than you for each role.
  “If you are still every day in the business as hard as it is to hear, you don’t own the business because you’re still having to work in it every single day now.” — Dennis (12:04)

6. Generational Trends & The Strategic Seller

• Not just "Boomers" are selling—savvy younger owners are building to sell in 5-7 years.
• Technology-native owners scale faster by leveraging automation and efficient operations.
  “A few of the guys that we're working with now...are not even in their 40s yet...if I build properly in this space in the next five, six years, I could set my family up for true success.” — Dennis (15:00)

7. The Power of Always Being Ready

• Prepare your business for sale even if you don’t want to exit soon.
• Being proactive gives you leverage and options in case of unexpected events (health, family, etc.).
  “Prepare before you think you need to…I’ve spoken to people that now come back to us because family came back, have had some issues and they wanna cash out…I say why not be proactive…If it never comes, then praise God. But if it does, like, you’re ready.” — Dennis (18:01)

8. What Buyers Look for When Evaluating Your Business

• Trailing 2-3 years of sales and profit, especially year-over-year growth.
• Strength and documentation of systems (operations, client tracking).
• Level of owner involvement (“How detrimental are you to the business?”).
• Clean, transparent finances (with add-backs for owner perks/personal expenses).
  “How involved is the owner compared to the rest of the team and just how smoothly does the system operate as a whole, how strong of an organization does he actually have?” — Dennis (20:58)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recurring revenue:
  “Recurring revenue is pretty much guaranteed income for yourself. Where you can estimate, okay, where do I want to scale next? And from a buyer perspective, it shows them this is a stable business.” — Dennis (05:54)

• On systems and scale:
  “The more you can put yourself in a position to be acclimated to the best technology immediately, it makes the whole process so much easier. And buyers will actually pay more to you for being an easier transition for them.” — Dennis (08:44)

• On true ownership:
  “You are not required to [be present] for the business to keep running and scaling...That is worth the most to any potential buyer.” — Dennis (12:48)

• On delegation and hiring:
  “I want my technician to be better than me. And I want…well, you delegate everything. It’s like. No, but like, I want people to do…Be better at it than me.” — Mike (13:40)

• On the risks of procrastination:
  “Why would you want to put yourself behind the eight ball if, let’s say three years from now you get in a health situation and you can’t work anymore?” — Dennis (18:14)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:33–02:39 — Introduction to The Advisory Group and Dennis' approach to advising exits
• 04:10–05:54 — Private equity interest in service businesses; recurring revenue models
• 06:35–07:53 — Always build with the possibility of exit in mind; benefit of being prepared
• 08:05–10:11 — Why unified systems and scalable models drive higher value (multi-branch insights)
• 12:04–13:16 — Defining business ownership: The importance of not being the bottleneck
• 14:10–16:14 — Selling trends: Boomers and millennial owners, leveraging technology
• 17:52–19:05 — One indispensable piece of advice for eventual exit
• 19:42–21:14 — What buyers evaluate: sales, profit, systems, owner involvement, recurring revenue

---

Actionable Takeaways for Listeners

• Design your business from day one as if you may sell it—integration, systems, and recurring revenue matter.
• Adopt technology early and document all your processes.
• Build a team that can run without you: delegate, hire for strengths, and step back.
• Clean, well-organized finances and separation of personal and business are key for strong multiples.
• Be proactive with exit planning—you never know what life may throw your way.

---

Closing Thoughts

This episode is a master class on selling a service business, featuring actionable advice for both newcomers and veterans. Dennis Herring distills what private equity really looks for and gives real-world context. It’s essential listening for anyone in the "green industry" or other essential services who wants options for the future—whether you plan to sell or simply want to future-proof your hustle.

---

Transcript

[Mike Garvey]

Are you ready to kick back and get inspired? Grab your favorite drink, pop the top and join the side Hustle Squad with Mike Garvey. This podcast is the perfect resource for anyone who's already started their side hustle or is just considering taking the lead. With in depth interviews featuring guests from the green industry and beyond, you'll gain valuable insights and learn what it takes to succeed in running a business while juggling a full time career. From personal stories to practical tips, the Soc side Hustle Squad podcast has everything you need to turn your passion into a thriving business. Now, here's your side Hustle Squad host, Mike Garvey.

[Dennis Herring]

Going on.

[Mike Garvey]

Guys, it's your host, Mike Garvey with the side Hustle Squad podcast coming at you from the Lawn and Landscape Tech Conference here in Scottsdale, Arizona. We're on Pod Row, sponsored by LCR Media, here with a returning guest, Dennis Herring from the advisory investment bank. It's been one year.

[Dennis Herring]

Yes, it has. That's, that's so crazy to me.

[Mike Garvey]

Friend of the show, right?

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

I mean literally the first time even got exposed to you was the same convention last year.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's one? So, so for the listeners, my new listeners, if you want to give us an overview of who you are, what the advisory group is and we'll go from there.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah. I mean to keep it simple, we're an investment bank, right. So we have specific licensing where we work directly with private equity to help diff owners of different essential services, like different ones like H vac, plumbing, electrical, like in my case, landscaping, pest, lawn care, et cetera. We help them navigate the their exit process because a lot of guys just don't know like how it works, what they should be doing.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah. So a lot of it's scary.

[Dennis Herring]

Correct. And so a lot of our focus is just on helping them understand, number one, what could your business be priced at in the market compared to clients we have now and what is they're getting, like what offers they're getting. Right. And then if it's something that's intriguing, then we'll do market tests for them where we'll literally build the entire portfolio for them, show it to every single buyer, run an entire process for them and say, hey, here's your five to ten offers on the table. Here's how they're structured. Let's negotiate through these and if there's one that you like, let's keep going.

[Fullerton]

Right.

[Dennis Herring]

If not, no harm, no foul. But because we, we only have a success fee tied to a deal, actually Done. So all of our focus is let's make sure we get you the perfect deal, otherwise you have no obligation to us.

[Mike Garvey]

Is there a specific revenue set that or revenue that you would want to work with a company? Are we talking like over a million, over 3 million? What's the point that we could be talking about?

[Dennis Herring]

So it kind of tiers to what you're, to kind of what you're leaning towards. So usually the bottom of the barrel is around, around 2 million in revenue because that usually with basic margins will hit you about 500k for like your take home. If people are familiar with the term EBITDA, that's pretty much like the 500k mark. You'll start seeing decent multiples at that point starting in the mid single figures. And then if you get up to like the, the 2ish, even a marker higher, that's when you're more considered like a platform type model where you can become that big 800 pound gorilla that buyers can aggregate into. And that's when multiples really start getting closer to like those double digit marks. You can still see that in smaller businesses, but a lot of it is heavily tied to how is the business structured. What' customer like clientele, like how clean is the business, how heavily are you involved? So I say these multiples very surface level because you could have a company doing the same revenue but different EBITDA numbers. But then the finances could also one of them could have super clean finances and the other one is on paper, Excel, everything like yeah, everything plays a part in what the true number ends up being.

[Mike Garvey]

What you're seeing. Venture capital. What kind of are you seeing again? There's now in a lot of service base they're looking for service. Homeowner services. Correct. That's like.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah, I mean part of it now. Yeah, I mean of course there's people are trying to leverage AI which can definitely help make companies more effective in general. But let's be honest, the service industry, with people needing to help do home jobs, service jobs, that's never going to go away. And so yeah, there's not a threat

[Mike Garvey]

to be losing it today.

[Dennis Herring]

Correct. And so it's why these markets, markets are always so frothy. Now obviously different industries carry different opportunity because some of them have a recurring business like pest landscaping, like with mow and blow and such. But other ones like roofing, each vac

[Mike Garvey]

have like the bigger one off.

[Dennis Herring]

Correct.

[Mike Garvey]

Jobs. Yeah, they're doing $10,000, $20,000 roofs in a day.

[Dennis Herring]

Right, I know, exactly. Yeah. So a Lot of it just. They're always going to be interested in these spaces. But the, the way that they're priced is going to vary based on how, even how creative owners can be with recurring revenue. Right. Because some owners literally have H Vac and plumbing companies where standard. There may not be a recurring revenue option there, but they create a membership with their own company where people can. If you can get creative and create recurring revenue, no matter what industry you're in, that'll shoot up your evaluation so much more because the revenue can be more accurately.

[Mike Garvey]

That's what everyone should be thinking about too. It's like the, those, those H Vac installers. Like, are you doing a reoccurring?

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah.

[Mike Garvey]

Okay, check. A spring checkup. Bring us out X amount of dollars. Like, oh, and you're. And you know, all of a sudden you build up a clientele of.

[Dennis Herring]

Yes.

[Mike Garvey]

We go to 800 homes every spring at X amount of dollars. And it's going to, it's always, it's automatic. Unless we hear from them otherwise. Right, exactly.

[Dennis Herring]

And like, that's the same thing. Like with myself, for example, we're on the side hustle podcast. Like, I have my normal, My corporate job that I really enjoy with the advisory. Yeah. But I've also got other side hustles. I do. And every one of them is related to how are, how can I create recurring revenue with these guys? Because recurring revenue is pretty much guaranteed income for yourself. Where you can estimate, okay, where do I want to scale next? And from a buyer perspective, it shows them this is a stable business. We know where business is coming in from. So now it just comes down to how fast could they scale? How, how, how sustainable is that revenue and recurring side of things. It carries the most weight when it comes to what a company is looking for and how a company can be

[Mike Garvey]

priced as you're building a business. Like, at what point, like, should you always be looking at an exit? Whether it's a year from now? It could be if you, if the right offer comes. Right. But if it doesn't, you might be, oh, you should be always. Should you always be looking for an exit strategy instead of just like locking the doors, shutting it down, and just walking away from nothing.

[Dennis Herring]

What I tell owners is this. Build the business in case you ever need to exit. Because if you're not doing that, then you have to do a lot of makeshift on the back end to get it ready for it. And that's the bigger headache.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah. You have to hire. Correct.

Right.

You have to fill someone your Fill your shoes.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah, yeah. Like, at the end of the day, if you can build your business like you're planning for an exit, you never have to worry about if you want to, because if you ever desire to, you can. You're prepared. If not, keep running the sucker and give it to your family. But in the end, like, the owners who get the best, the clients of ours have gotten the best, absolute best results were ones where they were building it for the potential need or desire to want to exit. And just so happens that they ran a process with us. We got the numbers higher than what they ever thought they were going to expect, and they took the deal because their business was already positioned for it.

[Mike Garvey]

Do you think a company with, like, multiple branches or multiple locations is that that all run the same way and have systems and everything? Is that more? Is that something people should look at as well?

[Dennis Herring]

It's a gold mine. Because the biggest thing that a buyer is. Is interested in is knowing how much do they have to invest to merge company A into their own company. How many systems have to get updated, Right. How much software has to get transitioned over so that that stuff can run six figures, depending how much has to get done. So the faster companies can become mergeable and just become a duplicate of itself in different locations, the easier it becomes, the more up to date you're on software. I mean, we're at the landscape technology show. Like, the more you can put yourself in a position to be acclimated to the best technology immediately.

[Mike Garvey]

Right.

[Dennis Herring]

It makes the whole process so much easier. And buyers will actually pay more to you for being an easier transition for them.

[Mike Garvey]

And I look at. I'm from New Jersey, from Tom Driver, right? I look at, like, Jersey Mike's right. Subs, right?

[Dennis Herring]

Exactly.

[Mike Garvey]

The first one they had was in Point Pleasant, right next to Shop in the World.

[Dennis Herring]

Just saying.

[Mike Garvey]

And so, like, he duplicated the one into God. How many sold out to, like, black rock, right? $8 billion.

[Dennis Herring]

I know. Freaking crazy. And so jealous of the guy and like.

[Mike Garvey]

But his systems are the same. You're going to the place and getting the same standard where wherever you go, you're ordering number 55 or whatever. It's like, that's what it is. But it's. That was easy acquisition, right?

[Dennis Herring]

Exactly.

[Mike Garvey]

Like, oh, my God, they use this one system. So, like, I look at it like, I opened up a second branch this

[Dennis Herring]

year and, like, congrats again, by the way.

[Mike Garvey]

Thank you. Yeah, it's very like, you know, the opportunity came around and a guy I work with in the state police wanted to get involved. He's retiring. So like he, he's taking control of that. We're training him. Everything but like all the systems are in place. So I can just duplicate exactly what I did nine years ago into just building it again, but hopefully quicker. And you know, I don't need to rush to it. But like, that's what I'm thinking then, okay, if I get another opportunity, maybe down near like Philadelphia or something, I'll do that and like, okay, have a little one over there and then.

[Dennis Herring]

Exactly.

[Mike Garvey]

And then my exit can be like, hey, look, we have five branches. They all run the same, they all have 800 customers. And like, this is what we do. And you know, that's my goal.

[Fullerton]

I'm Fullerton here with branded bull. And if you've been thinking about upgrading your website, now's the time. Through July 31st, we're taking $500 off our proven starter and growth website packages during our dog days of summer promotion. So whether you're looking to build credibility, showcase your services, or generate more qualified leads, a professional website is one of the best investments you can make in your business. To get started, visit Brainable.com to learn more and sign up today.

[Mike Garvey]

Lawn care and landscaping pros, listen up. If you're tired of guessing your way through pricing, marketing, hiring and sales, this is your wake up call. The LCR Summit hits Downtown Louisville October 19th and 20th at the Gault House the same week as Equip. And it's going to change the way you run your business forever. This is not another sit and listen event. It's two full days of hands on workshops from leaders who've actually built what you're trying to build. Neylor Taliaferro shows you how to generate better leads through smarter marketing. Paul Jamison teaches content that converts. John Pajak breaks down your numbers so you'll stop working for cheap. Eric Triplett, the pond digger, reveals how he built a multimillion dollar business making more money with less work. Plus, you'll have a surprise guest speaker. Add in live Q and A panels, networking, and an exclusive VIP dinner with all the speakers. When you purchase at the platinum level, grab tickets and [e-mail] or just tap the link in the podcast description. That's lcrsummit.com. stop guessing, start growing. Build the business you've always imagined at the LCR Summit.

[Dennis Herring]

The way that I communicate this to people that I'm on the phone with is if you are still everyday in the business as hard as it is teeth here, you don't own the business because you're still having to work in it every single day now. Yeah, it's a shop. If you were able to step back any time and be able to say, I'm going to go on vacation this week here. I'll travel this week there. I just got off the phone with a potential client earlier, before we hopped on here, and he was telling me literally how they've gone like five trips the last four months just because he's not needed. And that. That's the definition of a business owner is you are not needed. You can be involved as much as you want to be.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

But you are not required to for the business to keep running and scaling.

[Mike Garvey]

Y.

Right.

[Dennis Herring]

That is worth the most to any potential buyer. That's what they look for. You have to be.

[Mike Garvey]

And I'm finding this too, with like, these. Some of these landscape companies that do 5 million, you know, they have 50 employees or ever. I see. I talk to the owners and the owners, like, I don't even. I have a meeting on Mondays and I have a meeting on Thursdays. And it's better when I'm not there because it's running on its own.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah.

[Mike Garvey]

Damn. That's what's up.

[Dennis Herring]

That's it exactly. Tell me basics. Right? Yeah. I don't mean to interrupt you.

[Mike Garvey]

No, not at all.

[Dennis Herring]

It's just. It's just the basics of. Hey, if you're looking, there's no need to overcomplicate. What stepping back looks like is. Hey, if you would step back, what would work and what falls apart. Okay, Fix what falls apart until your business can maintain or grow. If you can do that, you're already prepared. Way more than 90% of the clients I speak to.

[Mike Garvey]

I. I try to tell people, too. Like, I try to find people that are better at this stuff than you are. Like, I'm. I just held the admin together because I had to. My partner held the operation side of it and all that together because that's what he's good at. But, like, I'm not the best at, you know, all that stuff, but I want to get somebody that is to make it look awesome. And then I want my technician to be better than me. And I want, like. Yeah, like. Like, well, you delegate everything. It's like. No, but like, I want people to do. Be it. Be better at it than me.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah.

[Mike Garvey]

What. What are. Are you seeing a lot of exits with? The boomers are retiring. Right. Like, these guys have had businesses for 40 years. Are you seeing like an uptick in that?

[Dennis Herring]

I wouldn't say it's an uptick. I would just say it's a larger awareness. A lot of these guys are now realizing maybe the plan they had for succession with the family, something goes through. Yeah. And want to be involved anymore. Right now the owner's trying to figure out what to do next because their plan originally was to have the kids take over. Maybe they don't want to anymore. But it's also what's been interesting to me too is a few of the clients we recently started working with, they aren't, they aren't older than 40, they're in their late 20s, early 30s. But they just knew these were industries where the concept of buy and build or like build and sell is a very lucrative play.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

So a few of the guys that we're working with now, they're adequate size to get a possible double digit multiple on their businesses. And these guys aren't even in their 40s yet. They just knew if I build properly in this space in the next five, six years, I could set my family up for true success. And they quickly learned. They knew technology. They knew how to maximize technology to minimize manpower when it wasn't needed right away.

[Mike Garvey]

They're using AI in their business. Correct.

[Dennis Herring]

They aren't replacing people with AI, but they're learning how to make their own technicians smarter and quicker. And now they've, they're already up to date on all the software and they now have the same technicians as, as another, as a boomer did. But the technicians are technology wiser, which makes them that much more valuable. They've scaled that company over the four or five years, had 30, 40% average growth over the years because they knew how to leverage technology better. And now it's like, wow, after seven years or six years, I've built something. Let's say I'm 35 now and it's like, wow, I could actually be worth double digits now in this situation. Like, yeah, you're just crazy. You just scaled yourself to be a multi millionaire.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

In a span of six, seven years. Because you built, built a company wisely.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

And these are the industries to do it in.

[Mike Garvey]

Tell me more about your side businesses.

[Dennis Herring]

So, side businesses, I've always had been entrepreneur at heart. So ever since high school, whether it was doing golf instruction, whether it was doing, I did like some Uber and Lyft driving in the very beginning, after college just to make some money. Recently I began doing some sales consulting with a friend of mine who runs A general contracting company out of my like local Raleigh, Durham area. So a bunch of my work now is teaching his people how to have sales conversation, how to discuss referral opportunities, how to navigate a sale from initial conversation all the way through the execution and getting it done for the payment to come. Nice. Then I've got another friend of mine who has a passion for media and web design for nonprofits and churches. We have a church background, so now we recently began using AI and using Claude to help build these sites because he has a coding background, so he knows how to leverage these systems to develop our own hosting platform so we don't have to use another external one. He's coded his own. So now we can design every set how we want to. We can make it just how we want to. Exactly. So a lot of that's just like, do I expect any of those to eventually become a full time income? That might be fun, but I also just love having multiple fires going because to me that's just interesting. And so all of these will just be fun side hustles that maybe they'll turn into full time income one day.

[Mike Garvey]

You never know what's around the corner.

[Dennis Herring]

I don't depend on one of those because my mind is always on how can I create an opportunity in this space. And it's the same thing for these industries, for the essential workers. There's always going to be a need there. So it's a question of do you love the work or do you want to leverage the industry?

[Mike Garvey]

What's one piece of advice every business owner should hear when they're thinking about an exit?

[Dennis Herring]

I would say prepare before you think you need to. I don't. I wish I could have a more catchy way of saying, because all these guys are like, stretch, one liner.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah, prepare. Right, I got it.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah, it's like just be like, prepare. Now, you may not need to exit for 10 years, but why would you want to put yourself behind the eight ball if, let's say three years from now you get in a health situation and you can't work anymore? Like if you're in a position now where you're healthy and can prepare, take the time to do it because you never know what life's gonna throw at you. And I've personally spoken to people that now come back to us that they are looking to exit because nine months ago when I first met them at a show, they weren't ready. Now family came back, have had some issues and they wanna cash out in the business to focus on family. Time for health concerns. Cool. You weren't expecting that nine months ago, but now it's a need. So my thing is, why not be proactive and not even let the need happen. Let's just be prepared when it comes. If it never comes, then praise God. But if it does, like, you're ready.

[Mike Garvey]

That's really good. Yeah. You should always be thinking about it because you don't know when it's gonna happen.

[Dennis Herring]

You really don't. It's the same reason why I have side hustles. I never. I don't plan for something to happen to my health in the next 5, 10, 15 years. But same. It's the same conversation. This is kind of like a random tie, but it's like life insurance. I know everything's. They need it. But then when you pass away and there's no backup income for the family, now the family screwed. So it's like, how can I prepare my family for the future?

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

Even though it might not be needed because I never know when it will be.

[Mike Garvey]

I'll. I don't want to take up your whole whole day here, your whole time. But I got one final fire away.

[Dennis Herring]

What? You got me.

[Mike Garvey]

So if you walked into my business tomorrow with the intention of buying it, what's the. What are the things that you're looking at before deciding what it's worth? Just to review. I know we covered some of it, but just.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah.

[Mike Garvey]

So we can hit on it.

[Dennis Herring]

So a couple of key things to think about is obviously how the. What the sales have been the last two or three years, how the last year has been in general. How's profit looking? Like, how profitable is the business?

[Mike Garvey]

Right.

[Dennis Herring]

Looking at your systems. Hey, how does the system operate? How do you track things in a CRM? How do you track clients? That type of thing. So just looking at the overall perspective of how does this business operate, because the better it operates and the more smooth it operates, I want to see. I'll be curious how often you're in the office for. What do you do in the office? Like, how detrimental are you to the business? If I know. If I can. If you would. If I would call ahead and you tell me, I may be in there next week. I don't know. I don't have to be.

[Fullerton]

Yeah.

[Dennis Herring]

That's already like, oh, I like this. Because he isn't needed. So he's already built his team in place to not need him anymore.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah. Like, oh, he's out here.

[Dennis Herring]

Yeah.

[Mike Garvey]

Like, doing this.

[Dennis Herring]

Like, if you were to tell me, yeah, I'm there five days a week. I gotta take care of X, Y and Z every single week. I handle all this, that and the other. I'm like, you may have a strong business, but it still depends on you.

[Mike Garvey]

Yeah, you're bottlenecking.

[Dennis Herring]

Exactly. So a lot of it's just how involved is the owner compared to the rest of the team and just how smoothly does the system operate as a whole, how strong of an organization does he actually have?

[Mike Garvey]

Plus reoccurring services, customers, all that stuff.

[Dennis Herring]

Exactly. And those aren't like hard things to. I shouldn't say it's not hard to scale, but it's not hard to find ways to scale. It's not. There's nothing wrong with investing in the business. But the other thing that guys don't think about is also the concept of add backs. Like where if it's. If you're running personal expenses for the business. We've had clients where their multiples have jumped up two or three, sometimes four times specifically because they ran so much through the business that they were actually just one off personal expenses that did not need to be considered part of the ebitda. So that just shot everything right back up and now the adjusted goes to market. Gotcha. So in reality it comes down to let's do the math, let's figure out what's actually part of the business and let's see how what that compares to some of our existing clients. And this is what you would probably see. Etc.

[Mike Garvey]

Cool. Awesome man. Well, thank you for coming back on and I'm sure we'll do this again next year.

[Dennis Herring]

Oh yeah. Hey, we can go for three or maybe.

[Mike Garvey]

Maybe we'll run into each other before that. I hope so. But 100. Thank you for talking to the audience and like having us always think about an exit.

[Dennis Herring]

100%. It's so much fun to just to talk with owners and just share. Hey, I've got nothing to pitch you besides prepare yourself than expected. And when you are at that point, we're here.

[Mike Garvey]

Awesome. Thanks so much man. Appreciate it. All right, all right, we'll leave it there. We'll catch you guys on the next one.

Thanks for tuning in to the side Hustle Squad podcast with Mike Garvey. We hope you enjoyed this episode and gained valuable insights to help you succeed in your side Hustle journey. Connect with Mike using the links in the podcast description. If you love the show, please leave us a well worded five star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback and support help us grow and continue to provide you with the best content. And don't forget to follow the show to be notified when the next edition of the Side Hustle Squad Podcast is available. We have many exciting guests and topics lined up so you won't want to miss a single episode. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you next time on the side Hustle Squad Podcast.

Hey, what's going on, guys? With Jobber, you can easily manage jobs, track your team, get paid faster, all from one simple app. Join thousands of satisfied lawn care professionals who trust Jobber to keep their business growing strong. Visit the link in the bio today and start your free trial.