Unlocking the Value of Your Business: Insights from Viking Mergers & Acquisitions with Jeff McKeehan and Chris Buehler

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:36hey there welcome to this week's episode of epic entrepreneurs i have got a treat for you today but before we get to our guests and they're a great guest i want to remind you that the ashville summit the ashville business summit is coming up on september 23rd it's time we're a couple weeks out, it's time to get your tickets. You just go to WNCSummit.com, and I will tell you, I'll give you a secret right now. If you can find one of the sponsors, they might have a ticket for you. All you got to do is ask them. If not, get them out there on the website. We have got some great guest today. We have got a couple of people from Viking Mergers and Acquisitions, and I just want to say something about Viking.

1:30I mean, when I told Jeff McKeon what we were up to, he's like, I'm in. I mean, he was one of the first guys that said, let's get behind this summit. Let's make it something big and great for Asheville. So I'm super pumped to have Jeff McKeon and his colleague, Chris Buehler from Vikings Mergers and Acquisitions. So Jeff, tell us a little bit about you and Viking and your role here in Western North Carolina. Well, Bill, it's good to be back here on your podcast. And we are really excited about the upcoming Asheville Business Summit. We've been looking forward to it all year now. And it's hard to believe it's right here within the next couple of weeks.

2:13We're all going to be together. And, you know, it's a great time to come together. We all know what happened almost a year ago here in Western North Carolina. And being a lifelong resident of Western North Carolina, I reside in Tron. I live in the little village of Tron. My office here is in Asheville. And, you know, we are all part of this community. And as Viking, we support the small business community. We support the entrepreneur ecosystem here in Western North Carolina, particularly in the greater Asheville area. And we don't think that there's any better place to do business than right here at home.

2:55And so when we found out that you were planning this year's event, we wanted to make sure that we got on the marquee there with you. And we appreciate the opportunity that you've given us to be sponsors and to be present and to be a part of this event this year. As far as Viking goes, we are probably the leading mergers and acquisitions firm here in Western North Carolina. What we focus on is what's called the lower middle market. We help business owners of privately owned, closely held companies plan and execute to sell other business. 99.9 % of what we do is sell side representation, which means that we work very closely with the business owners in some cases for years.

3:41to help prepare their business for sale. Then we go to market and we project manage that whole process all the way to close, step by step, hand in hand with the business owner. So we are very in tune to the ownership aspects of a business and what it takes to grow a business and prepare a business for sale. And your business summit that you host every year, that you graciously invited us to be a part of this year is right down the middle of the lane for what we do. We are just really excited about it. And we're also excited to have a new member of our team who joined us recently, Chris Buehler.

4:24He is a very well-known, very well-connected person here in the business community. And Chris is going to be front and center at this event. coming up. And we really enjoy having him on board. And I'd like to turn it over to Chris to say hello and introduce himself. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Bill, for the opportunity to join you today. Again, my name is Chris Buehler. Just recently joined with the team at Viking Mergers and Acquisitions. I've actually known Jeff McKeon for about seven years now. I've been in the market for over eight years. And Jeff and I found that we kept circling each other a lot of the same entrepreneur and networking events over the years and struck up a friendship.

5:10And I've gotten to know Jeff, the team, and the Viking process quite well over the years, not only making cross referrals of business opportunities and potential clients to each other, I actually looked at some of the listings on the Viking platform over the years with a business partner that would be good acquisition candidates. And over those years, I got to know the Viking team, the Viking process us very well. I have an utmost amount of respect for the professionalism and integrity of the team. And earlier this year, Jeff and I were speaking about some of the changing business dynamics in Western North Carolina and what we need to do to prepare to support entrepreneurs across the spectrum in coming years post-tween as businesses get back to generating the kinds of earnings and returns that they had grown accustomed to and look forward to in the future.

6:02Since I'd worked with so many entrepreneurs, usually at the earlier and growth stages of their business, it just seemed natural to, when Jeff offered me the invitation to consider joining the Viking team to do my due diligence and say, this is a great part of working with entrepreneurs that is a nice compliment to working with entrepreneurs at the earlier stages they establish and grow of their businesses. And by participating with the Viking team, I get the opportunity to support those entrepreneurs when they see the true value of their business manifested in the form of the sale of their business.

6:37So it's great to just be able to see the entire life cycle of supporting entrepreneurs through the starting, the growth, and ultimately the exiting of their businesses so that they can go chase their dream, be it retirement or starting their next exciting gig. So it's just been a real honor and a pleasure to be invited to join the Viking team and looking forward to supporting businesses and our partners in the region in years to come. So I got a quick question for both of you. What is the biggest misconception about working with a business intermediary? That's a great question, Bill. Well, you know, I think the greatest question that a business owner may have is what value does a M &A advisor, intermediary, business broker, what value do they bring?

7:35Because they really don't understand the process. Most of the time, our clients, it's their first time at the rodeo. They've never sold a business before, most of our clients. Most of our clients have never bought a business. They were creative. They had an idea. They had a skill. They had knowledge, and they opened a business. They started the business. And through grit and determination and hard work over the course of 20, 25, 30, 40 years, they've built a successful business. and they are do-it-yourselfers. They've worked hard and they've accomplished a lot on their own. And the biggest misconception they have is that, hey, I can sell this.

8:23Why do I need help doing this? They don't really understand the complexities that are involved in selling a business. From the very start, we start on the valuation. We determine using our proprietary valuation model what the most likely selling price of that business is going to be in the open market today in an arm's length transaction. And then from that point, we can start helping that business owner maximize the value of that business. We know what to look for. We know what buyers are asking about a business. We know how they're going to value a business. We also understand if a buyer of that business is going to obtain a loan through the SBA or commercial lender or capital markets to acquire a business, we know what those lenders are going to be asking, the questions that they're going to have about a business.

9:17And we're going to be working proactively on the front end to answer all of those questions that we can possibly answer on the front end. We're going to package that business up in a professional marketing way to take it out to the open market, and we're going to solicit buyers for that business. The best situation we can get into is a business that we have more than one buyer engaged, prospective buyers, and create what we call a competitive bid process for that business. Well, once it goes under contract, then there's the whole closing process. And we're seeing more buyers now and lenders requiring what we call a quality of earnings, where you really dig deep into the financials of that company.

10:02We team along with our client, the sellers, CPA, attorneys, and others to create a full suite of expertise to help that business owner get across the finish line with the sale of that company. So there's a lot to it that business owners generally don't understand. And it's when we sit down with them, when we start through the process, that the light bulb goes off. And they recognize that there is value to bringing in a person like myself or Chris or one of our other team members that are experienced. This is what we do. This is all we do. And we have had a very, very successful track record here in Western North Carolina.

10:49representing business owners. And I think we've developed a reputation as probably the most trusted M &A advisory firm here in Western North Carolina. Yeah, I found that a couple of things that you said really resonate. First of all, most people, you know, they're in the business or running their business. They don't know how to market it for sale. So the actual marketing piece of it to me is worth, probably worth all of it. I mean, obviously you're maximizing value. That's in everybody's best interest to get the right value. So, you know, I see that as the time factor. I mean, they don't want to spend the time to – I mean, if they're – I mean, it's a full-time job really to sell a business, much less keep it growing because you have to keep it growing during the sales process.

11:40The other thing I think is I don't believe people understand how long it takes. you know the what what would you say what is your average i mean you know from the time they come to you until you get a deal done there you know my i know about what i think it is i'd be interested to hear what you think it is yeah that that's a great question um going to market is usually about nine months right now from the date that we list the business till we close the business Now, that nine months, there's different phases along that timeline. What we're doing across that nine-month period, it changes from face to face.

12:18Now, what has happened is things have become more complex, and that timeline's gotten longer with the COVID period that we were in. That was a challenge from lenders, particularly, wanting to understand what the impacts were. Now, there's all of these other macroeconomic issues that we're dealing with now, even with tariffs and the threat of tariffs and the impacts and the helene and everything else that we have to work through. So we've seen that timeline creep up over the past couple of years from about seven months to nine months. However, we have worked with clients for four, five, six years before we ever take that business to market.

12:58So once we go to market, next to the business owner, we are probably the most knowledgeable person with regards to how that business operates and the financial aspects of that business, along with their CPA. We are probably there with that business owner for an extended period of time as we learn about the business and how the business operates. So to say that timeline is nine months may not include the multiple years that we've worked with that business owner to prepare that business. Yeah, keeping in touch with them, giving them some advice, telling them, you know, my experience has been people come and they say, well, I want to sell my business.

13:41And they think it's worth about twice as much as it is. And, you know, once they get the real value waste, oh, I'm not going to sell it for that. And so then you have to go to work to make it worth twice as much, which is kind of what we do. And then turn it back over to you guys. So, yeah, it's pretty good. Let me ask Chris, let me ask you a question. What are you most excited about in helping business owners transition their businesses? The part for me is, again, reflecting back on that description of the entire life cycle of a business. So much of my career has been spent in the early stages of entrepreneurship, getting businesses started, mentoring, coaching, and advising entrepreneurs through the early stages of launching and growing their firm.

14:29And I firsthand know the joys of going through that process myself. I have successfully sold a business in the past, and I'd like to be able to help entrepreneurs and business owners in the region find that same spirit of accomplishment when they do successfully transact their business. And they do see the financial benefit from their years of hard work and the options that lie in front of them in terms of what they can do with the balance of the time and the resources that they have to exist on this earth. It's a lot of fun to see new doors and opportunities opening up for business owners once they have successfully exited a business.

15:13Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool when they can do it. It's almost like you've experienced it and now you can give back. That's just a nice thing. What are you guys excited about with the Business Summit?

15:32Chris, sorry, Bill. As far as I'm concerned, this is like a homecoming, in my opinion. You know, I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the people that over the years I've met, I've gotten to know. You know, we're all busy. This past year has been a real challenge for everyone. I don't think there's a business in Western North Carolina that wasn't affected one way or another by the hurricane last year. And so we've all been sort of head down, doing our thing, trying to, you know, trying to recover and rebuild. And I see this as an event almost marking that that one year to the day almost from the hurricane.

16:16And I'm really looking forward to just taking a couple of days there and just catching up with people, to be honest with you. I'm really looking forward to seeing some people that I haven't seen in a long time. Yeah. And I would echo that sentiment, Bill. There are so many people in our networks that we have not had the opportunity to spend the kind of time, quality time with over the past year that we maybe had grown accustomed to prior to lean. So it's a great opportunity to reconnect with folks in our network, be they clients, partners, customers, what have you. and so for me the other thing is just because I have just recently joined the Viking team there are a lot of folks who still don't know that I'm part of the Viking team so it's an opportunity for me to spread the news about joining the team at Viking and looking forward to a very bright future with the team yeah I'm yeah I'm excited that you're on Viking that's awesome I mean it's great to see that the Viking team in western North Carolina is growing uh you know it's for a long time it was just Jeff and, you know, and then, and then, and then, and now it's, now it's growing more and more.

17:21I love it. Yeah. I've often found, and you know, I encourage people to go ahead and get your tickets if you haven't already gotten them. Um, the, the stuff that the magic, you know, we've got like nine speakers. It's going to be great. Okay. It, I trust you. They're all, you know, they're, they're international speakers, but they're all based here, which is kind of cool. or most of them are international speakers, but they're all based here. And so it is a celebration, but the real magic happens at lunch, in the hallway, at the breaks, at the, you know, when you can sit down and talk to other business owners.

18:03So I had somebody else that I was interviewing, one of the speakers who was saying that one of the main things they were looking for is that, you know, after Helene, it's just been hard to connect to, to even after COVID he was talking about, it was like harder for to come. We used to come together a lot more as a community. And so we're super pumped to have, to create a community together. And I'm, I'm excited that y 'all are excited about the same sort of things. Yeah. So what advice would you have for business owners that are considering transitioning? At some point, every business gets sold one way or the other.

18:48So one of the big things I tell people is they probably haven't started soon enough. But what advice would you have other than that to get started about the process? The first piece of advice I give is let's have a conversation. Let's talk. Let's talk about your plans. Let's talk about what your desire is for the future. You've built a successful company. You've worked hard. Now you are wanting to move to the next phase of life, to the next phase of business. what's your goals? What's your passion? What's the next thing look like? The reason I ask that question, Bill, is I want to understand what the compelling reason is that a person would have to sell their business.

19:38I will never convince someone to sell their business if they don't want to sell it. I will never convince someone to sell their business if they don't have a compelling reason to sell the business. Some people's identity is tied up in their business. Some. It's more than just, you know. Most, I think. Some can't separate their identity from their business. But the reality is most of the time, the business is the largest asset in their portfolio. But it's not going to do them any good other than produce a monthly income or an annual income for them until they unlock that value. And what you asked was, what's the first step?

20:28Contact Viking. Let's have a conversation. Let's have a discussion. We offer a free, no cost, no obligation consultation. We'll take you through the process. We'll have that discovery meeting. We'll learn more about you and what your goals are. And we'll see if there's a way that we can assist you in achieving what it is you want to do. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. How about, Chris? You're new to the Viking system, but you've done this and you've lived it. What advice would you give? As Jeff said, to start the conversation sooner than a business owner thinks they may need to start that conversation.

21:12It's a lot easier to project out what the future looks like when they have the time, they have the capacity, they have the vision for what their life post-business might look like. It may be five years or more before they're prepared to sell their business. But it's a lot easier to have those conversations, a lot easier for a business owner to get their head around what their life looks like post that business. If they do it while they have the opportunity and the space to think about it and plan for it, because unfortunately, you do see business owners who get themselves in a situation, an illness or medical issue that prevents their full engagement in the business.

21:55And then the idea of selling a business is much more hurried. It's much more under circumstances that are outside that business owner's full control. And so just by helping the business owners understand what their options are years before they are prepared to sell a business gives them that peace of mind that, OK, their business and their lives are heading in the right direction. And they'll be able to make it when it's time. They'll make that decision under their own auspices and under their own guidelines with a much more predictable outcome. Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. I mean, I'm sure you have too.

22:32I mean, I've certainly got a horror story or two of someone dying or getting seriously ill and then it's a fire sale. If that, if they can, even if they can sell it. So yeah, look, get in touch with these guys sooner than later. I've known Jeff for a long time and I'm going to get to know Chris a lot better at the summit. And so I'm looking forward to that. And I've known a lot of business intermediaries over the years and mergers and acquisitions folks. And these guys are the guys you want to talk to. These guys are the guys that are straight up. They're going to tell you the truth. And if you're a good fit for them, they'll tell you that.

23:11But if you're not, they're also going to put you in the right place. They're going to tell you that they're not a good fit and here's who can help. So it doesn't hurt to have that conversation, which brings us to the last thing, which is basically how do people get in touch with you?

23:30Well, the easiest way to get in touch with us is to give us a call. You can always reach me at area code 828-808-5528. That is my direct number. Or you can easily send me an email at jmckehan jmckehan at vikingmergers.com and i'll let chris provide his contact information and my direct line bill is 828-319-5576 or by email chris chris at vikingmergers.com yeah hey look give them a call sit down have a cup of coffee with them i promise you they won't bite it's a it's a there it's look it'll be educational you'll actually get value out of it because they're going to teach you something about the process and or about business or at least get you thinking about the things that you need to think about over the next uh if it's quick the next year or the next five years or the next 10 years even i know that there's been some longer longer engagement that hey listen i am super excited that you've done this we are very thankful and grateful that you've come on as a major sponsor of the Asheville Business Summit.

24:50We appreciate that. Yeah, and thanks for taking time to do the podcast. Thanks, Bill. We look forward to seeing you at the summit. Yeah, we'll see you soon, Bill. Yeah, that's awesome. Hey, and remember, get your tickets. Get them now. Go to wncsummit.com. All the info is there. All the speakers. It's getting, you know, the ticket sales are kind of ramping up right now a couple weeks out. So you want to make sure you get them now while you still can. Hey, and until next time, I look forward to talking to you then and all the best.

25:44know how it works. The more subscribers we get, the more cool things we can offer to you. Second, to learn more about growing your business, just download my book, The Coach Approach. It's free for you at giftfrombill.com. That's giftfrombill.com. Hey, and if you'd like more info about growing your business and what we can do to help you grow your business, send me an email directly just send it to williamgilliland at actioncoach.com that's my personal email that i read no one else reads it first there's it's not screened it's my real email just send it to me i can't wait to talk to you hey and until then all the best