So why does the middle market need its own playbook? And what did you see in this 50 to 500 million dollar client that maybe can be helped by this book that was put together?

In 2019, Jonathan and a co-author, Paul Belair, wrote Rock the Recession.

And if any of your listeners are old enough to remember what happened in 2020, you might say they were prognosticators because it released, I think it was six months before the pandemic.

And it's not that Paul and Jonathan are extraordinarily gifted at foreseeing the future, although they're very gifted in many areas.

It's just that we always know there's a natural cycle to the economy, and there's always a recession on the horizon.

It's like winter.

It's coming.

So if you could give me sort of the short story behind that, I think that would be helpful and how you may have covered that in the book.

Mm-hmm

... it's still a huge lift, and I didn't even see half of what Yaz did on the back end to market this and pull the graphics together, what Katherine did to synthesize things.

I didn't see any of the real lift that went into that.

So what was the goal that inspired us? What was big enough? We have a real passion to help businesses scale and avoid the pitfalls that come with scaling.

We really want business owners who have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into their businesses to get that ideal exit that they've dreamed them, that they've dreamed of and that they deserve after working fourteen-hour days for years and years on end.

And now go and spend time with your family and the important people in your life.

You've built something great.

Mm-hmm.

What differentiates you guys from your biggest competitor?

Yeah, the way that we operate is different in a couple of ways.

Jonathan's a former investment banker.

Jim sold the Fortune 500.

We start with that end in mind and work backward to create a plan from there.

We want to know what your goal is.

Is it to create even more of a cash cow from this thing? Is it to exit? Is it succession planning? And we're going to work backward from there.

To their credit,

You joined up with a group also consulting, right?

Yes.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So for 15 years was doing sales training, sales consulting, having a blast.

Love it.

Tell the story of 21 and 21.