Hmm.

But, um, so that, that runs in the blood, I would say, so I was blessed with it.

Um, my first business at 15 was, it was a computer training business.

So I learned computers and in those days, you know, all the banks and everything, they were rolling into computers and so on.

So, and they were s- they started teach compu- te- teaching computer software programming in schools and so on.

So I would go door to door asking people, "If your kid wants to, you know, learn computers, I can teach them." This was my, after my school, I would get on my bicycle and I would go and ask people if they wanna learn computers, I would teach them.

That was just to get some extra money.

Mm-hmm.

eight years old and those used to be my summer holidays.

You know, go two months there and, you know, if a client shows up and they would order a bottle of Coke for them and I perhaps would get half the bottle myself.

And that used to be my summer holidays.

That's the exciting part.

Fast forward, I was 15 years old when I started my first business.

And that was more of an IT training company that was back in India.

And then I moved to Canada in 2001.

Now, what is the ideal situation here for a construction company that genuinely wants to exit and looks like it's ready? Is that rare? Does it actually happen?

What, what in your experience have you seen and, and, and any, any stories you could sort of share or, or, or sort of for the listeners, just if you're interested in doing this, this is what I would focus on.

So I got a two part answer for you, Lars here.

So I would, I would actually take those statistics back and I would rather put some more light on it.

When we say 85% of the businesses don't sell, I would rather correct myself by saying, you know, 85% of those, those don't sell.

They're actually not even businesses.

100% of that, that 85% we're talking about, they were actually jobs.

So we can call them fancy word, it's a business, but that's the reason they're not selling because they're not businesses, they're jobs.

As this kind of buyer persona profile is also adjusting, how are you... maybe advising owners right now around whether or not they should go with the PE planning the roll-up or should they wait and try to convince their kids to take over the business? Like, how do you navigate that conversation?

So if the owner has realized maybe they can sell it or they should sell it, it's such a valuable asset, and you're advising them, once they've made that decision to try to do it, where do they start or how do they decide where to start?

So there are a few things which are really important for a business.

So I'll start with number one where they should start.

And that to me is the owner dependency test.

So when I'm sitting in front of an owner, the first thing I ask them is, why don't you take 90 days off? Just don't take your phone with you and don't take your email with you.

And you know what happens? They tell me to get lost.

They said, are you insane? Do you think I will come back and my business will still be surviving? That to me, they failed the test right away.

Does the plan change any if the eventual successor in the business is family management or an outside buyer?

They like the employee part.

Not everybody wants to have that, you know, 80-hour job, right? [laughs] So, so that's the, that's the second option.

So third way people exit is, you know, they would find an outside buyer, a third party buyer, and they would try to sell the business to the third party.

Now, which is quite often that's, that's what happens, typically how the business transfers, right? And the fourth option is where they will just decide to shut it down.

They would lead their business into a slow death, and they would shut it down.

And you will be surprised how often we have that conversation, where people come to me and say, "Look, I built this company.

I'm gonna shrink it every year for next three years, and I'll shut it down." I'm like, "Why would you do that?"

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