The No-BS Guide to Selling Your Business Like a Pro | Chad Peterson DSH #1280

like you're not going to work, then I would say don't buy a business because you're disillusioned. You have to work your business.
You're here working. You're working.
So why would you want to own a business if you have nothing to do with it? And so it's, again, another soundbite. Hey, run an absentee-owned business.
If you can be absentee, then why is the seller selling it? All right, guys. Chad Peterson in studio today in Vegas.
We're going to talk wealth building today. Who doesn't love talking wealth, man? Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Absolutely.
You've been in this space for a while now, right? How many years? Yeah, I've been buying and selling businesses for 25 years. Wow.
What was the first one you bought? Man, believe it or not, I was a teenager pushing a lawnmower, just mowing grass, but it turned into $400,000 for me. So I can't complain.
Yeah. A lot of business owners just don't know that what they have, even though they don't like it, it's worth a lot of money.
So just because you don't like it and you're tired of it doesn't mean somebody else wouldn't want to buy it from you. Yeah.
So someone actually bought a lawnmowing business. Yeah.
I was making about 50 grand a year and And there was another guy who owned a larger company than mine. And he said, Chad, why don't I buy this from you? And I was like, buy what, man? I don't even want this thing.
He's like, well, you've got all the accounts. I don't have to go win the accounts.
He bought it from me. I was 19 years old.
Holy crap. So you got a taste of it at an early age? Yeah.
That's where it all started for me. Were you in college at the time? No, I was getting ready to.
I was getting ready to go to flight school. Wanted to be a pilot.
And listen, if I would have been smart, I would have sold that company and leveraged that money into a larger business. Yeah.
You know, I've been a set. I went to flight school.
9-11 happened. Lost my career is what it is.
But I took that lesson forward and I just kept doing it and kept doing it. That's how I made my money.
Now I teach other people how to do it. Nice.
So that set you back when you went to flight school for a few years? Yes, absolutely. I would have been worth $10 million by the time I was 25 if I used my principles.
Damn. Let's talk about some of these principles.
Yeah. What are some, how many you got? Well, a lot of them, I mean, liquidity leads to wealth and paychecks lead to poverty.
So if you have a business and you're just making paychecks and you're getting tired of your business, which is normal, most people get sick of what they're doing, then sell your business and create liquidity. Cause look, man, everybody who ever made it big had liquidity in their past.
Like I asked you whenever I got in here, like, Hey, who are you podcasting with today? You're like, well, I got a billionaire that came in and I said, how did you become a billionaire? And you said he sold several nine figure businesses. There you go.
Liquidity leads to wealth. Nobody ever got rich off of paychecks.
Yeah. If you look at the billionaire list, you can't find a single one probably.
Every one of those billionaires had multiple liquidity events and they use that liquidity to leverage into wealth. And that's what I teach.
Yeah. Cause there's also that second battle because some people can get liquidity, but they can't invest it.
Absolutely. They don't know what to do with it after they have the liquidity.
So I teach people how to run your business in a certain way, sell that business to create the liquidity event, and then leverage that liquidity into the NLB, the next larger business. So you want them to invest in another business basically after they sell theirs? Absolutely.
And if they do it in the same year and if they do it the right way, they're going to reduce their capital gains tax, which is huge, enormous. And by the way, Trump right now is trying to reduce the capital gains tax.
And I think he'll do it because he's doing great things. Yeah.
But, you know, 22% capital gains. In fact, Kamala Harris was going to try to get it up to 46%.
That would have killed the economy, man. Oh my gosh.
And she was going to tax 25% on unrealized gains on investments. It would have been terrible for our economy.
Yeah. But Trump's in there.
He's doing great things. I'm proud of the man.
And he's going to get those taxes from 22% to 15% on capital gains. So there's never been a better time to sell your business.
Are you confident Trump can bring the economy back right now? Because there's a lot of fear with the stock prices and crypto prices right now. Just give the man some time.
He'll turn it around. Absolutely.
I'm totally confident about it. I mean, he's, he's completely competent.
He understands negotiation. He understands how money works.
He understands how to, you know, he's playing, he's playing chess and everybody else is playing checkers. Yeah.
You know, and every, you know, liberal out there is saying, oh, he's selling us out to Russia. Bullshit.
He's making deals. He's ending wars, you know, and the Trump derangement syndrome has never been stronger.
TDS. But if he'll just, if you just give the man some time, he'll get it done.
And what's wrong with supporting the president regardless of who he is? I had to support the last president we had who had dementia. I had to support him for four years.
So let's just support the man and let's see what he can do. And I'm sure he can do it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I never let politics get in the way of business for me. Well, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you know, money is green, you know, it doesn't matter whether you're blue or red. Right.
But I'll

tell you this, I was doing really, really well before Biden. Now, let me ask you this.
If you

sell, let's just say I saw a $10 million company and the rates are around 6%, six and a quarter.

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I sell a company during the Joe Biden administration for $10 million, and the interest rates are now 12%. That essentially makes the cost of the business double.
That's what I've been in for the last four years. Jeez.
Absolutely. It's been tough.
We've done well, don't get me wrong, but it's been tough. No, that's a lot of your margin, right? Oh, well, it makes, it makes buying a business pretty much impossible at 12%.
You know, you borrow, just run the math on 10 million, 12% interest. It's, you're getting crushed by debt service.
That's why a lot of real estate got paused underbought in two. Oh yeah.
Yeah. We're about to see a big crash on the real estate market.
You think so? Oh yeah, absolutely. 20, 30% is about to hit.
Damn. They've been saying that for years though, so you never know.
Oh, I know it. It's coming.
We're about to have the biggest real estate correction we've ever seen. I mean, you're on the inside, so you would know.
You're talking to these banks, you're talking to lenders. Yeah, it's going to happen.
What do you think is causing that? I don't know exactly what's causing it, man, but I'll tell you what, interest's interest rates. If they do go down, we're going to have so much inventory because right now everybody's holding onto their house because they have good interest rates on their mortgages.
They're not going to sell right now. If you have a 4% mortgage or a 3% mortgage, why would you sell your house and go get a 7% mortgage? It doesn't make sense.
So as soon as the rates go down, inventory is going to go up. And so prices are going to go down.
Supply and demand function will be off balance. Yeah.
So a lot of people that are holding on right now, you know, going to sell whenever the rates get better. Man, you're going to have competition.
And then you got these huge funds stacking up on real estate, right? Yeah, absolutely. Got BlackRock and a bunch of other VCs or whatever.
Yeah, that's the new way. Yeah.
Yeah. But what I tell people is stay out of real estate.
I don't promote real estate. I think having a bunch of doors, having 200 doors, 300 doors, you know, all the Grant Cardones of the world and the Chris Crohn's of the world trying to say, oh, go buy doors.
Listen, man, houses are headaches. Okay.
The roof, you know, the water leaks, the maintenance, you know, the storms that hit the house. Listen, it's a bunch of headaches.
People try to say that owning real estate is the path to wealth. Bullshit is what I say.
Owning a business is the path to wealth. And that's what I teach people how to do.
Yeah. Because, you know, I talked to real estate investors.
I'm like, that house well i'm making 200 a month on it right now but you know over the next 20 years that's where things get interesting you know the debt will be paid down and then i can it's like my god why would you mess with something for such little income it just seems like it takes so long to get a return it's a long-term play totally real estate's a long-term play yeah plus you got estate's a long-term play. Yeah.
Plus, you got to get

a little lucky with the market.

Absolutely.

Depending on what city you're in.

Yeah.

Some guys are strategic with it

and that, to me, makes sense

if they're identifying markets

that are on the come up.

But otherwise,

you're just gambling, you know?

Yeah.

You don't own your house anyway.

The bank owns it.

We're glorified renters

and you spend all the money

on the house to upkeep it anyway.

And you're paying interest on it. It's not paying you money.
So I don't make money with my real estate. I live in it.
I spend money on it. I'm damn sure not going to go get 50 houses, be a, be a landlord and deal with 200 headaches a month.
There's not doing it. That's a lot of money tied up too.
That's a lot of money. And that's a slow, long grind.
But if you own a business, you can earn cash flow immediately. And I'm talking major cash flow.
So you could put 5% down on a business. Let's just say you're going to buy a million dollar business.
You can put $50,000 down and own the entire business. You can put 5% down and own 100% of the business.
And that million dollar business,

we're paying you $333,000 a year.

Wow.

So where can you put $50,000 down

and earn $333,000 a year?

Nowhere.

Not in real estate.

No.

Nowhere.

The Small Business Administration is-

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The greatest wealth building vehicle. And it's been around since Eisenhower's been off.
Say that again and it's been around since for since eisenhower's been off say to say that again it's been around since eisenhower's been in office that's 80 years man and nobody nobody knows nobody knows about the sba program yeah you know how to get did you know that you can get five million dollars in your pocket that's sba loan right everybody can get $5 million in your pocket. Listen, if you have a 680 credit score, no bankruptcy or no felony criminal history, you can get $5 million from the SBA.
So I was actually looking into it right now, actually, because you need two years of tax returns, right? Yeah. On the business.
Yeah. So this is our second year for the pod.
So I was looking into SBA loans. What? To grow your business? Yeah.
Hire more editors, hire more staff. Oh, you don't need an SBA loan to do what you want to do.
Really? No, you don't. Don't waste your time on getting an SBA loan for small dollars.
If you're going to use your SBA loan, then try to borrow $5 million for something bigger. Yeah.
I'll show you how to, after the podcast, I'll show you how to get money for that. You don't even want to go to SBA to do that that's good to know i just finished uh you know cody sanchez i do i just finished her book and it sounds like it's kind of similar to what you teach it is not similar to what i teach really buying businesses no cody sanchez is an actress really yeah she's not doing deals she's not a transactionalist isn't she buying like retail laundromats and stores and stuff bro why would you leave wall street like she says and why would you go buy a laundromat chasing quarters for a living it's a soundbite it sounds good the people that you know the walmartians of the world listen to her it's not real i'm an actual transactionist i've been doing this for 25 years i own own a brokerage nationwide.
We have 20 locations.

I speak, I teach, I actually do the transactions.

We're pros at doing the transactions.

I don't know, man.

Cody Sanchez is an actress.

She's doing something to pull in hopeful buyers for,

I can't, I don't have it figured out, but.

Interesting.

Yeah, no, she's not a transactional.

She's not helping people get into businesses. She's not helping people sell businesses.
If she is, she's a marketing mouth for another company. Wow.
Okay. Yeah, absolutely.
What about Hormozy? What do you think about him? I think solid dude. Solid dude.
I like Hormozy. Him and his wife are helping people scale their business and they're teaching people about M&A and I have nothing i i have nothing but good things to say about harmose i mean he doesn't do exactly what i do though yeah i mean i'm the only one in the in the world that does what i do i literally show people how to take a quantum leap into wealth i show them how to get their time back and and how to experience freedom as an entrepreneur versus being owned by their business yeah which a lot of people are.
Oh yeah. People say, well, I own a business and I'm like, are you sure it doesn't own you? Yeah.
And that's a question that's haunting to business owners because they can't sleep. They're up at night having fights with the wife, you know, they're stressed out.
And I show people how to get out of that. And I show them how to 10 X their income by getting out of that cycle.
Yeah. That's been a big thing for me.
It's like, yo, can you take a week off your business and it still has the same revenue? It's exactly what I say actually. Yeah.
Yeah. Because if you can't go on vacation and enjoy yourself, why are you even running the business? Yeah.
And usually whenever you're in a business, let's just say you're running a business and you can't leave for a week or two without it falling apart. It's because you don't have processes and systems in place to where you can leave.
But what I tell people is, look, that company is paying you money. So go ahead and sell it, create a liquidity event because liquidity leads to wealth.
Okay. So you have to sell to create the liquidity.
Then your NLB, the next larger business that you buy, that's where you start doing things differently. Because here's the deal.
If you just, if you just sold your company and you only sold it for 500 grand, which isn't a lot of money, but 500 grand would buy you a $5 million business paying you $1.7 million a year. So you're going from making 200 grand a year to making $1.7 million a year this year.
Right. And that's what I teach.
I love that. You said 500 grand isn't a lot.
Do you think a million dollars is a lot of money? I mean, it's all relative, but I'm just saying that $500,000 a year is not a lot of money.

I mean, you know, I guess a subject to interpretation, I guess there are some people that would say that's a lot of money.

I don't think it is.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, I want to be making, you know, five to $10 million a year. That's what I want to be making.
But $500,000, I'm just saying if you had $500,000, you can walk right into an SBA loan to buy a $5 million business and you're giving yourself an enormous pay raise. You're going from 200 grand a year in earnings, sell that company for 500 grand, walk right into the NLB, the next larger business because liquidity leads to wealth.
And now you're making $1.7 million a year. You cannot find that kind of return anywhere.
And I get everybody through the SBA process. I help them find 5 million bucks.
Okay, that's valuable. So everybody, again, with a 680 credit score, no bankruptcy, no felony, can qualify for $5 million to buy a business.
Crazy, and the interest on that is lower. No, right now the interest rates are high, but they're going to come down.
Oh, and the SBA is high? Yeah, they're about 11% right now. Oh, wow.
I didn't know that. Yeah, but here's the deal.
Here's what most people don't understand, that the debt service that you pay, whenever you pay down that note, let's just say you borrowed $5 million over 10 years. If you borrowed $5 million, you're going to pay it over 10 years.
In five years, the company itself has paid the debt service. So people say, man, that's a lot of money to pay to the bank.
Well, no, not really. Because after five years, the company itself has paid down half of that $5 million.
If you sell it, you get all that back. So you walked into this situation with only 500 grand.
Okay. You got a $5 million business that was paying you $1.7 million a year.
But after five years, you've made the income over five years and you paid off essentially half of the debt. So now you, now you sell the company and you walk with that $2.5 million in your pocket.
Now, what can you buy? Well, you can probably buy a $20 million business paying you about $7 million a year. This is what I teach people how to do.
And we have a team. We, you, you come to me, we put you in a program and we walk you through the entire process.
I love it. What percentage of your business purchases have worked out if you had to estimate? Business purchases.
Yeah. When you buy a company.
Well, we sell 90% of what we bring on. So if a business owner comes to me and say they want to sell their business, it stands to be a 90% chance that I sell their business.
Wow. That's really high.
Yeah. Because it's not easy to sell a company.
Right. So 11% is the average that sells on the market.
So business brokers, man, I have no respect for business brokers at all. Okay.
They are paycheck professionals. All they care about is their paycheck.
Yeah. They might be able to get your business sold, but more than likely not.
11% is the average. That's super low.
Yeah. And my average is 90%.
So if you bring your business to me and we go to sell, it only stands a 10% chance that it won't get sold. That's awesome, man.
I plan on selling this thing one day, so I'm gonna hit you up. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. There's nobody better at it than me.
Now I don't do it anymore. My team does it, but, but, um, you know, I might do it for you, but, you know, but as far as the first question you asked me, you know, how, how well do the transactions go? You mean the businesses?

Yeah.

We've never had a failure.

Really?

Never.

So every business you bought has worked out.

Every business that I've sold, no business has ever gone under.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

So here's what people don't understand.

You know, people are so confused about the, the businesses that, that sell and that get bought are, are like a 90 plus percent failure

because we've all heard that number, right?

Like 90% of businesses fail.

No, that's not real.

If that was the case,

then why would the SBA be giving $5 million out

to every American if 90% of them failed?

Only one out of 72 businesses fail.

And fails, what does fail mean?

Is that banger to you or is that like-

Yeah, going under.

Going under.

One out of 72.

That's not that high.

No.

Now, start, startups fail all the time because people get ideas like, oh, I'm an idea guy. Like, I don't know what the hell's going on with business owners, but they think they're inventors.
I got this idea. Like, I don't want ideas, man.
No. Keep your ideas to yourself.
I got enough ideas. I need you to come in, run this business, execute every day, do the same damn thing every day, the thing that works.
And that's, by the way, that's what you've done, isn't it? Yeah. That's how you're here.
That's how I executed, yeah. You executed the same thing every single day.
It might be monotonous. It might be boring, you know, but you found what works and you keep doing what works and you keep doing it day in and day out.
Like you don't need an idea, right? You've got your idea figured out. Yeah.
Well, same thing with business owners. Go in, run your business as it's meant to be ran and don't bring new ideas to it.
Don't try to grow your business. Just run it.
And as you run it, your debt service is getting paid down. See? So after five years, half the debt you borrowed is paid off.
That's liquidity. And liquidity leads to wealth.
So sell your business, take that liquidity, move on to the NLB. Yeah.
I was never a fan of investing pre-revenue. It seemed too risky for me.
It's very risky. Yeah.
Most of them don't work out too. Yeah, right.
You saw that VC bubble get crushed a few years ago. Yeah, one out of 72 loans go bad that have historic earnings, right? So you show me a business that's been open for 10 years and they have steady growth, they have systems in place, a product or a service that the market wants, that business is not going under.
Now, it could go under if somebody goes in, you know, gets cute and clever and says, well,

that guy doesn't know how to run the business. I'm going to run it better.
No, man, you don't know what you're doing. You just bought it.
So run it the way that the owner was running it. You know, that's what I teach people.
And so when we bring on a seller, when we bring on a buyer, we coach them on what not to do. And that's the problem.
All these gurus out there are telling people what to do, but what about what not to do? Right? Like what if you could stop somebody from making a massive mistake, they can just send them right into bankruptcy. Right? So I tell people what not to do more than I tell them what to do.
Right. You ever going to retire, you think? I'll never retire, man, because it's, I call it retirement-itis.
It's a disease where you think that one day you're going to rat hole enough money, and 65 is the age. I think that's been set by Wall Street.
Yeah. Right? Wall Street and Social Security, because they've set the number.
But man, I've seen people retire, and they lose their purpose. You can only play golf so much.
Right. And I've had, I've had people come back to me after I sell their business and they think that they're going to go play golf.
Yeah.

I had one guy snap his golf clubs in his garage. He was so irritated in his life.
He called me back and said, get me back into a business. You can't sit on your ass and do nothing.
You have to work. So people that tell me they want to retire, man, I know they've been bitten by the disease, retirement-itis.
You know, you, you got the disease that says it's sitting around on your ass as a life well-lived and it's not. Yeah.
It's fun for like a month and then you're like, what's next? Oh yeah, man. I can sit on my nuts for two weeks.
No problem. But I got to get back to work.
Yeah. A hundred percent.
Even on vacation, I'm itching to work sometimes. Absolutely.
I got to check my phone. Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. A%.
Social Security is a whole nother conversation. That's scam.
Yeah. Well, I think it'll come back now that Doge is ripping through it.
I think it'll come back. Well, they found out there's like people, like millions of people collecting it that are dead.
Yep, absolutely. So it's apparently going to run out in like seven, eight years, right? The current rate.
Yeah, I've heard that. I don't know if it's true or not because we're not on the inside.
We don't really know. But what I would say is there's a lot of corruption out there.
And people say, well, Elon is cutting wasteful spending. It's like, no, man, he's cutting corruption.
It's one thing to overspend. It's one thing to go out too many times, go out to dinner too much, buy a car that you can't really afford and now you're racking up your credit cards.

We're talking about $30 billion has been found in the last couple weeks.

That's not wasteful spending.

Nuts.

That's corruption.

Absolutely.

Did you have a mentorship throughout this process?

Yeah, we mentor people.

We mentor how to buy, how to sell.

We have mastermind groups.

You can work with me directly, work with my team.

We teach you step-by-step and people that join my, my organization, people that join with me, they, they, they win. They never fail.
Yeah. So, uh, out here, we had an event with Brad Lee a couple months ago and, uh, I taught a big room with Brad and, uh, we've got three people already that are about to buy a business and that was in two months.
Holy crap. Yeah.
So you come to me, you want to buy a business, you come to me, you want to sell a business. We got you covered.
That's cool, man. You and I will have an event.
We'll, uh, link some details in this video as well. Yeah.
Once we plan that. We should do an event.
I want to do an event that's somewhere around 400 people. I don't want to go any more than that.
Yeah. But 400 people, I can really be effective and show them really how to become wealthy.
Because if there's one thing that just infuriates me, is that all the online gurus and the hucksters selling things that don't work. I want to show people really how to create wealth, time, and freedom in their life.
Because you don't want money. Everybody's chasing money.
But what does money do for you if you don't have wealth? Well, money, you're always chasing a dollar, right? So if you don't become wealthy, you're chasing money always, okay? And if you don't have wealth, then you don't have time. And if you don't have the freedom to have your wealth and your time to go enjoy the things you like to do,

then what are you doing it for?

Right.

You know, so if you're running a business,

you're not passionate about it,

it's not bringing you wealth, time, and freedom.

I tell people, sell your business, create liquidity,

because liquidity leads to wealth.

Take that liquidity and move to the NLB,

the next larger business.

And that's how, like you said,

that billionaire that's coming in today,

that's how he made his money.

Yeah.

Three big exits. Yeah.
When you study all the billionaires, they have massive liquidity events. Elon Musk.
Absolutely. All of them.
Absolutely. And nobody really pays attention to that.
They think they earned their way there. No.
No. No.
That's like 1% of them. They had a liquidity event.
That's why I teach ordinary people, ordinary Joe Sixpack. I show him how to run a plumbing company a certain way to have a liquidity event to then go buy a larger company and make 10 times, 15 times more.
Yeah. Yeah.
I love that. FTC is cracking down on these gurus, man.
I hope they are. No, they are a couple of big ones lately.
Yeah. Well, I won't mention a name because that might be tacky, but there's one going through a major investigation right now that we know of.

There's a few, man.

Yeah.

I mean, they all do the same stuff, man.

They do the same shit.

They're like, hey, look at this jet.

You can do it too.

Just pay me $29.

So, man, like, are people that stupid to know, you know, to think that's real?

It's not real.

There's no longevity to it. If what you're teaching doesn't work, word mouth will just these days with social media word of mouth can destroy you absolutely yeah you're either on the good side of things or you're not yeah you know and those that are peddling the bs including cody sanchez you know because people are listening to her you know she's pretty she's got great branding she got great branding, pretty girl.
You know, she's been on the show, by the way.

Yeah, it's cool.

I mean, that's fine, but I'm just giving it to you real, man.

She's not a transactionalist.

She's not been doing this for 25 years.

Ask her to get you the money for an SBA loan.

Ask her to walk you through the process.

Ask her how to actually get a business in your hands,

how to conduct yourself through the transaction to make sure that you get that business. She can't do it.
What she can do is look pretty in front of the camera and she's really good with speaking and she gets people fooled in. They're going to go buy a laundromat.
Like why the hell would you buy a laundromat? I might have to set up a debate between you two. Cool.
Anytime. I think there's an audience for her stuff.
It's a more beginner audience.

You sound more advanced. It's a beginner audience, but here's what I would say is that

if you're going to go buy a laundromat where you're chasing quarters and you're making $60,000

or $80,000 a year, I can show you how to not chase quarters and go make $400,000 a year.

What do you want to do?

$400,000. And by the way, how many laundromats are there in the United States? Like, who knows? 30,000? I don't know.
So you're telling millions of people to go buy 30,000 laundromats? Yeah. At scale, it doesn't make sense.
Exactly. Yeah.
And by the way, don't homes have washer and dryer hookups? These days, yeah. Then what are we doing? Yeah.
You know, it sounds nice. It's a sound by way oh hey you know to somebody who it works at a factory and makes $15 an hour and they get the idea they can go buy a laundromat you know so she can peddle some sort of $100 program or $200 program but it's not real man yeah I wouldn't tell you to buy a laundrom.
I wouldn't tell my son to buy a laundromat. Sounds like a lot of work.

Yeah.

Passive income.

Do you believe in passive income?

Well, I mean, if you, if you buy a business and you think that you're going to be owner

absentee, like you're not going to work, then I would say don't buy a business because,

you know, you're, you're disillusioned, but you have to work your business.

Like you're here working, you're, you're working.

Yeah.

Right.

So why would you want to own a business if you have nothing to do with it? And it's,'s it's that again another soundbite hey run an absentee owned business okay if you if you can be absentee then why is the seller selling it now that seller could be selling it because he wants to create liquidity and that's a good enough reason but if it's truly owner absentee which they're they never are then why would you sell it? If I don't have to show up anywhere, I'm not selling it. So don't get enchanted with the idea of not working.
Get excited about what you do. Be passionate about what you do.
Quit with the idea of not working. Quit with the idea of retirement-itis and you're just going to sit on your ass and do nothing.
That's not a life well-lived. We have to have purpose.
We have to wake up every day and have something to do, something that lights us up, get excited about life. It's like, oh, I wouldn't have to work that much if I was self-employed.
Man, that's not the reality. It's the opposite.
It's the opposite. You work more.
Work more. But it's more fun.
Yeah. I love what I do.
Yeah. If you love what you do, it's not work.
No. I love what I do.
I absolutely love it. You couldn't get me to do anything else.
Yeah. I love being here with you.
I love working with my team. Like, I don't want to work part-time.
I don't care about Timothy Ferris' four-hour work week. What am I going to do? There's 168 hours a week.
What am I going to do for 164 hours for the rest of the week? And you can only go out to dinner so many times. You can only go exercise so many times, sit at the beach so many times.
164 hours of doing what? I got to work, man, because working is fun. Like I like working with you.
You and I have plans, right? We're going to do things together, you and I. I like that.
I like, you know, the community of that.

So find something you love is what I would say

and just keep doing it over and over again.

Any industries you're targeting?

Any ones that have high multiples like AI or anything crazy?

No, we sell business of all stripes, you know,

any kind of business we sell.

So it doesn't matter what it is.

It comes down to cashflow.

So what I teach people is the number one important thing whenever evaluating a company, buying a company, or selling a company is cashflow, number one. Number two, cashflow.
Last but not least, cashflow. So it doesn't matter what business it is.
What does it make? What is it cashflow? And a lot of people don't even know what cashflow is. Yeah.
They have no idea. And what cash flow is is net to the bottom line to the owner.
That's everything the owner gets out of the company. So the salary basically? No.
Salary plus the company earnings plus ad backs. Like, you know, let's just say your taxes that you pay for your income.
That's an ad back. Okay.
Your vehicle. Your, that water you bought.
So all the assets basically? Yeah. Well, no, assets are different.
I'm talking about like whatever you spend, okay? That's an ad back. Your vehicle, the fuel you put in your vehicle, your cell phone, all the ad backs go in.
So whatever your company does for you, those are ad backs. We add those back in as long as they're verifiable and defendable to the bank.
We can prove that the business is expensing those for the benefit of you. We can add that back in.
Wow. I didn't know that.
Yeah, absolutely. So that's cashflow.
That's good to know. Yeah.
A lot of people think they're going to sell businesses off of, off of EBITDA, earnings before, interest, depreciation, and amortization. Businesses are not sold off of EBITDA.
Businesses are sold off of cash flow. So let me give you an example.
Let's just say you're making $5 million a year in your company. You're tired of the tax bill.
So you buy an airplane. That airplane costs you $2 million.
But you go to sell your company and the new owner doesn't want that airplane. that's an add back.
See, the buyer is not going to buy that airplane. He doesn't want it.
Right. So that spending went away.
So if that owner wasn't spending his money that way, that would have been income. You get to add that back.
I see. So people that buy expensive cars, you know, like I have a Rolls Royce, right? So I have a Rolls Royce.
It's over 6,000 pounds for the depreciation. And if I ever go to sell my company, which I'm not, but if I did, I can add it back.
My company has been paying for it. That's good to know.
And the buyer doesn't have to spend his money the way that I spend my money. So that's an ad.
Yeah. I got a G-Wagon, so that'd be an ad backer.
Yep. Over 6,000 pounds.
Yeah. Well, that's 179 depreciation.
So you're going to be able to rapidly depreciate that car. But what I'm saying is if I bought your company, I would say, okay, Sean, I'm going to buy digital social hour.
Okay. If I bought it and you said, well, the company pays for my G wagon, I can say, I don't want it.
Okay. Then all my payments, all your payments that you've been paying, that's an ad back because I'm not going to spend the money that way.
So if your payment on that thing is two grand a month, which you probably paid cash for, but if the payment is two grand a month or 2,500 bucks a month, and you've been paying for that for the last two years, that's just an ad back to your earnings, which affects the sales price. Good to know.
So if a business has five mil cash flow, what are you seeing those sell for on average? If it was making 5 million in cash flow, that business can more than likely be sold for $20 million. Okay.
So Forex. Yeah.
On that kind of earnings. Yeah.
There's very few people that make $5 million net per year. Very few.
I think I'll be there in a couple of years. Yeah.
Yeah. Cause we're doing like a mill right now but we're growing quick so yeah i mean with something that you have you can monetize this differently too yeah i mean you and i are talking about that like you and i are going to monetize things yeah there's a lot of back-end stuff i'm not even doing yet that's just the front end i'm doing a mill so right so yeah we could definitely talk about that but you know something like you have you could get a pretty good multiple off it, especially with your reach and your brand.
I've seen odds sell for stupid amounts. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah, it could sell for more depending on how you monetize it and the businesses that you build off of it. Yeah, because it's got the viewership element too.
So I don't know how they factor that in. Well, it comes down to cashflow.
It always comes down to cashflow. But if you, and we'll talk about it off podcast, but if you build this a certain way, I can really set you up for success.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
We'll talk about it for sure. Anything else, man? Any events you got coming up, speaking engagements or anything? Well, yeah.
Brad Lee and I are doing an event on May 2nd. Okay.
Lightspeed VT. And we only have 65 seats available, but I'm looking for 60, well, actually 60, we have 60 that are available, but I'm looking for people that own a business.
You know, if business owners are making $200,000, $250,000 a year net, I want them in that room. I want to show them how liquidity leads to wealth.
I want to show them how to go from working in your business and working every day and going from working to wealthy. I want to show them how to go from stress to success.
I want to show them how to trade in their job, which stands for just over broke and go into wealth time and freedom. And I can show them that.
So Bradley and I on May 2nd, we're going to be doing an event. It's a one day event and I believe Brad's going to have it catered.
Uh, he does a good job at that. You know, he really does a good event.
Yeah. He's got a great venue.
He does. And, uh, so we're, we're really going to be showing people how to do this.
So yeah. Um, if you, if, if your audience wants to go to this, you got to go to real biz acquisitions to get a ticket.
Okay. Yeah.
So we're doing that event. But you and I are going to be doing an event.
Yeah. And we're going to plan one this year.
Yeah. Maybe F1 Vegas, I'm thinking.
When is that? That's in October, November. A lot of big people will be in town.
Okay. Yeah.
We'll do like a 400 person event. Yeah, 400 people is about my max that I want to bring on.
Yeah. Yeah, because I think I can be effective in that room.
It sounds yeah let's get 2 000 but no it's a it's a shit show yeah it's a shit show i have 400 people's about my max i did a thousand person event with uh damon john and everyone was just talking in the back so you want a nice intimate room yeah right yeah i want actually i get militant about it if you're going to be in my room cell phone off oh yeah yep yeah? Yep. Wow.
Cell phone off. You're hardcore.
I'm not there to waste my time. And we have a 21 second attention span now is what they say.
I think it's going less too. Well, as far as, as far as searching online, yes.
But even in person, 21 seconds, because what happens is that phone's going to go off or you're going to be like, Oh, what's on my phone? Oh, who do I need to text? Who do I need to email? Yeah. I tell people to turn off your cell phone.
If you need to get on your cell phone, leave the room, go do it, come back. You're going to miss some information that you really need.
But, you know, the world has been conditioned that that information is not important, whatever's being spoken about. Yeah.
Listen, at my events, man, I'm giving you real information that's tactical. I will turn you into a multi-millionaire, but you can't be looking at your phone whenever I'm talking because we're not going to get anywhere.
Yeah. I cannot compete with your cell phone.
I cannot compete with your distraction. And look, if you either want to be wealthy or you want to be distracted, and those who are distracted are not wealthy.
Yeah. So if I get people in a room for one day undistracted, I'll change their lives.
A lot of distracted people these days, man. Absolutely.
Yeah. Heads in the sand, distracted.
Yeah. I feel for these college kids and it's tough learning environment.
Yeah. So if you're a college kid and you don't have any job prospects, you have a degree or you almost have a degree, don't hunt for a job.
Go buy a job. Go buy a business.
They're everywhere. There's a $10 trillion wealth transfer of businesses.
There's $10 trillion of businesses about to change hands. Wow.
That's because all the boomers, right? Yeah, all the boomers still, they still own most of this country's wealth. And a lot of them don't know how to use the internet, so they don't even know how to sell their company.
Exactly. You got to hunt for these people.
Yeah, well, nobody knows how to sell their company. Even those that act like they know how to sell their company, they don't have the experience.
Right. They don't know how to get to the wind.
They don't know how to get to the closing table. Mm-hmm.
And I do. I've been doing this for almost 25 years.
So I can take somebody that has a business and I can get it sold.

It only stands to be a 10% chance that I don't.

But equally, I can take a recent college grad and I can get him the money and the contracts

and everything to do it, to get it done, and to buy that business safely to where it doesn't

fail.

So that's what I do.

That's what my team does across the country.

Yeah.

Do you want to become a billionaire? Oh, I will be a billionaire. Absolutely.
Have the goal of yours? I will be. Yeah.
Only like what, 300 people in the US? 350? Yeah, I think it is 350. Yeah.
That's a very exclusive club, man. Yeah, I'll be there.
I've only seen, I was doing research on billionaires. I've only seen like 12 of them go on podcasts.
A lot of them are really low-key. Yeah, because a lot of them aren't really outspoken.
They're usually quiet. They're very disciplined.
Billionaires, very disciplined, quiet, under the radar. Which one have you studied the most? Studies the most, probably Trump, really.
Okay. Carl Lacan.
Studied Warren Buffett a little bit. I mean, I can't do what Warren Buffett says.
Too slow for me. Oh yeah, way too slow.
I don't want to sit around and read financials at all. You didn't become a millionaire until 50-something, I believe.
Yeah, that's what's said anyway. Who knows? It was like 56, 57, I think.
Yeah, that's too late for me. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a lot of life right there.
Did you say millionaire though? Millionaire yeah being a millionaire is not hard man like when i was younger i was like man one day i want to be a millionaire i became a millionaire i was like that wasn't that hard so in one million is not what it used to be no exactly yeah i think a hundred years ago a million dollars was like something stupid tens of millions of dollars that's when they the term millionaire, like early 1900s. Yeah, I think if you're wealthy now, not wealthy, but if you're doing real well now, I think yesterday's million is today's 20 million.
I'm thinking 20 million now. Yeah.
Yeah. Because a million you can't even buy a nice house.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
20 million. Like if you have kids at least.
Yeah, 20 million, you can put it into a good investment. And you know, if you don't want to work anymore, put it into a good investment, live off the, live off the interest and, you know, live well.
Yeah. But you're not going to get anywhere with a million dollars.
And I see these people that literally talked themselves out of success because the answers are there. I have the answers.
I'm willing to give them to you. I'm willing to teach you.
Come to my event. After my event, you will not be the same.
You won't look at money the same. You'll understand liquidity.
You'll understand leverage. You'll understand the safety of buying a business.
And I see people just head in the sand, stuck in what they're doing day out, day in, day out, grinding, not making any change. People are so complacent anymore.
They don't, they want to be successful, right? And the information is at our fingertips. We are in the information age bigger than what we ever have.
AI, it'll tell you everything you need to know. You know, a long time ago, you had to search for that information.
So it just goes to show that if the information was available, people aren't going to make a change. They're still not going to do what it takes to become successful.
No, that's so true because it's at your fingertips right now, all the answers you could ever need. Yeah.
And porn, pornography is still the number one searched item on the internet. Wow.
So if I could show somebody how to become a multimillionaire this year, number one, they don't believe it. They're like, oh, I couldn't do it.
I'm not worthy of those dreams. Or that guy's just peddling something.
Or he's just on a podcast saying that. And they'll find every excuse in the world.
I literally turn people into multimillionaires. But you know what they'll do? They'll be like, oh, I'm not going to do that.
But they'll, they'll watch some porn or, or get lost and have brain rot on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram. They'll spend five hours a day doing that, but they won't spend two hours

listening to my information. Yeah.
A lot of comfort these days, right? I think they've been

conditioned to think that way too. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. It's just the laziness factor, the brain rot.
Sitting around, you know, scrolling your phone like you're not dying, man. We're dying.
Every one of us are dying. Like, I'm closer to my deathbed today than I was yesterday.
Tomorrow, I'm one day closer to the coffin. And people are acting like that's not happening.
Like, they got all the time in the world. You don't, man.

You know, life is happening right now.

Quit wasting your time on your phone.

Learn the information.

Get the damn information that you need to go out there and win.

That's what I tell people, man.

Quit wasting your life.

Yeah, I often think about this.

Like it's work ethic teachable, right?

Because out of my hometown, I'm like the only one who really made it out.

But I wasn't the smartest. I just worked way harder than everyone else.
Man, look, you don't have to be incredibly smart. You have to be able to go in, show up every day, execute, repeat, wash, repeat, wash, repeat.
That's it, man. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's no magic science to it. And anymore, nowadays, there's a help one assign on every business out there.
Facts. The fact is, if you want to show up nowadays, you'll win.
It's the easiest time in history to become successful. You have to learn what you need to know to do it and then just show up and execute every single day.
And you put yourself ahead of 98% of the competition. Absolutely.
Chad, where can people find you, man? And we'll link your website and your event below. Yeah, go to chadpeterson.com.
Go to petersonacquisitions.com. Either way.
So chadpeterson.com, you can go there to learn everything you need to learn to become successful. I'm a no BS guy.
I'm going to tell you to you straight. You know, I'm not, I'm not peddling snake oil.
I'm not here to mislead anybody.

I give it to you real.

Go to Peterson acquisitions.com.

If you really want to sell your company or,

or buy a company,

but go to Chad Peterson.com.

If you want to learn.

Love it.

We'll link below.

Thanks for coming on,

man.

We'll do a part two.

Yeah.

All right,

guys,

check them out.

See you next time.