In this 10x episode, Jeffrey Feldberg, Co-Founder of Deep Wealth, shares how he specializes in helping business owners with the strategies they need to grow profits and maximize their exit value.
You will discover:
– How to fight back imposter syndrome when selling
– Why you probably never want to approve an unsolicited offer to buy your business
– How the skills to start, scale, and sell all differ for founders
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is the one and only Jeffrey Feldberg who turned down, get this, turned down a seven figure offer for his business and created a system that led to a nine figure deal. He’s the mastermind who took his learning startup. Sorry, e learning startup. Eminet from modest beginnings out of his parents attic to clinching a nine figure exit and as co founder and CEO of deep wealth, he now offers these proven strategies in the 90 day deep Wealth Mastery program. Through deep wealth, Jeffrey has embarked on a dedicated mission to equip business owners with strategies for maximizing their business value and achieving lucrative exits. So get ready to uncover some powerful business growth secrets and optimal exit strategies with Jeffrey here with us today. Well, Jeffrey, so excited to have you on the show. And the first question that came up is, I was looking at what you’re doing getting ready for the episode. For the episode, was, you’ve seen this 1000 times, if you’ve seen it once, but you’ve got the founder, they’re sitting there Monday, you know, kind of mid morning. They’re already burned out on the week, right? They’re thumbing through their mail, which is like the last thing any founder wants to do, except for everything else that they know they should be doing, they just they’re trying to avoid all of it. And they find this letter from something they’ve never heard of, and basically it’s this offer to buy their business. And they start thinking about it. Maybe there’s even some numbers in the mail. It doesn’t usually work that way, but let’s just assume that it is. They talk to them a couple times they get and it’s like the biggest check they’d ever seen in their life, right? Most folks haven’t seen too many seven figure checks, for example, why shouldn’t they take it?
Jeffrey Feldberg
Well firstly, Scottie, a pleasure to be here, and thank you so much. You know what I was there. Most founders are there in my books, an unsolicited offer. They’re popular for one reason and one reason alone. It’s great for the buyer, the investor, is lousy for the entrepreneur. With one exception, I speak to the co founder of ways, he shared a great story. He said, Jeffrey, I got a fax from Google. 24 hours, a billion dollars, a billion with a beat. That’s the only unsolicited offer that I’ve ever heard of that actually was the right one to say yes to, otherwise what’s going on and look at me, no exception. Will put myself under the microscope. The seven figure offer that I got, okay, yes, it was from a buyer that I say was the wolf in sheep’s clothing. But at the same time, I played my part. We all played a hard part in every story. There’s always two to tango, and I had no idea how to present the company the right kind of narrative what to do. So in some ways, that seven figure offer was deserved. In other ways it really wasn’t. But the unsolicited offer is there because an investor or buyer knows you don’t have representation. You’re not prepared, you’re probably burned out, and you have no idea about the true value of your company, and more times than not. Well, hey, yeah, you know what? I’m kind of burned out. Let me go on to the next chapter. And it’s interesting on my podcast, when we bring on buyers and they reveal all, they hold nothing back. They say, Jeffrey, it’s like blood in the water when we smell fear or desperation, we are all over it. The value goes out the window, and we’re either going to run away as fast as we can because it’s a lousy deal, or we’re going to pick it up for a song and a dance and bit of a hunger dancer. But that’s what’s going on when we get that kind of outreach.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. Why is it that there is so much fear and desperation around selling a business like we work. You know, for many folks, they work their whole adult life building this thing, and then end up feeling trapped by it. Why is that?
Jeffrey Feldberg
You know what? It’s the Kool Aid as entrepreneurs that we drink, I gotta put something a little bit provocative out there. You can kick me under the virtual table here. As entrepreneurs, we are brilliant in so many areas, yet we’re so stupid in the sense that the skills that start a business are not the same skills to grow that business, and they’re certainly not the same skills later on to sell or exit or get investment into the business. So it’s a rhetorical question. It’s one of my favorites. How can you master a game you’ve never played before? And so many of us think great, I’ve built this business. Look at the success. Look at all the accolades that I have. I’m a terrific negotiator. I can sell my business, and it couldn’t be the furthest from the truth. Don’t take my word for it. The statistics say it all. Very sad. Scotty, 90% think about that. 90% of business exits fail. So I want you to think about the time, the effort, the money spent, and then insult to injury, 50 to over 100% of the deal value is left in the buyer’s pocket. Look no further than myself if I would have said yes to that seven figure offer and that 90 figure. Offer I created. I just didn’t know it was there. It was around the corner, over the bend, over the hill. I didn’t know it was there, but the buyer saw something there, and that’s what we walk away from. So the next time you hear your buddy say, hey, Scotty, I just sold my business for XYZ, they likely left another XYZ on the deal table.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. So I want to dive into that a little bit, because it’s one of the kind of staples of how we approach things at scale architects is, I think Marshall Goldsmith made it popular. It’s a principle that’s gone on for time, but What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. And in particular, for the context of this conversation, just because you were able to build a great business doesn’t mean that you’ve got the skills to sell a great business. What are the differences between those two?
Jeffrey Feldberg
It’s going to frustrate my answers kind of frustrate the listeners in the community who are very logical. Everything happens in a spreadsheet, in a complicated formula, because this is on the art side of business, and again, on my podcast, very blessed to have some incredibly smart people. Hopefully you’ll be one of them. Scotty, to come on to the podcast. I’ve had valuators Come on, and they’ve said what I knew for myself, data point of one, but they validated that, and since with so many of our clients that we’ve helped that 80% of a company’s value is in the narrative. And said, Jeff, I don’t even look at the data, the financials. I look at the narratives as a narrative excite me. You can have the best company in the world, terrific profits, everything else, but if the narrative isn’t there, the value is going to suffer. You can have a company that really doesn’t have a lot of profits, a lot of the financials behind it. You have to back it up, of course, but if they have a really good narrative, that’s 80% of the value. And so if you go back to my seven figure offer and then to the nine figure offer, people are really dumbfounded, as I was after the fact. Well, we didn’t buy other companies. It was less than two years from saying no to the seven figures. And then I created this crazy system we now call deep Health Mastery. As you mentioned, it was the same company, same people, same service. So why seven figures to nine figures? And it’s a boring answer. It’s one word, ready for it, preparation, when you prepare. And that’s where the nine step road map came from. And by the way, I didn’t have all nine steps from ideal. Some of the steps came from my failures, my team’s failures. We reverse engineer them, but when you know what to do and when to do it. As an example, in step three, future buyer, we talk all about the narrative. When you know how to position your business, it helps you keep existing customers. It helps you attract new customers. And when the time is right for investors or buyers, it gets them very excited about a bright and prosperous tomorrow where they’re saying, I don’t want to lose this deal. I’m prepared to overpay. And so it starts with a narrative that’s one of many, many things, but we don’t learn about that. No one talks about that. You don’t really read about that, but that’s the art side of business. So welcome to the art side of business card here.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love it. I love it. So I want to look at this here, because you did. You clearly got something right, going from seven figure to nine figure, 110 x ing, your value in two years. That’s such an important part. Because some folks think that I was like, Yeah, I could do it in 10 or 15 or, you know, we could do some, you know, massive scale up strategy or something, and, and that doesn’t sound to me that that’s the way that you guys did this. So if you had to boil it down, and it might be the narrative might be what you just expressed here. But if you had to boil down all those different things that you did during that window, what would you say, which strategy had the biggest impact and why?
Jeffrey Feldberg
Oh, my goodness, it’s like asking, what’s your favorite child? If you’re a parent, it’s a tough one. There are so many of them. You know, instead of giving one and shortchanging the listener, I’ll just give a few of them. Really in the nine step roadmap, it’s the first three steps. It’s our first pillar, the foundation. We’re looking at the big picture. What can put us out of business? Or what can we do to ourselves to put ourselves out of business into a bigger, more profitable business? Step two, the X factors, what makes us really unique out there? What are we world class and what are we doing that’s different than anyone else and most founders, when you become Hey, how are you different in the competition? Sadly, it breaks my heart every time I hear it. Well, you know, Jeffrey, we’re not really that different. It’s just a different logo, a little bit of a different slogan, and that’s about it. It’s not true. Every company has three to five areas we call max factors at the world class, and some of them are so unique, we call them the hidden Rembrandts in the attic that we bring them out for public display. And we take what we learned in step one and step two, and we put that together in the narrative and how we’re positioning the company, who we are, who we’re not. And then behind the scenes, we’re doing all kinds of preparations. We’re removing those skeleton in the closet. They lower growth, they lower profits, they can put us out of business. Forget an exit. We take care of all of those so that when we show up, unlike most business owners, they go to an investment banker. Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go to market, not realizing, congratulations, you have a second full time job while you’re running the business. You also have. Liquidity event, your business exit and something’s going to give. Usually it’s the health and the business not good. We avoid all of that when we’re preparing and we’re knowing what to do, when to do it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. The thing that’s striking me about what you’re saying here, and just my own experience working with founders and owners in this space, is the sheer emotion of it, all right? And when you look at, you know, a lot of that fear, you look at a lot of it, there’s almost this sense of hopelessness, right? There’s this, there’s this clear sense of overwhelm. You don’t have to look far to see it. And and being in that emotional state, I think, undermines so many of these things, right? When you take a founder, which is generally like visionary type people who can see like it, you know, their business is their baby, right? There’s so many things of it that they’re proud of to say, we don’t know what makes us unique. That’s not a statement of fact, right? That’s just clear, emotional, you know, just wait and challenge on it. What are some things that we can do to kind of get in the right mindset headspace before really starting out on this, on this journey, which is oftentimes going to make us feel out of our depth.
Jeffrey Feldberg
Absolutely. Looking back on my own journey, it was lonely. I was scared. Anyone who says that they weren’t feeling lonely or scared, they’re lying to you, because it’s new territory. You’re in this room with all these other smart people. Imposter syndrome is going on. Look how smart and accomplish these people are. Who am I? What do I possibly know? And for the listener out there, I want you to think of a situation where whatever it was, it doesn’t make a difference. It’s a presentation or a game or something that you’re going to be writing, who knows you were prepared. You rehearsed going into it. You couldn’t wait, because you had all the preparation, and you knew, hey, I don’t know everything, but if something comes up, I’ll be able to deal with it. I want you to compare that feeling into I’m walking in I have no preparation, I have no idea what’s going on, I have no idea what I’m doing, and you just really bomb it, because we have one chance to get it right, and we don’t want to blow it when it comes to our financial security. For most entrepreneurs, most founders, their business exit, if they do it right, that’s their ticket to financial freedom. And we want to make sure that we’re getting it right. And so it goes all back to the preparation you know, the company, not as a founder, but as a buyer or an investor. We’re looking at it from that vantage point. What’s to say, how to say it, how to position it, what not to say and what not to do.
Scott Ritzheimer
Right? So good, and it’s so valuable having a guide along the way. I know this is what you guys do, and someone listening this might almost take that for granted, but having someone who’s been down this road, who’s walked others down the road is such a significant advantage for someone who’s doing it, especially if it’s your first time, which for many entrepreneurs, it is. Jeffrey, I’ve got a question for you here that I like to ask all my guests, and it is this, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Jeffrey Feldberg
Yeah, you know for myself what I’m going to share. It took me just about a lifetime to really figure out. And all through my life, I would just look at other people and say, Wow, look how terrific they are. Look how successful. I don’t know if I’m smart enough, I don’t know if I’m good enough, I don’t know if I can ever do that. I don’t know if I have those superpowers. And finally I realized, you know what, I am unique. Everyone’s unique. I was given some superpowers, and I figured out what those were, and I played to my strengths. I didn’t worry about my weaknesses. I couldn’t do something great. Someone else is going to do it. This is what I do. This is what I do really well. I’m going to focus on that. I’m not going to look back. I’m going to follow the passion, not the other way around. Of chasing the money and hoping everything goes through, I’ll follow the passion, go to my superpowers, and everything else falls into place. That’s what I would tell the younger Jeffrey on his business journey, just starting out of the parents attic and at a school. And you know, Scottie, that’s where the default master program came from. We didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it. I thought we were the exception, not the rule. Then I began hearing from so many other entrepreneurs who felt like I felt it we’re just getting ripped off. Looked around, hey, there’s lots of systems out there. Most are done by people who’ve never done it before. Well, how are you going to do it if someone’s never done that before? And very reluctantly, I said, okay, no one’s doing this, if we’re getting ripped out off out there as entrepreneurs, as founders, let’s set the record straight. Let’s give us the fighting chance that we need. Let’s not level the playing field. Let’s actually tilt it to our advantage. And that was really where it came from. It’s a system that I wish I had to take away those sleepless nights and that queasiness in the stomach. What am I going to do? How am I going to do it? What’s next? And really have a path ahead?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, brings me to my next question. There’s folks listening. They’re ready to sell. They’ve been ready to sell for a while. They’re thinking about selling the future, and they want to do it right. They want to they want to know how to walk through it. How can they find more out about your program, your deep Wealth Mastery program? And. Where can I find more out about you?
Jeffrey Feldberg
Absolutely so Scottie, for anyone who emails success, we all know success, [email protected] just like it sounds, deepwealth.com, so [email protected] we will send them, if they mention Scotty, we will send them a complimentary our deep wealth nine step strategy map. It’s all in there. We break it all down, step by step by step, and from there, if they have questions, they want to have a conversation, they want to take it further, just reply back to the email. My team will arrange a phone call with them. It’s complimentary. I’ll speak with them, walk them through, see where they’re at. And hey, if we can help them, terrific. And if we can’t, we’ll be the first one to say, here’s where you may want to be. Here’s what you may want to be. Here’s what you may want to be thinking about. We’re not the ones to do it, but A, B and C may be there. So [email protected] mentioned the word Scottie, and that is the magic key that opens everything up.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love it. I love it in life. That’s just universally true. Just anywhere you go mention Scottie and it will magic. They open everything. I’m just kidding, Jeffrey, just an absolute privilege having you on the show. There’s so many folks who can benefit so much from this. So if you’re listening and you’re even thinking about spelling the word one day selling, I highly recommend that you check it out. Take Jeffrey up on his offer and get yourself into the 90 day program. It will be well worth your time. Jeffrey, thanks so much for being here, privilege and honor having you on the show, and for those of you watching and listening today, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Jeffrey Feldberg
Today’s guest is Jeffrey Feldberg, who turned down a 7-figure offer and created a system that led to a 9-figure deal. He’s a mastermind who took his eLearning startup Embanet from modest beginnings out of his parents’ attic to clinching a nine-figure exit. As co-founder and CEO of Deep Wealth, he now offers these proven strategies in the 90-day Deep Wealth Mastery program. Through Deep Wealth, Jeffrey has embarked on a dedicated mission to equip business owners with strategies for maximizing their business value and achieving lucrative exits. Get ready to uncover powerful business growth secrets and optimal exit strategies with Jeffrey Feldberg.
Want to learn more about Jeffrey Feldberg’s work at Deep Wealth? Check out his website at https://www.deepwealth.com/ or email [email protected] and mention “Scottie” to get access to your free seller’s resources!
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