M&A Expert Teaches You to Sell Your Business for Maximum Value with Chad Morissette – EP 228

Justin Donald: What's up, Chad? So good to have you on the show.

Chad Morissette: Good to see you, Justin Thanks for having me.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, this is great because just last week we featured you as our speaker of the month. Inside of the Lifestyle Investor mastermind, we love doing a deal once a month and we love doing an education call or two once a month. And so, for the month of January, you are our expert speaker and I'm thrilled with the content you delivered on buying and selling companies. And I'll tell you what, our community just ate it up. And as you know, we have a ton of people in the Lifestyle Investor that have had an exit, many who will in the coming years but we've had tons that have had an exit. And I'm just telling you, countless people in the mastermind said, "This is the best session that we have ever had on buying and selling businesses." So, thank you. And I'm excited to cover that here today with you for our wider audience.

Chad Morissette: Thank you. It's my pleasure. And I'm glad it definitely resonated with the audience, for sure.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, and we have some people that are quite astute and are many, you know, they're several-time founders with several exits. So, it's not like they don't know anything. I mean, they've been around the block. And so, to hear them rave and say, "Hey, I wish I would have worked with you. I wish I would have known you. I wish I would have someone who could answer these questions," I just think is powerful.

Chad Morissette: Yes. Well, it keeps me getting up in the morning excited and passionate about what I do for a living and as a vocation, so.

Justin Donald: No kidding. Well, I love the market you serve here because I feel like there are so many groups out there. And by the way, I've done podcasts with groups out there that they only work with founders who are going to have a 9 or 10-figure exit. And then we've got another group that's like, "Hey, maybe we'll come down to $50 million exits," but that's not commonplace. We like to be at $100 million or above or $75 million and above. But your sweet spot is one that is rare in the industry and you serve a very large market. So, I'd love for you to talk about maybe what type of businesses are the right fit, who are the right fit, what market do you serve.

Chad Morissette: Sure. So, that's a great question. So, we like to say that we focus on what we define as the lower middle market, which can have many different definitions so I'll try and put some fences around that. But typically, it's companies that generate on an annual basis between $1 million and $10 million in EBITDA. So, if you extrapolate that out to the top line, in our sweet spot of concentration is generally a company doing nothing less than 5 million on the top line of revenue up to around 50 million. Have we done much larger deals? The answer is yes but the vast majority, how we define the lower middle market really sit in that basket. And then from an industry vertical point of view, internally at times we've struggled with this over the last 20 years or so, but we're rather industry agnostic because really the methodology, the process of selling a business is ubiquitous. It kind of transfers across all industries.

Obviously, we've gained a lot of domain knowledge in different industry verticals, but we're not specific, say, to the business services sector or tech. We've done all those kinds of deals but what we really see right now is that sort of blue-collar space in many ways. The business services area is really going through a lot of consolidation and aggregation, but that's really true in all industries right now. There's a tremendous amount of activity going on and those are the markets we serve, primarily in North America. We do a lot of cross-border transactions too, but from a geographic point of view, it's primarily in the US.

Justin Donald: Yeah. So, talk me through this a little bit because I was really impressed with the breadth of experience and the breadth of companies that you have worked with because you've worked with one-off companies, you've worked with franchisees, you've worked with franchisors. So, give us an idea of like the different industries, the different types of businesses that you have helped the founders have an exit for.

Chad Morissette: Yeah, I know.

Justin Donald: Because you're also like hundreds if not thousands of exits under your belt, which is really cool.

Chad Morissette: Yeah. No, it's a great point. And I think going back to our model of industry agnostic is that we've really covered the base from... Franchising is such, obviously, a hot particular market in the business industry when it comes to entrepreneurs. So, we've done literally probably about 25 different brands of franchise either resales or franchise development, even on behalf of the franchisor. Typically, when we're representing a sell-side franchisee, they're generally multi-unit owners. So, they're fairly sophisticated. But then we've also done technology. We've done recapitalizations of these companies. We've done ESOPs, where employees will buy out the actual business owners and the shareholders. We've done services businesses. We've done tech, I said earlier, tech company, biotech, fintech.

We've really covered the basis across the spectrum of industry verticals. And as I said earlier, the methodology is the same. It's just really the complexity of understanding their business and finding the right fit when it comes to the acquirer by the industry. That's really, really important because you've got to be able to talk the shop talk, right? When you understand their business, you're talking to acquirers, you obviously gain that credibility. But across our staff and our staff complement, as I said in our earlier session this week is that every one of our staff members has been a business owner and has sold their own business. And that's the criteria we use because, obviously, that instills a tremendous amount of credibility with our sell-side audience.

Justin Donald: Yeah. I would like to elaborate on that in case people missed it. I think this is one of the greatest value ads that you have in your area of expertise. So, not only are you an expert here. And by the way, first and foremost, you're an exited founder, right?

Chad Morissette: Yes.

Justin Donald: So, you know this space. Now, you're helping others, but your team is 100% comprised of entrepreneurs that have had an exit. Everyone has gone through the process, understands it, and actually loves the space and that's why they're there. And I think that's so unique in an M&A space. Like, I've never heard of anyone having a team that 100% of the team that would work with someone trying to sell their business has already sold their business successfully.

Chad Morissette: Yes, exactly. And I joke when I go to social events that my only friends now are business owners because that's pretty much the people I hang out with by default now. But I'd say about 12 years ago I'm talking to so many business owners. It was kind of an aha moment, a bit of an epiphany on our side, saying picking the right advisor regardless of under what company banner and having that person be able to talk, as I said earlier, shop talk. I started a company, has been through the pains of managing growth. So, has lived the whole running, starting, selling a business, that really started to separate us from just talking from a textbook or talking just theory-specific, right? We bring real practical experience and we can say we've lived it. In my case, too, I've had three personal liquidity events prior to getting into the M&A space.

And the second one I did, I made mistakes. So, I learned through my own mistakes, corrected those, obviously, and applied it to my third liquidity event. And then what I realized is that in order for to really coach a business owner, because most business owners are definitely sort of perhaps that alpha mindset, alpha personality where they're not always I wouldn't say great at taking advice at times, but when you can sit across from them and say, "Listen, I've started a company. I've gone through firings. I've been sued before. I've had product issues. I mean, you name it, right? I've woken up at 2 in the morning every night wondering in the early days if I have enough capital to make payroll." All that kind of stuff just really builds a solid, trusting relationship.

Justin Donald: Yes.

Chad Morissette: And so, what changes the dynamic then is they start to really look at us as a peer versus just someone that's coming in to give them advice but has never really lived it. And so, that trust and credibility to then follow our lead when it comes to the process and sort of hand over the reins and continue to run their business while they're going through the exit process is really what helps us and them have a successful event in the end.

Justin Donald: Well, it was fun because your session, first and foremost, it was so highly rated with the Lifestyle Investor mastermind members like people just, I mean, they raved about you. But it was perfect because we have several people that are in the process of selling their business right now, like more than a handful, probably somewhere between five and ten in our community right now actively selling so it was perfect for them. And it may actually be more than that but just based on who I know. And then you also had some people that were like, "Ooh, I would love to work with Chad. I didn't even know that was an option. I've sold my company and I love what he's about." So, I think that that's great. What I'd love to do is kind of steer this towards those who are exiting or thinking about exiting. And my biggest question for you is what are the steps that someone should take if they want to sell or if they think at some point in the next five-plus years that they will want to sell?

Chad Morissette: Sure. It's a great question, and it's one I come across constantly. I always tell business owners that you should always be ready to sell, whether you're proactively thinking about it or not. And why is that? Well, in today's market, there's a lot of what I call deal origination from acquirers that are unsolicited in nature. In other words, they may come banging on your door. And you may not be in a position based on your stage of life, where your business is to the extent of how it's evolved. But I always think you should always be ready. If you're thinking with the mindset of begin with the end in mind, that changes your approach of how you actually run your business day to day.

Justin Donald: That's right.

Chad Morissette: So, where I'm going with this is kind of this is the challenge with every business owner is how do you make sure that you're working in it and on it at the same time, and as it starts to mature, continue to work on it more. So, that's something that I always like to bring up at any time. And I think part of the reason why I also like this space, there's almost -- I can't say there's any owner I've ever spoken to, Justin, that isn't interested in the subject matter of selling their business or having some form of liquidity event in the future. It's just their net worth is built up. They're building their baby. They want to leave a great legacy there. It's a subject that's just so popular to talk about. Everyone wants to learn about it.

So, back to your question about what should they be thinking. I always think they should always be ready to sell, but more from the context of not the timing of it per se but just getting their business ready and then learning proactively the steps to what that may look like. And as I said earlier in the talk this week, I think there's two buckets. There's analyzing your personal readiness, your stage of life. Why do you want to sell? What's your personal motivation? Are you truly ready to sell or...? And this is something we come across and I always laugh with our clients is often we'll get those calls come in unsolicited when they've had a horrible day or a horrible week. They lost their largest clients. They just got served with a lot, you name it, right?

On those down days, it's just like, "Okay. I'm burnt out. I'm tired." And then you talk to them five days later and they're back in the saddle, they're back in the driver's seat, and they have changed their mind. So, they really have to analyze their personal drivers. And I won't get into too much in the weeds on that but is it they want to retire? Often, a top reason for wanting to exit, Justin, is they're truly burnt out or they're bored. In fact, when I sold my software company in 2004, the reason I actually exited, that was in my mid-30s, is I was bored. I wasn't being challenged anymore. I was tired of the space, in the tech space, and I wanted something different. So, you really got to put some reflection to that personal readiness.

And then on the personal readiness side, of course, there's the tax planning, the estate planning, so that you're structured properly in terms of having the best tax efficiency plan in place. That's the personal bucket. And then on the business bucket side is how do you know if your business is sellable? What are the attributes to the business being sellable through the buyer's lenses, not through your own? How does a business buyer, what criteria do they use to actually assess your business? And how do those specific attributes line up to where your business is today over and above strictly the financial performance of your business? And that's the part, there was a tremendous amount, I hate to use the word but I'm going to use it anyways, ignorance. They don't know what they don't know.

Justin Donald: Correct.

Chad Morissette: And unfortunately, like anything, they get beat up during that process of due diligence because they weren't able to enter that process knowing what's coming and understand the rigor and the level of detail that their business will be scrutinized. So, we conduct what's called a due diligence stress test where we put our clients through a 200-questionnaire form across the functional disciplines of their business to really say, "Hey you're weak in operations. Your HR best practices are really out of date. Your marketing engine is in the dinosaur era. You've got to move to digital." So, all these things that a lot of owners from a business readiness point of view, just think value equals profit from a financial performance. But most businesses don't sell at the premium valuation that the seller wants if they're strictly looking through the financial set of lessons.

Justin Donald: Yeah, and there's a story to tell where you can craft more value, right? So, it's like you want to be thinking about this early and often when it comes time to like if you know that you're going to exit at some point in time, well, now you want to start crafting the story that is going to give it a higher valuation. And a lot of people don't think that's true. That is so true. Now, you are talking about all the reasons that people sell, burn out, and all these things. And another thing that I will tell you that I hear a little bit but I wish I heard more is really when people have the vast majority of their net worth tied to their business, that's a risky proposition.

And if you're at a position where you can take some chips off the table and de-risk your overall portfolio when people have 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% of their net worth in their business, that's dangerous because if the business fails, uh-oh, everything goes away. And so, a lot of our work that we do and we have people that join the Lifestyle Investor mastermind and they're so mad that they didn't join before their exit because they would have made more, they would have saved more based on our tax strategies, like all these different things. But what I will tell you is when people see how most family offices have their assets allocated, what their net worth, their percentage of their net worth is based on, and what their primary business should be, they often say, "Gosh, I am so far overweighted in this private equity or in this primary company of mine. I need to recap, I need to exit, I need to do something so that I am protecting my family."

So, I love that they can come to you. So, what's the ideal timeframe for them? Like, I remember people are joined and they're like, "Hey, I'm going to sell my business in a few months," and I'm like, "Oh, man, I wish you would have joined earlier." And they're like, "Well, I joined a few months before I sold it," then, "Hey, that's better than joining before you sell." But ideal, isn't it like three years, at least two?

Chad Morissette: Yeah. From a planning perspective, it really depends on how educated the owner is coming out of the gate, understanding what exit planning really means. So, it's difficult for me to say, perfect world, it should be one year or three year. If I was to sort of take a general rule of thumb and apply that to this answer, one to two years before, one to three is the ideal range. And the reason I say that, I mean, you can definitely do something that's five, ten years down the road and be extremely proactive. But what we've noticed is if there's a shorter horizon in terms of their exit and goal, their level of commitment to really put the work in and the time in to work on their business, do all the proactive planning to get themselves personally ready and work on their business is far more top of mind for them from a motivation perspective.

Don't get me wrong, we have many clients that are five, ten, eight years down the road and then they'll call us at the three-year mark saying, "Oh, geez, you know what? The market's changed and we've got a new competitor. Something major happened in my life on a personal level." So, it's always great to plan long-term. But the ideal horizon, especially from a tax perspective, is that one to three-year window timeframe.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And what are the steps that you often see people missing? So, you talked about a moment ago some of the key. So, having a one to three-year timeline and then here are the keys like let's build out the story. Let's make sure that we go through the audit, make sure that everything's strong, marketing, operations team, HR, like you name it. So, what are some of the steps that you see people messing up or just totally missing that devalue the company in a buyer's eyes?

Chad Morissette: Well, there are so many areas but I'll talk to the ones I really just kind of went top of mind based on that question. And I think one of the big struggling points is around valuation. You have to have that discussion of what I call tough love conversation. In my case, obviously, I'm acting as their advisor, but the general bias and I know audience members will kind of laugh and chuckle at this is that the majority of business owners think their business is worth way more than it truly is in the market.

Justin Donald: Oh, yeah. By a lot too. It's generally by a large margin. I mean, we're talking millions or tens of millions of dollars the more they believe their business is worth because they have that bias.

Chad Morissette: Exactly. And so, that is probably one of the tougher discussions but the most critical discussions and I say getting back to earth level to have and they overlook it. And unfortunately, I always say and as we both know, at the end of the day, the market will dictate the price. And valuation is obviously part art, part science, and you can't necessarily draw the parallel of a piece of commercial real estate or residential to a business because there are so many different pieces to the puzzle, right? And I also say that beauty's in the eye of the beholder from the buy side perspective because they may be looking at this business from a different set of financial, not just financial lenses, but can I cross-sell within their customer base? Do they have incredible talent pool?

So, I'm going around the different areas that affect valuation, that are kind of what I call intangible in nature. But one of the steps that's very often overlooked is really getting realistic around that. And then once that's achieved and there's consensus reached, then the part two answer to that question is and it kind of goes back to, I think, a lot of what your business is about is what is the wealth gap to what they need personally versus what their business is worth and how much in that asset class of concentration of their wealth is actually sitting in their business, and doing that math. That exercise is often overlooked. And I would argue in many ways, if a business owner tries to sell their own business, they really don't have that discussion with them.

No one's going to coach them. No one's going to kind of beat them down to reality, give them that tough love sort of mentality and behavior and discussion, right? If they sit down with a good M&A advisor, we know for sure that we can go to market and tell the owner what they want to hear in terms of valuation and we're going to strike out. So, if there's something at the very beginning that really has to be dealt with, it's that in addition to when you do the valuation and I talked about this earlier this week, is actually conducting what we call a net proceeds analysis for the owner. What your financial advisors and your accounting team is saying, "If I sell my business for 20 million and there's different types of contingency payments built into that valuation, including tax, what am I actually going to net at the end of the day? And how does that correlate and tie into my wealth that I need to if I'm in the mode of retirement? I've got 30 years of life and I want a certain lifestyle.”

So, doing all that math and sitting down is absolutely critical. And I would say equally so on the buy side because if the buy side doesn't see that the owner's done that, the chances of the deal falling apart at any given time are very high.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And the other thing I think is important is I see a mistake I see founders making is that they don't get enough interest in their business. They try and sell it on the side. They don't tap all the markets. Because we're in a place now in 2025 and really for the last few years where there are more types of acquirers than ever before. So, it used to be that maybe it was just strategics and private equity, but you've got VCs, you've got people that are trying to roll up businesses. I mean, you've got so many different avenues. And I'd love to hear you speak about the importance of having a big net of competition to bid the price up, but also, like, who all is in the pool? Like, we don't want a lot of these groups exclude some of the best and brightest potential buyers because they are old school and they skew to the way they've always done it.

Chad Morissette: Yeah. And that point is so critical to touch on because for the vast majority of business owners who are considering an exit, they do not know or understand the breadth of potential acquirers out there, not only the different types but the quantity of them. The other part that they can't necessarily wrap their heads around is to the extent the amount of time and effort it takes to sell a business. It is very complex, it's laborious, it's time-consuming, it's exhausting, and it can take somewhere from 6 to 12 months. So, with those two factors in there, a lot of the time the sellers will do what we call a proprietary deal where they have one buyer that's approached them. To me, that's probably what pains me the most because they didn't go out to market in a sort of a much broader way to, as you alluded to, private equity.

Another group of potential buyers now is what we call independent sponsors. They're ex-private, you know, the big private equity guys and gals that say, "I'm tired of doing this for KKR. I keep doing it for them," and then they go form their own independent sponsor, which is like a subset of a private equity. That particular group of sponsors is proliferating exponentially and has for the last 3 to 5 years. So, literally, there's too many buyers, too much what we call dry powder in today's market chasing, and I emphasize the word 'too few' good businesses.

Justin Donald: Yeah.

Chad Morissette: There's plenty of businesses that you can buy, but I'm talking ones that are bulletproof and ready, performing, have created moats. So, definitely, I want to go back to your question about the breadth of buyers. There's a substantial amount. I mean, in the U.S. alone, there's over 5,000 private equity companies. And if you haven't had the ability to at least present your business in a confidential manner to at least 200, 300 of those, you're leaving a tremendous amount of capital and dry powder on the table in terms of your potential premium you could get for your business.

Justin Donald: Yeah. And a lot of people that are helping you sell your business don't have access to those 5,000 companies. So, that PE space is so, so key. Another mistake I see founders making is they will run the process. They will try to run the process of exiting the company themselves versus enlisting someone else that can take point and then they take their foot off the gas of actually running their business and then it suffers. And now all of a sudden the valuation's lower.

Chad Morissette: Yes, it's one of our top ten sort of what we call our David Letterman top ten that we drill into our clients' heads is a lot of people say they're kind of at the point where they're in cruise control of their business or they've become complacent. They're not kind of hustling as much and they think, "Okay, I'm going to go to market now. I can take my foot off the gas." Well, quite frankly, that's the worst mistake you can make. And I always tell the sell-side client is, "The acquirer is going to assess your financial performance and how your business is running all the way up to the close date." So, month by month, they're going to look, they're going to ask you for your financials, they're going to ask you for customer wins, attrition rates.

So, if you look at the process of 6 to 12 months to sell your business, that's the worst mistake you can make. And a lot of business owners think, "Oh, well, I don't want to pay an M&A for retainers and advisory fees." And I always say to them, "Listen, you're going to more than offset what you pay us, in fact, exponentially, not just because of the breadth of acquirers we're going to bring to the table and create an auction but just the amount of time you're going to take off the ball running your business is going to affect your valuation, too." Listen, it takes two equally motivated parties. There are those owners that get really excited about trying to sell their business on their own and some of them can do it successfully. However, the vast majority that have never done it before truly underestimate what it's going to take and I know they leave money on the table.

Justin Donald: And here's a mistake I also see a lot of founders making. In our community, the percentage that this has happened to is very high for people that exited prior to joining Lifestyle Investor. Now, we have done a masterclass on this and have many people in our community that have spoken on this. But kind of like the 11th-hour hardballing, lowballing type of situation. So, deal's almost done. We're in the last day. Maybe money is even supposed to be wired today. The potential acquirer comes back and basically tries to lowball the price and strip a lot of the value out. And I just see a lot of people cave in that situation and they're like, "Oh, I'm so close. I just want to get this done. Deal fatigue has set in."

And we're strong in our community coaching. No, no. You fight through this and don't be a pushover here. I'm curious your thoughts on that because the people that we've coached, they pushed back. And in virtually every single situation, we're able to get what they had originally wanted prior to the lowball 11th-hour offer.

Chad Morissette: Yeah. Well, I like to joke. I guess it's not so funny sometimes, but they say M&A is a bit of a blood sport.

Justin Donald: Right.

Chad Morissette: You're going to get a lot, you're going to give a lot. You need to give a lot of punches, you're going to get a lot of punches, and you need to understand the strategy and the dynamic because there is a lot of strategy and dynamic. And I can't say this. There are incredible amount of really good high-integrity acquirers out there but there's also a basket of them that are very strategic and trying to extract the best price and compromise the actual vendor or, in this case, the business owner. And you touched on a particular area that we emphasize a lot, which is deal fatigue. Deal fatigue is real. You can't go through this for 6 to 9 to 12 months and not expect to be tired, not only tired physically and mentally, but also emotionally because there's a tremendous emotional attachment to your business.

So, with that being said, there's a lot of things you've really got to figure out when you're actually qualifying and working with an acquirer. What's their track record in that area? How much due diligence have you done on this acquirer? Who have they bought? Have you spoken to their previous acquisitions, the owners that they bought from one, two, three years later? It's something you definitely have to do. So, that trust factor, that ethical magic, it's something if you don't do can really compromise you at the end. And also, when you're putting together the deal structure when the term sheet is issued or the LOI is executed, I always think there should be joint accountability on both sides of the transaction all the way up to the finish line.

And I call it to some extent what I call herd capital, where at certain tranches in the process up to the close, if somebody changes their mind, we call it re-trading in our industry. If a buyer re-trades or a seller re-trades for no particular justified due diligence reason, there's penalties. There's accountability. That should be baked into your agreements. It's a tough thing to negotiate, but it shows joint commitment, equal motivation, and understanding that going into it, how do we mitigate these potential problems that may surface down the road? And it's really good to do so along the way and definitely at the beginning because you're definitely going to get a sense of the approach of the acquirer in that context.

Justin Donald: Yeah, that's good. So, kind of rounding things out, what last things do you want these founders who are listening to know prior to an exit to help them maximize value?

Chad Morissette: Well, I think they have to understand it's kind of a cliche statement but it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And if you take that sort of long-haul approach to the planning side, right, you're not going to... Most of us, including me, I've never ran a marathon but if I was to go out and not train for one and run one in 2 weeks, it would not be a good result, at least from my perspective. My 24-year-old son ran one about six months ago and he did fine. But really...

Justin Donald: Well, that's just youth.

Chad Morissette: Exactly. So, if you really look at that, treat this as a marathon to some extent that you can train for, that's the planning side. That's something I want to really approach. I just came from a client-seller meeting two days ago, a large landscape services and construction company, and we just went to market with them. The owner said, "I want this to sell in April," just two and a half, three months away. And I had to talk his temperature down. So, the other part too is you really have to keep your expectations in check.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That's good.

Chad Morissette: Acknowledge what you don't know and be forthright about it. And then obviously, in my case, if I'm going to be, to some extent, subjective and biased, is really hire a good deal team, someone who's an advisor in the M&A space like myself or anybody else in that space that's got a great track record. Make sure your CPAs, the deal team around you is paramount. Your CPA's done transaction. Your corporate lawyer and attorney's got transaction-specific business experience and they're dealmakers and not deal breakers. That team you assembled too is critical to the outcome. So, those are just three high-level nuggets that I wanted to convey that obviously there are many, many more, but those are the first ones that came to mind to answer your question this afternoon.

Justin Donald: I love it, Chad. And really, I want people to hear this loud and clear. Part of the reason that you want the runway of one to three years is because you need to put the tax plan in play. You need to put the estate plan in play. And I'm just telling you, even if you're... I mean, one of the things that I teach and preach that I want everyone to know is the number one erosion of your wealth is the amount of taxes that you pay because most people tip the government. They don't use the tax code the way that it is intended based on the specific language in the code where you can partner with the government to do what it is that they want, right?

So, there are tons of ways to play this right. So, even if you're not going to do this on an annual basis, which I encourage everyone, hire a tax strategist. Having a CPA is not good enough. You need someone directing the CPA. But even if you're not willing to do that for yourself every single year, which I think everyone listening, watching should be doing, but at a minimum, do it for your exit because this may be the single most amount of money that you ever make in your lifetime. And to have a great tax strategy could be the difference between your family and even legacy enjoy millions of dollars more or tens of millions or in some cases, even hundreds of millions more if you don't do this tax strategy right.

Chad Morissette: 100% right. And we repeat that over and over again until it sinks in because that really will take, you know, I talked earlier this week about 70% of business owners are dissatisfied with their exit. How do you become that 30%? But more importantly, that number should drop substantially from 70%. The vast majority should be really pleased with the way their exit turned out. And I'd say 90% of the problem is poor planning.

Justin Donald: Totally. Well, in our mastermind, so Lifestyle Investor members know this, we've got over 70 unique strategies now that our members use that most CPAs don't even know exist. They don't even know how to file for it. They don't know how to apply it. They literally don't even know that exists.

Chad Morissette: Yes, exactly. And that's why I said spend money on good advisors. And I emphasize the word 'credible, good, trustworthy' advisors because the ROI payback on that is just going to be tenfold.

Justin Donald: Totally.

Chad Morissette: Spend the money. You're an expert in your business. Hire other experts that are really, really smart in their particular domain area and lean on them.

Justin Donald: That's right. Spend the money. This is a place to be abundant in thinking. Spend the money for best-in-class because it will return you so much more than what most people realize. So, just don't be, you know, what is it? Man, I'm now drawing a blank on one of my favorite. Pound Foolish. Yeah. Do you know what I'm trying to say?

Chad Morissette: No. I'm lost too.

Justin Donald: Penny wise and pound foolish.

Chad Morissette: There you go. Thank you.

Justin Donald: It's one of my favorite sayings and I was drawing a blank here, but I can't end an episode when I have some interesting information out there about the person that I'm talking to. And so, your interesting fact, and I don't know if anyone has thought about this, if anyone's looked at your last name, but I have to mention it because growing up, one of my all-time favorite musicians, artists, singers out there happens to be your sister, Alanis Morissette.

Chad Morissette: Well, I didn't know that part, Justin. That's good to hear.

Justin Donald: Yes. I mean, I have been known to belt out some Alanis Morissette songs very loud in the company of friends and family or just by myself in my car.

Chad Morissette: You and I both. Yeah. No, that's a whole other probably podcast or discussion growing up in that environment. But it's been a fun thing to witness. There's pros and cons about it, definitely, and that's a whole other discussion but obviously, very, very proud of my sister and who I can also call my best friend, so.

Justin Donald: That's so amazing. Very cool. Well, thank you for joining us. Please let us know where we can find out more about you and for people. And by the way, I'm just going to say this. To anyone listening, to anyone watching, if you know someone that is going to have an exit in the next ten years, can you please refer this episode to them? Because I want them to know Chad. I want them to have an opportunity to work with one of the best, one of the brightest, someone that can really help them maximize their profit, their return. So, anyone, please, if you know someone in the space, I feel like founders are taken advantage of all the time and I really want to see this community, people that I admire and adore so much get the best and the most optimized and maximized return that they can for their business, which generally takes their blood, sweat, and tears, and it is their life's work. And so, I want to see a great return. But where can people learn more about you, Chad?

Chad Morissette: Well, they definitely can visit our website, which is www.mor-liquidity.com, which would have all our contact info. You can obviously find me personally on LinkedIn and I will emphasize that any inquiry that comes into us we treat as very, very confidential. So, it's difficult to reach out because you may not be comfortable with who's receiving that but we treat every inbound inquiry solicited or unsolicited very, very carefully. So, I just wanted to emphasize that as well, Justin, is that confidentiality is probably the top pillar in our business when you reach out. So, there's no concern about anything that's disclosed to us, whether you end up working with us or not that will ever take place because we understand the serious ramifications of confidentiality breach.

Justin Donald: Well, thank you, Chad. You're a wealth of knowledge. This has been a blast. And I like ending every episode with a question for our audience. So, if you're watching this or if you're listening to this, this question is for you. What's one step you can take today to move towards financial freedom and really move towards the life that you desire that's on your terms so not by default like most people, but by design? Pick one thing that you learned from Chad today, implement it immediately, and please tell any of your founder friends that are going to have an exit at some point in time in the next 5 to 10 years about him and share this episode. Thanks! And we'll catch you next week.