Marketing is Farming

Success is rarely achieved overnight and is often the result of consistent effort, seizing opportunity, investing in your business, and repeatedly picking oneself up after every fall. On this episode, Exit Your Way co-founder, Damon Pistulka, candidly reminds us that big results come from taking “big chances” and seeing results takes patience. He talks with Nicole about the big opportunity he seized and how not having the right contract in place cost him and his partners a $3+ million deal. Damon sheds light on the need for proper business management and gives his take on the best marketing strategy for manufacturers and small business owners. Together, Nicole and Damon discuss marketing as investing in your business and how combining sales and marketing teams can stimulate small business growth. It’s another episode filled with truth and encouragement that all entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and business owners need today.

SHOW NOTES

ABOUT DAMON PSITULKA

Damon Pistulka is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Exit Your Way. Exit Your Way® helps owners plan, prepare, and execute the sale of their business to exit with 2x+ with more $$$$ and a 90%+ success rate.

He started his career as a Mechanical Engineer and served as a consultant and Business Executive for several manufacturing businesses before Exit Your Way. Damon is passionate about baseball and has volunteered as Board President for a large local non-profit baseball organization.

HIGHLIGHTS

• [00:34] Damon says he’s an introvert but his passion for business and supporting small businesses helps him to push past the tendency to retreat.
• [05:33] Opportunity comes knocking and Damon answers the call. Hear the story that began his entrepreneurial journey and how it lead to his current venture Exit Your Way.
• [09:37] Damon talks about how Exit Your Way works hard to be different than an investment banker. No “as is, whereas” mindset. 
• [15:46] Failing is learning. Damon opens up about the one misadventure that cost his company a $3 million deal and what he learned from the experience.
• [21:15] Nicole and Damon discuss how having a saga, a mission can help entrepreneurs get back on their feet when they fall.
• [25:53] Hear what marketing strategy hasn’t worked and has worked for Damon. Sneak peak, building long-term relationships with clients and people who talk to your clients.
• [27:16] Marketing is farming. Damon and Nicole discuss the need for businesses to look at marketing as an investment and be open to pivoting.
• [30:17] Big chances = big results. Hear Damon’s take on lessening the pain of making mistakes.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• Connect with Damon Pistulka on Linked at https://www.linkedin.com/in/damonpistulka
• Visit Exit Your Way at https://exityourway.us or https://exityourway.ca
• Gwendolyn Greer
• John Jantsch podcast mentioned
• Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-donnelly-dmg
• Learn more about DMG Digital at dmgdigital.io

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Transcript

Ep 3_Audio_Tales of Misadventure 

[00:00:00] Julie Basello: Hey there. Thanks for joining us for Tales of Misadventure, a podcast all about business blunders. On this podcast, Nicole Donnelly, founder of DMG Digital talks to entrepreneurs and learns how they turn their lemons into lemonade. DMG Digital is a full service marketing agency focused on helping manufacturers attract new buyers through digital self serve.  

[00:00:23] Julie Basello: Nicole Donnelley is a fourth generation entrepreneur, a girl mom, and an avid traveler. Now let's head into a Tale of Misadventure with your host, Nicole Donnelly.  

[00:00:35] Nicole Donnelly: Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to Tales of Misadventure, where we talk all about entrepreneurial blunders, missteps, mistakes and failures. I'm Nicole Donnelly. 

[00:00:45] Nicole Donnelly: I am the founder of D M G Digital. We are a marketing agency that helps manufacturers improve their digital self-serve experience and web presence online, and I am so excited to have with me here today the one and only, [00:01:00] Damon Pistulka amazing, amazing South Dakotan. Wonderful human. So Damon is the co-founder and managing director of Exit Your Way. 

[00:01:11] Nicole Donnelly: Exit Your Way helps owners plan, prepare, and execute the sale of their business so they can exit with two times and more money and a 90% success rate prior to founding Exit Your Way, Damon has served as a consultant and business executive for several manufacturing businesses, and he started his career 

[00:01:30] Nicole Donnelly: as a mechanical engineer. Damon is also passionate about baseball and has volunteered as board president for a large local nonprofit baseball organization. Damon, welcome to the show today. I'm so happy you could be here. Thank you for joining me. How's your day going?  

[00:01:49] Damon Pistulka: It's going great. Thanks for having me here, Nicole. 

[00:01:51] Nicole Donnelly: You're welcome. Well, let's kick it off. Let's get started. I would love to know, let's give our listeners a little bit of background on who Damon is, the [00:02:00] person. So I have just a few questions for you, just so we can get to know you a little bit. If you could spend your day doing whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted, what would that look like? 

[00:02:10] Nicole Donnelly: What would you be doing? Damon?  

[00:02:12] Damon Pistulka: Riding a motorcycle in the mountains.  

[00:02:15] Nicole Donnelly: Oh, okay. What motorcycle are you  

riding?  

[00:02:18] Damon Pistulka: I don't have one now actually. Really? But I, I'm looking around to get another one. I, got an accident when my kids were young and I put it away and I borrowed one from a friend of, a couple months ago this fall, and went out and rode again, and I realized, yeah, I need one  

[00:02:33] Nicole Donnelly: oh, that's so awesome. 

[00:02:34] Nicole Donnelly: You know, when I was a kid, my dad had a motorcycle and every Sunday he would take me on rides and he'd take me up to the, I grew up in Southern California and we lived at the base of Mount Baldy. It's like Mountain High. So anyway, he used to drive, we'd drive all the way up to the base of Mount Baldy, and I just loved those Sunday drives. 

[00:02:51] Nicole Donnelly: It was so fun. So that is awesome. And the mountains where you live are incredible. Oh my gosh. What a beautiful place  

[00:02:57] Damon Pistulka: It's been in California down there too. I mean, around [00:03:00] Yosemite. There's a road that I remember coming outta, I believe it's called Sonora. Or something like that that goes, it's on the north side of Yosemite, but there was a road that I, that came out of there when I went, I went one summer to ride down Yosemite and background up the coast and stuff. 

[00:03:14] Damon Pistulka: It was so much fun that it was like 10 miles up. I turned around and came back down it again and went back up and again, just because it was so much fun and it was full of 25, 30 mile an hour corners and just, along the edge of the canyon.  

[00:03:27] Nicole Donnelly: Sounds stunning. Well, cool. 

[00:03:29] Nicole Donnelly: When you get that motorcycle and you start riding, I wanna see a picture of that. You gotta share a video. That's awesome. Very cool. All right. And what is something surprising most people don't know about you? Damon?  

[00:03:41] Damon Pistulka: I'm an introvert. I would mean I am perfectly happy just being in my own. Wow,  

[00:03:51] Nicole Donnelly: that does shock me. 

[00:03:53] Nicole Donnelly: So, because you're such an incredible network. How do you, how do you do that? How do you be such [00:04:00] an incredible networker and be such an introvert? What's your secret?  

[00:04:03] Damon Pistulka: I don't know. My passion, I think my passion is what it does it, I mean, I love talking business and helping business owners. 

[00:04:10] Damon Pistulka: That to me is just so much fun. And I think that's what really drives me to do that networking and be out there talking to people .  

[00:04:18] Nicole Donnelly: I love that. So tell me a little bit more about Exit Your Way. Like why did you start Exit Your Way? Or let's start, let's go back a little bit earlier actually. Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur when you were a little boy or is it something that just kind of came to you later in life? 

[00:04:31] Nicole Donnelly: What drove you to wanna eventually start exit your way and, and go in this direction?  

[00:04:39] Damon Pistulka: I realized that my path was not working for other people . Because I thought that I was gonna graduate with an engineering degree and work as an engineer. Cause I really liked that work. And I got into it in about five years. 

[00:04:57] Damon Pistulka: I realized that A, I'm [00:05:00] pretty good at engineering, but I like people and managing people more than, and leading people more than anything. Once I realized that, it was like, man, that's what I wanted to do. So I was 28, 29 and the company I worked with was growing really quick. They let me build a f, they let me design and build a facility in Tennessee and we were in South Dakota. 

[00:05:17] Damon Pistulka: So that was. Wow. And I was able to go down there, Greenfield, build it I ran it for five years. And that was a first taste at really leading people and stuff. And when I got that I was like, man, this is fun. but I soon realized that I was in a family business and I wasn't part of the family, and that's as far as I was going. 

[00:05:34] Damon Pistulka: And I was like, okay, now what do I do? I worked out and I, lucked into a job that was really close to us and it was a a bunch of smart investors bought this business. So now I'm working in an investor owned business with a got, a bunch of Price Waterhouse Cooper owners. These people have been consulting all over the world and finance and deals and all this kind of thing. 

[00:05:57] Damon Pistulka: And I was like, holy heck, [00:06:00] this is an incredible. I had never thought about business in that way. Never thought about how you connect the financial and the operational pieces of a business together. Invested a lot in me. They spent, they got me a mentor that was like in house with me. 

[00:06:17] Nicole Donnelly: Wow.  

[00:06:18] Damon Pistulka: Two days a week for an entire year . Wow. To help me and I was just like, and they sent me out to schools on finance and other things we were able to literally take that company from the brink of, I didn't realize it. I was running a facility for 'em first, but then I came and began running the company for 'em. 

[00:06:35] Damon Pistulka: We brought it from the brink of bankruptcy to making millions of dollars a year . And  

[00:06:43] Nicole Donnelly: Wow.  

[00:06:43] Damon Pistulka: It Was just a blast. And we were able to, that's where I learned, I was able to build a team of just phenomenal people. Just so many smart people that I love just seeing them. They have blossomed and taken on success. 

[00:06:56] Damon Pistulka: I've got a friend of mine, she's running a manufacturing company up here, and [00:07:00] I don't know, they might have a thousand people in there.  

[00:07:02] Nicole Donnelly: Wow.  

[00:07:03] Damon Pistulka: And a hundred million dollars in revenue, something like that. And other people all over the vice president of sales here and running Operation VPs all over. And it's just so cool to see this success those people have seen. 

[00:07:15] Damon Pistulka: But anyway, back to me.  

[00:07:17] Nicole Donnelly: But I just have to stop you. That must be so rewarding to be able to see the impact that the time that you invested in those people and see where they've gone from it like that is just, I don't know. I think that's so incredible.  

[00:07:29] Damon Pistulka: It's incredible. And it's in, it's inspiring to me and then it makes me want to help more people. 

[00:07:33] Damon Pistulka: Yeah.  

[00:07:34] Damon Pistulka: This is why the introvert comes out and gets out of the shell because I've been able to help people. This leading people is really just about allowing them to find themselves in what they love to. Yes. It's not, it's and just being there to support 'em. 

[00:07:50] Damon Pistulka: My journey has really been that. That company, that first company, we, the intention was building it and selling it. So in that process, [00:08:00] when we got to the end and things were turned around and we had, we'd done a bunch of other cool operational stuff that if we were in today's world with e-commerce, we would've went like gangbusters beyond that. 

[00:08:10] Damon Pistulka: But that was in the early two thousands before that was kind of well known and we were ready to. And then I was able to lead the team through selling the business. And we had gone out and looked at acquiring other business. We've raised money to acquire other businesses, and we were actually gonna acquire the biggest competitor in the field. 

[00:08:30] Damon Pistulka: But we got to the end and decided that, the value we had first talked about was not the value they were gonna take and it was too high. I got a lot of diligence and deal work through that in there. And then we sold the company and I was able to lead the team through selling a company and getting that all done and integrating the next one. 

[00:08:48] Damon Pistulka: The investors in that . I went off and did some other things, but eventually the investors in that I went and worked in a couple other companies for them doing turnarounds and other stuff and work. [00:09:00] We worked with other holding companies. But back to why I do what I do, and that's when I was 35 years old and we sold that first company. 

[00:09:07] Damon Pistulka: I was like, this is what I want to do. I wanted. 

[00:09:09] Damon Pistulka: You just knew it.  

[00:09:10] Damon Pistulka: I wanna do this. This is what I wanna do. I wanna help people do this and as I got through these other, things after I was doing it, I was like, I need to do this on my own because the. I just need to do it on my own because I can do, I can be much more valuable to an organization when you're just focused on that part of it, that part of building value, preparing for sale and selling a business because. 

[00:09:40] Damon Pistulka: I'm good at the operational part of it. I'm good at running the businesses. I'm good at doing that, but there's a lot of people that are good at that. And when you look at my skill , for whatever reason, I'm able to visualize that through what the companies look like and what we've gotta get done and, to be [00:10:00] attractive to that buyer, and then how to sell that to the buyer. 

[00:10:04] Damon Pistulka: And as I've been able to do that has become more and more apparent to me that and the people that I work with, their specific skillsets working together, we do it a lot differently because we bring that operational business mindset to what we do rather than the transactional mindset of an investment banker. 

[00:10:23] Damon Pistulka: We're thinking, Hey, cause an investment banker will sell, try to sell a business. Whereas as is where. We all know that term, as is, whereas. Kind of sucks. You're never selling the thing.  

[00:10:34] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:10:34] Damon Pistulka: We make sure it's like it's supposed to be. So it's attractive to buyers. 

[00:10:38] Damon Pistulka: You in the marketing, if you're not speaking, the buyer's stock, don't look like what the buyers want it to look like. You're not going very far. 

[00:10:44] Nicole Donnelly: You're absolutely right. I love that too. And it sounds like you've really found a niche for yourself, which I think is so key for small businesses, is you really have to really identify what it is that's your superpower. 

[00:10:54] Nicole Donnelly: Where, what it is that you're most passionate about and where there's a need. Like where's, there's a need in the market. And it sounds like you were [00:11:00] able really to identify like there really is a need for people to help them navigate this whole sales process because, as you know, my dad was an entrepreneur, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and when you think about like my great-grandfather, remember when he sold his business? 

[00:11:13] Nicole Donnelly: There's a lot of emotion involved. There's so much stress, there's family members and oh my gosh, it's just such a stressful ordeal to think about selling the business. So to have someone like you who can really help navigate all that and make sure that it's positioned in the best way for success. There's so many businesses that really small business owners that need that, you know, so that they can sell their business for the best value. 

[00:11:34] Nicole Donnelly: I think that's awesome. It's great.  

[00:11:35] Damon Pistulka: And we've, even since, we've been around, in Exit Your Way for seven years and we've changed a lot of what we do. We thought it was gonna be, consulting, organically growing, selling, and in the last two years, our growth by acquisition work, because most of our owners 

[00:11:51] Damon Pistulka: they want to increase the value of their business along with preparing it for sale, you know? So when we talk about our stuff and the value [00:12:00] increases is really where we get a lot of our benefits, because we're getting 'em on a growth path. But what we found recently is that owners within an industry buying other companies is much easier than someone trying to do, that from the outside. 

[00:12:18] Damon Pistulka: So if you've got someone that has a manufacturing business, say they've got a manufacturing business in the electronics industry or whatever it is. They probably know other electronics manufacturers like them. And if they want to grow and they're out there trying to grow and they're like, man, growth is really hard. 

[00:12:33] Damon Pistulka: Growth by acquisition might be a way because now I can call Nicole to see what Nicole's doing. Nicole's in the right age group. She might be thinking about retiring.  

[00:12:44] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:12:44] Damon Pistulka: I may be a little bit younger, but I got some more years to go. Maybe I'll buy Nicole's company. We'll put 'em together. We'll be a little bigger going forward and as you get bigger, you get more dollars per, 

[00:12:57] Damon Pistulka: dollar a profit when you sell it. [00:13:00] So it's a win-win. It's what the private equity and investment owners do, but they usually are doing it with bigger companies. But if you're an owner in a business. I mean, we've helped people. They've got $2 million revenue businesses, million dollar revenue businesses a year that are going well, I can buy two or three of my competitors using SBA loans and now I'm a $5 million business. 

[00:13:21] Damon Pistulka: If they're a $5 million business, at the end of the day, they're a million dollar business to start with. They buy a few companies, they're a $5 million business. Every dollar profit probably was two x, at the beginning, maybe. Now they're five x on every dollar.  

[00:13:35] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:13:36] Damon Pistulka: I mean they just, they increase in value if you have your base business set up to do that. 

[00:13:40] Damon Pistulka: So we really have seen a, change in that from the growth standpoint, cuz in the beginning we were doing a lot of helping people with a lot of organic growth and getting great results. But over the last couple of years, helping people with acquisitions has becoming a big part of our business .  

[00:13:56] Nicole Donnelly: That's so fascinating and I think it speaks a lot to, as entrepreneurs, something [00:14:00] we are always constantly having to be challenged with is like listening to the market, seeing the opportunity and having to pivot all the time. 

[00:14:07] Nicole Donnelly: Right? And so that's, I think, a really great example of that. And I think, you know, I worked with the client, who really struggled with pivoting. They were in a dental lab industry and the industry was changing. There was acquisitions happening, rollups happening, and the way that they had positioned their business for like 20 years was to go after this specific type of, dentist that was a private practitioner. 

[00:14:27] Nicole Donnelly: And what was happening is the market was shifting and the need for their specific type of dental lab services was shifting, but they couldn't. They weren't able, they just couldn't pivot. They weren't, they wouldn't, they weren't able to do it. And it just really created a lot of challenges for them cuz they couldn't make that shift. 

[00:14:41] Nicole Donnelly: So I think what you're saying speaks really so important for entrepreneurs. We constantly have to be thinking about like, what is it the market needs now? What are the opportunities? How do I need to pivot? And it never ends. Like you constantly have to be thinking about that. I think. So  

[00:14:54] Damon Pistulka: That's cool. Yeah. 

[00:14:55] Damon Pistulka: Yeah. And then just making it easier for your customers to do business with you.  

[00:14:58] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:14:58] Damon Pistulka: Those are things and [00:15:00] looking at it from their perspective.  

[00:15:01] Nicole Donnelly: Absolutely. So, let's talk about, I would love to do a little story time, Damon. Let's do a little story time. Let's, I'd love for you to talk about a time in, your entrepreneurial journey where you went through a pretty big mistake. 

[00:15:19] Nicole Donnelly: We all have to face them as entrepreneurs. It all happens. But, you know, I think, I'd love to hear like, tell us a story, although I'm sure it's very painful, so it won't feel like a happy very story like, but that is, it is what it is. It's tough and challenging being an entrepreneur, but tell us a story of something that's happened. 

[00:15:39] Nicole Donnelly: And what went wrong and most, importantly, what did you guys do because of it that, what did you learn from it? How did you take that experience Yeah. And make it, turn it into lemonade.  

[00:15:49] Damon Pistulka: Yeah. I think that, first of all, when people ask me this I go, I really can't remember 'em because there's because you go, it's [00:16:00] just part of it . 

[00:16:01] Damon Pistulka: It's part of it, right? Because it's learning. It's when you're a kid and you run too fast and fall down, or you didn't realize, Hey, maybe doing that wasn't so smart, but, I, you know, we have, when we started Exit Your Way, we started off pretty, with a pretty good bang and we had some, nice successes in the beginning. 

[00:16:19] Damon Pistulka: And, there was one client that, that was a really good client and we were all in with them doing the consulting and we had phenomenal results. We really did and really enjoyed working with a client and they, were just all the way through the process, we were increasing value. We had a target, got to the target, got ready to sell it. 

[00:16:40] Damon Pistulka: We're selling the business right down to the end, and it was multiples of what they ini originally had wanted. So multiples of the value that they originally wanted. So it was significantly higher. And a family member at the, literally within a couple weeks of signing the [00:17:00] closing documents convinced them that it wasn't a good decision. 

[00:17:04] Damon Pistulka: And,  

[00:17:05] Nicole Donnelly: Oh my gosh. 

[00:17:06] Damon Pistulka: For our company at the time, this was a pretty big deal cuz we had gone all in . With this client because it was taking me and another person, Andrew, snickering portion of our time. So we weren't doing much business development work we were doing, cause this was in the bag. We had great buyer buying the business and it was over three quarters of a million dollars. 

[00:17:37] Damon Pistulka: And you know this was two or two or so years into the startup. This was . It was good for us.  

[00:17:43] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:17:44] Damon Pistulka: And, that stung , so it went to nothing. And it went to nothing overnight, literally.  

[00:17:50] Nicole Donnelly: Oh my gosh. And, was that, was it they made the decision, they just decided they weren't gonna sell it at all. 

[00:17:55] Nicole Donnelly: They just wanted to hold onto it. Is that what the decision was?  

[00:17:58] Damon Pistulka: The decision was that it got a [00:18:00] lot more valuable overnight and the value was outside of anything that anybody would ever have supported in the market. And it was, you know, so that's just the way it was. You go, oh yeah, that kind of sucks cuz you know, and this actually, if I remember right, 

[00:18:19] Damon Pistulka: it may even happen around this time of the year.  

[00:18:22] Nicole Donnelly: Are you kidding? Like right before?  

[00:18:23] Damon Pistulka: I'm not. I think it was in the fall. I think. I don't remember. See how I gotta look? I don't even remember, right, because I'm past it. It's what it is, but what it taught us, it's like, listen, we, no matter what, I think appropriate contracts are needed when the stakes are high. 

[00:18:43] Damon Pistulka: Yes.  

[00:18:44] Damon Pistulka: They are needed. Even, it could be your best friend, right? And it's hard when someone that's close to you, but you just gotta say, listen, if something happens, we want to be able to walk away and talk about this later.  

[00:18:57] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:18:58] Damon Pistulka: And if we agree about it, [00:19:00] on it now we can, and we see this a lot in partnership disputes, right? 

[00:19:04] Damon Pistulka: We do value, business valuations for partnership disputes a lot. And if people would just go through, okay, if I don't, if it doesn't work out between us, how do we, how do you buy me out? How do I buy you out? Buy, sell agreements for partners is huge and. Just doing those kind of things makes it so much easier. 

[00:19:23] Damon Pistulka: So what we learned is basically we had to change our contracts. We had to change our contracts to the point that's listen, we get to a certain point and you're going through this process or you don't have to, but you're gonna pay us like we went through the process cuz we're there.  

[00:19:40] Nicole Donnelly: Yep. 

[00:19:40] Nicole Donnelly: Exactly. Cuz you've invested, at that point how many you'd been working on that, how, deal for how long?  

[00:19:46] Damon Pistulka: The deal part of it was about a year.  

[00:19:49] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:19:49] Damon Pistulka: But we had been consulting with them for, a year plus ahead of that too.  

[00:19:52] Nicole Donnelly: Man. Oh.  

[00:19:54] Damon Pistulka: And of course, we didn't have our pipeline full. 

[00:19:56] Damon Pistulka: It was empty as, bottom of Coke can, we had to start over, [00:20:00] so it really stunk. But, we learned from it and now we do things a lot differently. Yeah, I don't think that's happening again.  

[00:20:09] Nicole Donnelly: Sounds like you have processes in place to make sure, like you've always got a full pipeline in case the, shit hits the fan. 

[00:20:16] Damon Pistulka: It's probably, your pipeline is always, you always wanna fill your pipeline a little bit more, but it's one of those things.  

[00:20:22] Nicole Donnelly: Oh.  

[00:20:22] Damon Pistulka: You just learn. You just learn from that stuff. Now those hard lessons are things that you're gonna do. And, entrepreneurs, you're gonna get gut wrenching stuff . 

[00:20:30] Damon Pistulka: You're have gut wrenching stuff that's gonna hit you. The big, and people will see me post on LinkedIn or something about getting back up. I mean that. If you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you better get back up because just, Hey, today it's gonna be awesome. But tomorrow you can get punched in the gut. 

[00:20:46] Nicole Donnelly: Exactly.  

[00:20:47] Damon Pistulka: It's such, you gotta get back up after it otherwise, and in sales you talk, Gwendolyn Greer, she talks about sales and you know about how do the failures. You gotta get back up. And that's the thing is go.  

[00:20:59] Nicole Donnelly: Well what do you think it [00:21:00] like. What do you think it is that need put, that motivates people to get back up? 

[00:21:03] Nicole Donnelly: I feel as entrepreneurs, like you have to be reaching for something higher. Like you have to have a saga that you're, that's pulling you up. Because otherwise, if you're not, if there's, if that mission isn't strong enough for you and for your team.  

[00:21:18] Damon Pistulka: Yeah.  

[00:21:18] Nicole Donnelly: If they're not behind it, that when you get hit down hard enough, they're not gonna get back up. 

[00:21:22] Damon Pistulka: Yeah.  

[00:21:22] Nicole Donnelly: Because they don't believe in it. They don't have the vision, they don't have the, they don't see what it is that you're trying to do. And I think like just hearing you talk about the passion that you have for helping these small business owners, create something more valuable that they can sell, you can hear it in your voice, and that's what kind of pulls you up every day when you get knocked down. 

[00:21:39] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. I dunno, I think too, aren't we, like, I feel like as an entrepreneur, like I'm a glutton for punishment. But it's so hard and challenging, but it's like what I love about it, and I'm sure you probably feel the same way. Like,  

[00:21:49] Damon Pistulka: Yeah, yeah.  

[00:21:50] Nicole Donnelly: You just, you love it.  

[00:21:51] Damon Pistulka: Yeah. The saga is important, for us, for me personally, getting up in the day, it's just that I'm gonna help as many over, many [00:22:00] business owners overcome getting to the end of their business only to realize they've gotta close it down or gonna get, so much less than they do. And just the, I don't even know what the words to describe the, that disappointment, of business owners, when they get to the end and realize they didn't create something of value. 

[00:22:21] Damon Pistulka: And that will give the legacy, that's my saga is to make sure as many people don't, have that situation as I can.  

[00:22:30] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. And I think that's huge cuz we care so much as entrepreneurs are about our businesses, we put so much time into it and commitment and just blood, sweat, and tears. So to come at the end, towards the end of your life and, you know, not the end of your life, but  

[00:22:44] Damon Pistulka: Yeah end of your career. If they're at the age where it's oh man, I worked on this for, I built this business for 27 years, put my kids through college,  

[00:22:52] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:22:52] Damon Pistulka: Last built the homes, all this kind of stuff. And then they go, it's only worth that. Or it's, not sellable. 

[00:22:57] Damon Pistulka: And don't get me wrong, not [00:23:00] sellable, it's not something that's just a small business. This happens to 50 million dollar a year businesses, you can't sell ' em.  

[00:23:07] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:23:08] Damon Pistulka: Because there's too much risk because of owner dependency or customer concentration or supplier concentration. There's just all these things that can derail this, and it's not just these small business owner. 

[00:23:21] Damon Pistulka: It's a 10, 20, 50, a hundred million dollar business owner that finds themselves in these situations and it' like, Man, it's not good. 

[00:23:31] Nicole Donnelly: So interesting because to be honest, like you think about it, like the owner dependency, for example, to me as just, I've always just thought, that's, that seems to be like a small business problem, right? 

[00:23:39] Nicole Donnelly: Because once you get to a certain size, you have to have scaled it to some point where the owner isn't as involved as much. So that's so interesting to me that's still an issue for some of these large, larger organization state, Damon.  

[00:23:51] Damon Pistulka: We had a $50 million, $40 million a year client several years ago that we helped through that situation with four owners in it, four owners in it, [00:24:00] CEO, CFO, COO, and a technical specialist. 

[00:24:03] Damon Pistulka: What's gonna happen if somebody comes in and pays you tens of millions of dollars? All those people don't have the same incentive to work .  

[00:24:14] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:24:15] Damon Pistulka: Buyers know that investment buyers, cuz at that size it's investment buyers or other larger companies, they know that what's gonna happen after the money comes through. 

[00:24:23] Damon Pistulka: So we had to help. They had to get other people in place. They had to, to transition into those, get all that stuff ready. Then they were able to do it. They were doing it.  

[00:24:32] Nicole Donnelly: You do have to be always thinking about a succession plan.  

[00:24:34] Damon Pistulka: Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, that's one of the biggest things we help with our clients, as we get into preparing them businesses, is really having the appropriate management team, executive team, leadership in place prior to the sale and on the ground long enough to show they can do what they need to do. Cuz it's distinct. It's distinct. If you've got a million dollars in profit, you need to do it one way. If you've got five plus million in [00:25:00] profit, it needs to be built another way. 

[00:25:01] Damon Pistulka: If you're gonna sell it to a strategic buyer, it's gotta be built a different way. And these things all play into how much money I'm gonna get for it when I get out the door, try to go out the door. So. 

[00:25:12] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. Wow. So cool. Man, this is so much fun. I just wanna do this all day. Can we just talk? Let's just not work and let's just talk about it all day. 

[00:25:23] Damon Pistulka: No.  

[00:25:24] Nicole Donnelly: I feel like no, cause I would so much from you, Damon. It's amazing. So when the time comes and I'm ready to sell my business. I'm gonna come to you, man.  

[00:25:35] Damon Pistulka: Definitely. Oh, sheesh.  

[00:25:36] Nicole Donnelly: Very good. Okay, so I have a few more questions for you. Oh, man. This is, we're like coming up on a time. Okay, let's shift gears a little bit. Let's talk about marketing. Okay. I own a marketing agency. As a business owner, you constantly have to be thinking about how are you gonna get new business? How are you gonna market yourself? What have you seen that's worked really well for you? In marketing your business, [00:26:00] what's worked really well and what hasn't worked? 

[00:26:03] Damon Pistulka: Okay. What hasn't worked? Direct outreach. Direct outreach is just a thing that, that is, people don't wanna be sold to. Yep. We used to try that. We use to do that years ago. In when we started and direct outreach. Two things. In, in, in our kind of work, if you're doing direct outreach, you're gonna get people that are, desperate and price shoppers. Cause they don't know you. They don't, they're either in a position, they're just like hoping for that last straw or they're trying to find something for nothing. And neither one of those are good.  

[00:26:37] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:26:37] Damon Pistulka: So.  

[00:26:37] Nicole Donnelly: It's a much harder. Much harder sell.  

[00:26:40] Damon Pistulka: Oh, it's gonna be this much. 

[00:26:41] Damon Pistulka: Sure you can't. And you wanna adjust the scope. No, we can't. We need all. It is what it is. You know, you can go to score, you can go to all these other places and get free business help go there. That's a great spot, . But it's, but that's, 

[00:26:56] Damon Pistulka: That's what hasn't worked.  

[00:26:58] Nicole Donnelly: Okay.  

[00:26:59] Damon Pistulka: What has [00:27:00] worked is long-term relationship building. Because I, and at a, at scale, at scale, because if you can, I think the key is building relationships with people that have one to many relationships with your type of clients. So for us CPAs, lawyers, high level executive advisors, that's who we talk to. 

[00:27:26] Damon Pistulka: Because if a CPA that really recognizes the value in what we do, cause there's a difference. You'll see that when you work with people, there's gonna be people that recognize the value in what you do, and you have to communicate it well. But, you build relationship with them and over time and it'll take time to, to progress. 

[00:27:46] Damon Pistulka: When people talk about marketing as farming, it truly is cuz it's not gonna happen overnight. But I can tell you if you invest in those things and you invest hard and you put in the effort and do what you need to do, it [00:28:00] returns in ways that you just, stuff just shows up. And that's the cool part about it. 

[00:28:08] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:28:08] Damon Pistulka: So that building those long-term relationships is the best. And for us, the faces of business has been great for that. , Kurt and I chose, have been great for that. Just building those relationships and continue to build relationships and we're blessed now that we get a lot of leads. 

[00:28:22] Damon Pistulka: We get a lot of leads and if we have to talk to, to, to 10 or 20 to get one, that's good. That's cool. But we talk to tons of people and it seems like. The more we help people connect people, share information, share talented people, the more it comes back around.  

[00:28:42] Nicole Donnelly: Oh, that's so true. I love what you said too about finding partners that can kind of resell for you. 

[00:28:47] Nicole Donnelly: That's so huge. Yeah. I found that in my own business too. Like I have se several partners that basically are just, they just bring business to me. And it's so much more efficient, effective, and I [00:29:00] just, I think that's a really great advice for a small businesses who wanna get scrappy is to figure out who are those gonna, those affiliates gonna be for you that have similar services or see similar clients and need your ancillary services. 

[00:29:10] Nicole Donnelly: That's huge. And the long-term relationship building, you're absolutely right. Marketing is absolutely a long game. It is not something that happens overnight and you really do have to commit to building those relationships at scale. And I think what you're seeing too, like you've really gone really hard on LinkedIn and I think that's also something small businesses need to think about is 80% of the purchasing process now is happening online. 

[00:29:33] Nicole Donnelly: It's not the way it used to be where, you have a brick and mortar storefront and that's only gonna increase over time. So it's how you're showing up in those online cha, those online channels. And for small business owners, I think finding one channel that they can really just go hard on, and really just knock it out is a great. Like what you've done, 

[00:29:53] Nicole Donnelly: is a really great way. Don't try to just. Marketing's so complex you can try so many different things and if you do try to do too many things all at once, [00:30:00] it's just gonna be setting you up to be, to for mediocrity. So if you can really do it one. Yeah. So that's really great advice. I love that, Damon. 

[00:30:06] Nicole Donnelly: That's cool. Okay, so I have one final question for you.  

[00:30:10] Damon Pistulka: Okay.  

[00:30:11] Nicole Donnelly: My last question is, obviously you wanna mitigate risk as much as possible. We know as entrepreneurs there's gonna be mistakes, there's gonna be failures. It's a rollercoaster. But what do you think, do you have any advice for business owners on what they can do to keep those mistakes from being catastrophic? 

[00:30:27] Nicole Donnelly: Is there like a vitamin that they can be taking every day so that those mistakes can be as the least risky as possible? 

[00:30:38] Damon Pistulka: I don't think, if you don't take big chances, you're not gonna get big results, so that's one of the things that, I'm probably not good to ask about that.  

[00:30:45] Nicole Donnelly: No, I'm glad I wanna hear all about it.  

[00:30:48] Damon Pistulka: Because that, that to me is if you aren't. Yes, control your risk. Take calculated risks. Don't jump in and spend, a million dollars on something without really knowing what the [00:31:00] downside potential could be. Yeah. But think about the, what the upside potential could be. Because if the upside potential is a hundred million and you're spending a million and that million isn't gonna put you out of business, literally that's the decision I make. 

[00:31:13] Damon Pistulka: Is it gonna put us out of business or it just gonna make me kinda rethink. Cause if it's not putting you outta business, but you got that kind of opportunity, and you just got a good chance of succeeding. That's a gut check. Do it. Why not? Why not? And. Cause if you're not, because otherwise I can do these, all these little incremental things and that to me is just like death by a thousands. 

[00:31:38] Damon Pistulka: Yeah, that's cool that I made 27 cents more. But listen, it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. I'm by at the end of the year if I continually push what I'm trying to do to the point and say, listen, I'm gonna spend that million dollars because,  

[00:31:56] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:31:57] Damon Pistulka: I really think I can make that a hundred million dolllars. [00:32:00] Not just in my mind, but I've talked to people, we've agreed upon it, we see the vision, how we're gonna do it, invest in that money is there. 

[00:32:07] Damon Pistulka: Like you said, marketing is a huge leap. And I believe small companies need to invest significant amounts of money in marketing.  

[00:32:15] Nicole Donnelly: Yes. 

[00:32:16] Damon Pistulka: Because, like you said, 80% of the buyers wanna buy online. If you're not making it real easy for them, buy to buy online, and get them to a purchasing decision. 

[00:32:28] Damon Pistulka: And by answering questions, make it easy, give 'em more information. Let 'em go down the path themselves. All those kind things. And then it's all gotta be connected into your own internal systems and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. But these take investment. And this gonna take the long term to pay off, but it, but when I go back and look at people in the past that have been successful, I come back to people that in the consulting industry, 10, 15 years ago. 

[00:32:56] Damon Pistulka: You take any of them. The guy that we interviewed on the, the Friday show, the [00:33:00] Duct Tape Marketing guy, I forget his name, but I'm sorry.  

[00:33:02] Nicole Donnelly: John Jantsch, I think John.  

[00:33:03] Damon Pistulka: Yeah. Yeah, John, yeah. Super successful. The, and then there's two or three others like that I go back, man, they're just, they were the godfathers of this stuff, right? 

[00:33:11] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah.  

[00:33:12] Damon Pistulka: And they set up systems. They took the time when it wasn't, to allow their customers, to allow people to really do this much better and do it more online. If you're not doing that, you're kind of, I think that, been proven, it's, it works.  

[00:33:28] Nicole Donnelly: No, you're absolutely right. I think it's all about scaling your sales team, right? 

[00:33:32] Nicole Donnelly: Especially manufacturers who have traditionally have like large, you know, sales teams in-house or whatever that are doing outbound calling. We talked about outbound outreach. Those days are long gone, you know?  

[00:33:44] Damon Pistulka: Yeah.  

[00:33:44] Nicole Donnelly: Digital marketing and sales is now becoming this smarketing combo, and I think progressive companies see that and realize and understand, Hey look, if we wanna really be successful and grow, we have to combine sales and marketing together and figure out a way to scale the sales team [00:34:00] online so that people are self-selecting, they're self-qualifying themselves. 

[00:34:04] Nicole Donnelly: Because buyers today, they don't like talking to salespeople, especially the new millennials that are coming up. They just wanna be able to make a purchase. You know?  

[00:34:12] Nicole Donnelly: Yeah. And even for, you gotta share pricing. You gotta share. You gotta share your pricing and even the, large deals like what you're dealing with, there's ways that you can, what you're doing with your faces of business, that's sale, scaling your sales team. 

[00:34:23] Nicole Donnelly: You're creating content that lives on forever that people can access at any time. All the nuggets of wisdom you've shared here, people can benefit from. They don't have to call you and talk to you about it. You're building that relationship with them online. 

[00:34:35] Nicole Donnelly: So everything that you're doing, I think is huge for small businesses to be thinking about and on investment. So often people see marketing as an expense. and I like to try to encourage business owners to think about it. Like you invest in capital equipment, you need to think about marketing in the same way. 

[00:34:51] Nicole Donnelly: It's an investment in your company. You have to think about it as that rather than a line item that's an expense on your books 

[00:34:58] Damon Pistulka: yes you do.  

[00:34:59] Nicole Donnelly: [00:35:00] Cool. Damon, this has been so much fun. Thank you for joining me. Awesome. I love it. You're a rockstar. You're doing such great work. 

[00:35:06] Nicole Donnelly: Where can people reach you if they wanna learn more about you?  

[00:35:09] Damon Pistulka: They can find me on LinkedIn or come to our website, exityourway.com, exityourway.us, exityourway.ca, if you're in Canada, you know they can find me.  

[00:35:22] Nicole Donnelly: Exit Your Way, I've got it. And if I wanna exit, I'm gonna exit your way, damon.  

[00:35:27] Damon Pistulka: There you go. 

[00:35:28] Nicole Donnelly: All right. Very good. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. We'll talk to you soon.  

[00:35:32] Damon Pistulka: Thanks for having me.  

[00:35:33] Julie Basello: Tales of Misadventure is produced, edited, and moderated by Julie Basello with Basello. Media Music by Marcus Wei . Special thanks to our amazing guests and the entire DMG digital team. Visit us at dmgdigital.io to get access to all our podcast interviews and other helpful resources. 

[00:35:51] Julie Basello: And if you'd like to get updates on the latest and greatest, please sign up for our email newsletter. We'll see you next time for another episode of Tales of Misadventure. Until [00:36:00] then, keep falling forward.