rustrated by the poor performance of his email outreach, today's guest finally decided to just pick up the phone.

And to his surprise, it worked.

Andrew Kurzrok bought a ductwork fabricator a little over an hour from his home in Northern Virginia.

After awkwardly calling the receptionist back a few times when she didn't put him through correctly, he was finally able to leave a message on the voicemail of the owner.

And he got a call back. (Thanks to the owner's wife, we learn.)

In addition to the story of how he acquired this 22-employee ductwork business, Andrew and I discuss how he structured the deal.

Ductwork demand is tied to construction, which as you know is notoriously cyclical, so Andrew was careful to give himself room to weather those inevitable periods of soft demand.

You'll hear us talk about over equitization, using less SBA debt and more of his own cash to buy the business.

This is in important consideration as you structure your deal.

More equity means a lower rate of return, yes.

But it also means less risk.

So if you're not optimizing for IRR (Andrew is not), but instead for cash flow, or a long-term hold, or just becoming an owner without living on the razor's edge, consider bringing more equity to your acquisition if you can.

It's easy to be wowed by how little of their own capital a business buyer put into a deal (guilty!), but it is not always the best approach to put in as little equity as possible.

Listen for this segment in today's conversation with Andrew.

And here he is, Andrew Kurzrok, owner of Hopewell Sheet Metal Manufacturing.