Host: Dave Bramlett is my guest today. Dave is a guy who has bought businesses for years. He's had W2 jobs and he has started a business. But as you'll hear, the overarching theme of his career is buying businesses, an eclectic variety of them. The business we talk about today is an online resume writing service he acquired to start easing himself into retirement. I wanted to have Dave on for a little variety. A reminder that not every business buyer is a capital S searcher. Acquisition Entrepreneurship comes in all shapes and sizes. Enjoy my conversation with serial business buyer Dave Bramlett. Welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith. Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs and on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. The Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition Summit at MIT is coming up. As we all know, success in entrepreneurship through acquisition ETA is all about people and specifically your leadership of the employees that you inherit when you acquire a business. And that is the theme of this year's summit at mit. Leading high performing teams. I'll be there. I'm actually moderating a panel about how and when to make changes at a business you've acquired. A topic that regular listeners know comes up again and again in the interviews here on Acquiring Minds. So highly recommended you come. It's a virtual event. Friday, March 11 to learn more, go to mitsearchfunds.com youm'll see a link at the top of the page to the summit. It's going to be a great event. Last year there were hundreds of attendees. Friday, March 11th mitsearchfunds.com Dave Bramlett thank you for joining me today on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Well thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to it.

Host: Just before COVID started, you closed on a business that provides resume writing services to job seekers, an online business and your acquisition is a bit different than those of my typical guest who are early or mid career and buy businesses to accelerate those careers. In your case, you were actually easing into retirement and wanted a part time business to keep active and be a good investment. So you're coming up now on two years as the owner of Resume Writing group and we're going to talk today about how it's gone, but why don't you give us the quick history on you? I know acquisition entrepreneurship is a theme of your entire career, so give us just a high level and then we'll get into the story of Resume Writing group.

Guest: You bet. You bet. So yeah, I'm a serial business buyer. I guess I've always been Interested in them. I look at businesses even when I'm not looking to buy. I don't know what it is, my wife laughs at me, but there I am. I'm just interested in the interworkings of a business and how people start a business, how they grow a business, what their struggles are, where their challenges are. And it's just something I've always enjoyed. My. I went to San Francisco in the early 90s for the dot com and we were an online business much like ebay. We were actually head and head competitors with them at one time and we did take it public and we were a dot com failure as it turned out. Stuff was coming back to us as quickly as we were selling it. So it was a disaster waiting to happen. But from that experience and from moving over there, I was able to, to make a little money. And I came back to Phoenix, Arizona in about 95 or 6 and I purchased a business. I was looking for something to do, I was looking for something new to do. I looked at a ton of stuff and for whatever reason, I purchased a home delivery business of pet food.

[4:01] Host: Okay.

Guest: I bought it from a mom and a pop who were running it kind of out of a small little storage area. They weren't really, in my opinion, giving it the attention that it needed. And I, I just, there was something about it that just grabbed me and next thing you know I'm, I'm delivering pet food and going how did I get here? But, but there I was.

Host: That's how a lot of my guests are. The businesses they buy are just things they didn't even know where business is, you know, six months earlier and there they are running.

Guest: And that's, that was me and at the time my fiance, she was working. So it was me and her working the business. We've since married and, and made some Arizona natives and we've done a couple businesses together. But so it was me and her, we, we got this thing and we, we, we, we ran with it. We, we brought on some new distributorships, started selling to some stores. We took it from doing oh, 30 deliveries a day to well over 200 by the time I sold that business each and every day. So that's a thousand deliveries a week, a lot of moving parts, a lot of semis backing up and me loading up. We ended up with four drivers and when I started it was me and another guy part time and we ended up with four full time drivers backing up every morning loading up their trucks. I was approached by a company out of Colorado that wanted to franchise the entire home delivery of pet food business. And they made me an offer I couldn't understand, and I said, sold. So we sold that business and I purchased a. Another business. And completely unrelated. It was night and day. It was a. A distribute. Distribute distribution business. Excuse me, of. Of chemicals. Our main product was a. A product. A niche product that we sold to concrete companies throughout Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, where they would clean their trucks at the end of the day and get that concrete off there. So it's not breaking me and your windows as they're driving down the freeway. I never did really get that business to do what I had hoped it would do. It did nicely. It did what I purchased, and it just kind of stayed flat for me. I ended up selling that business as well. Bought a couple small little businesses. I bought a bouncy business that I found really quickly that your Friday, Saturday and Sundays are no longer yours. You're out there either picking up or delivering bouncies to people that are having birthday parties on the weekends like people do. So we had two little babies, and it just wasn't working for my lifestyle. My homework balance, it was just not a good fit. So I literally was in and out of that business in six months. And then I said, well, I started a. Actually, a friend of mine sent me a little thing and he said, hey, you got to take a look at this. Home photography for the real estate industry. And this was right in the infant stages of where people were actually taking decent photos of homes. It used to be just horrible photos out there. And. And he sent me this little kit of this thing that kind of did a 360 view of a home. Yeah, you probably. You probably don't remember, but they were horrific. When I look back on those, I go, I can't believe I even sold that to somebody. But it was cutting edge at the time. And there we were. So I was on the phone calling real estate agents, trying to get their business. I ran that business for 15 years. I just sold it. I sold it in March 2020 when I purchased resume writing group. It's still up and running, and I'm still kind of involved in it a little bit, Just helping her out, but. So I purchased Resume Writing Group. March 2020. One week after I purchased, all hell broke loose with COVID 19. Company shut down and sent everybody home. Nobody hiring, nobody looking for work. It was a painful 2020 with COVID because our business, we just. Nobody needed the resumes that they once did. They just simply weren't looking for Work. Nobody was hiring. There was nobody to go interview with because everybody's afraid to sit across the desk from you.

[8:21] Host: Dave, before we get in, I want to hear all about the resume, this, this experience and how you deal with COVID But before we do, let me just, let me just pick on a couple of your points of hit. Your bio.

Guest: Yeah.

Host: So I'm struck by the fact that you kind of made buying businesses your career. You had a stint in San Francisco, you've, you've had jobs, but in many. It sounds like a lot of the time you were working on a business that you'd acquired. What is it about that? And you know, you started by saying that you're a serial business buyer. What is it about that, about you that makes you that? And, and why buy businesses rather than start them? Especially since you have, you have started businesses from scratch. The real estate photography business. So, you know, talk me through why this career of serial business buying.

[9:02] Guest: Yeah. And I don't know where I, where it came from, but once I started to look at businesses and I would look at their books and I mean, I could literally look at 30 or 40 businesses before making a purchase.

Host: Sure.

Guest: So the devil's in the details, as they say. And once you get into somebody's books and records and you meet them in person, sometimes you, you're turned on by that, sometimes you're quite turned off. I've always liked to buy an existing business simply because day one, you walk into cash flow.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: In most businesses, you're walking into a business that's been around for whether three, five, 10 years, they've got a customer base already, something solid that you can build off of. You don't have to go out and find that first customer. So that always appealed to me. I'm somebody that is very financially conservative. I'm a person that lives below their means. And for me, cash flow has always been king to me. So I always liked to walk into a business that had been around, kind of gone through the bumps and trials and failures. And hopefully, you know, I wouldn't make the same mistakes that the original owner made.

Host: And when you, when you started a business from scratch, the real estate photography business, what inspired you in that moment to start from scratch rather than going out there and finding something to buy again?

Guest: Well, the one thing that grabbed me about that business is there was nothing like it on the market that I was going to listings and nobody was doing what. This gentleman had introduced me to this 360 kind of pan view. So I used to Send it used to set up a tripod in the middle of the room and it, and it would give the buyer a feeling that they were sitting in that home spinning around. And I thought that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. And so that's what spurred me to buy that piece of equipment. And then I started picking up the phone and calling the agents and I would send them a sample of what I was offering and, and I was getting that reaction from them, like, wow, that's cool. Can I have one of those? Yes, you can. And it grew, it grew quite quickly for me. We picked up one of the biggest agents in Phoenix almost immediately and we were doing, you know, two or three homes a day pretty quickly. So it was automatic cash flow. I had, I had my cash flow that I've always wanted. So, and it just grew from there. And, and it's a, it's a very solid, busy business today.

Host: And that business you were an owner operator in, and I think you are an owner operator, have been an owner operator in most cases. Why with that business, did you not, and we're just taking that because it's your most recent business that you sold. Why not get in a manager and you know, and, and, and hold on to the business and have whatever cash flows left over, you know, know, line your pockets.

[12:03] Guest: Yeah. You know, and I, I've second guessed myself on that, to be honest with you. Will. I don't know. I, I, I, I'm, I'm definitely a control person. I like things done a certain way and I, I, I had many photographers that would work for me over the years and a couple of them might have fit that role of being not only a photographer, but kind of running the day to day operations. It was a business that didn't allow me, well, I never gave it a chance to allow me to, to get away from, you know, in real estate, when an agent calls you today, they want photos tomorrow.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: And, and there's just, there's just no lead, lead time. You can't tell them, hey, I can get out there in two weeks. I'm, I'm in Hawaii. So I, I was just always right on the front line.

Host: Barely keeping your head kind of above water.

Guest: Yeah, I was on the front line and, and I wish I, you know, in hindsight that may have been the better move for me. But here we are today and I, and I, I just didn't do that. I decided to sell the business.

Host: And when you went looking for your acquisition, you were in fact looking for Kind of a part time business. Give me the criteria of the, of the business type of business you were looking for that was going to ease you into retirement.

Guest: Yeah. So it was going to be online. No matter what it was, it was going to be an Amazon FBA business. It ends up being res. Excuse me, resume writing. But I was looking at all kinds of different online businesses selling products. Mostly I was a little turned off by the Amazon business model simply because Amazon kind of has their thumb on you and you'll do things their way or you won't do them at all.

Host: Right.

Guest: And, and when they find a successful product, next thing you know they like to be your competitor. And so that kind of turned me off from the whole Amazon business model or the ebay business model. And I stumbled across a resume writing group which had been in business for 16 years at the time. And you know that's a long time to be online. Yeah. And they, they had, they had good sales numbers. They had eight writers that were on staff in place, two managers in place. I, I have a home up in the mountains here in Phoenix, Arizona and it allows me to take my laptop and head up there for a couple weeks and I, I can literally do it from anywhere. So I. It was always going to be something online. It was always going to be something that gave me some freedom. So that's what I was looking for.

Host: And doing E commerce where you're, you know, moving widgets is different than doing people's resume, which you know, yes, that's online but there's also. But you're essentially selling a service and a delicate one at that. People, people are touchy about their resumes naturally. I. So while they're both online, they're quite different businesses. I assume the fact that this came with management and writers in place is kind of what made you feel like it might not have been so service intensive on your part. Talk me through how you thought about that.

[15:11] Guest: Yeah, I would agree with that. Will. I definitely like to have the managers were in place. The main manager has been with this company since it started from day one. So she's been.

Host: 16 years.

Guest: 16 years and now she's been with me for two and she's fantastic. She lives in Denver, Colorado and we do what we're doing, zoom a lot. And so yeah, that, so the infrastructure was there. I never would have dreamt when I purchased it how particular people happen to be about their resumes. I often compare it to selling shirts online that never fit. There's a lot of. If you're Selling clothing online, the return rate is like 60%.

Host: So.

Guest: And this business here is, is very particular with the, with the end user. They send us a resume that is incredibly poor written, poorly written, but when we send them back a professional one, they become critics quite quickly. So it's been a challenge and, and we get through it every day. But yes, it's, it's, it's a difficult product to sell.

Host: And you had touched on the numbers that you liked of the business. Can you give the audience any sense of size of business or number of resumes? Anything you can share to give us a sense of scale here?

Guest: Yeah, so we do a pretty hefty business. Our average month will be between 90 and 120,000 in sales with an average ticket price of 249. You can kind of back into the amount of resumes that we're churning out on a, on a monthly basis. The number.

Host: So that's a million. Million and up. A million to. Yeah, about 1.2 or 3 million.

Guest: Last year we did 1.2. So yeah, yeah, it's, it's a lot of 250 sales. Yeah, sales have been flat since I purchased it. Actually down some 30% this last six month period of, of ending of 2021. It was just a, it was a tough finish to the year. Now we're off, off and running here in 2022 and, and January's tracking for. Looks like we'll do probably 130, 140, 000 in sales in January, which is typical. January, February, March, April, May. Busy months. Right. People, they're going to join the gym and get a job right after the new year. So it's our, it's our busy time.

Host: Are people getting jobs now? I keep reading that no one wants to, no one wants to do that.

Guest: You know, Will, that's the greatest question ever. There's a little pulse out there, but not when I look back at years like 2017, 18, 19. We're still behind those numbers even though we're having a busy month. They could do, you know, 150, 60,000 in sales in a given month, historically speaking.

[18:14] Host: So this is still, you're still basically suffering in the wake of COVID It kind of hasn't. So I stopped you when you were about to get into that. So tell us, you buy this business, you know, you wake up the next morning essentially, and Covid hits and, and really things haven't fully recovered. You're down. Your sales are kind of 60, 70% of what they, what you projected and what they had historically been right.

Guest: Absolutely correct. And we'll probably, I don't know that 2022 will be a whole bunch of improvement. I'd be thrilled to, to kind of stay flat. I mean, we're still a profitable company. We're still making money. The writers are making money, the managers are getting paid. I'm profitable. My return is not what I had hoped it would be on my investment, but I'm profitable. So nobody could have predicted COVID 19. I could have bought a restaurant. And where would I have been if I'd have bought a restaurant a week before COVID Out of business within two weeks. Right. So I'm fortunate that we're still thriving and making money. Not what I had hoped and dreamt for, but I think we'll get back there. I hope we're on the tail end of COVID and people start coming back to work and companies start hiring again. So I'm very optimistic for 2022.

Host: And aside from the sales numbers, which are disappointing, but you're making it work, what about all the other aspects of the business that you were projecting? So, for example, the hours per week, the online nature, is this all meeting your expectations, Exceeding your expectations? Talk us through that.

Guest: Yeah, I probably dedicate three or four hours a day to the business. So however that multiplies out 20 or so a week, I check in throughout the day sometimes on just where we're at on sales for the day and how the traffic is looking from our pay per click ads. All in all, it's. It's exactly what I had hoped for. As far as my freedom is concerned, I'm still that guy that likes to be in there poking around. And I've had both my managers tell me, dave, we got this. We got this. So I've learned to trust and back off and let people do what they do best. And I focus more on the marketing side of the business. And how is our pay per click campaigns going and how are our websites performing? We'll try different things from time to time and see what kind of results we get. So overall, pretty much what I had anticipated when I purchased an online business.

Host: You know, Dave, this one sounds better than previous ones in the sense that you are really. It sounds like you're really working, you know, quote unquote, on the business this time around more than in the business. You try to work in the business here and your managers swat your hand away and say, we got this. And so, and so, you know, working on the marketing and that kind of big, bigger picture. Stuff is where you can get more leverage. So that seems like a. From that perspective, it seems great, I mean great to buy business and have the existing managers say, hey new boss, we got this. Please don't worry about it.

[21:27] Guest: I'm really lucky. I've got two great managers and this year I've been focusing on trying to. I've been making some phone calls to some headhunter type businesses, some employment agencies and seeing if we can be. If they'd like to be an affiliate of ours and promote their clients to use our resume service. So that's kind of been my focus here in January so far. I've got a couple nice people we're in talks with and so I'm going to try and build the business a little bit from the backside in. And not so dependent on our pay per click campaigns because we spend an enormous amount of money monthly, upwards of $50,000 a month on pay per click ads. Yeah.

Host: Wow. So. And is that where the majority of business comes from or you do. Okay, so you're. It's mostly people just classic searching for resume services and they come through as opposed to referral service or.

Guest: Yes.

Host: Or excuse me, word of mouth.

Guest: Yeah, I'm trying to build up maybe a little referral business to offset some of that, you know, if I, if I could reduce my pay per Click spend by 10%. Right. Because I've, because I brought on some affiliates. That's bottom line money.

Host: Yeah, exactly. And where, by the way, where did you find this business?

Guest: Biz by Sell.

Host: Biz by Sell, Yeah. And are interesting that you bought a business, an online business on Biz by Sell. I know, I know that online businesses are listed there from time to time, but it's not generally associated with, with that. Typically, you know, the vast majority of businesses I see on Biz by seller are meat space businesses, not online businesses. But that has Biz by Sell kind of always just been your go to and that's. Or did you have other sources of deals as well? And on that point, do you reach out to business brokers at all? Do you work with brokers or is it mostly just browsing online listings?

Guest: I have worked with some local brokers. There's a local business website here where they sell Phoenix based businesses. So that's another site that I used to peruse and bug the brokers and they'd be like, oh Dave, you're back. You want to look at another business? Yes, I do. But bizpacel has a very large online presence. An online business presence. There's Hundreds and hundreds of online businesses for sale on Biz by Sell. And it's kind of been my main. It's probably the largest online marketplace for businesses to be bought and sold. So it's always been my go to.

Host: And some of the previous businesses that you acquired, I guess before this had been the moon balance business and the pet delivery businesses or the pet food delivery. I know that Biz Buy Sell is, you know, in Internet terms it's, it's even older than your business, Dave. It's like a 25 year old. It's like a 25 year old site. Did you find those businesses on BizBuysell way back when, do you recall?

[24:21] Guest: I don't remember on the pet food where I got that from? I. I want to believe it would have been Biz by Sell or the local Phoenix business broker site that, that all the business brokers post their listing on. It may have been that site. The bounce business came to me from a business broker here locally that had showed me a bunch of businesses and one day he just called me and said, hey, what do you want to take a look at this one? And I did and ended up buying it. But primarily it's all been through Biz by Sell primarily.

Host: And just a few more questions for you here, Dave. On the resume writing group, the how do you diligence. How did you diligence this business? Did you, you know, talk to the existing owner and I mean all of, all of these features that we've talked about, the dependence on ppc, the really established management team, the two managers and the writers, just talk to me about what that looked like.

Guest: Well, yeah, the due diligence is by far the most important thing you can do when buying an existing business. You've got to get in there and you've got to delve into the. To their books and records. Typically, people running small businesses are not the best keepers of records. I've. I've had things handed to me that I was like, what would you like me to do with this? You know, scratch paper? Oh, I paid myself five grand. Okay, great. This particular business was well run. It was run through by an accounting bookkeeper. So it was very detailed. It was easily provable. That money in, money out was quite easy to see. It wasn't a business where, you know, the owner was writing off their car and their gas and their, you know, all the personal things that people like to run through a business. You've got to, typically when you look at a small business, you've got to Separate what the, what the business owner is is using for personal use. And it can be difficult at times especially if they're not using a bookkeeper and, and they're not real good at keeping books. But this particular one was, was the books and records were outstanding. Everything's was, was very verifiable. So I felt comfortable on the numbers which is the big hurdle for buying any business. And yes, I, I went out and I spent time with the owner at he's in Florida and I went out and spent time with him and then eventually did a four day stay over at his home. And, and we, he taught me the business how, what his role in the business was during that time and how to, how to do all the things on the back end of the website and just all the stuff that goes into running an online business. I left there.

[27:14] Host: So after you acquired it, you went and stayed with them for four days to get did?

Guest: Yep.

Host: To get in person training?

Guest: Yep. And I left there very confident. And two days later when it was my turn to run it, I wasn't quite so confident. I was going through my notes going what, what how? It was a lot to digest. But I also had unfeathered access to the owner for months on end. He's a really good responder to emails, texts. We would get on the phone and do calls like me and you're doing and he could show me his screen and say here's what, here's how you do this. And he was very hands on in turning it over. And that went on for some six months. So today we talk once a month. It seems

Host: obviously the big story of you acquiring the business is that Covid immediately hit and that probably overwhelmed any of the other variables in acquiring and transitioning this business. But was there anything that you missed in diligence or that you learned post acquisition that you wished you had known in advance?

Guest: I didn't realize the amount of it that goes into the business. The, the, the, the back end of the, of the, of the business and, and dealing with the issues that come up with an online business. When your website goes down, when somebody can't place an order and how to fix it as quickly as possible because when people can't place orders, you've got a huge problem. I've had a couple server downs in the last two years. That one went on for two days and you know, it was a devastating results from that.

Host: But yeah, if you're spending $50,000 a month to send people to the site and it goes down for Two days. That's whatever, fifteen hundred dollars or whatever.

Guest: Absolutely. And yeah, so I didn't, I didn't realize my lack of computer skills would be so glaring. I'm 63 years old, so I grew up without computers. I've always played with them and, and I can do what most people can do on a computer. But when you start writing code and stuff like that, that's a whole nother level.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: And it's way, way over my head. And I, I do have an IT people that do my stuff for me, but that costs money. And the previous owner was literally a code wizard. He was very, very good at website development and maintaining them. And I'm not that person. And it's definitely been a learning experience for those two years.

Host: A couple more questions, Dave. Is this business. Well, I'll ask that as the last question just to circle back to bizbuysell for a second. Given that you're a fan of the site. You found this business on bizbuysell and you've used the site for a long time. Any tips or best practices that you've learned on about how to, how to get the most out of biz Buy Sell, particularly when buying an online business. Anything come to mind?

[30:23] Guest: Well, I mean, I just can't stress enough if you're not good at looking at numbers and, and I'm pretty good at it, but I still bring in an accountant when I'm not clear on something. I just can't stress enough how important that is to make sure that the numbers are correct. Devil's in the details. And you've got to dig in there and ask questions and make everything make sense because people do funny things when they're running businesses and you've got to figure it out what is actually going to be your profit at the end of the month. So that I couldn't, I can't stress that enough. If you're not good at it, bring on somebody that is and have them look at those books.

Host: Do you think this business is the last business you'll buy? Is, is this the business that you ride into the sunset or ride over to the golf course on, you know, spending part time on it and, and, and, and it'll, it'll get you through it. Whatever you want to get through, business wise.

Guest: No. No, it's not.

Host: Tell me, tell me more. You're too addicted to buying businesses or whatever.

Guest: I am. Yeah. No, I don't think it will be. I think I'll do something in the future. What that'll be. Obviously based on my history, who knows, I could be selling ice cream cones on the street corner. But I don't think this was always going to be. I mean I'm 63, so I don't know how much longer I'm going to be doing businesses. But this was always for me was a five to a ten year project and we'll see if I can get it back to where it once was. I might consider letting somebody else take the reins over and looking up for my next adventure.

Host: Dave, if people want to reach out to you and ask any questions or learn from somebody who's been a serial acquirer for their careers, what's the best way to reach you?

Guest: Yeah, they're very welcome to email me. Dave, @resumewriting group.com they can bounce around my site and see what I do if they're interested, maybe order a resume, get those numbers up, always sell it. Yeah. So they're welcome to send me an email and we'll, we'll talk that way. And if it needs to get on the phone, I'll get on the phone with them.

Host: Very, very generous of you, Dave. This has been great. Thanks for joining me.

Guest: Well, I appreciate you very much. Thank you, Sam.