Host: 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. Mike Bodkin is today's guest. This is Mike's second time on the podcast. He's. He was one of my first guests back in June. In that interview, Mike told me about his acquisition of a landscaping business in the Orlando area called B and B Landscaping. That was a great story that you should listen to for its own sake, but also because it'll give you some context to this interview. Link is in the show notes. Mike is back on today because he's now closed on a second and significantly larger acquisition which makes him the largest residential landscaping business in Central Florida. Now, a year ago, Mike had a desk job. So going from that to owning the largest residential landscaping business in Central Florida, that's a pretty sweet accomplishment in a very short amount of time. Congratulations to Mike. Here he is for the second time. Mike Bodkin. Mike Bodkin, thanks for coming back on Acquiring Minds.

Guest: Absolutely, man. I'm super excited.

Host: I'm excited to hear the story. So you were one of my very first interviews. What feels like a long time ago probably feels even longer ago for you since so much has happened. But this was probably in May, June I think. I published the episode in June and you told me about your first acquisition, which happened in just December of last year, so 10 months ago, of a residential landscaping company in Central Florida, the Orlando area. B and B landscaping. It's a 45 year old landscaping company and business was run by the owner and it was shy of a million dollars. So pretty small, pretty small business. But it was going well. So anyway, I encourage other people to go back and listen to that episode. The reason we're talking today is because you shared on Twitter that you're doing your have done now a second acquisition or your just about to close on a second acquisition that's actually much larger. So I wanted to hear this story. I love these stories of acquisition where somebody buys something and then that leads them on a path of acquisition. And in fact that was always your plan as you'll touch on. So Mike, please just give us the top level. What is the second acquisition all about?

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. That's a good way to distinguish our path. We I always plan growth through acquisition. Organic growth in my opinion, happens through quality of service and customer service and you're going to naturally grow your business or you should if you're doing those two things well which we on our previous podcast episode, which I do encourage everyone to listen so it'll make more sense of this episode. We reduced a lot of customers or dropped a lot of customers and we transformed it more to commercial business. And we really kind of got the playbook for how to operate a landscaping business through bnb. And our plan of growth through acquisition was really going to be a 12 to 18 month plan of get in, be there for 12 to 18 months and understand kind of how it works and then let's start looking.

[3:33] Host: Well,

Guest: I'm a let's just go for it guy. And so I always kept my eye open for things. I would see trucks on the road. I'm like, that's a nice truck. I'm going to find out who owns that, what their story is. And actually learned. That's a great. Like, I learned a ton about the landscape industry because I'm just deep diving everyone. And we had a big challenge for us in May and early June at bnb. And it was like a light bulb went off when we overcame that challenge of now we have the playbook, so let's go. And we found a company and just went after it. It was off market. And I did not know this when I initially kind of put the deal together. In terms of outreach, they were massively bigger than BNB. And just in terms of employee count, 3x the number of employees almost. Then when I took over at bnb, they had an org chart, they had managers in place. They've been around for 20 years and had a really good reputation and foothold in a very distinguishable community. So we went after it and it was completely off market. I used the broker that I had at BNB to help facilitate some early conversations. And we ended up closing last Friday. I'm sorry, the Friday before that. I mean, time is just.

Host: I'm sure. So it has already.

Guest: It's closed anyways. Yeah, so we did close it. We closed it the 1st of October, and we are now the largest residential landscaping business in Central Florida. And we put the deal together in about 30 days from initial outreach to loi close to funds committed. And here we are.

Host: Mike, you said you overcame some challenge at BNB and that's when you felt like you really could spread your wings. Was that the unit economics thing that people should go back and listen to or was it something else?

Guest: Absolutely. So the trait that the previous owner of BNB had was a trait that I find a lot of owners and small business, but also landscaping primarily have. And once we solved this Issue. Everything just made so much more sense. And we started to run it like a business. The issue that the previous owner had was it was obviously the old joke, you know, Oprah, you get a dollar, you get a dollar, you get a dollar, or you get a tv, you get a tv. The owner and a lot of small business owners are, I'll take the customer, I'll take the customer. I'll take the customer, I'll take the customer with no true sense or understanding of what that customer may do positively or negatively to their business. And he was just taking every customer he could, no matter what the consequence was, and never truly cared or understood the consequences. And that was that way in a business like bnb, which in a local market was the top dog, the big player. And that's also true in other landscaping businesses that I did due diligence on after that, as well as, in some ways, this one, right? It was, let's just take whatever customer comes to the door because we want to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And we found out, stop trying to learn the landscaping way of customer acquisition, what makes common sense, what's logical. Rip away the landscaping aspect of it. This is a logistics business to us, and that customer does not make sense, so we should not do that customer. And it came down to that simple. And when we took away bad customers or unprofitable customers or customers that, hey, they're right for someone, they're just not right for us. And when we took them away and re kind of strategized how we do this, everything just fell in place. Our staff was happier. We were better at managing, we were better at training. We went with quality over quantity. And in turn, our revenue, I mean, just went up and to the right, up and to the right, up and to the right. And our net profit margin followed suit, and we were able to turn. We were increasing BNB's bottom line like you would think you could in the first year. A little bit up, a little bit up, a little bit up. And it just took off. And we were growing the business by 40% by the time of what we just did in close this last acquisition. So we figured that out, and the playbook just became so much more simpler. Focus on quality, not quantity. And not every customer is a good customer.

[8:06] Host: But just to. Just to tell people specifically, I think it was like you looked at your customer list because something wasn't, you know, the math wasn't working. You felt like you should be more profitable than you were, and you realized that it was something Like a third of your customers, you were just losing money on 100%.

Guest: And there's. I had a big debate with a well respected businessman and investor and his question to me was when I was jamming this well was well, those are loss leaders. And you know, it's funny, my initial reaction to him and I stole this phrase from someone and I wish I could give credit but I was like, yeah, but a loss leader is a loss and we gotta win. So let's get rid of the loss leaders because you know I'm. You're starting out in the hole, right? And the business is too simple to start out in the hole, right? If you just block and tackle, you do the ABCs, one, two, threes and you provide good customer service and you provide good quality of service and you treat your employees right, man, like you're going to have success. But for sure, we dropped, voluntarily dropped a third of our customers. We raised a third of our customers pricing and the other third, we kept the exact same price. And we were astounded by the reaction of the customers and we understood what the playbook was and we were able to take those same strategies and I shouldn't say the same strategies. We took the same method of how we look at customers in BNB with this new acquisition.

[9:39] Host: Your bet here was that other landscaping companies would have similar inefficiencies or unprofitable customers and you could, like you said, playbook. Kai's this. And so your next acquisition, you could do the same thing, raise prices, let go of customers where you're losing money. But how are you. So am I right about saying that, that you're basically confident that this, this problem, this flaw exists in all these other landscaping companies and you can go in and fix it?

Guest: You're right that I think that's a problem in a lot of landscaping businesses. It was not the core of my thesis of now we understand, drop customers, raise prices and go. That was not a core motivation for us of buying any other business or this business that we just bought. This business was on much solid, much more solid ground. It was much more profitable. It was a really good business. It had an org chart. It had historical employees that have been around for 20 years. The brand was unbelievable in its area of service. So us going in, I never once thought we're going to drop customers or raise prices. That is a tool that I have that I can look at it and I think that's a tool that a lot of operators have that they can use. And sometimes it's Raising prices. Sometimes it's dropping customers, sometimes it's, you know, I'm a really good at managing people, so let me manage people better. Whatever your strength is individually, you know, I would assume that most operators would apply that across whatever business venture they were in. And the only correlation I can have between BNB and the new acquisition in terms of what we did at BNB was a. I'm not rushing to get every client that's out there, which is what I did at bnb. And that was a big mistake. And I'm also not fearful of, if this route doesn't make sense, what do I do? I know what to do and it's very simple. And I can see it immediately as soon as I dive into the numbers. So it provided me a ton of assurance that I can peel the onion back a little bit and I can really see and it allows me more room and more risk mitigation by understanding how this works with customers.

Host: Okay. Okay. Well, it sounds like a lot of this also is just simply that you've got a lot of experience now. I mean, nine months isn't actually that much experience, but I guess you personally have learned a ton in nine months. And as you said, the landscaping business is not a complex business. So maybe, maybe nine months is the equivalent of a four year education in landscaping, in residential landscaping.

[12:19] Guest: Well, BNB was a lot more as of two weeks ago. And I think that, let me clarify here, BNB and our new acquisition, which is called Justin's, are combined entities. So it's still there. It is still operating. We are 85% commercial landscaping now versus when I bought it, it was like 60, 40 residential to commercial and I changed it all to commercial. So there's a distinguishable difference of that. Yeah. Hey man, when you buy a small business, each month's like dog years. So for sure I do feel experience. And I think, and this is just being reflective on my past and understanding my strengths and weaknesses. I, I have a very heavy operational background. Before I bought my first landscaping business, I was a chief operating officer at a company that we had over 50 subsidiaries and that's 50 general managers reporting directly to me. And so I dealt with a $10 an hour lifeguard at our water park and I also dealt with six figure general manager of our hotel and resort. And I also dealt with customers that, you know, are at a resort and hotel or our customers that are buying our homes when we bail, when we built our homes in our construction business. So I understood a lot of the people part of it And I think that helped me tremendously. It's different when your name's on the door. Right. Because there was, hey, the buck stops here is the old joke. And I learned a ton. And what I'm doing now at the new business are things that I didn't do for three to four months at bnb. And so cutting my teeth at BNB for nine months, which is not a long time in retrospect, allowed me to act quicker, do things faster, or have more conviction on what I'm doing now at this new business. And it's allowing me to see the sharp turn around the corner of what's around there. So I know what to do and I also know what to avoid. Not to say I have it all figured out, but. But in terms of the blocking and tackling. And what I've learned is a big takeaway is no matter how big or small the company is, when you're dealing in a service industry like this, a lot of the same problems come about. So I can now see them coming. We can be proactive versus reactive. And I know what the consequences are or the effects are of every decision we make.

Host: Justin's the new acquisition. So I think a big difference here between that and your first acquisition, BNB too, is what you just said about it being a quality business, a larger business. Yes. But also like a higher quality business management layer, strong brand. It sounds like they have kind of high quality customers. So did you have to pay? Was it a more expensive company to buy? Obviously it was more expensive because of size. But what about in terms of multiple?

[15:27] Guest: Multiple was right around point of what we. It's a tricky question to answer and you just have to respect the privacy that we need on this because it could also hurt us in the future because again, our growth is acquisition. Right. The multiple was in line of what we, A, thought was fair, B, what we were okay with paying, and C, it also provided some good protections with us as well, that if we can do blocking and tackling, we're going to be okay no matter what with this business. And the multiples were roughly equal from BNB to this relative to their size.

Host: Okay. And when you reached out to Justin, so you felt like you had the confidence to go out and make another acquisition, but you specifically targeted this company, this business? I did.

Guest: So I, you know, just on my normal drives, I would see trucks and I would write them down and I would just deep dive into them. And I kept seeing these same trucks over and over and over, and I kept seeing them in A specific neighborhood. And I actually used to live in the neighborhood. I only lived in there for a short while, for just a year. But I always saw them and the neighborhood. It's called Celebration. It was Walt Disney's master plan community, right outside of. It's in Orlando, but just outside of Disney. And I never thought anything about them. Right. Because I was in landscaping. I didn't care about landscaping. I didn't even know what a sprinkler had looked like. And now, full circle, I kept seeing them again when I'm driving around, and I just made the call and I did the research and I went after it, not knowing the size of the business. I kept seeing the trucks, but I was like, I don't know, maybe I keep seeing the same two trucks everywhere I go.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: And I was surprised at what I found out when I dove into the business and, you know, learned everything.

Host: You were surprised at the size. So how many trucks in the landscaping business, how many trucks are there per employee? So if it's got 50 employees, how many trucks is that? Yeah.

Guest: So we're running about 14 to 16 trucks, depending on, you know, what crew you. What you're doing in terms of irrigation or maintenance or landscaping. In total, we're at about 22 active trucks on the road at any given time.

Host: Okay.

Guest: Which I look at that as. So think about what I just said. We have 20 plus trucks on the road. Majority of our business is route density, getting from A to B, the quickest to most efficient, and time on site. If I didn't tell you I was in a landscaping business and I said I'm in the trucking business, you wouldn't be one of the wiser. You would never know that. And that's why I look at this as a logistics business. If we can manage our route density, our fuel cost, and our time on site, we're going to be okay.

[18:24] Host: Except that logistics business is just those things, whereas you've got to do all of that stuff. Plus you've got to make sure that your people are delivering quality work and are trimming the hedges and not chopping off the sprinkler heads and all of that. And that's its own separate skill set.

Guest: You couldn't have said it better. And we were dealing with a ton of those issues this week and today. And that's the extra part of it, for sure. 100%. 100%.

Host: Tell us about when you reached out to the owner of Justin's. First of all, is the owner of Justin's. Justin or was It a founder owner.

Guest: So funny story. Justin, the name of Justin's started the business, grew the business from just him all the way up until 2018. He sold the business. He stayed on with the new owners and the new owners who we bought from, owned it from 2018 until now. They do have another profession. They are active in their field, their other field and it was just a strong investment for them and they grew the business and put some things in place and we acquired it from there.

Host: Interesting.

Guest: Justin, sorry, Justin is still employed by us today.

Host: And is Justin, does he run the business? Is he the primary operator, the president, as it were?

Guest: He does not. He went more. He and I had a conversation last week just about kind of his history and his goals and life. He is not running the business per se. He is running the sales and biz dev division. A comment that he made to me, which I think is so great and I know he doesn't mind me sharing this. He said if he asked essentially your same question, why are you working in the business when you owned it? He said if I wanted to run the business, then I never should have sold the business. I wanted to be in the business. I didn't want to own the business. And that was, I thought that was a great, reflective comment on him of his transition. And he's a phenomenal, phenomenal employee. He's a phenomenal person. I mean, think about what I have at my reach. A guy that started a business from scratch, built it all. It's his name is on the truck and every customer knows him, every employee knows him. He's well regarded. And I reached out to other people in the industry when I found out he was still working there before I closed. And I needed to understand him because I thought he could either be a great help or not so great. And every person in the industry that I spoke to had glowing recommendations about him. And I can say to date they're all coming true. And it's an invaluable resource. I have to be able to call a guy. I mean, today we had an hour long meeting and I was just bouncing ideas off of him and he's saying, hey, you're thinking about this, right? You're thinking about that, right? Slow down on that. I would actually look at this a little differently. And I was like, you know what? What could I ask for?

[21:39] Host: What a gift.

Guest: Yeah, it's great. So it was a hidden gem I didn't know I had.

Host: Mike, that's also awesome that the people that you bought it from were essentially that they had acquired it as investors, not as operators. So you knew the business could. It was already basically operating without the owners being in the business. I guess they had other full time jobs. So it was operating enough on its own. Which is huge contrast from BnB where you acquired BnB, you were working in the business very much so from day one.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. I'll use a sports analogy and I just heard this the other day. I don't know if you're a sports fan, but quarterbacks, they can play really tight and they do exactly what they're told and they throw exactly who they're supposed to throw. Or quarterbacks that play really loose like a Patrick Mahomes and they, you know, sling it around the yard and they're spinning around. When I bought B and B, it was very tight. You walked the line, he told you to walk. You edged the way he told you to edge. Everything was extremely tight and that worked for him. And in turn he built great service and he was known for phenomenal service, attention to detail. When I bought Justin's, loose is the wrong word. But you know, the owners are not there. And I think natural human reaction is when the boss is away, you know, you may not edge exactly how they tell you to edge. And the managers did a good job to a degree. But I think the business, this is just speaking frankly, the business needed that day to day touch of leadership and direction and vision as well as quality control. And the business was surviving. I mean, the business was more than maintaining, they were growing. And the economics were great in terms of what they were doing and what the owner set out to do with it as an investment. But for us, I think having ownership on site is going to make the business that much better. And it wasn't great. To your point, me knowing the owners were not involved was a tremendous asset for me because of exactly what you said. Where the previous owner at bnb, if he left for lunch, the business, they'd be like, wait, how do I open my truck door? The owner's not telling me to open my truck door. How do I do it? Where this one, they operate on their own and I'm just coming in doing what I think should be done. Hey, look left, look right. Hey, what do we think about this? What do we think about that? And adding value from 10,000ft. Whereas I've also been on the other way where it's boots on the ground.

[24:24] Host: Mike, you said you called around other folks in the industry to do your due diligence on Justin the man. So that Means that you have these contacts in the industry now who are, I assume some of them are your friendly competition. Is this something where you are going to. I mean, you've now done two acquisitions of very different characters, so you're getting that much more experience of how to buy a landscaping company of different size, different management type, absentee owner in the business. Owner. What does that mean for your next step? Because as you said at the top, your strategy was always growth through acquisition.

Guest: Absolutely. And it's not to stop. We are going to continue that pattern. There's no. And I'll move this conversation a second to our partner and our raise in this to acquire the second business. But there is zero timetable on what we do internally from my standpoint and also externally from the capital that, you know, we're so fortunate enough to have. This is going to move when it needs to move. So we're going to take our time. We're going to execute our plan of getting this operating properly, getting our strategy in place and making sure that the ship is healthy and on course. And then when we do that, we all feel comfortable, we're going to turn the switch on and go get another one. And the other one may be, you know, I look at landscaping as you have lawn maintenance, you have landscaping, and there's two distinct differences. You have irrigation and water management. You have supply chain, which are your, you know, your rock sites, your mulch sites, your nurseries, where you get your supplies to do landscaping, your sod farms. And then there's also smaller ones like tree service and so on. And our goal at the end of this, and this is kind of opening up our playbook, so to speak. But if we can acquire a quality business in each rung of that ladder, we have true vertical integration from where we're getting materials, literally from the farm all the way up through to where the customer is being provided the service, and from their turf, their grass, all the way up to the trees so we can be a real one stop shop from full service. So to answer your question, it is to acquire more. The timetable, I have no idea. It could be two months from now, it could be two years from now. It's about getting it right, not being fast. Because once we get it right, things start happening.

Host: Yeah, well, I'm skeptical, Mike. All this, hey, we're going to take our time from a guy who did his second acquisition like eight months before

[27:02] Guest: he thought he would.

Host: Yeah, because you said it was going to be 12 to eight months. You thought that your second acquisition would come Around. And here you did it at month 10 or 9.

Guest: Really, it's the level. Listen, I have all respect for money. I mean, I was homeless for part of my upbringing. I value the dollar. My wife says I'm the cheapest guy she's ever met in her life. I hope that's not completely true. So I value other people's money as well, more than my own to a degree. But we do have to do this right. But man, the level. We're buying business, relatively speaking. If you can just block and tackle and treat your employees right, take care of your customers, be responsive, be proactive, these businesses can explode internally. And when I say take care of employees, I mean it. And we're offering health insurance. We offer dental insurance. We offer plans where employees can potentially have, you know, any SOP program one day. We are really taking plans to enhance our employee retention because the more you can retain and train and have quality, the less you have to go recruit. And. And recruiting is not negative, and it's not bad. But you always want to be recruiting on your timeframe, not on the business's need to recruit.

Host: Sure.

Guest: So that's kind of our method of how to do this. And if we can just stay in our zone, you know, the whole Warren Buffett. Right. Just stay in your strike zone. If we can stay the course, man, like, it just makes total sense to keep going. And that's kind of the plan. And it's up to me to execute our strategy and our vision.

Host: A few more questions. Mike, you and I had talked about buying small versus search fund, and you have some thoughts on that. Your first acquisition, bnb, was a relatively small acquisition, certainly compared to a traditional search fund where they're looking for multimillion dollar businesses. This BNB was not that. Now that you're a year into this and you're doing your second acquisition, what are your thoughts today?

Guest: I think there's no right or wrong answer. I think everything's situational. I think search funds in large are a joke. And I'm not trying to be controversial, but you're taking. I hate using all or no or. You know, the most common search funds that I know and I see all are the same Ivy League backgrounds. There's two of them, you know, normally partners, because that's what people like to give money to is partnerships. No operational background. They come from, you know, very well established financing backgrounds. Or no real. They don't know what it's like to deal with a guy that makes $12 an hour, his wife's Pregnant, their car doesn't work anymore. And that dude's got real problems. And you're the only guy he knows that potentially could solve his issues. And he's coming to you with the world on his shoulders and you have to solve it by the way. That truck needs to get out the door at 7:05, so you better answer his questions and solve his problems or else you have a truck that's not gonna run properly. I think searchers waste an ungodly amount of money, and other people's money, by the way, not necessarily their money, on playing the search fund game because they're too scared to operate. I talked to a fund that invests heavily in search funds. When they found out what we were doing, they approached us and called and said, hey, would you be interested in capital? They backed a previous search fund and they are over their two year limit of term. And I've acquired two businesses within a year. And that search fund has had capital and two years, no acquisition. And it's not because there's not acquisitions to be had. It's because you have to be picky. You have to be picky because you have to make a certain amount of money to justify you leaving your finance job. You have to make a certain amount of money so you can justify your life moving forward. You have to buy a good enough business where you can have immediate or close to immediate returns for your investors. Because you just spent two years not owning a business, not bringing in cash. You have to return capital. And that's fine. You can do all those things. There's plenty of search funds that hit it, and when they hit it, they hit it out on the park. And man, that thing is smoking. But I see so many guys waste capital when I always tell people, and I've talked to searchers about this, and I've talked to that search fund about this from the standpoint of, you should really push your guys to do this. And it's take a step back, buy a smaller business, learn how to operate, learn what it's like to talk to the $12 an hour guy. Learn what it's like to manage people. Learn what it's like to give raises. Learn what it's like to tell someone, no, you're not getting a raise and watch the consequences. And learn what it's like to be yelled at. I mean, getting yelled at by a customer, by an employee, by your wife, because you're never home, that's real stuff. And searchers look and wait for the very perfect opportunity when that's not always out there. So what I say, and again, this is recency bias of my path. Step back, buy a smaller business, learn how to operate it. And if you can operate it, that money will be there tenfold for you to go buy another one.

[32:31] Host: Yeah, yeah. I mean that's the other thing is that like one acquisition can, you can acquire your way up to the same size as what a search fund is trying, you know, trying two and three years to find at the outset, you might can get there in those same two intervening years, but you've actually been, you know, accumulating equity and building experience all the while.

Guest: The business I just bought is a traditional search fund. What they want to acquire. I just did it a different way to do it. And instead of sitting around and taking phone calls all day and searching for businesses and not getting them, I went out and bought one. And we had some success with it, with challenges and prove that I could do it. And the partners were available to level up essentially and approve our thesis. Right. And it was a strategy all along. I never wanted to take SBA money. I think we talked about that on your previous podcast. I don't think SBA works for me. I don't think search funding as a traditional way of doing it would have worked for me. Not to say SBA doesn't work and search funding doesn't work. I just think if you're going to be in it and you're going to be about it, be in it and be about it. And if you don't have to, great, you don't have to. But I think many investors would have better returns if their search if their searchers would buy smaller than buy larger.

[34:02] Host: And Mike, remind people why you don't like spa. So, yeah, because like a lot of self funded searchers, none traditional search fund people use sba. So there are two different issues there, I guess you have. So why don't you like sba?

Guest: It's strictly transactional. As long as you make your payment every month. The SBA doesn't care what you do. And the sba to get an sba, you really just have to check boxes. I mean, I could coach my 6 year old son how to get an SBA loan. Obviously if he was 18. And I was actually thinking about this the other day because I had a call with someone who asked me about SBA and it's, you know, one of their requirements you're on a call with. And I've done these calls just so I could learn and educate myself and they walk you, you know, your guy at the bank walks you through the application, right? And it's, hey, put this, put this, put this. Okay, well, do you want to know what the risks are of the business? I think say, no, no, no. Just the finding this, this, and this. I'm like, okay, because, you know, don't put anything that's real in there or else. The committee made me scared to back you. And then it's, well, what's your financial history? Well, I was fortunate enough. I came from a position where, you know, I did okay for myself. But, like, you know, how many people had to borrow other people's money, non conventional, to start their businesses and say, like, why should my financial background matter to that degree? And I understand the mechanisms of why they do that. And I'm rambling a bit, but the point I'm trying to make is SBA is very transactional, and I wanted a partnership. I wanted someone that I could lean on, I could jam with. Had real skin in the game with me. And if I needed to level up, it's a phone call, and I level up. If I needed to slow down. And, hey, man, we're in trouble here. Like, I'm drowning. I need your help. They're a phone call away, the sba. Mike, you're drowning. You better make sure that check comes on the 15th. Mike, you're leveling up. Great. Let's get you another loan. And it's like, that's not helping my business. That's not helping our life. That's not helping our employees. That's just, you know, it's debt, and that's okay, and that works. But for me, I wanted a partner.

[36:18] Host: And this partner then is the same investor that you went to to do this second deal, to do the second acquisition.

Guest: It is not. Our original investor had, I'm trying to say it as confidential, respecting our privacy in every regard, had an unbelievable return on his money in nine months, which makes it even better. And listen, that was a big thing to me of someone took a huge bet on me, and I can return their capital and then some. And I was a good steward of their money, and I made them money, which is what everyone wants when you invest. So I was extremely proud, full of that, and I'm extremely boastful about someone bet on me, and I returned their money and then some. I just take huge pride in that. And with that, he rolled into the new business as well and invested in the new business with us and a new partner. And that means all the world to me because he didn't have to. And he could have pulled and walked away and said, hey, thanks for the return. And he wanted to kept betting and put some more chips on the table to do it. And the investor that we have, it was very meaningful. While the time frame from days was not long, from when we went active to when we committed to each other as partners, the diligence was extremely important, extremely meaningful, because I didn't want just capital. If I needed just capital, I could go to the sba. If I needed just capital, I could raise a ton of, and I say this with all respect, I could have raised a ton of 10,000, 5,000, 25,000, $50,000 checks, and we had that. I was turning away money. While I was vetting this partner, they were vetting me. The partner has a operational background which was very meaningful to me. They know what it's like to operate a small business and try to grow it to a bigger business, which they have a history of. And this partner also had the capital resources to get us to prove out our thesis. And they also have intangible resources. And I'll give you an example. I think autonomous mowers are going to be in play quicker than what people think. And I tried reaching out to the company that's the largest player in that. Hey, I want to test pilot them, right? Like, I want us to do it. And I went nowhere. I fell on my face. I told this partner about, hey, this is what I want to do. And within a phone call had information with the CEO of the autonomous company and conversations begin. And it's like, that is worth its weight in gold. The SBA would never even take my call. And this is why you choose partnership over SBA right there. What a great story. Yeah, I couldn't be happier with him. It's phenomenal. We have a great working relationship. We have the same goals today as we've planned out five years from now. And my original investor is on board and an investor in this business, and we're very excited about that.

[39:25] Host: Mike, I can feel it on you, man. You're very fired up. This is awesome. One last question for you. At your previous job, before you acquired bnb, you had visibility into a bunch of different businesses or industries that you contemplated. So I think it was pool services. You mentioned H Vac, property management, because you were basically at the company that you were working at. You were basically hiring and all those different services, in some cases acquiring businesses like those and landscaping. And what you really liked about landscaping is during the peak of COVID you still saw a lot of landscaping trucks on the road. So you knew, if nothing else, it was Covid proof this was a business that could push through a down cycle. An industry that could push through a down cycle.

Guest: Cycle.

Host: So now you've acquired your second landscaping business. I assume you like landscaping. Tell the people who might be out there looking for an industry to buy business in what you think about landscaping. And if you live in the Orlando area, close your ears, because Mike doesn't want more competition. But for everybody outside of Orlando, what would you tell them about the landscaping business?

Guest: Yeah, you know, it's funny. Before I acquired this business, we did own a landscaping business at my previous firm. It was one of our subsidiaries. And listen, man, quite frankly, I didn't give two shits. I didn't care about landscaping. I didn't even cut my own yard. I didn't look at people's yards. I didn't care. And when I started diving into it, and now I live it, right? My wife hates going on walks with me, driving with me, because I'm like, oh, my gosh, look at this bougainvillea. Look at this palm. That's a podocarpus. Like, I'm a nerd now with plants and lawns, and she wants to kill me. Listen, grass will always grow, right? People do not want to cut their own yard, which is like, you want to talk about market size. Like, grass will always grow. So there's always going to be work available. And it's labor that people increasingly don't want to do themselves and they will pay for. Like, talk about a market size. Like, name your. You name it.

Host: What about the day to day, being in it? Being in this business?

Guest: Yeah, man, listen. It has its challenges, pros and cons. Just like any industry, I think. Listen, man, if. If I want to step back and really reflect on what we do, we're providing opportunity to people that have untraditional backgrounds, that have trouble getting work other places. And we're providing them and their families with a path to make more money than they ever made, to work for a branded company, to provide health insurance and to provide stability. And if you can provide stability and career path and just security with these guys, dude, you're changing the life, man. And like, that is not a small comment. I think that is not short sighted. You are literally changing the life of this guy's family. So that part is awesome. We love that. And you can do that in other industries, right? It's not specific landscaping. So specific to landscaping, we Feel like the level we are acquiring in there's a huge opportunity. And it's predominantly driven by servicemen acting as owners of businesses when they shouldn't be. And that means the guy started in his truck, he built the service, and he doesn't care or understand or want to or need to operate a business at scale because he's living like a rock star in his town. The guy bought from that B and B. As much as I can joke about the business acumen, that wasn't there. The guy had the biggest house on the street. His kids were living a great life. One of them was actually in a private school. His wife didn't work, he had a boat, he had a brand new truck. In all accounts, from a picturesque standpoint, the guy was living the dream. And he owned a business and he paid his guys and his bills were paid. Are you kidding me? What else could you want? So that's not to knock on that, because that's definitely meaningful, but for our thesis, we're buying businesses that are owned by service people that are operating a business.

[43:46] Host: Yeah. Anything else, Mike? This is a great update. Anything else before I let you go and get back to working on business number two?

Guest: No, absolutely, man. I appreciate it. I appreciate the flexibility. I did give you a shout out on Acquisitions Anonymous, a podcast with Michael Gurley and Mil Snell and Bill, and definitely gave you a shout out, so you should listen to that. Much respect to you and what you're doing.

Host: Nice, man.

Guest: Appreciate that.

Host: I love that podcast. When did you do that?

Guest: A couple days ago. The episodes, I don't know when it's coming out, but yeah, man, definitely gave you a shout out on there at the very end. So listen to that.

Host: That's cool.

Guest: Appreciate it all. Respect what you're doing. And I mean no disrespect when I talk about searchers or sba, it's biased towards the path that I went down. And it's. I'm trying to open the door for other people that may have an unconventional background as well, because I did not come from the finance background or Ivy League.

Host: You know, it's funny, I hadn't had. I've had you'll be my number 33 episode number 33, maybe 34. And from all of those interviews, I hadn't actually had a traditional searcher until just in the last week or two. And I've actually now interviewed two people who did a traditional search fund, both with academic pedigree, like fancy academic pedigree. Great people. But it was. Yeah, it was A totally different game, the way they approached this than so many of my other guests, including you. It's worked out for both of them, so it's a happy ending. Well, one is still in the midst, the other already exited his company. But it's so interesting to see the range of how people are going about business acquisition and acquisition entrepreneurship.

[45:30] Guest: Yeah, I think to just kind of close my thought on the search fund things. I've talked about this a lot privately with people. I think the goal is when you take other people's money and you haven't bought a business is to buy business. So how can you go two years or a year and a half, whatever your timeline is, and not acquire a business? I think that is irresponsible of other people's money. Just personally feel so searchers that acquire business, man, take off and take it running. And a lot of them have tremendous success. But the ones that don't acquire, I'm like, that didn't work out too well. Yeah, for sure.

Host: Mike Bodkin, thank you for doing this, man. I'm sure I'll have you back on because I suspect more things from you in the next year or two. So I look forward to you being on a third time, man.

Guest: Much respect. I appreciate it and thank you for giving me a platform to share a story again. And if you ever need anything, let me know.

Host: Awesome, man, thanks. Good luck.