How do you turn a service business into a sellable asset?

Jason Kirby (00:02.68) Hi everyone, welcome back to Fundraising Demystified. Today, we have Kerry Kerpen on the show. Welcome to the show, Carrie. Carrie (00:11.694) Thank you so much, Jason. I'm excited to be here. Jason Kirby (00:15.096) Excited to have you come on and share your story. You are a successful, exited founder who had the joy of selling the company for over eight figures. And I want to hear your story. What was unique to you, and what the story was. But before we dive into the specifics, you know, just tell a little bit about what Likeable Media was and why you ended up selling the company. Carrie (00:37.624) Yeah, so Likeable was one of the very first social media agencies. My husband and I launched it in 2007 when there were no social media agencies. So as a result, we scaled pretty quickly. Like it was more like it wasn't figuring out the product-market fit. It was like we opened our doors and then we were instantly inundated. And so that was both exciting and scary. Neither of us had ever run an agency before. But we did and we scaled pretty quickly and there we were. In 2013, my husband wanted to launch a tech business and wanted to raise funds for that. And so we separated the two businesses. We incubated it through Likeable Media and then we spun it off as a separate company that my husband left to raise funds for. And I stayed and ran Likeable Media. So in 2013, things were quite different than they were in 2007. In 2007, nobody did social media. In 2013, everybody did social media. In 2007, we had no money because we were just starting out. In 2013, we had no money because we were so busy staffing to service all of the Fortune 500 clients that we won and had to lay payment terms. So it was really hard to get profitable. And also in 2013, 2007, Dave was the leader and face and founder and devoted a lot of his time to social media. In 2013, I was now the founder and was surrounded, the sole founder that was left, and was surrounded by founders who I saw in the space and digital media who were loud, extroverted, and male. I was none of those things. And so in 2013, I set forth a plan to build a company that would eventually become a sellable asset focused on getting it profitable, growing steadily, being about more than just the founders. diversifying the revenue and taking it forward in that way. I was really intentional about that and then brought it through to exit in 2021. Jason Kirby (02:38.254) What sparked that? What gave you the motivation to think like that and kind of structure the business as an asset to sell? Carrie (02:45.902) Well, I think there were a few things. I think first, when we launched the tech company, we knew that we weren't gonna make money from that for a while. We were gonna put everything- our heart, our soul, fundraise into that, and we needed a source of income. So becoming profitable was not; it was table stakes, there was no question. But building it as a sellable asset, I was really inspired when I read John Warlow's Built to Sell, which was a story of, was done as a parable- it was a story of a founder, Who runs a PR agency and does it for like 30 years and he's old he's ready to retire and he goes to his Pal I guess he's like an advisor is like, okay. I'm ready to exit guys like you're worth nothing Why because it's built entirely on you. You have a million different things that you do You have no predictable revenue stream that you know, it's kind of comes to you word of mouth, etc And so he sets forth on this journey and then they have this implementation guide. I was really lit up when I read that. And I thought, how could I take that and really build this company to one day be sellable? And I don't know that it went exactly as I planned, but it certainly helped guide my thinking to the direction that I wanted to do. Jason Kirby (04:00.878) think it's incredible to have that spark because I think most founders, and I've talked to many of that, that's just not even on the horizon for them as they grind day in, day out. But there's a certain shift in functionality, systemization, and just profitability when I think founders make that choice that you made. And so when it came to packaging it up, what were the KPIs, what were the drivers that you thought were important? And how did you come up with finding out that those were important for your type of business? Carrie (04:32.644) How did I find out they were important? I think came from my own learning of what made the business interesting and special. So when I went into my next act, I launched an exit readiness advisory practice for women-owned businesses. And I put together what I think is important based off of what I discovered was important in my own exit process. for revenue, I really wanted to make sure that I call it, when income is in the red, you're in trouble. but I actually think of it as red, recurring, expected, and diversified. So can I forecast my revenue? Do clients repeat more than once or customers? And then finally, is my revenue diversified? Meaning if one product suddenly becomes irrelevant, am I able to say, okay, I have enough spread out there that I could make it interesting? So revenue was like the baseline. I knew that agencies were valued on a multiple EBITDA, so profitability was no question. And so building systems, that made sure that I understood the pricing of my products and what the deliverables were, were really important. Building a business that was bigger than myself was really important. I wanted to extract myself from the business. I never was one of those people that was totally like, excuse me, I just work on the business. I don't work in the business. I always worked in the business a little bit, but I had to be not the driving force of the business. And I think that that was really, really important. And then the other thing, that I think was a real differentiator for us that I encourage other founders to look at is really what is it that is their secret sauce? What makes them different? And if you can package that and prove it so that it's not just marketing speak, that's another really important piece. I think people talk all the time about the income and the profit parts of what we talk about because that's the basis of where businesses are valued. And that's true. But I think that understanding sort of both your what makes you different and looking at how you prove that out was really key for us for success. Jason Kirby (06:38.35) And when did you decide that peak of market 2021 was the best time to sell? you thought about selling and packaging out the business seven years prior. You know, why was 2021 the year? Carrie (06:52.058) Okay, there were a few factors. So first, I always encourage founders to sell when they want to, like be able to pull a trigger the minute something happens, like always be ready to sell. And that way, that's how you can time the market if you do time the market. We can't always time the market, but if we're always ready and build a sellable asset, then we're in a much better position when the market changes. But I didn't really come to that decision just because of the market. The market was one factor and it was good at that time. I don't think I realized how good it was in retrospect, but it was very good in The reasons we decided to pull the trigger. When I was running the company, I knew, listen, this was a business that was my husband Dave's idea. It was always his and it lit him up at the time. And then he moved on to other things. For me, this was not something that was like my life's work. And so I knew that it had a limited runway for me, but I also wanted to sell when I had enough energy. that I could give to an acquirer at an earn out. In other words, with a services business, I knew I was gonna be contracted to work for them for a while and I was prepared to do that. I just didn't wanna be dead inside when I was doing it. I wanted to be valuable to the acquirer and I didn't wanna hate my life. I wanted to extract the earn out. And so many of these people when you're selling a business say, forget about it, only matter about what's the cash upfront. But for services businesses, so often that's not the case. And so for me, I was like, I really want to make sure that I can, to whatever extent I am able to, I want to be able to give to an acquirer, set this business up for success, and stay. So that was first. The second was I felt that tech was going to be extremely important to social media as it evolved. And I wanted to align myself with somebody who knew more about that than I did. I felt that even if I partnered, I had considered bringing somebody in. Carrie (08:57.754) or something, knew that tech would be important, but I didn't want to invest in building a tech company. And then the third piece was really just that social media required constant reinvention, constant. And I had done it time and time again and did it well. And I felt that even though I had enough in me to help an acquirer, I didn't want to do it alone again. I didn't want to take on that risk again of like, okay, I'm going to reinvent again and it's going to be entirely on my shoes. And if it works, great. And if it doesn't, I'm screwed. And so I felt I was ready. And the other piece was I knew our revenue and EBITDA were at a space where we would extract a minimum of eight figures, which was my start. Like I knew this wasn't the only business I'd ever run for the rest of my life. I knew I had life left in me. I would want to do other stuff. And I knew that eight figures would afford me enough time to figure that out and enough security for my family that I didn't have to stress about it. Jason Kirby (09:58.478) thought out. would say most founders are struggling to get to the point of exit or have to sell. I think you make it a sellable asset from day one and pick when it's right for you. It's a great way to look at it. So there's something that you coin across your own media and your business around the exit gap. Can you tell my audience about what the exit gap is? Carrie (10:00.1) Thanks. I cried. Carrie (10:24.762) Okay, so I'll tell you about the exit gap, which is a really depressing stat, and then I will tell you why it's not as depressing as you think. So people get mad at me when I talk about it. So the exit gap. So there are a variety of studies and data that shows that female founders working exclusively as female founders. In other words, they don't have a male co-founder, just women. If a female co-founder or two female co-founders go to sell their business, they are capturing 0.8 % of... exit value, meaning for every dollar that is spent on &A activity, women are capturing less than a penny. Now that is a shocking stat and a scary stat. However, I want to put it in perspective for you. So first you have to think about if you're looking at the total size of exits, you have to look at companies that are well funded. And we know already that women are capturing far less in funding, right? The second thing is that women are starting businesses at twice the rate of population growth. We are starting businesses. We're just not starting businesses that are funded. And not only not because we can't get funding and all this stuff, because we're starting lifestyle businesses. We're starting businesses that allow us to stay home with our kids. We're starting businesses that allow us to build the lives that we want, that allow us to make it manageable. And so exit... it's not even on our radar. Like we're like, okay, we, we built this great interior design firm and we're running it until our kids are raised. And then what do we do with it? I guess we'll close it or we'll give it to an employee. That's, that's, I believe we're so much of the exit gap lies. And the reality is that lifestyle businesses when built properly can be life-changing assets. And so I want all women, whether we are thinking about building behemoths and raising funding and doing all of it, or we are starting, you know, a cleaning business. I want everyone to think about that their time and effort that they put into their business should in fact have value at exit. And that's really how we change the exit gap. It's not like, of course, these big businesses that are getting huge amounts of funding are exiting for more that's expected, but I believe we can exit en masse. Carrie (12:46.432) when we start just thinking about it a little bit differently. Jason Kirby (12:51.198) It's fascinating. And I actually looked at one of your reports and the exit cap. And there's a quote in there that there's a kind of women's women own business premium that women business owners that are women kind of get these perks because the women owned businesses, minority owned businesses. But when it actually comes to selling the business, it's a net negative. So I think, you know, just talk about that point. I thought that was pretty interesting. Carrie (12:55.673) Yes. Carrie (13:02.714) Mmm. Carrie (13:08.122) I'll Carrie (13:18.69) Okay, this is cool. Like nobody really talks about this fascinating double bind. And I appreciate you asking me about this. This is one of my favorite topics actually. So women owned businesses are encouraged to become women owned business certified, right? And why? Because we have access then to government contracts or folks who focus on diversity of suppliers. Great. You're MWBE certified minority women business owner. Wonderful. And you get these contracts. Now the problem is when you're acquired, you no longer will have that certification because most likely you are not acquired by another woman owned business. Although hopefully when my job is done, you will be, but right now you're acquired by PE or you're acquired by a strategic that is not solely women owned. And so when they're acquiring you, they have to discount what they think you're getting because of that certification. And so The reality is that many of us get that certification, I know I did, and didn't get a dollar from it. Unless you're working in government or doing something along those lines, generally it can help you, but you have to be very, very focused on making it help you. In other words, there's a ton of paperwork and all this stuff. Most women just go through getting certified because you're told it's a good thing to do. Then you go and build your business and you can say, I'm women owned, great. But you're not getting business because of that and solely because of that. And yet you are punished in the end because of that. So what I recommend for that is that two years prior to thinking about selling, you actually don't renew the certification, which sucks. It sucks. But it's the reality of the double buying that we are in where you get this supposed benefit. And there is a benefit if you're, guess, if you're going after like really government contracts. I know for me, I went through all the paperwork to get it done and had no benefit from it. Jason Kirby (14:59.043) Yeah. Carrie (15:13.892) It's very frustrating. Jason Kirby (15:15.79) No, I thought it was a fascinating point that, you just, wouldn't think about it. You think it's a kind of this, you know, wedge for women owned businesses to kind of get business, but then reality it's like a double edged sword. so going back to female founders, what's some advice that you have for, for owners that are thinking about selling or how do they even start the thought process to think about an exit and what's kind of that, those steps that they should start considering? Carrie (15:27.875) Yeah. Carrie (15:45.69) Well, depends on how far out you are, but I always recommend getting evaluation to know where you stand today. And we offer that at the whisper group as well. So we want everyone to know where they stand. So first understand where you stand. And the second is to envision what you want your exit to be. You people don't like to think about that. And we often don't step outside of our day-to-day grind of our businesses to think about that. But like, what do you want the exit to be? Then you want to look at the multiples and how a business like yours is typically valued. Now, granted, you could have a strategic acquirer that throws that all out the window and says, yay, you're worth 10 times what anyone else would value you at. But for the most part, it's a good gauge. And then really working backwards. So in other words, set for yourself, I'm worth X today. I want to be worth Y. In order to be worth Y, My EBITDA has to be this based on this multiple or my revenue has to be this depending on the industry. And then how do I get there and setting the steps in place. And then also looking at the barometers of good health that go beyond just revenue and profit. Is that revenue strong, recurring, expected and diversified? Do we have a clear differentiator in the market? Are we protected against threats? Do we have good systems and processes that make my business more transferable? Do I have a good team or is it reliant, reliant upon just me? Like look at some of those basics and whisper stands for the seven tenants that I see that really are those areas, which is understanding your why, what you want to sell for and why your how, what the multiples are and who the acquirers might be identifying that path, your income, your secret sauce or differentiator, your profit, your executive team or your ecosystem. If you're a solopreneur and then finally your roar factor, which is how you're going to present in what is almost always a room full of men that is doing due diligence and picking apart every piece of your business. And so for me, those are the areas that I tell them to focus on, but primarily it's really setting the goals that you want to sell for and then working backwards to execute against that goal. Jason Kirby (17:58.542) What are some of the mistakes that you see, whether maybe it's founders you've worked with and you see them kind of fall apart in this process or founders that you've run across that struggle with these steps? Carrie (18:12.526) Well, some of the mistakes I see at exit, I can tell you, and then when building. think when building, the most obvious one is not really sticking to a strategic plan and having a path and really saying, okay, I'm accomplishing this this quarter, I'm accomplishing this this year, and just sort of like flying by the seat of your pants. I grew a business flying by the seat of my pants for much of it and was successful. It's not that it can't be done. It's just really... If you don't work towards that exit, you run the very real risk that you will have to sell when you're not ready. And I just think like preparing with a plan is really important. In terms of exit and female founders, the biggest mistake I see is most of us didn't go to business school and say, okay, we're going to start this business because we really love business. Most people have something that they love or an idea or something and they go to make it happen. And when you get to exit, there are all kinds of terms that you don't understand, especially if you didn't fundraise, because they're completely new to you. Understanding how someone negotiates against working capital, for instance, or any kind of non-compete terms or all that stuff. And a lot of founders that I work with, have a fear of looking dumb and having no one to go to when they're trying to understand some of the things that, especially more complicated deals, like they just sort of brush over things they don't understand. And I think that's the real tragedy of how some of these deals go wrong is they don't pay attention to some of those details that can make or break an acquisition. Jason Kirby (20:01.518) I deal with that all the time too. just founders that, you know, this is the one transaction of their life and to not have advisors or banker or investors that they can come to and have these conversations with can be a huge disadvantage. And, you know, it's not every private equity fund or acquire is malicious or you have some evil intent by any means, but if they see the opportunity to, know, kind of just Carrie (20:07.962) great. Jason Kirby (20:29.4) come in with standard terms and take a company off the table very quickly, to which maybe there's some seller remorse because they didn't realize all the levers they had the ability to pull that they didn't pull because they didn't have the knowledge or expertise in their camp. So I think it's super important to have that advisory support throughout the process. Carrie (20:49.402) And advisors who aren't just incentivized upon your deal. You know what I mean? Like the thing about the &A advisors and the iBanks and like all these people is like, they're incentivized for you to close. They want your deal to close. And so you do too, but you also don't want to get screwed. And so I think having advisors that are both really good deal team, but also people that you can go to to be like, does this feel right? Like, what do you think? I think it's really, really important. That's why like networks are so important and people you trust who've been through these things before, I think are really just essential. Jason Kirby (21:31.532) Yeah, it's important to have them in your camp ideally before you're in the transaction stage. So they kind of know who you were, what the business was with context going into the future down the road. But speaking of &A, you had the fortunate option to sell at peak of market. What's your take on the current state of the &A market right now? Carrie (21:53.306) I think it's gonna pick up. we had it, so there was like the wild, wild west of 2021, that was peak. Money's flowing, there's all this money injected into the economy, borrowing is low, yay. Okay, and then it comes to a screeching halt. And then all of a sudden your multiples are going down and the multiple is the one thing that you cannot control, right? You can control the factors within your business, but the market conditions you can't control. Jason Kirby (22:01.046) and Carrie (22:22.102) So the idea is you build a sellable enough business that it's profitable enough that you don't really give a shit and can wait it out. But if you can't wait it out and you have to sell during these conditions, they're not ones that you can control. And so I think the &A market is going to pick up quite a bit, especially as rates come down and people, I think people have been waiting to see if the recession is going to hit. They've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And eventually they get tired of that. And then there you go. mean, some of it depends on what happens with the tariffs and stuff. I think that will impact too. But I think in general, you're going to see it go up. I'm optimistic. If you asked me if I was optimistic for 2025, I would say yes. Quite optimistic. Jason Kirby (23:07.34) very much in the same camp of more optimism for &A, but I guess, what kind of trends do you think you would see in the &A market, whether it be sectors or kind of multiple shifts or anything like that? What do you see on the horizon? Carrie (23:21.806) I think multiples are going to slowly shift. They're going to move in a more positive direction as competition for activity increases. I mean, I think you'll see a lot more buyers be acquisitive. If you're talking about the agency space, which I know really well, you can see that this recent merger, although you'll be out in Jan or Feb. OK, so the relatively recent merger today where we're recording just the announcement of OmniCommonIPG merging. you're going to see then a lot of independents needing to be acquisitive to help go up against that now, what is going to be the largest marketing communications company in the world. And so what will happen to use that as an example, I think what will happen is you will see more consolidation and mergers of these larger. companies, which will in turn create a need for independents and smaller businesses to join forces to be able to compete. And I think you're going to see a lot more acquisitive activity, both from PE, but also from independent companies as well, like pulling their stuff together as borrowing rates come down. They'll borrow more. They'll acquire more. I think you're going to see a lot of really interesting stuff. And you're also going to see the other thing is I think you might have it'll be a really, really good market for buyers. You're going to see a lot of sellers that don't know what to do as AI comes into play. So you're to see a lot of people putting their businesses up, which in turn will make things more acquisitive, but might drive down price a little bit too. So those are some of my predictions. Jason Kirby (24:58.126) Yeah, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder at the end of the day when it comes to these businesses of like, what can you make of it? And I think there's, I'm seeing huge shift in terms of AI companies buying legacy businesses and applying AI. And I think growth or acquisition is going to explode in the coming year. So, your framework of red, I think is very applicable, but also just Carrie (25:12.046) Yeah. Yeah. Carrie (25:18.18) Yes, 100%. Jason Kirby (25:24.806) Do you have attractive customers? You might not have the future business model anymore, but you might have them as customers to transfer to a new business model or a new product. And I think that's a huge growth opportunity, especially for agencies and things of that sort that have the customers that don't maybe have the Carrie (25:42.924) It's such a great point. It's such a great point. Actually, when I think about it, a large portion also of my acquisition dealt with the fact that I had really good. And I think that's, know, clients who had been there a long time and clients who were name brands, you know, they wanted those logos to be able to say, okay, we work with these guys. And I think that that's correct. So you take the legacy client relationships and transfer them over to one of these newer businesses that can do things bigger, better and faster because of technology. Jason Kirby (26:14.222) Yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity for companies that have built great customer list to be very acquirable. So I want to go back to likeable media. We kind of talked about your timing and everything, but you tell us about the process. What was your sales process? Carrie (26:31.692) of the sales process. Carrie (26:38.202) did an annual retreat with my husband. We do that every year and we go through like our finances and our lives and we actually just came back this weekend from this year. And it was right around the same time in 2020 that we went and went through Is It Time? And Dave said to me, I have this &A advisor that I really love and she's a woman and you're gonna love her and I want you to meet her. Jason Kirby (26:48.77) Nice. Carrie (27:04.78) And so we did a Zoom and I felt very connected to her, thought that she had a good idea and understanding of my business. And when I was selecting an advisor and I did speak to others, I looked for somebody who had experience in my field. She understood the agency space. I looked for somebody who I connected with because it's a very, I was very fearful in the process and it's a very intense process. Obviously, like you said, you know, this could be the one transaction of your life. You make it count. And then I looked at the financial fees associated and weighed them against each other. And using those, those three metrics and connecting with her, I felt that she was the right fit and she certainly was. And we put together the SIM. and she went out to market using people that I knew and had approached us through the years, but also her own thoughts around acquirers and understanding of my desire to get into tech. And we came back with quite a few. We ended up getting five LOIs again. This was 2021, but we had a really strong agency business at that point. It was, our clients have been clients for years. They were healthy, they were profitable, they were recurring. I mean, it was like everything you could want. We had a New York City studio. It was a great business. And so we got a bunch of L.O.Ys. I actually got one that was all cash up front, which I signed first. And it was all cash up front. It was a independent agency that had a woman that was doing like this offshoot where they were gonna make a collective of other agencies, almost like mini P.E. and we're gonna do it. But I very quickly learned if something feels too good to be true, it is too good to be true. I got into due diligence and the lawyers were like, how long are your contracts? It was like a year and they were like, okay, bye, we can't acquire it. We're not gonna be able to do all cash up front. that was pretty fun, false start. But I ended up going back to one of the other LOIs that was in tech and that was 10 Pearls. And I went to the founder and said, I think... Jason Kirby (28:47.308) Yeah. Carrie (29:15.29) we are actually a good fit if you're still open. And he was gracious enough to still be open and didn't have sour grapes after I said I couldn't. I when I rejected him, I said, you know, I would really love to go with you, but I got this all cash up for an offer and you're an entrepreneur and I know that you would do the same. And he said, you're right. And so I went back, we worked on the finances of the deal and it was a long, was about most of it, it was about three months of negotiations and due diligence. So a lot of the negotiation happens before the signed letter of intent, which is really important, like making sure you get everything in there you want so that the deal doesn't fall apart later. If the LOI is really like rock solid, you have a much higher chance of close. Then we went into due diligence. There were some hairy points of negotiation, I think. during that, like random things, like things we had trademarks for or naming rights. We had some complications because Dave's books were named likeable social media and I was selling them the trademark to likeable. There was some sticky stuff with that in due diligence that happened. But at the end of the day, they were great and we were amenable and we came to... Final agreement, I think we signed with the advisor in December and we closed on December 2020 and we closed April 1st. So it was very fast. Jason Kirby (30:46.658) That is a very fast process. That was lightning fast. So I think that's one could have. Carrie (30:48.826) It was fast. was fast. Especially for an exit of that size, it was very fast, very fast. Jason Kirby (30:56.236) That was so you you got like deal done done not LL. You went through a bad LL. Carrie (31:01.006) No, the deal closed April 1. But again, Jason, the market was nuts. January, five LOIs, then going through negotiating and screaming on fast turn, you know, it doesn't work, go back. And it was all done very quickly. Probably too quick, probably too quickly. If I had waited, if I had waited and taken my time, I'm sure from a monetary standpoint, I probably could have gotten a little more. Jason Kirby (31:07.564) Yeah, it was really good. Yeah. Jason Kirby (31:18.136) Yeah, things have slowed down. Carrie (31:28.366) But I think for me, what I wanted was the right fit and I believed in that founder. I really believed in him and his business and was so impressed with what they were doing in terms of revenue and how acquisitive they were and really felt good about it. So I'm glad I did. Jason Kirby (31:44.588) No, that's good. that's, that's, I think that's important is like, I would, I talked to lot of founders being, you know, the pep group, post-exit of founders that some have remorse towards sellings. You know, some, some are now going back and trying to buy their businesses for pennies on the dollar. so there's all kinds of, you know, scenarios that could potentially happen. But I think when you come in mentally prepared to sell and you come in with a plan, it's hard to kind of get the max peak dollar without 10 times the stress. Carrie (31:57.848) I know. Wow, I know. Jason Kirby (32:12.519) Because you know, you're let that on table. Yeah. Carrie (32:12.94) Right. All right, it sounds worth it. It's not about the money. Yeah, I don't know if you know the stat, like, supposedly 70 % of 70 or 75, I would have to qualify. It's from the Exit Planning Institute of founders are experienced depression post, for one year post sale. It's like. Jason Kirby (32:30.318) Okay. Post exit, post exit founder paradox. Yeah. You're like, am I now? Carrie (32:34.466) Yeah, you're stuck. You're really stuck. It's your fault. It was your identity. Who are you? You know, and so for me, my goal is to help women first realize that they can exit for life changing money. And then when they do exit, help them figure out kind of where they belong in the world. And that's how I know they're ready to exit. Yeah. Jason Kirby (32:53.676) What's Yeah, that's incredible valuable service that you have and kind of leading into that. I believe you have a book coming out. I would love for you to tell everyone a little bit about what is the book and why did you write it. Carrie (33:03.77) Yeah. Carrie (33:08.61) I do. I wrote the Whisper Way, which is the secret formula for female entrepreneurs to scale and sell for life-changing money. But by the way, it's also a formula that men can use. It just happens to be written through and told through a female lens. Jason Kirby (33:21.998) Sounds like a very logical framework that you put together. you know, gender neutral. Carrie (33:24.79) It is, it's logical. It's logical. It's really meant to, women are really, really under resourced in this area. It's not that when we sell, it's inherently different because we are a different gender. It's just, the reason we're exiting for less is it really wasn't taught to us in any way. And so that's my goal is really to educate and get women founders focused on this. So the book is a parable also light built to sell, except it's seven women who come together each with a challenge in one of the areas of whisper that I define one doesn't know their why. One is confused on how they sell, one is their income's problem, all of these different things. And they're invited to this retreat where they workshop through all of these challenges. And then there's an outcome for each of them. They're in different businesses, different verticals, et cetera. And then there's an implementation guide for folks who want to actually work on each of those areas. And there's also real life case studies of women who've sold their businesses. Jason Kirby (34:29.134) sounds like a comprehensive book. When is that coming out? Carrie (34:31.098) Yeah, it's really fun. May 2025. So when this comes out, it'll be 2025 and it comes out in May. Jason Kirby (34:41.034) Awesome. And then where can people subscribe and learn more? Carrie (34:42.072) basis. Carrie (34:46.476) Yeah, so it's available for pre-order now. So you can look up The Whisper Way on Amazon or anywhere. But also if you go to CarrieKirpen.com or WeAreTheWhisperGroup.com, both will have information on the book and ability to pre-order. There's lots of bonuses and cool things that you can do to get it pre-ordered. Jason Kirby (35:02.062) Perfect. I'll make sure to put those in the show notes. And before we part ways here, as you went through your journey, you ran your process, very, very tight process, very short process. And as you deal with more founders working through these problems, what's some parting advice that you would give to female founders that are maybe in that pivot point, or maybe like in the early stage of their journey of thinking about maybe a bigger outcome than where... today, like what would be your advice for them? Carrie (35:34.784) women who are in the starting early space that are thinking about a bigger outcome is primarily dream big and execute against it. Don't be afraid to take risks. I know we are typically more risk averse. But really, I find in the women I speak to, the risks they take are very calculated and smart. Go for it. And then Jason Kirby (35:40.172) Yeah. Carrie (36:01.294) The biggest thing I have at the deal table is just remember they're lucky to be acquiring you. When I sat at that deal table, felt like, and you, she'll hopefully buy me. And instead it should be like, they would be lucky to buy me. And really that shift and understanding your value throughout the entire process, understand the ability of what you are able to do. And I think whether you're early stage or at the end, it's really... understanding that you're a gift and you should take chances and bet on yourself. That's what I would say. Jason Kirby (36:39.128) Beautifully said. Gary, it's been absolutely amazing having the show today. I'm so excited for our audience to hear your story and for founders to know what they should be doing when it comes to planning their exit. Carrie (36:52.644) Thanks, Jason, so much, and thanks to all your listeners for tuning in. Jason Kirby (36:57.356) My pleasure. Thank you.