The Growth-Drive Hot Seat

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Hi, this is George Samman. I'm the founder and CEO of Growth Drive. Growth Drive is the number one best -selling business advising platform, and this is our podcast, The Business Advisor Hot Seat. Now in the hot seat, you're going to hear from industry leaders, thought leaders, your colleagues who are going to share tips, techniques, war stories about building a thriving advisory business based on delivering client wins. We're going to get into it. We'll get into it about the Growth Drive methodology, the clarity software, what we see out in the world.

so much more than just the system. And I'm also the author of The Growth Driving Advisor, which is based on over a decade of being an advisor to advisor, working with you and your colleagues, helping them build their practices, helping them through client engagements. And it's really proven strategies for leading businesses from stuck to best in class. Check it out. So strap in. We're going to light this up. Here we go.

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I guess this week is Tim Martin. He's an expert in business strategy and growth advisory. He's a certified exit planner currently with J .Co. Advisors and he's building on a long career with Scott's Miracle Grove Company where he served as the VP of North American Sales Strategy. Now, Tim brings a ton of experience that is ideally suited for sophisticated clients, but he's also really, really strong with startup and growth phase companies. Let's hear him describe it in his own words. Here we go.

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This week's episode is brought to you by Growth Drive, highlighting the Growth Drive Summit, held this year in Charleston, South Carolina, September 23, 24, and 25. The theme is business advisory and quantum age, harnessing technologies and delivering client wins. This is unique content. You can't get anywhere. And to learn more, go to growth -drive .com. Look under events.

Thank you. See you there.

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Welcome ladies and gentlemen, this week our guest is Tim Martin and Tim has a ton of experience at the enterprise level leading, and he'll tell you more about it in a sec, leading a major national brand and he brings those experiences, that expertise, that very sophisticated strategic planning and execution that I feel like it's baked into your DNA.

to his client engagement. So welcome, Tim. It's great to have you. George, thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure. And Tim, maybe if you could start by describing yourself and why clients hire you. Yeah, I mean, just for background purposes, I've got 30 years of sales and marketing experience in the food industry early in my career with brands like Chiquita and Borden.

and then 20 years at Scott's miracle group and where the last, you know, six years there at Scott's, I was a general manager and oversaw a third of our lawn and garden business, which we called controls that includes brands like roundup, Tomcat, ortho, had some, stints of managing Canada and Mexico, as well. And so.

you know, really had was fortunate to have, you know, such a great experience with well known consumer brands and driving growth in those businesses. So when you're working with a big company like that, like Scott's Miracle Grow, you sometimes take for granted all of the experiences that you're exposed to. And, you know, I think that's why most clients sort of gravitate to

to me is based on that experience. And it's not something where I'm a consultant and I write up sort of the prescription, if you will, and leave them. I've done it. And I'm part of an advisory group. And when we say advisory, that means, no, we're going to roll up our sleeves and help you through those issues as well. So taking all those learnings from my corporate

you know, experience and sharing that with folks that either, you know, haven't had the resources, you know, to do some of the things I've done or the experiences and share that with those companies is very fulfilling. Absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting in our conversations and you're really active in the coffee clutch, in the master or mastermind peer group in, you know, when we run workshops, you're, you're, you're

there and dialed in, thank you. And one thing that I pick up on is your experience working at leading a senior leadership team and being part of a senior leadership team and really having a deep understanding of accountability and collaboration. You wanna comment on that? Yeah, we were fortunate again at Scott's to go through some pretty intensive.

leadership training with General McChrystal. General McChrystal was the guy that got fired by Obama, but led the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we were in a point where I think everybody was operating in silos. And the thing that Stan McChrystal brought to us was this idea, he calls it cross lead, but it was really opening up,

everything that was going on with the company to everybody in the company. We got into the practice and habit of having Tuesday morning phone calls with everybody, video conferencing with everybody across the country, sharing what the company's goals were and priorities were and going through those priorities every week.

Some of those priorities didn't have anything to do with my business directly, but they would influence and it was helpful for each of us to kind of understand everything that was going on and share experiences and share learnings and apply those to our businesses. So it really helped us get on the same page, total alignment all the way from the top, all the way down to the bottom. The guys that were working,

guys and gals that were working in the stores knew exactly what our priorities were and where we were going. I mean, just - I love that. Yeah, huge, huge benefit, I think, to the company and, you know, things like having all hands meetings, which meant, you know, everybody in the company was present and, you know, hearing firsthand what our CEO was saying or what, you know, me in my business, what we were saying.

you know, extremely beneficial, but not well duplicated in, you know, small to midsize, you know, companies, right? And they just don't have that practice in hand. Yeah, it's interesting. Because one of the things that qualifies, I think a top qualifier for the ideal client is a willingness, not just to plan and to do, but a willingness to be transparent and accountable and authentic.

Right? Yeah. And so I'd love to talk about getting clients to move from, here's my plan and I'll tell you what you need to know, to sharing it with the team, sharing it with the entire organization and creating alignment from the top down. Let me ask a question. When General McChrystal, Stanley McChrystal, worked with you guys and you got into, you became transparent and you shared,

What impact did that have on the business overall? Well, you know, standard growth in the lawn and garden business, it's a little sleepy category. It's usually like around one to 2%. you know, I'm not sure we, we had a tendency to at times stretch that, you know, a little bit. And, you know, we, we were always plus one, plus two GDP. and that was our goal anyways. And I think what it allowed us to do.

maybe less on the growth side, but more on the efficiency side, was to leverage our resources a lot more efficiently across the board. And those learnings across the different businesses and what we were trying to execute are incredibly valuable to other pieces of the organization. And if you think about, hey, here's our priorities.

We're spending $100 million in advertising, media spend, making sure that that money is going against the priorities, making sure that our R &D resources are going against those priorities. The alignment throughout the entire organization just helps you operate more efficiently and effectively. And that's where the real benefit comes. Yeah, outstanding.

Outstanding. I'm going to flip it around because you know that I'm in total agreement with that. Actually, it's culture, right? Yeah. It becomes the culture of the business and how these cultural attributes benefit pre -middle market and middle market businesses. When you start working with a client, what do you tip if there is a typically find, I don't want to

put a notion and words in your mouth. But if it hasn't been yet, so I don't know. So what do you see in middle market businesses? So you've sat down, when you're sitting down and you're doing discovery, what do you want covering? Well, I think the owner, it starts with the owner and they generally have a vision.

of what they want to be. It's maybe not articulated very clearly. And then when you start to go just one layer down and ask the leadership team that supports that owner what the vision is, there's a lot of inconsistency in how they might articulate that. And then just like any game of telephone, right? Like,

the lower you go, then all of a sudden somebody's saying something completely different and surprising. And so really the start of it is to help crystallize those things like vision and mission, which seems so like, of course you're gonna say vision and mission, but it's fundamental. And then the articulation and alignment of that vision and mission,

across the leadership team. So everybody's speaking, you know, the same language. That's what that whole cross lead training that we were talking about helped eliminate was that game of telephone. Everybody was hearing the same thing. You might be, we're all human beings. You still might be like interpreting it differently, right? But you know, everybody was hearing the same thing at the same time.

And it's incredibly powerful. And so it takes those silos that folks have built up within the company and they're sort of the master of their domain, so to speak. It's viewed obviously as protection for their job and the way of doing things. And this is my world and this is what I'm in charge of. And this is how.

we're going to do things. And so it's not without a lot of practice and a lot of senior leadership support that this idea of being transparent across the organization takes hold. So I think that's one of the fun parts of being an advisor and being a part of that rollout.

fun and difficult, but seeing it from the outside, having gone through it once myself, it eventually grabs hold. It eventually gets traction. It's interesting, Tim, because you are very much verbalizing something that we've seen across organizations from Main Street businesses up to the largest businesses with which we deal with on the private capital markets.

up in the $100, $200 million gross annual sales is that this transparency, a shifting culture, a willingness to share and by sharing involve everyone in the process is incredibly powerful. Even at the lower, I should say lower, like even at sort of the day -to -day operations folks, having an understanding of whatever I am doing,

how that fits into accomplishing the overall company's mission is a powerful thing for employee motivation and employee loyalty, retention, et cetera. Even if the company's going through some struggling times, it is a powerful way to sort of band the organization together to kind of take on whatever adversity you might be facing. So,

in good times and in bad, like there's no drawback really to kind of operating, you know, the way we're talking about. Well, and what I like is in bad times, by being transparent, you actually prevent what I call voodoo, right? Which is people coming to their own conclusion and the rumor mill and the next, it's like, listen, we are struggling people and here's, you know, here's why and what do you think we should be doing about it? Yeah, I love it. And.

Yeah, pushing it out onto the shop floor. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's funny, no matter the industry, right? So I've got experience in consumer packaged goods, and you and I have talked about this before, but no matter the industry, the fundamentals of running a business is all the same. The tenets that you need to sort of be managing,

people and teams, it really doesn't matter what the industry is, all these things apply. Absolutely, and we may need to get into specialty marketing or specialty, but the guiding principles, the standards of a best in class business, I'm with you. They actually...

transcend economic demographics and they transcend industries. I mean, a best practice, having an effective senior leadership team, having accountability, having people who are productive and loyal, you know, those are all happy, you know, generating high recurring revenues. Those, I don't care what you're doing. Those are important. Yeah. Right, right. You know, what, well, I shift gears a little bit, Tim. You bring, so, you know, in this community of advisors, you represent,

of a relatively rare skill set, which is having this background at the enterprise level. And those experiences and the people like General McChrystal with whom you were able to work, that's a very valuable reservoir of expertise, which you can draw. One that your colleagues may not have had the chance to experience. Care to comment on that?

I didn't listen again. I feel, you know, 20 years at Scott's is a long time. But having the resources that and being exposed to those resources over those years, I am eternally grateful and have had, you know, plenty of adversity to kind of like work through as well as some really fun experiences.

over the course of that 20 years. I don't know what to say. Like it's just something that, you know, super grateful for. And again, even Michael Porter was on our board for a while. And, you know, Michael Porter sort of the father of the five forces and strategic planning. You know, I...

was fortunate during the time that I was managing a billion dollars worth of business to be sitting across the table from Michael Porter and presenting my strategic plan, which by the way, he helped set up our framework and outline for the strategic plan. But having in -depth discussions with somebody like Michael Porter, it's like a surreal experience. You're sitting in his Harvard office.

I'm sitting there going, I can't believe I'm, you know, I'm doing this. I remember learning about his stuff, you know, back in my college days. And here we are sitting across from the guy. It's those kinds of experiences that are rare, obviously. And, you know, eternally grateful for, you know, having had the opportunity to experience. Absolutely. And I'm envious. The, the,

I want to hit the point again that these processes that you went through, the learnings you have, absolutely apply with privately held businesses and with the privately held businesses that are in our wheelhouse, the businesses we look to work with. It's terrific because you represent, so in this community,

you represent, you are a representative of that enterprise experience, completely applicable to the full range of businesses. And then you are able to collaborate with, and we're a collaboration -based community, you're able to collaborate with reformed CPAs. When I say reformed CPAs, it's because they've decided not to do tax work anymore, and they're actually accounting fractional CFOs. You're able to...

to collaborate with pure exit planners. You're a SEPA, right? And by the way, congratulations. Thank you. So you're able to be an incredibly valuable and you are an incredibly valuable member of this team that it takes to deliver successful exits. Well, I tell you one of the things that attracted me to Growth Drive when, you know, George, you talk about, first of all, your book's fantastic and

As I'm reading through it, I'm like, this stuff, you know, the list of what, you know, is, you know, you completely agree with it. I think the trick is the how. So I've got this laundry list of things that, you know, need to support a sustainable, profitable and valuable transferable value value business. How, you know, do I do it?

And I'm fortunate to have been through some of those experiences. I know how to do it because, and I've done it. I haven't won every time, which is good because you learn, right, right. You learn more from your failures. We've had plenty of businesses that we've gone and bought and brands that we brought into the fold and then for whatever reason, you know, completely messed up. But.

You know, having the experience of how you execute that and how you manage through that, it's not a straight line, right? You're gonna go up and down, especially with the whole leadership alignment, et cetera. But you know what it looks like at the end of the game too. So yeah, I think the how is the biggest element that, again, if we go back to your initial question, why?

clients might entertain working with me. It's really the fact that, yeah, everybody's got the same list, but you know, how do you execute against that? And how do you, how do you make those things? How do you manifest those things? Absolutely. How do we turn, how do we turn intent into reality? Right. Yeah. You know, what's, can we talk about exit planning for, yeah, sure. Sure. So you decided as part of you,

came, you became certified as a growth driver and watch, there's going to be some news on that coming out. And then you went and you earned your certified exit planning designation from DI. And what was that experience like? Well, you know, the light bulb went off in my head last fall when we were together with a growth drive conference down in Florida.

Yeah. And, you know, I'll pay tribute to, Steve Cummings, you know, up in, up in Canada when he made his presentation, he was actually coming at the business from an opposite end that I was, right? I was all about growth and that's what I kind of did over my, you know, corporate career. And he was coming from an exit planning position and realizing the.

value that growth drive brought to his business. And when he got up and sort of tied those two together, you know, it just made complete sense. And I think the combination of, you know, the SEPA training and the growth drive training, and they're very complimentary. There's a ton of overlap, right?

but very complimentary in that exit planning isn't just buying and selling and the actual transaction. It's everything that leads up to it. Yes. And then beyond the business, which obviously I've got a ton of experience with, you know, the personal side of it, you know, quarterbacking a team of maybe a CPA, maybe an estate.

you know, attorney, you know, a wealth advisor, right. And bringing a team of advisors to that owner that helps him, whether he wants to sell the business or not, helps him start to lay out a plan that, you know, makes, you know, the business, you know, more efficient, right. and

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This week's episode is brought to you by Growth Drive, highlighting the Growth Drive Summit, held this year in Charleston, South Carolina, September 23, 24, and 25. The theme is business advisory and quantum age, harnessing technologies and delivering client wins. This is unique content. You can't get anywhere. And to learn more, go to growth -drive .com. Look under events.

Thank you. See you there.

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profitable. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, what's interesting, what we do see as so.

You're drawing a distinction here and I'll put it out loud. There's exit planning and there's exit doing and your specialty is doing, right? How? How are we going to turn this, I need the business to be worth 20 million into reality, right? And one of the, it's a, we collaborate very closely with the Business Enterprise Institute, they, you know, home of the CEXP designation, John Brown.

Fletcher Brown, great organization. There are three and they're all good organizations.

But we, you and I and our colleagues are dedicated to delivering successful exits. Exit may not mean, and I talked about this in a recent podcast actually with John Fullwider, also with SIPA about, exit doesn't necessarily mean leave, but it does create the option to leave, right? And a lot of people don't know, a lot of business owners fail to remember.

that transferable value was the number one measure of business success. And, you know, I'm a marketer by trade, you know, by education. And I think exit planning actually has maybe a misleading, you know, branding in that I like your idea of transferable value and, and at least maybe creating that. What does that mean? That means

You know, if something drastic happens, you know, I think what, you know, SIPA guys call the five D's, right? If something drastic happens, you're prepared. You are in a position where maybe 80 % of your net worth is tied up into that organization. It's illiquid. You know, how do you, are you in a position to access that value when you may need it the most?

And so, transferable value is planning is probably the, it's not as sexy as exit planning sounds. So we'll have to work on that, but transferable value really is at the heart of what you're trying to create. Absolutely. And we talk internally, I agree with you. If you sit as a marketer and you say exit planning to the...

to the market of business owners and CEOs, they say, that's great. Hey, I'm sure that's valuable, but I'm not exiting my business. I like to think of it in terms of equity value planning. And we fact, we call our module the equity planning module. Well, how do we plan the future value of the business? Whether you're going to monetize it or not, because monetizing it to a third party is only one and probably the least often done exits, right?

Right. Absolutely. So all of this stuff too, as I left Scott's and partnered with a friend of mine to kind of have a side hustle, if you will, in the golf industry. You know, all of these things, when you're working for a company, you may say you own the P &L, right? But like there are so many different facets involved there. And

we actually did a good job of focusing, having the leadership focus on building value and equity at Scott's. We actually went from $90 all the way up to 250 per share at one point in time. So it's struggled since, so nobody go and check SMG right now.

Nothing to do with you. You were there at 250. I was there. I was there when you draw your own conclusions. Right, right, right. Hey, just a quick side. What was the price to earnings ratio at 90 and the price to earnings at 250? my goodness. Rough numbers. Well, you know, here's what I would say on that. Part of the business was in the marijuana, you know,

industry. And so the stock was certainly trading on speculation. I would say our, I don't know, remembering the exact P to E ratio, but we should have been trading somewhere around the 100 to $120 range, perhaps. And at 250, that'll give you, we were to two to three X.

bigger than what we should have been valued at. What I love is that your stock, and we can bring this right back and apply it to private companies, your stock actually had strategic value to the public market. When we think of the private capital markets, how do we create, so we really focus on, when we talk about transferable value, we are necessarily conservative. We say, okay, to a financial buyer. And guys like you understand some of the things that can be done, delivered,

that might create strategic value for the business, just one of which is having top strategic capacity, right? A strategic capacity of 85 or 90. That will give you strategic value, perhaps a platform company, but there are other things. for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think we were harmed a little bit by the fact that the marijuana business was still in its infancy. Sure. And...

you know, we leveraged up to make sure we were in a position to take advantage of it as soon as it broke, you know, but we're sitting here, you know, seven, eight, 10 years later, with still no federal banking, you know, approval for it. You know, there's there's just foundational things that aren't in place for the business to for anybody in that business to really thrive. So it'll come, it'll come. And I think,

those decisions will eventually bear fruit, but maybe not for Scots, but for somebody else, they end up selling it. But yeah, it's just an interesting - Scots got into it, InBev got into it. I don't know, but it would seem to me that the federal government over time will not be able to resist the tax revenues that would come from it. Absolutely. We'll leave that topic. Yes.

I love the concept of equity value planning. And frankly, you and I have these long and fun valuable conversations. Because that's really the name. Yeah, you guys say it pretty well. And it's like, don't, you know, most people are looking at the P &L, you know, every month. And, you know, how are we doing? And, you know, cash flow is an elusive.

thing for a lot of businesses to kind of understand and capture that sort of like level one, you know, as far as, you know, I'm concerned. And then when you start looking at equity, you know, that's an even more sort of amorphous sort of thing that, you know, most owners, you know, it's difficult to grasp. And like, how do you value it? Because they would say, you know, my company is worth

X, it's got to be. And then when you start looking at it and you go back and I mean, this is probably the worst part of the engagement is going back and letting them know sort of where their company actually is valued, you know, in the private equity markets, you know, there's no way there's no way that's true. You know, yeah, get out of here. It's funny you say that I have a friend who has a business that's doing 20 million gross. And,

And he sits down with a friend of his who happens to be in private equity and they're busy making that the 20 million business is doing an acquisition. And he sits down with a friend and he says, by the way, I'm doing all this paperwork. What do you think my business is worth? And friend asks like two questions and says, it's worth X. And so my close friend comes back and says, well, blank says that the business is worth this number. Come on now, they know nothing about your business.

I believe that that could be true. Two questions, right, right, right. I'm like, what two questions? I need to know the magic two questions. Yeah, exactly. And if you were going to, you know, if someone was trying to acquire you, that might be the number on the LOI, but man, you go through due diligence, it is not going to be that number. Right. Yeah. And which is the, which is what you and your colleagues help identify and neutralize. I think what, you know, the SEPA training too does well is identify sort of those,

you know, what I'd call soft skills of the organization that really comprise most of the value in equity value that we're talking about. So it's really the human capital, it's really the leadership alignment, like those things are, you know, immensely important and hard to put a value on, right? It's really the value is identified by the manifestation of

that alignment and that direction and that efficiency that the company is operating on and that alignment of resources, you know, throughout the organization, focused on that stuff. And so it's easy for somebody who's owning, you know, that business to say my business is worth 20 million when in fact, you know, digging into it, it could be, it could be worth 20 million. Yes. Or it could be worth.

You know, your account's receivable, less your account's payable. It's a wide range. Absolutely. And what you just hit on is the fact that it could be worth, you've probably created an asset that could be worth 20. It has the P &L to support 20 million, but it doesn't have, let's not even get into the balance sheet. It doesn't have the strategic capacity. The

the people and the processes to marry to that cash that would say, hey, as an acquirer, not only do I believe that you can repeat, but that you're gonna create sustainable growth going into the future. And that's where the value of the company is. And sustainable growth with you, Madam CEO. Remove. Out of the picture. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, it's a fascinating and very liberating.

for our, we create, you know, you essentially help create freedom for the business owner. Yeah, you know, and I just recently had an interaction, didn't turn into an engagement, right? But sat down with the 86 year old business owner, started the business himself when he was in his twenties. Grew the business to, you know, 45 million in revenue, top line.

at one point in time. When I sat down with him, he was around 11 or 12 million. Really the value of the business was his accounts receivable less his accounts payable at the time and was in a state of filing for bankruptcy and wanted to know what else he could do.

And while we offered him a couple of options, you know, at his, at his age, he was like, if I was 60, I'd do it, you know, but now I want to go home and I want to watch traffic. That's what he said to me. And, you know, I know he kind of went, you know, into bankruptcy and so, you know, thankfully he had a good wealth manager, in place that, you know, he could do it.

and still be, you know, taking care of him and his family. That's probably even, you know, rare in that situation. But to think about investing 60 years and, you know, growing something and then to at the end have nothing, you know, to show for it. I think there was a lot of frustration, you know, on the guy's face.

You know, you hate to see that. And that's really about, you know, going back and operating the business in a way that allowed him to be removed from it. He went through a little bit of adversity where he couldn't be managing the business on his own. And so we hired somebody and that's how things sort of went awry. You know, those systems, those, that vision, you know, those priorities weren't,

built into the company's DNA. And so it was allowed to go astray. And, you know, it's just a, you know, a tough story that I think, you know, reflects sort of what you're trying to avoid when somebody like me comes in and says, I think, you know, I can help you, you know, manage your business, you know, in a way that helps, you know, drive and build equity. Absolutely. Absolutely.

because of this gentleman, and that's a heartbreak, right? We talk about heartbreak, I think I used the word a couple of times in my book. I mean, that is a heartbreak. That is the value of his life's work reduced to, it's a real heartbreak. And the impact that has on the jobs he was providing, the suppliers he was using, all of that community, those rings that emanate from the business. That...

That's a big rock thrown in a pond. That's really a shame. Now, would it be fair to say, and it was, we make this argument, if you're a CEO out there and you're listening to this, please, even when, or maybe especially when things are going well, it is the perfect time to invest in a plan that includes personal succession planning, business continuity, the right insurance and this insurance can be very cost effective, succession planning for your senior team.

You know, those few things, I mean, those might've made a difference for a business in his position, right? That's right. Absolutely. I was just actually at an ACG event. Attending one last night. very good. And, you know, you get to meet folks that are, you know, specialists in sort of that risk management. You just brought up, you know, risk management, which I, you know, spent a good deal of time, you know, meeting with a couple of companies.

last night about that. Even the side hustle that I have is very reliant on one, you know, key individual, one artist, one, you know, designer that, you know, key man insurance and having some of those risk mitigation plans in place are, you know, super important. Absolutely. And fundamental, right? Like, that's almost like step one. It's like, how well are you?

How well is your risk sort of mitigated here? Because you do have a lot of time and energy and money invested in the business. Make sure that that is sort of step one of the moat that you're building around your business. Absolutely. And if you're a business advisor out there, I mean, you work with wealth advisors, you work with insurance advisors to do that advanced planning, to look at those compensation issues.

those sophisticated synthetic equity, stock appreciation rights, et cetera. Yeah, guys, listen, collaboration is the name of the game. Yeah, I've actually spent a lot of my time as I've sort of ramped up this consulting business and building that network of people that I can trust and refer. I think it adds a lot of credibility to my practice. I'm not...

I'm not the master of everything. There's a pretty tight focus on the things that I can do in terms of operating a business, setting strategic plans and visions in place and then executing against those. But when it comes to estate planning or risk mitigation, insurance and all that, but I know the people that I can trust and know who does a good job that

You know, you basically are there to quarterback and set the owner up for success. and it doesn't all come from me. you know, you've, you've got a team of folks that refer each other that, are highly qualified and, you know, it's part of your reputation as well. So like building that network, of people that you trust in each of those different disciplines, is an important part of building your.

consulting practice. Absolutely. Complete agreement, man. Complete agreement. Hey, Tim, you know, we've been talking for a little over a half hour now. Maybe we'll wrap up. You know, you mentioned your side hustle, but it is quite successful. I mean, you want to describe it briefly and a couple of things you may have learned?

I think it's so funny how the universe works and how things just sort of happen and coincide together. But a friend of mine, dear friend of mine from college, you know, had a business and started, it was basically in remodeling, a very talented designer and craftsman and started to do some work for

a local golf course in Inverness up in Toledo, making some custom wood furnishings for the club. And it's a very small world of golf pros. They all know each other. And so once you start doing a good job for somebody, work gets around quickly. And so he was growing his business purely organically and doing fairly well, but just kind of taking the business in.

as it was coming to him and he got a call from live golf, and called me up shortly thereafter and said, okay, I need your help. I always offered help along the years because I love the guy and, you know, believe in him. He's a grinder. He's a hard worker. what equipment do you need? How can I help invest? And he was always like, nah, you know, keep things kind of simple and,

once lived golf called, you know, that's when we started to sit down and lay out a strategic plan and build a business plan that was actually a little broader than what he was doing. So instead of just making wood furnishings for, you know, the club, how do we extend some of that to the club members? How do we get involved with tournament gifting? Some of those things that we were doing were not recurring, you know, opportunities, right? But tournament gifting,

Now that happens every year. Yes. And so how do we get involved in that business to again, build equity for him and his business. And so, you know, now we're doing business with major, you know, professional tours. We are doing business with clubs all over North America, you know, including, you know, Canada and Mexico.

And it's been a blast. I love to golf. you wouldn't know it by watching my golf game, but, I, I enjoy the sport and I enjoy the community. I'll tell you what, like golf professionals, they're all, I'll generalize. I mean, you got women and men sort of, you know, really into the business and women are definitely growing as a.

Love it. You know, piece of that business, but class A gentlemen and gentle ladies and like just awesome people to work with. It's really been a joy. It's really been a lot of fun. If there's any proof that from the boardrooms of Scott to do a gritty, no longer a startup to a business that is now growing and starting to be very well recognized in the space where you've expanded the product set, you've

help create recurring revenues, et cetera. I mean, your expertise are on display with the growth of that business and it's super cool. I always love hearing about it, which is why I always ask you about it. I'm an entrepreneur junkie. So that's terrific, Tim, and congratulations. thank you very much. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun. Absolutely. It actually helps relate to what I'm doing personally on the side with

you know, the clients that I work with, I could totally, you know, totally relate. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Cause now I'm trying to do all the stuff that I did at Scott's with all those resources. And so it's a very practical, you know, sort of application that I can, you know, when a business owner says, we can't do that. No, you can't. You can't. There's ways around it. We're going to do it. I want to, yeah. Walk the walk. Absolutely.

All right, man, we'll wrap it up here. This was a super fun conversation, Tim. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, George. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. And well, see you around campus. Sounds good. All right, ciao for now. See you.

(44:17)
Hi this is George, thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, you can subscribe, like, and please take two seconds to leave a review. It tells the world that you like what we're doing and it helps us understand how we can improve the show. Thank you and see you next time.

(44:37)
I guess this week is Tim Martin. He's an expert in business strategy and growth advisory. He's a certified exit planner currently with J .Co. Advisors and he's building on a long career with Scott's Miracle Grove Company where he served as the VP of North American Sales Strategy. Now, Tim brings a ton of experience that is ideally suited for sophisticated clients, but he's also really, really strong with startup and growth phase companies. Let's hear him describe it in his own words. Here we go.