1819 – The True Measure of Success with Boruch Akbosh

Josh (00:00:05) - A thoughtful listener before we get going. Did you know that my company up My influence.com has launched more than 200 business podcasts. The host of our shows are amazing leaders and collaborators. Folks I want to connect you with. Maybe you deserve your moment in the spotlight as a guest of one of these amazing shows. Just go to up my influence.com, where you can see more than 50 shows that are actively seeking business leader guests like you to celebrate right now in front of their high caliber audiences. Just click on the podcast tab and up my influence.com, where you'll see shows like the Optics in Action podcast hosted by the visionary Ryan Weiss, president of EPS. This daily podcast is a treasure trove of insights for anyone in the manufacturing and construction world. Are you a business leader or innovator in these industries? Then Optics and Action is your go to source for stories that inspire and strategies that really work. Ryan and his guests dive deep into the journeys of successful founders, uncovering the secrets to scaling up in today's fast paced business environment.

Josh (00:01:23) - But that's not all if you are at the helm of a thriving company. Optics in Action is actively seeking guests like you in those industries, leaders who are shaping the future of manufacturing and construction. Share your story, your challenges, and your triumphs with a senior leadership level audience who are eager to learn from your experience. Don't miss this chance to be a part of a community of visionaries. Visit up my Influence Comm. Click on the podcast tab and look for optics in action. Whether you're tuning in as a listener or stepping up as a guest. Join us in driving the conversation forward. In the world of manufacturing and construction. Your voice matters and we can't wait to amplify it. With us right now. Baruch Baruch. Thank you so much for joining us. You're an investor, you're a business mentor, and you are with the Bosch Investment Group. Your website is@bosch.com aka bosch.com. Baruch, thank you so much for joining us. Sure.

Boruch (00:02:31) - My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Yeah.

Josh (00:02:33) - Well tell us about who you work with and what that work typically looks like.

Boruch (00:02:38) - Sure, I've worked with entrepreneurs, usually owner operators that feel a burnout, feeling like they plateaued and not able to make a breakthrough. And usually the reason is they develop their sales to the point where their current team cannot handle. Beyond that, if they'll bring more sales, the quality will suffer and at the same time to bring additional teammates. They can barely keep up with their current team, so they cannot bring any others. So they kind of stuck in there. So when I come in, I introduce processes that alleviate and speed up some of the things and in addition to that, help them attract better quality teammates where they don't have to experience turnover. And with the technology, processes and teammates all that together, they actually able to make that breakthrough and proceed into seven eight figure businesses.

Josh (00:03:34) - Now, yeah, that's got to be a pretty frustrating position when someone's like, I'd like to grow. I certainly know more customers. I'd like to be, you know, having conversations with and getting them in the system.

Josh (00:03:44) - The problem is we just can't serve more. That's got to be really frustrating for folks.

Boruch (00:03:49) - Yes. And again, it's not just the business that suffers. It's also impacting their families. Right? It all at the expense of the family. They bring worker home, work late nights, they work weekends and ultimately get to the point where they cannot go on anymore. And then they just exit. And when they exit, it has to be at lower model evaluations because they're not really exiting a business. They exiting a job that not everybody wants.

Josh (00:04:16) - Nope. Nope. Yeah. That's not unless your investor wants to buy a job for themselves. Exactly. So how do we begin to solve that challenge? And, you know, and again, let's just talk maybe generally for someone that's listening to us and they say, you know what? Um, I'm kind of in that same boat. What would you have them start to do or start to take a look at so that they can begin to solve that problem of being hindered by the lack of scalability on the operations side.

Boruch (00:04:50) - Sure. Good question. Very good question. Without going into too many details, we look at the vision. Of course, that's where everything starts, where you want to be. And many cases, businesses focus too much on sales and revenue that's coming in. As long as that comes in, they can cover the expenses and they're good to go. But in reality, there's something that is much more important than sales, which is profits, right? You can attract all that business, but if your margins keep on being diminished because you're growing and need to bring all these resources to help you out, you just making slightly more. But then you're a prisoner. You cannot go on. So we look at the vision. What do you really want? Why we focus on profits. Because at the end of the day, valuation of the business depends a lot on the profits. Of course, if you have a management layer and also if you have continuous growth, you diminish the risk level for the investors, return on investment is much higher, right.

Boruch (00:05:46) - The profit margins looks healthy. That's much more attractive. So we start there. Then we go down and look at all the financial indicators to help us with, okay, what's the revenue? What's the gross profit. What's the operational expenses we have, what the cost of goods are, what's the salary looks like, what the marketing expenses look like. We start to evaluate everything on the financial side. Then we look at all the operational indicators, number of leads, number of calls you got to make, number of certain activities you got to perform to produce certain outcome. And then we go down even deeper, which almost no businesses do that. They go we go into efforts. What type of efforts in terms of quantity and quality you produce to create that outcome, how much are you paying for that outcome and how much are you getting paid for that outcome? At the end of the day, everything we do has to be an investment, not an expense, right? So we have a special way how we break all this down and then we identify most important indicators and have somebody own it and focus on improving it more or less.

Boruch (00:06:58) - That's the flow. Of course there's a lot of details. So once you start to dive in.

Josh (00:07:02) - Yeah, based on kind of what you're talking about, that might feel pretty overwhelming to people when they start to think about, you know, everything that needs to get done. If someone's looking at that prospect and they are feeling overwhelmed, what might be the most important thing that they could? What's something that they could do this week that you think might help them to get some clarity about maybe how to eat this elephant, one bite at a time?

Boruch (00:07:30) - Um, I would recommend to reach out to me, of course, but, uh, yes. The reason is, uh, not necessarily to get me as a guide and mentor. I would share for free at no charge resources, and maybe even some blueprints and templates that a business owners get leverage and, uh, without any strings attached, can take their business to the next level. And of course, if they would like some additional insights, additional support, I'll be able to get them those resources or maybe even engage in myself, uh, in the project.

Josh (00:08:05) - Yeah. And so does the process. Like when when you think about the folks that you've worked with historically, um, how long does the engagement typically last?

Boruch (00:08:18) - Well, it depends how far you want to get. Right. Everything is, uh, about the division. I've had the entrepreneurs, for example, started with me when they were at 600 K. Uh, we brought them into 3 million in revenue, where that was, for example, a SaaS company. Uh, the margins looked very good. There were a million or so, uh, in profits. The entrepreneur was able to exit at five and a half multiples. 5.5 million. That's when he exited. So it all depends on you if you want to go beyond that, of course, there's no end. So once you set the division of what you want to hit, we're going to hit that. On average, it would take anywhere between 1 to 2 years. If you want me to tell you that it's easy. It's not, uh, it's toil, it's work, but it's a well worth it.

Boruch (00:09:03) - Uh, for example, right now I'm engaged with, uh, one of the entrepreneurs who acquired the business at, uh, uh, two and a half multiples. Right now, he's at the 1.1 million in, uh, profits. So if once he introduces the management level, once we introduce all these processes in a couple of years, that business could easily go for 8 to $10 million as a valuation if he decides to exit. So all comes down to vision. Where you want to exit.

Josh (00:09:29) - Yeah. Uh, do you work better in a certain types of industries? So I'm just wondering, you know, to our friend that's listening, you know, who might they know? Or you know, what might be the indication that, um, that they should probably grab a call with you.

Boruch (00:09:46) - My focus right now is home services. Starting with the pest control, Hvac, home restoration, water damage, restorations. But I'm very proficient with the technology. Being an ex web developer then transitioned into marketing.

Boruch (00:10:03) - I did sales, mentoring, coaching businesses, business processes and so on, so I'm pretty much comfortable with any business. But my focus is home services.

Josh (00:10:14) - Um, it's funny you were mentioned, I think I think many of us as entrepreneurs came from that tech background, right? Where I was designing websites back in the 90s, uh, late 90s. And lo and behold, here we are. Yeah, that's my story. Ten years later, maybe you had the same book that I did. I had a big old giant, thick book. It was like three inches thick HTML two. And that's where it all began.

Boruch (00:10:38) - Yes, that's been a while.

Josh (00:10:40) - Yeah, yeah. Looking at the year, I'm wondering if maybe I could just have you share maybe some thoughts or insights about where we are. And, you know, if you're an entrepreneur particularly, you know, if you're, you know, in, in the professional home services, right. What trends are you most excited about right now or asked differently to someone that might be an entrepreneur? What should they be paying attention to right now?

Boruch (00:11:07) - I would say that right now, we are in a stage where a lot of baby boomers are looking to exit, and a lot of them grew their business to a certain level, and they're not necessarily technology savvy.

Boruch (00:11:21) - Uh, those businesses have a lot of potential, a lot of growth, and they're not capable of doing it. And because they all owner operated, usually their kids do not want to be involved. Kids do not have the same aspirations, the same, uh, uh, tenacity necessarily. They all want to be on computers and just pretty much, uh, be hands off, look for something much simpler. So there's a lot of opportunity right now to commend and, uh, assist those type of businesses so you can, um, maybe acquire other businesses if you're in home service, uh, you're doing great. Maybe your growth could be at a much faster pace if you acquire your competitor next to you. And of course, you're going to need assistance to roll this up into to have it all under one umbrella. But it's doable. So you can basically acquire those businesses and grow through those emergent acquisitions, uh, and get your businesses to a completely different level by doing that. So I'm looking at that trend right now myself as well.

Boruch (00:12:20) - And uh, in the on the market, uh, actually to acquire businesses that way and roll them up into one, uh, major company.

Josh (00:12:29) - Yeah. So again, your website ACC bosch.com, or maybe you would encourage folks to connect with you on LinkedIn or however, what is the best way for someone who's been listening to our conversation say, well, I'm I'm interested in having a conversation. You know, I certainly I was just thinking about this. What before I get into that, um, because that is I agree with you. I think there are so many amazing small businesses out there. Again, kind of that owner operator. You know, it could be a boomer. They want to retire, they want to exit, but the kids don't want it. Right? Listen, I've got two of those in my family right now. I don't want to do what they do, but there probably is somebody that might make a good person to kind of take the baton and carry it and keep running with it.

Josh (00:13:16) - But you think about the advantages of taking an existing business with an existing book of business, like the. I've already de-risked it so much for you. Rather than starting from scratch, you know, why not take something? I mean, it's probably a huge advantage potentially, right?

Boruch (00:13:34) - Exactly. As in, as investors, we invest, right? The first thing we'll look at what's the value of the business. Second thing we look at what's the risk level. What would be the return on investment and what's the risk level. So a return on investment can look good. But if a risk level is too high we don't want it. And of course if business is there first year just like a baby, right? It's a toddler. So it cannot sustain itself necessarily. So it requires a lot of your attention. And it's not as attractive to us as investors. We want something that's at least five years in business and it's on the upper trend. Right? So it's uh, it has the growth, but it has, uh, its limitations because of who's running it, the owner operator, with all the respect, right? They're not necessarily in the position, not the technology savvy to accommodate that growth.

Josh (00:14:27) - Yeah. All right. But again, your website is Bosch. Com aka Bosch. Com but what would you recommend that people do. Uh like if they want to get in touch with you or kind of have a conversation and, you know, kind of talk about either they're stagnating or sounds like you're open to. Conversations. For people that are interested in maybe exiting or maybe acquiring as well.

Boruch (00:14:52) - Yeah. If you'll go to Acabar. Com, uh, there's a button there to inquire about business valuation. So you just provide your email and we'll provide you the the evaluation kit. Again it's at no charge. Uh, you can start there. And then if you want to dive in deeper, I strongly recommend to for any business owner out there, don't just, uh, go to work and do your day to day stuff. Find out what, uh, the valuation of the business is. Find out where you want to be when you want to exit, what that, uh, journey would look like for you to close that gap.

Boruch (00:15:30) - And I can, with my team, provide you that? Of course, at no charge. You can, uh, feel free to come in and start there. That's where I would do.

Josh (00:15:39) - Awesome. All right, Baruch Bosch again, investor, uh, and mentor. And you're again your website, Bosch. Com Baruch, thank you so much for joining us.

Boruch (00:15:50) - Sure. My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Josh.

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