May 28, 2025 • 29 mins
Carrie Kerpen is the go-to resource for women looking to transform their lifestyle businesses into life-changing assets. Known as The Exit Whisperer, Carrie has guided hundreds of women in scaling their businesses to prepare for successful exits. After scaling and selling her own agency, Likeable Media, she identified The Exit Gap—the disparities in exit values for female-led companies—and developed a methodology to help women avoid common pitfalls during the exit process.
Carrie is the founder and CEO of The Whisper Group, the #1 Exit Readiness Advisory Practice for Women-Owned Businesses, and the creator of The Whisper Collective, the only community exclusively for exited female founders. An accomplished entrepreneur, author, and podcast host, Carrie shares her expertise as the host of The Exit Whisperer, a podcast spotlighting exited female founders. A Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), she lives in Port Washington, New York, with her husband, three children, and their dog, Homer.
During the show we discussed:
- The Whisper Group stands out from other exit-readiness firms.
- Knowing why you want to exit is crucial.
- Learn how to get the exit value you deserve.
- They Got Acquired offers great industry exit data.
- Revenue and income impact your exit value.
- Your “secret sauce” can increase your worth.
- Profit drives maximum exit value.
- A sustainable business model is essential.
- Revenue is vanity; profit is sanity.
- The Whisper Group helps you decide to sell or stay.
- The Exit Gap affects female-led businesses.
- Women-owned businesses get just 0.08% of exit dollars.
- Whisper addresses women’s unique exit challenges.
- Women’s exits are rarely talked about.
- Mindset shifts are key to exit success.
- “Whisper” stands for seven traits of a sellable business.
- The “Roar Factor” strengthens your negotiating power.
Resources:
https://www.carriekerpen.com/
https://www.wearethewhispergroup.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about one of my favorite
topics ever, which is how to actually exit
(00:45):
your business for maximum value.
Look, I know a lot of entrepreneurs who
have exited, and 100% of them have
left money on the table and are frustrated
to this day about it.
And that is because they did not hear
from our guest today.
So with us today is Kari Kerpen.
She is the go-to resource for women
looking to transform their lifestyle business into life
(01:06):
-changing assets known as the exit whisperer.
Kari has guided hundreds of women in scaling
their business to prepare for successful exits.
After scaling and selling her own agency, Likeable
Media, she identified the exit gap, the disparities
in exit values for female-led companies, and
developed a methodology to help women avoid common
(01:27):
pitfalls during the exit process.
Now, Kari is the founder and CEO of
The Whisper Group, the number one exit readiness
advisory practice for women-owned businesses, and the
creator of The Whisper Collective, the only community
exclusively for exited female founders.
So an accomplished entrepreneur, author, and podcast host,
(01:48):
Kari shares her expertise as the host of
The Exit Whisperer, a podcast spotlighting exited female
founders.
Now a certified exit planning advisor, she lives
in Port Washington, New York, with her husband,
three children, and their dog, Homer.
I love that.
Kari, thanks for coming on with us today.
Thanks so much for having me, Ty.
I love that I say my husband and
(02:09):
my children, who are not named, but my
dog, Homer, because, I mean, we have to
shout out the dog.
How are you?
I'm great.
Look, it's an honor to be here.
I know that you don't do a lot
of these interviews, and I had to, like,
you know, arm-wrestle your husband and lost
that, by the way.
Just to get a chance to have you
interviewed, I'm just so honored that you're here,
Kari.
I'm so excited.
(02:30):
Oh, I'm so grateful to be here, and
I think the world of you and your
show, and I'm just, I'm thrilled.
Dave said, you gotta go.
I'm here, and I'm in.
Well, I love it, and the thing I'm
excited about is you just, your book is
in pre-release right now.
I don't wanna, well, we'll talk about it
throughout, but I know you've gotta be pumped
about this, so tell us a little bit
more.
I just got the gallery today, so this
(02:50):
is, like, the first print, like, before it's
out for sale.
So it was out for sale on May
6th.
It's actually the week before Mother's Day, so
that all of my mom entrepreneurs can actually
get it as a gift, but it's called
The Whisper Way.
It's a secret formula for any entrepreneur, really,
to scale and get ready to have their
business sell for life-changing wealth, because a
(03:11):
lot of times we're thinking about what we
need to do in our businesses today, but
there are some simple, smart tweaks that we
can make to make sure that we have
the type of exit that we want to
tomorrow.
I love that, and I wanna jump into
this, because I don't think whisper means what
a lot of people think that it means.
It has a way deeper meaning, and I
wanna jump into that.
But how did you do this?
What inspired you?
(03:32):
Because you had a great exit on your
previous business.
So, like, what inspired you to jump back
in and then found The Whisper?
Yeah, and Ty, I wanna be really clear
about that, because I am a woman, and
I had a great exit.
It's not like, immediately, because of your gender,
you're held back.
So I always wanna be clear for that,
especially on podcasts where I'm speaking to everyone,
this is, I'm speaking to all entrepreneurs.
(03:54):
You really have an equal opportunity to exit
for maximum value.
It's just getting the right education, being in
the right rooms, understanding what you need to
do.
And for me, when I was building my
agency, I started it with Dave, my husband,
who I think has been on your show,
and he was like a real go-getter.
Like, he took risks.
(04:15):
We launched one of the world's first social
media marketing agencies in 2007.
There were none of those, okay?
And so it was great, because he was
like this risk-taking force, and I was
just like this really good operator, which works
really well for like the visionary and implementer
model, right?
That was great.
But because he was a visionary, in 2013,
he wanted to launch a software.
(04:36):
And so he left the agency part of
the business.
We separated it.
He went off to raise funds, and then
I was left in the position where I
needed to step into that visionary role.
And I'll tell you that in 2007, nobody
was doing social media.
In 2013, social media had reached a level
of maturation where it was no longer so
unique, so it wasn't as easy to get
(04:57):
business as it once was.
There used to be nobody to call.
So we were able to scale very quickly,
but now we had to really elevate.
We also, because we grew so quickly, we
didn't have as much profit because we were
focused on growth.
And so while we were focused on growth
and capturing scale, and then suddenly the scale
started going down, but the profit was still
down, that was a really scary place for
(05:19):
me to be.
And so what I decided to do, I
read a book called Built to Sell by
John Warlow, which I always recommend, love John.
And it was all about a company, an
agency really, that learned how to operationalize itself
to get more profitable and build its company
in order to one day exit for life
-changing money.
And I decided to get really, really intentional
about exit.
(05:40):
And so I really steadily scaled, optimized for
profitability, did all of the things that I
talk about today, and then I went to
sell.
And in 2021, I was able to have
a great exit.
It was a great year for exit.
It's anyone who knows like at that time,
interest rates were low, cash was free flowing.
We had really, I would say, a dream
(06:00):
exit.
But one of the things that I realized
was through that process, I had no other
women to go to, to be like, oh
my gosh, I'm freaking out.
This is part of my identity.
How do I make sure they're not taking
advantage of me?
How I really felt alone because there were
so few women in my space.
And so what I decided to do was
like research, is that a thing or is
(06:22):
that just a weird thing that I feel?
And I realized when doing the research that
the numbers are actually abysmal.
Women are capturing 0.8% of total
exit value.
So less than a penny of all of
the dollars spent on exits are spent on
female-founded companies.
And that's not because of our gender.
It's really because we're starting businesses, but we
don't realize that we can build them to
sell.
And so that became my life's work with
(06:45):
the Whisper Group.
And Whisper, as you mentioned, of course, it
is like, shh, here's how you exit.
But it's also for any gender and any
entrepreneur, seven tenants that make a highly sellable
business.
So it's your why, your how, your income,
your secret sauce, your profit, your executive team,
and your roar or resilience factor, how you're
gonna stick through this very tough journey of
(07:06):
exit.
Yeah, and I love that.
And it's really staggering.
Like the amount of women that build seven
-figure businesses.
I remember, I saw that statistic the other
day, and it was astonishing how low that
is.
Yeah, it's under 2%.
It's under 2%.
I knew it was under 5%.
And I was like, that is- No,
it's under two.
It's under two.
And every time, and again, it doesn't have
to do with the fact that it is
(07:27):
our gender.
It has to do with the fact that
we have been, over time, conditioned to be
less risk-averse.
So we're raising fewer funds, right?
So if you think about exit value, when
you raise funds, you exit for more, theoretically.
Here's Homer now, when you're doing a good
job.
But also, it's that we're not conditioned to
take risks in the same way.
(07:47):
We are nurturers.
We hold that in for the most part.
And it's a generalization, but in theory, that's
a large, large part of it.
And that's really what we're seeing time and
time again, is we grow steadily and carefully,
and we're preserving every dollar.
And in order to grow, a lot of
times, you gotta take risks.
So when we talk about this whisper wave,
(08:08):
these seven steps, and again, the whisper is,
where I wanna break down each one of
these steps.
Yeah, I'll tell you each one.
But that being said, how did you develop
that methodology?
Okay, so I started thinking about what it
was that made the company valuable.
And some of those things are basics.
They're taught by people like John Warlow or
(08:28):
the Exit Planning Institute.
Everybody, any broker advisor you talk to will
say, make sure your income is diversified, profit
matters, some of these things.
But those are the basics.
When I started thinking about what really made,
A, me valuable as an acquisition or a
company valuable, and what were some of the
things that made me able to have a
(08:51):
happy, healthy exit, I started thinking more holistically.
And that's why I started thinking early about
things like why and how.
So we'll talk about that in a minute,
but essentially, I took together the business reasons
and the personal reasons for exit and brought
them together into this methodology.
And I think with most things, when I
(09:11):
thought about Whisper, originally, nobody knows this, this
is exclusive to you.
Originally, this company was gonna be, and the
method was gonna be, psst, please, please, please
something sell this thing.
Or like, there was something like, psst.
And then I started thinking about secrets.
And then I got to Whisper and I
was like, I wonder if I could pull
everything that's needed together to fit.
(09:33):
And it just like, it was like in
a moment, like a poof, it fit.
And all of the parts of it are
so tried and true.
Every time I go to any education thing,
I've been doing a lot, getting certified and
doing all of these things, because it's a
new career for me.
It's so validating because all of the things
that we put together are exactly what's needed
for a happy, healthy exit.
(09:56):
I love it.
So let's dive into the step.
And I think you said that the W
is for who?
Y, it's for Y.
Okay, so focus.
I messed that first one up already.
Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
I'll get you there.
And people think when I say Y, everyone
goes in and says like, why did I
start my business?
And everyone has a fairy tale and so
excited.
But that's actually not what I wanna know.
(10:17):
I wanna know why you wanna exit.
There's a big difference for someone who tells
me, I wanna work until I'm ready to
retire.
And then I wanna retire to, I wanna
exit because I wanna do something new.
I wanna exit because I'm bored.
I wanna exit because there's a flaw in
the business.
So understanding why you wanna exit and the
amount that you want to exit for and
(10:38):
why you want that amount is essential.
I can't tell you how many people, okay,
so women come in, this is probably a
lower number than a man would say, okay?
But everyone comes in and says, I wanna
sell, I'd like to sell for $10 million,
okay?
A smaller business will come in and say,
I'd like to sell for $10 million.
Why?
I don't know.
It was like the biggest number they could
think of.
Probably somebody who's larger would say, I wanna
sell for $100 million.
(10:59):
The numbers are rooted in ego.
They're not rooted in reality.
And the reason why 50% of deals
don't close is generally unrealistic seller expectations.
So what I want you to do is
I want you to dream as big as
you can.
Then think about why you have that dream.
Is it rooted in ego?
Is it rooted in what you wanna do
next with your life?
Is it rooted in the reality of what
(11:20):
you need to live your life going forward?
Like there should be a reason for why
we're coming up with these numbers.
And then we need to match up that
number with the reality of the business and
where it is today.
And only then can we set a plan
to get there.
So understanding that why is essential.
Do you find that, besides making up a
number, are a lot of people trying to
(11:41):
exit to make sure that, like, what is
the primary driver?
Is it not for the reason for exiting
to the amount that they want?
Are a lot of them, when you nail
it down, are they trying to figure out
how much they need for the rest of
their life?
Or what are they basing it on?
Well, I don't think they really are.
I think they are not truly thinking about
what they need for the rest of their
life.
Because the rest of your life is easy.
You think about how much you need to
(12:02):
make in a year, and then you think,
okay, I need enough in investments that can
throw off enough to produce that much in
a year to live.
Then you're there.
People don't come to me with that.
People come to me with either a big
number that they heard on a golf course,
or they come to me with a number
that's been in their head forever that's like
a magical made-up number.
But the reality is, if you wanna get
(12:24):
to that number, you need to understand the
next part, which is how.
And how is so important because the reality
is when you're looking at a business, you're
gonna have a range of multiples on value.
Almost all businesses are valued upon a range
of EBITDA.
Unless you're a tech firm, you might be
valued on that revenue multiple.
About 0.8%, 0.9% of businesses
(12:45):
are valued on revenue.
Most businesses are valued on a multiple of
their earnings, whether it's EBITDA, whether it's cashflow,
there's a variety of different ways to do
it, but most of them are valued on
a multiple.
And there's a range in that multiple.
And the range varies by industry, but it's
determined by the market.
You cannot control the range of multiple for
(13:06):
your industry.
What you can control is where you fall
on that.
So let's say your business produces $2 million
of net income a year, you're doing great.
And your industry values you anywhere between four
to eight times EBITDA.
You are going to be worth anywhere between
eight to $16 million.
(13:26):
Where you fall on that spectrum is entirely
within your control.
The spectrum is not in your control.
How you build the business to get there
is within your control.
So if somebody with $2 million in EBITDA
comes to me and says, I wanna sell
for 20 million, and they're at four to
eight, and it's probably 16 is maybe the
max they could get, I'm gonna say, okay,
(13:48):
let's take a couple of years, let's increase
your EBITDA, and let's get you to that
number.
So if that makes sense, it's understanding first
your why, and then your how.
That's the first part of Whisper.
Yeah, and I love how you broke that
down.
I've never heard anybody break it down that
way, and it really makes a lot of
sense.
Like you have a range, you can't make
up the range.
The range is the range, right?
(14:09):
It's working within that range to maximize to
get on the upside, and that's it.
And the people I talk to, that's where
they mess up, right?
Is they're on that lower side because they
can't do the right things to get up
on that higher side.
That's why they're so frustrated leaving all the
money on the table.
That's exactly right.
And there are many things that happen when
you leave money on a table where you
have a total deal value that might look
(14:30):
like the eight, but then actually it's written
in a way where you don't ever capture
that last bit or something like that.
You can really get screwed if you're not
careful on looking at that.
The other thing about the market value that
you can't change, the market value does change.
It changes with the economy.
So for instance, agencies were trading, when I
sold, somewhere between like five to nine X,
(14:52):
and now they're more like three to seven
X.
So because borrowing and lending is more expensive,
there's not as much powder out there, so
they're not acquiring for as much.
Now, that then depends on your timing.
Can you wait it out?
Do you think it will come back?
Or do you wanna sell now at the
top of that multiple range?
And just really all of those factors depend.
(15:14):
And it's funny, personally.
I find this multiple range is a mystery.
So like any insight on how we figure
out the multiple range of the industries that
we're in?
Sure.
There's lots and lots of information about multiples.
I think if you look at, where did
I find the best ones?
I mean, I published some stuff.
They Got Acquired is really good.
It depends on the size of the business.
So They Got Acquired is a publication by
(15:35):
Lexi Grant, and they often publish multiples for
different content businesses, that kind of stuff.
You can look up a lot of times
on, Pitchbook has good stuff too.
And then, who does that report, that annual
report every year?
I just downloaded it.
I think it's Wells Fargo.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
(15:55):
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(16:15):
I'll find out for you guys, and I
can send it to you to put it
in the show notes.
But generally, you can find them on Pitchbook.
They got acquired for private or small companies.
It's a private capital market study.
Pepperdine, it's Pepperdine.
Pepperdine's private capital market study talks about multiples
every year they publish them.
I love that.
Okay, so what about the I in Whisper?
Okay, I is income.
(16:36):
And as we know, income and revenue is
very important.
But one of the things that I talk
about with income is a lot of times
we wanna keep our income in the black.
We want it to be good income.
I like income that's red.
Recurring, expected, and diversified.
So if you can make sure that you
have revenue that repeats from a client regularly,
and you can make it predictable, and therefore
(16:57):
you can really forecast expenses, you understand what
your revenue and your expenses will be, and
not everything is based on one client or
even one product.
So in other words, if one risk happens
in your business, we can mitigate that risk
by having a diversified income or client base.
Nice.
What about S?
Secret sauce.
Secret sauce is really understanding what makes you
(17:18):
unique in the market.
And this is really a differentiator.
This is what takes you sometimes out of
the multiple range.
So if you have something that's a moat,
truly nobody can touch you, and this is
what makes you different, that's something that is
so desirable to inquire.
Now, a lot of times when somebody asks
what makes you different, it's very, very hard
(17:39):
to answer that question, right?
A lot of times it's like a bullshit
marketing answer.
But excuse me.
But if you have a true differentiator that
you can measure, like a lot of times
I used to like, for example, for Likeable,
we offered faster service from the smartest in
social with likability guaranteed.
That was a marketing statement, but I tested
it constantly.
I would survey our clients and our employees.
(18:00):
Are we faster than other agencies?
Are we the first people you go to
for social media?
And do you love working with us?
And I would always be able to quantify
that differentiator.
With the Whisper Group, for instance, our differentiator
is that we've built the largest collective of
exited female founders.
We have a community just for them, and
that's where we source our advisors to help
aspiring entrepreneurs exit.
(18:21):
Yeah, I love that, because I think that
a lot of people struggle with figuring out
what that secret sauce is, what their USP,
that unique selling proposition is.
So I like that you touched upon that,
because that's something I hear a lot of,
is people just do not know what really
differentiates you.
They don't, they don't.
And so there's a lot of work in
my book.
There's a bunch of exercises on how to
find that.
I love that.
(18:41):
What about the P?
Profit, profit, profit, profit.
That's important.
It's the most important.
And when I do, you can actually go
on my website.
If you go to wearethewhispergroup.com, you can
take a Whisper Score assessment, and it'll give
you a score.
So like, income and profit are the heaviest
weighted, because at the end of the day,
that is, a buyer is buying income and
profit from your business.
That's what they're going to pay for.
(19:03):
Now, how strong that income is, how true
that profit is, those are things that are
debatable, and that's what makes the difference.
But I think ultimately, profit is where you
want to see a healthy, smart model.
And with profit, you want to do a
couple things.
You want to make sure that you're being
really careful on your expenses, not letting them
creep up, but also that you have a
model that is sustainable.
(19:25):
Business acquirers are fundamentally lazy.
They want to know that when they buy
something, it's plug and play.
It's not going to take that much work
to make sure that it makes money, and
they do not want to buy a problem.
If they want to buy a problem, sometimes
they do, but you know how much they
want to put down for that problem?
Exactly zero.
People do not want to pay for problems.
They think they can get a deal.
They think they can get a steal.
You want to be as problem-free as
(19:46):
possible with your profit especially.
You know, I see so many entrepreneurs get
stuck on revenue versus profit.
Like, they boast, they brag, you know, and
that's where they're focused.
Like, what's up with that?
Hi, revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.
Say it, run over, shoot it from the
rooftops, get it out there.
Revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity, okay?
(20:09):
We need revenue.
I want you to be at minimum a
seven-figure business.
That's what I want.
Every entrepreneur should be a seven-figure business.
However, however, if you are doing millions of
dollars of revenue and making no profit, it's
no, unless you're in tech and you're one
of these random unicorns, no, most businesses are
(20:29):
valued on profit.
So get real about it.
And plus, when you're profitable, you're paying yourself,
you're healthier, you're happier, you're all of the
things.
It doesn't make any sense to not focus
on profit.
You find in the cases where people generate
a lot of revenue and they don't have
profit, it's usually a model problem.
Yes, it's almost always a model problem.
It's a model problem or it's a, you're
(20:52):
so obsessed with capturing scale that you don't
bother to focus on the profit right away.
And there's a case for that, right?
Like, when you're starting out, when I started
Whisper Group, I was like, okay, I'm gonna
reinvest every dollar of profit into the business.
But reinvesting the profit into the business is
different from the cost to service the business,
not yielding any profit.
(21:13):
So in other words, you can reinvest, that's
fine.
But if the business existed on its own,
with its model, it needs to be profitable.
It makes a lot of sense.
And I love that.
When you're talking about the model part of
this, and I wanna just fade this for
a moment just because I think so many
people struggle with it.
Do you think usually the problem is that
they're focused on acquiring customers all the time
and not increasing the frequency of purchasing and
(21:36):
increasing upsells, downsells?
What do you find?
I have a theory on this.
I think people focus on new customers all
the time and then treat their current customers
like shit.
I mean, honestly, I think a lot of
times that happens.
But I think people prioritize new business because,
of course, it is true that a customer
is not always a customer forever, but it's
much easier to get a customer who already
(21:57):
knows and loves you to do more with
you than it is to acquire a new
customer.
It's hard.
And so, I mean, it depends on the
industry, but it's hard.
And so I think there's a lot of
spray and pray, like get stuff out there,
just acquire new businesses and screw up along
the way.
And the reality is that if you want
to, as you get closer to exit, you
wanna have a real methodology to how you
(22:19):
acquire customers and how you retain them.
Because by the way, retention is gonna be
more important in an acquisition than new customers
because what they're buying from you is essentially
your revenue today.
And your future revenues tomorrow.
And if that retention all goes away, you
have a problem.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
(22:40):
What about the E in Whisper?
Okay, E in Whisper depends on your size.
If you're a solopreneur, it's your ecosystems.
So it's making sure that you have like
systems in place and processes and all of
that stuff in your SOPs.
And that does matter, but it's really also
your executive team.
So when you're a little bigger, it's like
you don't ever want the business to be
built entirely on you.
The entire concept of E, whether it's executive
(23:02):
team or ecosystem, is that your business is
transferable.
Meaning the second you sell that business, you're
going to have different feelings.
Even if you think you're gonna stay as
part of that acquisition, it's a huge change.
And so the business must be able to
succeed without you.
It's very important.
And so I think that's really a key
piece of that.
(23:22):
And what about the R?
Okay, the R is about your roar factor.
So when you are selling your business, you
are sitting in a room where they are
going line by line through your stuff, questioning
everything.
It is painful.
And you have to have both the confidence
and the ability to negotiate around what is
almost always the biggest deal of your lifetime
(23:44):
or one of them.
Most business owners, 80% of their net
worth is tied up in their business.
And so if 80% of your net
worth is tied up in this transaction, you
better do it right.
This is, you got one shot at that.
So, I mean, you may do it multiple
times, but most of the time, it's like
one big shot.
And so you have to be able to
withstand that.
And it's having both the resilience and the
(24:04):
roar factor to be able to really present
in that room.
And that is specifically an area I work
on a lot with women, is like really
getting them in the space.
Because it's almost always, when you work, if
you look at women in PE, very few
women in PE, there's very, very few women
on the other end of the deal table.
And hopefully when my job is done, there
will be more women at the other side
of the deal table.
(24:25):
But for now, most of the time, there's
not.
And so if you have a business that
like focuses on like, I don't know, female
founders or femtech or any of it, a
lot of times they don't understand.
And so you really have to have that
roar resilience to be able to take it
across the finish line.
So if you work with women to be
able to get this figured out, the formula,
(24:45):
what do you usually advise the best path
to exit?
Are we using investment bankers?
Are we using an auction format?
Like is one better than the other?
Does it depend on industry?
It depends on a few things.
It depends on size.
So an investment banker is usually name a
million dollars of investment.
And a broker sometimes sells on contingency out
(25:05):
of the trunk of their car.
And then an advisor is like somewhere in
the middle.
Like it's really all sort of the same
thing.
It's just how much you pay and how
much people invest.
I think it's important to have professional advice,
but I think the most important thing is
to be prepared.
So one of the things that we do
is we help founders understand how they can
not only facilitate their own exits, depending on
(25:26):
size, but really be prepared for when they
work with, if they do choose to work
with an advisor who's going to take a
piece of their exit, I want them to
really understand that process and have somebody who
is not incentivized based upon their exit as
a support.
That was the thing that I felt was
missing, right?
Like I had paid advisors, but I didn't
have like someone who had been in my
(25:48):
shoes who was not incentivized by my exit
to be able to make it happen for
me.
Cause that's the thing, when you have these
brokers, bankers, et cetera, and I'm not saying
you don't use them because there's a tremendous
value to them.
A lot of times they can get you
more than you ever imagined, but the reality
is they're incentivized for you to close.
And what I want is for you to
be incentivized by what's best for you.
(26:10):
I would much rather you not take a
bad deal and walk away and get an
education in M&A than I would have
you take a bad deal to get that
education because your business is a gift.
It's a gift to you.
It's a gift to whoever you're selling it
to.
It's important.
It's yours.
And so whoever you use, you want to
make sure that they have relevant experience in
(26:31):
your industry.
You wanna make sure that you can afford
them.
And it's something that's within your realm.
Like you don't need an investment banker if
you're a two, three, four million dollar business.
And then you also wanna make sure that
you really feel like they understand you.
These are the things that I look for.
A lot of times I do ride alongs
with women if they're interviewing bankers or anything
like that.
And these are the things that I look
(26:52):
for.
I love it.
This has been eye-opening, Keri.
I mean, I've learned so many things and
I love your strategy.
I love how you put it into the
whisper format.
I love that that popped in your head
and became, cause it's just perfect.
I know it told the story of how
that came into my head with, it was
like, please sell this thing.
Please.
It was something like that.
I don't remember.
(27:12):
Yeah.
I mean, whisper, that is so brilliant the
way that all that works out.
And they are all seven really valid points.
Where can we go to get your book?
I know it's in pre-sale now.
So where do we go to get it
in pre-sale?
And then where can we go when it's
out?
Anywhere, once it's out.
You can pre-order it now.
It just won't come to you until May.
So it's on Amazon.
It's on Barnes and Noble.
It's on all of them.
But if you go to thewhisperway.com, I
(27:33):
have a lot of different incentives.
So if you go to thewhisperway.com, you
can pre-order it now.
You can pre-order, if you order more
than one and you put your receipt in,
I have all kinds of like courses and
different things that I add for that, which
are great.
That's thewhisperway.com.
And then if you wanna learn about The
Whisper Group, it's wearethewhispergroup.com.
Okay, and we should go to both of
those, right?
Yeah, either way.
You can find The Whisper Way one on
(27:55):
The Whisper Group too.
If you wanna learn about the business, it's
wearethewhispergroup.
If you wanna learn about the book, it's
thewhisperway.com.
Okay, perfect.
All right, Keri, thank you so much for
coming on all of this today.
Thank you.
Thanks so much, Ty.
I really enjoyed being on with your audience.
And don't forget to follow me.
Tons of free tips all over social media,
Keri Kirpin, everywhere you can find me.
Can we find you at thewhispergroup.com?
(28:15):
wearethewhispergroup.com.
wearethewhispergroup.
Okay, so I wanna make sure, so I
just looked at it and I was like
- You were like, that's how it looks
like you.
We are thewhispergroup.com.
Okay, so wearethewhispergroup.com.
Can I find your social channels there?
Yeah, and also, I'm Keri Kirpin everywhere you
could ever find me.
I mean, I have Whisper Group channels, but
if you really want to see my behind
(28:37):
the scenes and tips and in the moment,
go to Keri Kirpin.
Okay, perfect.
I love that.
All right, Keri, thanks for coming on all
this.
Thanks, thanks Ty.
All right, so listen, if you're watching this,
I can tell you, I have a lot
of friends that have exited.
Like I said in the beginning, 100%
of them have less money on the table.
And if you're a female entrepreneur, you have
a really big uphill battle ahead of you
because like Keri said, there's not a lot
(28:57):
of people out there you can relate to
that have been, right?
But we all, a lot of us have
heard that if you want to get somewhere,
then get with somebody that's been or is
where you want to get to, right?
Keri's done it.
Like if you look into Keri, like they
have built a very successful business and a
very successful exit.
And then both her and her husband, Dave
have went on and become very successful after
(29:19):
that, doing their own different things.
So like this is the person that is
the model of where you want to be.
And so what you want to do is
two things.
Make sure you go to wethewhispergroup.com.
That is wethewhispergroup.com.
And there you can find Keri.
You're able to link up with her.
There's so much valuable information on their site.
So make sure you check that out.
And you have to grab the book.
(29:41):
Like you can get in right now with
all kinds of cool incentives before the book
even comes out.
And in order to do that, you want
to go to thewhisperway.com.
That's thewhisperway.com.
So just do it right now.
Just take a moment right now, go to
thewhisperway.com.
Take another moment, go to wearethewhispergroup.com as
well.
And make sure you follow Keri on social.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to the Business Credit and Financing Show.
Each week, we talk about the growth strategies
that matter most to entrepreneurs.
Listen in as we discuss the secrets to
getting credit and money to start and grow
your business.
And enjoy as we talk with seasoned business
owners, coaches, and industry leaders on a variety
(00:22):
of topics from advertising and marketing to the
nuts and bolts of running a highly successful
business.
And now, to introduce the host of our
show, financial expert and award-winning author, Ty
Crandall.
Hello, and thanks for joining us today.
I'm super excited you could be here because
today we're talking about one of my favorite
topics ever, which is how to actually exit
(00:45):
your business for maximum value.
Look, I know a lot of entrepreneurs who
have exited, and 100% of them have
left money on the table and are frustrated
to this day about it.
And that is because they did not hear
from our guest today.
So with us today is Kari Kerpen.
She is the go-to resource for women
looking to transform their lifestyle business into life
(01:06):
-changing assets known as the exit whisperer.
Kari has guided hundreds of women in scaling
their business to prepare for successful exits.
After scaling and selling her own agency, Likeable
Media, she identified the exit gap, the disparities
in exit values for female-led companies, and
developed a methodology to help women avoid common
(01:27):
pitfalls during the exit process.
Now, Kari is the founder and CEO of
The Whisper Group, the number one exit readiness
advisory practice for women-owned businesses, and the
creator of The Whisper Collective, the only community
exclusively for exited female founders.
So an accomplished entrepreneur, author, and podcast host,
(01:48):
Kari shares her expertise as the host of
The Exit Whisperer, a podcast spotlighting exited female
founders.
Now a certified exit planning advisor, she lives
in Port Washington, New York, with her husband,
three children, and their dog, Homer.
I love that.
Kari, thanks for coming on with us today.
Thanks so much for having me, Ty.
I love that I say my husband and
(02:09):
my children, who are not named, but my
dog, Homer, because, I mean, we have to
shout out the dog.
How are you?
I'm great.
Look, it's an honor to be here.
I know that you don't do a lot
of these interviews, and I had to, like,
you know, arm-wrestle your husband and lost
that, by the way.
Just to get a chance to have you
interviewed, I'm just so honored that you're here,
Kari.
I'm so excited.
(02:30):
Oh, I'm so grateful to be here, and
I think the world of you and your
show, and I'm just, I'm thrilled.
Dave said, you gotta go.
I'm here, and I'm in.
Well, I love it, and the thing I'm
excited about is you just, your book is
in pre-release right now.
I don't wanna, well, we'll talk about it
throughout, but I know you've gotta be pumped
about this, so tell us a little bit
more.
I just got the gallery today, so this
(02:50):
is, like, the first print, like, before it's
out for sale.
So it was out for sale on May
6th.
It's actually the week before Mother's Day, so
that all of my mom entrepreneurs can actually
get it as a gift, but it's called
The Whisper Way.
It's a secret formula for any entrepreneur, really,
to scale and get ready to have their
business sell for life-changing wealth, because a
(03:11):
lot of times we're thinking about what we
need to do in our businesses today, but
there are some simple, smart tweaks that we
can make to make sure that we have
the type of exit that we want to
tomorrow.
I love that, and I wanna jump into
this, because I don't think whisper means what
a lot of people think that it means.
It has a way deeper meaning, and I
wanna jump into that.
But how did you do this?
What inspired you?
(03:32):
Because you had a great exit on your
previous business.
So, like, what inspired you to jump back
in and then found The Whisper?
Yeah, and Ty, I wanna be really clear
about that, because I am a woman, and
I had a great exit.
It's not like, immediately, because of your gender,
you're held back.
So I always wanna be clear for that,
especially on podcasts where I'm speaking to everyone,
this is, I'm speaking to all entrepreneurs.
(03:54):
You really have an equal opportunity to exit
for maximum value.
It's just getting the right education, being in
the right rooms, understanding what you need to
do.
And for me, when I was building my
agency, I started it with Dave, my husband,
who I think has been on your show,
and he was like a real go-getter.
Like, he took risks.
(04:15):
We launched one of the world's first social
media marketing agencies in 2007.
There were none of those, okay?
And so it was great, because he was
like this risk-taking force, and I was
just like this really good operator, which works
really well for like the visionary and implementer
model, right?
That was great.
But because he was a visionary, in 2013,
he wanted to launch a software.
(04:36):
And so he left the agency part of
the business.
We separated it.
He went off to raise funds, and then
I was left in the position where I
needed to step into that visionary role.
And I'll tell you that in 2007, nobody
was doing social media.
In 2013, social media had reached a level
of maturation where it was no longer so
unique, so it wasn't as easy to get
(04:57):
business as it once was.
There used to be nobody to call.
So we were able to scale very quickly,
but now we had to really elevate.
We also, because we grew so quickly, we
didn't have as much profit because we were
focused on growth.
And so while we were focused on growth
and capturing scale, and then suddenly the scale
started going down, but the profit was still
down, that was a really scary place for
(05:19):
me to be.
And so what I decided to do, I
read a book called Built to Sell by
John Warlow, which I always recommend, love John.
And it was all about a company, an
agency really, that learned how to operationalize itself
to get more profitable and build its company
in order to one day exit for life
-changing money.
And I decided to get really, really intentional
about exit.
(05:40):
And so I really steadily scaled, optimized for
profitability, did all of the things that I
talk about today, and then I went to
sell.
And in 2021, I was able to have
a great exit.
It was a great year for exit.
It's anyone who knows like at that time,
interest rates were low, cash was free flowing.
We had really, I would say, a dream
(06:00):
exit.
But one of the things that I realized
was through that process, I had no other
women to go to, to be like, oh
my gosh, I'm freaking out.
This is part of my identity.
How do I make sure they're not taking
advantage of me?
How I really felt alone because there were
so few women in my space.
And so what I decided to do was
like research, is that a thing or is
(06:22):
that just a weird thing that I feel?
And I realized when doing the research that
the numbers are actually abysmal.
Women are capturing 0.8% of total
exit value.
So less than a penny of all of
the dollars spent on exits are spent on
female-founded companies.
And that's not because of our gender.
It's really because we're starting businesses, but we
don't realize that we can build them to
sell.
And so that became my life's work with
(06:45):
the Whisper Group.
And Whisper, as you mentioned, of course, it
is like, shh, here's how you exit.
But it's also for any gender and any
entrepreneur, seven tenants that make a highly sellable
business.
So it's your why, your how, your income,
your secret sauce, your profit, your executive team,
and your roar or resilience factor, how you're
gonna stick through this very tough journey of
(07:06):
exit.
Yeah, and I love that.
And it's really staggering.
Like the amount of women that build seven
-figure businesses.
I remember, I saw that statistic the other
day, and it was astonishing how low that
is.
Yeah, it's under 2%.
It's under 2%.
I knew it was under 5%.
And I was like, that is- No,
it's under two.
It's under two.
And every time, and again, it doesn't have
to do with the fact that it is
(07:27):
our gender.
It has to do with the fact that
we have been, over time, conditioned to be
less risk-averse.
So we're raising fewer funds, right?
So if you think about exit value, when
you raise funds, you exit for more, theoretically.
Here's Homer now, when you're doing a good
job.
But also, it's that we're not conditioned to
take risks in the same way.
(07:47):
We are nurturers.
We hold that in for the most part.
And it's a generalization, but in theory, that's
a large, large part of it.
And that's really what we're seeing time and
time again, is we grow steadily and carefully,
and we're preserving every dollar.
And in order to grow, a lot of
times, you gotta take risks.
So when we talk about this whisper wave,
(08:08):
these seven steps, and again, the whisper is,
where I wanna break down each one of
these steps.
Yeah, I'll tell you each one.
But that being said, how did you develop
that methodology?
Okay, so I started thinking about what it
was that made the company valuable.
And some of those things are basics.
They're taught by people like John Warlow or
(08:28):
the Exit Planning Institute.
Everybody, any broker advisor you talk to will
say, make sure your income is diversified, profit
matters, some of these things.
But those are the basics.
When I started thinking about what really made,
A, me valuable as an acquisition or a
company valuable, and what were some of the
things that made me able to have a
(08:51):
happy, healthy exit, I started thinking more holistically.
And that's why I started thinking early about
things like why and how.
So we'll talk about that in a minute,
but essentially, I took together the business reasons
and the personal reasons for exit and brought
them together into this methodology.
And I think with most things, when I
(09:11):
thought about Whisper, originally, nobody knows this, this
is exclusive to you.
Originally, this company was gonna be, and the
method was gonna be, psst, please, please, please
something sell this thing.
Or like, there was something like, psst.
And then I started thinking about secrets.
And then I got to Whisper and I
was like, I wonder if I could pull
everything that's needed together to fit.
(09:33):
And it just like, it was like in
a moment, like a poof, it fit.
And all of the parts of it are
so tried and true.
Every time I go to any education thing,
I've been doing a lot, getting certified and
doing all of these things, because it's a
new career for me.
It's so validating because all of the things
that we put together are exactly what's needed
for a happy, healthy exit.
(09:56):
I love it.
So let's dive into the step.
And I think you said that the W
is for who?
Y, it's for Y.
Okay, so focus.
I messed that first one up already.
Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
I'll get you there.
And people think when I say Y, everyone
goes in and says like, why did I
start my business?
And everyone has a fairy tale and so
excited.
But that's actually not what I wanna know.
(10:17):
I wanna know why you wanna exit.
There's a big difference for someone who tells
me, I wanna work until I'm ready to
retire.
And then I wanna retire to, I wanna
exit because I wanna do something new.
I wanna exit because I'm bored.
I wanna exit because there's a flaw in
the business.
So understanding why you wanna exit and the
amount that you want to exit for and
(10:38):
why you want that amount is essential.
I can't tell you how many people, okay,
so women come in, this is probably a
lower number than a man would say, okay?
But everyone comes in and says, I wanna
sell, I'd like to sell for $10 million,
okay?
A smaller business will come in and say,
I'd like to sell for $10 million.
Why?
I don't know.
It was like the biggest number they could
think of.
Probably somebody who's larger would say, I wanna
sell for $100 million.
(10:59):
The numbers are rooted in ego.
They're not rooted in reality.
And the reason why 50% of deals
don't close is generally unrealistic seller expectations.
So what I want you to do is
I want you to dream as big as
you can.
Then think about why you have that dream.
Is it rooted in ego?
Is it rooted in what you wanna do
next with your life?
Is it rooted in the reality of what
(11:20):
you need to live your life going forward?
Like there should be a reason for why
we're coming up with these numbers.
And then we need to match up that
number with the reality of the business and
where it is today.
And only then can we set a plan
to get there.
So understanding that why is essential.
Do you find that, besides making up a
number, are a lot of people trying to
(11:41):
exit to make sure that, like, what is
the primary driver?
Is it not for the reason for exiting
to the amount that they want?
Are a lot of them, when you nail
it down, are they trying to figure out
how much they need for the rest of
their life?
Or what are they basing it on?
Well, I don't think they really are.
I think they are not truly thinking about
what they need for the rest of their
life.
Because the rest of your life is easy.
You think about how much you need to
(12:02):
make in a year, and then you think,
okay, I need enough in investments that can
throw off enough to produce that much in
a year to live.
Then you're there.
People don't come to me with that.
People come to me with either a big
number that they heard on a golf course,
or they come to me with a number
that's been in their head forever that's like
a magical made-up number.
But the reality is, if you wanna get
(12:24):
to that number, you need to understand the
next part, which is how.
And how is so important because the reality
is when you're looking at a business, you're
gonna have a range of multiples on value.
Almost all businesses are valued upon a range
of EBITDA.
Unless you're a tech firm, you might be
valued on that revenue multiple.
About 0.8%, 0.9% of businesses
(12:45):
are valued on revenue.
Most businesses are valued on a multiple of
their earnings, whether it's EBITDA, whether it's cashflow,
there's a variety of different ways to do
it, but most of them are valued on
a multiple.
And there's a range in that multiple.
And the range varies by industry, but it's
determined by the market.
You cannot control the range of multiple for
(13:06):
your industry.
What you can control is where you fall
on that.
So let's say your business produces $2 million
of net income a year, you're doing great.
And your industry values you anywhere between four
to eight times EBITDA.
You are going to be worth anywhere between
eight to $16 million.
(13:26):
Where you fall on that spectrum is entirely
within your control.
The spectrum is not in your control.
How you build the business to get there
is within your control.
So if somebody with $2 million in EBITDA
comes to me and says, I wanna sell
for 20 million, and they're at four to
eight, and it's probably 16 is maybe the
max they could get, I'm gonna say, okay,
(13:48):
let's take a couple of years, let's increase
your EBITDA, and let's get you to that
number.
So if that makes sense, it's understanding first
your why, and then your how.
That's the first part of Whisper.
Yeah, and I love how you broke that
down.
I've never heard anybody break it down that
way, and it really makes a lot of
sense.
Like you have a range, you can't make
up the range.
The range is the range, right?
(14:09):
It's working within that range to maximize to
get on the upside, and that's it.
And the people I talk to, that's where
they mess up, right?
Is they're on that lower side because they
can't do the right things to get up
on that higher side.
That's why they're so frustrated leaving all the
money on the table.
That's exactly right.
And there are many things that happen when
you leave money on a table where you
have a total deal value that might look
(14:30):
like the eight, but then actually it's written
in a way where you don't ever capture
that last bit or something like that.
You can really get screwed if you're not
careful on looking at that.
The other thing about the market value that
you can't change, the market value does change.
It changes with the economy.
So for instance, agencies were trading, when I
sold, somewhere between like five to nine X,
(14:52):
and now they're more like three to seven
X.
So because borrowing and lending is more expensive,
there's not as much powder out there, so
they're not acquiring for as much.
Now, that then depends on your timing.
Can you wait it out?
Do you think it will come back?
Or do you wanna sell now at the
top of that multiple range?
And just really all of those factors depend.
(15:14):
And it's funny, personally.
I find this multiple range is a mystery.
So like any insight on how we figure
out the multiple range of the industries that
we're in?
Sure.
There's lots and lots of information about multiples.
I think if you look at, where did
I find the best ones?
I mean, I published some stuff.
They Got Acquired is really good.
It depends on the size of the business.
So They Got Acquired is a publication by
(15:35):
Lexi Grant, and they often publish multiples for
different content businesses, that kind of stuff.
You can look up a lot of times
on, Pitchbook has good stuff too.
And then, who does that report, that annual
report every year?
I just downloaded it.
I think it's Wells Fargo.
And now a quick break to hear from
our sponsor.
Hey, it's Ty Crandall with Credit Suite.
(15:55):
Many of our subscribers wanna get the most
money to grow their business at the best
terms.
Whether you're looking for startup capital, low interest
credit lines and loans, or business credit, we
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(16:15):
I'll find out for you guys, and I
can send it to you to put it
in the show notes.
But generally, you can find them on Pitchbook.
They got acquired for private or small companies.
It's a private capital market study.
Pepperdine, it's Pepperdine.
Pepperdine's private capital market study talks about multiples
every year they publish them.
I love that.
Okay, so what about the I in Whisper?
Okay, I is income.
(16:36):
And as we know, income and revenue is
very important.
But one of the things that I talk
about with income is a lot of times
we wanna keep our income in the black.
We want it to be good income.
I like income that's red.
Recurring, expected, and diversified.
So if you can make sure that you
have revenue that repeats from a client regularly,
and you can make it predictable, and therefore
(16:57):
you can really forecast expenses, you understand what
your revenue and your expenses will be, and
not everything is based on one client or
even one product.
So in other words, if one risk happens
in your business, we can mitigate that risk
by having a diversified income or client base.
Nice.
What about S?
Secret sauce.
Secret sauce is really understanding what makes you
(17:18):
unique in the market.
And this is really a differentiator.
This is what takes you sometimes out of
the multiple range.
So if you have something that's a moat,
truly nobody can touch you, and this is
what makes you different, that's something that is
so desirable to inquire.
Now, a lot of times when somebody asks
what makes you different, it's very, very hard
(17:39):
to answer that question, right?
A lot of times it's like a bullshit
marketing answer.
But excuse me.
But if you have a true differentiator that
you can measure, like a lot of times
I used to like, for example, for Likeable,
we offered faster service from the smartest in
social with likability guaranteed.
That was a marketing statement, but I tested
it constantly.
I would survey our clients and our employees.
(18:00):
Are we faster than other agencies?
Are we the first people you go to
for social media?
And do you love working with us?
And I would always be able to quantify
that differentiator.
With the Whisper Group, for instance, our differentiator
is that we've built the largest collective of
exited female founders.
We have a community just for them, and
that's where we source our advisors to help
aspiring entrepreneurs exit.
(18:21):
Yeah, I love that, because I think that
a lot of people struggle with figuring out
what that secret sauce is, what their USP,
that unique selling proposition is.
So I like that you touched upon that,
because that's something I hear a lot of,
is people just do not know what really
differentiates you.
They don't, they don't.
And so there's a lot of work in
my book.
There's a bunch of exercises on how to
find that.
I love that.
(18:41):
What about the P?
Profit, profit, profit, profit.
That's important.
It's the most important.
And when I do, you can actually go
on my website.
If you go to wearethewhispergroup.com, you can
take a Whisper Score assessment, and it'll give
you a score.
So like, income and profit are the heaviest
weighted, because at the end of the day,
that is, a buyer is buying income and
profit from your business.
That's what they're going to pay for.
(19:03):
Now, how strong that income is, how true
that profit is, those are things that are
debatable, and that's what makes the difference.
But I think ultimately, profit is where you
want to see a healthy, smart model.
And with profit, you want to do a
couple things.
You want to make sure that you're being
really careful on your expenses, not letting them
creep up, but also that you have a
model that is sustainable.
(19:25):
Business acquirers are fundamentally lazy.
They want to know that when they buy
something, it's plug and play.
It's not going to take that much work
to make sure that it makes money, and
they do not want to buy a problem.
If they want to buy a problem, sometimes
they do, but you know how much they
want to put down for that problem?
Exactly zero.
People do not want to pay for problems.
They think they can get a deal.
They think they can get a steal.
You want to be as problem-free as
(19:46):
possible with your profit especially.
You know, I see so many entrepreneurs get
stuck on revenue versus profit.
Like, they boast, they brag, you know, and
that's where they're focused.
Like, what's up with that?
Hi, revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.
Say it, run over, shoot it from the
rooftops, get it out there.
Revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity, okay?
(20:09):
We need revenue.
I want you to be at minimum a
seven-figure business.
That's what I want.
Every entrepreneur should be a seven-figure business.
However, however, if you are doing millions of
dollars of revenue and making no profit, it's
no, unless you're in tech and you're one
of these random unicorns, no, most businesses are
(20:29):
valued on profit.
So get real about it.
And plus, when you're profitable, you're paying yourself,
you're healthier, you're happier, you're all of the
things.
It doesn't make any sense to not focus
on profit.
You find in the cases where people generate
a lot of revenue and they don't have
profit, it's usually a model problem.
Yes, it's almost always a model problem.
It's a model problem or it's a, you're
(20:52):
so obsessed with capturing scale that you don't
bother to focus on the profit right away.
And there's a case for that, right?
Like, when you're starting out, when I started
Whisper Group, I was like, okay, I'm gonna
reinvest every dollar of profit into the business.
But reinvesting the profit into the business is
different from the cost to service the business,
not yielding any profit.
(21:13):
So in other words, you can reinvest, that's
fine.
But if the business existed on its own,
with its model, it needs to be profitable.
It makes a lot of sense.
And I love that.
When you're talking about the model part of
this, and I wanna just fade this for
a moment just because I think so many
people struggle with it.
Do you think usually the problem is that
they're focused on acquiring customers all the time
and not increasing the frequency of purchasing and
(21:36):
increasing upsells, downsells?
What do you find?
I have a theory on this.
I think people focus on new customers all
the time and then treat their current customers
like shit.
I mean, honestly, I think a lot of
times that happens.
But I think people prioritize new business because,
of course, it is true that a customer
is not always a customer forever, but it's
much easier to get a customer who already
(21:57):
knows and loves you to do more with
you than it is to acquire a new
customer.
It's hard.
And so, I mean, it depends on the
industry, but it's hard.
And so I think there's a lot of
spray and pray, like get stuff out there,
just acquire new businesses and screw up along
the way.
And the reality is that if you want
to, as you get closer to exit, you
wanna have a real methodology to how you
(22:19):
acquire customers and how you retain them.
Because by the way, retention is gonna be
more important in an acquisition than new customers
because what they're buying from you is essentially
your revenue today.
And your future revenues tomorrow.
And if that retention all goes away, you
have a problem.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
(22:40):
What about the E in Whisper?
Okay, E in Whisper depends on your size.
If you're a solopreneur, it's your ecosystems.
So it's making sure that you have like
systems in place and processes and all of
that stuff in your SOPs.
And that does matter, but it's really also
your executive team.
So when you're a little bigger, it's like
you don't ever want the business to be
built entirely on you.
The entire concept of E, whether it's executive
(23:02):
team or ecosystem, is that your business is
transferable.
Meaning the second you sell that business, you're
going to have different feelings.
Even if you think you're gonna stay as
part of that acquisition, it's a huge change.
And so the business must be able to
succeed without you.
It's very important.
And so I think that's really a key
piece of that.
(23:22):
And what about the R?
Okay, the R is about your roar factor.
So when you are selling your business, you
are sitting in a room where they are
going line by line through your stuff, questioning
everything.
It is painful.
And you have to have both the confidence
and the ability to negotiate around what is
almost always the biggest deal of your lifetime
(23:44):
or one of them.
Most business owners, 80% of their net
worth is tied up in their business.
And so if 80% of your net
worth is tied up in this transaction, you
better do it right.
This is, you got one shot at that.
So, I mean, you may do it multiple
times, but most of the time, it's like
one big shot.
And so you have to be able to
withstand that.
And it's having both the resilience and the
(24:04):
roar factor to be able to really present
in that room.
And that is specifically an area I work
on a lot with women, is like really
getting them in the space.
Because it's almost always, when you work, if
you look at women in PE, very few
women in PE, there's very, very few women
on the other end of the deal table.
And hopefully when my job is done, there
will be more women at the other side
of the deal table.
(24:25):
But for now, most of the time, there's
not.
And so if you have a business that
like focuses on like, I don't know, female
founders or femtech or any of it, a
lot of times they don't understand.
And so you really have to have that
roar resilience to be able to take it
across the finish line.
So if you work with women to be
able to get this figured out, the formula,
(24:45):
what do you usually advise the best path
to exit?
Are we using investment bankers?
Are we using an auction format?
Like is one better than the other?
Does it depend on industry?
It depends on a few things.
It depends on size.
So an investment banker is usually name a
million dollars of investment.
And a broker sometimes sells on contingency out
(25:05):
of the trunk of their car.
And then an advisor is like somewhere in
the middle.
Like it's really all sort of the same
thing.
It's just how much you pay and how
much people invest.
I think it's important to have professional advice,
but I think the most important thing is
to be prepared.
So one of the things that we do
is we help founders understand how they can
not only facilitate their own exits, depending on
(25:26):
size, but really be prepared for when they
work with, if they do choose to work
with an advisor who's going to take a
piece of their exit, I want them to
really understand that process and have somebody who
is not incentivized based upon their exit as
a support.
That was the thing that I felt was
missing, right?
Like I had paid advisors, but I didn't
have like someone who had been in my
(25:48):
shoes who was not incentivized by my exit
to be able to make it happen for
me.
Cause that's the thing, when you have these
brokers, bankers, et cetera, and I'm not saying
you don't use them because there's a tremendous
value to them.
A lot of times they can get you
more than you ever imagined, but the reality
is they're incentivized for you to close.
And what I want is for you to
be incentivized by what's best for you.
(26:10):
I would much rather you not take a
bad deal and walk away and get an
education in M&A than I would have
you take a bad deal to get that
education because your business is a gift.
It's a gift to you.
It's a gift to whoever you're selling it
to.
It's important.
It's yours.
And so whoever you use, you want to
make sure that they have relevant experience in
(26:31):
your industry.
You wanna make sure that you can afford
them.
And it's something that's within your realm.
Like you don't need an investment banker if
you're a two, three, four million dollar business.
And then you also wanna make sure that
you really feel like they understand you.
These are the things that I look for.
A lot of times I do ride alongs
with women if they're interviewing bankers or anything
like that.
And these are the things that I look
(26:52):
for.
I love it.
This has been eye-opening, Keri.
I mean, I've learned so many things and
I love your strategy.
I love how you put it into the
whisper format.
I love that that popped in your head
and became, cause it's just perfect.
I know it told the story of how
that came into my head with, it was
like, please sell this thing.
Please.
It was something like that.
I don't remember.
(27:12):
Yeah.
I mean, whisper, that is so brilliant the
way that all that works out.
And they are all seven really valid points.
Where can we go to get your book?
I know it's in pre-sale now.
So where do we go to get it
in pre-sale?
And then where can we go when it's
out?
Anywhere, once it's out.
You can pre-order it now.
It just won't come to you until May.
So it's on Amazon.
It's on Barnes and Noble.
It's on all of them.
But if you go to thewhisperway.com, I
(27:33):
have a lot of different incentives.
So if you go to thewhisperway.com, you
can pre-order it now.
You can pre-order, if you order more
than one and you put your receipt in,
I have all kinds of like courses and
different things that I add for that, which
are great.
That's thewhisperway.com.
And then if you wanna learn about The
Whisper Group, it's wearethewhispergroup.com.
Okay, and we should go to both of
those, right?
Yeah, either way.
You can find The Whisper Way one on
(27:55):
The Whisper Group too.
If you wanna learn about the business, it's
wearethewhispergroup.
If you wanna learn about the book, it's
thewhisperway.com.
Okay, perfect.
All right, Keri, thank you so much for
coming on all of this today.
Thank you.
Thanks so much, Ty.
I really enjoyed being on with your audience.
And don't forget to follow me.
Tons of free tips all over social media,
Keri Kirpin, everywhere you can find me.
Can we find you at thewhispergroup.com?
(28:15):
wearethewhispergroup.com.
wearethewhispergroup.
Okay, so I wanna make sure, so I
just looked at it and I was like
- You were like, that's how it looks
like you.
We are thewhispergroup.com.
Okay, so wearethewhispergroup.com.
Can I find your social channels there?
Yeah, and also, I'm Keri Kirpin everywhere you
could ever find me.
I mean, I have Whisper Group channels, but
if you really want to see my behind
(28:37):
the scenes and tips and in the moment,
go to Keri Kirpin.
Okay, perfect.
I love that.
All right, Keri, thanks for coming on all
this.
Thanks, thanks Ty.
All right, so listen, if you're watching this,
I can tell you, I have a lot
of friends that have exited.
Like I said in the beginning, 100%
of them have less money on the table.
And if you're a female entrepreneur, you have
a really big uphill battle ahead of you
because like Keri said, there's not a lot
(28:57):
of people out there you can relate to
that have been, right?
But we all, a lot of us have
heard that if you want to get somewhere,
then get with somebody that's been or is
where you want to get to, right?
Keri's done it.
Like if you look into Keri, like they
have built a very successful business and a
very successful exit.
And then both her and her husband, Dave
have went on and become very successful after
(29:19):
that, doing their own different things.
So like this is the person that is
the model of where you want to be.
And so what you want to do is
two things.
Make sure you go to wethewhispergroup.com.
That is wethewhispergroup.com.
And there you can find Keri.
You're able to link up with her.
There's so much valuable information on their site.
So make sure you check that out.
And you have to grab the book.
(29:41):
Like you can get in right now with
all kinds of cool incentives before the book
even comes out.
And in order to do that, you want
to go to thewhisperway.com.
That's thewhisperway.com.
So just do it right now.
Just take a moment right now, go to
thewhisperway.com.
Take another moment, go to wearethewhispergroup.com as
well.
And make sure you follow Keri on social.
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