November 13, 2025 • 38 mins
Discover the secret sauce behind private equity (PE) growth strategies! In this episode, Emily Sander, Rory Liebhart, and Ed Barton break down why PE firms target founder-led businesses and reveal the tactical playbooks to scale them. From "buy low, sell high" foundations to aligning visions, unlocking growth through talent/capital infusion, and leveraging technology, they cover it all. You’ll learn how PE turns underperforming businesses into high-performing powerhouses in 18–72 months. Perfect for founders, business owners, and growth hackers!
🔑 Key Topics Covered:
🔑 Why founder-led companies are PE’s favorite acquisitions (spoiler: it’s all about untapped upside).
🔑 The three pillars of PE-driven growth: Capital, talent, and technology deployed smartly to hit inflection points.
🔑 The “corporate” transformation: From disheveled startups to well-oiled machines with governance, CMOs, and CFOs.
🔑 How a Chief of Staff becomes the secret weapon for aligning teams and accelerating execution.
Learn how PE firms don’t just buy businesses—they engineer dynasties. Whether you’re a founder, investor, or exec, this episode gives you the framework to think like a scaling pro.
Subscribe for more deep-dive episodes on PE, tech, and entrepreneurship!
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🎙 Podcast – Strategies, PE 101 & witty banter
📚 Book – On‑Ramp to Exit, full deal life cycle
🛠 Resources – Free templates, guides, tools
🔗 LinkedIn – Follow us for fresh PE insights
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Who Are We?
Three insiders. One mic. All things private equity — explained. Hi 👋 We’re Ed, Rory, and Emily — a CEO, a CFO, and a Chief of Staff — here to demystify the world of private equity. Between us, we’ve sat in the founder’s chair, run PE‑backed companies, and worked on the deal side, so we know the wins, the pitfalls, and the jargon (and we’ll explain it).
Through the Private Equity Experience Podcast, our book On‑Ramp to Exit, and a library of free tools and templates, we share real‑world stories, practical strategies, and insider insights to help you navigate every stage of the PE journey — whether you’re leading a portfolio company, joining a deal team, considering PE, or just PE‑curious.
...Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (00:34):
Rory can sound like Demi Moore as
he's answered these questionswith his nasal situation.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (00:40):
not tip top, but hey, we'll, we'll,
uh, we'll make it happen.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (00:44):
You look good.
You sound good.
It's all good.
Big red.
Here we go.
Lightning round questions on theprivate Equity Experience
Podcast, ed and Rory MorningBrainstorm, or midnight
inspiration
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (00:55):
Oh, morning.
I'm a morning guy.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--s (00:57):
definitely morning.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2 (00:58):
Morning.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (00:59):
much brain dead after about 6:00 PM
That's a fact, you know?
And that's getting worse as Iget older.
So, yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (01:05):
And Ed, you've always been a morning
guy.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (01:07):
Always.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2 (01:08):
Morning.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (01:08):
not gonna change.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (01:09):
no.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (01:11):
Do you make decisions faster or
slower when the stakes are high?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:15):
Hmm.
Great question.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (01:17):
I'm definitely faster.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (01:20):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (01:21):
faster.
Uh, it, well, I don't know.
It's hard to say.
Stakes are high, a different, isa, is qualifying, is it?
In a crisis or if the stakes arehigh.
'cause if the stakes are reallyhigh and I, and it's not time
sensitive, I may ruminate onsomething for a while, but I was
trained in my first career tomake rapid decisions and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:43):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (01:43):
adjust as you go rather than
overanalyze.
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (01:47):
Army officer.
Army Officer, what would you?
A Colonel Barton.
Major Barton.
Major Barton.
Got it.
Okay.
Um, what's something you'vebuilt from scratch that actually
worked?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:58):
Hmm.
Great question also.
Um huh.
That actually worked.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (02:11):
I got some Ikea furniture that I,
well, actually, that's not evenfrom scratch.
mean, I, I truly am not like afrom scratch person.
I'm a fix it.
Fix it and make it better thing.
My from scratches are definitelynot memorable.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (02:27):
You, you know, your leg of the race
and it's like downstream from.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (02:31):
out, I mean, maybe an unconventional
answer is, you know, creatingforms of art and also craft.
So like, you know, back in theday I used to, um.
You know, create some, some,some types of jewelry and things
like that, which, you
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (02:47):
No way.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (02:48):
and looked cool and things like
that.
Yeah, I did,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (02:50):
I did not know this about you,
Rory.
You made jewelry
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (02:53):
and stuff like that.
Yep, yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (02:55):
What?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (02:55):
I, I used to have a, a crafty
streak to me, a little moreartistic streak.
Maybe it's been suppressed overthe years a little bit, but
yeah, I think.
part of the reason why it worksis'cause it's kind of
subjective.
You know?
It's not, it's not totally, it'snot mechanical, it's not
electric, you know, it's likethere's a lot of margin for
error.
So maybe that's why it worked.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:13):
Oh my gosh.
That's amazing.
All right.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (03:15):
back to
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (03:16):
Uh.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (03:16):
part of me actually, you know, maybe
that's another podcast, youknow?
emily-sander_1_11-05- (03:19):
Artistic, Rory.
Artistic Big Rigs.
Yeah, I like it.
Deadlift, custom rings andfinancial structuring all in
one.
What is your Comfort TV showwhen your brain's in overdrive?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:34):
I just go down to the YouTube
rabbit hole on so many differentthings.
Like, I watch
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:39):
I.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (03:39):
concerts from, you know, musicians.
I like, I I watch my, my ma Mything these days is like, I
watch these YouTube videos oflike people that live completely
off the grid in Alaska thatthey, you know, basically.
Uh, you know, film their lifeand building cabins and shit
like that.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (03:58):
Whoa.
Okay.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (03:59):
can tell where my mind is, it's
like, I wanna get outta here.
I wanna be like on my own, on anisland, on the side of a
mountain by myself, know?
emily-sander_1_11-05-202 (04:07):
Making rings.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:08):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (04:08):
I, I was gonna say, I think I
would, I would echo the, I don'tknow when the last time I
watched live TV outside of asporting event
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:14):
Yeah.
College football for sure.
But yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (04:17):
yeah, I, I will fire up like, uh, I've
got YouTube playlists of musicthat I'll just fire and up the
eighties and nineties playlistsand that will transport me
elsewhere.
Or I go down the YouTube rabbithole of car videos.
you know, how do I, how do I,you know, change the rear
differential on a 79 Mercedes?
(04:39):
That's, that's
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (04:40):
Of course you do.
Of course you do.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:43):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (04:43):
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (04:44):
One gem I found is Clarkson's Farm,
which like there's this wholepersonality, he's famous in the
uk like Jeremy Clarkson, wholike inherited.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (04:52):
is.
Yeah, yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (04:54):
Who, like, he's known for like a car
show, which Ed, you might knowhim, but he's like, took over
his family farm, like a, like,like hundreds of acres of
farmland and he runs it himself.
Not particularly well, buthilariously.
And you actually learn aboutfarming.
Um, and it's just, it's likecomedy, but you actually learn
(05:14):
something.
So it's just a nice super scenicand ev and everything.
So that's mine, Parksons farm.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (05:19):
Right on.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (05:20):
Um.
Cool.
So those were like kind of somewarmup questions, but we're
gonna talk about like, why is PEinterested in founder led
businesses and like, how do theyactually do that?
Like the, the tactical andpractical pieces of this.
But just to set the stage, whyis PE PE interested in founder
(05:40):
led, founder led businesses inthe first place?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (05:43):
Well, I'll go and then I'll, I know
Ed's got some insights here'cause I mean, we've both been
part of these scenarios multipletimes, but what I've observed is
basically like any investment,you wanna buy low and sell high
eventually.
We talked about it before, likeP doesn't mate for life.
I always, I always use thatterm, but I love the term.
Um, and what I mean by that is.
(06:04):
That, you know, think ofyourself as a business owner.
You're bootstrapping yourbusiness.
You're, you're doing yourself.
It's like you get it to acertain point.
You know your business reallywell.
There's potential there, butbasically you need somehow to be
able to unlock the valuefurther.
And often where a pe a PE groupwill come in and say, I see what
you see founder.
(06:25):
You're a very visionary person,or you and your team are very
effective in this little, youknow, foothold you've
established for yourself.
We will help you.
We will bring the scale andwe'll make that happen.
And they say that, but what theyreally mean is this person has
not found the ability to unlockthe potential of their business.
We can get them there and we canprofit from that in a big.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (06:47):
Yeah.
I think the other piece isnormally a founder led business
has got two, two elements thatare holding it back.
It's either gonna be capital ortalent.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (06:58):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (06:58):
And so the, the private equity firm,
as we've talked about, generallyhas an abundance of capital to
put to work.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (07:05):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (07:05):
And they normally have a Rolodex
full of talent.
Now, that talent may displacethe founder at some point, but
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:11):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (07:11):
this
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (07:11):
Likely will.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (07:12):
so they're able to kind of look at
these things and, and like Rorysaid.
The founder led businesses alsotend to sell cheaper than kind
of institutionally ownedbusinesses because founders, you
know, if you go to a founder andyou go, Hey, this business is
worth, you know, this businessis worth$30 million, they're
gonna be like, well, that'sgreat, you know, that's awesome.
It may actually be worth 40, 45.
(07:34):
But you
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:34):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swe (07:34):
they're.
They're, they get excited.
As a matter of fact, PE firmswill constantly be kind of
trolling with the Hi, I'm, youknow, a junior associate.
They, they make the, you know,inbound calls, unsolicited.
Have you thought aboutmonetizing?
Have you thought, I, I still get'em for like.
For like fusion zone.
I'm like, no, this companytransacted twice to private
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:52):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (07:53):
We're done.
You
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (07:53):
we're.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (07:54):
this is over.
Um, but that's a, those twoelements, they bring talent and
treasure, so to speak, to the,to the private or to the founder
led business.
That's generally what's holdinga founder led business back from
significant growth.
So they try and buy it cheap andthen they also try and go, okay,
how do I.
(08:14):
Juices thing so that I can get amultiple on that investment that
I just made by growing it
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:19):
Yeah, exactly.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (08:21):
And so when we're talking about like
buying it cheap or undervalued,it's not necessarily that
anything's wrong, although therecould be,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (08:28):
at
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (08:29):
it's just like there's upside
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (08:30):
they the smartest private equity
firms I know.
Tend to not buy stuff that'sbroken.
I
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (08:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:36):
buy stuff that's broken, they do it.
That is their business.
They, they have a
emily-sander_1_11-0 (08:41):
turnaround.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:42):
get this,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (08:42):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:43):
get displaced the day that deal
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:44):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (08:45):
And, you know, but there's a,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:47):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (08:47):
those are more your vulture
capitalists and the, and, and,more turnaround private equity
funds.
The typical private equity fundis a growth fund
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (08:56):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (08:56):
at it and go, this business is
undervalued.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:59):
That, yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (09:01):
not because it's.
You know, run poorly.
It's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:05):
just,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (09:05):
because it's not achieving its
potential.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (09:07):
not, it's prescale.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (09:09):
it's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (09:09):
It's kind of at an inflection point
perhaps, or just before it maybeactually.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (09:13):
so we're gonna pay as if the
business is gonna continue alongthis trajectory.
And then we're gonna bring acouple of these, you know,
talent or treasure components or
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2 (09:22):
Mm-hmm.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (09:23):
to, as Rory said, kind of hit that
inflection point and drivegrowth up.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:27):
Yeah.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (09:27):
Hmm.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's the premise.
How do they actually do that?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:33):
Well, it starts with, you gotta be
totally aligned on that future,right?
So if you, if you.
you're working with a founder,let's say you're a PE group and
you're looking to buy a companywith a founder, if you have
completely different visions forthe business, the likelihood of
it working out is very, is ispretty low.
Like you have to see the samethings.
And you know, I would say thatmy personal experience is that
(09:57):
I've never seen things goexactly as planned in those
early discussions.
It always changes, but you haveto have some fundamental
alignment on what that futurelooks like.
And I think a lot of that means.
The founder needs to be honestabout where they're at and
where, what's holding them back.
Or whether maybe they, theymaybe they're even that kind of
a conservative, uh, person wherethey just, they just wanna do
(10:20):
really well and grind out areally nice profit, but, but in
a low growth environment.
But they may need to beconvinced by a PE group that can
achieve much bigger quantums ofprofit by basically, you know.
Unlocking the growth.
So it starts with very honestconversations about where each
side is coming from, what theysee and how they view the
(10:41):
business.
And if you could find alignmentthere, that's a good place to
start.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (10:45):
And so, so assuming they have
alignment, like once they get inthere,'cause we talked about
some of this before, like oncethey get in there, like what are
some actual levers that peoplecan turn to?
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (10:55):
A, A lot of times what
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (10:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (10:57):
is the private equity team will
identify during the diligenceprocess, so this is all, a lot
of the.
Is
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:04):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (11:04):
formulating during the diligence process is
why it's, that's a critical kindof marriage piece, not just with
the turnover bunch of documents,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:12):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (11:13):
said, there's alignment.
There's no, what I, in myexperience, there's two areas
that the private equity folkstend to look at and go, here's
what we're gonna bring to thetable.
We're either gonna bringtechnology, technologists,
technology leverage, so we'rethat maybe.
You know, you need additionalgrowth capital, you
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:32):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (11:33):
skills and those kind
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:34):
CapEx investment, whatever.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (11:36):
yeah, there's a technology gap here
that we're gonna be able to helpyou fill to hit that inflection
point.
So it's, they focus on thetechnology investment and again,
my background's largely techenabled
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:47):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (11:48):
businesses,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:48):
same.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (11:49):
be
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:49):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (11:49):
a little bit.
Um, the other one is they lookat it from a front end sales
perspective and they go, look,you guys have done amazing job
getting.
You know, kind of cornering thislittle nichey market.
There's three other areas thatare parallel to it or adjacent,
or market adjacent, or
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (12:06):
That's it.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (12:07):
got a regional, and we could go
national, but you need to havedifferent sales leadership.
You need a new sales strategyyou need, which again, is gonna
require capital and talent.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05 (12:16):
knowledge and knowhow, and I think like
some founders don't know how toactually expand horizontally or
vertically.
They're just like reallyfocused, you know?
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (12:24):
to make, yep.
And so that's, those two areashave been my experience where
the private equity firms willcome in and go, look, we're
gonna.
Make an investment in youcurrently
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (12:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (12:35):
we've got this additional pot of, now
I'm I, I'll leave the thirdpiece off it.
These are the typical, thisadditional pot of capital that's
available and we're gonnadevelop jointly as part of the
process, the technology
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (12:48):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (12:49):
go to market sales plan to kind of
push this to the next level atthat inflection
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (12:53):
I have noticed that that pot of
capital tends to sometimes be
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swe (12:59):
femoral.
Yeah.
Little.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:02):
I've never seen it actually formally
committed, per se.
It's, uh, theoretical.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (13:07):
at the end of the rainbow.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (13:09):
yeah, we, we
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:09):
That pot of capital might just be any
operating profits you throw offthe business.
And that's your,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (13:14):
it could
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:14):
your pot of capital.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (13:16):
yeah, we, we did it at Fusion Zone.
We did have a soft roll up
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:21):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (13:22):
of the acquisition,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:23):
There we go.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (13:23):
the, the private equity firm did
stroke checks twice, um, toacquire small kind of small tuck
investments.
Um,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:31):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (13:32):
the, the one I thought was
extraordinarily profitable, one,the other one was not.
Um, but it was a, you know, itwas a good, a third, kind of
that third element where theygo, look, you've got a really
good.
and we, I think we've talkedabout platform company here, and
what we're gonna do is bring inthe additional capital, the
diligence capabilities, plus thetechnology integration, the
(13:54):
sales pieces, et cetera.
And we're gonna do some, youknow, talk in acquisitions to
really help bolster the, thegrowth trajectory of the
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (14:02):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (14:02):
that's a third
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (14:03):
So m and a, m and a and and sort of
vision for that is absolutelywhat a PE partner can bring.
And not only that, butadditional personnel that can
join your team that maybe hasthat expertise beyond what the
founder has done or hasexperience with.
They might get their ass handedto them if they try to go down
that path themselves.
So yeah, that m and a and theexpertise around that is a key
(14:26):
way to, to scale throughpartnership with pe.
Definitely.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (14:31):
And some of the stuff that, that
I've been involved with is likeprobably under the umbrella of
professionalizing theorganization, which you've
talked about that term, but likegovernance and rhythm of
business and leadership meetingsand board meetings and board
packages and all these, allthese touch points and reporting
and all these,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (14:49):
talk
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (14:49):
these things that.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (14:50):
break that down a little more.
So what does it mean toprofessionalize an organization
in practical terms?
And, first, like some of myfirst foray is, and as executive
leader has been being brought into a company in that PE
transition, uh, worked with bothof you, uh, which was great at
that time, in that regard.
(15:11):
But what does that mean?
It means that like oftentimesyou have.
The, the founders is, is theCEO, the COO, head of sales, uh,
human resources officer, youname it.
They kind of do it all, and theymay have a minion, a group of
people that kind of carry outtasks.
But what it means to scale anorganization is to, serious
about it, is expandingleadership with the capabilities
(15:33):
and the expertise and therelationships.
To make that happen.
And so what, okay, take anotherstep further.
What does that mean?
So you might have in afounder-led company, you know,
the CEO founder and maybe anaccountant that's, you know,
running QuickBooks, just usethat as an example.
to sort of support a, a growthbusiness that may be expanding
(15:54):
with product, with geography,with.
Customer base, you probably needsome better expertise,
especially if you're gonna starttaking on more, you know,
complex treasury.
Maybe you're goinginternational, this, that, and
the other thing.
You might need a, a VP ofFinance or CFO.
You also might need a legitimatehead of sales that can cover.
Different categories, differentgeographies, different customer
bases, and maybe, maybe you'repivoting as well, and, and you
(16:17):
are looking to get into a marketthat you haven't been before
because you see the, the valuethere.
It's, it's adding the key piecesat the leadership level that you
can then fill in.
To support that with, withadditional, um, call it
functional, uh, staff.
But a lot of it is just like,you know, you think when
somebody thinks of anorganization, they think, oh
(16:38):
yeah, they must have a chief ofstaff, uh, you know, um, CFO,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you know, some, so many ofthese companies that are.
Acquired don't have any of thosethings, and they don't even know
what that means until theyactually partner up with the PE
group and say they believe inwhat the PE group is telling'em,
(16:58):
Hey, to unlock this potential,you need to get the right
personnel.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (17:02):
It, it is surprising that just
leadership team meetings, weeklyleadership team meetings are
like, well, a, what we, we we'regonna sit and talk about like,
what's going on as a group?
Like what?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (17:13):
a
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (17:13):
It's crazy.
It's, and it like, you know, aschief of staff, I would like, I
ran sales operations for awhile.
I stood it up and then handed itoff, but it was like a, a sales
pipeline with, with stages ofthe sale.
Like so people can track wheredeals are coming through.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (17:29):
you know, not
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (17:30):
Yeah, it's just like the, some of
these things are basic, but ifit's not there, it's like, it's
like game changing.
It's like, oh my gosh, like nowwe can see what's coming.
Like, yes, delivery teams,operations teams, you like that?
'cause you can build yourcapacity around what's coming
down the pipeline.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (17:43):
very few businesses that achieve, you
know, a hundred million, billiondollar, you know, revenue run
rates and things like that are,to do so without a tremendous
amount of instr infrastructurewith people and technology, more
technology today maybe thanever.
But like you, you can'taccomplish those things the same
(18:04):
way a founder built theirbusiness to, you know.
$5 million,$10 million, which inits own right, is very
impressive.
But like, if you're seriousabout and you know, achieving
the max potential of a business,you've, you've gotta get
support.
You, you gotta have the, yougotta have the concrete
foundation and the, and the, youknow, kind of iron, you know,
(18:25):
you know, like rungs and thingslike put in there.
You have to make it stand on itsown with, with, with, uh,
support systems.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (18:34):
And I remember like this, this can
be relatively straightforwardthings like when we were at G
two place we all worked at and Iwas running client management.
Designating our clients as indifferent tiers.
Like here's our strategics andhere's our tier and here's our
smaller ones.
Um, in that way.
And then here's like by.
By industry or kind of by, um,like different groupings by
(18:57):
region.
So just like mapping thesethings in Salesforce, that's
what we use for our CRM.
All this stuff was just, okay,now we can say let's look at the
data for our mid-tier EMEAclients for this one area.
Um, so just things like that,which aren't necessarily sexy,
but it's like if you want anEMEA strategy, you better know.
(19:18):
Who your clients are, who yourexisting clients are now, and
what kind of state they're in,if they're happy, if they're
not, like what kind of productsthey have and what kind of
products they need and don'thave all that stuff.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (19:28):
Yeah, the, the one
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (19:29):
exactly.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (19:30):
I would generally say is founders.
It's rare that you find the BillGates, the.
You know, the Michael Dells,where they are tactically
proficient and strategically
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (19:40):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (19:41):
And a lot of times, a lot of times
where the private equity firmswill look to add value when
they're doing the acquisition isthey look for an exceptionally
talented, tactically proficientteam.
And then go, okay, we're gonnahelp overlay the strategy on
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (19:59):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (19:59):
And that's where a lot of this
professionalization and, andinstitutionalization and those
elements, they've got a teamthat knows how to build great
widgets.
They just don't know how to doit at scale.
They don't know how tostrategize about it.
They just know how to make greatwidgets.
And that's, that's anopportunity where the private
equity firms, again, they lookto buy low.
Because you don't have astrategic thinker and they
(20:20):
haven't been able to unlock thestrategic value of the business.
And then the private equity firmcomes in and goes, look, we've
got the tools, people, you know,kind of talent and treasure.
We've got the tools to be ableto, to the strategic wrapper on
this tactically exceptional
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (20:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (20:36):
and drive that forward.
So it's all the stuff, we'realways just talking about the
foundational elements, the, thebuilding, the kind of building
the better mousetrap.
Um, but.
ideal situation is one whereyou've got, you know, you, you
don't have a Michael Dell, youdon't have a, you don't have a
bill Gates.
You've got somebody who's reallygood
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (20:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (20:58):
their core business, and then the
private equity firm
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (21:00):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sw (21:01):
strategic wrapper and structure over that
and causes a business to growand scale significantly.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (21:06):
you want, you want to, to do this
efficiently, and I think whatwe, we talk about in our book is
there is a, there's a playbookto this whole thing.
Like business in itself isunique, but the, the ingredients
needed.
And the strategy and executionto grow a business and achieve
(21:27):
the max potential.
There is, there is a playbookfor it.
Like, and PE has that playbookand they've been there, done
that.
That's what they do.
Founders are geniuses in theirown right, but the, the
structure and the, and the.
Expertise of PE both fromfinancial engineering, but also
just governance and, and growthand, and sort of lining to
talent, things like that.
There's a playbook to that.
So imagine the power if youmatch those things up correctly,
(21:48):
you have alignment, can make ithappen.
Whereas you might
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (21:52):
I would say,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (21:52):
your wheels trying to do it yourself
if you're not
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (21:54):
yeah.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (21:55):
and Bill Gates.
It's point
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (21:57):
Yeah, and like the thing I would add
is there's the.
Founder vision, like they're thevisionary and they know their,
they know their craft that way.
There's the PE playbook.
The middle part is a great chiefof staff will design and
architect the system that has togo in place for that particular
founder, for that particularteam, that particular time for
(22:18):
that particular PE group, andthey can design it and, and make
that run.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (22:22):
Yeah.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (22:22):
So, I mean, that's, that's where I
get excited.
But, um, because that's, that'sthe place I live.
But you need, you need all of,you need all of those players
and all of those pieces to makeit go.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (22:32):
Yeah.
And, and any, any.
know, amount of time that youdon't waste is, is money you
bank, basically is the way Ithink about it.
So if you, if you have the rightpeople and process and
technology, it sounds cliche,but you know, the right roadmap,
like you, you'll not waste timeand money basically.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (22:53):
Maybe we can break down technology a
little bit more.
'cause I know there's like,there's systems and tools.
Like I know certain ERPcompanies partner with PE firms
'cause the ERP is like thepreferred partner of a PE firm.
So they always are in the kindof RFP mix.
But like ERPs and you know, youmentioned QuickBooks or if you
(23:14):
have to upgrade your kind ofsystems and tools that way.
There's that side of things, andthen there's also to me, like
the tech stack and perhaps aproprietary product of some kind
and all of those types ofthings.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (23:25):
a rapid clip.
Yeah, no doubt.
Yeah, I mean, there's, there'sthe.
What I would consider to be likeyour system of record for your,
your business and like for a lotof groups at are early stage.
It's like a quick looks andmaybe you have a CRM, mostly
Excel spreadsheets, but.
emily-sander_1_11-05- (23:42):
Sometimes it's like Joe's napkin by the
computer.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (23:45):
to, you know, okay, I'm gonna put in
a, you know, kinda a salesmodule for Salesforce or, you
know, uh, HubSpot or whatever,and, know, kind of start to
integrate that.
But then you just scales outwardfrom there.
You know, you have massiveenterprise systems that
basically capture it all and allthe data in your systems and
things like that.
And now we're augmenting thatwith.
(24:07):
AI tools which allow processingand to be gained, um, you know,
more efficiently and things likethat, to where it's beyond my
expertise level for sure.
That's why, you know, have theright people in there to
harness.
That is super important,especially now.
emily-sander_1_11-05-20 (24:27):
There's also the, there's a space for,
and like Alex Papadopoulos, whowe all know and all love, uh,
was our C-O-O-C-T-O.
He's very, very goodtechnically, and he can also
communicate to non-technicalaudiences, which is like.
Which is like amazing, but youhave to have that and a lot of
people don't.
(24:47):
So I feel like when you'replusing up your roster sometimes
it's about getting the type ofpeople who can tell the story or
communicate to otherstakeholders what their group or
what the technology is doing.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (25:01):
Exactly.
Um, yeah, I mean, even if you'renot a, a tech company yourself,
you still use tech to run yourcompany and to support your
company.
So ideally you have.
Sort of utility players thathave a specific but they can
kind of speak the language ofother functional areas.
And the more more you have that,the more cohesion you have.
(25:25):
I've worked for companies, Ithink G two is one of those
companies where you had a lot ofgood utility players working
there at the leadership level.
I've worked for other companiesthat did not, and I could tell
you.
things move faster and, and withand with less friction when you
have folks that can kind ofspeak a few different business
languages, so to speak and, andarticulate.
(25:45):
That makes, uh,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (25:46):
and those folks, the, you, you
mentioned
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (25:49):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (25:50):
Uh, really the two areas where that
tends to be most critical and ismost and is most efficient in
organizations technology andfinance.
Where folks have tended to be.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:02):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sw (26:02):
Technical experts in their field, and as
they progress in their career,need to become far more business
generalists, understand thebusiness, and understand how
their el, how their functionarea interacts with others.
And where companies have tendedto fail have been the
technologists live intechnologist land and don't ever
(26:25):
kind of really interact wellwith, with others.
They don't play well withothers.
And finance is the same way.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (26:29):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (26:30):
There's incredibly talented CFOs who are
incredibly poor at their jobsbecause they're talented,
technically and exceptionallypoor from a business
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:39):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (26:40):
getting to know the business.
They, they live in thespreadsheet and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:44):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (26:44):
know, other folks live in a tech
stack.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (26:46):
Right.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (26:47):
That upleveling is where a lot of
people come to me for thecoaching, where it's like,
Emily, we just got by bought byPE number one.
What?
What just happened?
Number two, different things arebeing asked of me and I don't
know how to speak that language.
Essentially.
It's like, okay, here's how wedo that.
Also, when it's like silos, youneed a chief of staff.
Chief of staff will bridge thatfor you.
Chief of staff will see acrossthe department lines and all
(27:09):
those things bring it together.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (27:10):
It's,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (27:10):
Um.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b- (27:11):
interesting.
That was, and Rory probablyremembers because this was
before Chief of Staff was athing.
But I made Karina, essentiallymy chief of staff at my first
CEO gig because I neededsomebody who could tie all the
pieces together.
I think you've used the analogy,Emily, that it's like a, you got
a six pack of cans in the seat,the the chief of
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (27:31):
A plastic thing.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (27:31):
is a plastic ring thing that holds
it all together,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (27:34):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (27:35):
don't, you don't necessarily see it,
but it's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (27:38):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (27:38):
it's holding the whole thing
together.
And that's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2 (27:40):
hundred percent.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (27:42):
again, there's a, there's a couple key
positions I think.
from that talent and treasurepiece.
And what I'm hearing now is moreand more private equity firms
are requesting slash requiring achief of staff hire for the CEO
to help them with thistransition into a more and of
(28:03):
strategically functionalorganization.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (28:06):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (28:06):
that's a, that's a critical
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (28:08):
No doubt.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (28:08):
Yeah, there are, they are for sure so
many chiefs of staff like Emily.
Uh, my boss said, like the, theboard said they had to get a
chief of staff.
And so now, now I've beenbrought in.
I'm like, okay, so let's go tothis rodeo.
Um, what.
How do you know that you'resuccessfully professionalizing
(28:29):
the org?
What kind of things aredifferent after versus before?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (28:35):
Well, I, I would say it's very simply,
if you're achieving the resultsof the business plan, you put in
front of yourself as a group,you know, as a company, as a, as
a unit, you know, betweenmanagement and ownership.
If you're doing the right thingsand you're succeeding, um, that
gives you a good indication ofwhether that's working for you.
If you're not, then you gottalook within and say, what's
going on here?
(28:55):
What's, what's not working?
Why is that?
Probably don't have alignment.
Um, you know, this is allassuming that of whether you
have a product market fit andcustomers that'll buy your
product and stuff is, isworking.
So if that, if that fail failsto launch, that means it
probably wasn't, you weren'teven on the solid footing to
begin with.
But if you're, if you, if youhave that and you're just not
(29:17):
growing or becoming moreprofitable.
Then, you know, some of thelinks in the chains that are,
that are there with peopleprocessing technology not
working.
So you need to figure that out.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (29:28):
Yeah, I was, I was actually gonna, I
was laughing.
Because when Rory was saying,you know, you're achieving the
plan that you laid out, having aplan that's laid out, step
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (29:38):
a good step.
sweeeeeet- (29:39):
professionalization.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (29:40):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (29:41):
the other thing where
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (29:42):
A real one.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (29:43):
yeah.
Where I've noticed it has beenorganization tends to, there
tends to be better defined.
Areas of responsibility.
I'm not saying silos, I'm
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (29:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (29:56):
of responsibility, which actually
speed decision
rory-liebhart_1 (29:58):
Accountability.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (29:59):
the, because the CEO is no longer the
bottleneck or the chiefoperating officer is no longer
the bottleneck.
There's, you know, kind of lanesthat folks are operating in,
which allows decision making tomove
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (30:09):
Right.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (30:10):
The language of the organization
changes.
So the, the communicationsmethods change, the language
changes, it becomes a little bitmore structured.
There is reporting, there'sthings like flash reports where
you can
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (30:21):
Exactly.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (30:21):
of see how we're doing, you know,
what you're supposed to bedoing.
You can measure it.
That's to me like the, as you'removing that direction, it's you.
That's where the initial, okay.
We're, we're institutionalizing,we're, we're becoming a more
strategically focused
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:37):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (30:38):
how I can tell is I just start
seeing.
Things Look and I and folks go,oh my God, it's gotten
corporate.
And I'm like, no, it actuallyhas gotten organized
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:47):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (30:47):
able to measure and manage the key
components.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (30:50):
well, the word that came up for me is
clarity.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:52):
There you go.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (30:53):
It got clear, everyone's clear on
what they're supposed to bedoing and why we're doing it,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (30:57):
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (30:57):
then there's like, I'm trying to
think of the.
Leading indicators, I think,like, do you have a plan at all?
Number one, are people clear onthe plan?
Like, do they know about it?
'cause you might know about it,but does the rest of the
organization down to your, youknow, manager rank and file
folks know about it?
Do they know how theirday-to-day fits into that plan?
(31:18):
And then some of these otherpieces, the structural pieces,
the people, all of those are,are they in place?
Might be like a leadingindicator and then you're gonna
have to fine tune and tweak themover time, but just.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (31:30):
Yeah, well the specificity around a
like, you know, however you wantto put it, performance
management, corporateperformance management, however
you wanna put that scorecard.
you have developedtheoretically, like some pretty
specific metrics.
You're either achieving them oryou're not.
And so that's gonna be a goodindicator of whether that's
gonna persist as far as leadingindicators go.
(31:53):
You know, it's, um, you know, itcould be.
I guess it could be as simpleas, you know, whether you're
achieving the fundamentals ofyour plan, whether it's revenue
growth or profitability, andlike seeing customers churn,
seeing customer growth, seeingmore sales on the top of your
funnel, whatever that is.
(32:15):
ultimately that kind of thing iswhere you're gonna say, okay,
I'll convert that to businessand profitability.
if you're not achieving thosetop of funnel things or, you
know, kind of like the, thebuilding blocks, so to speak, of
how you, how you.
You know, achieve your businessgoals, then you gotta address
that out the gate.
No doubt.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (32:33):
And a like a meta example would be,
I remember when we firstimplemented the Flash report,
one of everyone's first goalswas to.
Confirm or check.
What we were measuring was theappropriate thing to be
measuring.
Like, Hey, we, we set out theseKPIs, but are they the right
thing after, you know, a quarteror two or a couple cycles where
(32:54):
it's like, that one's prettygood, but this one does not tell
us what we needed to know.
We like missed that over here.
We, let's change our, our tool.
So that fine tuning piece.
Um, and I think too, there'slike the.
Whole culture piece.
So when the whole bunch ofchange goes down, I've, in my
experience, you're gonna losesome folks just out of the swing
of the change, which is notnecessarily bad.
(33:16):
But then after things stabilizeand settle out to whatever
they're going to be.
Do you have a whole bunch ofvoluntary turnover?
Do you have have a whole bunchof people, or is your culture
fairly stable?
You're always gonna haveattrition, but looking at some
of those pieces as well?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05 (33:31):
customers can be,
emily-sander_1_11-0 (33:33):
Absolutely.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (33:34):
of your, you know, respond to your
culture or like bought into yourculture and that's why there are
customers.
So yeah, I think internal andexternal factors like that, if
you see degradation.
You got a problem and, and youmentioned, you know, like, uh,
you know, you see people sort ofnot get with program culturally
and leave that as many times asnot, that's the founder
themselves, you know?
(33:54):
Um, and that's why superimportant getting back, kind of
hammering this home is thatalignment upfront is like, is
this gonna be something thatboth parties are, you know,
gonna.
Lock arms on for the long term.
And as much as you can do yourdiligence on that, gives you an
indication of like, okay, thishas a possibility of success,
but if it's gonna failure tolaunch, you know, could, could
(34:16):
be a lot of money wasted if, if,um, if that doesn't work out.
So I.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (34:22):
And how long do you have to show
growth or like what would tell aPE from, okay, like now we have
demonstrable data set of like,look, this thing has gone from X
to Y.
We're on the career path, orwe're on the track.
We can sell the dream.
Let's go do this thing.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (34:36):
You mean from the standpoint of like
whether a founder's gotten thebusiness to a certain point or
are you saying post acquisitionby the PE group?
Because
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (34:44):
Post acquisitions.
So, yeah.
So if a PE group is saying,okay, I came in, it was
undervalued.
I'm putting in talent andtreasure, and we're getting all
these internal things that wejust talked about in place, and
now I'm starting to see it for aquarter in two quarters, and now
it's been like 18 months ofthis.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (35:01):
the shortest I've heard is 18 months
is basically
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:05):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (35:05):
they look at it and go, okay, I've
gotten through a year end, I'vehad that year audited, and then
I've got another quarter or twoto show that it's not fluke.
And in some cases when PE firmshave somebody who they've.
to take from, you know, an 8%,10% growth rate to a 30, 40, 50%
growth rate in that 18 months.
That's exactly when they'regonna hit the chutes and they're
(35:26):
out.
You know, look, we got thisthing that's really humming.
They're gonna get a premium onthat.
They may double or money in 18months in that
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (35:35):
or more.
And they're gonna, that's whenthey, because to some extent,
you know, a 50% growth rate isnot, or 30% growth rate
annualized is not
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (35:43):
Now,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (35:44):
And so you're also going, okay, let
me, let me pass this off to,generally it'll be a strategic,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:50):
yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (35:51):
we'll be able to
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (35:52):
I.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (35:52):
okay, you know, we either wanna take
this pesky, pesky outta themarket, or we wanna expand into
that space and there's synergiesenough for us to be able to at
least see a really nice
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (36:03):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (36:04):
investment.
but 18 months is about as shortas I've, as I've
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (36:08):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (36:08):
Um, and then, you know, in some
cases it just, it's a couple.
Couple turns of the couple turnsof the worm and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (36:17):
It gets a little long on the tooth,
as you've said.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (36:19):
years.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (36:21):
Yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (36:22):
Yeah.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (36:22):
like that.
That's a great, that's a verypractical, real realistic
answer.
I think.
I was just gonna say, you know.
Uh, you really get an indicationas to whether you're following
the business plan.
You know, like if, if thatcould, where are you at after a
year?
You know, here was the businessplan that was laid out.
Are you, are you achieving it?
Are you far under it?
Like, what's the problem?
You know, um, your thesisworking out?
(36:45):
That sort of thing.
Um, but yeah, I'd say, you know,never, I've never really heard
of hold periods less than 18months or, you know, or like,
really longer than like sevenyears, you know?
But by seven years though, thelikelihood of you having
turnover management multipletimes is very high.
So it's like, as somebody that'sbeen in a business that's gone
(37:06):
through this a couple times,like, you know, the thought of a
seven year period is, uh, that'slong.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (37:13):
Yeah, if you're, if you're in a seven
year
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (37:15):
'cause it's a grind.
I'll just, let's make that veryclear.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (37:18):
it's probably you.
The C-E-O-C-F-O role
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:20):
Oh dude.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (37:22):
to the
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (37:22):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (37:23):
Brown
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (37:23):
I was just gonna say, sports, you
know, like head coach, you know,especially these days is a
really good analogy to CEOs in,in these types of businesses.
Like, if you can't prove it outin two years under your watch,
gone.
For sure.
You know,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (37:38):
Yep.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:39):
so
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:39):
All right.
On that happy note now, nowlistener, you know more about
what it actually takes to grow abusiness and why PE firms be
interested.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (37:47):
they might get their next contract
somewhere else.
You know what I mean?
Like so.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (37:50):
They usually do just fine.
They usually do just fine.
Very cool.
Thanks, ed.
Thanks Rory.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (37:56):
Thank you.
I.
Rory can sound like Demi Moore as
he's answered these questionswith his nasal situation.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (00:40):
not tip top, but hey, we'll, we'll,
uh, we'll make it happen.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (00:44):
You look good.
You sound good.
It's all good.
Big red.
Here we go.
Lightning round questions on theprivate Equity Experience
Podcast, ed and Rory MorningBrainstorm, or midnight
inspiration
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (00:55):
Oh, morning.
I'm a morning guy.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--s (00:57):
definitely morning.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2 (00:58):
Morning.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (00:59):
much brain dead after about 6:00 PM
That's a fact, you know?
And that's getting worse as Iget older.
So, yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (01:05):
And Ed, you've always been a morning
guy.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (01:07):
Always.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2 (01:08):
Morning.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (01:08):
not gonna change.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (01:09):
no.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (01:11):
Do you make decisions faster or
slower when the stakes are high?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:15):
Hmm.
Great question.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (01:17):
I'm definitely faster.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (01:20):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (01:21):
faster.
Uh, it, well, I don't know.
It's hard to say.
Stakes are high, a different, isa, is qualifying, is it?
In a crisis or if the stakes arehigh.
'cause if the stakes are reallyhigh and I, and it's not time
sensitive, I may ruminate onsomething for a while, but I was
trained in my first career tomake rapid decisions and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:43):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (01:43):
adjust as you go rather than
overanalyze.
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (01:47):
Army officer.
Army Officer, what would you?
A Colonel Barton.
Major Barton.
Major Barton.
Got it.
Okay.
Um, what's something you'vebuilt from scratch that actually
worked?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (01:58):
Hmm.
Great question also.
Um huh.
That actually worked.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (02:11):
I got some Ikea furniture that I,
well, actually, that's not evenfrom scratch.
mean, I, I truly am not like afrom scratch person.
I'm a fix it.
Fix it and make it better thing.
My from scratches are definitelynot memorable.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (02:27):
You, you know, your leg of the race
and it's like downstream from.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (02:31):
out, I mean, maybe an unconventional
answer is, you know, creatingforms of art and also craft.
So like, you know, back in theday I used to, um.
You know, create some, some,some types of jewelry and things
like that, which, you
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (02:47):
No way.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (02:48):
and looked cool and things like
that.
Yeah, I did,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (02:50):
I did not know this about you,
Rory.
You made jewelry
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (02:53):
and stuff like that.
Yep, yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (02:55):
What?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (02:55):
I, I used to have a, a crafty
streak to me, a little moreartistic streak.
Maybe it's been suppressed overthe years a little bit, but
yeah, I think.
part of the reason why it worksis'cause it's kind of
subjective.
You know?
It's not, it's not totally, it'snot mechanical, it's not
electric, you know, it's likethere's a lot of margin for
error.
So maybe that's why it worked.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:13):
Oh my gosh.
That's amazing.
All right.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (03:15):
back to
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (03:16):
Uh.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (03:16):
part of me actually, you know, maybe
that's another podcast, youknow?
emily-sander_1_11-05- (03:19):
Artistic, Rory.
Artistic Big Rigs.
Yeah, I like it.
Deadlift, custom rings andfinancial structuring all in
one.
What is your Comfort TV showwhen your brain's in overdrive?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:34):
I just go down to the YouTube
rabbit hole on so many differentthings.
Like, I watch
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (03:39):
I.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (03:39):
concerts from, you know, musicians.
I like, I I watch my, my ma Mything these days is like, I
watch these YouTube videos oflike people that live completely
off the grid in Alaska thatthey, you know, basically.
Uh, you know, film their lifeand building cabins and shit
like that.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (03:58):
Whoa.
Okay.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (03:59):
can tell where my mind is, it's
like, I wanna get outta here.
I wanna be like on my own, on anisland, on the side of a
mountain by myself, know?
emily-sander_1_11-05-202 (04:07):
Making rings.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:08):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (04:08):
I, I was gonna say, I think I
would, I would echo the, I don'tknow when the last time I
watched live TV outside of asporting event
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:14):
Yeah.
College football for sure.
But yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (04:17):
yeah, I, I will fire up like, uh, I've
got YouTube playlists of musicthat I'll just fire and up the
eighties and nineties playlistsand that will transport me
elsewhere.
Or I go down the YouTube rabbithole of car videos.
you know, how do I, how do I,you know, change the rear
differential on a 79 Mercedes?
(04:39):
That's, that's
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (04:40):
Of course you do.
Of course you do.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (04:43):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (04:43):
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (04:44):
One gem I found is Clarkson's Farm,
which like there's this wholepersonality, he's famous in the
uk like Jeremy Clarkson, wholike inherited.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (04:52):
is.
Yeah, yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (04:54):
Who, like, he's known for like a car
show, which Ed, you might knowhim, but he's like, took over
his family farm, like a, like,like hundreds of acres of
farmland and he runs it himself.
Not particularly well, buthilariously.
And you actually learn aboutfarming.
Um, and it's just, it's likecomedy, but you actually learn
(05:14):
something.
So it's just a nice super scenicand ev and everything.
So that's mine, Parksons farm.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (05:19):
Right on.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (05:20):
Um.
Cool.
So those were like kind of somewarmup questions, but we're
gonna talk about like, why is PEinterested in founder led
businesses and like, how do theyactually do that?
Like the, the tactical andpractical pieces of this.
But just to set the stage, whyis PE PE interested in founder
(05:40):
led, founder led businesses inthe first place?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (05:43):
Well, I'll go and then I'll, I know
Ed's got some insights here'cause I mean, we've both been
part of these scenarios multipletimes, but what I've observed is
basically like any investment,you wanna buy low and sell high
eventually.
We talked about it before, likeP doesn't mate for life.
I always, I always use thatterm, but I love the term.
Um, and what I mean by that is.
(06:04):
That, you know, think ofyourself as a business owner.
You're bootstrapping yourbusiness.
You're, you're doing yourself.
It's like you get it to acertain point.
You know your business reallywell.
There's potential there, butbasically you need somehow to be
able to unlock the valuefurther.
And often where a pe a PE groupwill come in and say, I see what
you see founder.
(06:25):
You're a very visionary person,or you and your team are very
effective in this little, youknow, foothold you've
established for yourself.
We will help you.
We will bring the scale andwe'll make that happen.
And they say that, but what theyreally mean is this person has
not found the ability to unlockthe potential of their business.
We can get them there and we canprofit from that in a big.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (06:47):
Yeah.
I think the other piece isnormally a founder led business
has got two, two elements thatare holding it back.
It's either gonna be capital ortalent.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (06:58):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (06:58):
And so the, the private equity firm,
as we've talked about, generallyhas an abundance of capital to
put to work.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (07:05):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (07:05):
And they normally have a Rolodex
full of talent.
Now, that talent may displacethe founder at some point, but
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:11):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (07:11):
this
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (07:11):
Likely will.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (07:12):
so they're able to kind of look at
these things and, and like Rorysaid.
The founder led businesses alsotend to sell cheaper than kind
of institutionally ownedbusinesses because founders, you
know, if you go to a founder andyou go, Hey, this business is
worth, you know, this businessis worth$30 million, they're
gonna be like, well, that'sgreat, you know, that's awesome.
It may actually be worth 40, 45.
(07:34):
But you
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:34):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swe (07:34):
they're.
They're, they get excited.
As a matter of fact, PE firmswill constantly be kind of
trolling with the Hi, I'm, youknow, a junior associate.
They, they make the, you know,inbound calls, unsolicited.
Have you thought aboutmonetizing?
Have you thought, I, I still get'em for like.
For like fusion zone.
I'm like, no, this companytransacted twice to private
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (07:52):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (07:53):
We're done.
You
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (07:53):
we're.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (07:54):
this is over.
Um, but that's a, those twoelements, they bring talent and
treasure, so to speak, to the,to the private or to the founder
led business.
That's generally what's holdinga founder led business back from
significant growth.
So they try and buy it cheap andthen they also try and go, okay,
how do I.
(08:14):
Juices thing so that I can get amultiple on that investment that
I just made by growing it
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:19):
Yeah, exactly.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (08:21):
And so when we're talking about like
buying it cheap or undervalued,it's not necessarily that
anything's wrong, although therecould be,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (08:28):
at
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (08:29):
it's just like there's upside
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (08:30):
they the smartest private equity
firms I know.
Tend to not buy stuff that'sbroken.
I
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (08:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:36):
buy stuff that's broken, they do it.
That is their business.
They, they have a
emily-sander_1_11-0 (08:41):
turnaround.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:42):
get this,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (08:42):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (08:43):
get displaced the day that deal
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:44):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (08:45):
And, you know, but there's a,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:47):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (08:47):
those are more your vulture
capitalists and the, and, and,more turnaround private equity
funds.
The typical private equity fundis a growth fund
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (08:56):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (08:56):
at it and go, this business is
undervalued.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (08:59):
That, yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (09:01):
not because it's.
You know, run poorly.
It's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:05):
just,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (09:05):
because it's not achieving its
potential.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (09:07):
not, it's prescale.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (09:09):
it's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (09:09):
It's kind of at an inflection point
perhaps, or just before it maybeactually.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (09:13):
so we're gonna pay as if the
business is gonna continue alongthis trajectory.
And then we're gonna bring acouple of these, you know,
talent or treasure components or
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2 (09:22):
Mm-hmm.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (09:23):
to, as Rory said, kind of hit that
inflection point and drivegrowth up.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:27):
Yeah.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (09:27):
Hmm.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's the premise.
How do they actually do that?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (09:33):
Well, it starts with, you gotta be
totally aligned on that future,right?
So if you, if you.
you're working with a founder,let's say you're a PE group and
you're looking to buy a companywith a founder, if you have
completely different visions forthe business, the likelihood of
it working out is very, is ispretty low.
Like you have to see the samethings.
And you know, I would say thatmy personal experience is that
(09:57):
I've never seen things goexactly as planned in those
early discussions.
It always changes, but you haveto have some fundamental
alignment on what that futurelooks like.
And I think a lot of that means.
The founder needs to be honestabout where they're at and
where, what's holding them back.
Or whether maybe they, theymaybe they're even that kind of
a conservative, uh, person wherethey just, they just wanna do
(10:20):
really well and grind out areally nice profit, but, but in
a low growth environment.
But they may need to beconvinced by a PE group that can
achieve much bigger quantums ofprofit by basically, you know.
Unlocking the growth.
So it starts with very honestconversations about where each
side is coming from, what theysee and how they view the
(10:41):
business.
And if you could find alignmentthere, that's a good place to
start.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (10:45):
And so, so assuming they have
alignment, like once they get inthere,'cause we talked about
some of this before, like oncethey get in there, like what are
some actual levers that peoplecan turn to?
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (10:55):
A, A lot of times what
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (10:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (10:57):
is the private equity team will
identify during the diligenceprocess, so this is all, a lot
of the.
Is
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:04):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (11:04):
formulating during the diligence process is
why it's, that's a critical kindof marriage piece, not just with
the turnover bunch of documents,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:12):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (11:13):
said, there's alignment.
There's no, what I, in myexperience, there's two areas
that the private equity folkstend to look at and go, here's
what we're gonna bring to thetable.
We're either gonna bringtechnology, technologists,
technology leverage, so we'rethat maybe.
You know, you need additionalgrowth capital, you
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:32):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (11:33):
skills and those kind
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:34):
CapEx investment, whatever.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (11:36):
yeah, there's a technology gap here
that we're gonna be able to helpyou fill to hit that inflection
point.
So it's, they focus on thetechnology investment and again,
my background's largely techenabled
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:47):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (11:48):
businesses,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:48):
same.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (11:49):
be
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (11:49):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (11:49):
a little bit.
Um, the other one is they lookat it from a front end sales
perspective and they go, look,you guys have done amazing job
getting.
You know, kind of cornering thislittle nichey market.
There's three other areas thatare parallel to it or adjacent,
or market adjacent, or
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (12:06):
That's it.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (12:07):
got a regional, and we could go
national, but you need to havedifferent sales leadership.
You need a new sales strategyyou need, which again, is gonna
require capital and talent.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05 (12:16):
knowledge and knowhow, and I think like
some founders don't know how toactually expand horizontally or
vertically.
They're just like reallyfocused, you know?
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (12:24):
to make, yep.
And so that's, those two areashave been my experience where
the private equity firms willcome in and go, look, we're
gonna.
Make an investment in youcurrently
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (12:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (12:35):
we've got this additional pot of, now
I'm I, I'll leave the thirdpiece off it.
These are the typical, thisadditional pot of capital that's
available and we're gonnadevelop jointly as part of the
process, the technology
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (12:48):
Yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (12:49):
go to market sales plan to kind of
push this to the next level atthat inflection
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (12:53):
I have noticed that that pot of
capital tends to sometimes be
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swe (12:59):
femoral.
Yeah.
Little.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:02):
I've never seen it actually formally
committed, per se.
It's, uh, theoretical.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (13:07):
at the end of the rainbow.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (13:09):
yeah, we, we
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:09):
That pot of capital might just be any
operating profits you throw offthe business.
And that's your,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (13:14):
it could
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (13:14):
your pot of capital.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (13:16):
yeah, we, we did it at Fusion Zone.
We did have a soft roll up
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:21):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (13:22):
of the acquisition,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:23):
There we go.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (13:23):
the, the private equity firm did
stroke checks twice, um, toacquire small kind of small tuck
investments.
Um,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (13:31):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (13:32):
the, the one I thought was
extraordinarily profitable, one,the other one was not.
Um, but it was a, you know, itwas a good, a third, kind of
that third element where theygo, look, you've got a really
good.
and we, I think we've talkedabout platform company here, and
what we're gonna do is bring inthe additional capital, the
diligence capabilities, plus thetechnology integration, the
(13:54):
sales pieces, et cetera.
And we're gonna do some, youknow, talk in acquisitions to
really help bolster the, thegrowth trajectory of the
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (14:02):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (14:02):
that's a third
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (14:03):
So m and a, m and a and and sort of
vision for that is absolutelywhat a PE partner can bring.
And not only that, butadditional personnel that can
join your team that maybe hasthat expertise beyond what the
founder has done or hasexperience with.
They might get their ass handedto them if they try to go down
that path themselves.
So yeah, that m and a and theexpertise around that is a key
(14:26):
way to, to scale throughpartnership with pe.
Definitely.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (14:31):
And some of the stuff that, that
I've been involved with is likeprobably under the umbrella of
professionalizing theorganization, which you've
talked about that term, but likegovernance and rhythm of
business and leadership meetingsand board meetings and board
packages and all these, allthese touch points and reporting
and all these,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (14:49):
talk
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (14:49):
these things that.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (14:50):
break that down a little more.
So what does it mean toprofessionalize an organization
in practical terms?
And, first, like some of myfirst foray is, and as executive
leader has been being brought into a company in that PE
transition, uh, worked with bothof you, uh, which was great at
that time, in that regard.
(15:11):
But what does that mean?
It means that like oftentimesyou have.
The, the founders is, is theCEO, the COO, head of sales, uh,
human resources officer, youname it.
They kind of do it all, and theymay have a minion, a group of
people that kind of carry outtasks.
But what it means to scale anorganization is to, serious
about it, is expandingleadership with the capabilities
(15:33):
and the expertise and therelationships.
To make that happen.
And so what, okay, take anotherstep further.
What does that mean?
So you might have in afounder-led company, you know,
the CEO founder and maybe anaccountant that's, you know,
running QuickBooks, just usethat as an example.
to sort of support a, a growthbusiness that may be expanding
(15:54):
with product, with geography,with.
Customer base, you probably needsome better expertise,
especially if you're gonna starttaking on more, you know,
complex treasury.
Maybe you're goinginternational, this, that, and
the other thing.
You might need a, a VP ofFinance or CFO.
You also might need a legitimatehead of sales that can cover.
Different categories, differentgeographies, different customer
bases, and maybe, maybe you'repivoting as well, and, and you
(16:17):
are looking to get into a marketthat you haven't been before
because you see the, the valuethere.
It's, it's adding the key piecesat the leadership level that you
can then fill in.
To support that with, withadditional, um, call it
functional, uh, staff.
But a lot of it is just like,you know, you think when
somebody thinks of anorganization, they think, oh
(16:38):
yeah, they must have a chief ofstaff, uh, you know, um, CFO,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you know, some, so many ofthese companies that are.
Acquired don't have any of thosethings, and they don't even know
what that means until theyactually partner up with the PE
group and say they believe inwhat the PE group is telling'em,
(16:58):
Hey, to unlock this potential,you need to get the right
personnel.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (17:02):
It, it is surprising that just
leadership team meetings, weeklyleadership team meetings are
like, well, a, what we, we we'regonna sit and talk about like,
what's going on as a group?
Like what?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (17:13):
a
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (17:13):
It's crazy.
It's, and it like, you know, aschief of staff, I would like, I
ran sales operations for awhile.
I stood it up and then handed itoff, but it was like a, a sales
pipeline with, with stages ofthe sale.
Like so people can track wheredeals are coming through.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (17:29):
you know, not
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (17:30):
Yeah, it's just like the, some of
these things are basic, but ifit's not there, it's like, it's
like game changing.
It's like, oh my gosh, like nowwe can see what's coming.
Like, yes, delivery teams,operations teams, you like that?
'cause you can build yourcapacity around what's coming
down the pipeline.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (17:43):
very few businesses that achieve, you
know, a hundred million, billiondollar, you know, revenue run
rates and things like that are,to do so without a tremendous
amount of instr infrastructurewith people and technology, more
technology today maybe thanever.
But like you, you can'taccomplish those things the same
(18:04):
way a founder built theirbusiness to, you know.
$5 million,$10 million, which inits own right, is very
impressive.
But like, if you're seriousabout and you know, achieving
the max potential of a business,you've, you've gotta get
support.
You, you gotta have the, yougotta have the concrete
foundation and the, and the, youknow, kind of iron, you know,
(18:25):
you know, like rungs and thingslike put in there.
You have to make it stand on itsown with, with, with, uh,
support systems.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (18:34):
And I remember like this, this can
be relatively straightforwardthings like when we were at G
two place we all worked at and Iwas running client management.
Designating our clients as indifferent tiers.
Like here's our strategics andhere's our tier and here's our
smaller ones.
Um, in that way.
And then here's like by.
By industry or kind of by, um,like different groupings by
(18:57):
region.
So just like mapping thesethings in Salesforce, that's
what we use for our CRM.
All this stuff was just, okay,now we can say let's look at the
data for our mid-tier EMEAclients for this one area.
Um, so just things like that,which aren't necessarily sexy,
but it's like if you want anEMEA strategy, you better know.
(19:18):
Who your clients are, who yourexisting clients are now, and
what kind of state they're in,if they're happy, if they're
not, like what kind of productsthey have and what kind of
products they need and don'thave all that stuff.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (19:28):
Yeah, the, the one
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (19:29):
exactly.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swee (19:30):
I would generally say is founders.
It's rare that you find the BillGates, the.
You know, the Michael Dells,where they are tactically
proficient and strategically
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (19:40):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (19:41):
And a lot of times, a lot of times
where the private equity firmswill look to add value when
they're doing the acquisition isthey look for an exceptionally
talented, tactically proficientteam.
And then go, okay, we're gonnahelp overlay the strategy on
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (19:59):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (19:59):
And that's where a lot of this
professionalization and, andinstitutionalization and those
elements, they've got a teamthat knows how to build great
widgets.
They just don't know how to doit at scale.
They don't know how tostrategize about it.
They just know how to make greatwidgets.
And that's, that's anopportunity where the private
equity firms, again, they lookto buy low.
Because you don't have astrategic thinker and they
(20:20):
haven't been able to unlock thestrategic value of the business.
And then the private equity firmcomes in and goes, look, we've
got the tools, people, you know,kind of talent and treasure.
We've got the tools to be ableto, to the strategic wrapper on
this tactically exceptional
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (20:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (20:36):
and drive that forward.
So it's all the stuff, we'realways just talking about the
foundational elements, the, thebuilding, the kind of building
the better mousetrap.
Um, but.
ideal situation is one whereyou've got, you know, you, you
don't have a Michael Dell, youdon't have a, you don't have a
bill Gates.
You've got somebody who's reallygood
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (20:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (20:58):
their core business, and then the
private equity firm
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (21:00):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sw (21:01):
strategic wrapper and structure over that
and causes a business to growand scale significantly.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (21:06):
you want, you want to, to do this
efficiently, and I think whatwe, we talk about in our book is
there is a, there's a playbookto this whole thing.
Like business in itself isunique, but the, the ingredients
needed.
And the strategy and executionto grow a business and achieve
(21:27):
the max potential.
There is, there is a playbookfor it.
Like, and PE has that playbookand they've been there, done
that.
That's what they do.
Founders are geniuses in theirown right, but the, the
structure and the, and the.
Expertise of PE both fromfinancial engineering, but also
just governance and, and growthand, and sort of lining to
talent, things like that.
There's a playbook to that.
So imagine the power if youmatch those things up correctly,
(21:48):
you have alignment, can make ithappen.
Whereas you might
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (21:52):
I would say,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (21:52):
your wheels trying to do it yourself
if you're not
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (21:54):
yeah.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (21:55):
and Bill Gates.
It's point
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (21:57):
Yeah, and like the thing I would add
is there's the.
Founder vision, like they're thevisionary and they know their,
they know their craft that way.
There's the PE playbook.
The middle part is a great chiefof staff will design and
architect the system that has togo in place for that particular
founder, for that particularteam, that particular time for
(22:18):
that particular PE group, andthey can design it and, and make
that run.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (22:22):
Yeah.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (22:22):
So, I mean, that's, that's where I
get excited.
But, um, because that's, that'sthe place I live.
But you need, you need all of,you need all of those players
and all of those pieces to makeit go.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (22:32):
Yeah.
And, and any, any.
know, amount of time that youdon't waste is, is money you
bank, basically is the way Ithink about it.
So if you, if you have the rightpeople and process and
technology, it sounds cliche,but you know, the right roadmap,
like you, you'll not waste timeand money basically.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (22:53):
Maybe we can break down technology a
little bit more.
'cause I know there's like,there's systems and tools.
Like I know certain ERPcompanies partner with PE firms
'cause the ERP is like thepreferred partner of a PE firm.
So they always are in the kindof RFP mix.
But like ERPs and you know, youmentioned QuickBooks or if you
(23:14):
have to upgrade your kind ofsystems and tools that way.
There's that side of things, andthen there's also to me, like
the tech stack and perhaps aproprietary product of some kind
and all of those types ofthings.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (23:25):
a rapid clip.
Yeah, no doubt.
Yeah, I mean, there's, there'sthe.
What I would consider to be likeyour system of record for your,
your business and like for a lotof groups at are early stage.
It's like a quick looks andmaybe you have a CRM, mostly
Excel spreadsheets, but.
emily-sander_1_11-05- (23:42):
Sometimes it's like Joe's napkin by the
computer.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (23:45):
to, you know, okay, I'm gonna put in
a, you know, kinda a salesmodule for Salesforce or, you
know, uh, HubSpot or whatever,and, know, kind of start to
integrate that.
But then you just scales outwardfrom there.
You know, you have massiveenterprise systems that
basically capture it all and allthe data in your systems and
things like that.
And now we're augmenting thatwith.
(24:07):
AI tools which allow processingand to be gained, um, you know,
more efficiently and things likethat, to where it's beyond my
expertise level for sure.
That's why, you know, have theright people in there to
harness.
That is super important,especially now.
emily-sander_1_11-05-20 (24:27):
There's also the, there's a space for,
and like Alex Papadopoulos, whowe all know and all love, uh,
was our C-O-O-C-T-O.
He's very, very goodtechnically, and he can also
communicate to non-technicalaudiences, which is like.
Which is like amazing, but youhave to have that and a lot of
people don't.
(24:47):
So I feel like when you'replusing up your roster sometimes
it's about getting the type ofpeople who can tell the story or
communicate to otherstakeholders what their group or
what the technology is doing.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (25:01):
Exactly.
Um, yeah, I mean, even if you'renot a, a tech company yourself,
you still use tech to run yourcompany and to support your
company.
So ideally you have.
Sort of utility players thathave a specific but they can
kind of speak the language ofother functional areas.
And the more more you have that,the more cohesion you have.
(25:25):
I've worked for companies, Ithink G two is one of those
companies where you had a lot ofgood utility players working
there at the leadership level.
I've worked for other companiesthat did not, and I could tell
you.
things move faster and, and withand with less friction when you
have folks that can kind ofspeak a few different business
languages, so to speak and, andarticulate.
(25:45):
That makes, uh,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (25:46):
and those folks, the, you, you
mentioned
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (25:49):
yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (25:50):
Uh, really the two areas where that
tends to be most critical and ismost and is most efficient in
organizations technology andfinance.
Where folks have tended to be.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:02):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sw (26:02):
Technical experts in their field, and as
they progress in their career,need to become far more business
generalists, understand thebusiness, and understand how
their el, how their functionarea interacts with others.
And where companies have tendedto fail have been the
technologists live intechnologist land and don't ever
(26:25):
kind of really interact wellwith, with others.
They don't play well withothers.
And finance is the same way.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (26:29):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (26:30):
There's incredibly talented CFOs who are
incredibly poor at their jobsbecause they're talented,
technically and exceptionallypoor from a business
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:39):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--swee (26:40):
getting to know the business.
They, they live in thespreadsheet and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (26:44):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (26:44):
know, other folks live in a tech
stack.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (26:46):
Right.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (26:47):
That upleveling is where a lot of
people come to me for thecoaching, where it's like,
Emily, we just got by bought byPE number one.
What?
What just happened?
Number two, different things arebeing asked of me and I don't
know how to speak that language.
Essentially.
It's like, okay, here's how wedo that.
Also, when it's like silos, youneed a chief of staff.
Chief of staff will bridge thatfor you.
Chief of staff will see acrossthe department lines and all
(27:09):
those things bring it together.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (27:10):
It's,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (27:10):
Um.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b- (27:11):
interesting.
That was, and Rory probablyremembers because this was
before Chief of Staff was athing.
But I made Karina, essentiallymy chief of staff at my first
CEO gig because I neededsomebody who could tie all the
pieces together.
I think you've used the analogy,Emily, that it's like a, you got
a six pack of cans in the seat,the the chief of
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150 (27:31):
A plastic thing.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (27:31):
is a plastic ring thing that holds
it all together,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (27:34):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (27:35):
don't, you don't necessarily see it,
but it's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (27:38):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (27:38):
it's holding the whole thing
together.
And that's
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2 (27:40):
hundred percent.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (27:42):
again, there's a, there's a couple key
positions I think.
from that talent and treasurepiece.
And what I'm hearing now is moreand more private equity firms
are requesting slash requiring achief of staff hire for the CEO
to help them with thistransition into a more and of
(28:03):
strategically functionalorganization.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (28:06):
Yep.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (28:06):
that's a, that's a critical
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (28:08):
No doubt.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (28:08):
Yeah, there are, they are for sure so
many chiefs of staff like Emily.
Uh, my boss said, like the, theboard said they had to get a
chief of staff.
And so now, now I've beenbrought in.
I'm like, okay, so let's go tothis rodeo.
Um, what.
How do you know that you'resuccessfully professionalizing
(28:29):
the org?
What kind of things aredifferent after versus before?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (28:35):
Well, I, I would say it's very simply,
if you're achieving the resultsof the business plan, you put in
front of yourself as a group,you know, as a company, as a, as
a unit, you know, betweenmanagement and ownership.
If you're doing the right thingsand you're succeeding, um, that
gives you a good indication ofwhether that's working for you.
If you're not, then you gottalook within and say, what's
going on here?
(28:55):
What's, what's not working?
Why is that?
Probably don't have alignment.
Um, you know, this is allassuming that of whether you
have a product market fit andcustomers that'll buy your
product and stuff is, isworking.
So if that, if that fail failsto launch, that means it
probably wasn't, you weren'teven on the solid footing to
begin with.
But if you're, if you, if youhave that and you're just not
(29:17):
growing or becoming moreprofitable.
Then, you know, some of thelinks in the chains that are,
that are there with peopleprocessing technology not
working.
So you need to figure that out.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (29:28):
Yeah, I was, I was actually gonna, I
was laughing.
Because when Rory was saying,you know, you're achieving the
plan that you laid out, having aplan that's laid out, step
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (29:38):
a good step.
sweeeeeet- (29:39):
professionalization.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (29:40):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (29:41):
the other thing where
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (29:42):
A real one.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (29:43):
yeah.
Where I've noticed it has beenorganization tends to, there
tends to be better defined.
Areas of responsibility.
I'm not saying silos, I'm
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (29:56):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (29:56):
of responsibility, which actually
speed decision
rory-liebhart_1 (29:58):
Accountability.
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (29:59):
the, because the CEO is no longer the
bottleneck or the chiefoperating officer is no longer
the bottleneck.
There's, you know, kind of lanesthat folks are operating in,
which allows decision making tomove
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (30:09):
Right.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (30:10):
The language of the organization
changes.
So the, the communicationsmethods change, the language
changes, it becomes a little bitmore structured.
There is reporting, there'sthings like flash reports where
you can
rory-liebhart_1_11-05- (30:21):
Exactly.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (30:21):
of see how we're doing, you know,
what you're supposed to bedoing.
You can measure it.
That's to me like the, as you'removing that direction, it's you.
That's where the initial, okay.
We're, we're institutionalizing,we're, we're becoming a more
strategically focused
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:37):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (30:38):
how I can tell is I just start
seeing.
Things Look and I and folks go,oh my God, it's gotten
corporate.
And I'm like, no, it actuallyhas gotten organized
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:47):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (30:47):
able to measure and manage the key
components.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (30:50):
well, the word that came up for me is
clarity.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (30:52):
There you go.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_15 (30:53):
It got clear, everyone's clear on
what they're supposed to bedoing and why we're doing it,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (30:57):
Yep.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (30:57):
then there's like, I'm trying to
think of the.
Leading indicators, I think,like, do you have a plan at all?
Number one, are people clear onthe plan?
Like, do they know about it?
'cause you might know about it,but does the rest of the
organization down to your, youknow, manager rank and file
folks know about it?
Do they know how theirday-to-day fits into that plan?
(31:18):
And then some of these otherpieces, the structural pieces,
the people, all of those are,are they in place?
Might be like a leadingindicator and then you're gonna
have to fine tune and tweak themover time, but just.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (31:30):
Yeah, well the specificity around a
like, you know, however you wantto put it, performance
management, corporateperformance management, however
you wanna put that scorecard.
you have developedtheoretically, like some pretty
specific metrics.
You're either achieving them oryou're not.
And so that's gonna be a goodindicator of whether that's
gonna persist as far as leadingindicators go.
(31:53):
You know, it's, um, you know, itcould be.
I guess it could be as simpleas, you know, whether you're
achieving the fundamentals ofyour plan, whether it's revenue
growth or profitability, andlike seeing customers churn,
seeing customer growth, seeingmore sales on the top of your
funnel, whatever that is.
(32:15):
ultimately that kind of thing iswhere you're gonna say, okay,
I'll convert that to businessand profitability.
if you're not achieving thosetop of funnel things or, you
know, kind of like the, thebuilding blocks, so to speak, of
how you, how you.
You know, achieve your businessgoals, then you gotta address
that out the gate.
No doubt.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (32:33):
And a like a meta example would be,
I remember when we firstimplemented the Flash report,
one of everyone's first goalswas to.
Confirm or check.
What we were measuring was theappropriate thing to be
measuring.
Like, Hey, we, we set out theseKPIs, but are they the right
thing after, you know, a quarteror two or a couple cycles where
(32:54):
it's like, that one's prettygood, but this one does not tell
us what we needed to know.
We like missed that over here.
We, let's change our, our tool.
So that fine tuning piece.
Um, and I think too, there'slike the.
Whole culture piece.
So when the whole bunch ofchange goes down, I've, in my
experience, you're gonna losesome folks just out of the swing
of the change, which is notnecessarily bad.
(33:16):
But then after things stabilizeand settle out to whatever
they're going to be.
Do you have a whole bunch ofvoluntary turnover?
Do you have have a whole bunchof people, or is your culture
fairly stable?
You're always gonna haveattrition, but looking at some
of those pieces as well?
rory-liebhart_1_11-05 (33:31):
customers can be,
emily-sander_1_11-0 (33:33):
Absolutely.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (33:34):
of your, you know, respond to your
culture or like bought into yourculture and that's why there are
customers.
So yeah, I think internal andexternal factors like that, if
you see degradation.
You got a problem and, and youmentioned, you know, like, uh,
you know, you see people sort ofnot get with program culturally
and leave that as many times asnot, that's the founder
themselves, you know?
(33:54):
Um, and that's why superimportant getting back, kind of
hammering this home is thatalignment upfront is like, is
this gonna be something thatboth parties are, you know,
gonna.
Lock arms on for the long term.
And as much as you can do yourdiligence on that, gives you an
indication of like, okay, thishas a possibility of success,
but if it's gonna failure tolaunch, you know, could, could
(34:16):
be a lot of money wasted if, if,um, if that doesn't work out.
So I.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (34:22):
And how long do you have to show
growth or like what would tell aPE from, okay, like now we have
demonstrable data set of like,look, this thing has gone from X
to Y.
We're on the career path, orwe're on the track.
We can sell the dream.
Let's go do this thing.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_ (34:36):
You mean from the standpoint of like
whether a founder's gotten thebusiness to a certain point or
are you saying post acquisitionby the PE group?
Because
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (34:44):
Post acquisitions.
So, yeah.
So if a PE group is saying,okay, I came in, it was
undervalued.
I'm putting in talent andtreasure, and we're getting all
these internal things that wejust talked about in place, and
now I'm starting to see it for aquarter in two quarters, and now
it's been like 18 months ofthis.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (35:01):
the shortest I've heard is 18 months
is basically
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:05):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (35:05):
they look at it and go, okay, I've
gotten through a year end, I'vehad that year audited, and then
I've got another quarter or twoto show that it's not fluke.
And in some cases when PE firmshave somebody who they've.
to take from, you know, an 8%,10% growth rate to a 30, 40, 50%
growth rate in that 18 months.
That's exactly when they'regonna hit the chutes and they're
(35:26):
out.
You know, look, we got thisthing that's really humming.
They're gonna get a premium onthat.
They may double or money in 18months in that
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:35):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (35:35):
or more.
And they're gonna, that's whenthey, because to some extent,
you know, a 50% growth rate isnot, or 30% growth rate
annualized is not
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (35:43):
Now,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (35:44):
And so you're also going, okay, let
me, let me pass this off to,generally it'll be a strategic,
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (35:50):
yeah,
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (35:51):
we'll be able to
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (35:52):
I.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (35:52):
okay, you know, we either wanna take
this pesky, pesky outta themarket, or we wanna expand into
that space and there's synergiesenough for us to be able to at
least see a really nice
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (36:03):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b-- (36:04):
investment.
but 18 months is about as shortas I've, as I've
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (36:08):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sw (36:08):
Um, and then, you know, in some
cases it just, it's a couple.
Couple turns of the couple turnsof the worm and
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (36:17):
It gets a little long on the tooth,
as you've said.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet (36:19):
years.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (36:21):
Yeah,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025 (36:22):
Yeah.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (36:22):
like that.
That's a great, that's a verypractical, real realistic
answer.
I think.
I was just gonna say, you know.
Uh, you really get an indicationas to whether you're following
the business plan.
You know, like if, if thatcould, where are you at after a
year?
You know, here was the businessplan that was laid out.
Are you, are you achieving it?
Are you far under it?
Like, what's the problem?
You know, um, your thesisworking out?
(36:45):
That sort of thing.
Um, but yeah, I'd say, you know,never, I've never really heard
of hold periods less than 18months or, you know, or like,
really longer than like sevenyears, you know?
But by seven years though, thelikelihood of you having
turnover management multipletimes is very high.
So it's like, as somebody that'sbeen in a business that's gone
(37:06):
through this a couple times,like, you know, the thought of a
seven year period is, uh, that'slong.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (37:13):
Yeah, if you're, if you're in a seven
year
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-20 (37:15):
'cause it's a grind.
I'll just, let's make that veryclear.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-s (37:18):
it's probably you.
The C-E-O-C-F-O role
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:20):
Oh dude.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-swe (37:22):
to the
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (37:22):
Yeah.
sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet- (37:23):
Brown
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_15 (37:23):
I was just gonna say, sports, you
know, like head coach, you know,especially these days is a
really good analogy to CEOs in,in these types of businesses.
Like, if you can't prove it outin two years under your watch,
gone.
For sure.
You know,
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (37:38):
Yep.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:39):
so
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_1 (37:39):
All right.
On that happy note now, nowlistener, you know more about
what it actually takes to grow abusiness and why PE firms be
interested.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025 (37:47):
they might get their next contract
somewhere else.
You know what I mean?
Like so.
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_ (37:50):
They usually do just fine.
They usually do just fine.
Very cool.
Thanks, ed.
Thanks Rory.
rory-liebhart_1_11-05-202 (37:56):
Thank you.
I.
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