February 10, 2025 • 18 mins
Ever wondered what it takes to truly stand out in a crowded market? Join us for an insightful conversation with serial entrepreneur Anthony Franco, who has mastered the art of grabbing attention with creativity and novelty. Anthony takes us on a journey through his entrepreneurial successes, sharing unforgettable stories. He challenges the myth of overnight success, instead highlighting the persistence and clever strategies—like using the seven deadly sins for crafting marketing messages—that are essential for any entrepreneur. By the end of the episode, you'll be brimming with fresh ideas and a newfound appreciation for the creative sparks that drive business innovation.
Thinking about selling your business? Anthony lays out the roadmap to make it an attractive proposition. From ensuring profitability and maintaining spotless financial records to building a business that thrives independently of its founder, these insights are gold for any entrepreneur considering an exit strategy. As the founder often needs to wear many hats, Anthony stresses the importance of initially acting as the chief revenue officer to thoroughly understand your market. And since entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey, he emphasizes the necessity of building a supportive network. Connect with fellow founders and dive into local entrepreneurial communities to share stories, advice, and camaraderie that will sustain you through both the highs and lows of your entrepreneurial journey.
Check out Anthony's web site and podcast How to Founder
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:01):
Today we are talking about growth hacking,
entrepreneurship and what ittakes to be a great founder, and
we have the perfect guest tohelp us talk through that today
Anthony Franco.
Welcome to the show.
Anthony Franco (00:16):
Thank you, Eric.
Thank you for having me.
Glad to be here.
Eric Eden (00:20):
So why don't we start off by you sharing just a
minute or two, a little bitabout who you are and what you
do?
Anthony Franco (00:26):
Yeah well, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
So when somebody asks me whatdo you do, I say entrepreneur,
which usually they get the lookon their face like so you're
unemployed, and sometimes that'strue.
I've started and exited sixcompanies, all of varying sizes
and degrees.
Now I guess my tagline, youcould say is I start, I launch,
(00:48):
scale and exit companies, andnow I help other founders do the
same.
Eric Eden (00:53):
That's great, and it's not for the faint of heart,
is it?
This is not for those who arenot really in it to win it right
.
Anthony Franco (01:01):
Yeah, entrepreneurship for some reason
has gotten this glamorous brandfor lack of a better term, and
it's really not glamorous, it'shard, it's lonely.
Entrepreneurs I mean, if youwant me to go dark,
entrepreneurs have higher ratesof divorce and depression and
suicide, and so, yeah, don't gointo it for the ego boost.
(01:25):
It's the wrong career for that.
Eric Eden (01:28):
Yeah, it's almost.
Why would you do that?
Unless you realize the rewardsat the end of the journey.
But it's also sort of likestringing together a thousand
hard days of work to have thatglorious outcome is what a lot
of people don't realize is thatovernight success isn't usually
part of the equation.
Anthony Franco (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, and most entrepreneurs.
If they're being honest.
You'll ask them why are you anentrepreneur?
And they'll tell you because Icouldn't get a job otherwise.
Eric Eden (01:58):
I think the key to being a great entrepreneur is
being able to sell and marketthe idea for your company.
Yeah, for sure, in so manydifferent ways, and so we're
ready to be inspired.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about how you have done this
(02:18):
successfully some of themarketing, the growth hacking
that you're the most proud of?
Anthony Franco (02:32):
Yeah, there's a lot.
It's really funny.
We talk about growth hackingand there's books written on
growth hacking and the bookshave lots of great examples.
The problem with those examplesand I have one to share the
problem with those examples is,once it's out in the universe
that this worked, it's now nolonger a hack, now it's just
noise because everybody's doingit.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat a growth hack is.
(02:53):
So we in my last company, weattended a conference and we did
a lot of conferences.
We got a lot of leads fromenterprises, from conferences,
from conferences, and if you'veever been to a trade show, there
are hundreds or thousands ofbooths.
That it's just.
You get inundated withinformation from one company to
(03:14):
another.
Our positioning at the tradeshow was we helped companies
improve their software's userexperience.
Companies improve theirsoftware's user experience.
So the UI, or what's also knownas the front end, the counter
to that is, everybody else therewas talking about how to
improve their backend, theirdatabase, their code, their
(03:50):
infrastructure.
So we came to the conferencewith a couple of thousands pair
of boxer shorts and on the backof the boxer shorts we wrote in
big bold text don't just focuson the back end and we handed
those out.
Our employees were wearing themall around the trade show and
we were the bell of the ball.
And we were the bell of theball.
Now, if we did that 10 times,it's no longer funny, right?
It's no longer novel.
So the problem with any quotemarketing tactics that come out
(04:16):
like that is you have to benovel, you have to be able to
stand out, and if you're doingwhat other people are doing
online, offline, it doesn'tmatter.
You're not going to stand out.
Therefore, you're going tospend a lot more on it.
Frankly, you're going to spenda lot more on advertising and
marketing because you're tryingto rise above the noise and just
(04:37):
and you're just paying forimpressions at that point.
Eric Eden (04:47):
Yeah.
So it seems like the key is tonumber one be committed to
coming up with something that iscreative or a growth hack like
that, that is unique and thatwill help you stand out in a sea
of other people that is tryingto get their message out as well
.
Right, if you're not doingsomething unique, you know it's
it's.
It's hard to stand out.
So how do you recommend peoplecome up with some of these
(05:09):
unique ideas to stand out?
Do you have a process forcoming up with it?
Anthony Franco (05:13):
Yeah, it's kind of like asking somebody to be
funny on the spot.
It's really hard, right?
It's really hard for you tolike the process to come up with
really creative ideas.
There are people in the worldthat do that for a living and
they earn really good money.
So one is hire a true creativedirector and you don't have to
(05:35):
hire them Like go out and findan agency that's willing to give
you a little bit of theircreative director's time for a
fee.
Another is ask yourself do alot of competitive research and
ask yourself what's missing?
What's the missing message inthe sea of people that I'm
competing against, what are theymissing?
(05:55):
What's the first principlemessage that they're missing?
One other hack that I'll shareis when you're messaging
something, when you're trying toget somebody to lean in,
there's something that I justrecently discovered.
When you're messaging something, when you're trying to get
somebody to lean in, there'ssomething that I just recently
discovered.
I call it the seven deadly sinsof growth hacking, and the way
to think about that is if youtake the seven deadly sins and
(06:20):
you wrap your hook or yourmessage around one of the sins
and get your ideal customer topicture themselves committing
that sin, you have a good hook.
So if you look at pride, it'slike beating your competition.
If it's sloth, it's gettingthem to picture themselves on a
(06:45):
beach with a margarita right,and those aren't literal ways of
doing it.
Eric Eden (06:50):
But one way to kind of give you a creative framework
is framework that in gettingyour customer to picture
themselves committing one of thesins that's really interesting
and I think this idea of comingup with something that is unique
, that helps you stand out, issomething that people can try to
(07:10):
replicate out is something thatpeople can try to replicate.
I'll give an example.
When I went to the PodFestconference in Orlando two weeks
ago, the company that I hostthis podcast with, buzzsprout
they host about 100,000 podcaststhere was like 100 companies
exhibiting this event, includinga number of their competitors,
and they did something reallycreative to stand out where they
(07:33):
had like a line.
They were the only booth thathad a line going out of the
exhibit hall of people whowanted to meet with them, and
what they did was they decidedto do a giveaway.
That was very unique.
They came up with this key chain, a leather key chain, and they
put they custom made it forcustomers and they put a QR code
(07:55):
on one side and on the otherside they put the logo of your
podcast and they burned theseleather keychains on site with
an engraver and they're likeit'll take us like three minutes
for a key chain and they madethem for their customers, which
was a great way to help theircustomers do marketing.
(08:17):
But it was also something verypersonalized for their customers
and it really just made peoplelove them and it was a unique
thing rather than just like at-shirt.
They also gave out t-shirtsthey have really cool Buzzsprout
t-shirts but they thoughtbeyond just giving out a t-shirt
.
They also gave out t-shirtsthey have really cool Buzzsprout
t-shirts but they thoughtbeyond just giving out a t-shirt
with their name on it and saidwhat can we do to give out
something with our customer'sbrand on it that will help them
(08:39):
market their podcast?
Anthony Franco (08:40):
And so I think that's just a great hook because
you had to email them your logo.
I would assume now they haveyour email address.
It's really good.
I love it.
It's a great, great tactic.
Eric Eden (08:53):
So I think you can do a lot of things to stand out.
It's just coming up with thoseideas.
Like you said, it takes alittle bit of thought, a little
bit of planning.
It takes some intention.
I love your suggestions abouthire a creative director or work
with an agency, one of thethings that is actually a bit
helpful for me.
I hate to admit this, butsometimes I've hired millennials
(09:14):
on my marketing team who justyou know they're more intent in
tune with everything from thememes to like what's funny, like
your example, like, and I thinkthat generationally, you know
you can get different people onthe team and when you sort of
challenge them to come up with acreative idea, that's the sort
of marketing stuff that peoplereally like to do right.
Anthony Franco (09:34):
Yeah, I mean, this is really the.
When people think aboutmarketing and wanting to do that
as a career, this is the kindof stuff that they're wanting to
do, right?
Nobody wants to write technicalmanuals and feature and feature
bullet lists for a productbrochure, which is much more of
what marketing is really about.
But this, this, you know, thecreative, the true creative how
(09:56):
to stand out.
That's really the fun, meatypart of marketing.
Eric Eden (10:01):
Absolutely so.
Let me shift a little bit andask a question, since you're an
expert and being an entrepreneurand helping founders with
advice on how they can get exits, like you've done multiple
times, what advice do you havefor entrepreneurs and founders
about how to sell and markettheir business Like broadly,
(10:26):
what advice do you have for them, given where we're at here in
2025?
Anthony Franco (10:31):
Yeah, so you're leading the witness a little bit
, because this is kind of what Ido.
So I would say hire somebodythat knows what they're doing,
but it doesn't have to be me.
There's a lot of great M&Aexperts, business brokers, out
there that can help them, helpyou position your business for
sale.
But having an expert for thislook, you're going to exit your
business once.
If you're lucky, you have a fewexits and it's not your core
(10:55):
strength and also trying toposition your business for sale
takes you out of the business,which is the last thing that you
want to be doing.
When you're trying to sell it,you want it to be growing
through the sale, not shrinkingbecause you're not paying
attention to it.
But some of the tactics inorder to position your business
for sale.
First of all, for mostbusinesses not all businesses
(11:17):
for most businesses, you'rebought on a multiple of profit
it's called EBITDA and so youneed to make sure you're
profitable, otherwise, why isthe company buying you?
Now, there's rare circumstanceswhen companies are bought for
strategic reasons that don'thave profit, and I take those
listings on as well.
But those are the edge cases,not most of the circumstances.
(11:40):
So other things that you can do.
Make sure your books are superclean, because your books are
going to be reviewed by thelender that's going to be
lending the money to the buyer.
They're going to be reviewed bythe buyer.
They may be doing quality ofearnings reviews and having
clean books just kind of has alevel of trust that you're
(12:00):
already presenting with Another.
If you can, if you have theopportunity, make sure you have
great revenue diversity.
In other words, don't have morethan 20% of revenue and
preferably a lot less with onecustomer.
That can be a red flag or arisk flag.
Also, if you're trying to exityour business and you don't want
(12:23):
to continue on with thebusiness, then it has to be
credibly true that you're not arequirement for the business to
continue.
So that means you have to kindof start to work your way out of
the business earlier than whenyou want to exit.
If you want to leave and thebuyer's coming in and saying,
(12:44):
well, you're the criticalcomponent of the business, what
am I buying?
That's going to really hurtyour valuation.
Eric Eden (12:50):
I think all of that is great advice.
I think all of that is greatadvice and the follow-up
question is if the people buyingyour business is based on your
profit and having good revenue,what's some of the best advice
you give to founders about howto grow their business with
(13:11):
marketing?
To get to that point, I knowthere's a lot of different
channels, there's a lot ofdifferent tactics, but you have
to get to a certain point.
That's interesting, right, andI think a lot of businesses get
to a point where they can takeit part of the way and then they
feel like they've hit a plateau, and so I'm just curious if
you've worked with people inthat situation and if you've
(13:32):
helped them get that growth sothat they could then ultimately
get their exit.
Anthony Franco (13:35):
So encyclopedias of books have been written on
how to grow your business.
There's no simple one.
The one answer I usually giveto founders and when I have a
couple of minutes only you haveto go sell.
If you want your business togrow, then you grow it, you
(14:00):
figure it out, you get your noseinto it and then, once you have
it figured out, you're thenallowed to start delegating it
to either salespeople or amarketing person or a marketing
team.
But if you're hoping that youcan hire an agency to help you
grow without you understandingyour customer, why they buy, how
(14:21):
they buy, what are effectivekeywords?
If you're buying keywords,what's an effective sales pitch?
What are the motivating factorsfor what?
You have to know it at yourcore as a founder.
You have to understand whypeople buy and how to get them
to lean in, and most of the timethe limiting factor is that the
(14:43):
founder just simply doesn'tknow why people buy from them.
So go figure that out first andthen you can start scaling.
Eric Eden (14:50):
I think that makes a lot of sense.
The lesson is that the founderis really the head of sales and
the head of marketing to startwith, and once you have mastered
it, then you need to focus onscaling it with getting people
in the business or gettingagencies or other helpers to
help you scale it.
I often say when people askabout founders, I'm like the
(15:14):
founder is really the chiefmarketing officer at a lot of
companies until they get to acertain size, when it makes
sense and they've scaled it, andthen they can delegate it like
you're saying and I don't knowthat everyone just naturally
thinks about it that way, but Ithink it makes sense that that
is the formula for success,right?
Yeah, you are the chief revenueofficer period success right,
yeah, you're the.
Anthony Franco (15:31):
You are the chief revenue officer period.
Eric Eden (15:35):
Absolutely Well.
Is there anything else that youwanted?
Anthony Franco (15:44):
to share today that that I didn't ask, that you
think would be helpful forfolks Usually.
I like to end on the notionthat, look, I, I hang around a
lot of founders.
I'm I'm pretty active here inthe Colorado entrepreneurial
community and I can just say, ifyou're an entrepreneur, I know
you're lonely.
It's a lonely gig and that's anormal feeling.
Go find other founders to hangout with.
(16:06):
There's nothing better thanhanging out around people that
aren't having the same problemsbut are having to conquer the
chaos just like you are, andthere's nothing like hanging
around other entrepreneurs.
So go to meetup.
Go to go find local groups.
Vistage is a great option.
I run a founder podcast calledhow to Founder.
(16:26):
It's a proxy for not beinglonely.
So visit us at howtofoundercomto watch what we talk about.
But yeah, go surround yourselfwith other entrepreneurs and
that actually helps quite a bit.
Eric Eden (16:41):
I'm going to link to your website and your LinkedIn
so people can get in toucheasily via the show notes if
they'd like to continue thisconversation.
Really appreciate you joiningtoday, sharing your stories,
your advice and your insights.
Thank you very much for beingon today.
Thanks for having me, Eric.
Today we are talking about growth hacking,
entrepreneurship and what ittakes to be a great founder, and
we have the perfect guest tohelp us talk through that today
Anthony Franco.
Welcome to the show.
Anthony Franco (00:16):
Thank you, Eric.
Thank you for having me.
Glad to be here.
Eric Eden (00:20):
So why don't we start off by you sharing just a
minute or two, a little bitabout who you are and what you
do?
Anthony Franco (00:26):
Yeah well, I'm a serial entrepreneur.
So when somebody asks me whatdo you do, I say entrepreneur,
which usually they get the lookon their face like so you're
unemployed, and sometimes that'strue.
I've started and exited sixcompanies, all of varying sizes
and degrees.
Now I guess my tagline, youcould say is I start, I launch,
(00:48):
scale and exit companies, andnow I help other founders do the
same.
Eric Eden (00:53):
That's great, and it's not for the faint of heart,
is it?
This is not for those who arenot really in it to win it right
.
Anthony Franco (01:01):
Yeah, entrepreneurship for some reason
has gotten this glamorous brandfor lack of a better term, and
it's really not glamorous, it'shard, it's lonely.
Entrepreneurs I mean, if youwant me to go dark,
entrepreneurs have higher ratesof divorce and depression and
suicide, and so, yeah, don't gointo it for the ego boost.
(01:25):
It's the wrong career for that.
Eric Eden (01:28):
Yeah, it's almost.
Why would you do that?
Unless you realize the rewardsat the end of the journey.
But it's also sort of likestringing together a thousand
hard days of work to have thatglorious outcome is what a lot
of people don't realize is thatovernight success isn't usually
part of the equation.
Anthony Franco (01:48):
Yeah, yeah, and most entrepreneurs.
If they're being honest.
You'll ask them why are you anentrepreneur?
And they'll tell you because Icouldn't get a job otherwise.
Eric Eden (01:58):
I think the key to being a great entrepreneur is
being able to sell and marketthe idea for your company.
Yeah, for sure, in so manydifferent ways, and so we're
ready to be inspired.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about how you have done this
(02:18):
successfully some of themarketing, the growth hacking
that you're the most proud of?
Anthony Franco (02:32):
Yeah, there's a lot.
It's really funny.
We talk about growth hackingand there's books written on
growth hacking and the bookshave lots of great examples.
The problem with those examplesand I have one to share the
problem with those examples is,once it's out in the universe
that this worked, it's now nolonger a hack, now it's just
noise because everybody's doingit.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat a growth hack is.
(02:53):
So we in my last company, weattended a conference and we did
a lot of conferences.
We got a lot of leads fromenterprises, from conferences,
from conferences, and if you'veever been to a trade show, there
are hundreds or thousands ofbooths.
That it's just.
You get inundated withinformation from one company to
(03:14):
another.
Our positioning at the tradeshow was we helped companies
improve their software's userexperience.
Companies improve theirsoftware's user experience.
So the UI, or what's also knownas the front end, the counter
to that is, everybody else therewas talking about how to
improve their backend, theirdatabase, their code, their
(03:50):
infrastructure.
So we came to the conferencewith a couple of thousands pair
of boxer shorts and on the backof the boxer shorts we wrote in
big bold text don't just focuson the back end and we handed
those out.
Our employees were wearing themall around the trade show and
we were the bell of the ball.
And we were the bell of theball.
Now, if we did that 10 times,it's no longer funny, right?
It's no longer novel.
So the problem with any quotemarketing tactics that come out
(04:16):
like that is you have to benovel, you have to be able to
stand out, and if you're doingwhat other people are doing
online, offline, it doesn'tmatter.
You're not going to stand out.
Therefore, you're going tospend a lot more on it.
Frankly, you're going to spenda lot more on advertising and
marketing because you're tryingto rise above the noise and just
(04:37):
and you're just paying forimpressions at that point.
Eric Eden (04:47):
Yeah.
So it seems like the key is tonumber one be committed to
coming up with something that iscreative or a growth hack like
that, that is unique and thatwill help you stand out in a sea
of other people that is tryingto get their message out as well
.
Right, if you're not doingsomething unique, you know it's
it's.
It's hard to stand out.
So how do you recommend peoplecome up with some of these
(05:09):
unique ideas to stand out?
Do you have a process forcoming up with it?
Anthony Franco (05:13):
Yeah, it's kind of like asking somebody to be
funny on the spot.
It's really hard, right?
It's really hard for you tolike the process to come up with
really creative ideas.
There are people in the worldthat do that for a living and
they earn really good money.
So one is hire a true creativedirector and you don't have to
(05:35):
hire them Like go out and findan agency that's willing to give
you a little bit of theircreative director's time for a
fee.
Another is ask yourself do alot of competitive research and
ask yourself what's missing?
What's the missing message inthe sea of people that I'm
competing against, what are theymissing?
(05:55):
What's the first principlemessage that they're missing?
One other hack that I'll shareis when you're messaging
something, when you're trying toget somebody to lean in,
there's something that I justrecently discovered.
When you're messaging something, when you're trying to get
somebody to lean in, there'ssomething that I just recently
discovered.
I call it the seven deadly sinsof growth hacking, and the way
to think about that is if youtake the seven deadly sins and
(06:20):
you wrap your hook or yourmessage around one of the sins
and get your ideal customer topicture themselves committing
that sin, you have a good hook.
So if you look at pride, it'slike beating your competition.
If it's sloth, it's gettingthem to picture themselves on a
(06:45):
beach with a margarita right,and those aren't literal ways of
doing it.
Eric Eden (06:50):
But one way to kind of give you a creative framework
is framework that in gettingyour customer to picture
themselves committing one of thesins that's really interesting
and I think this idea of comingup with something that is unique
, that helps you stand out, issomething that people can try to
(07:10):
replicate out is something thatpeople can try to replicate.
I'll give an example.
When I went to the PodFestconference in Orlando two weeks
ago, the company that I hostthis podcast with, buzzsprout
they host about 100,000 podcaststhere was like 100 companies
exhibiting this event, includinga number of their competitors,
and they did something reallycreative to stand out where they
(07:33):
had like a line.
They were the only booth thathad a line going out of the
exhibit hall of people whowanted to meet with them, and
what they did was they decidedto do a giveaway.
That was very unique.
They came up with this key chain, a leather key chain, and they
put they custom made it forcustomers and they put a QR code
(07:55):
on one side and on the otherside they put the logo of your
podcast and they burned theseleather keychains on site with
an engraver and they're likeit'll take us like three minutes
for a key chain and they madethem for their customers, which
was a great way to help theircustomers do marketing.
(08:17):
But it was also something verypersonalized for their customers
and it really just made peoplelove them and it was a unique
thing rather than just like at-shirt.
They also gave out t-shirtsthey have really cool Buzzsprout
t-shirts but they thoughtbeyond just giving out a t-shirt
.
They also gave out t-shirtsthey have really cool Buzzsprout
t-shirts but they thoughtbeyond just giving out a t-shirt
with their name on it and saidwhat can we do to give out
something with our customer'sbrand on it that will help them
(08:39):
market their podcast?
Anthony Franco (08:40):
And so I think that's just a great hook because
you had to email them your logo.
I would assume now they haveyour email address.
It's really good.
I love it.
It's a great, great tactic.
Eric Eden (08:53):
So I think you can do a lot of things to stand out.
It's just coming up with thoseideas.
Like you said, it takes alittle bit of thought, a little
bit of planning.
It takes some intention.
I love your suggestions abouthire a creative director or work
with an agency, one of thethings that is actually a bit
helpful for me.
I hate to admit this, butsometimes I've hired millennials
(09:14):
on my marketing team who justyou know they're more intent in
tune with everything from thememes to like what's funny, like
your example, like, and I thinkthat generationally, you know
you can get different people onthe team and when you sort of
challenge them to come up with acreative idea, that's the sort
of marketing stuff that peoplereally like to do right.
Anthony Franco (09:34):
Yeah, I mean, this is really the.
When people think aboutmarketing and wanting to do that
as a career, this is the kindof stuff that they're wanting to
do, right?
Nobody wants to write technicalmanuals and feature and feature
bullet lists for a productbrochure, which is much more of
what marketing is really about.
But this, this, you know, thecreative, the true creative how
(09:56):
to stand out.
That's really the fun, meatypart of marketing.
Eric Eden (10:01):
Absolutely so.
Let me shift a little bit andask a question, since you're an
expert and being an entrepreneurand helping founders with
advice on how they can get exits, like you've done multiple
times, what advice do you havefor entrepreneurs and founders
about how to sell and markettheir business Like broadly,
(10:26):
what advice do you have for them, given where we're at here in
2025?
Anthony Franco (10:31):
Yeah, so you're leading the witness a little bit
, because this is kind of what Ido.
So I would say hire somebodythat knows what they're doing,
but it doesn't have to be me.
There's a lot of great M&Aexperts, business brokers, out
there that can help them, helpyou position your business for
sale.
But having an expert for thislook, you're going to exit your
business once.
If you're lucky, you have a fewexits and it's not your core
(10:55):
strength and also trying toposition your business for sale
takes you out of the business,which is the last thing that you
want to be doing.
When you're trying to sell it,you want it to be growing
through the sale, not shrinkingbecause you're not paying
attention to it.
But some of the tactics inorder to position your business
for sale.
First of all, for mostbusinesses not all businesses
(11:17):
for most businesses, you'rebought on a multiple of profit
it's called EBITDA and so youneed to make sure you're
profitable, otherwise, why isthe company buying you?
Now, there's rare circumstanceswhen companies are bought for
strategic reasons that don'thave profit, and I take those
listings on as well.
But those are the edge cases,not most of the circumstances.
(11:40):
So other things that you can do.
Make sure your books are superclean, because your books are
going to be reviewed by thelender that's going to be
lending the money to the buyer.
They're going to be reviewed bythe buyer.
They may be doing quality ofearnings reviews and having
clean books just kind of has alevel of trust that you're
(12:00):
already presenting with Another.
If you can, if you have theopportunity, make sure you have
great revenue diversity.
In other words, don't have morethan 20% of revenue and
preferably a lot less with onecustomer.
That can be a red flag or arisk flag.
Also, if you're trying to exityour business and you don't want
(12:23):
to continue on with thebusiness, then it has to be
credibly true that you're not arequirement for the business to
continue.
So that means you have to kindof start to work your way out of
the business earlier than whenyou want to exit.
If you want to leave and thebuyer's coming in and saying,
(12:44):
well, you're the criticalcomponent of the business, what
am I buying?
That's going to really hurtyour valuation.
Eric Eden (12:50):
I think all of that is great advice.
I think all of that is greatadvice and the follow-up
question is if the people buyingyour business is based on your
profit and having good revenue,what's some of the best advice
you give to founders about howto grow their business with
(13:11):
marketing?
To get to that point, I knowthere's a lot of different
channels, there's a lot ofdifferent tactics, but you have
to get to a certain point.
That's interesting, right, andI think a lot of businesses get
to a point where they can takeit part of the way and then they
feel like they've hit a plateau, and so I'm just curious if
you've worked with people inthat situation and if you've
(13:32):
helped them get that growth sothat they could then ultimately
get their exit.
Anthony Franco (13:35):
So encyclopedias of books have been written on
how to grow your business.
There's no simple one.
The one answer I usually giveto founders and when I have a
couple of minutes only you haveto go sell.
If you want your business togrow, then you grow it, you
(14:00):
figure it out, you get your noseinto it and then, once you have
it figured out, you're thenallowed to start delegating it
to either salespeople or amarketing person or a marketing
team.
But if you're hoping that youcan hire an agency to help you
grow without you understandingyour customer, why they buy, how
(14:21):
they buy, what are effectivekeywords?
If you're buying keywords,what's an effective sales pitch?
What are the motivating factorsfor what?
You have to know it at yourcore as a founder.
You have to understand whypeople buy and how to get them
to lean in, and most of the timethe limiting factor is that the
(14:43):
founder just simply doesn'tknow why people buy from them.
So go figure that out first andthen you can start scaling.
Eric Eden (14:50):
I think that makes a lot of sense.
The lesson is that the founderis really the head of sales and
the head of marketing to startwith, and once you have mastered
it, then you need to focus onscaling it with getting people
in the business or gettingagencies or other helpers to
help you scale it.
I often say when people askabout founders, I'm like the
(15:14):
founder is really the chiefmarketing officer at a lot of
companies until they get to acertain size, when it makes
sense and they've scaled it, andthen they can delegate it like
you're saying and I don't knowthat everyone just naturally
thinks about it that way, but Ithink it makes sense that that
is the formula for success,right?
Yeah, you are the chief revenueofficer period success right,
yeah, you're the.
Anthony Franco (15:31):
You are the chief revenue officer period.
Eric Eden (15:35):
Absolutely Well.
Is there anything else that youwanted?
Anthony Franco (15:44):
to share today that that I didn't ask, that you
think would be helpful forfolks Usually.
I like to end on the notionthat, look, I, I hang around a
lot of founders.
I'm I'm pretty active here inthe Colorado entrepreneurial
community and I can just say, ifyou're an entrepreneur, I know
you're lonely.
It's a lonely gig and that's anormal feeling.
Go find other founders to hangout with.
(16:06):
There's nothing better thanhanging out around people that
aren't having the same problemsbut are having to conquer the
chaos just like you are, andthere's nothing like hanging
around other entrepreneurs.
So go to meetup.
Go to go find local groups.
Vistage is a great option.
I run a founder podcast calledhow to Founder.
(16:26):
It's a proxy for not beinglonely.
So visit us at howtofoundercomto watch what we talk about.
But yeah, go surround yourselfwith other entrepreneurs and
that actually helps quite a bit.
Eric Eden (16:41):
I'm going to link to your website and your LinkedIn
so people can get in toucheasily via the show notes if
they'd like to continue thisconversation.
Really appreciate you joiningtoday, sharing your stories,
your advice and your insights.
Thank you very much for beingon today.
Thanks for having me, Eric.
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