Market/Commercial Due Diligence

Unlike other components of diligence, market due diligence does not base its findings on information given by the corporation. Market due diligence, on the other hand, entails acquiring information from industry experts, rivals, consumers, and, in certain cases, suppliers and other third-party market participants.

Chris Longiaru and David Hoad, Acclaro Growth Partners specialists in market due diligence, join us in this podcast to discuss what market due diligence is and why it is crucial in the merger and acquisition sector of business. They also emphasize the need of understanding the business's customer while performing due diligence. They also discuss why corporations use them and the typical method for doing market due diligence. They specifically express the obstacles and values of doing due diligence for business owners and give some lessons for future potential market acquirers.

If you're interested in learning more about organic growth, growth by acquisition, or the increase of capitalization of your company, this will be interesting and useful for you.


Key Takeaways
-What is Market/Commercial Due Diligence?
-Why is it important to understand the customer in doing due diligence?
-Why the Need of an Expert in Market Due Diligence?
-What is the process of doing Market Due Diligence?
-The Challenges and Values of doing Due Diligence for business owners
-How does Market Refresh Study help owners sell their business after acquiring it or buying it?

Quote Takeaways

“If the acquirers manage the transaction personally and call the company or competitors about it, they may not be completely honest with each other, which may have an influence on the transaction or the response they offer, therefore outsourcing us experts is more realistic.” - Chris

“We have done this for many years in many markets and industries, and we have the expertise to ask the proper questions and go in depth and to the specifics that are really more robust and accurate because we have done it for many years in many markets and sectors”. - David

Speakers of this Episode


-Christopher Lisle | Linkedin
Growth strategy advisor for the ecosystem of investors, IBanks and the companies they work with (middle market).
Acclaropartners.com

-Chris Longiaru | Profile | Linkedin
Principal | VP, Operations
Acclaropartners.com

-David Hoag | Profile | Linkedin
Private Equity Due Diligence / M&A Consulting / Strategic Market & Growth Opportunity Analysis
Acclaropartners.com

Time Stamp
[00:00] Show Introduction
[00:47] Guests Background
[03:24] What is Market/Commercial Due Diligence
[06:00] Answering the Big Questions
[07:29] Understanding the Customer
[08:39] Why the need of an Expert in due diligence?
[10:11] The Process of doing the work
[16:22] The challenges that happens during diligence work
[19:16] Renegotiations and reselling business
[21:05] Value for Management
[23:24] Takeaways for potential acquirers in the audience
[26:02] Market Refresh Study
[28:09] Takeaways from our Guests and how to contact them
[32:32] Outro

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Welcome everyone to Strategic Growth Counsel,a podcast about strategic growth and mergers and
acquisitions for the middle market. Everyepisode I interview an expert in the world
of strategy or growth or m andA. And today I'm joined by Dave
Howagg and Chris Lingeru of a ClaroPartners. Welcome, gentlemen, thanks for

(00:31):
having us. Yeah, I appreciatethe opportunity absolutely, so it's uh,
it's my pleasure to introduce Dave.First, Dave as a partner at a
Claro Growth Partners. Um, Dave, thirty to sixty seconds of background on
yourself, please, yeah, sure, Um, well again, thanks for
having me. I think this isexciting. Um. Seeing you here in

(00:57):
this format is pretty interesting to me, given that we started way back in
the day when a Claro first started, I was in the other office from
you, and you know, youdecided you were going to start a company
called the Claro and I decided Iwas going to do management consulting work and
contracting work on my own. Thisafter having worked at the same market research

(01:19):
company for a while, so wekind of grew up together in this business.
And that was over twenty years ago, twenty five years ago. Or
whatever it was. And you know, I've pretty much stayed in that lane
with a few departures for a coupleof entrepreneurial endeavors, a sports related one,
a poker related one. But atthe end of the day, I

(01:41):
come back to my you know,my longtime career of you know, working
as a as a consultant and asa leader of market research engagements that are
emanate focused. So that's where Iam today now as a partner with a
Claro. Could be happier. Great, Dave, I thought maybe you were
going to start talking about Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I'm glad you did

(02:01):
not. We'll save that for anothertime. Sure, Yeah, that's that's
another story that we don't have torelate now. Maybe yet yet another story,
right, So, Strategic Growth Councilis an outcrop of a Claro Growth
Partners where Chris Laundreu is chief operatingofficer. Chris, why don't you give
us about a minute's worth a backgroundon yourself? Yeah, so mine's not

(02:23):
you know, I don't go backas far as Dave does, and it's
certainly not as exciting and I'm certainlymore cookie cutter. So you know,
I started out in the world backin banking like everybody does. Um,
you know, I moved to youknow, money management, sell side,
equity research, everything financial you couldpossibly think of, and Kit plucked me

(02:43):
from a private equity firm and uh, here we are. So you know,
we're, um, you know,just doing diligence day to day and
that's sort of what we're going toget into. So that was my quick
background. That's wonderful, Chris.Thanks. Diligence is the word of the
day, well said. So ouraudience here is comprised of growers and acquirers

(03:09):
and business owners that are contemplating asale. But we're going to talk about
due diligence on the buy side,so specifically market or commercial due diligence,
which I understand is one of aClaro Partners three big service areas. So
what the heck is market slash commercialdue diligence? I'll t that up to

(03:30):
anybody. Well, I'll start witha short answer and then Dave can give
a long answers. So the shortanswer is this, if you were going
to buy a business, you wouldwant to know some things about it,
and the smaller or niche year yourbusiness is the harder it is to finally
answer to the questions that you're goingto have. And what we do is

(03:50):
we finally answer to those questions througha bunch of different means. And now,
Dave, you can be more eloquentthan I am. And no that
yeah, I mean that's great becausethat that is in fact the bottom line
of what we do. And thenthe more specific thing specific things of what
comprises market and commercial due diligence.What are those questions that you have that

(04:11):
are that are going to be answeredor need to be answered? You know,
you can really characterize it as amarket assessment, a competitive landscape and
positioning assessment and understanding of the customersneeds, a voice of the customer,
if you will, customer feedback,and an assessment of growth opportunities. You
know, for the company that you'relooking at. The market assessment ranges you
know ranges widely. It's oftentimes issuedriven, but there's usually a market sizing

(04:36):
and growth rate analysis component to it. Market segmentation if it's detailed or not.
If it's a very specific niche trendsin dynamics affecting the business and keys
to success. You know, Iwill get into all the details and components.
But you know you're going to wantto learn about your competitors and there
and they're positioning, what their strategiesare, where they're looking to grow,

(04:58):
what your customer's decision drive are,what their value drivers are, what their
unmet needs are, how sticky andloyalty they are. And then, finally,
but most importantly, where the growthopportunities are for the business moving forward
post close, post acquisition, right, the adjacent products and services, or
the adjacent markets and customers, ornew markets altogether, or new business with
existing customers. You know, thoseare the components, the key components of

(05:20):
the work that we do and whatwould be classically called commercial dubilities. Okay,
that's great, So I'm going totry to summarize correctly if I'm wrong,
But it sounds like what you're sayingis that you're answering three big questions
and then a whole bunch of subquestions. And those three big questions might
be do we even want to investin this market in the first place?

(05:44):
How well positioned is the company inthis market relative to whatever competitors, market
opportunities, customer needs. And thenthirdly, what are the opportunities for growth
going forward post clothes for the buyer. Would you agree with that? Or
so you know, basically think aboutit. I mean, if you're going
to buy a business, you're notgoing to buy it thinking that you can't

(06:05):
do something more with it? Right, So that goes that goes to the
point is is that you know,are there trends that we could take advantage
of? Are there there you know, angles that we can can can use
or can take in order to youknow, take a company further than it
is when we buy it, rightto generate ROI and revenue and earnings growth

(06:27):
and all those wonderful things. Soum, in order to do that,
you have to understand what your competitivelandscape is, Like Dave said, who
are you competing against? How arethey competing? How much of the market
is there? How big is it? You know? Can you know are
we a major portion of it orare we a small portion of it?
Which is going to affect the waythat you compete in the market? Right?
M Are we are our customers pricesensitive? Are they not? Um?

(06:49):
You know, what's the supply andthe demand for what we do?
Um? So all of those questions, um, you know can get asked
in any due diligence project, andyou know, they help you to understand
the questions that Kit laid out.Should we buy this company, if we're
lucky enough to get our hands onit, what are we going to do
with it? And how are wegoing to be successful doing those things?

(07:11):
That's great. Now we've all usedthe word I think all three of us
have used the word customer in describingthe answer to that question. Is customer
due diligence part and parcel of marketor commercial due diligence or is it sort
of separate? I know some peoplesort of refer to this as customer diligence
or customer checks. Well, Ipersonally think you can't Oh I'm sorry,

(07:32):
Chris. I personally think you can'tdo You can't do a market due diligence
without customer assessment. Now we've donestudies where we're just looking at the metrics
of a market, right, youknow, how big is it and what's
its growth rate and so forth.But part of sizing a market is understanding
the demand and the trend in demandfrom the customer's Part of understanding the growth

(07:55):
rate and trajectory is understanding where thecustomers are looking forward to growth and what
and services are going to be keyto them in the future. So it's
not just a voice of the customerand hey, how is our company doing
in the customer's eyes. That thecustomer has a significant impact on all the
drivers, you know, all theissues that you're going to be looking at

(08:16):
in a market new diligence. GreatNow, Chris, I've got a question
for you. Twenty years ago,when Dave and I were starting out doing
this type of work, it wasnot uncommon for a private equity group a
potential client to say, that's whatour junior associates do. Why would we
hire you guys? And my suspicionis that maybe things have evolved a bit

(08:37):
since then, or why why doclients hire you? There's a ton of
reasons for that. One. Ifyou do anything a lot, you're going
to be more efficient at it,right, I mean, we have a
core capability that makes us very goodat this, and we're going to be
quicker. And anyone who's been aroundthis as long as well as long as

(08:58):
Kit and Dave have, you know, have seen basically the timeline from start
to finish where an acquisition shrink,right, They've they've seen the different work
streams get more and more complex andthere's more of them. So, first
of all, if you are abuyer, UM, right, you've got
enough on your plate. What ifyou can outsource some of that stuff?
That's much better for you. NumberTwo, if I was going to buy

(09:22):
a company and I call that companyor call the competitor to talk to them
about it, one, they maynot be very honest with me. Two
they might get win that there's atransaction which could affect the transaction which you
know, or affect the answers thatthey give UM. And so the combination

(09:45):
of those things makes it a morepractical thing to outsource. And I think
that's why we exist. So Davidsounds like Chris is saying that anonymity is
paramount. Obviously, it sounds likeit it has to be during a transaction.
Do you do this work blind?Um, meaning you don't reveal to
customers that you're doing a study onbehalf of their primary supplier. Um,

(10:09):
What's what's the process for doing thiswork? I'll answer that a couple of
ways, because I think to goback to one of your questions too,
where you know, I think oneof your hypothesis was, hey, we
have junior associates that can do thatkind of work for us. And to
add on to what Chris was saying, which leads into our process and how
we do it, is is thethe the idea that we have the ability

(10:33):
to know what kinds of questions toask and how to ask them to get
at the depth in detail that actuallyis more. It provides the insights and
the robustness to the analysis that thatyou're going to need. That you know,
the you don't want the canned answers, you don't want just the question
answer, check the box, multiplechoice kind of answers, right, And

(10:54):
having done this for as many yearsas we have, in as many markets
and in as many industries as wehave, there's a process by which there's
we interview, you know, weconduct our research, and that through prime
source interviews that do not disclose thenature of the interviews, meaning we don't
say specifically who we're working for,and we don't say specifically that there's a

(11:16):
deal, but rather we engage somebodyin a conversation about what they know and
what their expertise is, and whatthey like and what they don't like,
and what keeps them up at night, and the ability to have our people
who are senior people have that knowledgeof process behind them, that research process
to get at the details that areneeded and wanted, you know, by

(11:37):
our clients in a way that isnon threatening and confidential while being above board
and ethical. Is truly our expertise, right. We combine that process with
the fairly typical you know, secondarysource research exercises where we scour the world

(11:58):
for the information that currently exists,but most of what we do is derived
through those sources where that information doesn'tcurrently exist, re extracted from the experts
and participants in the market. Okay, so let's summarize because I'm I'm kind
of drawing several conclusions here. Oneis that this is equal parts science and

(12:22):
art. The science part is theanalysis and the rigor that goes behind the
interpretations of whatever data you end upwith. And the art is the art
of conversations, getting people on thetelephone and talking to them in an interesting
and conversational sort of way. ButChris, I'll turn to you. In
addition to this conversational approach to primaryresearch, Dave mentioned secondary research, are

(12:48):
there other research methods to chat about? Here, Well, there are and
I mean there's a difference between theoutput and the answer, right, So
you know, what our clients reallywant from us as the s and the
answer is actually a combination of alot of different things. We have a
lot of different tools that we use, so you know, a big one
is primary research, as Dave said, right, I mean, you go

(13:09):
into the market, you talk topeople in the market, and you're going
to find an answer in the market. But there are oftentimes when uh,
you know, the participants in themarket are so close. You know,
there's the phrase you know, youknow only you know missing the trees and
I'm sorry, missing the forest andonly seeing the trees. Let's spit it

(13:30):
out, um. You know thathappens a lot. So what we do
is we take data, whether it'ssecondary data you know there we use surveys,
Monte Carlo, simulation, mixed mode, uh, surveys, primary research,
and through all the means that wehave, we combine all that information

(13:50):
to get to what is the answer? Right? And usually the question is
should we behind this company and canwe grow it that? You know,
that's the overarching question and it seemssimple, but it takes a lot of
time, a lot of a lotof different angles and a different means of
information to get there, and that'sbasically what we do, all right.

(14:15):
So if I can extrapolate from that, it sounds like the kinds of discoveries
that you're making are really designed tohelp clients address whether they want to buy
the company or not and how togrow the business after they have acquired it.
Are there discoveries that you've made duringthis process that reveal something to your

(14:37):
clients that they wouldn't have otherwise pickedup on if we're doing our job right,
yes, you know, um,I mean, listen, it's great
when when a client comes to us, and obviously if they've they come to
us, they're excited about an opportunity. Right, if they weren't, they
wouldn't have picked up the phone inthe first place. Uh, it's great
when they're excited about an opportunity andthey think X, Y and Z about

(15:00):
this opportunity and that's why they're excited, and through the diligence process we confirm
X, Y and Z. Thatis rare. Um. You know,
often what we find out is youknow, well you thought it was X,
but it's maybe a little it's it'sa little less than X or you
know, um, you know,this is something you didn't even consider,
but this is out there in themarket and maybe you can take advantage of

(15:20):
it. Or we've talked to allof these customers in the market and these
customers are saying, man if Icould only have this thing and nobody provides
it, so, um, youknow. That's the long answer to Kit's
question, which is, I don'tthink we ever end up where we where
we started, right, meaning justconfirm this for me and I can buy

(15:41):
this company and that's that's valuable andthat's once again the reason we exist.
Well, you talked about a coupleof upsides. Um, you know,
a product or a customer need thatis that exists that maybe the target company
he can solve that they weren't awareof they weren't aware of that need,

(16:03):
or maybe the growth rate is evenbetter than expected. What are some red
flags you might uncover or there arethere any real significant challenges or disconcerting discoveries.
What's the worst thing that could happenduring diligence, I guess is a
better way to put it. Yeah, I would I would say I would

(16:26):
say that there's a few things thatwould fall under you know, what a
client might think are the worst thingsthat could happen. But as far as
we're concerned and ultimately what our clientsare from our client's point of view,
you know, the truth hurts isa good way to put it, because
they actually need and want to knowthe truth, even though it may hurt.
So you might learn something that contradictsa preconceived notion. And while that

(16:52):
sounds like it's, uh, wellwe just you know, we just we
had a false positive or you know, we have a red flag in the
deal. Really what you're doing islearning something that you didn't otherwise think was
going to be the case, youknow, moving forward, and you're now
prepared to deal with that one wayor the other, and it's up to
you and as to how you dealwith it. Right. So an example

(17:15):
of that might be, Hey,there might be a customer that you thought
you had locked in that actually isyou know, you know, answers the
question that they're looking around or thatthey're interested in seeking other opportunities, or
that there's a technology that they've beenevaluating that your company doesn't offer, or
they don't think that they don't thinkthat you offer, but maybe you do

(17:37):
so there's potentially the lack of acommunication there. All of those are are
some potential red flags that come up, and at the same time, they're
the things you actually do want toknow. You don't want to go into
one of these types of decisions blindly. You don't want to. You know,
what we tend to do in thiscase is remove the uncertainty from a
decision or an investment. Right.We don't just validate assumptions and hypotheses,

(18:02):
which we do. We confirm themor refute them. And it works both
ways. Sometimes refuting hypotheses is goodnews. Sometimes it's bad. But you
know, we remove that uncertainty andwere we prepare or excuse me, prepare
our clients for what they're going toface in the future. And then you
know, at the end of theday, if that results in the a

(18:26):
a dead deal, well so beit. You're better off because of it.
Most of the time it doesn't becausethey you know, our clients,
like Chris said, they're excited aboutan opportunity, They've done their pre diligence.
You know, it's there's an obviousreason to make the acquisition. But
but certainly you want to know everythingyou're about to go into. So reading
between the lines, eyes wide openis a good thing because now you know

(18:48):
that there's a risk that you didn'totherwise know about. So that gives that
arms you to go back to thenegotiating table and say, here's what we
discovered. This is bad news.But now that we know that, we
can mitigate this risk and deal withit and move forward in a healthier way.
But oh, by the way,this involves more more risk on the
buyer's part on our part, soum, we're gonna have to ask for

(19:11):
a discount. Does that sort ofthing happen? Do you do you cause
sellers maybe to walk away because ofthat sort of reading conversation. I don't
know if walk away is that isthe answer, but I mean, I
think I think everybody who's ever boughta business with a private business, and
it's not like the publicly traded markets. Once you buy it, you own
it, right, so you can'treally get out and cut bait. You

(19:32):
own it. And if you wantto, if you don't want to own
it anymore, you have to convincesomebody else to buy it, and they're
going to be the same type ofdiligence and they're going to hire somebody like
us to do that diligence. Right. So, so the idea there is
is that you know, if you'regoing to spend a lot of money to
buy a business, that the riskmitigation cost is actually not that much relatively.

(19:59):
Number number two, if you ifyou do, if you do discover
something, going back to the sellerand having a conversation about that is important,
right. And the seller might say, well, you know, hey,
we know that's coming, and hereare some things we're doing to prepare

(20:21):
for that, right. Or theymight say, well, I had no
idea, and that might put themin a position where one they would want
to renegotiate because they want help tosolve this problem. Or two sometimes it
might result in an impass and adead deal, and that does happen.
So I mean there's a number ofdifferent outcomes that could that could happen.

(20:41):
Okay, great, thanks guys.Now I heard one of you say that
this is not just a check thebox diligence exercise and that there's real value
in terms of actionable intelligence taking nextsteps. But does that hold true for
management as well, or is thisreally a becomes a shelf document that the
the buyers maintain or does it carryforward to management? Is there value for

(21:04):
management? It absolutely carries forward tomanagement. And I really think that that's
the bottom line for us, rightbecause contrary to what we just talked about
in the previous in your previous questionabout potential red flags or risk or what
have you, you know, mostof these deals are going through I mean,
there's a compelling reason to buy thiscompany, and there's and the management
team, you know, they're goingthrough uncertainty at this time as well.

(21:29):
Right, it's a scary time forthem, you know, they're they're selling
their baby. It's it's something thatwhere there's been a lot of resources and
effort and sweat and blood and tearsand everything that have been put into the
business. So it's not just ashelf document for us. Most of our
clients and the companies themselves, themanagement teams use our work to guide future
growth or at least as a checkpointto make sure that they're they're not being

(21:52):
complacent or that they're not missing anopportunity. You know. Further, we
help to point out next steps,right be it internal X or meaning next
steps for the team for the managementteam for the company itself, what should
we be doing not just you know, oh, where's the next growth opportunity,
but what should we be doing toensure that we're successful over the next
three to five years or long termor whatever there whatever that trajectory is right,

(22:18):
and those that that's all what weprovide is based in fact, in
real time situations and not just conjectureright, conjecture right. So maybe up
to the point of having been acquired, a management team has gone on instinct
or you know, relied on afew key conversations they have with the people
that they feel the most comfortable with, you know, whether it be a

(22:38):
key customer or a mentor an industryexpert. And what we have and provide
is fact based, real time situationalanalysis that gives them a guide or a
map to their next steps, totheir growth opportunities, you know, to
help them grow. You know,is there anything as we talk about due

(22:59):
diligy and since we talk about marketdiligence and trying to decide whether we want
to invest in this market or ifthe company is well enough position in the
market or enough opportunities to grow thebusiness post clothes, are there any lessons
learned for our audience of potential acquirers, things that they may not have thought
of, tricks up your sleeve,or tactics that they should pay attention to,

(23:22):
strategies, research that they should lookinto. I think industry researches is
really important. Right if you areyou know, if you are the giant
in a small industry, right,sometimes it's easy to compete, and the
opposite is also true. And thedynamics of how you compete, whether you're
the best or the worst, umand the and the growth rate of that

(23:45):
market, the size of that market, those those dynamics have more bearing on
whether or not an investment will besuccessful than anything else. So I think,
you know, looking at companies inthe contest in the context of their
environment and their opportunity usually leads tobetter outcomes. And I think that our

(24:08):
clients would agree if that's true.Dave, anything to add to that.
Yeah, The thing that I wouldsay there is, you know, it
would be smart or it is smartto do forward looking research and not just
relying. So when we talk aboutcustomers and when we talk about competitors,
and up until a point, rightmeaning a business has it was founded it

(24:33):
grew, then it got acquired,and you're talking about customers that they've had
to that point. You're talking aboutcompetitors that they see right then and there,
and we really need to be lookingforward. Let's talk to prospective customers
in new markets and ask the differentquestions, not just what products do you
want or need and would you liketo get this product from a company that
also does this. We do askthose questions as are important, but what

(24:56):
keeps you up at night, whatdrives your industry or your you know,
what motivates your decision making, Whatdoes your process for XYZ whatever the subject
matter is, what does your processlook like? So that we can then
map on something that we can eitherthat we either have, can modify,
can develop, you know, tomeet those needs. Let's look at the

(25:18):
future needs of prospective customers. Let'stry to understand who our future competitors are
going to be and what their strategiesare and where they're looking to grow.
I think that's a key point andnot just to be stuck on Hey,
you know, let's ask our customershow we're doing, and let's ask our
competitors what they're doing. It's morethan that, Okay, that that sort

(25:40):
of leads to another question, andthat is, you know, I'm interested
in lear learning the full suite ofservices. I understand there's three, but
you know, from the diligence point, is there maybe there's an opportunity for
a market refresh study halfway through thewhole period. Is that something you guys
have given much thought too? Andhow does that tie into other services?

(26:03):
We've thought a lot about that,so I mean I I you know,
kind of think of it this way. There's a life cycle of a business.
It's actually goes around and around,and it's basically, you know,
a business is getting sold. Sowe're going to do the diligence on that
business right for the buyer. Thenthe buyer owns it, and the buyer's
going to basically the reason that theybought it once again I said this earlier,

(26:25):
was that they think they can dosomething more with it than it has
been done historically. And so wejust talked about diligence, which was if
you were going to buy a company, what would you do and who would
you talk to? And you hopefullyyou'd call us, But if you own
it right, how would you howwould you verify or or do work on
assessing how you would be able todeploy certain initiatives to grow the business.

(26:52):
Well, we do a lot ofthat, right and so Kid talked about
a refresh. You can have itongoing. You can have it be very
specific to a specific initiative, oryou can have it be broader. And
so the idea is doing some typeof what we call strategy work during an
ownership period will allow you right todeploy your resources in a more focused way

(27:15):
in order to attain the kind ofgrowth and success that you were looking to
when you bought the business. Andthen lastly, as you get to the
end of that cycle and you say, well I've done everything I wanted to
do and I've been successful and I'vegrown the business, You're going to want
to sell it. And something thatyou can do to facilitate that process,
which is something that we do,is you can have a sell side study
done, and a cell side studyeducates a potential buyer a group of buyers

(27:38):
on this niche market that you didn'tknow anything about until you did the due
diligence during the process when you boughtit. So the idea there is to
be able to get people up tospeed fast enough so that they can say
quickly that they are either interested ornot interested in participating in some type of
a process or learning more about potentiallybuying the business. And the more people
that you have interested are educated,right, the better chance you have of

(28:03):
uh you know, basically being successfulin a transaction and an exit. All
right, great, we've got timefor one more question. And you know,
you guys spoke with me in advanceof this, uh, this conversation
on this podcast, but I don'tthink i'd te this one up for you.
So this is a newbie and thathas to do with, you know,
as you think about your business aClaro Growth Partners, growth strategy consulting,

(28:26):
any hopes, dreams, aspirations,challenges that you'd care to chat about
with our audience, and related tothat, as as our listeners. Our
listeners are intentional growers. I describethem potential acquirers, potential sellers. As
they listen, you know, howcan they how can they reach you?
So two questions, go ahead,Dave, No, yeah, just can

(28:51):
summarize the question first or the contextof the question. Yeah, I mean,
in the landscape of growth strategy consulting, you guys are a boutique or
a relatively small niche consulting firm witha great track record and good brand,
but consumably conceivably there are opportunities forgrowth that haven't been realized yet. There

(29:12):
may be challenges. You guys mayhave dreams and aspirations. So my two
questions were, you know, pickone, I'd hope a dream, aspiration
and goal. Um. And thensecondly, you know, how can how
can our listeners get in touch withyou? I know the website is a
Claro Partners dot com. Yeah,well I would say, um. You

(29:33):
know, my answer to that questionis that our goal, my goal as
a partner here at Akaro, isto be that trusted advisor that go to
partner for our clients when there's uncertaintyinvolved in any kind of go forward decision.
Right. So you know that's theaspiration for our company. So you

(29:53):
can label what we do however youwant to label it. You can call
it a commercial due diligence study,or you can call it a sell side
study or a midpoint to check youknow, check in or ongoing customer assessment.
But you know those are services thatwe offer. Who we are and
what we want to be is thattrusted advisor. It's that go to partner,

(30:15):
and we have that kind of relationshipwith a number of our clients,
but it's a select few of ourclients because you know, we give those
clients our time, they give ustheir time. We're in constant communication with
them, and by constant, Idon't mean necessarily daily or even weekly,
but on an ongoing and regular basis. We're aware of what each other is

(30:37):
doing, communicating through picking up thephone, you know, and dialing us
directly or emailing us and just youknow, checking in and see what's going
on. But the trusted advisor partcomes in when we can actually perform the
work that they need done to helpthem make any kind of go forward decision
and remove the uncertainty that's associated withthat decision. And I think that's our

(30:59):
true. That's great, Chris,anything to add there. So, Yeah,
the worst compliment I've ever gotten inmy life was that a Claro is
the best cut secret in middle marketdue diligence. Um. So if I
had a goal that ted for thenext ten years, that would be that
that secret would get out. Um. What Dave said is is true.

(31:22):
We have a number of those typesof deep client relationships. I'd like to
see that be ten one hundredfold.Um, right, I mean that's that's
the goal. Um. I'll say, now, most of our businesses repeat
business, meaning that it's clients thatwe've done work with, you know,
I don't know how many times.Um so UM. At first, I'd

(31:47):
like to see, you know,a short term goal. I'd like to
see, you know, um,a lot more new opportunities to to try
to to generate more of the relationshipslike the one we current ones we currently
have. All right, fantastic,So, UM, let's see, let's
see if I can do this frommemory. Dave at a Claro just yes,

(32:09):
just go ahead and send an emailto Dave at a claropartners dot com
and I'll respond right away and wecan start one of those relationships. And
um it's it's yeah, it's seeLaingerue at Clara Claropartners dot com. Um,
just go to the website, yeah, for the selling partner. Okay,

(32:31):
that's great, that's good. Allright, Well, thank you both.
I appreciate your time and your yourinsights and wisdom here um for our
our audience of growers, acquirers andpotential sellers. Every couple of weeks,
I interview a guest who should havea legitimate seat at the table, here
a private equity group, an investmentbank, or in this case, a

(32:52):
growth strategy consulting firm. Head toStrategic Growth Counsel dot com, where you'll
find lots of resources for business ownersand executives and to access the show,
the show notes, and to reviewus. So give us a click,
give us a high rating, giveus a thumbs up as well. Thanks
for listening. This podcast was producedby Hardcast Media.