May 29, 2025 • 29 mins
How to protect the assets of your small business as it passes from one generation to the next: Scott Bushkie Small Business Strategist shares his insights. Then Anita Collier Talks about this weekend’s upcoming “BigFoot Conference” being held in Anniston Alabama.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Have you heard about the silver tsunami. We're not talking
about a weather event, but it's something you need to
know about. Hello, I'm John Mounts and this is Viewpoint
Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network, and this week I'm
speaking with Scott Bushky. He is a business strategist with
Cornerstone Business. Scott, welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Here in Alabama demographics, they're shifting the owners of many businesses,
both large and small. They're getting older, and well, you
can't take it with you. It's set to unleash a
powerful change, a transfer of wealth intergenerationally. Explain how, Scott, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's interesting. You know, there's so much in the in
the media and in the headlines, and one of the
headlines that just is not getting covered at all is
this largest transfer of wealth that has ever gone through
this nation, all these baby boomers. You know, we all
know about the numbers of the baby boomers. So many
of them are business owners. And you know about forty
percent of all the business out there are owned by
(00:55):
baby boomers. And the youngest one right now, I think
will turn sixty one this year, year, sixty two next year,
and the olas is seventy nine so they're at or
past their retirement age and they've got to sell, you know,
they have to tradition. So are they're either going to
sell the company, tradition it to a family or end
up shutting it or employees or end up shutting it down.
(01:16):
And unfortunately, way too many end up just shutting their
doors because they don't know how, when, and why they're
going to exit their company.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So this is a twofold situation because on one hand,
these people they are looking to probably protect their portfolio,
protect their their legacy, their wealth, and they need to
find a way to transition into something new as they
don't want to keep running this thing. They probably want
to enjoy their golden years and go off and take
a cruise. And at the same time, they don't want
(01:44):
to just shut it down. It'd be a good idea
if they could carefully move it to another person who
wants to can you run it for the next you know, well,
it's a legacy, maybe another you know, five.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Decades, right exactly. Yeah, So so many these boomers are thinking,
you know, I got to get out of the same
but they don't know how they're going to do it.
They don't know when they're going to do it, they
don't know all their options, and they're really the odds
are stacked against them. You know, it's what's the ending?
You do really well the first time you do it.
So most of these business owners, especially the boomers, you know,
they're one and done. They built this up. It's their
(02:14):
life's work for ten, twenty, thirty, forty plus years, and
they're trying to figure out how to get out. And
you know the issue is not enough buyers. There's plenty
of buyers out there. It's really understanding what's the process,
how does this work, and just what are my options?
Most we just did a national survey and forty three
percent didn't even have adequate knowledge of just all their
(02:37):
different exit options, let alone you know which one was
the best for them.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I suspect the first thing is you have to know
what you have. And what I mean by that is
exactly what hard you know, hard costs are there? How
many employees do you have? And I know it seems like, well,
of course they know if they only have a small
business with two guys working there, but maybe they have
a large inventory of things. Maybe they are in a
business where they have to keep a large inventory of
I don't know, parts or tools or things in order
(03:02):
to do the job, that kind of thing. And there's also,
of course the assets like the client list, because sometimes
that's the most important asset, and those assets it's hard
to put a dollar amount on it, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, So that is a tricky part, is what is
the value of a business because unlike you know, people
have a lot of people have bought and sold the house,
and you can go on and there's comps of a
two bedroom house in your area with sec x square
feed and you know, you number of bathrooms. You can
kind of get pretty good idea of what, you know,
what the comps are and what the value of that
house is. But with a business, you know, you look
at what are the sales, what are the what's the
(03:34):
what falls the bottom line at the end of the day.
Most companies ninety five percent of companies are based off
of some kind of a multiple of cash flow. So yeah,
the number one first step is to have the conversation
with the trusted advisor because then you can start to
make decisions of what, you know, what am I get
to net out of the sale? And you know, can
I live off of that from a lifestyle standpoint, you know,
working with my financial advisor.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
And it's a process of transition that doesn't just last
a few days or even a few months. It's a
it's a it's a year long, sometimes a decade long
process because a lot of the valuation of these businesses
is based on relationships that that owner or maybe owner
leadership team has with other businesses and other clients. And
just because you know, they yeah, we trust you know,
(04:13):
seventy year old Bob here, but seven year old Bob
wants to hand the business over to thirty year old,
you know, Trevor. They're like, I don't know Trevor, I
don't trust Trevor, and I'm not spending my money with
him just because I spent it with you, Bob. How
do you if you are the senior leadership one of
these companies and you're looking to transition out of that
leadership role, how do you get the younger generation ready
to take the reins and get your clients to believe
(04:35):
that they're going to be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, that's a great question. It really starts with taking
the time. Everything takes time, you know, it is developing
the next generation of leaders, whether that's employees, whether it's
your family, whatever that is. But finding those people that
have the right skill sets, have the right passion, and
spending time with them and growing them. You know, it's
so much at a leadership level. You know, as the owner,
(04:58):
by the time you're getting ready to sell the business,
you should not be you know, ideally you should not
be in the day to day activity trying to you know,
go land a client and go do this or do
you know, doing a quote. You shouldn't be working yourself
out of the process and really developing people at that stage.
Because if you have a management team that's there that
you can go offer vacation for a month and the
company runs without you just find that's a salable company.
(05:19):
That's a more valuable company than if you know that
if that was your company and you could go away
for a month and you had you know, ten million
sales and a million a eap bite and I had
the same ten million sales and a million an ey
bit doe, but I was I was the business might
not might not be I might not be salable at all,
or for maybe two three million bucks where you used
myself for five six, seven million dollars just because of
(05:41):
that building out the management team. So it takes the
time finding the right people. We use a lot of
assess see people use a lot of assessments to make
sure they got the right people on board and right
skill sets and right motivational factors, and then just it
takes time to build build those people up. But by
doing that and working yourself out of the company, that's
typically one of the top things you can do to
bring true value to your business and make it more saleable.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Scott bush Key is a business strategist and CEO of
Cornerstone Business Service. We're talking on Viewpoint, Alabama about the
coming change of hands of a lot of businesses and Scott,
we've been kind of gloom and doom about, Oh no,
it's going to be all bad, but it's really not
necessarily bad because there are a lot of things that
have been put into place that maybe aren't working so
well and could possibly grow and be better off when
(06:25):
put in the hands of a younger generation, a generation
who understands things that the older generation. You know, the
older generation might have been using file cabinets and might
have been using old and the new one said, hey,
what about this internet thing, and you could see a
big growth in the business if this is done in
the right way. Are there people who help maybe bridge
that gap of knowledge generationally, because I think there's things
(06:48):
that can be learned from both generations, but sometimes they
don't translate. Are there people who help with that process?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, the process that there are people that can help
you grow the value that we look at from our
perspective is what we see a lot of business owners
doing is these boomers are selling their companies because they've
gone to their son or daughter and going, you know, hey,
do you want the business, And a lot of times
they'll say, no, it's a it's a boring business, it's
a dirty business. It's not you know, it's not exciting
to me. It's not what my passions are. And some
(07:14):
people will try to force their son or daughter into
that business and uh, and they'll do it because they
don't want to let mom or dad down only to
have the whole thing at some point greater and the
value goes away. The company could possibly go, you know,
go down to nothing and then everybody's point fingers and
it's not fun for the family at Christmas time either.
What we've seen is what a lot of people are
doing is selling their companies using someone like you know,
(07:37):
anminy visor, like what we do, selling the company, getting
full value for that company, and then mom or dad's
working with son or daughter to start or buy a
company that they're excited about. And we've seen that model
be at a better model to really maintain family and
generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And that's a good point because because the company has value,
it doesn't mean that value has to transfer in the uh.
And just here's some stuff and also here's this old
grandfather clock, and here's this old sofa. You can actually
cash in, take the money and put it into into
you know, somebody else buys it, and then take that
money and invest it in another company that maybe the
next generation is excited about. You know, they're making TikTok
(08:17):
videos with the money that grandpa used to use to
make you know, harvesting machines, you know, and everyone's a
winner in that situation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, And that's exactly right. And there's you know, somewhere
along the line, somebody said, you know, true value is
the longevity of a business. So many people think, well,
to pass you know, to have true value. I'm more
successful if I passed to my generation. That is not
the case. But somehow people have kind of got that
mentality and it's killing it's killing companies, and it's killing
(08:46):
the values of businesses.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And Scott, when we talk about passing it from generation
to generation, most tax most states have taxes inheritance taxes
that can greatly impact the value of especially if maybe
it's a property, like say a large amount of farmland
or something like that. How do you avoid or shelter
your wealth from those taxes as the as the stuff
(09:08):
is passed from generation to generation.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, I can't speak directly to that as a not
you know, a tax expert, but yeah, you're definitely. You know,
as you build your team to transition out of your company,
you know the people you want on your team is
number one. You know an M and a attorney. You
do not want to use your general attorney that known
you for ten twenty thirty years. Uh. You know, I
liken that to Uh. You know your your general attorneys
(09:32):
like your doctor who you get your physical done every year.
You know you you go in, they know you, they
know you know them. You like each other, they know
your body or better and everybody else, what else? And
you find out you've got a headache and you go
get a study and you got brain cancer. Just because
that doctor knows you and you like them and they're
a doctor, doesn't mean that you're going to have them
do the surgery which you could die on the table
(09:52):
because they've never done a brain surgery before. You know,
you go to the brain surgeon and have the expert
and then you come back to your general doctor afterwards.
So you need to build a team and that many
attorney you need to be able to invest Baker, how
many advisor that can create a marketplace? We call you
know at Cornerstone, you know, we call you know Pomo.
The power of multiple offers of bringing the market forces
into the sellers favor by having multiple offers to their sale.
(10:15):
With our process we run last year, we got ten
offers per client on average, So they got to be
able to choose who the best fit first to them
and then lastly, as you talked about or and then
bringing on the tax person and say, okay, who cares
if it's ten million dollars or forty million dollars? How
am I going? What am I going to net out
of this? How can I minimize my taxes from Uncle Sam.
And there's great strategies out there with different trusts and
(10:37):
other things that you can do to truly minimize significant
tax dollars in a And then lastly, it's meeting with
that financial advisor to understand that, Okay, if I net
out X, what am I gonna you know, what is
my lifestyle look like? And what what can I live on?
Because I've seen stories. Yeah, I can share stories with
you that someone who didn't do any of that work
and what happened to them. It was absolutely tragic.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
This is you Point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mounson speaking with Scott bush Key.
He is a business strategist and CEO of Cornerstone Business Service.
And Scott, we spent a lot of time talking about
the seller side, but I'd like to also turn this
around talk about the buyer side. Let's suppose that you
have your you are the younger generation, and you've always
kind of wanted to have your own business. It sounds
(11:20):
to me like there's going to be a lot of
them out there on the market. How do you go
about picking the right one and getting it at the
right price?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, I think you know. Now, as we said, you know,
there's so many buyers out there and so many sellers
out there. It's a great time to be an M
and A. Whether you're a seller or a buyer, there's
a lot of opportunities. So on the buy side, yeah,
if you're you're looking to buy a company, you know
one you want to find something you're passionate about. Don't
just don't just go to where the number all. Look
at how much money that's making. Do you like that industry?
Now it's I played board sif, but boy, look how
(11:49):
much money I can make. You know, I've seen people
buy companies, you know, a dry cleaning company early in
my career, Like, do you like that industry? Though I
don't even I hate doing laundry? Well, the why you
buy the dry cleaning company because you're going to hate
that as well. Well. The cash roles are really strong,
so I think you know, cash is definitely a part
of it. But find something that you're passionate about that
you might have some additional skill sets about. There's you know,
(12:10):
on the smaller side, more main street related companies they
can go to like biz buy sell, and that's probably
the largest listing exchange of all of small companies. I
think the average is about a three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars value company and go there and you can
search in your marketplace, by industry, by a geographic but
it's it's really looking at, you know, the company, what
(12:33):
skill sets do you have, where you have passions, and
where can you bring something. As you mentioned in the
earlier segment, you know, so many of these business owners
are boomers that have kind of done their thing. They've
they kind of got into a rut and they're just
living a lifestyle bus it's not really doing too much
to it. So if it's like, well, this company's got
great operations or a great product or a great service,
but you love sales and he hasn't done he or
(12:55):
he hasn't done sales in twenty years, well that might
be a great company that you can bring some energy
the sales side of things and double a business in
three to five years and bring real value.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So you're saying, don't look at just what necessarily what
it is, but also what it can become and what
you're able to do with it to take it to
the next level.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, absolutely, and looking at What is truly transferable, you know,
is the company. Because if you look at a company
that's doing really well, but it's the owner he or
she is the company, then you've got to really take
you know, can I you know, can you transfer that
over to you? So you might still say yes, but
then you're going to put you know, lesser value in
the company and or probably again it goes back to structure.
(13:37):
You know, it's value is part of it, but the
other part of it is structure. If there's risk there,
you want to try as a buyer to try to
share that risk with the seller so there could be
an earnout on future performance of the company, you know,
or if it's you know, if it could be a seller.
Note you know that these sellers is acting as is
(13:57):
the bank for part of it. But it really comes
down to the areas to look for as a buyer.
Is what are those single points of failure? You know,
is the owner he or she the whole business? Do
they have one customer that's more than twenty five percent
of the business. Is this company trending up or down?
Is it a commodity business? You know, if you're if
you're only selling on the lowest cost. Somebody's gonna come
out with something cheaper and are you out of business
(14:19):
the next day? So those are just you know, just
some of the you know, what's the culture of the company, uh,
and what will truly transfer because what you're buying again
is the future cash for the company, not what they
did in their prime you know, two or three years ago.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Absolutely, Scott bush Key, he is a business strategist and
the CEO of Cornerstone Business Service and you're the author
of Finished Strong, Sell your business on your own terms. Scott,
thank you so much for joining us this week on Viewpoint.
Thank you have a great day and you're listening to
Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My name is
John Mount, and here on Viewpoint we have had many
interview First, we've talked with senators, We've talked with celebrities,
(14:53):
and now we're talking with Bigfoot. Okay, well, no, I
couldn't find Bigfoot's phone number, but my next guest, Jess
might have it. I'm talking with Anita call Er. She's
put together the Alabama Bigfoot Conference. It's coming to Aniston
next week in the sixth and the seventh. Anita, Welcome
to viewpoint.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Thank you, John, I appreciate this.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
This is something that is really interesting to me because
it's been for a very long time lore in the world.
In America and here in Alabama, there's this there's this being,
and he's known as Bigfoot, and people some people say
he doesn't exist. Other people have seen said they've seen him.
You've actually seen Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The first siding was in nineteen seventy nine. I was
on a date.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Wait, you were dating Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
No, I was on a date. Some of my dates
may have seemed like Bigfoot, but this was on a date.
And you know, back in that day you told people
you had seen Bigfoot, they would have thought you were
one brick shy of below.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, they're calling Bryce to have you taken away.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yes, they would have, and describe.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
What you saw exactly. He looked like Bigfoot, but everyone
has a slightly different I'm imagining Harry from Harry and
the Henderson's What did the creature do you saw? What
do you look like?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
He was Harry? The face was a little less Harry.
It was probably five to six feet tall. Now this
was about fifty to sixty feet out. I couldn't tell
facial features as much he was bipedal er did on
two legs, reddish brown kind of hair, and I figure
(16:27):
it might have been two young, young bigfoot. The reason
is because when we were hiking out the two miles
and it was a rough hike. Then it's not now
because there are.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Paths, trails are pretty well worn now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
But then it was just rustic and it was hiking
all the way out to Bald Rock. We smelled like
something dead, dead like, and we just commented that probably
something dead. And then we got out to Bald Rock
and explored a little bit, sat down on top of
the rock, and like any red blooded American mail he
(17:03):
decided he wanted to uh steal a kiss or something,
and so he leaned me gently back on the rock.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You're talking about your date, right, not not bigfoot?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Not bigfoot, Yes, yeah, yeah, let's clarify. But little Pebble's
little time comb started hitting us. We looked around, we
set up and looked around. There was nobody out. There
was in the middle of the week in October, and
so a lot of people didn't go out there at
that time. And and let me clarify, a term bigfoot
is the whole community of big bigfoot. Uh, that all
(17:34):
the all the family.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So there's there's like more than one. There's like a
whole group of big it's not plural of bigfoot. Isn't
big feet.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
They don't call it that bigfoot community, gotcha? And they
don't say big feet that they say, Oh, you tell
a real enthusis, real enthusiasts and scientists that it studies bigfoot,
and uh, they'll go, they'll go like, oh, no, it's
not big feet.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Like you know, fish, we don't call them if you
have two fish, if you're going fishing for fish, that
we call a group of fish still fish. We don't
really call them lots of fishes. We just call them fish.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Right, And that's what we do in the bigfoot community.
Is bigfoot. You see them here, people see them in
Washington State, people see them in Ohio. So you know,
there's got to be more than one.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Are they intelligent?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I think so, because they're able to stay away from
man people.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
That's pretty intelligent.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You just don't see them most of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Is this the only time you've seen a bigfoot?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
I was a nurse, hospice nurse out in the fields
and I was on an emergency run the back roads.
I always had the rural areas, and so I was
on the back roads taking shortcut to go to a
patient's house and there was one out in the field.
I just I know it was. I mean, it was
(18:58):
darker and much bigger, but it was way out in
the field, standing close to you know how people would
discard farm equipment or old truck and it gets rusty
and animals stay around it and all that, but this
was on. This was vipedal or two legs upright, and
(19:20):
it was huge. It's big, and I'm thinking, I want
to go out there. I want to go out there.
And then I thought, you dummy, what would you have
done out there by yourself going out in the field,
And so I kind of refrained and went to my
patient because that was my priority at the time. So,
but yes, I've seen one there. And then last fall,
(19:42):
we have a group here in this area that I
started called Southern Sasquat Sisters and a ladies group, and
we went to a camp out. We have camp out
on Mount key Hall in the wilderness area. It was
in November. They were they were very active around us,
(20:06):
all around us, and we couldn't always see them. We
could hear them making noises like they're kinds of noises,
maybe a hoof grunt, like a hoof hoof, you know,
like a grunt and a hoof that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Wait, can you do it? Can you do it again?
How do they sound?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I don't know if I do it justice hoofoof like that?
You know. I didn't say an expert on that.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I got you more than I am.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
The ladies that came out, we had four ladies and
one of them's husband, and we had a David Eller
from Nashville. He's been doing this over thirty years, so
I brought him down as an expert to be there
with our lady to learn some one old big footing
one on one. Well, all these ladies had been you know,
out and done stuff, so well he just was there
(20:55):
for the ride. And man, we heard noises and they
they were in our camp at night. Uh, the ladies
were in a tent and uh the big foot were
kind of tearing everything down and they peaked in and
we saw them, you know, like peek in ahead, peek
in and stuff like that. But one night they were
(21:18):
around our camp and we had some lights set up
on one side of our camp. Well, we looked in,
we looked at the lights, and there was a looked
like something picked the lights up and we're holding it
there and we could see the background or the outline
i'd say, of a big foot. And then there was
others close to them. You could tell eyes shine, uh,
(21:40):
you could also one. At one moment, one peaked out
and I saw it in the light, and before I
could say, there's one, it was gone.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
You know, they're fast, fast, they are they.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Are they can outrun men. I mean, you know the
vest of woodsmen. They can out run. And then those
are the three times I've actually seen one, so, you know,
and back in the seventies, of course I would have
been popping that iPhone and getting pictures and and all that,
but you know, they didn't have that back then. So
(22:17):
and now that night I tried to take a picture
of that one and it was gone before I could
even get my camera mashed, you know, so it's I'm
not afraid anymore. The first one I saw, I thought,
this is I lived ten miles from where it was seen,
and I thought, hm, I am going to get tracked down,
(22:38):
and this thing's gonna kill me.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Because they probably have a very good sense of smell,
so they probably could you know, it could help. So
let's talk about this event that you have going on
in Aniston, because apparently you're not alone. There's a lot
of big bigfoot enthusiasts out there who are also part of,
as you said, the big foot community, who are interested
in this, who maybe they also have expertise or they've
actually seen them. And you've got an event coming up
(23:01):
in Annison that the June the sixth and the seventh, right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And on the on the sixth it's the Alabama Bigfoot Conference.
On the sixth we will have in hopefully a meeting Greek.
Right now, it's kind of iffy on the meet and Greek.
But on the seventh is a full day conference. We'll
have vendors, will have speakers, experts that have been in this,
this bigfoot community research for more than thirty years. So
(23:30):
but we have local people too. There's one lady coming
from Atlanta, Melissa A There. She's a local and I
consider that local, and she will be talking. She's sens
her second visit to our conference as a speaker. And
you know, I thought a lot of times, I've had
so many experiences myself and someone said you need to speak,
(23:50):
you need to speak, and I said, well, I don't
know about that. I'm doing the conference, and so this
year I'm speaking, and I'm it's about it. See I've
done other stuff too, But let me talk about that conference.
You can find tickets on event bright. That's the best
way to find tickets. Look up Alabama Bigfoot Conference on
(24:15):
event bright and that will get you tickets ahead. Now
we still can use some vendors.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When you talk about vendors, what kind of things do
vendors at a big foot conference? What do they sell?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They sell jewelry, they sell any kind of bigfoot or
crypted by cryptied I mean dog man bigfoot, things like
that kind of paraphernalia like maybe a little plaque or signer,
a little woodwork. And two we'd love to have some
(24:48):
local crafters. Uh, that would be great to introduce them
to these people coming. Because the people come in are
from everywhere. I mean they're from all of the United States.
Our speakers are from all of the Stay is.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
This the only conference like this? Are there other bigfoot
conferences that go on around the country, around the around
the all you long.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yes, there are many I just got back from one
in Kentucky and it was a paranormal comp symposium or conference,
but that had a lot of bigfoot in it too,
And it was a great time to introduce our Bigfoot
conference to them because we drove seven miles with We
(25:30):
had several people our seven hours, and we had lots
of people say, oh, I'm going to come down. You know.
So a lot of people travel good ways to come
to conferences. The first one I went to was in
Michigan and an Arbor several years ago, and I learned
how they did their conference, and I said, you know,
(25:52):
the people in these the hospice homes that I used
to go to saw my phone, which the cover had
a big foot on it.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh you like bigfoot?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Oh yes, you know I do. And they would tell
me stories about their bigfoots that comes up in their
yard or you know, they'd say we hear them at
night down by the creek, or they stole our chickens,
or they'd say one of them comes up and hits
the house every once in a while. We know it's them.
But they would tell me stories about that, and I thought, well,
(26:24):
this is just a way I lie for these people.
So I would love to have an outlet for them
to tell their stories. And I think that's a good thing.
People meet, people greet other people that come to these conferences.
It's a good outlet for them to tell their story
or to find out it's more about it. We have
(26:44):
a lot of skeptics to that come and and people
that don't believe in just curiosity seekers. But that's okay
because the way I look at it, it's the education
whether you believe it or not. You don't have to
believe to come, but just keep an open mind when
you do well.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And I imagine you didn't believe in Bigfoot until you
saw Bigfoot right Well, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It's funny I didn't. But when I got back from
Michigan conference, my mother asked me, oh, what did you hear?
Who did you meet? And what stories did they tell?
What things did you learn? And in the middle of
telling her, she stopped me and said, do you remember
when your pap Paul my granddad, you're Papa, that's what
we call him down here in the South anyway, used
(27:29):
to tell you stories about the Hairyman. And I said yes,
and she reminded, me, oh, you know your Papa used
to live on the Clay County side of Mount Cheehaw,
And I said, oh yeah, and she said that was
Bigfoot had to be. So all this time I was
(27:50):
hearing about the Hairyman. Didn't know I had a legacy,
a family legacy of bigfoot sighting, because he used to,
he and his when they were kids, His brother and
he used to play outside and they would see the
bigfoot down down the path, you know. Or they would
get scared at home or scared out at night when
(28:12):
they wanted to stay out later than mom wanted them to,
and they would run home. So they had stories, and
I thought, wow, it's like a light bulb, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Sure, So for anyone who wants to who attend, either
your enthusiast or a skeptic, whatever, you just have you
have some spare time on your hands. Next weekend June
the sixth and the seventh, it's a one hundred game
cock drive in Anniston, and you have a website, BAMA
Bigfoot Conference dot com and you're looking for both vendors
and people to come out. How much does it cost
(28:49):
to attend?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
At the door, it's thirty five dollars twenty five for children.
A children we consider like twelve hunder or you know,
up to about eleven, and little ones getting free like
under six years old. We Mike could We hadn't put it,
we hadn't advertised it, but we would be glad if
(29:11):
you have several children, we'd be glad to give you
a family.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
What about if Bigfoot tried to attend? You wouldn't charge him,
would you?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Oh? No, the star he gets.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
In for free. Anita Callier, thank you so much for
joining us. I hope you have a great Bigfoot convention.
I hope there's many more and I'm excited to see
what happens next.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Well, thank you so much. Bigfoot Rules.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
Have you heard about the silver tsunami. We're not talking
about a weather event, but it's something you need to
know about. Hello, I'm John Mounts and this is Viewpoint
Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network, and this week I'm
speaking with Scott Bushky. He is a business strategist with
Cornerstone Business. Scott, welcome to Viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Here in Alabama demographics, they're shifting the owners of many businesses,
both large and small. They're getting older, and well, you
can't take it with you. It's set to unleash a
powerful change, a transfer of wealth intergenerationally. Explain how, Scott, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's interesting. You know, there's so much in the in
the media and in the headlines, and one of the
headlines that just is not getting covered at all is
this largest transfer of wealth that has ever gone through
this nation, all these baby boomers. You know, we all
know about the numbers of the baby boomers. So many
of them are business owners. And you know about forty
percent of all the business out there are owned by
(00:55):
baby boomers. And the youngest one right now, I think
will turn sixty one this year, year, sixty two next year,
and the olas is seventy nine so they're at or
past their retirement age and they've got to sell, you know,
they have to tradition. So are they're either going to
sell the company, tradition it to a family or end
up shutting it or employees or end up shutting it down.
(01:16):
And unfortunately, way too many end up just shutting their
doors because they don't know how, when, and why they're
going to exit their company.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So this is a twofold situation because on one hand,
these people they are looking to probably protect their portfolio,
protect their their legacy, their wealth, and they need to
find a way to transition into something new as they
don't want to keep running this thing. They probably want
to enjoy their golden years and go off and take
a cruise. And at the same time, they don't want
(01:44):
to just shut it down. It'd be a good idea
if they could carefully move it to another person who
wants to can you run it for the next you know, well,
it's a legacy, maybe another you know, five.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Decades, right exactly. Yeah, So so many these boomers are thinking,
you know, I got to get out of the same
but they don't know how they're going to do it.
They don't know when they're going to do it, they
don't know all their options, and they're really the odds
are stacked against them. You know, it's what's the ending?
You do really well the first time you do it.
So most of these business owners, especially the boomers, you know,
they're one and done. They built this up. It's their
(02:14):
life's work for ten, twenty, thirty, forty plus years, and
they're trying to figure out how to get out. And
you know the issue is not enough buyers. There's plenty
of buyers out there. It's really understanding what's the process,
how does this work, and just what are my options?
Most we just did a national survey and forty three
percent didn't even have adequate knowledge of just all their
(02:37):
different exit options, let alone you know which one was
the best for them.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I suspect the first thing is you have to know
what you have. And what I mean by that is
exactly what hard you know, hard costs are there? How
many employees do you have? And I know it seems like, well,
of course they know if they only have a small
business with two guys working there, but maybe they have
a large inventory of things. Maybe they are in a
business where they have to keep a large inventory of
I don't know, parts or tools or things in order
(03:02):
to do the job, that kind of thing. And there's also,
of course the assets like the client list, because sometimes
that's the most important asset, and those assets it's hard
to put a dollar amount on it, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, So that is a tricky part, is what is
the value of a business because unlike you know, people
have a lot of people have bought and sold the house,
and you can go on and there's comps of a
two bedroom house in your area with sec x square
feed and you know, you number of bathrooms. You can
kind of get pretty good idea of what, you know,
what the comps are and what the value of that
house is. But with a business, you know, you look
at what are the sales, what are the what's the
(03:34):
what falls the bottom line at the end of the day.
Most companies ninety five percent of companies are based off
of some kind of a multiple of cash flow. So yeah,
the number one first step is to have the conversation
with the trusted advisor because then you can start to
make decisions of what, you know, what am I get
to net out of the sale? And you know, can
I live off of that from a lifestyle standpoint, you know,
working with my financial advisor.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
And it's a process of transition that doesn't just last
a few days or even a few months. It's a
it's a it's a year long, sometimes a decade long
process because a lot of the valuation of these businesses
is based on relationships that that owner or maybe owner
leadership team has with other businesses and other clients. And
just because you know, they yeah, we trust you know,
(04:13):
seventy year old Bob here, but seven year old Bob
wants to hand the business over to thirty year old,
you know, Trevor. They're like, I don't know Trevor, I
don't trust Trevor, and I'm not spending my money with
him just because I spent it with you, Bob. How
do you if you are the senior leadership one of
these companies and you're looking to transition out of that
leadership role, how do you get the younger generation ready
to take the reins and get your clients to believe
(04:35):
that they're going to be able to do it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, that's a great question. It really starts with taking
the time. Everything takes time, you know, it is developing
the next generation of leaders, whether that's employees, whether it's
your family, whatever that is. But finding those people that
have the right skill sets, have the right passion, and
spending time with them and growing them. You know, it's
so much at a leadership level. You know, as the owner,
(04:58):
by the time you're getting ready to sell the business,
you should not be you know, ideally you should not
be in the day to day activity trying to you know,
go land a client and go do this or do
you know, doing a quote. You shouldn't be working yourself
out of the process and really developing people at that stage.
Because if you have a management team that's there that
you can go offer vacation for a month and the
company runs without you just find that's a salable company.
(05:19):
That's a more valuable company than if you know that
if that was your company and you could go away
for a month and you had you know, ten million
sales and a million a eap bite and I had
the same ten million sales and a million an ey
bit doe, but I was I was the business might
not might not be I might not be salable at all,
or for maybe two three million bucks where you used
myself for five six, seven million dollars just because of
(05:41):
that building out the management team. So it takes the
time finding the right people. We use a lot of
assess see people use a lot of assessments to make
sure they got the right people on board and right
skill sets and right motivational factors, and then just it
takes time to build build those people up. But by
doing that and working yourself out of the company, that's
typically one of the top things you can do to
bring true value to your business and make it more saleable.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Scott bush Key is a business strategist and CEO of
Cornerstone Business Service. We're talking on Viewpoint, Alabama about the
coming change of hands of a lot of businesses and Scott,
we've been kind of gloom and doom about, Oh no,
it's going to be all bad, but it's really not
necessarily bad because there are a lot of things that
have been put into place that maybe aren't working so
well and could possibly grow and be better off when
(06:25):
put in the hands of a younger generation, a generation
who understands things that the older generation. You know, the
older generation might have been using file cabinets and might
have been using old and the new one said, hey,
what about this internet thing, and you could see a
big growth in the business if this is done in
the right way. Are there people who help maybe bridge
that gap of knowledge generationally, because I think there's things
(06:48):
that can be learned from both generations, but sometimes they
don't translate. Are there people who help with that process?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, the process that there are people that can help
you grow the value that we look at from our
perspective is what we see a lot of business owners
doing is these boomers are selling their companies because they've
gone to their son or daughter and going, you know, hey,
do you want the business, And a lot of times
they'll say, no, it's a it's a boring business, it's
a dirty business. It's not you know, it's not exciting
to me. It's not what my passions are. And some
(07:14):
people will try to force their son or daughter into
that business and uh, and they'll do it because they
don't want to let mom or dad down only to
have the whole thing at some point greater and the
value goes away. The company could possibly go, you know,
go down to nothing and then everybody's point fingers and
it's not fun for the family at Christmas time either.
What we've seen is what a lot of people are
doing is selling their companies using someone like you know,
(07:37):
anminy visor, like what we do, selling the company, getting
full value for that company, and then mom or dad's
working with son or daughter to start or buy a
company that they're excited about. And we've seen that model
be at a better model to really maintain family and
generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
And that's a good point because because the company has value,
it doesn't mean that value has to transfer in the uh.
And just here's some stuff and also here's this old
grandfather clock, and here's this old sofa. You can actually
cash in, take the money and put it into into
you know, somebody else buys it, and then take that
money and invest it in another company that maybe the
next generation is excited about. You know, they're making TikTok
(08:17):
videos with the money that grandpa used to use to
make you know, harvesting machines, you know, and everyone's a
winner in that situation.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, And that's exactly right. And there's you know, somewhere
along the line, somebody said, you know, true value is
the longevity of a business. So many people think, well,
to pass you know, to have true value. I'm more
successful if I passed to my generation. That is not
the case. But somehow people have kind of got that
mentality and it's killing it's killing companies, and it's killing
(08:46):
the values of businesses.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And Scott, when we talk about passing it from generation
to generation, most tax most states have taxes inheritance taxes
that can greatly impact the value of especially if maybe
it's a property, like say a large amount of farmland
or something like that. How do you avoid or shelter
your wealth from those taxes as the as the stuff
(09:08):
is passed from generation to generation.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, I can't speak directly to that as a not
you know, a tax expert, but yeah, you're definitely. You know,
as you build your team to transition out of your company,
you know the people you want on your team is
number one. You know an M and a attorney. You
do not want to use your general attorney that known
you for ten twenty thirty years. Uh. You know, I
liken that to Uh. You know your your general attorneys
(09:32):
like your doctor who you get your physical done every year.
You know you you go in, they know you, they
know you know them. You like each other, they know
your body or better and everybody else, what else? And
you find out you've got a headache and you go
get a study and you got brain cancer. Just because
that doctor knows you and you like them and they're
a doctor, doesn't mean that you're going to have them
do the surgery which you could die on the table
(09:52):
because they've never done a brain surgery before. You know,
you go to the brain surgeon and have the expert
and then you come back to your general doctor afterwards.
So you need to build a team and that many
attorney you need to be able to invest Baker, how
many advisor that can create a marketplace? We call you
know at Cornerstone, you know, we call you know Pomo.
The power of multiple offers of bringing the market forces
into the sellers favor by having multiple offers to their sale.
(10:15):
With our process we run last year, we got ten
offers per client on average, So they got to be
able to choose who the best fit first to them
and then lastly, as you talked about or and then
bringing on the tax person and say, okay, who cares
if it's ten million dollars or forty million dollars? How
am I going? What am I going to net out
of this? How can I minimize my taxes from Uncle Sam.
And there's great strategies out there with different trusts and
(10:37):
other things that you can do to truly minimize significant
tax dollars in a And then lastly, it's meeting with
that financial advisor to understand that, Okay, if I net
out X, what am I gonna you know, what is
my lifestyle look like? And what what can I live on?
Because I've seen stories. Yeah, I can share stories with
you that someone who didn't do any of that work
and what happened to them. It was absolutely tragic.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
This is you Point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mounson speaking with Scott bush Key.
He is a business strategist and CEO of Cornerstone Business Service.
And Scott, we spent a lot of time talking about
the seller side, but I'd like to also turn this
around talk about the buyer side. Let's suppose that you
have your you are the younger generation, and you've always
kind of wanted to have your own business. It sounds
(11:20):
to me like there's going to be a lot of
them out there on the market. How do you go
about picking the right one and getting it at the
right price?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, I think you know. Now, as we said, you know,
there's so many buyers out there and so many sellers
out there. It's a great time to be an M
and A. Whether you're a seller or a buyer, there's
a lot of opportunities. So on the buy side, yeah,
if you're you're looking to buy a company, you know
one you want to find something you're passionate about. Don't
just don't just go to where the number all. Look
at how much money that's making. Do you like that industry?
Now it's I played board sif, but boy, look how
(11:49):
much money I can make. You know, I've seen people
buy companies, you know, a dry cleaning company early in
my career, Like, do you like that industry? Though I
don't even I hate doing laundry? Well, the why you
buy the dry cleaning company because you're going to hate
that as well. Well. The cash roles are really strong,
so I think you know, cash is definitely a part
of it. But find something that you're passionate about that
you might have some additional skill sets about. There's you know,
(12:10):
on the smaller side, more main street related companies they
can go to like biz buy sell, and that's probably
the largest listing exchange of all of small companies. I
think the average is about a three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars value company and go there and you can
search in your marketplace, by industry, by a geographic but
it's it's really looking at, you know, the company, what
(12:33):
skill sets do you have, where you have passions, and
where can you bring something. As you mentioned in the
earlier segment, you know, so many of these business owners
are boomers that have kind of done their thing. They've
they kind of got into a rut and they're just
living a lifestyle bus it's not really doing too much
to it. So if it's like, well, this company's got
great operations or a great product or a great service,
but you love sales and he hasn't done he or
(12:55):
he hasn't done sales in twenty years, well that might
be a great company that you can bring some energy
the sales side of things and double a business in
three to five years and bring real value.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
So you're saying, don't look at just what necessarily what
it is, but also what it can become and what
you're able to do with it to take it to
the next level.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yes, absolutely, and looking at What is truly transferable, you know,
is the company. Because if you look at a company
that's doing really well, but it's the owner he or
she is the company, then you've got to really take
you know, can I you know, can you transfer that
over to you? So you might still say yes, but
then you're going to put you know, lesser value in
the company and or probably again it goes back to structure.
(13:37):
You know, it's value is part of it, but the
other part of it is structure. If there's risk there,
you want to try as a buyer to try to
share that risk with the seller so there could be
an earnout on future performance of the company, you know,
or if it's you know, if it could be a seller.
Note you know that these sellers is acting as is
(13:57):
the bank for part of it. But it really comes
down to the areas to look for as a buyer.
Is what are those single points of failure? You know,
is the owner he or she the whole business? Do
they have one customer that's more than twenty five percent
of the business. Is this company trending up or down?
Is it a commodity business? You know, if you're if
you're only selling on the lowest cost. Somebody's gonna come
out with something cheaper and are you out of business
(14:19):
the next day? So those are just you know, just
some of the you know, what's the culture of the company, uh,
and what will truly transfer because what you're buying again
is the future cash for the company, not what they
did in their prime you know, two or three years ago.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Absolutely, Scott bush Key, he is a business strategist and
the CEO of Cornerstone Business Service and you're the author
of Finished Strong, Sell your business on your own terms. Scott,
thank you so much for joining us this week on Viewpoint.
Thank you have a great day and you're listening to
Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network. My name is
John Mount, and here on Viewpoint we have had many
interview First, we've talked with senators, We've talked with celebrities,
(14:53):
and now we're talking with Bigfoot. Okay, well, no, I
couldn't find Bigfoot's phone number, but my next guest, Jess
might have it. I'm talking with Anita call Er. She's
put together the Alabama Bigfoot Conference. It's coming to Aniston
next week in the sixth and the seventh. Anita, Welcome
to viewpoint.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Thank you, John, I appreciate this.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
This is something that is really interesting to me because
it's been for a very long time lore in the world.
In America and here in Alabama, there's this there's this being,
and he's known as Bigfoot, and people some people say
he doesn't exist. Other people have seen said they've seen him.
You've actually seen Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The first siding was in nineteen seventy nine. I was
on a date.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Wait, you were dating Bigfoot.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
No, I was on a date. Some of my dates
may have seemed like Bigfoot, but this was on a date.
And you know, back in that day you told people
you had seen Bigfoot, they would have thought you were
one brick shy of below.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, they're calling Bryce to have you taken away.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Yes, they would have, and describe.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
What you saw exactly. He looked like Bigfoot, but everyone
has a slightly different I'm imagining Harry from Harry and
the Henderson's What did the creature do you saw? What
do you look like?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
He was Harry? The face was a little less Harry.
It was probably five to six feet tall. Now this
was about fifty to sixty feet out. I couldn't tell
facial features as much he was bipedal er did on
two legs, reddish brown kind of hair, and I figure
(16:27):
it might have been two young, young bigfoot. The reason
is because when we were hiking out the two miles
and it was a rough hike. Then it's not now
because there are.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Paths, trails are pretty well worn now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
But then it was just rustic and it was hiking
all the way out to Bald Rock. We smelled like
something dead, dead like, and we just commented that probably
something dead. And then we got out to Bald Rock
and explored a little bit, sat down on top of
the rock, and like any red blooded American mail he
(17:03):
decided he wanted to uh steal a kiss or something,
and so he leaned me gently back on the rock.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You're talking about your date, right, not not bigfoot?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Not bigfoot, Yes, yeah, yeah, let's clarify. But little Pebble's
little time comb started hitting us. We looked around, we
set up and looked around. There was nobody out. There
was in the middle of the week in October, and
so a lot of people didn't go out there at
that time. And and let me clarify, a term bigfoot
is the whole community of big bigfoot. Uh, that all
(17:34):
the all the family.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So there's there's like more than one. There's like a
whole group of big it's not plural of bigfoot. Isn't
big feet.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
They don't call it that bigfoot community, gotcha? And they
don't say big feet that they say, Oh, you tell
a real enthusis, real enthusiasts and scientists that it studies bigfoot,
and uh, they'll go, they'll go like, oh, no, it's
not big feet.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Like you know, fish, we don't call them if you
have two fish, if you're going fishing for fish, that
we call a group of fish still fish. We don't
really call them lots of fishes. We just call them fish.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Right, And that's what we do in the bigfoot community.
Is bigfoot. You see them here, people see them in
Washington State, people see them in Ohio. So you know,
there's got to be more than one.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Are they intelligent?
Speaker 3 (18:24):
I think so, because they're able to stay away from
man people.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
That's pretty intelligent.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You just don't see them most of the time.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Is this the only time you've seen a bigfoot?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:36):
I was a nurse, hospice nurse out in the fields
and I was on an emergency run the back roads.
I always had the rural areas, and so I was
on the back roads taking shortcut to go to a
patient's house and there was one out in the field.
I just I know it was. I mean, it was
(18:58):
darker and much bigger, but it was way out in
the field, standing close to you know how people would
discard farm equipment or old truck and it gets rusty
and animals stay around it and all that, but this
was on. This was vipedal or two legs upright, and
(19:20):
it was huge. It's big, and I'm thinking, I want
to go out there. I want to go out there.
And then I thought, you dummy, what would you have
done out there by yourself going out in the field,
And so I kind of refrained and went to my
patient because that was my priority at the time. So,
but yes, I've seen one there. And then last fall,
(19:42):
we have a group here in this area that I
started called Southern Sasquat Sisters and a ladies group, and
we went to a camp out. We have camp out
on Mount key Hall in the wilderness area. It was
in November. They were they were very active around us,
(20:06):
all around us, and we couldn't always see them. We
could hear them making noises like they're kinds of noises,
maybe a hoof grunt, like a hoof hoof, you know,
like a grunt and a hoof that.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Wait, can you do it? Can you do it again?
How do they sound?
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I don't know if I do it justice hoofoof like that?
You know. I didn't say an expert on that.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I got you more than I am.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
The ladies that came out, we had four ladies and
one of them's husband, and we had a David Eller
from Nashville. He's been doing this over thirty years, so
I brought him down as an expert to be there
with our lady to learn some one old big footing
one on one. Well, all these ladies had been you know,
out and done stuff, so well he just was there
(20:55):
for the ride. And man, we heard noises and they
they were in our camp at night. Uh, the ladies
were in a tent and uh the big foot were
kind of tearing everything down and they peaked in and
we saw them, you know, like peek in ahead, peek
in and stuff like that. But one night they were
(21:18):
around our camp and we had some lights set up
on one side of our camp. Well, we looked in,
we looked at the lights, and there was a looked
like something picked the lights up and we're holding it
there and we could see the background or the outline
i'd say, of a big foot. And then there was
others close to them. You could tell eyes shine, uh,
(21:40):
you could also one. At one moment, one peaked out
and I saw it in the light, and before I
could say, there's one, it was gone.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
You know, they're fast, fast, they are they.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Are they can outrun men. I mean, you know the
vest of woodsmen. They can out run. And then those
are the three times I've actually seen one, so, you know,
and back in the seventies, of course I would have
been popping that iPhone and getting pictures and and all that,
but you know, they didn't have that back then. So
(22:17):
and now that night I tried to take a picture
of that one and it was gone before I could
even get my camera mashed, you know, so it's I'm
not afraid anymore. The first one I saw, I thought,
this is I lived ten miles from where it was seen,
and I thought, hm, I am going to get tracked down,
(22:38):
and this thing's gonna kill me.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Because they probably have a very good sense of smell,
so they probably could you know, it could help. So
let's talk about this event that you have going on
in Aniston, because apparently you're not alone. There's a lot
of big bigfoot enthusiasts out there who are also part of,
as you said, the big foot community, who are interested
in this, who maybe they also have expertise or they've
actually seen them. And you've got an event coming up
(23:01):
in Annison that the June the sixth and the seventh, right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And on the on the sixth it's the Alabama Bigfoot Conference.
On the sixth we will have in hopefully a meeting Greek.
Right now, it's kind of iffy on the meet and Greek.
But on the seventh is a full day conference. We'll
have vendors, will have speakers, experts that have been in this,
this bigfoot community research for more than thirty years. So
(23:30):
but we have local people too. There's one lady coming
from Atlanta, Melissa A There. She's a local and I
consider that local, and she will be talking. She's sens
her second visit to our conference as a speaker. And
you know, I thought a lot of times, I've had
so many experiences myself and someone said you need to speak,
(23:50):
you need to speak, and I said, well, I don't
know about that. I'm doing the conference, and so this
year I'm speaking, and I'm it's about it. See I've
done other stuff too, But let me talk about that conference.
You can find tickets on event bright. That's the best
way to find tickets. Look up Alabama Bigfoot Conference on
(24:15):
event bright and that will get you tickets ahead. Now
we still can use some vendors.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
When you talk about vendors, what kind of things do
vendors at a big foot conference? What do they sell?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
They sell jewelry, they sell any kind of bigfoot or
crypted by cryptied I mean dog man bigfoot, things like
that kind of paraphernalia like maybe a little plaque or signer,
a little woodwork. And two we'd love to have some
(24:48):
local crafters. Uh, that would be great to introduce them
to these people coming. Because the people come in are
from everywhere. I mean they're from all of the United States.
Our speakers are from all of the Stay is.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
This the only conference like this? Are there other bigfoot
conferences that go on around the country, around the around
the all you long.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yes, there are many I just got back from one
in Kentucky and it was a paranormal comp symposium or conference,
but that had a lot of bigfoot in it too,
And it was a great time to introduce our Bigfoot
conference to them because we drove seven miles with We
(25:30):
had several people our seven hours, and we had lots
of people say, oh, I'm going to come down. You know.
So a lot of people travel good ways to come
to conferences. The first one I went to was in
Michigan and an Arbor several years ago, and I learned
how they did their conference, and I said, you know,
(25:52):
the people in these the hospice homes that I used
to go to saw my phone, which the cover had
a big foot on it.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Oh you like bigfoot?
Speaker 3 (26:02):
Oh yes, you know I do. And they would tell
me stories about their bigfoots that comes up in their
yard or you know, they'd say we hear them at
night down by the creek, or they stole our chickens,
or they'd say one of them comes up and hits
the house every once in a while. We know it's them.
But they would tell me stories about that, and I thought, well,
(26:24):
this is just a way I lie for these people.
So I would love to have an outlet for them
to tell their stories. And I think that's a good thing.
People meet, people greet other people that come to these conferences.
It's a good outlet for them to tell their story
or to find out it's more about it. We have
(26:44):
a lot of skeptics to that come and and people
that don't believe in just curiosity seekers. But that's okay
because the way I look at it, it's the education
whether you believe it or not. You don't have to
believe to come, but just keep an open mind when
you do well.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And I imagine you didn't believe in Bigfoot until you
saw Bigfoot right Well, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
It's funny I didn't. But when I got back from
Michigan conference, my mother asked me, oh, what did you hear?
Who did you meet? And what stories did they tell?
What things did you learn? And in the middle of
telling her, she stopped me and said, do you remember
when your pap Paul my granddad, you're Papa, that's what
we call him down here in the South anyway, used
(27:29):
to tell you stories about the Hairyman. And I said yes,
and she reminded, me, oh, you know your Papa used
to live on the Clay County side of Mount Cheehaw,
And I said, oh yeah, and she said that was
Bigfoot had to be. So all this time I was
(27:50):
hearing about the Hairyman. Didn't know I had a legacy,
a family legacy of bigfoot sighting, because he used to,
he and his when they were kids, His brother and
he used to play outside and they would see the
bigfoot down down the path, you know. Or they would
get scared at home or scared out at night when
(28:12):
they wanted to stay out later than mom wanted them to,
and they would run home. So they had stories, and
I thought, wow, it's like a light bulb, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Sure, So for anyone who wants to who attend, either
your enthusiast or a skeptic, whatever, you just have you
have some spare time on your hands. Next weekend June
the sixth and the seventh, it's a one hundred game
cock drive in Anniston, and you have a website, BAMA
Bigfoot Conference dot com and you're looking for both vendors
and people to come out. How much does it cost
(28:49):
to attend?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
At the door, it's thirty five dollars twenty five for children.
A children we consider like twelve hunder or you know,
up to about eleven, and little ones getting free like
under six years old. We Mike could We hadn't put it,
we hadn't advertised it, but we would be glad if
(29:11):
you have several children, we'd be glad to give you
a family.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
What about if Bigfoot tried to attend? You wouldn't charge him,
would you?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Oh? No, the star he gets.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
In for free. Anita Callier, thank you so much for
joining us. I hope you have a great Bigfoot convention.
I hope there's many more and I'm excited to see
what happens next.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Well, thank you so much. Bigfoot Rules.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
This is Viewpoint Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.