The B2B Podcast Index
Index
All categories
MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
MethodologySubmit
Best of:MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
An independent project byFame
SearchBest episodesGuestsInsightsMethodologySubmit a podcast
Index/Startups & Founders/Founders' Forum
Founders' Forum artwork

The Exit Nobody Prepares You For with Chris Donnelly

Founders' Forum · 2026-05-27 · 31 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

57 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density11 / 20
Originality10 / 20
Guest Caliber14 / 20
Specificity & Evidence12 / 20
Conversational Craft10 / 20

Chris Donnelly's story illustrates the unglamorous reality of business transitions that few entrepreneurs prepare for. After a successful career at Citigroup working with Fortune 500 companies and navigating the 2008 financial crisis, he left Wall Street to rescue his family's lifestyle business in Lansdale, Pennsylvania following his mother's death in 2013. The core challenge wasn't operational - it was cultural. Donnelly inherited a comfort-based, status-quo business and systematized it into a scalable enterprise. He lost 30% of revenue early on when confronting an integrity issue with a key employee, which forced him to launch an HVAC division from scratch. Using lessons from his Penn State MBA, an EOS implementer, and mentors from his corporate days, Donnelly professionalized the management layer by hiring for future roles (not current ones), balancing extreme performance with extreme care, and investing heavily in developing leaders internally through consistent one-on-one coaching. The playbook - draft picks plus A-player free agents, intentional succession planning, and treating leadership development like a sport - proved critical to preparing the business for sale in 2023. Now navigating his "second curve" as a Vistage chair and strategic advisor, Donnelly helps mid-market CEOs ($30-200M revenue) avoid the operational quicksand he conquered.

Key takeaways

  • →Losing a key person or revenue source forces innovation: Chris's 30% revenue loss triggered the launch of HVAC services, which eventually became half the business and added significant value for exit.
  • →Building for sale requires professionalizing leadership years in advance, not months before: hiring for future roles, removing nice-but-unqualified incumbents, and developing internal leaders through consistent one-on-one coaching compounds exponentially over time.
  • →Culture in a lifestyle business defaults to comfort and status quo; intentional repositioning requires balancing extreme performance with extreme care - a midpoint most founders struggle to find and maintain.
  • →Leadership development as a founder means making your time available for coaching (15-20 minutes weekly per leader) and staying disciplined even when short-term pressures tempt you to abandon the practice.
  • →The make-or-buy decision applies to people too: build internal leaders where natural fit exists, but hire A-player free agents from outside to fill skill gaps (HR, sales, strategic planning) that your team can't grow into organically.

Guests

Chris DonnellyAmy Wicks

Topics in this episode

EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)Vistagemid-market business transitionsresidential HVAC and plumbing serviceslifestyle business transformationleadership development coachingorganizational chart planningculture changeintegrity in businessPenn State MBA

Questions this episode answers

How did Chris Donnelly transition from investment banking at Citigroup to running his family's plumbing business?

His mother's pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2013 and subsequent death in September 2013, combined with his father's declining health, forced Chris to leave Wall Street. His father asked him to return to the family business, which had become a lifestyle business with no clear exit. Chris made the leap from his Tribeca office to a seven-mile commute to a modest office in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, working with tradesmen instead of Harvard and Stanford MBAs.

What happened when Chris lost 30% of revenue early in his tenure?

A key employee who represented 30% of revenue quit after a civil discussion about a potential integrity violation. Rather than panic, Chris and his father used this crisis as an opportunity to launch an HVAC division from scratch in summer 2015, eventually growing it to half the business. Chris learned that losing revenue from a person or client is survivable and often forces beneficial innovation.

What specific management practices did Chris use to scale the business before selling?

Chris hired an EOS implementer to systematize the business, focused on putting the right people in the right seats, created an organizational chart for future roles (not just current ones), and invested heavily in developing internal leaders through consistent weekly one-on-one coaching of 15-20 minutes per person. He balanced extreme performance metrics with extreme care for employees, creating a "Mary Poppins" culture that maintained standards while valuing people.

How does Chris define the difference between a lifestyle business and a scalable business?

A lifestyle business is built around the owner's comfort and maintaining status quo with consistent cash flow. A scalable business intentionally professionalized its management, hired for future organizational needs, removed nice-but-unqualified leaders, and developed a culture balancing performance and care. The transition requires acknowledging that real nice people often lack the management skills needed to scale.

What is Chris's approach to deciding whether to develop leaders internally or hire from outside?

Chris uses a make-or-buy framework: draft picks (develop people naturally inclined to your culture) plus one or two A-player free agents from outside. If your team is strong in engineering but weak in sales or HR, hiring an external A-player in those gaps can unlock the rest of the organization. The key is honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

11 / 20

The episode contains some useful observations about business transitions, leadership development, and post-exit psychology, but much of the substance is wrapped in storytelling and personal narrative rather than dense, actionable insight. Key ideas (hiring for future roles, one-on-one coaching cadence, the post-exit depression curve) are mentioned but not deeply explored or quantified. Significant padding includes lengthy personal background details (military school, Navy service, college) that consume time without adding operational utility.

the roles that are needed in like a year or like three years, and create that work chart and figure out what all of the um what all of the the key responsibilities and key functions those roles need to carry out
you in this room today, as managers, as leaders, as CEOs, You have to come to terms with the fact that your job in this business is to repeat yourself in new and different ways forever

Originality

10 / 20

The episode largely recycles well-known frameworks and ideas: EOS (explicitly mentioned), the make-or-buy hiring decision (sports team analogy), the importance of culture in scaling, and post-exit founder depression. While Chris's specific story is personal, the underlying business philosophy is conventional. The Mary Poppins analogy for balancing care and performance is mildly clever but not novel. Little contrarian or first-principles thinking emerges.

It sounds a little like EOS as an example. You're familiar with EOS.
building a professional sports team. You need to make a lot of good draft picks and you need to invest in hiring professional coaches

Guest Caliber

14 / 20

Chris Donnelly is a legitimate mid-market operator: he acquired, transformed, and exited a $30-65M revenue business (residential HVAC/plumbing) in 10 years, navigated PE acquisition, and now advises as a Vistage chair. He has real operational experience across finance, culture, sales, and exits. However, he is not a household name or exceptional industry figure, and the transcript shows he's still early in his second chapter, limiting the depth of post-exit wisdom he can offer. Relevant and credible, but not top-tier.

After selling his business in 2023, he's navigating his second curve, which the second curve of many, I have a feeling, from operator to advisor
Chris Donnelly is a galvanizer who removes barriers to agency for mid-market CEOs

Specificity & Evidence

12 / 20

The episode includes some concrete details: 10-year timeline (2013-2023), revenue scale ($12 to 65 employees, $30-200M range as Vistage focus), three specific problems solved (consolidation unit-cost pressure, capital/marketing, facility expansion), and named tools (EOS, Vistage). However, financial metrics are sparse - no revenue figures, multiples on the exit, or specific HVAC market data. The three post-exit challenges are named but not quantified. Many claims lack supporting numbers: growth rates, profit margins, time invested in coaching (15-20 minutes weekly is mentioned, but not validated against outcomes).

we had 12 people, we know it's 65
consolidation was rampant at this point in 2021. Uh, and so most of the businesses in our area have been consolidated

Conversational Craft

10 / 20

The host (Marc Bernstein) conducts a friendly, biographical interview but rarely probes, challenges, or follow-ups with depth. Questions are softball openings that invite narrative rather than drill into mechanisms or disagreement. Amy Wicks asks one solid follow-up about internal leadership development, but most of the conversational dynamic is permissive. The host explicitly states 'we are out of time' multiple times, cutting off depth just as valuable topics emerge (the post-exit depression, the PE partnership dynamics, concrete coaching methodologies). Few moments of productive tension or genuine intellectual sparring.

So Chris, start, let's start out with so out of we'll go. I will I know way back, I know about military school and all that, but maybe after college you started a career
We have very little time left, but uh just a quick question your 10-year vision

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Most-used words

school16founders14culture14transition13ceos13chris12back12leadership12businesses11building11today10different9forum8show8transitions8roles8

Episode notes

Selling your business doesn't mean you've arrived. It means you're starting over. And nobody warns you about the wall you hit on the other side. In this episode, Marc Bernstein sits down with Chris Donnelly, a former investment banker turned plumbing and HVAC entrepreneur who spent a decade rebuilding his family's business before selling it in 2023. Amy Wicks, founder of Wicks Consulting Group, joins as guest co-host. Chris shares the unfiltered story of leaving Wall Street for a trade shop in Lansdale, how one employee exit forced him to launch an entirely new service line, and the identity crisis that followed a successful exit. Key Takeaways: Losing 30% of revenue overnight can be the push a business needs Culture balance: caring deeply about people while staying performance-driven Consistent one-on-ones are the simplest way to grow leaders from within Know when to develop talent internally and when to hire outside A-players Three unsolvable problems became the clearest sign it was time to sell Post-exit identity reset is real, and most entrepreneurs don't see it coming About Chris Donnelly: Chris Donnelly is a galvanizer who removes barriers to agency for mid-market CEOs.

Full transcript

31 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. At March Forward, Marc and his partners and associates think out of the box to partner with their clients in regards to their visions for their lives, their businesses and their legacies. And through his innovative work with the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that help to fuel their success. Founders’ Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the stories behind their successes, and the lessons they’ve learned.

Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun! Now, let’s dive in... Good morning, America. How are you?

This is uh we are broadcasting here today from Babcock Ranch, Florida. Series of shows we're doing from here. The weather is beautiful. And I hear the weather is beautiful up in Philadelphia, where many of you will be hearing this radio show.

And we have in the studio today our guests, and I'll formally introduce them in a minute in a minute, but Chris and Amy. And our topic of the day is going to be transition. And this particularly applies to Chris, who's the guest on this particular show, and Amy is the co-host. So, Chris, you have, we're going to talk about it, but you've gone through some transitions.

How do you how what is perception what is what is your perception of transition? What's that mean to you? I, you know, in reflection on on this question, preparing for the show, I feel like my entire life has been transitioning from one thing to the next. Um, you know, I went to Catholic school for my first eight years of school and then transitioned to a military school, which may seem similar, but it's not.

Uh, and then I transitioned from military school to the actual military and and then from there into college, and then from there into uh investment banking and then into entrepreneurship. And there's always these like roles and identities that you have to accept when you move from one place to another. And sometimes that can be um it can be easy or it can be difficult depending on the circumstances. And so uh I think that that uh that I guess knowing where you want to go and then nailing the transitions is a is a good way to be successful through life.

Interesting. Amy, your thoughts about transition. I think transition is really um an interesting thing because also, much like you, I've transitioned a lot throughout my career. Um, even where I started, I don't think it was my intent um to jump into transitions and everything early on.

Um, whereas you felt like your whole life was a transition, but throughout my career, same thing. Like we've really transitioned, you know, the way I think about things, the way I do engineering as an engineer, and even um how I'm I'm approaching my company now. So um transitions is just a natural part of life, um, but also really goes a lot into entrepreneurship. Yeah, for sure.

Having said that, and everyone in this room is an entrepreneur of sorts, uh one sort or another, and it really is helpful to be able to transition well when you're an entrepreneur, but not everyone transitions well. My wife is an example. We talked about this a little bit. She does not like leaving her comfort zone.

You know, we're talking about moving our physical house, our primary residence in Pennsylvania. It's not that's not such an easy thing for her. I have a son who doesn't, who's in military school and had trouble with transitions. Um, so but I but I think so they find different kinds of roles in life that are that are set up more comfortably.

In our environment, though, transition is extremely important. And I think that's kind of a theme of the show that we talk about a lot. So let's introduce Chris and get into it. Chris Donnelly is a galvanizer who removes barriers to agency for mid-market CEOs.

After selling his business in 2023, he's navigating his second curve, which the second curve of many, I have a feeling, from operator to advisor, right? Serving as a vistage chair and strategic advisor. Chris helps stuck CEOs in the $30 to $200 million revenue range escape operational quicksand by building systems that solve problems without them. Drawing on frameworks from psychology, strategy, and power dynamics, he transforms decision paralysis into decisive action.

He's proof that your next chapter can be more meaningful than your first. So welcome, Chris. Thank you. And also let me briefly let me just say that Amy Wicks is CEO Wicks Consulting, a um engineering firm, and we'll hear much more about her on her show, which will also be recording today.

So welcome, Amy. Thanks for being here. So I um so Chris, start, let's start out with so out of we'll go. I will I know way back, I know about military school and all that, but maybe after college you started a career.

Why don't we talk about that? Yeah, I think it's fundamental or it's instrumental to talk about how I got there. Yep, because uh coming out of college or coming out of high school, you know, I lived in this rigid structure of military boarding school where every minute of every day is. And and leaving that and going to college was like going from one extreme to another.

And and that was a that was a difficult, right, a difficult transition for me. And I found myself in this spot where I was like, well, I'm not doing anything else. And I my my father's business is based in or was based in Lansdale at the time, and directly Caddy Corner from there was was the recruiting station. And so I remember one day riding my bike into Lansdale and and walking into the recruiting station, interviewing all the recruiters, and uh and the Navy guys like would drive me around as like an incentive to like get me to sign up.

And I didn't want to leave right away because I was in college and I was hanging out with my friends, and and so we we we had decided that I would leave in February. So I February of 1998, I enlisted in the Navy, um, went on that journey for five years, did two deployments to the Gulf, I lived in Sicily for two years. It was a wonderful experience. And then coming out of that, I then went to work in the family business uh while I went to college.

So I'm going to school full-time, I'm working full-time for my father, I'm learning his business, doing these things. Um, and and it wasn't quite like what I wanted. And I arrived at this place where where I was going to school for um was effectively investor relations or public relations, and I ended up teaching myself accounting at night and on the weekends, and I said, I'm either going to be a CPA or I'm gonna be an investment banker. And I just happened to go to a career fair and I and I got into Citigroup in an operational role and then worked my way into investment banking from there.

And it took me several years to make the connections and to get into the program. And um, and so I guess through 2006 through 2013, I was fully focused on working with big corporates, international businesses, at a lot of foreign companies that I was working with. And so I got to see a lot of um high finance at uh an interesting time within the financial crisis and coming out of that and Dodd Frank and um all the rules that were that were in place and and how people were resistant to mortgages and building.

And and so it was an interesting time to be alive in finance. Um and that was really where I where I where I grew up and learned, you know, that most of life is really how hard you work and what your network looks like. And I carried that with me when I when I left Citigroup. What ended up cutting my citigroup career short short was um my my mother ended up coming down with pancreatic cancer in 2013.

And uh, and that was, I guess, July of 2013, and then she passed in September of 2013. And my father at the time, you know, he had he had already had some health challenges of his of his own, and he had decided to make this business a lifestyle business because he had had, you know, a small mini stroke and he had had some heart issues, and and so it was sort of this thing that they just had that they that sustained their lives. But now with her passing, he didn't he didn't have anything, anything else beyond this business.

He didn't know what he was gonna do. He knew he wanted to retire. And at the time there was no market for uh residential plumbing and HVAC business. And so the business sort of needed me more than I needed it.

And uh, I guess in late that year he uh he asked me to come back, and so I I I took the leap from from from Wall Street back to Main Street. And how did that transition feel? Because that was a big change. Yeah, it was tough.

It was it was hard. I was traveling to to New York City, and you know, we my office was in Tribeca and I worked on the 35th floor. I looked at the Empire State Building every day. It was like it was magical.

And uh you're in Lansdale. And now I'm in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, like driving seven miles from my house to uh to to this office that's that's in a not so nice area of Lansdale. And so so like just the environment itself was a was a transition. And then the people, you know, you're going from working with people that are you know coming fresh out of Harvard Business School or Stanford Business School, and um, and now I'm working with tradesmen.

Totally different cultures, totally different cultures and totally different types of people, and and and so having to adjust from from working with you know um uh college educated people to to to blue-collar people, uh, not in a bad way, but just like just different people. Uh and so I was seen as an outsider, you know, even though I grew up in in the trades, I worked in concrete when I was in high school, and I was an electrician in the Navy, and so like I had the fundamentals, but it's like didn't have I had a totally different experience.

And so it was fitting in with these with these people was uh was definitely a challenge. By the way, before we go on, I should say this is founders forum. It's usually for founders of businesses. Amy's a founder of business.

You're not technically the founder of this business, but when I heard your story, you kind of are because you recreated the business, and that's what we're going to talk about to a point where you were able to transition again. So that's that's the meat of the story, I think, here. Yeah. So let's talk about how what happened then.

Yeah, so we we had um very early in in my tenure there, we I realized that we had you know one guy that was like 30% of our revenue. And and he was a nice guy and he was he did did well. And and I think we got into an altercation about, not an altercation, but we got into a discussion about something that I felt might have been an integrity violation. And uh, you know, it was civil, and we had a had a uh some some words about it, and uh, and he ended up quitting.

And so my father very quickly was like, Well, that's like that's a lot of revenue from the business. Right. And so we had to figure out what we were going to do, and and we sort of looked at each other and we were like, Well, I guess we'll start an HVAC business. And so within the within the plumbing business, uh, we had some semblance of HVAC, but I I I figured it out.

I I pulled together my resources and learned residential HVAC as a system and as a business. And in the summer of 2015, we started that. Um, we started that officially um and then grew that over the next several years to be about half the business. And and now in the midst of all that, you're changing the business, you're changing the um the culture.

And so, in fact, Amy might have a question about that because that I know there was a culture change that went on. Yeah, I'm just interested in as you were um going through that shift and everything, and especially losing that much revenue just up front, and somebody that had all of those relationships, how did you use that then to bridge that gap and kind of adjust that culture that you had going on in that company? Because that's that's something I feel like everybody kind of struggles when they're going through some of those big changes.

Yeah. Uh it's a great question. And I want to bury the lead. Like, I'm no longer afraid of losing revenue because of a person or a client or whatever, because of this instance, because you always sort of figure it out.

But fundamentally, anybody that's buying a business or even taking it over a second generation business, or even businesses that have been around for a long time where the owners have had some level of success, like that's gonna naturally move to be a lifestyle business for that person. And and so whenever you come into a lifestyle business, like that's really based on comfort of the owner. And so sometimes the standards and the rules and the culture gets relaxed around, you know, being comfortable and doing just do just do your best and and uh and and we'll get by and we'll figure it out if problems come up.

And really it's about maintaining status quo, particularly for the ownership group or owner, so that they can have consistent cash flow and they can do what they want. And so when you come into a business like that and you're like, well, well, this is not my vision for for what I want this to be, certain things have to be different. And fundamentally, that starts with the culture. So I always like to use the analogy that we that Donnelly's was like Mary Poppins, right?

We're very caring and we wanted people to be good and to feel good about what they were doing every day, but at the same time, we're very performance-oriented. And so being a CEO in an environment like that or creating a culture like that really makes you balance those two things, which if you plotted them on a graph, would be at extreme ends of the spectrum. You know, extreme performance on one side where you don't care about people's lives and what they're doing, versus extreme caring where that's the only thing that matters.

And really nailing that that midpoint between between balancing those two things. I think it's a difficult task. Were you at this point, were you were you building to sell at this point, or were you just trying to redirect the business at this point? I always had in my mind that this was a this was a a I'll use the term flip, that it was like this was a business asset that I could buy that I would eventually transition.

I didn't know when that would be. You know, when I like I said before, like when I bought the business, there was there was no market for these businesses. No one was buying these businesses. And it wasn't until you know 2017, 2018 where consolidation through private equity really started happening.

So so you could you kind of fixed the culture, you expanded HVAC. What happened now that that brought you along on the journey towards um towards selling? So I think fundamentally the biggest step that founders and and young CEOs can take is to really focus on the roles that are needed in the business, but not today. The roles that are needed in like a year or like three years, and create that work chart and figure out what all of the um what all of the the key responsibilities and key functions those roles need to carry out.

And then look for people that are naturally inclined to fulfill those things, right? Because that reduces the friction for when people come into the business. If you have a great culture and you're finding people that fit naturally with the roles that you have available for people, like those people are going to be intrinsically motivated to do a good job. And that lowers your barriers to having to manage people and to do these other things and really opens up the door for inspirational leadership and to help people understand what the vision is, what the mission is.

And you know, we talk about sustainability, and it's like if you're hiring people that all believe in sustainability and they all have great engineering skills, there's gonna be a lot less friction to to to to how that business proceeds in its arc than if you're hiring just engineers and you're gonna try and teach them about sustainability. Yeah, so so you were really did you this sounds a little like EOS as an example. You're familiar with EOS. I am, yeah.

And it sounds a little like did you have any coaching or help with all this, or is this all coming from what you knew about business from corporate America? I had two two or three three fundamental lessons that I learned. And uh I I worked with a with a with a Swiss gentleman named uh Aukelienstra when I was at Citigroup, and he was fundamental in in teaching me this one key thing. And I remember we were doing a deal, and he he said to me, you know, leadership is is you knowing where to be when you're needed there most, which is an art to getting that right.

So that's number one. Number two, um when I went to business school in the Penn State uh MBA, and and when I went to business school, I learned a lot about implementing change and affecting change through um through culture and through putting the right people in the right places. And then operationally that was really hammered into me because I did hire an EOS implementer when I had the business. And that's a key uh function of EOS is putting the right people in the right seats.

Interesting. So what what what other challenges were you having? We just have a little bit of time before the break, but what uh what other kind of challenges did you face as you're building towards the the sale? I think most of the challenges are are are typically with personnel.

Uh really about um professionalizing leadership and management. Um a lot of people become very loyal to the people that they have in their businesses as they grow. And uh and and that's wonderful, and that can also become a hindrance to the growth of the business because you know really nice people typically don't have the right leadership and management skills to be able to scale a business. And so this process of professionalizing management is something that I think all CEOs and all founders need to be uh engaged with.

And I I have a friend that told me this uh best once. He said, you know, I have this horse ranch that I go to and I hang out on this horse ranch and I take care of the horses. And he's like, and the only thing I do when I leave the horse ranch is I go and I try and find people that are smarter and better at their jobs than I am and the people that we currently have on the bus, and I convince them to come work with us. And so I'm always trying to build the next level of leadership team within the organization.

So right after our break, Amy's gonna follow up with you on more questions about leadership. And with that, we'll take a short break and we'll be right back on Founders Forum. The Satell Institute is the leading CEO member organization dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility. Under the vision and leadership of its founder - entrepreneur and philanthropist Ed Satell - the Institute brings together CEOs in Philadelphia and other cities to support the Nonprofit organizations that do heroic work in our communities.

The Satell Institute believes that “community is every leader’s business.” SI’s members-only meetings and private CEO conferences give members the opportunity to hear from world-class thought leaders on crucial topics like AI, education, corporate philanthropy and more. In addition, CEO members get the opportunity to share ideas and experiences with their peers - like-minded CEOs who believe in the importance of giving back to the community and who understand the benefits companies get from embracing Corporate Social Responsibility.

The Satell Institute charges no dues or fees - in order to join, member companies simply make a long-term commitment to the nonprofit of their choice. To find out more about membership, - and why so many leading companies are now part of the Satell Institute - visit the organization’s web site at satellinstitute.org. As Ed Satell says, “Think WE, not just me.

” We are back on Founders Forum with our guests today, Chris Donnelly and our co-host Amy Wicks. And Amy, I know you had a follow-up question about leadership for Chris. I do. Um I'm absolutely fascinated, especially as I'm growing the company and your leadership discussion.

But what I've heard so far is how you can identify and hire some leaders, but also how you lead. How do you grow those leaders internally to your company to make sure they're moving up too and there's some consistency in the company? Yeah. I think one, it's through intentional focus.

Like you as the founder, you as the CEO, that has to be your priority. A lot of people I find are um, I won't say distracted, but maybe sales is their strength or that they've fallen into that role because that's the thing that they feel like they that they can provide for the business the best. But if you're really interested in in having a business that I'll call autonomous or that works without you, um it's an intentional practice of of working with people and keeping a one-on-one schedule and being consistent and being disciplined.

And it's it doesn't take it doesn't take uh a lot of like rocket science trade to do this. I think it's it's it's a bit of coaching that's consistent, that compounds over time. Um, most people want only 15 to 20 minutes of coaching a week, but these people want a part of your time as the CEO and the founder. And so one of the gifts that you can give them is your time to be there to listen, to not give them solutions just to listen to them.

And I think that's foundational. Two, it's then being consistent with it. Like a lot of people will set a one-on-one schedule and then they'll just abandon it because priorities, because oh, we have to go talk to this client, or we have to go sell this thing. Like you have to make an intentional uh or because they think everything's okay now and then they're yeah, or they get or they think everything's okay, right?

And they they they they move on to to doing other things, and you're sort of leaving people behind when you do that. And you know, you this concept of like of of growing leaders within your business is great. And I think as CEOs and as founders and as business owners, like we have this this this we constantly have this make or buy decision that we're making about about what we're gonna do, whether it's with parts, whether it's with supplies, and and and it's also like, are you gonna hire people or are you gonna train people?

And I think it's a mix of both that you need to do. It's sort of like building a professional sports team. You need to make a lot of good draft picks and you need to invest in hiring professional coaches and leaders to train those people. And you also need to find one or two free agents that are gonna be A players from outside the industry that really bring offsetting skills that the organization doesn't have.

So if you're really strong in engineering, but you're not really strong in in HR or sales, hiring an A player might be the key to like unlocking the rest of the organization. So you're trying to balance, like you're always looking at like what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses. And if you can't necessarily like through your own will and effort and patience, grow leaders into those things, they're not naturally inclined, then that's where you'd be bringing people in to supplement what you need in those in those skills.

And then it's and then a lot of your time then becomes building the team. And you're you're the coach, you're the leader, you're the person that's putting everybody in the in those roles, sort of directing those roles, architecting the plays, making sure everybody knows the plays. And it's and it's sort of endless when you get into this because it's like I had a business school teacher once that uh that really opened my eyes to this because I'm very impatient. So I'm like, I want things to work, I want to work now, and I never want to have to go back to it.

But this professor said to me, uh, he said to the whole class, he said, you in this room today, as managers, as leaders, as CEOs, You have to come to terms with the fact that your job in this business is to repeat yourself in new and different ways forever. You have to really come to terms with that if you want to be successful in this. And and I took that to heart and I just and I'm a good storyteller, so I I found ways to just repeat myself endlessly about culture and about behaviors and about the things that mattered and making up stories about why it's important.

And the more you can do things like that, it sort of reinforces the lure of the business. And that lore is why people keep coming back and they keep staying. It's something I knew intuitively, but I'd never heard it said like that. So it's very there's heroes and there's legends in every story, and like and like your business today, like you're building those stories about about those people.

I want to move on because time runs fast on the show. I want to get to so you're built the business, now revenues are growing, your your infrastructure is in place, your employee culture is good. Um how did you come about to sell? And then we want to talk a little bit about what you did after that, what you're doing today.

Sure. The the brief story about the sale is that um I had hired uh key leadership. So I had gone outside the the business to hire key leadership. I hired a really great uh professional manager who was able to bring the team together and do a lot of the things that we were talking about.

And him and I worked really well together to try and affect the culture. Um he was also a great manager of resources, and so he was able to bring some things together that I couldn't do. Um I that freed me up then to look at the market to see what was going on. And now we're in the 2021 time frame.

So just stepping back for a second, you started to be able to focus on your unique abilities. Right. And one of that was finance and figuring out right. And I had bootstrapped this business since I bought it.

And so it was like we were growing, we had gone when I came back, we had 12 people, we know it's 65. And it's like, how do you fund all this stuff? And it's like that becomes a uh becomes a drain when particularly when you're reinvesting in people, reinvesting in people. There's long, long payoff cycles on those things.

And uh, and then three things happened that we really needed to address. One, uh consolidation was rampant at this point in 2021. Uh, and so most of the businesses in our area have been consolidated. So unit cost pressures existed.

So people were buying equipment supplies for much less than we were able to. Two, we needed a capital injection to be able to do a lot of marketing because uh when you're in uh home services, you're looking to do, you're looking to be top of mind and then be able to respond fast for people when they need you. A lot of that is TV advertising, which in Philadelphia is expensive. Uh and then the third thing is we needed to move, we needed to get into a bigger building so that we could build training space to do technical training.

And the technical training is like one of my key misses from like 2014 when I first came back. Um but those were the those were the three things that we needed to solve for. And so because I had built the leadership team, because we had built the culture, I had time and space to then go out and find and market the business, create, you know, created a financial model, took it to market, interviewed partners, looked for the right people that I thought were going to be um that were gonna be sustainable and carry the name forward into the future.

What was the whole uh time frame of all this? It took me about 10 months. Um took me about 10 months to to to find the final four. But from start to finish, from when you came in, it was only like about a three-year period.

Oh no, so I bought so I bought the business in I started working in the business in 2013, I bought it in 16. Okay, so you bought it. And we sold it in 23. Okay, so it was a 10-year project.

Yeah, it was a 10-year 10-year project uh overall. Um and and only the last year of it was spent on on you know access to capital and and financing. How did it work out? Because I I hear a lot of mixed stories about selling the private equity.

How did it all work out for the from my perspective? And I and I still talk to the CEO of the business today, the guy that I hired is still the CEO of the business today. Nice. Um, which I think is really that's a strong signal, and it's been you know two two and a half years.

And um and and so from what I hear from him, they're doing exceptionally well. So the business is thriving, they've moved into a new building, they advertise on TV now, um, they have more meeting rooms and training space than I ever could have imagined. Um they have national level deals with equipment providers. So all three of the problems I was seeking to solve got solved and solved quickly.

So so from my perspective, like I I I think is a win for for for me because like I achieved my objectives. But the business I believe is almost doubled at this point. So I believe that for the new owners, the business has achieved achieved its objectives. Uh and for the people there, most of the people in the management team is still there as well.

And so I think that that's a win-win-win for for everybody. So far, a happy ending, which you know you shouldn't hear all the time. That's great. So, what so what happened?

You sold the business, you made a big transition, came back to Pennsylvania from New York, totally different kind of culture, and now you no longer have a business. What happens then? This is so this is the hard part is that once you like you complete the entrepreneurial cycle of like buying, building, and then selling, nobody really tells you that like you sort of hit a hard wall at the end of that. And it's like, who am I?

Right. Yeah, you're all of a sudden you're like you're like now I have to answer all these questions that maybe I've been avoiding for the last 20 years. And so it's been a journey of self-discovery, and and I, you know, I I I I I feel like the the the project that I'm continually working on is me now, and and what are the things that that that that I want to see in my future and how do I want to live? And so I've finally had a lot enough space to be able to look at who I am and say, what do I value and what does that look like to live like that?

And how do I live like that every day? And that's a process, and that takes time, and there's a lot of science around um um post-exit uh founders and post-exit CEOs, where there's a there's a learning curve, there's a deep depression that happens. Um it's it takes two years to go through that curve. And then um, and then I've learned from other people that that in midlife there's another curve that you have to that you have to address.

And oh, I'm I'm on that curve now too. And so so I'm dealing with like multiple things at once, and it it sounds like uh no, it's green. I think I have two two green ones. I teed that one up for you.

Yeah, the the so uh what so where are you um so where but what are you you are working professionally? No, no, I am. I so let's talk about that. So so I I I enjoy my I enjoy golf, I enjoy my time, I enjoy working with CEOs.

I I really I really love talking to people and hearing their stories and and as vistage chair. As a vistage chair, and even just sort of personally, just talking to entrepreneurs and talking to business owners. Um but I have a uh my vistage chair, I launched my vistage group. Um Vistage is the world's oldest and largest CEO coaching and mentorship organization.

Um I have Formally Tech. Formally tech, yes. Uh and I I uh I uh I have a group that's 11 CEOs, about to be 12. Um I'm very pleased with that.

Um I have plans to grow that group this year. Um look I'm really looking for for CEOs that are either founders, second generation, first-time CEOs, first-time presidents, family businesses, people that are going through transitions, either from lifestyle businesses to growth businesses or personal transitions from you know uh family member to owner or something like that. We have very little time left, but uh just a quick question your 10-year vision. If we're talking and it's 2036, you and I were on the golf course, and I say to you, How'd you do the last 10 years?

Yeah, Chris, what would that look like for you? 2036, I'll be I'll be 56. And uh and I have visions of like living in a place like this, right, on a golf course and where it's warm most of the year. We're gonna talk more about that in a second.

Yeah, and uh and I when I sold the business, the guy the guy who bought the business, he was like, What are you gonna do? And I'm like, I don't know. And he was sort of pressed me on it, and I was like, Well, I'm gonna do cool stuff with cool people, and that's how I left it. And he was like, All right, and so here we are, cool stuff with cool people.

I have to tell you, we are out of time. Time flies so fast on the show. Thank you, Amy, for being here with us and co-hosting. Chris, thanks so much for being a guest.

Thank you all for listening, and we'll talk to you next week on Founders Forum. Founders’ Forum was brought to you in part, by March Forward, LLC. We partner with entrepreneurs like you to assist in accomplishing your future vision. Your life.

Your business. Your legacy. Comprehensive wealth planning that starts with you - not a product. We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders’ Forum and that you found something of value to take with you throughout your day.

Join us again next week for another episode of Founders’ Forum on WWDB 860 AM Philadelphia, or on your favorite podcast streaming service. Securities offered through DFPG Investments, LLC (“DFPG”) Investment Advisory Services offered through Diversify Advisory Services, LLC (“Diversify”). DAS and DFPG are affiliated entities. March is unaffiliated with DAS and DFPG.

Member FINRA/SIPC The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Diversify or DFPG.

Related episodes across the Index

Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.

  • Why 90% of Startup Ideas Fail Before Week 2 (And How I Validate Mine in 7 Days)The Scale Up Show · features Chris Donnelly42 / 100
  • How Better Tooling Creates Massive Profit | Ep. 85 [Kaci King]Industry Ignited Podcast · on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)89 / 100
  • How To Turn Pest Control into Profit with Justin ClementsThe Profitable Property Management Podcast · on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)80 / 100
  • A Conversation With Richard Kopelman, CEO of AprioThe Failure Gap · on Vistage79 / 100
  • 57 How to Make EOS Successful in Marketing and Technology Businesses with Jami MullikinEmpowering Healthy Business · on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)79 / 100
  • Getting the Most Value Out of Peer GroupsLandscape Leadership Podcast · on EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)78 / 100

More from Founders' Forum

All episodes →
  • What It Takes to Build a Lasting Business with Steve Berardi49 / 100
  • Why Execution Beats Perfect Planning with Pete Meyer67 / 100
  • The Vision Behind America's First Solar-Powered Town with Syd Kitson70 / 100
  • How Mark Wagner Built More Than a $70M Business71 / 100
  • Before SEO Had a Name: How Susan & Devon McCrossin Built Boomtown71 / 100
Explore the best B2B Startups & Founders podcasts →
All Founders' Forum episodes →