Mission Matters Money with Adam Torres · 2026-10-30 · 26 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
44 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Cameron Bishop brings his experience buying over 50 companies and deploying more than half a billion dollars in private equity capital to discuss what privately held business owners must do to maximize their exit value. His firm, Rain Catcher Investment Bank, represents family-owned and privately-held companies - predominantly owned by aging Baby Boomers - through the 9-month sale process. Bishop emphasizes three critical mistakes: poor accrual-based accounting (which can require $20-50k to fix but is essential before buyers conduct quality-of-earnings audits), lack of successor training (which can cost owners $2-5 million in valuation), and extreme customer concentration (buyers typically reject deals where one customer represents more than 20% of revenue). He highlights that 70-80% of companies attempting to sell never close, often due to these fixable issues that require 1-3 years of preparation. Rain Catcher focuses on the underserved lower-middle market (companies with $1-10M EBITDA selling for $5-30M), and Bishop notes the firm is currently working on its largest deal ever - nearly triple their typical valuation size - set to close by year-end.
Hosted by Adam Torres. The show scores 64.7/100 on substance across its analysed episodes. See the full show profile.
Between 70-80% of companies that try to sell never successfully close, typically due to fixable issues like poor accounting, lack of succession planning, or customer concentration problems.
The cost typically ranges from $20,000 to $50,000 when working with specialized accounting firms, and it can take 2-4 months to complete.
Training a proven successor can increase exit value by $2-5 million, as it reduces buyer risk and allows more competitive bidding among acquirers.
Buyers typically don't want to see a business dependent on one customer for more than 20% of revenue; above that threshold, deal risk increases significantly.
The complete process from initial engagement to wire transfer closing typically takes nine months, involving packaging, marketing, negotiations, and legal/accounting due diligence.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are a handful of genuinely useful operational data points - customer concentration thresholds, accrual accounting requirements, QoE audit costs - but they are buried under substantial filler, rapport-building, and platitudes. The ratio of actionable insight to conversational padding is low for a 26-minute runtime.
buyers don't want to see the business dependent on one customer for more than 20% of revenue
if the owner is the keeper of all the knowledge, that's a huge risk factor for buyers
The content is entirely standard lower-middle-market M&A advisory advice - accrual accounting, management succession, customer concentration, QoE audits - none of it is contrarian, first-principles, or counterintuitive. The 'Dr. Phil role' framing is a minor rhetorical flourish on otherwise recycled material.
we play kind of a math.com role to find buyers who can meet the competitive financial criteria
The last part of our job is what I call our Dr. Phil role
Cameron Bishop is a legitimate practitioner - buying 50+ companies with $500M in PE capital and now running deals at an investment bank gives him genuine credibility. However, the appearance is partly a marketing vehicle for Rain Catcher, which limits the depth of disclosure and tilts the conversation toward promotional content.
Across my career, I bought over 50 companies, spent over a half a billion dollars of private equity money
we were fortunate enough to work with some of these massive private equity firms like Colbert, Travis Roberts and JPMorgan Chase Bank Private equity
The episode has a respectable number of concrete figures - 20% customer concentration threshold, $20-50k accounting cleanup cost, 2-5M valuation impact of successor gap, $1-10M EBITDA target market, 9-month process - though several are presented as rough ranges and the sourcing of the 70-80% failure statistic is vague ('national statistics I've read').
it can cost them anywhere from 20 to $50,000 as a general range
if that owner had had a trained, proven successor, he might have gotten anywhere from 2 to 5 million dollars more
The host almost never pushes back, challenges a claim, or asks a sharp follow-up; the conversation is a near-continuous stream of affirmations ('yeah,' 'mhm,' 'wow,' 'that's what I'm talking about'). Questions are generic prompts that any guest could answer without preparation, and a segment is spent on the show's own branding ritual.
Cameron, at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, for executives, for experts. That's all we do. Cameron, what Mission matters to you?
I learned a lot. I hope my audience got a lot out of this too
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode, Adam Torres welcomes back Cameron Bishop, Managing Director at Raincatcher Investment Bank, to discuss strategies for maximizing business exit value. Cameron explains how financial preparation, succession planning, customer diversification, and choosing the right buyer can help business owners achieve a successful sale and protect their legacy. Follow Adam on Instagram at for up to date information on book releases and tour schedule. Apply to be a guest on our podcast: Visit our website: More FREE content from Mission Matters here: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Hey, I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you'd like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to Mission Matters.com and click on Be our guest to apply. All right, so today is a very special episode. We're bringing back on the show Cameron Bishop. He's managing director over at Rain Catcher Investment Bank. And we're going to get into maximizing exit value and what that looks like. But first thing first. Cameron, welcome back onto the show, man. Good to see you.
Speaker B: Wow. Good to see you again, Adam. Thanks so much for having me back.
Speaker A: Yeah, it's been a while, so we're going to have some fun today. I'm excited to get some updates and see what you've been up to over at Rain Catcher and also, um, what's going on in the market overall. So we'll get into that and more. But before we do, we'll start this episode the way that we start them all, with what we like to call our Mission Matters minute. So, Cameron, at Mission Matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, for executives, for experts. That's all we do. Cameron, what Mission matters to you?
Speaker B: Well, Adam, my mission and my passion, frankly, are, uh, the reason I'm on the show today and the topic we're going to speak about. Across my career, I bought over 50 companies, spent over a half a billion dollars of private equity money, and I saw so many cases where business owners didn't understand how to properly package and present their companies that they left sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions of dollars on the table. And, of course, I was the buyer, and it wasn't my job to tell them, but my role now as an investment banker and my role and vision, mission, passion, are consistent with our entire firm,
Speaker A: is
Speaker B: to truly help these privately owned company business owners. Many of them are aging out, and they have no other choice but to sell their company. And I try to communicate, um, fantastic shows like yours, um, what they can do to try to exit and maximize the amount of money that they receive when their company is sold.
Speaker A: It's amazing. Great. Great having you back on. I'm curious, though, just, uh, 50 companies, billion. Like, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of companies. Does it blow your mind to look back and say, wow, or, like, how do you. How taking those numbers?
Speaker B: Well, it does. I mean, you
Speaker A: expect that. I mean, time passes, but numbers add up. It's crazy to me. That's a huge number.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, I don't us I think I mentioned on our previous show I my degree is in journalism. I was an advertising copywriter. Right.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Had zero visions of doing what I ended up doing. But sometimes it's better to be lucky than good at the right place at the right time. And it created the opportunity. And uh, I discovered honestly I was pretty good at it and in the environment where we could do these acquisitions and roll ups and we were fortunate enough to work with some of these massive private equity firms like Colbert, Travis Roberts and JPMorgan Chase Bank Private equity to provide the funding, uh, to do all these deals and do what are called consolidations or roll ups of companies in whatever the industry sector you're working in.
Speaker A: Yeah, let's go, let's go a little bit further into that the technical side of what you do. So just maybe the way I like to normally approach this kind of side of things is like what types of businesses or you might even mention industries or sectors like talk a little bit more about exactly what you do. And I don't want to assume people understand roll up or some of these other terms. Let's get basic.
Speaker B: Yeah, well on the investment banking side of things, uh, we represent these family owned or privately owned business owners when they decide it's time to sell.
Speaker A: And
Speaker B: because the majority of American privately held companies are owned by baby boomer generation business owners,
Speaker A: yeah,
Speaker B: uh, they're aging out and the trend is very few of their children want anything to do with the family company. So these owners are left with no choice but to sell because that's their primary source, uh, of retirement wealth and, or usually generational wealth. And that's when they come to us for professional representation
Speaker A: on
Speaker B: how to package their business, market their business and literally shepherd them through what is a very, very tiring, stressful, difficult, typically nine month process. And in that role, people think about investment bankers as people who are hard charging negotiators dollars, numbers, percentages, contract terms and heavens, we certainly do all that. But I've never met a business owner yet who said to me, cam, sell my company for the most money you can and I don't care who buys it, I don't care what they do with my company once they buy it. Not once they are very concerned about who's going to buy their company. We get to know them personally, professionally, their goals, aspirations, their corporate culture.
Speaker A: M
Speaker B: We try to, we play kind of a math.com role to find buyers who can meet the competitive financial criteria for the deal. But Also are aligned with our clients, uh, priorities and values. The last part of our job is what I call our Dr. Phil role. As I mentioned, it takes nine months to celebrate
Speaker A: your Dr. Phil. Ro. Hold on, man. Go ahead.
Speaker B: It's, uh, for these owners, it's an emotional roller coaster ride. It's highly stressful. They don't have any familiarity with it 95 of the time. And.
Speaker A: And that makes sense though, by the way. So, like, maybe just for an example, like, maybe they've been building this company for 10, 20, or more than 20, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, who knows? And this might be their first time selling a company. So here they have, like, their literal. Their. They poured their life and their blood, sweat and tears into this business. They provided for their. For people in their community, their families, like, obviously their family, but all the people that work for them. So they have all on them. And now to let go of that and retire. Maybe they thought their kids were going to take over at one day, and if that's not happening now, they got to take pussy. Like, that sounds stressful. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker B: Those are. You are spot on, Adam. Uh, those are really critical factors that come into play emotionally for these business owners. And suddenly the light bulb goes on. They're about to have, uh, some level
Speaker A: of,
Speaker B: uh, life change, uh, especially if they're going to sell the company and exit shortly after that. But
Speaker A: m.
Speaker B: During the process, uh, you know, a lot of the legal aspects, the accounting can be so complex.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It becomes extremely intimidating for them. And oftentimes they develop the worst case scenarios. So we do a lot of work to kind of help them stay steady or if they're starting to make decisions on an emotional basis. You know, we view it as a transaction process. So we try to maintain emotionally and involved. And
Speaker A: yeah,
Speaker B: as they say, those kind of follow the science and the process
Speaker A: and
Speaker B: procedure and help provide context for them to say no. You know, what's really scaring you right now is really pretty normal. And here's why, and here's how that works. And you know, every business owner, as you mentioned, I mean, they eat, sleep, and breathe their companies,
Speaker A: of course. Yeah,
Speaker B: they're lifeblood. And, you know, the buyer at some point is going to call their baby ugly. And, you know, it's like, if you're selling your house at a buyer,
Speaker A: I'm going to be like, oh, yeah, let's try. Let me pay you more. Let's say you're not going to work against yourself. I love this house. It's My dream house. You want this? Can I pay you more for it? No.
Speaker B: Yeah. Right, right. So we, we play those kind of three roles.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, but we kind of view as a white glove process to shepherd our clients from end to end until the wire transfer ultimately hits their bank account.
Speaker A: Yeah. What are some of the characteristics that make companies like sellable and like what are some of the things that like they need to be thinking about and even planning in advance? Obviously want them to work with you and your team, but like what should they even be thinking about to get the maximum value? What are some, what are some of those ingredients?
Speaker B: Yeah. Well if that is the key question and kind of core to my communication passion to deliver to these business owners, you know, if it's before the process. Adam, before our call here, I literally 15 minutes ago hung up. Um, from a first conversation with a business owner in the south who has a growing business, very profitable and to his credit he is thinking about beginning the selling process in January. So he's got a two or three or four month Runway to get things ready. So one of the things we talked about was uh, his accounting's on a cash basis and he's a project based construction industry business, in this case a service business in construction. So everything is on a contract basis. And uh, in uh, his case he can measure his future pipeline and signed contracts and that's worth volumes in terms of valuation impact in a good sense. But his accounting is not fully accrual based, which is critical in most businesses, but certainly in a project based business. So
Speaker A: yeah,
Speaker B: he's got to go back to his accountant and he's doing that in 2026, but he wasn't in 24 or 25. Buyers are all going to want to see at least three years on an accrual basis. So he's got the time now
Speaker A: to
Speaker B: go back and make those changes. So that's number one. What was really music to my ears is he wants to sell because he and his wife own three other companies that are growing even faster than the one he's selling.
Speaker A: That's what I'm talking about. Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah, he's got the minus touch. And uh, but that's a valid reason to sell. But in his case he's been training a successor for two years.
Speaker A: Whoa.
Speaker B: And that is so good and that means so much. We'll be able to bring more buyers into the process.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: And we will probably be able to get more money for his company in total exit value. And he'll probably get a better, more Attractive deal structure because buyers for businesses, interestingly are willing to take on risk, but at the same time they're very risk averse. And if the owner is the keeper of all the knowledge,
Speaker A: that's
Speaker B: a huge risk factor for buyers. So he's in a really good place on um, both of those key criteria.
Speaker A: M Now I understand that a lot of businesses that. And it's an alarmingly high rate. I don't know. But a lot of people try to sell their businesses but they never get to the finish line. Like what does that look like? And why is that?
Speaker B: Well, I, I love my job. I love what I do. When we get a deal closed, obviously we like the money. Not going to lie about that.
Speaker A: We're in business to make money. It's okay. Mission M matters, but money matters to go ahead.
Speaker B: I'll tell you, uh, it's kind of corny, but I really, really get a lot of satisfaction when we see that client get a wire transfer into his or her bank account.
Speaker A: Man, that's not corny, that's completion. That's amazing.
Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, but you know, the feeling that you've really helped these people
Speaker A: and
Speaker B: you know, oftentimes it's going to mean they're going to have a comfortable retirement, they can fund their grandkids, college or whatever. Uh, so those, those are kind of key factors that, you know, kind of help us in this business.
Speaker A: Yeah. And so why do some people not, when they try to sell, they never get to the finish line?
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's because they have characteristics about their company that uh, are simply make them unsellable. And you know, the national statistics that I've read indicate that sadly somewhere between 70 and 80% of companies that try to sell are never able to sell. And it's,
Speaker A: that's crazy.
Speaker B: Yeah, it's so it's the thing about my job, if there's something I didn't like, that would be it, uh, is to have to tell these owners that uh, your company's not sellable or if it will be sellable, you're going to have to fix things. You're going to take, you know, a year, two years, sometimes three years.
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker B: Before you can make it sellable.
Speaker A: And it's possible they can't go down that process maybe age wise or maybe maybe a bunch of other things. And so they end up just letting it go kind of sometimes. Huh?
Speaker B: Yeah. Sounds like a lot of them. Literally. Uh, we've seen that a lot, uh, in the uh, machine shop industry.
Speaker A: Oh, that makes
Speaker B: those owners are you know, craftsmen and knowledgeable, learned on the job 30, 40, 50, 60 years. But you know, there's limited demand for what they do now and uh, there's no younger talent in the food chain.
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker B: And they can't find buyers and mostly they just liquidate their machine equipment.
Speaker A: There's
Speaker B: been a lot of that in that industry. In particular, we've seen it in other industries or cases of construction companies, particularly in the trucking sector. I've talked to many trucking companies who had extreme customer concentration. Maybe they only served or did trucking for two or three or four customers.
Speaker A: Yeah,
Speaker B: they took on a lot of debt to buy tractors and trailers. And um, their business isn't worth what the exit value or the auction value of their fixed assets are. Or if they sell it, they still have more debt on the business than their company is worth. And
Speaker A: M
Speaker B: those are sad situations to have to explain to these folks.
Speaker A: So let's talk about those that maybe could be sellable. Like what are some of the mistakes you see business owners make during the process of selling their companies?
Speaker B: Yeah, well, as I mentioned, first and foremost is really, really poor accounting. Most of these business owners are not really adept at accounting so they don't understand the importance. So sometimes we have a client who is going to be able to be sellable, but we have to refer them out to a specialized accounting firm that works with these companies to clean up their financial reporting, change it into an accrual based process.
Speaker A: M
Speaker B: that can be a two or three or four, a four month step there. And that's not cheap. It can cost them, um, anywhere from 20 to $50,000 as a general range. But if they want to be sellable, they're going to have to do that because when they get a buyer, that buyer is going to hire an accounting firm and they're going to do a deep dive, uh, called buy side quality of earnings. It's essentially an audit, only maybe at a more detailed level. And if their financials aren't in good shape, that can blow the whole deal up if they weren't cleaned up in advance. And as I mentioned, this business, uh, owner I just talked to shortly ago, he's been training a replacement or a successor for himself for two years.
Speaker A: Yeah,
Speaker B: most of these owners never consider that or they don't want to spend the money to put a manager in place that can succeed them.
Speaker A: M
Speaker B: that creates a real complication when it comes time to sell. It can really impact if the company is still sellable.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I have had a recent experience with the business that because of the owner dependency factor, if that owner had had a trained, proven successor,
Speaker A: he
Speaker B: might have gotten anywhere from 2 to 5 million dollars more for his company.
Speaker A: Dang.
Speaker B: So that's the, that's a little bit, that's
Speaker A: real money
Speaker B: Apple. Yeah. A little bit of an outlier example. But it is real world that there is a return on investment for these business owners to invest in. Uh, either promoting someone or recruiting someone to be a successor.
Speaker A: Mhm. So Cameron, I gotta bring this up man. Last time we were talking, I understand the firm's having a uh, phenomenal year. One of the best ever. And you're working on some big deals, maybe the biggest deals in the firm's history. Um, what, what can you tell me? Give me, give me some updates. What can you tell me?
Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's surprising to say that we are having a fantastic year in our firm even though the interest rates are crazy high right now. Mhm. Oftentimes it's assumed that with interest rates that high that's going to uh, slow the transaction process.
Speaker A: But
Speaker B: there, it has definitely created challenges for less quality businesses. But where there is quality there is still a very strong demand. And we're seeing that from essentially three classes, maybe four classes of buyers. The typical private equity firms because they have uh, limited partners who invest in their funds and they have to invest the money that they're stewards for.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So they're going to go after quality deals and the quality deals are getting quite often premium valuations because of the competitive bidding process. Um, lesser deals, they may languish or they may go for a lower than normal multiple or uh, have a more or less attractive deal structure with seller financing and earnouts over one, two or three years. Factors that most buyers aren't typically enamored with. But
Speaker A: yeah,
Speaker B: uh, in this day and age because the interest rates, those could play a role. But high quality businesses are very attractive and our firm has been fortunate through our digital exposure, SEO SEM kind of things and a lot of referrals from happy past clients. Uh, we have a very strong portfolio of high quality companies that we're representing right
Speaker A: now. I love it, man. This is a great story. It's, there's so many win wins in, in what you're doing and how you're doing and ah, maximizing value for these business owners especially. Yeah, I, I hate to see it like somebody may have been building this company for decades and then you know, they don't get the value they should get or they don't get the. Or they don't sell it at all. Right. If they can't do it. Or maybe that, that concept you talked about where somebody needs a successor to be in the business and it can really change things. But that might take a couple years or whatever the amount of time is for that to really like, you know, take like all these things. I love what you're doing about coming on shows like this and other shows to educate people on this so that they can start thinking about that. The sooner they start thinking and planning, like, the better, the more value, the more money they get ultimately. Um, or worst case scenario, they're able to sell it when they maybe couldn't like. So that becomes interesting because maybe some people are just assuming it just works out and we both know that that ain't the way it works. Right.
Speaker B: Well, even worse, I think, Adam, is that most business owners don't think about it at all.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Think about when am I going to sell my company, how am I going to sell my company.
Speaker A: Yep.
Speaker B: They just kind of wake up one day and decide it's time. And that's one of the key factors that really hurts valuation. Because, you know, we're all human, we all want instant gratification and you know, they don't want to invest another year or two years to get the business polished up
Speaker A: in
Speaker B: order to maximize that exit value.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So that's one of the things we see. You know, I just thought of, you know, you'd ask about why companies don't sell. Literally this morning on a call with one of the brokers on our team, he shared a story with me that he was given a referral to represent a manufacturing company in the Northwest. And because it was referral, he wanted to take the, uh, meeting with his potential seller. But he found out that the seller had what's referred to as extreme customer concentration.
Speaker A: Oh. Uh,
Speaker B: litmus test is typically buyers don't want to see the, the business dependent on one customer for more than 20% of revenue.
Speaker A: Mhm.
Speaker B: In this case it was 75%.
Speaker A: Oh, wow. So no business if that customer disappears.
Speaker B: Exactly. And so our broker told that owner that he was going if, if they wanted to move forward because of the uncertainty of sellability, he was going to have to charge a much higher success fee. We only get paid if we close the deal. Yeah. Eat what you kill. And ah, the owner of the company was kind of put off by that. And he explained to him, he said, look, you have 70, uh, 5% customer concentration. I would estimate that there's only about a 30% chance that we can successfully sell your company. And this owner had his CPA with him and my broker said they literally kind of sat back in their seats at, wow. No one's ever told us this before. You know, I don't know whether they'll end up engaging with us or not. But again, uh, our broker did the right thing by telling them the truth and explaining to them what they need to understand in terms of one of the critical criteria that buyers look at when they're assessing, uh, whether or not they want to proceed with making a bid on a deal.
Speaker A: Yeah. Cameron, this has been great having you back on man. I'm gonna say like this is. I learned a lot. I hope my audience got a lot out of this too. Uh, I just have to ask, what's next? What's next for you? What's wreck? What's next for Rain Catcher Investment Bank? Talk to me.
Speaker B: Well, we're already looking at a good pipeline for next year. And I'm very proud to say that in our firm's 11 year history, um, we are under letter of intent on the largest deal our firm is ever done. We,
Speaker A: that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, we, we generally focus on what's called the lower middle market. Companies that are kind of a million to 10 million in EBITDA profits
Speaker A: and
Speaker B: they'll sell for kind of 5 million to 30 million. It's an underserved teal size. In this particular case, we're going to be almost triple that in terms of the total valuation, uh, that we've got a commitment on from a buyer.
Speaker A: We
Speaker B: won't close it till the end of the year. So we'll be working fast and furious till then trying to get all the contracts done and do a close. So uh, that's, that's going to be a very rewarding one for us.
Speaker A: Fantastic. Well, congrats on the deal and uh, congrats on everything. And that being said, if somebody's watching or listening to this Cameron, and if they want to uh, connect, how do they do that?
Speaker B: Well, they can easily reach me at my, uh, corporate email address cameron.bishop@raincatcher.com or they can find me on our, uh, website, raincatcher.com I'm also easily found on LinkedIn.
Speaker A: Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we'll definitely put some links in the show notes so that you can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters, and you haven't done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show, you heard me correct. Each and every day, we're bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And, Cameron, been an absolute pleasure. Thanks again for coming on.
Speaker B: I'm so pleased you had me back, Adam. Thank you very much.
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