Muriel Twechey on Scaling, Exit Strategies, and Building Self-Sustaining Businesses

This is the Beyond Business Podcast with your host, Katherine Martin Fisher. Real entrepreneurs, real pressure, real decisions. We unpack what helped them turn a company into a business worth having without losing the life they actually want. You'll leave each episode with practical takeaways and action steps you can use right now.

Let's go beyond just the business. Welcome to the Beyond Business Podcast, where we go beyond business to explore the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts that help entrepreneurs build thriving companies, create meaningful impact, and leave lasting legacy. I'm your host, Katherine Martin Fischer with the Beyond Business Podcast and I'm excited to have our guest Muriel Twechey, founder of Exit three d Studio where she helps business owners grow, scale, and prepare their companies for maximum value and successful exits.

Muriel brings a unique perspective to entrepreneur to entrepreneurship because she understands that building a great business isn't just about generating more sales today. It's also about creating an asset that can thrive without you potentially creating, that can thrive without you and potentially create a life changing wealth in the future. Muriel, thank you so much for being with us here today. We are excited to dive into your journey and what it is that you do to help others be able to get their exit strategies in in place.

Thank you, Catherine, for this great that's warm introduction. Thank you. Well, Muriel, let's go let's dive into the reason why you started three d Exit Studios. Yes.

So I started Exit three d Studio because I was I wanted to have a a business in The US. So far, I was working with the French markets where I wanted to have a, you know, an offer for The US market, but it didn't come that naturally that quickly. I had to go through trying to buy a business and fall into, you know, a lot of problems. I had so much challenges trying to find the right business.

I was that close to buying one. And and I discovered that, actually, most service businesses, because I was looking for a service business, was always had four structural gaps. And instead of trying to find a business to buy while 70 to 80% of businesses that go for sale never sell. I say, okay.

I'm gonna take another a step back. I will build a firm that will actually help those businesses be more exit ready no matter they wanna keep their business or sell it. You know what I love about what you just said is you found a problem, and you found a gap in the marketplace. And you came for the solution.

Thank you. Yes. This is what I at some point, it became too obvious for me to not act because it's really an normally, you will work with a business broker or an m and a firm, they work completely differently. They will not work years in advance to prepare your business for a higher valuation.

Valuation. They will just work the number and sell the business as it is. They might okay. I I don't want to say bad things, but they might advise, but they will not work in the business like I will be doing, like building the systems What would you say what would you say is the difference between a business that is growing or a and and the difference between a business that is truly scalable?

Yes. So a business that is growing is a business that can get client. Okay? Short term contract.

The client come. Project is finished. They go. This is a business that is growing, that are making revenue, but it's the revenue quality and predictability is not there because every month starts from zero.

You have to get the new client. A business that can really scale is a business that can introduce recurring revenue, retainer, and have visibility. So if I go back in the, you know, the shoes of a buyer, if I buy that business, I want to know that every month, it's gonna make that much revenue. Like, I know already.

My lender will know that, and I will get my loan because we know that money is coming in every month. When it's a project based business, when there is no retainer, you or or any way of predicting the revenue that is coming in, it's more difficult, and it gets discounted. So when you first evaluate a company, what are the warning signs that tell that growth may be fragile? Yes.

So the quality of the revenue project based versus recurring and also the customer's concentration. If I open the SIEM, which is the brochure, basically, to know. It's the marketing brochure of a business that go for sale, the same. When I see the little graph with the let's say, they have three customers that do 80% of the revenue or something, this is a this is a red flag and and also a sign of a fragile business.

Because if one customer leave, they just lose that much revenue. And when you transfer, you can be pretty sure that you will lose that revenue because a lot of the of this business, these are very funder dependent. That means the client is attached to the funder, not to the business. That is really interesting.

I actually have a client go through that right now. Yeah. Looks like what what systems should do you would you say that every business owner should have in place that when they want predictable growth? Yes.

So it will come from their offer. Can they you know, if they are project based, can they introduce some new offer to have you know, to keep the client in the long term? So if you ever sell, they are locked in with a contract. That's one thing.

Can you just tell me again the end of the question just to make sure I cover it fully? So what are what are some systems that every business owner should have in place to you know, in order to have predictable growth? Because if they wanna do that The offer. The offer.

And then an acquisition engine that is predictable as well. And I'm not talking about referral or word-of-mouth. Those are great, but there are bonuses. I've always told that to my client, it's good when you get a referral or some word-of-mouth.

It's the cherry on the cake, but you need to be yourself having that lead generation coming and that sales that are coming, you know, from a good engine, a good system. Right. Awesome. Now, you know, one of the things I've had this conversation with others before, and I think most businesses, they business owners, they go into business, but they never think about the end.

They're always just thinking about the beginning and getting through and, you know, and and growing the business. When would you say is a good time to start thinking about your exit strategy? That's a good question. For a long time, I didn't think about it either.

So like, I was really exactly like them. I will say, as soon as you know it, that you know it's important, you should think about it. Like, you listen to this podcast today, you should think about it. But, ideally, from the beginning Yeah.

Because when you build a business that a potential buyer will want, You're also building a business that is easier to run for you, that is less training, less dependent. And, yeah, so from the beginning, ideally. And at the latest, a few years before you want to sell. So when you say a few years, that could be different depending on the industry.

I can tell you exactly. I was actually thinking, should I continue ideally about three, four years before? Because when a buyer evaluate your business, they look at the last three years' p and l as well as the trailing twelve months. So if you have you know, your financial are good, growing, low customer concentration, like, everything is sorted out, good, then you will probably get the valuation that you want.

You might even get an offer that is higher than what you've been asking if the buyer is really motivated by your business. So I will say that time to really clean up and the business and the financial and everything. And if it's just one year before, because we usually see that, we see a last year is really or the trailing twelve months event is a lot higher than the other year. Unfortunately, that's not enough.

That only show that there was a problem before, so we had to act to just grow the last year. And I will add, when lenders look at businesses like this, actually, my lenders, the one who was evaluating a business for me, he was actually looking at the year that was the lowest in revenue. So that deep two years ago, still matter because they will base their calculation to give you a loan. You know?

They are they are calculating the DSCR, like the debt service credit ratio to see if you can it is a number, and it shows that you can pay back the loan with the cash flow of the business. If it's too low, you don't get the loan. If it's comfortable, okay. You can get it.

But they base their calculation on, at least my lender, on the worst year. So that's why the last year increase doesn't matter. We don't look at this. So what would cause a buyer to walk away from the deal?

Oh, a lot of things. I can tell you from my experience, when I got that offer accepted, I walked away because I discover, and after a couple of weeks in due diligence, they finally give me that information that I asked from the beginning. It was the revenue split per client. I calculated everything for the past year and I discovered that, okay, they had about 35 clients.

In August, they had 35 clients. In December, they still have 35 clients. But they were saying they were growing 30% every month. What was happening?

So I had to look into that. And I walk away because they were losing about 40% of their client every month. They were able to get those client in, but after the three months engagement, they were out every time. So, yeah, plus some a bit borderline practice to the LinkedIn lead gen agency.

Their practice, I say, okay. No. I I'm walking away. Wow.

Because I also I was going to discount the business, like, four times what they wanted. Wow. Yes. Now this is this is something I'm always curious about is what does a founder's dependency how does that hurt the business valuation?

Well, that hurts the valuation because we can I mean, if we need the founder for everything, for the sales, for the operation, for the decision, for the knowledge, everything, we cannot buy that? We cannot buy the owner. We're just buying the business. So, Yeah.

That's something that need to be fixed before. So when you're building a business that runs without you, what does that really look like? That looks like the founder can go on vacation for one month, and his business is still running. Basically, he has the team that knows how to run the business.

He has the system. The sales are not dependent on him. If there is enough client or at least not just one or two client that could tomorrow. But everything is documented properly because even if a person in the team is leaving, you can replace that person, and they can get up to you know?

They by reading the SOP and the training, they can get ready to work. You know? I just missed the right word, but, like, they ramp up, and they they know how to work directly. They someone can be replaced easily.

And yeah. After, it's not just a problem with the founder dependency. Sometime, you also have key employee risk. Mhmm.

What one and it might not be the founder, but it's one person that have all the knowledge or all the that's doing the sales. It's complicated now to have a good business and to buy a good business. So let me ask you. You've helped businesses to generate leads through LinkedIn.

Right? And so what are companies doing wrong on LinkedIn then today? Okay. So sometime they will spam too much.

They will do a lot of volume instead of being more intentional, targeting better, you know, who they want to target, also generic messages. But I think what hurts the most is pitching too soon. Immediate. Yeah.

Immediate. Too soon. The amount of immediate messaging without even knowing you is all about this is what I can do for you. You don't even know what I need.

Exactly. You're just Yeah. Pitching. I am blown away as to the amount of people that just pitch and don't actually get to know they don't get to know you as a person first and as a business owner.

Yes. It's like when after they want to have the strategy call to diagnose your problem, then they will ask a question. But you can you should be doing that even when you try to get the meeting. And I agree it can take time.

It can be time consuming. But that's why if you target well, you know your ICP, you get more answers, and you will have you won't have to do it a lot. Now it's important when you're evaluating when you're doing a business valuation to know how that company does their marketing, how they, you know, capture their leads, how they're keeping track of their KPIs, and all of that. So what are some things that you help your clients to have in place in order to have a good good valuation?

Yeah. We we we create their acquisition engine. And in my first growth program, it's only we only focus on one channel, which is LinkedIn, creating the acquisition engine from LinkedIn. In my scale program, we diversify.

We are going multicanal just to not be dependent on one single source of lead generation because if let's say, should not happen. But if something happened to LinkedIn and go, then you don't have a pipeline anymore. It's diversifying. And in the exit ready package program, we we even rebuild the website so it we really have a good funnel to convert.

We look at CRM as well, so nothing goes through the crack. We even in the scale, we run some ads. So it's just diversifying the the way you can capture leads and, yeah, and focusing on the conversion, not the vanity metrics. Like, you don't need likes, for example.

Who cares? Right. It does not bring it doesn't bring anything. You want to create a presence and a system that bring you conversion.

So speaking about conversion, in order to get that to happen there, what would you say are good marketing investments that give you the highest ROI right now? Oh, it's really depending on the on the business. But for me, it has always been LinkedIn. It's it's where I have always, I don't know, generated 90% of my leads in business.

But I also like YouTube because this is where you really humanize your your presence. You can do it on LinkedIn as well, but YouTube is is a better platform for doing videos and showing your face and so people can connect with you. So now that we're talking about the different platforms, do you think that by having a social media presence well, what do you do with founders? Because you're we're talking about exit strategies.

We have an entire generation of people who are just not comfortable with doing videos and and being Exactly. For exit strategy, that's and that's the thing. Sometimes there's I have some debate here because in one end, you want to build trust. You need to show your face.

But then if you ever want to transfer the business, then there's your face all over. And I have seen that in some business I was evaluating. Say, okay. I thought, okay.

So the everybody knows founder. So either I keep his video, I I do like it's always him. Maybe I clone him with AI if he agree, or all his presence won't be useful to me. I would have to rebuild.

So I think there's two two way here. One way is just creating company, you know, business asset, you know, like a a business, not just your face, but some assets from the business only, like big companies will do. Or if you get very famous and a lot of followers and everything and you really have a legacy business, I mean, think about all the, I don't know, the movie stars or the singers, music, they are their own brand. And but they will they last they last.

We still go for their music. We still go so it could happen to you too. If the let's say, the online course, if you have an online course, really bring results forever, people will still buy it even when you're long gone. So what would you say the the thing is that you would tell a business to stop spending money on immediately?

Depending what they are spending on. But I would say, if, for example, they don't see result from an ad they are running, they should stop it. If it does not if for every $1 spent, you don't get at least $1.20, let's say, at the minimum, of course, you would like to get $5 or $10.

But if it doesn't pay back the ad spent, you should stop it because you're just leaking rather leaking money. So can you give me an example of a client that you were able to help to be able to get, you know, get them the valuation that they that they were happy with? Yes. So I will get to know the business, you know, inside out.

Like, we'll look at the numbers, but we'll look also at the operation, the acquisition engine, how the leads are coming from, the clients are coming from, what are the reviews, what is the offer. Can we create new offers that allow you to get more recurring revenue if you don't have any, improve the presence to get more visibility as a company, not especially as a founder, but as a company, and building some funnels that bring predictably leads. And depending on the offer that you have, you might have just could be you're buying we're buying your services directly on the website, let's say, or you will just get more calls and thinking about how to hand handling these calls as well.

We will look at that. So it's a lot about diversifying the customer portfolio to suppress, like, the customer concentration. We need to dilute the revenue in several clients, not just a few click lie key client. So that's one thing.

Having a predictable revenue engine, like, we know it works. We know that if we put a thousand dollars in ads, it bring us, I don't know, 5,000 in revenue. Like, proven. We can see it.

It's that's second thing. The for the revenue quality, making sure we introduce some contract that are recurring and not just, you know, one off project and and documenting a maximum of of things and installing systems so you're not doing everything yourself or or not one of the employee you have is not doing everything. And if that person is removed, there's a lot of things we can automate today, and it's it's important to be automating what can be automated. Automation is the, I think, the biggest challenge for many business owners, ones that have generational there's, you know, generations that have owned the business, but then you have you you have just a difference in the generation.

So you have the ones who, you know, did things a little the old way and the new the newer generation that wants to automate, but then you have the challenge of the two trying to, you know, find that that happy that happy place for all of them. Right? So what would you say are habits that separate successful founders from struggling founders? I would say in that era of AI and technology, like, that is changing constantly, If you don't step into that, it's gonna be difficult.

And it's not just asking questions to Claude or to LGBT. It's really building infrastructure that are AI powered and that not only saves you time, but also reduce your cost because maybe you are paying an assistant for doing something manually while it could be done by a by a system, and that system she could be using. So she could be doing something else instead of that. So, yeah, the difference of between struggling, I think, is the AI adoption.

Now what would you say we have the AI adoption. So for you, personally, what would you say that true business freedom means? What does that mean to you? True business freedom is being able to go on a trip, travel, and and still have a business that run.

This is the just because I love traveling. So the first example that come, but you can really step away, go on a vacation to take some times off or be with your family and not have a business that run you, but business that run on its own for the most part. So you help business owners do that and get there. What would you say is the biggest challenge for a business owner in being able to to to let you help them navigate them through that?

I am not fully sure, but what I say what I don't know if we mentioned it already, but I wrote a book to valuation gap. Actually, I have a copy right here. It's not for sale yet. Like, I cannot even resell it because it's the copy I am checking if it's good.

This book explain exactly how to evaluate your business like a buyer would so you can fix what's capping your growth. And inside, we talk about the customer concentration, the the revenue predictability, the funder dependency, the revenue engine, but those are just four chapters. There are 11. So we're looking at a lot of things.

And you can evaluate yourself, your business on every chapter. At the end of each chapter, you have the buyer lens, and you can evaluate where you you stand. And you can see here exactly what you should be fixing first. And at the moment, you know, since it's launching in July 27, we still have some times, but I it's possible to download the first chapter free on my website.

Oh, okay. Yeah. On exit3dstudio.com/d-valuation-gap.

Okay. Repeat that one more time. Sure. Exit3dstudio.

com,.sign/oh, gosh. D-valuation-gap, or just exit3dstudio.com, clicking on the navigation bar on exit3dinsight, and it's written the valuation gap.

It's possible to preorder, but also get a first chapter just to get a, you know, a first feel from it. That'll be a great little tease. Right? And we we're also gonna have that in the additional show notes for our audience.

Okay? Perfect. So what is what is legacy mean in the context of entrepreneurship to you? Legacy would be that the the business still can still make sales and run once the founder completely is out of the picture.

Sometimes I still I think about the the it's completely finished line. You know? Like, the the the founder is not there. Like, the children have the business, maybe.

This is to build really a business that lasts. Well, so since we're talking about children, if someone wants to build a business and they want it to be a business that lasts that the you know, for assets for their family, where should they begin? To have their children take home. But first of all, like, do the children want that?

That's because we see that a lot that businesses for example, 70 to 80% of businesses that go to market never sell because, first of all, I think a lot of the children, they want to be doing AI and they don't want to they can't or they want to be YouTuber or podcaster or other, but they don't necessarily wants to get the plumbing company or you know? So first, maybe for that, they will need to, I will say, prepare the business so it's easier to run or maybe having already an operator instead of the kid or instead of the founder.

An operator, I mean, like a CEO, someone else, a general manager Right. That will run the business, the operation, everything instead of the business owner. So one of the things and I'm not sure if you've have read the nine figure mindset book by Brandon Dawson and his wife, Natalie Dawson, does a really great job with helping business owners to understand that, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be that the family owns it. It's like really having a concept of a business that can be passed down.

Like, so so you have employees that can actually grow within the business and, you know, and and and start to grow the as they're growing the business, you're giving them a piece of the business and being able to, you know, evaluate the business so much better because you're actually duplicating yourself and as an owner you don't have to be in the business working in the business. You can be working on the business and you have more freedom and flexibility. And so that concept is a really great one that really speaks to my soul because so many times I've seen over and over where people have a business, they want their families to have it, and then it becomes a weight that Yeah.

Feel this obligation to continue and, you know, to to make it grow and scale this business. But but then there's always the challenge of how it used to be versus how you wanna do it. And, you know, so there's all those pieces. So how do you help people navigate those challenges when you come and you come to evaluate the business?

Like, do you are you able to walk them through that, talk them through it, and what that looks like in the end by being able to maybe change structure of the business of how they have it set up? I don't know if I go that far with my background. I I will work more on the, let's say, the marketing and sell because I think this is what is the most of the problem. Operationally, I would think that for a lot of depending what the business do, but in service businesses where I specialize, I think there is a lot of tools even that can be created that will do that will help them do the job more easily or just have less people doing it because the tool is helping.

There is we discussed this, you know, on a case by case basis in my exit three d program because then we know we are really preparing for sale, so we need to get this ready. Right. Before that, it might not be, you know, needed. Like, it's not it's not urgent to solve this.

But, yeah, we we have to see. What would you say that one is one of the biggest the most important KPIs that a business owner needs to be tracking? That could be it's it's related to conversion. Maybe I will say the cost of to acquire a new customer, the CAC, like CAC.

It's good for when we want to transfer the business to be able to say, okay. This cost that much money to get a new customer that is bringing that much revenue. Okay. Yeah.

Because if you want more, then you just know you have to double down on on what works, could be ad, could be something else, and and this is predictable. Also, it's not just about sorry. It's not just about growing, but it's also ensuring that the team and the system, you know, can absorb more growth because you don't want to deliver bad quality. You don't want anything to break.

So you have to ensure that as well. Check if you need to hire more people. So if so in the KPIs, the key performance indicators in any business, in any business valuation would probably be more most important to be able to track everything. You know?

So Yeah. Yeah. Tracking your sales, tracking your leads, tracking your lead management, tracking your, you know, all of the all of the pieces. And the revenue quality.

Right. Right. And so so that you know, I just wanted to leave that thought. Now if there were anything that you would wanna tell our audience would be maybe two to three teachables that would be really important for them to walk away with from our conversation, what would you say that is?

I would say start by step back. Okay. Do it again. Step back two days from your business.

See what breaks first, and fix this in priority. If that's a decision that could not be made, you need to, you know, give the knowledge to someone else or spread the knowledge, create more documentation. If that's you know, like, suddenly no more sell there is no more sales coming in, then you know that you have to build this acquisition engine online now. You know?

Check that. Those are, you know, what what I could say, the the main things will be to step away to see what specifically in this business, what is breaking because this is what you can fix, what you should be fixing. And because the solution is not always to be more more active doing more, but sometimes it's to to see you step back. You see, okay.

What's keep running? What doesn't run? You know? What would you say is one thing that you wish every entrepreneur understood?

That we all love our business. Sometimes our business is too much us. And and I know I'm a bit guilty of that as well. We are all.

But the it's to understand that if we are too close to the business, if the business is us, we don't have a business. We have a job that we cannot quit, that is stressful. Sometimes we don't get all the rewards. Sometimes we we even have to you know, we're paying team.

But if the the the business is too much us and is not running without us, this is this is, yeah, a stressful job that we have. So if the biz if the business is not running without you so if the business isn't able to run without you, then you don't actually have a business. You have a job. Yeah.

What? You created the that's what I would like to say. Yes. This is because a business should be you could have you know, you yes.

If you sell your business or not, but someone else could take the business and could be his business. If it's the for the business to run, needs you need to be in the business for everything. Yeah. It's just a job.

And, yeah, you have a lot of hat. What would you say is the best investment you've ever made? The best investment? I think at the time was when I was running my business.

I was doing I had, like, my mini marketing agency. I had my clients, everything. And it was too dependent on me, too stressful, and I made that investment in a program to learn how to make my online course, my online training and coaching program. And this has been a great change, you know, because instead of doing the job for my client, my clients were able to do it themselves, and I was just coaching them and helping them, which gave me a lot more freedom.

So I think that this was a great investment at the time. Worst worst business advice you've ever received? Oh, worst business advice I've I don't wanna say that one. I don't wanna say it.

But maybe it's the fact to as an entrepreneur, to go try to buy the business, to buy a business you haven't built. And sometimes, I feel it's finding a needle. Do you have that expression in English? Like, finding a needle in a big Haystack.

Yes. 70 I say it three times in this podcast. 70 to 80% of businesses that go to market never sell is for good reason. It's because a lot lot of businesses that go for sale are actually what we call turnaround opportunity.

You pay, but you have to rebuild it. So instead of doing that, I think just build a business. Build a good one so those who does not hear this podcast could be, you know, buying your business eventually. That's so good.

What would you say you have written a book. So what would you say is a good book for every entrepreneur to read? Another good book besides mine? Mhmm.

Okay. We talked about, like, founder dependency and things like this. I think those two books from, like, Greg McKeon, I really liked. Like, the essentialism and the effortless.

How to run a a business that is yeah. You you see how you only take the good decision. You only go where you are really needed. You don't bother with the with the fluff.

Maybe sometime I should read them again. But I like those two books. But, actually, I like them all. But those two books are good for frontal dependency.

I love that. That's that's actually really good advice there because you have to in order for you to be better and different and and learn something else, have to either be reading or taking courses or doing something to grow yourself or be around a circle that's gonna help you to elevate yourself and grow. And so so Muriel, I wanna thank you so much. And, let's just reiterate to our audience what is the the thing that how would they, you know, wanna reach out to you, find you, do business with you?

What would be the way in which they would reach you? Sure. The best way to find me is on LinkedIn. So my name, Marielle Twetty.

You'll find me on LinkedIn. You can send me a connection request. Then there is my website, exit3dstudio.com, where you can discover how I can help and also download the first chapter of my book.

And I have just created a new YouTube channel where actually I have I put all the podcast I appear on, like, all the interview in one playlist. So I have created that new YouTube channel. I it's called exit three d insights, and you can, you know, follow the journey there. I also share some tips and some sort of video, a bit like a podcast, but just for YouTube.

So thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Catherine. Mural, if you wanted our listeners to remember one thing about our conversation today about growing, scaling, and eventually exiting your business, what would you want that lesson to be? Focus on like, ensure that your business can run without you.

That's a big one. That's right there. That that's that's hard to achieve, but with the right help and getting the book, you know, and reading also those great book that I mentioned before, they can help you. So, Muriel, I wanna thank you so much for the time that you've given us and given our audience today and just for all of this great information about exit strategies.

Because I will tell you, that is probably one of the most important things is to know how to evaluate your business and be able to get to the place where you're not working in the business, but on the business so that you can actually have freedom and not a job because the purpose of going into business is not to have a job. It's to actually have a business that creates value. And, and so I just thank you. Thank you so much for being with us here today.

And for all of our audience, we just wanna thank you so much for listening and hopefully this was of value to you. And again, this is Catherine, your host with the Beyond Business Podcast. Excited to have been here sharing exit strategies today with Muriel Tucci. Thank you, Catherine.

That was great sharing this interview with you today. Have an amazing day, everyone.