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Mr. Biz Radio: Using a Business to Create Wealth

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

(00:04):

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio, Biz. Talk for Biz owners. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

(00:18):

All right, welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz Radio, with me, Mr. Biz Ken Wentworth. And this week we're gonna talk about man, there's got a whole bunch of different things I wanna talk about with our guest this week. He is a repeat guest. We had such a good time talking with him. The last time he was on that, I, I, I asked him to come back on and actually, we re we sched, we scheduled him on the show right after we finished the last show because I knew it, it would be, I mean, there's so many other things I wanted to talk to him about after the first show. One of the things we are gonna talk about is using a business to create wealth, because again, we've got a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that, that watch and listen to the show.

(00:55):

So I wanted to make sure we kind of touch on some of that, but we're gonna touch on a whole lot of different things. Our guest this week is Mr. Christopher Volk is a three-time n y s e listed company leader, two-time company founder, successful financer of thousands of middle market companies, and most recently, the author of "The Value Equation, A Business Guide to Wealth Creation for Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Investors". He is passionate about entrepreneurship and how business models create wealth, and we are glad to have him back on Mr. Biz Radio for more of his insights. Chris, welcome back to the show,

(01:25):

Ken, I'm absolutely delighted to be here. It's nice to see you.

(01:28):

Yeah, it's great to see you as well. So I guess, you know, for those who didn't see the first show that you were on, which by the way, if you haven't, go back and and check that out. It was several months ago now, but it was an awesome show. Like I said, it was so great. I'm like, gosh, Chris, you gotta come back on. But tell us a little bit about your journey. I, I know it's, it's a long one, but give, give us the, the, the shorter version, I guess of, of the, your entrepreneurial journey.

(01:52):

Yeah, I'll try to give you the, the Cliffs Notes version. <Laugh> yeah, there you go. I was, I was not a born entrepreneur, but I started my career in banking and I ended up migrating from Georgia to Arizona and started working with a small company that did sale lease facts with chain restaurant operators. So think about restaurant operator can either own the building or rent it from a landlord. We were that landlord, and we would buy the restaurant for him. It would save him a lot of money. It would actually increase his returns on equity, and that's what we did. And and I was, you know, my late twenties, early thirties, and by the time I was 36, I decided that we should take the company public. And so when I was 38, we did, we took it public and I ended up becoming president of the company.

(02:34):

And after being public for seven years, sold it. And I sold it to GE Capital, so not no longer around, but big financing company. And I stayed there for 18 months and left. And I decided that I had this shot to start my own business. And, and I was 47, I think at the time, and I thought, you know, this would be a good, good time to get it done. So I he had the original founder and myself of the first company started a second company, and we listed that on the New York Stock Exchange. Ultimately sold that. And then years later, I took another team when I was about 55 years old, started my third N Y S C company and ran it for 10 years and stepped down to do things like this and to write a book and and to talk about entrepreneurship.

(03:19):

Yeah. So I guess let's, let's get into that a little bit. So the vantage point that you have now of, of everything, and I know we were talking before we came on air here, but what are some of the things that you're seeing? You know, everyone's talking about the R word. Are we in a recession? Are we not in a recession, the economic downturn? I know you and I, I think had some similar thoughts on, you know, while the economy might be down a bit, it does create a lot of opportunity. So what are some things you're seeing from your vantage point, Chris?

(03:45):

Yeah, so you and I were talking about this just part of the show, but in 2019, I was fortunate enough to win a regional award from Ernston Young for Entrepreneur of the Year out in the southwest. And and so now today I judge this with, with the folks from E n Y and, and other judges. And so we've started doing this year's round of investors and, and companies. And I would tell you, you get so excited watching all the businesses that are out there. And some of them are biotech and some of them are genomics. Some of them are, you know, roofing companies. There's a company that's doing automatic, you know, automated handwritten thank you notes. So they, they span the gamut from from technology to running restaurants, to running roofing companies and consolidating businesses. And and I personally get excited about all of this. And and, and so when we talk about a recession, it's hard for me to always see it when I'm talking to entrepreneurs who are so perpetually positive anyway. And, and and it makes you just sort of feel good.

(04:49):

Yeah. Well, it's interesting to me, I know we talked again right before we started the show here, but I think what I found is you see people, you know, I, I recognize, and I I, you know, I was saying this middle of last year, like, we're in a recession, we've, the classic definition of recession, we're in it, we, we were in it the middle of last year, right? Two consecutive quarters of, of decreasing declining gdp. However, just because I'm using the R word, I don't think about it <laugh> with the way a lot of other people, I think think about it because I think of it as a, as a, a time of opportunity if you've positioned yourself in a way some of your competitors have it, and it's gonna create a lot of opportunity, not only for new businesses and new startups and things.

(05:30):

I know you and I were talking about a little bit about some of the amazing businesses that were hatched during the last economic downturn in, you know, the 2008, 2009 timeframe. But also the opportunity if, you know, if you own a, a roofing company to say, you know, on not all your competitors are prepared for this, this, this downturn. And they may have limped through covid and just starting to recover, and then, you know, the economy starts to, to, to have some challenges they may not make it through. So it presents some opportunities to seize some markets share, not in a nefarious way. You know, even during Covid, I had one client who two of his, his competitors went outta business during Covid. And, you know, we were able to buy some, some business assets at, at dimes on the dollar.

(06:16):

We were able to re-employ people who were going to be losing their jobs. Two and two of the cases, the owners were, you know, they're baby boomers. They're, they're getting a little bit older and they were kind of wanting to, you know, maybe hang on for a few more years, and they're like, Hey, this is it. I don't wanna do this anymore. And so they kind of got a little, not necessarily golden parachute in the corporate world, but you know, something like that kind of a, they were able to get out of the business, their employees stayed employed they were able to get, get, get outta the assets and things like that. And it was a huge opportunity for my client. So, you know, I think it's just how you view these things. And Chris, I think you, you probably agree with that as well.

(06:51):

Oh, totally. I mean you know, one of the companies I was talking to today was environmental re remediation companies. So they're, they're dealing with asbestos removal, they're dealing with fire damage and cleaning up company, you know, cleaning up companies, buildings that, that incur this kind of damage and need this kind of remediation. And for them, a lot of the opportunities consolidation. So they engaged a private equity firm to come in and put some money in, in alongside of them. And they're buying up other companies around the country. We've seen this in lumber supply. I've seen this in you know, with a, with a roofing company, similar type of thing. So they're, they're in, in indeed, a lot of opportunities out there for companies to grow in times like this.

(07:30):

Well, and especially, I think it's, it's almost like the perfect storm because you have a lot of business owners that are baby boomers that are maybe, you know, in their sixties or so that, you know, again, they maybe they were gonna hang on for a few years and they're like, okay, I made it through Covid and that's it. I I don't want to go through this, you know, for the next 18, 24 months. It's time. And I think even, even outside, once the economy does kind of kick back up, and I, I think you're gonna have, there's so much transfer of ownership that's gonna happen over the next, you know, three to five years anyway. Especially with a lot of these service companies, you know, the plumbers, the roofers et cetera. There's gonna be a lot of that going on. And I think maybe the economy turning down is gonna accelerate some of that.

(08:13):

Right. And, and I think also that business is the number one path to wealth. I mean, it's, you know, two-thirds of millionaires got their wealth through owning or running a business and and so if you're sitting there in a, in a economy that's looking rough, it's just more incentive to say that, Hey, I'm gonna just try something new. I'm gonna do this myself. And oftentimes that really works out incredibly well for people.

(08:38):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, guys, this week, again, we're talking with repeat guests, Mr. Chris Volk. You can find out more at his website, thevalueequation.com. We'll put it in the show notes as well. Definitely go check that out. Come back after the break. We'll give the Mr. Biz tip of the week, and we're gonna talk about efficiencies that cover six variables in business models.

(09:01):

If you would like to reach hundreds of thousands of business owners every week, Mr. Biz radio can help . Our show airs globally seven days a week for more than 25 hours across several internet radio stations, plus 20 plus podcast platforms. Also video exposure on the new exclusive Mr. Biz network streaming channel, which gets blasted to 100 plus streaming platforms and the Mr. Biz YouTube channel and our 350,000 social media followers multiple times every week. Join Mr. Biz nation as an advertiser by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

(09:40):

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(10:10):

Got a question for Mr. Biz. You want answered on air, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(10:21):

All right, welcome back to the show. It's time for Mr. Biz tip of the week. And I gotta admit I, I can't really claim this one. This is you know, the tip of the week, and sometimes I have quotes as you guys know, but I actually kind of stole this one from Jamie Diamond who is the chairman and C E O of JP Morgan Chase. Many of you know, I worked there for a long time, and I, I, this is one of the things that, you know, there's a whole bunch of different things that he said that I just absolutely loved. If this is one I really like, especially as a small, medium sized business owner, and that is to hire people who will ask for forgiveness versus ask for permission. And that sounds a little silly at the, at the outset.

(10:55):

What that means is hire people that aren't afraid to take the risk. You know, if, if, if someone's gonna come to you as a leader in your company and constantly ask you, ask, you, ask you about different things, you know, it's like, well, geez, why are they even there? Why are they leader? Why are they decision maker? If they have to come to you all the time, hire someone that has the chutzpah to be able to make some of those decisions. Are you gonna agree with all of them? Maybe not, but you know, obviously they, you, they're in that position because you trust their judgment and in most cases, and I just always love that, that mentality of not being able to, not being afraid to take some of those risks that are necessary to be successful in business. So that is the Mr.

(11:33):

Biz tip of the week, courtesy of Mr. Jamie Diamond <laugh>. So alright, Chris, so let, let's talk a little bit about this. So I, I know especially in your book Value Equation, you talk about and we're gonna talk about, you know, creating wealth with business and things like that. But I know one of the things that intrigued me as a self-professed numbers nerd as you talk about, you know, in business models, there's basically three efficiencies that are covered by six different variables. And I wanted to know I wondered if we could kind of dive into that a little bit and, and, and kind of dissect that.

(12:04):

Sure. Happy to. I mean, first I'm gonna say that three efficiencies and six variables is pretty simple. And, and my goal is to take business and try to reduce it to something that's simple. I'm gonna make it a little simpler for you today. I'm gonna talk about two variables. We'll start off with two and okay. And we'll talk about four efficiencies. So and the four efficiencies that you start off with always are sales. I mean, and, and there's not a single business in the world that ever went outta business cause they had too many sales. The second thing is your operating profit margin, which is basically your cash flow at your, your cash profits after your cost, but before you pay for interest expense and before you're paying for rent you know, lease proceeds from, from people that are leasing stuff to you.

(12:48):

And so that you're operating profit margin and those two variables, you wanna maximize those two. And and they're associated with operating efficiency. So you want the most operating efficiency you can get. And the second efficiency is asset efficiency, which basically starts off with what's your business investment. And business investment is all the stuff that you have to fund with equity and borrowings and lease proceeds. And you want to make that as low as possible. And and the last variable is your maintenance CapEx. How much money do you have to keep putting into the business every year to kind of keep what you've got? You know, and you want to keep that as low as possible. So on the capital efficiencies, I mean on the, on the asset efficiency side, you wanna minimize that operating efficiency, you wanna maximize that. And when you string those four things together, what you end up with is a return on equity That's without debt of course, but it's a return on equity pre leverage. And, and of course no bank's gonna lend you nickel unless you can actually have positive cash flow to be able to pay for the debt service. And so that's where you start is, is sort of unlevered equity returns four variables to efficiencies that gets you there.

(14:04):

Yeah. And I think that's an important consideration that a lot of people don't consider is well, number one first of all, these four cover the gamut, I think, and I think they're very while there's only four, it's pretty comprehensive as far as the different aspects of your business and, and how to measure those. But the other thing I love about your approach, Chris, is I think too often people just either way, way oversimplify things and they're, they're, you know, they're doing their financials on the back of a napkin practically, or they're like going to Harvard for business school to to, to try to figure things out. And it's like, not that there's anything wrong with that, and not that there's not good to understand some of those things in depth in that manner, but man, it's just like you can really break things down and simplify things. What I've found, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, Chris, the more things that you give someone to pay attention to, the less any of them are getting done properly, <laugh>.

(14:59):

Well, this is true. And so if you're an entrepreneur, especially, you're working by yourself, maybe you have a pretty lean staff, you don't have a lot of people that are gonna rely, that you can rely on to get things done. And so you have to keep your list super, you know, super short and your tasks super simple and and so when you're focusing on business models, you're focusing on basically the, the four variables to start off with. And the reason this stuff is so important is because it's great to have a business and solve customers problems and have your customers be happy with you. But unless you have a really good business model, unless you can wrap that customer service around a great business model, then it's hard to create a lot of wealth. So the, the wealth is what is driven by the business model, and it's how the richest people in the world got that way.

(15:45):

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess along those lines what are, I mean, other than these four, what are some other things that you have seen Chris, that are key measurables? So, again, I, I, I'm kind of reiterating what I said earlier, but you know, I've, I've gone into businesses that are clients that, you know, they're say they'll, they're super proud. They're like, oh, Ken, I got, let me show you our KPIs. And they've got 20 KPIs they measure. And it's like, well, you know, to, for me, the first thing I do is I say, you need five at the most. Take the other 15 and put 'em on page two or something like that. Or let, let's pick out the five key to start. What are the real needle movers for the business? Let's nail those down and really have focused attention on those a and set some goals for those.

(16:32):

Once we get them to a goal state and they're there for a quarter, we can move them to page two and move something else up to page one. We still monitor them and make sure they stay at where they need to be, things like that. But I think people again, just sort of you know, overdo things a lot of times. So, but, but what, what is, is there anything else that you see, Chris, that is something that people really need to focus on that oftentimes you find that business owners just don't pay enough attention to?

(16:58):

Well, you know, no business ever went out of business because they had too much sales. They do go out of business because they can't control costs. So that's very important. They really go out of business cuz they run outta cash, I mean mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So you can lose a lot of money, but if you run outta cash, that's the, that's the death net. And so so as you're focusing on on trying to control your business investment and making sure you have a lot of liquidity, cuz liquidity is I had a mentor once who said, liquidity is everything, and it is,

(17:29):

Yeah. I, I agree a hundred percent. So let me ask you this one. This is a little bit of a loaded question. How do you feel about budgets, Chris?

(17:40):

I feel good about budgets in the sense that, you know, budgets are goals that you're setting for yourself. If you don't set a goal for yourself, it's a problem. I mean, you, so you, you need have, you need to put a line in the sand and say, this is what I'm gonna accomplish this year. And the budget's a way of doing that. Now your budget, especially if you're starting off a business, your budget and your business model will invariably be wrong. Which is why you wanna have a business model that's got a big margin for error. You wanna be able to make a lot of mistakes and still make a return for your investors, still make a return on the business. And if you could do that, then you're in and gonna be in, in solid shape. So you know, I've taken a lot of risks starting businesses, but they haven't been unreasonable risks. And I've always slept very well at night with the risks I've taken because I've been able to manage 'em.

(18:24):

Yeah. And the reason I said it's a loaded question is that's one of my, I I call 'em three pillars of financial success. When I work with a client, even when I'm talking with a prospective client, if they don't have a budget, I said, we're gonna create a budget, and if that's a deal breaker for you, then I'm not your guy because I find that they're critically important. Because again, it gives you something, as you mentioned, the measure back against the goals you have for the year. And again, invariably there are gonna be things you're gonna get wrong and, you know, things aren't gonna blow up the budget during the year, but you make adjustments to that and you're not just spending money frivolously and, and and and things like that. So I think it's very important for a budget to have a budget and I think those goals and goes right along with that. The guys are talking with Chris Volk this week. We're gonna hit a break. We're gonna come back, check out his book, "The Value Equation" at thevalueequation.com.

(19:11):

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(19:41):

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(20:12):

Check out all three of Mr. Business best-selling books at mrbizbooks.com. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(20:22):

Alright, Welcome back to the show. And we are going to pick Chris's brain a little bit here. You can hear with his vast experience and the success that he's had in the entrepreneurial space and business ownership space. So Chris, I know one of your big things, especially in your book, the value equation is, is, is creating wealth through a business. What are some of the ways to use a business as an engine to create that, that generational wealth that so many people are looking forward?

(20:48):

Well, the number one way of creating huge generational wealth is to have a business model. And you start off with the four variables and the two efficiencies we talked about mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and, and you want to create returns for shareholders that are more than what they expect and more than what they need. And basically every company that's created huge amounts of wealth, if you're looking at the Forbes 400 or whatnot, all these people are made their money in business and they all had phenomenal business models generating returns that were higher than what investors needed to make. And so basically the owners got to keep the spread. I mean, that's what happens. Now you can be worth, you know, you can make millions of dollars just by having a company that doesn't create a lot of wealth. In other words, it's not really worth much more than the cost to create, but you're building up equity in it over time.

(21:38):

And, and that's, that's good because, you know, if you're, if you're just a W2 employee, all you're doing is putting money in a 401k or you're putting money into an ira. And that's one thing if you're owning a business, even if it creates no real incremental wealth, at least you're building up equity in that business, which is a second way of, you know, creating wealth for yourself. But the third way is to create a business that's generating return that's higher than what people want. And that is the way the turbocharges your wealth to get you into sort of a, a, a level of wealth that's gonna be high. And if you're thinking about people that are worth five or 10 million or more than that 50 million, this is generally how they've made their wealth. Yeah,

(22:20):

And I think I'm, I'm glad you brought that up because it is interesting. Another thing that, you know, when I worked at JP Morgan, one of the things that you know, Jamie Downer talked about along those lines is e even as, as we are W2 employees, he said, you know, if you think about employees that have become wealthy in the Silicon Valley companies and things like that, he said they didn't, they didn't get wealthy by getting 10% pay increases every year. They got wealthy through ownership, right, through stock ownership. And, and you know, in a way, I mean a very small minority mo ownership, right? But you know, that's, that's and building that wealth within the company. And so that's how even working for a Microsoft to Google and things like that throughout the years Facebook, et cetera, you know, in a way, if you think about it, that's, it's a form of business ownership, a very minority, as I mentioned, minuscule ownership state, but that, that created a ton of wealth, not the pay, the 10% pay increases every year and things like that.

(23:15):

No, it's almost impossible to well, let's look it this way. There are 12% of Americans that I've seen that are, there are millionaires, and it drops off to if, if for Americans that have two per two, $2 million, it drops off to 6%. So basically, you know, a lot of Americans could save 12, you know, they could save a million bucks, but it's really hard to save 2 million bucks. And as you get further up above 2 million the way you get there is by owning something, not by earning something. And, and so Ken, you write on that stuff, you gotta own, you gotta own something, you gotta own a piece of the pie.

(23:49):

Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. And, and it's one of the things I love too about, again, I keep going back to my corporate career, but you know, as, as folks that are out there that are watching or listening that maybe they're, you're not a business owner, you say, ah, it doesn't apply to me, it can apply to you. Because I'll tell you one of the things, you know, as you ascend the ranks, at least at I think at a lot of companies, but especially, you know, a Fortune 15 company like JP Morgan, you know, once you get above a certain level, your, your annual bonus, you're required a, a big chunk of it, and it it becomes an increasingly large chunk of your bonus and your compensation throughout the year. And your o overall compensation is in the form of stock ownership. Because, you know, as, as Jamie Diamond mentioned, you know, back then, as he said, I want people to, to eat their own cooking, so to speak, right?

(24:30):

You're, you're, you want to help create the wealth in, in the company, and then you're required to hold it. You couldn't sell that stock. So you're not making short-term decisions that are, you know, just gonna make a, a, a, a short term return and then have devastating impacts down the road. Where we've seen with, you know, companies, I just did a video about bed Bath and Beyond. It's like, holy crap. But what happened there, you know? And I started diving into some of the things that, that they did and some of the mistakes they made and some of the sh very short term you know, decisions they were making that just I, I can't even imagine. I didn't even look into the leadership and their, their background, but I was amazed at some of the things I found when I was sort of digging through their financials and like, why would they make some of those decisions they made? It was just crazy. But the, the impact being, you know, having that long-term view of building that equity in the company, building that wealth and, and returning to shareholders like you had mentioned Chris,

(25:24):

Right? I mean the whole thing is owning a piece of the, a piece of the action. So if you're a, a senior executive in a company, you're invariably gonna own some stock and, and and if you're not owning some stock, you should go somewhere else where somebody's gonna give you a piece of stock. And and of course if you're starting a company, then, then, then it goes without saying that you're an equity owner, but, but owning something is where people really create huge amounts of wealth. It's, it's hard to save yourself into wealth with a w2.

(25:52):

So, and I, I, I think I know the answer to this based on your first company, but how important do you think does real estate play into all of that?

(26:02):

Well, you know, real estate's a is it is a business in and of itself. So, I mean, if you're, if you're owning apartment complexes or whatever, it's a business in and of itself. And, and the rules for that business are the same as the rules for any other business, whether it's biotechnology or anything else. And the, and the rules are, if you can generate returns that are higher than what other people want, you know, you're gonna be able to sell that business for a lot more money. And so and, and sometimes real estate and land is a store of wealth, so you can just sit on it for a long period of time, and it could be a, a store of wealth the big money that gets made in people's lifetime, the kind of stuff where people can shift their net worth in four or five years to something really meaningful that all happens tends, tends to happen anyway with operating businesses. So it, it could be as simple as a restaurant, it could be a finance business, it could be biotech, it could be doing a roofing supply company plumbing, but it tends to be owning a business and being able to generate returns on that business that are higher than what people want, and then being able to sell that business eventually for multiples what you paid for.

(27:04):

Yeah. I, I, I mean, I think a big part of that, for me, at least, I know as an investor myself, you know, looking at businesses now, when I get approached to look at a business to potentially purchase a, a piece of it or the whole thing, generally speaking, if, if, if, if there's not real estate with it that they don't own the building, they're in the land they're on, I'm typically not interested because I want to know that I at least have that asset. That's all, you know, that's a big part of that business. Whether the business has some struggles or not, I, I still have that asset. And I think you know, that's, you know, again, a long term play on, on, on overall in your, you know, portfolio. Again, you don't want everything in real estate, you gotta balance things out a little bit, but I think that's an important consideration that people should make as well.

(27:48):

Well, I, I made my living for the better part of my career in convincing people convincing companies that they were better off not owning their real estate. Exactly. Yeah. Because they were better off having a landlord than a banker. And and I was gonna be their landlord. And there were reasons for that, because the return I was going to make on their real estate was gonna be less than the return that they were gonna make on their business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and there were many, many reasons beyond that, why businesses oftentimes are not better off owning on real, you know, owning a lot of real estate. And you look at a co companies like Kohl's or whatever, that's another retailer chain, I mean they own a lot of real estate. It hasn't really done them a lot of favors to own this real estate from a return on equity perspective there's been a lot of value destruction that happens with companies that own too much real estate.

(28:36):

But for us and for our shareholders, owning real estate was the business we were in. I mean and so it was an asset backed business, and you do have that comfort of maybe you're not gonna make the highest returns in the world. Our, our business model wasn't near as good as Microsoft or near as good as Apples, but we were, we were asset backed and, and there was a cushion to it, and we didn't have a lot of data on our company. And so you had limited downside, you had some decent upside, and, and we were able to, to give that to our shareholders and we outperformed the broader benchmarks including the s and p 500 and basically every company I ever ran.

(29:10):

Yeah. Yeah. Powerful stuff, Chris. Powerful stuff. Well, we we're out of time here, but again, we were talking with Chris Volk. You can follow him on on, in social media, LinkedIn, et cetera, but make sure you go out and check out his website, thevalueequation.com. Like I said, we'll put it in the show notes as well. But Chris, thanks so much for coming back on a show. I really appreciate it.

(29:28):

And Kenneth, my pleasure. And it's so good to see you.

(29:30):

Yeah, good to see you as well, guys. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Have a great rest of your week. And as always, don't forget, cashflow is king

(29:40):

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