🔑#1 - On Feedback

This whole thread is full of gems from the founder of a famous holding company called Red Ventures.

One of my favorites is the last line here on feedback:

Remind everyone that he is focused on the problem not the person. Then dig in.

When leading a team, I find myself reminding my team of two things:

• we ALL want the same outcome: (fill in the blank with your mission)
• any feedback I provide is to solve a roadblock preventing us from that mission. It’s not about the person. If we work together, we can solve any problem.

Direct your team’s attention to a mutually desired outcome.

Remind people that you’re in the same boat, rowing in the same direction.

Once people know they are on the same team, with the same goals, then you can provide clear candid feedback without creating interpersonal conflict.

If you forget to set the stage and remind people of your mutual goals, people may take the feedback personally.

So as a leader, don’t skip the first step. Practice setting the appropriate stage for your feedback.

One more note on feedback. Tell people they’re awesome or that they’re doing a great job. They deserve it, and it builds loyalty.

Try it out today whether you’re a leader or not. Tell someone they did a great job at something specific. ❤️

🔑#2 - Every Journey Starts With One Step

Matt runs a successful business called Clutter Cleaners and has been featured on Hoarders, but 20-years ago he was broke and just starting his service business.

His quote here makes me thinks of a line I think a lot about:

“People overestimate what they can achieve in a year, and underestimate what they can achieve over 10-years”

When I ran my first company I felt like I was on a hamster wheel, running as fast as I could but never moving fast enough. At the time I did all my business planning in 1-2 year increments. Now I do all my planning in blocks of 10 years, and life is markedly better.

Thinking long-term is an incredible life hack.

It removes a lot of stress from my life because no single bad day can hurt my mood. I know that I’m in it for a long time, and small bumps in the road are just part of the journey.

It also changes how I think about wealth and money. I’m not in a rush to be rich quick…

I also spend money more thoughtfully knowing that there is no “Get Rich Quick” in my future. I need enough “gas in my tank” to get to my 10-year mark, so I naturally conserve.

Takeaway - make big 10-year goals for yourself, and take one step towards your goal every day.

Side note, Matt has a lovely Twitter page. He shares humbling, and embarrassing stories of himself growing up, and pictures of cool items he finds while cleaning clutter. He shares a picture of an event he hosts where nobody shows up - it’s a nice reminder that nobody becomes successful all at once. It’s a hard and lonely journey.

Quick side note: I’m looking for a new TV show to watch. Reply to this email to tell me what you’re watching - I’d love to know 😊

🔑#3 - A Cool E-Waste Company

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure

My friend runs a business that charges large companies to take their e-waste (computers, servers, old phones). Then he refurbishes the products and sells them, keeping all the profits. It’s an incredible business.

On this note, here’s a business I saw for sale last week.

Lighting Recycling Firm

And some basic financials

I asked my friend to provide some feedback on this business. Here are a few of his thoughts:

Generally, waste management businesses can be lucrative.

I would focus 100% on the supply chain. Where are they sourcing from, and how diverse is it? Avoid any company that has more than 20% of their products coming from one source.

Second, who are they selling to downstream? How stable have the prices of those components and commodities been for the last 10 years?

This is seemingly a good deal for an owner-operator to buy a business with SBA.

Things I like about this deal

• The trends in this business are good. Governments and city regulation around processing waste, especially harmful waste, get more stringent over time. Businesses like this benefit from stringent regulation.
• In 2013, this company bought another business in the South-East US. So it seems like there’s an opportunity to grow through acquisition that has already been proven out.

Things I would research in this deal

• It looks like they have a lot of variance in their Ebitda margin. That’s a risk you would want to explore during diligence.
• You’d want to dig into “EBITDA” VS. true free cash flow. Sellers inflate their “free cash flow” numbers by disguising it at EBITDA. All you care about as a buyer is Free Cash Flow (money you can put in your pocket and pay off debt)

Reply to let me know if you liked Tweet 1, 2 or 3 most. Also, you can check out last week’s newsletter here.

Have a glorious week,

~ Sieva

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