Michelle Tinsley Success Story Video For Blackmore Partners Inc.

[Music] so Michelle uh I would like to start off with having you introduce yourself your background and how you first started uh working with Blackmore Partners Inc but let's just start with your history as an executive sure sure so I started my work career in Corporate America got hired into Intel right out of college and uh basically had an 18-year journey in the finance function working my way up to Executive levels and then moved sideways into the general management p&l management product and eventually sales um so after 26 years I kind of got caught up in a corporate reorg and decided it was my time to kind of take the parachute um I went into Consulting for a year and then became a seite Founder at a startup and after six years in startup land I'd always kind of started thinking in the back of my head over the last few years after this I don't have it in me to go do yet another startup I'd like to get into private Equity I've had friends that have gone that route and seem to be really enjoying it so um as I left last fall my last startup I decided okay let me research how do I get into private Equity let talk about that that one thought you you said I want to get into private Equity why not stay in startups well the challenge with startups is they're highly unpredictable um you know things like covid or a bank uh crisis with svb failing all of these things affect the uh potential of your business and so you know it's just really frustrating and as a Founder you end up putting your personal cash into the company to make payroll um it's a constant funding cycle and then honestly the the talent is really you know hodg Podge you know um in terms of who you're working with your partners a lot of times other companies won't work with you because you're just small and you're unpredictable you're risky and so I thought you know I'd like to take my skill set and kind of go play with a business that has a lot more capabilities that's already established already EIT a positive and really kind of take it from A to B and really grow it and scale it that's really great let and you know what's so great is you're a a CFO who became an operator of uh operations person and uh and CEO I and I just got to tell you that I love that combination because in when you run a private Equity owned company it's all about cash flow and you're not only a cash flow person you're a marketing person let's talk a little bit about continue with this journey and talk about the intersection of these skills and how they play in the private Equity game and what you're learning yeah so the first thing I did when I thought okay I want to get into private Equity I guess I'll just start applying for jobs and that was a complete fail it was like running into a buzs saww because what the applicant systems would ask me is have you worked in the past for a private Equity owned company and being honest I'd say no and so instantly my uh resume was tossed and I wouldn't get an interview and so I thought this is crazy um what I did learn was there avenues like Blackmore partners and I eventually landed on Blackmore's the one for me because what I liked is it's a CEO Centric model it looks at the individual and says Michelle what are your passions what are your strengths what are your skills s go develop a deal thesis that you're passionate about that we will then help you with matchmaking to get the funding Partners from private Equity firms or family offices and then basically advance that thesis go find the targeted companies acquire them you know it is a long play and what I kind of had to counsel myself in is okay I'm I'm making a commitment to myself that I'm going to enter into this journey I don't know what's going to happen I'm going to follow it for a year or two but in the process of following that Journey I'm going to be picking up really valuable skills that are useful in many careers and to pay the bills then what I will do is I'll consult again which I can certainly do I just didn't find that hugely rewarding because half your Consulting clients don't follow your advice you know so for me it's just a bit frustrating to feel like you did all this hard work telling them here's the outline of what you need to go do to be successful and they say thank you pay you and don't do anything and so you know I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life but I was like I can do that for a year or two to fund my journey on the PE path um and work with a partner like Blackmore that will get me the exposure and the introductions to the people that I don't know yet that are going to teach me a lot but also open doors for me I think you're on mute Gerald you've you've met a lot of Executives uh at Blackmore side and the Blackmore connects can you talk a little bit about the different business units uh for the people watching this uh webinar about Blackmore and the past and then how they intersect and then where I'm going to take you after that as I want to talk to you about what you learn about is what is the winning mindset what is for those of us listening who are Executives who want to get in private Equity what's what are the dos and don'ts of thinking and acting but let's start off with the different business units yeah so when I looked at different CEO Centric approaches what stood apart at Blackmore is that you're kind of more of a three-pronged you know work with one prong being what everybody else has which is this educating the um uh Executives and trying to get a deal done but what Blackmore adds to that is the recruiting function so they actually have a business around sourcing and finding people that other companies that are doing deals need say a CFO or VP of sales or or a COO and so they have that act that you know mindset of what a recruiter needs but they're not a recruiting standard recruit recruiting business you know that just charges percents they actually are paid on success and so they're always looking at the mindset of a PE what would pees look for as they recruit they're not just you know a standard recruiting firm and then the third piece being this virtual events conference format so again having a regular Cadence now almost 50 you know conferences in where they look at having this flywheel of introducing private Equity firms to these Executives and no two executives are the same what I found as one of the biggest value propositions of Blackmore was through these conferences and webinars and networking getting to know the other people on the similar path and journey as me but we all had different backgrounds some people were passionate about the rail industry some people were passionate about medical tech people with an engineering background or an IP patent background you know so you know me coming with you know Finance then operations and sales you know I was different than the rest but we weren't competitive and we could help each other and we found a lot of value in networking with each other to kind of say okay let me you know hear what your background lends to the equation and how that might be helpful to my journey and my advancing of my thesis oh you're on mute again oh let's talk about mindset I like to say to be a a success in private Equity one of the patterns I notice with and for those of you um watching if you go to Blackmore connects.com for SL success you can see 30 plus folks like Michelle and one of the things I and I want you to comment on my thinking one of the things I've noticed uh Michelle is those that are successful have very strong desire to do this they just they said this shall be and they have faith and you described it I'm I know it's going to take uh time I don't know where it's going to end but I want to do this because being a W2 weight slave is not an option I don't want to go back to the big corporate world I want a piece of that lifechanging Equity so we find does strong desire Faith because it's like planting corn uh you you got to have faith that that's going to come up you don't plant the corn and then go go out to the Garden next day where's my corn and a lot of Executives I notice do that but so it's strong desire Faith persistence persistence and persistence to unlock the iter of patterns it takes to connect with the owners and connect with the c potential customers connect with private equity and then the plan we' like to say Michelle that Blackmore Partners has a measurable repeatable process for helping bable exec like Michelle and those of you listening to help you monetize your background into an acquisition-based deal thesis then we nurture you along to build up the funnel of owners connecting with the owners and ultimately the money and then you're in your seat with salary bonus minimum 5% Equity without putting money in but Michelle what do you find what did you find about the executives that were on the court you know they're just kind of in the stands versus on the court what did you notice the mindset the language the behaviors so we can have people self- select here sure sure I think part of that is making the commitment it's a bit of risk taking um but then you know I look at and go I think I personally can invest in myself I believe in myself enough that I'm willing to take the risk on investing in my future career path so it does mean making some financial and time investment into this path you know there is a nice thing about Blackmore and that you can get started for free you can sign the contract to attend six webinars go to your first virtual conference um you know halflight conference for free but at some point you do need to then start investing in your own self in your personal career and I look at it and go like an MBA or a master's degree is 50k plus this is a fraction of that um but it means then not only signing up for future conferences but getting yourself the tools you know so for me I wanted to automate this I uh signed up to get a CRM subscription and started you know automating the Outreach to Target companies as well as PE firms I signed up to go to in-person conferences by the ACG I joined ACG as a member what ACG Michelle talk about ACG and what it's like and what's the conference experience like on this light conference versus full conference at the uh Blackmore connects virtual conferences give us some contrast please yeah so ACG stands for the association for corporate growth uh they Nationwide with many chapters in the large cities in the US so you can go to both inperson events locally but they also have a National Conference which for me the timing worked out great it was April um and so I went to that in person and literally there 3,100 people from the world of private Equity there hundreds of PE firms investment Banks as well as all the supporting um industry functions so things like law firms that work to get deals done due diligence and advisory firms um CPA accounting and tax firms and you know it was pure gold just networking with these people asking about their Journey how they get into working in the world of private Equity but also then understanding that when I get a yes on my deal thesis when I find a Target company to go to choire I'm now building my arsenal of supporting firms that will help me get a deal done and help me do it correctly um and so you know for me it was just a huge learning experience it was almost like a two three day you know immersive course um but then also learning how to get your timing down on your own introduction of why you're in private Equity what your deal thesis is about um and get feedback on that you know so there were some that were saying hey I don't think your thesis is going to work and here's why there were others that were like I love it let's do a follow-up meeting next week and let's introduce you to our partners that didn't come to the conference so to me you know the threein stack high of paper you know business cards was pure gold um and and I just look at that and go again there's no harm in networking and and building the relationships with these folks be great Michelle one of the things uh as you know U prepping Executives for the black more connects I act as an adjunct professor that's what I look at my role given that uh I've been in this business for 25 plus years um the purpose of a deal thesis uh from my point of view is it's a way of of of talking to what private Equity firms care about is deals now I often hear a lot of EX I don't have a deal so therefore I can't get into private Equity or can't go to conferences talk a little bit about the per a framing what is a deal thesis why have it and in order to get into the private equity game to start the process do I have to have a deal I think for me it's a door door opener it's almost like a creative writing exercise to say I'm going to take a little bit of a risk put an idea out there because again what the private Equity firms want to talk about is a deal and they want to see your thinking they want to see is there any kind of industry research you know literally a 10-minute Google search trying to tie in some of the sizing of the market the opportunity you're looking at for me I had picked fintech which is such a big Market I needed to narrow that down into specifically here's the type of deal I'd want to do for me it was a portal in the payments in health care space and so you know being able to answer questions around why why Healthcare payments why do you think now you know what kind of disruption or trans uh transformation is helping in payments in in digital um Health Care to kind of make it the right timing now and again the feedback you're going to get from these dialogues with PE firms is pure gold so I'd always say you it's just like um building a business model in a startup land where you put your you know lean business model canvas out there a little bit different formatting here but it's the same kind of approach where you're now through these Discovery interviews with PE firms going to learn a lot about your thesis and pivot it over time and for me what it meant was because I've had a diverse background in lots of different Industries don't just have one you know uh come up with 2 three four I was actually giving myself the homework assignment that by my June conference to have three deal thesis available to talk about so that I would broaden my network of PE firms and the type of because they're following an investment thesis where they look at particular Industries and they again have networks and domain experience in certain industries so the more of these deal thesis I have worked up the more matches I'm going to get so to speak um so again it's a little bit of risk-taking to trust the process and follow it but I go it's kind of like any kind of sales or BISD experience where you got to say hey the the process has been defined I'm just going to follow it and keep turning that crank because it's not 100% yield I should not expect 100% yield but in this I'm going to learn on the ones that keep advancing on why they're advancing and and there's value in that really great so makes me think about the funnel so Michelle one of the things uh I talk to 200 of you a month at least first meetings right because I'm a I'm a missionary my some people are missionary for god um missionary for God and private equity and as a missionary what you know I'm I want to convert people into uh getting involved having the faith we'll provide the plan but you you're the you know uh you're the boots on the street and we talk about you have to have a funnel of owners you have to have a funnel of potential customers you have to have a funnel of PE firms we say about 200 the average executive that I meet uh when they're coming into the top of my my first meeting they've met over their whole lifetime five to 10 private Equity firms okay and when I if they're interviewing they might tell me well I'm interviewing with two P firms you know I think I'm top on their list so I'll get back to you if I don't get the job can you talk about the funnel and private Equity some of the criteria private Equity Executives who want to get into private Equity whether it's with the deal thesis route or it's the Outreach route about the um what private Equity is like and why you need a big fun we say a minimum 200 who are in your wheelhouse that means they invest they like your space your industry go ahead and show yeah so private Equity firms are going to basically be living off of their management fees so they have got to be super focused on their expenses but also focused on their time um because that management fees is typically like one two% of the assets that they have under management um they have a very limited staff and so today their biggest challenge and I always try to put myself in their shoes um is their biggest challenge is just they can only get so many deals done let's say that because of their staff they can do maybe 30 deals a year by tapping into a model like Blackmore they can maybe do 3540 deals a year because yes they're getting more opportunities brought to them by bable Executives um that fit their wheelhouse fit their Niche and you know basically they can invest in that and deploy more Capital that helps them spread their risk because this is for them a portfolio game they know they're not going to have 100% um yield on every company they invest in they're not all going to exit at the same time at the same multiples and so they're looking at it for the how can we diversify ourselves spread our Bets with many more bets across this industry that said they're not going to start doing bizarre thing if they're focused on agtech they're not going to get into fintech you know so so this is again where the Blackmore connects really gets into the process of matchmaking the what's their investment thesis with what's the executives deal thesis um so yeah for me it was really the you know just as we're working a funnel they're working a funnel and what you're really trying to do is find that intersect of the two well well said let me add some color here so Michelle talked about doing 30 deals a year the majority of those deals are add-ons for current portfolio companies a typical private Equity Firm if they have 300 million they divide that by 10 platforms and they may go okay we want to do for each of those platforms three to five add-ons or more a year so private Equity firms typically uh a $300 million fund uh and bigger they might only have 15 people and private Equity knowledge is very specialized knowledge it's not like they can get plug in an AI machine at least this at least today and everything I'm hearing from the folks in AI private Equity is a very highly selective person business uh and they can't necessarily scale it if they do scale it it takes multiple Generations a generation in private Equity is 10 years the private Equity firms uh get the money together the first 3 to five years they're deploying that money the the uh and the rest of the time is there what they're doing is buying more companies scaling buying more companies to fit into that and then exiting at the right time and then simultaneously as they they hit the right I are multiple top top quartile they're also raising their next fund so it may be their second fund they stay the same they may add a few more people the next one they go a little bit higher Maybe in from 300 to maybe 400 million they add a few more people it takes a long time multiple generations to get to the bigger and bigger company because they have to train people in their very specific unique perspective of how they invest and so they don't like to lose people they like to build everyone up and to come up and then maybe 10 years out the the the top management they age out or they just hey they made some much money they move on they make room for the the folks let's talk Michelle a little bit more what did you you you met a lot of people who have been successful through Blackmore connects and Blackmore Partners as Executives in the PE game what do you notice about the mindset that Executives who are listening here um mindset and expectation they have to do for themselves to win this game I think the first thing for me was Park your ego at the door because um basically you when you go into these conversations need to again lead with your deal thesis lead with the deal it's not about how wonderful I am and all the background and experience I've had that doesn't matter because sadly if I come at it that way I'm going to sound just like any other job applicant and they're not into hiring they're into making deals happen um and I think again the second thing is embracing the risk around this and having that learning mindset of like again even if I hear no let me understand why there's some learning in that you know again there's no fear of failure to me it's like I'm just learning um so so again getting okay with that that you know I think my first Blackmore um full conference I had five meetings and I go you know three of them were real you know interested in my deal thesis one said I think you're a great person but we don't do fintech we're you know hard industry but his hard industry businesses may need someone like me on a board so again I go there's never a bad meeting there's always value in building your network and understanding how someday in the future I I again being a finance person by trade I value an option you know so I look at it and go I make a small bet so that I open a door and value an option that I'm building a skill set here um for me you know I I did get out of the blue an offer so to speak to come in as a leader at this company but it's because I was embracing this PE mindset and this like yeah they wanted me to do bis Dev for them I kind of went G I think I'm stronger at financial consulting and operation Consulting than really BISD but that's what they need that's what the company needs right now I guess I'll just take a risk reach out to some people in my network and see what they think and oh lo and behold I got a few nibbles and some meetings set up but what they saw for me was here's a woman who's a machine every week she's working her funnel and that discipline and that ability to kind of lead a process when they then had a CEO opening they're like she's our gal you know we've seen her in action for two months and we'd be brain dead not to pull her in so I look at that go I would not have made those connections if I hadn't embraced this whole PE mindset so here you have uh now you have a role in a lower Middle Market company uh what is your title I'll be CEO of the company yep starting Saturday starting Saturday okay tomorrow that's really great so you're CEO of a lower midle Market uh company and uh tell us a little bit about how uh when did you enter the blackm process and how are the skills helping you I like to say a great consultant is always ahead of the client and the private Equity Firm that hired you you want to be ahead of them you're obviously demonstrating a lot of things that they value give us a picture of that of how through Blackmore you built this muscle you built the skills that primed you that then pirms could see it in action without you trying to game the system so to speak which a lot of execu try to do yeah yeah so my first nibble was in December you know I think you and I met you know on the phone and and I was like I want to learn more about this process December of what year 2023 2023 um and then basically the next conference that was available to do it as a light attendee was February um and I decided I'd go that route and essentially um jump in but do it you know with the free approach but really sign up for these uh webinars learn from them and and move forward after the February conference I was like this is definitely something I want to do by end of January I decided I'm stop I'm not going to apply for any more jobs you know basically I'd given myself two three months and it was over 100 applications and I maybe had five serious interviews and I was a number two candidate for a SE Suite role at a later stage startup and you know their feedback to me was wow you really should go be CEO somewhere you were interviewing for coo our board is worried that you're going to take you're going to get a phone call in 6 months and then you're going to leave us and we don't want to keep treadmilling through our leadership team so I took that as a conch on the head you know from fate to like believe in myself and what they're seeing in an interview process is I should really go do this again jump in with Blackmore believe in myself invest in myself so I bought the conference passes I bought enough that I would get access to the premium tools like pitchbook um because what I was seeing from the what is talk about pitchbook what is that why is it important uh to Executives listen and how much does it cost retail yeah so if I want to on my own as say a consultant or take the path on my own I think it's over $7,000 to get a singular seat for pitchbook um by joining the blackm process and getting in I think I had five conferences or more uh basically got access Blackmore's access to pitchbook through their uh data science team and um what I was seeing early on you know from prepping for the April conference was that I was already getting access to sore scrub and synex and those data polls for my targeted audience of of companies to go acquire was far better than what I was getting from a DB Hubers database um so I looked at that and said to me again I'd rather use my time efficiently and wisely because again reminder half the time or more I got to be doing billable hours Consulting um so my time is worth money I need to free up enough time to work on my PE process but also have the the you know 50 to 60% of my time on billable hours with clients so that I can go do this correctly um pitchbook is the best data because it's it's basically a very large company but they keep their data maintained so this is one where they're really looking at keeping the data um on emails the deal sizes the PE firms that invested they're keeping all that up to date um so that's where I kind of felt like that was worth the investment um to buy more black more conferences to get access to that Quality Tool so Pips book folks is owned by morning are one of the largest investor services company in the world uh pitchbook um there's all different versions ranging from I think the 7K as an individual I think the average uh if that I don't even know if that version is available anymore but I know that the version Blackmore uses has tens of thousands of Industry reports it has every private Equity Firm who did the deal who's on the board what are their phone numbers what are the emails who are the law firms where of the accounts on the deal so it's a robust marketing database so I like to say if you want to be a board member in private Equity if you want to go to work for a private Equity Firm that's going to appreciate you you got to find P firms that invest in your sector and if you try and use Google um we used to do it when we were trying to raise money for each deal who invest in LED or who invest in this and Google would give give us so much garbage the uh we just didn't have the time to sort it put it into datab uh put it into an Excel spreadsheet then try to oh my gosh people would burn out doing it we used to have six interns working fulltime trying to identify uh private Equity firms using Google there's too much noise out in the system so uh in 200 I think 13 uh that's when we started investing in pitchbook and what we do now for those who go to the private Equity conferences uh that uh Blackmore connects provides all sorts of tools that you need to have one to find out who your private Equity Market is two in private Equity what makes Michelle such a success if she mirrors what private Equity firms do do is there hunters for deals Michelle distinguisher as a hunter for deals because in private equity in anything in the lower Middle Market the strategy these days is to get a platform scale it and also look to consolidate other players into your company and keep growing to consolidate it and then flip it and then a typical executive with black War you're going to off you're going to leave with about six million and we've seen as high as 25 million I've met other Executives through our process that have exited with a 100 million and uh there's also opportunities to go with the next deal so um what he what private Equity firms because we do a lot of hiring we have a hiring division what private Equity firms really like about Michelle is she's not say hey give me a company give me a job and then I'll figure it out from there Michelle is actively out there with the deal thesis so the deal thesis is based on your background and then she's out talking to owner she actively markets she learns from the owner she offers them Consulting and the great thing about about this process if she was working full-time this process is 5 to 10 hours a week and what Michelle let's talk a little bit about it now that you're you're just getting started and you you know going to the board meetings you've been meeting with the private Equity Firm you've been meeting with the players of the company how did this process help you win their confidence how did this process help you um you know think ahead right because in private Equity folks you have three to five years you that everything's compressed talk about that to the audience yeah I think what they saw was this isn't again I wasn't in this process of working with them to get a job I was in it to I first invested and then wanted to add value to the company by bringing them customers but every week I was sharing oh you know you're not going to see me one day through Wednesday cuz I'm going to dealmax from ACG and they're like wow here's a gal who's investing in doing own thing again I'm not coming across as needy codependent you know a victim a leech whatever terrible terms you want to use I'm out there actually just creating value and so then again when they had a executive opening they're like wow we got to grab that because somebody else is going to if we don't um and so again I think you raise your own value and and in the process I was gaining a lot of skills what are some of the skills that you developed that you know you're going to be bringing to the table or principles they're going to be important to running this company and growing it I think it's an understanding more of the cap table um so again coming from Corporate America you know we had a new product idea we just got it approved via a PowerPoint and a meeting and somehow the cash showed up for us to do things you know um we never had to think about the structure of how much of this should investment should be debt how much should be Equity U what kind of return timeline are we on me going into this company now I can both look at the strengths of what the company has today which is an amazing operational capability um they are locked and loaded and ready to scale um but where they need help and more you know fire is in the sales and marketing space and so I'm coming at it with a mindset of three years from now four years from now when we want exit what do we need to look like at that point in time and now how do I back that up and start putting things in place in the next 90 days in the next 6 months next year what types of metrics do we need to be hitting so that 34 years from now we're there we can't wait and and find by random luck or chance are we ready in three years no it needs to be a concerted you know quarter by quarter you know keep T stepping and ratcheting up what we need to do goalwise so that we're hitting that and I look at and go my job as the operational partner in this deal is Drive the business I can do all the organic growth all day long um yes we're going to be doing tuck-in Acquisitions over time but I can't control those I can't control the timing and just like what I Le learn with Blackmore we may see 10 targeted companies and only one or two May H actually make it out of the funnel and so those will be happy accidents as they come in they'll boost us but you know I'm going to be bonused on organic growth and making sure that again just organically with what we got that we're hitting it in a trajectory that 3 four years from now adds value to other PE people or strategics that would buy us then it's great well you know what's so great in such a short period of time 6 months in you've gone from that corporate Venture Capital startup to really what we call the investor operator mindset we talk a lot about that at Blackmore and Blackmore connects can you ex explain to the audience what it means to to uh to move from an operator mindset to oper investor operator and how that is a different lens and how Blackmore help you distinguish that way to view the world yeah I think um with an investor operator mindset and it's this focus on exit because nobody wants trapped Capital you don't want to be making an investment that doesn't have some sort of exit and God forbid you don't want a fire sale someday um so with that mindset it's again thinking through value you know in my mind looking at every end of the quarter and saying what did we learn this quarter they're not again failures they're what did we learn let's not make the same mistakes twice let's you know as we think about investor Communications let's think about what's in it for them um when you lead with the what's in it for the other party and by the way they'll then just by default through the narrative see that oh you're pretty competent you know this is a good deal um I look at it again and go it's a happy accident that my strength and passion is around sales marketing growing a business that's exactly what this business I fell into needs you know it's already Rock Solid operationally which is great it's a blessing it's a strength how do I not you know keep dithering with that and in private Equity it's the you only change 5 or 10% these are already profitable wonderful businesses you don't need to come in like a wrecking ball and change half the company and so it's really the finding out that next 5 or 10% that's going to be a catalyst for the future growth Michelle one of the things that you you touched upon um is investing in yourself so many Executives I they come into well I'm not paying for anything I don't I don't I've never had to pay uh anything can you tell us a little bit about that mindset and how does one justify investing we talk about we want you to join ACG we want you to go to ACG conferences because AC Association for corporate growth ac. org folks we want you to join that because that's where you go meet your lawyers your accountants uh specialized consultants and software vendors everyone that around the m& successful exit that group Blackmore connects is to learn the vacular to get connections with private Equity because they bring them to you it's to do many many different things how do these things fit together and how do you talk to the audience who says well I not I don't invest in you know I don't pay to play talk about that mindset I'm sure you heard about it when you were with yeah yeah I guess I get concerned because I go if you want investing yourself why should somebody else and again any new leadership executive opportunity that company is going to be investing in you because you're going to need to learn and ramp up in that role you're need to possibly develop or deepen your domain expertise so any kind of hiring decision in the future even if it's a bringing you onto a board role they're going to have to integrate you and they're going to have to invest in you and so again thinking in their shoes hopefully you're a quick payback so to speak hopefully you're a quick learner again I think if you're role modeling that you're investing in yourself you're already signaling I'm worth investing in I'm a valuable asset um sadly I think if people aren't willing to invest in themselves they're they're having an Unwritten narrative which is I'm ready for retirement put me on the bench I'm not really wanting to play that much in the game anymore maybe I just kind of want to be a hobbyist you know so that's fine but I go again you're not going to get those really compelling roles Because by the way being a leader in a private Equity Firm is not a luxury let's sit back and just lolly gag around it's it's hard work it's a lot of Huts buun muscle and you know and I just wrote a Blog last week that basically said you need some of that startup Mojo of like let's just get done you know because that is highly valuable in the world of PE you can't come at it like corporate like where are my 20 Minions that are going to write all my slides for me that is not the world of private Equity you need to be able to get your hands a little dirtier and say I got to jump in and uh get stuff going I can't wait a quarter or two to see if my hunch is right that company could be far too far south you know before actually start taking action really great Michelle I like how you talk about the speed of which you need to be ready and already investing in yourself because private a lot of Executives quit the process they they email me or they say Gerald this is so great but you know what just call me when you have a deal for me and one of the things that Blackmore blackm more connects and ACG do for you is what they do is they give you the ability to foreshadow what's coming and so that you can plan you don't have a lot of time to learn on the job in private equity and if they think they're going to have to teach you uh things and they can tell being an operator by the way is uh is expected that's expected so and there's millions of others like you it's the investor operator mindset that ACG and Blackmore connects bring together to train you so so that you're flying ahead of the uh the game and you're bringing returns in early and that starts with doing your deal Theses that starts with who will I want to acquire who am I going to acquire once I get my first platform what are my IR expectations what are all the levers that I can pull to get that internal rate of return I have to be able to show to my investors three times cash and cash I have to be able to show my investors that I'm paranoid and what I can do is find where the bones are buried and I'm thinking about those now and when we're going to management meetings with private Equity firms I'm able to ask questions to get at where there can be problems for reoccurring Revenue because private Equity firms love reoccurring revenue is it real is it sustainable can I continue to keep growing are there exits how big is the market so the the fact that you can do all of this early the thinking the practicing the market knowledge through talking with owners it makes you differentiated because Michelle what I find is 99.9% of the executives I meet uh they are they are just job Seekers they're not the investor mindset they say hey I don't have to do that I'm a great operator well that works in maybe Corporate America where you're a cog and you're just going to get salary some bonuses uh you may create a billion but you don't even get a 0.0000001 your bonus doesn't even cover the value great private Equity firms are going hey I'm giving you my money you're an extension of of us our firm you have are the LPS everyone is uh every penny resides on you how do I know you do it and Michelle you hit upon it it is you want to start demonstrating those attributes today you're investing yourself you're getting to know the market you're rolling up your sleeves now you're not waiting to say give me a job and when I have the job I'll do it no you're doing it now and that is part of the brand you're showing your value proposition oh in closing Michelle why Blackmore and Blackmore connects as the way to wealth changing uh in the private Equity world or private Equity wealth changing world talk about that yeah so for me what I um differentiated because I did look at other companies that did a simpler similar model what I liked was Blackmore was um industry agnostic meaning uh no matter what industry my background is Blackmore works with you so there's no you know some of the other ones they only do specific sectors second thing was the the handholding coaching the webinars the learning the network um and also the flexible timing so some of these they only did like two or three cohorts a year and I would have to wait 3 months to get started whereas with Blackmore there's always every six to n weeks another virtual conference coming along um so it's easy to kind of integrate yourself into that flow and and get going and get going on the learning and meeting others um so to me that's what really differentiated black more from the others that's great well Michelle I I really want to uh thank you and uh remember work on your next deal also yeah as we say when you're if you're in private Equity folks and you're listening to it and you're about to exit 18 months out you want to start this process now 5 to 10 hours a week if you've never been in private Equity you want to do this if you've done three four five private Equity deals you want to be in this proces because Blackmore has 25 plus years 24 plus deals under our belts exits are one of the most recent ones eight and a half times cash and C we live this I personally last year attended 20 plus private Equity conferences PR us the flesh with over a thousand a, onetoone meetings the great thing about Blackmore connects it's low cost when you go to ACG expect about five grand per Conference travel uh hotel rooms everything else but you're building your brand You're Building knowledge you're testing you're learning how to build how does your brand land with the customer and Blackmore gets Blackmore connects next conferences uh get uh get you right on the table with private Equity instead of trying to figure it out Michelle I want to thank you I look forward to staying in touch and uh that ends this uh Blackmore connect success story webinar thank you Michelle thank you [Music]

[Music] so Michelle uh I would like to start off with having you introduce yourself your background and how you first started uh working with Blackmore Partners Inc but let&#39;s just start with your history as an executive sure sure so I started my work career in Corporate America got hired into Intel right out of college and uh basically had an 18-year journey in the finance function working my way up to Executive levels and then moved sideways into the general management p&amp;l management product and eventually sales um so after 26 years I kind of got caught up in a corporate reorg and decided it was my time to kind of take the parachute um I went into Consulting for a year and then became a seite Founder at a startup and after six years in startup land I&#39;d always kind of started thinking in the back of my head over the last few years after this I don&#39;t have it in me to go do yet another startup I&#39;d like to get into private Equity I&#39;ve had friends that have gone that route and seem to be really enjoying it so um as I left last fall my last startup I decided okay let me research how do I get into private Equity let talk about that that one thought you you said I want to get into private Equity why not stay in startups well the challenge with startups is they&#39;re highly unpredictable um you know things like covid or a bank uh crisis with svb failing all of these things affect the uh potential of your business and so you know it&#39;s just really frustrating and as a Founder you end up putting your personal cash into the company to make payroll um it&#39;s a constant funding cycle and then honestly the the talent is really you know hodg Podge you know um in terms of who you&#39;re working with your partners a lot of times other companies won&#39;t work with you because you&#39;re just small and you&#39;re unpredictable you&#39;re risky and so I thought you know I&#39;d like to take my skill set and kind of go play with a business that has a lot more capabilities that&#39;s already established already EIT a positive and really kind of take it from A to B and really grow it and scale it that&#39;s really great let and you know what&#39;s so great is you&#39;re a a CFO who became an operator of uh operations person and uh and CEO I and I just got to tell you that I love that combination because in when you run a private Equity owned company it&#39;s all about cash flow and you&#39;re not only a cash flow person you&#39;re a marketing person let&#39;s talk a little bit about continue with this journey and talk about the intersection of these skills and how they play in the private Equity game and what you&#39;re learning yeah so the first thing I did when I thought okay I want to get into private Equity I guess I&#39;ll just start applying for jobs and that was a complete fail it was like running into a buzs saww because what the applicant systems would ask me is have you worked in the past for a private Equity owned company and being honest I&#39;d say no and so instantly my uh resume was tossed and I wouldn&#39;t get an interview and so I thought this is crazy um what I did learn was there avenues like Blackmore partners and I eventually landed on Blackmore&#39;s the one for me because what I liked is it&#39;s a CEO Centric model it looks at the individual and says Michelle what are your passions what are your strengths what are your skills s go develop a deal thesis that you&#39;re passionate about that we will then help you with matchmaking to get the funding Partners from private Equity firms or family offices and then basically advance that thesis go find the targeted companies acquire them you know it is a long play and what I kind of had to counsel myself in is okay I&#39;m I&#39;m making a commitment to myself that I&#39;m going to enter into this journey I don&#39;t know what&#39;s going to happen I&#39;m going to follow it for a year or two but in the process of following that Journey I&#39;m going to be picking up really valuable skills that are useful in many careers and to pay the bills then what I will do is I&#39;ll consult again which I can certainly do I just didn&#39;t find that hugely rewarding because half your Consulting clients don&#39;t follow your advice you know so for me it&#39;s just a bit frustrating to feel like you did all this hard work telling them here&#39;s the outline of what you need to go do to be successful and they say thank you pay you and don&#39;t do anything and so you know I didn&#39;t want to do that for the rest of my life but I was like I can do that for a year or two to fund my journey on the PE path um and work with a partner like Blackmore that will get me the exposure and the introductions to the people that I don&#39;t know yet that are going to teach me a lot but also open doors for me I think you&#39;re on mute Gerald you&#39;ve you&#39;ve met a lot of Executives uh at Blackmore side and the Blackmore connects can you talk a little bit about the different business units uh for the people watching this uh webinar about Blackmore and the past and then how they intersect and then where I&#39;m going to take you after that as I want to talk to you about what you learn about is what is the winning mindset what is for those of us listening who are Executives who want to get in private Equity what&#39;s what are the dos and don&#39;ts of thinking and acting but let&#39;s start off with the different business units yeah so when I looked at different CEO Centric approaches what stood apart at Blackmore is that you&#39;re kind of more of a three-pronged you know work with one prong being what everybody else has which is this educating the um uh Executives and trying to get a deal done but what Blackmore adds to that is the recruiting function so they actually have a business around sourcing and finding people that other companies that are doing deals need say a CFO or VP of sales or or a COO and so they have that act that you know mindset of what a recruiter needs but they&#39;re not a recruiting standard recruit recruiting business you know that just charges percents they actually are paid on success and so they&#39;re always looking at the mindset of a PE what would pees look for as they recruit they&#39;re not just you know a standard recruiting firm and then the third piece being this virtual events conference format so again having a regular Cadence now almost 50 you know conferences in where they look at having this flywheel of introducing private Equity firms to these Executives and no two executives are the same what I found as one of the biggest value propositions of Blackmore was through these conferences and webinars and networking getting to know the other people on the similar path and journey as me but we all had different backgrounds some people were passionate about the rail industry some people were passionate about medical tech people with an engineering background or an IP patent background you know so you know me coming with you know Finance then operations and sales you know I was different than the rest but we weren&#39;t competitive and we could help each other and we found a lot of value in networking with each other to kind of say okay let me you know hear what your background lends to the equation and how that might be helpful to my journey and my advancing of my thesis oh you&#39;re on mute again oh let&#39;s talk about mindset I like to say to be a a success in private Equity one of the patterns I notice with and for those of you um watching if you go to Blackmore connects.com for SL success you can see 30 plus folks like Michelle and one of the things I and I want you to comment on my thinking one of the things I&#39;ve noticed uh Michelle is those that are successful have very strong desire to do this they just they said this shall be and they have faith and you described it I&#39;m I know it&#39;s going to take uh time I don&#39;t know where it&#39;s going to end but I want to do this because being a W2 weight slave is not an option I don&#39;t want to go back to the big corporate world I want a piece of that lifechanging Equity so we find does strong desire Faith because it&#39;s like planting corn uh you you got to have faith that that&#39;s going to come up you don&#39;t plant the corn and then go go out to the Garden next day where&#39;s my corn and a lot of Executives I notice do that but so it&#39;s strong desire Faith persistence persistence and persistence to unlock the iter of patterns it takes to connect with the owners and connect with the c potential customers connect with private equity and then the plan we&#39; like to say Michelle that Blackmore Partners has a measurable repeatable process for helping bable exec like Michelle and those of you listening to help you monetize your background into an acquisition-based deal thesis then we nurture you along to build up the funnel of owners connecting with the owners and ultimately the money and then you&#39;re in your seat with salary bonus minimum 5% Equity without putting money in but Michelle what do you find what did you find about the executives that were on the court you know they&#39;re just kind of in the stands versus on the court what did you notice the mindset the language the behaviors so we can have people self- select here sure sure I think part of that is making the commitment it&#39;s a bit of risk taking um but then you know I look at and go I think I personally can invest in myself I believe in myself enough that I&#39;m willing to take the risk on investing in my future career path so it does mean making some financial and time investment into this path you know there is a nice thing about Blackmore and that you can get started for free you can sign the contract to attend six webinars go to your first virtual conference um you know halflight conference for free but at some point you do need to then start investing in your own self in your personal career and I look at it and go like an MBA or a master&#39;s degree is 50k plus this is a fraction of that um but it means then not only signing up for future conferences but getting yourself the tools you know so for me I wanted to automate this I uh signed up to get a CRM subscription and started you know automating the Outreach to Target companies as well as PE firms I signed up to go to in-person conferences by the ACG I joined ACG as a member what ACG Michelle talk about ACG and what it&#39;s like and what&#39;s the conference experience like on this light conference versus full conference at the uh Blackmore connects virtual conferences give us some contrast please yeah so ACG stands for the association for corporate growth uh they Nationwide with many chapters in the large cities in the US so you can go to both inperson events locally but they also have a National Conference which for me the timing worked out great it was April um and so I went to that in person and literally there 3,100 people from the world of private Equity there hundreds of PE firms investment Banks as well as all the supporting um industry functions so things like law firms that work to get deals done due diligence and advisory firms um CPA accounting and tax firms and you know it was pure gold just networking with these people asking about their Journey how they get into working in the world of private Equity but also then understanding that when I get a yes on my deal thesis when I find a Target company to go to choire I&#39;m now building my arsenal of supporting firms that will help me get a deal done and help me do it correctly um and so you know for me it was just a huge learning experience it was almost like a two three day you know immersive course um but then also learning how to get your timing down on your own introduction of why you&#39;re in private Equity what your deal thesis is about um and get feedback on that you know so there were some that were saying hey I don&#39;t think your thesis is going to work and here&#39;s why there were others that were like I love it let&#39;s do a follow-up meeting next week and let&#39;s introduce you to our partners that didn&#39;t come to the conference so to me you know the threein stack high of paper you know business cards was pure gold um and and I just look at that and go again there&#39;s no harm in networking and and building the relationships with these folks be great Michelle one of the things uh as you know U prepping Executives for the black more connects I act as an adjunct professor that&#39;s what I look at my role given that uh I&#39;ve been in this business for 25 plus years um the purpose of a deal thesis uh from my point of view is it&#39;s a way of of of talking to what private Equity firms care about is deals now I often hear a lot of EX I don&#39;t have a deal so therefore I can&#39;t get into private Equity or can&#39;t go to conferences talk a little bit about the per a framing what is a deal thesis why have it and in order to get into the private equity game to start the process do I have to have a deal I think for me it&#39;s a door door opener it&#39;s almost like a creative writing exercise to say I&#39;m going to take a little bit of a risk put an idea out there because again what the private Equity firms want to talk about is a deal and they want to see your thinking they want to see is there any kind of industry research you know literally a 10-minute Google search trying to tie in some of the sizing of the market the opportunity you&#39;re looking at for me I had picked fintech which is such a big Market I needed to narrow that down into specifically here&#39;s the type of deal I&#39;d want to do for me it was a portal in the payments in health care space and so you know being able to answer questions around why why Healthcare payments why do you think now you know what kind of disruption or trans uh transformation is helping in payments in in digital um Health Care to kind of make it the right timing now and again the feedback you&#39;re going to get from these dialogues with PE firms is pure gold so I&#39;d always say you it&#39;s just like um building a business model in a startup land where you put your you know lean business model canvas out there a little bit different formatting here but it&#39;s the same kind of approach where you&#39;re now through these Discovery interviews with PE firms going to learn a lot about your thesis and pivot it over time and for me what it meant was because I&#39;ve had a diverse background in lots of different Industries don&#39;t just have one you know uh come up with 2 three four I was actually giving myself the homework assignment that by my June conference to have three deal thesis available to talk about so that I would broaden my network of PE firms and the type of because they&#39;re following an investment thesis where they look at particular Industries and they again have networks and domain experience in certain industries so the more of these deal thesis I have worked up the more matches I&#39;m going to get so to speak um so again it&#39;s a little bit of risk-taking to trust the process and follow it but I go it&#39;s kind of like any kind of sales or BISD experience where you got to say hey the the process has been defined I&#39;m just going to follow it and keep turning that crank because it&#39;s not 100% yield I should not expect 100% yield but in this I&#39;m going to learn on the ones that keep advancing on why they&#39;re advancing and and there&#39;s value in that really great so makes me think about the funnel so Michelle one of the things uh I talk to 200 of you a month at least first meetings right because I&#39;m a I&#39;m a missionary my some people are missionary for god um missionary for God and private equity and as a missionary what you know I&#39;m I want to convert people into uh getting involved having the faith we&#39;ll provide the plan but you you&#39;re the you know uh you&#39;re the boots on the street and we talk about you have to have a funnel of owners you have to have a funnel of potential customers you have to have a funnel of PE firms we say about 200 the average executive that I meet uh when they&#39;re coming into the top of my my first meeting they&#39;ve met over their whole lifetime five to 10 private Equity firms okay and when I if they&#39;re interviewing they might tell me well I&#39;m interviewing with two P firms you know I think I&#39;m top on their list so I&#39;ll get back to you if I don&#39;t get the job can you talk about the funnel and private Equity some of the criteria private Equity Executives who want to get into private Equity whether it&#39;s with the deal thesis route or it&#39;s the Outreach route about the um what private Equity is like and why you need a big fun we say a minimum 200 who are in your wheelhouse that means they invest they like your space your industry go ahead and show yeah so private Equity firms are going to basically be living off of their management fees so they have got to be super focused on their expenses but also focused on their time um because that management fees is typically like one two% of the assets that they have under management um they have a very limited staff and so today their biggest challenge and I always try to put myself in their shoes um is their biggest challenge is just they can only get so many deals done let&#39;s say that because of their staff they can do maybe 30 deals a year by tapping into a model like Blackmore they can maybe do 3540 deals a year because yes they&#39;re getting more opportunities brought to them by bable Executives um that fit their wheelhouse fit their Niche and you know basically they can invest in that and deploy more Capital that helps them spread their risk because this is for them a portfolio game they know they&#39;re not going to have 100% um yield on every company they invest in they&#39;re not all going to exit at the same time at the same multiples and so they&#39;re looking at it for the how can we diversify ourselves spread our Bets with many more bets across this industry that said they&#39;re not going to start doing bizarre thing if they&#39;re focused on agtech they&#39;re not going to get into fintech you know so so this is again where the Blackmore connects really gets into the process of matchmaking the what&#39;s their investment thesis with what&#39;s the executives deal thesis um so yeah for me it was really the you know just as we&#39;re working a funnel they&#39;re working a funnel and what you&#39;re really trying to do is find that intersect of the two well well said let me add some color here so Michelle talked about doing 30 deals a year the majority of those deals are add-ons for current portfolio companies a typical private Equity Firm if they have 300 million they divide that by 10 platforms and they may go okay we want to do for each of those platforms three to five add-ons or more a year so private Equity firms typically uh a $300 million fund uh and bigger they might only have 15 people and private Equity knowledge is very specialized knowledge it&#39;s not like they can get plug in an AI machine at least this at least today and everything I&#39;m hearing from the folks in AI private Equity is a very highly selective person business uh and they can&#39;t necessarily scale it if they do scale it it takes multiple Generations a generation in private Equity is 10 years the private Equity firms uh get the money together the first 3 to five years they&#39;re deploying that money the the uh and the rest of the time is there what they&#39;re doing is buying more companies scaling buying more companies to fit into that and then exiting at the right time and then simultaneously as they they hit the right I are multiple top top quartile they&#39;re also raising their next fund so it may be their second fund they stay the same they may add a few more people the next one they go a little bit higher Maybe in from 300 to maybe 400 million they add a few more people it takes a long time multiple generations to get to the bigger and bigger company because they have to train people in their very specific unique perspective of how they invest and so they don&#39;t like to lose people they like to build everyone up and to come up and then maybe 10 years out the the the top management they age out or they just hey they made some much money they move on they make room for the the folks let&#39;s talk Michelle a little bit more what did you you you met a lot of people who have been successful through Blackmore connects and Blackmore Partners as Executives in the PE game what do you notice about the mindset that Executives who are listening here um mindset and expectation they have to do for themselves to win this game I think the first thing for me was Park your ego at the door because um basically you when you go into these conversations need to again lead with your deal thesis lead with the deal it&#39;s not about how wonderful I am and all the background and experience I&#39;ve had that doesn&#39;t matter because sadly if I come at it that way I&#39;m going to sound just like any other job applicant and they&#39;re not into hiring they&#39;re into making deals happen um and I think again the second thing is embracing the risk around this and having that learning mindset of like again even if I hear no let me understand why there&#39;s some learning in that you know again there&#39;s no fear of failure to me it&#39;s like I&#39;m just learning um so so again getting okay with that that you know I think my first Blackmore um full conference I had five meetings and I go you know three of them were real you know interested in my deal thesis one said I think you&#39;re a great person but we don&#39;t do fintech we&#39;re you know hard industry but his hard industry businesses may need someone like me on a board so again I go there&#39;s never a bad meeting there&#39;s always value in building your network and understanding how someday in the future I I again being a finance person by trade I value an option you know so I look at it and go I make a small bet so that I open a door and value an option that I&#39;m building a skill set here um for me you know I I did get out of the blue an offer so to speak to come in as a leader at this company but it&#39;s because I was embracing this PE mindset and this like yeah they wanted me to do bis Dev for them I kind of went G I think I&#39;m stronger at financial consulting and operation Consulting than really BISD but that&#39;s what they need that&#39;s what the company needs right now I guess I&#39;ll just take a risk reach out to some people in my network and see what they think and oh lo and behold I got a few nibbles and some meetings set up but what they saw for me was here&#39;s a woman who&#39;s a machine every week she&#39;s working her funnel and that discipline and that ability to kind of lead a process when they then had a CEO opening they&#39;re like she&#39;s our gal you know we&#39;ve seen her in action for two months and we&#39;d be brain dead not to pull her in so I look at that go I would not have made those connections if I hadn&#39;t embraced this whole PE mindset so here you have uh now you have a role in a lower Middle Market company uh what is your title I&#39;ll be CEO of the company yep starting Saturday starting Saturday okay tomorrow that&#39;s really great so you&#39;re CEO of a lower midle Market uh company and uh tell us a little bit about how uh when did you enter the blackm process and how are the skills helping you I like to say a great consultant is always ahead of the client and the private Equity Firm that hired you you want to be ahead of them you&#39;re obviously demonstrating a lot of things that they value give us a picture of that of how through Blackmore you built this muscle you built the skills that primed you that then pirms could see it in action without you trying to game the system so to speak which a lot of execu try to do yeah yeah so my first nibble was in December you know I think you and I met you know on the phone and and I was like I want to learn more about this process December of what year 2023 2023 um and then basically the next conference that was available to do it as a light attendee was February um and I decided I&#39;d go that route and essentially um jump in but do it you know with the free approach but really sign up for these uh webinars learn from them and and move forward after the February conference I was like this is definitely something I want to do by end of January I decided I&#39;m stop I&#39;m not going to apply for any more jobs you know basically I&#39;d given myself two three months and it was over 100 applications and I maybe had five serious interviews and I was a number two candidate for a SE Suite role at a later stage startup and you know their feedback to me was wow you really should go be CEO somewhere you were interviewing for coo our board is worried that you&#39;re going to take you&#39;re going to get a phone call in 6 months and then you&#39;re going to leave us and we don&#39;t want to keep treadmilling through our leadership team so I took that as a conch on the head you know from fate to like believe in myself and what they&#39;re seeing in an interview process is I should really go do this again jump in with Blackmore believe in myself invest in myself so I bought the conference passes I bought enough that I would get access to the premium tools like pitchbook um because what I was seeing from the what is talk about pitchbook what is that why is it important uh to Executives listen and how much does it cost retail yeah so if I want to on my own as say a consultant or take the path on my own I think it&#39;s over $7,000 to get a singular seat for pitchbook um by joining the blackm process and getting in I think I had five conferences or more uh basically got access Blackmore&#39;s access to pitchbook through their uh data science team and um what I was seeing early on you know from prepping for the April conference was that I was already getting access to sore scrub and synex and those data polls for my targeted audience of of companies to go acquire was far better than what I was getting from a DB Hubers database um so I looked at that and said to me again I&#39;d rather use my time efficiently and wisely because again reminder half the time or more I got to be doing billable hours Consulting um so my time is worth money I need to free up enough time to work on my PE process but also have the the you know 50 to 60% of my time on billable hours with clients so that I can go do this correctly um pitchbook is the best data because it&#39;s it&#39;s basically a very large company but they keep their data maintained so this is one where they&#39;re really looking at keeping the data um on emails the deal sizes the PE firms that invested they&#39;re keeping all that up to date um so that&#39;s where I kind of felt like that was worth the investment um to buy more black more conferences to get access to that Quality Tool so Pips book folks is owned by morning are one of the largest investor services company in the world uh pitchbook um there&#39;s all different versions ranging from I think the 7K as an individual I think the average uh if that I don&#39;t even know if that version is available anymore but I know that the version Blackmore uses has tens of thousands of Industry reports it has every private Equity Firm who did the deal who&#39;s on the board what are their phone numbers what are the emails who are the law firms where of the accounts on the deal so it&#39;s a robust marketing database so I like to say if you want to be a board member in private Equity if you want to go to work for a private Equity Firm that&#39;s going to appreciate you you got to find P firms that invest in your sector and if you try and use Google um we used to do it when we were trying to raise money for each deal who invest in LED or who invest in this and Google would give give us so much garbage the uh we just didn&#39;t have the time to sort it put it into datab uh put it into an Excel spreadsheet then try to oh my gosh people would burn out doing it we used to have six interns working fulltime trying to identify uh private Equity firms using Google there&#39;s too much noise out in the system so uh in 200 I think 13 uh that&#39;s when we started investing in pitchbook and what we do now for those who go to the private Equity conferences uh that uh Blackmore connects provides all sorts of tools that you need to have one to find out who your private Equity Market is two in private Equity what makes Michelle such a success if she mirrors what private Equity firms do do is there hunters for deals Michelle distinguisher as a hunter for deals because in private equity in anything in the lower Middle Market the strategy these days is to get a platform scale it and also look to consolidate other players into your company and keep growing to consolidate it and then flip it and then a typical executive with black War you&#39;re going to off you&#39;re going to leave with about six million and we&#39;ve seen as high as 25 million I&#39;ve met other Executives through our process that have exited with a 100 million and uh there&#39;s also opportunities to go with the next deal so um what he what private Equity firms because we do a lot of hiring we have a hiring division what private Equity firms really like about Michelle is she&#39;s not say hey give me a company give me a job and then I&#39;ll figure it out from there Michelle is actively out there with the deal thesis so the deal thesis is based on your background and then she&#39;s out talking to owner she actively markets she learns from the owner she offers them Consulting and the great thing about about this process if she was working full-time this process is 5 to 10 hours a week and what Michelle let&#39;s talk a little bit about it now that you&#39;re you&#39;re just getting started and you you know going to the board meetings you&#39;ve been meeting with the private Equity Firm you&#39;ve been meeting with the players of the company how did this process help you win their confidence how did this process help you um you know think ahead right because in private Equity folks you have three to five years you that everything&#39;s compressed talk about that to the audience yeah I think what they saw was this isn&#39;t again I wasn&#39;t in this process of working with them to get a job I was in it to I first invested and then wanted to add value to the company by bringing them customers but every week I was sharing oh you know you&#39;re not going to see me one day through Wednesday cuz I&#39;m going to dealmax from ACG and they&#39;re like wow here&#39;s a gal who&#39;s investing in doing own thing again I&#39;m not coming across as needy codependent you know a victim a leech whatever terrible terms you want to use I&#39;m out there actually just creating value and so then again when they had a executive opening they&#39;re like wow we got to grab that because somebody else is going to if we don&#39;t um and so again I think you raise your own value and and in the process I was gaining a lot of skills what are some of the skills that you developed that you know you&#39;re going to be bringing to the table or principles they&#39;re going to be important to running this company and growing it I think it&#39;s an understanding more of the cap table um so again coming from Corporate America you know we had a new product idea we just got it approved via a PowerPoint and a meeting and somehow the cash showed up for us to do things you know um we never had to think about the structure of how much of this should investment should be debt how much should be Equity U what kind of return timeline are we on me going into this company now I can both look at the strengths of what the company has today which is an amazing operational capability um they are locked and loaded and ready to scale um but where they need help and more you know fire is in the sales and marketing space and so I&#39;m coming at it with a mindset of three years from now four years from now when we want exit what do we need to look like at that point in time and now how do I back that up and start putting things in place in the next 90 days in the next 6 months next year what types of metrics do we need to be hitting so that 34 years from now we&#39;re there we can&#39;t wait and and find by random luck or chance are we ready in three years no it needs to be a concerted you know quarter by quarter you know keep T stepping and ratcheting up what we need to do goalwise so that we&#39;re hitting that and I look at and go my job as the operational partner in this deal is Drive the business I can do all the organic growth all day long um yes we&#39;re going to be doing tuck-in Acquisitions over time but I can&#39;t control those I can&#39;t control the timing and just like what I Le learn with Blackmore we may see 10 targeted companies and only one or two May H actually make it out of the funnel and so those will be happy accidents as they come in they&#39;ll boost us but you know I&#39;m going to be bonused on organic growth and making sure that again just organically with what we got that we&#39;re hitting it in a trajectory that 3 four years from now adds value to other PE people or strategics that would buy us then it&#39;s great well you know what&#39;s so great in such a short period of time 6 months in you&#39;ve gone from that corporate Venture Capital startup to really what we call the investor operator mindset we talk a lot about that at Blackmore and Blackmore connects can you ex explain to the audience what it means to to uh to move from an operator mindset to oper investor operator and how that is a different lens and how Blackmore help you distinguish that way to view the world yeah I think um with an investor operator mindset and it&#39;s this focus on exit because nobody wants trapped Capital you don&#39;t want to be making an investment that doesn&#39;t have some sort of exit and God forbid you don&#39;t want a fire sale someday um so with that mindset it&#39;s again thinking through value you know in my mind looking at every end of the quarter and saying what did we learn this quarter they&#39;re not again failures they&#39;re what did we learn let&#39;s not make the same mistakes twice let&#39;s you know as we think about investor Communications let&#39;s think about what&#39;s in it for them um when you lead with the what&#39;s in it for the other party and by the way they&#39;ll then just by default through the narrative see that oh you&#39;re pretty competent you know this is a good deal um I look at it again and go it&#39;s a happy accident that my strength and passion is around sales marketing growing a business that&#39;s exactly what this business I fell into needs you know it&#39;s already Rock Solid operationally which is great it&#39;s a blessing it&#39;s a strength how do I not you know keep dithering with that and in private Equity it&#39;s the you only change 5 or 10% these are already profitable wonderful businesses you don&#39;t need to come in like a wrecking ball and change half the company and so it&#39;s really the finding out that next 5 or 10% that&#39;s going to be a catalyst for the future growth Michelle one of the things that you you touched upon um is investing in yourself so many Executives I they come into well I&#39;m not paying for anything I don&#39;t I don&#39;t I&#39;ve never had to pay uh anything can you tell us a little bit about that mindset and how does one justify investing we talk about we want you to join ACG we want you to go to ACG conferences because AC Association for corporate growth ac. org folks we want you to join that because that&#39;s where you go meet your lawyers your accountants uh specialized consultants and software vendors everyone that around the m&amp; successful exit that group Blackmore connects is to learn the vacular to get connections with private Equity because they bring them to you it&#39;s to do many many different things how do these things fit together and how do you talk to the audience who says well I not I don&#39;t invest in you know I don&#39;t pay to play talk about that mindset I&#39;m sure you heard about it when you were with yeah yeah I guess I get concerned because I go if you want investing yourself why should somebody else and again any new leadership executive opportunity that company is going to be investing in you because you&#39;re going to need to learn and ramp up in that role you&#39;re need to possibly develop or deepen your domain expertise so any kind of hiring decision in the future even if it&#39;s a bringing you onto a board role they&#39;re going to have to integrate you and they&#39;re going to have to invest in you and so again thinking in their shoes hopefully you&#39;re a quick payback so to speak hopefully you&#39;re a quick learner again I think if you&#39;re role modeling that you&#39;re investing in yourself you&#39;re already signaling I&#39;m worth investing in I&#39;m a valuable asset um sadly I think if people aren&#39;t willing to invest in themselves they&#39;re they&#39;re having an Unwritten narrative which is I&#39;m ready for retirement put me on the bench I&#39;m not really wanting to play that much in the game anymore maybe I just kind of want to be a hobbyist you know so that&#39;s fine but I go again you&#39;re not going to get those really compelling roles Because by the way being a leader in a private Equity Firm is not a luxury let&#39;s sit back and just lolly gag around it&#39;s it&#39;s hard work it&#39;s a lot of Huts buun muscle and you know and I just wrote a Blog last week that basically said you need some of that startup Mojo of like let&#39;s just get done you know because that is highly valuable in the world of PE you can&#39;t come at it like corporate like where are my 20 Minions that are going to write all my slides for me that is not the world of private Equity you need to be able to get your hands a little dirtier and say I got to jump in and uh get stuff going I can&#39;t wait a quarter or two to see if my hunch is right that company could be far too far south you know before actually start taking action really great Michelle I like how you talk about the speed of which you need to be ready and already investing in yourself because private a lot of Executives quit the process they they email me or they say Gerald this is so great but you know what just call me when you have a deal for me and one of the things that Blackmore blackm more connects and ACG do for you is what they do is they give you the ability to foreshadow what&#39;s coming and so that you can plan you don&#39;t have a lot of time to learn on the job in private equity and if they think they&#39;re going to have to teach you uh things and they can tell being an operator by the way is uh is expected that&#39;s expected so and there&#39;s millions of others like you it&#39;s the investor operator mindset that ACG and Blackmore connects bring together to train you so so that you&#39;re flying ahead of the uh the game and you&#39;re bringing returns in early and that starts with doing your deal Theses that starts with who will I want to acquire who am I going to acquire once I get my first platform what are my IR expectations what are all the levers that I can pull to get that internal rate of return I have to be able to show to my investors three times cash and cash I have to be able to show my investors that I&#39;m paranoid and what I can do is find where the bones are buried and I&#39;m thinking about those now and when we&#39;re going to management meetings with private Equity firms I&#39;m able to ask questions to get at where there can be problems for reoccurring Revenue because private Equity firms love reoccurring revenue is it real is it sustainable can I continue to keep growing are there exits how big is the market so the the fact that you can do all of this early the thinking the practicing the market knowledge through talking with owners it makes you differentiated because Michelle what I find is 99.9% of the executives I meet uh they are they are just job Seekers they&#39;re not the investor mindset they say hey I don&#39;t have to do that I&#39;m a great operator well that works in maybe Corporate America where you&#39;re a cog and you&#39;re just going to get salary some bonuses uh you may create a billion but you don&#39;t even get a 0.0000001 your bonus doesn&#39;t even cover the value great private Equity firms are going hey I&#39;m giving you my money you&#39;re an extension of of us our firm you have are the LPS everyone is uh every penny resides on you how do I know you do it and Michelle you hit upon it it is you want to start demonstrating those attributes today you&#39;re investing yourself you&#39;re getting to know the market you&#39;re rolling up your sleeves now you&#39;re not waiting to say give me a job and when I have the job I&#39;ll do it no you&#39;re doing it now and that is part of the brand you&#39;re showing your value proposition oh in closing Michelle why Blackmore and Blackmore connects as the way to wealth changing uh in the private Equity world or private Equity wealth changing world talk about that yeah so for me what I um differentiated because I did look at other companies that did a simpler similar model what I liked was Blackmore was um industry agnostic meaning uh no matter what industry my background is Blackmore works with you so there&#39;s no you know some of the other ones they only do specific sectors second thing was the the handholding coaching the webinars the learning the network um and also the flexible timing so some of these they only did like two or three cohorts a year and I would have to wait 3 months to get started whereas with Blackmore there&#39;s always every six to n weeks another virtual conference coming along um so it&#39;s easy to kind of integrate yourself into that flow and and get going and get going on the learning and meeting others um so to me that&#39;s what really differentiated black more from the others that&#39;s great well Michelle I I really want to uh thank you and uh remember work on your next deal also yeah as we say when you&#39;re if you&#39;re in private Equity folks and you&#39;re listening to it and you&#39;re about to exit 18 months out you want to start this process now 5 to 10 hours a week if you&#39;ve never been in private Equity you want to do this if you&#39;ve done three four five private Equity deals you want to be in this proces because Blackmore has 25 plus years 24 plus deals under our belts exits are one of the most recent ones eight and a half times cash and C we live this I personally last year attended 20 plus private Equity conferences PR us the flesh with over a thousand a, onetoone meetings the great thing about Blackmore connects it&#39;s low cost when you go to ACG expect about five grand per Conference travel uh hotel rooms everything else but you&#39;re building your brand You&#39;re Building knowledge you&#39;re testing you&#39;re learning how to build how does your brand land with the customer and Blackmore gets Blackmore connects next conferences uh get uh get you right on the table with private Equity instead of trying to figure it out Michelle I want to thank you I look forward to staying in touch and uh that ends this uh Blackmore connect success story webinar thank you Michelle thank you [Music]

Transcript for:Michelle Tinsley Success Story Video For Blackmore Partners Inc.

Transcript for:
Michelle Tinsley Success Story Video For Blackmore Partners Inc.