The Emerald Rose

No, that wasn’t me. That was Robert Duvall in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic old Viet Nam movie, Apocalypse Now. But I’m pushing a D-Day myself today.
I passed all the info to my guy up north to review on the decision to buy out my boss and his entire company. I’ll give him a call today and see what his thoughts are about the whole thing. At first my boss didn’t know whether I was serious or not so I adopted a new strategy, I did the old “Whatever,….you choice.”, and waited. As he got his mind around the concept he started asking a question here, a question there, you know, sort of a “What what would it be worth to you,….I mean if I was interested.” I’d reply with a simple “Well we’d need a little more disclosure of things and all to begin with.” That would be met with an “Yeah, Ok ,…I’ll get back to you.” And my reply, “Whatever, when you get a chance.” And so it went the entire month of May.
In early June he apparently talked to his Uncle (a business guru), his CPA (Accountant), his Mom (another business person who actually put him in business) and thay all said the same thing, “Take the money and run!” So one day he calls me in and says, “Well how much would you be offering?” Again I have to be coy, “Well that would depend on what the business is worth, afterall we are a service business and every client has a 60 day out clause in thier contract so when everything is said and done and they all decide they want out,….well we’d have to factor that in as well.”
“Well tell me what information you’ll need and I see if I can pull it together.” My turn now, “OK, I’lll get to work on the list of things we’re going to need to see and get back to you later this week.” (I’ve had the list in my briefcase for three weeks already, but sometimes you have to “motivate” the buyer a tad more than usual.) Now his turn, “Now, obviously I’ll have to have you sign a confidentiality agreement before I can give you the info, any problem with that?” A pregnant pause and then, “No not really, just get me a copy so I can check it out first and have the attorney review it.”
Four days later he gives it to me, I sign it and give it back two days later. (It was an old real estate listing confidentiality agreement!) The day after I give him the “shopping list” of onfo we need. You know, last three years financials, tax returns, currnet client base, income stream, expense items, etc.
Four days later he hands me a microsoft excel version of his last month’s Income statement, with a lot of holes in it. I tell him I’ll review it over the week end and get back to him. (It took about ten seconds to see he was testing, as I wouldn’t buy a candy bar based on this piece of crap.) That was a friday, so Saturday morning I sat down at my computer and drew up a matrix spreadsheet on the business, filled in the blanks on my accounts and developed more detailed listings of items and e-mailed him one of those “Thanks for your info, but our folks require more detailed info. Attached is a spreadsheet we need you to fill in as well as copies of your last two years tax returns, and CPA developed financial statements. This brings us to July.
By now he’s had a chance to “spend the money” he would be getting, and much like the old “Night before Christmas” poem, “visions of sugar plums” were dancing in his head. For the next week all went dark. He made the usual, “Is there anything else you need?” comments, I made the usual, “If there is I’ll let you know, thanks” comments, and I sent everything up to my man to review and make a decision. He told me it would take a week or two and he’d get back to me.
My guy is now frothing at the bit. Almost everyday it’s a “Well, did you hear anything yet?” And everyday I reply, “No not yet, I know he had some other business to take care of and was going to try and sneak in a few days off, but I’ll let you know.”
So here we are, and I’ll call him this morning. If it is a go I’ll let you know the next steps, if not then I launch my own business “full steam ahead” immediately. If we do complete the buyout with him then I’ll just roll all of his accounts into the business I’ve set up and we will have a clean start. If not then I’m all clean and ready to go anyway. All my marketing adn sales tools are ready, stationary, business cards, etc. all printed , new website up and active, consistency of eveything thought out and executed, computers up and ready, progrqms all updated to the most updated versions, network all set and going, uniform chart of accounts ready to go, fileing space and systems ready, and all set to pull the trigger either way and move ahead.
I’ve only one hiccup, and that’s the last course I have to take in August for three days and then I can apply to become a Professional Community Association Manager (PCAM), the highest credentialling level in my field, and within a year achieve it. (You have to do a “case study”, which is like a thesis on an Association they assign you that is reviewed and judged by a Board of PCAM’s and they decide whether you “cut the mustard”. Still some work to go, but I’ve scaled the cliff, got all the other course requirments and pre-requisites and “time in grade” out of the way,…and I’m ready to go for it. But it’s a long last step so it will be a while and I’ll keep you posted.
I’ll let you know tomorrow what my “moneyman” has to say.
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