Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can’t, Uh, Coach?

Introduction:

This week, David C. Barnett, Jay Goltz, and Lena McGuire talk about their experiences hiring consultants, advisors, and especially coaches. There are, of course, lots of great business coaches out there, but as the owners explain, it’s easy to be led astray by coaches who don’t really know your industry or who address your specific challenges with their cookie-cutter solutions. And here’s a question: Does it matter whether the coaches were successful in their own entrepreneurial endeavors? “I’ve seen some of these people in the picture framing industry,” Jay tells us, “these people who were coaching and were giving advice to people. And every last one of them failed in their own business.” But when coaching works, it can be transformative, says Lena, who is “absolutely thrilled” with the coach she hired. So how do you tell the difference between a coach who can actually help and one who just talks a good game? Plus: Jay explains why he’s thinking about opening a pizza shop. Seriously. Well, sort of seriously.

— Loren Feldman

Guests:

Jay Goltz is CEO of The Goltz Group.

Lena McGuire is CEO of Spóca Kitchen & Bath.

David C. Barnett helps people buy and sell businesses.

Producer:

Jess Thoubboron is founder of Blank Word.

Full Episode Transcript:

Loren Feldman:
Welcome David, Jay, and Lena. It’s great to have you here. I want to talk about business coaches today. It’s gotten kind of trendy to hire them, although I sort of wonder what’s going to happen with AI coming. Maybe we’ll talk about that a little bit, but I’m eager to hear about your own experiences. Lena, why did you decide to hire a business coach?

Lena McGuire:
Because I was at a plateau, and at my age, I don’t have a lot of time. I had a little bit more money, so I wanted to take the faster approach. So I started researching who was going to be best able to help me and get me where I wanted to be.

Loren Feldman:
How did you do that? How’d you do the research?

Lena McGuire:
Well, I started by asking friends and doing a little bit of research about what types of coaches are available, and then I asked friends for recommendations, and then I interviewed coaches. And then I sat back and did some analyzing to see what it was I really wanted, how involved I wanted to be. And I found three people who I was interested in, and I interviewed with them at length, about an hour each, and I made my determination.

Loren Feldman:
When you were asking about what kinds of coaches there are, what did you find?

Lena McGuire:
There are coaches that can help you with specific things. There are coaches who specialize in groups or individuals. They can do one-on-ones. What I was looking for was somebody to give me the accountability I need, because I know myself. If I don’t have homework and follow-up and accountability, I will not get the best value from it. So I was looking for somebody who could help me on a weekly, monthly, annual, quarterly basis. So I had constant communication. So the coach I ended up picking, we had weekly Q&A sessions with a small group. We had monthly motivators that were basically group sessions where we were doing exercises for two hours each session.

Once a month, we had calls that were small groups, just two people. And we had quarterly where I had the one-on-one coaching with the actual coach, and I had a mindset coach that was also a one-on-one, monthly one-hour call. And then we had group workshops that were once a month for two days a month for four hours each day. And then we had annual workshops. So I had a lot of interaction with other people, and it was a focus thing about growing my business. And then the mindset issue was really relevant in my coaching sessions. I didn’t realize how much I needed that mindset shift, and that was like the bonus from actually doing the coaching.

Loren Feldman:
What do you mean by that? What was the mindset shift?

Lena McGuire:
Like working on your business instead of in your business, and realizing the value of your time—not to do those $10- and $20-an-hour jobs, and even the $50-an-hour jobs, because my job is to move the business forward. It’s to have the vision and to set the goals for the business. And those are things that only I can do. And then to do the things that I’m good at that I enjoy, like doing the one-on-one consultations with the clients, getting the sales set, things like that. So it was letting go of those things that can be delegated to other people, that they would do better than me, at a lower cost.

Jay Goltz:
So what is the background of these people? I’m just fascinated by the whole thing. Where do these people come from? And what qualifies them to be giving advice to other people? I just wonder, if they’re so entrepreneurial, why are they doing coaching?

Lena McGuire:
There are people who have coaching experience. They get certified as coaches. A lot of them come in from life points. So I know my mindset coach was a certified coach, and the person who was doing the business coaching for me had actually been in the business, and recently— maybe 10-15 years—has been coaching. But before that, was doing what I do for 40 years. So you know, she had relevant experience doing that but also had the coaching experience.

It basically comes down to the coaches who do this are the ones who really want to give back to the community. They want to see other people be successful. So they just naturally gravitate toward it. As they start getting out of their business, and their businesses are being run really well, they have the extra time and they want to help people. That’s basically the kind of people who I was talking to.

David Barnett:
I see a lot of ads online that say that coaching is a great way to have a high-income business that doesn’t require a lot of time or employees. So I think there’s different groups of people being drawn into the whole coaching world.

Lena McGuire:
Yeah, I agree. I’m just speaking from the types of coaches I was looking for. That’s where it was because it was more experience-based. But yeah, there are a lot of coaches that are doing it because you can work from home. You can have a remote team, and depending on how specialized you are and your program, you can charge a lot. My program was not inexpensive. I interviewed with coaches who charged anywhere from $3,000 for a year to $45,000 a year.

Jay Goltz:
Wow.

Loren Feldman:
Can you tell us where you wound up?

Lena McGuire:
I went in for three months at a monthly rate, and then, if you decided within 90 days, you got a discount. And so my $25,000 fee came down to around $23,000.

Loren Feldman:
And were you happy with what you got out of it?

Lena McGuire:
Absolutely thrilled. I feel it accelerated me to where I wanted to be. For me, I wanted to get my systems and processes together. I wanted to be able to get to the point where I could sell my business in five or 10 years, or have a general manager take over. So I didn’t have a lot of systems and processes. I had my own way of doing things, but nothing was documented. My foundations were a little bit shaky, so I wanted to firm those up a little bit. All of that has happened, and I also have wonderful people.

Now that I’m out of the coaching program, I still stay in touch with about seven or eight of the women who I was in there with, and actually, I have an informal Zoom meeting where I work with these five women every Tuesday for an hour. So we do best practices, and we still are helping each other. So it’s more of a roundtable now, rather than a coaching group, because I didn’t want to spend another $23,000.

David Barnett:
I was just chuckling. I totally appreciate Lena’s last comment there about the cost. You know, I’ve done some different coaching programs to try and get some of the benefits that Lena was talking about there. And I run a business that also provides a coaching program to some of our own clients, too. And so my experience has been a little bit different from what Lena has had. I was really happy to hear she got positive results. The coaches that I hired, I found were very formulaic, and I found that they didn’t really take the time to understand my business.

And when they started to give me feedback, they were giving feedback that, if I had followed it, I know it would have actually probably been at odds with the course of action that would have helped me. So I went through a few of them, and I’ve also had some long chats with people who are in the coaching business when I was creating my own coaching program that I host for other people, just to try to figure out what may have been wrong with some of the people who I had met with and what I needed to make sure I had in order before I started to do this with other people.

Loren Feldman:
How did you go about finding someone? What was your process?

David Barnett:
I did a little bit of networking. I did some open Google searching, looking for different people. I would find some different people online and dig into some of the content that they had created, listening to some podcast interviews they had done, to try to get a feel for the person, their background, what their experience had been. Lena just mentioned that one of the people who she had hired as a coach had a background in doing the thing that Lena does. And I think that’s key—someone who’s got applicable, direct experience with a specific industry and type of business that you’re trying to do, so that they can have an appreciation of what you’re going through and maybe understand the path that might be ahead of you.

To echo Jay’s question earlier: To me, if somebody trains as like a life coach, for example, I really question when those people try to get into business coaching, because I wonder where the background or understanding is going to come from.

Jay Goltz:
You said something in the beginning: You said they didn’t take the time to understand the business. I don’t think it’s about time. They don’t have the ability to do it, which is what you just finished up with, basically. The fact is, there are some instinctual things about business and entrepreneurship that you just have to have. And I just don’t think this is the same as coaching golf or whatever. So I’m sure there are some great ones who work out well. I’m also sure there are some who are not great ones who failed at their own businesses. I’ve seen some of these people in the picture framing industry. These people who were coaching and were giving advice to people—every last one of them failed in their own business.

Lena McGuire:
Yeah, I’d be suspicious of somebody who didn’t have a very successful business. And I do agree with Dave with the podcast. That was something that I did, too. Anybody who I was interested in, I listened to multiple podcast [episodes] that they had, because that would give you an idea of their personality and their coaching style. And the ones that I gravitated to were the ones who were answering questions that people were submitting based on what they were looking for as advice. So that was very helpful to do that Google search and get those people and find their podcasts, listen to them, read their blogs.

Jay Goltz:
That probably is the critical piece to this that you couldn’t do 20 years ago. That I could see, where if you listen to enough of the podcast and get it, I could see where you could really get a good feel for whether they’re the right one. But without that, I don’t even know. I mean, I think it would be very difficult to sit down with somebody for an hour and really get a feel. So that makes sense, that that was what you did, and it worked.

Lena McGuire:
Yeah, and I can tell you that now, even though I’m done with the coaching program—I’ve been out of the program for a little over a year now—I still listen to her weekly podcast. I still get excellent value from that.

Loren Feldman:
Lena, was it hard for you to find someone who was familiar with your industry, or did you consider other people?

Lena McGuire:
Yes, because I do kitchen-and-bath design, and I do work with a lot of contractors, so design/build is basically what I’m involved in. Most of the coaching is in the interior design world. And interior design people will do mood boards and do space planning and furniture purchasing and things like that, which I can do, but that’s nowhere near the focus of my business. My business is on the nuts and bolts of creating a kitchen and a bath from right down to the studs and then building it back up.

Interior designers who are coaching, they’re not talking about load bearing walls and putting in a laminate beam and working with an engineer and an architect. So finding somebody who had that construction experience, as well as the interior design business, I did not find somebody who was a kitchen-and-bath designer, but somebody who was an interior designer who did construction work. It took me a long time to find somebody, but it was well worth the effort of finding somebody.

Loren Feldman:
Dave, we’ve talked in past podcast [episodes] about how it can be hard for business owners to find someone who does what you do: helping business owners buy or sell businesses with a real knowledge of the small business end of the market. I guess it’s not surprising that it would be also hard for someone like you to find a coach who’s familiar with that.

David Barnett:
Yeah, well, I was open to any kind of coach that had any kind of small business consulting experience. You know, anyone who was selling to other business owners any kind of consulting or things of that nature, and that’s what I went looking for. I know some of the ahas I think I arrived at through my own experience with coaching that helped me with the program I run for people who want to buy a business. I think that if someone’s going to get a coach, they have to have some kind of framework for the journey they’re going to go on. So there has to be some kind of plan. Like: This is where you start, this is where you finish. This is the goal. This is what we’re going toward. Or if it’s just going to be this general kind of, “I’m coaching you to greater levels of success,” I think that there has to be that depth of industry experience.

We have people that go through our coaching program who want to buy a business, and when they buy a business, they say, “Wow, I really liked working with you. Can you stay on as my business coach?” And, for example, if they buy a janitorial business or something, I’ll say, “You know, I’m not the guy. I mean, I can help you through this process of doing the transaction, but you really want to find the person who retired after 30 years of running a janitorial business.” They’re going to have the tips and the tricks and the insights and the background to know what you’re going through and what the next thing looks like and what to do when you have that one big client that you rely upon who suddenly starts to take longer and longer to pay and how you navigate that situation.

And so it’s tough. And when I hear Lena talk about the amount of money she invested in her coaching program—one of the things that I look out for is: What are the terms of payment? I mean, has somebody got enough confidence in their coaching program that they’re going to let you pay monthly or quarterly, so you can get a taste as you move forward and can bail if you’re not getting value? Or is there a big incentive for a big upfront payment? As with all things in life, once you’ve made the payment and you’ve sent over the money, you kind of lose part of the leverage in the commercial relationship as a customer.

Lena McGuire:
Yeah, that’s very important. That was a consideration for me, too. I was on the monthly payment plan, and that was very affordable to do it that way. But after three months, I saw the value, so I jumped on the cost savings.

Jay Goltz:
Or if it isn’t leverage, it’s simply a case of being able to just cut your losses and figure out, “Yeah, this isn’t the right person.” I mean, I’d have a hard time paying someone all upfront. This isn’t like building a house or something. I mean, you might have the wrong person, and why shouldn’t you be able to leave after three months if you realize it’s the wrong thing? And why should they be guaranteed income for the next six months if they turn out to be the wrong person? So I would definitely coach people to not go paying up front unless there’s some compelling—I can’t imagine a compelling reason that I would want to do that.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, you do sound a little skeptical. I’m curious. You’ve spoken here often about how you never had a mentor, and when you were getting started, it was much harder to find the kind of advice and help that’s much more available today. Do you think you could have used a business coach?

Jay Goltz:
Look, there’s no question I could have used—especially in the beginning. My business grew so fast. I doubled in size for the first three years. I was completely out of control. I was in my 20s, the business was just growing like crazy. I could have absolutely used someone. And the part that’s so frustrating in hindsight is, I have an accounting degree, but I never went into accounting, and I really didn’t like it.

But here’s somebody who’s growing super fast, and unfortunately, I think most entrepreneurs think, “Oh, well, I’ve got a good accounting firm. They’ll take care of that.” No, they won’t. They probably are doing your taxes. I look back at some of the fundamental mistakes I made in the beginning, and it just blows my mind—and I went to a decent-sized accounting firm. Between them and the banks, not one of them said to me, “Hey, you’re growing too fast. Raise prices 5 percent. You don’t have a big enough bottom line.”

Loren Feldman:
We’ll do another podcast on accountants. I don’t want to go too deep into—

Jay Goltz:
I’m just saying, these are the people who were available to me back in the day. I didn’t have anyone else to talk to. There was no such thing as business coaching 30 years ago.

Loren Feldman:
Could you imagine hiring one today?

Jay Goltz:
At my stage? Probably not, because I frankly think—I built the company from zero to 120 people. I don’t really think there’s many coaches out there who know anything more than I do. I don’t. I’m sure there are some.

Loren Feldman:
What about for aspects of the business? I mean, you can’t be an expert in everything you do. You know, maybe for help with technology stuff, or something like that.

Jay Goltz:
For sure, for sure.

David Barnett:
Hang on. I think you’re crossing the line here between coaching and consulting, right? So, if Jay needs a new inventory management system? Yeah, sure. There’s probably an expert out there who can come in and set it all up and train the staff, and then they’re done. And that’s consulting. And there’s a difference here. And I think some people blur the line a little bit, whether intentionally or not.

Loren Feldman:
I was going to bring that up. That’s a great point.

Jay Goltz:
No, no, you’re right. Absolutely. I fully agree with that.

Loren Feldman:
Let me try to articulate the difference, and you’ll tell me if I get it right. I think the difference is that a consultant, just as you suggested, tends to be more project-oriented, maybe more strategic-oriented, looking to find a solution to some specific issue. Whereas a coach is more about developing skills and goals and helping people just improve the way they do things in general. Does that sound right?

Jay Goltz:
Or how to operate as the boss. If I was a business coach, the first thing I would explain to people is, “You’re the boss. Let me explain to you what that means,” because I didn’t know what that means. When you’re the boss, you’re in a whole different category of human species. Don’t take things personally when someone quits and gives you no notice, you know? “Oh, how could they do that to me?” Because they don’t care. So, yeah, there is a difference between coaching and consultant, that’s for sure.

Lena McGuire:
There’s a big difference. I have an advisor from SCORE. An advisor gives you advice that’s relevant to you. They understand what your business is, how your personality plays into it. Consulting? I will hire a consultant, like when I brought on QuickBooks Online. I hired an accounting consultant, a bookkeeper kind of person. Paid him $125 an hour. We worked for two or three hours. We got done what needed to be done. They did the work for me. That’s a consultant. And then coaching is helping me so that I can do the work, so that I can make my business better. So I use all three.

Loren Feldman:
Lena, I’m realizing that you’ve sought the input of a lot of people in the process of building your business. You know, a coach. You just told us about a consultant. You have an accelerator in Tennessee that you work with. Maybe there are others? You’re part of a Zoom group. Are you at all concerned that you might have too much information? Are you getting conflicting advice from the various sources?

Lena McGuire:
No, because I’m a one-person business with a 1099 virtual assistant. I don’t have the support group for what I need, so I’m building my own support group, and I wanted to get my business together properly. So when I talk about consultants, I’m basically talking about my BAIL team: my banker, my insurance agent, my accountant, my lawyer. So those are the four big people that I would get consulting from. But the coaching, that’s like the well rounded thing, and I can ask questions that are very pertinent to me right now.

Jay Goltz:
I want to bring up an important aspect of all those people you just mentioned. I’ve gotten bad advice from all of them.

Lena McGuire:
And that’s why I have these different venues, because I can get advice from—you know, I’ll go to the accountant first and talk to them, and then I’m thinking in my mind, “That doesn’t sound right to me.” So then I go to my business group, and I have conversations with the other people who are entrepreneurs, and we hash it out. So that’s why I have my Tennessee group, the Brain Trust. This is a group of seven other women. It’s a round table, and we go through our challenges. And I can say, “I have this advice, and I’m not sure this is really the right way to go.” And they’ll say, “Oh no, I’ve gone this way,” or somebody else will say something else. So I’m getting that balance so I can make good decisions on my own.

Jay Goltz:
Most of these professionals are risk-averse. That’s what they do for a living. They get a paycheck every Friday. They’re risk-averse.

Lena McGuire:
Yes, yes.

David Barnett:
Jay, do you have good buddies in the framing or furniture business that you sometimes talk to, who are in the same business but maybe they’re not competitive because they’re not in town?

Jay Goltz:
Absolutely, I have two of them I’m tight with. One’s in Florida, one’s in Arizona, and I talk to them regularly.

David Barnett:
Yeah, I do the same thing. I’ve probably got three or four good business friends, and we talk to each other, and we bounce things off each other, and a couple of them actually were in a mastermind group with me at one time. I can’t say enough good things about mastermind groups. You know, where you can go and have these kinds of conversations with other people?

And I was asked the other day if, “If you don’t have a coach, how do you fill that gap? How do you sort of test your ideas or things like that?” And my answer was that they’re my business friends who are also running businesses who will either give me feedback or give their opinion, or tell me that they don’t think they have a qualified opinion, which I think is one of the most beautiful data points you can get from anybody.

Jay Goltz:
Or, “I tried that, and it didn’t work. Here’s why.” “Oh, I didn’t think of that.” No, and I’ll tell you, trade shows are phenomenal. The fact of the matter is, look, I’ll just use picture framing, because that’s what I’m most familiar with. Probably only 20 percent of people who own picture frame shops go to the national trade show, which, to me, says it all. I don’t know how you can be in a business, if you’re really into it and want to grow it, and not go to a national trade show.

And then when you go to the national trade show, instead of sitting next to a guy who’s your competitor from six blocks away, there’s somebody in a completely different state—to your point that you have no competition—you can have a very, very deep, honest, revealing, insightful conversation with. And trade shows were one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, as far as I’m concerned.

Lena McGuire:
They’re absolutely necessary.

Loren Feldman:
Dave, when you went looking for a coach, what problem were you hoping to solve?

David Barnett:
I was looking, actually, to fill the gap in my mind space, from the end of that mastermind group that I alluded to earlier. So I was in a mastermind group for a decade, and what started to happen is people in the group started to sell their businesses, and I was one of the more junior people in there. And so as they started to sell their businesses, the type of conversations and people’s vigor and enthusiasm, etc., all kind of changed from “Let’s roll up our sleeves and do this and get to work” to a more relaxed kind of atmosphere going toward their retirement.

And so I said, “You know what, I can’t keep spending time here, because I’m not getting out of it what I used to.” And so I left that group, and I went looking for some way to replace that missing thing. And that’s why I started to look for a coach. And I was open to other kinds of mastermind groups and things, too. So I kind of went shopping along the whole gamut of coaching, peer help, sort of stuff that Lena has been successful at signing up for or finding.

Loren Feldman:
And I think you said that you realized that the people you were seeking coaching from really didn’t know your industry. How long did it take you to figure that out and break the relationship?

David Barnett:
Well, in some cases, it was one conversation. In other cases, I did sign on with a guy, and I was with him for about six months. And he would give me advice, and then I would say, “But that doesn’t fit within the marketing funnel framework that I have established that we talked about two meetings ago.” And so, it became clear that he had this bag of tricks that he was pulling stuff out of, and he wasn’t really putting his headspace into my business, or what I needed. And I realized, “Hey, I’m not getting from this what I thought I was going to get, and I should probably just back out.”

Lena McGuire:
That’s very common. When I was looking for a coach—like you said before—it was very formulaic. They have a plan. This is how they do it, and they’re teaching you their way rather than coaching you to figure out how to do it. It’s like teaching a man to fish instead of feeding him. And if you find the coach who can listen and say, “Oh, this is what your challenge is. Have you tried this or that or this way? And this is the experience I’ve had, and I can tell you that this always works, and I can tell you that this never works. Then let’s figure out what’s going to work for you.”

And those people who have that formula where they’re going to teach you, like, “I’m very successful. I can do this and that. Let me show you the way.” It’s their way, not what works for you. And I think that’s the key that helped me find a good coach, because once I found that person who was going to speak to me on that individual level and help me on my path, rather than teaching me her path, that makes all the difference. And I think that’s what Dave is trying to find with somebody who can fill that gap.

Jay Goltz:
I’ve also learned—somebody actually admitted this to me at an accounting firm—some of them don’t want to give you the brutal truth. Why? They don’t want to lose the account. One admitted it to me. I want the kind of accountants who go, “Jay, you’re being an idiot. Stop doing this. Do it this way.” That’s what I want. They would not tell that to someone because they don’t want to lose the ongoing stream of doing the tax work.

David Barnett:
And the other thing about some advisors, like accountants—and there are some great accountants out there—but their sales processes are often askew. So you can have an accountant who does accounting, tax returns, financial statement preparation, et cetera. And they also do advisory and consulting, and they have that in their name. They have that on their advertisements, etc.

But I’ve asked one of these guys, “What percentage of your clientele is subscribed to your advisory services?” and he looked at me with a blank stare. I’m like, “Well, you sell the tax-return preparation. You sell the financial statement work. Who do you sell advisory services to? What are you promising them? What’s the deliverable?” And so I think there’s a lot of people who maybe go to that accountant there. They have not purchased advisory services. The accountant has not tried to sell them advisory services, but the person believes they’re getting some kind of advice.

Loren Feldman:
Dave did your experience trying to find a coach who would work for you inform your coaching services that you offer? Do you think you learned things that have helped you?

David Barnett:
Yeah, because what we do is, we coach people through the process of buying a business. And so we’ve got it kind of broken down into steps, and we have all the things that we are sure to teach people, and then we guide people as they go on that journey. And so, we are able to then show that kind of plan to people, and we say, “This is the plan we’re going to coach you along. If you would like to go on this journey, then this is where we can do that.” And so, people know very clearly what they’re going to be getting into, and then they’re doing it.

We do it in a group. So, there’s a couple of tiers. One is just the group activities, the other tier is the group activities, plus a monthly one-on-one with me. And about half the people choose the one that includes the private meetings with me, and the other half stay in the group activities. But they’re all on that journey. They’re all following that kind of pathway, and then they get to see each other on their deals. So people in the group sessions are talking about their conversations with bankers, with sellers, with brokers, etc. They’re sharing the things they are learning in due diligence. They’re warning each other about this weird thing that they came across and how it’s affecting the deal. And not only is it me giving input in those meetings, as they’re asking questions and things, but we’ve got many members in the group who’ve already done it now, who are still there, wanting to share with the other more junior people. And so you get this real synergy that adds to the value of being there.

I thought when we started the group that people would sign on, follow the group, follow the methodology, buy a business, and then leave. And you know, the majority of people who buy a business do that. They leave. But I was surprised by how many people are sticking around, and for a lot of them, it’s because, they say, “Well, I intend to do it again, and I want to learn, and I want to see what’s happening in these other deals.” Because it’s like a muscle they’re working on. They’re getting better and better at this whole deal-making thing.

And so I think what has been helpful for me in learning through my experience was that, like I said earlier, there needs to be some kind of framework or map or journey so you know what to expect, what you’re going to go through. And there has to be some kind of definitive outcome, I think. To just have a coaching relationship where you’re saying, “I want to be better at business,” I don’t think, is as powerful as, “I need a coach to help me grow revenue by 50 percent and increase my gross margin by 20 percent,” or something like that.

Jay Goltz:
The beauty of what you do is, I can’t imagine that someone who’s going to buy a business for the first time could possibly have the background and experience to do this without that. I mean, how would they have that? And then, on top of that, many people who are selling the business also never sold a business. So I’m not even saying they’re trying to cheat anybody. They didn’t even know themselves that—wait a second—the problem is going to be after they buy it, this owner had an extremely high expertise in this particular thing that you don’t have, and that’s going to kill you. And so I could see where that would be extremely valuable to anybody who’s going to buy a business. So good for you, good for them.

Lena McGuire:
And it sounds like your coaching program is doing really well. If people are sticking around, there’s obviously value. And I love the idea that when you put it all together, you’re like, “What are the deliverables?” Because that’s something that I looked for when I was looking for a coach. Like, “I want this, what are you going to give me?” And then that allows me to make a decision: Is this program going to be good for me based on what I need, and how much I’m going to pay. Am I going to get what I want? And it sounds like you did exactly that. I’d like to ask you, are you doing podcasts also? Because I know that was something we just talked about, how valuable that was when you’re evaluating a coach.

David Barnett:
Yeah, my YouTube channel just celebrated its 11th anniversary. And I do videos by myself, where I answer people’s questions, but I also have guests on the show, too, where we have conversations about either deal making or small business operations. So there’s people who hear me, read one of my books, find out about me. If they want to go do a deep dive and find out more about me, they can dive really deep. There’s all kinds of stuff out there.

Jay Goltz:
I went to a seminar that the bank put on that was very interesting about selling your business and the multiples and stuff. So there were like five people on the dais there, and they’re talking about how many deals they did last year, and it wasn’t that many deals. And I was a little surprised, and I said to him, “In the city of Chicago, there had to have been thousands and thousands of deals, but you’re only doing X amount of them.” And I said, “So what was the multiple?”

So they said, “Well, most of these deals were in the,” I forget, “$70 to $100 million range.” I go, “Wow, I assume these weren’t the founders. They were second or third generation?” And the guy looks and he goes, “No, I’m thinking about it in my head, most of them were not.” I go, “How could that be? There aren’t that many people who could build a company.” But he finally gave me the insight. He said, “Here’s the key: Most of these people were buying businesses along the way. That’s how they got it so big.”

David Barnett:
Well, you know, now that you’ve said that, I’ve got to tell you that 50 percent of the people in this group coaching program I run are already business owners. So they are business owners, and they’re in the group because they want to grow through acquisition. So it’s exactly the roadmap that you’re talking about.

Loren Feldman:
So let me ask you guys this: How is this all going to change as we enter the age of AI? I talk to more and more business owners who are using ChatGPT or another chatbot, as something of an alter ego, running pretty much every big decision they make—from hiring people, entering resumes, asking for a ranking of the candidates, to deciding who gets promoted, to making decisions about expansion, whether it’s geographic or adding products. People are having all these conversations with AI. Are they still going to hire coaches?

David Barnett:
Well, I’ve started doing it, Loren, and it all comes down to the context and the information that you feed into it, and how you set up the prompt, right? And so one of the things that we’ve noticed, or we see as an opportunity, is to couple the desire to use AI with some of our products. So this is what I’m working on right now, is some of the programs that we have in the education courses and the group coaching program. We’re looking at how we can use the base of content that we have developed and then create AI tools for our clients to use. So we’re trying to do that for them, and I am playing with it myself to get ideas and stuff like that.

Loren Feldman:
Are you at all concerned that people will stop looking to you as a coach if they can just turn to ChatGPT?

David Barnett:
No, because if you just ask ChatGPT questions about buying a business, you get really bad advice, because ChatGPT is programmed by reading the internet. And I don’t know if you know, but some of the quality of information on the internet is not the best. [Laughter]

Jay Goltz:
What?!

Lena McGuire:
Shocking. Absolutely shocking.

Jay Goltz:
I’m still working on regular intelligence, not the artificial stuff. As soon as I get the regular intelligence figured out, then we’ll move on to artificial.

Lena McGuire:
I see AI coming up in a lot of the conversations that I’m having with the different people and the different groups I’m in, and it is starting to become a very dominant conversation. I see more of the future being in consulting so that you can use AI for very specific things: Help me get this set up, show me how to use this. But as far as coaching, I think like Dave said, incorporating the AI tools into his coaching, yes. But replacing coaching with AI, I don’t see that happening.

And I can see the importance of the mastermind groups and the round tables, because now you’re like, “Okay, I’m trying this kind of AI. What kind of results have you had?” And just the sheer volume of information out there: Which AI engine do you want to use? And how do you want to use them? I just have a running list of all these different AI agents and search things that we can use, and it’s overwhelming. So having six or seven other people who can come in and say, “Hey, I did this. I used this. This is how I did it. You might want to try it.”

Loren Feldman:
Dave, you told us that you’re trying to incorporate AI into some of what you offer. Have you started using it to answer questions that you have running your business?

David Barnett:
Yeah, I’ve created a few different personas, and I’m feeding information into it and programming it to interview me and then come up with lists of strategies or ideas to a solution or to a problem that I pose to it. And I find it interesting. A lot of the stuff that it gives me back will be not useful. Like, there would be things I would never do, or I just know from reading it that that would never play out.

But I find it very useful because it’s acting kind of like a bit of a muse, because you can have a bunch of silly responses to a question, but there could be, inside of that, the little nugget or grain that plants the seed of what is a good idea. And so I find it interesting to brainstorm with, and I’ve recently started to play around with brainstorming with it in voice mode while I’m driving, almost like I’m talking to someone on the phone or something. And I find that the experience for me is a little bit different verbally than it is in front of the screen, too. I don’t know if other people have tried that.

Lena McGuire:
I haven’t done it. That sounds interesting. I do want to try that now.

Loren Feldman:
Jay, there’s at least one business we know that AI is probably not going to destroy, and that’s the pizza business. And I know from a recent conversation with you that, of all things, you’re actually thinking of getting involved in the pizza business. Can you tell us about that?

Jay Goltz:
My real estate taxes have gone up dramatically on my storefronts, and volume is not what it was. And I’ve decided I need to make the space, I need to condense, take my gallery and put it in with the frame business, which will free up some space. And I’m thinking, “Gee, what can I put in this new space to bring in some new revenue?” And all I know is: People like pizza. So I’m thinking: There was an old pizza place in Chicago that closed years ago that was the greatest pizza ever. And I know the owner, and I’m thinking, “Maybe I should put a pizza place in there, or maybe not, because probably when I look into it more, I’ll realize that’s another one of my things that I thought about but didn’t do.”

Loren Feldman:
Like the firehouse you bought?

Jay Goltz:
Well, I bought a firehouse, yeah, 10 years ago, right on the Kennedy Expressway, and I fixed it up, and I had a great time with it. And I was looking at different businesses, and then I realized, “Yeah, I don’t need any more businesses.” So I sold it at a small profit. But I have to say, I had a good time with it. I don’t regret it at all. So this might be another firehouse thing, but I like pizza. If you’re in Chicago, everybody needs to think about opening a pizza place. You seldom see them go broke.

Lena McGuire:
Well, you can’t go wrong with having food.

Jay Goltz:
That’s what I’m thinking.

Loren Feldman:
Well, except that restaurants are known for having—

Jay Goltz:
It’s not really a restaurant. It’s pick-up, you know, it’s a pizza place. They pull up, throw it in the car, drive away. It’s not exactly a restaurant thing. And I probably won’t do it, because I’m still a recovering entrepreneuraholic. So you caught me the moment that I took another drink from the entrepreneur hose. But I probably don’t need another business, so maybe I should just rent to somebody that’s got a pizza place. But then one of my people said, “Jay, the whole building will smell like pizza. It’s going to be a problem.” And yeah, so I wouldn’t bet on me doing it, but it is a fleeting thought. And I do like thinking about those things, so that’s my hobby.

Lena McGuire:
Well, Jay, you probably don’t want to have a fire opportunity next door with a pizza oven. And you know, if you had a business that didn’t have an oven there, you have less chance of the building burning down.

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, there you go. So there’s another reason not to do it. [Laughter] I’m sure there’s 20 more that I’ll reveal as I look into this.

David Barnett:
Jay, if the pizzerias are really as numerous in Chicago as you say, I would tell you, before you build your own pizzeria, write a letter to all the pizzerias within 25 blocks saying that you are looking for one, and see how many eagerly reply to you looking to sell.

Jay Goltz:
Well, this guy who I know truly did have the best pizza here, and everyone who works for me, everyone agrees with me. And I called him and I asked him, “Do you have any PTSD from it?” So he said he was doing consulting for a while. And I go—

Loren Feldman:
He’s a coach?

Jay Goltz:
Yeah, right, exactly, and he’s thinking about it. So I haven’t heard back from him. Maybe he’ll never call me back.

Loren Feldman:
Why isn’t he making pizza?

Jay Goltz:
This is kind of an interesting business story. His rent went up where he was at. He bought a building like two miles away, but two miles in the city is like going to the other end of the Earth. So it was out of the market, and he went broke. And I said to him, “Why didn’t you just raise your pizza prices $2 a pizza?” And he said, “Oh, Jay, you don’t understand. When I raise prices $1, somebody would complain.” He put himself out of business because it got in his head that someone was going to complain. It’s a shame. He should have just raised his price at two bucks. He’d still be here, and I’d still be enjoying the pizza.

It just shows you, this is an extremely emotional thing with entrepreneurs. They get it in their head: “Oh no, I can’t charge anymore because Joe complained last week about my price.” And honest to God, he put himself out of business because of that. So we’ll see. I probably won’t do it, but I’m also looking for something that’s home-furnishing related that would fit in there nicely. But just to illustrate, you’ve got to evolve in business. The building I bought, the factory building, the warehouse? The taxes were $28,000 when I bought it in 2008. Now they’re $228,000. That money’s coming from somewhere, so I need to reallocate space and condense a little bit and rent out. And it used to be that space might rent for $3-$4 a foot per year. Now it’s $12. So I’m reacting. I’m evolving. I’m gonna go rent out some of it for $12 a foot, and that’ll take care of the tax problem. But it just is another illustration of: One has to evolve as the world changes.

Lena McGuire:
Well, Jay, if your pizza guy had had a coach, he may have had a better mindset about realizing that he has to charge more to keep his profit levels there.

Jay Goltz:
Right, honest to God, it could have been one conversation with just telling them: “Get over it.” That guy that was complaining still would have bought the pizza, probably. And if he wouldn’t have, you’re not going to lose 20 percent of your customers because your pizza went up $2. Maybe you’ll lose 5 percent. Look, if you raised your prices 10 percent, you’d have to lose 25 percent of the business to lose money. You’ve got to charge what you’ve got to charge, at the end of the day.

Loren Feldman:
My thanks to David Barnett, Jay Goltz, and Lena McGuire. Really appreciate you taking the time.