Digital Marketing for Contractors
A podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business.
Digital Marketing for Contractors
From CEO To Strategic Consultant featuring SPECIAL GUEST: Chris Edelen
When it comes to growing a home improvement business, most contractors focus on hitting revenue goals. But what if you could build a company that not only thrives today but is also positioned for a profitable sale tomorrow? That’s exactly what Chris Edelen, former CEO and owner of Safe Showers, did—and in this episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors, he shared his incredible journey with hosts Janet and Caitlyn from FatCat Strategies.
https://fatcatstrategies.com/podcast/special-guest-chris-edelen-planning-your-exit/
Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.
Welcome to Digital Marketing for Contractors, a podcast for home improvement contractors to help you crush your lead goals and take your business to the next level. Join us each episode as we give you powerful insights and practical tips on the best digital marketing strategies to help you grow your home improvement business.
Janet:Welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors, the podcast that helps home improvement Pros grow smarter. My name is Janet. I am the founder of Fat Cat Strategies and today I have Caitlin with me. Caitlin, wow, that started off really great.
Caitlyn:Today's episode is a master class in growth leadership and building a company that's not only profitable but sellable.
Janet:Oh, we like those words. So today our guest is Chris Edelin and we are so happy to have him on. He is not only a client but he's the former CEO and owner of Safe Shower a company that he scaled and successfully sold to Sage Home. And that's just one of the many major milestones in Chris's career, which is why we're so happy to have him on the podcast and have him share some of his expertise and knowledge. Chris has also led or advised companies like Leafguard by Belden, Kohler, and Gibson Plumbing. Chris, I hope we got all of that correct.
Chris:Pretty close. It's great. Good afternoon. It's great to be with you guys and looking forward to the conversation.
Caitlyn:Yes. So we are so happy to now have you on. Take your experience. I think you're going out to consult other home improvement businesses on growth marketing and preparing them for exit opportunities. So we're going to dive on into all of your experience.
Janet:Great. So, Chris, just to kind of kick us off, why don't you let our listeners know your full story, your background, the businesses that you've been involved with, and how you got started in home improvement?
Chris:Sure. Happy to do that. Out of college, I went to work for Corporate America. I spent 20 years kind of right at the bottom in the management training program of public companies. worked for some very big companies, many of which are no longer around, Eastman Kodak being one of them. And I spent 20 years doing that. And then I had the opportunity and really wanted to run my own company. And so I was recruited to join a home services company in San Antonio that was really on the cusp of bankruptcy. And I wanted to prove that I could I wanted to prove to myself that I could run really my own business. And so I had a equity stake in the company and became CEO and had a great team. It was the company made custom wood shutters and other things. window coverings. We had quite a different array of products. The year before I took it over, it lost $1.2 million. And we were fortunate in eight months to get it to break even. And the investors decided that it was much, they thought it would take three to four years and they decided to sell the company. So I was recruited by a pretty big 500 plus million dollar company and I was division president. We were private equity back. That was really my first foray into the private equity world. And when I was running that, we had moved to Indianapolis. I was division president. I had seven company presidents reporting to me. And our youngest son was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. about six months after we had moved to Indianapolis. So with lots of prayers and great medical care, and after three and a half years of chemo, if he walked in the room today, you'd never know he was sick a day in his life.
Janet:That's fantastic, I love hearing
Chris:that. Yeah, we're just, we're really blessed. But after the first year of his treatment, the doctors told us we could move. So my wife and I agreed that we needed to be back in San Antonio. where our support structure was, our family, friends, and we knew lots of people in the medical community. So I had the opportunity to take over a family business. I was the first non-family member to run it. We had 17 offices across the country. This was LeafGuard by Belden and one in Canada. The company was losing market share and the bottom line was in the red. Not much, but still in the red. We put together a great team. We closed a couple problem markets and we grew the business over 300% in the next two and a half years and grew it extremely profitable. We also entered Costco. We were one of the first home services companies to be selling through Costco. We were in 216 stores at Costco. And, you know, it was, we were also ranked that year at This was way before the private equity guys got involved in our industry. And we were the fifth largest remodeler in the country.
Janet:That's fantastic.
Chris:Yeah, it was. I mean, that wasn't our goal, but we really grew aggressively. And then I was there nine and a half years and decided it was time for another challenge. So I left the company and Kohler Corporation called me and and tried to get us to move to color wisconsin and and uh we weren't gonna move my wife wasn't gonna move i was open to it so uh she's you know uh they asked me if i would consult and so long story short i did i walked in they handed me one sheet of paper with their strategy to go their first in over 140 years in business direct to consumer They had no clue what they were doing. Great, great people. I love the people there. I love the company. And it was a great opportunity. And so we built the program. The first business was the walk-in tub business. So you
Janet:were there like day one when Kohler decided to go directly to homeowners?
Chris:Well, I wasn't there when they decided. The board...
Janet:Like
Chris:early, early days. But I was... I was the first person, Jim Lewis and I. I worked for Jim, great guy, love him. He just announced his retirement from Kohler. But I had the opportunity from a white sheet of paper to put together these two great business units and a dealer network across the company, or I'm sorry, across the country. And that was a lot of fun. I was... traveling up to Kohler one or two weeks a month and then working remotely the other one or two or the other two or three weeks. We had a great group of people and the dealer network was fabulous as well. And then I had an opportunity to buy a company outside of the home improvement or home services industry. It was in the smart home technology business and I became the majority owner there. and wanted to really grow that business. It's very much a mom and pop industry, very bifurcated. There aren't many big companies. Geek Squad is really kind of the only national company, and they're really more of a service business. And so we tried to make several acquisitions. We weren't successful. And so... At that same time, Safe Showers came on my radar. When I was at LeafGuard, we were the first seven Bath Planet franchises in the country. In addition to LeafGuard, we had seven Bath Planet franchises. And I really loved that business. And so I was looking for an opportunity to get back into it. And Safe Showers was a moderate-sized company in San Antonio. And I saw their advertisement. I called the owner. And we had breakfast. And two months later, my wife and I owned the business. I was still running the smart home technology company, Sterling. And so my wife, who is a CPA by training and a corporate CFO and controller, was kind of thrust into the president and CEO job.
Janet:Yeah. And that's where we met you, was through Safe Showers.
Chris:That's right. That's right. And so... We ended up selling Sterling Home Technologies to a strategic buyer who was very interested in our business. We had grown the business. We had more than doubled it. And he was very interested in moving into the San Antonio market. So that gave me the opportunity about four, little over four years ago to go into Safe Showers full-time. My wife moved into the CFO role and that's kind of where we, how we got into Safe Showers.
Janet:What a story. So tell me, what is the time frame here? What year did you leave, quote unquote, corporate America and start this string of entrepreneurial? I mean, what I'm hearing is a thread of, you're the turnaround guy.
Chris:What
Janet:are the dates on that?
Chris:So I left corporate America in 1999, right before Y2K. And then I did the... the company in San Antonio that was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was about a $20 million business. And like I said, we got that profitable. That really was only a year. And then I went into the $500 million business, promotional products business. We were the largest in the world. And I was there about four and a half years. And then I left there, had the opportunity to, with Leaf Guard when our son got sick and we needed to move back to San Antonio. That was nine years and that ended in 2013. And then I did the Kohler for six years. I did Sterling for about three and a half years and then Safe Showers. We bought Safe Showers in April of 2018. Okay. And we sold it to a private equity firm in September 30th of 2022. Yeah.
Caitlyn:And that's where we begin our story. No, no, that's amazing. I mean, and we're going to dive more into that and how that like you end up selling all safe showers and so forth. But what do you think contributed most to the growth and success of safe showers in those years that you guys owned it?
Chris:You know, it was it was. Timing was, we were the benefit of timing.
Janet:What do you mean by that?
Chris:Well, so we bought it in 2018 and my wife was running it and I was kind of doing the sales and marketing on nights and weekends and she was running the installers and what have you. And one of the things that was extremely interesting to me about Safe Showers is they had a solid surface product that they had an exclusive on for Austin and San Antonio. And nobody else really had a product like that. And so I felt like we had a very unique product and I felt like we could really grow the business. And then obviously COVID came around. And I told my wife, I said, you know, we're going to double down on this deal. Every home improvement company I knew of stopped advertising almost exclusively. And so I could buy TV for 20 cents. What's that?
Janet:We lived through that chapter. We can attest to it. It was like March, January, February, March of 2020. We're really strong for our entire client base. Then the You know, the world pandemic was announced. And then April, across the board, people slashed their advertising. They let go of their canvassing team. You know. Stopped marketing. They stopped marketing. But then in like mid-May, they came back crazy. Anyway, not to interrupt you, but I was. So you saw, though, that you could buy TV spots online.
Chris:Really for 20 cents on the dollar.
Caitlyn:Right. Wow. So you get the brand exploded then.
Chris:Well, I told my wife, I said, this is either going to be a pretty good move or we're going to go bankrupt. So how
Janet:did you know that TV was so cheap? Did you just have a guess or did you call up a sales rep and say, how did you know that?
Chris:Well, I've been doing TV, you know, for 20 plus years in this business. And I know all the reps, you know, we're out to lunch every couple months. And so they keep me apprised whenever there's opportunities to buy, you know, special deals or what have you. So, you know, they called up and they said, and my first reaction was, are you crazy? And then I thought about it and I just, and they told me everybody has stopped advertising. And we were also considered an essential business in Texas.
Janet:Right.
Chris:And so we could go to work. We weren't locked down. And I just thought, this is going to be great. We lost a pretty significant amount of money for two months. Really? And then it was a rocket ship from there.
Janet:You just did it on faith. You just white knuckled it and said, I think this is going to work.
Chris:I did. I mean, I thought it was a great opportunity to grow our brand and really become really well-known. And it worked. It could have very easily gone the other way, but it worked.
Janet:I mean, I have to ask, were there some sleepless nights those first two months when you were losing money?
Chris:There were. I mean, we were paying our installers. We were paying all of our employees what they were making because we didn't want to lose them. We had a great team. And, you know, it was hard to write those checks, but I just felt like, you know, this isn't going to last forever. And I said, we'll give it four or five months. And if it doesn't turn around and, you know, month three, it really started to turn around for
Janet:us. So this would have been April and May of 2020.
Chris:Yeah, May and June, really. May, June, July, kind of that timeframe.
Janet:And you were just doubling down, tripling down on this low cost TV because the inventory was there. because the other advertisers had pulled out.
Chris:That's right. And I mean, we were in our TV commercials and so I became, you know, I became pretty well known in San Antonio and Austin.
Caitlyn:Exactly.
Chris:But it was just a great, we were just blessed to have the opportunity and we were able to keep our team and really grow the business.
Janet:So bringing it up a little closer to date, that was 2020. Fast forward, several years. Let's talk about the next chapter. So you doubled down, you ran the ads, growth really started to happen. At what point did you know that you were going to sell or look for a buyer? And then what did you do to prepare and navigate the company with an exit in mind?
Chris:Well, my plan was never to sell the business. Quite frankly, it was to grow the business. And I had hoped one of my two boys would be interested in and coming in to run the business. They both lived in Austin. Neither one of them was really interested in taking over the business. And then I got a call from a friend of mine who said that he was in process of selling his business and he wanted to refer me to the guys that had bought him. And I told him I really wasn't interested and I kept getting calls over the next six months from private equity firms. They they were looking they wanted to be in Texas and they really wanted our product line as well.
Caitlyn:OK.
Chris:And so, you know, I finally I finally started to say, OK, well, I'll listen. And that's really that's really where we made the decision. We we actually came within seven days of selling to a different, much larger private equity firm. And then in 2021, when the stock market, actually I was off by a year, we sold in 2023, not 2022. I
Caitlyn:held up three. Yeah, I thought, yeah.
Chris:Yeah. In 2022, we were within seven days of closing on a deal with another private equity firm. And And I can tell you, when you go through the due diligence process of a small to mid-sized company like we were, it is draining. I mean, they ask for so much information. The process went about three and a half months. We're literally within seven business days. and they shut down all acquisitions worldwide. They're a multi-billion dollar deal. And quite frankly, we were totally dismayed. We had spent a lot of money and a ton of time and it was really my wife and I and our CPA and our attorney because we didn't want our team to know. And so we were spending a lot of time outside of the office and then really had no intention again of selling And then the attorney who handled our deal that fell apart called about seven or eight months later and said, I have another private equity firm that really wants to talk to you. And I said, I'm not interested. Just
Janet:so fatigued by the process you'd just gotten out of.
Chris:Right. And in my past, I've either personally, I bought a couple of companies personally, but- For Corporate America, I've bought over 20. I've been the lead person or the only person on the team where we acquired over 20 businesses. So I've been through it, but as a company buying it, it's very different than a private equity firm.
Janet:In what way? I mean, we've kind of been on the outside world. looking in through the glass where, you know, we service this industry, but we've seen private equity come in and buy up so many of these businesses and many, honestly, of our own clients. So I'm just, I'm super curious, like what's the difference between a company acquiring another company and private equity? from your perspective
Chris:yeah i'll put it to you this way the biggest difference is the amount of due diligence and the level of due diligence the private equity firm i said to this firm i said i can't believe the amount of money that you are spending on this deal and he said look we have institutional investors you know some of the biggest you know uh endowments in the country and in the world are investors in their fund a lot of which have been in the news in the last six months. And they have to go through exactly the same process if they're buying a $20 million business or if they're buying a $2 billion business because they have to protect their shareholders or their investors. And they commit to that when they raise those billions of dollars. Whereas a strategic acquirer, they're going to go through most of that same process, but they don't have, you know, the private equity guys, they had five, six different teams of outside advisors. And they have to prove to the private equity firm that they're spending their money well. So they're looking at every tiny little minute detail. Whereas the strategic acquirer really knows and understands the business. And so they're asking all of the same questions, but it's a different process. They know what they're talking about. These outside advisors, they may be working on an auto parts deal tomorrow. And then the next day they may be working on a, a hair care, you know, just they could be working on anything and they go through, they send you pages and pages and pages, the legal, the due diligence on the accounting firms, the, you know, verifying that your numbers are what you say they are. And it's all, they both do it, but it's just, you know, time flies with the private equity firm.
Janet:So for our listeners who are interested In their business right now, their business is doing well, you know, by small business measures. Maybe they've hit $12 million and they've got their eyes on 20. And they don't have any personal experience on either end, buying or selling a company. It'd be their first time. And then private equity comes calling. I think what I'm hearing you say is it might not be the quote-unquote easy exit that some of these companies current home improvement owners may think it is because they may be hearing at shows, oh, so-and-so sold, you know, so-and-so got bought by XYZ private equity. How much, so you told us three months. I don't know if you want to share this, but you said it was expensive, the deal that fell through. So you were in conversations with private equity. So there's an investment of time to sell your business. What did you have to, to pay out of pocket to financial folks or lawyers on your end while you were marching towards that the day you signed?
Chris:Sure. I mean, we have a confidentiality agreement, so I can't share the exact numbers, but it was well into the six figures.
Janet:Wait, of what you spent on legal fees?
Chris:That's right. Legal and accounting and different... things. You know, my wife handled most of the accounting. She's a public company, CPA, CFO from her history. So our books were in great shape. That's not normally the case. We ran our company according to GAP and, you know, just like we were a public company. And, you know, we didn't put personal expenses through it. Occasionally we would, but not to the degree that most family businesses do. So we were pretty good in that regard. I mean, they're always looking for everything they can find. But the thing that saved us the second time around is we used our same attorney. He switched law firms and he called us up and he said, hey, for, I think it was five or $10,000, I can move your whole data room over to my new company.
Janet:And
Chris:so when the new private equity firm came calling All we had to do was update a lot of the stuff because we had already had it from a year prior or nine months prior.
Janet:You could leverage the investment that you had already made in the due diligence from the previous potential sell.
Chris:Yeah, that's right. I mean, I wish we hadn't gone through it twice because it's so fun. But we had a great team of advisors. Our lawyer was great. He'd done everything. multiple ones of these. Our accounting partner was head of mergers and acquisitions for a large national firm, and then he started his own company. So we had a great team working with us.
Caitlyn:That's awesome. I mean, so location was important to the buyer, your product line. Was there anything else that was attractive?
Chris:Sure. I mean, our revenue, we were growing aggressively. We were The two prior years before we were acquired, we were growing, you know, 30% plus a year, one year over 40%. So that was attractive. And we were also very profitable. That's, you know, I'm a sales and marketing guy. And so I believe if you're not growing, the market's going to relegate you as irrelevant, but you have to grow profitably or it doesn't matter. And we were... you know, they told us that we were one of the most, if not the most profitable as a percentage of revenue of companies that they had looked at. So we were, we were proud of that fact. But they were obviously looking to add that to their bottom line because they're trying to grow and, you know, and then flip private equity is going to flip it in three to five years, typically.
Caitlyn:Right. And I don't want to skip out on the marketing side of this. I mean, we talked a lot about the play you made with TV during the pandemic to get your brand out there as well. I mean, marketing had to have been a part of what got you to where you were. I mean, any tips, tricks you want to share there?
Chris:Sure. I mean, you know, when we bought the business, we were generating like 98% of our own leads. Right. I started to see social media really coming on. Again, I'm a marketing person by my education. And that's what I did as I came up through corporate America was primarily marketing. I did a lot of operations, but primarily a lot of marketing. And I started to see the marketplace changing out there, not just for us, but in general. And so I felt our leads were getting more expensive. TV was getting less and less effective. There's all these streaming services. So we still do all of that. We do radio, TV, newspaper. We do every print thing out there. But we started to get in and dabble with lead aggregators. I can tell you that was really necessary, but I can tell you that's a full-time job because you have got to stay on those guys. You've got to be... You've got to be fully transparent with them, sharing your data, your disposition data, and make sure you have the right partners. I've always moved marketing dollars around. I have several reports that I use where I track, you know, really at the end of the day, the number that makes the most meaning for me is the cost of marketing. Yeah. That's where the rubber meets the road. But I track a lot of other metrics that are kind of upstream from that. And I can tell when something's either not working or used to work and doesn't work anymore. So really keeping your finger on that pulse or having somebody that does that for you. And that's my training, so I did it. And then the other thing for us was we're really involved in the community.
Caitlyn:Yes.
Chris:San Antonio is a big military area. I come from a big military family. My dad was a World War II fighter pilot. So we got into the community. It's a way to give back. We didn't do it as a marketing ploy, but we give away free showers every year to needy veterans and lots of other people too, not just veterans. and that word gets around and and when people you know referrals and all of that was super important to us but at the end of the day too reviews and google reviews specifically are really critical and that was my bible and we we felt like we had the best product and the best service in the market and i guarded that just like profusely
Janet:yeah so that's amazing safe showers is sold You are consulting now, right? Is that correct?
Chris:I am. I was required to run the business for a year. And then I consulted with the parent company, Sage Home, for the next eight to nine months. I just finished that at the end of May. And I've decided that I'm going to start a new chapter in my life. And I'm on several boards. And I love that. So I want to do more.
Caitlyn:There's the cutout. Chad, I'm not sure what time. It's like 2.28. So I'll at the
Chris:minute marker. Consulting from a marketing and sales perspective. You're going to
Janet:have to back up. You dropped out for a second. So we caught that you're on boards now, but we missed what came after that.
Chris:The juice.
Janet:Yes.
Chris:Yeah, so I've been on eight to ten boards now. I'm currently on two. We just sold one of the companies to a strategic acquirer. And I want to do more of that board business. I really enjoy that, working with the ownership, the families, et cetera, many times helping them to prepare the business for sale. But I'm also doing some really targeted consulting from a marketing and strategic planning and preparing to sale business. of the business and working with the senior management. So that's what I'm doing. It's called Eidlin Marketing and Consulting. And I'm enjoying that next phase of my life.
Janet:So for our listeners, are you open to working with home improvement contractors who are on a trajectory where they're growing fast and they want to sell? Or tell us your ideal consulting client.
Chris:So in addition to the board work, it's really, it can be companies who are looking to sell in the next two to five years and they want to prepare for that because in most cases, if we start early enough, we can get them 50 to 100% more in a purchase price than if they just, you know, don't prepare for that.
Janet:Wow.
Chris:So I work with, I've, I'm currently working with one company that is in that process preparing to sell, and I've worked with multiple others in the past. I also work with companies who are looking to make acquisitions and helping them. I worked with a company in New York last year, and they cut what they were willing to pay, and they acquired the company by over 50% after they did the due diligence that I worked through with them. They
Janet:would have paid too much.
Chris:Oh, they would have paid more than twice what they ultimately paid for the business. Good business.
Janet:They weren't looking under the covers enough.
Chris:They weren't. They were taking the former owner's word for all of the facts that he gave them.
Janet:You know, this topic is so fascinating to me, and we see it from the agency's perspective. We work with the owners and operators of these home improvement companies, and I've personally seen... a couple of different perspectives, but we're always like an observer. We're never in the middle of the deal. And we've seen multiple of our clients sell through strategic acquisitions to a larger nationally known brand within their home improvement segment. And those sellers, those owners that sold seem to be really pleased with what happened. We've had other owners that have sold to private equity. We've had multiple clients that have sold to private equity. And that seems to be a little bit of a mixed bag from what we hear from our clients about their experience working through that period where they're still consulting back, you know, as the previous owner. And then on the flip side of that, we've had a few clients who were pretty small businesses, like 5 million or under, and then they bought another small business. And I have been sort of perpetually shocked at the lack of due diligence that seems to go into these deals where they buy this company that's a pretty small potatoes company and then it's after they've bought it they find out all this stuff that i feel like is just so basic um i mean do you It sounds like you're operating at a much higher level with higher dollar volume, and maybe you're not into some of the nonsense that we've seen. No,
Chris:I actually work with smaller companies as well. Like I said, I worked with that company. The company they bought was a $2.5 million company, and they actually had a verbal... LOI, it was not in writing for more than twice what they ended up paying for it after we worked together for about four to five months. And so size is not really the determining factor. The issue with size is typically the smaller companies, they can't afford to bring on the people they need in many cases to help them or they don't want to. So you gravitate towards companies. Most of the companies I work with, I would say are in the 10 to $50 million range. And I can tell you that the private equity firm that bought us, we've been very pleased. I actually was glad ultimately the first deal didn't work out because a lot of my friends sold to that private equity firm They got taken out by another private equity firm because of performance. And most of those people are not happy at all. We're really happy. They promoted several of our people to higher level jobs and the business continues to grow really nicely. So it's worked out for everybody.
Janet:Yeah, I think you really are. Your story and your career set you up in such a fantastic way. having been at the table of so many acquisitions to, I mean, that's kind of what I'm hearing is that you, you didn't just fall off the turnip truck when you started talking to these guys, you probably knew the questions to ask and, you know, how to engage with an attorney, how to prepare your books. So we're, I guess we're kind of fangirling here. We're fangirling. We
Caitlyn:definitely, you know, know our listeners could benefit from your services
Janet:too. So, I mean, I, I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think 100% of our client base, current, past, and future, if they were really honest, they start with an exit in mind, whether it's their kids are going to take over the business or they're going to sell to a larger player, a strategic sale, or now that private equity is in the mix. Whether those opinions are well formed or not, I think that all of our clients are, you know, they've got this game plan in mind, like I'm going to grind it out and then I'm going to cash out. I don't know if you wanted to talk to a little bit about that mentality and whether or not you think it's a healthy way to approach things or a realistic way to approach things.
Chris:Well, yeah, I'd be happy to. talk about it for a minute. I think it's important to have your strategy. And that's one of the things when I work with clients, I really get crystal clear on what is the outcome. Do you wanna sell? Do you wanna grow this so your kids can take it over? Do you wanna sell to a strategic acquirer? Do you wanna sell for the most money? Do you wanna sell to a company that has similar core values to yours? All of those are important questions. You know, one of the things that I think is a kind of a reality check out there is we kind of caught the very end of the tail of the larger multiples that these firms were paying and you know um multiples have definitely come down in the last couple of years i personally think that's probably a good thing but you know one of the biggest things that i find when when like you described, is that these CEOs slash owners, they're really, and I was this way for a lot of my career, you're just working in the business and you're not working on the business. And I had a business coach one time who really forced me to take two hours every week at first, and then it became a half a day every week to really work on the business.
Janet:Yeah.
Chris:And you really start to get clear on a lot of things. And I think it's just fine to have a mindset that you want to sell the business because then you run the business in the manner that is going to optimize your return.
Caitlyn:There you go.
Chris:But that's not for everybody. Like you said, there's a lot of people who wished, and I've talked to many of them, and several of them recently. And they've said, you know, the last 18 months or two years since they were acquired has been the worst time of their life. But on the other side, I've talked to a lot that are very happy and they, you know, they've made generational wealth and they can now give back more and they can do really good things in the community and for their families. So it just depends upon the individual, but I think it's important that they really understand what their goals are.
Caitlyn:Yeah, this has been so amazing, Chris. I mean, literally, we always are like, it's going to only be 20 to 30 minutes. I think we could have sat here and talked to you forever and ever and ever and ever. Especially if you let me keep asking questions. And they're good questions. But I know your time is precious, and I just want to offer your services. We're going to give your contact information in the show notes if anybody's listening and wants to find out more about you and how they can be in touch with you. Where else? I mean, verbally, if anybody's driving around listening to this, how can they get in touch with you, Chris?
Chris:Sure. And you're welcome to put this in the notes on the podcast. My email is ccedlen, that's C-C-E-D-E-L-E-N, at gmail.com.
Caitlyn:Okay.
Chris:And my cell phone is 210-708-3877. I'm happy to have a conversation with anybody that this triggers some thoughts or concerns wants to ask me a question or run anything by me, I'm happy to help however I can.
Janet:Oh, that's amazing. What a generous offer. So, listeners, if you are trying to grow or scale or someday sell, this episode has been packed with wisdom and was crafted just for you. So, we encourage you, if that's a path that you're on and you want to get some truly expert advice, reach out to Chris. He has a Lifetime of knowledge. And so kind. Personally. In this industry and in mergers and acquisitions with private equity, with strategic sales, if that's the journey that you want to be on, Chris is the guy you want to talk to. So thank you for joining us for another episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors. If you will give us 20 minutes. In this case, it was probably more like 45 minutes. Thank you. Our goal is to try to give you actionable insights to help you run a better business. So please give us a like, share this with a friend or a peer, leave us a review, subscribe, do all the things, click all the buttons. And contact Chris. And contact Chris. Thank you, Chris. Thank you so much. You were so generous with your time. I learned a lot and I hope our listeners did as well.
Speaker 00:Digital Marketing for Contractors is created by Fat Cat Strategies. For more information, visit fatcatstrategies.com.