We listened to the full conversation and picked the moments most likely to make business owners stop scrolling and start talking: the places where Zac's choices go against what most sellers would do. Every block in this pack is ready to paste, and each one says what it's for.
The guest built and sold a painting business. The show is for owners who are thinking about selling their own company.
So the pack talks to business owners, not painters: how he sold the company for about twice what he paid and tripled revenue in three years, and what he got right in the sale.
Episode description
For the episode description on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and builttosell.com.
How do you roughly double what your company is worth and triple its revenue in three years? This week we find out from the owner of a painting franchise who did both and walked away with about 10 times the cash he put in.
Zac Smith was a mechanical engineer with a corporate job and a small net worth when he bought a franchise doing under $1 million a year. Three years later it was on track for nearly $3 million in revenue and $600,000 in profit, and he sold it for $1.5 million, all cash at closing.
Host John Warrillow asks Zac what he had to change to get there and what nearly sank the deal right before closing. Zac also explains how he sold the company on his own and still got his asking price.
Listen before your first call with a buyer. Every buyer will ask why you're selling, and the wrong answer makes them wonder if you're running out of a burning building.
Zac's newsletter, The Blue Collar Founder: thebluecollarfounder.com/welcome
Chapters
- 00:00Intro: How Zac 10X'd His Money in Three Years
- 01:14Why an Engineer Walked Away From a Safe Career to Buy a Business
- 04:06What It Cost to Get In, and the Risk He Signed Up For
- 06:42A 10-Year Plan, and a First Day the Staff Didn't See Coming
- 09:25What He Started With: Three Employees and No Painters on Payroll
- 11:41The Economics of the Business, and the Lever That Moved Margins Most
- 14:57Why He Told His Team They Weren't Really in the Painting Business
- 15:50How to Charge More Than the Competition and Still Win the Job
- 17:21When the Goal Changed From Paying Off the Loan to Selling
- 19:20Half the Revenue From Clients Who Kept Coming Back, With No Marketing Spend
- 23:09Three Years In: The Result, Next to What He'd Have Made as an Engineer
- 24:40What Is a Painting Company Worth?
- 25:36Selling It Himself, and Why He Led With the Business, Not the Franchise
- 29:44Running the Sale Alone: Setting the Price and Fielding Every Call
- 32:00How to Answer "Why Are You Selling?" Without Scaring Buyers Off
- 35:07Four Offers, and a Higher One After He'd Already Signed
- 37:05Every Offer All Cash: The Deal Most Sellers Only Dream Of
- 38:49A Crisis Right Before Closing, and Why He Told the Buyer Straight Away
- 41:05Lightning Round: The Day the Wire Hit, and the Low That Followed
- 43:55The One Thing to Get Right Before You List
- 45:14How He Celebrated, and What He's Building Now
- 47:25Closing
Six quotes, word for word
Each quote is ready to become a card for LinkedIn or Instagram and works as a teaser for the episode. Tag Zac when you post one. Every quote is word for word from the recording, filler words removed. We'd design the three marked "Quote card" as images for you to post.
"There's never going to be a perfect time. I kind of felt like the deeper I got into my career, almost the harder it would be."
Context: on leaving a safe corporate engineering job after a year of running the numbers on buying a business.
"We couldn't chase the low-price jobs, because then you get in a scenario where you're busy, revenue looks awesome, but the end of the month comes and you don't have anything to show for it."
Context: on why his company stopped competing with the cheapest contractors in town.
"I thought that there was an opportunity to charge more without losing our success rate on winning jobs. And it turned out that that was the case."
Context: on the biggest lever behind raising his gross margin from about 42% to about 50%: price.
"It was a lot of work, but oh my goodness, it would have been five times the work if I would have had messy financials."
Context: asked what he wishes every seller knew before going to market, Zac named clean, buttoned-up books. He credits them as one of the big reasons he got multiple offers.
"I didn't want to be the seller that hides something that gets found out before closing. And then it really blows things up."
Context: on a problem that surfaced in the middle of the buyer's due diligence and sent the buyer's future insurance costs way up. Zac called the buyer right away instead of waiting to see if it came up.
"Every single offer was all cash at closing. No one asked for a seller note, which honestly was a little surprising to me."
Context: on the four offers for his company, listed at $1.5 million. All cash at closing means the seller gets the full price on the day the deal closes, instead of lending part of it to the buyer and waiting years to be paid back. John called it "the seller's dream."
Post A
Goal: get owners discussing in the comments where they'd draw the line between their word and a bigger check, and send them to Episode 565 to hear what Zac did.
You've agreed to sell your company at a price you're happy with. Then another buyer calls and offers more.
What do you do?
Keeping your word sounds like the obvious answer. It gets harder when the gap is real money and nothing has closed yet.
Zac Smith was in exactly this spot when he sold his company for $1.5 million. Four offers came in, three of them at his full asking price. He signed with one. Then a higher one showed up.
On Episode 565 of Built to Sell Radio, Zac tells me what he did, and why he picked the buyer he signed with in the first place. Worth hearing before you're the one holding two offers.
Where's your line: how much higher would the second offer have to be before you'd walk away from the first?
Post B
Goal: get owners, brokers and franchisees discussing what a label does to a sale price, and send them to Episode 565 to hear how Zac got around it.
Say "franchise" to a buyer, and a lot of them hear "small." As in, not much money to be made.
Zac Smith ran into that stigma when he went to sell his franchise. He'd had enough conversations to know that people see franchising as a small game where you don't really make a lot of money. So he turned the whole sale upside down.
His franchisor had an in-house broker ready to represent him, and the plan was to sell buyers on the franchise first and the business second. Zac said no to the broker and flipped the order. He wrote his own sales materials and took every call himself.
He wasn't looking for another franchisee who wanted more territory. He went after a buyer who might not be thinking about franchises at all.
On Episode 565 of Built to Sell Radio, Zac tells me whether it worked, and what he said every time a buyer asked why someone so young was selling.
What does the label on your company make buyers assume before they've looked at your numbers?
Five short posts
Each one ends on a question people will want to discuss, and points to the episode where the full conversation lives. That pulls people two ways: the curious go and listen, and the rest head to the replies to see what others think. If you don't post on X, the same text works as a caption for a short video clip on Instagram: swap the episode line for "Link in bio."
A lot of companies that sell for great numbers aren't really in the business they appear to be in.
The owner on this week's show roughly tripled revenue in three years. He told his team they weren't a painting company. They were a sales and marketing company that happened to paint. Hear how that played out on Built to Sell Radio, Episode 565.
What's one change you've made that made your company worth more?
What happens when you charge more than your cheaper competitors?
This week's guest did it and kept winning jobs at the same rate, while his gross margin went from 42% to 50%. How he sold the higher price is on Built to Sell Radio, Episode 565.
Be honest: are your prices set by your customers, or by your fear of losing them?
The worst time for something to go wrong is right before you sell.
This week's guest had it happen in the middle of the buyer's due diligence, and it sent the buyer's future costs way up. What he did next is on Built to Sell Radio, Episode 565.
What would you be tempted to keep from a buyer, and what would it cost you if they found it first?
Every buyer will ask why you're selling. Answer it badly, and they start wondering if you're running out of a burning building.
This week's guest was young, his company was growing and he had no plans to retire. He got the question on call after call, and his answer changed along the way. Hear what he ended up saying on Built to Sell Radio, Episode 565.
What answer to "why are you selling?" would you actually believe?
The best customer is the one you only have to win once.
Business clients like property managers send job after job, and you don't pay to win them again. When this week's guest bought his company, they brought in 5% of revenue. Three years later, half.
How he got there is on Built to Sell Radio, Episode 565.
If half your revenue had to come from customers you never market to again, where would it come from?
Five title options
For YouTube clips and the episode title. Each one leads with the result an owner would want for their own company.
- What He Changed to 10X His Money in 3 Years With a Painting Franchise
- How to Triple Revenue and Sell for Twice What You Paid in 3 Years
- From Under $1M to Nearly $3M in Revenue, Then a $1.5M All-Cash Exit
- How to Sell Your Company Yourself and Still Get Your Asking Price
- From Corporate Engineer to a $1.5M All-Cash Exit in Three Years
Email to subscribers
For your subscriber list, the week the episode goes out. Subject line, preview text and body, signed by John. Swap the link line for your episode link.
Subject: What buyers assume before they see your numbers
Preview text: Zac Smith tripled revenue in three years, then sold his company himself for $1.5M, all cash.
If selling your company is somewhere on your horizon, here's a question to answer before a buyer answers it for you: what will they assume about your business before they open your financials?
Zac Smith had to answer that when he sold his franchise. He'd had enough conversations to know that buyers hear "franchise" and think small money. He'd bought the business three years earlier, when it did under $1 million a year. By the time he sold, it was on track for nearly $3 million in revenue and $600,000 in profit.
A good business wasn't enough on its own. Zac still had to get buyers past the label and answer "why are you selling?" on call after call without sounding like he was running out of a burning building. Then, in the middle of the buyer's due diligence, something went wrong that could have sunk the deal.
He sold it without a broker. Four offers came in, three at his full asking price, and every one was all cash at closing.
On Episode 565, Zac walks me through what he changed in those three years, and the one thing he says would have made the sale five times the work if he'd gotten it wrong. If you're planning to sell in the next few years, you'd rather learn it here than from a buyer.
[Listen to Episode 565]
John