Becoming Truly USEFUL
Just before taking the leap and going out on my own, I had a pivotal lunch meeting with a good friend and business executive I deeply respect – my dear friend, Alan. That meeting sparked the first step in my process of creating the business I proudly, and successfully, run today: Candor Advisors. At the time, Alan acted as a Guru (possibly unintentionally) in a vital phase of my career, which of course impacted my personal life too. This conversation with Alan helped me find the answer to a critical internal question that had been plaguing me for some time: How can I be truly USEFUL?
Now, before I get into the answer to Alan’s question and share more on the development and success of Candor Advisors, I’ll provide a little context on the process it took to get there. Over the course of 30 years, I had been a successful client facing Financial Advisor, a senior strategy executive in finance, and a Partner at a well-regarded private equity firm, and had whipsawed between 1987’s Black Monday, the dot.bomb era, the Great Financial Crisis, and my own existential bull and bear markets. Living in a kind of stasis, I reflected on all the decisions that led me to the precipice of that life and career chasm: trading challenge for comfort, familiarity for what once seemed aspirational, and an unsettling feeling that my best days were behind me – a feeling like that of sitting in a lukewarm jacuzzi – unpleasant but not yet unbearable.
For some time, I had a strong desire to do something more, something that would leave a greater contribution with my professional legacy. Whether I knew it at the time or not, I was navigating a pretty good problem to have: a new professional venture was staring me directly in the face, just waiting for me to acknowledge and focus on it. This brings me back to that conversation with me and my pal Alan. I’d been telling him that a number of Founder/CEOs were referred to me for my guidance in thinking through what was next for their business: should they take chips off the table, bring in an investor, buy another business, or sell their company? And each follow to those initial questions led to another piece of advice from me, more goodwill with the client, and so on… it was as if I was already in the transaction advisory business, like I am with Candor Advisors today, and business was GOOD.
Except, that wasn’t the business I was in, or at least not the one I was getting paid for – instead, I was managing people's money and helping them to retire well, meet their legacy and giving objectives, and optimize their investment choices. In fact, that's the only thing I was paid to do for my clients. None of my advice related to their business choices compensated me directly. So, I was spending 60%-80% of my time doing something I love but wasn’t paid to do.
Ultimately, this led to a question from Alan that should’ve been obvious to me at the time. My Guru asked, "Is all of that activity making you more successful?", to which I had to honestly, and frustratedly, respond “no”. Without judgment or criticism, Alan then asked: "Well, whose fault is that?”
Answering my own “WHY”, the path to which was embedded in Alan’s question, changed my trajectory and developed the paradigm for my USEFUL-NESS that started Candor Advisors.
At the time, I was 57 years old. Society, and financial advisors (like I used to be) would say I should’ve been thinking about retirement, or possibly thinking about semi-retirement (not sure what that is), non-profit involvement (already on that), or some other glide path to an easy finish of the work part of my life. But even if I already had the financial boxes checked (I didn't), leaving the game with so much more to give just wouldn’t have been a satisfactory next step for me and my future aspirations. That’s just not how I’m wired.
Taking a page out of Steven Pressfield’s Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t, I'll come to the point. Here's what happened next, and what continues to happen daily. I spent and continue to spend my time reading - a lot! 75+ books per year for the past three years. Sometimes because I want answers and sometimes because I need an escape from the intensity of the work to build my business. From James Clear's Atomic Habits, I made the link to Brené Brown's Dare to Lead Hub and culled down a list of roughly 100 core value possibilities to my primary two: Authenticity & Integrity. Period. Full stop.
1. At the end of 2019 I explored options for:
Starting my own firm from scratch and doing what I was already doing advising clients about their money.
Merging into a similar firm or platform with my existing clients (or some subset of them), or
Taking up-front money to join a large firm with the promise of convincing my then-clients (or a subset) that moving with me or joining me in any of those options would be better for them.
In the final analysis, and for a variety of moral, legal, practical, and even existential reasons, I did none of those things – which most of you likely already know. Ultimately, I made the right decision for me, that somehow managed to meet my own desire, maintained the happiness of my former clients, and satisfied my partners at the firm. In working with those partners to navigate some logistics, we developed a clear pathway out of my role that seemed to be a win-win-win. Even better, I was able to maintain some control over the timing and story through the process out in 2020.
2. Once I was clear to begin the active pursuit of my next step, I began what I've loosely called the "Digging Out" framework, which includes, but certainly doesn't have to be limited to:
Development of a Project Plan that includes discrete tasks like:
Updating my LinkedIn profile, resume(s), and any other social/public presence
Continuing to pursue significant life goals, like financial security through owning my personal brand
Creating important lists of contacts for my network (those who could help me, companies I could help, and a personal advisory board who believes in me)
Proposing projects or jobs that would bring in money for the short and long term
And finally, moving to the execution of the ultimate plan (Candor Advisors)
Development of a matrix of cohorts and experiences where my judgment and guidance can be USEFUL.
Consideration of the likelihood that I'd spend the rest of my career doing projects rather than having a job. My friend, Mike Richardson calls this a Portfolio Career. THIS proved to be accidentally insightful, and then paradoxically led to a great job.
As I’ve already shared my age, I’m proud to share that I’m also old enough to have gone through Franklin Covey training when both Hyrum Smith, Franklin's founder, and Steven Covey, the creator of The Seven Habits, were still doing the lectures personally. So, I pulled from the deep recesses and went to Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind. Specifically, I sought out to map my financial resources as a timeline, prioritized the project plan mentioned above, worked with my firm to implement our internal plan, and got to work as if the money would run out in two weeks. This last bit proved vital to staying on task and to working the process daily. Most importantly, it served as motivation to not allow myself to bask in my newfound freedom to hang out at Philz, though truth be told I drank lots of coffee and the Baristas all came to know me by name...”so I've got that goin’ for me, which is nice…" (credit to Carl Spackler in Caddyshack).
With that motivation, and copious amounts of caffeine, I was able to take my core aspiration and turn it into a real, breathing business, thoughtfully named Candor Advisors – drawn from the Latin meaning of Candor: “to shine light upon.”
I combined my advisory experience, behavioral skills and insights, depth of knowledge and useful M&A scar tissue with my desire to be USEFUL and shaped a platform to guide founders to better outcomes, than that of the traditional investment bank or business broker models. Our approach to the work, collaboration with founders, commitment to evaluating ALL options, and even our fees and success metrics are differentiated. My business development model as a financial advisor became my business, and business has been good since day 1. More than that, my satisfaction with my work, sense of purpose, and the feedback from my clients is off the charts.
And while I’m not finished building Candor Advisors to its full potential, the framework for what we do and how we provide services to founders is locked in. The job from here is to find a way to be even more USEFUL to a greater number of founders. And we’re well on our way to solving that challenge…stay tuned!
Over the years, we are proud to have worked with successful founders in providing transaction advisory and value enhancement services across a broad spectrum of types, sizes, and stages of businesses. From industrial coatings to healthcare staffing, cannabis services to genomics tools, recycling services, to appliance and fitness equipment manufacturing, and so many businesses in between. Company sizes have ranged from $10mm of enterprise value to over $300mm, and while we’re proud of the nearly $1 Billion of deals we’ve done in a short period of time, we’re even more proud of the nearly $500mm of value we’ve enhanced or unlocked, and the dozens of bad buyers that we’ve chased away. Even more, the legacies we’ve helped facilitate for a wonderful group of founders.
I’ve proudly included a summary of some of the deals we’ve worked on more recently – all direct results of that intensive work I outlined above.
Our business has blossomed in other ways too, including the Candor Advisors National Network (CANN), with more than 50 professional service providers and adjacent deal professionals. CANN includes other investment banks, corporate and M&A lawyers, transactional tax and tax compliance experts, outsourced financial and accounting resources, plus consultants, coaches, and other advisors. No matter what the founder needs may be, if we’re not the right resource, there’s a CANN firm that’ll be just the right fit!
With each new day, a new deal, a new lead, and a new project appear on the horizon for Candor Advisors. We’re all about purpose over profit, but candidly, the profits make everything easier and more possible. The gratitude I feel for those that helped us get here and to those that are currently with us is immense. I hope this personal recounting of my then & now story resonates, maybe even igniting sparks of motivation for others.
