EP 19: Where Do Market Multiples Come From?

Ed Mysogland  1:19  
I'm your host, Ed Mysogland. I teach business owners how to value and identify and remove risks in their business so that one day they can sell their business and maximum value when they want how they want and to whom they want. On today's show, I'm super excited to welcome Kenny Wu and Adam Manson. He is the economic and Data Editor for deal stats value index, and Adam Manson is the director of valuation data for business valuation resources. So, guys, Adam, Kenny, thank you so much for being with me. Hey, thanks for having said glad to be here.

Kenny Wu  2:40  
business valuation resources for about three years now. I'm the economics and Data Editor, as you had mentioned, and one of my publications is the deal sets value index, which is published quarterly and what we're speaking about today, but it is kind of aggregates all the data from the deal stats database itself, and then we publish it quarterly so that we can look at trends analysis for multiple buyers and other kinds of statistics when it comes to purchasing and selling businesses. Some of the other publications that I work on are the economic outlook update, which is published both monthly and quarterly, which appraisers could use

Ed Mysogland  0:00  
Today 80% of businesses don't sell to be a part of the 20% that do and at maximum value, you'll need a successful strategy. Welcome to the defenders of business value podcast where we interview today's top professional advisors who help business owners create, preserve, and most importantly, transfer value. If you want actionable tips that will increase your business value. Stay tuned. The podcast starts now with your host Edie my so glad. So when we do business valuation work what you do, especially in the market approach, we take information from privately held sales, and we apply that to the company that we're valuing. And one of the primary if, if not, the primary source of information is BV market data or deal stats. And so today, we're going to talk to Kenny Wu and Adam Manson, of business valuation resources. And they publish a quarterly report about the changes in market multiples. So we're going to talk a lot about that today. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kenny Wu, and Adam Manson.

I guess right off the bat, can you share a little bit about yourselves and then business valuation resources in the publications that you produce and the data that you work with?

Kenny Wu  2:04  
Hey, this is Adam Manson. I'm the director of valuation data here at business valuation resources, and I oversee deal stats, as well as our other data resources. Business Valuation resources is a publishing company that provides data guidance, training, continuing education credits, to business appraisers, and also professionals in the transaction space. And yeah, we've been around since you know, the mid 90s. And I've been here about a about 13 years at this point. So yeah, that's that's that in a nutshell, I'll turn it over to to Kenny to talk about himself a

their valuation reports. I work on the imagery Set Review, which is a annual publication, highlighting m&a activity throughout the course of the year, the North American US markets. And then I work on the control premium study, which is also a quarterly publication, focusing on control premiums.

Ed Mysogland  3:30  
I got it. Where does all this data come from?

Kenny Wu  3:33  
Well, the data specifically from deal staff comes from two channels. The first is through our contributor network. So we received data from you know, those who participate in the Business Brokers profession, you know, m&a, advisory profession, private equity, and they contribute transaction data directly to BBR, which is proprietary and not data that's available in the public domain. We also do research at the Securities and Exchange Commission website using the EDGAR database, as well as Sedar, which is Canada's equivalent of the SEC. And we document transactions with both private and public companies that have full financial information that allow us to report valuation multiples for those deals. And at this point, now, about 70% of the transaction data included in deal stats comes to our contributor network contributors, and that's proprietary to deal stats. So at this point, now, we have 70% of our transactions coming in from that source. And the other third, you know, that we augment, you know, the database with comes from the SEC and from Zadar. So it's public domain information, that we document those transactions in a way to provide full information for those in the business valuation profession or in the transaction profession. So that they can, you know, utilize the data you know, for their work.

Ed Mysogland  4:51  
Well, I keep on hoping that there's going to be a regulatory body that like real estate that you have to to contribute You know, what you what you sold your company for? Because I think it would it oh my gosh, I think it would so help business owners to to understand, you know, if you had 50 data points instead of 20, you know, that it just reinforces businesses are selling for that are like, you're never you think we'll ever see something like that? Oh,

Kenny Wu  5:21  
yeah, that's a great question. I think that it would be great for the profession to have some centralized data collection service or platform, you know, where all that all that data was housed? You know, I will we see it at some point, geez, I don't know, probably not in the near future. But I think we might see though maybe not a national level, but maybe more at the state level, we might see better reporting. You know, like the Business Brokers of Florida right now, you know, first state association has done a great job collecting all those co broker deals that go through their members. And I think there's the potential for other states to come to kind of follow that lead. So maybe we'll see that, you know, in the near future here, and I think that would be great for everyone. If we did,

Ed Mysogland  5:59  
yeah, I wish, you know, the major franchises, the Sunbelt, Transworld Murphy, and so on and so forth. I wish that there that they would aggregate it and turn around and send send it to you guys, because I do think it is so important, especially these days where the advisory services on the presale is so, so, so much more important than, you know, here. Let's just put it on the market and see what happens. You know, it's

Kenny Wu  6:27  
funny that you actually say that Ed, because we actually do have an arrangement. Now that's relatively new with both Murphy and Transworld. So they are collecting all their member information, and we are receiving it for DL staff. And I know it sounds like really like coincidental timing. But yeah, we just actually uploaded all the Trans World Data yesterday. So it shouldn't be in DL stats right now. The one thing though, that makes it a little bit different, though, is that, you know, they just started requiring that members provide closed deal information when they close out a listing. So we'll see better reporting, I think from from Transworld going forward. So right now, you know, it's kind of limited what they've, you know, required members to report but going forward, they have to put in a sale, date of sale price and other pertinent closing information. So we'll have really great reporting there going forward. But yeah, we do have both the mercy and the transport data sets and deal stats right now.

Ed Mysogland  7:17  
Well, when one or two go the the rest will follow is the way it typically happens in the brokerage industry. That's, that's great central. If

Kenny Wu  7:26  
you're listening, we'd love to work with you.

Ed Mysogland  7:28  
Fair enough? Well, I believe most of our audience would be surprised that that nearly every business valuation that employs the market approach utilizes your data. I mean, can you talk a little bit about how many transactions do you have and the depth that the market comps go into? Because it's it's considerable? It's it's not just a couple of data points? I mean, it is, it is unbelievable report. And I may put up a sample report in the show notes just so people can see, you know, this is just not, you know, just like I said, just a couple data points. This is a full blown report on companies and the metrics at the time of the sale. Yeah,

Kenny Wu  8:15  
no, thank you. I think that's, that's a great point. Because, you know, field stats, and you know, formally Pratt stats, a deal stats is a rebranded version of prostitutes. You know, it wasn't the first transaction database, you know, in the market for private companies, you know, but the goal when it was created, you know, was to actually report as much financial information as possible about those companies. So you have more robust transaction, you know, when you're doing that comparative analysis. So it's really the foundation for the creation of the database. And so right now, we're at 36,000 transactions, and we collect 164 data points per transaction. We actually collect more than that, but we currently report 164. And there's going to be some more transactions, or excuse me, some more data points that we'll be reporting here in the coming weeks. And I think we'll talk about that a little bit laser later at the at the closing of this. So yeah, it's just a little bit tease a little bit of a teaser for Yeah, some new data that that'll be coming here that we'll talk about soon.

Ed Mysogland  9:10  
Let's just jump into it. I mean, one of the things that, you know, this thing is, How many years has the quarterly report been coming out?

Kenny Wu  9:19  
Oh, man, that is a good question. So we originally launched this, as a press stats, private deal update. And I want to say we did that maybe, I don't remember exactly. But I'm going to venture venture to say maybe a decade ago, and more recently, with the rebranding of processing to deal staff and the new platform, we moved all the data into, we kind of basically rethought about how we publish that publication, what we were including, and we made a lot of changes to it. And Kenny, who's the editor of all our data publications, and he spearheads that, I'll let him talk a little bit about some of those changes and, you know, kind of why we moved to the new format and the benefits of the new format.

Yeah, we was the completion of the data, we just thought we could package the publication a little bit more, provide a little bit more information to our audience to our subscribers, we're able to just provide a lot more robust evaluation data. And a lot of client driven actually, when the feedback that we get from clients in terms of the kinds of analysis that they'd like to see, as we were able to package in the publication.

Ed Mysogland  10:22  
I got it. When we look at the value index, just I mean, one of the striking things that caught me was multiples are down. And I mean, what's I guess, before you get into that, I mean, what surprised you guys, in this discourse publication,

Kenny Wu  10:40  
it was actually a little bit surprising, because it's going to pass trend where the first half and this will be the first quarter for the past several years multiples have been down, and we're continuing to track that trend. We wanted to pitch that to you. What are you seeing in the marketplace? Are there less buyers that there's less competition for sellers? One thing that we're continuing attracting is an interesting trend, continuing back to just about 2018. You see lower multiples being paid in that first quarter, first half of the year. And then then this quarter, it actually spiked. It kind of broke off trend, where it raised back to later half of the years. And we were just wondering what you were seeing in the marketplace? Well,

Ed Mysogland  11:23  
I guess we haven't seen a whole lot of deviation and in multiples being paid. But at the same time, I think first quarter are normally rollovers from fourth quarter, you know, so I think there's a little bit of a policy manipulation. But I think, you know, some want to close January one the other side is that brokers are typically lazy, and I'll get my market data when I get my market data done. And then the submission, I think, I think there's a little bit of that. But ultimately, I think those business buyers that are trying to get a deal done, by the end of the year, I think are more aggressive and probably do pay a little bit more,

I think. And

Kenny Wu  12:12  
you definitely see that in the multiples, though, because in the fourth quarter, typically during the fourth quarter, you see the multiples at their highest. And just going back to 2018. The fourth quarter is four to 4.5 times EBIT da multiples being paid in by the first quarter dropped to 3.4. She had smoothing out by the second quarter. So you do kind of see what you're talking about, like getting the deal close paying a higher multiple, and then kind of like starting to hear the hangover effect, I guess you could say,

Ed Mysogland  12:39  
yeah, and the funny thing is, I don't know why that. I don't want to say why that is but but rather, it's interesting that there may be some something to do with credit, there may be something to do with wanting to get it in by year end. But I also think that there's something to do with competition, I believe that we see more. Well, I think first quarter person sec, especially first quarter, I think our carries out carryovers from from fourth quarter that ran into some snags, if you want to know the truth. And then I think Brett, you get some year end data. And I think this is back to the whole sale prep world where, you know, business owners tend to take their foot off the gas while they're going through the sale process even though you know, you you coach them on, on run the businesses if you're not going to sell it. And I think what ultimately happens is, you know, year end data comes out and and the buyers sitting there saying yeah, well maybe we ought to take a second look at at your financials, and then turn around and renegotiate the deal. And that might that may contribute a little bit to it also. Yeah,

Kenny Wu  13:55  
one thing that I think that I had noticed as well so we move from the private deal update to the deal stats value index, we opened up a lot of the buyer types to be a little bit more inclusive with any publication. So you know, in the first exhibit, we're looking at those EBIT da multiples, you know, for private targets you know, we've included both public buyers and private buyers you know, in that dataset I think that introduced a little bit more volatility you know, into what you see quarter to quarter you know, if you drop down to that the fourth exhibit and you kind of basically hold constant the buyer type I think the space that they that you're primarily working in your private buyer private seller, I mean, the EBIT dot multiple for the past decade there it is pretty consistent. Right now, when you start moving up to looking at what the deals are public buyers are doing, you know, that the public to private, then you kind of see some more movement, you know, also with the public to public as well. So I think maybe that might be contributing to that that data set there as well. You know, some of what that the public buyers are doing, you know what those private targets?

Ed Mysogland  14:56  
Yeah, that's interesting that I guess one of the things that so The prize me aside from multiples was that the EBIT on margins had decreased. And and if I remember, right, there's an inverse relationship between the EBIT, margin and the EBIT da multiple. What do you guys see from that standpoint, and why

Kenny Wu  15:16  
was actually interesting is taking a look at the data, like historically, there has been a trend of the inverse relationship when like, even a margins have been higher sales multiples have been lower. The same thing being said when EBIT are marginally lower sales, multiples are higher, perhaps buyers don't think earnings are sustainable. And they're going back to the norm, just tempting when they're low, maybe they think they could turn around the business and pay a little bit higher price for it. Or maybe when the margins are lower, there might be competition and buying maybe a depressed business. At them, maybe one of the factors has been interesting, because we looked at it and being back to the database veteran has continued

Ed Mysogland  15:58  
for several years, I guess when I had

Kenny Wu  16:02  
Oh, no, sorry, I was just gonna say it's weird, because it seems like it's counterintuitive, right? Like you think, you know, why would businesses with higher margins be selling at lower multiples. And it's funny, because back then we had the President's private deal update in you know, maybe not in later years. But if you look back and you pull some of the archives, we did quite a bit of analysis on multiples relative to various, you know, earnings margins. And we found that, you know, for revenue, multiples EBIT, da multiples, you know, when you compare USA takes a data data set, and you divide into quintiles or other types of groupings, you know, and you rank them based on your operating profit margin or EBIT margin, at the multiples would always decline as the company's became more profitable. And it's funny, because it's kind of the opposite of what you would think. And, you know, we've heard a couple a couple of theories. And, you know, it makes sense to me, but, you know, I'm sure there's, there's plenty of others, but, you know, a company with, you know, above industry average margins, you know, potential buyer, you know, my belief that, hey, that's not sustainable, that the return to some kind of industry norm in the future, or, you know, in the inverse scenario, where, you know, margins might be below industry, you know, the thought is, well, hey, you know, when I come in, I can bring it up to, you know, an industry norm level. So I think that might be kind of why you kind of see that inverse relationship. But that's, that's at least some some thoughts that I've kind of seen written about, and they kind of they kind of make sense to me.

Ed Mysogland  17:27  
And then that brings me to a, an interesting thought is, how do you account for earnout? Because they're probably not. And for, for those of you listening, earnout is basically if then financing, and in other words, if certain benchmarks are met, then I'm willing to pay you X. So when when I know a lot of our deals that we see, there is some earnout component, or something that smells like, so how does the how does the database account for that, if at all,

Kenny Wu  18:03  
so we've never included earnouts in our selling price and deal stats or previously prospects, but where we have been referring to it and including it, as we have two separate fields, we have one field, which contains a value for the full amount of the year now. So the total amount is earnable. We also have another field, which has the fair value of the earnout. And that's not determined by you know, BDR deal stuff, that's, you know, if the earnout was part of a transaction from you know, Edgar, you know, when they went through, and they did that fair value determination for allocating the purchase price, you know, we'll capture that fair value determination. We haven't included those values in our selling price, but we do report them. And we also report the metrics necessary to achieve that are now. So feasibly, you know, with that in mind, a user could maybe screen out transactions that had her analysis, you know, they thought that that was potentially throwing off some of the multiples, you know, in their comparable company set, or, I mean, they could include, you know, the value of the urine out or some portion of that value and the selling price by adding it back and recalculating the multiples, or if the fair value of the year that was available in that field, you know, they could use that value, you know, in the selling price to recalculate them multiple So, that's it, we've handled it so basically, we report the information as best we can and then we kind of give it to the user to make that election on their end.

Ed Mysogland  19:22  
Yeah, well, I'm still wrestling with the inverse relationship and because I mean that is so counterintuitive. And I mean I follow I follow your theory but you know as I'm if I if I'm a business are listening to this, I'm sitting here going let me get this straight. So the the lowered my EBIT margin the my higher my multiple and vice versa.

Kenny Wu  19:47  
Well, I think the thing to really the thing that just want to emphasize it's the margin itself, not the absolute amount, right. So the higher the EBIT dot value or amount are the higher the SD van Are your amounts the higher the selling price? Right. But the margin inversely related? Yeah. And it's literally you can slice and dice the data many different ways. And it's you get the same result. But the funny

Ed Mysogland  20:10  
thing is I think we're what we're seeing, especially in in today's economic climate, I think that, you know, they're earning earning margins are higher, I think the profitability is, is good. I think there's access to capital. I think it's a good time to be a small business owner. And I think that's at least part of what's contributing to it in the end the risk associated with it, which is, in other words, the multiple? Well, you know, I, like you cited, I mean, it hasn't changed a whole lot over over, you know, the period that you've been tracking. So I think it's more indicative of the condition of the business than it is the risk associated with with the multiple makes sense? That

Kenny Wu  20:53  
does make sense. It's actually interesting, because you brought up the point about small business owners. That's actually one of the values like 2 million, you've actually seen that multiple increase the price and multiple three with small business owners a margin, or even a multiple is actually gone up, too. So it's just a lot different size deal categories. Have you seen a downward trend? Or that trend that you're talking about? We've been talking about?

Ed Mysogland  21:21  
Yeah, I mean, the funny thing is, you know, so the International Business Brokers Association came out with their with their quarterly report, and I mean, they're seeing multiples up, they're seeing cash at closing up. So, you know, these are all good things for small business owners. So what are you guys seeing in your crystal ball? What's what's coming next?

Kenny Wu  21:45  
Oh, geez, I don't

know. It's hard for me to speculate. Kenny, do you have any have any thoughts of what might be in the pipeline?

Based on the data is kind of weird, because you do see a downward trend in the multiples going. Since 2017, has been trending downwards. When you take a deeper look at it, you see that vary? based on industry, something that was a really interesting the past couple years, you hear a lot about the manufacturing sector booming segwaying, to one of my other publications that you have actually seen the manufacturing sector started decreasing for the past year, something that's based on the PMI manufacturing index, that you've seen that downward trend, in manufacturing, you see it in the multiples. So when you take a look at a lot of industries, you see what industries are trending downwards and upwards based on the selling multiples. And then, like I said, simply that you see something that we're continuing to take a look at what industries are doing well, based on economy and which ones are downturn, that's when I'm taking a look at the data. And just overall to see if that trend continues if multiples are going down despite margins and revenues increasing. Do you

Ed Mysogland  22:55  
guys do you guys track any correlation like the the small business optimism index and things like that? That's available?

Kenny Wu  23:02  
That's an Economic Outlook update on the small business optimism index. We do check all that. Like, as I mentioned, it's it's available monthly economic outlook, and other pieces that are used in piles.

Ed Mysogland  23:18  
I'm with you. So what what is it showing compared to what you're finding in this other deal stats, quarterly index,

Kenny Wu  23:27  
this is actually a optimism actually making your highs. When you see the small business, like the multiples getting paid for the small business like so those are trending upward, as well as the small business optimism is trending upward. And then I did touch base on the manufacturing sector trending downwards for the PMI index, and then you kind of see that correlate here. That industries, the multiples going downwards, so that you do see that relationship between the indexes as well as the multiples being paid.

Ed Mysogland  23:58  
I got it. Well, I'll tell you one of the things that and this is just a hypothesis is that, you know, at some point, we know that there's, there's, there's bound to be a downturn. I mean, I think it's probably a couple years down the road. But nevertheless, I think that there's that there, it's coming it you know, our economy is cyclic, and that's just the way it works. But I'll tell you, I think buyers are recognizing, you know,

Kenny Wu  24:25  
I need to get paid back I need

Ed Mysogland  24:29  
I need to get my investment back in a shorter period. And therefore I think part of it is that they're looking at their you know, the payout that you know, before I can pay, you know, five to seven years and get my money back now I need you know, two to five, you know, two to five on the outside to to make it work and that might contribute to it. I know time will tell whether or not that you know, a year or two after after this we'll probably be able to look back and see whether or not that that held water but I think that just from where we're sitting, I think that there is a certain level of I need to, I need to make a real good deal that this time not that anybody is looking to make a bad deal. But I really need to make a good deal. Yeah, having said that, yeah. I guess what are some of the other surprises that that you guys saw in this quarters report? Does that mean that it was it was a different report? You know, we've kind of braced for it. But I mean, just to see that you guys are seeing the same thing. You know, that that, that kind of confirms

Unknown Speaker  25:35  
what we were anticipating? Yeah, one thing that

Kenny Wu  25:40  
I thought was interesting, and granted, we're still working on our data collection to give a more current figure. But the more recent, private acquisitions of public companies, so either, you know, management takeovers, or you know, pe acquisitions, or public companies taking private. I mean, the EBIT da multiple, you know, really increased in 2018. We don't have enough data yet for for 2019, to report a report a figure. But I just would kind of be curious to see where that ends up, because it had been fairly consistent for like the prior, you know, eight or nine years, and then it kind of, you know, elevated really quickly. That's one thing that kind of surprised me and jumped out at me. So, yeah, we'll have to, hopefully with the next issue, we'll have more data in there and kind of see where it's at for 2019, at least 2019. Year today.

Ed Mysogland  26:31  
Got it. So lastly,

so there's business owners that listen to business owners and advisors listen to this podcast, I mean, can they get their hands on this report that we're talking about is available for private use.

Kenny Wu  26:46  
So we have a, we have a sample report, which is not the most current report available on the DL stats website. So if you visit bb resources.com/dl stats, you can download the prior quarters issue, you know, but to get the most current, you know, issue available, you know, we that's available to anyone who participates, and deal stats VR contributor network. And so you know, free access is given to anybody who submits close deal information to the database, as well as any sort of subscriber to the database. So if you're looking for the most current access, you know, either get involved or you know, looking to get in a subscription. Got it.

Ed Mysogland  27:22  
So, with business valuation resources, what's coming next for you guys. So

Kenny Wu  27:28  
one thing we have right around the corner, and this is something that's kind of been a little while in the making, we've been so we've gone through, we've done a project to backfill historical years of financial information for our records, and for about the last year, and we've been asking our contributors for it as well. So one thing that we're about to do here in the coming, I'd say probably two weeks, is we're going to release an extra 35 data fields per transaction. And that'll put us right under the the 200 data point per transaction mark. But what we're doing now is we're collecting up to five years. Well, I guess, if you include the forecast up to six years of net sales values, were available for each company. And our goal with that is we're going to be reporting, you know, growth for that company over time, as well as what the advisor in the transaction expected the next year, you know, the next year is growth to be in. So we'll really start including some of that growth information which we've been lacking from our transactions. And at this point, now, we have about 5000 records that have that growth information, either historical growth over time, or historical plus forecasted growth. We've also been collecting historical and then also future forecast, EBIT, da values and Ste values. So we're going to be able to do is we're going to be able to report, you know, historical, you know, earnings margins, you know, SDE and EBIT da margins over time, as well as the expected next year EBIT dynasty margins, to kind of give us a full picture of kind of profitability to see, is that current year consistent? Is it abnormal, you know, just when you're kind of making that comparison and analyzing that transaction, you know, to see if it's, you know, useful as a comparable company. And we also started including some information, more kind of specific to the real estate. So we're available. I know we've been including, like sales per square foot, we've been including rent as a percentage of sales and also rent as a percentage of EBIT DAR. So EBIT dA plus rent, do we have about 18,000 transactions, they're gonna have that new real estate was that real estate performance or kind of like earnings fields, to have about 5000 with historical and future growth values, as well as historical and future profit margin values and other 18,000 without new real estate information? So that should be online here and about, it's already on our test server. It's just we got to kind of get the word out there, update our FAQ page, create a couple of mapping files, you know, for existing users. But yeah, I'd expect to expect an email from us in about two weeks or so with that information.

Ed Mysogland  29:59  
That's awesome. Have you guys truly are the leaders, and I'm so grateful for all you guys coming on but and being so generous with your, with your time and sharing, you know what came from from the from the update. But I mean, seriously, you make certainly my reports substantially better. And we've helped, we just passed our 22,100 deals closed. And so, you know, you guys have been a big part of, of all those. And so, so again, thank you so much for your time and, and that before we go, how do we get in touch with you? I mean, I know you put us to the website. But any other any other sources? Any you guys have LinkedIn sites do Twitter, all those socials?

Kenny Wu  30:55  
Yeah, so our company does have a Twitter account. And we also have a LinkedIn company page. So you can connect with BVR or Kenny nine other other platform, we have a blog site, you can find all that stuff to go to BB resources.com. We have links to the different social media platforms that we participate in, as you know, as well as the two blogs that we run. But yeah, you can also reach out to Kenny and I via email, if you want to contact us directly. I'm Adam M. So m like Manson. So Adam M at BB resources.com. And Kenny is Kenny W. For whoop at BB resources.com. Or, you know, if you go to the BB resources.com, your Contact Us page, you should find our contact information listed there, you know, under the different departments that we participate in. So different channels, but yet, please do reach out to us anytime, definitely reach

out for the subscribers DVIR available with my phone number, my email address on the index itself, as well as all the other publications that I manage. And then you mentioned LinkedIn, actually go by Kenneth woo for LinkedIn.

Ed Mysogland  32:00  
Until Yeah, I'll have the links in the show notes. But I'll tell you, and one thing I want to stress is to especially to the audience's that this is available to all of the you don't have to be an appraiser, you don't have to be a deal guy. I mean, if you want if you want this data, you can get a subscription and you can you can follow along, you know, the same way that that an appraiser or a deal person would would in their ordinary course of business. So, you know, can can somebody do that?

Kenny Wu  32:31  
Oh, yeah, that's excellent.

We have, you know, users who are, you know, business owners, we have users who are in the legal space, like attorneys. Yeah. So there's a lot of non appraiser, you know, non transaction professionals who are utilizing the data or utilizing the publication. So, I think it really has wide applicability, you know, outside just our kind of our core market. But yeah, so it's just, you know, making making others aware of it, because, you know, VBR, you know, business valuation resources, you know, while we're known in certain spaces, you know, we're still kind of a small company, and we're not really known so much, and others, but, yeah, yeah, I think that there's a lot of other kind of, you know, professions that could benefit a lot from from this information.

Ed Mysogland  33:10  
Well, Ryan, and I think business owners, I mean, you know, with, especially with the the amount of detail in your frequently asked questions and how, you know, from a from an appraisers standpoint, you you anticipate the questions and I get my answers in a hurry. Yeah. You know, that may that may apply to a, an astute business owner on on, you know, how do I how do I look at my business over time? And that that's, that's an interesting thing, because I think there's a lot of business owners that, you know, before they call a Deal Guy, they they want, they want to do their homework. And I think through smart util utilization of the sources like you it I think it's a it's a great place to start. Adam, Kenny, you know, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and sharing the update from from deal stats, you know, you make you certainly make my report better. You have helped us help nearly 2100 people over the course of our 38 years. And we're Alexa, we're so grateful that you're there and at helping us be better deal, guys. So thank you so much for your time. And thank you for being defenders business value.

Kenny Wu  34:28  
Thanks for having us. It's our pleasure. We love hearing feedback from our clients. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Right on.

Thank you for all those kind words. And yes, thank you for having us on your show.