Jacob Watts

@damianplayer n8n

I compiled 200+ n8n automation templates you can copy & paste into your business or sell to other companies. Just straight plug-and-play systems for: – Lead gen -Content creation – Email outreach – CRM updates – AI workflows – Slack/Discord bots …and more. Follow + Reply “n8n” and I’ll send it over. This is completely FREE. Don't even want your email.

@pinpulleddrmf I have a contact in the MRI business.

Anyone in SMB land in the x-ray/scanning business?

@shawngorham Press in Scottsdale is solid. I’m with you on Fourtillfour though… hard to beat.

What are you favorite coffee shops in Phoenix? We always go to four till four Need to mix it up

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster!

@paulswaney3 @remarkablepaper Ditto. Made the switch in the January, total game changer.

@SecretCFO *former sales reps

This got me wondering … One of our sales reps just renewed a contract with a 7% price reduction and extended payment terms by 45 days

@Turnaroundartst Unroll @threadreaderapp

Case Study - Out of Court Turnaround - Failed $300M Industrial Roll-Up Turnarounds are hard to write about. When you’re in them the future is uncertain and the threat of litigation fills the air. Afterwards, you’re either exhausted on a beach or on to the next turnaround, so no one has time to reminisce. The following case study is one we wrote up a few years ago, it was an industrial roll-up of 8 factories in 7 countries which ran out of cash amongst an orgy of overspending and poor management. Note: I am obscuring the names, industry and other facts of this case. These numbers were lifted from the financials at the time. It would be cool if they were fresh in my mind and I could geek out more on the details but this was many companies ago and I don’t have the time to dig back in. Turnarounds are team efforts and we succeeded only with great partners, employees, customers, lenders and suppliers. Timeline: Turnaround doctrine says there are five steps to a turnaround and it is these, in this order along with our times to complete; 1. Evaluation, month 1 2. Managemnet Change, month 1 3. Emergecy Action / Turnaround Execution, months 1 – 6 4. Stabilization, months 6+ 5. Return to normal/return to growth/turnaround complete, months 9 - 12 Background: Company is a tier 1-2 manufacturer producing for global OEM’s, which grew rapidly from one factory to eight in three years. Reveneus were $300 million but the company was only weeks away from running out of cash. The Holdco Chairman hit the brakes, fired the entire executive suite and brought us in to get things in order. (there was also an attempted corporate coup and litigation but that distracts from the turnaround story). The eight factories were spread across North America and Europe. They were each divestitures which came with their own special version of lavish facilities, employee culture (unproductive, overpaid and entitled), no sales pipeline and an unreasonably short supply agreement. The logical investment thesis would have been to take over the facilities, squeeze costs, integrate admin, drive efficiencies and sell like hell to fill up the backlog, utilize idle capacity and provide a chance of survival as the supply agreements ran out. The thesis is to do everything perfectly, at full speed, at 8 different locations and have a decent chance of survival. That’s not what they did. Instead they were able to front-load these agreements with upfront cash (negative purchase price) which was then wasted not making improvements but instead chasing some $22 million IT fantasy (this is a manufacturer, not an IT business) that even Oracle told them was a moonshot. Most of the sites were unprofitable and the company had severely underperformed. The bank’s debt service coverage ratio covenant required $23M in ebitda. Company delivered negative $1.7M. They were in violation of 3 out of the 5 borrowing covenants and the bank relationship was strained. The turnaround took a site-specific approach to fixing each business model and finding profitability. At the exact same time, we had a catastropihic equipment failure at Factory-#2 which caused an immediate shut down and costs us $11M over six months. The bank was fatigued and their contribution was bringing new pressures to the situation. While vendors started holding shipments, the company was locked into rigid supply agreements, labor contracts and other constraints which made it difficult to operate and nearly impossible to generate profits. Ebitda was negative despite nearly $300 million in revenues. Our turnaround successfully transformed the company improving its relationship with its lender and vendors, maintaining critical mass with employees, retaining and improving all supply contracts with its legacy customers, and regaining the confidence of current, new and prospective customers. By strategically downsizing to four sites from eight, we shed loss making entities and improved EBITDA in one year from negative $1.7 million to positive $30 million. Problems: There were numerous issues plaguing the acquisitions which included: · Rigid asset purchase agreements which restricted commercial opportunities, prohibited headcount reductions and other changes · Sites which were grossly underutilized, with large excess capacity · Price and Volume cliffs lay ahead as product models and platforms were nearing their end of life cycle. · An unrealistic forecast for new sales opportunities. · Poorly executed contracts for new business requiring Company to produce below a sustainable profitability · Sizeable capex obligations due to deferred maintenance, · Large deferred obligations such as balloon payments, substantial seller note obligations, and other acquisition financing arrangements which severely impaired near-term and long-term cash flow. · Excessive spending on IT (opex and capex) · Excessive spending on HQ staff · Ineffective sales and marketing Action Steps: · Fire CEO, CFO, COO · Replace with global restructuring team · Cease all non-critical spending · Contact customers / seller note holders · Cease payments and begin negotiation of seller notes · Freeze all past due payables · Model proforma forecast · Chairman, CEO or CRO to every facility · Cease IT projects and reduce IT spend · Replace overpriced attorneys · Replace overpriced IT consultants · Move HQ , sublease corporate clubhouse · Establish supply chain credit programs with vendors · Stop losses in factory #8 within 30 days · Stop losses in factory #7 within 30 days · Gain customer financial support for factory #6 · Accelerate A/R collections to 10 days · Headcount reductions · Wage and benefit reductions · Eliminate 4/6 of senior management positions · Double size of the sales force Value of Actions: · HQ headcount reductions produced an annual ebitda improvement of $3.2 MM (Salary, Bonus and Perquisites) · Lease termination of HQ offices contributed to $175k in annual ebitda · Cancellation of certain corporate events and trade shows produced a $500k annual ebitda improvement. · Divestiture / administration of four factories worth $15MM of annual ebitda improvement · Reduction of more than $1MM in marketing expense · Renegotiation of supply agreements at Factory-4, and Factory-2 improved ebitda by nearly $7MM annually · Renegotiation of the maturities of seller notes and certain accounts payable. · Restructuring and insourcing of the expensive IT program. · Negotiated stretch-out of the $10M AP related to prior IT expense with legacy vendor. Then reduced it to $3M and stretched it even further. Additional Turnaround Action Steps: In addition, to the Turnaround Action Steps listed above, the following actions were also important in restoring covenant compliance: · In-depth, on-site review of each operation to explore opportunities to reduce costs and drive production and revenue. · Freeze on all hires · Review of all insurances and health care policies with a new Broker of Record to eliminate excess costs and improve coverages and increase employee participation in premiums. · Consolidation of executive roles and elimination of duplicate roles · Elimination of Plant-8 Transitional Services Agreement · Reduction of more than $4.7 MM in IT capex spend · Reduction in IT contractor fees · Reduction in compliance and legal fees · Reduction in audit and tax fees · Streamlining and consolidation of common vendor contracts · Drawdown sale and shipment of excess inventory to customers to reduce on hand materials and improve cash flow and cash on hand Results: See attached slides. Summary: Think of a turnaround in 3 parts; 1. Fix Cash. The 13WCFF is the requisite tool. My book explains this well. It’s all tough actiions and negotiations. 2. Fix the P&L. Make the company profitable on its income statement. This is usally growing GPM% and cutting costs. Here we closed the 4 worst performers which helped. Negative GPM operations should be put down faster than a rabid dog. Then we just cut like hell to make our cost structure fit within our GPM dollars. 3. Right-size the Balance Sheet. The newly fixed and stabilized business can service a certain amount of debt through its earnings in free cashflow. This is a mathematical formula and you can use the bank standard DSCR of 1.25 as a guidepost. Bankruptcy laws are written to help a business right-size its balance sheet by force but we do it out of court through persuasive negotiations. You’ll see that AP was right-sized. Think of it this way, as we fixed the income statement by making our cost structure fit within our GPM dollars, we fix the balance sheet by making our debt service fit within our free cashflow dollars. I can do it through bankruptcy but everyone is better served doing it out of court.

@paulswaney3 We just announced return to 5 days in office. Sales will stay WFH, they’re pros & crush. A few selected out, most are good with it. Incentive structure will soon follow.

@kickstartmyfran Info

🔥Insane Franchise FDD Earnings Claim Alert🔥 -Avg. Revenue: $8.2m -Avg. Net Profit: $2.0m -Can be run semi-absentee -63 outlets open -Prime territories still available Total Investment: $117k - $202k We can save you up to $10k off this brand. Bookmark this post and comment "Info" to learn more. #franchises #franchiseopportunity #franchiseconsultant #smb #franx #topfranchises

@RobinRoofer I’ve had this happen & found the issue was swollen edges of OSB, or rafter spacing too being too far, 24” instead of 16”. You think that’s what’s happening here?

Here’s an example of a challenge we faced as a company and how we resolved it! Our first roof for this customer was installed but came out showing ripples at the verticals plywood seams in certain lighting which is NOT what the aesthetic the customer is paying for when they use us. We were able to work with them and our manufacturer to come up with a different product that would tackle this problem. This was a first time for us experiencing this challenge and just goes to show that no matter how much experience you have there will be unique situations that arise, but it’s how a company then rises to the occasion that really counts! I also took this opportunity to share this transparent story across all my social media platforms, this sort of genuine video content works to build a lot of trust.

@EthanDriskill awesome… what’s the best way to connect with you? Tried to DM but I’m not verified.

New client site launched: ✅ New brand identity ✅ Custom animations ✅ Solution Icons ✅ Designed to convert

@dklineii Started using this format earlier this year when I inherited a new team. Performance has improved, no doubt. But transparency/trust has been the biggest surprise.

Let me fix your 1:1 meetings in 90 seconds. It only requires two changes: - It's their meeting, not yours - Good questions >> Great directions Here's how to do it:

@RobinRoofer I experienced the same this time of year in 22 & 23. In ‘22 I was grasping & tried tie it to external events & stayed in a lull. Last year we prepped for it. Ran promos & sales rep competitions. Worked well. Biggest lesson: don’t overthink it, solutions are in front of you.

Sales have been really rough the last couple weeks. 290K followed by 210K. These may sound like a lot, but these are incredibly BLEAK numbers when compared to our overhead and volume required to keep all our W-2 staff with consistent workflow. We haven't seen any production slows yet thanks to killer sales in times prior. We have gone through many ebbs and flows like this I find its key to take hard fast action toward the problem, it won't just fix itself. I am taking some time this weekend to devise an agenda for our Monday sales meeting, going over some affirmative marketing/sales strategies to galvanize the team and turn things back to the 500-600K+ mark we have to live at right now. Running a big business is quite an activity, it never ceases to amaze me. No matter how "good" I may have done in the past, it has little bearing on the future, it is up to me as the leader of the team to constantly work to steer the ship in the right direction.

@shawngorham I keep hearing Coeur D'alene in the summer is “perfect”. I’d imagine anywhere on the coast in northern Cali would be nice this time of year.

Help us Dream a little: Here was a week of our best life... Wife had a job in Hawaii (rough) 1. Every morning we woke up early, worked out on the beach, walked 3 miles, and showered at the beach. 2. Grabbed a coffee and breakfast 3. Worked really hard during the day 4. Ate dinner on the grass, watching the sun set over the ocean FOR 7 DAYS... it was amazing Now Hawaii is a little pricey to be for month at a time, and well island fever would prob set in. We love outdoorsy areas, warm, water and open space. Where should we look to go for a couple months? Bend Oregon is about all I know. Never been to Boulder, is it an option? Utah? We havent traveled much and have no idea whats out there. HELP!

@ChowdahHill my brother-in-law! He’s a stud!

“Be excellent to each other,” says this IT warrior from Woodruff, VA who has been serving for months in the Red Sea. To his family he says, “I love you & miss you more every day!” Sailors like him truly represent the best of America. 🇺🇸🫡 #ThisIstheWay

@jcolesimpson Perfect timing to rest & reflect. You’ll come back energized & laser focused.

This week was a when it rained it poured kind of week Pretty exhausted, emotional toll of business ownership is probably 9/10 Going to @CapitalCamp this week, probably the perfect time, hopefully I come back excited about business Maybe I’ll tweet this week, maybe not

@EthanDriskill @shawngorham @mhp_guy @searchbound Their billboards & trucks have the dog. Probably the most established roofing brand in Atlanta.

@shawngorham @mhp_guy @searchbound Whoever has roofroof.com needs to go harder on the dog theme

Who is squatting on the best roofing company domain? @mhp_guy @searchbound

@seandsweeney That’s wild. Glad to hear you have a solution in the works. If you need additional perimeter surveillance w/ monitoring, analytics, etc. I can help.

Real Estate is not passive.

@STLChrisH The NI growth 🔥. Congrats!

I thought March results would be hard to beat at 130% year-over-year growth. Then we closed April with 142% year-over-year revenue growth. I am both proud and excited to watch our Ferguson team build a world class roofing business right here in the Midwest!