I’ve often thought that, as weird as it sounds, that we learn as much from clients as clients learn from us, and I’ve got a, a few examples over the course of the next couple weeks, probably even couple months, maybe even couple years, that I’ll share of client situations where I, I learned a lot and have been able to apply it in different aspects of life.

I was in DC, and for those of you who know me, um, know that we’ve got a, I don’t know, about a dozen clients up in the DC area. I was in DC a couple years ago and I was going to see a client, Mary Lou, and you know, I’d sent her my, you know, agenda ahead of the meeting. Um, and I had a number of meetings ahead of time over a period of a couple days, and I got to Mary [00:01:00] Lou’s house and, um, was there to go through the agenda.

And I sat down and we started kinda catching up and going back and forth a little bit, and Mary Lou sat, sat there and she looked at me and she was like, “What’s wrong?” And I was like, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “Uh, you always bring a lot of energy into these meetings, and today you’re just… You just don’t have it.”

She’s like, “You don’t have the same energy, same passion, same excitement coming into the meeting as y- as you normally do.” And I was taken back. I didn’t really put two and two together that, you know, not showing up with that level of energy and passion, um, was reflective to the client, and it made me stop and think, “You know, I’ve gotta show up more often, um, almost all the time going forwards, because it’s noticeable.”

And thinking now where we sit and, you know, the new [00:02:00] clients that are primarily coming on board as, as being business owners and whatnot, I had another conversation with a, um, a outsourced chief revenue officer not too long ago, um, who told me that he’s recognized that a lot of business owners grow to resent their business over time, and it took me a little while to underst- understand what that meant, but I think I get it now.

Um, and when that’s the case, you show up with less energy, um, and it shows in a couple different ways. It shows to the staff. Um, it shows to those that you work with. And then when you go sell the business, it shows those who are buying the business as well. Remember, people that are buying a business have bought tens, 20, hundreds of businesses in the past, um, and so they pick up on the little things.

Not only are they picking up on the things inside your books or the things inside your operations manual or the things inside your team, but they’re picking up on that energy from- From the owner, [00:03:00] from the leadership team, right? What kind of place is this to show up to? Is this the kind of place where you show up excited?

Um, or is this the kind of place that you show up every day wishing you didn’t have to show up to anymore? And so that trickles down from the leadership, right? That trickles down from the top. So all the time we need to focus on what type of energy we’re showing up with on a daily basis, but specifically when we’re in a period of transition, um, whether that’s to a new job and not as a business owner, whether or not it’s a business owner trying to transition to that new team, that energy that you show up with tells the future buyer what kind of place it is that they’re stepping into.

We’ve always gotta remember, you know, a phrase that we hear M&A advisors say all the time, which is a business worth buying is a business worth keeping, or a business worth keeping is a, um, is a, um, business worth, um, buying. So, um, and that shows up, one of the places it shows up is it’s gonna [00:04:00] show up in the energy level.

So remember, as you’re walking to meetings, uh, that energy level is important. Keep it high, um, keep the spirit in the right place and it’ll trickle through everything else that you do.