As a Wave of Owners Looks to Sell, Cameron Bishop and Raincatcher Guard Against Leaving Millions Behind

From Advertising Copywriter to Company Leader

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)

Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories Podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome adversity. As you listen today, let one idea shape what you do next. My name is Anthony Codispoti, and today's guest started his career writing advertising copy for a $7 million company with 90 employees. And over 23 years and five ownership changes, rose to run it as president and CEO.

At $400 million in revenue and $100 million in EBITDA. He then left to co-found Ascend Media from scratch, backed by JP Morgan Chase's private equity arm, building it to $120 million in revenue and 500 employees in just three years. Cameron Bishop is partner and managing director at Raincatcher, an MA advisory firm for founder-led and family-owned companies.

He has completed more than 60 buy-side and sell-side transactions, totaling over $500 million in enterprise value. And Raincatcher has closed more than $1 billion in deals across more than 20 industries. He's also the author of two books. And he spent three years leading an organizational and technology turnaround at a $60 million 501 charitable organization in the training industry, rebuilding its brand, cutting costs.

And modernizing its systems from the ground up. But before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company, AddBack Benefits Agency. And if you advise business owners heading toward an exit, this is a lever most of your clients don't know they have. So here's the problem: your business owner clients are overspending on health insurance every year. And that's money leaking out of the business, money that could be funding the very strategies you're building with them.

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Cameron Bishop (02:46)

Thank you so much for having me, Anthony.

Anthony Codispoti (02:49)

So Cameron, in nineteen seventy-seven, you joined Intertec, seven million dollar company back then with ninety employees, and you were writing advertising copy. This is sort of

Cameron Bishop (02:59)

Right.

Anthony Codispoti (02:59)

like a a mail room to the the boardroom kind

Cameron Bishop (03:01)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (03:02)

of a story, because along the way, you ended up running the whole company. And in that process, Intertec grew to $400 million in revenue. Tell us about what you were doing to fuel that growth.

Cameron Bishop (03:14)

Yeah, well, first I'll say sometimes it's right place at right time or better to be lucky than good. So my degree in college was in journalism from the University of Missouri, and I had planned on spending my entire career as an advertising copywriter because I like to write. I figured I'd work at an ad agency. Instead, I landed the same kind of a position at a small technical trade magazine publishing company.

And over time, a significant group of the employees who didn't like the CEO kind of mutinied and about fifteen of them left at one time. And again, we're a small company, only 90 employees, many of whom were, you know, lower level clerical, administrative type positions. So the CEO looked around and said, Well, I gotta have somebody to step up. And I got volunteered. So I moved to a marketing director and

with another really talented, brilliant guy and we rebuilt some of the properties we had. And then about four years later

We were at that time owned by a massive international conglomerate called IT ITT. And they began to divest non-strategic assets, which we were one. And we were acquired by the McMellan Book Publishing Company, which was a Fort Fortune 100 business based in New York. And they acquired sure.

Anthony Codispoti (04:39)

And so real quick, Cameron, tell us more about what the company was doing so we have more context. Obviously, it was in the media

Cameron Bishop (04:43)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (04:44)

space.

Cameron Bishop (04:45)

So we we published about I think it was about nine when I joined the firm.

Technical business magazines for industry. So we had about four in the farming industry, one for golf course management, and then the ones I focused on were in the technology sector for radio and television station management and engineers, video production companies, and that sort of thing. So that's the division that I built before I became CEO as we grew the company.

So we were all about helping business owners get educated, find new ideas on their businesses, and our revenue came from selling advertising.

Anthony Codispoti (05:29)

Okay. And so there are multiple ownership changes along the way, which you were starting to tell us about.

Cameron Bishop (05:34)

That's right. Yeah, so Macmillan acquired us. They didn't have any presence in magazine publishing. And they literally said, Hey, we kind of like this business. We want you to go out and buy companies. Didn't tell us how to do it, just said they had the money. And we just started to figure it out.

And one of my most significant and important failures in my career was the fact that I, uh, by sheer coincidence, did the first deal we did. We bought a magazine for recording industry professionals, audio recording. And we thought we knew what we were doing, man. We dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's, did all the financial auditing work and

We were scrupulous. And what we didn't fully understand or evaluate was the people factor. And this was an LA-based kind of creative fly by the city of your pants business, and we were this established kind of disciplined processes and business reporting and accounting.

And we didn't properly understand or recognize the contrast in operating styles and corporate culture. And over about a year, their top couple of folks just didn't like that kind of an environment. We didn't do anything to accommodate it, and so they left. And like most businesses, certainly in the magazine business, the business business exists on the talent.

Of the publishing team. And that magazine ultimately died. Thankfully, it was a small deal. But again, I believe you learn far more from your failures and mistakes than you do from your successes. So we rapidly built regimented systems to avoid that in the future.

A Failed Acquisition and Lessons About Company Culture

The “Start, Stop, Keep” Approach to Change

Anthony Codispoti (07:32)

And what did that look like? What systems were you building or changing?

Cameron Bishop (07:35)

Well the key thing we did is to focus a lot more on the people. So one of the most effective and successful tactics that we refined.

And that you mentioned that I did it this turnaround on a sixty million dollar five one c three. I used those same s processes when I had to go in and assess that business in terms of what we were going to need to do. So it's actually very simple. We called it start, stop, keep. We would meet individually with as many employees as possible, one on one, without influence from any other managers or

employees in the firm and we would simply say, what would you like to see the company start to do? And we found many amazing ideas, even down to clerical level people. You never know where somebody has observed something that creates an excellent opportunity.

then what the next question was: what would you like to make sure we continue to do? Because that's really the key in terms of protecting or effectively integrating corporate cultures. And by the time you get to the last one, what would you like to see the company stop doing, which is the negative of those three? You actually already have been given the answer.

just in a different way. And it was highly effective. And we identified many talented employees who were kind of buried down in the food chain. And we came up with great opportunities to grow the business. And so over time, because our when we were 400 million, we were crazy profitable.

twenty-five percent margin, but that's because many b businesses that buy a company say to the company they're buying, Hey, we're right, you're wrong, we're buying you, it's my way or the highway.

And that's a prescription for failure in the integration process. So Brilliant Man I worked for that was the chairman of McMillan for many years, would when we were going to report about a company we were buying, his first question always was, What are they doing right? There's a reason you're buying them.

Find out what they're doing right and protect that first because it's easy to go in and pick apart things that are they're not doing well or effectively. And that was a key to a lot of that. So we would integrate best practices from every deal that we did.

Anthony Codispoti (10:08)

So start, keep, stop. What's something you want us to start doing? What's something we're doing that we should keep doing? What's something we should stop doing? And you do this anytime you go in and acquire a new business. And

Cameron Bishop (10:19)

That's right.

Anthony Codispoti (10:19)

I I love this because the beauty is in the simplicity of it. Where did the idea come from? Is this something you cooked up? Did this come from a coach, some kind of an outside consultant?

Cameron Bishop (10:30)

No, we had a highly collaborative team. the name of the company at that time was called Intertec Publishing. And we worked so well together and we we knew we'd run into a significant problem on this people factor. So it was a collaborative effort to come up with this approach to really hone in on the people.

and to actually ask them questions then shut up and listen.

Anthony Codispoti (10:58)

So you do this one deal, the long-term prognosis wasn't great, ends up failing because of the people side of things, as you just explained. As you did the next deals, you fixed that people component of it. You factored that in much better. Were there other mistakes that you made from some of those other deals that you continued to learn from?

Cameron Bishop (11:19)

well I think there are opportunities to make mistakes on every deal. You can only learn so much at this a major deal we're doing, the private equity guys that were doing that are buying this company say, Hey, you think you know everything about a business from all the due diligence work that you've done, and then day one you walk into the company and it's like, I really need to know that too.

So there you can only be so thorough, you can only plan so much, you still have to be able to react and adjust as the process goes along.

Leaving Intertec to Build Ascend Media

Anthony Codispoti (11:56)

So in two thousand two, you left that CEO seat, a very profitable company, a hundred million dollars in EBITDA, to start Ascend Media. Why? What made you walk away? What was the idea that was pulling at you?

Cameron Bishop (12:11)

Well as often happens, Anthony, in major companies, my mentor of fifteen years, who is the chairman of McMillan, that company was financially backed by the mega private equity firm Colbert Travis Roberts. And my mentor and the KKR guys

Reached some kind of a disagreement, and so my mentor left. And as often happens, a new CEO chairman came in, and there were 10 operating divisions. I ran the second largest by revenue, the largest by IBIDA profit. But the new owner or the new CEO wanted it all of his own people, so one by one, he changed out the senior management.

So wasn't a real option for me at that point. I'd been there 23 years, figured I'd just stay I'd be there forever because we were doing so well and said such great people. But things happened. So I said, what's my next step? So I took six months, I wrote a business plan and I spent another full year flying all over the country.

pitching my concept to private equity firms to back me to do another effectively what's called a roll up just in different industries than my old company had been in for non-compete reasons. So it took

Anthony Codispoti (13:35)

So still a

media roll up, you're still acquiring different businesses in the same way that you were, but the verticals were different how?

Cameron Bishop (13:42)

well the the pre the old company we were a lot of industrial high technology. I ran the the high tech division that I ran before CEO, that was over a hundred million dollar division there. so we our new platform we focused on the healthcare industry. So we focused on

Medical business magazines, medical journals. We did not publish peer-reviewed journals. So they were a little bit more commercial than a traditional research-based peer-reviewed journal. And we were in 30 or 40 different medical specialties. We had a medical education company, we had a medical marketing agency. So we were kind of diversified in that sector.

Anthony Codispoti (14:28)

So you end up raising a hundred million dollars from JP Morgan Chase's private equity arm. It's a huge sum of money. I mean, clearly you had a track record with what you were doing before at Intertec. but what was the first thing you did when you got the pledge of money? How did you get started?

Cameron Bishop (14:43)

Well it's not quite that straightforward. So when they agreed to partner with me, which is common for private equity firms that can partner with a CEO who has a track record in knowledge in an industry.

And they do kind of what's called executive warehousing. So buying a business is extremely difficult. It was a two year process to get a deal done. So they basically kind of fund you while you're going out to do the deal so that they've got you locked up to run the business when we find a deal and you handle all the operational due diligence on those deals because you know those industries. that was they were about a six billion dollar private equity fund at that time. So

their commitment to our deal was kind of peanuts. but all of these deals they layer in debt. And the commitments we got for debt when you do bank presentations for all these banks were it was a very credit-like market at that time. So we were looking for 120 million in a debt facility and we got commitments for 240 million. But

We didn't really need that, so we consolidated it into an aggregated consortium of banks. We each put in a tranche of the of the the debts in the structure.

Anthony Codispoti (16:03)

And so how did you find that first deal?

Cameron Bishop (16:07)

I networked like crazy.

I do because I'd done so many buy-side and sell side deals in that industry. I knew all of the investment bankers and business brokers, sat on the board of the trade association. So I network with my counterparts. industry suppliers often know the inside story on if a business is going to sell before anybody else. So you just leverage your contacts. It's a long time before LinkedIn, so it was all done by

either phone call or emails back then. But yeah, that's how you better go find any deal.

Anthony Codispoti (16:44)

How many deals did you end up doing?

Cameron Bishop (16:47)

with the Ascend platform, I think we did try to think I think it was six deals, maybe seven.

Anthony Codispoti (16:54)

It grew really quick. Um my

Cameron Bishop (16:56)

Very quick.

Anthony Codispoti (16:57)

my numbers here are correct. You went from zero revenue to a hundred and twenty million and five hundred employees in about three years. Yeah.

Cameron Bishop (17:05)

Right. Yeah, rapid growth can be every bit as challenging as trying to address and deal with a declining business. In this case, I was very fortunate in that we were growing so fast I had a really not quite desperate, but urgent demand for key talent.

And there was a the new CEO that went into my former company created a lot of disruption and dissatisfaction. So it's kind of a point of pride for me that I had 45 of my former employees or counterparts from my previous company leave for no additional money and come to work in our firm to help grow it. And that's part of the reason we were able to grow it so fast because we had the talent, we had the team to create the infrastructure.

Anthony Codispoti (17:58)

That says volumes there. Forty plus people who leave the old company come to work with you, and it's not because they were getting some outrageous pay bump. You're saying they came over for same or or less money. That's that's impressive. And so what ends up happening with Ascend Media? What's the is it still around? Is it still kicking? Did your role stu did you step away from it?

Debt, Recession, and Ascend’s Financial Unwind

Cameron Bishop (18:23)

No, that's in and of itself is a fascinating story. But so I mentioned that every deal, if you leverage the deal with debt, and it was a credit light market at that time, meaning banks were willing to loan at much higher leverage ratios than are typically the case. And our

We had a second private equity group that came into the deal and they were very aggressive. So this deal was leveraged at what today would be considered an egregious level because they could get better returns the less equity they put in and the more debts it's on the deal. And then long

Anthony Codispoti (19:01)

And the debt that sits

on the deal sits on the books of Ascend.

Cameron Bishop (19:04)

That is correct. It's on the balance sheet. And you're making payments every month out of your cash flow. And then lo and behold, we come along to 2007 and we go into a deep recession/slash depression, if you will, and the banks just crunch down on debt covenants and

Markets started to slow down, so we ended up ultimately financially unwinding that business.

Anthony Codispoti (19:33)

Painful. What is you look back at that anything you would have done differently, or you were just gonna be steered by the conditions of the market forces regardless?

Cameron Bishop (19:44)

You know, the only thing that we could have done if you know with 2020 hindsight, you know, the banks are ruthless. R they'll try to renegotiate, but they charge you outrageous fees, which only exacerbates the problem that you had to begin with. And probably strategically, our best bet would have been uh to declare a chapter eleven and reorganize. at that time

I guess I wasn't smart enough to really be able to accept that. And your private equity backers they kind of looked at it the same way. So it was an unfortunate situation, but it was, as I said, sometimes it's good luck and sometimes it's bad luck. The timing for being that leveraged was a horrible tie to have that happen.

Moving Into M&A Advisory

Anthony Codispoti (20:34)

So in 2014, you joined Capitus Group as a partner. This is an MA advisory firm helping owners plan their exit. And clearly you're coming in now with a lot of experience on the MA side of things, but I'm curious what was behind the decision to get away from doing this yourself and advising other business owners on how to do it.

Cameron Bishop (20:57)

Yeah. Well I kind of grew an interest in it because shortly after I left to send, I got a call from Hallmark Cards, which is based here in Kansas City where I live, and they had launched a very polished high-end consumer magazine focused for women. It was a it was competing against Martha Stewart Living and Time Increal Simple magazines.

But they were really struggling with it. And there was kind of an oil and water chemistry between the New York publishing team and the Kansas City management team who didn't really know anything about magazine publishing. So they engaged me for a year to go in and you know determine what needed to be done. They thought the New York team was spending

lavishly on everything. and so I spent a year doing that. So in my career, Anthony, I've been to New York over 750 times. And that year I was there 29 times on that project. So I really got enamored with the consulting business. I'm still friends with some of the employees that worked on that that magazine.

time again we were in the recessionary period and Hallmark didn't feel like they could continue to justify investing into it. So we ultimately tried to sell it off but there weren't really any buyers for it in the market we were in then but plus the internet was coming out.

But I like the consulting world and I knew I could help these business owners to owners to prepare their business for sale. I knew a couple of the partners in the firm and so I joined the firm. I did that for about five years. Very rewarding work while was there.

Anthony Codispoti (22:50)

Tell us something that maybe you pulled from your time with the deals at Intertec and Ascend that you were able to layer in and help one of these owners achieve a better outcome.

Cameron Bishop (23:03)

Well you mentioned in your opening remarks about how you can effectively add value and enterprise value to a business through cost-related engineering or cost reduction work. So that was a standard practice for us at the Intertec rollup and again at the Ascend roll-up. we found that with our knowledge

And our buying power, say for printing on a volume basis, for example, if we were paying a multiple of six times profits for a business, we would do all of our analysis and determine that with all the cost consolidation, we could effectively get a multiple of one to one and a half points less than the face multiple on the deal. I used all of those tactics in the turnaround I did for the 60 million 501.

C3 and in fact Anthony you mentioned cost additions, I think it was $900 uh spent less spending per employee. that company, I think we it was $60 million business doing five to six million in EV.profit.

And that was declining rapidly. And over three years, I cut six million dollars in costs out of that business, and over a million of it was in healthcare-related plans. So is there is massive upside for business owners if they can create cost efficiency and recognize the value of investing in the experts to do that because

When they sell a business, they're going to get a multiple on every dollar they save that drops to the bottom line. So you save a dollar, you might get three back, four back, five back, six back in terms of exit valuation. And we executed that to a T across all of our deals.

Anthony Codispoti (24:59)

Yeah, I think you're touching on something that's so important here is that, you know, for most business owners, they're gonna sell a business once in their life, maybe a couple times, right? but they're coming in with no experience in this particular area. They're great at running their business. They've been really successful at it. That's why they're in this position. But oftentimes they're on the other side of the table from somebody who.

This is what they do all day, every day. And so they're ill prepared when they get to that point. What are some of the things that, you know, now Cameron is somebody who's been through it multiple times on your own and has helped countless clients themselves? What are some of the things that a business owner typically isn't thinking about?

Preparing a Business for Sale

Cameron Bishop (25:46)

Yeah. Well the first and foremost, typically they're not thinking about preparing their company for sale. So many times something negative happens in the company and they say, That's it, I'm done, I'm gonna sell. And that's when we get a phone call.

And they also want immediate gratification. So they don't realize that the national average, no matter the size of the deal or the industry they're in, is a nine to ten month process from engagement with an investment banker to a deal closing. so those are early surprises for them. Oftentimes they're in the widget manufacturing industry, and a guy they met at a trade show that makes widgets in another city.

He heard that guy sold his company for a gajillion dollars. And so he immediately thinks that he could sell his company for a gajillion dollars. So they don't have any comprehension about the number and level of complexity about what constitutes that enterprise value of that deal.

And it what looks good on the surface is most often not really the true story. And the differences in performance levels from one company to another can have significant impact, either upside or downside, on an enterprise value on exit of a business. And they say, well, I sell widgets, so I'm pretty good at that. I could sell my company.

But it's an entirely different process. And where they most often get hurt the worst is they don't have any kind of a benchmark on what the true valuation for their business is. Because somebody calls them and says, Hey, I'll buy your company. So they don't have any benchmarks. So they almost always sell for less than they could have. Again, when I was buying companies, I never once paid top dollar for a business.

It was represented by an individual business owner.

So those are some of the real key factors. If they don't understand the stress level and particularly the complexity around negotiation that evolve, networking capital from their balance sheet. And they can give back sometimes millions without realizing it if they don't have sophisticated experts to help them navigate through that.

How Deal Terms Can Change a Seller’s Outcome

Anthony Codispoti (28:14)

Give us a particular example, leave out names, but where somebody was at risk of leaving millions of dollars on the table because they didn't understand these complexities.

Cameron Bishop (28:25)

Yeah. I'll I'll flip it around to the the other side of the table. So we recently had a client. The company was valued husband and wife owners, the cusp company was valued at roughly seven to eight million based on all of our research and our industry expertise and experience. But we were able to bring in two

Buyer groups, one bid up aggressively, they weren't as qualified as the other group. So we were able to leverage the aggressive bid with the second bid that was a far more qualified buyer and got the deal value up to about 10.5 million. Again, we thought if we if we knocked the cover off the ball of that deal, we might get these owners eight, maybe eight point two million.

But because of some complex aspects of contracts that they had on the books for future business, we were able to negotiate a working capital structure for them.

Which netted them additional cash on closing, so they end up getting about $13 million for a business that we thought would sell for seven to eight million dollars. Now that didn't happen on every deal for sure, to be clear, but that's indicative of what can occur with the right expertise on your team.

Anthony Codispoti (29:45)

When you say you negotiated some extra working capital for who? For the buyers or for the sellers? And and how did that

Cameron Bishop (29:51)

For the sellers,

yeah. The way we structured recognition of revenue and future earnings based on future contracts that were booked under sellers' ownership, but would be realized under buyer's ownership. So we negotiated a it's an unusual structure for sure. You're not gonna see that on many deals, certainly not all deals.

But it's a a real world example of how those things can go. It can also go the other way. the one of the companies I bought when the big deal we did under the Ascend roll up, the sellers didn't properly calculate

what was called the networking capital. And post-closing, there's a true-up process. And we actually clawed back about three million dollars of the purchase price because they didn't correctly calculate their networking capital. It's an extremely complex process and concept. And if you're not a financial expert, you're more often than not gonna get hoodwicked.

especially if your buyer is sophisticated.

The Emotional Side of Selling a Business

Anthony Codispoti (31:07)

Okay. You also mentioned something about the mental or the emotional aspect of what it is that you're coaching your clients on. Can you say more about that part of it, Cameron?

Cameron Bishop (31:18)

Yeah, it it's part of the process that business owners who are selling really actu A, they don't think about it, and B, they don't realize until the end how valuable it is. We try to properly set expectations on the front end of a deal, but selling a business is an extremely almost onerous, intimidating sometimes,

hi real roller coaster emotional ride of highs and lows. and because there's so many foreign concepts in the process,

That stresses owners out. So it's our job as the non-emotional businessman or woman, either case, uh, to help them understand, for example, what's normal, what's market rate. They're not trying to screw you on this. This is the way this is done, this is standard practice.

it's also and they'll get upset over those things. It's it's like the analogy of somebody telling you your baby's ugly or you're selling your house and s you hear a buyer walk through and say that's a god awful color on the walls in your bathroom. it's very easy to feel personal about that, but it's not a personal process. It's a business process. So we'll try to help level set them

And sometimes, you know, they can become their own worst enemy and they can be six or seven or eight months into a deal and get so you know tense over that or stressed out that they say, That's it, I'm done, I'm I I'm walking away. so it's our when we start a deal, we ask them, why do you want to sell?

And it's our goal, an objective, to help them achieve their goal. And if they walk away, that's usually not achieving their goal. It's not all about the money. so part of our role is what I call a Dr. Phil role. Part of our role, which they also don't understand, because I've I've never had a business owner yet who just said, find me the buyer with the highest price, I don't care who they are. Never happens.

To a to an owner, they are extremely sensitive and caring about who's gonna buy their business and who's gonna take care of their employees. So we are we were kind of three hats or three roles: investment banker, Dr. Phil work, and then we also play a role kind of as match.com. We try to match buyers who can not only be competitive on

deal pricing and deal terms and deal structure and their ability to actually close the deal, but how do they fit with that owner? A lot of times the owner is going to stay on at least for a period of time. But they care about this and we try to align the cultures of the buyer and their, you know, their priorities and the way they deal with employees when they go into the integration process.

to get a win-win-win, get our buyer or get our seller the goal of selling, bringing in the right people and then keeping them in the game mentally and emotionally through a nine or ten month very difficult process.

Anthony Codispoti (34:37)

So rank for me, if you would, Cameron, when deals are at risk of falling apart because of the owner, I'm curious what you see most common. Is it they're insulted by the offer? Is it they're exhausted by the due diligence? Is it something else? Like what are the kind of give me the top three?

Cameron Bishop (35:00)

Yeah. So I just briefly process-wise, if somebody signs an engagement with us, we're gonna ask them for a massive amount of information up front. It's all the due diligence information that buyers are gonna want to see. So we get ahead of that. Well, that's a huge load for them because they don't understand that selling a company is literally a full-time job on top of a full-time job.

But they've got to work it in in order to get the deal done. So we we put them through a rigorous process there, very time consuming and frustrating because most of them aren't that well organized. They go to go find things like copies of contracts and what have you.

So that begins the stress, but then it backs off for them some while we are building what's called a confidential information memorandum. It's a very polished, comprehensive book on the business and the industry. And we go out and do our outbound sales.

Then once we're in that stage, we will issue what we call an indication of interest letter asking anyone who wants to make a bid to make an initial bid. And to your point about getting frustrated or insulted by low bid offers, that's how we uh weed those all out. So, you know, if we a recent deal, we got 36 indication of interest letters. So we'll weed them out.

and eliminate that as a concern. But then the last stage is 90 days negotiating contracts. And that's where a lot of the stress really flows up.

Anthony Codispoti (36:38)

So in twenty twenty one, you join Raincatcher as managing director and you guys represent sellers through the whole process, the packaging, the marketing, negotiating a sale, sometimes multiple interested buyers, sometimes just one. How is what you do there at Raincatcher different from a competitor? Why, when folks choose Raincatcher, are they going with you?

Cameron Bishop (37:03)

Well there's one tangible reason in that many lower middle market banks

Are not part of the fiduciary regulatory environment. So we are affiliated with what's referred to as a FINRA, which is F-I-N-R-A, Registered Broker Dealer. It kind of sits under the auspices of the Securities Exchange Commission. If you have a wealth manager, stockbroker, they're regulated by FINRA. So I am what is referred to as a registered rep. So we meet all the fiduciary compliance requirements. So that's just kind of a technical fact. But

We're a little bit different from many because many investment bankers will get to the LOI stage and get that negotiated. Then they'll sit back for the next 90 days while the buyer does all of their work and the contracts are negotiated, then they collect a success fee at the end of the deal because investment bankers are primarily paid when a deal closes. It's a percentage of the enterprise value of the deal. In our case, we're

Of a white glove service, so we're gonna help advise or recommend MA experienced attorneys that we know and trust, tax experts that we know. If they need wealth management planning, we'll bring in experts on that, and then we'll quarterback that whole deal. We're on all the calls if they got an outside CPA, we're working with them as well. We're reading every draft and every turn of the contracts along with our clients.

clients often interpreting those in layman's terms for them because you know their eyes glaze over a lot of that legal terminology. So we are literally there with them hand in glove until a wire transfer hits their bank account. Not all investment banks do that or not to that level.

of personal attention. Current deal we're about to go under LOI with. I, my partner, and our advisor. We'll each have three to four hundred man hours of our individual time, each of us individually, to go through that whole process of that deal.

Anthony Codispoti (39:15)

Wow.

Are you guys still involved post sale at all? Like I wonder how often you get to see what happens to the business owner after the transaction, after that big wire hits, the life changing money that comes in.

Cameron Bishop (39:28)

Yeah. Well we we spend so much time with our clients that we actually become friends. And you know, I'll I'll call once a year, twice a year, or they'll call us just to check it and say, hey, how you doing? And our clients are an amazing referral source for us. I've gained three other clients from referrals from happy recently sold businesses that we sold.

So yeah, we we do kind of stay in touch, just kind of on a check-in basis because we get to know them, we know who their kids are, and we just spend tons of time together on video calls or in-person meetings.

Anthony Codispoti (40:09)

And so you said in a lot of deals, it's really common for the owners to stay on for a transitionary period post sale. Once owners kind of roll off of that commitment, I'm curious if you've seen some common threads. People love that they've got all this time to go and fish and sit on the beach, or they're lost because they don't have anything to do, or they start a new business. What are the patterns that you've noticed?

Cameron Bishop (40:36)

Yeah, that's a great question. It's something we really try to dig in kind of deep with our clients to because most business owners eat, sleep, and breathe their company. A lot of them are working seven day weeks. They don't have much social life, they don't have many hobbies. and they just finally get to that point where they've got to sell and they think, all right, gonna be able to take it easy, I'm gonna have a bunch of money, life's gonna be good.

But because they didn't have a a a well-balanced life as entrepreneurs and business owners, which is why they ironically became successful, they're not well planned for life after selling. And we see so many cases where a business owner will oftentimes, frankly, go into a depression or something similar.

Because their company was their passion, it was their purpose, it was their social connections, whether it was with fellow employees or customers, or networks of other individuals in their same industry. And it can be a real struggle for them. And the irony there is that

They're successful because they were willing to take calculated risks in building and running their company. But once they sell and they've got this money sitting in the bank, they typically become very risk averse.

They're don't have an interest in investing in starting a new business or going on down a new avenue in life. So it can be a if they don't really think through that and begin to we ask them what does life for you look like after you sell and ultimately leave the business? Most of them don't have an answer for that. So we encourage them to be really begin thinking about that.

Anthony Codispoti (42:31)

What are some things that you've seen folks do post sale after they've stepped away from their role in the company where they're actually happy?

Cameron Bishop (42:42)

well the the the situation I just described a little bit ago about the husband and wife business. we help them plan proper transitions out of their company. they have multiple interest levels. They're they're based in Colorado, in western Colorado. They're real outdoor people. And their hobbies and habits and

Snow they're big snow skiers, they're big hikers, campers, they do off-roading. They're extremely happy. And their son stepped up to run the company, who's doing a fantastic job. They're extremely happy about his ability to transition to the business. And excuse my French, but their business

with the new ownership is kicking ass right now. I mean they are way outperforming all of our expectations. So that's a real happy story.

Anthony Codispoti (43:36)

That's a fantastic ending. Cameron, why do you do this? You you strike me as a guy that you've had, you know, a fair bit of success along the way, at a point in your career where I don't tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you don't need to work. What gets you out of bed every morning? What keeps you going on this path?

Cameron Bishop (43:55)

Yeah. I think I'll admit I'm probably kind of an oddball in the sense that I really like to work. I have other hobbies, painting on the wall behind me, I'm a frustrated, acrylic abstract painter, love to cook, love to pick a ball. But I did the three-year engagement to turn turn around the $60 million 501c3, which was an extremely challenging job. That was a seven-day-a-week job for three years.

And when it was over, I was pretty exhausted. So I took a month off. Again, this we're all quarantined during COVID. By the end of a month, I started bouncing off the walls. I was bored crazy. So I said, I need to do something. I didn't want to run companies anymore. I knew I wanted to do something else. I like buying and selling businesses, did the research, found rain catcher. We were well aligned now.

Mission, vision, values, and ethical standards. So I joined the firm. Yeah, I could have, I could have retired back then, but I you can only play so much pickleball. You can only paint so much. And I also have a passion, if you can't already tell, for helping these business owners.

to get a deal across the finish line, which is usually, if not their sole source of future wealth, a primary source. And none of their kids want to work in the business anymore, so they have to sell. So I get tremendous satisfaction when we get a deal closed and across the finish line. The money's nice too, gotta admit, but I just enjoy the work. And I work with some really smart, really great people who teach me stuff every day.

And you always want to be learning.

Personal and Professional Setbacks and Finding Support

Anthony Codispoti (45:40)

Speaking of learning, you know, one of the more painful ways to learn things is really hard experiences that you go through in life. I'd be curious to hear from you, Cameron, what's one of the hardest things you've had to overcome and what did going through that teach you?

Cameron Bishop (45:54)

Yeah. So we talked a little bit earlier about my transition out of Ascend Media with a change in the chairman at at the parent company. that actually ha happened A, we were on all-time record revenue performance and we were on all-time record profits and profit margin. So that came as uh kind of a surprise, especially after 23 years there.

But ironically, at almost the same time, my first wife decided she wanted a divorce. So a 23-year marriage and a 23-year divorce came at almost the exact same time. And so transition process, I mentioned it takes about two years to if you're gonna start a business with financial backing.

I had a deal die in Denver, the second turn of the purchase agreement.

Nine I've been working on it for four months. 911 hit and the day after the private equity firm that was gonna back me was one out of Chicago then called and said Kim, we're out, we're not doing this deal. So you literally have bankers boxes full of worthless paper and nothing to show for four months of work. I Pat Parker bought the Corvia Bank out of North Carolina. We went after a deal in Birmingham, we won the bid, but the deal began to drop in revenue.

Revenue, forcing us to renegotiate the price, and they refused to do so. So another three months was lost on that deal. Then that's when I got a call from JP Morgan to partner with them. But as I said, it took two years to get a deal done, and our first deal literally died twice before we got that deal done. As I mentioned, I'm all through all this, the divorce transition.

trying to start a new company. I flew from Miami to Seattle to Boston to Los Angeles and everywhere in between, pitching my business plan to private equity firms. So that was a very tough period.

Anthony Codispoti (47:58)

I mean, when it rains, it pours, you know.

Cameron Bishop (48:00)

That's right.

Anthony Codispoti (48:01)

And I've gone through tough business moments in my life. Starting up a business, an existing business that's declining, personnel issues, supplier issues. And while my wife doesn't really understand the business nature of what I do, she's always a great source of support for me. In your case, that is going away too. At the the same time

Cameron Bishop (48:26)

That's right.

Anthony Codispoti (48:26)

that

you're running into all of these business challenges. I I'm wondering from an emotional perspective, Cameron, how you carried on through this? Where was your

Cameron Bishop (48:35)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (48:35)

support coming from?

Cameron Bishop (48:37)

Well one of my former co-workers at both the Intertec and the SEN, we were we worked together for thirty year good years, so he was a good support. my brother was a good support, but I was also fortunate to meet a lovely lady on a blind date about six months after my divorce was final and

She was full time worker and I'm trying to start a company. So we ended up dating for almost six years, but she became, you know, kind of my sounding board through that. So now we're coming up on our twentieth wedding anniversary next year. So

you know there were there are always bright spots down the end of the road. And you know in a failure like that my favorite expression is a Japanese saying called fall down seven, get up eight.

Anthony Codispoti (49:27)

Love that. you know, and I think what folks should really take away from your story, especially if, you know, they find themselves in a dark tunnel themselves at the moment, is that you don't always know where it's gonna come from, but there's light at the end of that tunnel. It's there somewhere if you'll just keep moving forward.

Cameron Bishop (49:45)

Exactly.

Anthony Codispoti (49:46)

Talk to me about how you're using AI in your work now.

Cameron Bishop (49:50)

my gosh. It I was skeptical of it at first. It has become an amazing, invaluable tool for us. when we're developing our confidential information marketing memorandum.

to market business. We put together subtype 40 to 70 page books about a company, all the aspects around the business, industry dynamics, market metrics, macro macro factors, micro factors. and it would it would take me on a big deal, maybe and at least one of our other team members, because usually work two or three on a deal.

We might spend 50 plus hours apiece doing all the research around that. Sometimes now with we use the professional versions, the Ferrari versions of like Claude and Grok and and Gemini. Uh there we can have that research done sometimes in hours.

And it often is more comprehensive because that AI is able to find sources that sometimes we haven't been able to find through more generalized research and you know Google searches and and just deep diving into specialized databases and sources of information in specific industries.

We can also do quick analysis on financials. We don't rely on that, but we use it as an initial litmus test when we're evaluating the sellability of a company. We use it as a first level screening to review contracts we're going to negotiate. We don't fully solely rely on that, but again, it is just speeding up and creating greater accuracy.

and efficiency in our business.

Anthony Codispoti (51:49)

Any ways that you would like to use AI down the road that haven't fully materialized yet?

Cameron Bishop (51:56)

Well, I I think sometimes you can't imagine what you can't imagine. But we we use the different iterations of Claude quite a bit. And it can uh I I wrote a marketing email yesterday to send out to potential buyers for a company we're marketing right now. So I do my first draft and again I'm a writer by past profession.

But I'll run it through Claude or Gemini, and they always come up with great suggestions. So I'm able to refine that. Now they can incorporate that into some portions of PowerPoint, which I think will become even more polished and sophisticated over time. So I think as some of these just evolve further, they're going to become more and more valuable to us. But man, I can hardly predict the level of functionality that these things.

Anthony Codispoti (52:54)

As you think about the work that you're doing now, Cam, what is it that you most want to be remembered for?

Cameron Bishop (53:00)

you know one of the things that I wrote a letter to my oldest grandson for his thirteenth birthday, and one of the things that I talk suggested to him in there is that at the end of the day, the one thing you have is your integrity and you protect that at all cost. And hopefully

That will be a key thing that folks might remember about me. I also value honesty and loyalty. Those are always attributes that I looked for in employees that we hired in our company.

Anthony Codispoti (53:36)

What's one rule in business then that you would never break, no matter what?

Cameron Bishop (53:40)

I think I would never break the rule of what you've heard of as ready fire aim, where you don't make a instant gut reaction. Because part of my management theories always were things are seldom black and white, they're almost always say

shades of gray and there are almost always three sides or more to every story. So to make a decision, you really have to step back and gather all the facts before you can make that call.

Anthony Codispoti (54:17)

Cam, before I ask my last question here for you today, I want to do three quick things for the audience. The first is how to get in touch with Cameron Bishop. Two ways. You can go to their website, Raincatcher.com. Also, you can look for Cameron Bishop on LinkedIn. If you search for Cameron Bishop Raincatcher, you're gonna find him. But we'll also have a link to his LinkedIn profile and their website, Raincatcher.com, and our show notes for folks. And if you're enjoying the show today, go ahead.

Take a moment, subscribe wherever you're listening. See, it also sends a signal that helps others discover our podcast. So thanks for taking a quick moment to share the word. And if you advise business owners on their wealth, retirement, or legacy, here's the lever most of your clients don't know they have: a program that counterintuitively turns their healthcare plan into higher net profits, freeing up capital they can redirect into your planning and raising the value of the business itself.

Backed by Bain Capital Insurance, so you know it's solid. Bring your clients that kind of win and they'll pass your name along. At backbenefits.com. So last question for you, Cameron. A year from now, what is one very specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?

Cameron Bishop (55:32)

well it will be it'll be a little less of the year, but again I'll have twentieth wedding anniversary. We're gonna do a Croatia Italy trip to celebrate that. So we're already looking forward to that. And I'm in the early planning stages.

Anthony Codispoti (55:45)

Outstanding. some of my family members just got back from an exact trip like that. So maybe I'll have some notes to share with

Cameron Bishop (55:50)

Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (55:51)

you.

Cameron Bishop (55:52)

And four months ago we just had our ninth grandchild. I don't have visibility on any more coming next year, but it wouldn't surprise me at all since we've got five kids.

Anthony Codispoti (56:03)

Okay. that's how I know you're really wealthy.

Cameron Bishop (56:07)

Ha ha ha ha.

Anthony Codispoti (56:08)

Cameron Bishop from Raincatcher, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you being here.

Cameron Bishop (56:15)

My pleasure to be here. Thank you so much again, Anthony, for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (56:19)

Hey folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us. And if one thing stood out, put that into action today.

Connect with Cameron Bishop:

Website: Raincatcher.com

LinkedIn: Cameron Bishop