Why Profitable Businesses Struggle to Sell | Nitin Khanna

Bill Canady: Hello everyone, I'm Bill Canady. It's great to be with you today. You can spend years building a profitable construction company and still struggle to sell it. What does a buyer need to see beyond just the profit? Today I'm joined by Nitin Khanna, founder of N3 Business Advisors, and we're going to explore how an owner builds a company that can succeed without them and what they should change over the next thousand days. Nitin, welcome.

Nitin Khanna: Hi. Good morning, Bill. Thank you for having me on the show.

Bill Canady: Well, it's fantastic to have you here with today. I tell you what, let's just jump right into it. Take me to a moment when a construction owner discovered their company was harder than sell than they expected. What happened?

Nitin Khanna: So, Bill, you know, people build construction businesses, or for that reason, any small business, and they realize, you know, over after 30 years of working really hard in the business, what they have done is they have built a job. Right. I always tell people, you know, a profitable business does not mean a sellable business. Right? A business, in order to be sellable, needs to be transferable. If you cannot transfer that business to somebody else, you literally have built a job. You haven't built a business, right? So I have we are I would say we we are the leading M&A construction focus M&A advisory firm based out of Canada. And we've done over 100 transactions so far in the history of our business. And I can tell you, We with the buyer's lens, what we find all the time is when they come along and they see that the business was so much dependent on the owner, they're not literally buying a business, they're buying a job. And that's where the deals fall apart.

Bill Canady: Yes, interesting. I gotta be honest. It's true in every industry. A lot of folks build a beautiful business, but it all revolves around them. And then when they can't, when they get ready to sell it, people they they pay either a much lower multiple, or they just can't can't sell it at all, at all. Right. When when you find

Nitin Khanna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And

Bill Canady: an owner sets that up, what what were they trying to accomplish?

Nitin Khanna: You know, they never planned, to be honest. You know, people just don't think about it. The biggest challenge we find, especially in the construction industry, Bill, is people do not even think they are sitting on an asset which at some point can be cashed out. So one the biggest part of my job I find is actually educating my folks out there by telling them, you look, you you've done so much hard work, you've built a business, you got employees, right? Why don't you build it to be Transferable business? Why are you just they they just they're not even aware of it? So one of the biggest challenges we find is I think if I have to put a number to it, maybe 70 to 80 percent of the business owners, they just they never plan to sell. When I come to them, I go to them, I'm like, what is your plan? They go, Look, I will slow my business down in the next three years and then I'll shut it down. I'm like, why would you do that? They literally lead their business into a slow death. It's so so

Bill Canady: Interesting.

Nitin Khanna: I think the biggest problem there is lack of awareness.

Bill Canady: Interesting. So when you run into that situation, you know, obviously you're there to help them. What do you start with? How do you get them on the track?

Nitin Khanna: So our our first thing starts with the business analysis. We we sit with them and we we review where their business is and what their plans are. All right. So my first thing is okay, first of all, what is it that you want out of life? Not even out of business. What do you want out of life? What what are you trying to achieve? What is this business supposed to be? What does this business mean to you? All right. So we go through those questions because you know, one of the biggest problems we also see in our our world is that many people First of all, don't know their businesses are sellable. Some people have heard a story in a golf course saying, look, my friend sold a business, I can sell it. But they have no idea how to do it.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: They're emotionally never prepared. We have seen deals where a buyer is ready with a check to be written to the seller, and seller rethinks the whole thing, okay, what am I gonna do in my life after this? And gets a cold feet and walks away from the deal. So they are not mentally prepared. It's not that the business is not prepared. So I always ask when people ask me, is my business sellable? I always ask them three questions. I said, to in order to sell a business, the first thing is the market needs to be ready. And what I can tell you about that is definitely the market is ready for to purchase construction companies. There is a demand for cust construction companies out there. I'm sure you and me we can both agree on this. That a lot of private equity money is pouring into trades and contracting businesses these days. Right? So the Yeah. Yeah. And

Bill Canady: It's absolutely a hot spot. Service industries and construction industries, very popular right now.

Nitin Khanna: there is a big talk out there because, you know, with everything happening with the artificial intelligence, there's a big talk that people are looking to buy construction businesses now because it's brick and mortar, you know, AI, they are still insulated from the AI. And

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: you know, with with all the AI coming in, all the data centers being built, there's a lot of demand for electrical contractors and HVAC

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: technicians and so on, right? So the market is ready. So coming back to the point number two, my thing is: is your business ready? And what I mean by that is, do you have a business which can run without you? Do you have a business which has good, clean financial statements? Do you have a business which is Which has systems in place, a documented systems in place. And when I say documented system, it does not mean everything is sitting in your head. It should be on paper. Right? And now the most important thing which I ask them is, are you ready? So the market is ready. Your business might also be ready, but are you ready? If you're not emotionally ready, just don't do it. You got to be prepared.

Bill Canady: Very wise advice. What's the most important decision that an owner needs to make at that point?

Nitin Khanna: they need to they need to plan for their future. They need to plan. What do they want? Do they want to to leave their business into a slow death or do they want to leave a legacy out there? Right? So if you notice, Bill, on my email signature line, I say every owner exits. Few do it well. Right? So if you allow me, I'll explain that. I'm not saying

Bill Canady: I would.

Nitin Khanna: every owner sells, I'm saying every owner exits. Every owner is going to leave their business behind one day. Right?

Bill Canady: Nobody gets out of line. Someday someone's gonna sit in these chairs no matter how good you want it or how bad how good you

Nitin Khanna: Absolutely.

Bill Canady: are.

Nitin Khanna: Every business, right? So think about there are five ways typically somebody will exit the business. The first option would be to give it to their kids.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Pass it to the kids. Now that's a visual thinking. You and me both know that's not happening in the real world. Kids don't want to take over parents' business. They want to do their

Bill Canady: That's right.

Nitin Khanna: own thing. Some kids are becoming doctors and some become kids are becoming computer scientists and some people are becoming influencers. They don't want to run the construction companies anymore. Right? So that's one option. It's a wishful thinking, my kids will take over. Not happening. The second option, you give it to your employees. Right? You ideally sell it to your employees. Now that's also not happening because imagine how many employees have five million dollars sitting in the bank to pay to you. Right? Yes,

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: you can you can get some SBA loans and you can get some seller financing and all that stuff. But it's not the the many employees are not buying those businesses because either they don't have money or they're not motivated enough to be the owners also.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: They just they're happy running nine to five and they want to do their job and go home. They don't want to take their employees for a reason. You said it yourself, right? so the third option is sell it to a third party, which is where most of the transfers end up happening. Right when they happen. And the fourth option is as I said, people leave their business to a slow death. They just milk it for the next two, three years and then they shut it down. Without realizing

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: how much money they left on the table, without realizing those employees who made them successful at now they they are now going to lose their jobs. Right? So bad bad bad outcome. And you build something with so much hard work over the last 20, 30 years. And now you're gonna shut it down versus you could have left a legacy behind. Right? And the fifth option is, you know, unfortunate, some businesses go belly up.

Bill Canady: Mm.

Nitin Khanna: So what I'm trying to say is every person is gonna exit, few people will plan for it, and they will do it properly.

Bill Canady: That makes a lot of sense and it mirrors my own experience. So if the owner has realized maybe they can sell it or they should sell it, it's such a valuable asset. And you're advising them, once they've made that decision to try to do it, where where where do they start or how do they decide where to start?

Nitin Khanna: Question, Bill. So there are a few things which are really important for a business to sell. So I'll start with number one where they should start. And that to me is the owner dependency test. So when I'm sitting in front of an owner, the first thing I ask them is, Why don't you take 90 days off? Just don't take your phone with you and don't take your email with you. All right. And you know what happens? They tell me to get lost. They said, Are you insane? Do you think I will come back and my business will still be surviving? That to me, they fail the test right away. All right. So my next thing is: okay, I understand you cannot take 90 days off. In fact, most businesses cannot do that. But to me, to the extent you cannot take 90 days off, it's a job, it's not a business. It's a glorified job with a bunch of employees. Right?

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: You admit it or not. So you can't take 90 days off, start with seven days. Take seven days off, no email checking, no phone answering, no signatures, no nothing. And come back after seven days and see what broke down. Might be three things, might be four things, might be one thing. All right? And then go out and fix it. You got to take that one week off every quarter. If you're not doing it, first of all, you don't have a business and you don't have a quality of life. What's the point of making a million dollar profit a year when you can't even have a better quality of year, when you can't even take a

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: vacation? What's the point of that money? What's the point of building that business? To take a week off. Right? And you know what happens now? We have started analyzing. When we I when I sit back with my clients after that one week, I say, Okay, what broke down? And then I ask the next question, what got better? I never used to ask that question, but now I ask that question, what got better? And to my surprise, they always come up with one or two things which even got better. Right? Right?

Bill Canady: Interesting. Is there an area you you typically find that they get better? Which I it's gotta be surprising for the owner.

Nitin Khanna: Yeah. It's the employee morale, Bill. It gets such

Bill Canady: Really?

Nitin Khanna: a big boost, right? People think my employees will not operate when I am not there. That to me is micromanaging. And when they come back, one thing they realize is those employees, they were just waiting to be provided more authority in the business. They were waiting to be more trusted. And then they come back and they realize, you know what, those employees were b they they actually became better employees and happier employees because the owners, you know, owners said, Yes, I trust you. All

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: right. So the the company morale, the employee morale got better when they came back.

Bill Canady: Do you have any stories you can share with us where you've seen someone go through this and have both the success and the failure? I mean, owner dependency is a real issue. Any any stories you got would be fantastic.

Nitin Khanna: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Bill Bill, it happens all the time. As I mentioned, employee morale, you know, the so the owners come back and they find, you know, they're for example, okay, let me let me put this way. I'll I'll connect the story to another lesson which we we we we talk about all the time. I call what is your return on time? That's one of the phrases we use all the time. I w when I sit with my client, I ask them, What is your ROT? What's your return on time? You want to make a million dollars a year. What does that turn out to be per hour? If you do the math for a 40-hour job, that's a $500 an hour. Right? So when these people come back after vacation, I said, now you tell me how many decisions you were making which were below $500 an hour. Maybe you spent, you know. Two hours shopping for a better price on a laptop so you could get hundred dollars off. Was that worth your time? Absolutely not. Alright? So when we when we dissect the their calendar and we find out the decisions they should not have made. Right? Those are the things then they decide, okay, yes, I need to outsource that. Maybe, you know, they come back and say anything which is, for example, they it costs less than 500 bucks. Depending on the business, right? Everybody has a different threshold. If something costs less than 500 bucks, give that authority to your admin give that authority to your administrative assistant

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: or your office manager. Let them make that decision on behalf of the You don't have to make every single decision. Right? So that's where I

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: we find the small business owners, they're typically they're holding the business back without even realizing. It's not, it's not that they're doing it on purpose. I don't think they have had somebody from the outside of the business come back to them and made them realize what the mistakes they were making.

Bill Canady: When that's happening, are you working side by side with them to help them understand kind of the critical KPIs or key performance indicators so that they understand the levers they can pull?

Nitin Khanna: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, typically what happens is, Bill, we are primarily a M&A firm. Right. So we it we work with our clients to sell their business. But it's also, just let's be honest, it's in our best interest and in our clients' best interest to make a business more attractive to to the potential buyers, to make their business bigger to the potential buyers. So everybody wins in that equation. Right? The bigger the business,

Bill Canady: Absolutely.

Nitin Khanna: the client gets more. And the way we operate is, you know, it's a it's it's a win-win for both parties. Right? So we work, yeah. So we work,

Bill Canady: absolutely. That makes total sense.

Nitin Khanna: yeah. So we work alongside them to help them grow their business. And we look at the KPIs and so on. And you know, again, the first thing is what is your goal? What are you trying to achieve? Right? What what what is what is it that you're trying to build? What kind of business you are trying to build? Right. So we go through those those discussions with them very early on when we have an opportunity. Unfortunately, sometimes people come to me and say, Look, I got two years left for whatever reason, right? Could be health, could be something else. I got to be out. Right? Sometimes people say, Look, I am only forty years old. I have ample time. Help me out. Help me build a business which I can sell at some point in the future. Right? I always tell people you Don't have to build a good business just because you want to sell it. You have to

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: build a good business because somebody should be wanting to buy it, not because you have to sell it.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Right. Build something that people want to buy, not something that you want to sell.

Bill Canady: Yeah, run run to something, not away from something. So they've taken a vacation, they came back, something's got worse, something's got better. In your experience, how long and maybe if you could describe that journey that an owner goes through and how long it takes for them to get that business, you know, ready for its next yeah ownership situation.

Nitin Khanna: Bill, there is no cookie-cutter approach. Right? It depends on the business. It depends on how bad things are to begin with. What size business there is, right? And how how much effort somebody is willing to pay. Right? I know I I I c you you're looking for maybe more of a concrete answer, but I my answer would be there are two people going to the gym. One is 300 pounds and one is 200 pounds. It's gonna take different

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: time for both of them to get fetter. Right? So

Bill Canady: Yeah, absolutely. And and maybe, maybe if you have an example, or you can give us an illustrative example of a business that's gone through this, right? They've you you came, they called you, said, Hey, I I think I want to sell this someday. Here's our situation. You know, I yeah, we're we're we're we're 25 million top line. We're we're we're let 10% on the bottom, you know, what what whatever it is. I want to get this business ready to get sold. They go take that two week vacation. They have the typical learnings and the and you know, some good, some bad. How long is it going to take generally before they get this business to what a what a good number looks like? What would you be advising them? I know it's all based on their speed and everything, but maybe maybe give us an example of one that you work with.

Nitin Khanna: Say if I have to generalize it, Bill, you should be looking at somewhere around three year period. Right? Three year period.

Bill Canady: About three years. That's my experience too. I we you know, we call this podcast a thousand day CEOs. It it yeah, you know, it's that's about two years, nine months, but the reality is it takes, we found, about three years to get a business kind of stood up and running appropriately, so it it can actually grow. Do you find the owners have the patience at the beginning for the three years? Does that seem a big hurdle for them to get over?

Nitin Khanna: It is. I would agree. I would totally agree with that statement. It is. There are many people just don't see the end, and that's why they don't start, right? And then they also get carried on, carried away with their daily routine, and they don't realize how important it is, right? Everybody

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: knows they have to go to the gym, but they don't, right? So I

Bill Canady: Yeah.

Nitin Khanna: always tell people you got to build something with the end in mind. Right. And that

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: maybe that end is three years. So you got to start now and you got to, it's a three-year journey. It's it's not an event, it's a process. Right? You're signing up for a process. If you really want good dollars for a business, you gotta give it three years. Because let me tell you, with a buyer's lens, right? We spoke about the seller's lens, what they need to do, but let's look at with the buyer's lens. If I have to buy a business, For me to have strong conviction about that business, for me to feel confident about that business, there are two things I really want to see. The first thing is I want to see what is the future prospects of this business. What lies ahead? Right? What is the potential of future re future revenues and future cash flows? Once I've I've heard that story from you, the next thing I want to do is do you walk the talk? Have you proved yourself in the last three years as a seller? Right?

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: If you're telling me, yes, this business has a potential of making $2 million in EBITDA, how many times in the last three years have you generated $2 million in EBITDA? That would

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: cement the deal. Right? So

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: I always every time we speak with the buyers, like the private equity guys, the search funds out of the world or strategic buyers, these are the two things they are looking for, right? They want to know what lies ahead, but they also want to know what really happened in the past. All right. So three

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: years we find is a is a good good number backwards and forward.

Bill Canady: I find the exact same thing. Okay, we're going to do a hypothetical situation because I love everything you're saying and it aligns with my own experiences. So it really resonates with me. You're now the construction owner. I give you a construction company and you've got a hundred days. You just got a hundred days. So you got three months that you're going to get this thing on the right path, right? You we don't get a lot done in a hundred days, but we can send it. Where where do you start, right? What do you expect week one?

Nitin Khanna: I would will I would end of the day, I would block two hours for myself

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: and I would analyze deeply where my day went. I would look at every single meeting I went through, every single conversation. I would maybe during the day I would write every single thing and I will end of the day I'll put a journal together and I'll start documenting everything. I will see what is it something which I had to do every day in the last five days. Right? And I would document it. I would systemize it. I will take everything out of my head and put it on paper. That's where I would start. If you give me only 100 days to fix something, that's where I would start. I would document everything. you know, my estimation process, my my HR process, my sales process, whatever is where I get involved. If I'm doing the sales myself, I would document it. If I'm hiring the salesperson myself, I would document it. Whatever I do. It would be a process manual, I would that's where I would start.

Bill Canady: It makes a lot of sense to me. So you got through your first week, you've documented your process, you understand what's happening. Which problems are going to come first for you?

Nitin Khanna: I would say the first problem I'm gonna deal with is the the cash flow. That's where I see most of the clients they bump into. All right, especially in the trades industry. They are pretty good tradespeople, but when it comes to the financial management of the business, that's where the biggest problem is. And they have no idea what's going on. Multiple times I see they are driving a car looking in the rear view mirror. Right? They they're Year end finishes, and it takes three to six months for their accountant to prepare the financial statements. And now they get the financial statements and then they realize, did I make money or did I lose money? They have absolutely no idea out of hundred jobs which job was the most profitable one and which wasn't. They tell you, or they'll tell me, yes, my so-and-so job was was more profitable or so on, but when we look deeply into it, the results are different. They are just giving me answers with a gut feeling. And that's because they're not documenting it. They don't have the process in place. I think

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: having that process, the cash flow would be the biggest problem. The the financial management of the business would be the biggest problem.

Bill Canady: Who who owns that change?

Nitin Khanna: at this point their accountant who is off site. Right? They don't own it. They're just r they're just putting numbers together. They're just compiling.

Bill Canady: They'll report it. They'll they'll report what's happening. Who's gonna own the change to get the cash flow in line? Who who owns it? How did how do you start with it?

Nitin Khanna: So look, end of the day, Bill, you're a small business owner, so am I. Right? We all can agree, we own it. Whatever goes wrong, we have to take the ownership of that. Right? So

Bill Canady: Yeah, I think they're looking in the mirror. It's this is my problem. T the trades are famous for getting strung out on their payments, you know, six, nine months. And then they'll have a hold back of ten percent, you know, when the job is completed and the paperwork, the paperwork holds them up. So yeah, I think it's a it's an owner. I I agree with you. What

Nitin Khanna: Yeah.

Bill Canady: weekly number are you looking at to tell you if this is working or not? That of course it's cash flow, but but going beyond that, what what weekly numbers are you looking at to Let you know you're running it well.

Nitin Khanna: I would definitely look at the cash in the bank. I wouldn't look at the cash in my income statement. That would be the first number, right? Because you know, if if there is no cash in the bank and your income statement is showing you got profitable, but you go you you're running into a bankruptcy. Could be, potentially, right? I would definitely look at

Bill Canady: Yeah, a lot of successful companies just run out of cash.

Nitin Khanna: yeah. Yeah. So you gotta you gotta look at what's sitting in the bank. You gotta know on a Monday morning what's sitting in bank and how much you got to pay for the payroll on a Friday morning. How much payroll is going to run through on a Friday morning? How many payables are going to go out on Friday morning? what sort of receivables are sitting out there? I would definitely be looking at how many receivables are past due 30 days. Right? If I don't know how much money is owing and it's not coming on time, I gotta get on that case right away. You can't, you

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: can't let it slide. Right? Because it goes from 30 days to 60 day cycle. Now you're looking at higher working capital in your business.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Now that's not just a cash flow pro problem, it's also the business growth problem.

Bill Canady: Okay.

Nitin Khanna: Just think about it. If for every hundred thousand dollars of profit you're going to make,

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: you need to deploy 300,000 of working capital, let's say. Right? You have a problem in growing that business.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: You got to fund that working capital from somewhere. So that is something which I would be paying very close attention to. What's my working capital deployment? What's my cash in the bank? what's my payroll? When is it coming? When it is going, what's my receivables? To go step further, I would be looking at my job costing system. I would

Bill Canady: Mm mm.

Nitin Khanna: definitely analyze every single job very deeply. And then I will look

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: at it and I'll say, look, out of these 10 jobs, six jobs are more profitable than the other four. And I would steer my business towards the ones which are more profitable. I will stop signing the jobs which are not profitable just because of because I just want to keep the revenue going. Right? Most most businesses,

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: as you might have also seen, they go belly up because they were chasing the revenue. They were not

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: chasing the right kind of revenue.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. You're very insightful.

Nitin Khanna: Right. So

Bill Canady: So what what should be different by day one hundred? Right? You analyzed for five days. You identified cash flow amongst many. You got involved. You started pulling your levers that you could. What should be different by day one hundred?

Nitin Khanna: By day one hundred there should be people making decisions. Right? Not every decision should be coming to me. So the number of decisions I was making on day one should be much lesser on day one hundred. Right? That is, that would be the biggest KPI I would be looking at. How many decisions are my my team is making? Right?

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: And then help them, right? Most of the time we see that you know, we complain that people can do the job. But we don't realize we did not equip them to do their job. We did not give them the clear instructions to do their job. Right?

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: So when you do that over the first hundred days, this machine should be starting to build or should already be running on an autopilot to an extent.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm. Does the plan change any if the eventual successor in the business is family management or an outside buyer?

Nitin Khanna: yes. And that's where I see many people make a mistake because, you know, you hear sometimes stories where business was handed over to the kids because they want to keep it in the family. Or was given it to the employees because, yeah, they know the business, and I don't know anybody else who I can sell it to. Right.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: The plan should always be to Keep in mind what is the right thing for the business, not what

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: is the right thing for you or for the family.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Right? Because whatever is right for the business will always turn out to be the right thing for the family and for the and and for the employees. Right. A distant relative of mine, he sold a 70 million dollar company. He ran it for 30 years, he sold it to a private equity group coming out of Scotland. And when I when I asked him, I said, Your son has been working with you for the last 20 years, why don't you give it to him? He's like, he's not cut out for it. He told me bluntly, he said, he's not cut out for it. He doesn't want to take that stress. And, you know, he said, I've got three kids. I don't have three businesses. The other two have no clue what I do. How do I give this net worth? How do I pass on this net worth to three of them equally? I can give business

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: to one, but then I don't have 70, 70 million twice more to give it to the other two kids. So the best thing I can do is sell it to somebody, a third party, and cash that $70 million out and pass it on through a trust account or whatever planning he did to all my three kids equally and secure their future. So that to me that is a wise move. If you give it to the kids

Bill Canady: That makes sense.

Nitin Khanna: just for the sake of giving it to the kids, it's an emotional move. Right. So you have to do what is right for the business, not what is right for you or your kids or your employees, because whatever is right for business in the end will be right for every stakeholder.

Bill Canady: Very wise advice. Very wise advice. So to all the construction business owners out there, private equity CEOs that are sitting there, what's the one thing that they should do differently on when they get up tomorrow?

Nitin Khanna: Have a plan. Build it backwards. Right? I would tell them: you go out on a construction site. Do you look for a blueprint first or do you go to Home Depot first? You always look for a blueprint. And then you decide how many bricks you need and how many hammers you need and how many nails you need.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Why are you not doing the same thing for your own business? Right? What is what is business supposed to look like? Many times I ask people, I said, what business you are in? They don't know, they don't know. Right?

Bill Canady: Mm.

Nitin Khanna: They're like, I I do plumbing and I do HVAC and so on. But yeah, you do plumbing. But are you really in a plumbing business or are you in a customer service business? Right? There are 10 other company plumbing companies. Why should I come to you? What are you known for? Right?

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: The problem is not them. The problem is nobody has asked them that question.

Bill Canady: Mm-hmm.

Nitin Khanna: Right? They just need to be aware of this. They're running, they're they're running their 60-hour job. They just don't have time to be thinking about something else. But then they realize they were climbing the wrong mountain. Right? So the first thing I would say everybody listening to this is take a step back. Give yourself a one week off, and then think about it. What is it that you want? What is it that you're building? And then start building. Because if you don't plan it, Chances are somebody else is planning it for you.

Bill Canady: Really wise advice. maybe tell the listeners where they can find you, how they get in contact with you, Nitin.

Nitin Khanna: Bill, that's easy. just type my name on LinkedIn and hopefully I will show up on page one and and just send me a message and I will do my best to help.

Bill Canady: Yeah, absolutely. You're famous for for helping folks. Well, Nitin, thank you so much. I think your advice of starting with the end in mind, build a business that that can survive you. I mean, you're your inside of you would never take a a a business or a build something without a blueprint, how many nails and all that really resonated with me on how they should be running their business as well. So thank you again for your time today. It's been fantastic on our side and we look forward to having you again on the show someday.

Nitin Khanna: Thanks for having over, Bill. It's a pleasure. Yes.

Bill Canady: Absolutely. Thank you.