Topic: The Story of a Successful Acquisition

Transcript:

Speaker 1: 00:00

So there's Bruce and Steve. You guys back at your home base? Where's the home base? What's a office location?

Speaker 2: 00:12

Hanover, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1: 00:13

Got it. Hanover. So back in Hanover, you've got a team, the JFR holdings team. From what I understand, you said there's an event of sorts going on this morning, huh?

Speaker 2: 00:24

Yeah, they're having a watch party, and I think they've got friends associated with the business. And. And Tim Kick brought the lunch truck in a little late, so they had breakfast. And so this is the acknowledgment to the. To the watch team party going on in Hanover.

Speaker 1: 00:39

That's awesome. Hey, Hanover Watch team party. Are they. Is it. I don't know the rules in Hanover. Is too early to drink or what?

Speaker 3: 00:47

What's the story in Hanover? It's never too early.

Speaker 2: 00:52

Hopefully.

Speaker 1: 00:57

There'S. Yeah. Okay, so there's boundaries, not because of Hanover, but because of company policy. And I think that's okay. There's nothing. There's nothing wrong with that. Good deal. So we were just talking holiday parties and things along those lines. Stacy and I, I think, are going to the same spot tonight. We'll be down at Congressional Country Club for the WBC event. Stacy, is that true?

Speaker 4: 01:19

That's true. That's awesome. There'll be a lot of people there tonight. It'll be fun.

Speaker 1: 01:24

Yeah, it should be a really good time. I'm looking forward to it. I. It's. That's. It's like, you know, the one time I can get on at Congressional.

Speaker 3: 01:37

Hey, Chad, while you're there driving in, check out the job. We just. We just framed a new professional center there.

Speaker 1: 01:43

Oh, no kidding. Yeah, actually on the, on the campus or in that area?

Speaker 3: 01:49

On the campus. It's on the course.

Speaker 1: 01:51

That's awesome.

Speaker 4: 01:54

Cool.

Speaker 1: 01:55

That's really cool. All right, good. It's 8:00 Eastern. That is. Let's go ahead and get rolling. My name is Chad Prinke. I'm alongside my partner, Stacy Holzinger for the morning huddle. Today is episode nine. We're meeting with Steve Yellen, Bruce Jones. We're here to talk about what has been a really interesting success story that, that I want these two to share with you guys about a successful acquisition. So hopefully we've got business owners who are trying to learn the lay of the land, looking forward on acquisition. We've got employees and, and, and, you know, potentially acquirers who are all, you know, interested for their own reasons. And can everybody can take something valuable away from this? Obviously, just like Every show we're 100% dedicated the building industry. And. And this is an interesting story about a framing contractor. But before we get rolling, I do want to check in on Stacy. Stacy, what's good? What's going on in your world today?

Speaker 4: 02:54

What's good? You always put me on the spot.

Speaker 1: 02:58

My favorite part of the show. I can't skip it.

Speaker 4: 03:01

Oh, thanks. You know, just working today and then going to the party.

Speaker 1: 03:08

This is the best. This is my favorite. See, she knows it's coming, but she still doesn't prepare something hysterical to say or any. In fact, I think it's better. I think it's the best part. All right, cool. Something.

Speaker 2: 03:22

She said something good, Chad. Because she talked. She acknowledged Christmas in the Christmas spirit.

Speaker 4: 03:26

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 03:27

Thank you. That's right. See, that's what we did. That. So. All right, so Stacy and audience, we, as you guys know, we take questions. We want to hear from you, so please fire in questions throughout the course of the conversation. Stacy will come back with about 10 minutes to go, and she will consolidate those questions and. And, you know, get some good interaction going between audience and. And guests here. So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and switch gears, and Stacy will see you with about 10 minutes to go.

Speaker 4: 04:02

All right, sounds good.

Speaker 1: 04:03

Thank you. All right, so Bruce and Steve, let's get at it here. I. I think as a starting point, it would be helpful for the audience to just kind of orient themselves to the situation. So maybe give us a little bit of the lay of the land of the business today just so that we all have context. Tell us about Bruce Jones today.

Speaker 3: 04:32

We were very fortunate. I was able to get with Steve and sell the company in August of 2017 with an exit strategy in mind. I agreed with Steve when he bought the company to stay on for five years to help mentor everybody in the leadership roles. And we're winding that down now into the last 10 months of the relationship there. When Steve bought the company, we were about 45 employees in house and 25 subcontractors that work out in the field for us and represent us out there. Type of projects we do are nursing homes, apartment complexes, medical centers, hotels, restaurants, additions. Everything is a prefab. So we're a turnkey wall panel manufacturer. And so we're supplying the labor and everything to do everything wood related.

Speaker 1: 05:25

Awesome. Yeah, that's a great rundown. So for the. For those in the audience, I think, you know, what Bruce Jones is doing at least here in the. In. In the metro Washington and Baltimore region is, you know, relatively unique. Right? There, there. There aren't many, if any. I'll let you guys chime in on it. But there aren't many framing contractors who have embraced the manufacturing aspect of actually you kind of fabricating the wall panel, bringing it to the field and installing it there. Just out of curiosity, number one, Bruce, how many other contractors in the area are doing that at scale at this present time?

Speaker 3: 06:19

That number is increasing. I know, at least in the Mid Atlantic region. 10 other companies right now at one time I was one of a select few. I started doing that back in the 80s very early on and we've kind of perfected it. So we've been. When I go to all these new events and seminars and people talk about component manufacturers as the way of the future. Future. We've been doing it for a long time.

Speaker 1: 06:44

Awesome. That's great. Percentage wise in the market, I would. I'm going to take a guess and say that, that of framers who actually manufacture their own wall panels. Even though the group is growing, it's still probably something like, you know, 10% of the market is that.

Speaker 3: 06:59

Yes. It's very few of us that are successful at it.

Speaker 1: 07:03

Yep, understood. So let's. And just again, one more piece for context. Steve, you're over top of a holdings company, is that right?

Speaker 2: 07:18

Yes.

Speaker 1: 07:21

Your company purchased Bruce Jones in 2017, but you're not Bruce Jones. Is that, is that a fair.

Speaker 2: 07:34

That's. That's right. So the kind of the history of the business goes back to J.F. rohrball Co. Started in 1880. I'm a fifth generation family member running that business. We've always been involved in wood products. 1960 we started to manufacture pallets and have been doing that since in. I guess it was probably 2014, something like that. We purchased a second company in what I call industrial wood products. And then, and then in 2017, as Bruce stated, we. We purchased the construction products businesses.

Speaker 3: 08:13

We.

Speaker 2: 08:13

We kind of categorized it within our holdings company. So we have three operating entities working underneath the JFR holdings umbrella.

Speaker 1: 08:20

Got it. Makes total sense. Okay, good. So I think that helps for context for the group. Let's talk about the acquisition itself. Bruce, why did you want to exit in the first place? It's take us back. I understand that the acquisition happened in 2017, but. But why did you want to exit in the first place and when did the wheel start rolling on that?

Speaker 3: 08:40

Well, when I hit the mid-50s, I started have to think about well, how am I going to wind this down? I spent 35 years building my company and I Had a lot of family members and friends that I went to school with working for me. My son was not interested in being part of the. The company went another direction. I had key employees that really wanted to be leaders in the company, but they didn't want to have any ownership in it and responsibility that way. So I just had to start researching out and figuring out, well, how do I market my company? You know, you always get those emails, hey, want to sell your business, that things like that. I don't recommend going maybe that way. I want a different approach and I just needed to find an exit strategy. I wasn't ready to quit myself, but. And so I was there to offer myself to stay for quite a few years and it just kind of started to fall in place as Steve and I, you know, got to know each other.

Speaker 1: 09:35

So you got into your mid-50s, you started to say, how am I going to get out of this thing? You start comparing options, you're saying, hey, I don't have a family succession plan in place. I don't want to chase after one of these guys that's emailing me, hey, do you want to sell your business? Instead, I'm going to start laying some lines of communication in my network and explore to see if anybody within my network might be somebody interested in buying the business. Is that right?

Speaker 3: 10:01

Correct.

Speaker 1: 10:01

Awesome. So Steve, how did the two of you come together?

Speaker 2: 10:06

Bruce and I were connected through a vendor sponsored annual event golf outing that they typically do, kind of destination resort. And so Bruce and I had gotten to know each other, I don't know, over a 10 year period. And really the credit goes to Bruce. I mean, as a company, we had done an acquisition. It had been a successful acquisition for us. We weren't actively out looking for another acquisition. Bruce came to me and said, hey, and told the story. He just told you that he was possibly looking to get out and he knew the legacy owner in the business we had just purchased. And he had talked with him about that process and his thoughts on it. And Bruce said, if you're interested, I'd be interested in showing you what I've done with my business and hopefully what together we could continue to do for years to come. So that was really the kickoff point that said, hey, he's interested. And so we went back and made, met internally and said, let's look at this and started the process.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So my biggest takeaway from that whole story is watch it. Anybody who says business doesn't get done on the golf course, that's it.

Speaker 2: 11:25

Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that too, because networking, wherever it is, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be in a formal environment. And I think in a lot of ways that really helps the process because there's a trust factor that's developed in that less formal atmosphere.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Yeah. Much more natural, organic kind of conversations get created. And Bruce, you were seeing an opportunity to tell your story, and it doesn't sound like it was a hard sell, just kind of invited them in and so it started to materialize. So Steve, once you did that, why were you interested in being a buyer? What happened that kind of got your interest rolling?

Speaker 2: 12:06

Well, I think that at that point you really start to probe a little further about what the success of the business is. So, I mean, you know, at some point when you get to the formal process, you're really looking for the financials and you want to look at a five year history to kind of really see how the business has been run and whether it's from a profit loss perspective, whether it's a, whether it's a good fit. But I think outside of that, you start to expand those relationships and to meet some of the people that Bruce knew through his professional career, whether it's the people working for him or his customers and vendors. The vendor piece was kind of a natural fit because the vendor was already sponsoring an event that we were both actively involved in. So, you know, the vendor was Bruce's biggest supplier and was our biggest supplier of lumber. And that was kind of the common denominator for us too. I mean, it kind of, you know, even though it wasn't pallets and wood packaging, it was, there's, there's the wood common denominator. And so that, that was from a sustainability perspective, that was something that is a company and a core value we're very interested in. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:16

So on one hand it kind of fit your niche, if you will, you know, in terms of wood products. On another hand, it was appealing financially, I'm hearing you say. Right. They had their, they had demonstrated proof of financial viability and success. And then, and then third, between employees, customers, vendors, everybody in the market, it was clear that they had been doing something that was in, in line with your core values. Relationship wise.

Speaker 2: 13:47

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Yeah. That's awesome. And as the reason I keep on like, kind of, you know, summarizing these things for, is for, you know, our audience to hopefully take, you know, specific nuggets. If you're taking notes, if you're, if you're walking away from this, and you're saying, like, what are some of the things that we should be doing to get sale ready to be attractive? You're listening to a buyer, you know that, that he's describing what mattered to him. So, so, so some of the audience might be just trying to understand the process of an acquisition a little bit deeper. Bruce, how long did a negotiations take? Like what, how, when did the, from the time it started to the time it wrapped up. How long was that process?

Speaker 3: 14:26

Well, from the time I pitched it the idea to Steve out in Utah, it was almost a year process until it took him about two months to think about it, get back to me. And then we kind of dated each other for about 10 months. Putting all the, all the paperwork together and following up with the process and doing all the research on both ends. Yeah, on that. So it was a 10 month, about a month period.

Speaker 1: 14:49

And I have heard about so many of those that ultimately fall apart. So I'm going to ask Steve here, from your perspective, were there any key steps along the way that kept that process together from your perspective, rather than just dissolving?

Speaker 2: 15:09

Well, I think, Chad, the communication piece is the most important piece. So I think you have to, you have to be honest with each other. I mean, Bruce certainly had an expectation of what he wanted in what he wanted to get for the business. I think oftentimes a legacy owner, I call it, or an entrepreneur, they have a thought of what that value for their business should be. And then when you run the numbers, there's the, of course, we're the buyer, there's the number, and we're going to try to get the most economical deal that we can get. And so, you know, you have a, you have a, you have a gap and you have to kind of work together, be willing to give and take during the process to get to that point somewhere in the middle that, that you agree to on price. So I think, you know, the, the, the important thing for Bruce was that he was willing to, he was willing to look at it as a negotiation. He wasn't hard and set like, you know, I have to get this number because really when you, when you run the numbers, the numbers are what they are. And, and so you have a, you have, you have an EBITDA and a multiple that you have to come up with. And that's going to, that's going to set the price. And then there are other things too. I mean, you have the asset of the property. So are you going to, are we going to buy the property? Are we not going to buy the property. And so we just have, you just have to communicate, work through all those things. I mean, there are attorneys involved in the background, but it's really important that the, that the parties that are going to work together going forward communicate and work together. In this case, it was Bruce, myself and the two management teams.

Speaker 1: 16:39

If you're, what I'm taking away from that is if you're looking for a deal, continue to look for a deal. Meaning if you want to make it happen, you got to continue to look to make it happen at any point in time. When you draw hard lines as a negotiation tactic, if that's an all or nothing tactic, and this type of thing can fall apart. And, and so, you know, what I'm hearing is that, that you keep the lines of communication open. You stay in a deal making mindset rather than, you know, being, being demanding, Allow the process to play out, allow the numbers to kind of, you know, start to become formal as the process, which, which should be fair, dictates those numbers.

Speaker 2: 17:21

So yeah, and I think, I think another piece of it, Chad, was Bruce, Bruce was motivated to sell. And so not everybody, when they, when they're in that, in that mindset is motivated to sell. So you have to get to the point as a, as a, as a legacy owner or a seller that you're motivated to sell. So.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yep.

Speaker 2: 17:37

And you have to be comfortable with, with, with the buyer that you're talking with.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people, you know, become more motivated to sell after their best opportunities to sell have gone away. Right. And it's.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:58

So. So at any rate, post acquisition, I want to talk about some of the immediate challenges you discovered post acquisition. So. So Bruce, you were in the business. It was, I mean, you were central to the business, day in, day out. So right after the acquisition, what were some of the most crucial steps to maintain continuity in those early days? As you're trying to say, hey, we just got bought. Bruce, you there?

Speaker 3: 18:28

Everybody in the company's morale understanding. Don't be scared. Yes.

Speaker 1: 18:34

Oh, sorry, there was just a little bit of lag or something. You're good. Keep going, buddy.

Speaker 3: 18:38

I didn't do anything. Okay. Okay. Well, once keeping everybody in the company at ease, did not hear the new management and new ownership after that was learning how to turn over were some of my duties to the new. Some of our people and some of the new people we brought in. So letting go of your baby that you raised is hard. That was a Hard challenge. And then after that was the next thing was for me to learn their new processes and accept them and be able to start sitting back and trusting the people that we put in place.

Speaker 1: 19:13

Yep, got it. Steve, as you prepare for transitioning Bruce out of the business, which I think Bruce gave us the timer on, it's something like a 10 month Runway. As you prepare for transitioning Bruce out of the business, what are some of the most important aspects of preparation that you've been undergoing, you know, over the past four years and in this final year?

Speaker 2: 19:35

Well, number one, Bruce isn't going anywhere. So he, he uses that number. But he'll still be, he'll still be connected to the business. Maybe not day to day operations but, but he'll be connected to the business hopefully, you know, for the, for the long term and at least the foreseeable future. But I think Bruce hit the nail on the head. It's really people in process. I mean the people. You're going to have turnover as you go through this process. I mean, it's just inevitable. And there are many reasons for that. But we want to develop the people that want to stay with the business long term. And so there's, there's obviously changes in process. The way that Bruce ran his business for 20, 25 years and the way we're going to run our business going forward, there's a little bit of a difference there. And so you have to build that trust with the people that are going to stay with you that they can see that the process changes are all about improvement and streamlining. Because we're working within three, three entities and under one umbrella company. So the financial reporting mechanisms, how we look at financials, all those things have to be streamlined. And once we get through that process, and that's not a six month process, I mean that takes time to do that. And once we get to that, then we've kind of hit the point where we can move forward smoothly.

Speaker 1: 21:04

Yeah, that makes, that makes all the sense in the world. And I think the big, well, a couple, a couple of items that I take out of that, number one, just, you know, this comment that Bruce isn't going anywhere. And I know that that's not news to Bruce, right. Just based on his reaction, he's like, yeah, probably not what that. I mean, to me there's, there's some, there's something really cool about, you know, having a situation where the company that acquires a legacy business welcomes the, the ongoing involvement from that legacy business owner to the extent that they want to continue to have that involvement and that, that they're, that the relationship or the, you know, kind of the trust and friendship that's established, you know, between you guys. I mean that's, that's kind of special. And, and not every owner wants that. But, but I would say that any acquirer in your situation, unless they're just rolling it under an existing brand. Right. There's a difference between an acquisition and a roll up, if you will, in that, in that sense would want to have, you know, somebody that spent 25 years building a business relationships community to continue to be in touch, you know, in, in the environment. Though, Bruce, I hope that for you it's about to get a whole lot just, it's about to get way more fun and a lot less like work.

Speaker 3: 22:39

Yeah, I made sure I brokered in enough vacation time. Trust me.

Speaker 1: 22:44

Very good. And then the other thing that I'm pulling out of that, you know, Steve, is that when you're, when you're coming in and look, it's been four years and, and I'm not gathering that it's been, you know, this really aggressive, you know, our way or the highway kind of move over the course of four years you've been learning their business, adjusting and adapting what, what you know, you need them to do under the, the holdings company under JFR holdings to fit your model. But, but that there is ultimately this. If you're going to make it work, if you're going to make the transition work, the team has to, the existing team has to buy in to some process change and they have to kind of go along with that. And I'll just ask one quick question along those lines. How has the team done in terms of embracing change?

Speaker 2: 23:43

You're asking me or Bruce? You might get two different answers. I think, I think that, I think they've done pretty well. I mean it's, again, it's about communication and we just need to give them an opportunity to work through that process of change. And you know, I mean, Bruce came from a small family held company and so he didn't necessarily, he didn't necessarily share his financials with his team the same way that we would talk about gross profit and net profit. And so I think when you back up that process change with the reason that we're trying to streamline those changes, it makes it a lot easier to tell the story, to get people to buy into the change. And so again, it just really all comes back to communication. I mean, you have to be able to effectively communicate with people because they're. Their personal feelings. They're, you know, they have. Most of the employees have long term ties to Bruce. And so we just have to. We just have to work through all that.

Speaker 1: 24:53

Awesome. All right, good. We have about seven minutes on the board. Sorry, that's on me. But, but I do want to pull Stacy into the mix here to get some questions from the audience. Audience, just another reminder, if you haven't sent in questions but you have them, please do. But, Stacy, what do we got? What kind of questions?

Speaker 4: 25:14

So the first one is from Mark Jury. You spoke of being an innovator and manufactured framing assemblies who once had limited competition and now sees rapid competition joining the market. What are you doing to stay in front of competition? Is it technology, retooling, volumetric, modular?

Speaker 2: 25:35

You want me to answer it, Bruce, or do you want to answer it? Can I start to answer it? Then you can go. I think the biggest change, Mark, is to again, bring some process to the sales and how we approach sales. I mean, Bruce was very much, when he was running the business, he was hands on and talked to guys and went out into the market. But I think we're using Salesforce as an example. And we have a business development Jacob, business development manager Jacob Knott that we brought on board. And that's his focus, to go out and develop that business and nurture those relationships beyond the core customer relationships that Bruce had developed over his 25 years. So I think. And then the second piece of it is, you know, we're looking to move the plant to a new facility that'll be 85,000 square feet and we have the property. We just got to get to the point of getting the building built. But we'll automate some of the process that they're doing today in Hanover when we get to the new facility in New Oxford. Go ahead, Bruce.

Speaker 3: 26:46

No, that pretty well sums it up. It's just do what you tell people you're going to do and deliver your product, a good quality product and get your job done or other people might fail and you'll stay busy.

Speaker 1: 26:59

Yeah, there's this aspect of the answer to what are you doing to maintain your edge? That always goes back to the blocking and tackling of make your customers extremely freaking happy. Like, it just kind of, you know, goes. Goes back to that. And then, you know, Steve, I'm hearing some significant investment in your manufacturing capacity and. And some automation that should extend your. Your strategic advantage that you already have on that front on. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, Stacy, what else we Got.

Speaker 4: 27:35

Yeah, two simple short questions, but we'll start with Bruce. So advice overall, advice for owners.

Speaker 3: 27:43

Plan ahead when you want to do this. If you, if you're waiting to, when you have no choice to sell, you're not going to get as much out of it. Do the, do the work. Reach out to friends, advisors, other people in the industry. Just do your research and it will make it so much easier to help you sell your business.

Speaker 1: 28:03

When would you start, Bruce? Like, you know, and it maybe not be the exact, you know, age or whatever, but how would I know that it's time for me to start? You know, obviously you were running your business, growing your business for, you know, 35 years. How far in, if you could go back in time and plan it perfectly, would you have started planning your exit?

Speaker 3: 28:29

I started two to two and a half years before I was really ready to go because I had an offer originally and we kind of both walked away from that deal. But I learned through that process to get better and be ready the next time.

Speaker 1: 28:43

Interesting. Okay, so maybe that's another aspect of things. If there's, I mean, maybe testing the market to some extent is a, is an interesting way as an owner to, to get ready.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Huh?

Speaker 1: 28:59

Interesting. That's pretty cool. So, sorry, go ahead back, back to you, Stacy. What was the next one?

Speaker 4: 29:05

Yeah, and Steve, what advice do you have for buyers?

Speaker 2: 29:12

Well, I think it kind of goes along the sense of what we talked about for the last half hour. I mean, you know, you've got to, you've got to, you've got to get to know the company and the owners of the company you want to buy and the people that are involved in the business. I mean, you know, you may or may not choose to involve the legacy owner of the business going forward, but even if you're not, and even if you are, you have to know the people and you have to build the trust of the people that are in the business. So I mean all the other stuff, the financial stuff and the analytics that you look at to buy business are important, but I think the most critical is the people. And, and the, the people would include vendors, your, your, your employees and, and your customers. And you got to know that they're, they're committed to the long term success of the company.

Speaker 1: 30:00

So, so I can't help but I kind of have a follow on question to that. Steve, in your situation, obviously you were fortunate enough to have the legacy owner, Bruce, where the two of you were getting along, where he had a willingness and interest in staying in the business for a five year stretch. That made that an easy kind of decision for you guys. But what if Bruce had said I don't want to you buy it, I'm out day one, I am out. Would you have moved forward with the transaction?

Speaker 2: 30:25

Probably not. Because we didn't have the expertise in the construction business to move forward in that manner. We wouldn't have had the trust of the employees to do it. So I think that that would have probably been a non starter. We've looked at other businesses over the last 10 years and there have been businesses because of that that we just felt wasn't going to be a good fit for us moving forward. So I think, I think to answer your question, you've got to know, you've got to know when to move forward. You got to know when to cut bait and say, hey, this just isn't a fit for us. And there are Certainly we bought two businesses in the last, in the last 10 years. We probably walked away from five other businesses that we've looked at in that, that time frame.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Yep, yep. And, and the X factor there, what I'm hearing is, is beyond the financials. Right. You know, it's you, you also have to know what, what your, the reasons for walking might be beyond that, you know, the financial implications. So that, that makes all the sense in the world. Stacy, do we, do we have one more, can we squeeze one in?

Speaker 4: 31:32

Just the last one was for Steve. What's the vision for the company into the future?

Speaker 2: 31:41

Well, I mean we want to, we want to, we want to grow this thing. We think there's a, the potential to grow this thing. So, so we'll, we'll continue to invest money back into the business. To, to do that and investing money back into the business is investing in the people that we, that we retain and we hire and investing in facilities and technology and investing in, in our business development activities as well. Whether it's golf outings or, or the events that we, that we try to bring customers and potential customers together so that we're, we're, we're talking about where we're winning and where we're losing and where we need to improve.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Well, but being in wood frame and serving what is largely a residential market sector, based on every economic report and study that I'm seeing, whether that's you know, affordable housing, market rate, apartments, senior living, single family homes, we are still very under building our actual demand. And I think there's, you know, recent article I just read in Barron said residential housing is going to be rolling for the next 10 years. So it's a great time to reinvest. Steve, I think that's, it's an exciting, it's an exciting opportunity for you. So thank you guys so much for being on. Thank you, audience for, for joining us this morning. Steve, Bruce, any final words before we, you know, wrap up with you guys?

Speaker 3: 33:16

Everybody just stay healthy, get through these tough times and enjoy the holidays.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to do this. It was, it was great. And if you ever have any questions or want to reach out, you can find Bruce and or I on LinkedIn. So happy to answer any questions outside of this half hour that we had this morning, if you have any.

Speaker 1: 33:39

That's really cool of you guys. Very generous to the audience. Thank you so much. I'm gonna take a moment and tee up next week. So next week we have a special holiday time. We're not running this at 8am we're running it at 10am next Tuesday. We have Dr. Kevin J. Fleming, who is author and speaker dedicated to changing the way that our institutions and our families are thinking about education and employment. He's coming on to talk about purpose driven education, the impact that that's going to have on the future of the building industry's workforce. That'll be a lot of fun. We'll have some giveaways. Guessing Stacy will be wearing like an elf hat or something. I don't know. Guys, thank you so much. We look forward to having you join us next week. And then we're gonna be off the week in between Christmas and New Year's, so, you know, next week will be our last show of the year. Thanks so much, everybody. Have a great one. Happy holidays.

Speaker 2: 34:40

Happy holidays.

Speaker 1: 34:41

See ya.