Allen T Gregory Interview

Transcript

Paul T Neustrom: 0:01

Welcome everybody to Skyrocket to Success, the podcast where we talk about people's journey of where they were before and where they are now, but sometimes how they've really succeeded the steps that they've taken when, at first, maybe it was a struggle. So today we have as our guest, Alan T. Gregory, and I've known Alan for six months or so, and seeing him really progress through the ranks. And he has a niche that I think is just fantastic. And so Alan, I wanted to welcome you to the podcast.

Allen T Gregory: 0:34

Thanks a lot, Paul.

Paul T Neustrom: 0:35

Thanks for having me. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm going to pull up your bio. In fact, let me go ahead and read that because I think that would be interesting for people to see. And but you hail from the great state of Maryland. I know that.

Allen T Gregory: 0:53

That's where I am right now.

Paul T Neustrom: 0:55

Allen has a accomplished quite a bit in his career where he is a CEO and founder at legacy media consulting, and he takes businesses into a transferable state that you can sell for seven or eight figures. So Alan, I'm fascinated in what you do. And because you have really cornered the market on like Facebook and different groups, as far as to sell digital real estate. So tell us a little bit about that. So I'll give you some background. So I started as a. Marketing analyst in 2005 at a small computing firm back in New York City. I left there in 2008 and became a digital marketing consultant and fractional CMO. I got involved in mergers and acquisitions in 2020. And then I decided that after trying to find people that wanted to sell their businesses and constantly. Bumping my head against the same problem of them truly not being ready. I decided to go out and get myself a certification slash designation called certified exit planning advisor from the exit planning Institute. So I spent all of last year branding myself and building myself up with that. So a lot of people know me as that. And this year I decided that I was going to start acquiring media assets. So that's meetup groups, Facebook groups, online newsletters, and stuff like that. I started with meetup groups because those are the easiest. I've got three of those right now that I've acquired in the last I want to say maybe three months or so I've got those three and now I'm looking at Facebook groups. And the reason for that is what you mentioned, digital real estate. So when you have eyeballs, pretty much everybody wants to work with you. So if I have aggregated so far I've got about six or 7, 000 people that I've aggregated through these meetup groups. But if you look at my LinkedIn, you look at my Facebook, it's probably 15,000 or 20,000 when you combine everything. So this has allowed me to partner with people. Who want to talk to my audience, right? So if I can do that at scale by acquiring more media assets, A. K. A. Digital real estate. It's better for myself, and it's better for the people that I partner with. That's awesome, Alan. You know how you're told to leverage. Other people's audiences, but what you've actually done is you've leveraged your own audience by acquiring other people. But I have a question for you is very basic. What is a meetup group?

Allen T Gregory: 3:14

So if you go to meetup. com that's where you're going to find meetup group. So that's where the name comes from, but meetup. com is just another. website where they have groups where people meet either virtually or in person around specific topics. So the topics that I'm interested in and the ones, the meetup groups that I've acquired are one is real estate investing. The other is business networking in the DMV, meaning DC, Maryland and Virginia area. And the other one is digital marketing training for entrepreneurs. So those are the three that I have. And when you have a meetup group, you get to control the narrative, right? So these people signed up for this group to learn about whatever that particular topic is, and you just provide events to them, whether they be offline or online, and they show up to them and that's how it works.

Paul T Neustrom: 4:00

So before the interview, I was researching online to see how many Facebook groups there actually are, and it showed that there's over 10 million Facebook groups, and that the average number of people that frequent a Facebook group in a month's time is 1. 8 billion, and over half of them join five groups or more, but the average number Facebook is between 25 and a hundred. And they say you can also join up to 6, 000 groups, which I think I probably joined like 200. And I found that LinkedIn groups are really powerful too. When I launched my book, it was just super powerful. So what can you tell us about, the average groups are pretty small, but how are you able to do this to where you can leverage, and acquire. Groups of several thousand, if not 10, 000, is there a certain framework or what would you advise, the, just the average listener that maybe want to seek you out and get your expertise.

Allen T Gregory: 5:07

So I'm glad you mentioned LinkedIn groups. I haven't gone that route yet, but that's certainly something that I'll be looking into. But when you look at any kind of group, if it doesn't have at least 10, 000 members, then chances are it's probably not the best acquisition target. Now, some people have smaller groups that are more engaged than others. I'll give you an example. So this gentleman that I was talking to, he has a group that's about 5000 people, but I want to say. Maybe 60 to 70 percent of them are active in the group. So because of that engagement, that still makes it a good acquisition target. But most of the groups are not very active. And that's something that you have to navigate when you're going to acquire them. So the way that I value a group, because a lot of people are like if you're going to get a group, how do you value a group? So the way that I value any group, whether it be Facebook or LinkedIn, it's going to be one times annual revenue. So let's just say this person generated. 20, 000. Last year in 2023 of revenue from the group specifically, and they've got analytics and data that can show me that then that's the worth of the group. But most of these, I wanna say 90% of these groups are not monetized. And if they are not monetized, then the way that you value them is either one penny to one dime. So that's 0.01 to 0.10 cents per US follower. And because my business is in the U.S. That's why I do it that way. So I'll give you an example about that as well. So let's just say there's 10,000 people in a group, but only 1000 of them are US followers, right? And if it's not engaged at all. One thousand times one penny means that it's really technically only worth 10. So I would end up getting that group for free. So that's how you value a group. And I, there's more to it, but I wanted to give you the framework for that.

Paul T Neustrom: 6:51

One of the things I've really learned about Facebook group is the power in Facebook groups. And I've done, extensive marketing when I was working with missions over in Africa, I think I set up about 40 different Facebook groups. Cause a lot of these missions, they have no like profile, they don't have anything online and they're messaging people constantly on their cell phones. And then, the power between a public group versus a private group and how, if you join into a membership and, that's how we met is through a private Facebook group as far as marketing. And so I think the real power behind the groups was networking with the right audience, the right niche, because they're all marketing people. The valuation that you're talking about to get 10, 000 people, maybe at, even 100 bucks would be a good deal. I found I've been made administrative for a lot of groups because they just didn't want to deal with it. So are you seeing that where people just don't want the headache anymore?

Allen T Gregory: 7:50

Yes, that happens a lot. Some people will build up a group and it was a passion for them at first. And now they're not interested in doing it anymore. So they either archive the group, which is what this gentleman and I were talking about before. He's moving everything over to a new platform. And he was going to archive the group. I'm like, wait a minute, don't do that. Let me just have the group. So you do find that happens quite often.

Paul T Neustrom: 8:13

So are you in the business of helping people to acquire Facebook groups or what is the service that you're actually providing now?

Allen T Gregory: 8:21

Right. So most people don't want to do the work that is required to acquire any of these groups, whether it be meetup or Facebook or LinkedIn. And generally what you have to do is you have to join a group, you have to contact the administrator, and then you have to have a conversation with them. Now that takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. And a lot of people don't have that time and they don't have the skills to make that work for them. But because I've been in marketing so long and I've got tools and people to help me, that's what I can do for people if they decided they wanted to work with me.

Paul T Neustrom: 8:51

So I think it's fascinating. And you and I have had conversations about, the valuations of companies and, not just for Facebook groups, but you've also helped people to. Plan out exit strategies for their own businesses and going into a business, even starting like even, you doing this pivot and going into this whole new realm. I imagine you have an exit strategy for legacy media. Yeah. So the way that I intend to do things is it's actually a couple of different phases, it's three phases, so phase one as a part one and a part two, part one of phase one is this acquisition and monetization of these media assets, like we talked about. Part two of phase one is public speaking where I'll be doing different kinds of events, whether I'm hosting an event or attending someone else's, and particularly talking about people learning what it takes to sell their business. And because I've got a ton of acquisition entrepreneurs that want to do deals, but don't want to do public speaking, I'm going to be partnering up with them so that when someone Approaches me after I talk or during my talk, whatever the case may be, they're like, okay I want to sell my business. What's the next step. Then I would connect them with my investors through whatever way we decided to do that. And that would work out very well for them. So that's part two of phase one phase two is about me acquiring very specific companies so that I can combine them into a consulting firm. That's also going to help with exit planning. And those three companies are a digital marketing firm, a staffing firm, and an accounting firm. When you have those three companies all together, you can pretty much help anybody exit because most of the time they have a problem with their marketing. They have a problem with their numbers or they have a problem with their people. I acquired those three companies. I solved those problems. And then phase three is really me cornering the market because that's, this is how my brain works. I want to acquire business brokerages. And the reason is very simple. There's two things that business brokers don't do that they should do. And maybe not all of them, but a good majority of them, they don't do exit planning, so they'll take someone's listing fee and they'll prepare a marketing packet so that they can. market, the business that wants to be sold. But what they don't do is they don't qualify the business to really make sure that it's even qualified to be sold. They don't do that. And the other thing that they don't typically do again, not all of them, but most of them, they don't do creative deal structure. So if you don't come to the table with a big check from a bank, And your own money, then they probably don't want to work with you, but there are hundreds of ways to do a deal. And if it's creative, most brokers aren't looking at that. So my way of thinking about this is okay if I acquire the business brokerage and I can fix those two problems, all these investors that already work with me that are always looking for deals will come to me because I've truly vetted these businesses to be qualified, to be acquired. And I'm open to creative deal structures. So that's the three phases that I'm working on. While you're talking, I was just thinking of how, having worked in franchising is so powerful because the consumer comes to expect a level of service. Like when you go into a McDonald's, what you're going to get. And when you go into a a ReMax Realty, you know what you're going to get. But when you go into business brokerages or you go into some online venture of acquiring digital assets, it's a whole different ballgame. So is your vision to be able to have a, and I'm not a big believer in franchising because of all of the requirements and, I have to register in every state, but would you consider maybe licensing your particular model of how to, to really frame the entire, business online acquisition game.

Allen T Gregory: 12:38

The way that I look at it, if I was going to license my IP, it would specifically be for the digital media asset stuff. So you can go to a place like flippa. com or website closers and stuff like that, and you can find different types of businesses that are online businesses, but what you don't typically find in any of these is any kind of digital media assets. So they'll sell. A website, they'll sell an e commerce store, they'll sell a digital marketing firm, but they don't usually have Facebook groups or meetup groups or LinkedIn groups, or sometimes they'll have an online newsletter. You might get lucky if you find that. But my idea is to create a marketplace for these things. If I'm going to build this all up, or I'll create a course and let people go out there and do it themselves. I haven't decided which way I'm going to go with that, but that's what I'm looking at.

Paul T Neustrom: 13:27

One of the things I've really appreciated about you, Alan, is I've been involved in a couple of your online webinars where you're talking about, how to value a company, how to develop an exit strategy. And I think it's very fascinating in the respect that you're very good at qualifying to see where somebody's at or, and what they actually bring to the table. And I think as a buyer, when you go to look for something, you're going to want to know that. That it's very well validated and that there's some meat on the bone, so to speak, if somebody is like working 60 hours a week and trying to sell their business and they're only, making 150, 000 a year. When they're out of the picture and they're not there, that, that company's worth next to nothing because all they basically are doing is selling you their job. And so let's speak about that a little bit, because I think that's really an area of your expertise, Alan. Yes. So that happens way more often than it should. And in my opinion, a business broker shouldn't even take that kind of a listing because that business is not qualified. No investor, true investor wants to buy a job. You get some people that are leaving a high paying job. Let's say someone was a software developer and they want to acquire some sort of an I,T, company that's small, that's fine because they can be an owner operator and you may get lucky with that. But most of the time, most investors that I work with, they're not buying a job. If you don't have at least five team members, 10 team members is probably the minimum, depending on the industry, of course, but if you don't have other people that are going to do the work, when the new owner steps in, that business isn't truly qualified, in my opinion. I think a good model that people really understand is how the sharks do it on shark tank, because they don't get involved to the point where they're doing the day to day operations or maybe they plug a staff member into, basically take over the business. Sometimes they just say, I'll give you a million dollars for your business and we're done. And it could be the easiest way, if somebody's looking at a business to acquire, shouldn't they be looking at it from the standpoint of where all they do is oversee and they manage like at a 30, 000 foot level.

Allen T Gregory: 15:44

Yes, absolutely. Because most investors, the ones that I think are truly qualified, they own multiple businesses. And the only way that they can manage it is from the 30, 000 foot view. So one gentleman that I know he does a monthly conference call. With I believe it's 12 or 15 businesses that he owns, and they either come to him so they fly into where he is, or he does it virtually depending on where he is in the world at that moment, and he goes around the table, everybody talks about the numbers where everything is he gives them all laser coaching, and it lasts maybe a half day so four hours. And then he's done and he'll check in with them periodically, once a week here and there, but he doesn't have to be talking to them every single day because their job as the owners of these businesses that he is invested in is to report numbers to him and make sure their staff is doing what's necessary to grow the business.

Paul T Neustrom: 16:35

That's awesome. I have the Alan T. Gregory on our podcast, Skyrocket to Success. So I'd like to transition here a little bit, Alan, and like to get a little bit of your backstory and how you got started. You were able to overcome the hardest thing and, some steps that you took to be able to become the success that you are. Can I'm putting you on the spot a little bit right here, what is something that you struggled with for a point? And, it was the hardest thing, maybe it's the hardest thing for you to share right now. And I know that for me, to, for me to put my book out there was the toughest thing but how about for yourself?

Allen T Gregory: 17:14

So for the last three years, and I'll just go back that far. Cause that's when I started my M and A journey in December of 2020, I was really struggling with imposter syndrome because I was this guy who had come out of digital marketing. And I'm always going to be a marketer once you're a marketer, you're always a marketer, but I was making this pivot into mergers and acquisitions. And I had a lot of imposter syndrome because it's okay who's going to take me seriously about buying their business, especially creatively. So I struggle with that. For a long time, and when I started reaching out to business owners and constantly heard that they weren't ready, and I went back to my cohort and said, Hey, guys, most of these people are not ready. What are we doing? We're just going on to the next person to find out who is ready to sell their business today. And I said, Okay. That doesn't make sense because as a marketer, you don't discard 90 percent of your leads. And as someone who's a consultant who truly wants to help people you've got to find a way to do it. So that's why I talked about that whole exit planning, certified exit planning advisor and EPI thing. So that's what I was struggling with before. And I was able to overcome that by Just getting out of it and getting out there and talking to more people because I'll give you the perfect thing. My first broker meeting, right? So we were reaching out to brokers and I just was, I knew what to say because, I've been selling my whole life and I had the questions and the framework and all this stuff. And I was just so nervous about talking to a business broker, like I'm not qualified and all this other head trash stuff. I had a gentleman come on the meeting with me and he did most of the talking for the first one. So I think. We had first call was three. The second one was at three 30. He did most of the talking, asked all the same questions that I knew I was supposed to ask. And I listened to him talk and he took control of the meeting and everything worked out well. So then we did the 3:30 meeting and he said, okay, Alan, I'm not going to talk at all. You can introduce me, but I'm not going to do any talking. I just want to hear you do it. So I did it halfway through the call. He texts me. He's dude. You're like expert level at this. You don't need me. I'm going to drop off the call. So he dropped off the call and I was just able to have these conversations because once you've gone through the process of learning everything, I think a lot of people overlearn and they I don't want to say underdo, but they don't do enough action, right? So you learn a lot, but you don't do enough, right? So that, that happens a lot. And I had all the. Information in myself and I knew everything I needed to know, but I hadn't gone out there and done it. And once I did, it changed my whole paradigm. And I was, it was a lot easier for me to have these conversations with not just brokers, but sellers as well.

Paul T Neustrom: 19:41

If you're to break down your process into three or four easy steps,

Allen T Gregory: 19:47

how would you break that down? And how, what would you advise somebody that's just getting started? I would say step one is to change the way you look at things because there's this old saying, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change, and that is the hardest step. And it sounds like something you can do easily. Like it's obviously much easier said than done, but once you can get that together, that's okay. That's step one. Step number two. Is you need a crutch, right? And a crutch usually comes in the form of another person who has done it before. So once you change your mind and you decide you're going to do it, you don't immediately jump out there and do it. Most people like that's a, it's a bridge too far for most people. So what you do is you get someone else that's been there before you ask them to help you, allow them to help you. And again, I'm going through exactly what I went through. And after they help you, you then take the training wheels off and do it yourself. Those three steps are pretty much all you need. And then after that, to really perfect your craft and to be able to truly become an authority or like a thought leader in the industry. Don't you have to share that knowledge with others? Like you're doing right now. Absolutely. So that's if we were just going to take the small part, that would be that. Yes. And then the next, this is like the next pillar of it. So now that you've gone through this and you know what, when you've done it, now you need to go out there and share it with people. So for the last year, I've been talking about exit planning and what you need to do and how to value your business and the four steps and all this stuff. And because I've been doing it so long now, whenever I post on Facebook about pretty much anything, everybody that's been listening to me for the last year and a half is oh, okay, I get it. So the next thing for me is to post about a workshop like I've posted about it before, but I want to do it in a bigger way. So that's something that's coming forth.

Paul T Neustrom: 21:32

Really been enjoyed having you on the podcast. And before we, we get off here, Alan, I wanted to know a little bit about you, what are some things that you like to do besides business, besides acquiring, digital assets, you're from the East coast and what are some things that, that, are personal about you? So before I injured my shoulder and my knee being 43 years old, I loved playing pickup basketball, right? That was one of my favorite things to do. Now I like to do billiards and bowling. I'm not as good at bowling as I want to be. So I'll probably get some lessons there. I really do like playing pool. Some people call it billiards, but I call it pool. And the other thing that I like to do, and I don't think I'm ever going to make a video of doing this, but I really like dancing. I like the way it makes me feel. There's some hip hop dance workouts that I do. And there's something else because I'm intending to move to Dallas. Texas in the next six months or so. And someone showed me something about like line dancing and stuff like that. And I know that if I go to Dallas and I start line dancing as a newcomer, I'm going to make friends really fast. So that's something else that I'm interested in as well. So have you ever owned a pair of cowboy boats and a cowboy hat? I have not, but something tells me I'm going to be getting some. To do the scoot and boogie cowboy boots, I can tell you, it's a lot easier because you can spin around on your heels and all kinds of stuff. So that's a lot of fun. And we spend a lot of time in the winters actually down in Texas and, between Austin and Dallas and San Antonio and Houston. It's just a great venue for places and really. Really strong in business. I think you'll be really happy with that. It's been so enjoyable, diving a little bit deeper into your business. And why don't you just as we exit out, make an invitation to people of what you would like to offer them.

Allen T Gregory: 23:26

Yeah. So I think in order for you to really learn what it takes for you to exit your business, there are. I break it down into four steps, but it's a lot more involved than that. I think the best thing that anyone could do is go to workwithallen. com and there you'll be able to download my research report. Once you download the research report, there's going to be a video after that. It's like a five minute video for you to just learn the four steps that I'm talking about here. And if you'd like to book a call with me to talk further about it, you can do that as well.

Paul T Neustrom: 23:55

Okay.

Allen T Gregory: 23:55

Let me just type it in here. So https://www.workwithallen.com/

Paul T Neustrom: 23:59

okay. Work with Alan. com. Cool. Alan's been a pleasure. Certainly enjoyed it. And look forward to seeing all your great successes and who knows, maybe you can help me acquire a few Facebook sites. Likewise. Thanks for having me, Paul. You bet.