Bonus Episode with Dave Long

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davelongaz
Email: dave.long@arizonabizsales.com
Website: https://arizonabizsales.com/

Jason Cutter [00:00:02]:
You have found the Business Broker Growth show with your host, Jason Cutter. This is the podcast for brokers who are ready to stop hoping for deals and start growing their pipeline. Our goal is to bring you strategies, stories, and insights that will be a catalyst to move you quickly from transactional deal makers to trusted advisors. Time for Business Broker Growth.

Jason Cutter [00:00:24]:
All right, Dave, so now that the show is over, over, I want to dive into some additional topics. We can consider this the after show. The Business Broker Growth show After Dark. I don’t know what, what we want to call it. I don’t have a, I don’t have a name for this yet, Dave, but it’s some things that I didn’t necessarily want to put into the main show, some things that I have questions about, some things that I think are fun topics, but kind of get. Maybe get in the way of the. The main conversation, which is why I just have this, this second segment here. So I want to run through these questions.

Jason Cutter [00:00:54]:
You can answer as short as you want. You can go rapid fire, you, whatever. That part doesn’t matter. So here we go. Number one, what will brokers need to survive in 2030? So now 2025, we’re talking 2030.

Dave Long [00:01:15]:
You will need, you will need a consistent marketing program. You will need to understand AI and its role in the valuation process. And you better have a, a good computer.

Jason Cutter [00:01:42]:
You know, it. It’s funny too, because you think, okay, well, our phones are more powerful now than computers that first came out that people had at home. Right. I think I forget what I saw. It was like an older cell phone and it was comparing that that had more power than like the Apollo moon landing. Like, you know, and so. But it is interesting how as the technology builds and you can do more, you actually do need a better computer because you end up doing so much more. And it still takes a lot of resources.

Dave Long [00:02:14]:
Yeah, I mean, not necessarily power for Excel, but the video. Video conferencing stuff is huge. As a matter of fact, a years ago, I upgraded my PC because it couldn’t handle the video needs of, you know, what came out of COVID Everybody’s doing these video calls, and my computer is like stalling and really frustrating both people on that call.

Jason Cutter [00:02:41]:
Yeah. Funny, funny side note story for me. So started consulting in 20, 19, 20. I remember Covid hit and I was like, I’m gonna go and do Facebook lives, right? I’m just gonna start streaming live on a regular basis and put stuff out there. I was using a laptop that was an older laptop. I didn’t realize at the time because it completely melted down on me, like almost literally. I did a whole Facebook live streaming where my face froze because my camera wouldn’t work with my laptop and all you could hear was really delayed audio. So my face was frozen for like a 30 minute LinkedIn Live.

Jason Cutter [00:03:19]:
Luckily, I think it was only my mom watching, so it wasn’t really a big deal because I didn’t have any audience. But it was, it was terrible. It was in that moment where I go, I need a real computer. Let’s talk about number number two here. What’s the number one tech shift you think coming to M and A.

Dave Long [00:03:37]:
Well, it’s surrounded, surrounding AI. AI for sure. I mean, we’re right in the middle of it now. I mean, we’re at the infancy of it. But in the industry, it’s being demonstrated to me every week the things that I can do now that I couldn’t do a year ago, literally. And that’s research about targeting buying groups, private equity groups, private equity platforms, financial buyers, strategics. You weren’t really able to do that research a long time ago. Now you can do it.

Dave Long [00:04:15]:
And you don’t necessarily need to subscribe to some of these other services because you can using AI, you can find a lot of these things. So, you know, whether it’s ChatGPT or Claude or a copilot or whatever it is, some are appropriate for these activities and some don’t work so well. So just kind of dive into that and start playing with it. And I’m not a pro at it, but you know, I found that asking a question on ChatGPT, the words in my question will completely change the outcome. So this is another thing. You just got to start playing with it and using it. Yeah.

Jason Cutter [00:05:01]:
And what I’ll say, just for anybody out there, just for you and anyone listening as well, the best tip that I learned is if you know, because I meet with a lot of people and talk to people who are like, I don’t understand and I don’t know where to begin. You just talk to it in that same way. How can you help me help you know, how can you help me use you to help me? Here’s what I do, right? Give them a say. Here’s what I’m do, here’s what I’m working on, here’s what I. I’m trying to accomplish. How can you help me? Like you can even use it? Like I did this. I got this tip from listening to Dan Martell, if anyone’s familiar with him and I went in there and I was like, okay, so here’s what I want to learn. Can you put together a five day, a week, one hour a day self paced curriculum using free content on blogs and or YouTube and then make a curriculum and make an assignment every day in this topic and just make a 20 day, you know, four week program.

Jason Cutter [00:05:58]:
And it did. Right. Like you can ask it to help you learn how to use it. You don’t have to have all the answers, which I think is great.

Dave Long [00:06:05]:
Yeah, it’s fantastic.

Jason Cutter [00:06:08]:
So one of the things, and I’m curious because one of the things I appreciate and respect about you with lots of brokers I deal with, but I know the horror stories on the other side that we talked about in the main episode is the valuation piece and the fact that you care about that and you want to put quality, not just quantity like listings out there is. Where do you see AI being good for valuations and also a limitation in valuation so far.

Dave Long [00:06:35]:
Right.

Jason Cutter [00:06:35]:
I’m not expecting you to see the future, but.

Dave Long [00:06:38]:
Well, you know, to do the valuation in a proper way, you’re plugging in a lot of data and it’s not just about comparable data points. You know, we all, they’ve been doing this for any period of time, subscribe to various databases, done deal databases where we can, you know, pull in data points to the software that we’re using and then analyze those data points to see if they’re a fit. Removing outliers and removing businesses that are too big for our subject and too small, those kinds of things. But there’s other pieces, you know, there are other websites and data to pull in, peer group data and AI will identify these data points for you. But again, you can have erroneous information from AI because you didn’t ask the question correctly. So don’t assume that the output from AI is the end all, be all. That is exactly what you were looking for. So I’m going to use that.

Dave Long [00:07:52]:
Well, don’t make that assumption because we’re in the beginning stages of this and it used to be. What was the analogy, Geigo? Garbage in, garbage out. Yeah, it’s kind of like that. If you ask a question that it doesn’t understand, it’s going to do the best that it can and maybe give you some erroneous data. So be careful of that.

Jason Cutter [00:08:14]:
Yeah, and I think that’s the biggest lesson, right. Like it’s, it’s the trust but verify thought process, which is. Yeah, it gives you something that could be really good. It could be really Wrong. It could be close, it could be accurate, it could be off. You know, obviously you have to have the experience and the gut instinct to know whatever it’s spitting out, like, is that real? Is that not? Does it fit with you? So I think that’s, I think that’s a really good tip. We’re recording this September 2025. So we got, you know, eight plus months in.

Jason Cutter [00:08:44]:
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned this year so far?

Dave Long [00:08:51]:
Well, the, the challenges of a new leadership in Washington, D.C. and their policies and their priorities. You know, specifically, I’ll point to the tariff structure. I think, you know, it may end up being bad, it may end up being good. I personally think it’s going to end up changing this country for extremely, extremely, much better for all of us. But getting there has kind of created this instability, this unknown, this fear, if you will, and it’s out of our control. And just keep, just keep plugging away. You know, be patient, do what you do.

Dave Long [00:09:42]:
Don’t turn off marketing. Stay out there with a consistent message and keep doing what you’re doing despite all this noise, and keep believing in the skill set you have, the products that you’re using, and everything will turn out. Don’t quit, don’t stop.

Jason Cutter [00:10:04]:
Don’t stop. Next question. What are you most excited about doing over the next 12 months with your business? Anything exciting? Anything you have planned?

Dave Long [00:10:19]:
Well, no, not that we’ve got planned. I keep receiving these gifts of these really unusual, unique businesses that really just fire me up. You and I were talking about one earlier, and I won’t get into the details, but every once in a while, you know, you get this, this one you just shake your head at and go, man, how did you do this? Or, it’s so unique and so cool. Not necessarily any unique industry, but they’re, they found an angle, they found a niche and they’re exploring that. And so. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Cutter [00:11:04]:
And I think that’s what’s fascinating and so fun about your business, the world of business brokers is that even if someone focuses on one industry, no matter what, every business, every client is going to be different. There’s, they’re never the same in, in every aspect. So you’re not just pulling, you know, a lever for the next 30 years, right? In a factory. It’s, it’s completely different. Obviously, we can’t talk about the one that you, you mentioned before. We, we hit record. I’m, I’m excited to hear how that one turns out, so you could talk about it later on. Maybe we’ll do a recap episode.

Jason Cutter [00:11:43]:
But, you know, those kind of things that come up, those business opportunities. I know that’s what fires up a lot of business brokers because they just love the unique business. Learning about business, being a business nerd like me, and then figuring out, all right, how do we sell this? How do we sell this bad boy? Right?

Dave Long [00:12:00]:
Yeah. What, what does that make us? That must make us some kind of nerd. Of, of some kind.

Jason Cutter [00:12:07]:
Yeah. I, I used to beat myself up in my head, you know, especially when people say, what’s your hobbies? And I was like, well, I like studying business. I love reading about business. And I was like, wait, that’s just. This is fun for me. It’s what my brain thinks about, you know, wherever.

Dave Long [00:12:20]:
Hopefully we’re not sitting on the beach somewhere with a cocktail napkin out. We’re doing spreadsheets on the cocktail napkin. I’m not there yet, man.

Jason Cutter [00:12:30]:
My, my, my mode is more when I’m sitting at the beach, you know, I, and I live in southwest Florida. Wherever you go to the beach, they, you know, if it’s a resort type place, they got the, you know, you can rent the umbrellas, you can do all that stuff. My brain is thinking, okay, how many umbrellas are they renting per hour and per day? And what’s their business model and what’s their. So that’s. My brain is just always thinking the economics of a business all the time. But I think that’s, that’s what makes us all fun. So, final question. This not so lightning bonus round that we’re doing, which is, which is a blast, is if you could wave a magic wand to have one marketing strategy implemented automatically, what would you pick? What would you rather, what would you like to have done that either isn’t getting done or you don’t want to have to deal with it?

Dave Long [00:13:20]:
Well, I think what’s always been a challenge for me, whether it was back in 2001 when I started this or last week, it’s what we call deal flow, right? And, you know, you get rid of the, the peaks and the valleys, and you’ve always got this consistent deal flow. And those of us who’ve been doing this a long time, we sort of know the answer to that. It’s about staying out there and keeping talking to clients, never turning off the marketing machine, never stop talking to people. But there’s going to be, regardless of all that, there’s going to be some deal flow pauses. And hopefully you’ve got enough in the pipeline that that doesn’t cause harm, but it would be some magic AI button lever device where you could send that out to the universe and the universe would manage the deal flow for you based on a number.

Jason Cutter [00:14:27]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I’ll work on that. I’ll see what I can do.

Dave Long [00:14:31]:
Yeah, let me know. I’ll be the guinea pig. I’ll beta test that for you.

Jason Cutter [00:14:36]:
I’m pretty sure every broker I know that I’ve ever spoke to, they would be happy with that magical AI deal flow optimizer for sure.

Dave Long [00:14:45]:
Exactly.

Jason Cutter [00:14:47]:
Instead of the all or nothing mode. That tends to happen. Well, Dave, I appreciate you being here. For people tuning in, this was the after show. This is the second part. Got Dave Long here from Arizona Business Sales Advisors. His contact info, his. His ways to reach him will be in the show notes.

Jason Cutter [00:15:07]:
Also, make sure to check out the main episode. Dave, thank you for being here and sharing even extra stuff with the audience. And for everyone else tuning in, until next time, as I say, stop hoping for deals, start growing your pipeline.