EP239 - M&A Mastery – Part 3 – How To Buy Another MSP with Ken Roulston & Ian Luckett

IAN LUCKETT: In this episode of the IT Experts podcast, we answer the question, why would you want to buy another MSP?

INTRO: Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1 million, and if already there, get to five and go faster at the end of the day. Isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN LUCKETT: So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast. We're on the third of the trilogy with the legend, I'm going to say it now, the veteran legend, as he called it in the last couple of series. So I feel quite comfortable in saying that Ken Ston M&A addict. I'm going to say M&A MSP Addict. Welcome back to the show, Ken.

KEN ROULSTON: Thank very much. Glad to be here. I'll certainly take the veteran comment, but I'm not so sure about the legend.

IAN LUCKETT: We'll see how we get on. We'll see what feedback we get. Anyway, unless you've been living under a rock recently, the last two episodes of the IT Experts podcast have all been about M&A, they've all been about mergers and acquisitions, buying, selling, using this amazing tool to help you either get out of your MSP, get into another MSP and work out what the foundations are for when you want to move things forward a little bit quicker. We've had some amazing conversations with Ken over the last couple of weeks and offline as well about his story. That you can go back and listen to. I'm sure we're going to hear a little bit about that right now as in terms of an intro. But in today's episode, we are going to be talking about the buying process. So two episodes ago we talked about the foundations. What do you need to know when you want to consider buying or selling your MSP? Then we talked last week about the selling process. If you want to sell your MSP, as we hear a lot of MSPs say. I want to exit one day, but there isn't an actual plan in place to work out what does a good exit look like. And these shows are absolutely, they're gold, right? They're absolutely gold dust. So you need to go back and listen to these. And today we're going to talk about the buying process, but just in case somebody hasn't listened to the last couple of episodes, which they need to do, Ken, who are you? What'd you do, and who's your help?

KEN ROULSTON: Very good. Yeah, Ken Roulston. I am as I say, a veteran of the IT industry, having been involved in the IT services side of things for 45 years. Most recently in 2009, I started an MSP from scratch and made six acquisitions over the next 12 years, culminating in the sale of the business in 2023. At a point when we were up to about 17 million of revenue 120 staff and doing about 2 million EBITDA, which is the indicator of profitability that MSPs are valued on. So since I sold the business, I did the obligatory sort of transition stuff with the acquiring company, and I've worked with some vendors including on their M&A concierge program. And I've been working directly with MSPs, specifically on their own M&A strategy primarily on this, the buying side. And I put together in conjunction with a good colleague of ours Mark Copeman put together a website MSPM&A.com, which will provide a lot more information than perhaps we'll just get out of these particular podcast.

IAN LUCKETT: Absolutely. And we're going to talk about those a little bit. We'll talk about that website and the course and everything that you've got a little bit later on in the show, which is brilliant., I think the first thing I just want to touch in on there Ken is that you said, you set up an MSP and I think I recall from our original conversation, you went straight in on a, it was straight in on a seven figure. It's a million pound turnover MSP and from scratch because you didn't want to build it. And I think that's I thought that was quite funny that tickled me a little bit because it's I can't be bothered with doing all of that kind of growing stuff. I'm just going to go straight to buy one and then away we go. Now for many people, including me to a varying degree on an investment risk. This would just shutter, borrowing money to buy another company would just shutter most people into their grave, wouldn't it? They just wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to comprehend it. , But for you, this was something, like, yeah, I need some money for that, so I'm going to go and find some money that's going to help me buy that. Is that your kind of, is it as simple as that?

KEN ROULSTON: I suppose I had some experience of the whole M&A process back in the nineties when the IT services industry was better known as third party maintenance or break fix type maintenance. And I made five acquisitions during that period and realized that, if you want to grow quickly and if you want to, particularly if you want to grow your value quickly, organic is just so difficult because if companies are providing a decent service to their customers. It's very difficult to prize those customers away from their incumbent provider.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So most companies that rely on entirely on organic growth, will find themselves growing maybe 10 to 20% at best per annum, because, as well as winning the new business, there's also the risk of losing contracts as well. So it's a slow, and it's a steady way maybe, of growing your value. And it really I think personally it suits those people whose view of a business being a lifestyle rather than being something that's about creating real value. When I started the MSP, I was 49 and I realized that if I was going to achieve my objective of getting some real value to take me into retirement, that I needed to, take the 10 years between 50 and 60 to really build up the value and just starting organically and trying to grow organically just wasn't going to get me to anywhere near the number. Yeah, it, look, it's acquisition's not for everybody, people do fall into different camps. I think that if you have a mindset, an entrepreneurial mindset a mindset that's based about wanting to maximize the value that of what you're building, you, you have to, I believe, be prepared to accept debt as a normal means of financing.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: That growth and also, and this becomes maybe more relevant down the road. You have to be prepared to also accept potentially some dilution in equity and hence control of the business. Because if you're not fortunate enough to have a deep of cash to support your acquisition strategy, you may well find yourself at a point in time whereby you've got to dilute in order to get that investment that you need.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah. Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So I do think that you have to have that not risk averse attitude, but more willing to take acceptable and sensible risks as a mechanism to grow. But of course, that means it's not for everybody. And I'm not suggesting that everybody should do it.

IAN LUCKETT: No.

KEN ROULSTON: But if your intention is to grow real value out of your business, particularly if you have a goal of trying to exit within five to 10 years, then it's the best way to do it, I believe.

IAN LUCKETT: Absolutely. And I think, go back and listen to the last two episodes because there was some real key points and key fundamentals in there around what you need to be able to be comfortable with that risk. And one thing that you said in the last couple of shows I probably repeated it in each show, is that until your MSP is ready to sell, you should not really buy another MSP.

KEN ROULSTON: Yeah this kind of sounds confusing. The rationale behind that statement is that, as I say, if you're not in the fortunate position to have access to significant cash to be able to fund an acquisition strategy, the reality is you're going to have to go out and borrow it. And if you're going to go out and borrow it, whether it be from a bank, a private investor, or some other debt funder. You will be required to go through a process of demonstrating to that potential funder that your business is going to run that effectively. You've got a clear view of where you're going in the future. And so to a large degree, you're selling your vision your strategy and you're selling your business. Even though there may be no equity exchange, you're having to in essence sell that vision, which to, in order to attract the funding. So that means you've got to get your house in order, you've got to get your contracts in place, you've got to get your systems, you've got to get your structure, everything in place to be able to demonstrate to any potential lender that you have the capability and capacity to take on board an acquisition and make it work. Because, and I'm sure we'll probably talk about this later, buying a business is challenging, but integrating a business and making it successful is really difficult and that's the bit that sometimes the lenders are more conscious of if somebody has not done it before, are they going to make it work or not? And if they can't make it work, then there's a risk to their investment. So yeah it's a strange way to put it, but yeah, my view is if you're wanting to buy, you have to be in the right ship effectively to sell, first of all.

IAN LUCKETT: Brilliant. And I think it's just a point just to, before we get to the next question that you know this episode is to provoke your thoughts and all these episodes are to provoke your thoughts and then by no means any advice that we're giving you to go and do, get into debt or do a certain thing around MSPs and funding and risk and all of that kind of good stuff.

KEN ROULSTON: We should probably have a waist strap line along the bottom that says, yeah, we should that, yeah, we, this episode comes with a health and financial warning, yeah.

IAN LUCKETT: We might as well swear as well. And then chunk swear words in just to get them all in their place. The reason I just said that is because Ken I'd love to know with everything that's going on in the world right now, and there's always going to be something going on in the world right now. So it's probably a bit of a rhetorical question. Where's your view on the economical market in the next kind of three to five years? Is it going to be a good place for MSPs? Is it going to be, because what I'm seeing at the minute is I'm seeing, you've got, obviously, a good chunk of the market are 40-50 something maybe even older than that MSP owners who have grown up, running these businesses for 2020 whatever it might be. And you've also got now a lot of younger MSP business owners who have a very different view on how they should be run, their appetite to AI risk and all of this kind of stuff even communication it's like some people, younger people, they don't even to talk to people. Can you believe that? They just use their phones for messaging. Oh my word. How old am I? So we've got a real different types of owners through the space. We've got different stuff going on with the economy. Is this a good time to be an MSP? Is it a good time to think about strategies like this, or what's your kind of view on it?

KEN ROULSTON: To go back to your comment about is this a good time or a bad time? When I started my business in 2009, for those of us who remember being around, that was center of the financial crisis and a lot of people said to me that time, are you mad? Starting a business in the middle of a financial crisis. But it actually worked for me because it was an opportunity to acquire businesses at a relatively sensible value at that point in time because the market conditions were challenging. So it's like everything, like you can look at these things from two sides as is it an opportunity or is it a problem? And I think the MSP industry is still in a sufficiently good state. There's still plenty of money coming into the sector, primarily through private equity players at the upper end of the marketplace. There is an increasing requirement for the service that MSPs provide because businesses are increasingly day by day reliant on their IT. They want it to be, reliable. They wanted to work for them, basically around the clock no matter where they are. So IT needs to be totally available and it also needs to be totally secure with all the threats of cybersecurity and so on. So there is a constant and increasing demand for MSP services. There's potentially also a movement of mid-size companies moving their IT requirements outside of their business because it's so difficult to attract and retain in-house resource, which is an increasing opportunity for the MSP marketplace. So I think there's a lot of good logic behind the fact that the marketplace is, isn't going away. AI's going to change IT of course over the next number of years. How MSPs are run and how they manage their customers and their staff is going to change, but the demand won't go away.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: But you're right in that the marketplace has seen a significant amount of consolidation over the last number of years, particularly in that mid-ground arena as the bigger players have been buying the mid-size companies. But there is probably more MSPs now than there was five years ago because of the number of new entrants into the marketplace who are probably relatively small at this stage and are starting up because they're attracted to the potential of this marketplace and they see the opportunity for growth. But it's going to get very challenging, I think, over the next three to five years for those smaller companies to continue to thrive because the bigger players will have the breadth and depth of capability that the customers are going to be looking for, they're also going to be able to, apply their competitive pressure on the marketplace. So I have a feeling that, it's the old saying in marketing, saying, get big, get niche or get out. Yeah. And I do think that if you are relatively small MSP and want to stay relatively small, you're best to probably focus on a niche.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: Whether it be a vertical market or a geography or something else, that's your USP. But I think otherwise the whole strategy should be about getting big. Yeah. And getting big as quickly as possible so that you can compete with these larger players down the road.

IAN LUCKETT: Excellent stuff and as we say, build value into your business. That's in a really good, autonomous state that's profitable and you know it's going to be attractive when the day comes, when you do decide to sell. But we've wet their appetite, they're all excited, they're all sitting there at the end of this podcast going okay, I'm going to go and buy an MSP let's do this, let's do this. And I can think of certain people right now who used to work for our used to work within the Growth Hub who'll be doing exactly just that Chris I'm going to say, you know who you are. So good morning to you. And, how do we find the right Ms. P? How do we target the right MSPs? Do we have to go out and ring people up? Is there brokers that can help us with it? Where do you start?

KEN ROULSTON: Yeah. It's multifaceted in terms of your the approach to the marketplace. I was fortunate enough in that all, but one of the acquisitions we made came as a result of networking and going to events, talking to people, leveraging vendor relationships by, putting out there, I'm interested in acquiring a company. Do you know of anybody who might be interested in selling? So you know that's one of the best ways of doing it in that, you have the opportunity to potentially engage with a company off market, a company that effectively is not going to be, competing you as a potential buyer with other buyers and therefore possibly getting a good or a better deal. That's, to a degree, there's an element of fit involved in that and that can't necessarily be totally relied on. Of course, then there's brokers in the marketplace, in many respects, like equipment agency, they have are a double edged sword, too many people. Yes. There are a number of brokers who are there on behalf of sellers that have access to companies that are interested in selling, but are obviously trying to do it under the radar so that they're not exposing their strategy to competitors who may go after their customers or might go after their staff.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So of course that's another viable route to do it. There is of course the only basic technique of just cold calling. But, I find that to be very difficult, to ring up a business and say, look I want to talk to the owner of the business. And they say what do you want to talk about and you say I've got a really wonderful opportunity for them. And in case the film goes down and you never hear. Again, I've tried LinkedIn and sometimes that can work as well. One strategy that I used to use and I'm actually advocating at the moment on behalf of one of my clients is to use their accountants to make contact with the accountants who are the representative of potentially a company or interested in acquiring. So that if you identify a number of companies for toxic, that you believe based on their size, profile, location, et cetera would be a good fit for you and you're struggling to get in contact with them any other way. If you use your accountant to contact their accountant, they're on or bind to bring that to the attention of their client and at least then potentially short circuit the whole process of trying to get through that gatekeeper.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah. Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So that's, it's an old way of doing it in many respects, is how I would've done the acquisitions back in the nineties, but I think that again, using the snail mail of an actual physical letter from account, the accountant also has got the ability of breaking through that electronic barrier where it could go into, spam filters and so on. So a letter from our to another kind, I believe may have the ability to unlock some of those potentials.

IAN LUCKETT: There's lots of opportunities there to go and find the right one. And in the last episode we were talking about selling and obviously we're talking about due diligence and everything that was important then. But right now say we found the right, found, an MSP that we want to go and move towards in terms of, are we going to be a good fit, et cetera, et cetera. This due diligence is possibly, even more important than when you're selling, isn't it? Because you really need, this is like the pre-inspection on the car, isn't it? Before anything goes off. Who does that? How does this process work? What do you need to look out for? Is the kind of red flags and stuff, or,

KEN ROULSTON: yeah.

IAN LUCKETT: I know that's a massive question, Ken.

KEN ROULSTON: No, it is and if I take it back a step, I believe there, there's four pillars to deciding whether or not it's going to be a good fit.

IAN LUCKETT: Okay, cool.

KEN ROULSTON: There is a strategic pillar, which, will this acquisition, add something to the business strategically in terms of geography, market share skills management experience. Is there something strategic that the acquisition's going to bring to the table? There's a technical second component, which I would say is technical which is where, the business you're looking at something, a business that's going to compliment what, where you are positioned, and whether you be a Microsoft House or an Amazon House, or a Google House, do you want to stay within that same technology platform and do you want to just develop and strengthen that more? Or do you want to complement it with a different platform? Are you bringing skills into the table maybe in terms of Azure that you don't have that you want to get into more into that hosting side, which is obviously the direction that the marketplace is moving towards public hosting. Is it bringing in AI skills, yeah. So there's also potentially within that, the stack of solutions that you're using for delivering the services because. It should be, in theory, much easier to acquire a business that's using a similar stack. Whether that be your PSA product, your RMM your end user sort of protection solutions. So I think if you can get a company that's got that right or similar sort of stack is what you have, it should it say in theory, make it easier to integrate afterwards. There's of course the financial aspect of it. The financial aspect of it needs to be something that's going to be a one plus one equal three situation in terms of putting the two businesses together through synergies, through additional market opportunities is going to allow you to grow your bottom line. Which is what it's all about. And then the last piece, which is the piece which is the most difficult to get right, but also the bit that if you don't get it right is more likely to cause the integration not to work. And that's the cultural piece, right? Which is all about share, do you have the same values as the company you're acquiring in terms of how they treat their customers, how they treat their staff, how they run their business on a day to day. And that is a challenging piece to get right and one of the hardest things to do from a due diligence viewpoint. But due diligence can fall into a lot of different categories. I think I was up to in the series that I do, and I think there's about seven different variations of it, but most of the due diligence you can do using in-house resources, but the two where you really have to outsource is the legal and the financial aspects of it. Legal, fairly obvious. Very few companies have an internal resource that is a legal expert and you've got to get the legalities of it, right? It's a bit like the example you're saying you're buying a car, it might be totally rule worthy and so on, but if the person that you're buying the car from doesn't actually own the car, then you've got a problem down the road. So you've got to get the legal bit right and that, that's important Financial. I'm saying you need to outsource that only. Again, if you're a relatively small MSP and you're acquiring, you're likely to have some in-house capability financially, but you may not have the right level of in-house skill that is required to do a full and in-depth due diligence on a company because you've got to go very deep and you've got to go back a number of years. And it's not something that every accountant is capable of doing or has done before. So I certainly encourage recommend bringing in experts who can help with that process on those two areas, of course. And I would say this, I do believe that if in particular you're doing one for the first time, it's good to have somebody on board. Somebody like me, somebody who's been there, done it before or the T-shirt, got the scars on the back and knows effectively how you need to get through it, at least on the first time, possibly the second. And then it becomes a lot easier to, do yourself once you've understood and been through it once or twice, but from a technical due diligence viewpoint or the HR aspect of it, or other operational side of it, a lot of that you can do, largely speaking, using your own internal resources. But it is a challenging process. It is perhaps, and I believe certainly more difficult for the seller than the buyer in terms of pulling the information together, but, it is something that has to be approached professionally and has to be done in a proper, detailed and structured way, because otherwise you could end up with all sorts of issues coming out of the woodwork down the road. As I've had issues with things like dilapidations or pensions or contracts that are not properly written and in place to lock the customers in. So there are all sorts of issues you can face if you don't approach and run the process properly.

IAN LUCKETT: I can imagine it actually being quite an emotional journey. It's a bit probably going to be a bit like buying a house, if not worse than that, isn't it? Is it working? Is that not working? And then it's then you move in and then you realize you've got a bloody great hole in the roof. And it's hang on a minute. That didn't come up on the survey, isn't it? You wouldn't go and buy a house without a survey and I know that

KEN ROULSTON: And there's a lot of similarities, a lot of similarities. Whether it's a pre-inspection check in a car or it's a house service. It's the same sort of thing, but obviously, to a much greater level of depth than just either of those other two things.

IAN LUCKETT: Absolutely. I think we just, we've just got to touch on one more subject before we bring this in for a bit of a close is around integration. And you are a big, massive element of the program that you've designed around integration and getting this right because it's all very well and good finding the money, doing the due diligence, finding the right company. Away you go. And then day one, you open up the door, there's a whole lot of new people sitting there. There's a whole new load of new clients ringing up that you didn't speak to before. I know it's not quite like this, but it can sometimes be a bit rabbit in the headlights. But this integration piece is key, isn't it? Because this is where your clients stay, stay or leave, your employees can stay or leave, it can be really difficult time. What's some of your top tips or frameworks or whatever around how to integrate or what are some of the key things to learn around integration?

KEN ROULSTON: Okay first of all, you have to realize when you're buying an MSP, you are buying a services business. And the services business is very dependent on your staff. And of course on your customers. So you've got to have in mind from day one that, you've got to change a lot of what your mentality is to ensure that those customers and staff that you're bringing on board feel valued.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: And that, can be easier said than done. What I would've done before is I would've applied to a degree, an 80-20 rule to the customers and to the staff to a degree, and try to figure out from a customer viewpoint, where do you need to put your personal resources as the owner of the business into the equation and get in front of the sort of, top customers that are generating perhaps 80% of the revenue of the company that you're acquiring. And get in front of them and explain your vision and your values as quickly as possible and be seen to be available to them. At any given point in time thereafter. So get in front of the top customers on the site. I plan the 80-20 rule. So the revenues is, yeah, is a good way of doing that with the staff. Of course it's slightly different. But, staff in a company that you acquire will probably fall into three categories. There is those staff that you absolutely have to keep on board. Because they are vital to the customer relationships or they are vital to the business integration process in that they are going to be promoters and advocates of it. There's then going to be a group of staff who are you want to keep on board because they do a good job and they provide a good service and they're the trips that you know are the core of the business. But, you will find, and I've always found that there will be some staff for whatever reason, don't like the idea that they've been acquired and maybe, they see the company that they're involved in getting too big and that they're losing, their maybe degree of influence or they don't like the fact that a bigger company tends to bring more structured processes and systems to play than perhaps when you're very small you can be running relatively informally. And you need to work on those staff and try and if you believe that they are staff that you ultimately want to keep, you got to, work very closely to try and convince them of the fact that you will be a good provider to them. But in both cases, I believe the key thing is about communication. It's about constant and regular communication, particularly in the first three to six months post acquisition. You've got to be constantly speaking to your customers and to your stafF reassuring them and updating them on changes that you're making to the business or to the structure of the processes that you're operating, et cetera. I think it's about communication with both your customers and your staff. Other things like the financials and the systems and all of the bits that go with it, they will all fall into place provided you've got the right project plan in place to deal with it. But you, if you risk the biggest risk to the integration and therefore the acquisition working is if you don't communicate with those two groups of people.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah, because I'm guessing, as an owner, you are coming up to the, yeah, I want to buy another business and everything you are as soon as you make that decision that I want to buy another MSP and really drive this forward, your role must change in that organization radically mustn't it, whereas you might have been, I don't know, 25% working in it and then 75% working on it sort of thing. It is going to be a hundred percent, completely strategic role. Does it change that quickly?

KEN ROULSTON: I think it's wrong to be removing yourself from the day-to-day business entirely, either during the pre-completion process or indeed afterwards. Because if you take your eye off the mothership of the, of your key business too much, there is a danger that it starts to wobble. And if it starts to wobble when it comes to the completion stage, then you know you're going to be adding a new business on top of something that's already shaking. I don't think that you want to remove yourself entirely from the business, but what you do need to have is a group, good group of people around you that are capable of doing the vast majority of the day to day running off the core business whilst you are spending time on the acquisition process, either pre or post completion. So yeah, it will distract you, there's no doubt about that. So if you go into the process and you're trying to do both things at the same time to the same degree, something will fall by the wayside either your core business or the acquisition. So yeah, it's absolutely important to get your management structure before you, go too far into the process. You can do some of the stuff in the early stages, but once you hit DD, you need to be a lot more available. And of course, post completion, you need to be, as you say, 75-80% , focused at least on the new business for a period of time.

IAN LUCKETT: Love it. Thank you, Ken. Again the third pillar of this trilogy, the M&A Mastery Podcast mini-series. Ken, what's your kind of final thoughts on this one here? If any MSPs are out there right now thinking, yeah, do you know what, I'm going to give this a go. I'm going to dip my toe and have a look to see if we can really accelerate that growth by buying another MSP. What are the two or three things they need to do straight off the bat?

KEN ROULSTON: I think that the very first thing is that every MSP owner should set themselves a 5 or 10 year objective as to what sort of value they want their business to be at those points in time, not necessarily with a view that they would sell, but they potentially have the option to sell. At that stage, they have choice and then work back from that figure to where they are today and then figure out how are they going to get from A to B, right? If they can do it organically, indeed, don't need to go down the acquisition rate then grip. But if their business is currently worth, let's say 250,000, and their goal is to get it to a million, that's not going to happen organically in five years and probably not even in 10 years. So you're going to have to look at acquisition. So that would be the first thing. The second thing is, I would say is that you need to be sensible, particularly with the first one. And not go too mad in terms of trying to acquire something that is too big.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So my strategy was always to look at a business that was about half of my current size, okay. So that it was small enough to be manageable enough, but it was also big enough to move the needle to some degree.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: So if you're acquiring something that's the same size as you are already and you haven't done it before, that is very challenging. But by the same token, if you're going to acquire something that's maybe five or 10% of your current size. The amount of effort and distraction and deal costs involved might be prohibitive and not worth it f or what you're doing. So I tend to think that, your first one should be 25 to 50% of where your current size is at. So first of all, you need to work out where is your current value set at? And again the website that I have and the previous podcast will provide some information in that regard. But, work on that, this, and of course the third thing is be willing to check on debt. If you're not willing to take on depth of finance IT, you're going to struggle mentally with the whole process. And the last thing you want to be doing is worrying constantly about the financial implications of it. When you've got so much else to do and bring in, of course, people that can help you legally, financially or as say, advisors who can just walk you through at least the first or two transactions that you're involved in.

IAN LUCKETT: Brilliant. Thanks again for all your insights into this very interesting topic that I know that everybody's very interested in. Talk to us quickly just about how people can, a get in contact with you and b about the MSPM&A.com, I think they've got that this little venture you've got going on with our great friend, Mark Copeman.

KEN ROULSTON: Yeah. Yeah, Mark heard me speak at a number of events and said that suggested that we should put together a video program of my experiences. And it ends up being about an eight hour program that covers all aspects of it with a lot more war stories and yeah, and more tips involved in it. So it's an eight program. But what we're doing and hopefully by the time this podcast is actually going live, is that we're expanding the website that it sits on into a wider resource for companies in the MSPM&A space with informational on how to bring in other people who can add value, like growth habits marks business, wingman, et cetera. We can all add some tangible value to a business.

IAN LUCKETT: Yeah.

KEN ROULSTON: In either the buying or selling stage, but also we're hoping to introduce a matchmaking service. It's where potential companies who are interested in buying can register their information and those who are willing to or wanting to sell can register their information and the information will be, stored very securely, particularly on the seller side. And we can do a bit of matchmaking for pardon, at no cost to either party, which is an advantage. So it's all about trying to help MSPs to understand what's involved in M&A from a buying or selling perspective to a greater degree than we've been able to cover in this series of podcasts. But also just adding value to the sector in general.

IAN LUCKETT: Great stuff. We'll put all the links to that in the show notes, which will sit on, Spotify, YouTube iTunes and all of that's now on the website as well or we can get a hold of you on LinkedIn. Ken, is that right?

KEN ROULSTON: LinkedIn or I will have the cannot MSPM&A.com email address in place by the time this is live, so I can contacted through that as well.

IAN LUCKETT: Thanks once again. We've chewed up three, probably three hours of your time putting all of this together, which has been absolutely brilliant. Really insightful. Loved every minute of it Ken, I know the MSPs are on as well, so good luck with everything that you and Mark are up to with your venture there. And good luck to any MSPs out there who are looking at using M&A to speed up there result.. I look forward to catching up with you real soon, Ken. You take care. See you soon.

KEN ROULSTON: Goodbye, Ian. Goodbye everyone.

OUTRO: Just before you go, and if you're curious about how this episode links with the ability to scale your MSP to a million or, or if you are already there, accelerate to five, then we want to invite you to come and take the MSP Mastery quiz, and in just three minutes, you're going to get a 360 degrees scan of your business where you can identify the one or two time, engage in, align your people and help generate more leads in your MSP. It's really simple. Just click on the link in the show notes. And if you have enjoyed this episode, we'd love to get some feedback from you by means of a rating review on Spotify or iTunes, or your podcast platform of choice. We really appreciate every single one of them. Now, you can go and enjoy the rest of your day, and we look forward to catching up and connecting with you soon. All the best.