The Deal Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse
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The Deal Podcast
Joshua Wilson
Fréquence : 1 épisode/4j. Total Éps: 76

Welcome to a podcast that goes beyond the headlines to reveal the human and financial side of building enterprise value. Hosted by M&A advisor and executive producer Joshua Wilson, this is The Deal Podcast, brought to you by FA Mergers. We're your front-row seat to the strategies shaping today's lower- and middle-market, from the family-run business to the multi-million-dollar portfolio.
Too often, the world of mergers and acquisitions is seen as a complex, numbers-driven game. We believe it's about the people behind the deals—the bold entrepreneurs, the savvy investors, and the dedicated teams who make it all possible. Each episode, we sit down with the real players in the M&A space: from private equity sponsors and family offices to strategic buyers, serial entrepreneurs, and commercial bankers. We’ll also hear from the crucial professional teams on the front lines, including CPAs, tax and corporate attorneys, and wealth advisors, to uncover the blueprints of success.
Our conversations will delve into every facet of the deal lifecycle. We'll explore the art of acquisitions, the science of scaling through bolt-ons, the complexities of divestitures, and the long-term thinking required for portfolio optimization.
This podcast is more than a stage for thought leaders; it's a collaborative hub for anyone looking to build, scale, or prepare for their next chapter. Whether you’re a business owner seeking a successful exit, an investor looking to grow your portfolio, or a professional advisor supporting clients on this journey, our content is designed to be both educational and actionable.
Join us as we decode the deal, one conversation at a time.
Disclaimer:
The views, opinions, and statements expressed by the guest are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Deal Podcast, its hosts, or affiliated organizations. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice.
Joshua Wilson is a licensed Florida real estate broker and holds FINRA Series 79 and Series 63 licensure. As a trusted connector among founders, family offices, and investment platforms, Josh brings a relational, strategic lens to SPACs, IPOs, M&A, and private placements—blending insight, curiosity, and communication to spotlight the people and deals shaping the capital markets.
The content of this podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as legal, financial, or compliance advice. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of any regulatory agency, law firm, employer, or organization.
Listeners are encouraged to consult their own legal counsel, compliance professionals, or financial advisors to ensure adherence to applicable laws and regulations, including those enforced by the SEC, FINRA, and other regulatory bodies. This podcast does not constitute a solicitation, offer, or recommendation of any financial products, securities transactions, or legal services.
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- https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
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The Public-Private Partnership Playbook with Mike Tarantino
lundi 18 mai 2026 • Durée 49:12
What does it actually take to land a $1.4 billion manufacturing deal in a parish of 70,000 people? Mike Tarantino has the playbook — and he's running it in real time.
In this episode, Joshua Wilson and co-host Scott Shea sit down with Mike Tarantino, President and CEO of the Iberia Industrial Development Foundation, to break down the mechanics of modern economic development dealmaking. Mike walks through how Iberia Parish, Louisiana beat out 15+ competing communities to land First Solar's 2.3 million square foot facility — now employing over 825 people and anchoring an entirely new advanced manufacturing ecosystem in Cajun country. From building the public-private partnerships that move at the speed of business, to courting site selectors, to retaining the legacy businesses that quietly built the local economy, Mike shares the relationship-driven, numbers-first approach that turns a community into a magnet for capital.
🎯 What We Cover:
- Why incentives sweeten deals but never make a bad deal good
- How Iberia Parish landed First Solar's $1.4B advanced manufacturing facility
- The site selector ecosystem and how to get on their radar
- Building public-private partnerships that move at the speed of business
- What drives location decisions in a remote-work, AI-enabled economy
- Why business retention is the unsung hero of economic development
- The role of generational and family businesses in regional growth
- Building supplier ecosystems around anchor tenants (tier 1, 2, and 3)
- How Marine Corps discipline translates into dealmaking focus
- Diversifying a legacy oil and gas economy without abandoning it
🤝 Connect with Mike Tarantino:
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-tarantino-cecd-21693017/
🎙️ The Mike Drop with Mike Tarantino: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KaiEyDlxpUmGyzzjSUynL
🤝 Connect with Co-Host Scott Shea:
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/escottshea/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast:
🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
The Pattern Recognition Skill That Built Four Exits with Steven Pivnik
mercredi 13 mai 2026 • Durée 38:25
What if the same company could give you four bites of the apple? Steven Pivnik did exactly that — and nearly lost it all in between.
In this episode of The Deal Podcast, host Joshua Wilson sits down with Steven Pivnik, serial founder, endurance athlete, and exit advisor who built and monetized the same software company four separate times before finally selling to a $4 billion competitor. Steven shares the real story behind the wins — and the gut-punch in the middle when he came back from a two-year contract to find fraud, falsified financials, and a company one month from bankruptcy. From immigrating from the former Soviet Union as a toddler to coding Pac-Man on a Commodore 64 to climbing Mount Everest at 55, Steven's story is a masterclass in pattern recognition, founder resilience, and the discipline it takes to actually build something worth selling. Now an executive coach with The CEO Project and exit advisor with Acresis, he helps founders avoid the mistakes that nearly cost him everything.
🎯 What We Cover:
- How Steven licensed the same software to IBM and Microsoft in back-to-back deals
- The "MBA in a box" he got working under a seasoned management team post-acquisition
- Why pattern recognition is the most underrated founder skill
- The fraud and betrayal that nearly killed his company while he was away
- Why he interviewed every employee on day one of his return — and cut from 30 to 8
- How he made good on two missed payrolls over 12 months after coming back
- The KPI discipline that separated his second act from his first
- Bringing in a CEO for the final exit — and how to "love like you've never lost"
- His ideal client profile: 10+ years in business, $10M+ revenue, 90% of net worth tied up
- The transformation founders experience when accountability replaces "we've always done it this way"
🤝 Connect with Steven Pivnik: 🌐 https://www.stevenpivnik.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpivnik/
🎙️ Built to Finish Podcast: https://stevenpivnik.com/podcast/
📘 Built to Finish (Book): Available on Amazon:https://a.co/d/0g77FiBE
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
Why Your Book of Business May Be Worth More Than You Think — Dr. Jon Randall
vendredi 17 avril 2026 • Durée 51:39
Most financial advisors are sitting on their biggest asset and don't even know it. Dr. Jon Randall breaks down exactly what your practice is worth — and how to build it so buyers are lined up when you're ready.
In this episode, Joshua Wilson sits down with Dr. Jon Randall, founder of eXtraordinary Financial Advisors (XFA) and author of The Extraordinary Financial Advisor Practice. With over 25 years of experience coaching financial advisors from $250K to $10M+ in revenue, Dr. Jon unpacks the operational, psychological, and strategic levers that separate stagnant practices from firms that scale to 10X — and eventually sell. Whether you're an RIA, an independent advisor, or building inside a larger enterprise, this conversation delivers a clear-eyed blueprint for turning your book of business into a transferable, high-value asset.
🎯 What We Cover:
- Why the $1M–$1.5M revenue ceiling hits nearly every advisor — and what it takes to break through
- How private equity interest in the financial advisory space signals strong multiples for sellers
- The "practitioner to CEO" shift that unlocks 10X growth
- Why your clients are more transferable than you think — and how buyers actually see your book
- What makes a practice highly attractive vs. a difficult acquisition
- Partnership equity mistakes that don't show up until you're ready to sell
- How to build a partner track with criteria — the KPMG model for independent firms
- The psychology of scaling: why your old model stops working and what to replace it with
- The chip-on-the-shoulder driver — and what fuels growth when you don't have one
- How Dr. Jon's Grace Notes non-profit uses music to change trajectories for at-risk youth
🤝 Connect with Dr. Jon Randall: 🌐 https://xfa.co 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonrandallxfa/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/xfa.coach 📘 https://www.facebook.com/XFA.COACH
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
The Lone Survivor of a Plane Crash — and the Lessons That Followed with Wade Berzas
mercredi 15 avril 2026 • Durée 55:17
He was the only survivor of a plane crash that killed five people — burned on 80% of his body, pulled from a coma, and given little chance of a full recovery. What Wade Berzas discovered in that hospital room became the foundation for everything he now teaches entrepreneurs.
Wade Berzas is an EOS Implementer, business coach, and speaker who works with privately held entrepreneurial companies of 10 to 250 employees. After a decade as VP of Sales at Global Data Systems — a $40M IT company — and surviving a catastrophic 2019 plane crash that took the lives of his closest colleagues, Wade rebuilt his life around four pillars: Faith, Perseverance, Surrender, and Love. Today he helps leadership teams scale without burning out, build companies that run without them, and create the kind of culture that survives anything. In this episode, Wade shares raw, unfiltered lessons from the crash, the coma, and the comeback — and how those experiences directly shaped his approach to EOS, sales, leadership, and life.
🎯 What We Cover:
- How Wade's entrepreneur father shaped his work ethic from age 5
- Selling at 15 — and falling in love with the art and science of connection
- What EOS is and how it transformed a $40M IT company
- The 2019 plane crash — and what happened to the company while Wade was in a coma
- The four pillars of a life fully alive: Faith, Perseverance, Surrender, and Love
- Why vision boards matter — and the Superman story that stopped him cold
- How ego and fear are the #1 inhibitors holding business owners back
- The sales mindset shift that changes everything: stop selling, start connecting
- Why entrepreneurs must surrender control to actually grow
- What Wade tells the companies he coaches: 10 to 250 employees, call him
🤝 Connect with Wade Berzas: 🌐 https://www.linkedin.com/in/wade-berzas/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 Josh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
💼 Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/escottshea/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
Why Creativity Without Data Is Just a Pretty Waste of Money with Jeremy Beyt
lundi 13 avril 2026 • Durée 58:56
Most companies are spending money on marketing without knowing if it's working. Jeremy Beyt has built a career proving there's a better way — and it starts long before you run a single ad.
Jeremy Beyt is the CEO and Co-Founder of ThreeSixtyEight, a full-service creative agency based in Louisiana known as the Challenger Agency. In this episode, Jeremy joins hosts Joshua Wilson and Scott Shea for a wide-ranging conversation on what most businesses get wrong about marketing, why creativity alone isn't enough, and how he built and merged a company that turned down both a private equity acquisition and a Shark Tank appearance along the way. Jeremy brings a rare perspective — trained as a commercial real estate appraiser, self-taught designer, lifelong drummer, and behavioral economist at heart — and every chapter of his journey informs how he thinks about persuasion, data, and building businesses that last.
🎯 What We Cover:
- Why people make decisions on emotion — and how to build marketing around that truth
- The PE firm that courted Jeremy's company with private jets and fancy dinners, and why he said no
- How two agencies 368 feet apart merged into one and what almost went wrong
- Why most companies are at 5–10% marketing clarity when 40–50% is achievable
- The data fundamentals every business owner should know before spending a dollar on marketing
- How to align your sales and marketing teams around shared metrics that actually drive decisions
- The difference between spray-and-pray marketing and problem-obsessed creative strategy
- Why Jeremy turned down Shark Tank — and what that taught him about autonomy
- The operating agreement lesson he'd go back and fix if he could
- Music as the ultimate business analogy: what drummers can teach you about leadership and listening
🤝 Connect with Jeremy Beyt: 🌐 https://www.threesixtyeight.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-beyt/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
Connect with Scott - https://www.linkedin.com/in/escottshea/
Connect with Josh https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
From Oil Field Landman to Business Owner with Scott Rainey
mercredi 8 avril 2026 • Durée 41:21
Before Scott Rainey owned a safety consulting company, he was getting bit by dogs in North Louisiana — knocking on doors as a landman, trying to convince hostile landowners to let oil companies onto their property. That pivot into entrepreneurship wasn't clean. It nearly ended in bankruptcy. Here's how he got out, started over, and built something worth selling.
Scott Rainey is the founder and President of Quest Safety Solutions, a safety consulting firm serving oil and gas service companies across New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. With over 20 years of oil field experience — 15 of them in safety — Scott built his company from the ground up after a near-miss acquisition deal nearly wiped out everything he and his wife had worked to build. Today, Quest functions as a fully outsourced in-house safety department for oilfield operators, handling OSHA compliance, workforce certifications, training management, and insurance coordination — so clients stay on the job and off the audit list. Scott holds an MBA and the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) designation and lives in Lafayette, Louisiana with his wife Mandy and their three children.
Joining host Joshua Wilson is co-host Jude David, JD, DCL, MBA — Managing Partner at FA Mergers, former M&A attorney with 200+ transactions, and founder of a self-funded building materials company grown to 400+ employees via acquisitions. Scott is a longtime personal friend of Jude's, and their shared history makes for a candid conversation about faith, risk, and what it truly takes to build a business worth exiting.
🎯 What We Cover:
- What a landman actually does — and where the TV show gets it right (and wrong)
- How Scott stumbled from land work and environmental management into oilfield safety consulting
- The acquisition deal he rushed into without doing his homework — and why it nearly ended in bankruptcy
- What he wishes he had done differently as a first-time business buyer, including the due diligence he skipped
- The conversation every entrepreneur dreads: going home to a pregnant wife after walking away from a job with no plan
- Why safety is not just a cost center — it is a license to operate, and without it your employees do not go to work
- How Quest functions as a full outsourced safety department for 10–70 person oilfield service companies
- The AI agent demo that shifted how Scott sees the future of his entire business model
- Why he is deliberately building Quest Safety Solutions to sell — and what he envisions doing after the exit
- His closing advice for any entrepreneur standing at a fork in the road
🤝 Connect with Scott Rainey: 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-rainey-mba-csp-48058b22/
🤝 Connect with Jude David: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/guests/jude-david/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
Bootstrapped to VC-Backed: Scaling a Female-Founded Brand — Lauren Bercier
lundi 6 avril 2026 • Durée 01:00:43
She spent thousands of dollars on wedding flowers she didn't even love — and watched them end up in the trash by the end of the night. That experience became the blueprint for a business that has now served over 60,000 weddings and helped couples save more than $100 million on flowers.
Lauren Bercier is the Co-Founder and CEO of Something Borrowed Blooms, the leading silk floral rental company disrupting the traditional wedding flower industry. In this episode, Lauren joins hosts Joshua Wilson and Jude David to walk through the full entrepreneurial arc — from a bootstrapped idea born in a man cave in Lafayette, Louisiana, to a nationally recognized brand now in the middle of a Series B raise. She breaks down what it actually takes to build a scalable consumer brand, navigate the VC landscape as a female founder, and lead a team of 40 people serving customers across the country — all while staying capital efficient and keeping the mission intact.
🎯 What We Cover:
- How Lauren turned her own bad wedding flower experience into a rent-and-return business model
- Why Rent the Runway inspired the Something Borrowed Blooms concept
- The tech stack evolution: GoDaddy to Shopify to custom platform to BigCommerce
- What 60,000 weddings taught her about scalable, direct-to-consumer operations
- The realities of raising venture capital as a female founder in a female-focused industry
- How a Series B in 2025 is funding a platform relaunch that drove 26% YOY sales growth in its first month
- Expanding beyond weddings into the broader $10B+ events market
- Turning competitor florists into B2B pro partners
- Why polarizing feedback is a signal your business is actually changing something
- The "shoulds" she ignored — and why staying focused on the model made all the difference
🤝 Connect with Lauren Bercier: 🌐 https://www.somethingborrowedblooms.com 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-bercier/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sbblooms
🤝 Connect with Co-Host Jude David: 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jude-david-jd-dcl-mba-172a6a76/ 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/guests/jude-david/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
Access Granted: Inside the Hilton Family Office — Mark Miller
vendredi 3 avril 2026 • Durée 28:43
What if you could invest like the Hilton family — without having $100 million in the bank? Mark Miller has spent nearly 40 years making that possible, and in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how it works. The strategies, the philosophy, the network — and the surprising backstory of how the Hilton family fortune ended up in a foundation instead of the family's hands.
Mark Miller is the Managing Director of the Hilton Family Office and CEO of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, built in direct partnership with J. Bradley Hilton, grandson of legendary hotelier Conrad Hilton. A bestselling author and nationally recognized financial expert, Mark has been featured in Kiplinger's, The New York Times, and Money Magazine and has appeared on Fox News as a financial expert. Recognized as Presidential Businessman of the Year, he received a personal commendation from President George W. Bush. With nearly four decades in financial services — starting at IDS American Express, moving through the brokerage world, building a financial publishing company, and ultimately being asked to run the Hilton Family Office — his core mission has stayed the same: give investors with $500K to $20M access to the same tools, strategies, and disciplines the ultra-wealthy have always used. Lower volatility. Less emotion. Stronger long-term compounding.
In this episode, we go inside the Hilton Financial Network, explore the launch of their new technology fund, and unpack what "True Wealth" really means for the high-net-worth families, executives, and business owners they serve. If you've ever wondered how the smart money actually invests — and why your financial advisor probably isn't telling you the whole story — this is the episode.
🎯 What We Cover:
- How Mark went from IDS American Express and the brokerage world to being asked to run the Hilton Family Office
- Why Conrad and Barron Hilton left their billions to a foundation — not the family — and how that shaped J. Bradley Hilton's mission to build from the ground up
- The fundamental difference between retail investors and smart money institutional players — and why the gap shows up in your long-term returns
- Why reducing portfolio volatility often produces better compounding than chasing market highs
- The expanding Hilton Financial Network: technology fund (blockchain, digital assets, robotics, biosciences), bridge lending via Hilton Finance, and commercial and residential mortgage lending
- The #1 thing Mark evaluates before any partnership — and why integrity always comes before deal structure
- The most common wealth-building mistakes even affluent families keep repeating — and how to avoid them
- The Hilton True Wealth Podcast: what it covers and where to find it when it launches in April 2026
🤝 Connect with Mark Miller: 🌐 https://www.hiltonwealth.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmiller-hiltonfo/
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
No Operator, No Deal — How PE Firms Find the Right CEO with Travis Hann
mercredi 1 avril 2026 • Durée 43:33
Some PE deals don't fall apart in due diligence — they fall apart because no one can find the right CEO. Travis Hann has built his firm around solving exactly that problem. If the operator doesn't exist — or can't be found — the deal doesn't happen.
Travis Hann is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pender & Howe, a fast-growing boutique executive search firm serving mid-sized companies and investors across North America. He also serves on the board of Kestria, the world's largest global executive search alliance — a network of 42 boutique firms operating in 42 countries. Since founding the firm in 2019, Travis has helped private equity sponsors, family offices, and venture capital investors find the mission-critical operators who make deals possible. For investor-backed businesses, the stakes aren't just high — the deal itself is often contingent on the search. Travis has been assessing executive leaders every month for over a decade, and in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how that process works: how he spots inconsistency, why a polished resume means almost nothing, what it takes to find an operator willing to put their own capital on the line, and why the CEO role today demands a completely different toolkit than it did five years ago.
🎯 What We Cover:
- Why some PE deals are entirely contingent on finding the right CEO or operator
- What separates a standard executive search from a deal-dependent one
- The consistency framework Travis uses to assess C-suite candidates across multiple touchpoints
- Why charisma can be a red flag — and how to see past it to real competency
- The Top Grading methodology and why it stress-tests candidates better than traditional interviews
- How to find operators willing to co-invest and put their own capital in the deal
- When PE firms and investors should engage a search firm — and why earlier is almost always better
- Deal vs. team: how to decide which one you're actually betting on in a services business
- Why AI-polished resumes have changed the talent assessment game
- What the modern CEO role looks like today vs. five years ago — and what the new toolkit requires
- The subtle behavioral signals Travis watches for that most hiring processes completely miss
- How Pender & Howe grew from a spin-off of 4 people to a 20-person North American firm
🤝 Connect with Travis Hann: 🌐 https://www.penderhowe.com 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/travishann
💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/
🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/
💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabrucewilson/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast
DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.
He Buys Companies Everyone Else Is Running From — Nate Moore
lundi 30 mars 2026 • Durée 57:01
He only buys companies everyone else is running from — and he's been doing it for 20 years.
Nate Moore has built a 700-person operation by acquiring distressed childcare and home care businesses, walking into chaos where others see dead ends, and turning them around through leadership, structure, and a relentless belief in people.
Nate Moore is a serial acquisition entrepreneur and founder of Moore Consulting & Investment Group. For over two decades, Nate has operated at the intersection of distressed business acquisitions and people-first leadership — buying broken childcare and home care companies, identifying hidden talent inside failing organizations, and rebuilding them into stable, scalable operations. Today his platform serves 1,500 children per day and employs nearly 700 people across multiple locations.
In this episode, Nate shares the mindset behind pursuing deals no one else wants, what he looks for when he walks into a distressed company, and the leadership framework that drives every turnaround. He also gets candid about getting fired from a top sales job at 19, what that moment taught him about influence, and how personal adversity shaped the operator he is today.
🎯 What We Cover:
- Why Nate only buys distressed businesses — and how he spots turnaround potential others miss
- His path from car sales to flipping houses to acquiring his first company at 22
- The leadership change that drives every successful turnaround — and why the right person is usually already inside the company
- How he manages 700 employees and 1,500 kids per day using three spreadsheets
- The mindset shift that separates operators who scale from those who stall
- What getting fired from a top car sales job taught him about influence and character
- Why he reads body language in every conversation — and how it makes him a better communicator and leader
- His framework for scaling: be resourceful, don't depend on the resources
- How he uses his current customer base to identify future expansion opportunities
- The difference between knowledge and wisdom — and how intentionality bridges the gap
🤝 Connect with Nate Moore: 🌐 https://www.mooreconsultinginvestmentgroup.com/team 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-t-moore-ba022231/
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