Today's episode of your Daily Dose of Dave on the Inside BS channel is all about how to increase the value of a business as an advisor. If you are a financial advisor or a business strategy consultant or a business coach or you're an attorney or someone in the sales and marketing or brand management space or you're a progressive thinking CPA and you're interested in discovering a new way to connect with your clients, a way to deepen your relationship with your client, and you want to be a part of a community that focuses on helping business owners learn to treat their businesses as investments, this program might be a good fit for you. If you're someone who enjoys advising business owners and becoming a trusted resource for them and you want to be the person they call when they don't know who to call, this program might be right for you.

If you're someone who is committed to lifelong learning and continuous improvement is your thing, this program might be right for you. Join me now as I facilitate a session for the inaugural class of Certified Enterprise Value Advisors who are part of our Exit Success Lab community. In this live session, you'll hear me describe the Certified Enterprise Value Advisor program to them and you'll hear the requirements for completing the program.

If after you listen to this session you want to be a part of something like this or you have questions to see if you're a fit for this program, you can call me directly. My number is 786-436-1986, 786-436-1986. Call me today and I'll take your application to become a Certified Enterprise Value Advisor over the phone.

Join me now for our program. Sit back, relax, and learn how you can add value to your client's business and get paid a premium to do it. This program was developed not only to help you guys differentiate yourselves, help you folks differentiate yourselves from everyone else who does what you do, but it was developed so that you can really add value to the businesses of the people you serve.

I want to be laser focused on that specific message, adding value to the business. Mitt Romney was given a lot of grief when he was campaigning for president because he said something to the effect of corporations are people. Whether you like or hate Mitt Romney, he was not wrong.

Corporations are separate entities that live apart from the people who own them. Our focus as advisors who add value to businesses is to do just that. It's to add value to the business.

When you hear us talk about increasing the value of the business so the business owner has more options, I am looking to help you. I am looking to train you to treat each business that you work with or each business that you own as an investment. Those of you who have heard me speak in the last three or four weeks, like Jim and Peter who were at the meeting in New York on Tuesday, you heard me talk about adding value to the business and how we at ESL are focused not on working in the business, not on working on the business like Michael Gerber from the E-Myth talks about.

Michael Gerber famously made a bazillion dollars by getting business owners to remove themselves from the day-to-day operations of the business and think like a CEO and work on the business instead of in the business. Well, my friends, if you're an advisor, you have to get your clients to work above the business, to treat the business like an investment. Then you as the CEO of your professional practice, you as the CEO of your company need to treat that company as a standalone entity that has value on its own without you.

The minute you make that mindset shift, and as an advisor, the minute you get the client to make that mindset shift, you have helped them go down the path to being the true CEO of their business. Now, if I may, and I'm only on the first slide, so you can see why this is going to run long. If I may, I want to call on my friend Randy Carpinia to tell me if I am actually on to something here.

Randy, what do you think about what I just said? Well, it's what I've been working on myself for my own business. I've had a number of times this year where I could not work in my business. I had a physical injury that took almost a month out of it.

The business went on without me. I don't think a year ago I could have done that. Explain to people who you are and what you do, because I hear all the time from people, I'm the only attorney in my firm.

Without me, nothing happens. Explain to people who you are and what you do. I am the only attorney in my firm, but without me, lots of things happen.

I'm the CEO of the Gatsby Legal. It is an intellectual property firm. We do patents, trademarks, copyrights with a focus on software platform businesses.

That is really my personal expertise and specialty along with people that work for me. I have set up my business that yes, I am the CEO and I am the only attorney. However, I have specialists who have decades of experience that do the work.

In the IP world, we can do that as long as an attorney oversees everything. Perfect. Thank you, Randy.

I appreciate you letting me call on you and sharing that with the folks. As you know, everything we're going to share with you is our property. The unauthorized use of the pictures, descriptions, accounts of this session without the expressed written consent of Nicola Gellarmino is prohibited.

If we see this anywhere, you're going to have to deal with her. You can trust me. You want to stay on the good side of Nicola Gellarmino.

Here's a problem that we're going to address. I want you all to have a competitive advantage. You need a unique competitive advantage.

You right now are an expert in a specific area. You're an expert in a specific thing that you do. You went through significant education, whether you matriculated through a university process or you matriculated through the School of Hard Knocks.

You've invested time, money, and energy into becoming an expert. You're an expert in what you do, but right now when you're talking to your clients, you don't sound like an expert in business value, in building business value. I want everyone, whether you're an IP attorney like Randy or Jovan or Ray or Susan, or you're the CEO of a gourmet meat company like Pete, I want all of you to be experts in how to extract value from a business.

Because if you are, it'll make you a better business owner for your business, for yourselves, and it'll also make you better when you hang out with other business owners or you're advising other business owners. What's made you successful to this point is that you have narrow and deep expertise. If you talk to anybody here in this room, they are an expert in their field.

They can give you incredibly detailed information that is incredibly valuable that they charge hopefully a lot of money for sharing with other people, but it is in a narrow and deep area. This is the way that 90% of people who are in the advisory space, whether you're an attorney or you're a consultant, this is the way 90% of people are taught to differentiate themselves. Get as much knowledge as you can and demonstrate your brilliance and that's the way you will add value to your clients.

That's fine if you're thinking to yourself that you're going to do that specific thing forever and you want to limit the amount of income that you're going to have. If you want to increase the lifetime value of the relationships you have with your clients, you need to expand your body of knowledge, broaden your horizons, and speak the language of the business owners and be able to connect the business owners with people who can help them extract more value from their business. Here's what I didn't say.

What I didn't say was you had to become an expert in 10 different areas of driving business value. You simply have to be conversant in the areas of driving business value. When you go to France, you don't have to know how to speak French to enjoy the trip.

You have to know how to order wine and where the bathroom is. You have to ask for where the bathroom is. If you can get by with those two things, you can get by just fine on a tourist trip to France.

We are going to ask you to become a little bit more than tourists. We're going to ask you to become educated tourists, almost like part-time tour guides for business owners to take them on the journey to developing value in their business. Except that when you stop at each stop, you'll have experts that you have intimate relationships with that you can say, here's the expert in this area and here's why you need to listen to them.

Then you make the introduction. Your brilliance is that you have the knowledge to find out what your client needs and to connect them with the expert from the community that can help them. The problem that you have now is your expertise is narrow and deep.

In order to increase client lifetime value, you need to expand your ability to offer more value to your clients. The solution is exclusive skills, knowledge, and experience in your area, but also in the language of speaking business value. The language of helping business owners think about their business as an investment.

I am going to repeat this so much. You're going to be sick of hearing me say it, but when I hear you say it, when you talk to one another, when I hear you say it, when you talk to business owners, that's how I know it will have gotten through. If you're working day to day in your business, you have a job.

If you're working on your business, you are a manager. If you're working over your business and you're treating your business like an investment, you are the CEO. That's the conversation you should be having with your clients.

We're going to provide you through this program with continuing education in scaling businesses and continuing to extract value from those businesses by demonstrating the value that the business delivers to its clients. You all have the unique ability in going through this program because you're going to be player coaches. You're not just going to be people on the playing field playing the game like most business owners.

You're also going to be people who know the strategy, who know the moves, who know how the game is played. You're going to have seen behind the curtain, and you're going to be able to share that with business owners, which is going to make you a trusted advisor to them. Let's look at this two-by-two box.

I wouldn't be a good consultant if I didn't have a two-by-two box in every presentation that I give. This is how to demonstrate value to your clients. You can see the different axes on this quad box chart here.

The least powerful way to differentiate yourself is by throwing up letters after your name. I love these LinkedIn these LinkedIn name lines that have the person's name, and there's more letters after the person's name than are contained in the name of the person themselves. Here's a little rule of thumb for you.

If there's more letters after your name than in your name, you got too many letters in your LinkedIn profile title. Just FYI. I didn't learn that from Phil.

That's just plain old observation. Letters after your name, degrees that you have, as important as that is, it's important for you for your self-confidence. It's important for you from a knowledge standpoint, for you to feel good about what you discovered.

If you're a doctor, it's pretty damn important that you did go through that education. When it comes to clients, when it comes to separating yourself from everyone else, the letters after your name, they don't really do anything. If we move up in perception of value, proof of results is a powerful way to demonstrate your value, but there are other people that have gotten similar results for their clients or even better results for their clients.

While proof of results is important for your credibility, it's not really a great way to differentiate yourself as an advisor to people. It's necessary. It's the price of entry, and it's important, but it's not the ultimate.

In terms of distinction, having specific knowledge. We were talking the other day, there was somebody in our New York meeting who was talking about directors and officers liability litigation that arises from a bankruptcy proceeding. I mentioned that Nicola and I have mutual friends.

We have a client. I had a client for years. They were a good client of mine.

They have an area of expertise in their firm. One person in their firm, one of the partners, all this person does is look for cases that are the ideal case for a directors and officers liability insurance claim that has arisen from bankruptcy litigation. That is very specific knowledge.

By the way, this guy is Brett Amron. Brett Amron is fantastic at being a sniper and picking up the exact case that arises from directors and officers liability proceedings in a bankruptcy case. He can pick off the exact case and make sure that they will get a fantastic result.

All the money they make is in the case selection, and Brett is great at that. He's great because he's developed that specific knowledge over years and years and years. That makes him distinct.

It's a point of distinction for him, but is it enough to be the ultimate differentiating factor? I would say no. It's great for him, but it's not going to get him on the subway. The way to really make sure that you have a point of distinction that has high perceived value is by not only being great at what you do, but being able to connect people to a community of others who can solve their problems for them.

My clients call me at two o'clock in the morning, and I absolutely love it. You know why? Because they're not calling my competitor at two o'clock in the morning. I am so valuable to my clients that when a client has a kid who gets a DUI in San Diego, I get that phone call, and I want that phone call Saturday night, Sunday morning.

I want that phone call all day long because when I help that person out, I just ensure that they are going to stay with me forever, and that community has taken me 30 years to develop. Our goal is for you to be able to differentiate yourself in all of these ways in this four box quadrant that you see here. If you get through this, we'll give you some letters you can put after your name.

God bless you. You want to do that, go for it, right? We're going to give you specific knowledge outside of your practice area so that you can tell people how to create businesses that deliver value not only to them, but to their clients. We're going to help you demonstrate the results that you've gotten over the years, and we're going to teach you ways to humbly brag about yourself so that you can show those results to people, but the most important thing this community will deliver for you is everyone else you see here on the screen, everyone else you're going to come in contact with, because these are people who are going to be able to solve those problems when the phone rings at two o'clock in the morning, and that's what's going to allow you to keep your clients for the long term.

So your goals as I see them, if you are selected to be a part of this program, are you want to be the most valuable relationship in your client's professional life. They're going to have other relationships that are more valuable in their personal life, but I want you on top of the list in your client's professional life. I want you to be a respected member of an exclusive community, ESL, our community, and I want you to enjoy your work and your life.

The time that you and I spend together, my mission is to make sure that you feel welcome, that you feel secure, and that you have fun at least a portion of the time that we're together, and my hope is that you create that same environment for your clients. That's what we're hoping to do with you. So what this is for you, what I strive to provide, and I tell my ProVisors members this, I tell the members of my client base this when I work with them, and I tell the people who when I was coaching Little League, I tell the kids that I as your coach, I as the person who's here in front of you with the microphone on Zoom, I need to be a source of clarity, of calm, and of joy for you.

I strive to be a source of clarity, of calm, and of joy for my clients. I strive to be a source of clarity, of calm, and of joy for Nikola, for my family, for everybody that I come in contact with, and when I when I have things that go sideways in a relationship sometimes, my north star, the thing that guides me back is how can I get back to being a source of clarity, of calm, and of joy for this person. If you use that as your north star, and when you heard me talk about Tom Latourette before, I have yet to have an interaction where I have not, where I haven't come away from a time with Tom Latourette where I didn't feel joy.

Calm, well that's another thing. Clarity, well late at night, not so much. But joy, absolutely 100 percent of the time.

So if you can strive for that, and we can help you create that for your clients, that's the key for you. Everybody asks me, what's the key to being a trusted advisor to people? This is the key to being a trusted advisor to people. Bring them clarity in your area of expertise, help calm them down when the crap hits the fan, and add a little joy to their day.

Don't, you don't have to be so intense that you scare the hell out of them in every interaction. You know there was somebody that Nicola and I were talking, oh I know what it was, there was a there was a gentleman that I was, I was at a client's office the other day, and there was a gentleman that I was coaching up, and I said to him, you know, are you always this intense? And he looked at me like this, and he went, what do you mean intense? I'm not intense. I'm like, okay, you're not intense.

So clarity, calm, and joy. That's what we're going for. So who, who are, who are Nicola and I, and why should you listen to us about this? I want, I want Nicola, I want to give Nicola a few minutes, and I want you to, I want her to tell you kind of her, the journey that has got her to the place where she's working with a lunatic like me on this, trying to, trying to help all of you.

So Nicola, tell everybody kind of your story, you know, why you're here, and, and, and why people should listen to you about these things. Sure, so I'll give the abbreviated version. The quick answer is I am passionate about working with business owners, and that came from working in a household where I watched my parents literally sell everything they owned, but a single car in the driveway, and built a small business from the basement of our home with no employees.

And I've worked in that business growing up, and so I always carry that with me, is viewing that business as, you know, something that everyone put their life into, whether it's a small business or a larger business, as I moved on and moved into the practice of law. So even there, where I was working with mid-market size companies, large companies, I was always thinking about the business, and the business owners and executives perspectives when we were handling different matters. So along came this business opportunity, which I've been waiting for for a long time, because becoming an entrepreneur was always in the cards for me.

It was finding the right idea that would allow me to use my passion, and use my skill set that I developed as a trial lawyer. And when Dave presented this to me, I thought, this is it. This is what I've been waiting for.

It's the right idea, and we talked through it at length, probably ad nauseum to Dave from his perspective, because I like to really bet anything, especially I'm going to bet my future on. So when I knew it when I saw it, and we talked about it in detail, and that's why I'm here, because it allows me to do what I am most passionate about, which is really helping business owners move on, sell their business, have more value, and have fun along the way doing it. All right.

Thank you, Nicola. So also, Nicola, she's the guardian of detail and attention to detail in this community. So my announcement along those lines is that typos are free, folks.

There's no extra charge for any typographical errors. So if you see typos on the slides, just know that that's my little gift to you. And Nicola will go through and correct all those things before you see them again.

I know that I did not see them in advance, or I would have. Yeah. Well, I mean, you were busy.

You had other things going on. So as far as who am I and what makes me qualified to do this, many of you have heard it, but there's a handful of you who haven't. So I'm not going to beat you over the head with it.

I started my career when I was my son's age. My son is 16 now. He'll be 16 next month.

And when I was 15 years old, before I was eligible to work in New York, I was washing dishes in an Italian restaurant part-time so that I could earn a little extra money. I then ended up going to culinary school. I have an associate's degree in culinary arts and a bachelor's degree in hotel restaurant institutional management.

In addition, I spent 12 years in the Marriott organization, held just about every position. When I was like six years in, I was tapped to be part of a pre-opening team for the Marriott Financial Center in the financial district in Manhattan. And as a result of that engagement, I guess I differentiated myself to the point where I started doing feasibility studies and helping them identify new properties for acquisition.

I also did some divestitures of properties during that time. And then somebody recognized that I had some persuasive skills. So they drafted me to run campaigns, union campaigns on behalf of the company.

And that was my least favorite job. When Marriott decided to get into the corporate housing business, I was tapped to start the Execustay brand of corporate housing for Marriott in New York City. I took that brand from startup to $50 million in three years, $50 million in annual revenue.

And that was, you know, not because of my fantastic skill. It was because I was able to identify really talented people and bring really talented people on board to make up for the skills I did not have. After that, 9-11 happened and I moved into consulting.

I sat next to the right guy on an airplane coming back from a union campaign where I got my butt handed to me. And that gentleman was the chief of worldwide partners at Gallup. They recruited me to start Gallup's consulting business in New York.

I carried a $20 million book of business for the last four of the six years that I was with Gallup. And my team generated in the last year, my team generated over $250 million in revenue for the firm, working with Fortune 100 companies. And we had expertise in a number of different industries, not the least of which was women's retail, which for me was fortunate seeing as I was divorced at the time.

And that's where the story kind of takes a turn to me being the person that you know now. At that point in time, I was 60 pounds overweight. Right now I'm like 18 pounds overweight.

A month and a half ago, I was 30 pounds overweight. So right now I'm 18 pounds overweight, but then I was 60 pounds overweight. My health was bordering on problematic.

My personal life was a shambles, but my career was going great. I was making a ton of money, more money than I could ever spend. And all I had in my life was work.

I had met my now wife, Carrie, when I was in the process of getting divorced and then finally divorced. And one day I was in the office, and it was December, and we were finishing up a study on a cholesterol medication, and we were due to present the results to Pfizer. And I got a call in the office.

It was the CEO of Pfizer, and they asked me to come over and give them, you know, top line of this report in that moment. I wasn't prepared to do it. I didn't have any, I had raw data.

I didn't have any conclusions yet. I tried to say no. The guy wouldn't let me off the hook.

I wasn't persuasive enough, or I didn't try to be persuasive enough to convince him to let me off the hook. I was scheduled to have lunch with Carrie. We were planning our wedding, and I canceled the lunch, went down in the elevator, went to cross the street to walk the five blocks to Pfizer.

It was only five blocks from where I was to Pfizer's office. And I got to the corner of 6th Avenue and 43rd Street, 30 people in the crosswalk, 29 of them successfully avoided the taxi. That struck me.

Next thing I remember, I don't remember anything after being hit by the cab. Next thing I remember is being wheeled down the hall strapped to a backboard on a gurney in St. Vincent's Hospital, no feeling from my armpits down. And I basically made a deal with God.

That's what a lot of us do when we're under stressful conditions. Whether you believe in God or not, you want to hope that there's somebody or something that can get you out of the situation that you're in. So I made a deal with God, and I said, listen, if you let me out of this, I'm going to make some changes, and I'm going to reprioritize my life, and I am not going to waste any time spending more time on things that are unnecessary and less time on things that are really important to me.

After I recovered, I negotiated my exit from the firm, and I started my own consulting business. If you've seen me in person, I'm fully recovered. Everything works.

So God held up his end of the bargain, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to hold up my end of the bargain. And by doing that, one of the things that it has instilled in me, and it drives everyone that knows me and cares about me nuts, especially Nicola, is my incredible sense of urgency. I go from an idea to 100 miles an hour faster than anyone you'll ever meet.

The idea will be implemented before you can turn around, if I think it's a good idea, because we do not have time to waste. So my friends, the reason that I think it makes sense for you to listen to this conversation and the reason that I think I'm qualified to share this information with you, and only you can judge whether I'm qualified, but the reason that I think I'm qualified is because you don't have time to And Nicola and I are a shortcut for you. This program is a shortcut for you to have the success you deserve.

It's you learning from the mistakes that we've made and the mistakes that other people in the community have made. All right, so let me share with you how the program will work, what it's all about, all right? The threefold purpose to the certification program, we pretty much just covered it. We're going to prepare you as candidates to advise business owners on ways to improve the value of your business.

We're going to create the value of your business and the value of their business. We're going to create a competitive advantage for you. This is a competitive advantage for you.

That's the whole point of this. We're going to build a support community for you to deepen the relationships you have with your clients. Here are the benefits, and we can spend more time on these if you have questions, just let me know.

You get membership in this exclusive program. You may not have noticed, but we've already thrown people out, okay? We're not proud of the fact that we've thrown people out, but in order to reinforce the exclusivity of the thing that you're involved in, we have to make sure there is exclusivity. So to the point that we're foregoing revenue because we made a decision to let a person in who is not a fit, we will do that if we have to.

So you get membership in a group of people who have the same values that you have. You get skills, knowledge, and experience. I think that's what you signed up for, so that's a no-brainer.

You'll get business development, sales, and service support. We're going to teach you how to sell. If you don't want to learn how to sell, we're going to teach you how to sell anyway.

You're going to get exposure to other people who are really smart and experts in their area, which is fantastic. You're going to get access to them. You're going to get shortcuts to results.

You're going to learn from the mistakes of the people in this community. Every time I meet with somebody who's part of our community, I learn something new, and I learn more when they share what didn't work than I learn from when they share what works, okay? You're going to get less pain from the mistakes that you make. Mistakes suck.

They're painful. Learn from other people's mistakes so you have less pain. This is your safe space to share your successes and to share your frustrations.

It's a judgment-free zone. Brag all you want. Talk about how great you are and your business is.

You're going to have global reach. Phil's here. We already have global reach, but we've got more plans on the way to expand outside of the U.S. Nicola and I had a great meeting yesterday with someone in another country who's going to come on board, so you're going to have all kinds of opportunity outside of the U.S. to share your expertise.

And then finally, we as humans are under-recognized as a species. My goal is to make sure that you know how much you are appreciated as a member of this community. Our goal, Nicola and I, our goal is to recognize those of you who are outstanding when you do something that's outstanding.

And even if you're shy or you're humble, we still appreciate, as a human being, you still appreciate the recognition you receive, and you'll get that here. That's our commitment to you. So here are the steps in this process, okay? Let me get through the five steps.

If you have questions, put them in the chat, write them down, raise your hand, and we'll answer them at the end. Each applicant is required, well, the reason you're an applicant is because you're required to complete an application and attest to its truthfulness and completeness. After this meeting today, if you are interested, Nicola Gelarmino will send you an application, very short, not a long application.

But when you answer the questions on the application, you need to answer the questions truthfully, okay? One of the questions is going to be, have you ever been convicted of a felony? My advice to you is, if you've been convicted of a felony, do not fill out the application. That's my advice to you. Just a little tidbit, okay? So you got to complete a short application, and you got to promise us that that application contains statements that are truthful.

Step two, we will review it and schedule an interview with you. If you are already a member of the ESL community, we have already interviewed you. You will not have to go through another interview.

If we didn't like you, you wouldn't be here. If you're not a member, if you're joining us today and you're not a member of the ESL community, you will have to go through an interview process with Nicola and I for us just to make sure that your goals are aligned with our goals and that sort of thing, okay? So if you're already a member, if you're like James Hirsch, you're like Randy, you're like Javon, you know, anybody who's already a member, no interview is required for you folks. We already talked to you.

We love you. You're already a part of the group. So you don't have to go through the interview process, okay? If you're not a member of the community, you'll have to go through an interview process first.

After you go through the interview, then we'll move on to step three. Okay. Here's where we put some meat on the bones.

There are five modules with specific activities. Think of this as what is that show with the obstacle course where, you know, where these lunatic athletes who train forever have to run through like an obstacle course. What's the name of that show? Shout it out.

Does anybody remember what the name of that show is? Something Ninja. Yes. That's it.

American Ninja Warrior. Yes. Yes.

America. You guys are the American Ninja Warriors. That's what this is all about.

Perfect. That's the image I want in your mind, okay? So you're going to have to go through these five modules, okay? There's like a water pit. There's like a ladder you got to climb.

So this is what the and it's on a credit system. Don't ask me about the specific credits. I will outline it all to you.

I will send it to you in advance. You will know what you're signing up for. I don't want to get into the minutia of the credits here today, but let me show you how the five modules break down, okay? Module one is about exit strategy, and this is only ten credits, all right? Very, very easy, easy to digest video courses of, you know, a pleasant face like Nicola sharing some information, a not so pleasant face like me sharing more information, and then after those videos, which we're trying to keep between five and ten minutes long, there's a little quiz afterwards, okay? If you pay attention while you're watching the video, you will get an 80 or above on the quiz.

If for some reason your cat jumps on the keyboard and you don't get an 80, you can take the exam over again after each module, okay? Not the end of the world. The important thing is that you get what we're trying to share with you. The information is what's most important.

The quiz is just to verify that you actually went through it, okay? So module one is on exit strategy, and it's specific things. Now, to start, there's going to be a handful of courses in there, and that's all you'll be able to take. My hope is that within six months, you'll have your choice of like 20 different exit strategy courses, and you only have to take ten of them, okay? So you'll be able to pick and choose.

You can take more if you like, and we want you to take more if you like, but you only need ten credits in that area. Module two is community involvement, and I'm going to go into detail about each of these modules, okay? We are building this so that the benefit you get is not from me. It's not from Nicola.

It's from everybody else, all right? The goal is not for you to get a specific sheet of paper and for you to put letters after your name on your LinkedIn profile. The goal is for you to have a team of experts that you can share with your clients. The goal is for you to get business from them and for you to send business to them.

So we've built community involvement into the certification process so that we foster a group that interacts with one another and that depends upon one another for each other's success. I will go into detail about that. Module three is specific courses on the ten drivers of enterprise value.

This is not me, and it's not Nicola. It is actual experts in these areas sharing information that will make you conversant in each of the drivers of enterprise value. You're not going to be a cybersecurity expert, but you will be able to discuss cybersecurity enough so that you can introduce your client to a cybersecurity expert.

That's what those courses are designed to do. There's a brief quiz after each of those courses. Again, we're going to give you multiple choices of courses to take.

You pick and choose until you get to 20 credits. When you get to 20 credits in that area, you don't have to take any more if you don't want to, but you can. All those courses are going to be in the LMS, in the learning management system.

Module four is elective study. Now, here's what these electives are for the purposes of clarity or as somebody said to me the other day in an email, I think it was Pete, for the avoidance of doubt. I love that expression.

For the avoidance of doubt, here's what the electives are. When you see me doing a professional development session that we're recording, what I'm doing is taking those professional development sessions, re-watching them, and creating a quiz afterwards. All of those professional development sessions are electives.

If you want to go re-watch them and then take the quiz afterwards, that's going to count toward your elective credits. If you happen to attend that session, 48 hours later when it goes up online with the quiz, you just bang out the quiz and your elective credits are done. The electives are other courses that are outside of the 10 drivers and outside of exit strategy.

When I talk about sales or when I interview Ed Forteau about email marketing or when I email Phil about using LinkedIn to grow your business or any of the other stuff, Eamon's information that he's going to share on Monday in high net worth, all of those are going to be put into the LMS as courses with little quizzes afterwards and you get a credit if you fill out the quiz after attending and you get 80% or more. You can watch the video in case you miss it. Are you getting the picture for how valuable the learning management system is in this whole thing here? We don't do anything in isolation.

We don't do anything in a vacuum. We try to present the information in a way that makes sense to you and that can be disseminated later by people who can't participate live. Then module five is my favorite part of the entire program and that's the demonstration of expertise and I'll share some detail on that.

You're going to demonstrate expertise in your area. You're going to teach us something that you know that you're an expert in and then you're going to teach us something that you learned from the community, that you learned from going through the program. That's the five module sequence, 20, 40, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.

There you go. It adds up. Step three.

Here are the modules in step three. The exit strategy video courses. Here are some examples for the courses that will be completed and up there by the end of the month.

I'm doing these right now. The exit strategy options. What are the core options for exit strategy that we recommend to our clients? I divide them into internal and external options just to make you conversant.

You're not going to be able to create an ESOP after we talk about ESOPs. You're going to be able to describe what an ESOP is and you're going to be able to connect people to ESOP experts and that's what you're on ESOPs. You're not going to be able to quarterback a strategic sale of a business.

It's not that kind of course but you are going to be able to describe what a strategic sale of a business is and you're going to be able to talk to an owner about whether or not a strategic sale of a business might be a good fit and you'll be able to connect that owner with an expert who has more knowledge on that subject. That's what the exit strategy options course is about. Selling a business to third parties.

Who do they need to know in order to sell their business to a third party? What's the difference between an asset sale and a stock sale? These are the kinds of things that you'll become conversant in after that course. Management buyout. What does a management buyout mean? What type of management team do you need to have in place in order to do that? How is a management buyout funded? Those are the kinds of questions you'll be able to answer.

You get in the picture these are just very high level conversant information that will enable you to ask the right questions to point your clients to the right expert. You're not going to be able to quarterback a management buyout after taking the management buyout course but you'll know what the heck it is. Employee sales, how private equity works.

We're going to be doing, I'm going to try to do at least once a quarter a live Q&A with a private equity person, with a fund manager, maybe with family office managers so that you're immersed in the world of private equity. Everybody thinks, and Chris Michelson will tell you, he'll back me up on this. Everybody thinks that private equity is like this big black box and the masters of the universe reside in there.

Chris will tell you that it's just like normal people trying to get deals done. They want to talk to you because you may have access to a great deal and your opportunity to learn from them is great and they welcome that because, like I said, you could connect them with their next big deal. We're going to try and do live sessions with PE folks, either panel discussions or interviews with fund managers like we did with Glenn Wasserman a few months ago and then put those in the LMS as elective courses.

You can either attend the live event and then answer the questions afterwards or watch the videos. That's the exit strategy video courses. Those are the types of things that we're talking about.

Community involvement in module two. We're going to ask you to attend and participate in 10 community Zoom meetings during the course of a year. Now, if you want to get certified, like James Hirsch is raring to go.

He wants to get certified in like three months. James Hirsch can attend every single Zoom meeting we have and he can probably attend 10 community Zoom meetings in three months. But if you're busy and you can only attend one a month, so it takes you 10 months to complete this part.

No problem. It's fine. We're going to ask you to attend and participate in five office hours meetings in one year.

Now, there's a caveat in there. If you finish all the other requirements for certification and we haven't had five office sessions yet since you enrolled, you will be certified and it will be provisional between you, Nicola, and me that you will attend the three more office hours that you need to attend. We're not going to hold you up because we haven't had five office hours yet.

I know James was just making a note. He's like, well, there's only one office hour session a month and I want to get certified in three months. How am I going to come to five? James, go to three.

You'll be good. We'll give you the certification if you do everything else. It'll be fine.

Okay. And then we're going to ask that you attend one growth acceleration session as a participant during the course of the year. Okay.

So we're holding one in Chicago in a few weeks. So those of you who are attending that, God bless you, that it will check off that box. There'll be another one in December in Miami.

People have asked us if we're going to do one in New York. I think we're going to have to do one in New York during the course of the year. We'll figure it out.

But we will. Our goal is to do at least one every quarter as we open new markets. And we're looking at opening new markets.

We will do a growth acceleration session in each market. So we want you to attend one. And here's the reason why we want you to attend one.

We want you to attend one as a participant so you see how we do them. And then the goal is for you to present potentially at one of them as a certified enterprise value advisor in the future. So we want you to see how one is done before you present as one at one.

All right. The 10 drivers courses, the courses are in the 10 drivers of enterprise value. If you're not familiar, I have them on the screen.

If you need a copy of the 10 drivers of enterprise value message, put your name and info in the chat. Jerf will make sure it gets to me. Nicola or I will send you a copy of the 10 drivers.

But you have to take whatever the number of credits I put up on there was in each of these areas. Basically, the way it works out is you have to take at least one course in each of these areas. And then you can take multiple courses in the areas that resonate with you.

So if financial condition and reporting isn't your thing, no problem. Take the one required course in financial condition and reporting and take three courses in brand reputation if you want. All on Zoom.

Hopefully all in bite-sized modules in five-minute segments so that if you need to pause and run to the restroom or your cat jumps on the keyboard again, you can pause it and go back to where you were. And then a little quiz at the end that you have to get 80 percent or above. Module four is the electives.

I already described what the electives were to you. It's all the other stuff we put in the LMS. And because we've had some questions about this, you know, Nicola and I will work on putting some lifestyle stuff up there.

We might put some health and wellness stuff up there, you know, so that you can be a well-rounded person. And those will be the elective courses that you complete 20 credits in during your time. So all of that stuff that all of the modules are in the LMS.

The community involvement is the live piece. And then the demonstration of expertise is the final live piece. So there's two slides on this.

There's two parts of the demonstration of your expertise. What we want you to do is we want you to select a driver of enterprise value from the list that is outside your area of expertise and create a video, no more than 15 minutes. You can film it on your phone that demonstrates what you've learned.

That video is only going to Nicola and me. We're not going to use it for any other purposes, you know, to the extent that we have experts on a specific subject area. Like, for example, if you decided you were going to do a video on financial reporting and accountability, we would probably share that with Harry, Sandrowski, and John Alfonsi and get their feedback on it.

But that video is just for you to do an oral or a practical demonstration of something that you've learned. No production value. We're not looking for anything fancy.

Record it on Zoom. Record yourself doing it on Zoom and send it to us. It's all you need to do.

And then we'd like you to write an article on one of the ten drivers as well. Again, we don't necessarily need to publish it. If it's great and we think it's fantastic and it's vetted by an expert and we want to publish it, we'll get your agreement to publish it.

But, you know, it's just for you to be able to demonstrate what you've learned. And then you're going to do something that we are going to use in the community. You're going to write an article in your area of expertise that adds value to the community.

So and by the way, this is a marketing piece for you. It's going to exist internally for us. We're not going to publish it externally anywhere.

It will exist on the LMS for our people to use to learn from. If we really like it, we may put it on our website, but we'll connect with you to make sure that we're in agreement on doing that ahead of time. But this is for you to demonstrate that you're an expert in a specific area.

And we also are going to not only give you the invitation to present to everybody else, but we're going to ask you to present to everybody else on your area of expertise. And that presentation can come in a format like this on Zoom. It can come in person.

If you do a bang up job, we may ask you to do it on Zoom and in person. We may ask you to do it multiple times, but we would love to record those, put them in the LMS as an elective course for other people to take as well. Now the benefit to you for having your video in the LMS is number one, our members know that you're an expert because you taught them the course on that.

We will handle any edits to the video. We will handle creating the exam after the video, but your expertise will go in there. And my feeling is that some of you may want to do multiple videos because you may want additional exposure.

Nicola and I are open to that if you have the desire to do that. You're only required to do one. And if you want our help with it, we'll get you on Zoom or we'll get you in a format where the video is really easy to do so that you can demonstrate your expertise and we can record it and use it in a way that is helpful to the members of our community.

And we will also give you a copy of the final version of the video. You can use that in your marketing purposes. So any videos that you give to us to use for our community, you also can use to market your business because the videos that you give to us are going to be internal for our community.

So you'll be able to use them if you want on your YouTube channel or TikTok or, I don't know, home movies for your family at Thanksgiving. So you're welcome to do that. And our commitment to you is we'll make it easy for you to do this.

So if you don't have the facilities to video something, call me up. We'll get online with you. We'll get JIRF involved.

We'll have you come on Zoom or use the software we use called Riverside. We'll manage the process for you. You present your stuff.

We'll make sure the video looks good and that'll be that. Okay. That's the requirement.

Again, it's a lot of stuff. We're going to send you a summary sheet so you don't have to memorize it all. Here are the renewal requirements.

Okay. If you want to renew your membership or your SEVA certification, you have to let us know 30 days prior. So if you're certified in December, like James Hirsch is going to be done with this like by New Year's, right? So James Hirsch is certified January 1st.

So his year as a SEVA starts January 1. December 1 of 2025, he's got to send us an email. Hey, I want to renew. Nicola and I put our heads together.

James is a good member. Yes, he's a good member. Okay.

James, you're good to go for renewal. In your second year, you just have to complete the credits in Module 2 and in Module 5. So you have to do, instead of doing the whole process, you just have to do the community involvement, which means show up for meetings, right? And then you have to do one presentation, either in person, on Zoom, or we'll accept a video presentation to demonstrate your expertise, not demonstrate expertise outside of your area. Just show us that you're keeping the saw sharp, show us that you can still put a coherent sentence together, and do a presentation every year, do your community involvement, be a good community member, contribute, keep your dues current, pay the renewal fee, and you're good to go for renewal.

Okay? So those are the renewal requirements. Now, our community is set, and there's more to this, so before we get to your questions, our community is set up so that we create a process of continuous improvement. Okay? This is not the type of community where you get a certificate and then you have that certificate for the rest of your life.

Okay? You get, after you complete the requirements, like James, in January 1st, you have your SEVA certification. In order to keep your certification current, you got to be an active, productive member of the community. If you decide you want to be out of the community, we'll miss you, and we will wish you well, but the minute you withdraw from the community, it's over.

You take the knowledge, you get to keep the knowledge. We're not going to do a Men in Black with a mind eraser, right? You get to keep the knowledge that you gained, but you can't call yourself a member of the community if you're not one. So the SEVA, it goes away when the community involvement goes away.

So it's a process of continuous improvement, and it's the way other members can be sure that you are still a professional in good standing. There's three things that differentiate our certification from the certification many of you have, like the Certified Exit Planner or whatever the other, you know, exit planning certifications are. The one thing that makes this different is it's focused on adding value to the business.

That's the one thing that makes this really different. You know, the Certified Exit Planner, which is from the Exit Planning Institute, and I have a great deal of respect for that program. They've done a really remarkable job.

They have the three legs of the stool, right? Chris has helped educate me on this. And they think about the value of the business and what the business can sell for. They think about what you need for retirement, and there's this whole mental, psychological factor, like is the owner going to have a nervous breakdown if they sell their business, right? Well, for us, we do care.

We don't want people to have a nervous breakdown, but we're not qualifying people to talk about that with the business owners. You can, and you're welcome to, but I would like the business owner to go to, like Shadi is coaching business owners on that, so send those people to Shadi or, you know, connect them with a psychologist to make sure they're ready for really exiting the business. But that's not what we're focusing on here in ESL.

What we're focusing on in ESL is teaching the business owners how to create value for the business that's independent of them. I don't care what the business owner needs for retirement. That's how you call David for that or you call Chris for that.

They'll tell the business owner what they need for retirement. The business is worth what the business is worth, and we're going to take the business as a separate entity. So that's the first thing that makes our certification, our program unique.

The second thing that makes this unique is the community aspect of it. You'll get education from Nicola. You'll get education from me on a very specific, narrow area.

I'm going to talk to you about quality of earnings. I'm going to talk to you about revenue diversity. Nicola is going to talk to you about risk.

She's going to talk to you about legal liability, and we're going to talk to clients about those two things. There's eight other areas plus personal stuff like what to do with your money so that you don't pay a lot of taxes, like what type of insurance you need to make sure that you've protected your business and protected yourself and protected your life, what type of documents do you need to ensure that the business goes to whoever you want it to go for afterwards. All of those things are coming from the other members of the community, and you have those members of the community as resources.

You can become conversant by taking the courses in the LMS in those areas, but you have access to those actual experts to help you navigate those waters with your clients when they come up. Think about how powerful that is. Your clients don't have to call anybody else now.

A client that's doing a trademark with Ray or with Susan can talk to them and say, you know, these trademarks are costing me a ton of money, and they can say, this can be a revenue stream for you. Let's talk about licensing because I know that licensing will add value to your business, and here are the ways, and then they can say we have people in our community that can help you understand, separate and apart from the legal aspect, it can help you understand how this will improve the valuation, how having all of your intellectual property protected will improve the valuation of your business, and then they can go call me, and I can connect you with Ryan Cave who can demonstrate that having protected intellectual property adds X amount of dollars to the multiple that that business can sell for. Think about the difference in the conversation that Ray or Susan is having with their clients.

Instead of trying to defend the price they're charging for a trademark, which is a bargain, now they're talking about the value that that intellectual property adds to the business. It is an entirely different conversation by an entirely different type of expert. They're no longer intellectual property attorneys.

They're experts on driving business value, but their area of expertise is intellectual property. That's the value of being part of the community, and that's the second thing that differentiates this program from all the other programs. The third thing that differentiates this program from all the other programs is the fact that it's ongoing, is the fact that you have to keep up with it, is the fact that it's a process of continuous improvement.

Nothing stays the same. The world changes from day to day. The program that we have will evolve from day to day.

While some of the videos that we put in the LMS today will still be relevant 10 years from now, if you maintain your membership in the community, we're going to continue to be on the cutting edge to make sure that we keep up with what the next big thing is, and that is incredibly valuable to your clients because business owners are so busy running their business, they don't have time to keep up, so they're going to count on you to do that for them. Those are the things that differentiate us from everyone else who does what we do.