Building Empires: The Art of Acquiring and Scaling Businesses

Nate Dodson Nathaniel (Nate) Dodson, Esq. is a Partner and Principal Attorney at Crowdfunding Lawyers, a securities and investment law firm representing business and real estate syndications and investment opportunities throughout the US. He has represented over $2 billion in real estate and business transactions. Before Crowdfunding Lawyers, Nate was an investment broker and advisor specializing in investment sales, structures, and asset protection.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[4:29] What inspired Nate Dodson to become an entrepreneurial attorney?
[7:52] How Nate helps attorneys acquire businesses
[11:39] Nate shares his most memorable business acquisitions
[17:47] Key criteria for business acquisitions
[23:58] The benefits and nuances of investing in real estate
[31:54] How to capitalize on profitable investment opportunities and plan for growth

In this episode…

Once you’ve learned to work on your business rather than in it, you must consider a long-term growth plan. This may involve a strategic exit or investment opportunities to grow your personal capital. How can you develop a strategy to build a thriving business and personal empire?

Entrepreneurial attorney Nate Dodson learned to transition from practicing law to scaling his firm, allowing him to acquire other firms in similar disciplines. Raising additional capital and scaling your business to new heights requires considering fundamental aspects like growth methods and rate and capital sources. You can source investments by identifying opportunities in markets like real estate and home improvement, partnering with investors in your network, or engaging in crowdfunding. However, the method you choose must align with your personal and professional growth goals.

In today’s episode of Destination Business Freedom, Pat Mancuso hosts Nathaniel (Nate) Dodson, Esq., Partner and Principal Attorney at Crowdfunding Lawyers, to talk about business and personal investment opportunities. Nate explains the importance of preemptive networking, investor relations, and identifying ripe investment opportunities.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments:

"I was way better at building businesses than getting into the nitty-gritty."
"You're either growing or you're dying."
"It's not just a deal, but what's the long-term plan?"
"The secret of being successful always comes down to marketing."
"You have to plug in other competent, successful parts to make the engine run."

Action Steps:

Start strategic networking now: Expand your business contacts and keep them informed of your plans and achievements.
Build awareness and authority in your industry: Engage in consistent marketing efforts to establish your reputation.
Develop a clear financial strategy: Determine the amount of capital you need, the timeline, and potential investor sources.
Explore opportunities within related industries for acquisitions: Consider what complementary businesses could enhance your company's value.
Educate yourself on capital raises and investment regulations: Understand the rules of SEC-compliant funding strategies.

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, a go-to resource for entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners dedicated to personal and business growth.

Our team of experts has coached, consulted, and trained over 15,000 entrepreneurs, C-suite leaders, and business owners in areas of sales, leadership, organizational development, and personal growth. Additionally, Pat Mancuso has launched multiple multimillion-dollar business ventures, giving him a firsthand understanding of entrepreneurs' daily challenges.

At the Mancuso Consulting Group, we are committed to exploring innovative ways to help businesses and leaders grow their people and improve their bottom lines.

To learn how the Mancuso Consulting Group can help you unlock your full potential, visit www.themancusomethod.com, email us at pat@themancusomethod.com, or call 651-503-7355.

Episode Transcript

Chad Franzen 0:02

Welcome to Destination Business Freedom, hosted by Pat Mancuso. Join us as we explore success strategies and hacks from leading entrepreneurs helping you bridge the gap between financial success and personal freedom. Your journey starts here.

Pat Mancuso 0:23

Pat Mancuso here, thanks so much for being here today. I am the host of the Destination Business Freedom podcast, where I interview thought leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners who have either exited their business or are on that journey. Additionally, we bring some very talented people to the table who can help you get through that journey to that destination. In their services, my goal is to help small to medium sized business owners close the gap between their finances and their freedom, utilizing tools and advisors so they can ultimately define and arrive at their destination, whatever that looks like for them. Today's episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, which uses its proprietary Mancuso Method process to help entrepreneurs and business owners who are dedicated to closing that gap between their finances and their freedom. When you go to theMancusomethod.com www.theMancusomethod.com and take our short assessment, you will receive a powerful report with a roadmap, a personal roadmap to your destination. And then in addition to that, we offer you a 30 minute call with us, no obligation, where, based upon my insights and my entrepreneurial journey myself of over 30,000 hours of coaching and consulting, we help you talk about that roadmap and my goal, my commitment, my guarantee is that when you schedule that 30 minute call with us, if we don't provide $10,000 worth of value in that 30 minute call, I'll write you a check for $500 on the spot. That's how confident we are that we can add value to your business through the Mancuso Method process. So again, if you're ready to move forward, go to www.theMancusomethod.com so I am super excited today about our guest, and in full disclosure, he's an attorney, but he's a he's an amazing attorney that only practices law basically as an opportunity to help business owners, and I hope I have that right, Nate, but let me introduce to you Nate. Nate Nathan Dodson advises clients on matters related to securities financing, real estate opportunity zones and M A In other words, the reason that I'm excited today to have Nate with us is he helped people close this gap between their finances and their freedom and ultimately, potentially exit the business or raise some capital. Prior to his law practice, Nate was a former investment broker and advisor, providing a level of knowledge and experience in investing sales, investment sales, structures and asset protection. I bet we're going to talk a little bit about asset protection today, because, oh my gosh, businesses need that as well. Through leveraging his expertise in the industry, along with help from his long list of trusted connections, Nate has represented over 2 billion, 2 billion in real estate and business funding transactions. Nate received his bachelor's in Economics from the University of Texas in Austin, we won't. Maybe we should talk about the football team. Maybe not, I don't know. And juris doctorate from the University of San Diego. He's currently a member of the Nevada and Texas State bars. Nate, welcome to the show.

Nate Dodson 3:33

Thanks for having me today. And that was quite the thorough bio.

Pat Mancuso 3:41

We absolutely attempt to bring clarity, and you obviously have a lot of experience and a lot of background, so it's important to us, and thank you for that. It's important to us that our listeners understand this isn't just you know, our conversations aren't with people who you know maybe just started yesterday, or don't have the experience or the track record, or tell people how to do it, they've never actually done it. You actually have done it and so that's why we're excited to have you today. So Nate, I want to just start with, I always like to start with having people just give just a little bit of overview. So you are an attorney, you're still practicing attorney. What brought you from that kind of legal focus into being an entrepreneur?

Nate Dodson 4:29

Well, thank you so much for the kind words. But I can say that I really started out as an attorney, like everybody else, just getting in there and trying to build a book to get build experience, but quickly, at least for myself, I learned that I was way better at building business than getting into the nitty gritty. And frankly, listening to partners saying this is what you got to do. This is what you. To do this is what you got to do. So I actually started my first firm way back in 2007 so now it's been 18 years, give or take, it's been a long time. But with that, you know, I'm the lead attorney. I'm the partner. I'm helping guide communicate with the clients, but with any business, it has to be bigger than just one operator. So I started bringing in attorneys with their specialties and their knowledge, and having being able to do bigger and more opportunities, deals, investment transactions, real estate deals. But then even beyond that, I started acquiring law firms and acquiring a criminal law firm, a family law firm, another real estate firm, just kind of a and then ultimately a securities law firm. So I've bought quite a few of law firms along the way, which I have my niche, my specialty, and it really comes down to entrepreneurship, raising capital, getting more deals done. Yeah, but I've actually built one of the largest law firms by the sheer number of transactions that we do throughout the country, and very much so focused on being that entrepreneur, building a business and trying to help people out along the way. Well, so you said

Pat Mancuso 6:25

something which I so love, and I so believe, like, as an entrepreneur, I didn't want anybody else telling me what to do, like, one of the definitions, you know, I'm thinking, if I went to the dictionary, entrepreneur never wants anybody to tell them what to do. Like, that's one of the first check marks. So it's funny that you said that, but here's what I love, and I didn't necessarily know this. I mean, you and I are in a I would consider to be a pretty high, powerful mastermind group of business owners and business owners who want to acquire businesses, but I didn't know to the extent of the number of businesses that you've acquired in so oh my gosh, that I'm gonna, we're gonna delve into that a little bit, but you you touched on something which I think is important to tie into what we do in the conversation with business owners, and we talk about closing the gap between their finances and their freedom, and that ultimately leads to conversations around their exit. And I think most people miss the opportunity, and you certainly take an advantage of this, that their exit could be facilitated, could be accelerated by acquisitions of businesses, either in their industry or you know what, like, what you did was you did in your industry, but you also did ancillary services that, you know, maybe you've got a client who's going through divorce, but now they want to buy some real estate, so you really are serving, you know, a client at a at a home of another level, like,

Nate Dodson 7:52

How did that start? I really started with, I mean, as I was noting, I'm an entrepreneur, and you're either growing or you're dying, yep, and I've built the big fish in a little pond, and to continue growing, I had to spread my wings and focus in new areas. I have never practiced criminal law. I don't know anything about it, but that doesn't mean I can't own it, scale it, create the systems for it, and that's really been a big secret of our success is treating the practice of law like a corporation. There's management systems, there's departments and with acquiring businesses, if that is part of your strategy, a big opportunity. There are people don't really understand how to grow, scale, operate and streamline a business, so especially attorneys were like the worst at it, the ability to be able to acquire a practice, implement these systems for scalability, and then be able to sit back and just see the the engine go. It is a huge part of what I love doing.

Pat Mancuso 9:14

I love that. I love that. And I have to believe, and I you can validate it or say I'm crazy, but I have to believe, based upon the demographics that we talk about all the time with business owners and the baby boomers, there's gotta be huge opportunity out there in the the law practice to acquire businesses as part of that strategy.

Nate Dodson 9:36

Oh, you nailed it. I mean, it's you talk to 100 attorneys, and 99 of them want to get out of the business. So we're we're opening up that opportunity and direction to allow people not just to be able to exit because, hey, they want to retire or move on, right, but also to be able to do what you're at. Passion is, and there's plenty of attorneys that are passionate about what they do, their drive to help people, but actually running a business and doing everything else is takes them away from what they truly desire and are passionate about accomplishing

Pat Mancuso 10:15

because you have to scale it, if you, I mean, you there's only so many hours in the day. You can only charge so much per hour, and then as you start to to scale now, that per hour kind of gets diluted a little bit. Again, I'm talking about through my limited knowledge of of law firms. But so so you have to do, in essence, you either stay small or you have to get bigger. I mean, is that a fair kind of perspective?

Nate Dodson 10:42

You really nailed it. And this was back in 2007 my my mindset had to switch from how many hours a day am I practicing law to now, how many hours a day is the firm? Is the entire business practicing law. And I love to say, for every one hour I'm doing I'm actually practicing law for six to 10 hours when you look at the business as a whole. So it's a completely different analysis. So

Pat Mancuso 11:13

so I want to ask you a couple questions on the on the business acquisitions, and we're going to shift to like, the really, what's important to me, which is how you can help our listeners close that gap between their finances and their freedom. So of all the acquisitions you've done so far, without alienating any of them or any of the people in them, like, what's been your the, the, your most favorite acquisition in terms of which type of law,

Nate Dodson 11:39

uh, really, the firm that I mostly hold myself out as representing Crowdfunding Lawyers, which we are a securities and finance law firm. We help businesses across the country capitalize their business plans, their growth plans, ultimately being able to strategize exits. And we help everybody from that beginning, entrepreneur that has a napkin, you know, business plan, yeah, somebody that's in operations and they're looking to get to that next level and the next goal, yep. And ultimately, for people that are trying to exit, but trying to really maximize their value of exit you've had in a successful career. Have you thought about taking your company into the public markets, where I can buy and sell a business at three to five seven times profit? Well, what if that becomes 20 times profit, which is the opportunities if you get your business actually listed with a stock exchange, all of which is possible. It just takes the right planning and kind of the system, from where you're at to what your goals are, which for my firm, that that's where we get really passionate about, not just a deal, but what's the long term plan?

Pat Mancuso 13:03

So my guess again, is that the reason that that's exciting, and I hear it and it excites me as many of the other law practices are either cleaning up problems or dealing with problems, or maybe, you know, doing some protection from problems. But really, that piece you just talked about, and that's why I can see how I make so much sense. That piece is the exciting part. I mean, you're helping transformation. You're helping individuals create potential wealth, generational wealth, through that type of vehicle. And so, yeah, that does sound really exciting. Maybe I need to go back to school, go and get my law license. No Not happening. I'm

Nate Dodson 13:43

sorry, the job is taken. There's only so many of us that can live the dream.

Pat Mancuso 13:47

You know, it's funny, because I most people would not know this about me. So I'm gonna ask you something most people would know about you, but I actually in college, I went to school for marketing, business, entrepreneurialship, and then I ventured a little bit off into law, and I so loved it. And my mom said, she said, you know, I'll fund your law school if you want to be an attorney. And I'm like, No, Mom, I don't want to be an attorney. I like the law. I like a lot of them. So yeah, that was the foray into, uh, nope, yes. I really appreciate respect lawyers, nope, I'm not. I'm not. Um, no, so you keep your job. I'll keep mine. So, um, so me, let me ask you one fun question. So is there something that people don't know about you, that if you shared it, you'd be so they'd be surprised?

Nate Dodson 14:42

Okay, well, I'm just gonna ruin your entire thing right here. I am an attorney. I've done 1000s of deals. Love it. One of my joys is seeing somebody from that first I want to start a business to being a multi. millionaire entrepreneur. I’ve done it dozens of times. Really love that, but, and here's what's just going to ruin it. I literally don't practice longing. Yeah, did it long enough, right? And I now have a partner that with our latest acquisition, that I brought him in as a partner. Part of the deal was, let me focus on the fun stuff, yeah, the running the business, the scaling the business, the marketing, yeah, just keep me out of those documents, because I cannot read another 60 page operating agreement, yeah. So I get to be a little detached. That makes sense.

Pat Mancuso 15:45

I mean, you know, like, you know, the with Roland in the group that we're in, in epic, you know, a recovering attorney, as he calls himself, that, you know, obviously, that knowledge nobody can ever take away. And if you apply it every day, it's just, you're applying it for yourself, and not necessarily you know on on the you're applying that on other people, but, but you're not directly applying it as an attorney. You're applying it in a level, probably a higher level, to have an impact on them.

Nate Dodson 16:16

So for everybody that's listening, everybody's for everybody that's listening, you start as a technician, yep, you're in there. You're doing the business, you're creating the widget, you're providing the service, yep, but as you grow on scale, it's impossible to do so. You have to plug in other competent, successful parts to make the engine run, and then somebody just has to make sure that it continues running effectively and efficiently. And that's the biggest role that I step into.

Pat Mancuso 16:50

I love it. I love it. Okay, so let's shift gears a little bit. I want to spend the rest of their time, the rest of our time together and think about a business owner, an entrepreneur. And, you know, we could talk, I'm sure, pretty globally about this, but let's picture the business owner that's been in the business and in, you know, maybe they're at the point where they're, you know, they're at the ceiling, and they need to maybe acquire businesses. And they look and they say, Well, I can't go to the banking and I'm go get an SBA loan. Okay? And, you know, let's just talk about that individual. And I come to you and I say, okay, Nate, here's the deal. You know, I get a $3 million company I want to go to, you know, 15 or 20 million, but I don't, I don't have the capital to do that. Coach me through first, let's, let's just talk like, what would that look like in a conversation with me? I know there's some variables, but let's just talk in general.

Nate Dodson 17:48

Sounds good? Well, I can tell you my big three questions. Okay, how much? How fast and from who almost. Let's go through those. Sure, how much really your strategy gets defined by, am I trying to raise $100,000 or am I trying to raise 10 million overall strategy changes based on really what your overall goal is, okay? How fast? Because, let's be honest, if you have something under contract and you're closing in a month, a month and a half, what you can do gets to be more limited to, what can I do today to make sure I hit that closing date and from who gets to be very important, because who are your potential investors? Are they already within your network? Do you already know who they are, or are you going to have to advertise and market online through social media, the very classic crowdfunding. Or do you have the mindset of, I'm just looking for those family offices, I'm looking for a big check writer. Each one of those options creates different strategies and opportunities as well. So that's why those are the big three questions that really kind of answers everything based on those so, you know,

Pat Mancuso 19:25

you said something like, I need to raise $100,000 and people would go, Well, that doesn't seem like a lot of money. Just go to the bank. And yet, what I hear you saying is that may be a potential person that comes to you, and you can help them, at least get with that. I mean, you know, like that struck me, like, oh, that seems like a small number, but it's not really to some businesses. I guess I have to look at it that way.

Nate Dodson 19:53

It's a small number. If you can pick up the phone, make one phone call and say, Hey, Mr. Jones, we've had a. Relationship, I need $100,000 for X, Y and Z, right? Easy, simple, sure, what? If you're just starting up, you're opening up a franchise, okay? And you don't have a ton of experience in it, you're venturing into new areas, right? Maybe, especially if you're looking at more of a retail target, right? You focus on bringing in investors that are potential customers or already customers, and so you have a different strategy there. But if you're looking for more of that crowdfunding, bringing in the smaller investors, you tend to need to cast a wider net, because you need more of those potential investors, or especially with the way that marketing works now at days, where you can geo fence where your impact is, you can actually put together marketing that says, Well, I'm going to open up this business at this corner. Here's what my customers are going to look like. And you know what? I'm going to start boosting posts to drive traffic to my investment based on these zip codes or based on this area, so you can really, you know, Target, yeah, exactly what's going to help your business get launched and potentially create a whole nother client or audience base.

Pat Mancuso 21:29

So for the benefit of listeners who may not know, and have heard of crowdfunding. Give me the definition of crowdfunding. I know what it is, but I want to make sure our listeners know.

Nate Dodson 21:37

It is an amazing buzzword that doesn't mean a whole lot of anything. So I love it. No, I mean what we focus on, or it's at least in the name Crowdfunding Lawyers, we are transactional. We're a securities firm, a finance firm, but the buzzword crowdfunding, we help entrepreneurs raise capital by advertising reaching out to the crowd to be able to drive investors to their opportunity. That is a little different than just calling up grandma and saying, Hey, I need some cash, right, right? But what crowdfunding also means beyond that is you have as an example, GoFundMe, yeah, that is more of a charitable based crowdfunding, okay, you have product based Kickstarter, pre buy my widgets, and I'm going to produce it and sell it to you. That's still crowdfunding, right, but it's a little bit different than what we do.

Pat Mancuso 22:42

And those markets have opened up dramatically with changes in, you know, rules, SEC rules, those type of things, right?

Nate Dodson 22:48

Definitely, well, kind of interesting, like what the SEC oversees and investments, there's a test for it, and the test is I'm contributing money into this pool that I'm looking for profits to go to that go fund me. I'm not looking for anything back, right? So it's not an investment, it's a gift with Kickstarter. I'm looking for a product back. I'm not looking for profits. So you have to kind of look at what the real goals are, whether or not you need to pay attention to the SEC or avoid them entirely. That makes sense. And if we can help people avoid the SEC, we help people avoid the SEC, because that it's just as a whole nother world to worry about. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Pat Mancuso 23:40

So in today's world, where are you seeing a lot of activity in terms of and I know it's going to vary, but if you had to say, okay, in today's world, here's where we're seeing a lot more capital raised versus other areas. Is there one area right now?

Nate Dodson 23:58

The biggest I mean, we work a lot in the real estate realm. Okay? And real estate has been hurting. High interest rates, costs going up. However, there's still some areas that are really doing well, like buying promissory notes, investing in loans because of the higher interest rates, right? Investing into hotels because they haven't had the run up as much as the other real estate has, because they're much more business based than on the business side. Franchises, franchise, franchise. The plan is there no, no, no, just regular franchise. Yes. The plan is in place. It has more of a provable model because of the successes in the past. You don't have somebody that's trying to recreate the wheel. Sure people are so sick of hearing that I'm going to, you know, change the world right with my. Business. Well, disrupt. Disruption being like that key word that now of a sudden, if I hear that, I'm like, okay, whatever,

Pat Mancuso 25:10

like the word salad deal, right? Like, No, don't say that again. Completely.

Nate Dodson 25:15

Well, you know what? Show me something that has been working right, will work now and into the future, and that's really where I love franchises or you're taking your currently operating business to that next level. What's really suffering on the capital raises? I've got a napkin idea. Yeah, I've got a plan on a piece of paper. It's been untested. I'm going to disrupt the world. Those are more difficult to capitalize right now.

Pat Mancuso 25:46

So, so let me go. I want to go a little bit deeper, because you piqued my curiosity. So when you say investing in real estate, and then you went to franchises, would that be investing in the real estate that the franchises use for their business, or is it simply investing in

Nate Dodson 26:05

franchises, investing into both the franchisor side, because that's more of a business expansion strategy, okay, or the franchisee side. So as an example, if you get a territorial agreement. Yeah, you can bring in other franchisees, but you know what? Those franchisees have to be financeable. Have some money to begin with, yep. Well, what if the that system can be put together? Well, you know what? The franchisees don't have to worry about the cash, because there's these capital strategies to bring in investors, yeah, and so now they can open more and do more and create their own empire.

Pat Mancuso 26:47

Okay, so we are going to be, as soon as we end this call, we're going to have be having a conversation. We might end it early for some personal, personal time, but because you're just, you're creating so many things, you know, it's funny, and I ask you this now so I don't forget later. So I had a conversation with somebody Chase Thursday, so like Tuesday, and they said, Hey, I have a flip deal. And the financing fell through. Who do you know? And I started thinking, and then I got busy on something else. But is that a potential deal, like a one off like that for like, somebody's got a, you know, flip they need the financing to do it. Is that somebody, you get that type of client,

Nate Dodson 27:30

we get it all the time, okay? And when it comes down to it, either you're looking for that one check writer, and in that case, you want to make sure that you are avoiding the investment rules, because you can avoid the investment rules with a large, single check writer, right? But if you don't have that person or that group identified, right? And people think all the time, well, go to private equity. Well, you know what? Getting a private equity deal done can take six months to a year plus, by the time all the due diligence is done, tearing things apart is done, write that off as that's not an option for you Sure. Also write off, hey, I'm gonna go raise the money from a whole bunch of little investors. If you haven't been doing that already, you can't just post on Facebook. I need money. Send me money like there's a process how to create your awareness authority, right, and how to introduce opportunities to the masses. So it really strategically comes down to, how can we get this flip funded in a short time period based on the assets you already have, sure.

Pat Mancuso 28:45

So let me ask you this question in terms of I already know that you and your team, you you do strategy, you do implementation. Are you also helping people raise money through the resources you have, like the access to capital. Is that something else that you guys help folks with? We get

Nate Dodson 29:11

asked that question all the time, so I'm going to answer to you the same way I answer to everybody. No, we're attorneys. Yes, we know a ton of investors, but you know what the investors we know are our clients, investors. And I would never share their investors, just like I'd never shared yours, right, right? That being said, Yeah, we do help assemble the teams, the knowledge you need a broker dealer. We can introduce broker dealers. You need a marketing agency. We introduce a marketing agency. You want to figure it out yourself. Here's some education, whether you need hand holding by a consultant or truly, just DIY it. So we help in terms of the process of what. Do you need? Still comes down to the strategy and the plan sure to maximize your chance of success.

Pat Mancuso 30:07

That makes sense, and I'm glad I asked it, because I you know, the at the end of the day, sometimes the direct, you know, like the the shortest system between two points appears to be you for financing, but that's not you know, the fact of the matter is, is you're going to help people to get to where they want to get to, and you're going to give the strategy to do that, is what I hear you saying. And I love that, because then now I can go do it again and again and again, right? Like I'm basically learning to do the process, which means I can go invest in anything, whether it's a business, whether it's a franchise, whether it's a piece of real estate.

Nate Dodson 30:48

So nailed it. A lot of the people that we work with just expect us to produce a document. Yeah, and I will say that that is literally the smallest part of everything that we do. And plenty of attorneys can produce a good document, whatever. Go online, go find a document. It's more about creating the plan, the team and the implementation, and then the compliance down the road, making sure you're doing everything legally.

Pat Mancuso 31:15

So a general question, but obviously you're in this world every day, if, if, if there was a business owner right now saying, Hey, I've got some extra capital. I'm got my business running on its own. I've got it, you know, owner. I've got an operator in there who's doing it daily. And maybe I'm looking for my next best, greatest opportunity. Like, where do you see in terms of either industries or niches, of great opportunities right now, because there's going to be a ton of them with the demographics. But I'm just curious like asking you that question, where do you see opportunities right now?

Nate Dodson 31:54

Everybody is unique, because where are the opportunities? It's Where do you plan to be at if you're trying to find complimentary businesses you already have a roofing company, will go buy a window company? Yeah, staying kind of within related industries, anything home improvement, is a great opportunity in today's market, especially with costs going up, right? You get to actually enjoy a little bit of that added inflation, plus there's just been huge growth in that area. So, so that's a good example.

Pat Mancuso 32:34

Makes sense? We're remodeling helping my mom, my 80 year old mother, remodeler home. And, you know, I've got a pretty deep background in my real estate career of 30 plus years with construction and and builders and such. And it's like, like, change boy, the trades folks and finding those folks to do that work. And it's just, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. So that makes, that makes a lot of sense, right? And

Nate Dodson 33:00

then another thing to consider is, if you're growing your business, buying the other businesses that directly complement and grow your business, that's the approach that I take with buying other law firms. I'm not looking outside of the area that I already really know. And frankly, I like acquiring businesses that have problems, because I know with the systems and everything that I've gotten in place, I can solve those problems and make it so much better, and now I can buy it at a discount because of those issues.

Pat Mancuso 33:35

That makes sense. It makes sense. So I want to the rainy time that we have, if there were some, if there were things you would share with people to get them to think differently, to be able to help you know you to help them. Like, what would you share with somebody right now that's listening that you haven't shared so far, that they really need to to know in in an area that you could help them with? What would you share?

Nate Dodson 34:02

Sounds good? Well, of course, the area that we can share people with is the planning, getting their business set up, and helping with the vendor contracts. But forget about what we can help with. Let me just tell people what they need to do if they ever expect to need an investor or investors planning for your growth, the secret of being successful always 100% comes down to marketing, whether you're educating yourself on how to implement marketing strategies or just awareness do a monthly, quarterly, at the very least, newsletter, letting everybody know what you're looking at, what you're doing, what businesses, acquisitions or directions you're considering, but you're creating the awareness and the authority to everybody on your list and. And repurpose the exact same information to generate interest and expand your network through social media as well. At the end of the day, if you need to finance anything with investors, you have to have investors that know, like and trust you, and that starts way before you ever ask for that first dollar. So

Pat Mancuso 35:22

basically, what I the AHA that just went off in my head is just like when I was in real estate. If I'm going to want to raise capital at some point, I gotta start amassing the people who have the capital on a list right now, and I gotta build those relationships before

Nate Dodson 35:38

I need it. Best practices is, even if you don't think that you're going to need it, yeah, you may to get somebody on a large level, yeah,

Pat Mancuso 35:49

somebody else always. You

Nate Dodson 35:50

nailed it. And so that just means start today, and you don't need to wait for anything else, right? But to get out there and let everybody know what you're up to. I love it. I love it. Well, Nate, oh

Pat Mancuso 36:04

my gosh, I could probably spend hours with you, and we probably will at some point spend some more time together. Because again, I think that you know, business is competitive. Number one, the landscape is changing for businesses. Number two, and you know what I have found in my journey is that, you know, the business either is going to hit a ceiling at some point, they're going to have to say small, which is going to limit their income, their opportunities, or they're going to have to get bigger, and in order to get bigger, they're going to need, you know, additional resources. And that's why we do the show. And so I'm just so grateful today that you shared all the things that you shared, because I know that. You know, if I've benefited by it, as I have already in the call, in the conversation today, I know others have as well. So what's the best place? Or how easy should somebody reach out to you? We'll put it in the show notes. But if they're listening right now, and you know what's, what's the best way for somebody to get in touch with you, easiest

Nate Dodson 37:00

thing is just go to our website, crowdfundinglawyers.net you can schedule consultations directly with myself and my other senior attorneys, as well as get a ton of education from our blog articles, from videos that we have on Our website and YouTube. We very much believe in a giving value, and for that, we always have non stop educational programs going on. I love

Pat Mancuso 37:29

that. I love that, and I did not know that, so I'm glad that I asked well and listeners, thank you so much for supporting our show, and obviously the folks that we bring to the table are amazing talent. Their time is very valuable, and yet every one of them always gives back to our listeners and to people in the entrepreneurial world, and that's what it's all about. So we just truly appreciate your support. Please share the podcast and wherever you listen to it and share with your friends, post it on social, media, all those things, because you never know when just one idea, one concept, one thought, is going to impact somebody and could literally change their life and change the lives of their families and the people around them. And so we're just so appreciative to the folks that listen and watch and support and share. So Nate, thanks again. So much. We appreciate you. Was a pleasure today, and would just truly appreciate all the insight.

Nate Dodson 38:24

Thank you so much for having me

Pat Mancuso 38:26

My pleasure. Thanks everybody. Have an amazing day. Take care.

Chad Franzen 38:30

Thank you for joining Destination Business Freedom with Pat Mancuso, may the insights and strategies shared guide you towards financial prosperity and personal freedom. Continue to navigate boldly until next time, keep transforming challenges into achievements. Farewell and stay the course.

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