Acquisitions and CPGs (Consumer Packaged Goods) with Marc Portney

josh: 0:02

Hey, good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout. Josh. Here are your hosts. Also a fellow deal maker on today's show. We're going to have a conversation with mark who is doing some incredible things in the world of inventions in the world of buying businesses and all sorts of things that go in with e-commerce and things that you might have even seen on TV late at night. Mark. Welcome to the show.

marc: 0:27

Thanks Josh. How you doing,

josh: 0:28

Man? I'm doing pretty good. I'm here in Florida, the great country of Florida, and it's just, it's beautiful. The weather's great here. The politics are great here. We love it.

marc: 0:36

We love it. Awesome.

josh: 0:37

How are you, man?

marc: 0:38

I'm good. I'm, I'm a new Yorker born and bred. So, you know, I feel you,

josh: 0:44

I can hear it in your voice and for those just listening in, we're going to ask him some words that new Yorkers are famous for ask answering, but in the back, man, I'm seeing tons of products and inventions and some cool stuff. Mark, why don't you give us an idea for those who might be watching or listening who it is, who are you and what are the things you'd like to do?

marc: 1:05

Okay. My name is mark Fortney. I've been in business for about 40 years. I'm 60. For those of you have a calculator out and you're counting I'm in the import business. I'm really, I'm an expert in sourcing. I was on a, a, a show about five years ago on discovery science called all American makers. That was kind of a kinder, gentler shark tank, but that was fun, but it got me a lot of exposure in the world of inventions acquisitions and things like that. My main focus and my business, it's a global source infrastructure partners, and we do sourcing and we have a very interesting angle on sourcing, frankly.

josh: 1:56

Okay. So what is the angle? Let's, let's dive right into the deals. What's your unique angle? What's your unique value proposition of why people should be chatting with you?

marc: 2:07

Well, this is what we do. We, we specialize in consumer products, so anything that's in a consumer product, we deal in all treatments, metal ceramic, everything, but we don't do soft goods. So we don't cut and sew garments. We don't do shoes, anything that wrong, returns are a pain in the ass, frankly, but any, anything else. You'd be surprised don't discount anything out there. What we do is we w we take two samples from anyone who we agree to do some business with. We pay to send them over and we pay to get the samples back. We also get you a price within seven to eight business days. If it's good, then we expect to do business. The interesting part of it is we cover all the costs. We do something called DDP, which is delivery duty paid. So it's to your back door. Now, Josh, I don't think you're in the import business, but the reality is that it was a nightmare last year. Anybody who's importing has war stories. Everybody took it in the bung bum and they, they definitely have an eyeball on what happens to the freight rates, et cetera. What I do is I, I take a freight rate and I lock it in if during the course of when your goods are on the way, if the freight rate goes up, well, that's my problem. Imagine if you are, if you're an aggregator, if you're a private equity firm, if you're an M and a firm, what that means. M and a firms and PE firms, they do things called quality of earnings, but very few of them do something called quality of costs, which is the largest item on your P and L is the cost of goods. Nobody's really paying attention to the cost of goods. What would it be worth if I could trim 20, 25, 30% off of your cost of goods and only, it, even before the acquisition, I be doing it every time. We deal with aggregators and we deal with PE firms and we deal with M and a guys. No, not publicly. We do it, under the cloak of darkness because nobody, go ahead. What were you going to say? I'm sorry.

josh: 4:40

Well, I think this is brilliant. So as an acquire, right? There's a few ways to increase the profitability. If you're an acquisition firm and you're looking at an import business, you could raise prices, you could sell more, or you could cut people, or you could cut costs of goods sold in other ways. It sounds like you guys do that real good. You could take a look at that. Kind of explained that part of the deal and how you work with these kind of companies.

marc: 5:07

Well, it's not an input business. Josh it's any business that's consumer products, anything. Could you imagine taking a look and taking two samples from the business that you're going to acquire and sending them off and finding out a is the quality of costs legitimate, because everybody does a quality of earnings, but nobody does a quality of costs. If they all legitimate fantastic, but if they're not legitimate and you can save 25 points, 20 points, 30 points, whatever it is, can you imagine? Only, it, and that could before closing, what does that do to the bottom line on the largest item on the P and L it's absolutely. You can do it without raising price. You can do it without getting rid of personnel, unless you've got a crazy giant payroll, but that's your business, not mine. And, and that's, that's where we come in, but, I have to be honest with you. We're very, we're very picky as to who we work with only because all of the upfront costs of mine. If you're going to be a tire kicker, and you're going to be a wise guy, I'm going to find you out real quick, and I'm not going to want to do business with you, but the people that we have relationships with, and it, isn't all three of the spaces that we just spoke about not to mention, I am, I've been importing for 35 years for my own account. That's, it it's really an effective way to go about it. Furthermore, the people who really got screwed last year with the supply chain issues, don't have to do it. If the price is $3 and 75 cents, it's $3 and 75 cents in your door, open up the back door of your warehouse. And it's 375 freight goes up. My problem, any issues with the drayage, which is from the port to the warehouse, my problem. So, and that's really how we do it. People are finding it intriguing because they can't believe that I'm either nuts, or I know what I'm doing one or the other.

josh: 7:11

We'll find out which one that is on this interview today. Now, how did you get into this industry? You've been doing it forever, right? How how'd you get your start in this?

marc: 7:22

Well, I started off when I was very young in the plant and flower business, and I know I realized that the guys that were making a lot of money with these old time importers you're talking about in the late eighties and they were bringing goods in and they were super cheap. I decided to take a foray and just dabbling in it. We did it with the fresh flowers and we did it with baskets and a couple of other things I said, wow, my margins just skyrocketed by not having a guy in the middle. This is insanity. Right. I was young. I got into the, a similar business, which was floral supplies for the floral industry. I, were the largest floral supplier in the United States for flower supplies, everything in the flower shop that didn't die. We would do everything from knives to wire to vases. I became the largest Vai supplier to 1-800-FLOWERS at the time. It was, I really got proficient at it, really. That was the beginning of a really, starting to really go crazy.

josh: 8:32

Yeah. It's, if you could buy the supply cheaper than everybody else you already got before it even hits a door or talks to a customer, you already have a one-up on your competition.

marc: 8:43

Well, that's number one, number two, I'm bringing 35 years of knowledge to the table. Maybe you're not, maybe you're not putting the proper code on it. Maybe you're not, there's a million different ways that people spend too much money and we know better because like I said, I've got a doctorate in failure and I am, so I am so experienced and in every single way, shape or form that you can get screwed. I'm not happy to report, but it's happened. And what do you get? You either win or learn. And that's what I've done. And that's where I am. 35 years later.

josh: 9:16

Yeah. All right. So, you've spent some time overseas and in off sees marketing or manufacturing, and you've learned the industry of international business, right? For someone who I'm ignorant to, how that even works, give us a picture and what it takes from when the time you hit, buy to things going on overseas, getting manufactured, getting into the door for 3 75, roll up the back door. There. It is like kind of paint a picture of what, how that works.

marc: 9:45

Well, first of all, I have a payroll in China. I have employees in China. Second of all, I, the relationships that I have with the factories are incredible. They fly in for my kids' weddings. They've stayed in my home for holidays. The chances of me getting screwed by I'm just short of a family member overseas is very unlikely. That's that's, that's what that is. We also have third party inspection services that go to the factories. I go before the pandemic, I went four to five times a year. I've been doing that every year, having missed since the beginning of the pandemic. As a matter of fact, I had a flight scheduled for February 20, and United told me, see you later. You're not, you're not going anywhere. So, I, I go on a very regular basis. So that's the differential. I have all of this time, effort and knowledge invested in the import sector. And, and like I said, we don't have enough time on this podcast for me to go through every single thing that I've imported, but take it from me with boots on the ground, over there on my payroll. We can find everything in anything. I mean, we're doing right now, sourcing treadmills. Don't ask me why I'm just doing it though. That was a customer request, you know? Yeah.

josh: 11:06

What's the biggest thing you've ever imported. Maybe the smallest thing that we wouldn't even have in our mind, but you've done on volume.

marc: 11:14

Well, I'm a component guy. What I do is I buy things for the, for the Christmas industry that you would never in a million years. So, on a reef, those fake little red berries. Yeah. I bring in 14 million stems of those little red berries. We bring in 12 million pine cones rights, I think, oh, why would you be bringing in a pine cone? We got plenty of pine cones. Yeah. When you have to paint them or make them in a group of three, why are them? To go in the Christmas decorations, it's a whole nother game. I've been doing that with a single customer over again for the past 30 years, same customer that goes to Walmart, Costco trader Joe's, Safeway, supermarkets, whole foods. I mean, everywhere and anywhere, little things that you would never understand. You'll understand when I explain them. We bring in like cut wire and steel comes in like an item. The size of a shoe box can weigh 80 pounds. Wow. So, so what happens? You open up the container and there's one layer of little boxes on the floor of the container, because it weighed out, you didn't volume out. You weighed out. Either a, you go back to the customer, you go, listen, man, I got three quarters of a container that could ride for free. What do you want to do? Or let's just pay for the wire the way it comes. And that's, and a lot of times that's what we do. So, and it's just not wire and berries. It's, it's crazy. It's just crazy stuff. We make custom. We make custom goods. We, we, we can do it. We can basically do it all.

josh: 13:01

If someone has an idea, you could take that idea and have that physical product back in their place with a cost into their warehouse. Or if they're already doing it at mass volume, you could take that product and you could find a better cost and you get it in their door. De-risk the whole transit. And they know what their hard costs. They can lock that in. Why aren't they, why aren't they? I talked with a lot of like private equity groups, aggregators, M and a groups. Why can't they just do this themselves? Why would they even want to talk with you?

marc: 13:35

Best of luck they think, or they, I really, I love that s**t. I really do. I love that because you should be emanating. You should be private equity. You should be aggregating. What the hell are you doing with this? Let, let me be the sourcing department. Let me do the stuff. Let the heavy lifting. You just sit behind your desk and crunch the numbers. Let me get in the dirt. That's really what's going on. It's not an item, like an idea. This is items that they're doing and in decent volume or mass in. But, but imagine if you're doing hundreds of thousands of units and I can save you 25% and you've done nothing, except trim that off of a line on the P and L ,

josh: 14:17

What, when we talk about like quality, you say, you have some quality control in there. Let's just say I do 100,000 units of X a month, right? You can come in and cut 25%. I'm going to say, well, I thought I got the best deal. I've been shopping this for awhile. I went on Alibaba or whatever. I, I thought I was getting the best yet. Your, you could come in and cut costs. Does that mean that the quality is going to decrease?

marc: 14:39

Absolutely not. Like, and by the way, I'm glad you said it. So Alibaba, you're going to go on. Who are you talking to? You have any idea? I'm here. You can get me. You can talk to me. You can get responses, you can get information, you can get everything you need. So, number one, when we're making a large run, okay, we not even a large run, any run that needs inspection, we send our own people into the factory. This way they can't be kind of swayed. Should I call it swayed? That a place that's quite way to say, for, so they can't be swayed on top of that. If what we do is we send in a qualified third party inspection service, and what do they do? They come in, they inspect raw materials. They inspect do pro, which is during the process. Then they have a random finished goods. They have a container loading inspection. They send an inspection report. That's about this thick and to our specs. That, this is the reason why we don't get garbage.

josh: 15:45

Yeah. You're working with a, an acquire, right, and they're showing you that the, Hey, mark, I need you to, we're looking to make a $5 million purchase, pretty big purchase. It's in consumer goods and they go take a look at this. What are you looking for? And what might they be missing? Where's the, the big gold in that opportunity for you?

marc: 16:08

Well, they're sending me, they're sending me their item. What we do is we analyze it because we have experience in all of these different items. I mean, w you wouldn't believe the things we look at. We have experience in manufacturing, the item. Maybe I never manufactured anything like this before, but if it's a powder coated metal housing, we can do it. It doesn't matter. We do tons and tons, thousands of containers of metal alone. What they could be missing a number of things. First of all, go do your business. What are you worrying about importing for when I can do it all we got, we got, I got into an argument with a customer last week because the pricing was so good that he was nasty. Like I was like, dude, I, I'm not dealing with this. I'm not, I mean, I gave you a legitimate price. I'm willing to stand behind it. Either pull the trigger or go f**k yourself, one of the other.

josh: 17:04

And how did he respond to that?

marc: 17:07

I think he went and gone f****d himself.

josh: 17:10

We're not going to paint a picture there of what that looks like,

marc: 17:13

No, we're not. I just, I just want to let you know that. I just want to let you know that the moral of that story was, my price was so good that he didn't believe me, but he wasn't out of dying. Nobody's out of diamond until it's time to pull the trigger. Why wouldn't you send us samples and a target cost. That's important. What are you paying now? And don't b******t me. Don't b******t me. What are you paying? Now? Let me tear it apart. It's all going to come out in the wash, because if you lie to me about the target cost, I'm going to find you out anyway. Why don't you just make it easy for us, both of us, me and you to give me a legitimate price of what you're paying either I come back and I shake your hand and say, listen to this price is phenomenal. Keep doing what you're doing. I don't even want the business, or I could save you 25 points. What say you.

josh: 18:02

Let's say, you could say what say you now, I love this model, but here you are taking all the risks. So you take, you know, DDP, right? You're taking it, you're sending it over. You're deconstructing. And you're fine. If I can make this thing cheaper, faster, better, right. To save on costs there, like why as your business model, I'd love to hear your business model explained, like, how do you make money? Why do you take all the risk upfront? Because I think it's phenomenal. It it's, it seems like a no brainer.

marc: 18:31

It is a no brainer. It's an absolute, no-brainer. It's just the fact that, a lot of these guys that are on the water, they've got 900 people in a sourcing department. Not that I want anybody to lose their jobs. I don't. But at the same time, yeah. Heavy handed. You, you went overboard because you didn't understand the animal and you put 900 people in the sourcing department that you didn't have to put in. And now here you are. And here I am. So, you know, what is my model? My business model is very simple. I get the good so well that I put in a small margin for myself. You don't feel anything. 3 75, I put a small margin in the 3 75. Is your price completely. If you're paying four and a quarter and I get it for 3 75, your price is 3 75. My margin is built in. There's no red cross on my back, dude. I just, I'm not in the charity business. I'm in business. So that's what I do. We, we added in, but we still come back with the 3 75.

josh: 19:30

Okay. So what's included in that price, right? Other what's including yours and what, as someone who's in the import or consumer product goods, service, what they're, what fees might they not be? Even knowing that they're paying. It kind of explain what you get versus what might happen over here.

marc: 19:50

Well, I mean, there's a number of spots. I mean, if you're not proficient, I mean, that's why people, some of them employ experts internally, but there's a lot of areas. I mean, maybe they would maybe they're misclassifying their goods. Number one, maybe they just don't, maybe they're buying from a couple of guys that are stepping on something. So, I mean, basically when I see an item and it comes from a certain region in China, I know it's a trading agent because there's no way that you're going to be making X in Hong Kong or Y in San Jen, if it's a hardwood product, hardwood only grows in Northern China. It's, it's hard wood. It needs to be cold. You can't grow hardwood in tropical paradise. She just can't. That, I mean minimally, but that's the kind of things that I look at and understand the minute I look at something, what does a doctor look at something? You have no idea what it is, but instantaneously, he looks at it and he goes, oh yeah, no, that's a number six. Well, guess what? You've seen 300 number six, walk into the office that year. And that's what's going on.

josh: 20:59

Yeah. Included in your quote, what's included in your quote. If you give someone 3 75 for product day,

marc: 21:07

Yup.

josh: 21:08

What's included in yours and what should, if they're not looking at this, what should they look at in their current, consumer price, good product, good. What, what should they be looking at hitting fees or these extra costs that they might not know they're paying.

marc: 21:25

It's a, it's a, that's an interesting question because every situation is different. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know what they're doing with the freight portion. I don't know what they are doing with the duty portion. I don't know what they're doing with the inland freight. I don't know. I don't know all of those things, but these are all different areas. Maybe somebody is charging them a big overseas because they're a, I, I get 50 cents a unit. Maybe they don't even know that, maybe they don't, to start over again, you're washing away all the nonsense and all the 50 cent VIG or whatever the hell is going on, which I'm not interested in. I don't give a s**t. I'm going into a factory. I'm telling you what you need. You need a left-handed widget, you need a hundred thousand of them and you gotta below a four and a quarter. Okay, watch this. I go and either I can do it, or I can't, I'm really a kiss guy. Keep it simple, stupid. That's who I am. I'm not highfalutin. I don't think I'm anybody. I'm just the guy who knows how to do what I'm doing and knocks the s**t out of it every day. On top of it, I don't charge you a red, hot nickel to find out. That's why I'm picky about who I do this with, because then I'll get a guy going, oh yeah, let's throw that a*****e a, a product and let's see what happens. No, no. I'm not a science experiment, dude. I'm a guy that I'm a guy that's going to do a big job for you. You're talking about tens of millions of dollars in savings. That's what you're talking about. So yeah.

josh: 22:49

So when we talk about money, right? What would be to get your interest? Like what would be like the minimum order or something like that, where you're like, Hey, if it's below this, just keep doing what you're doing. Maybe we'll talk in the future. Once you hit here, this is a sweet spot for me. This is the beginning of a great relationship. What does that look like?

marc: 23:06

No, what I do is I actually back into that's a great question, Josh. Actually, so what I do is, so they say, oh, he has a left-handed widget. I go back and I say, okay, left-handed widget. I could do 3 75, but we have an MLQ minimum order, quantity of 5,000 pieces. You hit the 5,000 pieces. We go to the dance. If you don't hit the 5,000 pieces, we can't do it because that's minimum order quantity, you hit the MOQ. What I do, not only do I give good pricing, I also try to work down the to try to, so you don't have too much money tied up in it, but with the supply chain and everything, you definitely want to have some backups, especially while we're coming into fourth quarter. You definitely want to have some backups.

josh: 23:52

Yeah. What's interesting is with the supply chain issues, right. We saw the cost of goods, like for example, windows, right. We work with a lot of real estate companies and construction companies like windows in general, like the prices went up and then they're on back orders. There's a bunch of construction sites with, plywood covering the windows and they're waiting for the orders to come in. How do you make sure that that doesn't happen to you or the clients that you're working with? How do you make sure that you guys have somewhat insight into the supply chain?

marc: 24:22

Well, I, first of all, we have a direct contact with the shipping companies, not guys in the middle. I have a partner that speaks to them on a regular basis. We get Intel on the shipping companies, almost on a re almost, well, I won't say almost on a regular basis. So we're finding out what's going on. As far as pricing is concerned, that's a calculated risk that I'm taking. Nobody knows, nobody knows where the freight prices are going. I'll tell you that. Probably going to be very expensive, at least till the end of the year. Next year we'll be a clean slate. Let's see what happens, but nobody knows. Nobody knows the answer.

josh: 25:02

What at all the products you ever get, which one excited you and your family the most like, you're like, oh, this is cool. I never thought of this. Or is something that you wound up buying a few yourself.

marc: 25:15

I mean, we've, we did a Christmas. So we did a Christmas item. It was called light flurries. It actually projected a moving snow fall on your house. That was a really, that was a very interesting project because it was very intricate. I went over there a couple of times to work through the bugs. We brought it in, it was pretty cool. We got about two or three years out of it. Technology took over because it was an led light lamp that blue, that went onto a mirror ball. Now with technology and the led came and that's how old I am, Josh, the led came along and then boom, it blew it away. With a small little thing about this big, they can do a whole snow full scene on the house. That was the end of that. It was half the price, no less a technology's a wonderful thing, but I was a pretty cool. That was a pretty cool thing. I mean, you can see behind me, we do waterproof Firestarters we do fire gloves, magnesium strikers. We do baby items. I've got, I've got I hot and cold packs. It doesn't, it doesn't stop. And it never will.

josh: 26:16

Yeah. You mentioned a few items that you just won't touch. Right? Shoes, things that need to be sewn, soft goods, things that you said have a return factor. Why? I mean, it sounds like you made this, you potentially made this decision after you got your doctorate and failure. Like, why do you stay away from it? Tell me, tell me some of the stories behind that and why you've shifted to only hard consumables.

marc: 26:40

Okay. Because, and I'll tell you one other thing when I'm looking at, when I'm also looking at deals, I tell people ahead of time, no apps, why no apps because there's 300,000 apps right now being thought of in may. It's like buying a lot of tickets. Why wouldn't I just buy a lot of tickets? So, so that's that, but with the sewing and the cutting and the sizes and the shoes and the, it just, it's just a lot of nonsense on the customer side. I just because I'm experienced, it's a personal decision and a business decision. Why I decided not to go forward with that just because it's nothing but a colossal pain in the ass. Guys, if you're all out there in the clothing business, I don't want to hear voice s**t out of you. That's yours, that's your business. I do my business and everybody goes to the rides off into the sunset. I don't want any diatribes about the shoes and clothing more s**t. You know,

josh: 27:37

There you go. I liked that you just shoot straight. Right. I really admire that about you. You talked about riding off into the sunset, what needs to happen. Right. We talked about winning the lottery or, we hit a big goal or something like that. Like how do you're winning as a deal maker? Riding off into the sunset seems closer than further.

marc: 27:58

Well, cause I'm not riding off into the sunset. I'm never riding off into the sunset. I, I love what I do. I do it every day. Every deal's different. I love it. I will, I, I used to say as a younger man that I'll die at my desk, but I probably won't die at my desk, but family's important, et cetera. I don't see, I, I'm not doing manual labor. I'm not doing physical stuff. I'm using my mouth and I'm talking in my experience and okay. I'll go to China a few times a year and do my deals and visit my visit, my friends, that own factories, et cetera. The bottom line is I don't see. I don't see any, I don't see any stopping you. I just don't. I love what I do too much.

josh: 28:39

Yeah. All right. Out of what you're doing now, what do you do for fun? Right? You're your dealmaker. You're, you're working on China hours and you're dealing deals internationally. How do you kick back in and have fun? What do you do for recreation?

marc: 28:58

Boy, that's embarrassing. I'm going to say nothing. I mean, I just, I, I, I adore my family. My family is everything to me. I mean, I love spending time with my family. That's what I, and it's basically, whatever you guys want to do as long as I'm that man I'm in. I don't like, I don't golf and I don't do s**t like that. I don't fish. I don't, I, I don't do anything. I just, I just, whatever my family, my, one of my family is doing. That's what I want to be doing. So I'm a basic family guy.

josh: 29:28

Your family dude. Yeah. I like.

marc: 29:30

To have my first, I just had my first, my daughter had him, but my daughter had her first child, which was my grandson. So, you know, I, you know, I.

josh: 29:40

You're new grandpa.

marc: 29:42

I'm a new grandfather two and a half years ago. He's two and a half. So he's my universe. That's, he's like, he says, jump. I say, how high that's it? Yeah.

josh: 29:51

I heard, I heard grandkids are better than actual kids. Like if I could have skipped it and gone straight to the grandkids, I heard they're pretty phenomenal. Yeah.

marc: 29:58

Listen, man, everybody says the same s**t. Oh my God, Fran kids, but what I'm telling you is like, whatever somebody tells you, multiply it by 10. That's what I'm telling you. It's fantastic. I'm loose as a goose, I used to, I'll never forget it. I used to come home all those years ago and go, don't do that. Don't touch nothing. The kid touches something now it's like, Hey yeah, let them touch that. That's all right, listen. It's good. Hey kid, you want a cookie? All right, cool. I mean, and his mother's yelling at me just sat a cookie. It's no good as a f*****g cookie. What's the big deal. Give him a coat. You know? That's, that's what I do for fun.

josh: 30:35

If you and I were ever in a movie together, like we get to be in any movie past, present or future, what kind of movie would you want to CoStar in it? Like, we're going to get like leading roles, big shot, lots of budget. You and I could be in a movie. What kind of movie would you want to be in?

marc: 30:51

That's a great question because I don't even look at movies. I, I don't, I think the last movie I saw was like monsters Inc. With my kids 25 years ago. I don't, I don't even watch movies. I could give two s***s. I like docu. I like documentaries. I like documentaries. I watched because I want to see what's going on behind the scenes. I like that. I like real documentaries where they tell you the truth and not some fluffy b******t. I liked that. But that's a great question. I mean, should I say some superhero nonsense? I mean, what should I do?

josh: 31:25

You just shot straight with me. You're like b******t. I don't want to be in a movie.

marc: 31:28

Yeah. Movies, sock. I don't know, man. My sons are going to kill me cause he loves movies, but who cares?

josh: 31:36

Yeah. All right. As you're building this, right, you're building some cool things. You got some teams going when it comes to a perfect deal that comes across your plate. Like I'm interviewing a bunch of people and man, I find the perfect deal and I go, Hey, you got to talk to my buddy, mark. What does that perfect deal look like for you?

marc: 31:56

Perfect deal is somebody that's bringing in goods and feels like, what? It just doesn't feel right to me. I think there's some fat. I think this fat in these goods, could you take a look at it for me? Or I'm thinking of acquiring this deal, but I really would. I really like a nice, like x-ray vision through what the hell's going on. Not the quality of earnings, not the, be all the other lines, but the big fat steak that's in the middle of your P and L called cost the goods. Wouldn't you like to throw on a pair of x-ray specs and just look straight through it and go, holy s**t, I got another 25 points in this. That's what the perfect deal looks like. Not only for me, but it's a perfect deal that looks like for you because you, you haven't even closed yet. More than the guy who selling how's that.

josh: 32:43

When more than the person selling, that puts you in a powerful spot. We did it in the real estate world where we knew something, maybe a complex is going there or whatever, right? If you have an understanding of what might happen in the future, you have an advantage, right?

marc: 32:58

Well, knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. What do they say? Knowledge is power. The bottom line is whether you closed or not. I mean, if you closed and you were happy at 4 25, God bless you. At the same time, if I could come along and make that 4 25, 3 75, who's better than you.

josh: 33:18

Yeah. Yeah, no, I love it. This is super cool. Mark, for my private equity, friends and aggregators and the people, buying and selling these kinds of businesses and they want it. They want your eyeballs on something, Hey man, we're spending a million bucks on this. We want you, we think there's some fat here. Where, where could they go to connect with you and have a chat about it?

marc: 33:37

Global source, ip.com. The name of the company is global source infrastructure.com, but it's not it's global source, ip.com global source ip.com. Right?

josh: 33:49

What we'll do is we'll put the, that link in the show notes below. Guys, if you're driving, running, whatever, if you're doing a deal, you can always go back to the show notes, click on that, connect directly to mark, have him take a look, man. The, the quality of earnings versus the quality of costs. If that's something that you have immediate control over and that could, maybe get you another vehicle or another house, or depending on the size of the deal. Mark, what questions should I have asked you in this interview that I screwed up, man, and I didn't ask you,

marc: 34:19

Well, you didn't really screw up anything. I mean, you definitely proved that I wasn't dealing with a full back and I'm no b******t and let them mention, the, the, your podcast and I'll get on the intro call with them. I mean, they'll talk to me directly. I just want, I just want to get the deals done, just like they do. I want to get the same deals that they want done. I'm just, I'm wearing a different uniform than they are, but at the same time, I mentioned the podcast and I'll be all over it.

josh: 34:59

Cool. This podcast is the deal scout and mark. What I like about you is you're a straight shooter. Deal-maker right. If you could take a look at your, the next time we're working on a deal, I'd love you to take a look at it and go, Hey guys, if you buy this right off the bat, you could save 50% on this good man. I'll be cool. Other fellow dealmakers out in the audience as always reach out to our guests and say, thank you for, being on the show, sharing your knowledge and wisdom. That's the purpose and mission of the show is to put deals and deal makers together. If you have a deal, whether you're buying something, or maybe you're just spending a lot of money and you want mark to take a look at it, his contact information will be in the show notes, reach out to them and say, Hey, heard you on the show. Would you mind taking a look at this deal for me, mark? Appreciate you coming on. You. Hold on real quick. We're going to chat in a minute about a deal, ladies and gentlemen, if you're working on a deal, looking at a deal or want to talk about it here on the podcast, head on over to the deal. Scout.com. Fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next till then talk to you all in the next episode. Bye everybody.