In a recent podcast, Henry Byrne and Reid Lappin shared their journey of scaling Vocal, highlighting the critical role of outsourced financial consultants, strategic acquisitions, and innovative leadership in business growth. Their experiences offer valuable lessons for companies navigating the complex terrain of scaling, particularly in the mid-market and private equity-backed sectors.
Episode Transcript
Seth: Gentlemen, good morning. Nice to see you read. How are you? I’m great, Seth. How are you? I’m great, Henry. How are you? I’m fantastic. Awesome. Thank you guys so much for opening up your space to me and to the podcast and to our, our listeners. This is a really exciting. We were going to try to To do the podcast at my favorite diner S and G, but it was just, uh, the, the noise just didn’t work out there, unfortunately.
Seth: So we still wanted to have an informal setting where we could get together. So this is perfect couches, all this stuff around us and just talk the way that we would talk if, if we were there. So thank you so much for opening up your office to us and allowing us to do this. Of course. So. I would read you’re the founder and CEO vocal Henry, you’re the CFO.
Seth: How long have you guys been together now? Two years this week, actually. Wow. Yeah. Well, and you say that without it sounding like 10 years. Uh, yeah, yeah,
Henry Byrne: absolutely. It’s been, uh, it’s been a great two years, you know, read and I have really transformed a lot of the business and transformed a lot of the way we work over the two years, which has been great and just fantastic ride so far.
Seth: Incredible. So we actually met over LinkedIn. I’ve actually developed a number of fascinating relationships over LinkedIn. This is, this is one of my favorites. I actually have bought seven companies in my career by like cold reach out. On LinkedIn, but no one believes me when I say that, but it’s, it’s a powerful platform.
Seth: It is a very powerful platform. And so I’m so happy that we connected and that we’ve become friends. And I’ve become just a tremendous admirer of you both and the company you’ve built. And I’m fascinated with, with where you’re going. So let’s back way up and start at the beginning. Actually, let’s start right here in the present.
Seth: Tell us about the company. Tell us about what brought you to found vocal. I know this is not your first venture, and then let’s talk about the journey here through your life, how both of you got here, and then we want to talk a bit about how you’re. interfacing with the private equity markets, which I think is very, very fascinating.
Seth: And a lot of that’s something that a lot of companies have a desire to do easier said than done. I also want to talk about founders often need a very, very strong financial partner. The office of the CFO is critical. And I want to talk about this relationship. They want to talk about where you guys are heading.
Seth: And then we’ll kind of wrap up and, and do some key takeaways for our, for our audience. So tell us about vocal and then let’s talk about the journey here. Yeah. So
Reid Lappin: vocal in its current form is a full service digital agency aimed predominantly at mid market and private equity shops operating in the mid market space.
Reid Lappin: When I founded vocal, I was in college and it’s been, you know, it’s gone through a handful of evolutions, but when we started the business, there was less than 4, 000 apps in the app store. And the whole premise of vocal was to go to market building iPhone apps for businesses. You say that in 2024, and it sounds like, okay, that sounds kind of obvious, but you say that in 2009.
Reid Lappin: And, and again, consider there was 4, 000 apps in the app store. There weren’t many agencies that were focused on that space as the business has evolved. You know, what I really saw an opportunity in was as, as everything has started to come online and we live in an economy that’s full of grabbing attention, that’s full of selling goods through, through e commerce mid market brands, particularly stood out to me.
Reid Lappin: And what I saw was quite simple was hiring is very difficult for our business, for Tech companies that have raised a series A or a series B. It’s even more challenging in mid market. Um, I grew up, my father started on the assembly lines of Chrysler, uh, operated predominantly in mid market businesses, was CEO of mid market businesses, and then ended up as the first operating partner at Blackstone Groom.
Reid Lappin: So even when I looked at his career, you know, I really saw a window for vocal to start focusing both in mid market where he spent a lot of his time and also in private equity, which is starting to gobble up a lot of mid market and baby boomer business. So today the way we really go to market is we’ve made a series of acquisitions and investments that have allowed us to take a full service approach and help mid market brands that are managing either a series of boutique agencies.
Reid Lappin: So I’ve got Seth’s agency for creative. I got Susie’s agency for e commerce. I’ve got Henry’s agency for, for data and analytics. And this just breaks down your Omni strategy very quickly. And it’s really difficult to get A plus talent. And so what we focus on is our hiring strategy. We focus on bringing on the right clients.
Reid Lappin: And then we get to business in a value creation model and really focus on moving metrics quickly and creating a maturity inside of these companies that will allow them to thrive for the next hundred years.
Seth: That’s exciting. That’s exciting. Now you started the business in college. How many years ago was that now?
Seth: 15. 15 years ago. And Henry, you’ve been here two years. Okay. Was Henry your first CFO? Henry is my fourth CFO. And we don’t want to, we do want to talk about The journey as a founder and in scaling an enterprise, oftentimes the team that got you to a certain level won’t get you, you know, to the next level or as you mature as an executive, you also find out your strengths and weaknesses and what you really need in a, in a team member.
Seth: Henry, I’d love to hear your background and how you got here and what. What was the magic and the confluence of events that brought you two together to kind of unlock your scaling?
Henry Byrne: Yeah, no, absolutely. So I come from a banking background, so I think, you know, I was in banking and I felt like, you know, I was learning a ton.
Henry Byrne: I had, you know, great trajectory, but I just got so enamored with being company side. I felt like I wanted to go and build something. And I, I needed to be a part of that build and you know, when I, I took a lot of reflection and I really felt like, okay, the next move is, is, is company side for me. And then I was really selective.
Henry Byrne: I like truly wanted to find something. I felt like had a path towards towards building. I had a friend that connected me with vocal and. You know, I got on the phone with Reed and, you know, instantly you kind of know when, when there’s a person that you can get behind. And I knew Reed just from who he is as a person, but how he talked about the business and where he wanted to take it, that he was a person I could get behind.
Henry Byrne: So from there, I mean, it was a quick, like, I want to join vocal. I want to join, you know, the, the thing that they’re trying to build. And when I got into the business, it was very apparent to me, like, there’s a ton of opportunity. We have so many things that we can operationally do better, but also there’s so many things that, you know, this team can learn on how to really grow a business organically and inorganically.
Henry Byrne: I, you know, kind of joke with my family and, and read sometimes like, he’s the, we’re kind of yin yang breeds. eccentric and can light up a room. And it’s not that I can’t do that, but I don’t love doing that. And it’s also how we operate. He’s the entrepreneur. He wants to go and build as quick as possible.
Henry Byrne: I’m the one that is a little bit more pragmatic and helps kind of keep things a little bit more realistic and, and build in the right way. And I think that’s what, what has been great about our partnership really is having someone that’s pushing consistently, having me. Pull a little bit back, but finding that middle ground to really build in the right way.
Henry Byrne: And that’s what, that’s what I’ve done here. And that’s what we do together and with the rest of the team is finding that growth path that makes sense. And that’s, that’s how I got here. It’s really like believing in something and truly thinking we can go and do something great.
Seth: Yeah. And did you know that you were the fourth CEO on this journey?
Henry Byrne: I did know there was a few CFOs. Before me, you know, I think I’ve, I’ve talked to read about this. Like the one unique thing about me is, is the banking background because I’ve seen companies build over time. You know, I told, I told read this one of the businesses that I worked on and helped sell, we had sold four different times at my bank and, and you see, you can see the case studies and how they grew and what they did.
Henry Byrne: And it’s, you know, it’s possible. And so that’s something that, you know, I knew I could do if I joined a company that I felt I could get behind.
Seth: Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s incredible. So in this conversation, right, knowing that you’re knowing that you’re coming from investment banking, you’re getting ready to go native.
Seth: You, you find you, you saw the same thing and read that I’ve seen and read that a lot of people see and read. And you also know that there have been people that preceded you in this role. I want to hear more about that conversation between the two of you, because like, I’m a believer in business systems.
Seth: Like we’ve, we’ve talked about this and I’m somewhat indifferent to them, you know, in the lower mid market, there’s Rockefeller habits and there’s EOS. These are kind of like the two known paradigms EOS kind of coined the term visionary. Integrator. And it feels like you’re playing that integrator role, right?
Seth: As reads business partner, much broader than just right. The function of the CFO. So tell me what did you have other people really being your business that were in the, the, the role of CFO really being your business partner kind of on that journey before, did something change in you where you said. I need to change my approach to how I’m building my team.
Seth: I need a partner. What happened?
Reid Lappin: Yeah. You know, as I mentioned, the business has evolved and I have evolved tremendously over the last 15 years as we all do. You know, it’s funny to hear you talk about EOS. It’s funny to just like, reflect as, you know, four CFOs and, you know, the fortune of having Henry, you know, coming into my life and the business.
Reid Lappin: I think the important thing as, as the founder and the journey, we talked about the journey. We’ll talk about the journey quite a bit on this podcast. Yes. You know, I started business, but I had no clue what I was doing and I had no clue what I was starting. And so I think the partners that I’ve had over the years as CFOs have all been productive partners for where I was in my maturity, which the business reflects a lot of where my maturity is, right?
Reid Lappin: And so, you know, as we look at Volkl as it stands today, We have a heck of a lot more intentionality of where we want to take the business and why. For many years, the business operated, and it’s funny when I think about EOS because we’ve done, I’ve done EOS, I think we did it in quotes well. The problem was We didn’t know where we wanted to take the train.
Reid Lappin: Yep. So the train just kind of left the station and came back to the station every day. And that was just a matter of having enough cashflow to survive that day and do it again the next day. And we’ve always had, I think, a really, you know, I think we’ve always had a productive Financial office at the organization, but the interesting thing in Henry coming into the business, he came in at such a great time and was such a great background.
Reid Lappin: We all need a little bit of luck. And I’d say that, you know, I’ve gotten very lucky with Henry stepping into the company. And many others on our team. But when we got real conviction that we could create value for our business in helping mid market is when we knew where we wanted to take the train. And as an operator, as a CEO, and as a founder, my life changed a lot.
Reid Lappin: I started to have a lot more fun at work and I always had fun. It was like, I’ve looked back over 15 years. I’m like, I can’t say there wasn’t a day that we all go through ups and downs, but I’ve always enjoyed what I’ve done. This has been the most challenging last couple of years and the most. Growth that the business has, has really gone through in terms of a transformation and the most traction that we’ve gotten on a true vision.
Reid Lappin: So, so that, that, that was kind of long winded in that sense, but I think having a financial partner that can help you invest in truly building towards a vision and not just operating a day to day cashflow business is exactly what Henry has been able to service in the last couple of years. And it’s allowed us to invest in the right acquisitions and the right talent.
Reid Lappin: It’s allowed me to make some bets that have failed. That’s right. And some will. Yes. And some will. And, and I don’t have a CFO that’s calling me with the doom and gloom. So I’m able to go out and focus on the vision and report back every day and know that our business is going to be healthy, safe, and that we will have the oxygen that we need to build, I think, what, what mid market needs out of an agency.
Henry Byrne: Yeah. Yeah, and just to add, I think, like, one thing that Reid and I talk about is, the fact that I care so much about the operations and, and, and actually operationalizing the vision. So, you know, to, to his point, he didn’t really know where the business was going. Now we have a very clear vision of what we want to do, how we want to do it.
Henry Byrne: And, and I understand it to a really deep degree to really understanding, Hey, these are the, this is the talent we need to go after. These are the people we need to, uh, bring in house. These are the companies that we need to try to acquire. The things like that, having someone that that understands that from a vision standpoint is really important in my seat.
Henry Byrne: And I think that that’s something that we work on daily, consistently, like, how are we tracking towards it? Um, and that’s another really important piece is like, in my seat, I’m not just, you know, You know, the, the numbers guy, the guy that’s keeping the, the doors open, I’m, I’m also the one that’s helping operationalize from a financial perspective, what we’re trying to do.
Seth: Yep. Now you guys are, it’s, it’s amazing in the time that I’ve known you all, I, I, I, I would say that you are one of the most aligned teams. And organizations, especially of your size and scale, which is unique in a founder led entrepreneurial business. That’s growing the way that you’re growing a few things, the intentionality, as you mentioned about where you’re going, the alignment at the leadership team level, but also from what I’ve experienced with you all, how that, how, how transparent you all are.
Seth: And how that within your organization and how that is trickled down, it is, it is very clear that there is an aligned heartbeat of the organization at every single step. level. That’s my observation. How have you achieved that
Reid Lappin: organizationally? I mean, it’s still very much a work in progress. Um, and always will be, you know, one of the things that we’ve done, um, you know, I think it starts in hiring and recruiting, first of all, right?
Reid Lappin: So if you’re going to kind of get an aligned organization, you know, one of the things I tell everyone, In the interview process is that this job isn’t for everybody and and you need to be ready and it’s there’s there’s the job to be done every day but then I need your help building the business. We need your help building the business.
Reid Lappin: So I think it starts in our recruiting and our hiring. We also hold an all hands every two weeks where the all hands is very repetitive by the way it is this is what we’re building this is where we’re at this is what we’re excelling at this is where we’re falling short and as I tell the company when we’re falling short or we’re not hitting our targets.
Reid Lappin: It’s not that we’re failing, but we just need to face reality and all address together. What are the things that we need to do to, to either shore up the ship or to make traction more quickly or make more progress, whether it’s on top line with results of our clients, which is probably the most critical thing to our business.
Reid Lappin: Um, and, and so, you know, I think if you get the right people on board that understand the job to be done and you keep that beat, you know, you mentioned that beat, that rhythm, For us, it’s every two weeks and you just have to face reality. I think sometimes people, you know, you can, I’m very good at selling our vision, our vision works very well.
Reid Lappin: But then the work starts, right? And and if you have a crew that’s on board for the challenges can have fun together and and look, we have a stock program for everyone in our business because we also feel that, you know, as we create value, the folks that are putting in all the hard work every day, Need to participate in that upside.
Reid Lappin: So I think those are just some of the, the characteristics that are top of mind when you ask the question of, you know, how have we, you know, not necessarily achieved what we’ve done, but how do we do what we do? And, and we’ve certainly achieved a lot of alignment, but we, we have a ways to go and, and we’ll continue to learn and refine on how we continue to align the team.
Seth: I want to talk about your stock program, Henry. This is, this is something I, I believe wholeheartedly. I think that, that. This is something that I find lower mid market businesses struggle with to, for some reason, getting over the hump of kind of creating an equity for all program and to also think about structuring, how you structure that.
Seth: Would you mind sharing how you’ve structured the equity for the the stock program in your company?
Henry Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. It’s it’s the the structure is really around a percentage of the overall holdings co of the business. So when we set it up, we we set out a number of units for the program would represent X percentage of of the business in a in a transaction or liquidity event.
Henry Byrne: And then, you know, we, we have a lot of ability within that program to, uh, We’ll give out more units if we feel like someone, um, isn’t, you know, doing great for the business, helping us grow the business. But you know, for, for us, it’s really to read point, like everyone has a percent, everyone has a piece for a reason.
Henry Byrne: You want it, you want to be here for a reason. And you know, to add to what Reed was saying. What I, what I tell people in interview is interviews is you’re going to have a voice here and your voice matters and you’re, you can’t, you can’t sit on the sidelines. We need everyone to feel like their voices is important in the growth of everyone here is immense.
Henry Byrne: If they, if they lean in and want to do it. Um, and I think that’s the cool thing too, is, is pairing that with the actual reality of, Hey, I own a piece of this business too exciting. It motivates people. And it helps people understand like I can actually grow to be someone that I potentially would have taken 10 years in a normal agency business.
Henry Byrne: I can achieve it in halftime or even, even less than that. I think that’s another important piece is people realizing that when they join something like this, that they can grow their career in a way that you’re not, you can’t necessarily grow in a regular agency business. That’s probably that’s at scale already.
Seth: What motivated you and I’m curious, when, when did you start the stock program and philosophically what motivated you to do that? I think this is really important for founders to hear. Yeah, so I,
Reid Lappin: I mean, we started day one and, and it was just always, You know, my dad was a great mentor. I lost him a few years ago, and I’m sorry, and it was always part of the philosophy that the people putting in the hard work deserve to participate in the upside.
Reid Lappin: It shouldn’t be a select few at the top. It’s, you know, the reality is, I can set the vision. I don’t write code. I’ve never placed an ad. I can’t do creative. Everything we do for our client, I can’t do. So it takes a team and it doesn’t matter at what level of seniority you’re at. You’re part of building the business.
Reid Lappin: I mean, there’s working in the business and there’s working on the business. I, my expectation is that we all do both. And so it really was a day one philosophy that I was fortunate enough to inherit from, from my dad and just my parents values and how I was raised and, and, and I look at it, I, my dad who again started on the assembly lines and ran companies had a very effective career of making people a lot of money and money is just a marker in the business, but it means that you’re achieving your goals and hitting your marks and creating value.
Seth: It’s, it’s interesting, Henry, you know, I, I, there are three ways to kind of structure these programs and I’m sure that I’m going to get off of this topic in a minute, but I think it’s, it’s, I really want people to learn more about this, so it sounds like you’ve done, you, you basically created an employee pool of, of real stock, not phantom equity, which is a different way.
Seth: to do it. The third way to do it is to create a profits interest, but you actually created a MIP, a management incentive pool. You took equity, right? Set aside equity from the business. Just curious when you’re allocating that, are those shares vesting over time? Question one, question two, let’s say you were ever to bring in a private equity into the business or investment into the business.
Seth: Curious just for our readers to understand how you’ve structured this. Is there acceleration of vesting upon change control? And if so, as you’ve looked at structuring that program, is it full vesting upon change control? Do, is there a partial vesting or a requirement for, let’s say, roll over Into that, right?
Seth: From a, from a retention perspective, just really curious that people struggle to understand these, these concepts and to think about all the things that you want to put in place, right. To also ensure, you know, long term retention, long term incentives. So how does the program work?
Henry Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. So it’s, it is a phantom plan actually.
Henry Byrne: It is phantom. Yes. The, the units are, are, are vesting is, is immediately when someone joins company. Okay. Um, if they were to leave the company, they forfeit the units. Um, and then in, in terms of if a, you know, liquidity event were to happen, obviously they best automatically. So they would, they would be paid out accordingly to their, to their units.
Henry Byrne: But yeah, that’s, it’s actually program, you know, since it started early that I inherited, but, you know, I think it’s, it’s a, it makes sense for, for, for, Perfect sense. And it sounds like it’s very well designed. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, like I said, it gives you, you know, incentives for people when, you know, you, you see the growth that they can provide and it’s just a really important part of the business.
Seth: Yeah, I, I, I agree. I agree. So anyway, well, I’ll get off of that topic. I think more companies. Should do it. I’m shocked that they don’t. I’m not surprised. Well, I’ve known this for a while, but I’m not surprised that knowing you that, that, that you did this, let’s back up. You’ve mentioned your father a few times.
Seth: Let’s go back to your, to your roots, to your upbringing, to your moral core, to your value base. And it sounds like you were born an entrepreneur is what it sounds like to me. But, but let’s talk about. That entrepreneurial journey for you, your father’s influence. And I, in very similar to another friend of mine, George knows who I knew his father very well.
Seth: Homer, who started his business. It’s funny. George bought its company called Arkell International. George bought that business from his dad. I want to say 15 years ago or so, but Homer until his early nineties still came into the business at least into the office at least every week. And he actually, um, Up until maybe a year before Homer passed, he wrote George a note almost every week on his thoughts on the business.
Seth: That also let, when Homer passed a few years ago, that also left a big void for George. And I’ve been with him and seeing him, how he’s matured and developed, but he was so fortunate to have his father as his best friend. And that is not, that’s just a loss that Will never be filled by anyone else and I’m curious, but I also see with his father gone, um, how George has now also taken such a tremendous developmental leap as his fully as his own executive and his own person without his father’s presence.
Seth: What role did your father play in your journey? And if you don’t mind talking about it, after his passing, what is this? How is, how has his passing influenced you, transformed you? How does his presence still play a role in what you’re doing if you don’t mind talking about it?
Reid Lappin: Yeah, no,
Seth: I
Reid Lappin: certainly don’t mind talking about it.
Reid Lappin: There’s a lot in that. I’ll just kind of start with a few just fresh thoughts that come to mind. I think, so my upbringing, my parents did an incredible job being partners. My dad was on a plane five, six days a week. I’d saw him on weekends my entire life. So, you know, they both, my mom and dad raised my brother and I with incredible values.
Reid Lappin: And, and, you know, I, I remind one of my best friends comes from, uh, a very successful family and I remind him all the time, which is also reminding myself that, you know, one of the greatest learnings I got from my dad as a kid, not spending a lot of time with him was watching how hard he worked and knowing that he did it for the family.
Reid Lappin: He wasn’t a flashy guy. He gave away most of his money, to be honest. And, and I always remind my friend, I’m like, your daughter’s watching what you do every day. And I remind myself that, my kids see me and how I carry myself, where I spend my time, how present I am. And so I think that that’s, that was an important influence that wasn’t necessarily taught, but was something I just was in In our environment growing up, my brother and I, when I look at the business support side of it, I really loved hearing your, your comment on, he wrote him a note and a thought every day, every week on the business.
Reid Lappin: That’s pretty cool, by the way. It is super cool. And so, you know, early on, I’ll tell a funny story. When I first started the business, my parents didn’t give me a big check and say, Hey, go start a company. I pitched the idea. And I never really knew I was an entrepreneur, but I definitely have it in me. And I pitched the idea and my dad’s friend was at the table with him.
Reid Lappin: And he said, that sounds like a pretty good idea. So I think my first check was like 12, 000 and you know, however, we got started, we got started in the business, got some traction and 12, 000 wasn’t a lot to start Software development company building apps. And my dad’s policy for us, for me early on was, you know, I would ride it.
Reid Lappin: I didn’t have a CFO when I first started, I was handwriting every check and I would ride payroll until the next day. Like did payroll be coming tomorrow? And I either had enough money in the bank or I didn’t, I never wanted to call him and tell him what was happening. Of course, seven days earlier, it drove him absolutely nuts.
Reid Lappin: He’s like, you could have called me two weeks ago. And, and he’s, his policy was. He would, he would give me a check. I just had to come home for dinner with my mom and dad. So it was, it was, it was awesome. And that gave us time and space to just, you know, reflect and talk about the business as the business grew, we got into more formal reviews with them.
Reid Lappin: You know, he didn’t work in tech, but his wisdom was just, you know, he’d run so many companies over the years and, and, and his wisdom was just fantastic. But I think the thing that I want to highlight most is less of maybe the impact he had on me from a work perspective. He always told me to and my brother to, to not do it the way that he did it.
Reid Lappin: And as I mentioned, he was gone five, six days a week and he supported a lot of families, supported our family. And so my brother and I think have both done a really good job on the work life balance side. Um, I’ve got four kids at home. My wife, we have, we live in Lincoln park. We kids are in school and sports.
Reid Lappin: And so I, I just try to focus on partitioning well. And I love work and it’s easy to spend a lot of time at work. You need to when you’re building a business. But I think for anyone listening to this, you know, you only live one life and I don’t think my dad died with any regrets, but, but I know that I would have loved more of his time.
Reid Lappin: So that’s just kind of, I think the best lesson I think I learned. To your question on the impact after he passed, you know, it’s, it’s two years. As I say to my brother, It happened at the right time, whatever that means. I think we had learned so much. I’m 37. My brother’s 39. My brother also operates a business.
Reid Lappin: We were ready. And, you know, it’s still been difficult because you build such a, certainly my dad was my best friend of friendship, but he was my call every night. Yeah. And when that goes away, you’ve got to figure out just how you’re going to operate, you know, without that, that mentor, without that call, without that dinner, unfortunately, we don’t need checks, you know, anymore, but without that dinner.
Reid Lappin: But yeah, I think, you know, afterwards it was, it was really about, I think it forced me to get clarity on what I want to be when I grow up. And it was a good journey and reflection. It was all, you know, it was all positive. It’s hard. Everyone, you can’t avoid loss. Everyone’s going to go through it. But, but I was just very blessed to have the lessons, the relationship, the love that I had and still have from them.
Reid Lappin: Yeah. I mean, I know it wasn’t like a question that has a specific answer, but I just want to thank you for
Seth: talking about it, Reed. Seriously. Yeah. It’s important and you’re helping a lot of people by talking about it.
Reid Lappin: My pleasure. Absolutely. You get, you know, you get choked up, but it’s actually quite easy to talk about.
Reid Lappin: I love talking about it. But, but, you know, just real quick, I guess, really hit on it. Now that I’m pulling some of my thoughts together, I think after he passed, you know, one of the cool things I had a great moment with this company and this team and everyone pulled together for me. And I think those are the cooler things about a business than your EBITDA or making money at the end of the day.
Reid Lappin: Yeah.
Seth: give you a hug.
Seth: Yep.
Reid Lappin: And we’re hugging it out on stuff podcast. We’re hugging it out on the
Seth: podcast. That’s how we do it
Henry Byrne: on DIRs and Deals . I was just gonna add, I, I’m, I’m also, I get emotional about everything basically, but I joined the company a month after Reed’s Dad passed.
Seth: Yeah.
Henry Byrne: And you know, I. I think for me, it was, you know, I said earlier, like you just meet people and you, you, you click, you know, that they’re the person you can get behind.
Henry Byrne: Yep. And. Even in the two years that I’ve been here, the transformation I’ve seen from read just in his own own accountability of the business and just really understanding that, you know, this is something that I really want to build. Like he talks about who do I want to be? It’s not just about the business.
Henry Byrne: It’s about. everything that surrounds the business. It’s about your personal life. It’s about work life balance. And that’s something that I think when I reflect, I think to myself, like, I want to find that work life balance that Reed’s found. I want to, I want to have a life like him. I think it’s a beautiful thing because it gets lost in the shuffle a lot of the times when you’re trying to build a business.
Henry Byrne: And I’ve seen the struggles over the two years, but I’ve Also seen how much he’s transformed. He’s also, you know, had his fourth kid while, while I’ve been here and it’s gotten a lot busier because of that. And it’s just really, it really is a beautiful thing to see someone that prioritizes not just business, but his family too.
Henry Byrne: And also invites the company into it. You know, I think that’s a really important part when you’re going from the ground up, when you’re building a business, like people have to feel like they have agency, not only in your business life, but also know you personally. Absolutely. Because you’re, That just drives people together.
Henry Byrne: Absolutely. And I know for me, like, you know, Reid and I joke about this all the time, like I have two brothers and a sister, three brothers, and the youngest, the youngest is a, is a girl. And that’s exactly how Reid’s family is. Yeah. And there’s just so many similarities and, and there’s so many things that like bring people together and that’s why you want to go on a journey with someone.
Henry Byrne: Absolutely not because of. You know, sometimes it’s oh my God, they have the greatest business idea in the world and I need to get behind it, but most of the times it’s I truly like this person. I really think I can build something with them, whether it’s the best idea in the world or, you know, middle of the road idea.
Henry Byrne: If we’re together, we could figure this out.
Seth: It’s special. Right. And especially in, especially in professional services or any services business, right? That people are all we have. And I think that where you can create an environment where you can bring your whole self to work, right? And make no apologies for it.
Seth: That is inspirational and people, that is something that people crave. Right. Where you can just truly be yourself and you’ve created that environment and it’s, but you’re, and you’ve allowed yourself as a leader and as a founder and as a CEO to be vulnerable, right. Which very, very few do. Yeah. I would say, and this is what I want to pivot to, you’ve got this.
Seth: You have got this. It is a, it is a, I think, and it’s something that I never had, and it’s something for a long time in my career as an executive, I was always looking for mentors, mentors, mentors. I was trying to fill a void. That I never had, but I had to be self directed because of my origin and, and, and how I, how I came up, you were, were blessed, you know, to have a father as a friend and a mentor and to help guide you to where you are.
Seth: I’m learning from you. I’m learning from others. I’m working on creating for the first time in my life, work life balance and actually being at home and enjoying being at home, being safe at home. It’s part of my personal journey. I think that. That void has crystallized things for you, but I want you to know that you absolutely have this.
Seth: You have graduated. You do not need
Seth: mentorship anymore.
Reid Lappin: Yeah. I think that’s what you learned is you, you, you do learn that you have it and it’s a great thing while you have that relationship and it’s, and you, you know, that relationship doesn’t go away and yeah, you’ve just got to get comfortable with yourself and go get it
Seth: and go get it.
Seth: So let’s talk about where you are now, where you’re going. You really have tapped into a vein that I’ve seen some other professional services companies tap into. It’s a very, very difficult vein to tap into, to build trust in, to learn how to serve. Effectively, but you have really tapped into lower mid market and mid market private equity.
Seth: And one of the things that’s really interesting about servicing that market, once you can get a peg, a private equity group to take you across portfolio count, multiple portfolio companies is you have to have incredible delivery. Delivery excellence, consistent delivery, because while a peg opportunity represents a one to many sales opportunity, right?
Seth: Many of those opportunities are all linked back different than just selling to independent companies, right? What is, you have a whole book of business. Right. That if you fail to deliver, you’re only as good as your last project, right? Delivery excellence becomes incredibly important, but it can be incredibly rewarding and enriching and a business can really scale.
Seth: How did you tap into it? How did this become the strategy? And, and tell me about, you know, working within that channel versus working. In non private equity channels, what’s, what’s different?
Reid Lappin: Yeah. So, so the way that we got here is, is surely, you know, our focus two and a half, three years ago when we pivoted to go all in on mid market is we’ve never seen so much capital flow in to mid market from private equity.
Reid Lappin: So it just made sense. We, we found that over 80 percent of our portfolio is PE owned. And we were delivering good results, right? And so private equity is a very complex go to market as a professional services business. Each shop is very different. And, and frankly, not all the portfolio companies have a high regard for their sponsor.
Reid Lappin: So it, you have to treat each relationship, even at a portfolio company level and private equity shop differently. And you have to understand those, those dynamics and be very patient. You know, to your point, We were talking with a portfolio company with a firm that we’re partnered with and we were talking to their CMO and look, just because we have private equity shops that trust us and know that we do good work and that we’ve worked in their portfolio, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to get, you know, every CMO or every CEO to sign on and subscribe to vocal as their partner.
Reid Lappin: And we, we were chatting with an organization. That was in the behavioral health side. And the CMO said, he goes, you know, one of the reasons I like you guys, which just was so funny of all the reasons that like us, he goes, there’s this guy, this guy was great. He goes, you know, the reason I like you guys is because if you up my work, you won’t get anything else from private equity company.
Reid Lappin: And I said, that is a good, really good reason to like us. That’s right. Yes. And that’s why we should work together. And, and, and that was a good relationship. So. Look, I think that it’s about building a lot of trust and having a lot of dialogue at the private equity level. You know, the, the folks that are in these shops are brilliant, but they don’t know what we know.
Reid Lappin: And, and we’re very different. I’m here in a tie dye shirt, a form of Crocs and not in a suit and tie and jean shorts. And so in a vintage Mickey Mouse Rolex watch. And so it’s very different. And so I think that like
Seth: you’re very on brand,
Reid Lappin: today. Yeah. Especially. I think the other important thing is everything, all the work that we do, we tie back to metrics.
Reid Lappin: And so building our services in a value creation model has been very beneficial to us. And we’ve done that since day one. We’re, I always say to a company, we’re in the business of moving metrics for our clients. So when you can give clear results on value creation to a private equity shop, they’re going to really like you a lot.
Reid Lappin: The last thing I’d say is, You know, when you look at the private equity space, having moved from leveraged buyouts to operating businesses to deals being written under value creation plans, digital, particularly in the mid market, lower mid market is a top three lever. Absolutely. You have businesses that are far less mature and digital.
Reid Lappin: Maybe aren’t even online in a meaningful way and talent’s hard to hire, right? And so we, we kind of put all of that together and said that private equity needs to be part of our go to market because we take a lot of pride in value creation and, and, and so it becomes a win, win, win when we can form the right relationships and, and do our job the way that we do it.
Henry Byrne: Yeah. And then the other thing I would add, and you know, I, I, from my seat, I’ve had to, to lean on Reed here is, is show don’t tell. Yeah. You know, a lot of people come in and tell you what they’re going to do. We do come in in certain situations and actually show them. Like we go and do the work for free.
Henry Byrne: And that’s tough for my seat because I don’t love, I don’t love free work, but I’ve realized that that is part of the job. What makes us unique and helps us build these relationships is we’re not just going to give you five slides telling you exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you five slides of showing you what we already did.
Henry Byrne: You want a redesigned website? We’ll show you a mock up of a redesigned website. You want to see a media plan? We’ll show you what a media plan should look like. And that is unique because there are not a ton of people that do that. Specifically, a lot of people just tell and it’s, it’s reads entrepreneurial spirit that really leads us to do that versus my more pragmatic.
Henry Byrne: Well, why don’t we just tell them? Because that’s what everyone else does. So that’s something I’ve learned. That’s really important for us to
Seth: read. It’s coming back. We’re, uh, doing this live in the vocal offices. It’s okay. Excitement’s good. So question. So, you know, Henry, when I was building my first professional service business at a EECOM, but I had A lot of my, you know, sales budget was sales and marketing budget was around design wins was around kind of, you know, proving let us, let us prove to you because we were having to penetrate new clients, new markets.
Seth: All the time. That’s how we really, you know, got got traction. And so I reserved, you know, some of our cash and some of our sales and marketing expense for for design wins. One of the other things that we also did, you know, in that firm. And these are things I’ve replicated in some of my other businesses.
Seth: Now this can create variability. And in earnings, but it can also create strong earnings profile is then some of the work that we would do would be performative based off of those metrics or the things that we would help our clients achieve right that we could then share. in the success. Yep. So is that part of, are some of your contracts then performative?
Seth: That, that is something that
Henry Byrne: we’ve, we have not done, but we are absolutely looking into, especially around things like paid media, things that are really intricately aligned to metrics, but typically our contracts are really around either, you know, TNM based fees or a fixed fee or percentage of spend, things like that.
Henry Byrne: But, you know, that it’s, it’s funny that you bring that up because it’s something that’s been going to the back of my mind here. Because it’s one that, as you know, variability and revenue, you know, you have to perform. And it’s, it’s, but if you have the confidence in your team and the confidence backing, it can also lead to, to higher, higher
Seth: growth overall.
Henry Byrne: Yeah.
Seth: Yeah. It’s interesting. And, you know, you’ve got clients have to want to go on that journey with you and you have to get to a certain size and scale where you can feel more comfortable Right, going, going at risk, I want to, I want to pivot for a lot, for two more things. And then I will let you guys go to run the business.
Seth: Let’s talk about the future of building this business so far for the last 15 years. If I’m not mistaken, this has all been organic, correct? And now you are starting, you’ve served the private equity markets quite a bit, and MNA is certainly not new to your industry. It’s been going on for decades, right?
Seth: That is something that you as a leadership team are starting to think about. Can you talk about that for a bit, this thought process of starting to grow both organically And inorganic.
Reid Lappin: Yeah. So the thesis that we have is, is there’s a lot of great specialized boutique agencies where the founder operator is also predominantly the talent.
Reid Lappin: When we look at hiring, we talk about the challenge in hiring. We identify opportunities to build our pipeline of potential acquisitions based on capabilities that we want to increase within our firm. So things that are on our roadmap today are performance media, organic social, CRM, and these are all areas where we have capabilities today.
Reid Lappin: We’re servicing clients in all of those buckets. But as we bring on more clients, we need to scale talent. And so what we’ve recognized is, is building relationships with these boutique shops allows us to bring in partners when we do need them, when we need to flex or scale a little bit more quickly, but as we also look at just building the value and vocal, it’s also an opportunity to look at acquiring top line and EBIT on the company.
Reid Lappin: So yeah, today we’ve built everything brick by brick, which is. is fun and is great, but there’s, there’s other avenues, right? And, and so, you know, we just need to ensure that we’re staying true to that, that, you know, moving metrics mentality for our clients, that we’re not, it’s not just about accelerating top line growth for us when we’re looking at these acquisitions.
Reid Lappin: It really is about ensuring we’re investing in the right capabilities that will help our product. Partners, our clients grow by virtue of that. You know, we also want to grow our own business and the more money that we have to invest, the more that we can scale and the more work and the more clients that we can serve.
Reid Lappin: So that’s really our thesis is that there’s a lot of these boutique agencies that are struggling to scale and don’t have a obvious market to sell their business. And so we’re stepping in into that market and saying, you know, mostly cashless transaction deals and stock swaps that. Hey, this is our vision.
Reid Lappin: This is where we’re going. This is our track record and traction. This is where you would fit in that, that puzzle.
Henry Byrne: Yeah, no, I think that the thing to add there is, you know, really it’s around commanding value as one unit together. Yep. You know, it’s to Reid’s point, there’s, there’s not really, a ton of markets for very specialized agencies, unless you want to go to another agency.
Henry Byrne: And so it’s finding the right people. And, and what I would add is it’s finding the right culture and it’s finding the right people that are motivated on the same path that we are. Because that to me is the crux of every deal we look at is finding those people. And the people behind them that really want to go on the ride with us.
Henry Byrne: And then obviously, you know, there’s all the financial targets and criteria that we have behind us that, you know, are check the boxes and we, we dig deep into those things. But from my seat, yes, financials are incredibly important. Being able to sustain revenue once integrations happen, incredibly important.
Henry Byrne: But if the culture isn’t right, it’s going to fall apart in the long term. And so that’s why to Reid’s point, founder led businesses are incredibly important for us when we look into things because Most of those people are motivated. They, they want to, they want to build something with us.
Seth: Yeah. And I think you’re right.
Seth: We’ve spent a lot of time, the three of us talking about this. This is, uh, as our listeners tune in more to this, you know, culture, culture, culture. I I’ve, I’ve, it is the number one thing. I think the, the, the hardest thing to screen for will be right. Other entrepreneurs being accountable. To you as the leader, this is the hardest thing to test.
Seth: But to your point, you know, it’s really interesting. And I think, you know, you, you talked about some of the areas where your industry is going, where your clients are going. You want to repeat those for us? Kind of the key trends, industry trends that clients are, your clients are looking for.
Reid Lappin: Yeah. I mean, when you go to mid market, I mean, there’s, there’s the trends of what’s happening on the forefront of digital and keep in mind, we’re going after businesses who are, you know, for the most part behind a bit in digital.
Reid Lappin: Yep. We use a term digital fitness, right? And if you look at just fitness, longevity, health, you’ve got sleep, you’ve got mental health, you have cardio, you have exercise. supplements, whatever it may be. And so when we look at our clients, we look at e commerce, you know, the three buckets that we mentioned at the top is digital marketing, digital commerce, and digital experiences.
Reid Lappin: You know, within that there’s, there’s CRM, there’s performance media, there’s organic social, there’s, uh, app building, there’s MarTech and tools, there’s data and analytics, dashboards and reporting. And so we are, are, are creating a full stack agency to cover and all those buckets, but we’re approaching our clients with where they have the greatest needs.
Reid Lappin: So I think with the large agencies, they require agency of record contracts. They require big spends. We may meet a client that just needs performance media today, or they just need help on CRM today being an independent boutique. We can go service a 50, 000, 100, 000 contract, so long as it’s the right business that we know has other needs.
Reid Lappin: Yeah, correct. And so that’s just, that’s the way that we approach it. It’s, it’s really, it’s servicing their greatest growth lever immediately while identifying the roadmap that they need to continue to invest in. Yeah,
Seth: and, and you’re exactly right, right? So, and, and we, I’ve seen this in various iterations, that the very large shops have, are just not geared to come down.
Seth: Yes. Right to the lower middle market and basically just listen to the clients and give them exactly what they need. And the best way to earn more business is to deliver on your promises. Yep. They forget this gets lost, lost, lost. So companies like your, like yours, like vocal that are focused on listening and taking pain away from these.
Seth: Companies is critical, helping them move the needle, helping them accelerate their value creation plan are absolutely critical. And the other thing, and we’ve seen this in other industries as well. We certainly saw this in the AEC industry, very similar to marketing communications, which has been rolling up for a long time as those firms become bigger and bigger and bigger.
Seth: It’s not that they are no longer acquisitive. They are. But. You know, when you become a multi billion dollar firm, right? You’re not going to go acquire a company with 5 million of revenue, 10 million of revenue, it just does not move the needle. And so as the big consolidators take their place, right, it leaves not only the market opportunity from a client service perspective, but it leaves this vast sea of M and a.
Seth: Opportunities because. They’re not platform size there, and so tremendous opportunity there to grow in that way, and because they have so few options of who they can sell to, you can really take a look at stock swaps and cashless transactions, which is what you mentioned. I think the final thing there, and it sounds like you’ve really got this dialed in is key man risk.
Seth: They all, all small businesses come with client concentration, all small businesses and professional services come with key man risk. In your case, that’s fine because you’ve built this massive funnel through private equity. You have more demand than you can service. They can still service their local clients, but you’re bringing this demand funnel to them.
Seth: Yes. What you have to ensure is that they can deliver to the needs of private equity. Yes. So as you’re diligencing these and testing these relationships. What are the safeguards you’ve put in place to ensure that any acquisition target you’re looking at can meet the demands of your client base?
Reid Lappin: Yep.
Reid Lappin: Yeah. So as I mentioned, you know, in all the capabilities that I, that I mentioned that we’re looking at acquiring, we have the strategic capabilities to consult on those in house. So in every scenario with private equity or directly with clients, we’re setting the strategy against the business goals and results.
Reid Lappin: And most of the partners that we have are coming in and executing. I think all of these partners are capable on the strategy side as well, but that’s one way that we’re safeguarding it. Right. So I think when, when you’re looking at bringing someone into execute, let’s say a paid media plan, we’ve set the strategy with the client and the intentions of that plan, the metrics we’re looking to move, the audience segments that we’re going after, and we’re bringing in a partner to test their ability to work with our team.
Reid Lappin: So that’s really what we’re, we’re stress testing in those relationships. And, and having those capabilities in house allows us to vet these partners on the outset too, right? So we have, you know, there’s a lot of agencies out there, right? And, and so honing in on the ones, and it takes a lot of sourcing, a lot of time, a lot of vetting, but sourcing the ones that really know their shit and are, are top class, it happens before we bring them into any scenario with a potential client.
Henry Byrne: Yeah, and then the other thing I would say is, You know, cross selling into their portfolio to correct. And so it’s really important, you know, if we bring them in, we have to see them perform within our portfolio. That’s a key part of the deal. But you also have to look at their client list and you have to see.
Henry Byrne: Hey, do they have the, do they have middle market brands that we know we can service? Because we
Seth: are not,
Henry Byrne: we are not guarded against a portfolio of fortune 500 companies because the fortune 500 companies at the end of the day can bring in the larger agencies of the world. And you don’t have that, you don’t have that competition as much in the middle market as we’ve talked about.
Henry Byrne: And so. You have to show the ability within the acquisition targets portfolio that you can go and sell your services alongside them.
Reid Lappin: Well, one more thing I’ll add to, to, to that piece and the vetting side is agencies are pretty simple as a business professional services are. We want, At Volkl, 70 percent of our revenue in 2025, we want to come from our current client roster.
Reid Lappin: So in our acquisition criteria, we’ve set kind of a list of non negotiables, if you will. We look at ensuring that they have at least 70 percent retention in their own portfolio. Right. And that says a lot when you can do that. I mean, you’re, you’re delivering results, right? Exactly. So I think there’s just some, some key components and metrics.
Reid Lappin: We also look at inside these businesses that allow us to, that whether, you know, certainly whether they’d be a good partner, but whether we’d be interested in acquiring them.
Seth: Makes sense. All right, guys, we’ve spent an hour. This has been fantastic. If you were to put you on the spot, but you think about everything we’ve talked about today, building a business as an entrepreneur, Getting intentionality over where and how you want to scale, bringing in the right business partner.
Seth: As an integrator and as a CFO honing in on an untapped market, building now the next phase of the business through M& A and how you screen that test that everything we’ve talked about over the last hour or anything else that you want to share. If you were to. You know, leave the listeners with, you know, other founders who are, who are scaling their business, other founders who are thinking about tapping into the private equity markets as a, as a channel, other founders who are now thinking about taking the journey of not only growing the business organically, but inorganically, if you were to impart, you know, three critical things that are really core to you, that you think people need to institutionalize.
Seth: What, what would they be? Yeah. It’s like the million dollar question.
Reid Lappin: You know, I look at it cause I, I have this conversation quite a bit and, and what’s nice is like, I really don’t have much advice for folks, but I can share my own experience. Right. And so when, when I started chapter one of vocal building mobile apps, we build apps for everybody.
Reid Lappin: Right. We were open. If you had a check from your grandma, if you are a fortune 50, which by the way, we had both of those clients at the same time, it makes business development. It makes capability building very difficult. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and professional services don’t want to limit themselves in terms of who they want to service.
Reid Lappin: And, and that limits your ability to scale. When we got really smart in the opportunity in mid market, it made my life so much easier because if I got calls from my buddies who had startups, I said, we don’t do work with startups. Right. And we did a lot of startups early on and we built a lot of cool products.
Reid Lappin: And one of the things I learned with startups is they don’t have a lot of money. Until they do. And then when they do, they bring it all in house. Yep. So while we have our fingerprints on some really cool unicorns, like, we didn’t make a lot of value for ourselves. So I think one is to really know who you’re servicing, what their pain points are, and to be really honest with yourself in terms of how much competition’s there.
Reid Lappin: And can you build a valuable business at scale with that customer type? You know, I think for me, I think a lot of my good thinking happens in my subconscious. I wish I could, I wish I connected the dots more in the forefront here, but I think knowing who your customer is, I think the other reality is there’s a lot of ways to build your business and it doesn’t always need to be brick by brick.
Reid Lappin: It doesn’t always have to be acquisition either, but I think. The more that you talk to mentors and you know, when Seth and I connected, he opened my eyes up immediately to, you know, six amazing ideas for the business and ideas and ways that I hadn’t thought about growing. So I think having the right mentors around you that you can, that can challenge you to think creatively about how, how to scale and how to grow.
Reid Lappin: And then the last piece I’d say is having a great CFO. I mean, I think at the end of the day, EBITDA matters that, I mean, as Seth was laughing, he walked into our kitchen and we have a mug that says EBITDA on it. that, that mug was a gift to me.
Seth: Yep.
Reid Lappin: Because I, I, I focus much more on the vision and growth and, but I’ve learned really the importance of just the, the key operating metrics of the company.
Reid Lappin: And Henry keeps that in track. And we, we, you can do both. You can operate towards a vision, you can invest and play really aggressively, and you can do it well. making money. You just have to stay disciplined. So I think probably the, the, the anchor to that and all three of them is discipline.
Seth: Yeah. Henry, I’m going to ask you a leading question.
Seth: I’m curious to know what you say. Is there a financial metric that you think that’s even more important than EBITDA and our business utilization? Is there another one? It begins with a C maybe. C. Cash. Yes, cash. Is cash kind of important? Of course. Cash is king. Cash is king. I don’t even Cash is always king.
Seth: I want another month. There needs to be a cash is king month. Cash is king. That is true. That would be my gift to Henry. That is true.
Henry Byrne: Sometimes I forget about it because it’s just always on my mind. I get it. Yeah.
Seth: Anything you would add from a takeaway perspective or critical insight to what Reed said?
Henry Byrne: Yeah, absolutely. I think partnership is key to business building and anything you do in business. You have to find not only the right leadership team, but you have to find The right entire team. You always have to be working as a team together and partnering together, especially when you’re building a business.
Henry Byrne: Everyone has to be rowing in the same direction. Someone can’t be tugging here and tugging there. They have to be tugging the same rope in the same direction. And the other thing I would say it, it’s a constant work in progress. I mean, you can’t yeah. act like you know everything, you know where you’re going to go and you know how things are going to go.
Henry Byrne: The world throws different challenges every single day at you and you have to take it in stride. You know, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to fall down sometimes, but you have to be resilient and you have to stay true to, to who you, who you are and who you want the business to be, what you want the business to be.
Henry Byrne: So that’s what I would add is, is that It’s definitely a road. that takes, takes you different directions. It’s a journey, but as long as you stay true to, you know, what you’re trying to do, you’ll continue, you know, to build. And, and that’s where I’ve really seen this company grow, especially in the last two years.
Henry Byrne: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t let the
Reid Lappin: highs be too high
Henry Byrne: and the
Reid Lappin: lows be too low. Exactly. You got to stay even
Seth: keel. That’s right. Take it in stride. Yep. Well, guys, this has been incredible. Thank you for opening the office to us. This will be the new home. It’s a lot of fun. It is fun. Thank you for doing it. This will be the new home of diners and deals.
Seth: I know how I kind of know how to work the coffee machine. Yeah. So that that’ll be good. And. For our listeners, we’ll be recording our next episode later this week, and we’ll be hosting Chris Santiago, who is the CEO of Repairs Unlimited, a buy and build platform backed by Great Range Capital in the residential and commercial restoration space, and it’ll be a lot, Chris is a great guy, I’ve known Chris for almost 20 years, and it’ll be really insight, it’ll be a lot of fun.
Seth: To hear about Chris’s journey and where that business is going. But gentlemen, I am very excited about what you’re building. I’m a huge fan for those private equity listeners out there or portfolio company executives. I don’t think you could find a better firm to help with your digital transformation.Seth: And I’m excited to see You know, we should come back and do this two years from now and see where, see where the company is. So with that, thank you all very much. And we’ll be talking again soon. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks.