Eric Berger

Buying and Operating Small Businesses | Emphasis on Leadership and Systems | Striving to live my best life everyday | Sharing the journey in real time

[kelceylehrich @kelceylehrich]

Everybody is out here talking about artificial intelligence

Many should just start with regular old organic intelligence first…

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@jcolesimpson A local GC on a federal funded project.

[Mark Brooks @markbrooks]

1/ Personal news: I am off in search of my next professional adventure. If you or someone you know could use my help as a leader, consultant, speaker, or board member, I’d appreciate an introduction! DM’s are open. In the meantime, here’s what I’m up to:

[Chase Murdock @chasemurdock]

🚨 Tomorrow night marks the kickoff of The Durable Small Business Series in Salt Lake City 🚨

Join us at 7 PM in the speakeasy at @edisonhouseslc for an hour of cocktails and networking followed by a fireside chat w/ Alex Lawrence. All are welcome!

[Reg Zeller @RegZeller]

Hey @RepJeffDuncan, @SCEMD, @LindseyGrahamSC, @henrymcmaster, @POTUS, @fema … can someone explain how Laurens County isn’t declared a federal disaster? My businesses and my 53 workers have been without electricity and internet since Friday at 6am, we couldn’t even get out of town last week due to all the trees and flooding. And now we don’t have FEMA relief or anything to help these workers? I just took out cash from my personal account to ensure the people I’m meeting in our communities can pay their bills, get food/ice/water, etc; need some help from y’all soon

And for my SMB community, this is what you sign up for, I’d appreciate some help spreading the message of what’s happening in the path of Helene for small biz owners … it’s going to be a lot worse for others

[Chase Murdock @chasemurdock]

"As it turns out, when you buy a company with a brand larger than its financials, and are willing to invest in operational improvements and upgrade marketing, good things happen."

@chenholdco — love this.

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@joshuamschultz Wow so much more greatness coming to SMBs by this change. You’ve left some big shoes for someone else to fill managing @RegZeller!!

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@SMB_Attorney Can confirm this is true as I’m living through this as a buyer right now.

[Steve Wiesner @SteveWiesnerSMB]

Two tremendous years.

Exactly two years ago, we closed on our acquisition of Watershed Associates – an amazing negotiations training firm. Short summary – since closing, we have:

✅Tripled the sized of our facilitator team

✅Expanded our client list significantly

✅Continued to expand our business w/ existing clients

✅Organized and analyzed learner feedback from countless workshops

✅Redesigned our curriculum

✅Introduced terrific eLearning content

✅Built an extensive new facilitator onboarding program

✅Introduced coaching and advisory services

���Rebranded and revamped our sales / marketing materials

✅Implemented a CRM, project management tool, and scheduling system

✅Had fun along the way

I am beyond thankful to our amazing team of extraordinary people. This all happens because of you, your creativity, your dedication, your tireless effort. I am grateful for Watershed’s prior leaders and their continued input and support. The entire team is working to build upon your legacy and make you proud!

The last two years have been about strengthening the foundation of our business. The next two years are about stepping on the gas. We are on a mission to build the best brand in the industry, and we’re on our way.

Buckle up!

[Rand Larsen @RandBusiness]

ANNOUNCEMENT:

I just bought this camper van to travel the country and host small business meetups everywhere I go.

Earlier this year I took an impromptu road trip across the New England and Midwest regions of the US, hosted 13 meetups for business owners and acquirers over just 5 weeks.

Originally, I just did it because I thought it’d be a fun life adventure, everyone LOVES meeting up with fellow entrepreneurs in person but few people are building spaces for that to happen, and candidly it was a marketing experiment for my business — SMB Community - a peer group for small business owners.

I met ~300 people during that first trip and was blown away by the positive feedback I received.

Since then, I’ve hosted events for another 400+ people between events in Dallas, Tampa, Seattle, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Charlotte, and a handful of other cities.

People want to meet in person, learn, build community, build camaraderie, and I enjoy making that happen.

I’ll be posting a lot more about this journey, and I’m relying on you good folks reading this right now to encourage your business friends in various cities to attend my events.

Next events are Madison Wisconsin, Chicago, NYC, Fort Worth TX, Austin TX, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and every major city in Florida.

If you’d like to be invited to your local SMB meetup, please follow me and comment your city below!

Join me on the road to hosting events for >1,000 people 💪

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@KrissBergTweets This looks amazing!

[SMB Attorney @SMB_Attorney]

Legal Profession NPS Score: 25*

@smblawgroup NPS Score: 89

🤯🎉

[Compound Conference @HoldCoConf]

🏔️ Speaker Alert! 🏔️

Thrilled to announce @RegZeller will be at HoldCo Conference 2025 in Sundance!

Reg will be dropping knowledge around building @CaneKast with @joshuamschultz.

Don’t miss out!

Get your early bird tickets now! 🎟️ Link in bio. #HoldCoConf #CaneKast #Sundance2025

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@SMB_Attorney Love it!

[Rand Larsen @RandBusiness]

Lots of new followers

Let me re-introduce myself 👇

My name is Rand

In 2019 I started a business called “DocuFamily”

I was making documentaries about senior citizens to preserve their life stories and legacy for future generations of their family

If you’re >40 years old and have parents, you’ve probably had worries of how to pass down family memories while they are still healthy.

So I built a company to solve this problem.

In 2020, Covid crushed me, so I was forced to move on.

That’s when I heard about acquisition entrepreneurship.

I thought “buying a company sounds so much easier than starting one.”

Today I know that’s not quite true.

This is also when I found SMB Twitter, and met @wilsoncompanies who was hiring for an Entrepreneur in Residence position.

Got the job, moved from WA to OH, helped John buy a few companies.

We bought 3 companies in 6 months, wild story.

Along the way, I met a guy who had recently acquired a $10M+ rev HVAC company.

His business was punching him in the face every day, and he had no one to talk to about it, so I built him a peer group without knowing what a peer group was.

Then I built another peer group, and decided that I should do it full time.

Recently I’ve been hosting a lot of meetups for people in SMB/ETA because

a) I don’t know why other people aren’t doing this

b) they’re fun as heck, everyone loves them

c) they’re good marketing for me (fro building peer groups)

At this point I’ve hosted almost 20 events for people in SMB/ETA, with hundreds of people coming to meetups around the country.

Soon I will be buying an SMB-RV to travel around the country, host more events, meet more SMB people, and film cool video content like I’ve recently posted on this app.

Idea: Would anyone be interested in regional SMB/ETA events?

Anyways, thanks to those of you who continuously support me, I wouldn’t be here without you.

[Rand Larsen @RandBusiness]

Lesson from this drama:

Get off Twitter, touch grass.

So last Friday, myself and 12 other business owners did that...

We toured this awesome van-life manufacturing company called Remote Vans

They build $200,000 - $250,000 adventure vans with the best tech out there.

We walked through their shop, learned about their business, and had deep conversations with other business owners trying to build real value and not post crap on the internet.

My favorite outcome from the event is hearing that many of the business owners I invited wanted to get back together and build longer term relationships

In-person!

I think that is how real value is created from all this stuff at the end of the day.

Real friends, who you see in real life.

I love it!

I want to do a ton more events just like these all over the U.S.

Coming to a town near you...

[Samuel Thompson 🥽 @samuelthompson]

My car got towed at 3:21am last night.

Which meant I spent 2 hours at the tow yard alongside 80+ other people trying to get their cars back.

All because of a typo the property management company put on my parking pass.

But it did open my eyes to an interesting business model.

As I stood in line I started running the Aggie math on the amount of money pumping through this place.

I was charged a $300 tow fee + $25/day for "car storage" (+3.5% credit card fee).

They processed about 25 people an hour with 4 "receptionists".

$300 x 25 = $7,500/hour of revenue.

They are open 10 hours a day.

And that's just the tow fees.

There were also 500+ cars on the lot.

500 x $25/day = $12,500/day of storage revenue.

This place could easily be processing $50,000 - $100,000 of top line revenue DAILY.

And about half the "customers" paid in cash 😅

And the whole thing operates out of mobile office trailers on a couple acres on the outskirts of Dallas.

Based on the convos I overheard...

They have contracts with apartment complexes, private parking lots, office buildings, retail centers, etc

Oh...and they do both private impound AND have a government contracts for police impounding/storage.

(yeah I stood in line next to two people who had just gotten out of jail and were getting their cars back).

People talk about storage being one of the best "revenue per square foot" operations on the planet...

But I have a feeling this impound lot could be up there on the list.

Not bad for a company that has a 1 ⭐️ average rating on Yelp.

[Eric Berger @eric_j_berger]

@Peterbelll @JustinNicholasT Great achievement!!