Welcome to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Benner as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now, let's draw your host Phil Benner as a special guest today on invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur

Welcome to another exciting episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I am, of course, your host with the most feel better. And today, we have a truly exciting guest who is not only a successful investor and business owner, but also a true advocate for entrepreneurials looking to break free from the corporate grind. Our guest is an investor and business owner based out of High Point, North Carolina, and he's highly sought after for his expertise in digital strategy and operations. And he's frequently a conference speaker, podcast guest and author. But what really sets our guest apart is his passion for professionalizing the Wild West of SMB Acquisition. That small biz small to medium business acquisition. Over the years, he has helped dozens of entrepreneurs find, finance and acquire small businesses, empowering them to escape corporate America and take control of their destinies.

His journey is backed by a solid academic credentials including an MBA from the prestigious Fuak School of Business at Duke University. His practical experience combined with his academic background allows him a unique perspective on challenges and opportunities in the small business acquisition space. In today's episode, he will share his insights on involving landscapes of SMB Acquisitions and how to navigate the process of finding and financing a small business and what it takes to transition from the corporate world to the successful business ownership. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or looking to scale your existing business, this conversation is gonna be packed with actionable advice and inspiration. So please get ready to learn from one of the best in the business and please join me in welcoming the insightful and accomplished Kevin Biblehausen. I'm pretty sure I messed up the last name there, Kevin. No.

It's pretty good. It's Biblehausen, but Biblehausen. So much worse.

So you did you did a great job. Kevin, thank you so much for being here. I'm truly, really interested because I haven't talked to anybody who acquires small businesses. So this is a very new world for me. Like you said it like I said in the intro, it's a wild west. So I'm very excited to see what you have to say.

Yeah. I'm happy to be here. And there's, I mean, there's all kinds of different flavors of entrepreneurship. Right? And this is this is the flavor that I that I found that I like the best. You know, I I think probably the majority of your audience would think that, you know, they've and, you know, based on, you know, other guests you've had in the past, they gotta start with a small side hustle and kinda grow that into something. And usually, that's some, you know, technology based, service or or app or maybe a, you know, small service business like a cleaning business, you know, things that are kind of popular, around the, you know, entrepreneur fringes where people are trying to kinda get away from their their 9 to 5. And, we do the the way I did it and the way that that, that I that I tell people or or help people do this is is a much bigger swing. It's a much bigger bet.

But, you know, it's funny that the the title, you know, the podcast invest in yourself, I I don't think that there's a more perfect description for what what I did and what what we do when we buy small businesses and investing in yourself is really is taking a bet, on on you and your ability, in the form of bank financing, you know, personal guaranteed debt. So we can get in all of that, but then, yeah, it's, it's it's kind of tailor made, I think, for for your audience.

I think so too. I'm I'm excited because, like I said, I don't know anything about this, Especially knowing that the older generation, the boomers are starting to retire. There's a lot of small businesses that probably will be going out of pardon me, out of business because there is no, you know, continuation plan. And someone like yourself who's coming in helping not only keep the legacy of those businesses going, but also allow new people to come in, take over that legacy and teaching them how to do it. So I'm very excited about this. But my first question is, how did you get into this world of entrepreneurship, but more specifically into buying small businesses and then making them bigger?