246: Helping Entrepreneurs Grow the Value of their Business | Ryan Tansom of Arkona: Intentional Growth™

246: Helping Entrepreneurs Grow the Value of their Business | Ryan Tansom of Arkona: Intentional Growth™

Background on Ryan Tansom of Arkona:

Ryan Tansom is the Co-Founder of Arkona: Intentional Growth™. Ryan helped turn around their family business and then sell it for 8 figures to a local competitor in 2014. The growth and exit process was an unexpectedly difficult undertaking, but the lessons that were learned have proven to be invaluable. He took his experience and co-founded Arkona where he created the Intentional Growth™ 5 Principles and Framework and hosts the popular Intentional Growth™podcast (260+ episodes and 360k+ downloads).

Ryan’s mission is to help entrepreneurs get clarity on how to grow the value of their business with the end in mind by shifting their mindset away from annual income to focusing on long term value creation. This new mindset will help entrepreneurs create a strategic plan that gives them the freedom of choices to do what they want with the business long term.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:10] Ryan Tansom, 35 years old and his business is called Arkona, which offers a program that trains business owners about valuation exits and valuation growth.
[2:40] In 2018, Ryan met his current business partner at a 5 –day training.
[3:56] Today, Arkona is 80% CFO service revenue and 20% training revenue.
[4:39] Ryan talks about why he offers the training program in Arkona.
[8:40] More discussions about the CFO service model being offered by Arkona.
[13:16] When Ryan was 9 years old, he was always waiting for his father to come home so he could listen to his business stories. Even at a very young age, business was his sport.
[19:46] After high school, Ryan went to St. John’s University in Northern Minnesota. When he finished college, he decided to work in the family business.
[23:59] In his first year out of college selling copiers, Ryan made $240,000.
[24:45] Ryan shares his secret for his early success in sales.
[27:15] Building relationships, trust, and expertise is an important part of being successful in sales.
[32:07] Continuing on Ryan’s timeline within the family company, he progressed from sales to the executive vice president.
[35:21] Building culture is fun for Ryan. He talks about the importance of people and culture within the company.
[37:23] There were instances when the family company was having difficulty in making payroll. Ryan talks about the challenges that they have to overcome in Imaging Path.
[44:50] For Ryan, the copier office equipment software IT industry is the most complicated operational company he has ever been exposed to.
[50:00] Throughout his business career, Ryan learned that your employees are your teammates and being a dictator never works out.
[51:01] Ryan shares the story of selling their family business, Imaging Path.
[56:42] Emphasizing on growing the value of the business, the owner can make tons of money when they are about to sell the company.
[58:54] With all the lessons Ryan has learned in selling a company, there are certain ways he would have done differently when they sold Imaging Path.
[1:04:46] Having to learn the numbers, Ryan had to rely on himself because he was sick and tired of not having answers and always relying on advisers and bankers who don’t know how to run a company.
[1:08:43] Ryan talks about their best practices in budgeting.

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The Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖📚 Favorite Books? Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey, Changing World Order by Ray Dalio, The Snowball by Alice Schroeder, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner, Think Again by Adam Grant
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Fire Table
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Thinkific + Zoom.
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Lining up speaking events (or guest podcast appearances) where I can tell our story – just like we're doing here.

Key Point from Our Episode with Ryan Tansom:

“If you put a drop of milk in a gallon of gasoline, no one has any idea, right? If you put a drop of gasoline in a gallon of milk, it spoils the whole gallon. That drop of gasoline in a gallon of milk is equivalent to hiring one bad employee. You can have a hundred amazing people and you hire that one person that sucks, and they can take the entire ship down man.”

Resources Mentioned:

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