Business is Great! Feedback from Bill West of West Advisory Group on Florida's Economy

Bill West of the West Advisory Group gives us a snapshot of what the business climate looks like on Florida's Treasure Coast. West who advises clients and municipalities says things look pretty rosy right now. There are a number of factors you will discover that are making Florida attractive to business investors.

West also is active in helping clients buy and sell businesses. Among his findings, we seem to have a trend, at least on the Treasure Coast, of ex-patriates returning to the United States, Florida's East Coast, and buying businesses.

He offers 5 Steps 2 Sell for businesses looking to sell or those who are searching for a business to purchase. 

Transcript

Sam Yates: 0:06

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman. Sam Yates. Hello, everyone. And yes, the information is flowing here on the Florida Business Forum Podcast. And I have a special guest in the studio today, Bill West Bill and I go back a long ways. And I'm going to actually pose a couple of questions to bill so he can explain his background because Woe be unto me if I get a friend's background wrong. So Bill, welcome to the program. Tell us about yourself. I've known you I think since I was a little boy.

Bill West: 0:54

Right. Right. A little bit 20 years ago? Yeah. 28 miles an hour? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it has been about 20 years that we met has my background, my foundation, my my strongest foundation is in commercial lending in banking, I spent almost 30 years and in lending, community bank lending very much lending to business owners. So it's closely held businesses and it's mom and pop shops. But that that's the wrong explanation, you know that mom and pop owns a manufacturing company, Mom and Pop bones are a service company. It's they're pretty substantial businesses to be calling the mom and pops but that that's my background, working with those businesses just found a passion for those business owners very early in my career, the the determination, the self determination that they have the ability to, to succeed under any odds. It's just it's very, very impressive. And something I enjoy being around the name of your company, Bill, West advisory.

Sam Yates: 1:56

And that I think, says it all, too. It's an advisory company. It's not just working with companies to sell them but a lot of companies in Florida and we cover the entire state and actually worldwide but a lot of people are looking at Florida as the place to invest. So that should open a lot of opportunities.

Bill West: 2:18

Absolutely, absolutely Florida's is right for investment. People are coming daily and investing. I'm talking to people from literally all over the world. They're Americans, but they're they've been overseas and they're repatriating it's kind of kind of interesting, some very, very successful people, they've been working with Fortune 500 companies that decided, you know, COVID was enough and it's time to come home. So they are now buying businesses, it's a unique time. You have others that are PE firms and things that are out there that are buying as well. So it's a very, very good time to be in that again, so I just I have this passion for these business owners I kind it is an advisory firm, as you say, I work with owners, I I'd say I'm a I'm a I apply my MBA day i MBA daily, I'm it's an applied MBA, I work hard at it, I can I can do the spreadsheets, I can do the the book work kind of stuff in the background, what I really love is where the rubber meets the road where the business owners are out there, making it every day and trying to go out and and earn that living. So one of the roots of my business is we do a lot of economic development consulting, so have contracts with various municipalities with a local college, where we go out we do outreach for the college, they get a client with a capital access is what they call it, that they're attempting to get a loan for their business and, and it's a little bit of a puzzle to them. So I I clear the way I advise them on how to how to go about that, who to go about, you know, who's going to like this kind of loan and how to structure it for them to make them you know, to get them to understand it and to like it. And then I also with I reach out to business owners, I work with a lot of manufacturing manufacturers, other business owners, there's a an innovation district here locally that they're developing that I get to go out and reach out to those business owners understand what's going right, what's going wrong. What's the county doing right, what's the county doing wrong? What can we do it's kind of a really unique position and bring them resources and tools. Kind of to the front there.

Sam Yates: 4:22

And I should say for our audience that our office is located on the east coast of Florida as a matter of fact, as I look out the window I can see the beautiful shoreline of the St. Lucie River as we live in paradise, but you know that as a focal point, you're not just limited to the southeast coast of Florida. You're open for as you said. business not only throughout Florida but internationally as well.

Bill West: 4:52

Florida is what I know Florida is for is my passion. Florida's what I love so I really do stick to that Florida footprint. I grew up in Pensacola. I have friends there are Brother owns a couple of businesses there. So I, I do some work that far away. It's relationships. It's who you know, and I know the most people locally. So it's very much an east coast south Florida type environment Orlando's kind of on my periphery, and then then special, special guest stars or whatever I I'll reach out to them and do whatever they need in Florida.

Sam Yates: 5:19

The word SBA seven A has a special meeting, tell us what that is.

Bill West: 5:25

That's a great tool. It is an incredible tool for business owners, for people acquiring businesses, it will, it creates flexibility, it allows bankers to do things that the bankers don't necessarily, it's not in their gut that they want to do. So it provides them some reassurance to be able to do that seven, eight loans. A small seven a loan now it's gotten to be to where it's hard to get a bank to talk to you about $250,000, about $500,000. You know, $500,000 is about their threshold. But there are ways to find smaller loans like that. So I tried to, for the school, I tried to make sure I got to a full continuum. So it's, you know, it's the big banks, it's the, you know, the capital ones and the TDS. And the Bank of America's of the world that that will do some some bigger type lending certain types of lending. There are community banks that will do a certain type of lending. And there's a network now that of non bank lenders that do these seven a loans that are very eager to do them very eager to build their business to build a portfolio and, and are looking for businesses to fund so

Sam Yates: 6:26

what type of businesses do you find that the the lending institutions, whether they be private, whether it be equity, whether they be SBA, what seems to be some of the the focal points, what what is it attractive business to from the lender side?

Bill West: 6:43

cash flow, cash cash flow was period, especially with seven eight so that that's the neat trick about about the seven a and about the SBA programs is it, it provides a cushion for the bank where they might not have enough collateral that they're they're concerned about? Might be working off projections, or, you know, so you're looking at that cash flow, but it's very much what what can the business produce? What can it do to, you know, how big of a loan can it serve, it's going to it's going to perform this Unicode service the debt and and pay the owner the benefit that they want to say,

Sam Yates: 7:13

investment firms, a lot of investment firms from the Northeast Corridor, and now we're hearing that we're attractive to investment firms from the California sector. What makes Florida in particular and the businesses here? Attractive from Is it from their vantage point? Is it the no state income tax? Other factors?

Bill West: 7:36

Very much? No. state income tax is definitely a it draws the people here it draws the potential owners for these businesses here. It's paradise. Yeah, that's what we just said. I mean, how can you live anywhere else? How can I move anywhere else? How could you move anywhere else, and it's just a beautiful place to be the economy is going strong? You know, I have hesitations because people say, you know, Florida is immune. Well, you and I have heard that before. Right. So we know it is not immune. But it does appear that especially this time around that we did some things right where others did not. So we're certainly benefiting from that.

Sam Yates: 8:12

I'm actively involved in the builders organizations throughout the state. We know that housing is a big factor, as companies look to acquire and grow in Florida. What are you hearing about the housing market as far as those that are looking to buy and sell?

Bill West: 8:31

It's a big problem. It's an enormous problem, workflow. So that's what says, it's the applied MBA, right? So I'm out there talking to these business owners every day. And, you know, what, what, what's working and what isn't, and what isn't working right now is getting employees, it's, you know, it's related to that housing, it's related to cost of living. It's related to who's out there in the business world right now. And whether they're motivated to work, how they're motivated to work, but it's, it's very much that employee in finding that employee. So every everything related to that.

Sam Yates: 9:02

I'll give an example. A New York firm recently purchased a local health care firm. And one of the reasons that they purchased the firm is that they have a labor base in New York, that is not as busy as the labor base and in health care is here. Is that something you're seeing also,

Bill West: 9:26

I have not seen specifically that but I can certainly good good good for them to have a labor force because it is that that's again, that that's, that's every single, literally, as I do these surveys, the first thing I say is, you know, I know you're gonna tell me about employees. Let's, let's, let's go to number two and number three, let's see what's on your list below that because you know that that's clearly an issue. We're going to drill into that too. But what else is there

Sam Yates: 9:49

not for profits and not for profits? Doesn't mean that they operate. Unlike a business it just means certain things under the not for profit rules. What are you see because we have a plethora of not for profits in Florida, are you seeing any trends that he feedback as far as how they're doing? How are they doing? Sure.

Bill West: 10:11

Good question. So, you know, I took a step and kind of fly fast. I ran a nonprofit for five years there. In Florida, they're doing well, again, it's that I it's one of the largest industries actually in Martin County. Right. So it's all about philanthropy. That's one thing Florida did very early on was was attract those philanthropic dollars, we didn't necessarily get the business investments. So that that's shifted recently that that's something that I've seen shifts since COVID, where we're actually getting the business investment dollars, people have always been very generous with with their funds here. Most nonprofits I see are doing pretty well. They've had some additional assistance from, you know, some of the government emergency programs and things that kind of came along, Beth, what I see with nonprofits is they don't run like a business. They don't they don't always have the infrastructure, they don't do the the controls that they should they don't have the right insurance or trying to cut costs, right? It's, you have to think bigger, you have to know that the pie is bigger that there are these great people that want to support you, if you share your story. And then you have to do the right thing was and you have to demonstrate that. So I think it's a demonstration piece of it that they sometimes miss.

Sam Yates: 11:19

And I'll echo that because we'd also in, in my other hat that I wear Yates and Associates public relations work with nonprofits. And the interesting thing is that a not for profit, a nonprofit organization. It's sort of a misnomer, that they can't make money. They can make money, they just have to show it differently on the books. fair statement.

Bill West: 11:43

Yes. It should be a solid business. Right? You should have all the infrastructures to have everything there, if not more, right? Because you're it's other people's money that you're handling there. So

Sam Yates: 11:53

now before we get too far into the program, because I tried to keep these about 15 minutes, how can people reach out to contact you?

Bill West: 12:01

Bill West West advisory, I have a so there's West advisory and then the business brokerage piece of my business I actually do through acquisition experts, I have a website there for the business brokerage, Five Steps to Sell it's number five steps number to sell.com. And that tells everything about me has my contact information, my phone number 772-812-5530. Through those things, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm an active LinkedIn user as well.

Sam Yates: 12:28

And I think I just received in the last day or so a newsletter from you about what is happening in the commercial real estate market. So you keep her your fingers on the pulse of quite a few things.

Bill West: 12:42

I do. I do. It's all small business in South Florida, right? That's everything on that pulse. Understanding what's going right and understanding how to build the business. And we just had a discussion about how do you grow? My I'm constantly trying to grow revenue for my clients, right? So so how do you do how do you know how to best approach that and, and you have to have your ear to the ground, you have to be ready to build.

Sam Yates: 13:06

If you were to pull out a crystal ball right now, as we're into the early part of 2023. What do you see on the horizon? As far as businesses and state of our I don't know, I'm putting you way out there. But I promise I'm not going to saw it all. But what do you see, based on your experience and those that you're working with right now? What does the rest of the year look like?

Bill West: 13:33

I would not dare to predict this year, right? Especially after the last few years. And even the last few weeks that we've had there. There's absolutely no way I would make a a prediction. Florida does appear to be uniquely strong. I've been expecting the hammer to drop for a long time. It hasn't dropped and I see limited signals that are saying, you know, hey, this is a problem with the signals, I do see signals, they tend to be more much more national. The ones that I see here locally, it's isolated. It's a good, robust local economy that we have and what I work on what I what I very much see it's my entire career. I've worked with people like you, Sam or your teachers every year, a few years older than me, barely but a few years older than me. You've gone through life. You've been building your business I was lending to you 30 years ago, lending to you 20 years ago, now you have a successful business that you've owned and operated for 40 years or 20 years. And it's time to do something different and I enjoy helping people with that process. There's there's another wave that's coming behind you that wants to take care of your business, these people that are coming here. They're young geniuses, and they're very diligent that there is there is definitely a younger generation that cares about the future. And that's here to purchase these businesses has assets and with the seven a loan, but they can buy with 10 or 20% down and Have you watch your business grow and blossom while you go to retire?

Sam Yates: 15:04

And as one of my guests on another podcast say, the graying of our country is the playing of our country because a lot of people look at, you know, those retirement years as an opportunity to enjoy life. But I'm also seeing more and more senior citizens because they have more time on their hands are living longer wanting to come investors, is that something that you see happening here in our area of Florida that rather than just sit back on the rocking chair, they're getting out saying, Hey, I've got another few years, 10 years, 20 years to go, I want to invest?

Bill West: 15:42

Definitely on the investment side, I don't think they want to necessarily turn wrench right now. Right? So they're past that they've learned that they've got the investment, they will let somebody else do that. I'll invest with them. But older is getting younger. I mean, that that's these business owners that I'm working with. A couple of them are now I mean, they spent two weeks last summer climbing mountains tent camping in the Rockies, you know, it's, they are Yeah, they're ready to enjoy their retirement. They're 68 years old, they're gonna sell the business and they're gonna spend the next five or 10 years enjoying grandkids and doing fun things. So will they invest in a business? They may have an interest in this gearing on we'll see what happens.

Sam Yates: 16:20

Now, is their retirement on the horizon for Bill West?

Bill West: 16:23

There is not I wouldn't dare I wouldn't move. And I would have been shocked if you had said yes, it was ladies and gentlemen. You know, I have known this gentleman for a long time. Grass doesn't grow under his feet. When he walks down the street, you never see a shadow because he's got a piece about himself. So you know, he is a real go getter and what you do in the business community based on your experience, you know, I have to tip my hat to you. So once again, the way that people can get in touch with you. Five Steps to sell.com Number five steps. Number two sell.com. Everything's there.

Sam Yates: 17:02

Great. I appreciate you being here. And for our audience. We want to wrap it up. Can you come back again at some point in the future? Absolutely.

Bill West: 17:10

Whenever you need me right here, easy trip.

Sam Yates: 17:12

We're gonna hold you to that. Ladies and gentlemen, Bill, thank you for being here with us. I'm Sam Yates with another episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Have a great day everybody. The Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only business forum of its type in Florida. Thanks for tuning in. And remember, the Florida Business Forum is now accepting guest applications. Have a great day everyone and stay tuned for more business