Hiring a CEO to Run Things (and Get Life Back)

The success of today's guest is not measured in revenue, not in ebitda, nor growth. The success is having emerged from a very difficult transition to a place where finally, Jeremy Hunka can own the business he bought on his terms. For many months that was not the case, and Jeremy's life was bleak, his doubts crippling.

But today he has a CEO, he has boundaries, and he's once again optimistic about the future. There's a long way to go financially for Jeremy and his business, but he and I agreed that achieving this stabilization is a key milestone in his ownership journey and that the story to this point deserved telling. You will hear about Jeremy's growth as a leader, which resonated deeply with me.

It's curious that we don't talk more about leadership on Acquiring Minds. We know that the classic challenge of running and owning a business you bought is people problems. Well, another way of saying people problems is being a leader.

Today you will feel how those two things are really one in the same. Here is Jeremy Hunka, owner of Summit Cabinet Coatings. It is competitive out there and many business buyers can't get traction with brokers or owners because they don't stand out in any way.

Brokers dismiss them as just another inexperienced searcher, sellers don't feel a connection to them and lenders hesitate to back them. Well, this Thursday, Athena Simpson, founder of AquaMatch, is returning to host a webinar on how to build a personal buyer brand that makes you memorable, credible, compelling on behalf of their buyer clients.

The team at AquaMatch is in Daily conversations with brokers and owners and lenders so they see up close why certain buyers get traction while many others go ignored. So come learn from Athena how to get noticed, get backed, and ultimately get chosen as the buyer of your target business. That webinar is this Thursday, September 11th noon Eastern.

Register at the link in today's show notes or on the Acquiring Minds homepage. Acquiringminds co welcome to Acquiring Minds, a podcast about buying businesses. My name is Will Smith.

Acquiring an existing business is an awesome opportunity for many entrepreneurs, and on this podcast I talk to the people who do it. The team at Aspen HR recently published a short white paper targeted at searchers Entitled A New CEO's Guide to Human Resources. It lays out the key items you should be thinking about as you transition into CEO and owner of the business you bought.

The link to download it is in the show notes. Aspen is a professional employer organization, or peo, run by a searcher for searchers. Search fund veteran Mark Sinatra runs The company which provides HR compliance, flawless payroll, Fortune 500 caliber benefits and HR due diligence support for your acquisition, all for a fraction of the cost.

Go to aspenhr.com or contact Mark directly@markspenhr.com Jeremy Hunka welcome to Acquiring Minds. Thank you Will. Jeremy, I was struck by our pre call. There were a lot of themes that will be familiar to regular Acquiring Minds listeners, but you talked about your growth as a leader more directly in more detail than we typically do here.

Which I now realize is kind of strange because I suspect that leading effectively, learning how to lead effectively is actually what is so hard often about this journey of buying an existing business and stepping into it. So Jeremy, I'm eager to share your experience with the audience. Let's begin with some background.

How was it that you decided to buy a business and go down this journey? Thank you Will.