Ten thousand boomers a day are aging toward an exit, and four hundred miles up the coast a 111 billion dollar media merger is bleeding money because it cannot get out of its own way. Same week, same country, same question underneath both. In this one Charles and I skip the guest chair and just read the tape on what is actually hot in M&A right now.We break down the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery megadeal as a bellwether, not gossip, because whatever regulators allow at the top sets the tone all the way down to your desk. Then we make the turn that matters for our audience, the lower middle market, where deal volume just hit a record and the boomer wave keeps feeding supply. We cover the timing mismatch that breaks even a great deal on paper, the disclosure discipline that scales from a corner store to a 111 billion dollar merger, the real math behind SBA change of ownership financing, and the honest two sided debate on private equity roll ups on Main Street.My whole thesis in one line: the deal on the front page and the deal on your desk are the same deal. Just move the decimal.What we get into:The megadeal returns and why the guardrails here matter to youThe timing mismatch hiding in a Hollywood storyFees, conflicts, and related party optics you have to priceWhy record dry powder is not the same thing as demandThe SBA numbers first time buyers get wrongRoll ups, are they saving Main Street or strip mining itIf this makes you rethink one deal on your desk, we did our job.Deal Flow OS: https://dealflow-os.comSubstack: https://buybuildexitwithroyredd.subst...Instagram: @buybuildexitFree Class, Buy Build Exit Academy: https://www.skool.com/buy-build-exit-...

In this episode I sit down with Richard Parker, founder of Diomo Corporation and author of How To Buy A Good Business At A Great Price. Richard has personally bought 14 businesses over more than 35 years, he was hired by the Dalio family to mentor one of Ray Dalio's sons on buying small businesses, and he has built one of the most widely read buyer education resources in the world.This one is a real debate. Richard is a buy-side skeptic who leans hard on seller financing, and most of you watching make your living on SBA and bank debt. So we put him in the room and let him make his case. We get into why he tells buyers to fall in love with the profit and not the product, how he actually values a business, why he says most listings are overpriced and carry hidden problems, and what separates the small group of people who close from the ones who look for years and never buy.Charles and I also walk through what has changed in the market this year, from larger SBA borrowing capacity to the shift toward cash flow underwriting, and we pressure test whether cheaper and bigger capital makes buyers better or just makes it more expensive to be wrong. The figures Richard shares are his own numbers from his own track record, so take them as his experience, not a promise about your deal.If you are trying to buy your first business or your next one, this is the honest conversation about risk, discipline and financing that I wish more people were having.Chapters0:00 Cold open1:30 Welcome and guest intro4:00 Origin story and buy vs build philosophy12:00 Why now: the boomer wave and the bigger SBA checkbook20:00 Valuation and the Diomo method30:00 The financing fault line: seller financing vs SBA40:00 Due diligence, quality of earnings and the landmines48:00 Buyer psychology: why most never close54:00 Rapid fire58:00 CloseTry it free - https://dealflow-os.comSubscribe to my newsletter - https://buybuildexitwithroyredd.subst...Follow me on Instagram - @buybuildexitFree Class - https://www.skool.com/buy-build-exit-...

Michael E. Gerber wrote The E-Myth Revisited forty years ago and it has sold millions of copies since. Inc. Magazine calls him the world's number one small business guru. In this episode I sit down with Michael alongside my co-host Charles Oglesby to ask the question every lender should be asking: why do most of the businesses we finance fail, and what separates a bankable business from a well-paid job with overhead?We cover the entrepreneurial seizure and why the technician who makes the pies should almost never own the pie shop. We dig into why documented systems are not just an operations idea but an underwriting standard, and how the SBA's move away from credit scores toward cash-flow fundamentals lines up with what Michael has been saying for four decades. With SBA loan limits expanding dramatically, we ask whether more capital for Main Street is a blessing or a loaded gun, and what has to change inside a business before it can responsibly carry serious debt.We also get into the acquisition wave, what a buyer actually owns when all the systems live in the seller's head, the due-diligence version of the E-Myth, whether AI finally solves the systems problem or just automates the seizure, and Michael's unfinished mission to transform small business worldwide.If you lend to, advise, buy, or run a small business, this one is required listening.Deal Flow OS: dealflow-os.comNewsletter: https://buybuildexitwithroyredd.subst...Instagram: @buybuildexitFree Class, Buy Build Exit Academy: https://www.skool.com/buy-build-exit-...