Are you planning to sell your small or big business? If yes, finding the right people to help you out in this tedious process is essential. Today, Bob Roark is joined by Jude David, a Senior Broker with Raincatcher, to talk about how Jude helped the company and what they’re doing to help investors. Having seen deals that didn’t work, Jude ensures their clients that they can find quality buyers and shares the key ingredients to hiring a good brokerage firm and getting the right buyers. He also talks about the questions that business owners should ask before considering anyone to help them sell their company. Know more about what makes a good and bad business broker as Jude gives an analogy between brokerage and brain surgery.
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Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Bring us up to speed. How did you get to where are you now as far as your background and your journey?
I was born and raised in South Louisiana, in a town called Lafayette. It's about 120,000 people. It is big for Louisiana, but small by big-city standards. It is a good Catholic community. I learned to love God and family first and always work hard, but work to live and not live to work. That's good community values that we have. I find some of the most successful people in life or some of the hardest workers I know, but they always find ways to put family first. Be good role models to their kids and that allows them to have the energy and the drive to be good at what they do. I've always tried to emulate that.
I practiced merger and acquisition law for a long time after graduating from MBA school and law school. I was very fortunate. I got in with some great people and had tremendous success. The right people, right place, right time and a whole lot of hard work added up to a ton of success in very early along in my career. I was put in a position where I had to swim or else I was going to sink. You got thrown in the deep end early and there's nothing like experience when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. I've been very fortunate to have clients with tremendous character and talent to help form me along the way. They probably put way too much confidence in me early along and it allowed me to succeed.
By happenstance over the years, I've represented tremendously successful companies and business owners and celebrities. Over my time of being a lawyer, my firm represented Nick Saban. I was his primary point of contact. My colleague, Hank, handled all of his stuff and I don't think you wanted me too close to that situation. Other ones I've represented were Jack Nicklaus and his family and some other sports celebrities as well. I represented J. Howard Marshall’s family estate. He was a billionaire oil tycoon. He married Anna Nicole Smith. His family owned 20% of Koch Industries. They are one of the wealthiest families in the world. By happenstance, a lot of these things came to me and I got tremendous experience early...
