Michael Girdley (@Girdley) & Bill D’Alessandro (@BillDA), are joined by Steve Ressler (@steveressler) to talk about best practices when running a search, his search fund The Brydon Group, buying opportunities in the SMB space, what do the best search funders do, top CEO’s skills,  and more.-----Thanks to our sponsors:* https://Cloudbookkeeping.com - Cloudbookkeeping specializes in bookkeeping solutions for everyone from start-ups to mature businesses. Check them out & mention our podcast.-----* Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.* Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!* Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.-----Show Notes:(01:09) - Cloudbookkeeping.com(2:20) - What do the more intelligent search funders do to pitch you?(4:14) - What are good reasons to do a search fund?(6:24) - How would you segment the search fund prototype?(8:29) - How can you tell if a senior executive will be an operative one?(11:22) - What do you look for in a searcher?(14:14) - Tell us about the Brydon Group and what you’re doing (19:40) - What’s the profile you look for? What type of deals do you look for?(21:40) - How do you structure deals? What about the financing?(25:08) - How do you think about debt for this kind of search? How does the equity side work?(28:34) - What do you look for in a searcher?(33:52) - Why do you go for $2 to $5 MM EBITDA range deals?(36:47) - Where are the winds blowing in the private markets?(38:45) - Do you think that Covid put pressure on the sellers, burnout syndrome, that kind of stuff?(42:04) - What are the craziest things you’ve seen from searchers?-----Links:* https://www.linkedin.com/in/ressler/ * https://www.brydon.com/for-searchers * steve@brydon.com -----Additional episodes you might enjoy:#87 Yelp is not evil! Building a business using digital CAC - Featuring Johnny Robinson from Orange Window Cleaning#86 Rocketship your business with... Twitter?! - JK Molina gives a Twitter Masterclass#79 What do Investors want? - Dig into an investor’s mind with Bradford Hardin#75 SBA Loan Secrets with Heather Endresen, expertise from a Billion-Dollar