Private Equity Spotlight: From Lending to Leading with Gretchen Perkins

[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, BluWave's founder and CEO. In this episode, we have a fantastic conversation with Gretchen Perkins, partner and head of business development with Avance Investment Management.
Enjoy.
I'm Very excited to be here with my friend Gretchen Perkins. Gretchen, thanks for joining.

[00:00:43] Gretchen Perkins: You bet. Hi, Sean. How are you? It's great to see you.

[00:00:45] Sean Mooney: We're doing really well. Time moves by quickly, and so it's good to see you at least virtually, and then I'm sure we'll see each other in real life sooner than later.
Indeed.

[00:00:54] Gretchen Perkins: Somewhere out there.

[00:00:56] Sean Mooney: In the meantime, it's great to have you here. And I've been really looking forward to our discussion here. So maybe if we jump right into it and you and I have known each other for more years than we will disclose,

[00:01:07] Gretchen Perkins: no need to disclose,

[00:01:10] Sean Mooney: but you know, for the rest of everyone, it would be great to get to know the story of Gretchen a little better.
And so. I'd be curious to kick things off. How did you get into this industry of private equity? What attracted you to it? What are some of the, kind of the ways you grew up as well?

[00:01:26] Gretchen Perkins: Absolutely. Well, I got into this industry after about 13, 14 years as a commercial lender. So back when I was in school at the university of Michigan, home of the national championship, Football, National Football Championship, Wolverines, where Jim Harbaugh was my quarterback while I was in college.

[00:01:48] Sean Mooney: No way, I didn't know that. Plus to date myself.

[00:01:52] Gretchen Perkins: I was graduating from the business school, undergrad, and I didn't really know what industry I wanted to go in, right? 22 years old and I didn't know I had a lot of work experience that I didn't want to repeat like waitressing bartender Babysitting so I decided that going into Lending would give me the best opportunity to just assess a bunch of different industries And at that time my plan was, I'm sure one day I'll leave, one of my borrowers will hire me as their CFO or their controller or something like that, and then I'll get into industry, but I don't know what industry I want to be in.
So, that actually was really fortunate for me because I really enjoyed the exposure. And underwriting of credit to a food and beverage company, a real estate project, engineering firm, you name it, an auto supplier. I was in Detroit, Michigan at the time working. So I had a nice career in lending and really hadn't thought much about private equity.
When I joined private equity, it was. pretty early days and very early days for a business development, specifically professional. And one of my former clients, a small at the time private equity firm in Detroit, Michigan, Long Point Capital called me and said, Hey, we're looking for somebody to do business development.
And they were starting their second fund. And that's pretty common. They do it themselves. The execution folks for the first. Few years and then they get a portfolio and they got board meetings and then it gets hard to get back out and do that outreach that needs to be done. And so they came to me and said, we really appreciated how you called on us when you were a lender calling on us regularly to see if you could provide us debt.
We need you to do that with deal sources. So business brokers, investment banks, wealth management, accountants, attorneys, et cetera, the whole service provider world. That's how I got into private equity. So I had entered after I had had years in financial services and all these capital connections and ACG functions around the country were not a thing.
thing at that time, there was a few broker conferences and I think ACG Chicago was the first one that had what is the first Capital Connection. And one of my colleagues at the time, Scott Hauncher, who is at Huron Capital now, he said, go find the three or four people who do this role best. And do what they do.
That was how I got into business development. And then I met Dave Malizia and Jay Jester and Bob from Riverside, Bob Landis. And they were the three that at the time I started were already doing this and I just shadowed them and they were all incredibly generous. And over time, this role, the dedicated business development role has really boomed over the last 20 years because typically funds that have a dedicated biz dev function deploy their capital faster.
And so that's how I got into private equity. And then after LongPoint, I joined Huron Capital. And then after Huron, I joined my current firm. Investment management three years ago when we were starting the firm.

[00:05:16] Sean Mooney: That's great. I love the story there and it gels nicely with the way that I increasingly have seen the world of private equity doing this podcast and just serving the magnitude of P firms that we work with like yours.
But one of the most interesting things is there's almost consistently every time asked this question, there's like this serendipitous journey into it. And you didn't even know you were going there and then you showed up. You're like, Oh, this is pretty good.

[00:05:41] Gretchen Perkins: And I got to keep what I liked about my lending days was learning about all sorts of different businesses, business models, industries, what makes an attractive investment, what over time are successful things in a management team and a strategy deployment.
And what are not, you learn what works and what doesn't work.

[00:06:02] Sean Mooney: And the other thing that you mentioned that really struck me, that I really liked is this evolution of the industry. The private equity industry is turning into an industry.

[00:06:11] Gretchen Perkins: And really

[00:06:11] Sean Mooney: the first thing that happened was an area that you were truly a leader in and the development of it is that private equity firms now they have business development there, they have marketing, they have operations, they have front office, they have back office.
When you and I started, that wasn't really the case. That's true.

[00:06:26] Gretchen Perkins: Everybody did everything.

[00:06:28] Sean Mooney: And there's a lot of waxing poetic and the whiteboard and like, uh, I see the world in slow motion. And I didn't quite realize what the arbitrage that I had

[00:06:36] Gretchen Perkins: in

[00:06:37] Sean Mooney: the early days when every model was up and to the right.
That's true. Because the multiples just got higher.

[00:06:44] Gretchen Perkins: And they have not come down. A little bit. A little bit.

[00:06:47] Sean Mooney: Yeah. And the other thing that I think that I want to dig into before we go into kind of the meat of our conversation here is really twofold. One, did you know John Harbaugh in college? The second part of that question is, was he a Dockers khaki man back then as well?

[00:07:02] Gretchen Perkins: No, he was a jeans guy back then. And he came into a place where I was bartending and I served him and his football crew beers. But no, I did not know him.

[00:07:15] Sean Mooney: Okay. But not a khaki guy then?

[00:07:17] Gretchen Perkins: No, jeans guy. It was the eighties, you know, jeans, polo, collar popped, obviously.

[00:07:23] Sean Mooney: Members only jacket. No, exactly.

[00:07:25] Gretchen Perkins: Members only

[00:07:26] Sean Mooney: jackets.
Maybe some parachute pants early.

[00:07:29] Gretchen Perkins: Yeah.

[00:07:30] Sean Mooney: Back to stonewashed jeans. I'm with you. I'm with you.
So the other question I love asking is kind of the unknown trivia of people. And so Gretchen, I'd be curious if there's something that we would know you better, if we knew this about you. In addition to serving Harbaugh beers, he was wearing stonewashed shoes.

[00:07:53] Gretchen Perkins: Well, there's a couple of things that really have defined me as a person.
And a lot of people know this, but I'm sure there's some people who don't, but I am a minister's daughter. So I grew up as a minister's daughter. I grew up participating in church services. I love speaking in front of a crowd. I think that has to do with. watching my father do that every Sunday. And my mother was born too early.
She was born in the era when women really didn't work outside the home. And she really was the person who inspired me in building my network. Because we grew up in a small town, was born in Detroit. My father was moved to St. John's, Michigan, right in the middle of the state in a tiny little rural community.
That's where I spent most of my childhood. And my mom was in everything. She was on the library board, she was in the J. E. sets, in the J. C. She was a 4 H mom who taught crafts and cooking. And she just did a ton of things and was super active in our community. And I think between My dad's oration experience and just living amongst my mother, who was a power broker in our own little town.
I think those two things really shaped me.

[00:09:12] Sean Mooney: What a great way to grow up. In my mind, I can see your mom. We all knew those super connector moms. That we're at the center of everything. And you're just like, how do they do that?

[00:09:22] Gretchen Perkins: The PTO, the school board meetings, all of that stuff. And it was a very Norman Rockwellian upbringing, frankly.

[00:09:31] Sean Mooney: Part of that as a minister's daughter, where you also kind of like, did you grow up as a choir person and like singing or, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:37] Gretchen Perkins: Absolutely. I was in the choir. Absolutely. I was part of youth group and delivering the gospel on youth group Sundays. Absolutely. Yeah, that was a big part of my childhood.
Also had, I have an older brother and a younger sister, and we all felt very heavily the bur not burden, but it was just don't embarrass the family. Don't do things out in public that are gonna embarrass the family.

[00:10:05] Sean Mooney: You're the pillar of this community, and so you don't have that pressure.

[00:10:11] Gretchen Perkins: I mean, it was a very small, sleepy, little 7000 person town, and it probably has 7000 people still today.
My mom still lives there, but small towns. We all know about small towns. Don't embarrass the family.

[00:10:22] Sean Mooney: In my mind, I'm going through certain scenes of a Kevin Bacon movie. And so I'm like, okay.

[00:10:26] Gretchen Perkins: My dad was a very cool master.

[00:10:30] Sean Mooney: Well, knowing that you've done the choir stuff and knowing that you're going to be in Nashville in the relative near future.
Yes. We're going to have to like scout out some of the karaoke places for

[00:10:39] Gretchen Perkins: you. I love karaoke. Many people know this about me. Too many people know this about

[00:10:46] Sean Mooney: me. I am the person who appreciates karaoke, but I can't even snap my fingers like, you know, even close to in tune. So I'm in the wrong town.
Maybe segwaying here, I'd love to turn the page in one of the things that I think you've had this really unique situations from the beginning of your career, all the way to today, you've been looking at hundreds, if not probably in the thousands of companies a year now, right? A year.

[00:11:33] Gretchen Perkins: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Sean Mooney: In
terms of how the machine has grown and invariably. I'm sure that's led to a bit of a yardstick. When I was in PE, I had a yardstick. Like this in my mind is what I'm looking for that equals a good company because there's too many to process. You don't have that yardstick. And so I'd be curious, what are some of the traits that you look at and for a company when you say, is this company an advance company?
Or can it be a really good company in terms of what we know we can bring to bear?

[00:12:02] Gretchen Perkins: Well, operating all of the years of my career in the lower middle market or the middle market, that's the whole point of investing in that space. There's always something that can be improved, some deficiency or some maybe technology that isn't being utilized at the firm that you've seen it.
Really be transformational in some other firm. It probably doesn't have a real board of directors. They've generally are entrepreneurially led and run businesses. And these entrepreneurs are kind of in it all alone without a lot of other people to bounce ideas off of or things like that. So just the fact that when.
We, and anybody in our industry invests in a middle market or lower middle market business. We're bringing heaps of experience of best practices. We've seen over our careers across a bunch of different industries. But for me, I would say the top two things are number one, strength of management team. You can solve for maybe an underperforming management team, but you lose time to create shareholder value.
If you've got to change horses. Or rebuild a whole management team. So strength of management team is number one. I'd say second thing I look at is the underlying sector. And is it growing or is it a two, 3 percent a year grower? We at Avancé want to invest in businesses. That are generating organic growth above typical inflation numbers of two to 4%.
Because in all of our businesses, we want to augment management team systems, capital to continue organic growth and achieve better than GDP organic growth. But we also want to, where appropriate, we want to play the add on acquisition consolidation. Growth strategy as well. So we look at a lot of businesses and they're fine businesses and they have found around, they have a good management team.
They have a good CFO, good go to market strategy, but the sector isn't growing and that's less exciting to us. So strength of sector growth and strength of management team are the top two.

[00:14:12] Sean Mooney: I love those perspectives. And they're so true in terms of one, a good market always wins. If you're in a good market, you can screw some things up and still be right.
But if you're fighting a bad market, it's just like you're rowing upstream and it's just, everything's hard. Go where the water flows easiest.

[00:14:29] Gretchen Perkins: And

[00:14:30] Sean Mooney: it's a great lesson for our listeners who are leading companies. If you're not in a good market, find your way to one, go right or left. It's like, if you're in that riptide and it's going the wrong way, swim parallel to the shore until you get, until you get out of that thing.
And the other thing I love to double tap on quickly is management team. And so you get a SIM or you're in that first meeting. What are maybe some of the things, the signals that you see that go, Oh, I at least think this could be a good management team and I'm going to test it. Or what are some of the signals that you see?
Like, Oh, this seems not so great. I imagine there's some pattern recognition that.

[00:15:06] Gretchen Perkins: I would say the main thing in terms of, it's not that we decide a management team is not great, but sometimes you meet. A certain CEO, and it's usually at CEO level, owner, who you can tell is not coachable and just won't be a good partner for us.
We just don't fit together. We're doing in any one of these deals, all the deals you did, all the deals we all do, it's a marriage between us and the management team and. You really have to have the right fit or it's difficult to implement the strategy. If you don't fit and see the world the same way, it's very difficult to come together on what the strategy is going to be for our three to five year hold timeframe and how we're going to grow the business and optimize the returns for all of us because our management teams are always rolling over.
That's important to us as well. So it's making an assessment of coachability or not. You can just get clues to that. If you're in a management presentation and maybe we offer up an idea, like, have you thought about this? Yeah, that won't work because of this. And you do that two or three or four times and get shut down.
Like, yeah, no, that's something we've already tried. Didn't work. This doesn't work. Those are some key signals that maybe this person really wants to take some chips off the table and still wants to stay in and run the business. Those are both great things. But if we aren't. aligned together and they really don't want our input, then that's not a good fit for us.
Things that you can see in a management team are hopefully a thoughtfully built out one. You sometimes see these businesses that it's all CEO and CEO is doing everything. And maybe they have a controller instead of a CFO and that controller's been there a long time or maybe their head of sales has been there a long time.
So if you see long term, that means all these people like working together and the financial results they've put together that we're looking at and saying, Ooh, we like this business, nice growth. You can see you've got a good functioning management team there.

[00:17:05] Sean Mooney: I think those are great points. And it's one, I used to do the same thing as you're in there and we would specifically and almost purposely be a little bit provocative and show them some data that you know they hadn't seen.
Otherwise it would have been in the data room or something. And just to see how they'll react. And they go, Oh, that's interesting. And will they make something up or will they have a thoughtful answer? Or will they even more importantly say, you know what? I don't know. Let me get back to you. Right. And you go, well,

[00:17:32] Gretchen Perkins: ding, ding,

[00:17:32] Sean Mooney: or in a management meeting, every time a question is posed, every eye goes to the CEO.
That's

[00:17:36] Gretchen Perkins: a really good point. No one else gets to talk. At the management presentation. That's a big one. I'm glad you brought that up. I had forgotten about that. Absolutely. That's a big red flag for us that no one else either feels comfortable speaking in front of the CEO or no one else knows.

[00:17:53] Sean Mooney: Here's one other double secret test that we always loved.
I'm curious if you've ever did this. We would purposely go with the CEO or. Going from the meeting to the dinner. And I'd say, can I go with you? You kind of get a ride. Sure. Then I'd say, Oh, I'd like to put my briefcase in your trunk. And I'm looking to see if there's golf clubs in the trunk. If you have golf clubs in your trunk, your world's going to change, buddy.

[00:18:14] Gretchen Perkins: Good one. Everybody listening just gave a really good tip.

[00:18:19] Sean Mooney: So if you're a CEO, maybe for your management meetings also, if you're listening to this, get your thumbs out. Two sets of like spy versus spy.

[00:18:27] Gretchen Perkins: Love it.

[00:18:27] Sean Mooney: I love that. So next question I'd love to delve into with you, Gretchen, is kind of what we talked about earlier is this Private equity evolving from kind of craft Michelin star restaurant experience to more of a business.
And I think when both of us started, it used to be kind of one or two, maybe three note song. And now it's this symphony of motion between the business development teams, the deal teams, the operation teams, the port co leadership, and it's all kind of moving together. And you're the

[00:18:56] Gretchen Perkins: conductor, you're helping us find all, all the resources we need.

[00:19:01] Sean Mooney: But I'd be curious, like, how do you all at Avance manage all of that interplay? Because it's not easy, but when you do it well, stick with my analogy that I'll beat to death, it creates like beautiful music.

[00:19:12] Gretchen Perkins: You're right. One of the things that the founders very specifically wanted in a middle market firm was some specialties.
They very specifically wanted a dedicated BD function. They also wanted. Ahead of research function. They also wanted a head of human capital function. In addition to the normal finance and accounting office of the CFO and the execution people, they very specifically built this firm to have each of those capabilities.
And so it was their vision and you don't often find that level of specialty in a firm our size. You see it in the big giant ones, KKR and all the big giant asset managers, but you don't often see it here. And I saw the empty org chart when they were explaining their vision to me. There was an empty business development box, empty head of research.
So. That was their game plan from the jump. And then we've filled those out and it's first time I've had these functions along with my business development effort at any of the firms I was at in the past. And it is incredibly powerful. And I'll just give you a couple of examples. So there's all these deals coming in, right?
Deals, deals, deals. And that's fine. I kind of pushed back on them. We need to bring in more books every year. It's got to be up and to the right for this direction. Yeah. We just need to. See more deals. And I kind of feel that my job is to educate the deal providers on what we want to see. And so they're only sending me things.
that are actionable. So if the numbers drop, but the quality improves.

[00:20:56] Sean Mooney: It's the yield that matters, not the, not the top line. There's just a

[00:21:00] Gretchen Perkins: whole lot of stuff coming in and our strong preference for founder owned businesses or individual family owned, not sponsor to sponsor trade and thematic sectors that we've indicated that have an underlying growth trend and are fragmented.
So we have the opportunity for a consolidation strategy as well. So when a deal comes in. Everybody gets The Sims and everybody reads them. We go through them at every Monday morning meeting. And the head of research, my colleague, Natanj, was a partner at Boston Consulting Group. He's incredibly experienced in doing the type of market studies that us PE folks engage when we're really serious about a deal.
So to have that capability to just eyeball every opportunity. Sim that comes in is immensely useful. So let's say I have a diverse ownership in a sector that I think is great. And it has strong EBITDA margins and appears fragmented. Natan shall look at that. And then maybe at the Monday morning meeting, he'll show up and he'll say, yeah, this market really is not growing.
It's like a two and a half percent grower. And that's kind of like, wah, wah, you know? Okay. It helps with deal triage. So like, nobody can fall in love with a deal and just find out way far down the process that, you know, this isn't really growing that much. So it's incredibly efficient for looking at all the things that are coming in and deciding where we have a real angle, where we want to lean in hard.
So we decide that, and then Kabir, our head of human capital, Starts identifying executives who can be just helpful on us and thinking about the right questions that we should ask in a certain industry. Executives that might have connections with add on candidates, executives that could create our real board of directors at this company.
And of course, these people are immensely helpful. They always have decades of experience in a space and they can. Weigh in on the competitive environment, because maybe they were at a competitor ideas that they've seen at big companies. That might be something we can implement at a smaller company that we would be investing in.
So those three functions are working together. Every deal that we're going to. Take more than a passing look at so that's just at the front end and then both of those capacities research and human capital are equally as entrenched with deal teams and helping build out one of our portfolio companies.
We've brought in approximately 10 new executives. VP of marketing, VP of franchise operations, just a lot of different functional heads at this portfolio company, which is growing great, had grown before we added these people, but we're trying to augment the management team so we can scale it so that they have enough firepower in the C suite to scale where we all want to take it.
So really powerful, really different. And that is part of our special sauce and that all credit goes to the founders. Cause they had all these empty boxes. That was their clear vision from the start. And I was fortunate enough to be able to fill one of the boxes.

[00:24:17] Sean Mooney: I love that. And particularly just the symmetry of our conversation here of just kind of bringing in the specialized skillsets so that when you get that SIM and you go to that management meeting, you have a very strong perspective on how Many of the most important areas of the company, the status of the company as it is today, also some preconceived hypotheses that this is what this company can be.
That gives you alpha. Exactly. That's amazing. And particularly the human capital area. I mean, it's hugely important and it's the number one reason we get called by firms like yours today is we need to get people.

[00:24:55] Gretchen Perkins: That's not going to decline. I mean, the numbers, population, the demographic trends are firmly playing out and that's not going to change.
That's something we have to assess in every sector we look. There's certain sectors. That maybe three years ago we thought, Oh, this is a thematic area we're interested in. Let's go find deals. And now maybe we're pivoting to a different space because we're concerned about wage compression. Another good example of labor issues is all these residential services deals.
We like residential services and there's certain ones that we've taken a management meeting and starting to learn about, and they have great growth. Great, incredible growth plans. And while we don't dispute your marketing machine and your ability to generate demand, can you really hire enough technicians, be it HVAC roofing, landscape, whatever it is, can you hire enough people to meet that demand?
We don't argue the demand characteristics. What we argue is, can you really. Achieve that without hiring all the people actually doing those residential services. So constant. I'm not surprised. That's your number one area That's a really big consideration in anything we invest in.

[00:26:06] Sean Mooney: I really like that. You pointed out residential services in part living in a fellow Boom area, like you do in Florida.
Can you please buy a company in Nashville for both landscaping and pool? And then I'll, cause I'm in the market.

[00:26:24] Gretchen Perkins: Exactly.

[00:26:28] Sean Mooney: All of it is like, you can bring in and give me a friend deal, but I'll sign up. You got a base customer for pretty much all the things. That's an area of need in Nashville,

[00:26:40] Gretchen Perkins: Tennessee, Florida, and Texas.
I mean, the highest growing States and the most challenging to find labor.

[00:26:46] Sean Mooney: I'll follow up afterwards. We talked about, here's how you look at the deals and the value that you're able to bring afterwards. And maybe double tapping on that. One of the things I love most about private equity is whether we're in a down cycle or an up cycle or anywhere in between, you all, View the world through the lens of opportunity, whether people are saying it's risky or the risk is off either way, there's opportunities no matter where you are in the cycle.
And so I'd be curious, what are some of the top value creation opportunities that you are kind of thematically engaging in your portfolio companies and their leaders today?

[00:27:21] Gretchen Perkins: Yeah. Well, on the thematic comment, that's how we go to market. We have certain areas. And our head of research, again, weighs in heavily on identifying areas and researching them thoroughly.
Like, this is a good space to be in because of these growth factors and dynamics that are causing either change in an industry. And so this service provider or product provider can meet the needs of the changing market or whatnot. So we're going to market very thematically. Anyways, things come in at the top.
And so we do look at things opportunistically, but our main mode of investment is to focus on certain sectors that we have thematically decided we're enthusiastic about. So number one, it kind of shapes our whole strategy is the thematic investment. As you would expect. Many of those places are highly popular.
So there's a lot of people going after the same businesses. So that's where we need to create our angle. And frankly, when we're pursuing an investment, the ideal scenario is I talk to an investment bank and say, Hey, it's January, what should we be getting ready for coming down the pike in second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, maybe they share a couple of opportunities, no names, of Sectors, companies in certain sectors, and we will use our research and our human capital capabilities to get really smart, very, very smart and already have in place the executives that are going to help us think about this business so that when we do show up for that management presentation, we're very much ahead of the game on knowledge, and we can speak very fluidly with a business owner and the business owner We'll know, Oh, they really know my space, which is hugely important.
So that research function again, comes into play in that type of scenario as well. We have a variety of different companies. We have some technology companies. We have a construction equipment, leasing business, a consumer insurance, brokerage business, a personal care products, ingredients business. So I wouldn't say there's.
Certain strategies that we're applying to all, other than in each case, we have worked very hard to build a very active and helpful board of directors who can bring ideas and who weigh in on the strategy for our investment and our whole period. And that in many transformational boards. It's the first time the seller, the business owner has.
All these smart people who know his or her industry really well, trying to help the CEO grow faster than they could have without us. That's the name of the game. We're supposed to come in and help them achieve growth above and beyond what they could on their own. And that's why. Any business owner is going to choose to partner with a private equity firm.

[00:30:21] Sean Mooney: I love what you said there, and it 100 percent resonates. And in my mind, being a Gen X generation person here, I view the world through the lenses of movies and quotes from them. And so what kind of went to my mind was the movie in the book Moneyball, right? And so you are doing the work, the research, the data.
And that's informing not only where you're investing, but the lanes in which you're investing because you're research first. And there's this beautiful concept of expected value. Yes. The percentage of probability that something will happen times the outcome. And what you're describing there makes me think, Oh, that's money ball.
And let's be the Oakland A's. Yeah. Let's hope, let's hope

[00:31:02] Gretchen Perkins: we're the Oakland A's of the private equity industry. Right back from that time. Not current, not current.

[00:31:07] Sean Mooney: Yeah. The post analytics, Red Sox, if you can stomach being a Red Sox fan, and no offense to the Red Sox fans out there. So one of the other things I'd love Gretchen to get your perspective on is.
As someone who's incredibly busy like you are, I take these opportunities to collect other people's life hacks. And it's this whole idea of like, just these little things that make your life moderately easier or more enjoyable. And they all kind of stack up when the world is a frenzy. And so I'd be curious if there's anything that you've kind of figured out that you've introduced in your life that just makes things a little easier or better or more fun.

[00:31:45] Gretchen Perkins: Yes. Number one. I would say meditation, transcendental meditation. I'm telling you people in our industry are fairly tightly wound and all credit goes to my former colleague, Mike Beauregard at Huron Capital. He's the one that observed some of my behaviors. Like, Hey Gretchen, have you ever thought about meditation?
And I hadn't. And then I went and got trained to do it. And it's a complete game changer. My kids will tell you, my kids are grown now. And they will tell you kind of before meditation, mom is a different person than post meditation. Mom, I'm just less torqued fly off the handle. Don't get so upset and take everything so personally because we're all competitive.
You're not in this industry. If you're not competitive. I've probably been doing that like eight years now, once in the morning, 20 minutes. And if it's a really bad day, maybe twice.

[00:32:41] Sean Mooney: I love that. It's something that I too kind of got referred to, but I never got trained, but a friend of mine, it was a special forces operator.
He's like, you need to do the same thing. Cause just the inner narrative and the noise and the wheels constantly spinning and his message like your brain is a muscle. It's got to be rested and you got to in some ways like rejuvenate it. And if you don't. The wheels keep on spinning. And I'd be curious for you, even like I try to do it 10 minutes a day.
And I still have a hard time with 10. Are you able to kind of find and carve out that time to do it consistently?

[00:33:12] Gretchen Perkins: Yeah, I fly all the time. I'm in the air every week. So an airplane is a great place to do it. Cause nobody's talking generally. You can put your phones on and you can create like your own little cabin or I just do it in my hotel room or if I'm at home and it's really a superpower.
The one tip, and I will tell you, I went to like a four day course, so I went in with both feet. And one thing they will tell you is everyone's like, I'm not doing it right because my mind's just jumping all over. And my trainer said, no, you're doing it perfectly. Every time something comes into your head and you put it aside, you're cleaning the cash, so to speak.
So it's okay. It's great. If bunch of things are coming in and you're not at the state of. Complete blackness in your mind. You're doing it exactly right. Oh, I gotta go to the grocery store. Okay, set it aside All right, you've cleared some space. I gotta pick up the kids. Okay, take it away and over time you will find that it will make a change in you and your ability to focus and My trainer also told our class that she said now I don't want you to use this in a bad way meaning every 10 minutes I believe this is the metric.
Every 10 minutes of meditation can cause your body to feel the same as one hour of REM sleep. So don't just meditate and then sleep five hours a night. Like don't do that. That's not what this is for. Do it in addition to getting a full night's sleep, but if you think about it that way whether that's true or not I don't know but psychologically it helps me on those nights when I sleep terribly and I have a big day It's like alright, let me get my sleep in right now in this 20 minute meditation session.
That's my number one

[00:35:00] Sean Mooney: I love that tip. And the plane thing is really good because you're already like amped out time. Exactly. At least I am own. I'm on a plane.

[00:35:07] Gretchen Perkins: Yep. Don't get that laptop out right away.

[00:35:10] Sean Mooney: That's a great piece of advice. And I also like that idea that apparently I'm much better at it than I thought.

[00:35:14] Gretchen Perkins: You're really good at it. You're jumping in, you're,

[00:35:18] Sean Mooney: I'm like, awesome. Then you're, I have,

[00:35:19] Gretchen Perkins: you're rock star.

[00:35:21] Sean Mooney: I didn't even know it. . Now I can get like a badge or a medal. Yeah, there you go. The only thing I do, the Headspace app. Okay. And that's the only thing I know. But I do know that the guy who is the monk on it, anytime I go to bed earlier than my wife, he has this 10 minutes go to sleep thing, and he's got the most chill voice of all time.
And I am light up. That's

[00:35:40] Gretchen Perkins: great. That's perfect. That's great.

[00:35:42] Sean Mooney: So that's as good as I get. But I like that the 10 minute kind of you get an hour of it. We actually in our office have a room that's kind of ostensibly our meditation room, where we also have a zero gravity massage chair, which is like amazing.

[00:35:55] Gretchen Perkins: That's a great idea. And we're moving to a new office. So, and I'm going to put that request in. That's a great. I'll

[00:36:02] Sean Mooney: give you my Amazon link. I ordered the chair from Amazon. People are like, what is this? It's a thousand pounds.

[00:36:08] Gretchen Perkins: I love it. I love it.

[00:36:10] Sean Mooney: All right. So do you have any other, uh, any life hacks here?
Yeah,

[00:36:13] Gretchen Perkins: I have another,

[00:36:15] Sean Mooney: I

[00:36:15] Gretchen Perkins: literally I'm platinum pro on American. I'm diamond on Delta. I. Fly a lot. And I just discovered Google flights.

[00:36:28] Sean Mooney: Oh yes.

[00:36:29] Gretchen Perkins: I've been actually like a Neanderthal logging on to the Delta app, looking for flights. And logging on to the American app and looking for flights. But what I have learned, what someone told me, is that Google Flights, a whole bunch of flights pop up at lower costs than are on the Delta app or on the American app.
And then you see that on Google Flights and then if you just call, they'll say, oh yeah, we do have a flight at 7. 15am instead of 10am. I'm like, well, why is that not on your website? No one has ever been able to give me a good reason, but I have just discovered this. Everyone's probably cracking up. I just discovered this.
I literally discovered this past weekend.

[00:37:10] Sean Mooney: I love it. I'm going to check it out and then I'll report back. All right. Well, Gretchen, we have covered a lot here. I've learned a ton. And so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And a thousand percent appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here today.

[00:37:27] Gretchen Perkins: Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. It's so great to see you. You were very prescient. I mean, it's, you were uniquely positioned having been in private equity to realize we all just call each other like, who do you use for blah, blah. And so that's a really smart business plan. I'm really just tickled to see your success.
And enjoy working with you.

[00:37:50] Sean Mooney: That's very generous of you to say. So

[00:37:52] Gretchen Perkins: You bet. Have a great '24.

[00:37:57] Sean Mooney: That's all we have for today. Special thanks to Gretchen for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Gretchen or Avance Investment Management, please see the episode notes or links, please continue to look for the Karma School of Business podcast, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts, including Apple, Google, and Spotify, we truly appreciate your support if you like what you hear.
Please follow, rate, review, and share. It really helps us when you do this. So thank you in advance. In the meantime, if you need to be connected with the world's best in class, private equity grade, professional service providers, independent consultants, interim executives, or anything else, please give us a call or visit our website at BluWave net. That's B L U W A V E dot net, and we'll support your success. Onward.

Private equity insights for and with top business builders, including investors, operators, executives and industry thought leaders. The Karma School of Business Podcast goes behind the scenes of PE, talking about business best practices and real-time industry trends. You'll learn from leading professionals and visionary business executives who will help you take action and enhance your life, whether you’re at a PE firm, a portco or a private or public company.

BluWave Founder & CEO Sean Mooney hosts the Private Equity Karma School of Business Podcast. BluWave is the business builders’ network for private equity grade due diligence and value creation needs.