Living The Red Life - The Lawyer Who Turns Businesses Into Exit Machines

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

Most entrepreneurs build businesses that trap them instead of freeing them. In this episode Rocco Cozza, a seasoned business attorney and entrepreneur, reveals how to systematize, scale, and structure companies for high-value exits. Drawing from decades of experience working with companies of all sizes, he breaks down why most founders wait too long to think about selling and how to build a business that runs without you. From SOPs and leadership gaps to mergers and acquisitions strategies, this conversation uncovers the real playbook behind building a sellable company and maximizing valuation.Key TakeawaysBuild your business to sell from day one, even if you never exitSystems and SOPs are the foundation of scalable companiesLeadership and operational gaps are the biggest value killersThe best time to plan an exit is 5 to 7 years in advanceAcquisitions can accelerate growth faster than organic scalingNotable Quotes"Set your business up to sell, even if you never exit.""If you fix the people problem, you fix the process problem, profit takes care of itself.""Build the company from the start without you.""Most people think about selling when it's too late.""If it's listed for sale, there's probably a reason why."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

build the company from the start without you. If you can do that, that's a scalable company that now has an enterprise values a lot greater than what the value would be if you're the one in the day-to-day running it. A lot of entrepreneurs, they get into the business, then they start making money. A lot of them don't even ever think about selling the business. How do you think about it? When's the right time to think about it? The right time to think about is probably five to seven years before you'd be considering it. Because most people think about it, like when they want to sell it, it's too late.

Yeah. You've got it, you've got to really, I always say if you're, if you're going to set up your business, set it up to sell. You may never exit, but do it from the beginning. Yeah. If you want to grow an organization and have a valuable workforce that values the business and you as a leader, you have to really understand. My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. I'm here to change the way you see your life in your piece in your piece. If you're ready to start living the Red Life, ditch the Blue Pill, take the Red Pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hello, Anne, welcome back to another episode of Living, The Red Life. Joining me today is Rock. I'm a visionary and entrepreneur and innovator like most of us, building something amazing. So I'm excited to dive into his lessons and his journey. So welcome to the show. Thanks for out of me.

So tell everyone if they don't know who you are. Let's start with, you know, who are you and what do you do? And how did you get here? That's a great question. So obviously, I've been practicing law now for over two decades. So this lawyer by trade, but what my passion is actually helping companies grow, like systematize and then exit. So I go in the small or large organizations help them look at all their problems, fill the gaps, then get them ready for exit.

Yeah. Sell it multiples. Well, and it's interesting because, you know, a lot of, you know, I've worked with a lot of attorneys and lawyers and they're very, you know, stay in the paperwork on the legal clauses, right? And I mean, what you're doing so great, because not only do you understand business much better to help advise on the legal side. But, you know, actually, I've done a lot around educating entrepreneurs through my programs over the decade on how to build to sell.

And I was fortunate to learn from some friends that had sold $300 million plus companies or done 100 plus exits. And they taught me. And you just, you know, you don't learn this stuff. But most people learn it when they sell their first business and lose tons of money. So when I learn it, I was like, I need to share this stuff. So let's start there. How did you get into the like helping entrepreneurs and business owners understand how to structure to sell?

So I've been an entrepreneur basically my whole life. And being a lawyer was kind of a means to an end for me. Like I knew that I wanted to be able to start my own business, but I didn't want to be a lawyer working in a big firm. So I started a law firm when I left corporate America. And I had my own businesses that I grew and sold myself. And then I just started working with. I started with a lot of athletes and entertainers where they were kind of building companies. They need it a lot, right?

All the legal side. Well, the interesting part is, yeah, they do and they wanted a lot of the advice for free. And to me, like, I wasn't starstruck. I'm like, look, you need me more than I didn't you. So I started working with them. And then I just saw this need in the marketplace, lawyers over complicated things. So I always said, how do I go in and simplify things? And our tagline for our law firm is redefining legal services.

It's really a consultative basis. So I go in with these companies and look at most of the gaps tend to be in leadership in operations. They have the right people, but in the wrong seats, and they have broken processes. If you fix the people problem, you fix the process problem, profit takes care of itself. So I've just always had a knack for that, and that's what I do. Go into these companies and really help them tear things apart, rebuild it with the pieces they have, and then make the company three to five times more valuable than it is.

Yeah, it's interesting. And as I've built many companies, you know, I've exited out of a couple. But now when I build a company from the ground up, it's like, I build it without me involved. Whereas when I started, the office is like you build everything based on you and then you have to peel away 100 plasters to try and get out of it. 100% right. And I think that's like a great starting point.

I can try and teach people. I'm like, even if you don't plan to sell ever, just doing that makes a healthier business because you're not the bottleneck and you're empowering the team and bringing in the right people. You have to have the right systems if you're not involved. When you're involved, you can kind of like hold a thousand pieces together. as an entrepreneur, but it's not a healthy way to run the company. No, it's not. And that's where entrepreneurs get burnouts.

Like, that's truly, I face that myself. With my law firm, I had to let go of a lot of things and trust my people to run parts of the organization. And, you know, your point is absolutely correct. Where build the company from the start without you. If you can do that, that's a scalable company that now has an enterprise value a lot greater than what the value would be if you're the one in the day-to-day running. And it's hard for entrepreneurs to do it. Dude, because it's our baby.

Yeah, and I learned this because I actually went to sell my first business, and I had to, like, reverse an engineer out of it for a year before the exit, basically. And then what was funny is I never ended up exiting in the end because it took so long. But it was a valuable thing, because, and I kept running the business, and I actually kept it for three years, and I wasn't involved, and it just ran itself. And, you know, it made, like, four, 500 grand a year profit without me for three years. So it was pretty good still. Absolutely.

But it was such a valuable. Like when I first, I was going to sell it to a big firm. So they sent me this 200 checklists, like checklists, basically, right? Drew Diligence checklist. And it was like super, like, crazy. But it was actually great. I was like mid-20s. So I was pretty young.

Yeah, 27 maybe. But it was so good because it was like, wow, this is what they look for, like a real firm that's buying you, is looking for to sell. It was a really cool experience. Yeah, I have one of those sitting in my inbox right now. So just for people that obviously, we can't go through all 200. But there's five or ten really big ones, right? So what are some of the big common denominators that people are looking for when buying a company or something that helps you get a better multiple?

One, are your numbers accurate, right? Because a lot of... Do you even have numbers? Do you have numbers? I would say, well, that's probably... All the young difference is listening. Yes, do you have numbers? Are those numbers accurate?

Are you profitable? And you've got to think about profit from perspective of your bottom line, even up, but then also adding back in what your owners pay. Owners pay, the owners drawls are taking. Especially for entrepreneurs too, because they don't, like, they see it as the same thing. Yes, there's two different pieces of that. And then do you have the systems in place? Because if someone's buying a business, they want it to be plug and play.

Yeah, yeah. They don't want to have to come in and rebuild it. They either want to take it as it is, run it, make it better, or plug it. Like a lot of PEFarms are buying these small companies, plugging them in and rolling them up. So do you have really good systems? Like, SOP, so many businesses just don't have a. standard operating procedure. Like I always say, like, how do you know if someone got hit by a bus tomorrow, who would do their job? And how will they know what to do? Do you have a written

documentation? Nine out of ten companies don't have that. If I could give one piece of advice, it's making sure you have documentation and checklist for every position you have in a company. And I'll actually piggyback on that. So what we do is we, every key staff member, pretty much most staff members have a like a roles in responsibility. Right. And everyone makes that way in the part of the least. legal contract when they sign on and then it's forgotten about. But as is the opposite. So we actually have it as a one page table.

It's super clean and we review it every month on their check-ins. But then link to like say there are 20 things they do, right? And it's more specific than like broad stuff like manage block. It's like more detail. But then we actually link the SOP next to it. And it's such a easy way like if that staff member quits. It's like, oh, well, new person, here you go. Here's the 20 things they did with 20 loom videos and SOPs.

next to that. And then we just copy that document and put a fourth column of the check mark once you are trained and ready to take over that thing. And it makes, you know, it's never nice when a staff member does leave, but it makes it pretty easy to bring someone in after. Yeah, I always say anticipate that people will leave. And then how can you replace them? Because the cost to replace an employee when you don't have those in place is exponentially higher than it is to retain somebody. So you have to make sure you have those documents in place. That's the biggest mistake people make. Truly, if you're trying to, sell your company. What you have is great because it's it's a repeatable, it's irreplicable.

You can take a person, swap them in and out and it's very... When it's not even about to emphasize the person's irrelevant, it's real about the roles. It's a very role, you know, it's just the person's name of the top. Yeah, and the other thing too is just people got to understand the people you have in your organization what motivates them. That's where I think a lot of people go wrong as an entrepreneur. We think everybody's motivated the same way we are. Are you saying that too? And I built an office to 60 people in Tampa. And I start to realize that half of the, like these small group, yes, you know, executives and my initial people, they did care about the company.

Yeah. But then when you like start growing to like 50, 60, it's like 90% of them just want to come in work, leave, forget about it for the weekend, come back. That's exactly right. Yeah, don't get caught up. I always say don't get caught up in. It's okay if people don't care as much as you. You're not supposed to. Your name's on the law for a reason.

It's truly, it's the biggest mistake people make the effort. Yeah, yeah. And I do love that, you know, like true leadership is, it's kind of. I teach it like the five love languages, right? It's so much like that that like, you know, you're motivated by, you know, as the entrepreneur, obviously mostly, most of the time, money is a factor, freedoms, a factor change in the world with your products and service helping people, right? Generally, they're all in common for most of us.

But for a lot of staff members, it's like when you actually, we actually on our quarterly retreats, we do one exercise or session, which is like all about them. What are your personal life goals? What do you want to do? And we have them present. And it's so fascinating. It's like, this guy gets up that's worked for me for three years. And it's like, one day I want to retire and sailor on a boat.

And I didn't even know he liked boats for three years. You know, there's these things that you never know. And then it's like, and then you know, for his next present, we bought in a glass bottle, a boat in a glass bottle and stuff. You know, but there's so many things that motivate them that to you as an entrepreneur. You're like, that's weird. You know. It's hard because you really have, you really have to get into the shoes and repeat. people and look at it because if you want to grow an organization and have a valuable workforce that

values the business and you as a leader, you have to really understand who those people are. And it's hard to do because we're involved in the day to day. We're involved in everything. And sometimes you're going to take this. I love what you do, but asking people their personal goals. Like, not many people do that. And that says a lot to the companies you run, obviously. Yeah.

Great. So a couple of questions just to follow up from this. A lot of entrepreneurs, they get into the business, then they start making money. a lot of them don't even ever think about the selling the business. How do you think about it? When's the right time to think about it? The right time to think about is probably five to seven years before you're even considering it. Because most people think about it, like, when they want to sell it, and it's too late.

You've got to really, I always say if you're going to set up your business, set it up to sell. You may never exit, but do it from the beginning. Set it up right. Those first two to three years, do the right things, put the processes and procedures in place, make sure you have all those SOPs. because life comes at you and you never know what's going to happen. You may have to sell someday. It may not anticipate it.

But if you're set up from the beginning the right way, you'll get a way higher over multiple. Most people wait till, okay, I'm at the end of the rope. I want to sell. A lot of watchmenans I work with are older, and they assume their kids are going to take over the business. And that is the worst assumption you can make. So, I mean, that's why they have this thing called the silver tsunami. Like all these people are transitioning out of businesses.

And if you're a smart entrepreneur, you can buy these businesses dirty cheap because no one's thinking about the exit or they're thinking their family is going to take it over and it's not happen. So do it from the beginning truly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a whole other conversation for another day. But we bought in four or five, into four or five businesses with virtually no money. We just, we bought part ownership and we, we kind of plugged in our systems to them. But that's a whole other thing is like growing through mergers and acquisitions. And that's, you know, he talks a lot about selling the business, but let's just talk about that for 30, 60 seconds. because I used to also think until, you know, years ago I learned from people much smaller than me and more experience.

It's like, oh, I want to own a $200 million company. I got to grow $200 million in revenue, whereas actually like, no, you can grow $100 million around you and acquire two businesses, for example. Yeah, you can pick up a lot of businesses through an acquisition or merger. Either you pay them their price or you do it on your terms or vice versa. So a lot of times of these companies, like I said, the ones that are transitioning out to think their kids are going to take. over you can get those for no money down just pay them and earn out yeah yeah say hey I'm gonna buy it come and take your business over I'm gonna make your profit well if your numbers are legit we're gonna pay you X over so many years and if you stay

on the help us increase business you'll get more multiple of it well you don't pay any money out of pocket there's a ton of weed structured deals like that yeah that's so many yeah and I would say too as a lesson like my a lot of people want to sell it would never know unless you ask so like even an example of this is there's a restaurant on the beach here that I like that I want to buy And I told my essay, I said, ring, see if they want a sell. She's like, why they don't, they've not listed it for sale? It looks busy.

Why would they want to sell? I'm like, trust me, most people want to sell. They're going up and choose to be, you know? Got to ask the question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Most people are afraid to ask the question. So sometimes it can also, the point of telling that story a bit is you can be strategic. Like, you have this agency and you know this podcast agency that's like perfect for you.

It has all your perfect clients and you know the guy. Just ring him up or text him because he might be one. Again, it's like the boat. story with my staff member. They might be having a kid or want to move to a different city or country. You just never know unless you ask. So that's another big thing with buying is always make the ask. Yeah, absolutely. It's 100%. I mean, that's where most deals get done. Very few deals get listed for it. It's all the backdoor stuff that's happening. It's just knowing the right people. Like people come in the all the time because I have a deal flow that's coming to me causing.

Because I have a thousand clients in these spaces. So everyone's for sale for the right price. I think about, like, I would sell my business for the rights, right? If some offers me $100 million for my law firm, sure, I'd probably take it. But so just, you're right, ask the question. Just don't be afraid to communicate. Well, if anything about business, I always say, too, if a business is listed for sale, there's normally a problem, right? And, like, yeah, sometimes the owner's just bored, sure. But most of the time, if it's printing crazy money and easy, they ain't sell it, right?

And also, if they know something about the economy or a license or a new law that's about to come in or a competitive. It's so you got to be careful with the businesses with your 100 that is the most accurate statement That is true if it's listed for sale. There's probably a reason why and ask then you got to be Willing to ask those hard questions the uncomfortable questions that only yeah Good well we could talk for hours about this I do love this stuff I used to do a lot more on it But just you know if people want to learn more this is obviously a very complex and an important subject And it's so great that you understand this so well as from a legal standpoint but also the on

entrepreneur because it's hard to find that balance right. And I'm sure that's why you do well, because most attorneys don't have their entrepreneurial side. So where do people find you? If they want to learn more, how you learn, maybe you consult with you. Yeah, you can just go to my law or my law firm's website is cozalaw.com, C-O-Z-A-L-A-W.com. Or I'm very active on Instagram, which is the Roccoza, all one word. I post a lot of stuff about business acquisition, buying, selling, motivational entrepreneurship. But I'm always the ones just to talk to someone. Just pick my brain them all we're able to help that's that's kind of how I'm built you know just give where I can so and also I would say if you're ever thinking of selling don't be afraid to hire someone like yourself

because what people are like oh they're going to take a percent or whatever I'm like if they add a multiple you know so for five mill right or whatever or five X and you get six X that could add millions of dollars so don't be afraid to give someone a couple of hundred grand to help you do that you know so I think that that's so important too people get scared about that but normally you can out of multiple. It's like millions of it and right. So it's well worth the money. So guys, that's a wrap. Go check him out and take this stuff seriously. I think this is so valuable. And sadly, no entrepreneurs get taught this until it's too late most of the time. It's kind of like taxes. So the IRS sounds a letter. Then they start to learn taxes. But this is such great

stuff. And it's fun stuff when you learn how you can grow quicker through all of this as well. But that's a wrap. Keep living the red life. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And I'll see you guys soon. Take care.