Introduction

Jason: You’ve found the Business Broker Growth Show, with your host, Jason Cutter. This is the podcast for brokers who are ready to stop hoping for deals and start growing their pipeline. Our goal is to bring you strategies, stories, and insights that will be a catalyst to move you quickly from transactional dealmaker to trusted advisor. Time for business broker growth.

Hey, everybody, Jason Cutter back with the Business Broker Growth Show. I have Gregory Kovsky, president and CEO of IBA in the Pacific Northwest. I always want to say Seattle, but I know it’s Bellevue, it’s Washington, it’s Oregon. It’s taking over the whole Pacific Northwest.

Gregory, we just finished recording the first part, which was amazing. There was so much content in there. How are you feeling after that first part?

Greg: It was an enjoyable discussion. It flows easily.

Jason: I’m glad. There was so much in there. If anyone is finding this episode first, make sure to tune in to part one for all the gems: the discussion, the hacks, the one that got away, and all the lessons from Gregory’s 30-plus years of experience and from growing IBA to 18 brokers and counting as of fall 2025, when we’re recording this. We’ll have the links and ways to get in touch with Gregory.

I’m calling this part the after-show. The lights and cameras are off, so let’s just have a discussion and see what comes up. I have some questions I’d love answered, especially because you have a ton of experience, and I know you’re always looking ahead. A good CEO isn’t focused just on this moment, but on the future even more than the present.

What Brokers Need to Thrive in 2030

Jason: So my first question is: what will brokers need to be doing to survive, and hopefully thrive, in 2030?

Greg: I think it’s important to track industry trends and not just focus on what has historically worked.

Here’s a simple analogy from my life. When I was growing up, everyone loved Dairy Queen and Baskin-Robbins ice cream. Then it became TCBY frozen yogurt. Then it went back to ice cream, with Steve’s Ice Cream and other brands. Then it moved to Menchie’s and Yogurtland, putting toppings on frozen yogurt. And now, in the Northwest, it seems to be shifting back to high-end ice cream, like Molly Moon’s and Salt & Straw.

So don’t just focus on what worked yesterday. Constantly look for what’s emerging tomorrow, so you can sell both historical financial performance and appreciation potential in the marketplace. Maybe someone has a great concept, product, or service that has legs for growth, and as a business broker you can highlight that.

I sold a company several years ago that sold backup generators. With the strain on the power grid and rolling blackouts in parts of the country, home backup generators are now much more common than they used to be. That was an opportunity the buyer saw, and they continued to grow the company.

Jason: Makes sense. So look ahead at industry trends. You have to pay attention to those cycles, what customers are going to want, and how that might evolve. Obviously, be careful not to assume too much, but be aware of the trends and watch what happens. I love it.

AI: The Biggest Tech Shift in M&A

Jason: Number two, and I think this is especially important right now: compare the technology available in M&A when you started 30-plus years ago with what’s available now. What do you think is the number one tech shift coming to M&A, whether it’s on the horizon or already in play?

Greg: I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s AI, and it’s a blessing and a curse as a tool.

IBA is also a commercial real estate firm, so we can sell a business and its associated real estate in one package when they share the same ownership. AI is really good for us there. If we need to find the cap rate for industrial property in Hillsboro, Oregon, or Everett, Washington, AI gives us that much more easily than historical research did, because the data exists to produce it.

In business brokerage, though, the lack of local public information on sales can be a problem. For example, some states have a state income tax, and even municipal taxes, while others don’t. If you’re looking at a business in the Bay Area, the tax rate, the labor rate, and the occupancy cost are all higher. The same business model in Nevada doesn’t have those costs.

So be careful with AI. If you’re pulling data and it’s a conglomerate of data points from areas that aren’t relevant, you can end up with a bad-tasting stew at the end of the day, because you’ve added ingredients to the mix that don’t belong.

Jason: Got it. So always be aware of that. As you said, AI is a powerful tool for some things and not effective for others.

Funny side note: we’re recording this in the morning, and I was going through LinkedIn and saw a post from one of your brokers. She was not happy. It was a cautionary post. I think a buyer or a buyer’s broker took the confidential information, dumped it into AI to generate questions to ask, and then sent those back. That’s not the right way to use AI, feeding it confidential information, and I know confidentiality is a big thing for you and your brokers. It’s about knowing when to use it and when not to.

Greg: Well, who do you do business with? People you know, like, and trust. If you’re engaging a seller through a computer, as the one asking questions, are you building rapport that will make you a buyer that seller knows, likes, trusts, and wants to do business with?

Jason: It’s true. It’s about understanding the power and value of the tool, and where the human element comes in, which is important.

The Biggest Lesson of 2025: Expect the Unexpected

Jason: Next question. As I said earlier, it’s October 2025 as we record this. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far this year?

Greg: I don’t know that it’s a unique situation, but it’s an age-old lesson: expect the unexpected. As we record right now, we have a government shutdown, which affects SBA loans. It can also affect the transfer of federal contracts. We’re selling a business that has the Navy as a customer, and people there may not be working at the same pace, or at all. I wouldn’t say approving the assignment of a vendor relationship with the Navy counts as essential business.

We’ve had government shutdowns before in my 31 years, and we’ve navigated through them. But the world is always turning and ever-changing, and what worked yesterday may not work today. It’s like living in Florida: sometimes you have to put plywood over your windows and block out the amazing view that was the reason you bought the house. It’s not there forever, but right now it probably makes sense to have plywood on the windows.

Jason: I love it. Expect the unexpected. I think that’s especially important when things seem to be going well, when there’s complacency and everything is running smoothly. Then something like a government shutdown happens that no one forecasted or assumed would actually happen, because it’s rare. It gets threatened a lot, but it doesn’t usually happen. Even this year, tariffs have been the big conversation and always in flux. So expect the unexpected, then adjust and move through it based on everything that’s going on.

What’s Exciting Heading Into 2026

Jason: What are you excited about in your business at IBA for the rest of this year and into 2026?

Greg: It’s a wonderful marketplace for business brokerage right now. We have baby boomers, the silver tsunami, retiring and wanting to sell their businesses.

In any transaction, you need supply and demand. We have good supply right now, with people selling businesses they’ve never sold before. They may have owned them for 20 to 50 years. Some businesses have gone through two generations. I had a transaction like that, where the third generation didn’t want to stay with the company, and it’s finally selling. So supply is good.

Buyer demand is at the highest level I’ve seen in 31 years, and I’ve identified four components that make it up.

The first, starting at the high end, is private equity, corporations, and family offices. They have trillions of dollars on the sidelines that they want to deploy for high returns and growth by acquisition. They’re looking for both platforms and bolt-on acquisitions, and they’re going smaller than I’ve ever seen. Where they once wanted a company with $2 million of EBITDA, now they may buy one with $1 million of EBITDA.

The second group, unfortunately, ties to what we discussed about AI and some economic turbulence. People are being laid off in their 50s and 60s who may not have the capital to retire. They have a net worth and great experience and knowledge, but they may not want to relocate because of their kids, their spouse’s job, or family and community ties. So they’re solving the problem by acquiring a business. Say you’re 58 and want to work until full Social Security retirement age at 67. You buy a business you can run for 10 years. The beauty of buying a business is that you have an exit value. You can’t sell a job. And you have guaranteed employment. That demographic exists across America, and tech is big up here in the Northwest, where companies are either becoming more efficient with AI or replacing higher-paid employees with lower-paid ones.

The third group is exciting. We’ve talked about podcasts like the All-In podcast. Younger people want to be founders and owners. When Jason and I graduated from college, you wanted to go work for big corporate America, with all the benefits and OPM money to travel. That still exists. But a lot of young people want something different. My 22-year-old is an influencer who aspires to be a founder and entrepreneur. He’s working right now, he’s happy, and he’s doing well. But will he be in the corporate world 15 years from now? I’d say it’s a low probability. He’ll probably do at least five to 10 years and then do his own thing. I think many people under 40 don’t aspire to get the gold watch and spend their whole career with one company.

The last group is also exciting. My wife is an immigrant, and my family are immigrants. A lot of people want to pursue entrepreneurship as their path into the American economy as immigrants. It’s much harder for an immigrant to get hired by Boeing, Microsoft, Nike, or Intel than to start or buy a business and enter the economy that way.

An interesting buyer I met with left Ukraine. He was in the construction industry and knew he wouldn’t be building apartments in Ukraine for a few years. He hasn’t bought a business yet, but he was looking at our inventory in the construction segment as a vehicle to immigrate to this country and keep doing what he knew and was good at, since it wasn’t a productive time for that profession in Ukraine.

Jason: Makes sense. When you talk about what’s exciting, you have increasing inventory to sell and a very hungry buyer population coming from different angles. It’s definitely a fascinating and exciting time for the business, seeing it from this perspective after 31 years and seeing how it’s changed.

The Magic Wand Question

Jason: Last question for this after-show segment. If you could wave a magic wand and have one marketing-related thing in your business done automatically, what would it be?

Greg: Great question. I paused for a second to think. I think it’s an age-old problem for salespeople: you can only meet or talk with one person at a time, and there’s constant frustration with the hours in the day. If you want to provide high-level customer service and engage with people, that 10-minute phone call ends up being a half hour, and you repeat that all day.

If you had a magic wand for all of us, Jason: you can listen to a podcast at 1.2 or 1.5 speed. Could you work through your day at that speed?

Jason: It’s tough, because you can’t accelerate phone calls that way. I do have some friends I send voice notes to, especially through WhatsApp, which lets you play voice notes back at 2x speed, and that’s how I optimize that. But for relational things, conversations, things like this, I wouldn’t want technology or AI messing with that too much. But I’ll see what I can do.

Greg: That’s how many of us have the day get away from us. You start with a to-do list, and at four o’clock you look at it and ask, “What have I done today?”

Jason: “I didn’t get anything done. What did I actually do?” That’s definitely a topic for another podcast, another training, a whole other session on time and task management.

But it’s interesting that you mention having one conversation at a time. I know we both feel the same way: it’s all about human-to-human connection. It’s all about relationships, conversations, and the other person. So the real question is how to get everything else done for you, or done faster, so you can focus on people. Everyone is worried about AI taking jobs. AI is going to take tasks, but what will be left is humans interacting with humans.

Why AI Won’t Replace the Salesperson

Greg: And I think that protects sales, because you need dynamic engagement. Who will ever read all the attributes of a product when the alternative is someone asking what’s important to you about it?

If we buy a new Dyson vacuum cleaner, a simple product, we don’t care about everything in the manual. We want to know how to do what we need, and we’ll learn the rest. If we have an issue, like how an attachment works, we’ll pull out the manual at that point. It’s overwhelming otherwise. Everyone still loves a mentor or a professional salesperson to be the help desk, answer questions in real time, and maybe explain something multiple times using different wording, because different wording resonates with different people.

Jason: So true. That’s why, especially in your industry, AI isn’t going to replace business brokers anytime soon. It just can’t. Going back to what we talked about at the beginning of the first episode, there’s too much. It’s too complicated. Every business and every location is different from every other. That leaves the humans: the guides, the mentors, the sales professionals who want to be the expert and help the transaction get done.

Closing

Jason: Gregory, thank you for this bonus after-show, for being the first guest on the Business Broker Growth Show, and for being here again. Thank you for all the extra information you shared with the audience and for your time. I appreciate you being on this adventure with me.

Greg: My pleasure.

Jason: And to everyone tuning in, check out the show notes and subscribe wherever you found this. Like it and share it. Let’s help the business broker community as a whole improve so that the final outcome is better: business owners exiting successfully and safely, knowing they have a good guide shepherding them through the process, not a used-car salesperson throwing things at the wall hoping for a big payday. Hopefully you enjoyed this and took some notes. If you didn’t, make sure to check out episode one, the first part of this conversation. Until next time, stop hoping for deals and start growing your pipeline.