Respect, Legacy, and the Power of One: How Great Buyers Think | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

Matt Zaun sits down with Malcolm Peace, who shares how his team at Tsetserra evaluates and acquires businesses through a lens that goes beyond numbers. Malcolm introduces a core question that guides their investment thesis: “Do you fit into the story?” Instead of assuming they can “rebuild the plane mid-flight,” Malcolm explains why the best acquisitions align with what’s already working and why respect, posture, and emotional dynamics matter as much as diligence and deal structure.

They also explore the emotional weight of legacy when founders consider selling; why Malcolm’s attention to detail comes from tennis and coaching; how to block out noise by focusing on “the one thing"; and why persuasion may be the most AI-proof skill for the next generation. Finally, Malcolm shares how his team uses AI to accelerate evaluation and operations while emphasizing that AI doesn’t drive adoption without human trust.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

What are some of the things that you look for? Yeah, I mean, I think for, you know, there's the qualitative and quantitative, not to go nerdy on us here.

But, you know, as we think about it, the goal at the end of the day is to understand the story.

And do you fit into the story as it goes forward? I think what I have found over the last four or five years that we've been doing this is you can overemphasize or over consider how much you can add true value to a circumstance that's already in process, right?

You're saying, hey, we're going to take a plane that's already in motion and we're going to create a whole new plane.

I think that that is doable over a long period of time, but to do it in a short period of time is fairly unrealistic and you might just fall out of the sky.

And so for us, I think a lot of it is, hey, where are you going and what was already in motion?

A lot of those questions. I think the tendency in our industry is to just jump into the numbers. Does this make sense?

Is this viable? Well, any deal is viable at the right price, right structure. And so for us, it's more of, hey, what was already happening?

And what's already in motion? And can we fit into that and add value here? Because sometimes, and to be candid, I've looked at great businesses.

There was one that's just not too far from where I am. I'm in Austin. And from there, they had already done a lot of the stuff that we were going to add value.

And as I walked to their shop floor, I'm thinking to myself, how do we add our expertise into this?

I mean, at the end of the day, I'm just going to be buying something in the hopes that I somehow find out later where I can add value.

That's not where we want to be. And it kind of is a deterrent for us a lot of the time.

 

Matt Zaun 

I really like something you said. You said, do not fit into the story or do, sorry, do you fit into the story?

Right. That's a really good question. Do you fit? But what if they don't fit, but they're exceptional at what they do?

Right. What if, what if it's amazing business and you know, you can offer value, but it. Doesn't fit into your story.

It has to be tempting to basically look the other, like walk the other way. I'm sure you've been in that situation before.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

What goes through your mind when that happens? Yeah, I mean, I, again, I'm always speaking from a first person experience.

It's not, not maybe the story everyone else has. When we've been in those situations, usually the business is priced accordingly.

And so sometimes it's a matter of, hey, does this even make sense economically for us? And when we sit down with an owner and they have all the things in place, they've done all the right things.

They've positioned themselves to be incredibly sellable. And somehow, you know, in some form or fashion, we haven't maybe noticed something that's maybe a red flag that could be a deterrent for us.

They're very, very well aware that their business is probably worth a multiple expansion of some sort, right? And so that's a challenge for us.

But that is an opportunity to have an honest conversation. Hey, if we were to buy you at this business price and with this kind of structure, here's the caveats that are going to come with that.

Here's how the business might struggle. Here's all the And here's the more due diligence we need to do. And sometimes that's just exhausting for the owner.

Sometimes we get, we're in a position where the owner presents this like, you know, blue chip situation. And it's so good that we have to figure out the right structure and then have to dig even deeper with them.

And that's when it gets quite candidly, really just exhausting for them to have to be pulled apart even further when they feel like they've kind of put a perfect package together.

 

Matt Zaun 

Sure. Sure. I appreciate you sharing that. So I want to jump to something I said earlier about secure your legacy, something you have on your website.

I feel like there's a lot of talk about legacy. It's a word that we really like to gravitate towards to try to figure out like, well, we have a good legacy.

But from a business perspective, I know there's a lot of people that are nervous about selling their business because they're concerned that it might tarnish their legacy.

I remember about hearing a story of a family business that they were so invested in the community. So they were pouring into nonprofits and different churches around the community and really building up that community.

And their big fear was if If I sell this company and our employees that have been with us for decades, if something bad happens to them, it's going to tarnish our reputation in this community, and they didn't want that.

So what kind of things do you do to help ease that tension when you're going to purchase a company?

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Yeah, great question. I would be remiss if I don't mention this. Statistically, for a business to go over a million dollars in revenue is just so low.

There's so many businesses that never get that high. We often deal with businesses that are kind of $3 million to $12 million in revenue.

And so for us, it's even a smaller sample size of folks. And so when I am stepping into a room, one, I want to have a ton of respect for what's going on and what's been done and what's been happening in the business.

And the secret sauce that might have been, it might have been that they were so integral into the community in some form or fashion, and that's really been the success of the business.

And it sometimes looks like that on the bottom line, top line. Sometimes it's just the way that... And so, you know, all that to be said, for us, the big thing is, hey, let's respect how difficult it is.

And let's respect the fact that a lot of the time they have a son, a niece, a nephew, a daughter, somebody that could have taken over the business, but has chosen to go into some other field.

And we want to respect the fact that they would have loved to have seen that person take over the business.

And now they have this stranger, quite candidly, because, you know, you can go through due diligence, it can be, you know, six months, maybe less, whatever it might be, as you kind of start to finish, when you meet somebody, there's a lot of unknown there.

And so for us, I always want to step in with the posture of, you know, hey, this is a ton of work that you've put into this.

And statistically, you've beaten the odds if you were the founder. So that's always where the position I always try to walk in, shoulders down a little bit.

 

Matt Zaun 

So what are some of the things, outside of telling them, you know, statistically, you've beaten the odds, what are some of the things that you do to connect over that?

Respect piece. Is it kind of talking to them about their family and maybe some of the things that they've done, some of the sacrifices?

What does that look like to gain their respect and to show that respect as well? Sure.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

I don't want to overcomplicate it. Sometimes we're sitting in the room and it's recognizing the body posture of, am I walking into a room where they just don't even want to know me?

They don't really care to understand me. I've had situations where I've walked in and spent three hours with somebody.

At the end of it, they're like, I just don't think you're a good fit because you're not that outdoorsy or you're not that of a resourcefulness of this or whatever.

And I walk in and I'm like, man, most of the time I'm walking in with a shirt that I have on right now and a pair of blue jeans.

And I've had guys say to me, you know, you just don't see like my kind of guy. And then I show a picture of me on a tractor cutting down, you know, sticks in the back of Texas.

And they're like, oh, we should have started with that. Right. It set off a different tone. So finding ways to connect and people, people want to display the things they're proud of.

And so I often ask, who's that in the picture behind you? Tell me about, is that your son? Like, he looks like, you know, somebody that could really enjoy it in this business.

What would it could have looked like? And tell me a little bit about your dream. You know, I'm getting older now.

I just turned 35 a little bit ago. And, you know, for me, like, a big part of it is, is that I kind of am that surrogate or that son that could have stepped in or whatever it might have been.

And, you know, for us, it's a matter of playing that card. I don't want to overcomplicate it. It's let me step in and say, hey, this is how I would want to take care of your business and see it thrive.

And I would want you to be able to come in and see that we built off of the success that you had.

And maybe I did it slightly different, but we couldn't have done it without the success that you've put in front of us.

So that's kind of our approach. I don't want to overcomplicate it.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I appreciate that. And sometimes simplicity is the most powerful thing that we can focus on, right? If we overcomplicate things, sometimes they won't get done.

You know, you brought up a point that I want to I want to speak to. So often when I'm teaching leaders about connection.

And one of the things that I really hone in on is emotion is foundation, right? Emotion is foundation. People make decisions based on their emotion.

And even if it comes to how much money can I get for a business deal or whatever the case may be, there's elements of emotion that goes into that, right?

Especially like preserving one's legacy. There's elements of emotion. So you've been saying something as simple as body posture and appearance, like all of these things matter, right?

If we talk about politics or we talk about actors or we talk about comedians or we talk about anyone that's trying to connect with an audience, it's so, so important that they gain respect and they understand the emotional dynamics and they understand, you know, how are people perceiving the way that I am?

And that's so important. So I appreciate you mentioning that. I do want to ask you, and this is always a fun question for me.

If I were to hit the rewind button and I were to ask teenage Malcolm what he wanted to do and be, what kind of risk.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Wow. That is a fun question. Shooting from the cuff here a little bit. I think teenage Malcolm would have wanted to be in a role where he had the opportunity to pay attention to minute details that added significant value.

So I was thinking about teenage Malcolm when I was trying to earn money. I played college tennis, and so I was coaching tennis.

Sometimes it was the girlfriend at the time that the parents would pay me $20 just to take her out and teach her lessons, whatever it might have been, just to make a little bit of money.

I found that I got really good at noticing minute details in someone's tennis stroke or whatever it might have been, that now in business, I use the same thing.

It might be that key person that we need to retain. What really matters to them? Hey, let's catch them where they're at in this situation.

Or when I'm in a more evaluation role, what are the minor details that someone mentioned? What really stood out?

Because candidly, I'm going to write you a thank you afterwards, and I want to be able to address it, personalize it.

And so I've got to be able to listen intensively enough to be able to notice the details. And when I'm just walking the shop, or I'm just walking their facility, what's going on?

What does it look like? What's organized? What isn't organized? What matters? What doesn't matter? Who did they introduce me to?

And who did they not introduce me to? So I think when I look back at teenage Malcolm, it would have been in a role where noticing minor details added value to the overall outcome.

If I'm not in that kind of capacity, I bet I would be pretty miserable.

 

Matt Zaun 

So what do you think positioned you to focus on those minor details? Was there something that you can point to, whether it was extracurricular activities, maybe sports?

Just what about your upbringing kind of positioned someone to focus on those details? Because not everyone talks about that.

Sometimes people say, you know, don't worry about the details and focus on, you know, the broader thing. So how did, how do you think you guys?

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Yeah, and I want to clarify, and that's a really good question you asked, and you're asking great ones. I think one of the things that I would emphasize, and I often spend my time in my day, The Power of One is a book that people often read.

It's like, what is the one, two, or three things that really matter in this day? And sometimes it's that one email that you needed to send, whatever it might have been, that really kind of compound on itself in a particular direction.

I think that as an owner of a business and someone that has continued to grow what we're doing, there's a lot of noise.

There's a lot of noise in a day. And I often have folks, you know, hey, you don't get back to me in a day's time.

They're frustrated with me, whatever it might be. Like, I am trying to make the decision, conscious decision of what that one, two, or three things that might be in that day to really add significant value.

So that's what I mean when the minor details. It's like the ability to ignore all the other. That you could get distracted by and subsequently pay attention to the one or two, three things that need to actually take place.

so if I point back historically, mean, candidly, I used to play tennis five, six times a week if I wasn't traveling.

And I would have private lessons in the evening. I was fortunate enough to have a coach that really invested in me.

And so I would sit around watching him coach and I would see what he pointed out, what he was noticing, all those types of details.

And then I had one class when I was right out of undergrad, I was considering to go back to sports psychology and kind of expand in that direction for a moment after college tennis.

And we had to do a counseling class and we would sat in a room that was like a phone booth shape style.

And we would have a camera pointing at me and pointing at the other person. And the whole purpose of the class was to notice kind of body language, notice what the person's doing, notice when they lean in, notice the inflections of their voice, notice all these types of things.

And so I just think there has been little moments where I've been reinforced of, hey, you know, if If you could have noticed this one minute detail of the day, it actually makes the whole outcome of the rest of the day a different one.

And so for business owners, sometimes it's just noticing that their son had a football picture in the back of their desk or whatever it might be.

So I'm often scanning the room when I'm listening to say, or listening to the inflections of their voice to determine, hey, what really matters in this moment?

Because I'm going to be in the same context as many other buyers, right? They're going to come in and give their pitch, and they're going to give their value, and they're going to – but what's that one little thing that stood out that I could tap into a little bit?

 

Matt Zaun

So I hope that answers you. Yeah, so it's interesting because you mentioned body language as it pertained to tennis, and earlier you mentioned body posture.

Could it possibly be that you're so keen on picking up on the dynamics of how someone's presenting themselves based on what you went through in tennis?

Like could there be – it's possible that all that training really mattered in a big, big way for what you're doing now.

So I do have a question for you regarding the tennis piece because I have never – I've played tennis.

I mean, I've watched tennis. I've never actually played. But when I'm watching tennis, especially the larger tennis events, you got a crowd watching, two people.

So there's a ton of eyes on you, right? And it takes a considerable amount of focus. How on earth do you stay so focused?

If you were to coach a tennis player that might be frazzled or they're getting in their own head, what kind of suggestions would you give them to make sure they're focusing on that moment, even though all those eyeballs are on them?

Wow.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

I love the questions. We were talking about business, now we're switching to tennis, and it's all relevant. I would say going back to the patterns that you know are true and true and tested, because that's the ones you've done over and over and over again.

I had the fortunate opportunity to have a mentor at one point that would repeat a saying over and over again was...

Discipline leads to freedom, and it's this concept of you've done the work necessary to be able to relax and continue to lean on what's the work that you've put in that's proven to be your ability to stand the test of time, whatever it might be.

So when everybody is noisy and it's loud and the momentum feels like it's not on your side, on a business side and on a tennis court, can you go back to the basics that have been proven in other contexts?

Can you go back to it? And candidly, sometimes that's for me, it's like quieting the noise. Some of my times my team are like, hey, when things are not going well, I mean, we've lived through all sorts of circumstances, whether it be a tariff or employee that was just AWOL or whatever it might be.

When you are going back to the basics, sometimes that for me is like quieting the noise and focusing on that one, two or three things that really matter and kind of communicating that.

Because when you're trying to handle too many fires at once, then you'll ultimately run out of steam at some point.

So, yeah. That's what I would tell people. On test court, go back to the basics. On a business situation, go back to the fundamentals that have gotten you to where you are at that day.

 

Matt Zaun 

That is such a good response. So one of the things that you said, going back to the patterns you know are tested.

That is such good advice.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

And the reason why I asked that question to begin with is because I work with a lot of high achievers, as you do, right?

 

Matt Zaun

So business owners, and it's amazing how distracted they can be. Just because they have a certain title doesn't mean that they don't get distracted in life.

And there's so many, so many distractions. I feel like every year, especially due to technology, there's a wave of distractions.

So I really appreciate what you said, is that if you have a tried and true type pattern that you've established that you know equals some type of result, we have to stick to that.

And we need to block out the noise. You also mentioned a book earlier about the power of one, right?

I actually, I think I have that book within arm's reach. I got to go look. It's, it's, it's, it's.

It's over against this wall right here. So awesome, awesome book. Actually, I actually paired that book with The Power of One, The 12-Week Year, and Atomic Habits, or the three that I believe I read very close together.

And it really, really helped me in a big, big way from a focus perspective, for sure. I do want to ask you this question, because I mentioned technology, and I mentioned just I feel like year after year, there's some type of new software that comes out, or especially with AI.

So my 11-year-old son has already started to think in business terms. So just to give you an idea of my 11-year-old, my 11-year-old is amazing at chess.

He can solve a Rubik's Cube in less than 40 seconds. I think he's gotten it down to 38 right now, which is very close to being competitive.

level. He is constantly watching business videos on YouTube, right? So he's He's got it. He's there. He's there. I am concerned as a father of the future, for sure, for all three of my children, but I want to focus on my 11-year-old just for the moment, just because he's so focused on business.

So if you were to advise my 11-year-old son, his name's Elliot, if you were to advise him on how he could potentially, I want to say like AI-proof himself or still offer value in the marketplace, even with AI, especially with the businesses that you work with, what would be some of the suggestions that you would give Elliot?

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Well, I've got an 11-year-old too, so this hits home true. I think I didn't have a classical education around sales, and I don't think of sales as just revenue.

I think sales is as the ability to persuade people. I think AI is going to be a huge part of this next generation's life for better.

I think there's no doubting that the speed at which it happens, the fundamental aspects of it, whether it's robots cleaning bathrooms, and you own a company that does commercial cleaning, I mean, it's going to change no matter what.

But the ability to persuade people to be on your side would be the key thing. So we spent a lot of time with my two daughters, when we go back to the fundamentals of what was just communicated.

Hey, you, you know, just the other day, we were in the car. And my youngest said something and my oldest just kind of snapped and then asked a question.

And I was like, what if you just started with a question? Like, what if you just started with being inquisitive in that moment?

And so I think a lot of those skills are going to be fundamental. Can you persuade? Can you slow down and have true self control?

I don't think that that's going to go away. The ability to have the ability kind of dynamic management of self is going.

To be the key part. Can you do that? And can you think through then what are the tools that you have at your disposal, the resources you have at your disposal to be able to go create that outcome with companionship in the types of people you bring along, whatever it might be.

I can't even begin to think a world in which the ability to persuade is going to be obsolete. I just don't see that.

And so that would be the skill I would say. Hey, if you have this and you want to do this, persuade me why I should be behind you on this sun or whatever it might be.

So again, I'm not trying to speak too much into it, but there is this aspect of those skills are just going to be even more difficult to do because you're going to have different resources that are constantly evolving and changing.

And you're going to have to convince people, hey, this is the direction, the vision, come aboard. Yeah, that's a really good response.

 

Matt Zaun

That's a really good point. I appreciate you mentioning that. You know, I view... I'm sure you do as well as one of the biggest double-edged swords that our society will have to deal with.

You can put social media in that category as well. Huge double-edged sword where there have been many, many good things that have come out of social media and many, many dark negative things that have come out of social media.

Not that they're the exact same thing, but I just see them as double-edged swords. I believe I listened to a TEDx talk, this is years ago, talking about AI, and they said the three things AI cannot replace is love, empathy, and compassion.

That really speaks to you being able to connect with another human being. I was recently talking to a gentleman that utilized AI to build out a stand-up comedy bit for him, and it did not work out well.

Because imagine feeding AI how to be a good stand-up comic, and then just standing up and trying to connect with your audience.

It's just not going to work. And the reason why I bring that up is because you talked about that respect piece.

You're going into a room and really showing respect. Very difficult to lean on AI to teach you how to respect someone in the moment, going to their office and understanding the dynamics of connecting.

So you bring up a really, really good point. So speaking of AI, with what you've seen business-wise, what are some ways that you've seen AI help enhance a company that you've worked with from maybe an efficiency perspective?

Sure, absolutely.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Man, there's so much going on with that, so I never want to feel like I've got the full sense of all of it.

What our thesis used to be when we started was we're going to build systems and processes and create the ability really quickly and efficiently to get data, to make decisions, to do all these types of things.

That's just gotten easier and easier. You can get the data now that much easier. You can make informed decisions that much better.

I would say what I have found is AI has the ability to stand up something very, very quickly. to be able to test, hey, is this the direction to go?

So we've got an internal team that builds out our software on businesses that we acquire. When we go in doing due diligence, we often ask for digital and physical copies of all the things you can imagine.

And we're feeding it through our systems to kind of get as much information as we can as soon as possible.

So we can speak because a business owner is going to hand me over all their financials, their historicals, their, you know, not just their P&L, but they're going to show me like kind of the breakdown of their sales.

Hey, this is how much are coming from this location, this customer, this, whatever it might be. And they want to make, you know, they want to understand my perspective quickly.

They want to validate kind of where they're at and maybe in their own mind or what someone else has told them or whatever.

So we have to do that faster for us when we're evaluating businesses. And then when we're operating them, it's the same way.

We want to do it faster and leaner. What we've done wrong in the past is that when we have needed to create buy-in around AI, that is where we.

And we've gotten better in the last year, I would say. But we rolled out an ERP system that we built out internally.

And then we didn't have the right buy-in. And so adoption was super low. So I think AI will not solve adoption.

I think still human-human connections solves a lot of adoption. Yes, you can make the user experience better. You could do all those types of things.

But at the end of the day, it's still a matter of connecting with humans.

 

Matt Zaun 

That's a really good point. I really appreciate you mention that. And I really appreciate this conversation. I got a ton out of it.

There are a few things in particular that I'm going to remember after this conversation's over. The first one, Malcolm, is you mentioned a ton of respect for what's going on.

So you walk into a room, and I really appreciate you mentioning the body language piece. You mentioned body posture, body language.

That was a theme that came up a few times in this conversation. And I think that's really important. It's interesting that you mentioned that because in my strategic storytelling workshops, one of the things that fascinates the audience...

As crazy as it may sound, if we figured out patterns that work for us, what can we do to continue to keep ourselves motivated?

So those are the three things that I got out of the conversation.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

So Malcolm, if anyone wants to reach out to you, they want to get information on what you do, they want to reach out to you for maybe to even sell their company, where's the best place that they can go to get that information?

Yeah, you can find me directly on LinkedIn under Malcolm Peace. And then also I'm on X. try to be as active as I can on both of those platforms.

Life gets busy at times, of course. And then you can find us on Tsetserra.com would be the other. That kind of summarizes a lot of what we do.

We love to talk to folks. We buy businesses that are kind of headquartered in Texas. But in the past, what we've also done is looked at businesses that could be transferable, where we felt like being in Texas, it's kind of an operating state, would actually add value as well.

So we're kind of looking abroad to across America to see if there's other opportunities out there. But we're certainly bullish on Texas, and we want to see what we can do to add value in these businesses and keep the legacy going.

Thank you. You Perfect.

 

Matt Zaun

I'll include that in the show notes. People would just click and go from there. Malcolm, thanks again for your time today.

Really appreciate it.

 

Malcolm Peace (Tsetserra)

Honor. Thanks for having me.