Today's guest did not want to return to his corporate path as a software executive. At age 52, Tom McCormick was coming off a stint as the general manager of a PE-owned software business that exited. He had enjoyed the autonomy of the role. "After having so much control over where a company went and what they did," said Tom, "going back to kinda the pride-swallowing role within a larger machine really didn't appeal to me." So when Tom read Buy Then Build, "it was a parting of the clouds." Tom bought a concrete cutting and coring business — opposite end of the spectrum from selling corporate software. And boy, it's going well. Quality Cutting & Coring crewNot explosive growth, but the transition was successful, the business is stable, and Tom is improving it — incrementally, sensitive to how change needs to be digested by the 2-decade-old organization. We spend a lot of time on Tom's deal structure. Listen for how a little reframing with the seller moved the transaction forward where it would otherwise have died. His adaptability here may be why today he's owner of a business while some of his would-be business owner buddies are 5 years deep in their search. Here is Tom McCormick, owner of Quality Cutting and Coring.

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