David and I did a review with one of our other LLC business partners today (Cooper), and as reviews go, it was very simple. He has been working with David a lot, which is one reason David was there, and I'm told that his work is excellent. Customers love his speed and technical skills, and while he isn't a particularly outgoing person, I've never heard a customer say a bad thing about him.
So the review was very simple, pretty much just "Keep up the great work", "I appreciate your comments at our partner meetings", and a few similar statements. I need to add that while he has absolutely no interest in sales, he has a real interest in business and marketing, and often sends me ideas by email, which I appreciate, and I try to follow up on all of them.
At lunch today he mentioned that he'd like to be able to buy some more interest in the LLC, even though he knew it was for sale. He said that the company had been for sale for a while, and we hadn't had any luck in selling it, and it might take a while longer to sell, so in the meantime he would like to own a larger portion of it. I told him this caught my by surprise, but I was glad to hear it, and asked him to give me a little while to think about it.
I talked to Jack about it this afternoon, and after waiting to talk to him because he was talking to his financial planner, I was surprised to hear Jack say that he thought selling this other partner any additional shares in the company was a bad idea. He thought this partner had his opportunities to buy into the company earlier, and that he now owned what he owned, and the percentage seemed right to him. What Jack doesn't know is that I'm more and more convinced that his ownership level in the company is too high for me now, and I'm thinking about making another offer to buy back his shares.
In a totally unrelated note, as a public service announcement, it's important to mention to anyone who is thinking about being separated from their spouse that all those little errands you used to share with your partner suddenly start to require more of your personal time. When you see the owner of a successful small business shopping for groceries at 8 or 9 p.m., it's a safe guess that he's single or separated.