Before Scott Rainey owned a safety consulting company, he was getting bit by dogs in North Louisiana — knocking on doors as a landman, trying to convince hostile landowners to let oil companies onto their property. That pivot into entrepreneurship wasn't clean. It nearly ended in bankruptcy. Here's how he got out, started over, and built something worth selling.

Scott Rainey is the founder and President of Quest Safety Solutions, a safety consulting firm serving oil and gas service companies across New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. With over 20 years of oil field experience — 15 of them in safety — Scott built his company from the ground up after a near-miss acquisition deal nearly wiped out everything he and his wife had worked to build. Today, Quest functions as a fully outsourced in-house safety department for oilfield operators, handling OSHA compliance, workforce certifications, training management, and insurance coordination — so clients stay on the job and off the audit list. Scott holds an MBA and the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) designation and lives in Lafayette, Louisiana with his wife Mandy and their three children.

Joining host Joshua Wilson is co-host Jude David, JD, DCL, MBA — Managing Partner at FA Mergers, former M&A attorney with 200+ transactions, and founder of a self-funded building materials company grown to 400+ employees via acquisitions. Scott is a longtime personal friend of Jude's, and their shared history makes for a candid conversation about faith, risk, and what it truly takes to build a business worth exiting.

🎯 What We Cover:

• What a landman actually does — and where the TV show gets it right (and wrong)
• How Scott stumbled from land work and environmental management into oilfield safety consulting
• The acquisition deal he rushed into without doing his homework — and why it nearly ended in bankruptcy
• What he wishes he had done differently as a first-time business buyer, including the due diligence he skipped
• The conversation every entrepreneur dreads: going home to a pregnant wife after walking away from a job with no plan
• Why safety is not just a cost center — it is a license to operate, and without it your employees do not go to work
• How Quest functions as a full outsourced safety department for 10–70 person oilfield service companies
• The AI agent demo that shifted how Scott sees the future of his entire business model
• Why he is deliberately building Quest Safety Solutions to sell — and what he envisions doing after the exit
• His closing advice for any entrepreneur standing at a fork in the road

🤝 Connect with Scott Rainey: 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-rainey-mba-csp-48058b22/

🤝 Connect with Jude David: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/guests/jude-david/

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

She spent thousands of dollars on wedding flowers she didn't even love — and watched them end up in the trash by the end of the night. That experience became the blueprint for a business that has now served over 60,000 weddings and helped couples save more than $100 million on flowers.

Lauren Bercier is the Co-Founder and CEO of Something Borrowed Blooms, the leading silk floral rental company disrupting the traditional wedding flower industry. In this episode, Lauren joins hosts Joshua Wilson and Jude David to walk through the full entrepreneurial arc — from a bootstrapped idea born in a man cave in Lafayette, Louisiana, to a nationally recognized brand now in the middle of a Series B raise. She breaks down what it actually takes to build a scalable consumer brand, navigate the VC landscape as a female founder, and lead a team of 40 people serving customers across the country — all while staying capital efficient and keeping the mission intact.

🎯 What We Cover:

• How Lauren turned her own bad wedding flower experience into a rent-and-return business model
• Why Rent the Runway inspired the Something Borrowed Blooms concept
• The tech stack evolution: GoDaddy to Shopify to custom platform to BigCommerce
• What 60,000 weddings taught her about scalable, direct-to-consumer operations
• The realities of raising venture capital as a female founder in a female-focused industry
• How a Series B in 2025 is funding a platform relaunch that drove 26% YOY sales growth in its first month
• Expanding beyond weddings into the broader $10B+ events market
• Turning competitor florists into B2B pro partners
• Why polarizing feedback is a signal your business is actually changing something
• The "shoulds" she ignored — and why staying focused on the model made all the difference

🤝 Connect with Lauren Bercier: 🌐 https://www.somethingborrowedblooms.com 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-bercier/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@sbblooms

🤝 Connect with Co-Host Jude David: 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jude-david-jd-dcl-mba-172a6a76/ 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/guests/jude-david/

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

What if you could invest like the Hilton family — without having $100 million in the bank? Mark Miller has spent nearly 40 years making that possible, and in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how it works. The strategies, the philosophy, the network — and the surprising backstory of how the Hilton family fortune ended up in a foundation instead of the family's hands.

Mark Miller is the Managing Director of the Hilton Family Office and CEO of Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, built in direct partnership with J. Bradley Hilton, grandson of legendary hotelier Conrad Hilton. A bestselling author and nationally recognized financial expert, Mark has been featured in Kiplinger's, The New York Times, and Money Magazine and has appeared on Fox News as a financial expert. Recognized as Presidential Businessman of the Year, he received a personal commendation from President George W. Bush. With nearly four decades in financial services — starting at IDS American Express, moving through the brokerage world, building a financial publishing company, and ultimately being asked to run the Hilton Family Office — his core mission has stayed the same: give investors with $500K to $20M access to the same tools, strategies, and disciplines the ultra-wealthy have always used. Lower volatility. Less emotion. Stronger long-term compounding.

In this episode, we go inside the Hilton Financial Network, explore the launch of their new technology fund, and unpack what "True Wealth" really means for the high-net-worth families, executives, and business owners they serve. If you've ever wondered how the smart money actually invests — and why your financial advisor probably isn't telling you the whole story — this is the episode.

🎯 What We Cover:

• How Mark went from IDS American Express and the brokerage world to being asked to run the Hilton Family Office
• Why Conrad and Barron Hilton left their billions to a foundation — not the family — and how that shaped J. Bradley Hilton's mission to build from the ground up
• The fundamental difference between retail investors and smart money institutional players — and why the gap shows up in your long-term returns
• Why reducing portfolio volatility often produces better compounding than chasing market highs
• The expanding Hilton Financial Network: technology fund (blockchain, digital assets, robotics, biosciences), bridge lending via Hilton Finance, and commercial and residential mortgage lending
• The #1 thing Mark evaluates before any partnership — and why integrity always comes before deal structure
• The most common wealth-building mistakes even affluent families keep repeating — and how to avoid them
• The Hilton True Wealth Podcast: what it covers and where to find it when it launches in April 2026

🤝 Connect with Mark Miller: 🌐 https://www.hiltonwealth.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmiller-hiltonfo/

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Some PE deals don't fall apart in due diligence — they fall apart because no one can find the right CEO. Travis Hann has built his firm around solving exactly that problem. If the operator doesn't exist — or can't be found — the deal doesn't happen.

Travis Hann is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Pender & Howe, a fast-growing boutique executive search firm serving mid-sized companies and investors across North America. He also serves on the board of Kestria, the world's largest global executive search alliance — a network of 42 boutique firms operating in 42 countries. Since founding the firm in 2019, Travis has helped private equity sponsors, family offices, and venture capital investors find the mission-critical operators who make deals possible. For investor-backed businesses, the stakes aren't just high — the deal itself is often contingent on the search. Travis has been assessing executive leaders every month for over a decade, and in this episode, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how that process works: how he spots inconsistency, why a polished resume means almost nothing, what it takes to find an operator willing to put their own capital on the line, and why the CEO role today demands a completely different toolkit than it did five years ago.

🎯 What We Cover:

• Why some PE deals are entirely contingent on finding the right CEO or operator
• What separates a standard executive search from a deal-dependent one
• The consistency framework Travis uses to assess C-suite candidates across multiple touchpoints
• Why charisma can be a red flag — and how to see past it to real competency
• The Top Grading methodology and why it stress-tests candidates better than traditional interviews
• How to find operators willing to co-invest and put their own capital in the deal
• When PE firms and investors should engage a search firm — and why earlier is almost always better
• Deal vs. team: how to decide which one you're actually betting on in a services business
• Why AI-polished resumes have changed the talent assessment game
• What the modern CEO role looks like today vs. five years ago — and what the new toolkit requires
• The subtle behavioral signals Travis watches for that most hiring processes completely miss
• How Pender & Howe grew from a spin-off of 4 people to a 20-person North American firm

🤝 Connect with Travis Hann: 🌐 https://www.penderhowe.com 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/travishann

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

He only buys companies everyone else is running from — and he's been doing it for 20 years.

Nate Moore has built a 700-person operation by acquiring distressed childcare and home care businesses, walking into chaos where others see dead ends, and turning them around through leadership, structure, and a relentless belief in people.

Nate Moore is a serial acquisition entrepreneur and founder of Moore Consulting & Investment Group. For over two decades, Nate has operated at the intersection of distressed business acquisitions and people-first leadership — buying broken childcare and home care companies, identifying hidden talent inside failing organizations, and rebuilding them into stable, scalable operations. Today his platform serves 1,500 children per day and employs nearly 700 people across multiple locations.

In this episode, Nate shares the mindset behind pursuing deals no one else wants, what he looks for when he walks into a distressed company, and the leadership framework that drives every turnaround. He also gets candid about getting fired from a top sales job at 19, what that moment taught him about influence, and how personal adversity shaped the operator he is today.

🎯 What We Cover:

• Why Nate only buys distressed businesses — and how he spots turnaround potential others miss
• His path from car sales to flipping houses to acquiring his first company at 22
• The leadership change that drives every successful turnaround — and why the right person is usually already inside the company
• How he manages 700 employees and 1,500 kids per day using three spreadsheets
• The mindset shift that separates operators who scale from those who stall
• What getting fired from a top car sales job taught him about influence and character
• Why he reads body language in every conversation — and how it makes him a better communicator and leader
• His framework for scaling: be resourceful, don't depend on the resources
• How he uses his current customer base to identify future expansion opportunities
• The difference between knowledge and wisdom — and how intentionality bridges the gap

🤝 Connect with Nate Moore: 🌐 https://www.mooreconsultinginvestmentgroup.com/team 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathaniel-t-moore-ba022231/

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Most business owners confuse value creation with wealth acceleration — and it's costing them everything after the deal closes. This episode breaks down the family office framework that changes how you think about your business, your exit, and your legacy.

Joshua Wilson sits down with Benjamin Domingue, founder of Family Office Partners, a multifamily office serving private business owners from pre-transaction planning through multi-generational wealth management. With over 15 years of experience and involvement in 45–50 family transactions, Ben brings a rare combination of deal-side coordination, wealth advisory, and family planning expertise that most owners never know they need — until it's too late.

Ben challenges the conventional exit planning narrative, explains why wealth is built through a series of transactions not a single event, and walks through his three-segment wealth framework — liquidity, longevity, and legacy. He also reveals why fixating on your purchase multiple is exactly what buyers want you to do, and why "doing nothing" is sometimes the best financial advice a newly liquid owner can receive. Also joining the conversation is Jude David of FA Mergers, adding the transaction advisory perspective on deal timing, deal structure, and what sellers are really saying when they think they're talking about price.

Topics covered:

• Value creation vs. wealth acceleration — what advisors should actually focus on
• Why "exit planning" is the wrong mental frame for most business owners
• The operating model vs. revenue model gap in ultra-high-net-worth advising
• Why a $20M exit at 45 may not cover your lifestyle — the real math
• The three segments of wealth: liquidity, longevity, and legacy
• Why business owners should never lead with their purchase multiple
• The psychology of post-exit identity loss and what to do about it
• Why "doing nothing" is sometimes the wisest post-liquidity move
• How to structure a second act using PE-backed platforms
• The 94% third-generation wealth erosion problem — and how to fight it

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

Scott Harkey put $750,000 cash down on an agency tuck-in — and turned it into $10 million in enterprise value inside his group. That's EBITDA arbitrage. And according to Scott, most independent agency operators grinding away at 17–25% margins have never once thought about it. This episode covers the deal math, the culture traps, and the billboard rollup opportunity most investors are completely missing.

Scott Harkey is the founder of The Harkey Group, a multi-agency advertising platform with clients including Wynn Resorts, Disney, and Marriott, and Harkey Media, a $200 million out-of-home billboard fund acquiring and developing assets across the U.S. Over a 20-year career he has built, bought, and sold advertising agencies — including a recent exit to private equity — while operating across two distinct rollup verticals: professional services and real estate-adjacent media. Scott is a Forbes Agency Council member, 4A's Business Council member, and national speaker on marketing and brand strategy. His next book, Brand Uprising, is forthcoming from Fast Company Press.

In this episode, Scott unpacks why cultural misalignment is the most underestimated deal-killer in agency M&A, walks through real deal math on how tuck-ins create massive multiple arbitrage for operators without PE backing, and explains how a market dominated by three publicly traded giants — Clear Channel, Lamar, and Outfront — leaves 2,000+ independent billboard operators ripe for consolidation. He also shares the pitching framework from Oren Klaff's Pitch Anything that transformed how he wins clients and closes deals. A must-listen for M&A professionals, agency owners, PE sponsors, and entrepreneurs building toward an exit.

🎯 What We Cover:

• Why culture fit kills more deals than pricing — and how to evaluate alignment before you close
• The EBITDA arbitrage math: buying at 3x, selling inside a group at 10x–15x — with real numbers
• Building a boutique agency rollup without PE capital using bank debt and creative deal structures
• The $200M Harkey Media billboard fund and why fragmented out-of-home is a rollup goldmine
• His PE exit: what triggered the sale, what cultural misalignment really looks like, and what he'd do differently
• Why starting from zero is almost always the wrong move — and what he tells every entrepreneur instead
• Why the owner must be the deal person — and why hiring a salesperson is a "kiss of death" for agency new business
• Community as the new sales strategy: the psychology of why buyers join, not just buy
• Brand Uprising: the coming convergence of marketing, psychology, and sales
• Mining your losses for data: how 200 failed pitches became his most valuable competitive intelligence
• Bouncing back from a slump — why internal shifts matter more than external tactics

🤝 Connect with Scott Harkey: 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottharkey 📱 Instagram: @scottharkey

💼 Thinking About a Transaction? FA Mergers helps founders, investors, and business owners navigate the full M&A process — from valuation to close. If you're exploring a sale, acquisition, or capital raise, let's talk. 🔗 https://www.famergers.com/

🎙️ Follow The Deal Podcast: 🌐 https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.

What does a banker actually look for before saying yes to your deal? Ben Smith, Market President at Red River Bank in Lafayette, Louisiana, pulls back the curtain on how banks evaluate business acquisitions, equipment financing, and commercial lending — and what business owners can do right now to set themselves up for growth.

Ben brings nearly 25 years of banking experience, starting in credit review and commercial lending before becoming the market president responsible for growing Red River Bank's presence across Acadiana. He breaks down the five Cs of credit, how banks think about risk mitigation, and why the most rewarding deals are often the hardest ones to get across the finish line.

Whether you're a business owner thinking about your next acquisition, an entrepreneur looking to finance equipment, or a dealmaker who wants to understand how lenders see your transaction — this conversation gives you a genuine look inside the bank.

Topics covered:

• How banks evaluate business acquisitions using the 5 Cs of credit
• The difference between bankable deals and deals that need a PE or alternative route
• Short-term vs. long-term financing — structuring debt the right way
• Equipment financing: why it's the "easiest deal" and how it actually works
• What a market president does (it's not just playing golf)
• How Red River Bank approaches risk mitigation and flexible deal structuring
• Why smaller vs. larger banks differ in lending flexibility
• The mindset of a great banker: composure, neutrality, and the duck analogy
• Real estate market outlook for Acadiana
• Growing up in the oil and gas corridor of South Louisiana

🔗 Website: https://www.thedealpodcast.com/ Joshua Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuadwilson/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dealpodcast Powered By: FA Mergers https://www.famergers.com/

📩 Want to be a guest or have a topic suggestion? Reach out via LinkedIn or our website.

🎧 Subscribe and leave a review so you never miss an episode!

DISCLAIMER The Deal Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes investment advice, a solicitation, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always consult a licensed professional before making financial or investment decisions.