[00:00:00] Sean Mooney: Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real time trends. I'm Sean Mooney, BluWave's founder, and CEO. In this episode, we have a fantastic conversation with Emily Bomberger, partner with PennSpring Capital. Enjoy.
[00:00:33] It is great to be here with Emily Bomberger. Emily, thanks for joining us.
[00:00:37] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, thanks for having me, Sean. I appreciate it.
[00:00:39] Sean Mooney: All right. I'm looking forward to this one, and I have for a long time here, it's great to get you on. As we're jumping into our conversation here, let's start out with more of the story of you.
[00:00:50] So can you share a little bit about how you grew up, formative experiences, college, first job out of college, how you ultimately got into PE?
[00:00:57] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, sure. So I'm, I'd say what they would call a non-trad. I definitely have a little bit of an untraditional path to PE. So I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, so a very small town.
[00:01:11] It's right between Pittsburgh and Erie, so the only two big towns in Western Pennsylvania. And I'm right in the middle of those two. So it's a town called Oil City it's pretty small. It actually, when I was younger it was a little bit bigger and then there was this big refinery and the town and oil refinery is very on brand.
[00:01:31] And when I was in about seventh grade, the refinery moved. But I left seventh grade for summer vacation and I came back for eighth grade and half of my class was gone. So it definitely was the first kind of formative experience of being in a small town, a little bit of concentrations and just how businesses can really impact people's lives.
[00:01:55] So I went to a state school on that side of the state and I ended up double majoring while I was there. One of my majors required an internship, it was pretty intense, and my internship offered me a job. And so I was majoring in marketing and communications and kind of web dev, like that was all in one college at the college that I went to school for.
[00:02:17] They offered me a job. "We can give you a job, but you've got to start right now." And so I had a year to go on my business degree. I had graduated in about 2009, so it was right in the middle of the global financial crisis. All of my friends were moving home with their parents and I'm like, "Oh no. I've got to, I'm going to take this job."
[00:02:34] Sean Mooney: "I just got out."
[00:02:35] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, "I can do that."
[00:02:37] So I ended up taking this role and it was working pretty heavily in their marketing department and working on their website and kind of whatever else came up, which is something that I really like. And I was " I'll finish my business degree later. Like I'll worry about that another day."
[00:02:51] Classic like 22. So I started this business. It was a closely held small business in central PA, which is where I live now. And they owned a winery, but they also had a 35 acre festival site. And so they would do these festivals year round. And I got to work really closely with the owners, the management team.
[00:03:14] It was a small business. Everybody worked in the business. Everybody worked on the business. It was very much like your official title is like an afterthought, and it was more about what we need to get done today and what do we need to collaborate on, which sort of became a theme in kind of my future jobs of just really popping into opportunities that seemed really interesting and worrying about kind of the logistics and the details later on.
[00:03:40] So, with a business that was that small, we got to be so close to so many pieces of it, the financial side of it and the operations, really see how decisions were made and how they were executed on. And if we saw them maybe going a little sideways, you could see the pivot and those decisions as well.
[00:04:00] So really valuable, super interesting job to have for sure. And then while I was there, we ended up, essentially, we built them a new website and we built them a web store and then we built them a web app to manage their inventory and just all kinds of stuff. That definitely was not like in the original job description, but it was just super interesting and really fun to work on, and was such an opportunity to just get to work on different stuff that I was interested in, and they let us do that there.
[00:04:31] So I was there for probably about five years. And during that time I did wrap up that business degree that I didn't for the first round. So my mom was very intense about that. That's important. I did make sure that I, yeah, that I got that done. And then I had been like eyeballing, there's a public accounting firm in our region that was just growing super fast and I had them on my radar of like,
[00:04:54] oh, that's interesting. I feel like I got to work in a ton of departments for this one business, but it'll be really cool to see like a bunch of different ones. And so I ended up getting connected with them and the same thing, like they're the fastest growing firm in the area. I think they probably still are.
[00:05:12] I wasn't too worried about like where I went, like just like I had an interview with one of the MDs. They were like, "Well, do you want to do audit or do you want to do tax?" And I was like, "Listen, I don't know. It doesn't matter."
[00:05:26] Just like...
[00:05:26] Sean Mooney: "When I do accounting..."
[00:05:28] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, like "Just put me somewhere, like I will prove myself and find the cool thing to work on and then work on that and it'll be awesome."
[00:05:35] So I was there for about eight years in total. I spent the first four years in the audit side. So compliance. Auditing financial statements of closely held businesses, which are just my bread and butter of what I deal with all the time. And then I got an opportunity to slide down to their consulting side in the advisory firm.
[00:05:56] And so that was really interesting because it's step out of the compliance lane a little bit and just solve problems. And so one of the opportunities that we saw in that market was for PE backed business, when they're acquired by PE for the first time, so they suddenly have a new ownership structure.
[00:06:16] They have these different metrics and goals and they have a really short timeframe and sometimes, it can be really overwhelming or they're not sure how to bridge that gap. And so we just offered ourselves and our team as support for whatever you guys need in this first hundred days when it's like messy and chaotic.
[00:06:35] And we went there and that's how we got started. So, we did that kind of work for probably three years. It evolved from effectively helping them with their financial reporting, to helping them understand the deal, to record it, to disclose it, to deal with the lender, to unwind some of these like deal structures that would come across the desk and kind of figure out, okay, how do I report this and what does this actually mean for the management team and then for future acquisitions.
[00:07:04] So, our deliverable for those clients was always kind of year end financial statements and make sure they're right. But along the way, you really got to see from a bunch of different PE groups how they're thinking about these acquisitions, how they're structuring management comp and incentive, and how they're valuing some of these intangibles or not valuing them and how they approach the hold period.
[00:07:30] And since we got to do the financials every year, we got to tag along for most of the hold and so we could really see what decisions they were making, how they were thinking about things, and how that worked out for them. So was really invaluable. The amount that you learn or just absorb by being around that many different investment firms, that many different companies.
[00:07:56] Some were doing standalone, some were doing roll-ups. And so that information was just incredibly valuable and helpful going forward. So I was working on, those projects for probably three to four years, and then I kept hearing about PennSpring. There were always murmurs, like they're so busy,
[00:08:16] they were doing a ton of work, they were doing a lot of acquisitions, they had a lot going on and they were really getting stuff done. So they were acquiring more businesses than any other kind of local investment firm. And they were growing them quickly and in a really accretive way and not sometimes the shortsighted ways that we see.
[00:08:36] And they just were moving pretty quickly and again, getting a lot of stuff done. So they also were on my radar of they always want to work at a high growth business and people that are really sharp and can really execute on things. And I just kept hearing their name over and over again.
[00:08:51] So I eventually connected with the managing partner and we went up and back for a couple months about a role and what it would be and we talked a lot about, "Hey, this PortCo needs help." And I was, "Ah, I don't really want to go to a PortCo right now" but I was like, "Here's this other idea that I have,
[00:09:06] maybe this is something that I think you could use that I'm really good at let's see if it works." They eventually decided to give me an audition of sorts. So I joined PennSpring in July of 2021, and I would say within maybe six months of joining, we had gotten three acquisitions done. And so I definitely was like, "Okay, this is probably where I need to be and where I should be."
[00:09:31] So I've been there ever since and we've been super busy getting a lot of stuff done and definitely having a good time along the way.
[00:09:40] Sean Mooney: Yeah, I love your background there. It's a great training. Ground one. Your first job is really, you get to see the front revenue side of a business pretty intimately, right?
[00:09:48] It's what are the levers that can help bring in customers, convert them, work them along their journey, communicate the value proposition, so front of house of the business. And then as you move to your accounting role, you got to see how all of that ultimately turned into debits, credits, financial statements, and dollars.
[00:10:06] I think that's a great way to start a career and get the full value flow of a business.
[00:10:12] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, absolutely. I think I was very fortunate to be able to come up through the way that I did, even from my first job, who they gave me a shot and let me work on the stuff that I wanted to.
[00:10:23] When I moved over to the accounting firm again, they let you write your own ticket, and that helps when they're growing really fast, and then certainly to PennSpring where I can really be in the weeds on both sides of the house. I've been lucky in my experience for sure.
[00:10:41] Sean Mooney: Hey, as a quick interlude, this is Sean here.
[00:10:43] Wanted to address one quick question that we regularly get. We often get people who show up at our website, call our account executives that say, "Hey, I'm not private equity. Can I still use BluWave to get connected with resources?" And the short answer is yes. Even though we're mostly and largely used by hundreds of private equity firms, thousands of their portfolio company leaders, every day we get calls from everyday top proactive business leaders at public companies, independent companies, family companies.
[00:11:10] So absolutely you can use this as well if you want to use the exact same resources that are trusted and being deployed and perfectly calibrated for your business needs. Give us a call, visit our website at BluWave.net. Thanks. Back to the episode.
[00:11:29] So of course the next question I'd love to ask in this phase of our conversation is, what would one thing be that we would know you better if, Emily, we knew this about you?
[00:11:39] Emily Bomberger: So for me, I love a learning curve. I love to learn new things and to have a steep learning curve and feel like there's so much to learn that you could never learn at all in a year or two years or five years.
[00:11:53] Like those are my favorite roles to have. I feel like you grow so quickly when you're in that environment and it really is something that not a lot of people get to experience, and I've been really lucky to have those opportunities throughout my career where I was able to work in a role that there was just so much to be done, that it was really exciting.
[00:12:14] Sean Mooney: And that's a unique kind of thing to like in a very good way, right? Because I think the biggest challenge for most people, including myself, right, is like when something comes new, it's hard, it's painful, you're insecure, right? And that's why a lot of aspirations don't become habits and practices within people.
[00:12:30] So how do you get over that pain, that fear that comes along with deep learning curves?
[00:12:37] Emily Bomberger: I think it's a couple things. I actually studied learning at one point. And there was this concept called ultra learning, where it basically says like for anything that you do, the first 20% is awful. And then once you get there, the next 40, 50%, you at least have the tools to start to get yourself some answers and get yourself at least around a little bit.
[00:13:01] So that's something that I've always really tried to dive into that first 20% and just run straight into it. For learning a new business I think it's helpful to go sit there. Go sit at a portfolio company for a month or three months and just absorb that through osmosis and also just be really open to you don't know what you don't know, and having a lot of respect for the people around you that have been in the field for long.
[00:13:31] That can help you if you usually value their opinion.
[00:13:34] Sean Mooney: I like that approach because it's, if you know it's coming and you're telling yourself this is going to be tough, you're not surprised by it, I think. But even myself, when you get into it, there's just " Oh, this is a toil." You eventually just brute force your way through it, and then you're like, "This is great."
[00:13:48] But to your point, like if you go in knowing this is part of the process it's not a surprise, then it's a lot easier to persevere through it until you get to the fun stuff.
[00:13:57] Emily Bomberger: Right.
[00:13:58] Sean Mooney: So Emily, let's talk about now how you look at businesses and you're fortunate to have had the unique experiences you've had that inform your mindset, but also the, just the opportunity to look at a large number of companies through PennSpring.
[00:14:11] And so what I'm curious about is what's your personal scorecard? You're looking at companies and you say, what are the most important traits in the company? Is this a PennSpring type company that you want to look at? What are those elements of value that you look for to say, "Oh, this could be something that either has it or could have it with an application of fuel and resource and partnership?"
[00:14:33] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, no, great question. So I think there's always some lanes of revenue, customers, vendors, what is the space doing in total? And also the idea of if we can be helpful, if we are the right partner. At the PennSpring level, we're not so much of a tag along investor. We really like to invest in businesses where we can provide value and we can be helpful.
[00:15:00] So if there's something where it's well, they need to do this thing that isn't in our wheelhouse, or they could actually do it really well on their own. Those aren't ones that we typically spend a ton of time with, but when we see these ones that are like, this is it. Like a lot of times what we'll see are the same things that you would look for in larger companies, but they might just be a little bit too small or a little bit too inefficient to really get the value that they would deserve.
[00:15:25] And so we are looking for: how is the market? Is this market going? Is it a tailwind, is it growing or are we going to be fighting a macro problem as during our whole period really, looking at customers. How do they value this business? Are they returning? Are they sticking around? Are they referring people?
[00:15:48] And just looking at the service lines that they have. Are they great at what they do, even if they're not doing it, perhaps on a scale that we would love to see in a couple years, but do they really have the fundamentals down? And how are they perceived in the market? Do they have a reputation for being really strong and trustworthy?
[00:16:08] Or is it, are there areas that we would have to work through with them? So we generally look for businesses where the founder wants to probably take some chips off the table, maybe have a partial exit, but also wants to stay with the business. They see the value in it. They know it can grow. If they don't believe I don't know, that's probably curtains.
[00:16:28] So we really like to partner with a founder who wants to stay through that next phase of growth. And I think, when we look at these closely held businesses and founder owned businesses, so much of who the founder is, is in the business. So we always look for, is this someone we can work with?
[00:16:46] Is this someone that, that we respect, that we get along with? Because even in situations where they've exited a hundred percent, if we're not aligned with the founder, there will be problems later on. How they are in one thing is how they are in everything. So we always look to make sure we have that alignment out of the gate.
[00:17:03] Sean Mooney: I think those are all really spot on points. And you think about one, like market always matters, right? You have to be in a good market. And I like the point that you also brought is like, is it natural? Is water flowing downhill versus, and then to paraphrase my friend Lloyd Metz, who I steal his line on that all the time, it's like when you're doing something, you want it to naturally flow.
[00:17:22] You want the water to be clean, you want it to just go downhill where it's easiest. Where companies, and I think investors get in a lot of trouble. It's, " No, we're going to pump it uphill. We're going to force it to happen." And the second the power goes out, everything washes away. So it's businesses that are naturally growing.
[00:17:38] You have a business leader that's also interested in the future, but maybe needs a little bit of fuel. And probably as much as anything in business, particularly with family and founder owned businesses, it's this whole idea of behavioral economics, right? A lot of people miss out the point it's actually really good for the founder at some point to take some capital off because at the end of the day, people think about losing what they have versus what's there to gain.
[00:18:02] And if you can take that kind of food, water, shelter, like you're going to be okay, your family will be okay if you get hit by a bus, it invigorates them and creates this like old spark again, that used to be there during the early days of the company when they were all gas, no brakes. With, not reckless zeal, but with like incredible enthusiasm because they were creating something and then suddenly that business is worth something and it becomes a lot to lose.
[00:18:25] And so what I've seen in my career is just you relieve that pressure, then suddenly they're back to their old selves and it's like it reinvigorates the whole business.
[00:18:35] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, a hundred percent. I think too, especially when it's just the founder, like it's just you. And you would know when anything goes wrong.
[00:18:43] You're the guy, like you're getting the call. It always stops with you. So I think having someone to share that also really helps. It takes some of the pressure off and allows the small business owner to get their head in the game in terms of growth versus like risk mitigation.
[00:19:02] Sean Mooney: Hi, Karma School of Business listeners, Sean here. Wanted to shine another spotlight
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[00:19:47] This product is not just for those who do M&A. One source of alpha and edge is to do a commercial due diligence, including a growth strategy assessment on your own company, and you'll be amazed how much your insights and go-to-market plan will improve. Give us a call or visit our website at BluWave.net, and we can give you excellence and alpha with ease. Back to the show.
[00:20:11] So Emily, let's talk a little bit about how your firm PennSpring manages the interplay. You have a company, it meets the threshold, you can do things together. You're confidants and helpers of each other now. So how do you now manage the interplay between the different professionals on your team and then the portfolio company leadership as you're trying to create this best next version of a company?
[00:20:34] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, great question. So we try to have that not be too many people, not too many parties, not too many cooks in the kitchen. So PennSpring has a unique structure where we are self capitalized from our prior exit. So we aren't really beholden to LPs. We don't have a hard exit date that we have to either liquidate the fund or roll it or, we don't have any of that.
[00:21:01] We can do what makes most sense for each of our PortCos and each business that we interact with. So for us, we found that to be keeping a pretty small team. That is interacting with sellers and founders and then walking that deal all the way through. And that way, we don't have the founder having to tell their story to maybe four or five different partners.
[00:21:26] And we eliminate sort of the risk that you have when you have the deal team that closes and they're onto the next. And then you have the operating partners trying to make sure that what's in the model is going to come to fruition. And we have to level set on all of that. So, we really like to have a small team that makes the decision making really fast.
[00:21:45] We don't waste people's time. We don't get six or eight weeks into diligence before we find that oh no, we have to break the deal, sorry. So we really try to keep it, really close. And that also sets us up pretty well to really flush out kind of our value creation right up front. So if we think that, hey, like these are some growth levers and the deal team has identified them and we're doing diligence around those.
[00:22:08] We will bring those to the founder and kind of talk through it with them, and that way we're all aligned very early on and it really builds out the roadmap for post-close.
[00:22:18] Sean Mooney: That makes a ton of sense. I like how you're the people who are involved, you're keeping it streamlined. You're not saying, "Hey, now that we've done the deal together, all the people you met during the early process are, they're going to go on now.
[00:22:30] You're going to meet all these new people." And that continuity, I think is really important, particularly in the challenge of private equity investing, which is very multifaceted and a lot happens in between two and fro, particularly when you also, I think one of the nice things is you don't have that kind of cyclical pressure of the typical fund cycle.
[00:22:48] You can stay longer and then that team can build the relationships and probably, start completing each other's sentences by the time you're exiting. I think that is a really thoughtful way to approach things.
[00:22:59] And Emily, as we turn our conversation to the next chapter here, what are maybe some of the top pieces of advice that you and your colleagues are offering to your portfolio companies these days? To not only work through the rigor of the times, which are a little bit churning, but also to find success during this period of time?
[00:23:18] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, great question. So there's a couple things that kind of come up over and over again.
[00:23:23] We're really fortunate to work closely with founders and sellers who usually know these businesses better than anybody. They've either started them from day one, or they've been there for 15 or 20 years, and so we always encourage them to just be very open. I think sometimes what can happen when you have these big transitions, you have an investment partner, it's the same thing that happens when you go to a board meeting and no one speaks.
[00:23:47] They don't want to, be the guy or say the thing that's like silly. So we try to eliminate all of that and really encourage our partners to raise anything they're seeing, anything they're feeling, because their instincts usually are so good and so spot on. And a lot of times, like we help them set up, okay, here's your leading indicators.
[00:24:06] But they know if the market's turning or it's softening a little bit or it's picking up, or there's opportunities over here, they almost always will just intuitively know it before our leading indicators pick that up. So we always encourage them to raise those, bubble those up and let's just kick it around and maybe, it's nothing or it's not something that we would need to pursue, but we always want to have that kind of voice.
[00:24:30] Sean Mooney: That's really good advice. And if you think about entering into a private equity engagement with a partner, it's like being in a committed relationship that's going to go on for a long time, right? And that openness is incredibly important. If I put my prior kind of PE hat on, when I was a partner to a PE firm, the thing that would always, like you knew you were going down the wrong road is when you thought like you were being managed and they were like holding things back.
[00:24:58] And by that point, you get to be a partner to PE firm. You've got a pretty good spidey sense. And so you're like a problem shared is a problem halved, right? Let's work through this together and be open about what you're seeing and then we can solve it. Even out of the selfish advice I'd give to people like you are to people entering into the new like relationship that PE firms is if you're holding back too, these are people who have a pretty good spidey sense, and it's just going to, you're going to burn trust.
[00:25:22] And so I think that's a really good piece of advice. Not only because you're going to get to a better answer faster, but also because of out of even your own like preservation of wanting to be turning one into three or four times what you started with. And so I think that's really good advice. That's timeless.
[00:25:37] Emily Bomberger: Yeah. I was going to say, the other thing that we're seeing that we're talking about a lot now is just being very disciplined in terms of what are we the best at at each of these portfolio companies and is there stuff that we're doing that we're not the best at? And I think a little bit of that maybe scope creep came in through 2020, 2021, when things were just a little bit looser, including, purse strings.
[00:26:05] We had PPP and ERTC and the government just mailing checks to people at their homes. And so I think what happened or can happen, and we've seen it a little bit, is you find this other lane of revenue that it's " Well, like maybe we have our core business, but we can also do this other thing and sometimes that's awesome." Like it's your second act, it's adjacent, it's maybe creative, like it's really good. But other times it's not that it's maybe too much of a stretch or it's just not something that is naturally expanding your business. And so I think when we look to how the market is now, it's tighter and it's certainly harder.
[00:26:49] And I don't think that there's enough customer funds or even mind share for the second, third, or fourth best vendor. So, those have been areas that we've just encouraged the teams and helped with, like well are there things that we're spending a lot of time doing that can only ever be like almost as good as the thing that we do all the time and really making, potentially some tough decisions around that can be scary upfront.
[00:27:18] But a lot of times I think you find if you're overextended, then just cutting things off really just invigorates the team, and it can regrow your core offer.
[00:27:28] Sean Mooney: I think another great point, it's one of the hardest things in business is focus, and being better at fewer things. And particularly when I was a younger private equity professional, my answer was like, "Let's just do a hundred things all at once."
[00:27:41] And I'm sure some of the seasoned CEOs would probably pat me on the shoulder and " No, let's take a few minutes here team, and we're going to do fewer things better." So I think that's another source of timeless advice.
[00:27:52] So Emily, as we round out our conversation here, one of the things I also love to do is just pick the brains of people like you to get a better sense on either things to make your life a little easier or better, business books, those type of things.
[00:28:05] And so if you would give a recommendation for, I dont know, if you've had any kind of like life hacks or little gizmos or gadgets that just make things just a little easier in life, what would one of those be?
[00:28:17] Emily Bomberger: Of course I have. This pair of earbuds, and they're incredible. They're not expensive. I think they're called PocBuds.
[00:28:25] They're on Amazon. They're maybe like $40 bucks. But they're so simple and they work so good. And I've had the Beats by Dre, I've had AirPods, I've had Bose. All of those have met some sort of untimely demise, whether it was going through the washer. My dog ate one of my AirPods like, it's a disaster, but these ones are maybe like $40 bucks and you can pair them asynchronously.
[00:28:51] So you can pair one ear to your laptop and one ear to your phone and you don't have to mess with it or do anything, and they just work. And so I've got probably one of them in all the time, and I wear them out when I'm like running errands where I don't want a salesperson to talk to me because I get the vibe and then I can also just listen to my podcast all day.
[00:29:12] So, I buy these for everyone on my Christmas list, my birthday list. And the reaction is always the same. It's " Thank you." But then every time three months later I'll get a text. It's " These are awesome." Like "I know so good!" So PocBuds $40 bucks on Amazon. You will not be sorry.
[00:29:31] Sean Mooney: I love those.
[00:29:32] Because like you, I've had so many expensive sets of these earbuds and mostly left in plain pockets. So like the Bose bajillion dollar ones, the Sony ones, the ear pods, the AirPod Pro, like all of them, or they just disappear. They're probably all in my kids drawers.
[00:29:51] Emily Bomberger: Yeah.
[00:29:52] Sean Mooney: And so, rather than going through the $200 mistake, the $40 one sounds a lot better, but it also sounds like they're super great in that you can pair one ear and do the other.
[00:30:01] And my goal to be like exponentially cross-trained on everything and triaging and multitasking, everything would be like fully realized if I could do that in my ears, so.
[00:30:11] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, it's awesome. And they're small. They're not, like, when my dad had a Bluetooth headset in like 1997, it was like this giant thing, and he would like yell into it at the gas station. It was like mortifying. They're real small and they're just killer. I can't recommend enough.
[00:30:26] Sean Mooney: I love it. We'll give them a free shout out in the notes. I no doubt, the very next time I lose one of my Air Buds. I'm going to those.
[00:30:34] All right. So the other thing I'd love to get your thoughts on, Emily is books.
[00:30:37] And so this is another thing that I'm constantly copy pasting on myself because if the world were up to me, I'd be in a lot of trouble. And so are there any kind of books that you really liked or appreciated and some of maybe the takeaways that you also enjoyed?
[00:30:50] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, so great question. I read a ton.
[00:30:55] So I have a ton of books, but I can narrow it down to one author who is just incredible. So I've been following her for maybe 10 or 15 years. Her name is Vanessa Van Edwards. I think she's based out of Austin or somewhere in Texas, but she's a body language expert, so she does a ton of research and coaching and writing on body language, charisma, how to encode and decode signals.
[00:31:20] Kind of in the guise of professional development, but also just in like everyday life. And so she's got two books now. One's called Captivate, one's called Cues, and I think she's writing a third one, but I'm not sure if that's public information. So we'll just see. But I've heard from a couple places that she's writing a third one.
[00:31:36] The reason that I love her stuff so much is because it's all very science backed, it's all research backed. It's all backed by independent studies. So there's no real like snake oils vibe to it, and it's also incredibly actionable. So one of the things that she speaks about a lot and has studied a lot is this idea of charisma and what is that made of?
[00:31:59] And typically they found that it's generally two characteristics. It's warmth and competence. So how warm are you? Are you high or low on that scale? And then competence, like how do people perceive you? Are you high or warm on that scale? And so you still a ton of work into this in terms of in a professional setting, if you are coming across as too warm, which a lot of women tend to that way just with their personality traits.
[00:32:23] You smile a lot and you're very friendly and you're perceived as very friendly, but people interrupt you and they talk over you and they don't take you seriously. And so it's really about is this something you're experiencing? It could be that you're too warm and here's how you dial that back a little bit.
[00:32:39] And on the flip side of that, the competence is the other trade, and you really want them both dialed in. But if you are very high in competence and not high-end warm, people don't trust you. So these are the places where we see, I think especially on the PE side, a lot of people that come into a deal and they are so sharp and very smart, done all the research and they can't get a deal done because the sellers are like, "I don't know,
[00:33:05] I don't know about you." It just makes people nervous.
[00:33:07] Sean Mooney: Low on the warmth scale.
[00:33:08] Emily Bomberger: Yeah, it makes them very skeptical. She's got tons of research and tons of actionable learnings about this, so highly recommend her. She was on Diary of a CEO. She has a ton of other podcasts as well, so very digestible and actionable content.
[00:33:23] Sean Mooney: Great. I've actually read her book Cues and I thought it was great. People are often shocked when they hear this, but I grew up terribly introverted, like extremely shy. And to this day it's still there. I've just learned to flip the switch and it's those books like that where you learn like just the how to be more comfortable in an extroverted world.
[00:33:42] And it's exhausting, but at least I feel like I can navigate it a little better with these little kind of like insights. Well, that's a great rec, and so I'm going to, I haven't read that book in a while, so I'm going to brush it off the cover there and reacquaint myself. It's a great recommendation for anyone who finds themself, either in the introvert or ambivert kind of part of the world, to figure out some of the subtler kind of things that come very naturally, probably to those who are more extroverted.
[00:34:07] All right. Well, Emily, this has been a really awesome conversation. I appreciate you taking the time and really sharing a lot of these insights, because I know your schedule's incredibly busy. I learned all sorts of things that I wish I knew before and it's a really generous gift. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us today.
[00:34:27] Emily Bomberger: Of course. Yeah. Thanks Sean. Thanks for having me. Really, it's an honor to join your show and I appreciate the invite.
[00:34:44] Sean Mooney: That's all we have for today. Special thanks to Emily for joining. If you'd like to learn more about Emily Bomberger and PennSpring Capital, please see the episode notes for links. Please continue to look for the Karma School of Business Podcast anywhere you find your favorite podcast. We truly appreciate your support.
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