Transcript
Michael Palumbos (05:12.302)
welcome everybody to the Family Biz Show. I am your host, Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. Today we have a great show. have Christina Armentano from Paraco. Did I say that right?
Christina Armentano (05:28.512)
You did, you said it perfectly.
Michael Palumbos (05:31.31)
Michael Palumbos (05:31.91)
You guys are a huge natural gas company in the Northeast. I love it. was looking at your website and going through things and all the little dots are where you are covering the Northeast. As we're sitting here starting to get cold, you guys are probably going into the crazy season right now.
Christina Armentano (05:53.452)
Yeah, it's definitely a good time to be speaking because propane and energy is really on everybody's mind. But as you mentioned, you know, we are one of the largest privately held propane distribution companies in the Northeast. Family business. My grandfather started the company in 1968. So super proud to be third generation and to be part of really a wonderful growing
Christina Armentano (06:22.153)
energy company.
Michael Palumbos (06:23.866)
awesome. So one of the traditions that we do have on the show is that I ask guests to talk about your journey into the family business and you know everybody's journey is a little bit different but there's some similarities so just talk about
Michael Palumbos (06:40.622)
When was the first time that you realized that the family had a family business, that it was a possibility? And then what kind of happened for you? Was your family the ones that said, have to go work someplace else for a bunch of years? Or you've been in this and running around the offices starting at 11 years old and that kind of thing. Tell us your story.
Christina Armentano (07:04.332)
about.
Christina Armentano (07:06.283)
It's always interesting. Everybody's story is very different, very unique. So for me, I had the opportunity to be not only the oldest grandchild, but also the oldest of my father's children. So at a very young age, I was really exposed to the business. So I knew that there was a company, I knew there was a business.
Christina Armentano (07:31.758)
I wanna say starting at even three or four years old, I had the opportunity very young, I remember on the weekends to be dropped off at the office. And at that point in time, probably had maybe one or two locations. Again, this is early 80s. And my first job with the company is I was the donut girl. What does that really mean? I had the box of donuts, maybe I was four and a half.
Christina Armentano (08:00.49)
and would bring them upstairs or downstairs to everybody who was working in the office. One of the other tasks that I had is I got to open up mail. I don't know if I did anything with that mail, but really early memories of really kind of where we are, were and where we are now. know, throughout my journey as I'll call it a young adult or even in high school, I really had
Christina Armentano (08:29.228)
the ability to see business firsthand as I got to travel with my father as he was very involved with industry association work. So whether that was the propane educational council or our national propane council, many of our vacations were really tied to these events. So.
Christina Armentano (08:52.238)
I was also very lucky to be brought in on business conversations at a very young age. I'd go out to dinner with my father and other business colleagues. So always felt like I had the ability to be this sponge with learning. At a really young age, I knew I wanted to have a career. I knew I wanted to own something. I just didn't really know where that path would be or when.
Christina Armentano (09:19.83)
And then, Michael, to your second question, what was the parlay into the business, right? So for me, again, oldest child, maybe a little stubborn. I really wanted to, and it was important to me and to my family to get business experience outside, right? So I was in a whole different industry in executive search right out of college, absolutely loved it.
Christina Armentano (09:47.33)
helped me with sales skills, business development skills. Then I took the jump, went back to business school to get my MBA. I wanted to make sure that I had a stronger financial discipline for whatever that next step would be. I actually did an internship with another propane company, if you can imagine it, and moved to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and worked for a company called Amerigas, which is the largest
Christina Armentano (10:16.154)
Propane Company, yep, in the US. Wonderful experience there. you know, it ended up coming down to I had made the decision that I knew I wanted to be part of the business, but it was critical for me to join at a time where I thought my skill set could be of value to the company and that also it was a good career move for myself.
Christina Armentano (10:44.984)
So there was about three years of opportunities that I really turned down. And then I was asked to come in and restructure our human capital department. And it was at that point in time, I said, wow, on the road, working with employees, seeing the business through all different facets and a turnaround situation, I'm on it. And that's when I originally joined, which now is...
Christina Armentano (11:12.248)
going to be about 13 years in March. So, and I spent about eight to nine years outside of the family business.
Michael Palumbos (11:21.062)
Good for you. love it. Recently, I've had time and again in the last couple episodes where they saw the business from a young age and they jumped right in, feet first.
Michael Palumbos (11:34.986)
and I do think there's a lot of value and, a maturation process that happens when you're out there doing it for yourself, for somebody else. It's your career on the line. You've got to move up the ladder. You've got to build those things up. There's no nepotism whatsoever possible. And, and then you turn down opportunities at the family business until you found that right mix for you. Good for good on you. Love that.
Christina Armentano (12:04.174)
And I think you also want to make sure in any family business, you're hopefully coming to the table with some outside experiences that then will help the family business. I have a much younger brother that just joined our company. He joined, let's, I think about 90 days ago, maybe a little bit more wonderful career previously at Penske. He is now our fleet manager.
Christina Armentano (12:31.52)
And the skillset that he has been able to take from a very sophisticated company and now bring it into this privately held family business has been tremendous, right? And that also having that skillset tends to give family members a bit more confidence because they are now used to working for someone other than a family member, used to be held accountable.
Christina Armentano (13:01.216)
And again, hopefully they're coming with a skill set that they're going to be adding that value from day one, which I think helps tremendously.
Michael Palumbos (13:11.118)
Awesome. So your brothers, how many siblings do you have? Okay, so you're both in the business now. That's very cool. Let's go back in time and let's talk about your grandfather, your grandparents. They started this business in 1968. You said, I'm one years old at that time. And so...
Christina Armentano (13:15.736)
I have one sibling. We are, yes.
Michael Palumbos (13:38.379)
What was that like? Where did that come from? Why did they start the business? What was going on for them when they thought of this?
Christina Armentano (13:45.324)
Yeah, when you look at the history of our company and you look at the start of our business, you first need to think about who our founder was, right? My grandfather, born in 1929. So as we know, the year of the Great Depression, he was the youngest of 10 children. And really one of those truly American dream type stories where
Christina Armentano (14:12.706)
you know, very much and I would hear the stories. They really didn't have anything financially. And my grandfather never really made it even through grade school. He stopped, he started working very, very early on. And I know there's many of those wonderful stories that we hear throughout the US. And for him, he was a natural salesman. He incredibly charismatic.
Christina Armentano (14:42.056)
unbelievably intelligent, but sales was really his core kind of skill set overall. And there were many different jobs as a true entrepreneurial has until they figure out what that right business is and what is going to make the money. He had many different jobs before he even founded Paraco.
Christina Armentano (15:05.58)
Now, interesting enough, we were in the industrial gas business first. That was our true line of work. And we ended up getting into propane as really more of a way to cut out the middleman for a product that we needed. And for those that are familiar with New York geography, you know, we were based out of Yonkers, New York, the Bronx. And my grandfather originally was raised in Hell's Kitchen in New York.
Christina Armentano (15:34.84)
when someone said propane, we only thought about barbecue grills. It wasn't okay, it can heat the home, can do cooking, it's all these wonderful things, So a little bit of a learning curve there for us, but that was the original genison of the business as a whole. And then really it started growing over time. My father started as well as his brothers all right out of school.
Christina Armentano (16:02.222)
And we're very involved in the growth and the trajectory of where we are now.
Michael Palumbos (16:08.782)
Michael Palumbos (16:09.462)
So how many kids did your grandparents have? Four kids, how many of them were involved in the business? Wow. And so, so that's the kind of stuff to me that, you know, how did that work out in terms of, you know, for your company, for your family, you know, there was four kids at one point all involved in the business. Today, how many of those?
Christina Armentano (16:13.449)
Odd four.
Christina Armentano (16:17.728)
at one point all of them.
Michael Palumbos (16:38.57)
Siblings are involved in the business.
Christina Armentano (16:40.696)
So my father is the only one who still is involved with the business. He had the opportunity to, and again, the eldest, also run the company since 1988. And as we look at our organization and we look at our growth, very much of his foresight into the future in terms of looking at the business and growth, not only with organic growth,
Christina Armentano (17:09.592)
but acquisition opportunity was very much part of his strategic plan. And as a company, we've done now over 60 acquisitions throughout our history. So very involved with that type of growth and growth trajectory.
Michael Palumbos (17:27.694)
Got it. So go back to the sibling, your aunts and uncles that were in the business. How did those transitions or in or out of the business, how did they work? What were the conversations? You know any of the stories that, it out of, this just the family business isn't for me. What were some of the stories behind that?
Christina Armentano (17:54.988)
think for any family business, there's always unique journeys. Some that can be very smooth, some that can be very challenging at times, right? And my advice would be for anyone who is getting into a family business, especially if there's a multitude of different siblings that are involved, always have open lines of communication. Make sure if there's frustrations or challenges,
Christina Armentano (18:23.406)
It's really important to make sure you're looking at the business, not always through the personal lens, but a business lens. You my grandfather always used to say, do right by the business and the business will do right by you. And I think that's a really excellent way to look at the family business as a whole.
Michael Palumbos (18:48.28)
Fair. I love that. That's a really wise advice. We, our firm created something that we call the family business flywheel. If you're in a family business nowadays, it's kind of hard to not know what the three circle model of family business is. You've probably heard of that at one point or another. it's, you know, it points out
Michael Palumbos (19:10.846)
all of those areas of complication between the ownership and the business and the family. And that's what makes family business so difficult and exciting because you're in business with these people that you trust, know, like and trust. But then, you you have all these areas of potential conflict. One of the things that we've done is the flywheel is designed.
Michael Palumbos (19:38.264)
to really get the family talking about the family side of things. What is the family's vision for the future? What is the family's values and the purpose, you know, aside from the business so that, you know, so that people are able to do what you're just, what your grandfather talked about, what you're just talked about was open those lines of communication just from the family side and rather than through the business lens.
Christina Armentano (20:07.022)
think on that line too, it's very important to realize that you really have two roles as a family member. You have your shareholder role and then you have your employee role. Those are two very separate roles. And I think it's important to make sure you're able to wear those two hats. The other thing I would say is, you know, in business,
Christina Armentano (20:34.348)
try not to be as emotionally attached, know, emotionally attached to the business. And if you're able to truly separate that, it works out incredibly well. I'm very lucky that I have a unbelievable working relationship with my father, where we can have certain disagreements at times and then...
Christina Armentano (21:02.882)
You know, maybe we disagree, maybe we get a little upset with each other, but we always know it's never personal. And I know that if those conversations take place, whether it's five minutes later, an hour later, or even a day later, it's like, it never happened, right? And I think that's, you know, the unique, it's a very unique balance. And I've been incredibly lucky to have that really from day one.
Christina Armentano (21:32.174)
I've often been asked, you what's it like to work with your dad? Because again, it's been 12 years where it's really kind of like us. And I just, I always look at myself as an employee when I'm working with him, making sure myself and the team are fulfilling the needs of the company and the wishes of the CEO and making sure I'm always putting my best foot forward.
Christina Armentano (22:00.952)
But if you continue to look at your family business, like you would any other company you would work for, it helps kind of mentally be able to divide up the two.
Michael Palumbos (22:14.222)
Agreed, agreed. let's go one more going back and then I want to go forward. But then your grandparents, now, you know, obviously they don't own any other company today, correct?
Christina Armentano (22:28.404)
No, so my my both of my grandparents have passed. The company now is run and owned by myself, my father, and then my brother is a shareholder as
Michael Palumbos (22:41.038)
Michael Palumbos (22:41.698)
Got it. So and I asked that because so what happened is the transition and succession ownership and you know the running of the business stayed within who was working inside the business at that time.
Christina Armentano (22:57.676)
That's how we have it set up today.
Michael Palumbos (22:59.266)
Yeah, and so some families, and I just talk about this because Lodge Cast Iron, who was on the show, I don't know if you've used one of their pants at one point or another, if I remember correctly, they had 50 plus owners who were not part of the family. And that could have, if you look at your family tree today, when you had three siblings of your fathers,
Michael Palumbos (23:25.55)
cousins and whatnot, you could have had ownership sprinkled out in a whole bunch of different ways. I think that it's really hard for a family business to have ownership sprinkled out that way where you have shareholders that aren't in the business. I just think it becomes really difficult. That's my own bias. It works for some families and you've chosen to keep it in the family line.
Michael Palumbos (23:53.72)
with those who are working in the business. So that's very cool. What's it been like working with your little brother?
Christina Armentano (24:01.954)
Well, I have him reporting to one of my general managers who handles our centralized operations. You know, he is incredibly smart, hardworking, all of the above. Again, back to looking at not only the business, but employees and separating that family dynamic versus the individual as an employee.
Christina Armentano (24:28.256)
he would be someone I would hire or be lucky to hire. So again, back to being very blessed that not only do I now have the opportunity to have someone like him in our business, he would be someone I would have recruited for anyway. And it does go back to that skillset of that experience that he had outside, again, before coming in.
Christina Armentano (24:56.738)
To be honest, it's been an absolute pleasure. I really like the concept of not having him report to me right now, because it gives him a great opportunity to work with other leaders within our company. Similar to myself, when I came in, I did not report directly to my father. I had reported to our VP of Operations at the time. So it has been going incredibly well.
Michael Palumbos (25:24.18)
Awesome. I love the fact that you referred to HR as human capital department. don't think it's a resource that we deploy. I think it's a capital that we are entrusted with these people who decide to join us and link arms and go to war with us as we're out doing business and doing stuff. So I just applaud you for that level of thinking. I really like that.
Michael Palumbos (25:53.71)
Um, are you involved? So you talked about association, but let's talk about, you know, I think that every business should find their association in the industry that they're in regardless. What would you say, you know, how involved are you in those associations yourself?
Christina Armentano (25:59.618)
Yes.
Christina Armentano (26:15.678)
I would say, Michael, at one point in time, I was too involved, but we could talk about that a little bit too. So, you know, for me, the originally, so after doing human capital management, the next role that I was asked to move into was running our acquisitions department.
Christina Armentano (26:33.768)
And part of the acquisitions department, know where this is going, is you really need to look for prospects. So you need to get a reputation, a name out there for yourself. You need to start making connections with other companies. So the first thing I thought of doing was I really need to personally get involved at the industry association level so I can start building a name for myself, a brand for myself.
Christina Armentano (27:01.206)
and creating these quote unquote sales relationships, right? So I got incredibly involved with the New York State Propane Gas Association, involved with our New England Association, National, and really anything and everything I could be involved in. There was probably another six that I was part of at that point in time. So that was for me to do my day-to-day job.
Christina Armentano (27:29.442)
That was a way to kind of build that prospect list, understand who's out there, right? Now, let's fast forward. I believe in any company, no matter what industry you're in, being part of an industry association is critical and also having a leadership role. Today, I am the president of the New York State Propane Gas Association. I am on the board of national. And I believe that
Christina Armentano (27:58.6)
even though many of these other companies that are out there, we compete with one another. But as a group, if we are truly working together, then we are going to have a wonderful outcome for the industry. Collectively as a group, and I'm not sure you're as familiar of what is happening on the political landscape with the state of New York.
Christina Armentano (28:24.174)
But there was a process in which our wonderful fuel propane was in the process of potentially being banned for new construction as of January 1st of 2026. And again, the association and some members and groups, we all got together and the power and the strength of everyone collectively created a wonderful
Christina Armentano (28:48.91)
on pause right now that was put on by the governor until we go through the further lawsuit that we have and go through an appeals process. So that is just a great, great example of the importance of being part of a industry association pulling together and importance of really taking the leadership role.
Michael Palumbos (29:14.218)
Love it. I share that with business leaders all the time that whatever your industry is, find the association because it does several things. One, just what you said is you band together and protect the industry, which is fabulous. But I'm sure that in talking with other leaders and businesses, you learn some things along the way to say, we're not doing that right now or we never thought about that. And that's helpful.
Christina Armentano (29:43.598)
Christina Armentano (29:43.878)
Absolutely. There are great resources that are available. You learn from others and benchmarking with others. The other thing is, especially with family businesses, when someone is coming in and let's say they only have, whether it's two years of experience or 15 years of experience, an industry association gives you an opportunity to work on your leadership skillset outside of the family business.
Michael Palumbos (30:13.358)
That's a great point. That's a really good point.
Christina Armentano (30:16.078)
And every family member should always continue to think about how can I further my skillset, and this may sound crazy to some, build my resume. How am I building my resume just as I would with a other, if I was with a company that wasn't a family business? What does that resume look like, right? So I think, again, back to that separation.
Christina Armentano (30:41.398)
You know, that's where I also found some success with associations and I learned a lot. A really great team and learned a lot.
Michael Palumbos (30:50.132)
Now let's flip it a little bit. What organizations have you found that were helpful to you that were not part of your industry?
Christina Armentano (30:59.494)
Christina Armentano (30:59.834)
absolutely. I have a big, I have a belief and I also think it's part of our culture and really our family values to always give back. So I have the opportunity right now of being on the board of the United Way. And it has been a wonderful experience for me.
Christina Armentano (31:23.278)
And again, not industry focused, but I've been on that board for several years. And again, now you are being exposed to other leaders with other departments or to the other disciplines, and you're also giving back and doing the right thing. I'm also currently on the board of the Business Council of Westchester, very dynamic group where our headquarters is.
Christina Armentano (31:49.866)
Again, business leaders all throughout the area. Another wonderful, wonderful group.
Michael Palumbos (31:56.654)
Great. Do you do anything in terms of things like, how do you get outside eyes looking at your business? Do you have business coaches that you've worked with through the years? Do you use Vistage or YPO or EO or any of those things? How are you involved in those arenas?
Christina Armentano (32:16.398)
Yes, I had a unbelievable Vistage Group for about five years with a fantastic, fantastic leader that I still keep in touch with. And that helped me tremendously, even at points in time where, again, in a family business, you can have some frustrations, some challenges and...
Christina Armentano (32:41.974)
you wanna be able to have a sounding board to go to someone to say, listen, I'm dealing with this at the company, how do I maneuver it, right? And it was unbelievable to have a group that we would meet on a monthly basis, but you could pick up the phone anytime and use them as a sounding board or, hey, we're looking at doing this acquisition, let's talk through the good, the bad and the ugly. And just a very direct
Christina Armentano (33:11.918)
thoughtful strategic group to work with was very helpful. The other thing I'll mention is I try very hard to what I'll call always look myself in the mirror. So not be over critical, but what am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What are my blind spots? And it's sometimes a little difficult to get that feedback internally from others, from your peers, no matter how much you
Christina Armentano (33:41.74)
welcome it or ask for it. So when you are part of these other groups, they will call you out. And in a positive way, like Christina, you're completely missing this. Okay, wait a second. And I think that's very refreshing and healthy.
Michael Palumbos (33:58.05)
Yeah, that's I was part of this for quite some time. did Dan Sullivan strategic coach program.
Michael Palumbos (34:06.828)
We just brought a coach in to coach us. was laughing. I laughed at myself because we were big proponents of every business should have a coach. And I said, you you don't win. There's no Super Bowl team that's ever won the Super Bowl without a coach in basketball or whatever the, you know, the professionals are. They have a coach. And so one of my clients said, Michael, who's your coach? I'm like,
Michael Palumbos (34:30.234)
fudge. So I got called out and now we have Katherine as our coach and it's really cool because Katherine, you know, she pushes my buttons and it's so annoying and wonderful at exactly the same time, but she's done something that I've never done. She built a company to a hundred million dollars and sold it and had a wonderful, wonderful exit and we're
Michael Palumbos (35:00.168)
As we're launching what we're doing, we know that, you know, and I may call you sometime, we need to do acquisitions. We know that we need to do partnerships and, and we need to be a national business, not just a, you know, local business. We have a national footprint, but it's because people moved from the area or, you know, somebody was referred in another state or that kind of stuff, but not, we don't have a presence nationally. And that's what we're building going forward.
Michael Palumbos (35:28.834)
But that coach, you know, and the Vistage group and all those people, it's amazing how much you learn and how fast you can learn it when somebody else is there thinking through and helping you to poke, you know, to look at things through a different lens.
Christina Armentano (35:47.064)
He
Christina Armentano (35:47.354)
could not agree more. And it really, helps that growth trajectory really shorten that period of time. And I loved what you just said about pushing the buttons, right? Like, and it can be.
Christina Armentano (36:00.884)
really hard and it could be also, like you said, a little annoying, but that kind of pressure, right? That helps you succeed, you know, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that's like, that's a good thing because it means you're either learning or you're about to grow.
Michael Palumbos (36:18.466)
Yeah. and I'll give it a good example of this was our company values. And she's like, these are cute. These are nice. She goes, how long did you work on these for? She goes, know this stuff, Michael, cause I am a business coach. And she goes, but she goes, you've got too many. I'm like, none of your team can remember five different.
Michael Palumbos (36:45.08)
So, you she just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. And today, you know, we've gotten it down to where we use the family wealth and legacy FWL. we'd forge ahead, you know, wing together and lead with heart. And everybody knows, and it's about those are the, when we go to hire now and we're looking at our human capital, it becomes really, really helpful for us. We use those values as a filter to say,
Michael Palumbos (37:13.71)
Is this person going to be able to, you know, be part of and have they led these values already? Because you can remember them because there's only three of them. And, you know, we define them. It just makes it so much easier. But again, power of the coach. You mentioned that you then moved to the acquisition. How many acquisitions have you guided the company through and been a part of since you've been with the company?
Christina Armentano (37:19.745)
Yes.
Christina Armentano (37:34.702)
Yes.
Christina Armentano (37:43.462)
sure. So I would say, man, I think we've gone through at least maybe 15 acquisitions since I joined the company. After running our acquisitions department, I then had the opportunity to run all of growth for the organization. So that was acquisitions, retention, sales, and customer experience. So that, was a good...
Christina Armentano (38:11.31)
good opportunity and good kind of stepping stone into looking at our whole growth holistically. But, know, acquisitions, even with the role that I hold today, you know, it is so, it's so part of, you know, who we are and part of our growth strategy. But we've been looking at it a little bit differently recently where, and I've shared this with the teams when I've gone out to the field,
Christina Armentano (38:40.334)
I would often talk about, we gotta acquire companies through acquisitions. We need to get our sales up. We have our sales reps that are out there. We gotta close new business and we gotta retain what we have, right? And I've really done a 180 on that funnel where the first thing we need to do as a company and the best thing that we can do or any family business, you retain what you have.
Christina Armentano (39:10.53)
That is a growth strategy. You retain what you have. I know it sounds simplistic, but that's growth. And if you do not have your foundation in order, it does not matter how many new sales you bring on. It doesn't matter how many acquisitions you do. It does not matter. So house in order, retain. Number two, selling organic growth. You know, that is next. And then acquisitions, and I only put that third because
Christina Armentano (39:40.61)
we've really gotten to a point now where we've been very strategically disciplined about our acquisitions. So we have a strong pipeline at all points in time, but we're able to say no and be somewhat selective. And the no comes from, does this fit within our vision? Does it fit geographically? Does it fit X, Y, and Z financially?
Christina Armentano (40:07.95)
And that's really now been much more of the approach that I've taken and that shift of looking at all the decisions you make for a company through two different lenses. One, the customer lens, and then two, the employee lens. You get that right, everything else will work.
Michael Palumbos (40:31.662)
Yeah, it's kind of hard to fill a leaky bucket, right? Yeah. So it's like that making sure that your current customers and your current team is on board and doing everything that they can to ensure that when you do bring an acquisition in, that it's just not gonna leak away anyways. So, go ahead.
Christina Armentano (40:57.708)
I'm sorry, Michael, I interrupt you on, but I know, you know, part of this podcast is also to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly, right. And those lessons of the foundation really came through some battle scars of doing too many acquisitions at once. Right. So even if you are selecting the right ones, make sure that you have the infrastructure in place to.
Christina Armentano (41:27.116)
digest them. We had a period of time where we did just three kind of back to back to back. And then the winter came and we hit a polar vortex and it was challenging, right? But never, never waste a good crisis. Always look at what you learn from those situations. So just, just wanted to share that as well.
Michael Palumbos (41:48.074)
Yeah, no, I think that's really important and I'll share this with you. One of the things that we do when we're coaching businesses, you know, so we've got three levers on the flywheel. It's the self-operating business, family business, family office, and the sustainable family legacy.
Michael Palumbos (42:06.124)
We believe that if you keep all three of those plates spinning and paying attention to all of those things, the family can't help but to get stronger, which then strengthens the business, which strengthens the wealth. And it just is a perpetuating circle. On the self-operating business, doesn't, we don't show it on the model, but inside we use what's called metronomics. And people have heard of EOS or scaling up or whatever the different model is, metronomics is born from the same
Michael Palumbos (42:36.01)
arena as those. But they use something called the KFFM, the Key Function Flow Map. And one of the things that's really cool about this is that the person that's accountable for every business, marketing, sales, operations, and finance, those are your key pieces. Watch this real quick. That person now in
Michael Palumbos (43:00.94)
you know, operations is sitting there going, if you do, you know, part of our marketing strategy and our sales strategy is acquisitions. If, know, I'm, I'm green right now, but if you're going to push three acquisitions at once at me, you're going to make me go to yellow or red. And I'm not ready for that. And so by always having those, that key function flow map alive and having the conversations, then, you know, it helps the companies to be able to look at it to say,
Michael Palumbos (43:30.178)
Wait a minute, I'm going to break my own system if I'm not careful here. OK, George, Lisa, whomever is running that thing, what do you need to be ready for this so that we don't break the system? And that is a really cool little thing. I just brought it out. I will make sure that when we get done here, I'll send you a little blurb on the KFFM so that you can kind of look at that. Yeah.
Christina Armentano (43:44.782)
I love that. Yeah, you
Christina Armentano (43:56.322)
That'd be awesome.
Michael Palumbos (43:59.778)
What have you learned going through these acquisitions? What I'd like you to talk about is not every company does acquisitions or what they do, they do one or two. You've gotten really good as a company at doing these things. What are some of the keys learning takeaways when you're doing an acquisition? What are you looking for and that you've learned in them?
Michael Palumbos (44:30.038)
If you could flip it, I don't know if you can, but from the person that's being acquired, the odds are they're gonna do one acquisition, and you've done 80 plus. And so what advice would you give them to help get ready for those pieces?
Christina Armentano (44:50.656)
Perfect. So the first part I'm going to hit is lessons learned through the acquisition process as the acquirer. So I would look at an acquisition through two different parts. First, it's the due diligence phase of the business. And then the second component is the transition. OK, so when going through the due diligence process, you really need to make sure you have a strong lead.
Christina Armentano (45:18.462)
Oftentimes that can be your CFO, it could be your attorney, but someone who truly has a acquisition checklist of everything, not only financially, obviously it has to make sense. You need to be getting a return on what you're investing, but what are the other elements that are critical that you need to know before you close on this business? Licenses.
Christina Armentano (45:44.766)
customer churn, risks if the owner leaves, how involved is he or she? You know, what does the customer base look like? Again, you're acquiring people and you're acquiring customers. You're oftentimes acquiring equipment. So make sure you have a written due diligence process going into it. Okay. And I'll also say back to that emotion piece, try not to get
Christina Armentano (46:12.172)
emotionally connected to the deal, right? It's a deal. And sometimes if it falls through, it could come back, or if it doesn't, it might be the best thing that ever happened to you, right? The second piece is the transition. That part, again, critical. Now, you've decided to purchase it. What happens after day one? What does that look like, right? No matter how small or large your company is,
Christina Armentano (46:41.038)
I am a big fan of pen to paper written transition plans. Now, world may change after day two, as you really get to look under the hood and things look a little different, you need to change, you need to migrate. So having a transition, having a point person, and the other thing I'll mention about the transition, no matter again what size you are, don't bring your ego to a transition.
Christina Armentano (47:09.696)
you need to realize, because oftentimes we purchase a lot of small mom and pop companies, a lot smaller than ours. And I always remind our team, there is at least one, two, three, five, maybe 10 things that company is doing better than us. So open your eyes, see what it is and see if it's something that that business entity needs to continue to do or
Christina Armentano (47:38.058)
If we can take that lesson and now apply it to Paraco proper, I'll call it, that's really important. So those are kind of my two in terms of lessons as the acquirer. Listen, if you're looking to sell your business, it really depends on what's important to you. And if the only thing that's important to you is the most amount of money that you get for the deal, again,
Christina Armentano (48:07.96)
That's fine. And hire, whether it's a broker or you have an accountant or you have somebody that you can leverage and be your right-hand man to really assist you in that process is very, very helpful. If there are other things that are other than the financial impact important to you, do your due diligence. So we often buy companies where the owners are gonna continue to live
Christina Armentano (48:37.62)
in the area at which they built their business. knowing what's going to happen to their customer base matters because they're gonna be at the grocery store or they're gonna be at the dentist and they don't really wanna get screamed at, you you sold to this person and you know, so if you are in that camp and you care, do your own due diligence, understand, get an understanding, what is this company all about? And then the last piece is fit.
Christina Armentano (49:07.798)
If you decide to sell and you want to stay with the business, whether it's in a part-time capacity or you have family members that are looking for employment after you sell, understand the company. If the first time you meet, the chemistry is not there, something seems wrong, go with your gut. want to make sure if you're going to have a long-term relationship that the fit is going to be there.
Michael Palumbos (49:37.036)
Love it. Good, good, good advice. I appreciate that. one of the things that we talk about when somebody's going through the sales process, again, what I said earlier was they're probably doing it once. You've done it several times. So you're a professional acquirer at this point. How often have you seen through the years where somebody enters that
Michael Palumbos (50:02.026)
negotiation process, the sales process of selling their company, and they get entangled in the process rather than keeping their eyes on the ball of, let's make sure that our numbers, top line and profits and those things, you know, stay where they're supposed to be. And maybe that's caused you because they took their eye off the ball.
Michael Palumbos (50:25.698)
to rethink what you're willing to offer for the business or whether you're willing to do that deal. Have you ever seen those things happen through the years?
Christina Armentano (50:34.254)
Yeah. So you're, you're saying as we go through the basically due diligence process, do any of the deals fall off because of either a lack of knowledge or give me a little more clarification. I apologize.
Michael Palumbos (50:49.496)
More about the, you know, I get so entwined in getting my financials to you and becoming a part of the deal. I don't have a partner and so my sales or my profits start to slip.
Christina Armentano (50:56.056)
No, I'm there.
Christina Armentano (51:02.626)
I'm there now. So yes, not that profits started to slip, but more of the deal is never done until the deal is done. So what we always tell folks that are selling their business or interested in selling their business who are speaking to us, you need to continue to run your business as is. So whether that is investing in your fleet.
Christina Armentano (51:29.134)
whether it is increasing your margin, right? Everything that needs to keep your business afloat. So use our business for example, propane distribution company, fleet, trucks, assets, really important. If you had somebody who came to the table that has, let's say two trucks and he thinks the deal is gonna get done and he decides not to buy that second truck.
Christina Armentano (51:54.52)
deal for whatever falls through. And now he's in the winter season and he doesn't have the equipment that he needs, right? So just a little bit of an example. We have not had that experience, but I always say to owners, you need to continue to run your business as is because you never know what could happen and you want to as a owner.
Christina Armentano (52:17.452)
be in a position where if you don't feel good about the deal, even as it gets to the end, you're not now beholden to this potential seller. You can, I'm good. like give yourself that freedom and ability to be able to say no and don't back yourself into a corner.
Michael Palumbos (52:35.084)
Yeah, you said it beautifully. I would add to it that it's, you know, even if you're not thinking about selling, position your business as if you are always going to sell it because it's easier to run. It's smoother. You're more profitable. All the right things are happening for you.
Christina Armentano (52:54.638)
I love that. And I always have that type of lens as well. So when we go through these acquisitions, like what's important to us, tank control, we have will call versus automatic accounts, all this, know, propane jargon I won't bore you with. But I often then look at our own business. Well, how are our numbers with that? You know, if these are important to us, other than obviously the financials, let's make sure we are always building that
Christina Armentano (53:23.212)
best in class company as it relates to, whatever the future may hold.
Michael Palumbos (53:30.604)
Love it. Talk about, I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. Take, you know, outside of the family business, what are some of your favorite family traditions?
Christina Armentano (53:44.774)
well, we're about to have one of my favorite family traditions, which is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday, always has been. It was my grandfather's favorite holiday as well. He's since past, but I will have, I think, 18 people at the house, both on my husband's side as well as on my side.
Christina Armentano (54:13.142)
with us this Thursday. So that is one of my favorites. And there's all these mini traditions that come with it. My son helps me set the table. My daughter creates the name cards. So that is something I'm really looking forward to and that we try to continue to do every single year.
Michael Palumbos (54:34.668)
Love it. You guys have name cards. love that. First year we have my daughter is bringing some of her, you know, her husband's family into, you know, into Thanksgiving. So we have my family, my wife's family. Now one of my daughters is bringing some of
Christina Armentano (54:38.062)
Yes
Michael Palumbos (54:57.206)
her husband's family. So we're gonna have a whole bunch of people that don't know each other. And I think that's exactly what we're gonna, I'm gonna do is we'll have some name, you know, name cards so people don't have to try to remember everybody's name.
Christina Armentano (55:09.102)
Exactly,
Christina Armentano (55:10.062)
and then the stress of sitting at the table. Who do I sit next to? And plus it's it's fun. The first year my daughter did it. She's going to be 10 now, but you could barely make out the name. You who is this? And then it was they were all like little turkeys, so it's just a fun little little tradition that we have that I'm really looking forward to.
Michael Palumbos (55:32.372)
Love it. Talk about dad for just a second. What is his vision over the next five to 10 years? What have you guys talked about? Is he thinking about? Is he getting close to stepping down? Where are you in that ebb and flow of the transition?
Christina Armentano (55:55.352)
So because we have such a good working relationship, I love what I'm doing. I think someone recently asked me, what is that next step in the progression look like? And we have such a good working relationship where my father still is incredibly involved with the strategic vision of the company, with acquisitions. I actually recently asked him to run a training.
Christina Armentano (56:24.718)
with my managers on overall P &L and financial Ackerman, which he's doing on a quarterly basis right now. So he still is involved, he's touching the business, but then he has the ability to go away for two or three weeks and kind of relax, right? And for someone who has, you know, just worked so hard and built something so wonderful.
Christina Armentano (56:52.43)
He deserves as much time as he needs or wants to take time and relax. So we're in this great groove right now when it comes to the future of the business. Where are we going to be in five years? Where are we going to be in 10 years, 15 years? Not sure. I think it's just got to continue to be how do we always build.
Christina Armentano (57:20.014)
towards that best in class company, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because at some point in time, there may be another chapter. Having my brother join, and again, my brother's about almost 12 years younger than me, he's really looking for a long-term career too. So I think having him be part of this organization has also been a very positive signal.
Christina Armentano (57:48.558)
to our employees that there's another generation here, right? And that as of now, we're very much in this for the long haul.
Michael Palumbos (57:59.564)
Love it. When you think about the business, what are the things that keep you and your dad up at night today?
Christina Armentano (58:07.886)
Ah, that's a great question. And I laugh a little bit because my team would say, I probably should sleep a little bit more. There's a lot of things that can keep me up at night, but the standard, right? We are a propane company. Safety is always my number one. We have a wonderful safety leader who is at our helm right now, but that's always something that
Christina Armentano (58:36.802)
I think about, we doing the right thing? Are we making sure that again, best in class with safety? The second thing, if it is that keeps me up at night is our customers. I always wanna have an amazing customer experience. And at the size that we're at right now, we have 120,000 customers. And then we do about, we produce 3 million barbecue cylinders a year.
Christina Armentano (59:05.906)
And there can be points where you don't always have maybe the best customer experience. those are the things that, how do we figure out the root cause? How do we make it better? Because that we just want to always again, do the right thing. Those are the things that keep me up at night.
Michael Palumbos (59:25.922)
Fair.
Michael Palumbos (59:31.253)
If you're sitting in a family business panel, or call it one of the colleges or universities family business center, how would you summarize, what are the three main takeaways that you want family businesses to be thinking about? What would you say, what are your words of wisdom in terms of, ooh.
Christina Armentano (59:32.363)
on a
Michael Palumbos (59:59.552)
If you only do these three things, that's what I'd love for you to focus on.
Christina Armentano (01:00:05.764)
Michael, you saved the hardest to the end. My goodness. You saved the hardest. I love it. I had my Wheaties this morning, so I think I'll be okay. So the three things that I would say to family businesses are the following. Number one, for all that are employed, make sure that your company is their number one of where they want to be. So you cannot have family members.
Michael Palumbos (01:00:10.616)
My curveball set up.
Christina Armentano (01:00:35.07)
at a company just because they're a family member. Can't do it. So whether I am speaking to the owner of a family business or I'm speaking to an individual who is part of a family business, if this is not your passion, if this is not where you want to be, you should probably try to have a career somewhere else and revisit in the future because having someone who is not engaged
Christina Armentano (01:01:05.704)
is really a detriment for that individual and really is a detriment for the company as a whole and will become toxic over time. so that would be kind of my, that would be my number one. Let's give you a number two. You know, my number two would be try really hard to separate personal from business.
Christina Armentano (01:01:35.238)
And some people do it a lot easier than others, but realize that you are an employee. If you are getting direction, if you are getting feedback, if you are even getting some criticism, that's okay. Take it and learn, okay? The third thing that I will say for anyone in family business, especially for those that are new coming into a family business,
Christina Armentano (01:02:04.398)
Try not to be so hard on yourself. know, oftentimes people come in and they feel like they have something to prove. And they do have something to prove. Let's not pretend they don't, but they do have something to prove. They need to be more than a hundred percent. They need to be the earliest in the latest out, but give yourself a little grace and realize you make a little mistakes. Other people do too. And it's okay.
Michael Palumbos (01:02:31.744)
Yeah, that's really great advice. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Michael Palumbos (01:02:39.36)
I just want to say Christina Armentano from Paraco Gas. I just really, really, really enjoyed having you here. And I think that you had tons of wisdom to share with us. Thank you for joining us today.
Christina Armentano (01:02:57.326)
Michael, thank you so much for having me. I've learned a lot from you. It's been a great conversation. looking forward to learning more. So wonderful tools you shared today too. And thank you very much. Have a wonderful weekend and looking forward to a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Michael Palumbos (01:03:17.454)
Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. This has been the Family Bid Show. I'm Michael Palumbos with Family Wealth and Legacy in Rochester, New York. And we can't wait to have you listen in on the next episode of the Family Bid Show. Have a great day everybody.
