Capital Tactics' Dino Lucarelli on Why the Win-Win Is Not Weakness, It's the Only Strategy That Lasts

Fair Deals, Transparent Books, and 23 Years Without a Cold Call: Dino Lucarelli of Capital TacticsDino Lucarelli, CPA and founder of Capital Tactics, shares his journey from guiding a multi-billion dollar company through Chapter 11 bankruptcy and scaling a publicly traded tech firm from $400 million to nearly $1 billion, to building a 23-year middle market M&A advisory practice in Cincinnati that has never landed a client through a cold call and has walked away from deals rather than compromise its ethics.Key Insights You'll Learn:Guided Edison Brothers Stores through Chapter 11 bankruptcy by focusing on keeping employees working and creditors paid rather than shuttering the company for a quick financial exitHelped scale Pomeroy Computer Resources from $400 million to nearly $1 billion in revenue and rewrote the company's 10K to include real risk factors, which helped push the stock from $12 to $28 a shareThe win-win is not idealism but the only strategy that survives 23 years in a business rife with bad actors who retrade deals, hide financial problems, and job sellers who lack sophisticated advisorsCompanies are typically not ready to sell when owners think they are and a year of preparation including structural fixes, financial cleanup, and story development can add 30% or more to the final valuationRed flags that signal trouble in a deal include executive-centric operations, erratic financials without explanation, heavy customer or vendor concentration, high employee turnover, and unwillingness to give direct access to financial staffCapital Tactics works almost exclusively on a success fee basis and eats the cost when a deal falls through, which is why client selection filters matter so much upfrontOver 800 MBA students came through Dino's classes at Xavier University over 20 years and that network has become one of the firm's most consistent sources of referrals and board relationships98% of Capital Tactics' business comes from reputation and word of mouth with clients often vetting the firm through 20 or more references before signingAI tools are now helping the firm produce in hours the kind of 25-page industry analyses that used to take weeks, shortening the time to market without adding headcountThe biggest personal challenge Dino has worked through is learning to soften a directness that was shaped by being bullied as a kid and came across as aggressive rather than caringDino's Key Mentors:Edison Brothers Leadership and Bankruptcy Professionals: Forced Dino to think holistically across legal, financial, HR, and IT dimensions rather than staying narrowly focused on financeGetting to Yes by Roger Fisher: Shaped Dino's win-win philosophy early in his career and has influenced how he approaches every deal sinceDale Carnegie Course: The first mirror Dino held up to the gap between how he felt inside and how he was coming across to others, a turning point in his personal developmentXavier University MBA Students: Over 800 students across 20 years who became executives, board members, and the backbone of the firm's referral networkHis Father's Small Business: The firsthand experience of watching a capable person lack access to professional financial guidance became the blueprint for the clients Capital Tactics servesDon't miss this conversation about what it actually costs to do a deal the wrong way, why the companies that look ready to sell almost never are, and how a firm built entirely on reputation has outlasted every competitor that competed on price.Connect with Dino Lucarelli:Website: capital-tactics.comEmail: [email protected]