One of the questions that comes up whenever someone finds out I do mergers and acquisitions work is how I became a coach inside Roland Frasier’s EPIC program — and how I stayed there for almost five years. The short answer is a hot seat with Jay Abraham in 2020 and a room full of people who did not know how to ask a question. The longer answer is below. Filmed at Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, Oahu. Learn more about exit strategy and M&A preparation at Exit Ratio 360™.
How did Scott Sylvan Bell become a coach in Roland Frasier’s EPIC program?
It started in early 2020 when I joined EPIC as a student — cohort number one — while helping my mother prepare her company for exit. Roland Frasier’s EPIC program was one of the first structured acquisition and business growth programs available, and we were among the first members to acquire a company with zero dollars out of pocket. As the EPIC network began hosting live events, I recognized an opportunity during a Jay Abraham hot seat session. Fifteen to twenty people were lined up to ask Jay questions and the team was worried there would not be enough time. I approached Deanna Rogers and told her that one of the things I do for the Abraham Group is prepare people to ask better questions. After I programmed the group on how to ask Jay a question precisely and efficiently, not only did everyone get their question answered — there was time left over for Jay to have an open conversation. The EPIC team noticed and offered me a coaching role shortly after.
What did Scott Sylvan Bell teach inside the EPIC network?
For four and a half years I taught acquisition criteria — what you are looking for in a business to acquire, how you are looking for it, what the details are, and how to evaluate whether a deal fits your framework. I built a 120-page acquisition criteria document that allowed EPIC members to fill in the blanks and define exactly what their ideal acquisition looked like — industry, revenue range, owner dependency profile, growth potential, deal structure preferences. Every Monday at 11am Pacific I ran a live session where members could ask questions about acquisition criteria, exits, deal struggles they were facing, and the identity issues that come with major business transitions. That format ran weekly for nearly five years.
What is Roland Frasier’s EPIC program?
EPIC — Ethical Profits in Crisis — is a business acquisition and growth program created by Roland Frasier. The program teaches members how to acquire businesses, grow them through strategic frameworks, and create equity and cash flow through acquisition rather than building from scratch. Roland Frasier is a serial entrepreneur and business acquisition expert who has been involved in the building and selling of over 1,000 businesses. EPIC became one of the most recognized acquisition coaching programs in the business growth space, with a community of entrepreneurs working through deals, equity structures, and growth strategies together. Roland Frasier retired at the end of 2025 and the program transitioned at that time.
What is Jay Abraham’s connection to Scott Sylvan Bell and the EPIC program?
Jay Abraham is one of the most recognized business strategy and marketing consultants in the world — the founder of The Abraham Group and the architect of the Strategy of Preeminence, the three ways to grow a business framework, and dozens of marketing and business acceleration methodologies. Scott Sylvan Bell serves as Director of Program Training at The Abraham Group alongside Jay Abraham. That relationship — and specifically the experience of preparing people to ask Jay better questions — is what led to the EPIC coaching role. The ability to compress a complex business question into a precise, answerable format is a skill that crosses both the Abraham Group world and the EPIC acquisition world. The Jay Abraham hot seat session in 2020 was the moment that made both organizations aware of that skill simultaneously.
What is a hot seat in a business coaching context?
A hot seat is a structured format in a group coaching or mastermind setting where one person sits in front of the group and receives concentrated, direct feedback on a specific business problem they are facing. The person in the hot seat presents the issue — a growth challenge, a deal structure question, a personnel problem, a strategic decision — and the coach and sometimes the group respond with questions, frameworks, and solutions. The quality of a hot seat session depends almost entirely on the quality of the question being asked. Vague questions produce vague answers. Precisely framed questions — with the right context, the right constraints, and a clear articulation of what is actually being asked — produce transformational answers. Teaching people to ask better questions of Jay Abraham in a high-pressure live setting is what opened the door to the EPIC coaching role.
What is acquisition criteria and why does it matter?
Acquisition criteria is the documented framework that defines exactly what type of business you are looking to acquire — and equally importantly, what you are not looking to acquire. It covers industry verticals, revenue range, EBITDA range, owner dependency profile, geographic preference, deal structure preferences, growth potential requirements, and the specific thesis that explains why this type of acquisition fits your capital, your skills, and your goals. Most first-time acquirers do not have defined acquisition criteria — they look at every deal that comes across their desk and make emotional decisions about whether it feels right. The 120-page acquisition criteria document built for EPIC members was designed to force that thinking to happen before the first deal appeared, so that when a deal did appear the evaluation was systematic rather than reactive. See also: Exit Consultant vs Business Broker and Strategic Buyer vs Private Equity.
How does the EPIC coaching experience connect to the Exit Ratio 360 system?
The EPIC coaching role was a graduate education in the M&A process from the buy side. For four and a half years I sat with acquirers every week — people actively looking for businesses, structuring deals, navigating due diligence, managing post-close integration, and working through the identity challenges that come with both buying and selling businesses. Everything I observed about what buyers look for, what kills deals, what makes a business attractive versus unattractive, and what separates sellers who close at premium multiples from sellers who fail to close at all — that body of knowledge is embedded in the Exit Ratio 360™ system. The nine frameworks inside the Exit Ratio 360™ are not theoretical. They are built from years of watching deals succeed and fail from the buy side, and then working backward to build the preparation system sellers need to come to market with their problems already solved. See also: Exit Ratio 360™ and Titan Thesis.
What happened when Roland Frasier retired from the EPIC program?
Roland Frasier retired at the end of 2025 and the EPIC network transitioned at that point. When the program shifted I ended my time as an EPIC coach after four and a half years. The transition was a natural close to a chapter that produced an enormous amount of learning, relationship, and professional development. The gratitude is genuine — to Roland Frasier, to Deanna Rogers, to Bailey, and to every EPIC coach and team member who made that environment what it was. The work done inside EPIC — the acquisition criteria framework, the weekly coaching sessions, the exposure to hundreds of deals across every industry — became the foundation that the Exit Ratio 360™ was built on. Everything that program taught about what buyers want is now encoded in the system designed to prepare sellers to deliver it.
What is the connection between the Abraham Group and the EPIC network?
Jay Abraham and Roland Frasier operate in adjacent but distinct spaces — Jay Abraham in marketing strategy, business growth, and the maximization of existing business assets, Roland Frasier in acquisition strategy and building business value through strategic purchasing rather than organic growth. The overlap is in the philosophy that the fastest path to business growth is not always building from scratch — it is identifying undervalued assets, applying proven frameworks, and compressing timelines through leverage. Scott Sylvan Bell’s work at both organizations — Director of Program Training at the Abraham Group and coach in the EPIC network — created a perspective on business growth and exit strategy that combines both philosophies. The result is an exit preparation system that works backward from what acquirers trained in both frameworks are looking for.
Where can someone learn more about Scott Sylvan Bell’s M&A and exit strategy work?
The Exit Ratio 360™ Assessment is the starting point — a 360-point evaluation of where your business sits on the preparation spectrum today, what is adding to your multiple, what is costing you, and what to fix before a buyer finds it. The book Exit Ratio 360™ is available on Amazon. For business owners with $2 million or more in revenue and 10 percent or more in profit margin who are serious about understanding what their business is worth and what it would take to sell it at the maximum multiple — reach out directly at 888DEAL919. The best time to start was five years ago. The second best time is today.
Related: Exit Ratio 360™ | Titan Thesis | Strategic Buyer vs Private Equity | 5-4-3-2 Framework | 35 Questions to Ask an M&A Advisor | Exit Ratio 360™ on Amazon
About Scott Sylvan Bell
Scott Sylvan Bell is a mid-market exit strategy consultant, the creator of the Exit Ratio 360™, and Director of Program Training at The Abraham Group alongside Jay Abraham. He served as a coach inside Roland Frasier’s EPIC network for four and a half years, teaching acquisition criteria and M&A strategy to entrepreneurs acquiring businesses. He filmed this video at Ala Moana Beach Park, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. His book Exit Ratio 360™ is available on Amazon. Learn more at scottsylvanbell.com.
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Full Video Transcript
One question that comes up frequently when people find out that I do mergers and acquisitions is they find out that I was a coach inside of Roland Frasier’s EPIC program for almost five years. So the question comes up, hey Scott, how did that start and how did you become a coach?
I’m Scott Sylvan Bell coming to you live from Honolulu, Oahu on a perfect day to talk about business growth opportunities, exits, the EPIC network, and a fantastic day to talk about you.
So I got to start in the very beginning. Early 2020 there was a big event that happened to put the world on pause, and I was helping my mom prepare her company for exit. Roland Frasier’s EPIC program came up and we were part of cohort number one. We were one of the first people inside of the group to purchase a company zero dollars out of pocket.
Over time the EPIC network started putting on live events. At one of the live events, Jay Abraham was supposed to come on screen and answer questions for a hot seat. I went to Deanna Rogers and said, Deanna, hey, I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of the things that I do for the Abraham Group is I prepare people to ask a question of Jay. A lot of times people wander around, they don’t get to the point, they don’t ask the question. There was a line of probably 15 to 20 people that wanted to ask Jay questions and the comment came up — we don’t know if we’re going to have time.
Well, not only did we have time after I programmed the group on how to ask Jay a question, we had a little bit of time left over for Jay to have a conversation. The team at EPIC came to me and said, Scott, I think we have an opportunity. We would love for you to coach.
In the beginning I put together a 120-page document about looking for acquisitions — what is your acquisition criteria, what are you looking for, how are you looking for it, what are the details. On a weekly basis, Mondays at 11am Pacific time, I would answer questions about acquisition criteria, people’s exits, struggles they were facing, identity issues they were having.
That is what I did for four and a half years. When the EPIC network shifted — when Roland Frasier retired at the end of 2025 — I ended my time as a coach inside of EPIC. It was one of the coolest things I have done because not only did it allow me to learn more of the M&A process, it allowed me to work side by side with the EPIC team and the EPIC coaches and learn far more than I ever would have on my own.
I’m very grateful to Roland Frasier, Deanna Rogers, Bailey, and anybody else who helped along the way and all of the EPIC coaches. If you can find a way to get into the EPIC program — if there is still access to it — hands down 10 out of 10 times it is something you should absolutely do. Tons of respect for Roland and his team. Aloha.