Meet the Exit Business Brokers
Ryan Parshall
Business Broker & Former Agency Owner
Our Founder, Ryan Parshall grew up in a small town, Odessa, MO where he was raised by two determined parents that came from no money. They earned every penny and fought their way into middle-income. His dad, Joe Parshall borrowed money on a hand-shake to buy a local grocery store. It’s there that Ryan learned what hard work was all about.
​
His father taught him that good character, honesty, kindness and a servant attitude were the recipes for success. Graduating from Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. with a BFA in Design, he acquired his first job in 1993 as an Art Director. He held many key roles that gained him the knowledge and expertise to become a marketing and sales professional.
​
In 2007, Ryan founded Lure Creative, a digital marketing agency in the Kansas City area. At first serving local, well-known Kansas City brands, he grew into HVAC and other Home Service niches that exploded Lure Creative onto the national scene.
​
After a successful journey in growing a marketing agency, Ryan sold Lure Creative in 2018 and went on to help other business owners as a Growth Coach and Business Broker at Healthy Brands. In 2024, Ryan split the Business Broker part off into its own entity, Exit Mergers & Acquisitions to better serve his clients.
​
Over the years, nothing has changed in Ryan’s recipe for success. He still uses the same skills his father taught and offers friendly service on top of his knowledge of business growth, buying and selling. Ryan prides himself in working relentlessly to find the right buyer and then navigating both buyer and seller to a successful close.
​
Ryan is the author of How to Build a Growth Engine which outlines a step-by-step process for using branding to fuel all aspects of your sales, marketing and team. In addition, he has a podcast The Agency Growth Engine which tackles challenging growth topics for marketing agencies. You can see all episodes on the Healthy Brand’s YouTube Channel.
​
Fun Fact: Ryan has seen both Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson in concert and loves all music. He enjoys home remodeling and gets outdoors to kayak, mountain bike and go off-roading every chance he gets.
Martin Thoma
Business Broker & Former Agency Owner
Martin is a lifelong advocate for differentiating and growing companies through smart brand leadership development, accountable marketing and purposeful leadership.
​
He founded his own agency, Thoma Thoma, in Little Rock, Arkansas, with his wife Melissa more than 35 years ago. During those 3+ decades, Martin grew the agency from a boutique creative firm into a nationally recognized expert in developing brand leadership. He effectively merged the firm with a social branding agency to broaden the service footprint and drive deeper into digital branding.
​
Martin leveraged roots in journalism and writing to conceive, develop, and implement a diverse array of projects, ranging from new product initiatives for global technology companies to public information and safety campaigns for state agencies. He is as familiar working with billion-dollar companies as startup brands that want to become one. Always inquisitive, always learning, Martin wrote the practical guide, Branding Like the Big Boys for entrepreneurial leaders and is a sought-after author of articles and white papers on branding, marketing strategy, and communications.
​
In the final act of his agency career, Martin recently led his partners and team through the sale and successful transition to new ownership of his firm. As broker/advisor with Exit M&A, Martin now champions other business owners who are ready to realize the value of the companies they have built through their own successful sales and exits.
​
Fun Fact: Martin loves anything in the water… from swimming to fishing to paddle boarding and snorkeling. He also enjoys border-to-border bicycling, where he is building his bucket list from transiting Iowa, Arkansas and Missouri. He’s an avid gardener, former beekeeper, private pilot, and Spanish speaker (un poquito)!