August 14, 2025 • 35 mins
In this week’s episode of Business Buying Strategies, Jonathan speaks with Neil — a former accountant who lost his job in early 2020 and built a million-pound business in just five years.
Neil shares how he went from doing the odd tax return to running a team of 12, managing 650 clients, and completing three acquisitions in just two years. You’ll hear how he turned redundancy into opportunity, overcame the chaos of COVID, and used acquisitions — not marketing — to scale rapidly and strategically.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
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How Neil built his business from scratch during lockdown
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Why acquiring 100 clients in a day beats signing 5 clients a month
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What he learned from buying a micro business — and what he did differently the next time
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The behind-the-scenes reality of two back-to-back acquisitions in 2024
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How he transformed from overworked solo founder to true business owner with a team and systems
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The mindset shift that turned Neil into a dealmaker — and future investor
Key Quotes:
“I had three or four clients in January 2020. Now, we have 650 and a million-pound turnover.”
“You don’t have to do this for 30 years to build real value — you just have to start.”
“Acquisitions changed everything. I became a business owner, not just a technician.”
Key moments:
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00:30 – Intro: Meet Neil, from redundancy to dealmaker
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04:00 – Starting a business with two months of savings
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07:00 – His first acquisition: a micro business and proof of concept
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11:00 – Deal two: 100 clients added in a single day
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15:30 – Deal three: A 350-client acquisition and a management overhaul
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21:00 – Letting go, building systems, and becoming the owner
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26:00 – Dealing with challenges: TUPE, communication, and integration
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30:00 – What’s next: succession, EOTs, and giving back
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34:00 – Final thoughts: De-risking, legacy, and your next chapter
Want to learn how to buy a business like Neil?
Download Jonathan’s free book: https://dealmakers.co.uk/free-book
Or explore our trainings at: https://dealmakers.co.uk
** Looking for a great acquisition lawyer in the UK? Use mine! **
If you are looking for a lawyer in the UK to help you get the deal over the line, then use my own lawyer, John Andrews. You can phone his office at (0345) 2412494 or email him at johnandrews.deallawyer@jmw.co.uk.
Ready to get started?
Here’s how you can start your business buying journey…
Download our free Business Buying Toolkit
https://dealmakers.co.uk/business-buying-toolkit
Join our Business Acquisition FastTrack programme
https://www.dealmakers.co.uk/fast
Already bought a business?
if you've already bought a business, you should be part of my Inner Circle group where we discuss raising capital, integration management, and exiting. Email Maria on hello@thedealmakersacademy.com for more information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Hi, this is Jonathan Jay, and welcometo Business Buying Strategies, the
number one podcast for people interestedin buying their own business without
risking any of their own cash.
On this week's episode,we're going to meet Neil.
Now, Neil found me online just likemany of you have, but he went on to
do the deal maker training with me.
(00:49):
He started off as a dissatisfiedemployee and he started to build
his business when he lost his jobjust before the pandemic in 2020.
Now, he needed just a dozen or soclients to cover his family's costs and
needs, but he was more ambitious thanthat, and here he is, five years on.
Where he's scaled to over 600 clientsand 1 million pounds in annual revenue.
(01:15):
On this episode of the podcast, he'lldescribe to you exactly how he did it.
think I've always wanted to have.
My own business and Istruggled in employment.
I job hopped a little bit.
I got made redundant a bunch oftimes, and I just never felt like
I sort of played by the rules.
I always wanted to do other thingswithin the jobs that I was in.
(01:37):
And because I worked mainly forlarge corporates, I was sort of
pigeonholed into a role and, and sortof my wings were as an accountant.
Yeah, sure.
As an accountant.
Yeah, so technical finance first of all,and then branched into a more commercial
management accounting type role.
So I was talking to thebusiness quite a lot, but.
It was about the numbers.
I wanted to do some moreoperational bits and pieces.
And so probably throughout 2018 and19, I, I kind of positioned myself
(01:59):
to, to kind of have a business.
So I think I set the businessup in 2018, did nothing with
it, still working full time.
And then towards the end of 2019,I decided to do a few tax returns,
some very, very small bits of work.
And I think I got theconfidence then that.
I invoiced somebody and they paidme, and then I did a bit of work.
(02:20):
It was kind of that chain of events thatkind of, I had the eureka moment and
then that you could do this yourself.
Yeah, I think I, you know, I knewthat I could do the technical work,
but it was the point of havingthe confidence to go out there and
say, I could do the technical work.
Well, you pay me to do some work.
And so we did a couple of very,very small jobs around sort
of Christmas 2019 and then.
(02:40):
At the beginning of 2020, I lostmy job, which was my full-time
job at the time, and we've neverreally had many savings as a family.
We've always plowed it backinto the house and the kids.
Sure.
And my wife was a stay athome mom at that point.
She had been for about 10 years.
And so we looked at the bank.
We had about two months worth ofcash to pay the mortgage and our
bills, and I turned around tomy wife and said, look, this is.
(03:03):
Potentially a really good opportunityfor me to, you know, these three
or four clients that I've got, if Ican do it for three or four clients,
why can't I do it for 30 or 40?
And so we did some numbers.
We, we realized my clients pay me ona monthly basis of via direct debit.
So we realized on an average fee basis,we needed about sort of 12, 15 clients.
Paying me on that kind of basisto effectively pay the bills.
(03:25):
And fortunately, from January to sortof early middle of March we got to that
target and it was kind of, champagneand, uh, celebrations in the house.
Amazing.
Yeah, we felt really proud of,of kind of what we did in a
relatively small amount of time.
And then obviously COVID hitand at that point it was.
You know, are we gonna lose everythingthat we've kind of built up?
Well, I mean, it sent a ripplethrough, all businesses didn't it?
(03:46):
Because suddenly the certaintythat you might have had of
the future just evaporated.
And it was what is around the corner?
What's gonna happen next?
And you know, if when your clients areother businesses, if their businesses are
disrupted, it disrupts yours, doesn't it?
How did we first meet?
Probably online.
I think it was probably aweek before I lost my job.
(04:08):
So very early in January, I got a meetingwith a guy called Andrew Scott that I
know that you were, you know, quite well.
Yeah.
So he's spoken at lots ofour events over the years.
Yes.
Yeah.
So he's, he's quite a wellknown entrepreneur in western
super mayor where I'm from.
And he humbled me and, and, and gaveme a meeting and I thought I was
gonna go into his, his boardroomfor 10, 15 minutes for a chat.
And he, he gave me a couple of hours.
And I think that gave me quite a lotof inspiration in terms of his advice.
(04:31):
And, you know, he was telling mekind of, I was doing the right things
in terms of what I wanted to do.
And as, as a result of knowing him, I,I'd been reading Business Leader magazine
for quite a while, which which is themagazine he, which he at the time.
Yeah.
And yeah, I just stumbledacross an adver from yourself.
I think it was one of your books.
That, and, and, I literallyjust started the business.
I had no kind of, idea about acquiring abusiness, but I was just trying to consume
(04:52):
as much knowledge and entrepreneurialkind of learnings as I could.
And, and so I, I just bought your book offthat and sort of followed you ever since.
One thing led to another.
So growing a business organically,which is one customer at a time,
you win a customer, you lose acustomer, you win a few, have a great
week, lose a few, have a terriblemonth, that's hard work, isn't it?
(05:14):
Yeah.
Especially during COVID, because I think.
We were, I say we, it was me at thetime for the first two years at least.
You know, people coming to me, theirfinances were strapped because they
may have been struggling during COVID.
You know, it was probably, mostentrepreneurs with a startup do they
probably undersold themselves and theyprobably took on the wrong client.
And I definitely did that multiple times.
But we needed the client baseto get the money to Sure.
(05:37):
To effectively, you know, feedthe family and your survival.
Yeah.
And you know, kind of learningeverything that was happening
with COVID at the time as well.
It was just a sort of a flight orflight, fight or flight mentality.
And so, yeah, I would probably say likethroughout maybe the first year I was
signing maybe a couple of clients a month.
It wasn't like ridiculously fast growth,but it was enough for me to cope with,
(05:59):
you know, we were onboarding people.
In about sort of one or twomonths and then by the time we'd
onboarded them, we'd have anotherkind of cohort of new clients.
So it, it was enough for me to be busyand obviously as I kind of stuck the
client base, then our monthly recurringrevenue increased and we could then
invest in things like technology,which made me work more efficiently.
But yeah, it kind of gotto the end of year two.
(06:20):
I think we got to aboutmaybe 70 or 80 clients.
I was turning over about a quarterof a million and I think it was
at that point there effectively,you know, I needed help.
, And this guy spotted me and he reachedout on LinkedIn, sent me a LinkedIn
message, just asking for a half an hourzoom call 'cause he was struggling.
And I said fine.
Okay, cool.
And we had that chat and I, I gavehim some bits and pieces of advice
(06:41):
that, that I, I kind of learned alongthe way in the first couple of years.
And then he went, and then, thisprobably would've been in Ara of
2021, and then a year later hecame back to say he, he tried.
What I'd asked or what I, I toldhim to try and it just didn't work.
And he wanted a career change and hewas working part-time, so he had a
very, very small fee bank at the time.
(07:02):
And he, he effectively askedif I was interested in, in,
in acquiring his fee bank.
And so I picked your book up.
I, I read it again and at thatpoint, I think I attended one of
your masterclass sessions, okay.
Which was a virtual session.
I thought, fantastic.
This will gimme a good frameworkto potentially then acquire this,
this very, very small business.
Okay.
And, we s we spoke earlier and itwas a small business, wasn't it?
(07:25):
Yeah, it was.
It was a micro business.
Yeah.
What did you learn about buying amicro business from that experience?
Oh, Croy, I, I think.
I think I was fortunate at the time'cause we just had a new starter.
So our third member of the team joinedin the September and we AC acquired this
business towards the end of October.
So we had, I knew we had the capacityto service these clients, so as we were
(07:48):
going through due diligence, we knowwhat sort of services these clients
were getting and I think something that.
Really kind of resonated with mewas around things like maybe work in
progress and things like some of thethings that he was kind of recharging
that we wouldn't necessarily needto through, uh, economies of scale.
And in my, one of my previous jobs, Idid a lot of work within m and a in the
(08:10):
veterinary sector, but I kind of hadsome knowledge around acquisition budgets
and sort of things to look out for andlike adjusted EBITDA and things like
that, and things that we could look at.
And so I, I kind of just pulledall that information together.
It was a very, very quick kind of process.
I think, you know, he,he had a price in mind.
I did some, some showed him some workingsand we came to a very quick negotiation.
(08:32):
I think he wanted, wantedto exit quite quickly.
And in terms of the deal structure, we,we agreed half front and then half after
12 months with claw back in as well,in terms of clients being lost and uh,
and ultimately, was there any clawback?
There wasn't a huge amount.
I mean, this was a businessbased in Bournemouth as well, so.
Not local to me whatsoever, but Ithought it gave me kind of, an idea
about how an acquisition would look.
(08:55):
Bearing in mind up to this point,you know, purely organic growth.
I think at this point we were probablyabout 350,000 pound turnover with
maybe about 110 hundred 20 clients and.
Pipeline wasn't really showingany sign of slowing down.
So this was kind of a bit of a jolt inthe arm, a little bit of a punch, shall
we say, to say can I do this as a process?
(09:15):
And actually if I can do it as a process,if I did a business that was four five
x this current one that we're doing.
Then how would that work?
Yes.
And so from a process point of view, it,so I guess it was proof of concept Yes.
For you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It proved to you that you could do it.
Yeah.
Proved that it was something thatcould be done and it, you could see
the impact on your existing business.
Yes.
(09:35):
Yeah.
And, and go back toyour original question.
You know, we, we did lose a few clients.
We've retained most of them, andwe still have them to this day.
You know, we've sold tothe majority of them.
Mm-hmm.
So from a fee perspective,we're not any worse off.
In fact we've, you know, we'veprobably earned more revenue from
these clients and it's the intangibleaspects of these clients as well.
So it's, you know, it's the Googlereviews that they leave, it's
(09:56):
the referrals that they give us.
It's kind of all of that untappedpotential that isn't necessarily on
a, a deal sheet when you're dealingwith a, a finite amount of clients.
And I think that was quite interesting tokind of figure out as well along the way.
That's a good thing to say actually,because yeah, it's not just about the
money, it's about those intangible assetsthat come with the business, especially
(10:17):
a service-based business like yours.
So deal number one wasvery much proof of concept.
Yeah.
And I, I can see the accountant in youwhen you, you know, let's test small Yeah.
And see if it works.
And then you went and did anotherone, but a lot bigger, didn't you?
Yes.
So I was approached by someoneat the, at the tail end of 2023.
(10:40):
They were looking to retire.
And at this point we were a team of sixor seven, I think we were at this point.
Mm-hmm.
And I think we'd just done 2023.
We've just done about 550,000 turnover.
So ag again, we've, we've beengrowing quite aggressively
from an organic point of view.
And, you know, kind of thebranding was working well online.
I was doing more stuff withthe Value Pricing Academy.
(11:00):
I was doing conference talks with LuxZero Coin, and so I. A lot of these
things were kind of facilitatingalmost being a key person of influence.
And certainly locally, you know, Ido a lot of stuff with the college
and the schools and all of that, allof that kind of activity amplified.
And obviously as you get a biggerclient base, you naturally,
hopefully if you do, you know, dogood work, you get more referrals.
And so we were noticing that actuallythe, the organic work, more of a
(11:22):
proportion of that was being broughtin by existing clients and not
just through Facebook, LinkedIn.
So it's, it's success breeds success.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly that.
And were you doing clientwork yourself at this point?
I was doing a very small amount, I thinkthrough, throughout 2022 was, and it was
difficult to let go, as I'm sure manykind of startup entrepreneurs would say.
(11:44):
But I had to let go because what'sthe point in hiring the people if
you're gonna continue to do the work?
And it was, it was the five or 10minute tasks that would've been
easier of me to have done myself.
That I spent maybe two hours trainingsomebody how to do, but these were
tasks that were recurring everysingle day, every single week.
And so the compounding effect ofthat meant that I could delegate a
little bit more, that would increasetheir knowledge base, that would
(12:06):
give them a bit more confidence.
I trust them.
And so by this point, end of2023, I probably had maybe a dozen
clients of the whatever sort of.
150, 200 that we had.
And, and it was kind of legacy stuff.
It was like very, verysmall bits and pieces.
It wasn't huge workload.
And yeah, so this person came tome at the end of sort of around
Christmas 2023, wanted to retire.
(12:29):
We just had a chat.
She kind of detailed the clients.
A lot of the systems they wereusing were similar to ours.
It was a team of, a small team oftwo that were servicing the clients.
One of them was a CTA, a chartertax advisor, and I thought.
That'd be brilliant because atthis point everyone reported up
to me and so any, anything tootechnical for the guys at that point.
Mm-hmm.
It was just floating straight upto me, so I thought, brilliant.
(12:50):
I could have this CTA in place, Icould maybe create a sort of sub layer
management layer within the team.
And that would free me up even more.
I could sort of pivot my role again.
And, and, and that was it.
We, we had some kind of discussions andsome negotiations and yeah, we did the,
we did the deal in July, 2024 and fromthe very first conversation to completing,
(13:12):
what was the timescale, about six months.
Okay.
Alright, so about six months.
That's a little longer than average.
What would you, why would you say that?
I think the, was the, itwas the length of time.
I think the challenge that wehad was that it was originally a
team of four and she was honored.
She told me that she was over resourced.
I, I wouldn't need all four people.
We had some existing resourcein our existing team as it was.
(13:34):
And so the plan was to potentiallymake two people redundant and I
would take the two people that shethought would be the best fit for us.
And so there was a lot of legaldiscussions around two P and the
redundancies, and I think there wasa little bit of confusion because
partway through one of the twopotential people that were being
made redundant, actually handed inthe notice voluntarily and the left.
Okay.
And so that, that I didn'tcause an additional challenge.
(13:56):
We didn't use the solicitorat all for the first deal.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So we didn't do that at all.
Primarily 'cause of the deal size.
And just didn't feel it equitable.
Yeah.
So this was kind of my first dealing witha solicitor going through this process and
yeah, like I, I just thought that was kindof the normal time that it would take.
I, I knew that there was some challengesaround the two p some confusions, whether
that Yeah, people overcomplicated, Imean, I'm the last person to ask about
(14:19):
anything to do with hr, by the way.
Um, you know, it's, it's not my strength.
I've done hundreds andhundreds of two p transfers.
Mm. And I can assure you.
It is a lot more straightforwardthan people tell you that it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It, it's, I I think, I think sometimespeople have a vested interest in making it
out to be more complicated than it needsto be in order to, to charge you the fees.
(14:42):
Yeah.
I think the communication from myside was that they just wanted to
protect me and, and, and, sure.
I Sure.
I didn't know anythingdifferent, let's say.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Um, and so with best intentions I sortof agreed with whatever they said.
Okay.
So, yeah.
So like roughly aboutabout six months it took.
Okay.
Okay.
But what did impact did that have onyour existing business during that deal?
From a numbers perspective, weacquired about 125 clients, I think,
(15:07):
no, sorry, about a hundred clients.
It was, is about 125,000 in revenue.
So we'd gone up from aboutfive 50 to sort of touching 702
(15:35):
deals down.
You've gone from zero.
Just an idea to how manyclients in total now?
I think after that July acquisition,we went to about 300 clients.
Got it.
So if you were to just have grownorganically go going out and winning
the business yourself mm-hmm.
Do you think that the growthtrajectory would've been the same?
(15:57):
Well, no, because we've beensigning around five or six new
clients every single month.
And so, you know, to get a hundredclients, one, so it was actually a
year's worth of clients in a day.
Another vendor approached me.
This one was much more local in town andbusiness was about three times the size,
both in terms of clients and revenue.
And I decided at the time that wecould do both of these deals together.
(16:19):
Now what actually transpired isthat we did that first one in
July and the second one actuallywent over the line in November for
a variety of different reasons.
And I was actually quite thankful thatthat happened because considering the
July one took a good kind of two to threemonths to really flesh out in terms of
onboarding, just as we were getting overthe crest of the hill of that one, then
this other one came in November and thatwas, yeah, that was about 350 clients.
(16:44):
So you've actually done three deals?
Yes.
So what does the business look like?
Now then in terms of number ofclients, a number of clients?
About 600, roughly six 50.
Okay.
And then about a million turnover.
Are you doing client work yourself?
No.
No.
So, so over the last year, I'vecompletely extricated myself from
doing, and I've gotta say, Neil,that is the biggest impact, right?
Mm-hmm.
(17:04):
Because now you can focus on the futureand the The growth strategy of the
business and managing the management team.
Yeah.
Rather than.
When you first started, I think yousaid you were doing the VAT returns,
you were looking after the website.
You were doing every, you'redoing everything yourself.
Yeah.
And it's taken you, it's transformed.
You really from.
The business owner who doeseverything to someone with a
(17:28):
deal maker, investor mindset.
Yeah, and, and I think you know this,this third acquisition that we did
in November, that was kind of thereal tipping point because up to like
early this year, it was still a flat.
Structure.
So, you know, we, we, we hadn'thad the management team in place.
Everyone reported in tome still at that point.
From a personal point of view, I, I've gota nice car, I've got a really nice house.
(17:49):
The kids are so happy.
They have space quality.
Like we can eat ourfood to a dinner table.
It's the little thing.
So everything's transformed inlike a five year period then?
Oh, yeah.
In 2020, yeah.
Beginning of 20, 20 through to 25.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
From having three or four clients inJanuary, 2020 to, to where we are now.
Yeah.
Completely different.
Amazing.
I want to find out how that happened.
(18:11):
Three deals to a million,which was the best of those
three deals I'd probably say.
The latest one, the third one, mainlybecause it it highlighted that I had to
change how I was running the business.
I guess from a management point ofview and an operational point of view.
And some of the things that,I mean, we did the deal just
before Christmas as well, so itwasn't particularly great timing.
(18:32):
What were the January tax deadlineas well as well here in the uk?
So I kind of, we had that to contend with.
We had about a hundred tax returnsto do that we'd inherited from, from
the people that we did the deal with.
So that wasn't great.
And then my dad was really ill aswell, and we almost lost him in
January and I was working outta ahospital for the first, basically the
first two months of doing the deal.
(18:52):
And so.
All of those things combined.
I literally just kind of sat myselfdown for a couple of days and
sort of mapped out what the planwas like what was I doing here?
Like, everybody was reporting into me.
We had a team of 12 at this point,like doing one-to-ones, you know,
doing them all the marketing.
I wasn't, I wasn't doing any clientwork at this point, but, so let me just
(19:13):
stop you now because one thing I shouldhave mentioned, even though the zero
on your t-shirt might, may be giving itaway, these are accountancy businesses.
Yes.
So, so there, there are no assets.
The assets are the people.
Mm-hmm.
Aren't they?
And you are buying client basesand you bought three client
bases, combined them, but.
To, because I know your story.
You started off as a startup of anaccountancy business doing everything.
(19:39):
Yourself until your wife said, I believeyou've gotta get someone else to help
you because you're working these longhours and we don't see very much of you.
Now, I guess those long hours arestill there, but you are doing
different things, so you're no longerdoing people's tax returns, are you?
No, no.
So I think the majority of thetime that I spend now is, is I,
(20:00):
I still meet lots of clients.
We still have advisory discussions, butin terms of like the physical day-to-day
compliance work, doing bookkeeping, doingVAT returns I don't do any of that now.
You know, we've got a really good, solidteam in place that, that can manage that.
We've got a management, a managementlayer now as well, where, to be
honest, those guys are probably moretechnically adept at tax than I am.
(20:21):
And so really the only things that floatup to me from a decision point of view is,
is kind of more operational commercial.
So yeah, we do, I, I do do, whichis just a massive transformation.
And you've done it in a few short yearsbecause I meet business owners who've
been in business for 10, 20, 30 years.
And they still do everything,complain that their staff know nothing
and do nothing and they're lazyand they ask stupid questions and
(20:45):
really, that's their fault, right?
That's the owner's fault.
If they haven't been able torelease themselves from the
business, they've actually gotin the way of their own growth.
But you don't have that mindset at all.
You have the mindset of let'sengage and employ the right people.
Then I can focus on thinkingabout the next deal.
(21:07):
Yeah, I think, you know, when I, when Iworked in industry, I, I had relatively
senior teams and, you know, they didthe majority of the day-to-day work,
and then I sort of oversaw them and, anddid the more higher level activities.
And I think I've justcarried that mindset.
In, into this business.
And you know, I, I read quite a lot.
I, I listen to gurus and you know, the onething that they say is that if you wanna
(21:29):
make your business attracted, attractive,if and when you want to come to exit,
then you can't be doing all the work.
'cause if no one wants to purchasea job, they want to buy a business.
And Can I ask how old you are?
I'm 41.
So you started when you were 30?
30. Six.
Six.
And I think that's quite arevelation as well, because.
Again, I meet business owners in theirsixties who haven't had that insight.
(21:51):
They've basically had had this 30 yearsin business, which kind of looks the same.
They've never released themselves from theday to day, they've never had the growth,
and they live a life of frustration.
Yeah, I mean the, you know, the latestacquisition, you know, that vendor was 69
and the previous one to that was about 60.
And I sort of looked at that as a, as amodel and said, if I'm 40 now, would I
(22:15):
want to, to do this for another 30 years?
Yes.
Yes.
And I love what I do.
Don't get me wrong, I have a passionfor what I do, but I, I do do wanna do
other things and other projects and.
Doing this job for the last five yearshas been incredibly difficult in all
areas, mentally, physically, emotionally.
I haven't got another30 years of doing this.
I've probably got another, maybelet's say five years, 10 years.
(22:37):
But every decision that we make inthis business now, or that I make
in this business is effectivelybuilding us up to, to be more
marketable and to be more attractive.
Yeah.
I guess you have recurring revenue, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, so your, your clientsare build monthly.
Yeah.
I would imagine that it's all on.
Some sort of direct debitor standing order system.
Yeah.
So you're not collecting debtsapart from a few that don't
(22:59):
go through the first time.
Sure.
So you've actually gota systemized approach.
So if you were to do another deal, I'msure you're going to do another one, then
you've actually got a systemized packagedapproach to running this type of business
that you can slot those clients into.
Yeah, and, and I think we will doanother deal quite when that might be.
It would depend on the, on thecircumstance and the situation, but.
(23:23):
We've got this management team in place.
We've had a big itot overhaul becauselast year we've effectively had three
businesses and stitched them all together.
Yes.
And in some places quitehaphazardly as well.
So we've had a big itot review, we'vehad a big management team review,
and as such, now we are far betterplaced to acquire another business.
And the process I would like tothink would be a lot easier than the
(23:43):
previous two that we did last year.
So with this systemized approach,which means that you can.
You can slot in other businesses.
Te tell me a little bit about, becauseI think people would be interested in,
when you were integrating the three,tell us some of the stuff that was
difficult, that maybe even went wrong,that didn't go according to plan.
The client communication piece wasquite difficult just because, you
(24:06):
know, we, we were trying to do themajority of our communication by email.
And, you know, a lot of people wantedto come in and, and see me and see the
office, and we had two offices now at thispoint on the, on the third acquisition.
And, you know, when you acquire 300clients, it's just not physically
possible to see, can't 300 do meetings.
Yeah.
It's just impossible.
But some of the struggles were,were very, very difficult.
They either weren't receptive to us orthey were complaining about a previous
(24:29):
regime, or they wanted things changing.
And that was, and sometimes it's anopportunity to have a moan, isn't it?
Yeah.
To the new owners about uh, whatthey didn't like with the old owners.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
And you know, most of the feedbackwas generally quite favorable.
But again, some of the storiesthat the vendor had told us
weren't necessarily what reality.
And so a few skeletons were, werekind of coming out the closet a little
(24:50):
bit in terms of, I've not seen soand so for such amount of time, or
we only see him to sign a tax returnand, and, and things like that.
And that.
It didn't worry me a littlebit, but we are very much not
a once a year accountancy firm.
We are like to think thatwe're sort of a once or twice
a month in terms of engagement.
Yes.
And so I very quickly had to kindof steer the rhetoric to say,
(25:12):
well, this is what we're all about.
And again, because we've got arelatively decent online brand.
I was pointing peopleto the Facebook group.
Mm-hmm.
On my LinkedIn profile.
Look at some of these case studies.
Look at how I talk.
You know, you can garner all thisinformation from what we do online.
You don't necessarily have,have to meet me in person.
What I've learned about taking overa business, and especially if it's
(25:33):
one business taking over another, andit's that sort of culture, potential
culture clash is communication.
And if you don't communicate.
Then the gaps in communication arefilled with gossip and have you
heard type sort of Chinese whisperswhere everything gets confused?
Yeah.
Even when you feel like youare over communicating, you're
(25:56):
probably still not doing enough.
Mm. To keep in touch with people.
'cause it settles down.
I mean, they, they peopledon't have questions for you
for like 6, 8, 12 months.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just those first fewweeks just to let everyone get it
out and then just let it calm down.
Yeah.
I believe that you did.
Each of these three acquisitionsas an asset purchase, why
asset rather than shares?
(26:16):
The main thing was, you know, I I, Ifeel quite proud of the brand that,
that I've created and kind of the,the footprint that we've got locally.
And I mean, I mean, the third onewas quite a straightforward answer
because it was a franchise business.
Okay.
Uh, and, and so that was kind ofone of the main reasons for that.
Yeah, I understand.
Well, yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
And, and you know, they, they'vebeen looking to sell that business
for at least a couple of yearsprior to me, um, getting involved.
(26:37):
Okay, so actually quitea motivated seller then?
Yes, yes.
They've been in town for about25 years, so, and a lot of people
know, uh, that person as well.
And so I guess I felt proudthat they chose us Yeah.
To kind of carry on that legacy.
But yeah, at the same time theywere 68, 69 and, you know, they.
They want effectivelyto retire straight away.
See, what people don't realizeis that you can build value,
(27:00):
substantial value quite quickly.
It's not a lifetime of work.
And then you sell.
Because even if you do sell for a decentamount of money, you probably won't be
able to enjoy it because you're too old.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And you can't, youhaven't got your mobility.
Yeah.
And you know, your, your, your friendshave died and all these awful things.
Mm-hmm.
So.
(27:20):
I say enjoy it when you'rephysically capable of enjoying it.
Yeah.
So create the value asquickly as possible.
So I've got people who were talkingearlier on before we, we went on air about
my Inner circle group, which is everyonewho's bought you, you buy a business and
if you, if you buy a business, you qualifyfor the Inner Circle group, because we
don't talk about how to buy a business.
We talk about bigger, better deals.
We talk about sort ofraising the bar really, and.
(27:44):
We've got people come into the group.
In fact, one lady was saying how she wasquite comfortable doing deals around the
million pound revenue mark, but now she'supped her game to five, five times that.
Now she's just lookingat bigger businesses.
But what the, the common denominator iswhen we have our conversations is that
people underestimate what is possible.
(28:06):
And I sometimes say to an audienceor to a group, I have greater belief
in you than you have in yourself.
Mm-hmm.
Because I know what you can do.
You don't yet realize it.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And.
I think there is this, there's thisbelief that you have to be in business
for decades to make any serious money.
No, you can own a business for 18months and make some serious money.
(28:32):
The shortest I've ever,shortest time I've ever.
Owned a business is 11 months.
Right.
And that was a, it was a one poundacquisition of a distressed business,
which I don't recommend to people.
By the way.
I did not recommend buyingdistressed businesses.
And I sold it 11 months laterfor 1.3 million in cash.
Real cash, money, cash, notshares or anything, but real cash.
(28:53):
And that was the sort of thefastest the fastest turnaround.
And just by telling that story, people go.
I wonder whether I could do that.
And it starts to set the, the cogs going.
Mm-hmm.
And the community of being sitting,you know, sitting next to people, like
just us having this conversation here.
(29:13):
There'll be people watchingthis and going, well, if
they can do it, I can do it.
Which is brilliant because it raisesthe bar for everyone, doesn't it?
I have a bit of anxiety every now and thenI, I feel imposter syndrome quite a lot.
Yeah sure.
Because I still think five yearsago where we were, and you know,
it's difficult sometimes to stop.
Look back and figure out,Craig, look how far we've come.
(29:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Doing things like this and, and gettingon stage and talking at conferences, it
really helps to sort of bring that out andthen that then gives you the confidence to
say, well, we can do another acquisitionor we, we can do something else that,
that would lead to business growth becausewe've, we've done all of this up to
now, so why can't we do anything else?
So here's the thing.
So you've done three deals.
(29:54):
Do you still feel though that.
You might limit yourself in someway, or do you feel that, you
know, the breaks are now off?
I, I've always said to people thatI don't want like an army of people
that work with me, so I, 20 is a,is a team size that I've, okay.
I've kind of, I dunno I've sort ofhedged my bets on, I don't know.
I mean, my ultimate aim, I would loveto sell the business to the team.
(30:16):
Do something like an EOT or something.
And you know, one of the reasons whywe're cultivating this management
team is to potentially then takeover when the time is right.
Interesting.
I like that.
Yeah.
I don't want to grow the, the businessto a size where it then becomes.
A bit daunting for them, or, or, or,or maybe, you know, too expensive
for them to kind of take that on.
And so I think right now we're at,we're at a level where everyone's
(30:39):
happy, everyone's comfortable,you know, we make good margins.
We, we are doing lots of stuff locally.
We're really happy with, with how we are.
But in six months time, if somethingelse strategically, strategically came
up and we, we look at that deal and go,Joe blogs in that team, that would be a
really good addition to our existing team.
Mm. We feel that they couldbring us a different dynamic.
(30:59):
It might be do mortgage work ordoing audit work or like I get it.
Business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And making us a bit more rounded.
If I, I definitelywouldn't say no to that.
It occurs to me that if you coulddo that EOT deal and become.
A millionaire.
I think that would be an incrediblefive and a half year, six year journey.
(31:22):
Because I always say to people thatbuying a business isn't just about
buying a business, it's the personyou become in the process, but
likewise, becoming a millionaire.
Is about the person youbecome in the process.
And when you've done it once, youknow that nothing can stop you.
Someone can take it all the way fromyou and you can build it back up.
(31:42):
Yeah.
And I just think that would bea, a, a wonder if, if this isn't
something that you want to do forever.
Then why didn't you go and take thatskill, that knowledge, that experience
with a million plus in the bank?
'cause you are sort of, your wifewill thank you as the safety net.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And go and do it with a differenttype of business, with a higher exit.
Multiple and basically have fun.
(32:05):
Buying and selling businesses.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's, it is, it is areally interesting thought.
I, I, I don't think I would want tosell a hundred percent of the business.
I would say, I think I'd probablywanna retain, I don't know, 25% of
it maybe, because I, I would, I wouldstill want to do something, maybe a
couple of days a month or something,or, or something to help the guys.
In a transitional state ofaffairs, whether it's a couple
(32:28):
of years or, or whatever.
So I can't, I, I can't ever see myselfexiting the business completely.
I think the legacy that I've createdand the fact that it's got my name
in, in the title of the company,which these people say you should do.
Yeah.
It's not always the, yeah.
No idea.
You've done the rightnow, but you've done it.
You've done it now, so, yeah.
And so, yeah, I don't think I'd eversell it completely, but you're right.
(32:49):
I think I, I alluded to the factthat I've got a couple of other.
Investments and projects and, andother people that want to come in
on a journey with me that maybelack the capital of or mm-hmm.
Or the experience of running a business.
And they've seen what I've doneand they have some very exciting
plans that sound quite appealing.
Yes.
And Id love to kind of seeand do some more of those.
(33:11):
So one of the things we talk about a lotin a circle in particular is de-risking.
So you could de-risk your life.
And once you've de-risked your lifeand you don't have to worry about the
mortgage anymore, and you know, you, youcan, you can, you can you, you can feel
that sense of you've arrived, then youcan spend time with those other projects.
(33:32):
You can do other things.
And you know something if you.
Buy, build and sell, thenpeople will seek you out.
They'll say, look, I've got thismanufacturing business here.
You know, would you be interestedin becoming our chairman or our
non-exec or a, or a shareholderto help us do the same?
So you actually open upthose business opportunities.
(33:53):
Yeah.
It's funny to say that because beinga a non-exec director is something
that's really quite interesting.
Again, locally.
Lots of businesses lots of startups, and Ithink that I, I do have something to add.
In some sort of advisory kindof board capacity and and maybe
doing a very small portfolio.
Those could be somethingthat I'd do in the future.
I'd be very interested in that.
Yeah.
(34:13):
Neil, it's been great talking to you.
Congratulations on your success,and I reckon we'll be back in the
studio in 12 months time to findout the next chapter of the story.
Neil, thank you very much.
Thanks for having me.
Cheers.
Hi, this is Jonathan Jay, and welcometo Business Buying Strategies, the
number one podcast for people interestedin buying their own business without
risking any of their own cash.
On this week's episode,we're going to meet Neil.
Now, Neil found me online just likemany of you have, but he went on to
do the deal maker training with me.
(00:49):
He started off as a dissatisfiedemployee and he started to build
his business when he lost his jobjust before the pandemic in 2020.
Now, he needed just a dozen or soclients to cover his family's costs and
needs, but he was more ambitious thanthat, and here he is, five years on.
Where he's scaled to over 600 clientsand 1 million pounds in annual revenue.
(01:15):
On this episode of the podcast, he'lldescribe to you exactly how he did it.
think I've always wanted to have.
My own business and Istruggled in employment.
I job hopped a little bit.
I got made redundant a bunch oftimes, and I just never felt like
I sort of played by the rules.
I always wanted to do other thingswithin the jobs that I was in.
(01:37):
And because I worked mainly forlarge corporates, I was sort of
pigeonholed into a role and, and sortof my wings were as an accountant.
Yeah, sure.
As an accountant.
Yeah, so technical finance first of all,and then branched into a more commercial
management accounting type role.
So I was talking to thebusiness quite a lot, but.
It was about the numbers.
I wanted to do some moreoperational bits and pieces.
And so probably throughout 2018 and19, I, I kind of positioned myself
(01:59):
to, to kind of have a business.
So I think I set the businessup in 2018, did nothing with
it, still working full time.
And then towards the end of 2019,I decided to do a few tax returns,
some very, very small bits of work.
And I think I got theconfidence then that.
I invoiced somebody and they paidme, and then I did a bit of work.
(02:20):
It was kind of that chain of events thatkind of, I had the eureka moment and
then that you could do this yourself.
Yeah, I think I, you know, I knewthat I could do the technical work,
but it was the point of havingthe confidence to go out there and
say, I could do the technical work.
Well, you pay me to do some work.
And so we did a couple of very,very small jobs around sort
of Christmas 2019 and then.
(02:40):
At the beginning of 2020, I lostmy job, which was my full-time
job at the time, and we've neverreally had many savings as a family.
We've always plowed it backinto the house and the kids.
Sure.
And my wife was a stay athome mom at that point.
She had been for about 10 years.
And so we looked at the bank.
We had about two months worth ofcash to pay the mortgage and our
bills, and I turned around tomy wife and said, look, this is.
(03:03):
Potentially a really good opportunityfor me to, you know, these three
or four clients that I've got, if Ican do it for three or four clients,
why can't I do it for 30 or 40?
And so we did some numbers.
We, we realized my clients pay me ona monthly basis of via direct debit.
So we realized on an average fee basis,we needed about sort of 12, 15 clients.
Paying me on that kind of basisto effectively pay the bills.
(03:25):
And fortunately, from January to sortof early middle of March we got to that
target and it was kind of, champagneand, uh, celebrations in the house.
Amazing.
Yeah, we felt really proud of,of kind of what we did in a
relatively small amount of time.
And then obviously COVID hitand at that point it was.
You know, are we gonna lose everythingthat we've kind of built up?
Well, I mean, it sent a ripplethrough, all businesses didn't it?
(03:46):
Because suddenly the certaintythat you might have had of
the future just evaporated.
And it was what is around the corner?
What's gonna happen next?
And you know, if when your clients areother businesses, if their businesses are
disrupted, it disrupts yours, doesn't it?
How did we first meet?
Probably online.
I think it was probably aweek before I lost my job.
(04:08):
So very early in January, I got a meetingwith a guy called Andrew Scott that I
know that you were, you know, quite well.
Yeah.
So he's spoken at lots ofour events over the years.
Yes.
Yeah.
So he's, he's quite a wellknown entrepreneur in western
super mayor where I'm from.
And he humbled me and, and, and gaveme a meeting and I thought I was
gonna go into his, his boardroomfor 10, 15 minutes for a chat.
And he, he gave me a couple of hours.
And I think that gave me quite a lotof inspiration in terms of his advice.
(04:31):
And, you know, he was telling mekind of, I was doing the right things
in terms of what I wanted to do.
And as, as a result of knowing him, I,I'd been reading Business Leader magazine
for quite a while, which which is themagazine he, which he at the time.
Yeah.
And yeah, I just stumbledacross an adver from yourself.
I think it was one of your books.
That, and, and, I literallyjust started the business.
I had no kind of, idea about acquiring abusiness, but I was just trying to consume
(04:52):
as much knowledge and entrepreneurialkind of learnings as I could.
And, and so I, I just bought your book offthat and sort of followed you ever since.
One thing led to another.
So growing a business organically,which is one customer at a time,
you win a customer, you lose acustomer, you win a few, have a great
week, lose a few, have a terriblemonth, that's hard work, isn't it?
(05:14):
Yeah.
Especially during COVID, because I think.
We were, I say we, it was me at thetime for the first two years at least.
You know, people coming to me, theirfinances were strapped because they
may have been struggling during COVID.
You know, it was probably, mostentrepreneurs with a startup do they
probably undersold themselves and theyprobably took on the wrong client.
And I definitely did that multiple times.
But we needed the client baseto get the money to Sure.
(05:37):
To effectively, you know, feedthe family and your survival.
Yeah.
And you know, kind of learningeverything that was happening
with COVID at the time as well.
It was just a sort of a flight orflight, fight or flight mentality.
And so, yeah, I would probably say likethroughout maybe the first year I was
signing maybe a couple of clients a month.
It wasn't like ridiculously fast growth,but it was enough for me to cope with,
(05:59):
you know, we were onboarding people.
In about sort of one or twomonths and then by the time we'd
onboarded them, we'd have anotherkind of cohort of new clients.
So it, it was enough for me to be busyand obviously as I kind of stuck the
client base, then our monthly recurringrevenue increased and we could then
invest in things like technology,which made me work more efficiently.
But yeah, it kind of gotto the end of year two.
(06:20):
I think we got to aboutmaybe 70 or 80 clients.
I was turning over about a quarterof a million and I think it was
at that point there effectively,you know, I needed help.
, And this guy spotted me and he reachedout on LinkedIn, sent me a LinkedIn
message, just asking for a half an hourzoom call 'cause he was struggling.
And I said fine.
Okay, cool.
And we had that chat and I, I gavehim some bits and pieces of advice
(06:41):
that, that I, I kind of learned alongthe way in the first couple of years.
And then he went, and then, thisprobably would've been in Ara of
2021, and then a year later hecame back to say he, he tried.
What I'd asked or what I, I toldhim to try and it just didn't work.
And he wanted a career change and hewas working part-time, so he had a
very, very small fee bank at the time.
(07:02):
And he, he effectively askedif I was interested in, in,
in acquiring his fee bank.
And so I picked your book up.
I, I read it again and at thatpoint, I think I attended one of
your masterclass sessions, okay.
Which was a virtual session.
I thought, fantastic.
This will gimme a good frameworkto potentially then acquire this,
this very, very small business.
Okay.
And, we s we spoke earlier and itwas a small business, wasn't it?
(07:25):
Yeah, it was.
It was a micro business.
Yeah.
What did you learn about buying amicro business from that experience?
Oh, Croy, I, I think.
I think I was fortunate at the time'cause we just had a new starter.
So our third member of the team joinedin the September and we AC acquired this
business towards the end of October.
So we had, I knew we had the capacityto service these clients, so as we were
(07:48):
going through due diligence, we knowwhat sort of services these clients
were getting and I think something that.
Really kind of resonated with mewas around things like maybe work in
progress and things like some of thethings that he was kind of recharging
that we wouldn't necessarily needto through, uh, economies of scale.
And in my, one of my previous jobs, Idid a lot of work within m and a in the
(08:10):
veterinary sector, but I kind of hadsome knowledge around acquisition budgets
and sort of things to look out for andlike adjusted EBITDA and things like
that, and things that we could look at.
And so I, I kind of just pulledall that information together.
It was a very, very quick kind of process.
I think, you know, he,he had a price in mind.
I did some, some showed him some workingsand we came to a very quick negotiation.
(08:32):
I think he wanted, wantedto exit quite quickly.
And in terms of the deal structure, we,we agreed half front and then half after
12 months with claw back in as well,in terms of clients being lost and uh,
and ultimately, was there any clawback?
There wasn't a huge amount.
I mean, this was a businessbased in Bournemouth as well, so.
Not local to me whatsoever, but Ithought it gave me kind of, an idea
about how an acquisition would look.
(08:55):
Bearing in mind up to this point,you know, purely organic growth.
I think at this point we were probablyabout 350,000 pound turnover with
maybe about 110 hundred 20 clients and.
Pipeline wasn't really showingany sign of slowing down.
So this was kind of a bit of a jolt inthe arm, a little bit of a punch, shall
we say, to say can I do this as a process?
(09:15):
And actually if I can do it as a process,if I did a business that was four five
x this current one that we're doing.
Then how would that work?
Yes.
And so from a process point of view, it,so I guess it was proof of concept Yes.
For you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It proved to you that you could do it.
Yeah.
Proved that it was something thatcould be done and it, you could see
the impact on your existing business.
Yes.
(09:35):
Yeah.
And, and go back toyour original question.
You know, we, we did lose a few clients.
We've retained most of them, andwe still have them to this day.
You know, we've sold tothe majority of them.
Mm-hmm.
So from a fee perspective,we're not any worse off.
In fact we've, you know, we'veprobably earned more revenue from
these clients and it's the intangibleaspects of these clients as well.
So it's, you know, it's the Googlereviews that they leave, it's
(09:56):
the referrals that they give us.
It's kind of all of that untappedpotential that isn't necessarily on
a, a deal sheet when you're dealingwith a, a finite amount of clients.
And I think that was quite interesting tokind of figure out as well along the way.
That's a good thing to say actually,because yeah, it's not just about the
money, it's about those intangible assetsthat come with the business, especially
(10:17):
a service-based business like yours.
So deal number one wasvery much proof of concept.
Yeah.
And I, I can see the accountant in youwhen you, you know, let's test small Yeah.
And see if it works.
And then you went and did anotherone, but a lot bigger, didn't you?
Yes.
So I was approached by someoneat the, at the tail end of 2023.
(10:40):
They were looking to retire.
And at this point we were a team of sixor seven, I think we were at this point.
Mm-hmm.
And I think we'd just done 2023.
We've just done about 550,000 turnover.
So ag again, we've, we've beengrowing quite aggressively
from an organic point of view.
And, you know, kind of thebranding was working well online.
I was doing more stuff withthe Value Pricing Academy.
(11:00):
I was doing conference talks with LuxZero Coin, and so I. A lot of these
things were kind of facilitatingalmost being a key person of influence.
And certainly locally, you know, Ido a lot of stuff with the college
and the schools and all of that, allof that kind of activity amplified.
And obviously as you get a biggerclient base, you naturally,
hopefully if you do, you know, dogood work, you get more referrals.
And so we were noticing that actuallythe, the organic work, more of a
(11:22):
proportion of that was being broughtin by existing clients and not
just through Facebook, LinkedIn.
So it's, it's success breeds success.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly that.
And were you doing clientwork yourself at this point?
I was doing a very small amount, I thinkthrough, throughout 2022 was, and it was
difficult to let go, as I'm sure manykind of startup entrepreneurs would say.
(11:44):
But I had to let go because what'sthe point in hiring the people if
you're gonna continue to do the work?
And it was, it was the five or 10minute tasks that would've been
easier of me to have done myself.
That I spent maybe two hours trainingsomebody how to do, but these were
tasks that were recurring everysingle day, every single week.
And so the compounding effect ofthat meant that I could delegate a
little bit more, that would increasetheir knowledge base, that would
(12:06):
give them a bit more confidence.
I trust them.
And so by this point, end of2023, I probably had maybe a dozen
clients of the whatever sort of.
150, 200 that we had.
And, and it was kind of legacy stuff.
It was like very, verysmall bits and pieces.
It wasn't huge workload.
And yeah, so this person came tome at the end of sort of around
Christmas 2023, wanted to retire.
(12:29):
We just had a chat.
She kind of detailed the clients.
A lot of the systems they wereusing were similar to ours.
It was a team of, a small team oftwo that were servicing the clients.
One of them was a CTA, a chartertax advisor, and I thought.
That'd be brilliant because atthis point everyone reported up
to me and so any, anything tootechnical for the guys at that point.
Mm-hmm.
It was just floating straight upto me, so I thought, brilliant.
(12:50):
I could have this CTA in place, Icould maybe create a sort of sub layer
management layer within the team.
And that would free me up even more.
I could sort of pivot my role again.
And, and, and that was it.
We, we had some kind of discussions andsome negotiations and yeah, we did the,
we did the deal in July, 2024 and fromthe very first conversation to completing,
(13:12):
what was the timescale, about six months.
Okay.
Alright, so about six months.
That's a little longer than average.
What would you, why would you say that?
I think the, was the, itwas the length of time.
I think the challenge that wehad was that it was originally a
team of four and she was honored.
She told me that she was over resourced.
I, I wouldn't need all four people.
We had some existing resourcein our existing team as it was.
(13:34):
And so the plan was to potentiallymake two people redundant and I
would take the two people that shethought would be the best fit for us.
And so there was a lot of legaldiscussions around two P and the
redundancies, and I think there wasa little bit of confusion because
partway through one of the twopotential people that were being
made redundant, actually handed inthe notice voluntarily and the left.
Okay.
And so that, that I didn'tcause an additional challenge.
(13:56):
We didn't use the solicitorat all for the first deal.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So we didn't do that at all.
Primarily 'cause of the deal size.
And just didn't feel it equitable.
Yeah.
So this was kind of my first dealing witha solicitor going through this process and
yeah, like I, I just thought that was kindof the normal time that it would take.
I, I knew that there was some challengesaround the two p some confusions, whether
that Yeah, people overcomplicated, Imean, I'm the last person to ask about
(14:19):
anything to do with hr, by the way.
Um, you know, it's, it's not my strength.
I've done hundreds andhundreds of two p transfers.
Mm. And I can assure you.
It is a lot more straightforwardthan people tell you that it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It, it's, I I think, I think sometimespeople have a vested interest in making it
out to be more complicated than it needsto be in order to, to charge you the fees.
(14:42):
Yeah.
I think the communication from myside was that they just wanted to
protect me and, and, and, sure.
I Sure.
I didn't know anythingdifferent, let's say.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Um, and so with best intentions I sortof agreed with whatever they said.
Okay.
So, yeah.
So like roughly aboutabout six months it took.
Okay.
Okay.
But what did impact did that have onyour existing business during that deal?
From a numbers perspective, weacquired about 125 clients, I think,
(15:07):
no, sorry, about a hundred clients.
It was, is about 125,000 in revenue.
So we'd gone up from aboutfive 50 to sort of touching 702
(15:35):
deals down.
You've gone from zero.
Just an idea to how manyclients in total now?
I think after that July acquisition,we went to about 300 clients.
Got it.
So if you were to just have grownorganically go going out and winning
the business yourself mm-hmm.
Do you think that the growthtrajectory would've been the same?
(15:57):
Well, no, because we've beensigning around five or six new
clients every single month.
And so, you know, to get a hundredclients, one, so it was actually a
year's worth of clients in a day.
Another vendor approached me.
This one was much more local in town andbusiness was about three times the size,
both in terms of clients and revenue.
And I decided at the time that wecould do both of these deals together.
(16:19):
Now what actually transpired isthat we did that first one in
July and the second one actuallywent over the line in November for
a variety of different reasons.
And I was actually quite thankful thatthat happened because considering the
July one took a good kind of two to threemonths to really flesh out in terms of
onboarding, just as we were getting overthe crest of the hill of that one, then
this other one came in November and thatwas, yeah, that was about 350 clients.
(16:44):
So you've actually done three deals?
Yes.
So what does the business look like?
Now then in terms of number ofclients, a number of clients?
About 600, roughly six 50.
Okay.
And then about a million turnover.
Are you doing client work yourself?
No.
No.
So, so over the last year, I'vecompletely extricated myself from
doing, and I've gotta say, Neil,that is the biggest impact, right?
Mm-hmm.
(17:04):
Because now you can focus on the futureand the The growth strategy of the
business and managing the management team.
Yeah.
Rather than.
When you first started, I think yousaid you were doing the VAT returns,
you were looking after the website.
You were doing every, you'redoing everything yourself.
Yeah.
And it's taken you, it's transformed.
You really from.
The business owner who doeseverything to someone with a
(17:28):
deal maker, investor mindset.
Yeah, and, and I think you know this,this third acquisition that we did
in November, that was kind of thereal tipping point because up to like
early this year, it was still a flat.
Structure.
So, you know, we, we, we hadn'thad the management team in place.
Everyone reported in tome still at that point.
From a personal point of view, I, I've gota nice car, I've got a really nice house.
(17:49):
The kids are so happy.
They have space quality.
Like we can eat ourfood to a dinner table.
It's the little thing.
So everything's transformed inlike a five year period then?
Oh, yeah.
In 2020, yeah.
Beginning of 20, 20 through to 25.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
From having three or four clients inJanuary, 2020 to, to where we are now.
Yeah.
Completely different.
Amazing.
I want to find out how that happened.
(18:11):
Three deals to a million,which was the best of those
three deals I'd probably say.
The latest one, the third one, mainlybecause it it highlighted that I had to
change how I was running the business.
I guess from a management point ofview and an operational point of view.
And some of the things that,I mean, we did the deal just
before Christmas as well, so itwasn't particularly great timing.
(18:32):
What were the January tax deadlineas well as well here in the uk?
So I kind of, we had that to contend with.
We had about a hundred tax returnsto do that we'd inherited from, from
the people that we did the deal with.
So that wasn't great.
And then my dad was really ill aswell, and we almost lost him in
January and I was working outta ahospital for the first, basically the
first two months of doing the deal.
(18:52):
And so.
All of those things combined.
I literally just kind of sat myselfdown for a couple of days and
sort of mapped out what the planwas like what was I doing here?
Like, everybody was reporting into me.
We had a team of 12 at this point,like doing one-to-ones, you know,
doing them all the marketing.
I wasn't, I wasn't doing any clientwork at this point, but, so let me just
(19:13):
stop you now because one thing I shouldhave mentioned, even though the zero
on your t-shirt might, may be giving itaway, these are accountancy businesses.
Yes.
So, so there, there are no assets.
The assets are the people.
Mm-hmm.
Aren't they?
And you are buying client basesand you bought three client
bases, combined them, but.
To, because I know your story.
You started off as a startup of anaccountancy business doing everything.
(19:39):
Yourself until your wife said, I believeyou've gotta get someone else to help
you because you're working these longhours and we don't see very much of you.
Now, I guess those long hours arestill there, but you are doing
different things, so you're no longerdoing people's tax returns, are you?
No, no.
So I think the majority of thetime that I spend now is, is I,
(20:00):
I still meet lots of clients.
We still have advisory discussions, butin terms of like the physical day-to-day
compliance work, doing bookkeeping, doingVAT returns I don't do any of that now.
You know, we've got a really good, solidteam in place that, that can manage that.
We've got a management, a managementlayer now as well, where, to be
honest, those guys are probably moretechnically adept at tax than I am.
(20:21):
And so really the only things that floatup to me from a decision point of view is,
is kind of more operational commercial.
So yeah, we do, I, I do do, whichis just a massive transformation.
And you've done it in a few short yearsbecause I meet business owners who've
been in business for 10, 20, 30 years.
And they still do everything,complain that their staff know nothing
and do nothing and they're lazyand they ask stupid questions and
(20:45):
really, that's their fault, right?
That's the owner's fault.
If they haven't been able torelease themselves from the
business, they've actually gotin the way of their own growth.
But you don't have that mindset at all.
You have the mindset of let'sengage and employ the right people.
Then I can focus on thinkingabout the next deal.
(21:07):
Yeah, I think, you know, when I, when Iworked in industry, I, I had relatively
senior teams and, you know, they didthe majority of the day-to-day work,
and then I sort of oversaw them and, anddid the more higher level activities.
And I think I've justcarried that mindset.
In, into this business.
And you know, I, I read quite a lot.
I, I listen to gurus and you know, the onething that they say is that if you wanna
(21:29):
make your business attracted, attractive,if and when you want to come to exit,
then you can't be doing all the work.
'cause if no one wants to purchasea job, they want to buy a business.
And Can I ask how old you are?
I'm 41.
So you started when you were 30?
30. Six.
Six.
And I think that's quite arevelation as well, because.
Again, I meet business owners in theirsixties who haven't had that insight.
(21:51):
They've basically had had this 30 yearsin business, which kind of looks the same.
They've never released themselves from theday to day, they've never had the growth,
and they live a life of frustration.
Yeah, I mean the, you know, the latestacquisition, you know, that vendor was 69
and the previous one to that was about 60.
And I sort of looked at that as a, as amodel and said, if I'm 40 now, would I
(22:15):
want to, to do this for another 30 years?
Yes.
Yes.
And I love what I do.
Don't get me wrong, I have a passionfor what I do, but I, I do do wanna do
other things and other projects and.
Doing this job for the last five yearshas been incredibly difficult in all
areas, mentally, physically, emotionally.
I haven't got another30 years of doing this.
I've probably got another, maybelet's say five years, 10 years.
(22:37):
But every decision that we make inthis business now, or that I make
in this business is effectivelybuilding us up to, to be more
marketable and to be more attractive.
Yeah.
I guess you have recurring revenue, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, so your, your clientsare build monthly.
Yeah.
I would imagine that it's all on.
Some sort of direct debitor standing order system.
Yeah.
So you're not collecting debtsapart from a few that don't
(22:59):
go through the first time.
Sure.
So you've actually gota systemized approach.
So if you were to do another deal, I'msure you're going to do another one, then
you've actually got a systemized packagedapproach to running this type of business
that you can slot those clients into.
Yeah, and, and I think we will doanother deal quite when that might be.
It would depend on the, on thecircumstance and the situation, but.
(23:23):
We've got this management team in place.
We've had a big itot overhaul becauselast year we've effectively had three
businesses and stitched them all together.
Yes.
And in some places quitehaphazardly as well.
So we've had a big itot review, we'vehad a big management team review,
and as such, now we are far betterplaced to acquire another business.
And the process I would like tothink would be a lot easier than the
(23:43):
previous two that we did last year.
So with this systemized approach,which means that you can.
You can slot in other businesses.
Te tell me a little bit about, becauseI think people would be interested in,
when you were integrating the three,tell us some of the stuff that was
difficult, that maybe even went wrong,that didn't go according to plan.
The client communication piece wasquite difficult just because, you
(24:06):
know, we, we were trying to do themajority of our communication by email.
And, you know, a lot of people wantedto come in and, and see me and see the
office, and we had two offices now at thispoint on the, on the third acquisition.
And, you know, when you acquire 300clients, it's just not physically
possible to see, can't 300 do meetings.
Yeah.
It's just impossible.
But some of the struggles were,were very, very difficult.
They either weren't receptive to us orthey were complaining about a previous
(24:29):
regime, or they wanted things changing.
And that was, and sometimes it's anopportunity to have a moan, isn't it?
Yeah.
To the new owners about uh, whatthey didn't like with the old owners.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
And you know, most of the feedbackwas generally quite favorable.
But again, some of the storiesthat the vendor had told us
weren't necessarily what reality.
And so a few skeletons were, werekind of coming out the closet a little
(24:50):
bit in terms of, I've not seen soand so for such amount of time, or
we only see him to sign a tax returnand, and, and things like that.
And that.
It didn't worry me a littlebit, but we are very much not
a once a year accountancy firm.
We are like to think thatwe're sort of a once or twice
a month in terms of engagement.
Yes.
And so I very quickly had to kindof steer the rhetoric to say,
(25:12):
well, this is what we're all about.
And again, because we've got arelatively decent online brand.
I was pointing peopleto the Facebook group.
Mm-hmm.
On my LinkedIn profile.
Look at some of these case studies.
Look at how I talk.
You know, you can garner all thisinformation from what we do online.
You don't necessarily have,have to meet me in person.
What I've learned about taking overa business, and especially if it's
(25:33):
one business taking over another, andit's that sort of culture, potential
culture clash is communication.
And if you don't communicate.
Then the gaps in communication arefilled with gossip and have you
heard type sort of Chinese whisperswhere everything gets confused?
Yeah.
Even when you feel like youare over communicating, you're
(25:56):
probably still not doing enough.
Mm. To keep in touch with people.
'cause it settles down.
I mean, they, they peopledon't have questions for you
for like 6, 8, 12 months.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just those first fewweeks just to let everyone get it
out and then just let it calm down.
Yeah.
I believe that you did.
Each of these three acquisitionsas an asset purchase, why
asset rather than shares?
(26:16):
The main thing was, you know, I I, Ifeel quite proud of the brand that,
that I've created and kind of the,the footprint that we've got locally.
And I mean, I mean, the third onewas quite a straightforward answer
because it was a franchise business.
Okay.
Uh, and, and so that was kind ofone of the main reasons for that.
Yeah, I understand.
Well, yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
And, and you know, they, they'vebeen looking to sell that business
for at least a couple of yearsprior to me, um, getting involved.
(26:37):
Okay, so actually quitea motivated seller then?
Yes, yes.
They've been in town for about25 years, so, and a lot of people
know, uh, that person as well.
And so I guess I felt proudthat they chose us Yeah.
To kind of carry on that legacy.
But yeah, at the same time theywere 68, 69 and, you know, they.
They want effectivelyto retire straight away.
See, what people don't realizeis that you can build value,
(27:00):
substantial value quite quickly.
It's not a lifetime of work.
And then you sell.
Because even if you do sell for a decentamount of money, you probably won't be
able to enjoy it because you're too old.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And you can't, youhaven't got your mobility.
Yeah.
And you know, your, your, your friendshave died and all these awful things.
Mm-hmm.
So.
(27:20):
I say enjoy it when you'rephysically capable of enjoying it.
Yeah.
So create the value asquickly as possible.
So I've got people who were talkingearlier on before we, we went on air about
my Inner circle group, which is everyonewho's bought you, you buy a business and
if you, if you buy a business, you qualifyfor the Inner Circle group, because we
don't talk about how to buy a business.
We talk about bigger, better deals.
We talk about sort ofraising the bar really, and.
(27:44):
We've got people come into the group.
In fact, one lady was saying how she wasquite comfortable doing deals around the
million pound revenue mark, but now she'supped her game to five, five times that.
Now she's just lookingat bigger businesses.
But what the, the common denominator iswhen we have our conversations is that
people underestimate what is possible.
(28:06):
And I sometimes say to an audienceor to a group, I have greater belief
in you than you have in yourself.
Mm-hmm.
Because I know what you can do.
You don't yet realize it.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And.
I think there is this, there's thisbelief that you have to be in business
for decades to make any serious money.
No, you can own a business for 18months and make some serious money.
(28:32):
The shortest I've ever,shortest time I've ever.
Owned a business is 11 months.
Right.
And that was a, it was a one poundacquisition of a distressed business,
which I don't recommend to people.
By the way.
I did not recommend buyingdistressed businesses.
And I sold it 11 months laterfor 1.3 million in cash.
Real cash, money, cash, notshares or anything, but real cash.
(28:53):
And that was the sort of thefastest the fastest turnaround.
And just by telling that story, people go.
I wonder whether I could do that.
And it starts to set the, the cogs going.
Mm-hmm.
And the community of being sitting,you know, sitting next to people, like
just us having this conversation here.
(29:13):
There'll be people watchingthis and going, well, if
they can do it, I can do it.
Which is brilliant because it raisesthe bar for everyone, doesn't it?
I have a bit of anxiety every now and thenI, I feel imposter syndrome quite a lot.
Yeah sure.
Because I still think five yearsago where we were, and you know,
it's difficult sometimes to stop.
Look back and figure out,Craig, look how far we've come.
(29:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Doing things like this and, and gettingon stage and talking at conferences, it
really helps to sort of bring that out andthen that then gives you the confidence to
say, well, we can do another acquisitionor we, we can do something else that,
that would lead to business growth becausewe've, we've done all of this up to
now, so why can't we do anything else?
So here's the thing.
So you've done three deals.
(29:54):
Do you still feel though that.
You might limit yourself in someway, or do you feel that, you
know, the breaks are now off?
I, I've always said to people thatI don't want like an army of people
that work with me, so I, 20 is a,is a team size that I've, okay.
I've kind of, I dunno I've sort ofhedged my bets on, I don't know.
I mean, my ultimate aim, I would loveto sell the business to the team.
(30:16):
Do something like an EOT or something.
And you know, one of the reasons whywe're cultivating this management
team is to potentially then takeover when the time is right.
Interesting.
I like that.
Yeah.
I don't want to grow the, the businessto a size where it then becomes.
A bit daunting for them, or, or, or,or maybe, you know, too expensive
for them to kind of take that on.
And so I think right now we're at,we're at a level where everyone's
(30:39):
happy, everyone's comfortable,you know, we make good margins.
We, we are doing lots of stuff locally.
We're really happy with, with how we are.
But in six months time, if somethingelse strategically, strategically came
up and we, we look at that deal and go,Joe blogs in that team, that would be a
really good addition to our existing team.
Mm. We feel that they couldbring us a different dynamic.
(30:59):
It might be do mortgage work ordoing audit work or like I get it.
Business.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And making us a bit more rounded.
If I, I definitelywouldn't say no to that.
It occurs to me that if you coulddo that EOT deal and become.
A millionaire.
I think that would be an incrediblefive and a half year, six year journey.
(31:22):
Because I always say to people thatbuying a business isn't just about
buying a business, it's the personyou become in the process, but
likewise, becoming a millionaire.
Is about the person youbecome in the process.
And when you've done it once, youknow that nothing can stop you.
Someone can take it all the way fromyou and you can build it back up.
(31:42):
Yeah.
And I just think that would bea, a, a wonder if, if this isn't
something that you want to do forever.
Then why didn't you go and take thatskill, that knowledge, that experience
with a million plus in the bank?
'cause you are sort of, your wifewill thank you as the safety net.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And go and do it with a differenttype of business, with a higher exit.
Multiple and basically have fun.
(32:05):
Buying and selling businesses.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's, it is, it is areally interesting thought.
I, I, I don't think I would want tosell a hundred percent of the business.
I would say, I think I'd probablywanna retain, I don't know, 25% of
it maybe, because I, I would, I wouldstill want to do something, maybe a
couple of days a month or something,or, or something to help the guys.
In a transitional state ofaffairs, whether it's a couple
(32:28):
of years or, or whatever.
So I can't, I, I can't ever see myselfexiting the business completely.
I think the legacy that I've createdand the fact that it's got my name
in, in the title of the company,which these people say you should do.
Yeah.
It's not always the, yeah.
No idea.
You've done the rightnow, but you've done it.
You've done it now, so, yeah.
And so, yeah, I don't think I'd eversell it completely, but you're right.
(32:49):
I think I, I alluded to the factthat I've got a couple of other.
Investments and projects and, andother people that want to come in
on a journey with me that maybelack the capital of or mm-hmm.
Or the experience of running a business.
And they've seen what I've doneand they have some very exciting
plans that sound quite appealing.
Yes.
And Id love to kind of seeand do some more of those.
(33:11):
So one of the things we talk about a lotin a circle in particular is de-risking.
So you could de-risk your life.
And once you've de-risked your lifeand you don't have to worry about the
mortgage anymore, and you know, you, youcan, you can, you can you, you can feel
that sense of you've arrived, then youcan spend time with those other projects.
(33:32):
You can do other things.
And you know something if you.
Buy, build and sell, thenpeople will seek you out.
They'll say, look, I've got thismanufacturing business here.
You know, would you be interestedin becoming our chairman or our
non-exec or a, or a shareholderto help us do the same?
So you actually open upthose business opportunities.
(33:53):
Yeah.
It's funny to say that because beinga a non-exec director is something
that's really quite interesting.
Again, locally.
Lots of businesses lots of startups, and Ithink that I, I do have something to add.
In some sort of advisory kindof board capacity and and maybe
doing a very small portfolio.
Those could be somethingthat I'd do in the future.
I'd be very interested in that.
Yeah.
(34:13):
Neil, it's been great talking to you.
Congratulations on your success,and I reckon we'll be back in the
studio in 12 months time to findout the next chapter of the story.
Neil, thank you very much.
Thanks for having me.
Cheers.
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