From serial entrepreneur to private equity investor

I left school at 15 and over the next 35 years built and sold 7 companies; learning first-hand what does and doesn’t work when building a business to an exit and while I’ve failed many, many times, I’ve learned from each of those experiences to go on to succeed on a level that was only a dream for my younger self.

Born into a family of self-employed business owners, I’ve been fascinated about the sales and entrepreneurial process for as long as I can remember, initially honing my skills in the highly competitive home improvement & motor industries, where competition is a constant pressure and closing business a daily necessity.  An early breakthrough moment, for me, came in the 1980’s when I landed an opportunity to sell Jeeps and Harley Davidsons to the US military in Germany.

That experience inspired a lifelong passion for learning the psychology behind ‘why’ people buy the things they do from the people they buy them from, and resulted in the building of an entrepreneur training company from which I teach business owners the psychology behind selling more of the products or services that a business sells.

Proof that anyone can make it..

Two other things about me I’d like to share with you.

Firstly, I spend a lot of my spare time on 2 wheels – competing on dirt bikes. It’s where I first learned how to calculate risk quickly and decisively which is a huge component in running a successful business.

The second thing is my dyslexia. It hasn’t stopped me from achieving success.

In fact, you could say I’m living proof that if you decide upon something at a DNA level,

nothing, but nothing, can stop you from achieving your goal.

How do I get the deal across the line?

The answer to this conundrum is only discovered once you understand what business owner’s real motivational drivers are and how to explain in an elegant way the realities of the challenges faced by a buyer and seller of businesses.

The main problem is that most business owners …

• think their business is worth a lot more than a buyer will ever pay.
• think their business is saleable as it is, even though it’s 100% dependent on them being in it!!
• think buyers will pay them all the money on the day of completion.
• think traditional business brokers are the solution.

The truth is, the vast majority of SME businesses are ‘zombie’ businesses i.e. their turnover and profit has been stagnate for years, they do not have robust financials, processes or the right people in the right places to make them a valuable proposition.

While these business owners are highly knowledgeable of their subject, they often have little or no idea about ‘how’ to grow a business at scale or package their business to sell at a valuation they really want.

Now add into the mix that most corporate M&A people, and business advisors simply do not have the ‘real world’ knowledge, skills and connections these business owners need and want; and you can start to see why so many deals never get across the line.