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Are Some of Your Best Customers Actually Your Least Profitable?
A customer you’ve dealt with for ten years can feel like one of your best customers, but when did you last look properly at what it now costs to service them? Old pricing, additional requirements and years of small concessions can gradually turn good turnover into surprisingly poor profit.
What Experienced Buyers Look for in a Business
Experienced buyers don’t start with the accounts. They look at the owner, the leadership team, the market position and whether the business can succeed without its founder. The numbers matter, but the real signs of value often appear long before the financial statements are opened.
What Founders Often Misunderstand About Business Value
Many founders believe business value is driven by turnover and negotiated at the point of sale. In reality, value is built over many years through leadership, profitability, commercial awareness and strong decision making. In this article, John Kettley shares what experienced buyers really see when they assess a business and why confidence often matters more than size.
Seven Signs Your Business Is Becoming Acquisition Ready
Many business owners believe acquisition readiness begins when they decide to sell. In reality, the strongest businesses have been preparing for years. In this article, John Kettley explains the characteristics experienced buyers recognise long before they review the accounts, and why building a valuable business is about far more than increasing turnover.
You’re Not Preparing Your Business for Sale. You’re Preparing It for the Future.
Most business owners think exit planning starts with valuations and legal documents. In reality, it starts much earlier. This article explores why building a business that can succeed without its founder creates stronger leadership, better decision making and more freedom, whether you plan to sell, pass the business on, or continue leading it for years to come.
The Business Is Usually a Reflection of the Owner
Good businesses rarely become strong assets by accident. John Kettley explains why the owner’s thinking, behaviour, and commercial discipline show up in the value, resilience, and readiness of the company.
Cash is still the killer: late payment, retentions and weak discipline
Most construction failures don’t start with a lack of work. They start with weak cash control. Late payment, disputed payment and poor forecasting can sink a business long before the pipeline runs dry.
If the business can’t run without you, it isn’t ready
Too many owners mistake control for value. If every decision, problem and client relationship flows through you, that’s not a robust business. It’s a bottleneck with branding.
Turnover is vanity, margin is reality
There’s no prize for being busy if the work is badly priced, badly managed and slow to pay. In construction, turnover can hide poor thinking for a long time. Margin usually tells the truth.
The market isn’t dead. It’s just less forgiving.
A softer market doesn’t kill good businesses. It reveals bad habits. When work gets harder to win and slower to deliver, the gap opens up between firms that are well run and firms that have been getting away with it.