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Index/Leadership/Business Buying Strategies from The Dealmaker's Academy
Business Buying Strategies from The Dealmaker's Academy artwork

#345 What kind of business should I buy?

Business Buying Strategies from The Dealmaker's Academy · 2026-02-19 · 39 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

40 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density10 / 20
Originality8 / 20
Guest Caliber7 / 20
Specificity & Evidence9 / 20
Conversational Craft6 / 20

This webinar episode from Jonathan Jay breaks down how to choose the right business to buy based on your end goal. For those escaping corporate life, Jay recommends aiming to 10x your current income; existing business owners should target tripling profitability; and those building a portfolio should expect at least a seven-figure outcome from a buy-and-build strategy. The episode covers acquisition strategies including buying competitors, expanding geographically, acquiring supply-chain businesses, and bolt-on acquisitions. Jay emphasizes buying businesses you understand to reduce learning curves, but offers three solutions for those entering new sectors: 100% operator-run businesses, hired management (incentivized with profit-share or equity), or partnerships (though he cautions these often fail). The best businesses to buy are boring, recurring-revenue models (commercial cleaning, electrical work, home repairs) with solid management teams, long-term contracts, and steady profitability - ideally £1m+ revenue with £200k+ net profit. Jay warns against owner-dependent businesses, fads, high-tech ventures, and those in constantly changing markets. A critical insight: most first-time buyers aim too low, sabotaging their deal before they start.

Key takeaways

  • →Aim to 10x your income when escaping corporate life, or triple profitability if growing an existing business - most first-time buyers fail by aiming too low due to self-belief issues.
  • →Buy businesses you understand to eliminate learning curves, or solve the knowledge gap through full operator-management, hired management with profit incentives, or careful partnerships with legal protections.
  • →Target businesses with at least £1m revenue and £200k net profit, recurring revenue models, stable workforces, and complete financial visibility - these have genuine exit value and resilience.
  • →Fragmented markets with active M&A above you are ideal for buy-and-build strategies; combine lower-valued acquisitions through operational efficiencies to create a larger business sellable at much higher multiples.
  • →Avoid owner-dependent businesses, fad industries, high-tech ventures in changing markets, and those reliant on the owner's personal relationships - these are the primary reasons acquisition deals fail.

In this episode

  1. 1Three Main Reasons for Buying a Business
  2. 2Income Targets and Exit Strategies by Business Type
  3. 3Buying to Grow Your Existing Business: Competitors and Supply Chain
  4. 4Understanding Your Purchase and Avoiding Naive Buying
  5. 5Management Solutions for Non-Expert Buyers
  6. 6The Buy and Build Strategy for Creating Business Groups
  7. 7Characteristics of Worst Businesses to Avoid
  8. 8Best Businesses to Buy: Boring, Recurring Revenue, Stable Management

Mentioned

Jonathan JayStephen CoveyThe Dealmaker's AcademyBusiness Buying Strategies7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Guests

Jonathan Jay

Topics in this episode

Recurring revenue modelsOwner-dependent businessesStephen Covey 7 Habits of Highly Effective PeopleBuy-and-build strategy (roll-up)Fragmented markets and M&A hierarchyBolt-on acquisitionsSupply-chain vertical integrationOperational efficienciesWorking capital negotiationRelationship-dependent revenue

Questions this episode answers

What size business should I target as a first acquisition?

Jonathan Jay recommends at least £1m in annual revenue and £200k in net profit minimum, as most first-time buyers aim too low and underestimate the effort required - the work to acquire a £500k-profit business isn't significantly harder than a £100k one.

Can I buy a business in an industry I don't understand?

Yes, but only if the business is 100% operator-run by capable management you can retain, you hire experienced management with profit-sharing or equity incentives, or you enter a formal partnership with legal protections for exit - otherwise you risk being a naive buyer who has to figure it out dangerously late.

What is a buy-and-build strategy and who should use it?

A buy-and-build (or roll-up) involves acquiring smaller businesses at low valuations, combining and integrating them under one management structure, then selling the larger combined entity at much higher multiples; it works best in fragmented markets with active M&A activity above you and requires strong CEO and CFO-level management.

Why do business acquisitions fail?

The top reasons are over-dependence on key people (especially the owner), insufficient working capital left in the business post-acquisition, and relationship-dependent revenue where clients or suppliers only stay because of personal ties to the original owner - these are structural weaknesses, not temporary issues.

What types of businesses make the best acquisitions?

Boring, recurring-revenue models like commercial cleaning, basic electrical, and home repairs that won't be disrupted by AI or market changes, have long-term contracts or repeat clients, solid management independent of the owner, and stable profitability rather than peaks and troughs.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

10 / 20

The episode covers foundational frameworks (three main acquisition outcomes, business selection criteria) that are useful but largely predictable for a B2B operator researching this space. Much of the content repeats the same core thesis - buy businesses making £100k+ profit, avoid owner-dependent businesses, seek recurring revenue - without novel operational depth or surprising data. The second half devolves into a sales pitch for the training program, adding no substantive insight.

if you want to change your life with one deal, you're not going to change it with a very small deal
the business employing three people, I mean yeah, all it takes is one person to quit, one person to be sick

Originality

8 / 20

The frameworks presented - buying to escape corporate life, buying to scale existing business, buy-and-build strategies, fragmented markets, operational improvements through acquisition - are standard M&A playbook concepts that circulate widely in business literature and podcasts. The advice to seek recurring revenue, avoid fads, and target £100k+ profit businesses is conventional. No contrarian or first-principles thinking is evident; the episode largely repackages established acquisition wisdom.

begin with the end in mind
you look for a fragmented market where there are many opportunities. Now the good news is most markets are fragmented

Guest Caliber

7 / 20

Jonathan Jay is the sole speaker and positions himself as an authority on acquisitions with 27 years of personal experience and 10 years coaching others. However, no independent verification of credential or scale is offered in the transcript. He references unnamed 'mastermind clients' and a finance advisor (mentioned as speaking at the event but not present here), but provides no specific guest examples, case studies, or third-party validation of his claimed deals. For a 39-minute episode, the absence of actual practitioner interviews or guest operators weakens caliber significantly.

I've been doing this now for myself for 27 years and I've been helping other people like you for 10 years
I've got clients who are doing this in the eight figures. We've got one that might be doing a nine figure soon

Specificity & Evidence

9 / 20

The episode provides some specific financial targets (£100k minimum profit, £1m revenue threshold, 15 - 33% net margins, 10x income as an outcome goal) and names a few sector examples (commercial cleaning, electrical, home repairs, art gallery/packing frame business). However, it lacks named case studies, actual company examples with outcomes, timelines, or concrete acquisition metrics. The referenced clients remain anonymous, and no real deal structure, purchase price multiples achieved, or post-acquisition performance data is shared to substantiate claims.

anything making under £100,000 in net profit, that's basically profit after tax that you can take out for yourself probably isn't worth it
I prefer businesses that doing at least a million revenue, making at least 200,000 a year net profit

Conversational Craft

6 / 20

This is a recorded webinar presentation rather than a true conversation; the host delivers monologue-format instruction with no real guest dialogue, push-back, or challenging follow-ups. The absence of audience Q&A in the transcript (though mentioned as upcoming) means no dynamic exchange occurs. The host repeats key points frequently ('don't aim too low,' 'first deal is critical') without deepening through interrogation. The closing 30+ minutes pivot entirely to a sales pitch for the training program, abandoning substantive content to focus on event promotion and pricing tiers.

So I would say that if you are going to, if you chose number one, you should be aiming to 10x your income
I keep saying this, I think it's really important

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker B98%
  • Speaker A2%

Most-used words

businesses58buying38three30deal27owner24number23first22money15bought14type12profit12together12smaller12larger12small11understand11

Episode notes

What Kind of Business Should I Buy? If you're thinking about buying a business, this is the question that determines everything. Not how to fund it. Not how to structure it. Not even how to find it. But what kind of business should you buy? In this week's episode, Jonathan Jay answers the foundational question every serious dealmaker must get right and explains why choosing the wrong business is the fastest way to sabotage your future success . Start With the End in Mind Jonathan opens with a principle borrowed from Stephen Covey: Begin with the end in mind. Before you even look at sectors or valuations, you need clarity on your outcome. Are you: Escaping corporate life? Growing your existing business? Building a group to sell for seven or eight figures? Each goal demands a completely different acquisition strategy. If you want to replace your salary, Jonathan challenges you to aim higher than feels comfortable. If you want to scale your current company, acquisition is the fastest way to move the needle. If you want generational wealth, buy-and-build might be your path. But the type of business you buy must match the outcome you want.

Full transcript

39 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: Welcome to Business buying strategies, the UK's number one podcast for smart business buyers. Hosted by Jonathan Jay, one of the world's leading authorities on small business acquisition, this show helps you buy your first business without risking your own money. Ready to get started? Don't forget to grab your free business buying toolkit packed with reports, videos and cheat sheets@dealmakerspodcast.co.uk.

Speaker B: hi, this is Jonathan J. And welcome to Business Buying Strategies, which of course is the number one podcast for people interested in buying a business the smart way, which means not risking your own cash. So on this week's episode, you're going to listen in on a webinar that I did recently where I answered the question, what type of business should I buy? It's the starting point for every conversation with someone who wants to buy a business. Successfully buying the right type of business and avoiding the wrong type is the first step to success. I hope you enjoy it. So how do we decide which is the best type of business for you to buy? Well, Stephen covey, in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People said, begin with the end in mind. So that is what we are going to do. We're going to look at what it is you want to achieve and then the plan, the strategy and the type of business you buy based upon the outcome that you want. So what is it that you are trying to achieve Now? I asked you earlier on what why you are here, why you're on the webinar today. And some of you said freedom, some of you said scaling. Some of you said to get out of my job and buy a business that replaces my income. So we have all these different reasons. But let me give you three main reasons for buying a business. There are three typical outcomes from business acquisition from the people that I work with. The first is to buy a business to escape corporate life. So to escape the day job, to get out of the day job. The second is to buy a business to grow your existing business. And the third is to buy multiple businesses, which is a very popular strategy. We call it the buy and build to create a group of businesses that you can sell in the future. So buy a business to escape corporate life. Number one, buy business to grow your existing business. Number two, buy multiple businesses. Number three. So I would say that if you are going to, if you chose number one, you should be aiming to 10x your income. So if you're a £50,000 a year person right now, you should be looking to buy a business that makes you 500,000 a year. If you're a 20,000 pound a year go for 200 and so forth. So I think you should aim to 10x your income. I think you, if you own a business already, you should triple the profitability of your company. So if your company makes £100,000 a year profit, yeah, let's, let's go for 300,000, let's buy a business to get it up to 300,000. If it makes half a million, let's go for one and a half million. Because a tripling of profitability starts to move the needle. And if you want to buy businesses, put them together and then sell them, then the minimum outcome you should be expecting of yourself is a seven figure outcome. And I've got clients who are doing this in the eight figures. We've got one that might be doing a nine figure soon. But yeah, seven figure a million plus is the absolute minimum outcome that you should be expecting. So if you want to buy a business to grow your existing business, this is the fastest way to grow with confidence. I mean you could go out, you could run more adverts, you could hire more salespeople. But buying a business to grow your existing business is a really, really smart move. The options that you have in front of you are to buy your immediate competitors. So you look at all those people who are uh, competing with you to be the top of Google or you see their adverts all the time or you hear people talking about them, that's, that's the first, you know, and uh, most obvious port of call. So to buy up your competitors. And I have people in my mastermind group doing this as standard. Maybe you buy a business but they do the same as you, but they do it in a different location. So you can start to grow your geographical spread. You can start to own a region rather than just being located in one town. Now what many people do who own a business is they start to buy their supply chain and this improves their profitability no end because they're buying the bit before someone buys from them and then they buy the bit after as well. And then there's complementary businesses. One of my favorites was the person who owned an art gallery and was spending a lot of money on those wooden packing frames to ship the art in. And he went and bought the wooden packing frame business. And that just, I suppose you could also say that's number three part of the supply chain, but it linked in absolutely beautifully. Now buying something you understand makes an awful lot of sense because there's no learning curve. So if you already understand the business that you're buying, then the only learning curve you have is how to buy that business and do it properly and successfully and without personal risk. But you don't have a learning curve when it comes to actually understanding the business itself. You also, when you buy something, you understand, you understand due diligence, you understand that due diligence process. You know what to look for, you know the sorts of things that are issues in your own business. So you can look for those issues in someone else's business. Now buying something you understand typically means you already own, uh, a business in that sector. But even if you don't, when you understand it, you can immediately see cost reductions. There are things that owners spend money on that you as the new owner wouldn't spend money on. And you can also spot opportunities for profit maximization. Again, seeing someone else's business from the outside allows you to see it differently. Quite owners, quite often owners can't see the wood for the trees. They're so close to the action they can't see those opportunities for profit maximization. Now if you want to escape the rat race, and it felt like a lot of people were saying number one earlier, then escaping the rat race gives you that excitement of a black sheet of paper. So you could start, you could buy any sort of business in any sort of sector. You've got lots and lots of options. But the danger is the opposite of what we've just been saying, which is not understanding what you are buying. And I think it's absolutely critical that you or someone close to you understands what you're buying. Otherwise you could buy a business that really has no future. You could buy a business that it's just way too complicated to understand the operating or it's very nuanced or there's some fine details that you just don't understand. You do not want to be a naive buyer. You don't want to be someone who has to figure it out later on. Um, but there are three solutions to this. The first is you buy a business that is 100% run by other people. Now you still have to step up as the owner because ultimately the buck will stop with you. I mean, if you own that business at some point you will be making decisions, but the actual day to day operations are run by other people. And I can tell you now from, you know, uh, owning businesses since I was 18, that it's the operations that cause the sleepless nights and the headaches. Now option number two is you could bring in someone to run the business for you. And this is very popular. A lot of my mastermind clients do this and they incentivize with a profit share, bonuses, or maybe some exit equity to dangle a carrot for the person running the business because they then know that the better they do this, there's more in it for them. And that could be a profit share, could be a bonus, or it could be some sort of equity. I'm very against straightforward equity splits. I don't think that's necessary. There are smarter ways of doing it. Now, you could partner with someone. And I hear this when people say, oh, I get together with this person, they really understand the business and we'll own 50. 50. Look, most partnerships don't work. They really don't. And people often come to me and they're stuck in partnerships and they say, how do I unravel it? Now the difference is the people that I work with. There are guidelines on how to make a partnership work from a legal perspective so that if it doesn't work from an emotional perspective later on, then you can separate and go your separate ways with the least amount of hassle. These are things that you need to put in place in advance, not something you can easily do later on. Now, let's say Options 3 was the one that you clicked earlier. Creating a group. This is what I see more and more. Because buying one business feels like a mountain to climb until you bought it. And then you go, oh my goodness, I can do that, I'll do it again. So you go and do it again. And yeah, I, I don't speak to anyone in my groups who stops at one. They start at one. But I always say, oh, you know what, I'm going to do that again, because why wouldn't you? If, if you could add 300, 500, 800, a million pounds of profit to your existing business or to your life as a result of buying business number one. Why would you not go and buy business number two or business number three? And I think I've got one guys at business number 36. 36. Okay, now that's excessive. You don't need to do that. You really don't. Remember, one deal can change your life. So with creating a group, the concept is you buy smaller businesses at low valuations and combine them, integrate them and operate them as one larger business that you can sell at a much higher value. So that's the very simple sort of explanation of this. Buying, build or in America they often say a roll up. Um, yeah, in the uk, buying, but so the buy and build concept is buying those smaller businesses at low valuations, combining them and as a result you get a larger business that you can sell at far higher value. Now what type of businesses do you look for to do a buy and build successfully? Well, you look for a fragmented market where there are many opportunities. Now the good news is most markets are fragmented. Most sectors are full of lots and lots of smaller businesses at the bottom end you've got a chunk of mid sized businesses here in the middle and then a smaller number of larger businesses at the top. So there's this hierarchy of the smaller businesses, the mid size and then the larger businesses. So a fragmented market would have lots and lots of smaller businesses that you could scoop up at those lower valuations. But what you've also got to look for, and this is very important, is mergers and acquisitions, M and A activity above you. So all those mid sized businesses buying smaller businesses and probably more important than that are uh, the larger businesses buying the mid sized businesses. Because by buying the smaller businesses you can create that mid sized, that mid sized business and the midsize business is then sold up the hierarchy, up the food chain to the larger business. Also businesses that can benefit from operational efficiencies. Now that's a smart way of saying you can make more money if you run them properly. And typically smaller businesses are run very badly. The owner puts lots of personal expenses through. They, they often make emotional decisions rather than profit driven decisions. And if you can bring in those operational efficiencies, you can buy a small business for a low value that very quickly becomes a more profitable business and automatically has a for higher value assigned to it. Now what I would say to you is you need to buy good quality businesses. So they might not be run very well, they might be smaller, but they need to be good quality. They've got to have a good product, good service. They don't have to be perfect. You're not looking for something perfect here, you're looking for something good is good and it might be better in the future. And here is the key thing. If you're writing things down, if it doesn't become better in the future, it doesn't matter because good was still good enough. So it needs to be profitable, standing on its own two feet. But there is potential. Remember we never pay for potential, but it's always good to know that there's potential there. What I would say, if you're doing a buy and build your management quality is essential. And I have people who've graduated out of my mastermind group into my inner circle group who are uh, doing buying builds where they are creating now their head office team and their head office function typically revolves around a person running everything. A CEO plus a cfo, a chief financial officer. That quality management is essential. If you don't have it, you're really going to struggle to do this. Don't worry about it. Now you haven't, presumably you haven't even bought your first business yet. I'm just giving you an idea of the journey ahead of you and then you get that multiple arbitrage. So you can buy for a number that is the equivalent, let's say or two, two and a half, three times annual profits. But as soon as you've got this larger group with a high level of profitability, that high level of profitability has a higher value and you'll be going into the sevens, eights, nines, tens and into those, into those double figures. Now let me just tell you the worst type of business businesses to buy. There are businesses that are owner dependent. So this is where without the owner there's not much of a business there the owner goes a holiday for two weeks and everything stops. The exception is unless there's a bolt on. Now a bolt on is where you have an existing business and you buy maybe one of these owner dependent businesses but you don't need the owner. Uh, all you're really after is the contracts that that company has that you can wrap into your existing business. So typically at the beginning of a business buying journey you find lots of businesses that are not suitable for deal number one. They're just not big enough for deal number one. But once you've got deal number one under your belt, you can bolt on these smaller businesses very easily at a very low cost and they can actually exponentially grow that original ah, platform investment. You don't want fad businesses. You know, this is some sort of, you know, a technology phase that comes and goes, maybe a health thing that comes and goes. Fad businesses, you know, they burn brightly. They're a little bit like a can of fizzy drink. Yeah, you open it up and it fizzes and then the fizz just dies away. And um, quite often you see this in a business where it hasn't really made any money. Suddenly it makes a huge amount of money and the owner is looking to sell at that point because they know that it's going to fall off a cliff very soon. I'm always very wary of high tech businesses. Businesses with a changing market. You've got to have Deep pockets to fund that type of business growth and activity. I'll show you in a minute what I think are the best businesses to buy. But I always advise people to steer clear of businesses that are in a constantly changing market. So the other side of the coin is the best type of business to buy is one of those boring businesses that isn't easily disrupted. Yeah, I've got people becoming millionaires off the back of commercial cleaning, basic electrical, home repairs type businesses. Businesses that aren't going to be replaced by AI. All right, so it may not be the most exciting dinner party conversation. Yeah, I've just bought this commercial cleaning business. But you'll probably make more money than anyone else sitting around the table. Now I like businesses with recurring revenue. So these are businesses where you have long term contracts, you have repeat business built in. A customer just buy from you just once, they keep coming back again and again. I like businesses with solid management. So without the owner, there is a proper team there. And it's not just a team that the owners put together in order to sell the business. Uh, they've been there for years, they're bedded in, they work well together and they know all the stuff about operations that you don't. And I think the best type of business is one that's good but not great. You know, when you've got a great business, you're probably going to be competing with other people to buy it. And someone who's got a great business typically knows they've got a great business and they go through a competitive process to find a buyer. I, I don't want to compete. I don't, I don't want to get into an auction situation. So I'm looking for businesses that are, uh, good, but they're not yet great. And I want steady levels of profit. I want a business that produces a steady level of profit, not a spike, peaks and troughs. It's brilliant. It's awful. It's brilliant. It's awful because that, ah, unpredictability, um, is going to make me very nervous and I don't like being nervous. I want confidence that if it was making 300,000, 400,000 a year before I buy it is going to be making the same after I buy it. And this is the fastest way to grow with confidence. So if you own a business already and you want to grow, buying another business is going to be the fastest way, the fastest way to get the growth that you're looking for. But size is important when it comes to buying a business. I posted on LinkedIn about this yesterday or day before. And uh, it's creating a nice little bit of controversy with some people agreeing with me, M, some people disagreeing with me. Typically the people who disagree with me are the people who own the very small businesses because they don't want me to say what they don't want to hear. But I think that anything making under £100,000 in net profit, that's basically profit after tax that you can take out for yourself probably isn't worth it. And I steer clear my clients, I steer them clear of any business making less than £100,000 a year. Now if you work in a job, you might be going £100,000 is a lot of money. Well yeah, it is if you work in a job maybe, although you're going to lose a lot of that in tax, right? So it's probably a lot less than that. But if you're going to be buying a business, the effort that you put into buying a business isn't 10 times more to buy a business 10 times bigger. You don't own independent businesses or businesses that are dependent upon family members. And uh, this is one of my bugbears where you buy the business and you discover that it's actually the brother in law who's the operations director and it's the uh, you know, it's the sister who runs the accounts team M. And they always tell you that they're going to stay, but they never do unfortunately, in my experience. And don't forget, you know, I've been doing this now for myself for 27 years and I've been helping other people like you for 10 years. So I've kind of seen it all. Most first time buyers aim too low and they get the first deal wrong as a result of aiming too low. So if there's one thing that you take away from this webinar this morning is don't aim too low. I tell you why people aim too low. It's self belief. You know, in your head you're a fifty, uh, thousand pound a year person. So when I say, do you buy a business that makes 10x that 500,000, you're kind of outside of your comfort zone. Can I tell you how you get into the comfort zone? You spend time with people who are uh, buying businesses making a million a year and suddenly you realize that 500,000 isn't such a big deal after all. Look, if you want to change your life with one deal, you're not going to change it with a very small deal. You're only going to change it with a larger deal. Now I agree that you need a bit of hand holding through that larger deal. I agree with that. But that is really where I think you should be heading. So I prefer businesses that doing at least a million revenue, making at least 200,000 a year net profit, that is what I'm looking for. At least a million of revenue. At least 200,000. With 200,000 if you have a little bit of a dip in trade post acquisition, quite often there's a bit of attrition, you lose a few customers, it does happen, then you've got that buffer in place. I like businesses with long term contracts or repeat clients. Long term contracts, repeat clients. And I like a stable workforce. I don't want a constantly revolving door of employees with a manager who's managing them, who knows what they're doing and is good at what they do. And I want complete visibility over the numbers. Now often with these very small businesses, few hundred thousand of revenue, you know, there are no management accounts because they don't really need to because they're not reporting to anyone. Because it's owner managed larger businesses, you have better visibility over the revenue. Yeah, a larger business that has a finance director in place, oh my goodness, that, that is a business worth worth buying. So here are some reasons why business acquisitions fail. And it's all around buying the wrong business. The first deal that you do is the most important deal by the way. If you haven't realized that if you haven't bought a business yet, getting the first one right is essential because if you don't get the first one right, you probably never do the second. So the first reason why business acquisitions fail when it comes to choosing the business is the business is too dependent on a small number of people. It could be the owner, the owner plus one person. It could just be the owner. It could be the owner and the owner's partner, owner's spouse and, and that I think is a, is a, is a point of failure. You take out that person's genius, you take out that person's people skills and, and suddenly you've got yourself a problem. Now a uh, lot of people with smaller businesses now listen to the, the kind of, the irony of this very small business. They say it's not worth paying someone to do the due diligence and identify cash flow requirements, do cash flow forecast. It's not worth paying someone to do that because it's a very small business. Do you see the irony of that? But that's why the small businesses crash and burn. You should be buying a larger business where it is worth getting someone to do the due diligence properly because that will help you make a better pricing decision if nothing else. Not enough working capital. So everyone knows that you, well everyone, not everyone, but most people know that you negotiate price and terms with terms being in many cases more important than the price. But everyone forgets working capital. So the working capital is the oil and the engine is the money remaining. And occasionally I see because mastermind clients send me these emails where the seller is saying I'm not going to leave any working capital. That's down to you. And we've got a neat way of handling this that puts the seller right on the fact without sort of, you know, telling them that they're, that they're wrong. And also you don't really want to buy a business where it's relationship dependent where the owner has the relationship, the suppliers, there's a mates rates on suppliers. The suppliers have some sort of long standing friendship with the owner and as soon as the new person comes in they put their prices up. And the same with clients, they're only clients because their friend, you know, you see, you see this in, I mean I was out having a coffee this morning and you see the people who are friendly with the owner of the coffee shop and the reason they go in there is because the owner of the coffee shop says good morning to them and knows them by name and knows what their order is. You change the owner of the coffee shop and they go well this person doesn't know what I want, I might as well try somewhere else. Very small example that I saw just an hour ago but, but that is an example of relate of a relationship dependent business. So how do we avoid this? Well, you can buy good businesses with reliable cash flow and we need to make sure that you buy the right business. If you don't buy the right business, quitting your job to do this won't happen. If you don't buy the right business you'll never grow your existing business. And if you don't buy the right business, you'll never have that, that, that base, that foundation for a buy and build. I think you should be buying businesses where the margins are at least 15%. Service based businesses can be 20, 25%. I've got someone in my inner circle group who's working on a 33% net margin. Now when you've got a 33% net margin you could, you, you know, you start to move the needle with Every acquisition that you do. I don't think you should use much debt to buy a business. I don't think you should over leverage. I think a lot of people go wrong with borrowing too much and they try and well they just over leverage. So I think that you can do deal number one without any external debt. Now if we can do deal number one without any external debt, well then there's no interest to pay and got a lender bank looking over your shoulder and it takes the pressure off on your first deal. I mean there's enough pressure on your first deal already. You don't want to add the pressure of the bank. And I think there needs to be a diversified workforce and customer base. So uh, yeah, the business employing three people, I mean yeah, all it takes is one person to quit, one person to be sick and one person to be on the go slow and you haven't got a business. Likewise with customers. If there's a customer concentration where the business has got three main customers and they're all on contracts where they can give 30 days notice, is there really a business there in 30 days time? And I again laboring the point but I think it's really important personality dependent businesses where the seller is. That personality knows everyone. It's been around for ages without them, um, does the business survive? So it is absolutely essential that you get several things right when you're doing the first, the first deal. You need to get the corporate structure right. You need to get the holding company SPV structure right. Do not, do not, do not, do not go and buy companies off of a registration uh, business. Yeah, you can buy them off Companies House for 50 pounds. Set up a company for 50 pounds. That is not what you need. You need to get the articles of association correct. You need to do this via a lawyer. It will cost you a few hundred pounds but it's worth getting that right. Uh, especially if you're building a group off the shelf. It typically doesn't work. You live it and contain guarantees. So you would have heard the phrase personal guarantee. You know that I hate personal guarantees. And uh, sometimes guarantees are required but we want to limit and contain those guarantees and you want to keep that debt ratio below 50%. So no more, no more than an absolute top limit of your net cash flow every month should be going out on debt repayments of any sort. And you need to understand the cash flow cycle. It is typically bad luck when you buy a business just at the start of their slow season. All right. Yeah. Interesting how the owner times that right so they got the benefit of the busy season and you get the slow season. Interesting that again, poor due diligence means that you didn't know that. But good due diligence means that you do know that. And you time the acquisition when you know that the cash flow cycle is going to be positive. And you've always got to have enough working cap. I've never ever heard anyone tell me that they bought the business and they were sort of concerned that they had too much working capital. Way too. Jonathan, Jonathan, I've got too much working capital. What do I do with it all? No one ever says that, right? So you've got to have enough working capital. The bottom line on this is your first deal is the hardest, but it's also the most important. So there's a lot riding on the first deal. If you don't get this right, nothing else is going to happen. You've got to get the first deal right. Otherwise you might not make it to deal number two because you'll be dragged into operations and you discover that you bought yourself a job rather than a business. I've seen that happen with people. They don't follow my advice. They go and buy a business that's too small and they end up buying themselves a job. So I can help you with this if you'd like me to. And like I said at the beginning, uh, you can relax. It's not going to cost you a fortune. It's going to be okay. And it's worth it. So here is a question. What if I spent three days with you? Three days. And we did this in person, not on Zoom. Because three days on Zoom, quite frankly, is exhausting. But if we sit in a room together, we can have a coffee together, we can have lunch together, then I can help you with everything. I can help you decide the best type of business to buy and set you off on your journey knowing with you, knowing that you're doing the right thing in the right way. So what we'll do is we'll figure out the best business for you to buy. There isn't a one size fits all. It's going to be different according to your circumstances, your, your, your career history, what it is you want to achieve. But we'll work out personalized plan for you. I'll show you how to find that business and approach the owner. So what we'll do on day one of our three days together is we'll look at what your financial goal is, what the number is you want to achieve. Let's say it's £3 million. Let's say £3 million will absolutely change your life. For some people it's going to be more, some people less. Well, let's work backwards to see if you need to do one deal, two deals or three deals or whatever it might be. It might only be one deal, but of the right business. So we'll work out a plan. So you'll leave these three days with me with a really, really clear plan. All that confusion, all that doubt will disappear. And I'm going to teach you the funding that works in 2026. And this is the really clever bit. I'll teach you how to do it without, ah, any of your own money. So I don't care how rich you are, keep your money in your pocket, keep your money in your bank account. I'm going to show you how to fund a deal with 100% other people's money. I'll show you exactly how to do that. We'll lay it out. We've got a whole session on this. I'm also going to introduce you during our, uh, three days together to people who've already bought businesses who at one point in the last couple of years were sitting on a webinar just like this. They started off just like this, then they spent three days with me and then they went off and they bought businesses. So I'm going to introduce you to people who've done that. I'll, uh, bring them back, I'll interview them. So I'll ask them all the questions that you've got in your mind and then you can ask them questions and you can sit next to them at lunch and sit next to them at dinner and have, have time with them. Okay? So you can actually talk to the real people. And I never take this personally, but I do have a lot of people say to me, jonathan, we really enjoyed your session, but the session was sitting next to Jeff or Tim or Rob or whoever, sitting next to that person and having a chat with them, um, over lunch. That, that was the bit that really made it all fall into place for me. And also I'm going to answer all of your questions. I'm, um, there from first thing in the morning, the last thing at night, and I'll answer all of your questions. So there's three days that we're going to spend together is called the Business Acquisition Fast Track program. Fast track, because it puts you on the fast track. Fast track means that you leave with a plan, you leave with a strategy, you leave with a fast track to Success. Now, it's specifically for people who want to buy a business in 2026. So that's the first part. So if you don't want to do this in the near future, it's not right for you. Please leave the space that I'm going to be giving to someone else. Okay. The second category is you've got to realize you need help and support to do it. I don't want knowing holes. I don't want big heads. I don't want people coming to the fast track to show off. You know, I want people who go to Jonathan, look, how do I do this? I want people who are good students, people who are coachable, because if you're coachable, I can help you. If you're constantly putting up barriers, then I can't help you. So I want people who are open to being helped. All right, so first criteria is you want to buy business in 2026. And, um, the second is you realize you need help and support to do it. So how does it, how much does it cost? And that's the big question on your mind right now. Because if you're interested in buying a business, it shouldn't be too difficult to say, this is the event that I need to be on. So let me tell you how it's structured. It's across three days. It's live. Remember, it's not on Zoom. It's live. We've got a beautiful venue lined up. Days one and two, we focus on business acquisition. And then day three, we do something that no one else tells you about, which is what to do after you've bought the business. Everyone says, oh, uh, you know, buy a business, buy business. But, yeah, okay, so what happens after you bought it? So day three is what happens after you bought the business. And that's what makes this training completely unique. No one else does this. So we're going to do two days on buying, one day. And what happens after you've bought the business? And, uh, like I said, it's live. Is in person, it's with me. It's with previous Mastermind clients. So people that have been on my programs, recent, recently, previously, and also my finance wizard. Now I'm bringing in to speak to you someone who knows more about financing deals than anyone I've ever met. And he finances, arranges the finance for my Mastermind clients and does several hundred of these a, uh, year.

Speaker A: All right.

Speaker B: He knows exactly what's happening out there in the marketplace right now. So this is how we price it. We get charged by the Venue for everyone who attends. I don't know if you know that's how venues work, but we get charged for everyone who walks through the door and as you would expect, it cost us money to put it on. I've got my team there, I've got my staff, I've got to pay people, I've got the av, I've got the sound, the lights and all of these things. Now, if you're willing to cover the cost of you being there, of what it cost to put on the event, then I won't charge you for my time or expertise, just like I haven't charged you for the webinar today. So the standard ticket, which includes a three days training, unlimited refreshments and lunches for the three days, beautiful lunch for the three days is 499 plus V80. So that's £166 a day. And I think that if you're not prepared to invest 166 pounds a day in yourself to do something that could change your life forever, then I think maybe you should look at another way of doing things, because this is not going to be right for you. Now we're at a beautiful venue in the countryside and I encourage people to stay over. So we have an upgraded VIP ticket where you can have dinner with me, the other speakers and all of the other delegates and stay at the venue. So we've added to the VIP ticket two dinners and two nights accommodation at the venue, which means you can have a drink in the bar with us afterwards and don't have to worry about driving home. And some of you will be traveling quite a distance, so you've got to have somewhere to stay anyway. So the VIP ticket is 999 plus the VAT and that includes everything, including your two nights accommodation at the venue and dinner as well. And that gives you access to the networking event afterwards where you can spend time with people who've already bought businesses, spend time with my finance guys, spend time with all those people and socialize with them. So 999/ VAT is the price of the VIP ticket. Everyone loves the deal. So I've got a deal for you. If you book your ticket while I'm doing the Q and A, and the Q and A, by the way, is coming up in a moment's time, then you can have a VIP ticket that includes the accommodation, includes the dinners for the price of a standard ticket. There you go. So it's effectively, it's half price. So if you'd like to do this, then for 499 plus the VAT, we look after you for three days. You get the three days of training, you leave with the plan, leave with the outcome, leave with knowing what you need to do. You can stay the night for two nights. We've got the dinners, we've got the lunches, where everything laid on. Basically, you have to think about anything from the moment you walk through the door. So what's included? On day one, you've got all of your refreshments throughout the day, got your lunch, you've got your dinner, you've got your overnight accommodation and we've got the training. Starts at 10, finishes at 5. On day two, we've got the breakfast, we've got the lunch, we've got the refreshments, we've got the dinner, we've got the overnight accommodation and then the training from 9 o' clock in the morning to 5 o' clock in the afternoon, with all the socializing straight afterwards. On day three, get up for breakfast, refreshments and lunch. We've got a 9 o' clock the morning and we finish at 3 o' clock in the afternoon on day three, so you can get on your way to be home. So those are our, uh, three days together. The price is 499 plus the VAT. Remember, you're getting that VIP ticket for the price of a standard ticket and this is where you register. It's dealmakers.co.uk/fast26, fast 20 cents. Now, if you go there, you'll see where the next date is, you'll see the venue and you'll see how to book. It's very, very simple, it's very, very easy. And I would encourage you to do it now so that you get the half price ticket to the VIP for the price of the standard. Kind of makes sense. If this is what you want to do, I suggest that you do it now and we spend three days together and we'll get this sorted. You leave with a plan.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to business buying strategies. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe and leave a review. And remember, for more resources and guidance on buying a business, visit dealmakers.co.uk have you downloaded your free business buying toolkit yet? It's packed with resources to help you close your next deal. Get it now@dealmakerspodcast.co.uk. we're back in a fortnight. Until then, here's a your next successful acquisition.

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