Business Buying Strategies from The Dealmaker's Academy · 2026-03-19 · 28 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
60 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Pete's path to business ownership began when he and a business partner attempted to buy the company where the partner worked in 2018, but the deal stalled for two years due to disagreements on deal structure and due diligence. After finding Jonathan Jay through a referral from Rob Muller and attending the Fast Track Mastermind in October 2020, Pete restructured the deal independently, cutting ties with the original investor and using invoice financing against the debtor book, a £100k C-loan, and deferred consideration to close the first acquisition in six months by June 2021. This success unlocked a repeatable playbook: the second business followed in April 2022 using aggregated invoice financing across both companies, the third came as a distressed deal from a competitor in August 2022, and the fourth via corporate finance PR in June 2023. Today the group operates around 50 staff across three businesses within 20 miles and one three hours away, all in industrial radiography and engineering - supplying and supporting X-ray equipment for pipelines and castings. Pete emphasizes the critical importance of deal flow (multiple simultaneous conversations via direct mail to sellers), on integrating complementary management skills (his ops director balances his entrepreneurial risk appetite against his partner Jonathan's technical caution), and maintaining rigorous financial oversight through centralized reporting despite independent business operations. The group generates £6m revenue with 12-15% margins, producing £600-900k annual profit - a stark contrast to his former £50k salary.
Use invoice financing against the company's debtor book, combine it with a C-loan (Pete got £100k over 4-5 years), add a small amount of personal capital, and structure deferred consideration payable from future profits - this creates a self-funding deal where the acquired business's cash generation pays down the debt.
The original investor and Pete's business partner Jonathan couldn't agree on deal structure or initial consideration, the investor kept asking due diligence questions with no follow-through, and Jonathan stayed trapped in the business throughout the negotiations, getting pressure from all sides and damaging the relationship.
When you have only one potential acquisition, you become a motivated buyer and sellers know it, allowing them to extract better terms; multiple simultaneous conversations let you compare deals, choose the best pound-for-pound opportunity, and give sellers the sense you have other options.
Within months of taking over, two or three key staff members left; since the small team (6-8 people) held all business knowledge in their heads, this created a void that was compounded when a finance employee failed to invoice customers, leaving them £500k in arrears to a key supplier who put them on stop.
He focuses on sales, marketing, vision, and direction, specifically on untapping organic growth opportunities that had stagnated in the acquired businesses - activities that benefit from his entrepreneurial skillset rather than the operational and people management he's delegated to others.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains several concrete operational insights (deal financing structures, integration challenges, people management lessons, hiring complementary skills) but suffers from substantial padding and repetition. The host's frequent summary statements and philosophical asides dilute insight density. While Pete's distressed-deal cautionary tale and financing mechanics offer value, they're interspersed with generic motivational points that most business operators already know.
We'd put a little bit of money in ourselves, leverage the debtor book, use the C bills and then deferred consideration.
People without a doubt. You'll go to a seminar, you'll read a book, you'll have an audiobook, whatever it is. They always say the people make or break the business. And until you're in there living and breathing it, you get your own experiences and you don't truly understand.
The core narrative - small-cap engineering acquisition through invoice financing and earned-media success - is competent but not novel in acquisition podcasting. The insights about deal flow, distressed-deal risks, and complementary team composition are well-established in business buyer circles. Pete's specific execution is credible but the frameworks and lessons recycled throughout (multiple options, people are critical, measure numbers carefully) are canonical.
You've got to have deal flow. You can't have one option. Whether you're buying or selling, you can't have one option. As soon as you have one option, you become a motivated buyer.
this is where success breeds success. The more successful you are, the more successful you will be.
Pete is a credible, practitioner-grade guest with material proof of execution: he moved from £50k salaried role to £6M revenue group ownership and four acquisitions in four years. He has genuine operational scars (distressed deal complications, people management struggles) and speaks with specificity about real constraints. However, he is not a marquee name or recognized authority in acquisition, and the scope (4 niche-market businesses, £600-900k profit) is mid-market rather than exceptional scale.
From zero to that in say three and a half years.
Within the first couple of months, we lost two or three key members. It's a small team. Anyway. A lot of the knowledge of the businesses was held in everyone's head.
The episode includes solid specifics on deal mechanics (£100k C-bill loan, 4 - 5 year tenor, invoice financing, aggregated facilities, three businesses within 20 miles, ~50 staff, 12 - 15% margins, £6M revenue, £50k prior salary). However, many claims lack evidence: no names of acquired businesses, no revenue figures per company, no customer concentration data, no details on distressed deal valuation or recovery timelines beyond 'a year, 18 months,' vague language on PR results ("attracting more interest"), and limited hard metrics on organic growth opportunity unlocked post-acquisition.
100k. It was four or five years. We got it over.
Three of them are within a 20 mile radius.
The host asks decent framing questions but rarely pushes back or probe deeply. Follow-ups are often summary statements or tangential asides rather than clarifying challenges. When Pete mentions the distressed deal, the host validates rather than interrogates root causes; when discussing people challenges, the conversation stays at 30,000 feet. The host's frequent long monologues about deal flow, financials, and team complementarity shift focus away from Pete and reduce conversational momentum. No moments of productive disagreement or hard intellectual pressure.
So then you found me. Where did you find me? Was it a podcast or video?
So this is where success breeds success. The more successful you are, the more successful you will be.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
What happens when you stop thinking like an employee… and start thinking like a dealmaker? In this week's episode, Jonathan talks with Pete, a Masterminder who has gone from earning £50k a year to co-owning a group of businesses generating £6 million in revenue - all within just a few years.  Pete's journey started as an apprentice engineer. • One day a week at college • Meeting a future business partner • Years of working for other people • A growing frustration that there had to be something more The opportunity came when they explored buying the business his partner worked in. But the deal dragged on for two years. Nothing happened. Everything changed when Pete discovered Jonathan's approach. Within 6 - 7 months, the deal was done. The biggest shift? Confidence. Once you realise you can do it, everything changes. Pete highlights a critical lesson most beginners miss: Never rely on one deal. Instead: • Send out letters consistently • Build multiple conversations • Create choice and comparison Because the moment you only have one option, you become a motivated buyer. And that's when bad decisions happen.
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. hi, this is Jonathan J. And welcome to Business Buying Strategies, the number one podcast for people interested in buying a business without risking their own cash. So this week my guest is Pete, someone I've known for a number of years, who's got a remarkable story of going from working as an employee to owning the business and then growing a group of businesses with some incredible plans for the future. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, Peter.
Speaker B: Hi, Jonathan.
Speaker A: Thank you for coming down a little earlier. You're at the inner Circle meeting tomorrow and uh, you've come from the, from the distant north of England, sunny Newcastle, down to sunny Richmond for a couple of days. So I really appreciate you coming down. So tell us the story then. Uh, how did your first acquisition first come about? How did you find me and what was the process of doing that first deal?
Speaker B: Yeah, so the first deal, I suppose the origin of the story was 2009. So yeah, 2009 I was in a apprentice as part of the apprenticeship. Apprentice engineer. As part of that one day a week you had to go to college for part of the training. During that one day a week at college I, um, met my now business partner. So we were working for different companies, both training, training engineers went through college. That was a couple of years. We're doing pretty well, Went through university, that was one day a week as well. Still working for different companies. He was at the same business since 2007. So a long time from then I, uh, changed jobs a couple of times, worked for a couple of different employers. And then it got to around 2018ish, the idea of buying the business where the business partner worked. He's actually called Jonathan. So where Jonathan worked that idea started to get floated and because we'd known each other a long time, we both had a similar skill set. We're both engineers by trade. He drifted more technical. I, uh, drifted more entrepreneurial, more business spirited. So he was the natural secession for where he was for the business he was at, but comfortable with the technical side, all of that. But he says if we do this, would you come and look after the business? Would you run the business and I'll do the technical Side like absolutely. That's uh, an opportunity I kind of turned down. So we had a third party who was actually going to put the money in. They were going to fund it, we were going to run it. Good deal, we're going to get a little bit of equity, our own boss. Everything was great. That was around 2018. Fast forward to 2020. The deal still wasn't done. Dragged it out problem after problem. My business partner Jonathan was still in the business, so that was starting to get soured. The relationship was getting strained, the business was starting to suffer a bit. Introduced Covid as well. Just the timing just wasn't good. So I turned a business partner, Jonathan. I was like, there must be something we can do. This has gone on far too long. There must be something we can do. Went away, researched it from Jonathan J. Jumped on the fast track. Mastermind that was in, I think it was the October of 2020, June 21st. Had the deal done. So from meeting Jonathan, package the deal, raised the finance, got it over the line in six, seven months. But during that whole process of doing the fast tracked the mastermind and getting it done, I'd send letters, I'd reached out to other people. I was like, there's so much more to be had here. So In June of 21, we got that first business, which was always the plan. The following April we got business number two. The August after that, business number three, and then the June after that, business number four. So within sort of 3ish years, we went from zero to four businesses.
Speaker A: Okay. And just to give us some idea of revenue, about 6 million. Okay. Some idea of margin around that, float
Speaker B: between 12 and 15%.
Speaker A: Okay. So between 600 and 900,000 profits annually.
Speaker B: Yeah. So from zero to that in say three and a half years.
Speaker A: Can I ask what you were, uh, earning as an employee?
Speaker B: About 50k. Ah, okay.
Speaker A: So quite a difference.
Speaker B: Quite a difference, yeah.
Speaker A: Fantastic, well done. Um, so why did, with the benefit of hindsight and knowing what you know now, why did your now business partner and this investor person find it so difficult to get a deal done that it took them two years and it still didn't go anywhere?
Speaker B: They couldn't agree on deal structure.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: So they couldn't to, uh, the initial consideration and stuff like that. They couldn't agree, they couldn't get through due diligence, so kept asking questions, nothing was coming back time and time again. And your business partner, Jonathan was in the mix of all of this. He was getting from all sides. He was having to still do the job look after the business and then try and negotiate this deal as well.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: It just wasn't working.
Speaker A: So then you found me. Where did you find me? Was it a podcast or video?
Speaker B: Actually think was Rob Muller.
Speaker A: Okay. So it's a kind of a referral sort of type, I think. Okay. So as a result of that, you got some education around how to do an acquisition and then you did it in six, seven months. So how did you structure the deal? Because you didn't have the investor on board for that, did you?
Speaker B: Yeah, so we had to go and find the fund. So yes, this negotiation had been going on a while, but we're essentially had to start from scratch. So we cut ties with the investor. So then it was okay. What deal structure can we put together? So we'd put a little bit of money in ourselves, leverage the debtor book, use the C bills and then deferred consideration.
Speaker A: So you used the C bills?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: What as a bounce back or a, um, full size seals loan?
Speaker B: Full size C bills.
Speaker A: How much did you get?
Speaker B: 100k. 100k? It was four or five years. We got it over. Nice.
Speaker A: Okay. Good interest rate as well.
Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah, very good.
Speaker A: Those were the days.
Speaker B: Good time for borrowing.
Speaker A: Yeah. That allowed you to put the first deal together without the investor. What's happened to that person since?
Speaker B: So they had a business. Uh, they've still got that business. It was actually supplier, so we're still trading with them. Oh, it's fine. Okay. Every now and then he pops up and he's like, can I invest? Too late.
Speaker A: So now you've got business number one. But you've discovered that you can do it. And I think this is just so important when you realize that you can do it and you realize that the only thing holding you back is yourself. You say, I wish I'd done this earlier. Let's now let's get moving to the next deal. How did you find deal number two?
Speaker B: A lot easier. Wasn't involved, Wasn't directly involved, didn't have anything to lose with it. So it was like, let's just go through the process as we send out the batch of letters between doing the fast track and completing on the first deal, when we send out them, batch of letters, load of conversations, met quite a few people, couldn't really get traction with any of them. Then we got this one. So we were hedging our bets that if the first deal doesn't go through, we've got the second deal which will be number one. But if it does go through, it's a fantastic. And then we're off.
Speaker A: And you had good deal flow. Then if you would you speak to several people at the same time?
Speaker B: Yeah, lots of conversations. Just, okay. Kept putting the letters out, kept having the conversations, kept going to them.
Speaker A: So this is the thing you've got to have deal flow. You can't have one option. Whether you're buying or selling, you can't have one option. As soon as you have one option, you become a motivated buyer, in the case of us, uh, here in the room. So you need to have those options because then you've got a sense of comparison. So you've got someone over here that you're talking to and someone over here that you're talking to. You can find out which is the best fit. You can find out which is the best pound by pound deal you can find. But you can't do that if you've only got one. You've got no. You've got no comparison. The more you can compare, the better deals you end up doing.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we got the second one. I think I sent out another batch of letters. Maybe's had some conversations with that, but would suddenly went from nothing to these two businesses. So it was like, oh, that was a bit fast. But then the third deal come along and that was actually a competitor of the first one. And they approached us because they've seen what we were doing. Uh, turns out they wanted out. So it was like, yes, let's do that.
Speaker A: So this is where success breeds success. The more successful you are, the more successful you will be. The more deals you do, the more deals you will do. Because people will approach you because you've gone from someone who maybe they perceived as a talker, huh. To someone who's clearly a doer and someone who can get a deal done. And the number one thing that a seller wants is certainty. They want certainty that you aren't just someone who's going to talk to them, you're actually just someone who can follow through. Now, got the evidence that you followed through. I don't think you did any trade press pr, did you?
Speaker B: Not for the first couple.
Speaker A: Okay. Oh, you have since.
Speaker B: So for the fourth one we did, we pr. We used a corporate, uh, finance firm and then they had done all their PR as well, which is actually attracting more interest.
Speaker A: Absolutely. How did you structure the second one? How did you fund it?
Speaker B: The second one? Invoice financing again, so the debtor book. But we were able to get an aggregated facility with the first one and the second one. We were able to. We didn't overstretch ourselves, but we're able to borrow more. We had more of a pool to work from, so we kept rolling it up.
Speaker A: Nice idea. So you can actually use the business that you've bought to finance business number two alongside what business number two can produce of its own bag.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So we're starting to roll them up. And then third one, it was a distress deal. It was a pound deal. That'll give you some gray hairs. Uh, there's a reason we actually was
Speaker A: talking about this right at the start of the day and we were saying that buying businesses that don't make very much money or businesses are on a knife edge and distressed look all exciting. And I can be the, the hero of the hour by rescuing the business and turning it around. But I said to everyone, what if you can't? Because there could be a reason why this business is shriveling and dying and you don't want to go anywhere near it. So tell us about your experience with that.
Speaker B: Yeah. So it was a small business. I think it was only six, seven, eight people there. Within the first couple of months, we lost two or three key members. It's a small team. Anyway. A lot of the knowledge of the businesses was held in everyone's head. So they went, so how do we fill that void? Then we had problems with some of the employees that were left. Specifically one of the people in the finance department can't really get into it, but they weren't putting invoices into the system. And then the first time we heard of it was a supplier. Ah, come and says you're on Stop. The key supplier. You're on Stop. Why are we on Stop? You owe us half a million quid. What? So then go through all of that fix. Anyway, fast forward a year, 18 months. We've fixed it all. It's all good. It's been a very good investment for us when it's being able to leverage that moving forward. But I wouldn't rush into them lightheartedly unless you. Unless your risk is minimal.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And it takes a thick skin, I think, to deal with a distress situation. And I think you need a little bit of luck as well.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, it doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are, how experienced or skillful you are as a business owner, but those sorts of situations, a little bit of luck, something to go your way. And luck is a terrible business strategy, so you don't want to count on it. Okay. So I don't think we know the Sector, you're very specialized, tell everyone what it is that you do.
Speaker B: Yeah. So we've got four businesses. Three of them are around industrial radiography equipment. So the best example I can give is if you get an X ray, medical X ray of your arm for example. This is equipment for industry. So talking about pipelines, castings, that sort of thing. We supply, we're. The core of our business is engineering and manufacturing. So we supply and support the equipment to do them things.
Speaker A: Very good. So uh, how have you integrated the businesses? Because buying them is one thing, what happens afterwards is another.
Speaker B: So we're still on that integration process. We've got group functions, so we've got people that look after who go from business to business doing back office or finance, better HR operations at group level. But they're still operating quite independently at the moment and we're working on bringing that together.
Speaker A: Are they located in the same area?
Speaker B: Yeah, so that's. You can see a look at another part of it. Three of them are within a 20 mile radius.
Speaker C: Oh wow.
Speaker B: So visit them all in a day quite comfortably. And the fourth one is uh, that's.
Speaker A: That is convenient.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Then the fourth one's about three hours away so you can still get there.
Speaker A: Not so bad. Yeah. And uh, tell us about your head office type function. So the. How you run the finances, the people. How many staff do you have?
Speaker B: There's around 50.
Speaker A: Okay. So there's some degree of HR function, how you run. I suppose there's not so much is there sales and marketing. How do you.
Speaker B: We. We've structured our sales marketing team around the engineers. So because the engineers are always going to site, we'll turn them so that they're in.
Speaker A: Do you incentivize them to. Do you give them a not efficient. Some sort of commission type for.
Speaker B: No, because we're, we really don't want them when they go into site they've got a job to do and we don't want them standing talking to Mr. Customer to try and get the commission.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker B: So we're trying to balance that but we do incentivize them in other ways. Yearly bonuses if the business does well and things like that. Uh, okay.
Speaker A: Okay. So how have you. Or have you centralized finance?
Speaker B: No. So they're still operating as individual businesses but we've got a couple of people who see everything. So okay. To see the facilities. We've got the bank accounts and everything that the company loans, if there's cash moving around, management charges backwards and forwards so that we've got people who got that holistic overall deal and what's the
Speaker A: job title of that person? Is it a financial controller? Is it?
Speaker B: We've got the ops director. She's got really good financial background. And we've got a financial controller as well.
Speaker A: Fantastic. Okay.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: So you're on the numbers.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: And can I just say as a rule of thumb that the business buyers and also sellers who are all over the figures, all over the numbers are the winners. Always those who have a very disconnected. We're not quite sure what we're doing. It feels all right because we've got some money in the bank. Those guys, they never get the result that they want with the business they purchased. And. And those people never get the result they want when they try and sell a business either because it's an opportunity for a buyer to reduce the sales price because of uncertainty around the financials. You've got to be absolutely on it. And these days there's so much software that can consolidate. For example, if you're running zero on four companies, there's software, I think we talked about it in a circle that consolidates zero reporting so you can get a consolidated view. And if you're selling as a group, uh, essential.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely, yes. You're speaking about the sort of group level functions. It was important to me, Jonathan, that we've got somebody complimentary to us. Yeah. So I'm quite entrepreneurial in spirit. Bit of a risk taker. Got a good appetite for risk, Jonathan hasn't. Super technical, doesn't really like risk. But we realized between us we've got a huge operations gap. So that's why we went and got an ops director to fill that. So we spend a lot of our times button head. But it's good because we've got a common goal.
Speaker A: I suppose also that tension, that sort of being able to have a different approach flushes out opportunity. Because if you're all saying yes and uh, say yes to each other, then you don't have any challenging of ideas, do you?
Speaker B: It flushes out opportunity. It flushes out risk as well.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: So yes, I'll have a blind side which is covered by.
Speaker A: Yeah, so you might have to just do it. But someone else is saying, but hang on, if we do that, have you thought of these concepts?
Speaker B: So we went from I've, um, done this, how do we fix it? To let's think about this a bit better. We're getting better.
Speaker A: So in actual fact, even though you might feel as though it's holding back the entrepreneurial side of you you're actually getting a better result with better run companies than if you were just being entrepreneurial.
Speaker B: The end goal is that the end result is a lot better now.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Where but I do get the frustration of why can't I do this? They're like will you just stop doing this without asking?
Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So without building fair with a larger business it there, there does need to be that entrepreneurial flare tempered by a very detailed approach to financials and someone who runs the operations in such a way that you're not leaking costs.
Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. I keep getting told as well to have realistic time frames. That's.
Speaker A: He won everything yesterday. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. What? You've gone from employee to the co owner of a 6 million revenue business with four distinct businesses companies underneath. What have been the biggest learning curves for you, Peter?
Speaker B: It's definitely people.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: People without a doubt. You'll go to a seminar, you'll read a book, you'll have an audiobook, whatever it is. They always say the people make or break the business. And until you're in there living and breathing it, you get your own experiences and you don't truly, you don't. Or uh, me personally never truly understood. I did understand the importance of it when I was listening to the audiobook or if I was at a seminar. Yes, people are important, but how important never actually sunk in. And it was difficult. So we'd take over, we take over business. You do a bit of a speech with everybody, everything's lovely, you start digging. You won't cover stuff, of course you do. And then it's okay. Gotta make payroll, gotta pay any suppliers, gotta make sure customers happy. But then you've got the people going. You haven't spoke to us in three days or I want me review or it's pay negotiations or why didn't you tell us about this new machine or whatever it is. And it's simple basic stuff which is easy to overlook but very important to the people.
Speaker A: I think you can take for granted, can't you? You can say why can't. If you're an entrepreneurial self starter you just assume everyone else is exactly the same. And if you can just get on with it, you assume everyone else can get on with it. But many people, maybe most people need ongoing encouragement and management. No one likes the idea of being micromanaged. But leave them alone for three days and it's gone too far the other way. So it's this steering the ship all the time.
Speaker B: Yes, and it's fine. That's just Some people are different and it's okay, but you've just got to manage that. And that wasn't a skill set I have and I overlooked it. So that was a big learning.
Speaker A: Now if you developed it, it's a
Speaker B: bit better than it was. But, uh, I wouldn't ask mater for a new operation set.
Speaker A: So we talked this morning also about how you fill the gaps in your own knowledge and skills by hiring other people. And I'm a not a good people, uh, manager. So you find someone who is, who loves sitting down and doing the one to ones who loves giving the sort of the Monday morning motivational speech and doing that. Because if you find that person to look after the people, then you have lower staff turnover. New hires are integrated better into the business. So you're not. I've had people start. Not recently, but you said people start working for me and then come and say to me once told me what to do and I'm thinking, dude, isn't it obvious? There was a job description. You just sit down and do it. But people actually want to be onboarded properly and all of these things. And quite often if you're the person who started the business and you have that entrepreneurial nature, that's not really part of your, your skill set. So just get someone who is, for the sake of paying someone 40, 50, 60,000 a year to not have to pay 40, 50, 60,000 in recruitment costs, advertising, sorting out disputes between employees, people feeling as though someone that people can get upset about someone looking at them the wrong way these days. I didn't know that way he looked at me. And it's like you just need someone who can steady the shit all the time. It is worth every penny of that 60,000. Every penny.
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. If whatever your skill set is, I would get the complementary skill sets to go with you because you do it all. And the bigger you get, the less you can do.
Speaker A: The less you can do personally.
Speaker B: Yeah, the less you can do personally. And it depends where you want to concentrate. If you want to concentrate on growth by acquisition, good place to be. You're going to need people to, to deal with you. That stuff. The stuff you were doing or the stuff you're not doing because you'll only get away with it for so long before it patches up with you.
Speaker A: And how do you spend your day, your week, your months, what do you do now?
Speaker B: At the moment, I'm pretty much the sales and marketing side of it. Okay. So sat there looking after the vision, the direction of everywhere we're Going because we took on established businesses and it just so happened to be. They were all retainment sales. So the businesses, uh, stale's the wrong word. But they definitely stagnated a bit. So there was oodles of. Excuse me. Getting excited. There was oodles of organic opportunity within there which just were just waiting to be untapped. And because we bought a competitor, you pop them two together.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: It opened up this whole other world and opportunity for us. So there's a lot of organic stuff in there which we're starting to realize now. So that's what I'm. Um.
Speaker A: And how do you. Because you don't want to be sucked into the day to day too much. What's the plan for extricating yourself from.
Speaker B: From that. So once. Once. Ah. I'm trying to balance that with cash flow because very conscious about just going, hiring a load of people and then trying to find the money. So I'm slowly building the systems up, building the new products and service of building the new revenue streams up and then backfilling them so somebody can take them over.
Speaker A: So you're doing it in quite a measured way rather than a. Let's hire lots of people on the. There's nothing worse than lots of people starting on the same day. Have you ever done that? Lots of new starts in the site. It just doesn't work. You need to do it slowly and carefully.
Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And because we've got a. We're in a. We're in a niche, we're very specialized, we're in a fortunate position and we don't want to ruin that. So we want to. Want to. Want to protect that and do it properly.
Speaker A: Yeah, very good. And so you've been in the inner circle group for a couple of years and we've got quite a mix of different sectors and things. So share with everyone some of the things that you've learned from the group and from other people in the group and what they're doing and. And how it's impacted and affected you.
Speaker B: It is good. Not just the inner circle, but the first time I come to the Mastermind or uh, the first time I come to a live event because it was. I think it was all still online.
Speaker A: It sounds like it would have been during COVID Yeah, it was all still online.
Speaker B: The first time I'd come I was like, oh, who buy businesses? What does a business buyer look like? Who's going to be in the room? Who am I going to meet? Uh, can I be a business buyer? I hope so. I'M coming along. So you go along and you meet and everyone's just, just all walks of life, all different people, different sectors and you're like, yeah, any, any, anyone can do it. So that was a big thing from coming to the events, talking with different people, different sectors, what they're up to and thinking, getting that confidence. Yeah, you can do it. And then the inner circle is the thing with. Definitely the thing with deal making is you teach a fantastic process and everything like that and you can be as creative as you like. There's no. This is the way you do it. You provide a framework and a process which you can, which you should follow, but you can be creative and you can mix it up. And there's different ways of financing, there's different ways of structuring deals. Uh, there's limitless ways of doing it. And when you come to the inner circles and when you come to the mastermind, you'll hear the creative ways people have come up with stuff and you're like, that's a really good idea. Or they'll spark a bit of inspiration in you and you're like, oh, I like the way they done the deal. But if I deal with this for that, they'll get it over the line and everyone sort of wins.
Speaker A: So the journey has been over a period of. Is coming up to five years.
Speaker B: Four.
Speaker A: Four years.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker A: What would you say your biggest learning has been? That you can share with everyone that they can take away and remember when they are doing this, what you said, Peter, Action.
Speaker B: You've got to take the action. And don't get too hung up on a deal. You might think it's the best deal ever and your whole life depends on this deal. You want to come to the next meeting and share your success story, but don't do a deal for the sake of doing a deal because it'll just come back and bite you. It's okay saying no and walking away from it. Another thing as well, I know correct as if speak out a turn, but I know you're always trying to get the best deal ever. But again, don't negotiate your way out of a deal yet. And you can compromise on some things to get it over the line. If you're going to buy something for a million quid and whatever that deal structure is, it's. It might be okay to pay 1.1. Don't miss out on the deal for a couple of quid when you're going to get it back and you'd fold
Speaker A: a quick at any point think when you were a salaried employee that you'd be talking about whether it's 1 million or 1.1 million really doesn't make much difference. Your life must have changed beyond description in four years.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's been a massive change. I definitely feel like I've grown into what I was meant to be doing. I've always thought I'll work for myself, but I assumed it would be in some sort of subcontracting capacity in an engineering trade. That's what I'd assumed. But this opportunity opened up and grabbed it with both hands.
Speaker A: Let's give this man a huge round of applause. Thank you very much for coming down, Taylor. Thank you.
Speaker C: Hi, this is Jonathan. And if you would like to learn how to buy a business without any personal risk and without putting your own cash into the deal, you need to come to my three day live in person Fast track program. I'm going to be teaching you the exact business buying system used by thousands of my clients around the world over the last 10 years. Over three days, I'll show you stage, step by step, the complete business buying process from deciding what type of business to buy all the way through to funding it, financing it, and then selling it at some point in the future. So if you'd like to join me on the fast track program, go to dealmakers.co.uk fast track. So get yourself booked and I will see you on the very next fast track program.
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