If your personal reputation is what brings in the work, you may have a profitable company and an unsellable one at the same time.
That was Gavin Bell’s problem. He was known as the “Facebook Ads Guy” in the UK. Clients hired him because of his name and expertise. Great income, but the business couldn’t be sold because the value lived in him.
So he set out to fire himself as the product.
In this Built to Sell Radio episode, Gavin explains how he rebranded his firm to Yatter, productized the service, documented sales, and replaced himself in delivery. He grew the company to a team of 12 doing roughly $1.5 million a year, then sold it to Velstar with most of the money paid up front and an earn-out he cut down to nine months.
You’ll learn how to:
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Spot the signals that your name is becoming the business
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Break founder-dependence by rebranding the right way
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Hire your first salesperson using a commission-first approach
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Productize a service by naming each step of the client journey
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Use process to boost retention and reduce “where are we at?” churn
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Document sales so one person never holds the keys
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Negotiate an earn-out down from years to months
If your name, profile, or expertise is the main reason clients choose your company, this episode will hit close to home.
Quote of the Week
As long as it was a lifestyle business, the way it was for me at least, I’d created myself a job.
Deals
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Thermolec Ltd., a Montréal-based manufacturer of custom electric duct heating and related solutions for commercial, multi-family residential, and light industrial applications, was acquired by SPX Technologies, Inc. for approximately US$140 million in cash (CA$195 million), a price that equates to about 4.0 times the business’s annual revenue (based on approximately US$35 million in annual revenues).
