Jo Bell's first 5 acquisitions

In this episode, Jo Bell joins us to talk about her business acquisition journey and the lessons that she has learnt. We talk about how being a doer impacts the business and how it can affect your next acquisition. Jo explains that looking at deals as pure numbers can be extremely helpful when you are not sure what a business is worth. She also discusses some of the ways sellers sometimes lie about deals or place too much emphasis on things that really don’t matter in terms of pricing your business correctly. Jo also shares some words of advice to potential business buyers.

Key Highlights

[01:42] Jo’s interesting business acquisition

[02:38] Impacts of being a doer in the business

[09:04] Do you feel that people believe in you?

[10:20] Driving the business and getting onboard with the structure

[11:51] Buying the perfect business

[12:34] What was the next deal?

[15:09] Perfect way of earning money without spending yours

[20:51] Business sellers fabricating customer lists

[23:03] What business buyers should look for when buying a business

[24:12] Seeing deals in factual numbers

[27:27] Balancing positive personalities and realities of business buying

[31:40] Things that business sellers don’t tell you

[32:53] How do you keep yourself positive

[37:06] Advice to people thinking of buying a business

[40:25] Bell’s next plans

Notable Quotes I think learning for me is just to do a lot more due diligence actually because I think, where I'd always gone for the model of buying goodwill and assets, not companies, I didn't see the need to do as much goodwill. Over the years, I’ve become a lot more selective; you know, I’ve realized that there are a lot of practices out there for sale and many businesses for sale. And it's more about the ones who say no than the ones who say yes, whereas maybe previously, I just saw everything as an opportunity. You know, I'm a fixer. So I enjoy the challenge of fixing something, but you then have to question why, you know, when there's stuff there that doesn't need fixing, maybe just needs tweaking or just improving. No matter whether you're buying goodwill and assets or companies do that, due diligence and an accountant can help. So I think, first and foremost, its profitability. That's ultimately the reason why we're all doing this. So you want to ensure that if it's not profitable, now, you sure as hell know how you'll get it profitable.

Resources

If you are looking for a lawyer in the UK to help you get the deal over the line, then use my guy, John Andrews. You can phone his office at (0345) 2412494 or email him at [email protected].

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