In this episode, we discuss a real life case of a business sale gone wrong and look at the common mistakes made when selling a business, with Marcus Nicholls of Business Couples Success who shares his personal story of selling his business which he did not once, but one and a half times! If you too are gearing up to sell your business now or in the future, this is one episode not to miss.
Episode Highlights:
- Marcus on building and selling his business
- The initial exit process route
- The end results
- Selling the business the second time
- Lessons learned from the exit process
Today we talk with Marcus Nicholls, a business coach, speaker, author and top 10% member. Marcus shares his real life experience of setting up his business and the story behind why his attempt at selling was an unfavorable one in the first instance, and how he ultimately got to a successful sale. Marcus shares with us lessons learned and his top tips for when it comes to gearing up for exit.
Connect with Marcus
Business Couples Success Website
Business Couples Success Survey
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Transcript below!
Note: This has been automatically transcribed so will be full of errors! We are not providing it to you as a word-perfect version of the podcast but just as an easy way to provide you with a different way to be able to see or scan what kind of information that might be relevant to you if you are the kind of person that likes a transcript.
Joanna: Hi, it’s Joanna Oakey here and welcome back to The Deal Room podcast, a podcast proudly brought to you by our commercial legal practice Aspect Legal. Now today we have on the show, Marcus Nicholls, who’s giving us a recount from a real-world perspective about the mistakes not to make when selling your business. And Marcus’ recount comes from his own experience in selling his business not once but twice. Well, let’s call it one and a half times gave the first attempt didn’t go so well. So if you gearing up for an exit of your business now or into the near future, you might find that this episode contains a lot of lessons that might be really useful for you to understand as you’re gearing up for exit. Well, that’s it. Here we go with our discussion with Marcus.
Joanna: Marcus, I just want to say a massive thank you for joining us on The Deal Room podcast today.
Marcus: Fabulous. Thanks, Jo. I really appreciate you being invited and I hope we can distill some wonderful content for your fabulous guests.
Joanna: I tell you what, these will be really big. This is really good content. In terms of a store. I just love the stories. I love the stories working through how people have felt in that period of selling, and then on reflecting where they see, you know, what were some things you know, pop out that they think that they could use to I guess provide insight for people who haven’t gone through the process before and that’s where the stories are just so helpful because it doesn’t really matter how many times I talk about things from a legal perspective, the best way of people understanding what it feels like to sell a business is by hearing from someone who sold their business. So I just want to say a massive thank you, Marcus, for coming on board and talking about your experience.
Marcus: Yep. No, absolutely more, more than happy to share. Because there’s been a few trials in the process, so it would be a bit of fun.
Joanna: Oh, yes. All right. So now you are part of an unusual crew, I guess of people that have sold your business. not once, but twice. Is this correct? Am I telling the truth?
Marcus: Yes, you are telling the truth. And yeah, there are certainly not many people that have successfully sold their business twice. Yeah, well, I wouldn’t say successfully. If we sold it twice successfully, we wouldn’t have happened the first time
Joanna: Okay, so just give us a bit of a rundown. Why, how is it that you came to sell your business twice? Or Well, maybe we’ll call it 1 and a half times, I guess.
Marcus: So we obviously made the decision to sell the business, put it on the market.
Joanna: And sorry, before we do that, I just want to lay the groundwork a little bit here. So the business that we’re talking about here is a pet resort business is that right?
Marcus: Yes, that is correct. We had run out at this point for 18 years. Built it from a very small country kennel you would sort of say, up into a sort of a multi-million dollar pet resort and built a new complex and we really took it to another level. So we had sort of, you know have a play park, like a swimming pool and bought a fan pack for dogs. And we had Yeah, all the TVs and roasted chicken dinners and you name it, it was available, we even had chicken ice cream…
Joanna: Chicken ice cream?
Marcus: Yeah, beef ice cream, you know, all the bits and pieces that people are really after nowadays, you know because people really treat their animals at a whole other level than they used to, you know, 30 years ago and really want the things that they have at home to be the same when they actually put them into an indoor pet resort. So and that’s what we focused on
Joanna: being 18 years in the making
Marcus: Yes, 18 years.
Joanna: It was your business baby, I guess.
Marcus: It was, it took a lot of love, you know, love and learning, you know?
Joanna: I do understand and uh, you know, it’s a long journey. 18 years is a long journey in business. A lot of highs, a lot of lows.
Marcus: Yeah, we actually opened our new facility on the week that Lehman’s fell over. Oh wow. Everyone that knows the GFC. So the week Lehman’s fell over, we opened our new pet resort that had just spent a few million dollars building it, and opened our doors. And it was like, well, that’s a good start.
Joanna: But obviously, you know, and presumably that was a hard time for a while, but obviously it bounced back. Then over time.
Marcus: Yeah, then certainly, it allowed you to really, really focus and just go, Okay, well, where is our market? What are we doing, how we’re going about it? And let’s rebuild, because it was an instant sort of 20% 20 to 25% drop overnight in clientele?
Joanna: Well, actually, you know, and I guess as an aside, and this was not the point of what we’re discussing today, but, gosh, you just never know what comes out when you start talking. Right. As an aside, this is perhaps a really interesting sort of thought point for people who are sitting, who have businesses that have been fundamentally stressed by this, you know, this really challenging times that we’re in right in the middle of COVID. And you said something right then that I just thought was really interesting. You said we really had to take a look at our model and re-look at how that model works. I thought that’s really interesting. So you realize you needed to make changes to make it successfully through with that what happened?
Marcus: Yeah, yeah, basically, basically just sort of pulled the business apart and put it back together in a way that we knew would help to regrow it, and to make it better moving forward to just relying on what we had done up to that point.
Joanna: And when you did that, were you thinking of exit at that point as well, you were you thinking of building something that was more solid to exit?
Marcus: We’d always planned to exit we weren’t to sure when we would do that. But it was always on our agenda that we were building a business to get to the point where we could effectively run it under management. Or we could exit it successfully through a sale versus it being Reliant wholly and solely on process from the individual people at the coalface of it.
Joanna: Yeah, that’s great. Because many business owners, you know, perhaps don’t build a business with the idea of exit in mind. But I guess it is one of the opportunities if you want to put on an optimistic hat of the times that we’re in at the moment, it’s giving everyone the opportunity to rethink about their business model, what it looks like for the future, and perhaps now to build in a business that’s stronger for an exit and then have to pause pre-COVID.
Marcus: Yep, that’s absolutely, you know, and certainly making people yeah, really does make people read really focus on those sort of things and what’s important, looking at their revenue streams, you know, what’s is it like the scenario of, you know, 80% of my revenue comes from 20% of my business, you know, 20% of my customers, so it’s like, Okay, well, do we shed these other sections or not? Or, you know what things do we actually sort of change? And what lifestyle do we really want moving forward?
Joanna: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So okay, so you went through these highs and lows and then highs again. And then after 18 years, you came to the point of sale, how long did you think about selling before you actually put it on the market?
Marcus: We have been thinking about it a little bit, but I was over in Mexico getting some treatment. And through that process, I made the decision that well when I say I made the decision I mean. we are a couple so my partner was fundamentally involved in it, but at that point I said to her, I really think we should look at putting it on the market when I get back and so that was the consideration of the first stage of looking at that. That was back in 2015 and then it took us probably a year and a half before we actually then finally got it to market.
Joanna: yeah, and isn’t that interesting? I mean, it’s interesting that it took one and a half years to get to market. I think many business owners just don’t understand how long the processes between having the idea that you want to exit and then actually getting to the point of exit and sometimes far longer. And we’ll come back to that in a moment, but we’re talking just about the first sale in inverted commas, one and a half years. Did you have you expected that it wouldn’t be that long? Was that something that you know, was a surprise?
Marcus: Yes and no, we weren’t in a hurry if that makes sense. We weren’t going right. Yep. We You know, I’m back. We were going to put this on the market ASAP. We were going okay. This is where we want to be we want to exit and we want to exit sooner than not sooner than later. But let’s start doing the groundwork of you know, considering looking for a business broker or considering getting out, but all the financials of the business looking more appropriate to sale. Often when you run your own business, they don’t necessarily look appropriate for a sale because of the way we all like to run our business. So there had to be some time spent on that going through that process and just cleaning those are the bits and pieces are then and considering those sorts of options. So I always knew that was going to be at least a year to probably two years, and then it was probably going to take a year to two years to sell.
Joanna: Yep, yep. Okay. All right. So let’s talk about this experience than the first time around so so how long was it on the market for and and how did that work?
Marcus: So we ended up engaging a broker who approached it in a different way, from the sale point of view, and when got a massive interest in it, like substantial interest in it and had multiple people wanting to buy it, which opened us up to get a real premium on potentially what the business was worth at that right at that point of time. And some people put an offer in that we accepted and went through the process. I signed all the paperwork, did all the bits and pieces that were needed. And we got to the point of them actually taking over the day before settlement, they booked a meeting with our broker and said, We don’t have the money to settle, our finances have been held up but can we come in and operate the business under license?
Joanna: Wow. And so how did you feel at that moment when you found out about that? I mean, I guess you had made plans for that completion date is that right? Because I think it’s also important to explain, you know, having a business for 18 years and then exiting is a massive thing in itself. But this was also where you lived as well, wasn’t it? So I think that’s important to understand as well what I mean moving trucks will probably ready to line up to come in the following days. Is that what it was?
Marcus: It was actually more than we’d already gone already emptied everything. So our plan at that point in time was a bang that we’ve been in one location for so long and hadn’t really had the opportunity to travel. My partner and I had effectively just got rid of everything. So we emptied the house. We had a tiny storage Bay that had our artwork and business files in it. And that was it, everything else we owned, fitted in the back of the car, and we were hitting the road and having fun.
Joanna: Wow. And so that’s it. You’re sitting there while all you had left is your stool and your campfire saying well this it, our last night let’s say goodbye. And then you get the call.
Marcus: Yeah. So we undenied about whether letting them under license. But there were two factors that came into play. One was that they said it would be two to three weeks was one of the factors. The second factor was that we had empty everything. So we didn’t have cutlery, we didn’t have glasses. We didn’t have furniture, you know. So, if we chose to stay, we were staying in an empty house with nothing. We’d also obviously the buyer had chosen to take all the staff on under new contracts. So we actually had to, to notify all the staff a couple of weeks earlier. That they wouldn’t have a job in two weeks. It’s basically gone through all that process. So we didn’t actually officially have any staff.
Joanna: Oh, my goodness and your terminations of the staff were contingent on the on completion. Oh my goodness.
Marcus: Everything like you, it was effectively the day before settlement. So everything had been done that needed to be done for the settlement to go through. And then to get that news. We decided to let them in under license.
Joanna: And so what did that look like at the time? What was the intention? What did you think was going to happen at that point?
Marcus: Well, what we thought was going to happen as it would be for two to three weeks, and then we would settle and we would then continue on with our new life.
Joanna: And that’s not what happened.
Marcus: And that’s not what happened. So, you know, like our actual contract of sale did have some things in its place in relation to not necessarily worrying in relation to interest incompletions and things like that. which went for the first sort of three weeks. And then they came back to us and sort of said, No, it’s been held up, it’s going to take a bit longer. So we had to do a new licensing agreement at that point of which we then needed to make sure we were getting enough money from the licensing agreement to be able to live because we didn’t have we known another house who will go into we were just going to be free and easy and that we still had a mortgage. We still had a mortgage on the property that we had to make. So and we still had, effectively all the assets we still own in the business. There was all that component tree as well. So it meant that the licensing agreement needed to be big enough to be able to cover all of those components, which was agreed to and only went for another month.
Joanna: And then what happened?
Marcus: And then we signed another License Agreement.
Joanna: Oh, my goodness, holy Dooley. And so at this time were there, you know, securities or a personal guarantee?
Marcus: The personal guarantees, right from the word doc before we actually did the sale anyway, they had sign personal guarantees and all that was already in place as part of the sale process. But it was one of those sorts of situations that you just didn’t think was gonna go on. And we let it go on, you know, because that was part of the issue too because, at the end of the day, we want to go back. Yeah, yeah, we had emotionally made the decision to move on. And we had moved on, it was a really hard thing to consider going back in when you had when you’d moved on from that business and everything that had, yeah, which was really hot and consequently we let it go on longer than we ever should have.
Joanna: And how long did it go on for?
Marcus: 13 months.
Joanna: 13 months? and what happened in the end? Obviously letting cough up the cash.
Marcus: Yeah, no they didn’t. The end result was we had to terminate the licensing agreement, terminate the sale contracts, and go back in.
Joanna: and so presumably you didn’t just let it go with the purchases, presumably you then had an action that you had to consider against the purchases. What happened there and you probably can’t talk much about it. But you know, was that something that went on for a while? Was that something that was expensive?
Marcus: Yeah, and we did make the decision to legally chase them for a failed sale and that process has been taken a number of years and a few hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. So we’re aiming that that outcome will be in our favor at some point in the near future.
Joanna: Wow. Okay. All right. So that sale number one, let’s talk about sound number two and I’m hoping Fingers crossed. I do know the outcome, but I’m hoping Fingers crossed. It’s a more positive outcome. So, so I guess Firstly, you had to go back into the business and take the business owner over again. Is that right? How was it when you went and took it over?
Marcus: We had run a very systematized business, which was part of the reason we could step away a little bit from it from every component of what we did and how we did it because we were very focused on offering the highest quality of care we could at a consistent level. So everything we did was very systematized. Everyone knew what they were doing. And we walked back into a business that was a mess. Yeah. And that didn’t include obviously all the damage and other bits and pieces that had gone on in the time we weren’t there.
Joanna: That must have been a huge energetic effort. You know, like the energy in building a business once is massive but when you’re when you feel like you should be out of it I can only imagine how difficult it must be to get in there and be all the energy to do it all again. How did you do that?
Marcus: With lots of tears and a lot of bottles of champagne. We have a policy in our house. We drink champagne on good days and we drink champagne on bad days.
Joanna: All right, yeah, I was gonna say because quite often, of course, champagne is thought of as the celebration, but I imagine there was a period of time where there wasn’t a lot of celebrating.
Marcus: No, so there was lots of bottles of champagne for bad guys. A lot of bad days. But what what it really taught us was that it helped that we knew the systems, we knew how to run the business well, and we just had to go back to it. We just had to really implement all of that. And it was a real lesson for us in one in realizing that emotionally, we could go back in so opposed to thinking, now I can’t, it’s going to destroy me or you know, all those sorts of emotional things we have. We actually got to the point of going well, you know, we actually learned that we could, yeah, we could rise to it, we could go back in. But the other thing that taught us to was, was the idea that how hard it is for business owners to set up their businesses to run in a systematized way, although we knew what we were doing. It still took us four months to five months to get that business functioning and systematized again, just in the way we used to do, which was phenomenal, really. And we knew it all. So there were some real lessons through the process. And as I said, lots of tears, but you know, there was no, you know, you had to get up every day and you had to go and do what you needed to do. You couldn’t, you couldn’t not and if you didn’t, you were then going to destroy everything that you had done for the last 18 years. You were just gonna let it all go. And it was worth too much to us personally to do that. Not from a monetary point of view, just simply emotionally.
Joanna: Yeah. And so then once you went back in, took it over again. How long did it take you before you could get it back on the market and get it sold again?
Marcus: Well, I knew that it took three to four months of just legal stuff, and through to end all contracts and things like that. Just send this legal letter off then you wait for 28 days and then you send the next legal letter off and all the rest of it. And then outside of that, we knew that because the way the financial years have fallen from the date we’d sold the business we knew that we didn’t have any financial figures and we’d spent close to 100,000 on fixing stuff or bit over 100,000 fixing stuff when we went back in there we destroyed effectively three years of financial figures wow so we knew that basically it was going to be we would have been back a year and a half before we were at a point of having correct financial figures moving forward for someone to really look at we so we were thinking it was a four-year process four to five-year process. Wow, put the business back on the market.
Joanna: Wow, and is that how to eventuated?
Marcus: It was not how it eventuated, what happened was we sited the website that had been created for the sale of the business the first time, we put that back up there, but we did no marketing or advertising of it. We just simply put the website up and thought, Well, if someone is looking, who knows. And in the space of about six months after we’d gone back in we had a couple of interested parties come looking. Now, I think to some degree, one of those parties was simply looking for a cheap buy. The party was genuinely looking. But at the end of the day, the finances didn’t stack up and the business was no longer as running as well as it was. And we knew that we wouldn’t get the premium we got the first time, but we negotiated through and the end result was we ended up selling the second time to actually two people we really like. So we’re really happy, with the people we sold to. We lost about a million dollars in the sale price. In the second time around so it was .. yeah, sure it hurts financially, there’s no question about that but it also then allows us to move on, you know, and we knew, it’s like sort of opportunities lost if you stay somewhere for too long. You miss future opportunities because you’ve just simply have been fixated on trying to hang on to something that you had already made an emotional decision to move on from and still wanted to have moved on.
Joanna: Yeah. Oh, well, look, it’s great that in the end, you were able to sell it successfully and not be bound to it. I guess for that four to five years that you’re concerned it might take. So then reflecting back on your experiences, what do you feel are the main lessons and pointers that you’d like to give to our listeners? who are, you know, probably many of them right in the throes of getting ready to exit their business what’s the sort of things that you wish someone had have said in a podcast to you before you started down that track?
Marcus: It’s, you know, like all these things, it’s always your that advisers around your will sort of say it’s your decision, but sometimes you just have to hold with what you believe is right for you. But there is a few things that I definitely would never ever do again. One would be I would make sure the deposit that someone has paid upfront is correct. At least 10% of the business sale price
Joanna: And it sounds like it wasn’t in your case?
Marcus: Yeah not in our case, and if it hadn’t been they would never have gone through in the first place.
Joanna: Oh, right. So you mean they just didn’t have the financial capacity?
Marcus: Yeah, they didn’t have that much cash sitting there.
Joanna: So I mean, it’s a good point, isn’t it that a deposit acts as a, as a filter for someone who is geared up enough to be able to complete when I say gear, I mean, prepared financially for being able to properly complete and I think you make a really good point of failure to be able to meet that should set off red flags that you know, should be investigated in terms of questioning the ability of a purchaser to complete if they’re not able to provide the full deposit. So that’s a really good point. And did you have any reservations at the time when you were thinking about, you know, changing the deposit approach?
Marcus: I did. But we were, I guess, sort of just get into the focus on this sort of sale and thinking, Okay, you know, and it wasn’t you know, I was aware it should be higher. But I wasn’t thinking it was. It was, you know, extremely bad, I guess you would say.
Joanna: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I had no idea of what it could have created as an outcome.
Marcus: So that’s certainly the first thing the second would be never, ever, ever, ever leave your business?
Joanna: Yeah. Yeah. Well, before you get paid
Marcus: Do not walk out that door. Do not do a licensing agreement. Do not do any of that. Although, you know, you might argue licensing agreements work well for some people on our whole. It’s one of those sorts of situations. that someone can destroy your business very quickly, once they get in there. I would never ever let anyone under any circumstances, I would ever do that again.
Joanna: You know, it’s interesting that we’re talking about this because, you know, having a component of the purchase price deferred or contingent on performance of the business into the future is quite a usual occurrence as in and you know, it’s a way of overlaying I guess, something that can happen more regularly across your instance, which is much rarer that someone just completely fails to complete. But it’s interesting, isn’t it because it does highlight the issues when you’re looking at anything. That’s a deferred payment in any way, and having to really think through seriously, the potential risk that the deferred payments won’t be made. And so really getting clear on how it is that you’ll, you’ll ensure that those payments are made or retain enough controlling the business that you can preserve the value in it if they aren’t paid. So,
Marcus: Absolutely, yeah. Because and it does have as you’re saying, it happens a lot with a lot of businesses the deferred payment component based on its performance over the next couple of years, or whatever it may actually be. And it’s a real problem. If you’re not up the boots on the ground, a person effectively running that business in the way that you know how to run it in. There are no guarantees that the people that you’ve handed it off to are going to do it in the same light that you are. So you really do run the risk of losing those components. So making sure that you have an enough fail space in there, that it’s not your fault, you know, in any shape or form, you know, I mean, you might wonder what would happen if you were selling a business during just before COVID-19 and had a deferred payment?
Joanna: Absolutely.
Marcus: And it is right out of your control. It is all these little things that need to be considered and thought about in that scenario. Absolutely.
Joanna: Yeah. Okay, fabulous. And what else were the learnings? Were there other ones sitting in there,
Marcus: Those are the two massive ones, which I should have done and what I should have done more obvious, is actually really done the investigations into the buyers to make sure that they were financially able to do the sale in the first place. Yeah, because there is a lot more you can do in that space that we didn’t do.
Joanna: Yeah, it’s interesting. I guess because one of the reasons that you ended up with such you know, such a great price the first time around was because you had a lot of competitive tension it sounds like so lots of potential buyers, but partly that was because it was an unusual marketing strategy that was used to hit people who may not have otherwise been thinking about buying a business. But I guess the flip side of that is, then you need to add to that really strong filters to ensure that the net that you’re casting in isn’t full of people who therefore don’t have the capability to buy a business because they haven’t gone through enough of the process themselves before the idea has hit them to buy a business, so you know,
Marcus: Absolutely. You know, and the other component of that is, the pen industry is a love industry. So there’s a lot of people who like In all the years that we ran the pet resort, you know, I would say a huge amount of our customers, and suppliers and other bits and pieces would say to us, I really want this is all I really want to do is what you do. You know, I’d love to own something like this. But there’s the desire of I would love to own and the actual realization of the, in todays like the multi-millions of dollars that you actually need to do it. It’s no longer this sort of, I guess I could do that for you know, it’s not like a service-based business that you can start cheaply. You know, you’ve got to buy the property, you’ve got to build the infrastructure. You’ve got to have all that and it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s a different style of business that requires you to move past just the love component of it. And that’s all whenever you sell a love industry, business, you’re always going to Have those people you know, and that’s where you have to really do the due diligence to make sure that the people who are genuine, are actually correct. And they need to know. I mean, on that story and our first we had an open day where we had about 40 different people come through looking at the business in relation to buying it. And there was one of those people halfway through, he said, Can I have a meeting with you in the broker? And because I want to know what I need to do to take this off the market. And we sat down with him, and I got a gut feeling instantly that he didn’t have the cash. Right. I knew it straight away. But we had to go through the process. Yeah, we didn’t take it off the market. He had to produce enough stuff for us to want to take it off the market, but we knew he couldn’t. Yeah, he couldn’t have it. But that’s the thing of the love industry. Yeah, you sell a business, you’re always going to get those people, unfortunately.
Joanna: And so what did you do differently the second time around, obviously, moving into the sale process, you’re very scared, very heightened. Understanding that things can go wrong. What is it that you did that second time around to feel confident that the buyer had the capacity to complete?
Marcus: and so a second time around, obviously, we got the right deposit.
Joanna: Haha Right, okay. Yep. The first tip, they can come up with a deposit. Okay, right.
Marcus: We didn’t move out of the business. It was the day Off settlement. And we also did a little bit of looking into the buyers these were actually a couple of young guys who had actually bought a number of other pet resorts and boarding kennels. And we were their fifth acquisition.
Joanna: So they had a track record. They knew what they were doing. And then you had a run that clearly knew what the business involved and how to run it. Yeah. And it looked really sensible. Yeah.
Marcus: And the things that we’re asking for, like, you know, they wanted to two months’ worth of training. Hmm. Which we agreed to, that had to be obviously paid. It wasn’t part of the sale price. They had to pay us for that for those two months, then happened after the sale was completed. But things like that there was a whole lot of little things like the initial sale, we had off about two weeks worth of training and we didn’t do any
Joanna: Wow, goodness and the first buyers had no looking back on it. They’d had no experience like the second set of buyers in terms of running that type of business. Is that right?
Marcus: The first set of buyers, yeah, no, not really. It was a group of three people and one of them had to experience that she was sort of she was going to be running it but not running it. I thought it was going to be sort of run because we had managers and the price pretty much ran itself. But at the end of the day, you don’t need a business to run itself. You always have to have an eye on it. You’ve always got to be, you know, not front and center every day, but you have to be there, you know, vertically smaller businesses when you get into the corporate world. It’s a whole other kettle of fish obviously. Yes, yes, as a small one. As a small business owner. The business is only run as well as they do when someone at the helm is controlling it and running it.
Joanna: Yeah. Well, look, I just want to say a massive thank you, Marcus. This has just been, you know, really illuminating. I think you’ve come up with some really good points as well for business owners who are looking to exit to think about in terms of their own risk protection. I think this concept of vendor due diligence on a purchaser is such a, it’s such a great way of thinking about analyzing some of these offers that come before you as well because it’s very tempting to look at a price above other things.
Marcus: Yes, right.
Joanna: But the things that you’re talking about here, you know, at the end of the day, make so much more of a difference than the just price on its own. Don’t they? Well as you can totally attest to it. Hundreds and thousands in legal fees. Yeah. The pain of having to go back in which, you know, just, you know, hats off to you. I think going having the energy to go back in is must have been one of the hardest things but good on you. You did it and you’ve got a, you know, a happy ending to the story. Yes. Thank you. Very good. Now tell us about what you did after you finally sold it and we’ve approached you to now.
Marcus: So my partner and because of our years within business and all our trials and tribulations being a couple. We have decided that we want to help other couples in business. And so consequently starting a coaching program, an online course and membership, sort of membership community wherever you it’s really basically running a community of business couples to help each other, become more sort of wealthy, healthy, healthy and happy within running their business.
Joanna: Oh lovely. I love it.
Marcus: And their lives. So that’s our focus. And that’s what we’re putting everything into at this point of times,
Joanna: Brilliant. And and I know that you’re in the middle of creating a bit of a survey for your for the business audience in relation to confirming what it is that they need assistance in. Is that right? Is that the point of the survey? Tell me a little bit about
Marcus: Absolutely. Yeah, the survey that we’re sending out to sort of accountants and business owners that we know that a couple’s in business and then just out to the community generally trying to push it out there is really just getting that feedback on what you as a business couple, what you really struggle is, what components of your business you struggle with, and then what components of your relationship you struggle with, you know, do you do bed talk, or not and things like that not not quite to that degree, but it’s been it is in relation to, you know, as a couple of business when you work side by side, you know, five or seven days a week and then you go home, you know, how much do you leave at the door? And how much do you bring into your house?
Joanna: Yeah. And so maybe tell us, what we’ll do in is in the show notes. We’ll make sure we linked through to you and the new business. It just sounds fabulous and also to the survey, but maybe just tell us for people who are running along the beach at the moment or on their commute into work if they’re allowed back into their works yet by the time this airs what’s the website? Where do people find you if they want to find you, Marcus?
Marcus: Okay, so the business website is businesscouplesuccess.com
Joanna: brilliant, absolutely love it. As I said, we’ll put that in our show notes and on the website. Well, I just want to say an absolutely massive thank you for coming onto the show. It’s been such an interesting episode. I love speaking to you. And I’m really grateful for you coming on to The Deal Room podcast to share your story.
Marcus: Lovely. Thank you, Jo. It’s been an absolute wonder. And then hopefully, we’ve shared some great content for people to think about when they are actually in that process of getting up to selling their business.
Joanna: Yeah. 100%. Absolutely. You’re a legend. Thank you very much, and wishing you massive luck with the new venture. It sounds absolutely fabulous.
Marcus: Lovely. Thanks, Jo. Appreciate it.
Joanna: And that’s it for our discussion with Marcus Nicholls now of the business Business Couples Success. So if you’d like to find out more about how you can contact Marcus Nicholls and Business Couples Success, then just head over to our website at www dot thedealroompodcast.com, where you’ll be able to link straight through to Marcus and his new business, the Business Couples Success. Or of course, just check out the show notes to this episode on your favorite podcast player. On our website. You’ll also find details of how to contact Marcus and also how to contact any of our lawyers at Aspect Legal. If you or your clients would like to discuss any legal aspects of sales or acquisitions, we’ve got a number of great services that help businesses prepare in advance and get transaction ready, but also to help guide them through the sale and acquisitions process. Once it’s all on foot. We work with clients both big and small and have different types of services depending on size and complexity. So don’t hesitate to book an appointment with our legal Eagles if you’d like to find out how we might be able to assist. Well that’s it. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I certainly really enjoy always talking to business owners and certainly I really enjoyed this discussion today with Marcus and I think it contains a lot of really useful insights and perspectives from someone who’s been there and got the badge so once again thanks for listening in. You’ve been listening to Joanna Oakey and The Deal Room podcast a podcast proudly brought to you by a commercial legal practice Aspect Legal. See you next time.
Our Business Sales and Growth by Acquisitions Services
Aspect Legal has a number of great services that help businesses prepare for a sale or acquisition to help them prepare in advance and to get transaction ready. And we’ve also got a range of services to help guide businesses through the sale and acquisition process.
We work with clients both big and small and have different types of services depending on size and complexity. We provide a free consultation to discuss your proposed sale or acquisition – so see our show notes on how to book a time to speak with us, or head over to our website at Aspectlegal.com.au
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