Hi All,
I've read both Fastlane and Unscripted and I've been around on the forums for the best part of a year now.
I've been entrepreneurial since my early teens (I won't bore you with all the 'selling t-shirts from my bedroom' stories that you've heard a million times). To cut a long story short, a couple of years ago I opened a pizza restaurant in my city which I operated for around 2 years with 2 partners who were older and more experienced than me. That business gave me an immeasurable amount of fantastic experience managing people and fully running a business that turned over almost £1m per year (I was the most active Director). I made the decision to come out of the business though as there simply was not enough money for all three partners to earn a living and one partner wasn't pulling his weight - which can lead to all sorts of problems.
I accidentally discovered during the running of the business that I had a knack for digital marketing and, in particular, social media. So, I took over the management of the social media of the small group of restaurants that one of the other partners also operated. I didn't advertise my services whatsoever and I was reluctant to tell others what I did for a living as I went from the guy who owned a share in a restaurant to someone who plays around on social media (despite the fact the social media was paying more than owning a restaurant for FAR less effort). As time went on, I started to talk about what I do to friends and family and before I knew it, I had the Managing Director of a public company asking if I could help with their marketing. I now run the social media for a large region that the public company operates in.
At 25 years old, I work for myself as a freelance social media manager with 2 big clients (a group of 5 restaurants and public company mentioned above) and I'm earning more money than most 'slowlaners'. I have complete control over my day/time and, to be honest, I can get the work done with a lot of spare time left over every week. HOWEVER. Instead of creating a scalable business, I've created a well paid, easy-going job for myself - and I always worry that I'm not building anything for the future. Social Media is important now, but will it be important in 5 years? I see this as a temporary situation and I need to harness my free time to build something for myself for the future.
So, after the long-winded back story - onto the main event.
I spend a lot of time with people who are older than me. I enjoy their company far more than other people my age who seem to have a totally different mindset to me and would rather talk shit and have a laugh than discussing business, investment and things that are happening in the world. This led to me spending quite a bit of time with my Father in Law and his friends, most of whom own their own businesses or are self-employed in some way or another. One of them has built a very successful business over the past ten years after struggling in a couple of slow lane jobs in his industry.
He and his wife have done a fantastic job building up a base of customers and they have taken on a couple of staff, albeit reluctantly, to help cope with the growth. However, they are in their mid 50s now and they are fed up with what they do and would rather enjoy life without the everyday stresses and hassles of running a business. Neither of their two kids are interested in the business and the 2/3 staff that they have taken on are 'not management material'. They do not want to list their business for sale because they are worried about the harmful effect it may have on trading with existing suppliers and customers and they have no one within the business or family who is interested in taking it on.
I picked up on this and expressed interest in it. I met with him and we explored the possibility of me taking it over. However, although I don't know the exact numbers of the business, I know that their sales are in excess of 1.2million annually and they have a very good profit margin. Because of this, they are hoping to sell the business for 1 million (even though they're not telling anyone it's for sale - crazy right?). So, we're talking pretty big numbers for a 25 year old guy. He seemed interested in exploring the option of my financing the purchase of the business through the business profits after taking over and it looked like I may be onto something.
However, after a few days, he came back to me and said that he doesn't think it's the right thing for them to do at the moment. Despite the fact he's looking to sell the business, I think he's worried that by me buying it, he's not able to completely walk away and would still be tied to any problems that may occur in the future due to my being a family friend. I get the impression that he wants to sell the business to someone he is not connected to at all and he can completely detach himself from it. His wife is also overly cautious with everyone to do with the business. She was very much against bringing on a salesman (despite the fact he now generates over £40k per month for the business). I don't know his wife as well as I know him and I'm worried she's sceptical about me and my ability to learn/run the business.
Although it's a very specialised industry and I would have a lot to learn, I know that I can add so much to the business and I can get growth from other areas that they might not have explored yet. It has a lot of potential and I'd love to get my hands on it. I offered to work for them for 6 months for free to learn the business and also show them what I am capable of, but he said he couldn't ask that of me (even though I'm 100% willing to do that). I asked him what they're going to do if they can't sell it and he said that they may just have to ru it for as long as they can, make as much money as possible and then close it down. This made me sick to my stomach! What a waste of a profitable business that would be.
Is there another way I can approach this that I am not seeing? I need a fresh set of eyes to take a look at this situation from an unbiased point of view to see if there's another way I could try to get involved in the business to let them get to know me more.
After reading this thread on taking over businesses from baby boomers, it just reinforced how much of a great opportunity this could be for me to really build something for the future.
Let me know if you have any thoughts. Apologise for the poorly written post - I've just been typing as I've been thinking.
I've read both Fastlane and Unscripted and I've been around on the forums for the best part of a year now.
I've been entrepreneurial since my early teens (I won't bore you with all the 'selling t-shirts from my bedroom' stories that you've heard a million times). To cut a long story short, a couple of years ago I opened a pizza restaurant in my city which I operated for around 2 years with 2 partners who were older and more experienced than me. That business gave me an immeasurable amount of fantastic experience managing people and fully running a business that turned over almost £1m per year (I was the most active Director). I made the decision to come out of the business though as there simply was not enough money for all three partners to earn a living and one partner wasn't pulling his weight - which can lead to all sorts of problems.
I accidentally discovered during the running of the business that I had a knack for digital marketing and, in particular, social media. So, I took over the management of the social media of the small group of restaurants that one of the other partners also operated. I didn't advertise my services whatsoever and I was reluctant to tell others what I did for a living as I went from the guy who owned a share in a restaurant to someone who plays around on social media (despite the fact the social media was paying more than owning a restaurant for FAR less effort). As time went on, I started to talk about what I do to friends and family and before I knew it, I had the Managing Director of a public company asking if I could help with their marketing. I now run the social media for a large region that the public company operates in.
At 25 years old, I work for myself as a freelance social media manager with 2 big clients (a group of 5 restaurants and public company mentioned above) and I'm earning more money than most 'slowlaners'. I have complete control over my day/time and, to be honest, I can get the work done with a lot of spare time left over every week. HOWEVER. Instead of creating a scalable business, I've created a well paid, easy-going job for myself - and I always worry that I'm not building anything for the future. Social Media is important now, but will it be important in 5 years? I see this as a temporary situation and I need to harness my free time to build something for myself for the future.
So, after the long-winded back story - onto the main event.
I spend a lot of time with people who are older than me. I enjoy their company far more than other people my age who seem to have a totally different mindset to me and would rather talk shit and have a laugh than discussing business, investment and things that are happening in the world. This led to me spending quite a bit of time with my Father in Law and his friends, most of whom own their own businesses or are self-employed in some way or another. One of them has built a very successful business over the past ten years after struggling in a couple of slow lane jobs in his industry.
He and his wife have done a fantastic job building up a base of customers and they have taken on a couple of staff, albeit reluctantly, to help cope with the growth. However, they are in their mid 50s now and they are fed up with what they do and would rather enjoy life without the everyday stresses and hassles of running a business. Neither of their two kids are interested in the business and the 2/3 staff that they have taken on are 'not management material'. They do not want to list their business for sale because they are worried about the harmful effect it may have on trading with existing suppliers and customers and they have no one within the business or family who is interested in taking it on.
I picked up on this and expressed interest in it. I met with him and we explored the possibility of me taking it over. However, although I don't know the exact numbers of the business, I know that their sales are in excess of 1.2million annually and they have a very good profit margin. Because of this, they are hoping to sell the business for 1 million (even though they're not telling anyone it's for sale - crazy right?). So, we're talking pretty big numbers for a 25 year old guy. He seemed interested in exploring the option of my financing the purchase of the business through the business profits after taking over and it looked like I may be onto something.
However, after a few days, he came back to me and said that he doesn't think it's the right thing for them to do at the moment. Despite the fact he's looking to sell the business, I think he's worried that by me buying it, he's not able to completely walk away and would still be tied to any problems that may occur in the future due to my being a family friend. I get the impression that he wants to sell the business to someone he is not connected to at all and he can completely detach himself from it. His wife is also overly cautious with everyone to do with the business. She was very much against bringing on a salesman (despite the fact he now generates over £40k per month for the business). I don't know his wife as well as I know him and I'm worried she's sceptical about me and my ability to learn/run the business.
Although it's a very specialised industry and I would have a lot to learn, I know that I can add so much to the business and I can get growth from other areas that they might not have explored yet. It has a lot of potential and I'd love to get my hands on it. I offered to work for them for 6 months for free to learn the business and also show them what I am capable of, but he said he couldn't ask that of me (even though I'm 100% willing to do that). I asked him what they're going to do if they can't sell it and he said that they may just have to ru it for as long as they can, make as much money as possible and then close it down. This made me sick to my stomach! What a waste of a profitable business that would be.
Is there another way I can approach this that I am not seeing? I need a fresh set of eyes to take a look at this situation from an unbiased point of view to see if there's another way I could try to get involved in the business to let them get to know me more.
After reading this thread on taking over businesses from baby boomers, it just reinforced how much of a great opportunity this could be for me to really build something for the future.
Let me know if you have any thoughts. Apologise for the poorly written post - I've just been typing as I've been thinking.
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