Scaling is much easier than organic growth. You look at ways to multiply results rather than add work and cost

Organic growth adds. Acquisition multiplies. And it’s usually more affordable than you think.

Most owners of £1M+ businesses grow one customer at a time. More marketing, more salespeople, more hours. It works, but it’s slow.

There’s a faster route. Buy the growth.

One acquisition can add customers, people, skills and turnover in a single step. Done well, it can do in a year what organic growth would take five to deliver.

And before you switch off thinking you don’t have a few £Million spare: you don’t need it. Most deals for owner-managed businesses aren’t paid in full up-front. Deferred payments, earn-outs, vendor finance and asset-backed lending mean the business you buy can often help pay for itself.

This workshop covers how buy & build really works for businesses like yours. Not the private-equity version you read about in the FT.

We’ll look at how to find the right businesses to buy (the best ones are rarely advertised), how to value them, how to structure a deal you can afford, and how to bring them into your business without breaking what you’ve already built.

You’ll work on:

Why acquisition can be the fastest route to growth

Building a buy & build strategy that fits your business

Finding targets, including those not yet for sale

Valuing a business and knowing what to pay

Funding a deal without paying it all up-front

Due diligence: what to check, and when to walk away

Integrating an acquisition without losing customers or staff

You’ll leave knowing whether acquisition is right for your business, what kind of target to look for, and how a deal could be structured and funded.

You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of what needs to change for your business to scale, where your current constraints are, and a practical direction for moving towards £5M+ revenue without simply increasing pressure, cost, or complexity.

Note: You're welcome to bring your laptop/tablet.

Agenda

8:30 - 9:30 Arrival and coffee

9:30 Welcome + introduction

9:35 Why acquisition beats organic growth, and finding the right target

10:45 Break

11:00 Doing the deal: valuation, funding, due diligence and integration

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Finish

Your Presenters

Rob Pickering of ActionCoach Reading & Wokingham will be presenting this event. With over 16 years as a professional Business and Executive coach, he’s helped numerous businesses to scale significantly. Prior to coaching, he owned and ran a series of businesses within the IT sector and the Film & Video sectors.

Nicky Larkin is the founder and Managing Director of Goringe Accountants and Goringe Brokers, and a specialist in business exits and acquisitions. She knows what a business looks like from the seller’s side of the table: how it’s valued, what buyers look for, and where deals go wrong. And she's assisted with many acquisitions too. Before founding Goringe, she held finance roles from analyst to senior financial management, in businesses from dot.com start-ups to blue-chip multinationals.

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