Creating Wealth & Freedom Through Acquisitions ft. Nick Bradley

Hey there, real quick, before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience Live. It is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, Grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the affluent entrepreneur Show. This one, this one's a doozy with my dear friend Nick Bradley. All right, let me ask you a question. If you're in business and you're trying to figure out how to grow your business, a lot of times we're trying to figure out, how do I get more clients in. Or maybe you're thinking going into business and starting from scratch is a daunting possibility. So here's the thing. Nick's specialty is in acquisitions, buying businesses. Imagine this. Instead of starting from scratch with nothing, stepping into the role or shoes of another owner, taking over that business, letting the business pay for the purchase price. And now you have something that's established, that's cash flowing, that gets you to build not from ground zero, but from the third floor, the fourth floor, it's already started. Or you're in business, you plateaued and you want to grow it. Instead of trying to chase more customers, what about buying a business and bringing it into your business and expanding it? We talk all things about creating a business that's sellable, buying a business using acquisitions as a strategy to build your entrepreneurial journey, to build your wealth, to give you freedom. I'll see you in the episode. This one is a good one, but they all are. Cheers.

This is the affluent Entrepreneur show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth so you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect so you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affinity entrepreneur.

Oh, my gosh, Nick. So, so good to have you here on the show. This is. This has been a while. I mean, I was on your show a little while back, and it took us A bit to get you on the show, man. It's so good to have you.

What happened, man? You know what I think it is? I think we get so caught up in everything going on and there has been a lot of change. Right, let's be clear over the last couple of years. But, Mel, it's a pleasure, mate. I've been wanting to catch up with you and hopefully have a great conversation today that's going to serve a few people.

Yeah. So for those of you that are watching or listening, and like I said in the intro, Nick One, he's a genius in business entrepreneurship. He's built. He's built, bought and sold. I mean, we've got somewhat similar backgrounds. He's in private funding. I mean, he's done it all, if you can't tell. He's not from the US but he's got this worldwide experience and I wanted to tap into it because as we move through into this new season of our world, I think we're going to need to look at opportunities differently. I'm going to need to look at, at possibilities differently. And I want you to open up that mind and open up your heart and open up your soul to a different way to live life that might be possible. And so with that, Nick, do me a favor just so the audience will know a little bit where, where you came from, your background and everything. Just say hey to them. Thank you.

Yeah, I will do. Yeah. So you can tell the accent's a bit of a weird accent, Mel, because I was born in Australia in a little place called Adelaide, lived in Sydney for many, many years and then I moved to the UK in 2003. I've been here almost 20 years, but I lived in New York for a while. And I suppose the long checkered past is I spent over a decade in private equity and I've been involved in 117acquisitions, 26 successful exits over that time, some of them some pretty hefty numbers. And to be frank, it's been quite a ride. And these days I don't work with the private equity firms anymore. I made a decision back in 2018 to jump on the other side of the table because I saw, I saw that when you get to a point where you can sell your business for life changing money, right. And have a life changing experience after that, because a lot of things happen on the other side of money, right?

And we'll talk about that.

And I thought, you know what, there's all these business owners and entrepreneurs who, when they go into that world, the Private equity world and finance and all of that. It's like the whole saying of going into a gunfight with a knife. Right. You're not prepared. And I made a decision back then to jump on that side of the table, to sit, you know, side by side with the founders, with these entrepreneurs, to help them navigate this world, which is going to ultimately lead to them having a degree of freedom, financial freedom and time freedom. And that's what I spend my time doing these days.

So good. So good. This is why we gelled so much. Because one, we both have been on the deal, the deal side. I've been on the valuation of the deal side as well as in the negotiation. But it's the last thing you said. You know, time freedom, money freedom, life freedom. Because that's really what we're in this, in this for. And really starting to do that now. Just before we started, you're talking about the fact that there's this just big uptick in exits and people trying to plan and people trying to look at this. Our current climate's shifted and we need to look at things. I think we need to look at things differently. But what are you seeing in the business landscape that as entrepreneurs that maybe are just starting out, or entrepreneurs that have been in the game but maybe they've plateaued, what are the things that they need to be focusing in on? Whether it's to create life changing money exit, or just to give them a little more margin in their life.

Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff happening right now that I think if you jump up to 30,000ft and you look at the landscape, I spend a lot of time thinking about kind of what's happening not just in the wealth creation space, but just generally in terms of how businesses are evolving and changing. So you've got two different dynamics happening right now. You've got massive wealth transfer, right? Baby boomers coming through, retiring by the year 2030. All boomers, right. Everyone who was born sort of post Second World War will be over 65 years of age. So they'll be in retirement. Now, a lot of those baby boomers own businesses are entrepreneurs and there aren't succession plans in place. So there's a crazy stat that I looked at the other day. I was looking at a PricewaterhouseCoopers report and it had something like 1600 small businesses are being closed every single day in North America. Good, profitable businesses, Right. Not sexy Silicon Valley startups here. We're talking about car washes in Texas and laundromats in Florida. Whatever it is, but they're getting closed down now. That's just crazy to me.

It is crazy.

So we'll come back to that because there's a big opportunity there for business owners to scale through buying these businesses, but there's also an opportunity there for entrepreneurs to enter the world of entrepreneurship from buying businesses as opposed to starting businesses. So you've got that. The other thing which kind of sits to the opposite side, which we spoke about briefly, is you've got all this dramatic change. You've got the pace of digital, you've got disruption, you've got uncertainty in the markets, inflation, you've got wars in the Ukraine, all this sort of stuff going on, not to mention global pandemic. So you've got this kind of thing where some of the traditional establishments are starting to be very, very protective and risk averse. And then one third dimensional mention is that you've got all of this money sitting up the chain in private equity. Where I was from, the figure is $2.6 trillion right now sitting undeployed in these funds. And of course, if you're an investor in a private equity firm, the thing you want to happen is you want them to go and buy businesses so that you can get your capital working for you. Right? Working for the things. And so if you bring all that together, what does it mean? Well, it means that actually there is more opportunity now to become entrepreneurial and there are different ways of doing it. So if you're in a position now where, let's say you're employed and it's not serving you in whatever way, that means freedom, money, time, obviously wealth, you've got these opportunities. And then if you have a business and you want to create true freedom, wealth and potentially the ability to make a bigger impact, the opportunity right now to be able to exit your business is. I've never seen it like this in the last, probably this century about valuations, the highest they've ever been right now. And so there's a window of three to five years where if you really get intentional, you really start to think about playing a bigger game. These opportunities are there for you. So I'm very positive about it. Maybe that's in contrast to what we see in the meter every day.

Well, I've always looked through the set of glasses of possibility anyway, so I get it, because I do think that we're ripe with opportunity right now. I mean, there is so much potential. But if we allow all that other stuff to get in, it creates a level of fear that Just freezes us. That gets us to stop and say, ah, you know, I don't want to do this.

But I think that's, that's the misnomer, is that even those that are working a job, the perception is it's more secure.

And I actually, I think nothing could be further from the truth. The days of loyalty seem to have gone by. You know, I've watched people 20, 30 years at a company then get let go, downsized, outsized, whatever you want to call it. And so I think that. And they look at entrepreneurs like you, you and myself would say, oh, you're risk takers. And I go, I don't think so. We're risk mitigators. We look at things strategically through a strategic lens and say, how can we take this? How can we expand it? How can we grow it? How can we do things to make it more valuable, not just for me, but for those we serve, the people that we employ, all that stuff.

Yeah. And the other thing I'll add to that is I think the biggest risk of all is regret. Right. And, you know, I have people come to me all the time and they're like, I don't. I want to. This is my outcome.

Right.

So we always talk about, have a clear end game, work out what you're trying to create. And that's not just a business question. Right. That's a life question.

Yep.

And. And then, okay, so if that's, if that's where we need to get to, let's work out where we are today. And then you've got the, the Delta. The Delta is the plan that's going to get you there. And quite often people are going, I, I don't want to do it. I can't do it. I've got these things. There's always a reason. Right. But then you go, well, okay, let's jump to another place on this. What's the risk? Or what's the feeling of not taking the action? Right. When you're that person who's 60, 70, 80. And I do believe that opportunities, certain opportunities, they come and then they do go. Right. You know, you can't always do everything forever. And so my thing is, like, you know, now is the time you've got no excuses. If it's this that's holding you back, then that can also be worked on as well. But you don't want to be the person who's 65 who's been commuting on the subway every day. They knew they wanted to do something else, but they never did it. And then the time passes.

So. Good, because I was just doing a keynote yesterday and I said something I felt like a lot of people in society, because of the shutdown, because of the things that have gone on, have gotten used to living what I call a good enough life.

But the richness of life isn't on the good enough curve. It's on the excellence curve. It's not that you're not satisfied or you're not content. There isn't contentment. It's about knowing that you lived it completely and fully to the last breath.

I call that the zone of mediocrity.

Oh, yeah.

I did a podcast, actually. I'll share this with you. It's quite personal, actually. I. I did a podcast last week and it was called Stuck in the Middle. And I talk about. Similar to what I just mentioned, then there are people that will stay in this zone. As I said, the average zone, the mediocrity zone. And it's not bad, but it's not great, right? It's kind of there. And there isn't enough pain or enough perceived pleasure to make a difference. So you kind of just sit in this zone. And the reason it was quite personal is I had a very good friend of mine pass away last week. Young guy, 41, heart attack, very fit guy. And I did the episode because he was the opposite of someone who sat in that place. He was always pushing the boundaries, challenging himself, taking risks, and felt very alive through that. And one of the things I say at the end of that is the length of time you have in your life doesn't really matter if you live like that.

Right.

Because you're experiencing more than most people will. But that, the point you described, that zone of mediocrity, I think, is. Is one of the biggest problems we have in the world right now. Because a lot of people, that's their only. That's the place they live or the place they choose to live.

It's so, so, so true. First, sorry for your loss, but no, thank you.

But it's. Sometimes these things come and they're. They're very good lessons for others. And if they can inspire others to maybe think a little bit differently and shift. Yeah, then I think that's not worthwhile. But it's, It's. It's a good thing to be able to connect with.

I used to tell.

The kids at the martial arts studio when I owned it, I said, you have two places you can be in life. You can either be an example or you can be a warning. And you got to choose one. And I look for those people that are examples of how I, I want to strive to live, how I want to show up, how I want to have an impact and come from a place of generosity and everything. And I think it's huge.

Yep, I fully agree. And you find also that I talk about the other side of money quite a lot, because what I found with a lot of the businesses that I work with now, some people get so consumed by income and to some extent wealth. Right. Or the perception of what wealth is. And so they can't go beyond that. And so what I try and help a lot of people do is get to that first point where the money equation doesn't matter anymore. Right. Sometimes it's called financial freedom. But the point I'm put, I'm getting at is if you didn't have to work ever again, if you didn't have to generate an income, trade your time for some form of money, if you didn't have to do that again, what sits on the other side of that? And it's fascinating when, you know, I've had the privilege of helping people get to that position and what they end up going to do after that, in terms of who they become, contribution they make, is just staggering, inspirational, just spectacular. And I think sometimes we miss that point, but that's what happens. It's not just about the money. It's what happens after that.

Well.

I've been having this conversation a lot lately about, because sometimes.

Entrepreneurship, wealth creation, money, it gets demonized, it gets bad mouth demonized. You know, the, the, you know, it's all greedy and we don't hear the stories. I have a colleague that, that literally walked into a school supply house and said, how much for everything on the shelves? And, and, and the person looks at me, says, I can't sell you everything on the shelves. He goes, aren't you in the business of selling stuff? And he says, yeah, but I got like open orders. And he says, great, hold that back, give me the rest. So he bought it all out and then he takes it to a school and donates it. But we don't hear about that. And the gift. More entrepreneurs come from a place of caring, compassion and generosity than ever come from a place of greed.

Oh, gotcha.

But we only hear the, they only want to popularize the other ones. But I, the people I know like that you hang out with, the people you serve, the people that you get to, to, to. Because we're in the same similar circles and similar values. It's about the general. It's about the impact because we could be making a ton of money. But if I'm not having an impact or I'm.

Destroying my life or my relationships, it's not worth it. And we don't do that.

I had the.

What you're. Go ahead.

Because I think I shared this with you when, when you came on my show. I. Because I went through the whole. I went through the journey or the transformation around that. This is why these days I'm very, very clear on what I'm here to do and who I'm here to help and serve.

Right.

I had years of achievements, you know, the Porsches, the million buck houses, all of that stuff. When I was in private equity, we had all these exits. Some of them were in the 10 figure range, which is in the billion dollar range. Right. And you know, this whole saying of achievement fulfillment that we connect with massive achievement from the outside looking in, have everything. Zero fulfillment, right? Zero fulfillment. And it was the Zig Ziglar quote that I heard for the first time was actually at one of. One of Tony Robbins events. I saw the whole, you know, you can help. You can get anything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want and need in life. Something like that from Zig Ziglar. And you know what? This is, this is going to sound crazy, but I'd never even considered that as a concept in my private equity days because you know how your environment is everything.

Oh, yeah.

I'm sucked into this world of, I mean, some really horrific decisions that we would do just to make shareholders wealthier. And I mean, honestly, I was. You sell your soul in that situation and then if you get out of it, right. And you start to realize that there's another way, there's a way where you can have it all. Right. The whole, the whole, the whole game changes.

Yeah.

A lot of people don't realize that. I just want to make that point because, you know, it's very, very important.

It's probably one of the most important points for us to think about. I chose not to go down the path of Wall street because I don't want to live in just that numbers game.

I had two paths. I could go, Wall street or FBI. Neither one of them did. I want to give my life to.

So I said, oh, the FBI. One would have been fascinating.

That would have been fascinating. But I didn't know whether I get stationed in some. Someplace like Mongolia. Hopefully no one from Mongolia is going to go, what's wrong with Mongolia? But, you know, so I, I didn't have any control over it. And I said, nah, I don't think I'm going to do that. But I think that this is an important thing to, to consider. You have people that come to you.

And tactically or. Because what's the first thing that you start to have that conversation? Because I think there's a whole lot of people that are living what I would consider a tolerable but mildly miserable existence because of this is what they've been educated for, the degree what society expects, what family expects, all those things which keep us holding us back. And that's not where we want to play.

It's a very simple answer with some caveats to it. So the people who come into my world are business owners, and I wouldn't necessarily say the ones that I work with are stuck because they've already built usually a pretty good business. So I tend to work with business owners who are already generating sort of seven figures in revenue, right? But they've got it to a point where their skill set, or what they believe is their skill set has capped out. You know, we mentioned before, you know, you don't know what you don't know. I'm worrying that I want to build something that's going to create freedom for myself. I want to go and make a bigger impact. I maybe want to build generational wealth for my family. I want to be able to do things like that. So I have this, this idea of what I'm moving towards. However, I don't know what I'm doing and my biggest fear is I'm going to screw it up. So the one thing we do, and it's so simple when I say this, you're going to go, whatever. But it is because we get them super clear on their ultimate end game. Now, we start with, and there's a whole heap of mindset in here, but I deliberately don't even mention that word when someone comes into my world, partly because they don't quite get it straight away and they have to feel it right before it makes sense. Even though you and I would connect and say mindset is the game here, right? Everything you think, feel, believe that changes the whole trajectory. And I often say that you can only scale a business to the level of your identity. And we're talking about creating a new identity for yourself.

I hope you all are listening to what Nick is saying, because what he's laying down right now is the crux of everything in your relationships, in your life, in your business, and Everything, how you're showing up.

Yeah. And the thing I believe is that when these people come into my world, they haven't quite accepted the fact that that's the journey they're on. And so when I say clarity of endgame, we start with the number. Because my belief is once you get that financial freedom number off the table, things change. So we sit there and say, well, what is your life changing number? And it's crazy, right? These business owners sometimes can't even answer that quickly. Right. Some of them come along and say, a billion dollars. And I said, that's not the question.

Right. I'm not going to tolerate the answer because you don't need. Listen, I get that you might want a billion dollars, but the question is, what is that number that's going to create that first stage of financial freedom? Then we ask them a second question. The second question is, why does that number really matter? Okay, what is the bigger why behind it and what are you going to do? And again, a lot of these people are so consumed, so insular, they don't know the answer to that. And then the third question is the kind of the knockout blow, which is, is what you're doing now in your business and your life going to get you there?

And quite often they'll go no, or they can't answer it. And then, you know, it's like, okay, well now, now we have a baseline or a frame of reference to work to. And then once you start to show them the pathway to that number, they get clarity, they get confidence, they start to get conviction. And then that's the first stages of them changing their identity and showing up in a different way. And then everything starts to snowball and change from that.

So good. So good. We come from the same place. The first thing I do is work with them, what I call on the affluence vision. Because, listen, some of you may have heard it, but I remember I got in a bike accident in 2009.

And a dear, dear friend of mine came. Now, I was grade four, concussion, I couldn't. I was stuttering. I had no feeling on the right side. So he takes me out to lunch and he looks me in the eye and he says, and I got a neck brace on. He says, how much is enough? And he had retired at 37. And I said, what, dude? I just came down on my head and you're asking me some philosophical question of how much is enough? What do you mean? And he said, you don't know where your finish line is. And since you don't know where your finish line is, you're gonna get back on that bike. You're gonna pedal with anger, you're gonna pedal with distraction. You're gonna pedal with no idea where you're going until you hit another burnout, another breakdown, or another crash.

Where's your finish line? And I go.

And then, why is. He asked me the same thing. Why is your. That your finish line? And I'm like. And until I got that now, I was doing well. But until I got that.

Once I got that, things just opened up because there was. Like you said, there was clarity of purpose. There was a clarity of. Of pathway. There was a clarity of, I'm in the game for this and not just for the aspect of being in the game.

That's it.

So good. So good.

It is simple. It's like these sort of things. It's not. It's simple but not easy. You know what I mean? Like, to get. But sometimes people, when they have to sort of step above and outside of where they are, to kind of examine the landscape, right? Their business and their life in this, they haven't done it for so long or they've never done it, and it feels uncomfortable. It's the whole thermostat thing, right? We live in our comfort zone. But as soon as they make that shift, it is a mindset shift, right? What we are doing is starting to work on vision and purpose, know those sort of things. But you can then introduce other concepts that then get them to understand who they need to become to achieve that. One of my coaches said to me once that a goal or an ambition is something that you come from. It's not something that you work towards. So you have to feel it, be it. All of those things. Envision it first, and then the. The ability to create that you know in the future becomes much easier because you know exactly what it is. And you know. And I. And I believe that to be true, too, because, you know, you start to remove all the stuff that can hold you back once you get that clarity.

So good. So given this, Nick, what do you think is the biggest. What have you experienced, I guess is the biggest struggle for them, for someone that's. That is in business, wants to be in business, wants to do it in a different way, realizes that they're allowing their life to get sucked out from under them for this business endeavor? I mean, they're in. What do you think, the biggest stumbling block, the biggest obstacle that we need to get past to move through it? Because I know you've done it for many, many people.

Yeah. There's two things. There's two things, and they are kind of related. The first one, and we can get practical as well here, but I'll talk still about where we are in terms of the thinking and the psychology. The first one is ego. Right. And that's a big one. You know, I often say, what's the biggest. You know, people say to me, what is the biggest derailer in business? It's usually ego. We're too proud to admit when we're doing the wrong things, we're too proud to ask for help. That then causes, you know, concerns about what other people will think of us. And we put ourselves in this. This prison when, you know, anytime you wake up in the morning, right. There is someone in the world who can solve your problem. So your job is not to solve the problem. Your job is to find that person. Right. Or that situation.

Yeah.

And so the ego stops us. Right. So that's the first point. Second is. And aligned to this is trust. And this. The reason I can say that with. With some level of credibility is that was my issue. So for me to then lean into this world of being more entrepreneurial after having a corporate and private equity career, I had a point where I had to leave the money and the security of what I was making in that world to then decide to take what felt like quite a big risk for me to then jump on the other side of the table. And I remember I was doing a meditation on this.

And I was thinking it through, and this voice hit me, which was, trust yourself. Trust yourself. And I think I thought about that a lot afterwards. And I think a lot of the times we just have to have that faith, that belief, that trust that if we do the right things and we stay focused, we have the right support around us, we change our networks, we change our environment, all of those resources that are out there, then we're going to get to the outcome that we want to. Yeah.

So you triggered something for me with this. Not in a negative way, but. But, you know, you mentioned earlier this idea of identity.

Yeah.

And when we mirror identity and ego, then I think about the construct that one of the most powerful forces in human nature is to stay consistent or congruent with our prior choices, our prior decisions, and how that identity.

Supported by the ego, can keep us from accepting or admitting.

That we're screwing this up. I have no clue what I'm doing. And we are in trouble. And it's like. And trying to get over that hump is an issue because I made this bad decision before, and. But if I. If I go back on it, I'm admitting that I made it bad. And what does that do to my ego? What does that do to my identity?

Well, if you think about this for a second. Right.

Yeah.

The people who are. There is a playbook here for people who create, let's call it extraordinary levels of success. And we'll talk in the game, the context of business, and they don't do it all themselves. And they have people around them that are going to call it out if it's an issue. Right now, the ones that don't are the ones who become insular. And I think one of the key things here is what I call the difference between being objective and not so. I have coaches, I'm sure you have. I have people around me who are not there to say, oh, Nick, you're great. Look at all these things you've done. Wow, wow, wow. I've got people who are there to kick my ass.

And I like that. Right.

Oh, yeah.

And so there's a point there where it's like, okay, I've made this decision or I'm going to make this decision. I quite like having someone around saying, that's not a good decision. Or have you really thought about that? Or you made that decision last time. I mean, classic one for me to share this with everyone. I love to employ people who are like me. Oh, this person's great. They're like me. Right.

You know, so my. My coach, or I've got advisors, they'll go, you're doing it again, right. There's your blind spot.

So to. To your point, right, If. If you don't have that. That sort of external network, whatever it is, right? It can be coaches, it can be masterminds, it can be a peer group, it can be whatever it is, trusted advisors. If you haven't got that, I think it's very difficult sometimes to firstly see the failings, let alone be able to make the decisions. It just feels also very lonely, you know, because it's like, oh, it's all on me. And then the stress creates a cloud which then removes that clarity that we spoke about previously.

So good. So good. And you're right. I mean, I have people in my life same. Same as you. And they'll lovingly kick me in the rear end and sometimes in the teeth, whichever is going to get the attention.

It's great, though, to have that, isn't it? I mean, I didn't for many years. I Didn't really have that. And my ego was, was writing the checks without, without question. And it was just a really painful place. I think back to my point around achievement, fulfillment, it looked good from the outside, but it wasn't sustainable. And it eventually affected my health. Right. Even though I wasn't probably going to acknowledge it directly, my body, my physicality was going to acknowledge it.

Yeah.

So I actually look back at that in hindsight and go, that was a blessing. But, you know, these days, I think, you know, it's not back to this simple versus easy. There is a proven way of getting anything you want in life, business or anything really. People just need to accept it and surrender a bit more to it. And that's why the ego point I made before is such a powerful one, I think.

So good. So good.

Now you're looking at primarily working with businesses. Some, like you said, they're, they're, they're seven figures, they're established and, you know, they're in that. I don't know, I kind of call it the messy middle for businesses. You know, we've gone through some growth, we stabilize. Now we're in the messy middle. What do we do? Do we grow from here? Do we just stay here? What's next? You know, which I like that messy.

Middle is very good. Yeah.

It's an interesting place to be. And some people will stay there, some will not. But you mentioned something and we passed over. But I actually want us to visit it as an opportunity for people to get into business and as an opportunity to possibly grow businesses. And that is the possibility, or the access to acquisitions, the access, access to collaborations, if you will, that might be there for people that are starting out or people that are in the business and feel like they plateaued. And I want to grow. Can you speak to that a bit as a, as one of the pathways? Because I think this is important. You spent a lot of time doing this.

Yeah. And it's one of the things I'm very passionate about from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Because right now, as I said, if we go back to what I said beforehand, you've got all these baby boomers retiring. So let's start there because I always like to look at the market dynamic first. Now, the figures that are floating around the place are something like 10,000 baby boomers retiring per day, per day in North America. And as I said, a lot of them are small business owners without succession plans. And if you think about it, a lot of these people at retirement age, their kids are probably doing something Else their grandkids are probably off being Instagram stars or something like that. So you've got this wealth transfer and you've got this opportunity. So what started to happen there, and this is very powerful, I think, for people who want to start to create their own future through business and entrepreneurship, is you've got what we call the rise of the acquisition entrepreneur. And there are quite a few people now coming out of, let's say, the world of traditional work, or they might have lost their job through Covid or anything like that. And they have skills, Right. They might have been a sales director or an operations person somewhere, or they might be, you know, have some financial literacy, a cpa. And the opportunity is to go out there and buy and acquire these good, profitable businesses. And you can do them in a way which is called a leverage buyout. Now, I won't get too technical because we're going to get into my private equity world, but it's important for people to know this is that of the 117acquisitions that I've done, you know, being involved in, not one of them has been all the money upfront in a deal. Right. And you and I would understand this, right, because we're in that world. But a lot of people don't get that. They think, well, hold on, I've got to find if the business is worth a million dollars, I need to have a million dollars. I haven't got a million dollars. So therefore, that opportunity is closed up. But what I say is like buying a business is like buying a house. When you buy a house, most people don't buy a house outright. They get a mortgage, which is basically an asset loan against the value of the house. You then get the house, you get to live in the house, you get to raise your family in the house, all that sort of stuff. You get to enjoy it. But most people don't realize they don't own the house. They're paying the house off over time. So a leveraged buyout is the same thing. You actually buy a business, you raise capital against the assets in the business. And that can be things like receivables, real estate, inventory. And you get a loan that you pay back over time from. And this is the cool bit, the profit of the business that you're buying. Okay, now remember, we're not buying startups in Palo Alto here. We're buying profitable businesses.

Yeah.

So you've got that dynamic. Then you've got, okay, a thing called seller finance or vendor financing. And again, a lot of the deals I'VE been involved in have always had a proportion of the price of the business that is paid after the deal is done over time in payments. And you can negotiate with these sellers who are retiring to have a percentage of the valuation of that business paid in these deferred ways. Okay, so that might be over three years. I'm going to pay 10,000, $15,000 a month to you. You get to leave the business and you get to go sit on a beach or hang out with your grandkids. I'll take over the business and you're going to get these payments effectively, like getting more than you probably taking out when you had the business for the next three years. Plus you're going to get some money when we close the deal. And so I've got a little bit technical there, but point I want to get across here is if you want to buy a good, profitable business, you're probably looking to find somewhere between 10 and 20% of the valuation. The rest can be leveraged. And you can get that from an investor. You can get it from an SBA loan in the U.S. yes, you can. And you might have some capital yourself. But the point here is you can buy a very, very, very good business and become an entrepreneur that way, leveraging all of these different opportunities around you. So I say to people now, you know, this is my personal thing, don't start a business, don't go through the headache of starting a business, right? And people go, what do you mean? Because there is another way, right? And some people are better at startup and some people are better at scale up. And I prefer to buy something where the foundations are already in place and then I can do something with it. So I'll stop there.

But it's proven itself too. It's got legs under it. It's proven itself. You're not trying to prove a concept, you're not trying to prove a market. You've got it dialed in.

Yeah. And you've got other things like, you know, you've got the brand value, you've got the assets that sit within the business. Some of them have got great customer lists, some of them have got, you know, literally contracts that are in place. The thing I like about this is a lot of the businesses I look at are good, well run businesses and they've got, you know, stable client base that have been going there for years, but their marketing's poor. They haven't got a great website, they don't understand how to drive any predictability of leads. So you can come in and you can start to optimize these businesses, professionalize them maybe to some extent, or certainly make them more progressive. And all of a sudden that profit that you have to pay back to the asset finance or the seller, you're increasing that profit and that's coming straight back to you as cash flow. And then the thing, I'll finish with this because it does get quite technical. I focus on a concept in private equity called a roll up. And a roll up is where you have obviously one good profitable business, but then you buy other businesses. They could be your competitors, they could be suppliers, they could be other businesses within a market, which makes sense. And I'll explain one that we're doing at the moment. But you know, you can buy few businesses, create this little group and then you pull it all together, you consolidate that group. And what I'm looking to do at the moment is sell those, those groups up to mid market private equity. For the reasons I explained before. You've got all this money sitting there and if you're a business owner now and you're at seven figures, I often say you're only playing half the game. If you are not looking at joint ventures, partnerships and acquisitions. And quite frankly, you should be putting more of your time into those things right now because it's going to double, triple the size of your business so much faster than anything you can do organically. So that's why it's such a big opportunity.

So I, I sit on a number of boards of directors. We just had a board of directors meeting. This was a company that was founded in the late 1800s. So we been around a while longer than me and one of the directors in there, who's a good friend is doing exactly what you're talking about. They've got a fund, they're doing roll ups, they're bringing things in and, and at some point they're gonna, they're gonna unload. It's probably not the right word. Okay, they're gonna transition to, to, to sell. But, but the, the appeal.

On what they bought it for because now they've got a larger geographic reach, they've got a larger EBITDA or profits, they've got more cash flow, they brought in efficiencies, they've increased and optimized the profits. And not only did they make the additional income that was coming in to pay for the purchase and then some, when they sold it, they got a multiple of that because they improved it.

That's right. And it's important for people to understand that a small Business, certainly a business that, let's say, is worth about a million dollars or something like that is usually somewhere between a two to four times multiple of profit, certainly the EBITDA multiple. But when you scale it up, that multiple increases, so you get an exponential value increase. So the last business I sold, the last big one in 2017, was 14 times multiple. So just to be super clear, imagine the profit your business makes in a year times 14 years, right? Paid, paid through the deal, and that was a $2.3 billion exit. So if you can get your head around this a little bit, let's say you've got a business that's doing seven figures and you want to exit. You want to create that capital event that creates freedom, wealth, and impact. What I advise people to do now is get very serious about small business acquisitions, bolt them all together, get up to around about $5 million of EBITDA, right? And some people say to me, oh, well, if I get to 5 million of EBITDA of net profit, I just want to keep that. I often say, still exit, and we can get into that, but you will sell that business. You're going to get somewhere between probably 45 and $60 million on the market today for a business in a certain sector like that. And it's not as difficult as you think to do it, you know, particularly in the area, because you're flying below the radar, private equity won't start competing with you in the, in the levels that I'm talking about. And so if you've got a business that's seven figures, you've got to be looking at this now. It's, I've never seen the market as buoyant as it is now, right now, for this.

I totally agree. I totally agree.

And so this was, this is, it's a different slant on some of the things that we talk about on the show. And I think that this is an important thing for us to consider for the reasons that you started out, the retirements, the baby boomers, all those, those things that are coming to play. And it's a gift to all because these baby boomers that are retiring and sit with no succession plan are sitting there saying, I'm just going to let my everything I work for just wither and die, or I'm just going to let it go or I'm going to close up shop. So this legacy that they created ends up being gone. They have nothing really to show for it, but a lot of memories. And a person that could have taken it on, built it to More created their own legacy out of it. Doesn't get the chance. It's a win. Win.

Oh, God, yeah. And there's also, the other point is there's a cost to closing down a business.

Oh, yeah, right.

And there are, you know, there are staff and lives that get affected from that decision as well. So I think it's a massive travesty. It doesn't get enough attention, but it doesn't take. If you just go and Google some of this stuff and just have a look around, you'll start. It's a little bit like when someone says, you know, look at the red car and then you can't not see the red car.

And, and I, and I talk about it a lot because, I mean, we're doing it at the moment. We're rolling up landscaping businesses, cleaning businesses and security businesses. We're looking in Florida market at the moment because if you think about it, there's lots of gated communities, beautiful houses that buy those services independently. So we're looking to create a home services group at the moment that we can then sell to private equity as we create value. There are lots of, that's the sort of sectors where you can find these things. And there are a lot of people there who just, they just don't want to be in their business anymore. Sometimes they're sick, which is unfortunate. Sometimes they just want to spend the next, you know, 20 years of their life, you know, traveling or whatever it is. And you know, you're effectively giving them freedom by also giving yourself the opportunity to have your own freedom. Right. So as you said, it's a win, win.

So good. So good. Dude, I could talk to you for freaking days. I mean, we, we could, you know, I mean, I, my wife loves the uk so maybe we just come over there one time and.

Oh, we should do that. I want to. We should do like a face to face one. Like you've got some stuff coming up, so next time you've got your book coming out or whatever, we should just like. Because I like the idea of sitting across like a nice mahogany table. Oh, there you go.

There you go.

And then we can just chat because, I mean, there's stuff that you' done obviously, you know, which blows my mind. And so I'm learning all the time. I remember from our conversation when you were on my show. So. But I think the message has to get out there to people that, you know, the. We didn't even get into this. But, but money and wealth, you know, it's much more of a spiritual pursuit than it is, you know, the transactional thing is so much of an emotional game and a lot of the stuff that we're talking about tonight might feel still a long way away for people, but it really isn't, you know, as I said, it's, it's a combination of mindset and skill set and then it's tools, the toolbox you need and you just got to work those things out.

Well, and, and then it goes back to one of the things that you said. If all you do, those of you that are watching and listening say, oh, this, put it on the plate as a possibility.

And then search out the mentors, someone like Nick that you can, that can guide you, that have actually ran some of these miles that can say, yeah, it's possible, let's walk through this. Because look, to buy a million dollar business, like you said, you can get it for 100 grand, 200 grand down and have it cash flow and pay for itself, grow for itself and grow for you at the same time. So most of the time we come to this space believing I got to start from ground zero or below ground zero or something and just starting out and that's a, a different kind of scary, a different kind of uncertainty than, than stepping into a business. And if you do your due diligence, getting into the business to, to research it, to understand it and have the proper advisors to help you, it you actually step up and instead of starting on the ground floor, you're starting on the third floor or the fourth floor and you move from there.

And there's a history there and there's a proven thing there. So I just, I felt it was important for us to have this conversation as what I call the audience, the affluencers, the ones trying to build an affluent life of meaning and impact and fruitfulness and peacefulness.

To put this as one of the possibilities to do that, the vehicles to do that, the pathways to do that. Because it is much more accessible and reachable today than it ever was.

And.

It'S probably going to be even more necessary today than it ever was.

So as we start to close up, Nick, because like I said, I could keep talking for a while, but then my producers go these two hour shows, what are you doing? And I said, well, sorry, you know, it's what happens when you just have a conversation and there's no script.

That's right. I've got basketball in an hour anyway, mate, so you couldn't keep me.

There you go.

I'm the oldest guy on the Court. But you know what? I've even got my Boston Celtics.

You got the Celtics on. Look at that.

There we go. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they, they get through to the finals and then I'm going to jump on a plane and go watch it.

Oh, there you go. Look at that.

So where do they, you know, where do they find out about you, you know, your show, the, you know, how do they follow you? How do they, how do they kind of get into your world? Because I think that, I think this is, this is a really cool avenue for people.

Yeah, I mean, the best. I mean the thing that started all of this for me, really the transition from private equity into what I do now was my podcast. And I said, you've, you've come on and been an amazing guest on there and shared all your wisdom. It used to be called scale up your business, but now it's scale up with Nick Bradley. So you can see my nice pink sign behind me because we actually have a whole range of people coming on who are not just doing extraordinary things in their business. It's still a business focused shop show, if you like, but I've got people just doing amazing things in the world, making bigger impacts in the world. So. And the other thing I'll say about that is, yeah, I don't leave anything, you know, off the table. If you can go through, there's 250 episodes there. Anything that I talk about exiting, acquisitions, the whole piece, it's all there. Right. So that's the first part that's really there to serve. But if people want to get in touch with me directly, there's a couple of things. I'm on LinkedIn all the time, so it's the real Nick Bradley on there. And then also my coaching and consultancy website is S U Y B Global, which is scale up your business, but it's S U Y B global and people can see what we do there.

Awesome. Awesome, Nick. We'll make sure that I hook that up in the description, in the show notes and everything so people can get all things Nick Bradley and, and look at it because I. This is a cool avenue for.

Impact, for wealth creation, for legacy, for freedom that I think a lot of people are not even discounting. They're not even thinking about. So, so hopefully we gave them some seeds of possibility in this episode in the show and that we can, we can help them on that path to do it.

So I hope so, dude.

I look forward to many more conversations, hooking up in person and, and getting a chance to chat. So you keep me posted when you're coming to the the west coast and all that, and I'll make sure that you know when we're coming that way and whatever we can do to support you, man.

Yeah, likewise. No, it's been awesome meeting you over this last 12 months, mate. So. And thank you for having me on the show. As I said, if we can help even just one person think a little bit bigger today, then I'm absolutely ecstatic about that. So thank you very much.

All right, buddy. Thanks.

Thank you for listening to the Affluent Entrepreneur show with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the Affluent Entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building youg Money Machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.