Video - James Ashford on Building and Selling GoProposal
VIDEO: 52:25 mins
AUTHOR: James Ashford, GoProposal
In this GYDA Talks, Robert talks to James Ashford. James helps accountants and bookkeepers to grow their firms into profitable businesses by pricing consistently, selling more confidently and minimising risk.
He first achieved this in his own firm - MAP - where alongside Founder Paul Barnes, they first developed GoProposal & implemented a sales culture to ensure they were maximising the value of their clients.
Now, as Vice President of GoProposal by Sage, he continues to help thousands of accountants and bookkeepers worldwide to achieve the same success with their businesses. Not only through the software, but by sharing his philosophies and strategies in his books, training courses, video content and keynote talks.
A really exciting, honest and upfront interview in two parts…
Part 1: The GoProposal thinking and how it makes businesses more effective
How people sell
The psychology that stops us from charging more
How we sell, how they buy
Charging the right price (for you)
Part 2: The Sale of Go Proposal to Sage and what agency owners can learn from someone who has been there and done it.
It was built to have options (including sale) from day one
The sale
The valuation
The sale process
The due diligence
Transcription:
Robert Craven 00:08
Hello, welcome to GYDA Talks. And today I am truly delighted to have as a guest, James Ashford. Now James Ashford I said just earlier on to him, I said to him, Oh, I spoke with you, four or five years ago when you started that go proposal and you Oh and he will come to that in a minute. Anyway, James Ashford has grown and sold GoProposal. And it is my absolute pleasure to welcome you. Hello there.
James Ashford 00:35
Thank you, Robert. Hello, and welcome to everyone who's choosing to listen to this.
Robert Craven 00:39
Okay, so you're so the my version of you my memory view is I remember seeing you three, four or five years ago, we had a chat, can we work together data data you might be doing you putting together proposals for a proposal sort of formatting system for accountants and agencies, and I went accountants, accountants, agencies, yes. But accountants. So I mean, just start wherever you want, James, with the story.
James Ashford 01:11
Yeah, so I've got a little back probably another five years prior to that. So I set up a marketing agency, Robert, in Doncaster, because it was the height of the recession, we had no money. And I had this brilliant idea that I'm gonna make loads of money and free up all our time, by setting up a business and it wasn't like that. And we had a nice agency, we're good at websites. And as you kind of get into that, you kind of get dragged into all sorts of other things as well. And we weren't focused enough, we didn't have the finance function correctly installed in our business, and it ultimately failed. And it's not a massive sob story. But that business ultimately failed. But through that, we did get lots of things right, as well. And I also got introduced to many business owners and had very in depth conversations to understand things like, what's really the issue in what you're trying to achieve and what's going on. And every time in it, every problem in a business can be traced back to the fact that we're not making enough money. Like if you just make more money solves everything else. Like you've not got enough staff, you're not recruiting, right? Okay, well, if you had more money you could pay for better staff, better offices, training them, like, it just solves everything, right. So every business I encountered after the marketing agency, this was the issue, and I worked with them on a consultancy basis, there was a football academy, there was a plaster landscape gardener, a waste management business every single time, it was the same problem. And the way that you make money, or the way it starts making money in your business, is in the interaction between me saying, This is what I'm going to promise you this what I'm going to give you, in exchange for you giving me this amount of money. And it's in that initial agreement there that we're ultimately starting to generate revenue for the business. And so I just started developing some very simple principles and simple software around that. And each time I installed it into these businesses, there was an immediate impact within 30 days. Things really started to make a big difference in terms of the conversion rate, what they were charging, etc. And then fast forward, I eventually met an accountant in a mastermind group I was involved with, he said he had all this locked down and figured it out, I said, Well, that's great. Let me come and see what's going on. I went to see them. I said, you got some great stuff here. But I can make it. I can kind of take it to the next level and implement this software and these principles had again an immediate effect. But the thing that was fundamentally different this time, Robert, was there another accountant heard about it in the same industry and said how do we get this? And that was the spark that made me think, right, this is not just random companies, random industries, maybe there's something here some traction that we can start to build and scale a commercial product.
Robert Craven 03:54
So I know you're not a Facebook inverted commas, honestly, I'm a guru look at my 11 followers. But what was inside this box of tricks?
James Ashford 04:09
In terms of the software that we developed ...
Robert Craven 04:11
... not so much the software, but in terms of what it actually did for the user?
James Ashford 04:17
The main thing is that when it comes to kind of, so I first encountered this in the agency that I'd set up the marketing company, is that everyone kind of skirts round, what we're charging, you know, everyone thinks it's some convoluted, mystical, magical thing that you have to go and spend a week figuring out. So it really used to annoy me when you start with a client. And then you get to the inevitable part of the conversation where they say, Well, how much is it going to cost? And you'll say, I'll get your proposal over by close of play on Friday. It's always closed on Friday. Yeah. And then what you forget failed to remember is that something will have hit the fan. Once you've come out of that meeting. Friday comes and goes. So your initial experience with that client is you've already pissed them off. You now don't feel that you can charge that fee that you want it to charge them because their experience is crap a week later, you finally get some proposal to them that you've just rehashed the other from the other claim, because you failed to take that time out to think, actually, let's just decode and decipher what it is that we do and what we should charge and what's profitable. And so it's about having, I think a few things really, but having the mechanism behind the scenes that allows for that complexity, to be figured out for the client, right, in terms of what you should be charging, and all the different nuances of exactly what you're doing for that person, you need a method of figuring that out. But the second thing is you need a way of agreement while you're with them. So I don't know if it's just because I just like frank conversations with people, because to my mind, you've got to talk about price at some point. So I'm either going to talk about it while I'm sat with you in the meeting, while I've got your full attention while you're focused on this activity, or I'm going to be trying to talk to you about pricing a week later. And I'm ringing you up, and you're at the school gates with the kids. And I'm wondering why you're not answering the phone, and might as well just do it now. So how do you do it in a logical way? That's not awkward at all, that doesn't use any weird sales stuff so that we can just have an honest conversation with each other. And if you don't want to pay that much fine, what you want to take out, let's just do the deal, get it agreed and get started. And when I started implementing this with like I said the landscape designer, the big difference, he went through and implemented the software for him years prior to go proposal was he was going into meetings walking out with a headache of having to produce from Kozel. Yeah, he was now walking out of meetings with a start date and a deposit. That was the difference.
Robert Craven 06:41
I think the other thing, which was kind of referred to, is if you don't get that proposal to them really quickly, I mean, then you lose the business. And I always remember this one particular lady agency owner I worked with who said that she only wins one out of 10 of her proposals, and I said, how quickly do you get your proposals to them? And she goes, Well, normally about 10 days, and I said, just to me for a month, can you get the proposal to them within 18 to 24 hours? When she said it won't make any difference? It's what's in the proposals at Cymatics? I said, No, no, no, no, it's not. A hit rate went from 1 in 10 to 9 out of 10. Just by getting just like, you know, because like that, if not even buyer's remorse is potential buyer's remorse. How important Am I to these people? Well, clearly not because it's taken 10 days to reply to me versus Wow, wow. You know, and then there's a guy, you know, he had wanted to have a refit on his office. Totally different business. But the point is absolutely valid. You wanted to spend near just shy of a million pounds on it. The day that the interior designers had been there. That evening, before the close of play by courier came this kind of a one book with like, 50 pages of photos and drawing now, obviously, some of that's templated. But an awful lot of that was fresh, and you got the business because, you know, Tim hadn't even seen any of the other potential suppliers. And this guy had already defined the terms of what the business is how we're going to. And that's the thing, which just amazes me about how people go about proposals or not go about proposals.
James Ashford 08:31
My clincher story for understanding that speed. I remember reading an article and it said, if you send a proposal out within 24 hours, you have a greater chance of converting, right. And I always thought if, and I know this to be true, if he's taking you 24 hours to send that proposal, you were a day too late. And my turning point for this, Robert was back to the agency and I was on because I developed something a crude version of this at the time was a search on the phone to a client presented a project a huge project to them. And they said, Look, can you get me the proposal by Monday, can you get it to me by Wednesday? I said I can have it for you by lunchtime. So I had it within an hour he had the proposal. He signed off on Monday. On Tuesday they had a power cut to their business. They're a call centre, they had 50 staff that had a power cut, the power wasn't restored for a week that set the whole business back by kind of two months in terms of what they were trying to do and their timelines and things. Meanwhile, I've got the proposal accepted, the deposit paid and we started the work. Like if you couldn't do that, I'd have been caught up in all that and we'd have been six months down the line before we'd be able to have that discussion.
Robert Craven 09:40
I want to talk about a third of the business because your whole approach which is very very similar, which is about process systems blocks, starts with the end in mind. Put it together, it's really similar kind of thinking process. But there's this thing where there's this thing where we go the kick to the consultancy phrase He's always, you know, at the, after the discovery meeting is, well, we don't really know what's going on until we've looked under the bonnet of the business. And we need to go away and think about the best way, we'd like to do some work we like so which is fobbing off the basic conversation, which is, in my mind, this is a 20,000 pound piece of work, or in my mind, this is a 30,000 piece of I think you'll take 20 - 30,000 pound price point. So I'm wondering whether that's just a leftover thing from marketing agencies where you're buying my precious and thinking time, and it's not commoditized? And everything is incredibly bespoke. Why do we go down this route? And of not saying, this looks like 20,000 pounds to me?
James Ashford 10:51
Yeah, it's a good question. I understand where it comes from. And people can think that they want to create this perception of everything's been really consistent stuff, and that's fine. And I get that, but I think you just need to have self awareness and think, Is that the truth? Or is that you just not, like I say, decoded the price and then actually come up with a way, there's always a way of doing it. But what you could do in that or a way you could do it is like, I believe that if it requires that level of investigation to understand it, that's chargeable, that's the discovery phase of the project that you should be charging for. So that's I'll take you back to accountants, but Paul, my accountant, they do that now. So they can, if it's completely unfathomable, they can say, Well, look, the initial phase of the project it's gonna cost you 1200 quid, we do an in depth report, we do an in depth study and you use that phase to then generate the in depth proposal. So we're effectively paying for their proposal to be generated, but they'll get loads from that. So that's one way. Another way is to say, Well look, based on what I understand so far, this looks like a 20 gramme project. And these are the components of it. However, I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to that, but I will feel comfortable committing to the stage one, which is 1200 pounds. And at the end of that you will get blahdy blahdy blah, and at the end of that phase, if you don't think that way, right, you will still have an absolutely robust plan that you can take to any agency can go and get implemented. But we'll hope that you know, you're happy with those and you want to move forward to the rest of the project, it may change that 20 grand estimate I'm giving you now may change, you know, plus or minus 10%. But based on my experience, that's what we're looking at. Like, yeah, we can just have honest conversations around this.
Robert Craven 12:30
But maybe it was maybe what's going on is there's in the seller's mind, there's two things going on, which is one, what is his client need in order for me to add the maximum amount of value based on the skills and systems that I have? So it might be I do PPC. So my answer is obviously going to be they need more PPC. But the question is kind of how much? Then there's another question going on in the seller's mind, which is, If I quote 15, will I've left money on the table? If I quote 20 will they kick me out? If I quote 25 will I be able to come all the way back to 15? Now I'm making an assumption that these are kind of variable inputs, as well as variable out, it's not just, we're not just playing with price point. And then there's another conversation going in your mind as you look at the client, and you look around the office, and you look at their website to go, you know, Do they look like a gold plated client, you know, because very often, or very often our price point will change around, oh my god, it's BMW, I'll do it for anything. I just want BMW on my as one of my clients on the client list. And then there's another day of the week when it's oh my god, you know, I've got five people just twiddling their thumbs, I just need to get some work at any price. So is this all what I'm saying is all these problems are actually in the mind of the seller, whereas the buyer is just thinking, will this add value to my business? If I give them we start with this number 20k? So we'll stay with it. If I give them 20k? Will that give me 50k on my bottom line over six months?
James Ashford 14:18
Yeah. And you know, this is not restricted to agencies, it's any business. And this is what I've been tackling for the last five years in the accounting industry. And so as well, as you're selling the software, Robert, I've got my book, which really goes into depth about all of the psychology that is actually going on here. And to really try and, you know, unravel some of it. And to my mind, you should know what is the price that you should be selling your services that makes it you highly profitable, and you should be highly profitable, you know, the fundamental reason why you have a business is to make money, and you'll say, oh, no, it's my reason why I wanna make the world more beautiful. I want to employ beautiful people, I love it. I love it. But the primary function is to make money. Yeah, so let's not hide away from that. So you know what you need to charge for your services. And that balance between the scope and the fee is what's ultimately gonna make you money. It's then your ethical obligation to present the very best that you believe that client needs. It's not for you to impose your thinking or their thinking on what they should be charging or whether they can afford it or not. And very often, we bring that to the party, like you say, you've walked into a BMW office, and you think they can pay this and then you walk into another office with a car. That's not for you to determine. If they want to pay for a project, they'll find the money, I promise you they will, people are prepared to go into debt for what they want. Yep. So people get the money for what they want. It's your job to say based on, you know, my understanding of what you're trying to achieve, and what the results you're looking for. This is the very best that we can provide. Now, they don't have to take it. They can always scale that back. They can always, you know, this is actually gonna be a 50 gramme product. It's not a 20 gramme project a 50 gramme project, we've only got a budget for 20 grand, I know, but what you need is this 50 grand project we can't possibly pay for that. Okay, cool. Where do you start? Like, you can still scale it back. And let's start with the 20 grand project and build to the 25 and then and build up to it. And a lot of the work I've been doing with accountants, because what'll happen, it works for accountants, right? So what happens is, you come to that accountant to do the work for you. And the first one, the first thing he might say is, Well, can I have a look at your set of accounts to see the quality of them, right? Worst thing now, because the first thing they do, the first line they go through in your accounts, is what are you paying your current accountant? Okay, so let's say you're paying your current account and 300 quid a month, they'll come and think, all right, well, should I pay charge 400? Or should I charge 250? None of that matters. Because they may need to spend five grand a month right. So a lot of there is so much psychology that needs unpicking. And I think one of the big successes we g proposal is that we weren't software with three components, which was education, software and peer to peer support.
Robert Craven 17:10
So I was blown away, you gave me a early days, you gave me a test drive, of being, in a way being a client, what it felt like being a client receiving what we now call explainer videos, and a whole system of from being the client at a discovery call to all the way through to setting up the contract. And beyond and seeing click click click the paperwork, the video, what's next, this is what happens smooth, joined, it felt bespoke. It was remarkable to watch and to have done to you and it felt incredibly personalised. So in a couple of sentences How do you describe the what your client gets from the goproposal package? So when an accountant signs up for goproposal? Yeah, What is it that they're able to do as a result of the rollout to the relationship?
James Ashford 18:18
Yeah, so in terms of the results, they'll achieve, typically, they'll be able to raise their revenue by around 30%, just by charging for everything that they do. So that's the actual impact will make a huge difference on the bottom line, the business, but what enables them to do is to be able to price consistently, that's the main thing that enables them to do across their entire team across all the clients and to sell confidently, you know, these people are trained to become accountants, the greater that, but then they've not been trained in how to sip and to confidently communicate what they're worth, and then to ensure that they are fully compliant with all of the engagement letters and all the legals that attach to that.
Robert Craven 18:54
Right. So why wouldn't an agency just go in and use exactly the same software? Or is that?
James Ashford 19:02
Yeah, they could do and this is really interesting, Robert. So when we first built goproposal, we have an agency model. We had an accountancy model, and then and an agency model, but I built that business to sell, ability it to scale ability to sell, we want to be profitable, we want to be efficient and lean, and is a good phrase, when someone said to me early on, which is just because you can do something doesn't mean say you should do something. Right. With accountants, they all have the same set of services, they all have the same set of legal requirements for those services. So literally, they could sign up for goproposal. We can and the biggest the biggest barrier to get in. So when anyone signs up for some software, there's something called a magic moment. What's the point in that process of signing up to the point where you've extracted the value or at least can see the value that this is the right decision. This is the right software for me. So if we go proposal, that moment is the moment that they produce It's their first proposal with a client live. And then the big magic moment is it gets accepted. It's like, oh my god, within an hour, this the sign on the spot, they love the experience I've got, I'm happy with the fee, like, that's the magic moment that they're hooked. Yeah. So I've got to get you to that point as fast as I can. So the biggest barrier to setting it up is inputting all of your services input in all of your prices, it takes so long, because you're just not figured out historically, we figured this out for accountants and how to do it. So we had a wizard that we've got set up for accountants that within literally within, you could do within 60 seconds, but three minutes, maybe some three very simple inputs. And it will now take that standard set of services, take your what your base prices, and produce a set of services that you could literally get out the door with now won't be perfect. But I'll tell you, I'll be better than what you've got now. You apply that same model to agencies, and you start with what do you sell? We have our satin package, we have our SCF and all of a sudden, the big piece of work comes in the fact that they've not actually figured out what is the sector, what's profitable, they have this massive, they'll have a massive suite of services, Robert. Ha, profitable last night? Well, why do you do stuff that's not profitable? Well, because my clients wanted and we want to be all things to all people really. Okay. So the setup of the product just ground to a whole because you have to go through this process. It's like lying on a minute. I can turn this around so much faster with accountants and I can with agencies, let's scrap it.
Robert Craven 21:42
Right. So everyone, I know what everyone's thinking right now. And I'm going to use the word. Okay. They're all thinking, why don't I use proposal phi? What's the difference between someone just going and using proposal phi? And going down your route? There are other options on it.
James Ashford 22:05
Yeah. And this is where I'm a jack of all trades. That phrase is used negatively, because people tack on the other bid and Master of None, that wasn't the original phrase, the original phrase was just jack of all trades, and it was used as a positive. Later on in literature, the second part got added and it turned into a negative. I have a good understanding of lots of different parts of businesses, from the values to how your clients worked, how your staff work, to systemization, to customer experiences to make your money, etc. Right? So whenever you're thinking about something like that you have, you can say, well, propose if I work that way, it works. And my question back to you is, how does it work? In what sense? In what sense does it work? So when we produce goproposal, what I wanted to be able to do, Robert, was to empower every member of an accountancy firm, right down for the most junior bookkeeper, who in reality is the person that's probably speaking to you the most often to be able to easily recalibrate your fees, because this is not just about getting the fees right up front, especially with an ongoing relationship. What about as you add things, what about as your circumstances change, you need a mechanism that allows for that continual recalibration of fees. And there's a great book called Starfish and the spider than if you've read Starfish and the spider. So the principle is you have two types of organisations a spider organisation where all the knowledge for how that organisation exists, lived within the spiders head Chapa leg off, chopping off it dies, versus a starfish organisation where all of the knowledge for how that organism runs, is in all parts of the organisms. If you chop a starfish in half, each half grows a new half, right? So how can you build an organisation where you're not push, what you're not doing is what normally happens in an organisation is you have to push the knowledge up for a decision to be made for the decision to then be pushed back down versus push the knowledge down, push the power down to everybody. So one of the key sort of principles of proposal is that it has the sophistication of the pricing in the background, Robert, that the the management team, the leadership team are confident in the signed off. Well now they can push that took down to the most junior member of the team who can now recalibrate your fee on a phone call.
Robert Craven 24:27
I love it. I love it. I can speak for hours about this process system. I think it's because I just love your approach. I love that it's kind of refreshing to talk to someone who's out there and produces something. What I want to get on to is the sale of the business and the last time I saw you was probably I don't know, two months ago and you have the proverbial dog with two tails. I saw you with Paul from Map just made the sale. And it was an all-some interview. You know, I spend four days of my week talking to people saying, I've got a three year business plan to sell the agency. Three years, we're gonna sell the agency. Oh, yeah. Oh, multipliers off? Oh, I've seen it done everywhere. Oh, it's really easy. Now you and I know that. For every person who says they're going to sell the agency in three years time and be richer than their wildest dreams, you know? One in, I mean, do the math one in 100,000, probably. It's a rare thing. So we've not got loads of time. But I really like to get a sense of an understanding of that journey. Because you are one who said in three years time I get to sell this business, we are building this business to sell, we're creating this business to sell, it's always been our intention. And you've gone and done it. So you're a casebook example of someone who has succeeded, and it wasn't just a dream.
James Ashford 26:10
Yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna challenge the couple of things that you've said there, Robert. So it was, whilst it was, it's not having an exit strategy. For me, it was an option strategy. So it was how do we get to the point in this business where we have the most number of options as fast as possible, because the reality is, is once you while selling is one of those options, there are factors outside of your control that you can't determine that, but what we can do is, we can get to the position where it's saleable as fast as we possibly can. So right from the start, you know, we had that vision, every member of the team knew that we're joined in a company that was one of the options was to build the building this to sell. But one of the other options was that I back out of it completely, and it just pays my wife a really nice income, that we franchise into another country, that we franchise into law or into, you know, a different sector or whatever. Like all that we sell it like, we want to be able to get to a point where you got as many options as possible. And what you don't want to do is wait for three years to get to that point, get to it now needs to be done today, you need to be that point, because you've no idea what's going to happen. I could think, well, I'm going to sell this business in five years time, right? And then someone close to me gets sick, or I get sick, and all of a sudden, now that's not a priority, selling it today is a priority, right? And so you have to get to that point as fast as you possibly can. So we started with that in terms of the systemization of the business, everything that possibly could systemize, it could provide an incredible experience to our clients and having a great impact to get in all of my knowledge, because I will use my personal brand to elevate and grow the business. But everything was committed to a book or to video content or whatever. So it would survive me. That was the point. And like I said, all the team knew that they were doing this, we knew we had to get to a million pound in revenue before that plan of someone potentially wanting to buy us would buy us. But the first question is if you're going to, again, exit him. The other part to think about is are you exiting to another agency that's equal in your size? Or are you exiting to a PLC? Because if your eggs into a PLC as we did, the amount of governance that they have is ridiculous, right? So we have monthly management accounts from day one day dot. And our accounts are impeccable. Our reporting, our metrics, and everything was impeccable. The first question any potential acquirer is going to say is he's right, let us have the last three years of your management accounts. Okay. And if you can't go within 10 minutes, bang, there you go. Instantly, they're going to be waving a red flag, if you don't have that level of that standard. So even though we did that, when we enter the DD process, we still have to raise the standard even further. So preparation for your exit has to start now. And you have to assume you're selling to someone with that level of governance.
Robert Craven 27:54
And you talked about going into a meeting with 19 people in it. Is that right?
James Ashford 29:09
Yeah. So yes, there was so many scenarios. So one was going into that was a tax meeting with one of the top four accountancy firms Tax Department in there. And they had 19 questions, it was one of our he was our tax guy in my county to go and feel these questions. And when he went in, he said, and when he came out, I said, How many questions did you ask? He said 19. I said how many people are on the call? He said 19. Each one turned up an expert in that area. And that job is not you know, people think that in a sales process that is the trainer you know, cuz obviously they give a price to start with that they want to buy your business for and then they go into the DVD and people think that they're bringing these people in to try and chip away at the price and to try and grab. Are you gonna answer that one right, we're going to pay a little bit less, we're going to pay a little bit less. That's Slot while they're doing it, they're there to try and ensure that they think the buy in is as they expected it to be. So it's, they're well, within their rights, there were 75 people at one point in our data room investigating, and looking at all aspects of our finance, we went into, you know, they brought in experts in software, to look at the security aspects of the software.
Robert Craven 30:24
Just in broad terms without giving away anything that's confidential, which that what sort of size of business were they buying? We tipped over a million pound revenue. And then throughout the process, it kind of probably moved up to about one and a half million pound revenue by the time the business got actually sold. So it's not I mean, it's surely like petty cash to them. I think we actually did, it was a substantial figure that we sold it for. But even though that was a huge, huge amount, we still fell in there, like minor acquisitions column in their accounting. Because that's what minor acquisition to them means how many months of due diligence? We started that process in February, February, March, April, for us to get everything in order for us was built to take it to market. It's like two months take the market, April, we took it to market and did all of our management presentations. May we got the offers in and we then granted exclusivity in May to Sage. So April, May, June, July, August, September, five months. Five months of the most intense period, you can imagine, whereby I am not able to be in that business at all. So I mentally, emotionally and physically, I was not able to be part of anything to do with the company. Because my head was on this. My main member of staff, the operations director who drove the growth of that company, half of her time was taken upon it. As we progressed, the three leadership, the three of the leaders, maybe a quarter of their time was drawn into it. So if you haven't built a business, that is fully systemized, that fully runs without you, you have got no chance of even entering into this process. And have you know, we answered over 1000 questions throughout the process, right? Some of those questions wanted 40 Page answers, the depth that went into it. And here's the thing, the only does your business has to keep running throughout that time, keeping him to grow and hitting the targets. We completed it in September. They wanted August's figures, so they can see how we are still hitting that growth target at that point, despite the extra pressure of sets going through the sale process as well. You told a lovely story about your lad having a conversation with you about him being your mentor. Do you recall that conversation? Do you recall it? I was Yeah, so maybe like two months away from the end or maybe a month away from the end maybe and you got to imagine the emotional state, there are so many hurdles, and Adam or written up on my whiteboard in my garage, and every hurdle is this. The process either stops now, or is allowed to continue to the next hurdle. That's it. That's all each hurdle represents. It stops today or it continues in the back of your mind. You know, this figure that you're working towards is a life changing amount. Whilst you don't want to be looking on Rightmove, you are looking on Rightmove and your aspects of your Porsche, you do log on to your Porsche backup process, kind of on an hourly interval, okay. So you can't help but dream whilst at the same time preparing yourself to be let down. And there are unknowns in the process, like, the finance team is going to produce a report that their tax team is going to produce a report, they're going to have too you know, you have a security review of all that type of stuff. And it got to like a month from the end, the intensity increased. I was waking up at 4:30 every day anyway, in the last two months, and then in the last month, I was waking up at 3:30. In the closing days, I was waking up at 2:30 in the morning. Like that's how much my head was and it was no matter what time I set my alarm for management ping every morning on to this, like, you know, I'm building some, we get into it, a closure, a point in time here that will transform my life generations, my children, their children, my team, my staff, the clients that we have, like impacted so many people in so many positive ways. And we're driving towards this anyway. Your question is, I will just sat there with my head in my hands. And my son was like, What's up that I said just so many questions. just sent through another round of questions. There's so many to do. And he says, Yeah, dad, but they are wanting to pay you a lot of money. So why don't you just answer him? Yeah, fair point. I'm not like carrying bricks up a ladder. I'm not walking two miles with water to, you know, get my family to be able to survive today. I'm just sat at a computer in relative warmth and comfort in a way to try and achieve something amazing. So yeah, just get a grip. Love it. Yeah, he's the star of the show, isn't he obviously. So you actually put the business sounds like you actually put the business out to market, you actually created a proposal. And you took that around? The proposal was taken to Yeah, so we produce a proposal, which effectively is a sales brochure of your business. Identify all of the potential acquirers your A's, your B’s, your C's. Decide anyone you don't want to go to you take it to market and you present it to them. Those that are interested come back and say, Yeah, we want to, we want more information. Let's go back to the stage. How do you identify the potential acquirers on verticals day one? Or did you do that in dough in year two? How have your brain worked?
James Ashford 36:18
I'd identified the potential acquirers before we sold one licence of goproposal, I developed the logo, and beneath the logo, I had a x, you know, I mean, you have to shy away from it. We're in the accounting industry. So you can look at all the big players goproposal, a sage product goproposal, a zero product goproposal A QuickBooks but like, it's obvious who that those big players are. And then as you carry on, you then encounter other big companies and you start to think of maybe they could maybe they could, I designed those logos, Robert, De dot before we even sold the unit. Because in my head, I want to project my belief, my thought and know where we're heading with it.
Robert Craven 37:04
So how did you know that you were on any of these people's radar? I mean, Sage is massive zeros massive. You're talking about a business with a million pound revenue. How did you know or how did you get them to know about you?
James Ashford 37:21
Well, in terms of how we grew the business anyway, so we were unusual as a software company, Robert, in that we never took any funding, we never, you know, we self funded it all. We kept everything lean, and we grew it that way. And so we own the whole, I own 90% of the business, Paul, our 10% of the business. And that was the same situation when we came to sell it. So we had to be very creative with how we scaled and grew the business. So we were very innovative. Well, we were innovative in the space and that we just dominated content, we were on the speaking, I was on the speaking circuit, I wrote my book. And so in order to do that, you then got to think well, who are the people already selling to the clients that we want, and then it makes sense, then look at all the other software companies that are also selling into those clients. So over the years, we have forged partnerships with those, we had integrations with our software, into their software. I've spoken all of their events have been Keynote or their events, produce content for them, etc. So, again, this is going back to the option strategy. Maybe they don't want to buy it. But you know what, we've got a really strong partnership with them. And we're selling into some of their key accounts. We're working closely with their account managers. And that's another option. So it wasn't that we were forging relationships, because we're going to sell to them. It made logical sense for the business growth. Back to your question about that identity, and then we brought in an m&a company, Robert. So we went and we went out to an m&a company because this is a new process we've never been through. They're experts in this and they are in that discovery phase of finding potential acquirers. We'll also be looking at places that you never even considered, there'll be looking at different territories, different countries, and they do their research, and that's what you pay him a lot of money for worth every penny. Worth every penny. Even if we never sold the business, it would have been worth every penny.
Robert Craven 39:21
That's really interesting, because there's a whole school of thought about, you know, the m&a companies, they kind of take 50k just to take you on board and they take a percentage and then there's no guarantee, but you're saying your relationship with your m&a company. Absolutely worked. Yeah. And that 50k. Well, it was around 50k for the seven months of the duration as they elevated us to a whole other level because what they're doing is they're preparing you to be sold into a PLC effectively. So they graded everything in the business because they're looking at it and saying, right, well, we need to improve this report or we need to look at the way improve the way that you're doing this or produce a 10 year forecast. This is a one year forecast, right? So the intensity, the upgrading of the business, I said right up until the wire, if this doesn't go ahead, our business is stronger, because we employ them, I would get an m&a, whatever stage you're at. If you know of an m&a commit, that's great. I would go and get one in now to do an analysis of you and think, are you prepared, are you ready to sell? And maybe for 5 or 10 grand exercises, you could actually knock yourself into a pretty good shape as a result of that. So the benefits are, whether you like it or not, and then I totally get that. So coming to the next thing is 25 different types of deal from share swap to cash to golden handcuffs to farewell to whatever it is, I mean, what is your involvement in commitment with the business now?
James Ashford 40:52
I mean, answer your question. I was gonna say some, it's really important here, Robert, just to understand this, once we've proven that the business was solid, and was going to go, and we're going to sell it. My wife and I went through a financial planning exercise with a financial planning company, to say, How much money do we need to, you know, to live the life that we want to be able to put deposits down on kids houses, pay for the weddings, put them through university, et cetera? Go on all of this and other times a year for the rest of our lives. What is that amount? So we had that figure from day one. So the plan was the moment the business gets to the point where we can sell for that amount, then we're in, we're into it, okay. And that figure you met, the numbers that you've said to me, throughout this call, and prior to this call, have all been the same numbers that I've either spent or thought about. Because I think it's the same for everyone. So what do you say everyone comes to you wanting to sell the business in three years time for 5 million pounds? Yeah. 5 million pounds is the amount that most people in their 30s or 40s, could get to the end of the day and live a really good quality life. And so we had this figure in our head. And then the point was the moment we got to a point where we could sell it for more than that. That was it. We had to do it, because I'd made that commitment to my family. I went off on a slight tangent on what your question was, again, Robert.
Robert Craven 42:17
100 different types of ...
James Ashford 42:19
Yeah.
Robert Craven 42:19
So very briefly, what type of deal and more importantly, what is your commitment and involvement with the business now?
James Ashford 42:26
Short, from my point of telling you that sorry, it was to ensure that whatever deal we did have to fulfil that, we have to achieve what we wanted to achieve. So it's 100% cash. So I was always looking for a 100% cash deal. But then you get an amount up front that you agree, and then there's deferred amounts, you and then so you want it all to be cashed to my mind. And then in terms of those amounts that you get paid further on, they're either contingent or deferred. So contingent is that you have to hit certain growth targets or whatever in order to be able to achieve it deferred is that you need to stay employed by that business moving forward. Well, I still feel there's work to be done with the product and with what I want to do in the space and stuff. So I'm really happy that for, you know, the next couple of years, I'll be continuing to work with Sage, partly to complete the deal. But I just see them as a really worthwhile, really worthy company with a great mission that I know I can get behind. So I'm not just working with them out of duress, or to make sure that I get the rest of the cash. Like, I love what they genuinely love, what they're trying to do. If they said to me today, here's your cash you want to go today, obviously be pleased with the cash. But I would feel unfulfilled as a part of me that needs to get this to a point for my team site for the client site for the industry site. And I need that time to be able to get this done. So I'm really happy with what we've got.
Robert Craven 43:54
Brilliant. We're coming to an end, I guess the obvious question is agency owner, buddy takes you out for a drink and says, Well, we're so busy. So what do you think I should do, James? What would you say?
James Ashford 44:19
So it's an agency with a different type of business. Yeah, I'd be like, well, that's great that you want to do that. That's a really good option. But the other options are, you know, making a lot of cash now, like, would you want to make 5k 10k a month? Like, if you could clear 10k a month Would that change you in your life? Like if you know, if your partner didn't have to work You could bring him at 10k? And what about if you only had to work one day a week Like would that change your life today? And what people talk about, Robert, and this is the same with you know, big valuations that are bizarre to sell for a billion. I want to do this, really, but what if you could sell for two and a half million or 1.3 million? What if you could make 10k a month? What if you only have to work two days a week? Like these are life changing things. And very often people, Robert, direct the picture I've seen a lot in memes lately where there's two ladders side by side, one's got the rungs really wide apart, and the other one's got tiny rooms. And there's a guy trying to reach for this room that's really hoping he can't reach it, right. And we it's great to have all these lofty ideal goals, but it's to recognise the steps on the way to that. So I'd be like, beautiful. You want to sell your business in three years time Perfect. Well, why don't we start? What's the steps along the way from that? Well, you're making 100 grand a month now you've got to make 250 grand a month, then at some point, then you've got to make 500 grand a month, then 750. And you're currently paying yourself 2k a month. Okay. Well, why don't you aim to pay self three came on from them 4k and then 5k, you currently work 80 hours a week? Well, let's go 60 hours a week, 40 hours a week, 20 hours a week. So this things build up towards that. So it's great that you want that to be an option. You're not in control of all of that. It's like, my son is just that Leo we were talking about earlier. It's just entered his Motte and Bailey castle for the competition, because we've done a model at home. He's entered it. He's getting judged tomorrow. He's like, hope I win, I hope I win, I said, Leo, that's out of your control. Maybe there might be someone with a real life size one. Yeah. All you can control is did you do your best. So just because you want to sell your business, that's beautiful. But let's try and get some great results today. Like, even if we'd not sold the business it would have been good. Yeah. But you know, what, I had a brilliant business was paying me loads that I wasn't involved in with a cracked on for another couple of years and gone out to market then. So I would say great that you want to do that. But let's start making some life changing decisions in your business today. Let's ensure that it has the financial rigour in place from today. So that if you do get to that point, in three years time, when I started building a business, Robert, this, you know, a long time ago, someone said to me, it's gonna take you 10 years to build a business. I remember saying that's a long time he said it is, but it's better than never. And so maybe it's not a three year thing, maybe it's a 10 year thing, but maybe you can start getting some real life changing things out of that business in 12 months time. So I would say, be more realistic, extend the goal, perhaps further, but start getting juice today to make the whole journey worthwhile.
Robert Craven 47:31
James, I could talk to you for hours, I've really enjoyed this conversation. But we have a time limit. So I'm just I'm gonna stop it there. Otherwise, I'll go on all day, I can feel that. So thank you. Thank you so much for being so open about your journey and what happened. So many lessons to be taken out of it. It's great to talk to someone who is honest about the highs and lows and how easy and how not easy it is. One of my frustrations always with the exit thing is, people always say we were one person, then we were 100 person then we sold. And they never actually talked about the bit in the middle of that how difficult that was. And I think you've really kind of helped us understand that. So final words will go from you, come from you. What is your kind of one or several golden nuggets that you'd like to share? What is the pearl of wisdom that you hear yourself saying to yourself or to other people?
James Ashford 48:36
One of the big things is version one is better than version non, like, just get moving with whatever it is you don't have time to hang around with anything, you know, and the thing we Paul and I have shared light is ready fire aim. And these aren't my phrases, I've stolen them from the people. But just to get moving with these things very often we hold things off because we want them to be perfect. But very often, it's just a bullshit thing in our head as to why we're not doing it. And just to keep to move everything forward is my thing, progress, not perfection. So you know, you could say that perfection is to exist. Well, that may be so but let's just make progress, earn an extra 500 quid for yourself this month, take an extra five days holiday a year this year, like let's just keep making progress and moving forward. And the other thing is that all the only thing I can guarantee is that's going to be on your path. I can't guarantee an exit on your path. A can guarantee that you're gonna hit huge challenges along the way, whatever it is that you're doing, you know, and whenever we've encountered challenges we've encountered many, I always step back and ask myself, Where is the gift? And in every single time when I've asked that question with purpose and intensity, I have found gifts that have grown our revenue that have done amazing things when what was presented was a huge threat at the time. And so, you know, just to expect those challenges that are going to come your way on your journey. And just to try and find the gifts of growth in them.
Robert Craven 50:01
Brilliant. Thank you so much James. He's gonna be one of those interviews that people play back and play back and take notes. Because it's just been such a rich conversation and so many really relevant pearls. So all I can say is, thank you so much James, for sharing. It's been a real thing.
James Ashford 50:22
You wrapped up there, but I'm gonna say one final thing, Robert, and I'm probably going over time here, but just anyone listening to this, that's building a business, just to say, I have so much respect for you. Like, I know that you are doing this because you want to give yourself a better quality of life that you want to give your family, your children great opportunities that you will employ people and do good things in the world. And like I just have absolute tremendous respect for you and know how challenging it can be at times. I know that no one's believing in you, no one's listening to you, and you've driving on anyway. And so the fact that I've got wonderful people like Robert around who are given us access to great resources and a wonderful mind himself who can support and help you with growth, get the right people on board, surround yourself with brilliant people cut out any just block as much negativity as you can get that team around you to help you to drive through those challenges, and I just wish you every success in achieving your goals.
Robert Craven 51:19
Brilliant. I just love it. Thank you so much, James.