To the top of the pyramid.
This week we’re on the road to bring the EA MasterPlan to Edinburgh, Leeds and Silverstone, and then again next week when we visit Cardiff and Southampton.
The EA MasterPlan is a distillation of best practice in estate agency, drawn in particular from those businesses exceeding £1m revenue per office, (some exceeding £3m).
One of the models we’ve developed for the events is the Business Value Pyramid – it has seven parts, and to tempt you to take one of the few remaining places (they’re free by the way), today I’d like to share a key point from one of the seven steps here.
“The first five steps are mostly to do with maximising the value of the current business. Steps 6 and 7 are all to do with the future – and this is where the value of your business can be turbocharged.
Step 6 – Scale
I’ve been involved with many business sales, but there are two I was closely connected with: Jackson Property Services (JPS) and Romans.
When we sold JPS to Halifax our geographic coverage had more than tripled in the previous two years. We could clearly demonstrate how the business could move into new territories and become number one or two, by every metric other than length of time in patch, within two years. This enabled us to show to Halifax how we could grow our (soon to be their) network from 30 locations to over 100 in two years (we actually achieved it in 18 months).
With Romans, it was different. The directors felt that the brand was ideal for the mid market but couldn’t compete in locations with top end properties. An acquisition of a two branch agency in Windsor and Maidenhead opened the debate of whether to keep the existing brand or not. I argued very strongly to rebrand at the earliest opportunity for several operational reasons, (2 websites for example), for the cultural impact, (“Us & Them”), but most of all because by keeping another brand it said to a future investor: “The Romans brand can only go so far.”
You must have the previous five steps in place, without them Scale becomes largely irrelevant, but selling the future is how to add 20,50,100% more value to the sale of a business – in Romans case, their EBITDA multiple was near double the norm of that time.”
Thanks to our principal partner OnTheMarket, and several amazing sponsors; Complete ASAP, Chapter II, Coadjute, Landmark, Moneypenny, Rexlabs, Spectre, Street and TwentyEA, we’re able to bring the EA MasterPlan for free to a venue near you this week and next.
At the time of writing there are just a handful of spaces available at some venues, so please check now for availability and to reserve your space.
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