How I walked away from £60,000 with a smile on my face
A big part of the process of moving to Denmark was to sell our gym and health care business in the Uk.
I had no idea how to go about it so I contacted a couple of business sellers. They each asked to see the last few years accounts as well as have all of my equipment valued.
They each came back with the same figure.
“We believe we can get you £180,000 cash within the next 6 month Sir.”
Wow!
I didn’t even set the business up with selling it in mind. This was a very pleasant surprise.
I signed with the rep whose head was the least far up my arse.
Within six weeks there were three or four parties interested.
By this time we had sold our house, got our eldest daughter a space at school, taken a flat in Ordrup, sent our dog Rex to Mor Mor in Hellerup and sent off most of our stuff in a shipping container.
The following 6 months were the most stressful of my whole life.
To say the business sellers had not prepared me for what was to come would be an understatement.
The first interested party took me to school. They went through my figures with a fine tooth comb.
What they uncovered was that my rental agreement was great for a small business operator looking to mitigate risk. Not so great for someone looking to invest £180,000 plus any upgrade investments they would make.
This wasn’t a fun process but it’s one I’m grateful for and I’m still in contact with the two guys involved. One has even been a client.
What I learned through this experience was that the business was actually only worth £60,000. I don’t think I was shocked. I was disappointed although mostly at the lack of due diligence on the part of the people who supposed to be specialist in business selling and also stood to gain from it.
And in truth I guess, in my own lack of due diligence in choosing someone who would offer this support.
However these two guys in question only wanted to do a deal if I continued to run the place from Copenhagen which was not what I wanted.
The next interested party were the worst two humans I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.
They stalked me, sent 20 emails a day or ignored me, tried to intimidate me, bribe me, bully me and the whole process had me terrified of looking at my phone for a while.
It’s hard to convey what a horrible experience it was.
Until one evening when I walked into the now empty office in our house to see my notebook open on the floor.
In it I had listed what was important to me at the beginning of the process.
At no point had I written - making a lot of money on the gym.
In fact my evaluation was £20,000 for the kit and a promise to keep on my staff.
My stress melted away in that moment.
Strange isn’t it.
My circumstances hadn’t changed at all but my experience of them had changed significantly.
Night and day.
What I learned was that life or our experience of it isn’t about what we are doing but who we are being.
In this case who I was being was someone who had let other people decide what was actually important to me.
My notebook helped to remind me of what was actually important to me.
What my stalker endured over the following month is what I came to call the rope-a-dope as I allowed him to punch himself out and chase shadows while I found my own buyer, my own way.
It’s so easy to get confused by money, to think that we should follow the large number at all costs. If you haven’t defined ALL of the ways you want to get paid though its easy to end up suffering your way through life as a result.
Its in the extreme situations in life that we have cause to pause and re-evaluate our values or get pulled in the wrong direction for us. But if we have already done the work we can already see the bright shiney imposter trying to pull us off course.
