Why 90% Of Businesses Fail and How to Scale Up with Nick Bradley

Episode 83: Why 90% Of Businesses Fail and How to Scale Up with Nick Bradley

THE PROFIT FIRST REI PODCAST

April 13, 2022

DAVID RICHTER

Summary:

Investing in real estate can be fruitful, but dealing with it alone can be challenging and risky. Real estate is a tricky business that requires knowledge, talent, organization, networking, and perseverance. It also takes a little savvy to succeed in this highly competitive arena. If you want to scale your way up, you must remember to keep the end goal in mind!

But what does that necessarily mean? Don’t worry because real estate rockstar Nick Bradley will get to the bottom of that. Nick is on the show today to teach us how to network, organize, and run a business that works without us. Join our talk by clicking on that play button!

Key Takeaways:

[4:23] Networking with high net-worth individuals 

[6:27] How important it is for people to have that network, and when should they start building that high-level network?

[6:4]  The six reasons why your business will never hit eight figures

[8:32] How do real estate investors keep the end goal in mind?

[11:10] You need to know your need and want number

[16:15] You have to scale to sale

[19:11] The three principles to in driving your 

business: Clear end game, Scaling fast and build value, Exit rich

[24:30] How did Profit First situate in his line of business?

[27:20] Start with the good habits as early as possible

Quotes:

[0:21] “People who don’t have a strong foundation of their finances from the beginning end up with a problem as they start to scale.”

[9:30] “When you get something that is not optimized, and it needs to be to get the outcome that you want.”

[12:45] “When you exit yourself from the business, and the business still runs, and you own it, you have freedom from that, but you don’t have to be there.”

Links:

Scale Up with Nick Bradley Podcast- https://open.spotify.com/show/3zWRNth6fPJc8rKdXgOZEH?si=_SdjZntfSH2P3hF-GQCj9g 

Traction by Gino Wickman- https://www.eosworldwide.com/traction-book 

Nick’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/therealnickbradley

Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI 

Nick’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealnickbradley/

Nick’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCegGXRp5Nxhn6wyN2SvFeuA

Tired of living deal to deal? 

If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David

Transcript:

Nick Bradley:

If you are at early stage, and I think Profit First is great at the very early stages. It’s one of those things that you should adopt in your business right from the outset. So if you want to, as I said, a philosophy or a methodology, then you should apply that to your business from the outset. It doesn’t mean you can’t apply it later on, but what I find is that people who don’t have strong foundations around the finances from the beginning, ends up with a problem as they start to scale.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to The Profit First REI Podcast, where real estate investors master financial management, eradicate entrepreneurial poverty, and learn to be profitable from day one. Now for your host, David Richter

David Richter:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Profit First REI Podcast, it’s your host David Richter. Here with Nick Bradley, I am super excited about this one because Nick is an incredible human being. I’m going to start, I’ve got like this long bio here and all this stuff, but I want to say first, one of the things that made Nick stand out about me is that he’s a family person, that’s one of my core values.

So he flew into Tampa and was away from them for two weeks, and you could just tell, he wanted to be back with them, he enjoyed his family time, and he makes that a priority. And that’s even into his bio, I love when people put in their bio, it’s like, we’re human beings here. And honestly, so that’s what impressed me about Nick.

But then he is also done some pretty cool stuff in the business world too, I mean, sold 25 businesses within the last 10 years for a combined valuation of $5.2 billion, not million but billion. So he’s done that, he works with private equity, he works in UK, and the US, and other different countries, but he also is a co-founder of the Fielding Group, which is a growth consultancy that helps companies improve business performance.

He owns seven other businesses now. Like I said, a dedicated family man, he’s just, he’s run ultra marathons and marathons has done like 67 of them. Nick is just someone who I feel like is a personal development and really takes it seriously about developing himself, not only as a business owner, but as a human being and as a family person. So Nick, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Nick Bradley:

What an intro, David, what an intro. I mean, I don’t know where to start with that. I mean, yeah, what I will say is like that at Tampa trip where we met, where I was speaking at an event there, when I met you it was the end of it. So I was missing my kid and my wife, because I’d been on the road for, I think 27 days.

David Richter:

Oh wow.

Nick Bradley:

Something like that. So that’s almost a month, that does feel like a long time.

David Richter:

Yeah. It is. And absence makes a heart grow fonder for sure, if it’s the right people. Yeah. And I just wanted to mention too, he also has the UK’s number one business podcast, Scale Up with Nick Bradley. So that’s what I want to focus on today, because a lot of entrepreneurs and real estate investors, whenever they come to us and they work with us, they’re always like, how can I solve today’s problems?

But usually, they’re not thinking about, where do I really want to take this. If I solve this problem today this way, does it affect us down the road? So I’d love to talk about use with the businesses, the exits and whatnot, and kind of take it that direction. But yeah, I just wanted to least give you a little bit of that introduction there. And before you go into that, do you have any words to say or anything that you want to say up front of how you even got into the business and into selling the businesses?

Nick Bradley:

I’m happy to kind of do a very quick sort of backstory without it boring everyone listening to this. Yeah. I mean, I’m originally from Australia. So I grew up in Australia, I moved to the UK where I live now in 2003. So coming up to almost 20 years here. I started off as a, what I call a pretty typical entrepreneur, I started my first business when I was 18, I sold it at 21. Sold it for 3000 Australian dollars.

David Richter:

Nice.

Nick Bradley:

I always joke and say that’s probably a Starbuck’s coffee or something. It’s not very much. But it wasn’t so much, I mean, I was a young guy and didn’t know a lot about things back then, but what was interesting about that business, it was in the personal training fitness space, you mentioned the running and all that.

But what it did do is it allowed me to develop some really interesting skills at a young age. One of those skills was networking with high net worth individuals, and there’s the ego, and the success, and all the different things that come from that. But just being comfortable in that environment as an 18 year old guy.

And then from that, I obviously got introduced into various networks via them. And my first, I suppose, job, after selling my business, I worked for Men’s Health Magazine, which was owned by Rupert Murdoch, actually his nephew, a guy called Matt Hamre run that. And I got introduced into that world through my connections of entrepreneurship, is probably the best way to say it. Spent good 15 years doing that in the world of corporates and big companies, I got involved in the strategic side, marketing and sales.

My first pretty large exit, I was involved in the management team was a big media company in the UK back around 2007. And that was an exit from just over two billion pounds. And after that, I kind of got catapulted into the world of private equity for the next 10 years or so. And over that time, did 117 acquisitions, it’s actually 26 exits as of two days ago.

David Richter:

Oh wow.

Nick Bradley:

It’s pretty-

David Richter:

Congratulations.

Nick Bradley:

And by that, just so everyone’s clear, they’re not all my exits, I’ve had a few, but that’s where I’m helping founders scale up and realize what I call that get rich once number. When you look in your bank account and you go, “Wow, how did that happen?”

But yeah, so that’s the kind of check it passed. And these days I focus my time buying my own companies, I have, as you said, seven businesses, all via acquisition, other than my consultancy, which I did start. And then the rest of the time it’s helping people scale fast and exit rich, that’s my big thing.

David Richter:

So before we go into maybe the core message there of how people should be thinking about at the end, the end in mind, you said, something that is so, I see this, especially now, having that network and scaling up yourself, making sure you’re in the right room with the right people, because that introduced you to now what you’ve done for years and years and now helping other people do it as well, too. How important would you say that is for people to have that network and when should they start building that high level network?

Nick Bradley:

It’s funny actually. Before we pressed record, I said, I was writing this quite a small guide at the moment, which is the Six Reasons Why Your Business Will Never Hit Eight Figures and reason, I’ve got it here in front of me, so I’ll read it to you. Reason number five is your environment and the people that you surround yourself with won’t get you there.

So in answer to your question, it’s critical that you put yourself in rooms, and I mean that rooms in terms of virtual rooms, as well as live rooms, where you put yourself in environments and spaces where you are the smallest person in the room, you are inspired, challenged, you feel the fear of maybe, why am I here? Do I deserve to be here? All those sort of things. But that feeling is growth. And unless you’re doing that on a regular basis, unless you are making that part of your philosophy, then you’re always going to be contained, you’re never going to be able to reach a potential in my mind.

David Richter:

Yeah. And that’s so good. And we see that a lot, a lot of it real estate investors go to masterminds and go to different events like that, where they, where I do, I hear that a lot from people there like, I’m doing X amount and like, which is really good in my market, but then I go to this meeting and I am a small fish in a very big pond, and I think that is, it is so good, especially if you’re just starting out in real estate investing, who’s local to you that’s doing deals.

And then once you are doing the deals and you’re the big fish in the small pond, getting outside of there and making sure that you’re growing as well too. That’s excellent advice, so we hear that a lot, just that network is really, it really helps you get to where you need to be in helping more people.

So then let’s talk about the exit, like keeping the end in mind. So what would you say? Do you have some core principles around that? As a real estate entrepreneur, especially the listeners could be from rentals, to fix and flip, to commercial or whatnot, what would you say for real estate investors and just business owners? How to keep the end in mind? What should they be thinking about? How to make those decisions? And just from your expertise in so many billions of dollars.

Nick Bradley:

Yeah. There’s a number of principles that I have found to be true over years of experimentation and also seeing other people go through various journeys. And the first thing, and again, I mentioned this when we first met is a lot of people just don’t think big enough and therefore, by not thinking big enough, and that’s not about creating something crazy, that’s not achievable, it’s about being realistic, but it’s about asking more of who you are.

And you’ve got to ask that question or you’ve got to say, “Listen, am I really building something here?” It doesn’t matter if it’s real estate, or business, or whatever, am I really building something here that’s going to afford me if you like an outstanding life?

And it’s funny, I get brought in usually in the transition from startup to scale up in businesses, but it doesn’t really matter what it is, it’s when you’ve got something that is not optimized and it needs to be in order to get the outcome that you want, be that a piece of property that needs development and then you’re going to flip it, versus a business that needs to be optimized, improved, scaled up, and then sold, it’s the same thing.

The key thing I say is you’ve got to realize what are you doing this for ultimately? Is there a number in your head? And I mentioned this, a life changing number, amount of money that’s going to create freedom for you. Once you achieve that, is that freedom going to allow you to do other things, be that, sit on a beach if you want, or go out and make a bigger impact in the world, leave a legacy.

But it starts with that idea that the end in mind is what am I creating for myself first? Which will allow me to create more for others, what’s that going to cost? This is me putting the private equity hat on now, what’s the investment required? So therefore, what is my life changing number? What is my get rich once number, my freedom number? Why does that number actually matter? And here’s the real kicker, this is the one I think that it doesn’t matter, who’s listening to this, they need to hear it, is what you are doing now in your business, how you’re spending your time, is it going to get you to that outcome?

And if you haven’t sat down and asked that question before, do it, if you have asked that question before but not really got an answer, I suggest press pause, do it now. No. But seriously, it will open up a different way of thinking, and that’s the first probably principle we can discuss because it’s such a powerful one.

David Richter:

That’s really good too. I just, because it’s The Profit First REI Podcast, in The Profit First REI book, I say in the first chapter, you need to know your need and want number. You need to have like, and I love what you said, Nick, it’s the questions that we’re asking ourselves, that’s a better question to ask herself than what is the fire that’s happening right now today? What do I need to put out?

And then you’re running, like you said, what are the activities that I’m doing today getting me to where I really want to go? And it’s like, it’s having those deep conversations with yourself, it’s really looking internally, figuring out first, what do I need just to survive? And then what do I need to thrive? What would make me excited as a business owner? I love what you say too, with a get rich once number, can you talk about that with the business owners that you work with? What does, is that when they exit or whatnot? What is that one number? Is that what…

Nick Bradley:

Yeah. So happy to talk about it. So remember there’s different nuances within the wording here. So if I say the word exit, there’s actually two ways of exiting in my mind, you could probably say there’s heaps, but there’s two ways. You can exit a business when you sell it, so you actually sell it and obviously, you sell it for a sum of money and that’s sum of money lands in your bank account, as I said beforehand, and hopefully you’re counting lots of zeros and picking yourself off the floor, right?

David Richter:

Right.

Nick Bradley:

And that’s the first time a lot of the people that I work with realize total, the pressure of having to make money is now gone because… And I’ll get into what these numbers are in a second, so we’re not talking about billion dollar unicorns here, will-

David Richter:

Right.

Nick Bradley:

… we get a bit more real. But that’s one way of exiting. The other way of exiting, which isn’t talked about in the same way but is equally important is when you exit yourself from a business, but the business still runs and you own it, and you have freedom from that, but you don’t have to be in there. And I have that, I have the privilege of that with my companies, so I have people run the businesses.

I get involved in the strategy, because I like it, but I don’t have to be there at all. And so both of those are exits, both of those are things that you can work towards. But to the point around, what’s the number? And I joke about this, your life changing number is not a billion dollars, it is not, okay?

David Richter:

Right.

Nick Bradley:

You may want to be a billionaire, that’s cool, but that’s not your life changing number, your life changing number is the number that creates that first pathway to both time and money freedom. And the number for most people is somewhere between $10 and $20 million. All right, first thing.

So what I say is, if you had $20 million in your bank account right now, David, all of your liabilities are paid for. You’d probably be able, even with some very, very cautious investments, you could probably take home a salary and income of somewhere between $80,000 to $90,000 per month, for the rest of your life, that’s putting into like a 7% Vanguard accounts, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

That’s not buying houses, or buying businesses, or doing anything creative, it’s not investing in startups, that’s just bricks and mortar type of stuff, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

Now, is not about your lifestyle, I don’t spend 80 grand a month.

David Richter:

Me neither.

Nick Bradley:

But if you think about, that’s $20 million and obviously $10 million, it’s going to be a bit less than that, but they’re still compelling numbers. So what I advise lots of founders to do, business owners to do is when you’re setting your exit and you want to sell the business, don’t stick in there forever trying to get to a number you don’t need.

As soon as someone turns up and that ratio is there, you’d be wise to look at it, because I’ve also been involved in people who have held on for a bigger number and then the bigger number didn’t happen, in fact, the worst happened, the market changed, pandemics hits, blah, blah, blah, and all of a sudden, everything they’ve spent the last five to 10 years building is worth nothing.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

So pace matters, scale matters, timing matters, and being realistic with what you’re trying to create for your life is all part of this equation we’re discussing.

David Richter:

No, that’s really good. Wow. Because yeah, so many people think that I just need to keep working, working, working, but they never put that number to it and what is that realistic number? To actually stop your rat race of having to work, or whatnot, or getting out of that business.

So once they establish that number, that’s at least one of the first steps there, but then what about… I had a question, once you’ve talked about those two different exits, selling or staying a part of the business, but you don’t have to be a part of the day to day or in that anymore. Do you prepare for those differently or do you prepare for them the exact same way? Only one, you’re taking home money, the other one, you’re just, it’s your cash machine almost, it’s like, you don’t have to do anything. So do you prepare?

Nick Bradley:

It’s a very good question, David, because it is exactly the same, exactly the same. So I look at it in terms of a methodology that I’ve sort of crafted in my head after all those years of being involved in these scale ups to exits, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

So I call it scale to sale. So it’s when you’ve got a business, that’s got good foundations. So everything we’re talking about now is good foundations, it’s not startup, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

Usually it’s a business that’s probably getting into the high six, low seven figures in revenue, that sort of size, and then you’re thinking, well, how do I get it to eight? We mentioned that previously. And so the first part of the methodology is what we spoke about the very beginning of our conversation, clear end game, clear end game in terms of what you want the business to be like and what that’s going to give to you.

So you are building back from that very, very clear position of what it is, so that’s the first principle of the methodology. Second principle is what I call scale fast and build value right now. Scale fast is an interesting one because a lot of people still get stuck into what I call organic growth, which means they’re trying to build their business one customer at a time.

So that’s traditional sales and marketing. You have to have a very, very good machine in your business that drives predictable flow of the right customers coming in. But if that’s all you’re doing, your growth is going to be slow.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Nick Bradley:

So the other part of that scale fast and build value is you’ve got to overlay the strategic stuff, and that’s where I talk about acquisitions, joint ventures. So that it’s much easier to go and buy your competitor down the road who’s got all these customers do a deal there, or even a partnership, if you’ve got a product that you can sell into that other business, and you are going to get much faster scale of your revenues than just trying to go out there and do it yourself.

So that’s one thing, that’s just one dimension. And small business acquisitions right now is incredible, there are so many businesses out there and if anyone’s not, I mean, even if you’re a real estate investor, just pivot a bit of your thinking towards buying businesses because it’s the same principle, buying a house, and buying a business, and how you leverage capital is the same bloody thing.

But you are going to get a much higher return on scaling and exiting a business than you will from real estate. The multiples are just so much bigger. So that’s that. And then the last principle is this exit rich, how do you build towards that?

So that’s processes, systems, making yourself redundant from the business, because even if you decide to sell it as in exit and then take what we call a capital payment, you don’t want to be the person that’s going to be sitting around running that business for ages right after you’ve sold it to someone, you want to have someone in the business that’s kind of your number two, who’s running it for you.

So to your question, those three things, still has to be worked on, and whether you decide to sell it, set a cash payment, or whether you decide to exit yourself and have someone run it for you, you would’ve still built the business with those foundations to get you to that sort of eight figure milestone.

David Richter:

And then could you just repeat those again? Just real quick, those three, just so we have them in bullet form.

Nick Bradley:

So principle one is clear end game, principle two is scale fast and build value, and principle three is exit rich. So build everything back from that so you know your numbers and then you compound those together.

David Richter:

Huh, I love that, I love the terminology there and know your numbers, because that’s where a lot of people, I think that at least we work with or whatnot, that’s one of those things that entrepreneurs, they don’t have that drive to know the numbers or like to know where they really are inside their business, just from not only their end game, but just looking at the numbers of the business and being financially savvy.

So can you talk to that since it’s a Profit First REI Podcast, having a system for your finances, and knowing those numbers, and really knowing where everything’s going, how important is that when you are looking at businesses to buy or to sell, what would you say on the financial side?

Nick Bradley:

The number one thing when you sell a business, and it’s probably the same when you sell a house. But the number one thing is people are going to look at the quality of that business, and that means that if I buy a business, that’s got a few things broken in it, I’m going to pay less, in the same way if you buy a house that’s not painted, it’s going to be that’s whatever, all that stuff.

So in terms of the financials, the first thing that I look at when I buy a business is the P&L and the balance sheet. Then I’ll start to look at things like the quality of the product and service, the customer base, the people in the business, but if the numbers don’t make sense from the outset, I can’t buy it because I won’t be able to buy it in the way that I like to buy it.

So I like to do what we call leverage buyouts, and I’ll explain this quickly for people, it’s important as an investment tool. Where I am leveraging the assets from the business that I’m buying to do the deals. So very commonly, when I buy a company I’m only putting 10% of my own capital into a deal, the other 90% to get the deal done is other people’s money.

And the only way that I can do that is by leveraging the assets on the balance sheet and making sure that the forward projections on the P&L are going to be able to cover the way that I structure the deal. So just to make this grounded, if I go and buy a business and they haven’t got a clean set of numbers and metrics, firstly, I’m not going to buy it probably, it’s too much risk.

If I was going to buy it, I’m going to put all of the risk onto the seller, 100%. So that’s sometimes what we call 100% seller finance deal, which basically means I’ll buy your business off you, but I’m going to pay you installments over the next three to five years from the profits I’m taking from the business. And the reason that I’m going to do that is because you can’t give me certainty on your numbers.

Now you might say, why would I sell a business to you, Nick, for that? Well, if you are reaching retirement age, you are sick, your partner’s sick, or something like that and you just don’t want to be in the business anymore, that might be the best offer you’re going to get. So long-winded response, but I just want to people to understand the context here. Equally, if the numbers are great, the value’s going to be greater because it’s just so clear and transparent where growth is coming from, where value is being created, and that sort of stuff.

David Richter:

Yeah. I think this all ties into what we’ve talked about because I think people and business owners, entrepreneurs, real estate investors, especially in those circles that I’m running in, if they don’t have that end game, the numbers don’t become as important.

So that’s why sometimes it’s just about getting the next deal or their living deal to deal, month to month and they might be at that high six figures, low seven figures, but like they’ve just built it on their back and not have the firm foundations. And I think once you know that end game of where you want to go, and now you’re listening to the expert here, Nick Bradley, number one business podcast in the UK, he knows his stuff of how to exit the business, he’s telling you that the first thing he looks at is the profit and loss and the balance sheet.

So you have to know those numbers, you have to make sure it’s clean up to date, and then whether you want to sell it or not, because what you said, Nick too, I’m sure it’s the same that even if you’re not looking, if they’re not looking to sell it and like you said, stay in the business or whatnot, and they might still be there, but not actually a part of the business the day to day, they still need to have those numbers to be able to show someone. So that way they know, yes, I can take off or yes, I can pass this on to Nick, or whatever their situation might be. So that’s just, yeah, we try and beat this over ahead all the time and it’s just great to hear it from someone who’s done billion dollars.

Nick Bradley:

We can underline it, we can put full stops all around it.

David Richter:

Right, exactly.

Nick Bradley:

We can, I’m sure everyone’s heard it, but a lot of this stuff, I mean, as much as I’ve been doing this for 20 odd years or so, it’s not rocket science, when you look at it. And one thing I want to say also is align with that sort of thinking bigger piece. It’s not just about thinking bigger in terms of a strategy, it’s also trying to get yourself up to that 30,000 foot view so you can see the landscape and you can see the path. And quite often you don’t and you get stuck into that. So you want to be able to elevate that and that’s when you can be more strategic and you can build to some of these bigger numbers that we’ve been discussing.

David Richter:

Yeah, man. That’s great stuff. So I just have a couple final questions here. Profit First, you’re a fan of Profit First, how would that situate with what you’ve seen in businesses? Do you like that system to be a part of the financials or, wait, I don’t know, you’ve read the book, you are friends with Mike Michalowicz, what do you think about the Profit First just as being a part of the cash flow management piece of a business?

Nick Bradley:

I like, yeah. I mean, great stuff. I mean, it’s one of those seminal books right up there with Traction by Gino Wickman that I often advise people to read and adopt. I think for me, with Profit First, it’s just a good philosophy of how you should think about not just your business, but your life, the concepts behind that.

So and this is where I’m going to probably alienate a heap of your listeners now because I’m going to say something. I’m not someone who likes businesses that are building to profit. So when you get lots of these tech businesses who are out there raising lots and lots of money on the premise that one day they’re going to be profitable. And I know they sell for billions like WhatsApp, sort of stuff.

I know that there’s value there. I just think real value comes from profit. It’s the cashflow and those sort of things of the business. So what I advise people to do, if you are at early stage, and I think Profit First is great at the very early stages. It’s one of those things that you should adopt in your business right from the outset.

So if you want to, as I said, a philosophy or methodology, then you should apply that to your business from the outset. It doesn’t mean you can’t apply it later on. But what I find is that people who don’t have strong foundations around the finances from the beginning ends up with a problem as they start to scale, because it’s a little thing, like a small, what do they say? What’s the saying? It’s better to kill the giant when it’s small or kill the monster when it’s small.

David Richter:

Right.

Nick Bradley:

You heard that saying?

David Richter:

Yes.

Nick Bradley:

Because if you haven’t got some level of structure around how you manage the business performance, then as it starts to grow, it’s just going to grow out of control to a point where any growth that you’re getting will stall, and then you’ll have to stop and you’ll to go back and fix. And a lot of business owners give up at that point because they start to see the performance going backwards, they start to lose their mind, and when people say, “Oh, 90% of small businesses fail,” a lot of that is because these sort of things are not in place. So that’s my general summary of why it’s important.

David Richter:

Awesome. Well, I love that because it is, I always see that all the time, we work with some people where they’re first starting out and we work with some people on the back end where it is, they’ve got a bigger operation and it is, it’s like pulling teeth to get to where, okay, we at least got to get the foundation now of like, okay, being on the same page with the numbers, and with the cashflow, and whatnot.

So I love your advice there. If you’re listening to this and you’re just starting out, this is why I tell people, you start out with the good habits as soon as humanly possible. So even if you’re doing 100 deals right now, now’s the day to implement it, or if you’ve done zero deals and you’re looking to buy and sell your next one next week, implement this cash flow system, so that way you start out on a better foot.

So that way, when you go to Nick, when you want to scale up to eight figures, and you want to sell, and you want to exit, then you can go to him and say, “Hey, I’ve got my finances in order, and here’s where they are, and here’s the cash flow, and here’s why my multiple will be better and I can actually sell for something that…”

Nick Bradley:

Makes my life easier. It means I need to do less work than you say, it’s a…

David Richter:

Yeah, exactly. That’s awesome. So Nick, this has been awesome. Just have one final question here. You gave a lot of value on talking about the network, talking about how to scale and exit, some of those principles, how Profit First fits into this overall and into the finances and even exiting.

So then how, since you provide a lot of value here, how can our listeners provide value back? I know they can listen to your podcast and I can keep it the number one podcast, but then is there anything else, any links, sites, anything you need? I just always like asking…

Nick Bradley:

Yeah. Very nice, I like that. I’ll share with you, I’ll share with them, your listeners one of my goals for this year, actually, which always in, I want to… So I do a lot of speaking now on this subject and I want to start to do more of that, and I’ve got a number of different opportunities that are starting to present themselves across the world actually, but a lot of it is in the US.

So if anyone listening to this has events, conferences, things like that, where they want this type of information shared, then I’m certainly open to those type of things. And then the only other final thing is if people are kind of interested in the concepts and whatever else, I have a Facebook community, free Facebook community called Build Your Business Empire. So if you go into Facebook, you can join that, we’ve got a few 100 people in there now, it’s a very vibrant group of what I call Empire Builders, people who are trying to do something stunning with their business. So there you go.

David Richter:

Awesome. There you go. That’s how you could connect with Nick and what his goals are for this year. If you know someone who can have him on a stage, he’s an excellent speaker, I heard him last few months ago in Tampa and it was incredible, and just hearing him talk about scaling, exiting, and everything.

So loved having him there at that event, if you can use, or if there’s someone in your mastermind networks or whatnot, just reach out. And then if there’s anything else we could do for you, Nick, let us know, but thank you so much for being on the podcast today, it was an awesome episode.

Nick Bradley:

Okay, David, very, very grateful to be here. Thank you very much for having me on.

David Richter:

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode valuable, could you do me a quick favor? Can you give us an honest rating within iTunes, and be honest, you could say whether you liked it or not. And obviously with iTunes, the more reviews and ratings we have, the better it is for other people that are searching for a Profit First in a podcast.

So we’d love to be ranked on there and that’s thanks to your help. So we would really appreciate that if you would like to go give us a rating. Also, if you’re looking to connect with us further, I would highly recommend checking out our Facebook group, Profit First for Real Estate Investors, and that’s literally what it’s called. So you can type in Profit First for Real Estate Investors, and you’ll be able to find our Facebook group right there.

So come join active real estate investors who are supporting each other, and growing their businesses, and profits together, that’s what that group is all about. The links should be in the description below. And if you’re interested in working with us and implementing Profit First in your real estate business, we offer coaching and guidance.

So if you want to work with someone who’s actually Profit First certified and who works right now currently with real estate businesses, you can actually go start your application process by going to simplecfo.wpengine.com/apply, or just go right to simplecfo.wpengine.com, and there’s an apply button right on there. If you want to actually start your Profit First journey with someone who can actually walk you through those step by step and help you know and grow your cash flow. Thanks again for joining us for another episode on The Profit First REI Podcast. See you next episode.