EGL Vaughan Ltd reposted this
We Buy and Invest in £1m-£5m Engineering Businesses, Helping Owners Continue their Legacy and get the Exit they Deserve★ Success Without Sacrifice ★ Podcast Host
5 shocking things I had never experienced in business until we started buying SMALL ENGINEERING businesses: 1️⃣ Pictures of naked women in the office… yeh that has to be up there as the most shocking to me, especially in the office I mean c’mon! This business in particular didn’t have a single piece of conventional art, it was all scantily clad photos of young women on all 4 walls. Picture this... You walk into the kitchen to make yourself a coffee... and overlooking the coffee machine... a full on topless woman ...😳…🤯...🤢... it’s also worth noting that with the addition of myself, the number of women in the office was almost the same as the number of men 🙈 MENTAL. 2️⃣ Locks on the women’s bathroom (as the men can’t be trusted not to mess it up apparently!) I even tried leaving it unlocked once because I couldn’t believe that to be the case… but unfortunately I was wrong! Sorry to name and shame but I did see Phil Jepson sneaking out of the women's bathroom one time - he did put the seat down to be fair! 3️⃣ No cleaner despite there being mess and dirt everywhere. Out of the 6 businesses we have bought so far, not a single one employed a proper cleaner… one of the toilets actually had something growing out of it… 🤢 Safe to say one of the first changes we make is to hire a cleaner! 4️⃣ An aversion to technology - I get that most people are averse to change in general but to actually have a supervisor refuse to use a computer to simply communicate via email… yeh this one shocked me… Mostly because you would think that the nature of an engineering business is rooted in technology! We have since made it known that individuals are responsible for learning and adopting basic technology when the business requires it - being able to use a computer and a phone at work is not unreasonable surely! 5️⃣ Proactive sales & marketing. A bit of a dull way to end the list so soz! But as a marketer, I can't help but be shocked at this. None of the businesses we have bought so far have had a dedicated sales person and none did any marketing outside the basics of paying for a website and perhaps appearing in a couple of local directories. For some reason engineering and manufacturing are behind the curve on this - Clearly word of mouth is a powerful tool in this industry and many businesses seem to have got away with only relying on the power of their network. Fair enough! But none of them have grown significantly (if at all!) and none have been able to leverage the power of brand to give them advantages in pricing or any sort of competitive edge over Joe Bloggs down the street who has a very similar business. It’s all too common for an engineering or manufacturing business to rely on 1 or 2 massive customers and a hand full of small ones, making them very vulnerable to change and pretty powerless. Proactive sales & marketing puts the control of a business owners fate back into their hands. So, are you feeling shocked? 😆