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“Show Notes”
Tired of the slow crawl to grow your photography business? In this episode, we’re talking about a serious shortcut: buying an existing outfit. Sam shares his personal experience and lays out a practical guide on how to acquire a local photographer’s assets to instantly boost your client list and portfolio, including a deeper dive into lucrative commercial photography and brand photography markets.
What You’ll Take Away
Instantly scale your business overnight—Discover the one radical move that can double your client roster and digital presence without years of grafting.
Avoid the biggest financial mistake—Learn the critical difference between buying the ‘business’ and buying the ‘assets’ to protect yourself from hidden debt and legal faff.
Work out exactly what you should pay—We give you the no nonsense methods for valuing a business’s goodwill and client list, including clever ways to structure payments that protect your cash.
Ready to stop waiting for growth and start making it happen? This episode is packed with invaluable, practical advice for any UK photographer looking to get ahead.
“Show Transcription”
00:05.44
Marcus Ahmad
Hello there, Sam. How you doing?
00:08.12
Sam Hollis
Not too bad, Marcus. How about you?
00:10.51
Marcus Ahmad
I’m fine. I see you having a bit of a fiddle with your microphone there.
00:14.15
Sam Hollis
That’s it. Get myself organized.
00:16.42
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So um you’re going to take the lead this week, Sam. What are going to talking about?
00:24.86
Sam Hollis
So a bit of a different approach. um So we’ve often talked about marketing, a lot about marketing and ways of getting customers. But I’m going to talk a very kind of different approach of getting customers, which is buying another business.
00:37.03
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, okay.
00:36.69
Sam Hollis
So, you know, a local, so a local photographer nearby, maybe, you know, they’ve built up a good business. Maybe they decide to go back into full time work. Maybe they decide to retire. Maybe they’re moving.
00:48.27
Sam Hollis
And that and so what’s going to happen to that business? So I’m going to talk about, well, what about if you buy it? And, you know, as a way to grow, you instantly grow your business effectively by buying another one.
00:59.04
Sam Hollis
And it’s something I’ve used myself in my business. I haven’t bought photography business, but I’ve got other web design businesses. I’ve got some experience of kind of of how it can work and the pitfalls and some of the do’s and don’ts and things.
01:09.61
Marcus Ahmad
Love it. Okay, let’s go for it, Sam.
01:12.57
Sam Hollis
Cool. um And so, Marcus, as usual, you know, why do we start? Why? So why would you want to buy the business? um And my answer simply is simply it’s a kind of shortcut to growth.
01:22.88
Sam Hollis
You know, you’ve got a pre-done business. You know, if you’ve got some cash, it’s a possible way of starting a photography business.
01:29.92
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm.
01:29.56
Sam Hollis
But obviously, if you’ve got an established business, it’s just a great way of of growing it, gaining more clients. And we’ll talk about exactly what you do gain and what you might pay for that as the time goes on. But effectively, it’s kind of a shortcut to growth.
01:40.94
Sam Hollis
You can instantly kind of go, Oh, I’ve suddenly got all this stuff, you know, be it clients, goodwill, repeat customers, whatever it is, but you suddenly get all of their assets and it becomes yours.
01:51.27
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’ve had experience with that, Sam, as well, haven’t you?
01:53.57
Sam Hollis
um
01:55.97
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so I’ve done it with a couple of different businesses, ah bought a couple of web design businesses. um Yeah, and they were quite different ah ah with different successes. But, boast of but you know, certainly none have been disaster. One made more money than the other, but they both, you know, they both have worked well, to be honest.
02:12.19
Sam Hollis
and One was just a bit slower than the other. um So I think the first thing to think about is what are you buying? Okay and the first thing um I think is what you know, I thought I’m talking about buying a business.
02:24.47
Sam Hollis
I think what I actually say is you don’t actually buy the business, you buy the assets.
02:28.58
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
02:27.91
Sam Hollis
So that’s what I’ve always done.
02:28.72
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
02:29.78
Sam Hollis
So I mean most photographers anyway are sole traders aren’t they? So you can’t like buy a sole trader because it’s the person isn’t I can’t buy Marcus Armette, he’s a person. um So effectively, you’re much better buying the assets for the business because that’s much cleaner and and it saves a lot of faffing. Because if you buy a business, that business may have entered it into contracts you don’t know about. And so you’ve got to get solicitors to search into and stuff, which it could just be a nightmare.
02:52.40
Sam Hollis
You know, they could have debt you don’t know about. Well, if you just buy the assets, that doesn’t come with any of those tanglements. You know, you just say, I am going to pay you X amount for Y. Yeah.
03:02.09
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
03:01.69
Sam Hollis
And so you’re not literally buying the business, taking on its past risks, taking on its past, whatever it’s signed. You you know, you’re completely separate. You’re just buying stuff from them. So I think, first of all, that’s a good way to go. You know, if if you want to buy Argos or something, you probably want to buy the business. But we’re talking smaller scales. I think just buying the assets is great.
03:18.68
Sam Hollis
So what are you buying? um You’re obviously buying the name. um And with photographers, that is often, let’s be honest, 95% of the time it is a personal name, isn’t it? You know, it is Marcus Ahmed Photography.
03:27.85
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
03:29.12
Sam Hollis
It is whoever. Some people do have a ah brand name that’s not theirs, but most do. But you’re buying the name so that people, even if they don’t speak to that person, You know, the original photographer, they’re still, their website might be there, the name’s still there. on And the idea you try and pass that cachet, that reputation onto you. You know, they go to that website and it comes to you.
03:49.71
Sam Hollis
um And what we’re going to talk about later is you might also keep that photographer on board, maybe just, you know, for chatting to clients initially and that sort of thing to help them help them through.
03:54.34
Marcus Ahmad
right
03:58.47
Sam Hollis
um So you’re buying the name. Client list is obviously a huge one that you’re buying. You’re buying a client list, you know, names, email addresses, phone numbers, when they’re in that contact, what they like to photo shoots they had, when they might buy again, all that sort of thing. So you’re buying a client list. So suddenly, you know, you might have 80 people in your client list, 50 people in client list, and you suddenly double the size of it overnight.
04:19.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah, and obviously they’re not all gonna buy a photo shoot next week, but if there’s a good number of them there and some of them haven’t had one for a while, the photographer you’re buying from can probably see it. They normally come back for a photo shoot every three years or whatever it is.
04:31.52
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
04:31.25
Sam Hollis
So you’re buying a client list too. um You’re buying kind of goodwill, the reputation, you know, you’re because you’re buying the name that kind of comes with it. As well as a client list, they will also probably have a lead list. so it could be a bigger email marketing list, a list of people I’ve contacted. So, you know, con that contact list is definitely part of it.
04:52.29
Sam Hollis
you might All of these are optional because you might buy just some parts of this. It might be you just decide to buy one small thing. um You could be buying a digital presence. So they might have really good um presence on Google Maps.
05:05.09
Sam Hollis
They might have a really good website. They might, you know, whatever it is, a really good listing on a different website. But you could also be buying that digital presence. um And that could be part of it.
05:16.65
Sam Hollis
um And possibly the back catalogue could be part of it. Now, for some types of photography, that might be less relevant. For others, it might be relevant. So it might be you buy the back catalogue and that has a lot of value in itself and that earns interest, money itself.
05:29.66
Sam Hollis
So there’s all sorts of options there. And we’re not saying there’s one way. It could be you just buy one part.
05:33.54
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
05:33.86
Sam Hollis
It could be you buy everything. There could be quite a mix.
05:37.50
Marcus Ahmad
I can definitely see how that works in a B to C field, you know, with consumers. For example, I’m thinking of the, when they’re talking about it, Sam, like the high streets we photographers used have in the you know, like Olin Mills,
05:52.24
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
05:53.62
Marcus Ahmad
There’s loads of them, actually. There were quite a few, which you don’t see so much, I don’t think. I mean, it’s not the genre I shoot in, but…
05:58.55
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
06:02.22
Marcus Ahmad
Howie, do you think it would typical think it would work commercial, with on a commercial level as well, Sam?
06:06.88
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Because it’s still business contacts. i mean, when I did it, it’s business contacts. I’m pretty much a, yeah. Um,
06:14.86
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
06:14.22
Sam Hollis
B2B business.
06:15.29
Marcus Ahmad
Right.
06:14.93
Sam Hollis
And yeah, if it’s, you know, yeah the contact book is the contact book, whether it’s commercial contacts, as long as it’s recent. So yeah, somebody once gave me a contact book as a favor. thought, these are great. These are all these leads, but it was from a business that had shut down six years ago and they were all dead.
06:26.56
Marcus Ahmad
Oh yeah. Yeah.
06:29.50
Sam Hollis
You know, the people from not literally dead, but the leads, you know, there were the people in the company had moved on, the companies had folded them.
06:30.26
Marcus Ahmad
ah yeah yeah
06:35.87
Sam Hollis
So yeah, as long as it is live and recent, then yeah, I think that’s that’s really useful.
06:41.03
Marcus Ahmad
yep
06:40.41
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, and I say, I think in terms of what to avoid is don’t buy the business because then there’s all, you either have to you then basically have to pay a solicitor to go, you know, to do the, you know, like when you buy a house, you have to do the background checks.
06:54.47
Marcus Ahmad
yes
06:54.59
Sam Hollis
Same thing, you know, they’d have to do loads of background checks and then that would just wipe out half the value of the business anyway.
06:59.31
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
06:59.03
Sam Hollis
So what’s the point? So my suggestion is definitely buy the assets, do not buy the business. Even if it’s a limited company, just buy. You’d waste so much money on solicitor’s fees and blah, blah, blah, that i don’t think it’s worth it. And you can get yourself in all sorts of trouble because you’re suddenly taking on a business that could have signed contracts you don’t know about, could have taken on debt you don’t know about.
07:19.01
Sam Hollis
And if you’re just buying assets, you’re avoiding all of that.
07:21.41
Marcus Ahmad
Interesting. So you you’re say it sounds almost like buying an email list from somebody. or
07:26.89
Sam Hollis
yeah effectively or yeah or a load of other things um oh and the other thing actually i didn’t mention body bang it could also be equipment of course yeah especially if you’re a new starting out photographer it could be like oh wow you know bang there’s my photography kit done um or it might be you’re expanding and you want to take on on a second photographer so bang that’s perfect i’ve now got a second set of kit
07:27.91
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. suppose.
07:46.00
Marcus Ahmad
i especially when it’s very specialized kit like drone photography, all those ones they used to do. They don’t do it anymore, course, ones they used to do for doing surveying where have your camera on a big pole or maybe, you know, a printer on site where you print the images an event and stuff like that.
07:56.23
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah,
08:01.28
Sam Hollis
Exactly.
08:02.33
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
08:01.72
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
08:03.05
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
08:03.55
Sam Hollis
All sorts of relevant things. Cool. So then I thought to come to art, well, where do you start? How do you start this process? Well, first of all, obviously you’ve got to find relevant photographers. So, I mean, we always talk, don’t we, about actually building a community of photographers around you and not so much treating anyone as the enemy, but cooperating and talking.
08:20.95
Sam Hollis
So if you do have that local network, you’ll start to know when people are, you know, winding down, aren’t they? Maybe looking to do something else. You’ll probably hear it on the grapevine. Um…
08:31.76
Sam Hollis
And so, yeah, and probably you do want someone relatively local. If you live, you know, if you live in Reading, you probably don’t want to buy a photography business up in Carlisle or something. You know, it’s probably going to be someone local and you’re probably going have a fair idea of who those local photographers are.
08:43.27
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
08:46.24
Sam Hollis
Okay. So once you’ve kind of worked out that somebody is thinking of moving on, retiring, whatever it is, you know, i think the first thing is you’ve got to build a bit of mutual trust. You know, you’ve got to trust what they’re saying.
08:59.26
Sam Hollis
They’ve got to trust you. It’s got to work both ways, that trust. You’ve got to start to work out if you can trust this person and that, you know, you’ve got to work on them being able to trust you because, you know, there’s a lot of mutual trust in them and how many contracts and stuff you draw up. But, you know, eventually it is.
09:13.54
Sam Hollis
you’re effectively by give or take buying trust here. So you’ve got to kind of trust that person. That’s the definite first step. And then for me, always the next step is you both sign NDAs. NDAs are non-disclosure agreements because once you’ve signed a non-disclosure agreements, you can then say, could you please send over your account?
09:24.60
Marcus Ahmad
Right. Mm-hmm.
09:29.55
Sam Hollis
So you then got confidential details about your business, but you’ve just agreed not to you know go and share them on LinkedIn or something.
09:35.75
Marcus Ahmad
right
09:36.38
Sam Hollis
ah So, yeah, I think basically signing NDAs allows you then to say, right, and now can you can we please have some solid data about the about the business? And then you can start to collect that.
09:48.24
Sam Hollis
um So the sort of thing you might want to get, you know, is like… how many clients they’ve got. um and You’d have to kind of define what a client is or maybe how many have you had in the last five years or three years, however you want to put it.
10:00.16
Sam Hollis
um You know, you probably wouldn’t get the whole client list of the names and addresses and phone numbers till you’ve got a bit further, but you could at least maybe ask for details of one or two, just for examples, you know, can you give me examples of a couple of clients and what they’ve bought in the last few years?
10:13.13
Sam Hollis
Definitely kind of numbers of clients. Um, Talk about the back catalogue, if that would be included and what it is, if it is.
10:22.21
Marcus Ahmad
Of course, of course.
10:22.53
Sam Hollis
Ask to see company accounts. I think that’s really important so you can actually see what money is coming in, where it’s come from. Asking where those plants are coming from because that’s really important because they might say 90% come from the website and if you’re inheriting the website, then you’ve never got guaranteed income. But that means you’re quite likely to keep getting a lot of that income.
10:40.45
Sam Hollis
While if they all come from that particular photographer’s networking,
10:43.91
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, exactly, yes.
10:44.64
Sam Hollis
efforts, that’s less likely to pass on.
10:45.69
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes.
10:46.78
Sam Hollis
So that’s really important.
10:48.43
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, that’s important. Yeah.
10:49.15
Sam Hollis
Um, and I think what’s really, really important is an idea of how much they want to sell for, obviously, because you’ve got to, and I’m going to talk for the different ways you can deal with this, but you know, there’s lots of different approaches you can take, but if you’re, and you can kind of come to a middle, but if you’re too far apart to start, you know, you, you, there’s no point carrying on is there, you know, there’s always, if you’re vaguely near and there’s quite a bit to go, there’s some, there’s some work, but if you crazy distance apart, you know, there’s no point even going there is there.
11:09.55
Marcus Ahmad
all about the money and all about the
11:17.87
Sam Hollis
Um, Yeah, so then once you’ve got all that information, you’ve got to kind of think, well, what am i going to what will I definitely gain? So I don’t know, it might be they’ve got 10 customers that are on a retainer, you know, that pay every month and do two photo shoots a year. So give or take, you’re going to gain them, he’ll pass them on to you, and you maybe would lose one because they don’t want to switch personal. Give or take, they’re guaranteed. So there’ll be some things that are guaranteed like that, and then other things that are more…
11:45.84
Sam Hollis
probable or maybes, you know, so like he’d say, I’ve got these 50 clients, you know, and most of them come back whenever you’ve put every three years for a photo shoot, you know, so you do the math about how many people you’re going to get each year from this list.
11:57.95
Sam Hollis
Now, you know, that’s a bit down to probability, isn’t it? You’re not guaranteed they’re going to come back, you know, the people who on the retainer, they’re probably going to keep paying and that’s fine. But if it’s just a client list and they’ll probably come back,
12:09.26
Sam Hollis
It’s not a certain, so think it’s good to work out what what have you got as a certain income and what have you got as a maybe income and and kind of look at them both.
12:15.73
Marcus Ahmad
Of course.
12:17.60
Sam Hollis
um And then, yeah, once you got to there, you kind of then go, is it of interest to you? You know, have you at this stage gone, yeah, this is really interesting. This could be really for me or no, not really. And then, you know, what is it worth you paying for it? Yeah.
12:33.77
Sam Hollis
which is always the challenge.
12:35.47
Marcus Ahmad
of course
12:35.23
Sam Hollis
I’m going to talk a little bit about cost. um But one of the things about cost is how to deal with it. because it So you could it could just be cash paid up front, but it doesn’t have to be.
12:46.19
Sam Hollis
So it could also be what i I’ve done a bit of a mix. So cash paid in stages can work really well.
12:52.22
Marcus Ahmad
Okay. Mm-hmm.
12:51.85
Sam Hollis
So i you know things like, okay, you get this first and this once this happens and this once that happened and that once. so you could have steps. So I did, for example, a certain payment was done once I had managed to speak to 95% of the clients, which kind of meant he had to help me ensure that I spoke the client. So my theory on that was those awkward to speak to clients, he would be also contacting and making sure that I could speak to in the end, actually, most of the clients were pretty good and i spoke to pretty quick, but I was putting in stuff in place to make sure that, you know, if, if the clients were hard to speak to, they could,
13:26.75
Sam Hollis
jump in too because they knew they were getting payment based on this to help me you know speak to them all make contact with them all um and kind of build that relationship so yes staged payments you know can definitely and it could be time staged or they’ve done something staged and then the other thing to think about is commission because if you think i’m getting all of this and actually there’s no guaranteed income here it’s actually all just chance um
13:44.27
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
13:50.22
Sam Hollis
then you could say, okay, so I’ll give you a bit upfront, but I’ll give you a really good commission deal. So then you’re kind of both taking the risk, but, you know, yeah and the more, kind of the more you pay upfront, the less you’re doing commission or non, and but if you’re kind of going, this is all a little bit, you go, right, okay, let’s just make this fully commissioned, but i’m going to make it a pretty hefty commission because if it works, then there’s an awful lot of work here.
14:12.69
Sam Hollis
But you can also think about time. So it might be I’d give you a hefty commission on year one and like less commission on year two. And by year three, there’s no more commission. no You can you work it out for yourself. But there’s lots of options there.
14:26.37
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, okay. Do
14:27.23
Sam Hollis
You know, it doesn’t just have to be give a load of cash.
14:30.33
Marcus Ahmad
do i do you mind saying what businesses you’re talking about? Are you quiet yourself, Sam? Are you prepared to say that? or
14:38.01
Sam Hollis
What the names of them.
14:39.55
Marcus Ahmad
No, no, just what kind type of business it was. Yep.
14:41.35
Sam Hollis
Yeah, the web design. They were both web design businesses.
14:43.16
Marcus Ahmad
my
14:43.43
Sam Hollis
They were both web design businesses. Yeah, yeah. So they were both. both So they like a photographer acquiring a photographer, I was acquiring things in my field. So so i knew ah knew field I knew the I knew the product.
14:51.63
Marcus Ahmad
ye
14:55.64
Sam Hollis
I knew the setup. So it was kind of a ah natural move.
14:59.82
Marcus Ahmad
Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, I can see how that could work. Yeah, definitely.
15:03.09
Sam Hollis
Yeah. um And then the big question is always, how much do you charge? what What do you ask for? What might they want? How do you value a business? And I’ve asked this to loads of people. And I was like, well, how much do we go for?
15:14.94
Sam Hollis
And, you know, I asked loads of people who are in business, you know, were into buying and selling businesses. I’ve met some at networking events. I thought, these people be great. So I go, you know, how do I decide how much this business is worth? And there was like, there’s no straight answer, which was, oh, for God’s sake.
15:27.73
Sam Hollis
You know, um so I took as a rule of thumb, which was entirely mine, you know, which was how much do I think I’m making in a year? And I’m like, okay, I’m probably willing to pay that. um And maybe we could do some commission on top.
15:39.92
Sam Hollis
But I took that as my rule of thumb, especially because for my business, I had guaranteed recurring income effectively. I thought a few people would drop off, but people who are paying month on month were probably who were with them will carry on with me.
15:50.80
Sam Hollis
So I kind of had a ah certain amount of fixed income effectively.
15:52.66
Marcus Ahmad
you were taking over they existing so take the existing work that was ongoing and therefore you could that was pretty much guaranteed.
15:55.02
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s it.
15:58.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. And I expected probably, you know, in 20 customers, one or two would drop off with the move because you’ll always lose one or two anyway. And it’s it gives them that impetus, doesn’t it? We were thinking of doing it anyway. I hadn’t bothered. Oh, that this, it suddenly makes people think, doesn’t it? So you’re bound to lose a couple on the way.
16:14.99
Sam Hollis
um But, yeah, so that was my thought. But, you know, there is no fixed fixed answer, really. You’ve got to think about what was last year’s turnover of the company and and could, you know, would you pick that up? Like we said, is it to do with where the business is coming from and will you gain that?
16:30.72
Sam Hollis
um How much are they staying involved? So I think that could be important. You don’t necessarily want them on a photo shoot, but if… it’s a named photographer’s business and they maybe for six months are just available on the phone to chat clients and help to move them over and things, then being involved, you know, part-time like that could be a real asset to help that smooth transition rather than you just going, oh, you know, my name’s Fred Bloggs and I’ve taken over from you great photographer. If he’s there and he can talk and maybe go to an in-person meeting and kind of almost smooth it through, that can make a big difference, but obviously would change the cost a bit.
17:05.92
Sam Hollis
um So yeah, I mean, obviously kit, secondhand, if you’re thinking about kit, secondhand value of the kit. But then i don’t know what you think, Marcus, but my thought would be if you’re buying all their kit, you’d probably expect to pay less than the market value because you’re buying the lot in one go.
17:19.53
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, wait, God, you really would. Yeah, ah because, you know, it might be outdated and stuff like that, most of it.
17:22.56
Sam Hollis
Yeah, exactly.
17:26.10
Sam Hollis
That’s it. So, I mean, you you’d certainly want to look at what it’s worth, but then go, yeah, but umm buy I wouldn’t necessarily buy all of this and and they wouldn’t necessarily be able to sell all of this.
17:32.90
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
17:33.54
Sam Hollis
So you definitely wouldn’t pay full market rate on every item. It would be more, ah let’s add it what the market that you should get and yeah, it would be a big discount, but at least it gives you a starting point. um And then obviously there’ in terms of the value, as to what are their expectations? And we said before, are they at all close to yours? because um Because yeah, it can be difficult.
17:53.87
Sam Hollis
um Sorry, just looking through my notes now. And yeah, and there’s the back catalog, I guess, as well, and how useful that is. So in some photography businesses, the back catalog could be dipped into all the time and really useful. But other back catalogs might be, you know, if it’s just, you know, a business you’ve been to every year and you do the company headshots, probably the SEO, the CEO’s headshot from five years ago is not something that’s got much value and going to be reused.
18:19.31
Sam Hollis
But other stuff could be really good.
18:21.40
Marcus Ahmad
Maybe. i can’t. Yeah, maybe. ah It’s such an ongoing thing, photography, really, and it’s always changing. Maybe. Who knows?
18:28.58
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
18:29.55
Marcus Ahmad
Who knows, Sam? It’s all food for thought, anyhow, really.
18:32.29
Sam Hollis
That’s it. Yeah. I think it’s just something to think about.
18:35.40
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Mm-hmm.
18:35.21
Sam Hollis
um And then obviously the own the the the owner, yeah. do you What do you say about them staying with you? Do you want them to stay on a bit, like we said, to like you said to help with with that move on?
18:45.58
Sam Hollis
Or do you just want to kind of ask them to, you know, send a few messages and then and then you’re kind of done with it? And that will come into the price as well, because obviously they’ll need more if they’re being involved for longer.
18:58.24
Sam Hollis
But then if it’s commission based, they might want to be to help with the commission side. So, you know, there’s all sorts in there to think about. And it’s really down to how much you feel it’s worth and how much value you think you’re going to get and what’s realistic and things.
19:07.98
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
19:10.81
Sam Hollis
um And I think we also have to think about with the value, we we actually draw about people’s egos and people’s lives. You know, this could be somebody who’s built up this business for 20 years and it might be worth nothing. But we don’t want to, after 20 years work, make them feel that it’s worth nothing.
19:25.83
Sam Hollis
You know what I mean? You’ve got to think about them and their feelings as well.
19:29.45
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I’m sure.
19:30.72
Sam Hollis
and i’m not And I’m not saying that means you pay over the odds. But if you think it’s worth nothing, I think it would be better to walk away and say it’s not quite right for you than, you know, tell them that 20 years worth this.
19:42.33
Sam Hollis
Life’s work is worth nothing, if you know what mean. You’ve got to be human about this too.
19:45.66
Marcus Ahmad
No, I think, yeah.
19:45.69
Sam Hollis
They’ve worked hard on this.
19:48.44
Marcus Ahmad
Cool. Okay. Very interesting. Interesting. As you say, food for thought. mean, I’m not really aware that it goes on that much. I think, you know, maybe in photography, you go until you die almost, isn’t it? And you can work as a photographer.
20:04.94
Marcus Ahmad
You can work until you’re quite, you know, old, really. I mean, I certainly am old and I’m still working and knocking it out.
20:11.51
Sam Hollis
I don’t think you’re that old Marcus.
20:13.21
Marcus Ahmad
Well, yeah.
20:12.67
Sam Hollis
You can, and some people choose, but some people choose to finish earlier. Some people decide to go back into full-time work.
20:16.77
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
20:18.69
Sam Hollis
Some people do something completely different and have a change. So there’s all those things happen, isn’t there?
20:24.00
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
20:23.95
Sam Hollis
Some people just move and, um, yeah.
20:25.08
Marcus Ahmad
wait I’d have enough. that And also, can definitely see, you know, if it’s a definitely a niche business, like something that’s very, very, very tight and very prescribed, and maybe even area-specific or something, I don’t know.
20:38.30
Marcus Ahmad
But yeah, great. if Very interesting, Sam. Thank you.
20:41.10
Sam Hollis
It is. There’s kind of more, but you as you can see, Marcus, we’re running out of time.
20:43.95
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. um
20:44.66
Sam Hollis
So maybe we’ll do a part two on this of kind of, because obviously you there we then need to think a little about contracts and how you go forwards.
20:46.45
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
20:50.30
Sam Hollis
But that’s, maybe we’ll do a second show on, the we’ll do a second show on the other, the kind of what to do next.
20:52.15
Marcus Ahmad
That’s it. I think it’s… Yeah. It’s a second show. Cool.
20:58.05
Sam Hollis
Perfect. Excellent, Marcus. um Right. Well, I’ll see you next week then.
21:04.09
Marcus Ahmad
That’s it. See you next week, Sam. Bye-bye.
