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If you’re looking to accelerate your journey in Brand Photography or Growing a photography business, this episode is an absolute must-listen. Sam and Marcus dive straight into the practical, down-to-earth steps for finalising the purchase of a photography business, focusing on the client lists and assets that form the real value. Stop wondering how to get ahead and start implementing the strategies that will give you significant benefits and set you apart in Marketing for photographers.
What You’ll Take Away From This Episode
Want to know the secrets to a smooth and profitable acquisition without getting bogged down in solicitor fees? Listen in to discover:
• The straightforward process for drawing up a watertight contract. You’ll learn why you can ditch the expensive lawyers and what simple, clear language is vital to make sure all parties stick to the agreement.
• The non-negotiable next steps to monetise your new client list immediately. We show you how to be proactive and make a plan to gain maximum value from the assets you’ve just bought before they go cold.
• A clever negotiation tactic involving staggered payments and commission. Hear how to structure a deal that reduces your risk and incentivises the seller to help you transition clients, all while keeping the cash flowing.
“Show Transcription”
00:04.76
Marcus Ahmad
Well, hello there, Sam. How are you?
00:07.50
Sam Hollis
Excellent, Marcus. Very, very good. And what about you?
00:09.95
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, very good too. Very good too. And today’s show, you’re going to be carrying on, I believe, from a previous one.
00:17.75
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s right. So um last week we were talking about buying a business and we were so busy with that, Marcus, that we ran out of time to finish. So we’re going to dive straight back in and do part two of buying a photography business.
00:31.56
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, great let’s go for it. Sounds good.
00:33.82
Sam Hollis
Cool, so the first thing I just wanna do is do a very quick refresh from the last Joe, just a quick reminder of what we talked about. So we talked about finding a business to start with, making sure you get something that’s right for you. We talked about initially building trust both ways with that person you’re gonna buy the business from, so you can both trust what each of the same and go forwards.
00:51.76
Sam Hollis
We then said getting an NDA is the next thing, so you can then start to get accounts and all those sorts of things.
00:55.96
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:56.12
Sam Hollis
So get an NDA, they’re dead easy. You can find them online. That it does not need to be as complicated as it sounds. It just means you promise not to share all the data that they give you. um And then get the data, the accounts, the number of customers, the number of leads, et cetera.
01:11.52
Sam Hollis
And then think about what’s included in discuss what’s included, whether that’s client lists, recurring clients, kit, name, website, whatever else it
01:20.21
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
01:20.53
Sam Hollis
Google Maps listing, whatever else it may be, think very carefully about what is included. And then you need to talk about the price. And we said that’s complicated. There’s no standard way. But one way I said think it think how much money you might make in a year. And that could be a good way.
01:34.34
Sam Hollis
ah But again, we talked about you can use commission so you could pay less but give them quite a hefty commission on sales that come in you could work on staggered payments as well once certain things have happened um so yeah you need to think about that and how much you’re willing to pay and how much they’re willing to sell for it and negotiate and we were talking all about that uh sorry marcus oh bog off
01:56.16
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, that’s okay.
01:59.85
Sam Hollis
Sorry about that.
02:01.35
Marcus Ahmad
No, that’s okay.
02:02.44
Sam Hollis
um Yes, my when my phone broke out to install a phone app on my laptop and it suddenly pinged up.
02:03.17
Marcus Ahmad
Um,
02:08.35
Marcus Ahmad
oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:09.17
Sam Hollis
um Yeah, so there’s how much you’re going to pay and think about, like we said, staggered payment, referral fees, all of those sorts of things involved. And obviously how much the business is worth to you. And that’s kind of where we’ve got to, Marcus.
02:22.32
Marcus Ahmad
Indeed, indeed. I mean, you know, it’s it’s quite a process, I suppose. of course, it’s bad to be, isn’t it, really? it sir You don’t want you don’t know to go wrong, that’s for sure.
02:32.97
Sam Hollis
No, that’s it. It is a process. um But yeah, it it doesn’t have to take too long. And again, it kind of depends on the value. If you’re talking about something small value, you need to try and make it as little of a process as possible. But if you talk about, you know, quite a big business with a lot of customers, you’d spend more time on It it kind of is a bit dependent on that.
02:50.71
Sam Hollis
um And I think once you got to that stage and you’ve discussed with the other, because we were talking last time about discussing with the other person, the price, what you’re willing to pay, what they’re willing to accept, the idea of staggered payments, the idea of commission and coming up with something.
03:03.08
Sam Hollis
Certainly the last one I bought, um they were wanting more than me, than I was willing to pay. I didn’t think it was worth as much as he did. So we came with an agreement on commission. So I then said, okay, I can give you this much, but for every…
03:16.45
Sam Hollis
sale that comes in you know from these customers and I say, I’ll give you a, you know I think we fixed 20%.
03:20.34
Marcus Ahmad
Okay. okay
03:23.28
Sam Hollis
You can fit a pretty hefty commission in there if you’re going, well, okay, you know I’m not paying them as much, but the leads are coming from them because you’re taking risk out by doing that, aren’t you? um And in some ways pushing onto them the idea that they might help a bit more.
03:36.66
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I think it’s ah it’s interesting. It’s not just really, we’re not just talking about a bricks and mortar thing here, you know, buying a shop in High Street whatever.
03:42.78
Sam Hollis
No, definitely not.
03:44.47
Marcus Ahmad
No, and I think when you made that very clear in the last show, and that it’s a list you’re buying, isn’t it? A client list. And I think that’s a great idea, Sam, to pay commission to keep that client list going, really.
03:52.91
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
03:55.82
Sam Hollis
That’s it. Yeah. on And you might pay just cash up. As you say, you could just pay cash up front for that count list and leave it at that. Or you could pay much less or almost nothing, but have a ah you know a commission. Obviously, you’d need the trust for that because they’ve got to trust that you’re going to do that. And you know you’d presume you would. I certainly have stuck with that on mine.
04:13.70
Sam Hollis
So then once you’ve decided all of that and you two have verbally agreed something between the person you found the business from and yourself and you’re all happy, Obviously, the next thing is to draw yourself up a contract.
04:24.51
Sam Hollis
You want this all written down. OK, now, again, people think this must be 43,000 pages because I’ve seen the agreement you have to tick for Facebook. And it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be complicated. You just need it in plain, clear English.
04:37.86
Sam Hollis
And basically, you just need to write down what you agreed. I think for me, the clear the key is it’s got to be as clear as possible and have, but also have all the options in. So I don’t know if you’ve got staggered payments and you say, okay, I pay you the next £1,000 after two months if you’ve done X, Y, Z, that’s great.
04:56.16
Sam Hollis
But you’d also need to include what happens if they haven’t done X, Y, Z. Do you pay them the same if it’s a month late or do you not pay them at all? So you just need to make sure… If there are kind of options in there, all of the options are covered because you don’t want to get to a point where you’re going through this and at some point they think you are you you owe a lot of money. You think you don’t.
05:15.19
Sam Hollis
And it’s kind of grey. So you’ve got ah you want to make sure it’s very, very clear. so I think much it doesn’t need to be legally complicated. It just needs more information. clarity you know this happens once i’ve got this information you pay that or i pay you this then you send me that information then i pay you this next installment and you know within you know and it can be thing you know the contract starts on this date you must pay within a week okay within 10 days of me receiving of you receiving payment you must send me one the client list two access to the website three blahy blah blah blah you know Just really clear on everything when stuff needs to happen. You know, and obviously give a window, like we said, you know, people need a few days to make payments. People need a few days, don’t know, you know, to gather the photography kit and hand it over, but make it really clear what is happening when step by step by step in very clear English.
06:07.31
Sam Hollis
um I think that’s the most important thing.
06:08.14
Marcus Ahmad
but you But presumably, but presumably you know, you’ you you’d recommend getting a lawyer involved in that and not just getting something from…
06:14.58
Sam Hollis
No, definitely. In other words, absolutely no need for a lawyer because then it will be incredibly complicated.
06:18.03
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, really? you
06:19.47
Sam Hollis
There’ll be massive legal thing.
06:20.18
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
06:21.18
Sam Hollis
it ah It’s basically agreement between two people. Frankly, the chances of you going to court with this are pretty slim.
06:23.91
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, so a handshake, yeah, type thing.
06:26.14
Sam Hollis
I think you want to make it very, very, very clear. um You probably want to put in something, again, restating that you’re not buying the business, you’re buying the assets, just to make that super, super clear in writing.
06:37.65
Sam Hollis
You definitely want both of you to sign it. um And then what I also recommend is put it through ChatGPT. ChatGPT is great. It understands British law. You say, yeah you know, don’t get it to write at all.
06:46.90
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
06:48.92
Sam Hollis
You need to write. But you can say, you know, I’m buying this business now. it’s under UK law. We’re doing it on this basis. What do you recommend about this contract? And to be honest, I found that bloody brilliant. You know, it’ll go, oh, you didn’t mention that after the 14-day call-off period, what happens next?
07:05.75
Sam Hollis
Or it’ll go, oh, have you thought? And it really does look through. and you know, like I said, you’ve got to be really clear at what happens each step. It will spot if you’ve missed a step. It will spot if you’ve missed an option.
07:15.06
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
07:15.13
Sam Hollis
It will spot if under British law you haven’t said something. It’s actually… I’m amazed how much it knows in terms of the law. It’s absolutely stunning. um
07:23.94
Marcus Ahmad
Funnily enough, a couple of years ago, i was ah speaking to somebody about ChatGBT before it really got well known.
07:24.13
Sam Hollis
But yeah,
07:30.85
Marcus Ahmad
And they were a lawyer. And they said to me that they felt they was going to really impact their industry in a big way.
07:32.59
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
07:36.52
Sam Hollis
Yeah, I mean, it just…
07:37.05
Marcus Ahmad
And yeah, you can see why.
07:38.89
Sam Hollis
Yeah, I mean, I have terms and conditions for my business now. Yeah, I built them well before we had ChatGPT. But now if I ever change them, because sometimes just for a client, I need them tweaked a bit. I always put it back through ChatGPT and it always, you know, it goes, yeah, that’s perfect. Oh, yeah. You know, you’ve mentioned that. You mentioned that. Brilliant.
07:54.83
Sam Hollis
Perhaps, you know, have you thought about that? And it does come up with some really good thoughts. And especially without this thing where you’ve got to, if it’s a one-off payment, it’s going to be a super simple contract. But if, like you say, you’ve got staged payments, it will go, oh, have you spotted if they don’t do at stage three, if they don’t deliver the camera equipment by the 14th of March, have you considered what happens?
08:16.16
Sam Hollis
Because that isn’t included in this.
08:17.40
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm.
08:17.96
Sam Hollis
You know, so they’ll spot if you’ve missed things, um which is really good. So, yeah, no, I don’t think it needs lawyers at all. It just needs to be a very, very clear how much is paid, when, what somebody else is giving in return in a timeline, pretty much.
08:27.35
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
08:35.05
Marcus Ahmad
Well, that’s good to know.
08:36.40
Sam Hollis
um yeah you know keep it super super simple um as soon as you get a lawyer involved it will get mega complicated they’ll ask hundreds of questions and you’ll lose lots of money you know we’re talking here buying and selling we’re not saying business you know stuff from small businesses as soon as you know if you’ve got a much bigger business you need lawyers but for this sort of thing if you’ve soon as you put a lawyer and you’re just sucking out the value so fast
08:59.37
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm. Hmm.
09:00.65
Sam Hollis
um So, yeah, so that’s it. So you get yourself a contract, print it off, give them time to read it and then both physically sign it. You know, ideally, you’re probably going to be in a similar place, you know, go and meet, sign together, shake hands, have a beer, whatever, you know, excellent.
09:17.59
Sam Hollis
Next stage done. um So then after that, the key is implementing it as you’ve written it in the contract. So whatever you’ve written, bloody stick to it. Yeah. you know, if you’ve written a really clear plan, you want to stick to it because if you deviate from the plan, then they can deviate from the plan. The whole thing starts to unravel, even if you do accidentally. You know, you’ve got this really clear, you know, after, you know, on the 5th of April, I will pay you this amount, then bloody pay them on the 5th of April or before. Do not dilly-dally around and forget. and Oh, I was busy that day. I had a photo shoot. Do what you bloody agreed.
09:51.11
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so whatever you put in the contract, really carefully stick to it and make sure the other side stick to it. and go through um and in ensure yeah you’re paying according the contract and ensure they’re delivering according to the contract.
10:06.34
Marcus Ahmad
So Sam, ah um maybe you’re going to go on to this, but have you have you had much experience in photography? What kind of, bit how this might happen? Have you heard much?
10:17.02
Marcus Ahmad
I mean, these I know these things tend to be kept quiet, but
10:17.91
Sam Hollis
No, I mean, it’s just, you know, there’s photography businesses. Say tomorrow, Marcus, you got offered, I don’t know, you decided you were going to be a cruise line photographer.
10:22.62
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
10:26.14
Sam Hollis
So tomorrow you hop on a cruise line, you’re going to spend the next three years on a cruise boat, taking pictures on there, getting paid lots of money and and enjoying the Caribbean. You thought, that sounds marvellous. I’m going to do that. Marcus Ahmed Photography is still in Bristol.
10:38.99
Sam Hollis
You could sell that to another Bristol photographer. They could buy your client list. They could take over your recurring clients. You know, something like that.
10:47.02
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
10:47.18
Sam Hollis
There’s plenty of opportunities for that sort of thing.
10:47.38
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. I mean, I,
10:50.36
Marcus Ahmad
I can see that in event photography, sports photography. I know a friend of mine had a business doing dance, those American cheerleaders, yeah, photography for that kind of thing, yeah.
11:04.21
Marcus Ahmad
And it was very lucrative, as you said. I think they sold their business one eventually, so yeah, it does happen.
11:08.38
Sam Hollis
Yeah, maybe I mean, it could be any type. And then the final thing is is making sure you then get the value from the business you bought. So, you know, don’t just buy all and then go, well that’s nice. I’ve got a customer list.
11:19.96
Sam Hollis
And then do bugger all because otherwise you you’re wasting your money. You know, have a plan. So obviously you’ve got your contract in terms of that side of it, but also you need a plan of what are you going to do? You’re suddenly going to be handed maybe a list of 200 leads, maybe a list of 50 clients.
11:36.35
Sam Hollis
What are you going to do with those leads and clients once you’ve been handed to them? What is your plan? Yeah. Because because they’re not just going to phone you up and want to speak to you. You’re going to have to make the effort, you know.
11:47.03
Marcus Ahmad
Sam, Sam, I’m going to interrupt you.
11:47.96
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
11:48.83
Marcus Ahmad
that I think you should want to say that again because it really did went dead quiet because you’re moving the mic around.
11:52.80
Sam Hollis
OK, because I did.
11:53.98
Marcus Ahmad
So, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:55.77
Sam Hollis
ah Well done, Sam.
11:56.34
Marcus Ahmad
It really wasn’t.
11:56.88
Sam Hollis
Yes.
11:57.02
Marcus Ahmad
you but You won’t be able to dig that out. it was inaudible.
11:59.48
Sam Hollis
OK.
11:59.72
Marcus Ahmad
Let’s try that bit again.
12:00.08
Sam Hollis
um
12:00.56
Marcus Ahmad
Sorry.
12:01.94
Sam Hollis
So yeah, the key is what are you going to do with the stuff you’ve got? um Obviously, if you’ve got kits, that’s pretty obvious. Take some pictures, learn to use it. But you know you’ve got that client list.
12:10.26
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
12:11.59
Sam Hollis
You’ve got the lead list. Maybe you’ve got a website. Maybe you’ve got email marketing list. Whatever it is, you’ve got to make sure you’re getting value from that because you’ve just paid money for it. So make sure you are then…
12:23.77
Sam Hollis
doing something with it. So if you’ve got the client list, right, you know, I’m going to over the next month, call every single one of them or email them and arrange a call because I want to speak to every single one of them and make sure they know who I am. They know what I’m offering. We kind of have met each other and then I’m going to think about what happens next.
12:40.32
Sam Hollis
All the leads, right, well, what am I going to do? Maybe put them on an email marketing list and then send them like a series of 10 emails over time. Maybe I’m going to call all of them if it’s a smaller list than the high value people or going to filter and just call some of them.
12:52.98
Sam Hollis
But you’ve bought this stuff. If you just let it then sit in a cupboard and go, oh, I’ve got a client list, but I don’t really know what to do with that. I’ve never spoken to them. You know, you’re just wasting your money.
13:03.45
Sam Hollis
Yeah. Be proactive. Do something with the list you’ve got. You’ve bought something that’s got value. You’ve got to make lists. And you’ve got to do it fast. You know, over time, the longer you leave it, the more kind of they’ve got who the original photographer is. They don’t know who you are. They’re not sure why you’re calling. You know, jump on it right away.
13:23.60
Sam Hollis
You spent the money. Put the effort in.
13:27.00
Marcus Ahmad
Well, like I guess that’s and another good reason why it’s worth keeping the person who bought the business on on board in some way.
13:33.10
Sam Hollis
Yeah,
13:37.66
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so I mean, what I did, kind of, one of the things I think I said before, one of the clauses I put in was that my second stage payment was you get paid this when I’ve spoken to 95% of the clients.
13:50.42
Sam Hollis
So that my feeling was then that I was obviously going to put in effort because I wanted to speak to all these clients, but some people are always hard to get hold of.
13:52.65
Marcus Ahmad
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
13:55.98
Sam Hollis
So it’s going to be then, well, if there’s enough that are hard to get hold of, this guy who I’m buying it from has to put the effort in to help me get in touch with them because he knows them. He knows if they prefer WhatsApp or if it’s best to email them or or whatever.
14:07.37
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, exactly.
14:07.64
Sam Hollis
So he will help with that because they don’t get their payment otherwise.
14:08.21
Marcus Ahmad
He’s got that personal touch.
14:12.05
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. And I guess that also means that if you suddenly phone those people up and they say, oh, that was an awful business, I don’t deal with you again, you can think, oh, my God, okay, I’ve got get-out clause here.
14:20.07
Sam Hollis
yeah
14:23.01
Sam Hollis
yeah ah you’d have had to put that into the contract you’d have had to which would be pretty hard to do i think you need to just you’d need to have sorted that before you started the phone calls um because yeah if you’ve got that contract and you say you’re paying them you can’t go back on that because people say they don’t want to work you know they didn’t like what they found you’ve kind of you’ve agreed so yeah you kind of need to work that actual stuff out first
14:25.21
Marcus Ahmad
Hopefully not. Okay.
14:43.26
Marcus Ahmad
No.
14:46.54
Sam Hollis
Because it’d hard to put a clause in if when I call people, they don’t like, i you know, how would you word that almost? It’d be really hard to do.
14:52.56
Marcus Ahmad
That’s just, it’s a tricky one. No, no, for sure I can see.
14:54.14
Sam Hollis
um So, yeah, I think that’s doing your, that’s part of your work first is you kind of try and make sure that isn’t going to happen.
14:55.13
Marcus Ahmad
But, uh, never.
14:58.98
Sam Hollis
Maybe you ask to speak to one or two clients before you, you know, before you buy a cheque that there’s no, yes, effectively, which is why, yeah, which is why right at the beginning, it’s talked about trust, you’ve got to build that trust.
15:02.88
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. I mean, you are buying into goodwill here, don’t you really? I mean, you know I guess that’s.
15:11.65
Marcus Ahmad
Yes.
15:11.81
Sam Hollis
You’ve got to make sure they trust you and you’ve got to make sure you trust them because it is, you’re right, it’s 90% about trust.
15:23.68
Sam Hollis
So there we go. That is the end, Marcus. Once you’ve bought it get on, put some effort in, talk to all those people. You’ve just doubled your client base, so you better go and talk to them and and get them in for some shoots because then you’re making use of all of all that money you’ve spent and obviously you’ve bought the kit, work how the hell it works, and use it.
15:40.68
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, and you say you know it’s really as we said in the show that the previous the previous show about this, you know it’s a really good way of upscaling your business straight away, really.
15:51.55
Marcus Ahmad
um
15:51.61
Sam Hollis
That’s it.
15:52.49
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, indeed.
15:53.87
Sam Hollis
Yeah, that’s it. If you’re starting out, really good way to start out if you’ve got some cash to spend. Or yeah, if you just did a stage, you’d say, I want to grow the business. ah want it quickly. It’s a great way to do it
16:06.32
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, and you know, ah we’re were we’re in tough times. You never know, there might be some good businesses out there that yeah are going for a song that that people just got bored of bored or just got fed up ah running.
16:18.02
Sam Hollis
Possibly, yeah. I mean, I think people will always will always want their value from their business.
16:24.49
Marcus Ahmad
Cool. Thank you.
16:26.19
Sam Hollis
All right, good. Right, well, I will see you next week, Marcus.
16:30.75
Marcus Ahmad
See you next week, Sam.
16:33.83
Sam Hollis
Right, job done. Stop.
16:35.63
Marcus Ahmad
Okay, that’s a good one.
16:38.58
Sam Hollis
Stop. It’s refused.
