Lessons from 20 years’ selling businesses

June 2025 marks Uscita’s 20^th business anniversary. We can’t quite believe we’ve spent 20 years successfully helping business owners to build, market and sell their businesses. Where has the time gone?

Such a big milestone presented a wonderful opportunity to look back and reflect on where we’ve come from and revisit some of our most memorable business sales. We’re also celebrating by sharing 20 lessons from the last two decades. As a husband and wife team, our lessons are split into advice on how to survive working with your other half, and more general advice around building value and selling your business.

Reflecting on the early days

Back in 2005, every business sale and enquiry was diligently recorded in a little black book. We soon realised we needed a slightly more efficient method and moved over to a spreadsheet! It was much less stressful when you had no CRM systems, websites and social media channels to worry about. Although with home computers still in the minority and post outstripping email in communication volumes, work was at a slower pace then too.

Our first ever business sale was a staffing agency for the care sector, which sold for £25k. Today, a sale value of that amount would almost entirely be swallowed up by the combined professional fees of solicitors, accountants, landlords and ourselves! One of our most memorable early sales was a DIY store purchased by Sainsburys. It was our first experience dealing with a big plc, and watching it transform into a local supermarket was quite surreal.

Another memorable sale was to a FTSE listed company which came with all sorts of additional restrictions on who could know what was happening. If word got out about the sale, it could incite insider trading. It took confidentiality to a whole different level.

In the early days, the high street was thriving and the majority of our clients were in the retail sector – coffee shops, convenience stores, newsagents and greengrocers looking to sell up and most ready for retirement. As we began to represent more industrial businesses, it didn’t take long for our first £1m sale, which came along the following year.

After the 2008 recession, our client base became more diverse, leading us into more interesting projects and challenging negotiations. A sale that sticks in our minds is that of a family-owned aquarium business where the husband needed a kidney transplant and his wife was to be his donor. The circumstances made the sale a priority. At the time it felt like a huge responsibility, and also a privilege to be part of their story. It shows that every owner has their own unique reason for selling – our role is to make it happen.

In 2014, we expanded our offer to support owners with planning their exit strategy, helping to build business value.

Over two decades, we’ve worked with well over 500 businesses, achieving a total client sales value of more than £41 million (that £25,000 typical value slowly increasing as we focused more on manufacturing and engineering businesses. We keep our client numbers small to give them the attention they deserve, and still five of those 500 have been sold and then resold by us when the new owners have been ready for change. Every day remains a new challenge. One day we’re negotiating through strict confidentiality clauses, the next we’re waving a client off to their new holiday home in Wales funded by their business sale.  Every business and every owner does it in their own way – and that’s what keeps it interesting.

Lessons from 20 years in business

1. Process creates value: being disorganised is a surefire way to reduce the value of your business. Order, systems and structure are signs of a healthy business.
2. Profit is important. Predictability is more important: to a buyer predictability isn’t dull, it’s a sign of a secure business.
3. The right deal is better than the biggest deal: selling a business is about more than profit. One of the more unusual clauses we had written into a contract of sale was for a scrapyard. We acted for the son of the founder. Part of the deal was that his 80 year-old mother had to be retained in her part-time role, two days a week, which the buyer agreed to.
4. Trust takes years to build and seconds to lose: it’s an oldie, but oh so true. Loss of trust is too often the reason why a buyer backs out.
5. Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo: doing things the same way is an expensive way to run a Failure to change and adapt is a drain on business value.
6. Clarity beats charisma: you don’t have to have a big personality to be a good leader. Being a good communicator is more important.
7. Delegation is not a sign of weakness: when you’re building a business, you need to learn to delegate – fast. Delegation is the foundation of scale and scale grows value.
8. Reputation is the best form of marketing: it’s what people talk about when you’re not in the room.
9. Surround yourself with people who challenge you: smart business owners respect honesty, not flattery.
10. Saying No is powerful: learning to say No at times when you feel under pressure and the stakes are high can be very liberating. Equally, if a deal doesn’t feel right, don’t be afraid to walk away.
11. It’s not the goals that keep you going: it’s the people you meet along the way. We’ve been lucky to work with top quality clients, partners, suppliers and even competitors that have all supported and helped shape our journey. Many are still in our lives today.
12. The difference between good and great clients: good clients pay your bills, great clients are the ones that trust, value and respect your advice.
13. The best ideas come when you step away from your desk: things become clearer and ideas flow more freely when you step outside the office, go for a walk, talk to new people, and take time for holidays.
14. Celebrate every win: especially the small ones – they often lead to bigger things.

Tips on working with your other half

15. Trust is your superpower: there’s no stronger foundation in business than knowing someone has your back – completely and unconditionally.
16. Divide and conquer works – so long as you stay aligned: clear roles and mutual respect go a long way in keeping a business running smoothly.
17. Celebrate each other’s strengths: you each bring different and unique skills to the table, so work on complementing over competing.
18. Running a business together sharpens your communication: you have to talk. About everything. Often.
19. People will assume you work identically. They are wrong: you’re still individuals – let each person lead in their own way.
20. Flex your role: Sometimes you’ll be each other’s sounding board, other times, just the kettle-puter-oner. Knowing when to talk, when to listen, and when to just make a brew is the secret to a successful partnership.

The Uscita way of building, marketing and selling businesses

When you run your own business, some days you feel unstoppable and other days you wonder what on earth you were thinking. It’s a constant balancing act between confidence and self-doubt. Both feelings are normal, but when the voice telling you to move on grows stronger, making time for a conversation with us about your exit plan could be the best decision you ever make. 500+ businesses will back us up on that!

We worked harder than ever to build Uscita and it has rewarded us with personal, professional and financial freedom. We are thankful to every client, supplier, supporter, referrer and friend who has helped us on our way – now and in the future. Our children were aged 3 and 5 when we first started out, so Uscita is all they’ve ever known. We’re proud that they have both inherited their parents work ethic and can’t wait to see what they achieve over the next 20 years.