How To Build The Value Of Your Business

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How To Build The Value Of Your Business

Do you think you’re ready to go international? Meet Peter Hooker–one of two partners who took a simple maternity invention and grew it into a worldwide, industry changing accessories. Backed by their own funds and a lot of door knocking, Peter and his business partner grew their homegrown startup into a national--and international–success stocked by the likes of David Jones, Target, and more.

Now exited after 20 years of hard work and dedication, Peter reflects on his time as Co-Founder and CEO. Believing that shared values, good people, and treating people right is the best way to do business, Peter and his partner never got into a scuffle once across their two decades together–proof that his strategy works.

If you’ve ever considered the value of Intellectual Property and having patented assets as part of your business portfolio, this is the episode for you. Believing that IP ownership is one of the single most valuable assets a seller can bring to a potential sale, Peter talks through all sides of a product-related business from securing wide profit margins, to distribution, and diversification success.

Ready to learn a whole lot about the product side of business empires? Peter Hooker’s first-hand advice about the world of women and maternity’s wear might just have you believing that your next best business opportunity could come through fate.

What you will learn in this episode

In this episode we’ll cover everything from:

  • How to scale a business with an innovative product in a new product category.
  • What you learn about facing the word ‘no’ along the way.
  • How Peter and his business partner overcame the dilemma that most business owners have, trying to find people that will sell their product or service with the same passion they have.
  • How they used an acquisition strategy to grow their business.
  • The key to achieving gross margin in the high 60% range.
  • Why it makes sense to start thinking of your exit earlier when it comes to all the moving parts you need to consider.

About Our Guest

BBS podcast - Peter Hooker

Peter Hooker

Peter Hooker is an experienced non-executive director and business mentor with over 30 years’ experience in finance, investment, strategy and entrepreneurship. His broad experience across multiple industries has cemented his belief in culture as a primary driver of organisational performance.

As a Director at Your Culture Strategy, Peter works as a business and governance mentor, helping business owners and senior leaders to develop solutions across the full range of issues they confront. He is particularly interested in improving SME performance through values-based models of leadership.

Peter currently serves on the Psychology Board of Australia, where he chairs the Governance Working Group. He is also an Advisory Board Centre member, and enjoys applying his broad experience and well-developed critical thinking skills to new issues and new industries.

Peter previously owned and ran a company called Fertile Mind, an importer and exporter in the baby goods industry, operating for 20 years. After a successful divestment of their brands, they continue to be sold under new ownership in major retailers in Australia, the USA and many other countries.

Connect with Peter Hooker

Show Notes

(6:23) The one asset Peter’s unexpected business partner was going to sell to help fund her startup--and how Peter came to be involved.

(8:45) How the first no doesn’t have to be the last--and how Peter and his business partner kept making contact, building a reputation, and bargained competitor sales to get a foot in the door.

(11:25) The one quality you want to look for and encourage in your team--and how Peter used it to help build shared values among his team.

(12:45) Although Peter and his partner didn’t have an exit strategy when they kicked off, they knew that for any successful exit to occur they needed some sort of scale and relevance in the market. (And how this thought led to an acquisition.)

(15:03) What to focus on to build margins upward of 60% and how to protect them against erosion as market trends shift.

(19:10) When Peter and his partner started talking about exiting the business--and why they should have started discussing it three years earlier.

(24:25) How and why Peter would do it completely differently if he were to build another company now--and how it relates to the manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler, and consumer.

(25:35) Why all potential buyers for Peter’s company came from within his existing industry--and why that made for a great buyer-seller fit.

(30:19) How to mentally prepare for an extremely time-consuming selling process--and who to work with when strategising, preparing information, thinking about who the buyers could be, and checking data for inconsistencies.

(34:10) The exit strategy Peter and his partner secured and why basing post-sale earnings on quarterly data means you can’t go wrong.

(38:05) Peter’s one take-away tip: Build something that is saleable and put together a portfolio of intellectual property. When you do--protect it. Lastly, ask yourself — what is a buyer going to want to receive from you? Consider this and then follow through to increase their confidence in future maintainable sales.

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