Profit Isn’t the Prize. Valuation Multiple Is.

Most businesses don’t suffer from financial inefficiency.
They suffer from operational design inefficiency that only shows up in the numbers later.

I see it in growing owner-led companies. 
The difference is never effort; It’s operational clarity.

Here’s the pattern:
Margins don’t leak because leaders are careless.
💥They leak because leaders are 'emotionally attached' to how things have always been done!!!

And if you do what you have always done, you will get you what you have always got.

What that really means in practice:

When we acquired a business for a client in 2024:
Revenue was £2M
EBITDA was ~£500k (Net Profit + Interest + Tax + Depreciation + Amortisation)

We valued the business at a 2x multiple.

That meant it was worth ~£1M.

Several months later, we improved EBITDA to £660k.
That’s a 32% increase in profit.

No growth strategy.
No wild marketing spend.
Just operational efficiency.

But the bigger shift wasn’t just profit.
It was how the business was designed.

That changed the multiple as well as the profit.

When the multiple moved from 2x to 4x, that was a 100% increase in multiple.

So the total impact was this:
Profit up 32%
Multiple up 100%
Business value up from £1M to £2.64M

That’s a 164% increase in asset value.
With no big growth strategy.
Just operational clarity.

🤔And Yes, the original owner missed out in £1.6M

What looks like a margin issue
is usually a structure issue.

What looks like a cost problem
is often a process problem.

What looks like a cashflow issue
is frequently a decision-making issue.

Fix the design of the operation
and the financials start to breathe again.

🔓That’s why, as a Non-Executive Director, I don’t start with the P&L.
I start with your businesses health (Balance Sheet) and how it actually works.

Because profit is an outcome.
Cashflow is a symptom.
But valuation multiple is the real wealth differentiator.

Your attachment to Emotion protects the past, perhaps costing you significantly in margins and valuation.

Margin efficiency builds the future.

And here’s the real bottom line.

👉You can have two businesses in the same industry, with the same turnover and the same net profit, and one can be worth four times more than the other.

By design!

It’s the difference between running a business as an operator
and building one as a true owner and wealth investor.

Operators focus on getting through the year.
Owners focus on building an asset.

And investors focus on one thing above all else:
VALUATION MULTIPLE

That’s my speciality.

Yes, we absolutely improve profitability.
But it’s your valuation multiple that creates real value.

That’s what determines:
 • Your exit potential
 • Your financial legacy
 • The wealth of your business asset

💡If you’d like to know the top 7 ways to increase your valuation multiple,
contact us  and we’ll email them to you.