Business | Knowledge
EVERY £1 FOR YOUR BUSINESS IS WORTH £4 IN YOUR POCKET
IN BUSINESS, IT’S ALL ABOUT INVESTMENT. YOU HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO MAKE
MONEY, AND THE SAME IS TRUE WHEN YOU DECIDE TO SELL. THIS ISSUE, STUART MASON, FOUNDER OF HERE’S HOW TO, TALKS ABOUT BUSINESS EXITS AND HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR BUSINESS IS PROFITABLE.
26 | June/July 2026
Here is the number that should be tattooed on the inside of every print business owner’s wrist: four. Why I hear you ask? Why not a tattoo of a printer? For every single pound you add to the value of your business, you walk away with four pounds extra in your pocket when you sell. That is not a rounding error. That is not a best-case scenario. That is how business valuations work at a standard 4x EBITDA multiple, which is exactly where most small print businesses land when they go to market. So, if you tighten up your operations, reduce
waste, and generate an extra £50,000 EBITDA, you have not just added £50k to your financials. You have added £200,000 to your pocket at exit. Now here is the brutal part. Around 80% of businesses that go to market never sell. Not because they are not profitable, but because profit alone does not make a business desirable to a buyer. Sadly, most owners do not find that out until it is far too late to do anything about it.
YOUR P&L IS NOT THE PRODUCT Too many business owners in this industry spend twenty years building a company and then spend six months trying to sell it. That is the wrong way around. A healthy profit and loss account is the starting point of a conversation with a buyer, not the closing argument. Buyers are not just purchasing your turnover. They are purchasing risk, and they are asking one question above all others: “If I hand over my money today, what is the probability this business keeps running without you in it?” If the answer is “probably not very well,” the deal
dies, or the offer price plummets, or it dies in due diligence later. However it dies, you lose. The print industry has a particular vulnerability here.
Many print businesses are built entirely around the owner. The owner holds the client relationships; they know the kit inside out. The owner is the quality check, the estimator, the problem-solver, and often the person answering the phone. That is not a business. That is a job with a business card, possibly a nice card though, eh? A buyer does not want your job. They want an asset; they want to grow and scale.
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