004: Mergers & Acquisitions - with Tim Johnson

In this week’s episode, Tim will be talking about his start in the insurance industry and his experiences, lessons and achievements along the way. Tim will share some amazing tips for businesses on how to be more attractive for potential buyers who would like to acquire their business; and advise for brokers on how to be more successful in attracting great opportunities for investment – and if you’re in the insurance industry, it’s definitely worth a listen! KEY TAKEAWAYS: How to buy and now not to buy a business – for instance completing a rebrand on Day 1 is quite an emotive issue. A lot of the equity value you have paid for is in the brand you have bought. If you want to treat customers like commodities, they'll come and go as commodities do, and their stock price will go up and down like copper does. If you treat them like clients, you've got a much better chance of greater retention. There's still a commercial angle. If you speak to a vendor that you might be looking to invest in or buy, if they talk about clients, what we do for the clients, more than other stuff, that's pretty critical. At the same time, the only other asset they have is staff so if they talk about staff a lot, that's pretty important. As a vendor you can afford to make the decision to sell based on buyer relationship not just money. BEST MOMENTS: “if you want to win in the future, you've got to have a delivery mechanism which the customer is happy with and looks like the rest of the things they buy. At the same time, and most brokers probably would say this, if you can overlay at least a layer of relationship/advisory, that's the winning formula.” “Focus on the organic growth and have an organic growth story” “The Towergate clock used to spin round at triple the speed of everywhere else. You could get almost literally 10 years of experience in twelve or eighteen months because we just did so much. The pace was phenomenal.” RESOURCES: Stackhouse Poland: https://www.synova-capital.com/our-companies/stackhouse-poland-1/ ABOUT THE HOST Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership. If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly    Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/ Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation ABOUT THE GUEST Tim Johnson was CEO of insurance group Stackhouse Poland. He joined the insurance industry as a graduate trainee around 30 year ago and a large part of his career has been specialising in mergers and acquisitions. His knowledge, expertise and interest in this area is significant. Tim’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-johnson-200b21b1/