The content hub of Business Answers
Business advice blog for Irish owners
Written by Tommy Boyle, advisor to over 200 Irish companies since 1995.
Short, specific writing for owners of established Irish businesses. What actually moves revenue, margin and valuation, based on thirty years of doing the work rather than reading about it.
- Growth
- Exit and sale
- Pricing and margin
- Leadership
- Cash and finance
Exit and sale
Owner dependence is the single biggest discount on your sale price
Buyers do not pay full value for a business that needs you in it every day. Here is how that discount gets calculated, and the work that removes it.
Tommy Boyle · 9 min read
Growth
Why so many Irish businesses stall at around €2m
The ceiling is rarely demand. It is that the pipeline is still whatever the owner brought in this month, and one calendar cannot carry a bigger company.
Tommy Boyle · 9 min read
Growth
How to build a sales pipeline that does not depend on you
A pipeline is not a list of people who might buy. It is a small number of defined stages, with one person accountable and one number reviewed weekly.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
Pricing and margin
How to raise your prices without losing your good customers
Margin does not collapse, it erodes a point at a time while revenue keeps rising. Here is a sequence for putting prices right that does not start with a letter to everyone.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
Pricing and margin
The one report most Irish SMEs never run, gross margin by customer
Company-level margin hides the problem. Once you split it by customer and by job, the two or three accounts quietly funding everyone else become obvious.
Tommy Boyle · 7 min read
Leadership
From owner operator to owner leader, the shift nobody warns you about
The skills that built the business are not the skills that scale it, and the transition is personal before it is operational. It is also the change buyers pay for.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
Leadership
Your first senior hire, how to know whether it is the right one
The first hire above the owner's daily involvement is the most expensive appointment a growing business makes. Most of the risk is decided before anyone is interviewed.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
Cash and finance
Growing fast and running out of cash at the same time
Profitable businesses fail on cash timing. If you are scaling, working capital is the risk to watch, and the P&L will not warn you in time.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
Cash and finance
How to build a thirteen week cash forecast that you will actually use
One page, updated every week, showing money in and money out by week for the next quarter. It takes an hour to build and it ends most cash surprises.
Tommy Boyle · 8 min read
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The Owner Readiness Checklist
A practical 22-point check for Irish business owners thinking about a sale, whether that is next year or still a few years away. Four pages, no theory.
- Whether the reason for selling is clear enough
- The personal, tax and legal advice to line up early
- Financial records, budgets and employment files a buyer will test
- Management team, customer concentration and owner dependence
- What happens after heads of terms, and why timing matters
