The Grown UP Business Podcast

Paul Avins
  • 5.0 (67)
  • Entrepreneurship

The Grown Up Business Podcast is a scale-up podcast for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs who want proven strategies for scaling a business sustainably and building companies that work without them. Hosted by Paul Avins, Business Transformation Expert, this podcast draws on over 21 years of coaching experience, supporting 20,000+ entrepreneurs and helping facilitate £150m+ in business exits. Each episode Paul shares practical insights, disciplined leadership thinking, and real-world scale-up frameworks to help founder and CEOs find new levels of personal and professional performance. On the podcast, you’ll hear: Expert Interviews Candid conversations with successful founders, CEOs, investors, and subject-matter experts covering leadership, scaling, funding, operations, exits, wellbeing and personal development. Actionable Scale-Up Strategies Clear, practical frameworks built around Paul’s four pillars: Level UP (founder mindset and CEO identity) Team UP (building high-performing leadership teams) Scale UP (sales, systems, and operational discipline) Fire UP (harness the power and energy of mind, body, spirit connect) Real Business Stories Proven strategies and hard-won lessons from leaders who have scaled businesses, failed and rebuilt, in the real world — with clarity, structure, and purpose. This CEO podcast is for you if you want to: - Scale a founder-led business beyond day-to-day dependency - Build a high-performing leadership team - Create a scalable and sellable business - Move from operator to confident scale-up CEO - Invest in your self and your personal development You’ll learn how to scale a business without chaos, implement systems that support sustainable growth, and build a company that delivers results, with or without you at the centre. A sellable business is also a great business to run. The Grown Up Business Podcast shows you how to build both. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favourite platform and join thousands of ambitious founders already scaling with Paul and Team Purple. Level UP. Team UP. Scale UP. Fire UP

  1. 4d ago

    Pete Cohen, ITV Life Coach: How to Build a £2M Business and Survive Trauma

    What if the thing you've been outrunning in your life is the same thing driving your business, and it's finally time to stop and look at it? In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Pete Cohen, one of the UK's top performance coaches, author of 21 books, former resident life coach on ITV's GMTV, and creator of the Stop to Think philosophy. Pete left school with one O-level, became one of the UK's first personal trainers, then built and sold a weight loss and fitness business to Bupa. He has worked with Arsenal, Pfizer, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Roger Black and Sally Gunnell. Paul and Pete go deep on self-awareness, addiction and identity: why knowing your own weaknesses means avoiding the things that could hijack you, why many entrepreneurs are built on proving someone wrong, and why the bigger the stage lights, the bigger the shadow. They explore why celebrating other people's wins builds community, why every founder needs a coach, and how Paul's mastermind and retreat model grew from building something he wanted to attend himself. Both share the hardest moments of their lives. Pete talks about burning out with chronic fatigue at the height of his TV fame, losing his parents, and supporting his wife Hannah through a brain tumour diagnosis, treatment in America and Germany, and her passing in 2023. He explains how his coach helped him find a way to celebrate his suffering, leading to the award-winning documentary Team Hannah, which won at the Cannes World Film Festival. Paul tells the story of his 2014 cardiac arrest, his wife Sue's brain injury and 21-day coma, and how he trained trauma out of his body after years of living in fight or flight. They close on resilience (not bouncing back, but moving through), why ideas are perishable and need action within 72 hours, the difference between procrastination and creative procrastination, and why stopping is where growth happens. What you'll learn: Why self-awareness and self-audit matter more than hustle. Why addiction, including dopamine addiction, is something many entrepreneurs fight without realising. Why identity shifts drive growth, and why refusing a label others put on you can change your life. How to build a community and mastermind where people feel accepted whatever their results. Why celebrating everyone's success beats a winners-and-losers model. How the Napoleon Hill principles still apply to modern business. Why ideas are perishable and need action within 72 hours. The difference between avoidance procrastination and creative procrastination. How trauma stored in the body can quietly shape your performance, and why working with a professional matters. Why resilience means moving through adversity, not bouncing back. The Chinese saying that life is lived forwards and understood backwards. Apply this: Audit where you are right now: sleep, mood, energy, health, relationships, wealth, work. Know your triggers and avoid the ones that could hijack you. Get a coach or mentor. Nobody climbs a mountain alone. Act on ideas within 72 hours, or let them go. Learn to regulate your nervous system daily through journaling, meditation, walking or cold plunges. When life gets hard, just win today. Define what winning looks like and get on with it. Take time to stop and reflect. You can't make sense of it while you're running. About Pete Cohen Pete Cohen is one of the UK's leading performance coaches and the author of 21 books. He was the resident life coach on GMTV, built and sold a successful weight loss and fitness business, and has coached elite athletes and major corporates. He created Stop to Think, a philosophy focused on pausing to think differently, and produced the award-winning documentary Team Hannah. Watch Team Hannah: https://teamhannah.com Stop to Think: Https://www.stop2think.co.uk/ More from Pete: https://petecohen.com Scale with Paul Avins Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Pete Cohen, ITV Life Coach: How to Build a £2M Business and Survive Trauma

  2. Oct 2

    Add $1M to Your Business Using The Profits Tap Framework with Stephen Jones

    What if there's a simple seven-letter framework hiding inside your business that could add a million pounds to your bottom line, and you're already sitting on most of the pieces? In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Stephen Jones, an expert on people, performance and profitability who was part of the team that scaled Fitness First from one club to the largest independent health club business in the world in seven years. Stephen was also called on by the UK government to chair a task force on employee engagement, and is the author of Turning On Your Profits Tap, the model at the centre of this conversation. Stephen walks through the Profits Tap framework: Purpose, Relevance, Outclass the Crowd, Find, Inspire, Time and Service. He explains why most owners never define their personal vision before their business one, why relevance is under constant threat from AI, and why positioning means deliberately choosing where you sit on product, market, service and price, the way Fitness First combined David Lloyd's quality with leisure-centre affordability. Paul and Stephen dig into winning referral partners without paying for them, the five fears stopping a professional referring their best client, and the five benefits that get them to say yes. They cover a proven sales meeting structure, why "can you make a decision today" is one of the worst questions in sales, and why pressure selling signals a weak pipeline. Stephen shares how Fitness First recruited and trained whole teams before a club had even opened, and the study that first got him noticed, proving a corporate gym paid for itself three times over in reduced sickness. The conversation moves into culture and motivation: the nine drivers behind why people really show up to work, why money is only a short-term motivator, and the barrister who quietly retrained as a landscape gardener after realising he was working from resilience, not energy. They close on AI, why the IKEA case study turned an 8,500-person cost saving into a $1.3 billion opportunity by repurposing staff, and why the businesses that win will use AI to elevate people rather than replace them. What you'll learn: Why personal vision should come before business vision. Why relevance is a moving target with AI reshaping industries. How to use product, market, service, price to position deliberately. How to build referral partnerships without paying fees, using the five fears and five benefits that decide whether someone refers you their best client. A proven sales meeting structure: agenda, positioning, fact-find, presentation, close. Why pressure selling signals a weak pipeline, not strong closing skills. How Fitness First trained entire teams before a club had even finished being built. Why the best salesperson is usually the worst sales manager. The nine motivational drivers behind engagement, and why money rarely tops the list. Why performing from resilience instead of energy is a warning sign. How to build an employer-of-choice wheel around story, vision, engaged managers, coaching, employee voice and lived values. Why AI should follow your strategy, not set it. Apply this: Map your business against the Profits Tap and score each area to find your bottleneck. Before asking a referral partner for their best client, ask what their biggest fear is in giving it to you, then address it directly. Move high-stakes sales conversations to a two-meeting model: discovery first, tailored solution second. Audit what worked in your first year of winning clients that you've quietly stopped doing. Run a motivational assessment on your team rather than assuming everyone's driven by money. Before promoting your best salesperson into management, check whether they actually want to manage people. Use AI to free up capacity, then reinvest it in higher-value, more human work. About Stephen Jones Stephen Jones is an expert on people, performance and profitability, and author of three books including Turning On Your Profits Tap. He was part of the team that scaled Fitness First into the world's largest independent health club business within seven years, and was later invited by the UK government to co-chair a task force on employee engagement. He now helps businesses scale profitably through positioning, sales and genuinely engaged teams. Get Stephen’s book here: Turning on Your P.R.O.F.I.T.S. Tap in an AI Era Connect with Stephen: steve@skillsforbusinesstraining.co.uk (mailto:steve@skillsforbusinesstraining.co.uk) Scale with Paul Avins Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Add $1M to Your Business Using The Profits Tap Framework with Stephen Jones

  3. Sep 18

    Your North Star vs. Your Goals: The One Thing Missing From Your Business Plan - Will Polston

    What if the biggest thing missing from your business plan isn't a strategy, a funnel, or a hire, but a clear answer to where you're actually trying to go? In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Will Polston, best-selling author of North Star Thinking, entrepreneur, NLP practitioner and one of the UK's top business strategy and performance coaches. Will shares his journey from believing money equalled happiness, chasing it hard through a career as a city broker, to the moment at a Tony Robbins event that revealed his real driver had nothing to do with cash. Will and Paul unpack what a North Star actually is: not a purpose, but a life mission you'll never fully achieve but keep working towards, the business equivalent of trying to empty the sea with a spoon. They explore why entrepreneurs hit a scale-up ceiling between £500k and £1.5m, why beliefs like "I don't have the time or money" get baked in during underfunded start-up years, and how to break a limiting belief by introducing doubt through other people's references. The conversation goes deep on identity: why exited business owners often spiral into feelings of depression from losing the "business owner" identity without a life-after-exit plan, why peak performance is potential minus interference, and why "it needs to be done, but I don't need to do it" was the belief that kept Will stuck longest even after success. They also cover recovery, why sleep quality now trumps everything else in his routine, his self-love list for staying recharged, and 22, the mushroom supplement business he built to run on one to two hours a week. What you'll learn: Why a North Star differs from a purpose, and why most businesses have a vision and values while most people never define their own. Why the money-equals-happiness belief gets embedded early. Why entrepreneurs hit a scale-up ceiling around £500k to £1.5m, and why hustle gets you there but framework gets you further. How to break any limiting belief by introducing doubt through other people's references. Why exiting without a life-after-exit plan often triggers depression through identity loss. Why peak performance is a subtraction game, not addition. The difference between guilt and shame, and why "work guilt" keeps founders chained to their desks. Why multiple identities protect you through major transitions. Why sleep quality became Will's single biggest performance lever. What a self-love list is and how it drives active accountability. Why Will built 22 to prove a company can grow on one to two hours a week. Why reviewing your net worth, including your business valuation, quarterly changes how you treat the business. Apply this: Get clarity on your North Star before your next goal. Ask what you're actually doing this for, long term. Interrogate your beliefs about time and money. Find people who've proven them wrong. Build a life-after-exit plan before you exit, not after the deal closes. Treat recovery as part of performance. Track sleep quality and build in genuine off-season time. Get your business valued every quarter. Treating it as an asset, not just income, changes your decisions. Create a self-love list of things that recharge you, and use it to check in on yourself weekly. Ask "how can I do this and have fun?" instead of forcing yourself through what you resent. About Will Polston Will Polston is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and one of the UK's top business strategy and performance coaches. A former city broker turned NLP practitioner and psychologist, he's the author of North Star Thinking: Master Your Mindset and Live a Life You Love. He's also built 22, a functional mushroom supplement company, and is working to build a 6,000-seater ice arena and develop the junior academy of the ice hockey club he played for over 23 years. Find out more: https://willpolston.com Scale with Paul Avins Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Your North Star vs. Your Goals: The One Thing Missing From Your Business Plan - Will Polston

  4. Sep 4

    Sales Expert: The Two-Call Close Strategy That Scales Your Sales - Adam Davies

    What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn't your product or your marketing, but the fact that you're still doing all the selling yourself, and you have no idea how to build a team that can do it without you? In this episode of The Grown Up Business Podcast, Paul Avins sits down with Adam Davies, founder of Sales Chief, a fractional sales management company that runs sales teams for established agencies, service professionals and scale-up businesses. Adam shares the unfiltered truth about why most entrepreneurs give up on salespeople too early, why "fix the system, not the team" beats another hiring round every time, and why the businesses that struggle most with sales are the ones that never properly documented what actually works. Adam unpacks his own path into sales, from a self-employed, commission-only start in a boiler-room environment in his late teens, to building Sales Chief into a business that interviews over 70 candidates for every single role it fills. He explains why most business owners only ever interview three people and then wonder why their sales team underperforms, why hiring the right people matters more than volume of outreach, and why a salesperson who's good but in a rut usually just needs the system fixed around them, not replacing. Paul and Adam dig into the mechanics of a proper sales process: acknowledge, isolate, handle, re-close. They talk through why "I need to think about it" is rarely the real objection, why two-call closes can lift conversion from 8% to 27.5%, why tracking cost-per-lead and offers-per-day matters more than gut feel, and how AI-trained call analysis is changing the way sales teams get coached. Adam also opens up on the emotional side of sales: why buyers are liars (not deliberately), why salespeople need to be matched to the income level and demographic of who they're selling to, and why the best sales managers are often the mediocre salespeople, not the top performers. What you'll learn: Why stepping away from the phones without a documented process can cost you 60% of your sales overnight. Why the average business only interviews three people per sales role, and why Sales Chief interviews over 70. Why hiring mums on flexible contracts, or matching a salesperson's income level to their buyer's, changes conversion rates. How a two-call close process took one client from 8% to 27.5% conversion. Why "I need to think about it" is a smokescreen, and how to acknowledge, isolate, handle and re-close a real objection. Why cost-per-offer and offers-per-day are the metrics most businesses never track. Why listening back to your own best sales calls breaks a slump faster than any pep talk. Why the best sales manager is rarely your top-performing salesperson. Why documenting your own sales process is step one before you ever hire. Why recruiting two salespeople at once beats recruiting one. Why "fix the system, not the team" should come before another round of hiring. Apply this: Document your own sales process before you hire anyone. Ask AI to interview you about what you do well, then turn it into a playbook. Don't judge a salesperson on one bad month. Track daily data and look for patterns before making any decision. Handle objections in sequence: acknowledge, isolate, handle, re-close. Most reps skip the isolate step and lose the sale. Get your team listening to their own best calls, not generic training content, to rebuild confidence and momentum. Match your salesperson to your buyer. Income level, demographic and life experience all affect whether they can build trust. Hire two salespeople at once if you can. The training cost barely rises and you get built-in redundancy and competition. Know your numbers inside out. A grown-up sales team can define a good month, a bad month, and find its bottlenecks within days. About Adam Davies Adam Davies is the founder of Sales Chief, a fractional sales management company that builds and runs remote and fractional sales teams for agencies, service professionals and scale-up businesses. He started out in commission-only sales in his late teens and has spent over two decades in sales and sales leadership, including as head of sales for Andy Harrington, before launching Sales Chief to help entrepreneurs fix their sales systems rather than just their headcount. Connect with Adam on Instagram: @adamdaviessales Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-davies-b95a52b1/ Visit Sales Chief: https://saleschief.co Scale with Paul Avins Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call with Paul: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Subscribe to the Scale Up Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Sales Expert: The Two-Call Close Strategy That Scales Your Sales - Adam Davies

  5. Aug 22

    Shop Floor to $100m: How An Elite Sports Performance Mindset Transforms Teams - Kevin Mark-Watts

    What if the difference between a business that stalls and one that scales past $100M isn't talent or budget, but whether you build your team the way elite sports teams build theirs? In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Kevin Mark-Watts, author of The 10 Ten-Minute Rules, a specialist in peak performance, and a leader with over 30 years across retail, HR, and commercial leadership, including seven years as Commercial Director of Crystal Palace Football Club. His work has been published in CEO World, and his framework takes the principles of elite sports performance science and applies them directly to business. Kevin's own story starts a long way from boardrooms. Dropped from his school football team as a ten-year-old for a cheeky comment to his coach, he spiralled into failing his exams and left college before finishing his A-levels. A retail job selling made-to-measure suits changed everything: within weeks he'd found he was a natural salesman, and by his early twenties he was running stores, then managing areas, then leading HR for a 700-store, 7,000-employee retail chain. A redundancy led him to Simon Jordan's fast-growing mobile phone business, which scaled past $300M in turnover, and from there into Crystal Palace, where he helped run the club through promotion, relegation, and one of English football's more chaotic dressing rooms. Paul and Kevin get into the moment a Crystal Palace manager assaulted a player, refused to admit the mistake, and lost the entire dressing room within weeks. They talk about the ProZone data system that helped get Palace promoted through marginal gains most clubs weren't tracking yet. Kevin explains the $400K ceiling he hit as an entrepreneur, why second and third generation hires are rarely as invested as the founding team, and why only 7% of businesses ever break past the $1M mark. He also makes the case for treating founders like athletes: pre-season kickoffs, recovery, and reinvesting 10% of income back into yourself. What you'll learn: Why a school coach dropping him at ten years old shaped how Kevin leads teams today. How a redundancy from a corporate HR role led to running a $300M mobile phone business. The Crystal Palace story: a manager who assaulted a player, never admitted the mistake, and lost the dressing room within weeks. Why leaders must get their key influencers on side before they can fix a culture problem. How ProZone's match data and marginal gains helped get Crystal Palace promoted. Why he built a "seat avatar" to track whether the right people are in the right seats as a business grows. Why the team that gets you promoted isn't always the team that keeps you there. Why he hit a $400K ceiling, and how second and third generation hires are rarely as invested as the founders. Why only 7% of businesses ever break past the $1M mark. Why meeting rhythms have to change as a team grows past five or six people. Why he treats entrepreneurship as a full contact sport, with no off-season unless you build one in. Why he spends 10% of what he earns on his own personal development. Why he's proud of being made redundant twice, because it proved his teams were self-sufficient. His definition of a grown-up business: when the person at the end of the chain talks about your values as passionately as you do. Apply this: Get your key influencers on side before trying to fix a culture problem, they carry your message further than you can alone. Track the data on your team the way elite sports teams do, not just how people feel about their performance. Reassess whether the people who got you to your last milestone are the right people for your next one. Build a pre-season into your year, a kickoff, a half-year review, don't assume a team performs at full speed from day one. Put 10% of what you earn back into your own development. Have the uncomfortable conversation and admit the mistake before it costs you your best people. About Kevin Mark-Watts Kevin is the author of The 10 Ten-Minute Rules and a specialist in applying elite sports performance science to business teams. With over 30 years across retail, HR, and commercial leadership, including seven years as commercial director of Crystal Palace Football Club, his work has been featured in CEO World magazine. He now works as a coach and advisor to founders and leadership teams building high-performing cultures. Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mark-watts-13123822/ Scale with Paul Avins If this episode resonated, Paul's work focuses on helping founders step out of the day to day and scale with structure and confidence. Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call with Paul: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Subscribe to the Scale Up Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Shop Floor to $100m: How An Elite Sports Performance Mindset Transforms Teams - Kevin Mark-Watts

  6. Aug 7

    Stop Hustling, Start Leading: The Psychology Behind Scaling Beyond $10M - Deborah Henley

    Why does the same approach that got you to $5m stop working past $10m? Because at that point the constraint isn't the business anymore. It's you. In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Deborah Henley, author of Your Leadership Story (a finalist in the Business Book Awards), creator of the REAL leadership model, and an executive coach who has spent years working with leaders at Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and the Ministry of Defence. Deborah and Paul dig into the real difference between management and leadership: management keeps the wheels turning, leadership gives people something to believe in. She talks about why growth is about what you do, but scaling past a ceiling is about who you are, and why so many founders hit an $18-20m plateau and go looking for a new strategy when what they actually need is to become a different kind of leader. Deborah also shares her own story. An idyllic childhood in Hong Kong that ended abruptly when her parents split up when she was 11. Eight schools and three boarding houses by the time she was 18. A stint as a clapper loader on Sofia Coppola's first film before she trained as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist and spent years working in addiction recovery. She talks openly about a late miscarriage that stopped her sense of the future in its tracks, the mantra "presence in the present" that carried her through it, and the moment her husband finally believed she'd written a book, because he didn't quite trust it until he was holding it. Paul and Deborah talk about the difference between intention and expectation, why founders need everyone pulling in the same direction (what Deborah calls aligned ambition), why hustle culture is really a dopamine addiction, and why the people you spend the most time with shape your habits and your ceiling more than any strategy will. What you'll learn: The real difference between management and leadership, and why one keeps you small. Why growth is about what you do, but scaling past a ceiling is about who you are. Deborah's REAL leadership model: Results, Emotional intelligence, Authenticity, Legacy. Why intention and expectation aren't the same, and how closing the gap predicts whether you'll hit your goals. How releasing your bottom 20% of clients can 4x revenue by creating space for better ones. Why hustle culture is a dopamine addiction, and why letting go of tactical wins is the hardest part of scaling. Why most businesses stall when the founder stops investing in their own growth, not when the market turns. How growing up across eight schools shaped Deborah's adaptability, and where adapting tips into losing yourself. Why she trained as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist and spent years working in addiction recovery. Why the five people you spend the most time with define your results more than any strategy. Why retreats accelerate growth: nature, community, distance from your usual stories, and dropping the armour. Why leaders should ask "who needs me to show up as my best self today?" every morning. Why authenticity, not perfection, is what makes a leader trustworthy. Why the leaders who stand out now are the ones willing to be real, in a world that's getting more automated by the day. Apply this: Ask what result you intend and expect for the day, not just what you're hoping for. Build a leadership team before you hit $10-15m, not after. Audit your bottom 20% of clients and create space for better ones to show up. Have the uncomfortable conversation now, you're usually only a few of them away from a lighter business. Spend deliberate time around people playing a bigger game than you. Get comfortable being present instead of chasing the next dopamine hit. Choose your own game, scale and exit or build and lifestyle, and stop measuring yourself against people playing a different one. About Deborah Henley Deborah Henley is a leadership and executive coach, author of Your Leadership Story (a Business Book Awards finalist), and creator of the Real Leadership Program and the REAL leadership model. She has coached senior leaders at Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and the Ministry of Defence, and draws on more than 20 years across clinical psychology, hypnotherapy, and NLP. She also hosts the podcast Perfectly Flawed. Connect with Deborah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-henley/ Scale with Paul Avins If this episode resonated, Paul's work focuses on helping founders step out of the day to day and scale with structure and confidence. Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call with Paul: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Subscribe to the Scale Up Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Stop Hustling, Start Leading: The Psychology Behind Scaling Beyond $10M - Deborah Henley

  7. Jul 24

    From Council Estate to $100M Exit: 7-Year Journey to Retiring at 37 - Andrew Hulbert

    What if the biggest barrier to building a multimillion pound business isn't talent or strategy, but your willingness to go all in, hire the right people, and build a culture that makes people want to stay? In this episode, Paul Avins sits down with Andrew Hulbert, a former council estate kid who started a facilities management business from his bedroom, scaled it to over £50 million in turnover with 550 staff, and exited for £80 million at age 37. Andrew shares his journey from earning £8 a week stuffing newspapers at age eight, to director at 24, to starting Pareto FM at 27 and growing it through two exits. A private equity deal let him take money off the table, pay off his mortgage, buy his parents and sisters houses, and give his dad £250,000 to retire early. He explains why he built a personal brand before it was a thing, how winning 50 awards opened doors to multimillion pound contracts, why he hired mums on flexible contracts as his secret weapon, and why he gave away 20% of the business in sweet equity to a management team of 15 who never left. Paul and Andrew explore hitting an organic ceiling at £18 million, realising the business was worth three times what he thought, working with a psychologist for two years before exiting to prepare for sudden wealth syndrome, and building a "social heart" business in a sector that had lost touch with people. Andrew also opens up on the cost of going all in: the strain on his marriage, the 1000-day countdown he put on the wall to keep his promise to his wife, and the £25,000 he spent on donuts in one year to win contracts. What you'll learn: • Why Andrew started earning money at age eight and how working class values shaped his path. • How he became a director at 24 and why a mentor changed everything. • Why he started Pareto FM at 27, spotting that big businesses were terrible at serving small customers. • How he won his first contract with Bulgari Hotel through relationship building. • Why he built a personal brand early through articles, awards, and relentless networking. How he scaled from £1.2m to £18m in six years and hit an organic growth ceiling. • The moment he realised his business was worth £20m, not £6m. • Why he sold to private equity instead of trade, taking money off the table to secure his family. • How investing £1m into overhead took him from £18m to £32m in one year. • Why hiring Bill as his first serious hire freed him to focus on sales and ops. • How giving away 20% in sweet equity to 15 senior leaders kept every one of them for 10 years. • Why hiring mums on flexible contracts built loyalty and cut turnover. How he built a movement around social value in facilities management. • Why he spent £25,000 on donuts in 2019, and how small gestures built unbreakable culture. How working with a psychologist for two years prepared him for life after the sale. • Why he put a 1000-day countdown on the wall and promised his wife he'd retire at 37. How he answered 854 due diligence questions in three and a half weeks. • Why he hired an entire hotel on Christmas Day for 75 family members after the sale. • The cost of going all in, and why his wife Heather is the hero of the story. Apply this: Spend your 20s learning skills, not chasing money — go work for a fast growth company first. Build your personal brand before you need it: articles, awards, relentless networking. Hire for trust and cultural fit, not just skills, especially for senior roles. Invest in overhead when you hit a ceiling — sometimes a million pounds unlocks the next level. Give away equity to the people who matter; sweet equity creates loyalty and alignment. Work with a psychologist before you exit to prepare for sudden wealth syndrome and identity shift. Set a get-out date — without one, the business takes you hostage. About Andrew Hulbert Andrew Hulbert started Pareto FM from his bedroom at 27, scaled it to over £50 million in turnover with 550 staff, and exited for £80 million at 37. He grew up on a council estate in Oxford, became a director at 24, and built a business that won over 50 awards by putting people and social impact at its heart. He's now a business coach, podcaster, and advocate for social value in business. Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewhulbert/ Scale with Paul Avins If this episode resonated, Paul's work focuses on helping founders step out of the day to day and scale with structure and confidence. Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call with Paul: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Subscribe to the Scale Up Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    From Council Estate to $100M Exit: 7-Year Journey to Retiring at 37 - Andrew Hulbert

  8. Jul 15

    Business Exit Advisor: Save £4,000, Retire A Millionaire! Most Owners Never Do - Saul Cohen

    What if the biggest barrier to scaling your business isn't marketing or sales, but how you think about your numbers, your tax strategy, and your exit plan? In this episode of The Grown UP Business Podcast, Paul Avins sits down with Saul Cohen, founder of ExpertEye and one of the UK's most experienced acquisition advisors. Saul started his career at PwC and has been involved in over 150 acquisitions before turning 35. He sold his first business before entering the corporate world, and now helps entrepreneurs optimize their tax, understand valuations, and navigate acquisitions with clarity and confidence. Saul shares why most entrepreneurs don't understand their numbers, when it's time to change accountants, how to save thousands in tax every year, and why £4,000 saved annually can add up to an extra million pounds at retirement. Paul and Saul unpack the myths around business valuations, why most accountants use finger in the air guesswork, and how to know what your business is actually worth. They explore the difference between lifestyle businesses and performance businesses, why most entrepreneurs wait too long to exit, the 18 month minimum timeline to sell a business, and the psychology behind why deals fall apart. Saul introduces his SCORE framework, a valuation model built from 150 acquisitions that measures systems, commercial strength, operations, regulatory risk, and exposure. He explains why culture can kill a deal even when the financials look perfect, and shares stories of incredible acquisitions and absolute car crashes. If you're building a business and want to understand how to create real value, protect your wealth, and play the long game with your finances, this episode is essential. What you'll learn: • Why most entrepreneurs don't understand their numbers and how that holds them back • When you should change accountants and what to look for in a great one • How saving £4,000 a year in tax can give you an extra million pounds at retirement • The three games of money: making it, keeping it, and investing it • Why accountants aren't all created equal and how to level up your advisory team • How accountants calculate valuations and why most use finger in the air guesswork • Why businesses over a million pounds in profit have a higher multiple and more options • The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when trying to exit and why they wait too long • Why it takes a minimum of 18 months to sell a business and how to prepare for it • The SCORE framework: systems, commercial, operations, regulatory, and exposure • Why culture can cap your valuation even when the financials look perfect • How to bring in a fractional CFO at the right time and what they should actually do • Why the best acquisition Saul ever saw was a £2.5 million profit business sold for £10 million • Why you should get your business professionally valued every two years • The baby boomer wave and biggest transfer of wealth in a generation • Why underselling your promise in marketing can increase conversions and create raving fans Apply this: Get your business professionally valued in the next 90 days. If you don't know what it's worth, you can't grow its value intentionally. Ask yourself: am I building a lifestyle business or a performance business? Your tax strategy, extraction method, and reinvestment plan depend on this answer. Audit your accountant. How many clients do they have at your level? How much M&A experience do they have? If the answer is none, it's time to level up your advisory team. Calculate your life changing number. How much money do you actually need invested to never worry again? Work backwards from that and build your exit plan. Meet with your accountant at least twice a year, ideally every quarter if you're over a million in revenue. Use those meetings to optimize tax, refine margins, and plan for growth. About Saul Cohen Saul Cohen is the founder of ExpertEye and one of the UK's most experienced acquisition advisors. He started his career at PwC and has been involved in over 150 acquisitions before turning 35. Saul helps entrepreneurs optimize their tax, understand their valuations, and navigate acquisitions with confidence. He is creator of the SCORE valuation framework and author of the new book Finding Gold, which reveals the patterns of what goes wrong in acquisitions and how to avoid them. Connect with Saul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cohensaul/ Take the tax saving scorecard: https://stopoverpayingtax.scoreapp.com/ Grab a copy of Finding Gold: https://findinggoldbook.com/ Scale with Paul Avins If this episode resonated, Paul's work focuses on helping founders step out of the day to day and scale with structure and confidence. Connect with Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulavins/ Book a call with Paul: https://www.paulavins.com/book-a-call Subscribe to the Scale Up Newsletter: https://www.paulavins.com/newsletter-opt-in Level Up. Team Up. Scale Up. Fire Up.

    Business Exit Advisor: Save £4,000, Retire A Millionaire! Most Owners Never Do - Saul Cohen
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About

The Grown Up Business Podcast is a scale-up podcast for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs who want proven strategies for scaling a business sustainably and building companies that work without them. Hosted by Paul Avins, Business Transformation Expert, this podcast draws on over 21 years of coaching experience, supporting 20,000+ entrepreneurs and helping facilitate £150m+ in business exits. Each episode Paul shares practical insights, disciplined leadership thinking, and real-world scale-up frameworks to help founder and CEOs find new levels of personal and professional performance. On the podcast, you’ll hear: Expert Interviews Candid conversations with successful founders, CEOs, investors, and subject-matter experts covering leadership, scaling, funding, operations, exits, wellbeing and personal development. Actionable Scale-Up Strategies Clear, practical frameworks built around Paul’s four pillars: Level UP (founder mindset and CEO identity) Team UP (building high-performing leadership teams) Scale UP (sales, systems, and operational discipline) Fire UP (harness the power and energy of mind, body, spirit connect) Real Business Stories Proven strategies and hard-won lessons from leaders who have scaled businesses, failed and rebuilt, in the real world — with clarity, structure, and purpose. This CEO podcast is for you if you want to: - Scale a founder-led business beyond day-to-day dependency - Build a high-performing leadership team - Create a scalable and sellable business - Move from operator to confident scale-up CEO - Invest in your self and your personal development You’ll learn how to scale a business without chaos, implement systems that support sustainable growth, and build a company that delivers results, with or without you at the centre. A sellable business is also a great business to run. The Grown Up Business Podcast shows you how to build both. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favourite platform and join thousands of ambitious founders already scaling with Paul and Team Purple. Level UP. Team UP. Scale UP. Fire UP

Information

  • Creator
    Paul Avins
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    57
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Paul Avins
  • Show Website
    The Grown UP Business Podcast

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