How to sell your business: James Ashford built GoProposal from a WordPress plugin and exited to Sage. This is the full story.
For founders, agency owners and accountants who want a business that runs, grows and sells without them.
James Ashford turned a pricing problem in one accountancy firm into GoProposal, software that let the most junior team member price and sell complex services in under five minutes. In this episode he answers the questions every founder types into Google at 2am: how do I know if I have a business or just a job? How do you actually sell a software company? And what happens to your mental health after the exit? He also opens up about the breakdown that followed the sale, and the inner child work that rebuilt him.
Buy his book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1781339872?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_GQR6D38EGKM6069R9J0J_3&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_GQR6D38EGKM6069R9J0J_3&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_GQR6D38EGKM6069R9J0J_3&bestFormat=true
Chapters
00:00:00 Welcome to the Show: Meet James Ashford, Serial Entrepreneur
00:03:19 The Sales Problem: Why Business Owners Can't Let Go
00:05:59 The Restaurant Analogy: How Accountants Price Like Amateurs
00:08:05 The Accountancy Breakthrough: Solving the Same Problem Over and Over
00:14:01 The Four Grand Launch: Building a SaaS Business on WordPress
00:16:32 The Waiting List Strategy: 100 Customers in 30 Days
00:19:54 The Shock and Awe Pack: Customer Retention Through Physical Gifts
00:22:03 The Five Million Pound Goal: Getting Your Wife on the Journey
00:23:49 Taking Over the Space: The Conor McGregor Mentality
00:27:07 The Discounting Problem: How You Train Bad Clients
00:29:30 The Sticking Points: When Revenue Hits a Wall at 18K and 53K
00:34:21 The Competitor Blindside: Losing 25 Percent of Customers Overnight
00:37:11 The Oversuite Launch: Turning Crisis Into a New Product Line
00:38:12 Built to Sell: Manifesting the Acquisition From Day One
00:40:26 The Negotiation That Started Everything: Could We Buy You Instead
00:44:03 Putting On Your Best Suit: Going to Market With an M and A Firm
00:46:02 The Day the Money Hits: Why Everything Felt Exactly the Same
00:47:40 The Loss No One Talks About: Purpose, Team, and Identity
00:48:42 From Apple Tree to Apples: The Shift From Making to Managing Money
00:49:14 Playing to Win Versus Playing Not to Lose: The Corporate Shock
00:51:31 The Breakdown: On Your Hands and Knees at the Side of the Road
00:57:57 The Inner Child and Small T Trauma: Understanding What Drives Us
00:59:49 Equine Therapy and Breath Work: The Journey to Healing
01:00:45 The Final Question: Where Is the Gift in This Moment
FRAMEWORKS COVERED
The Restaurant Pricing Method | Built to Sell | "Where's the Gift?" | "Who Do I Need to Be?" | The 2-4% Finance Rule | Small t Trauma and Inner Child Healing
ABOUT JAMES ASHFORD
James Ashford is the founder of GoProposal, the pricing and proposal software acquired by Sage. He now invests in businesses and mentors entrepreneurs, with a focus on founders raising young families.
Find James on LinkedIn and Instagram, and @thejamesashford on TikTok.
https://jamesashford.com/
YOUR HOSTS
Jack Frimston and Zac Thompson are the co-founders of We Have A Meeting, the B2B sales agency behind the Sales Is Therapy method.
🌍 https://wehaveameeting.com
📖 Get the book: https://salesstherapy.com
THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY NOOKS
The AI dialler that helps your sales team have more conversations: https://www.nooks.ai/wehaveameeting
SUBSCRIBE for weekly conversations with founders, sales leaders and psychologists: https://www.youtube.com/@wehaveameeting?sub_confirmation=1
If you're searching for how to sell your business, how to build a SaaS company with no funding, how to price your services, or what a business exit actually feels like, this episode covers it all. James Ashford shares the GoProposal story from WordPress plugin to Sage acquisition, including value pricing for accountants.
