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 withSaul 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/

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